CZ Talk:Biology Workgroup/Archive 1

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I suggest that most of the articles on specific organs and specific animals not be considered as top priority articles. There are just too many,DavidGoodman 23:17, 24 November 2006 (CST)

I think this is a good point. What level do you think we should attempt to cover with respect to animals; stopping at the level of mammal (as currently written in the zoology section)? Instead of all the plant hormones have one introductory article? Subcellular components are important enough to have their own artilces in my opinon. Why don't we start pruning down by striking out the ones we think are too general? At least this way we can see the updated list and easuily visualise what is being cut out. Chris Day (Talk) 03:35, 25 November 2006 (CST)
Since it will be considerably harder to edit the general articles, I've revised this to a mix, indicated in bold, taking into account t what the people here already have said the want to do, and having blocks of articles.Just a suggestion to think about. DavidGoodman 01:03, 26 November 2006 (CST)
David, is there a distinction between the italicized and bold articles in your last series of edits? Chris Day (Talk) 00:58, 27 November 2006 (CST)
Sorry, I had meant to change them all to bold, and have now done soDavidGoodman 16:54, 27 November 2006 (CST).

now all we need is writers

large intestine or colon/rectum?

After scanning this list, 3 words jumped out at me relating to the GI tract. While it is important to have articles when people type in Large Intestine and Small Intestine, I think it is important to add more anatomical words to these articles with links to the articles written on the colon, etc. I rarely think of the "large intestine," but which part of the colon has the problem. Post secondary education, how often do you use the word "large intestine?" I may be completely biased after many years of science education but I feel like people start using word like colon and rectum a lot earlier than we think. In general, general articles should be FULL of links to specific articles. General articles should be written at a lower reading level than anatomical articles, however, these general articles must contain links to more scientific articles relating to the issue. Don't underestimate the ability of readers to figure out what words mean, so try write articles at an easy to read, yet with advanced vocabulary (linked). User general information template

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Edit- I still use "large-" and "small intestine" weekly - I was exaggerating quite a bit. User general information template

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The large intestine article is actually linked adequately - however the writing is choppy User general information template

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"Partial list of potential editors"

I'm inclined to suggest that you delete that list of editors. Does it serve any purpose? --Larry Sanger 14:26, 15 December 2006 (CST)

It was copy and pasted from the old high priority article page. The purpose there was for people to hiughlight the articles with which they had expertise or had an interest in editing. Now the forums are up and running, i agree, it is probably less useful. Chris Day (Talk) 15:02, 15 December 2006 (CST)

"Microbiology"

In medical school we study microbiology as a subject before we dive into "systems." Microbiology includes Immunology (both the basics, but this is mainly a response to invasive micro organisms/microbials), Bacteriology, Virology, Mycology. I added this to the Draft Biology/draft page. However, the work group home page is above my "hacking" ability to edit. If someone else could edit this it would be great. I know that mycology can also fall under botany but in terms biological health science, it is a pathogen worth studying when studying microbiology. Or maybe there should be a page for Biology relating to Human Health linked on the biology page if these classifications are not appropriate for the main bio page. Discuss. I will not be on citizendium again until after finals. -Tom Kelly (Talk) 14:03, 16 December 2006 (CST)

The problem of overlapping sphere will always be a problem and something we should not worry about too much. With regards to the edit on this home page, are you wanting virology to be listed under microbiology instead of having its own section? Chris Day (Talk) 14:52, 16 December 2006 (CST)
I think it is usual to teach the general aspects as part of the microbiology course. But viruses are not organisms in the sense all the rest of biological objects are, from an evolutionary point of view they stand entirely outside the evolutionary tree. For that matter immunology is only part of microbiology for convenience of teaching--it is actually a part of physiology, or conceivably pathology. I'm not sure where we should best put it. DavidGoodman 23:36, 19 December 2006 (CST)
I remain unhappy with immunology as a part of microbiology, except in terms of its historical development. Though the immunochemistry of viral proteins and bacterial polysaccarides remains important in practical medicine, the even more important part is cellular immunology, with its implications for neoplasms.--and I do not see how that can possibly considered microb iology in any sense of the word. DavidGoodman 03:39, 1 January 2007 (CST)
I like this definition of microbiology - "The branch of biology that deals with microorganisms and their effects on other living organisms." (from dictionary.com) However, I'd just go one step further and say their effects, including immunological response, on other living organisms. Viral toxin effects are just as important as the immune response stimulated by microorganisms. The only reason I put immunology in with microbiology in the first place is because some medical schools teach immunology when teaching microbiology. Open any medical microbiology text and you'll see a large immunology section. Every section on X type of microorganism talks about the immunological response. -Tom Kelly (Talk) 14:21, 13 January 2007 (CST)
I liked how the microbiology article is being subdivided in its links. For Medical microbiology, it is appropriate to have mycology, bacteriology, virology, and immunology included. I'd have to ask some microbiologist how they would classify it in a more general way. Take a look at my revision here and see what you think - http://pilot.citizendium.org/wiki?title=Biology/Draft&diff=prev&oldid=100013668

Also, how and the heck to you get items on the draft page put into the approved version? Sadly, I did like how fast one was able to edit wikis on wikipedia. I have a feeling that once we have a ton of approved articles, it will be hard to do little edits like adding links here and there. -Tom Kelly (Talk) 15:01, 21 December 2006 (CST)

I'd say just keep editing the draft version. Actually, if things go correctly, the draft version will often be more complete than the approved version. When to update is the question; how many changes before it is worthwhile? I'd suggest we all work on the Biology today, a survey of the science of life section and get it to be as good as it can be. So far it has had very little attention. In theory, however, we could update the biology aticle with your edit right now if you have made all the changes you think are needed. Chris Day (Talk) 15:41, 21 December 2006 (CST)

Use of radioactivity in biology

Dear Biologists, the chemists are working on a nuclear chemistry page at which an overview of all things radioactive is being written. I am aware that in modern biology that 32P is used in DNA work. PLease could one or more of the biologists visit the page and add some content about the use of radioisotopes (and stable isotope tracers) within modern biology.Mark Rust 03:37, 30 December 2006 (CST)

Key needed for Font in list of To-Do Articles

please make a key that explains what the Bold articles, regular font, and strike-through articles mean on the to-do list. -Tom Kelly (Talk) 20:50, 12 January 2007 (CST)

The basic list was the biology section of a list of basic articles from WP.
The bold ones should be the ones that are currently in our top priority category. Some were added here that were not in the original list.
The strikethroughs are the ones from the list that it was considered might well be deferred.

The initials were an approximate idea of interest from the early days: "the following people have simply declared their interest in various topics; such a declaration does not mean, in the slightest, that they are claiming control over an article." Some have been added since, but of course it still does not mean control.

The purpose of the list was to get some idea of what lay before us. All of this was just a way of getting started and anything desired can be changed or added or struck out. or changed to or from bold. (If you're doing that please also add or remove the category for top pritority in the live articles--I am not sure how consistent we've all been in indicating these changes). DavidGoodman 03:16, 13 January 2007 (CST)

Astrobiology and Mycology

Astrobiology is listed as a subfield of Biology. Others, however, think of it as a subfield of Astronomy. In fact, the major research in this field is done by astronomers.

I think Astrobiology is a so interdisciplinary Science that it does not fit under neither Astronomy or Biology, but as a full separate field. Currently, not only biologists and astronomers are doing pioneering work on the field, but also geologists, geophysicists, oceanographers, climatologists, even philosophers.

I also think that Fungus should not be under Botany, but under a separate subfield, Mycology.

Sairjohn 11:17, 26 January 2007 (CST)

Interesting points. With regard to astrobiology, i think you could probably say the same for biology. Basically cross school collaborations are the norm these days. Engineering, statistics, computer science, geology and oceanography are all intertwind with biology. I see no harm in it being in biology and astronomy. I would think creating another field might be unnecessary otherwise our top hierarchy becomes too broad.

With respect to mycology, it is there now since the traditional botany courses still cover that topic. Obviously from a phylogenetics perspective it is not a sensible fit. I have no problem breaking it out as its own discipline. Chris Day (Talk) 12:47, 26 January 2007 (CST)

Definitely mycology should not be a subfield of botany. Ian Ramjohn 13:08, 26 January 2007 (CST)
Bear in mind that that list we have on the biology workgroup homepage is not even close to complete. The bold are ones that rose to the top as important articles that CZ needs. Those that have been struck out are ones that are much less important. The goal of the list is not to be all inclusive but rather as a starting point for which to prioritize articles for CZ. The list hierarchy was just for convenience. Other users feel free to edit it in anyway they see fit.
The list was originally created before the top article category was created. We are probably better off using that category to identify the articles we consider important. and archive the current list here. Any thoughts? Chris Day (Talk) 13:19, 26 January 2007 (CST)

OK, I am understanding that this list was intended just as a draft, since there will not be categories in CZ.

By the way, I've done the preliminary work on the Astrobiology article. It is basically a cut-pasted-reordered edition from the NASA's Astrobiology Roadmap – but don't worry, it is not copyrighted, check it out here. Sairjohn 14:11, 27 January 2007 (CST)

You still need to cite the source though. Ian Ramjohn 16:32, 27 January 2007 (CST)

Goal. 5 main articles being edited. 5 new articles to do. Recruit new experts

"we need more work horses." I think I read that somewhere. I agree we need more editors. Here is what I suggest. I don't have time to write an article right now but I think there are experts out there who do have the time. We should think of 5 main articles that are currently being edited in "Hard" Biological Science and the next five most important articles to write. Then lets go recruit say 15-20 experts that are specialists in that field per article (so 10 times 15 is 150 new experts). If we recruit that many asking them to write X article, we should get a descent result. Your thoughts? -Tom Kelly (Talk) 20:43, 30 January 2007 (CST)

Naming issues

If we accept that scientific names should be applied to all article titles on biological organisms (barring certain exceptions), then perhaps it's time to move a few steps in that direction. Obviously, there are a few articles to rename (e.g. Snake => Serpentes, Tiger => Panthera tigris), but then I think it's also important that we come up with an effective way to prominently display the common names for these articles. The idea of simply mixing a few common names in with the article's introduction never seemed right to me, so I came up with one possible solution, which I've applied to Vipera berus for example. However, I think a new common names template would really be the way to go: something that we can easily be modify as better ideas for the presentation emerge. --Jaap Winius 13:38, 25 March 2007 (CDT)

This hasn't been decided yet. Before we start standardizing this, we really need to get the input of the Editorial Council, which should be starting quite soon. I think it's far more likely that either we will use common names with scientific names in parentheses, or else just common names. --Larry Sanger 14:06, 25 March 2007 (CDT)

Common names = not good way of doing things in my book. I don't know what I'd do if you only used common names. -Tom Kelly (Talk) 14:30, 25 March 2007 (CDT)
Jaap, you are going to ruin it for us if you decide to change animals names like tiger and snake. rare species are one thing, but I defintely wouldn't change tiger and snake. I now see Larry's point. -Tom Kelly (Talk) 14:32, 25 March 2007 (CDT)
I'm torn. If we adopt the dual naming system in the title, that should be fine. I would be ok with the scientific name going first as long as there are proper redirects. People will get a kick of seeing the scientific name bolded and the common name (which they already knew) in parenthesis. -Tom Kelly (Talk) 14:42, 25 March 2007 (CDT)

No need to panic -- I don't plan on doing anything on my own. I'd simply like to see movement on this issue, for the reasons I've mentioned in the forum, and have made some suggestions. From what has been said in the forum, it seemed to me that most are in favor of using scientific names. Of course, I could be wrong. Anyway, it looks like it's not up to anyone except the Editorial Council to decide on this issue. Should I be optimistic? --Jaap Winius 16:59, 25 March 2007 (CDT)

Who is on the editorial council? Is there a list of names anywhere? -Tom Kelly (Talk) 17:04, 25 March 2007 (CDT)
No, just three dozen "yes" e-mails in a folder. We've been waiting to get the new servers before we start new mailing lists...now we can...there's a good chance we can start it up this week. --Larry Sanger 17:40, 25 March 2007 (CDT)

Biology Editor Recruitment

Can we make an effort to recruit PhDs in Biology, Biochemistry? Would a mass email to university professors help? would it look bad? What about if we start with small universities where professors focus on teaching more than research. They might really enjoy having collaboration on CZ. What do you think? -Tom Kelly (Talk) 16:14, 4 April 2007 (CDT)

http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/CZ:Recruitment_Letter -Tom Kelly (Talk) 16:16, 4 April 2007 (CDT)
I have a PhD in biochemistry, though given that I have precious little in terms of publications of my own under my belt, I am a bit hesitant regarding the editor function. Nonetheless, my chief work at my new job so far has been copyediting scientific publications for a non-profit journal published by our company to promote the field of research our instruments are used in. --Oliver Hauss 09:01, 1 June 2007 (CDT)

I am a publishing research biologist, and could put together an outline for the biology section. But that is a very broad and enormous task, and as such, I think we need to hook up with grad students, post-docs, and experts in each area to even get started. I could do the outline of the neuroscience section fairly easily.

But we should advertise our need for writers on the net. I think we need a much broader base of capable writers who can coordinate on such a large effort.

John Moffett 10:34, 1 June 2007 (EDT)

Editor wanted

Ok, maybe someone can help, but I think this article is good enough to be approved. If some editor canadd the Toapprove tag, and maybe someone else can approve it, that woyuld be great. Or let me know what is wrong with the article. Kim van der Linde 22:53, 26 August 2007 (CDT)

Approach to the biology workgroup

Hello all, I am an editor in Anthropology and we in the workgroup are attempting to build this area and approach the standards that are being reached by your workgroup. As many areas of anthropology overlap with biology (Primate taxonomy, anatomy and physiology, fossil species, biographies of well known scientists and evolution to name just a few), I feel that members of your group could assist us enormously in building the Anthropology heading as well as creating fertile cross links between our allied disciplines. I would appreciate if your editors and authors would take a few moments to visit our workgroup page where we are compiling a list of priority topics and sub-headings. I would imagine that many of you might find you already have ideas, stubs or even developed articles which you could insert into our wish list and make this aspect of CZ grow more rapidly and with a sounder biological base. Please feel free to write/edit away! Many thanks in advance! CZ:Anthropology Workgroup

Lee R. Berger 00:38, 13 September 2007 (CDT)

Naming of species again

I think we have to make a sound decision on how we are going to name pages of species. What do other think? Kim van der Linde 07:28, 13 September 2007 (CDT)

I'm still with the binomial system. Common names are just too variable. At least I assume you are posing the question common or latin? Or is there something else you are thinking about? For unambiguous common names i could see an exception. Chris Day (talk) 07:39, 13 September 2007 (CDT)
I am in favor of taxonomic names only, with redirects of common names to them. Even names like Cat (house cat, wild cat, cats in general?) are ambiguous at times. Kim van der Linde 08:28, 13 September 2007 (CDT)
Cat is definitely ambiguous. I was thinking that giraffe is probably not ambiguous, but even then I could be wrong. Chris Day (talk) 09:12, 13 September 2007 (CDT)
Probably true. The question is, where do you draw the line in specific cases? Kim van der Linde 09:25, 13 September 2007 (CDT)

Help needed with finding reference material

I have two problems finding sources I know exist:

1. I need to read the article Ain't Jus'Any Ole Dawgs by Dr. Sally Reed. Bloodlines Magazine Jan./Feb 1992.

I have attempted to e-mail the United Kennel Club (publisher) asking about reprints, but their servers reject my e-mail for whatever reason.

2. Prevailing thought about the way in which humans and dogs first came together changed at the very end of the 20th Century, from man domesticating dog to man and dog coming together with dogs being proactive, to ensure mutual survival. I absolutely remember a)There was a NY Times article in Science Times in the 1990s, and b) a National Geographic article early in the Millenium around 2002? but I can't find either one.

Help? Suggestions? Someone have access to a specialised library super search engine?

Aleta Curry 20:43, 23 September 2007 (CDT)

I just replied to this post in the forums. Chris Day (talk) 21:46, 23 September 2007 (CDT)
I saw that, Chris, it was very helpful. Did I thank you? Ta muchly! Aleta Curry 21:26, 26 September 2007 (CDT)
No thanks required, you did aknowledge my post which is good enough :) Did you find the article? Chris Day (talk) 21:32, 26 September 2007 (CDT)
No, but Rob King says he'll help. Aleta Curry 22:58, 26 September 2007 (CDT)
I check the libray here, but they do not have it. I do have access to many general science journals, so people can poke me for those. I did a quick search thriough that, and there is a lot of articles about domestication of dogs etc., I just do not have the time to check them all, so that was why I sugested that someone first checked them through for example google scholar. Kim van der Linde 07:00, 27 September 2007 (CDT)

Core articles

I'm not sure an alphabetical list is the best way to organise the core articles. Sorting by topic area seems to be much easier for identifying missing or redundant articles. Maybe the best thing is to indent and arrange the core topics similar to the high priority list or just continue with the high priority list? Chris Day (talk) 15:47, 25 September 2007 (CDT)

I find it difficult to define criteria for "more appropriate for health sciences". If biologists study and research a topic, it seems appropriate for consideration as a biology core topic. Seven of the first ten in this second column (acid-base physiology, arterial system, auditory system, blood, bone, capillary, endocrine system) do not seem more appropriate for health sciences than for biology. Acid-base disorders, arteriosclerosis, hearing deficits, blood dyscrasias, osteoporosis, sickle cell crisis, and endocrinopathies -- yes. Just an opinion. Let's not give away the store. --Anthony.Sebastian (Talk) 18:26, 27 September 2007 (CDT)

Anthony, we're not giving away the store, in fact, the opposite. We need to refine this list down to 200. Moving some to health sciences means that we get to have more on the core article page, not less. My only criteria was if the article was somewhat more physiological than others. Clearly they are all biology workgroup material too. Chris Day (talk) 18:36, 27 September 2007 (CDT)

Scientific names--Ghastly idea

May I humbly suggest that we nip this placing of species under their scientific names thing in the bud right now?

I understand that it is correct, but I also understand Citizendium policy to call for explanation, not a display of erudition.

No one but your learned selves is going to look up Barnardius zonarius when they want to find a ring-necked parrot. They'll probably key in "ringneck parrot".

And how on earth will any schoolchild/university student/casual browser ever find all the millions of plant species?

Canis lupus familiaris is quite sensibly listed at dog. Can we follow suit with all others?

Aleta Curry 19:20, 29 September 2007 (CDT)

Well, I disagree very much with this, because there is just one name that is univocal, and that is the scientific name. What about Cougar or Mountain Lion or Puma? Each latin name needs to have a redirect from the comon name, and if you search for Australian Ringneck or Port Lincoln Parrot or Mallee Ringneck or Cloncurry Parrot or Twenty Eight, you find it without a problem. Kim van der Linde 20:58, 29 September 2007 (CDT)
Aleta, you should read the forum discussion on this topic. I don't think you'll find as single biologist that supports common names except for some really obvious exceptions. Common names are a disaster with respect to nomenclature. The binomial names are as good as it gets if we want to have one unified home. With the help of redirects I don't see how this is a problem for readers and it stops dead all the aruguments over which common name takes priority. Chris Day (talk) 21:42, 29 September 2007 (CDT)
If I search for "Woof" should I expect to get Dog? --Robert W King 21:44, 29 September 2007 (CDT)
Possibly, is it used in the article?
If the latin name is used as the unambiguous name it does not make it harder to find such articles. Using a common name in a search will find the article since the common names will be listed in the first paragraph. Using go will take a reader directly to the article since redirects will be set up for every common name. Having an unambiguous name may well be erudite but is that not a good thing sometimes? Related articles and links in other articles can all use which ever common name they wish since all the links can be piped. Chris Day (talk) 21:52, 29 September 2007 (CDT)
Why not!Kim van der Linde 08:32, 30 September 2007 (CDT)

Well, it seems to me that encyclopaedias traditionally use common names and that makes sense to me. However, I'm not going to argue: Look, if you redirect from all the common names to the scientific name that will be fine. Although really, aren't you going to have to do a lot of redirects in any case, if we're going to get this right? Will you at least use the common name for families? At what level does one abandon the scientific name? What if one wants a general article on "parrot" etc.? What about bowerbird? Should it be dumped in favour of Ptilonorhynchus violaceus, since that's really the species I'm familiar with?. Are plants and animals named scientifically at different levels? "gardenia", "gardenia jasmonides", gardenia magniflora, "rubiacea". OMG!!! I shall go read the discussion thread, Chris, so don't bother to answer this if it's there.

For the record, though, I am NOT going to write Canis Lupus Familiaris var. Deutscher Schäferhund... x Deutscher Schäferhund?? :)

Aleta Curry 16:20, 30 September 2007 (CDT)

Well, I just read the Forum discussion and found the remarks by Nancy Sculerati to be the most reasonable. Where there is an unambiguous common name, the article should be called that with the Latin name in brackets. Additionally, I should add: Where there are different common nouns for the same thing, this has to be explained somewhere. Maybe it would be a disambiguation page, maybe some text. It is not enough to simply make links from common names to Latin names! This is an encyclopedia for non-experts, and it is they whose needs should be uppermost in our minds. This does not involve any compromise on quality, just some consideration for the end-user. --Martin Baldwin-Edwards 16:32, 30 September 2007 (CDT)

This would have been my take on it, too, Martin, but I want to be sensitive to the biologists, who naturally want to get it right. (And you know how much I want things to be right!)
"Where there are different common nouns for the same thing, this has to be explained somewhere. Maybe it would be a disambiguation page, maybe some text." Hmmm...yes. Probably should be up to the writers on a case-by-case basis?
"This is an encyclopedia for non-experts, and it is they whose needs should be uppermost in our minds. This does not involve any compromise on quality, just some consideration for the end-user." I agree completely.
Aleta Curry 16:57, 30 September 2007 (CDT)
Above I wrote "I don't think you'll find as single biologist that supports common names except for some really obvious exceptions". I should make it clear that I meant when there is an unambiguous common name. Often there is not. As far as the disambiguation page is concerned I'm not sure this is the best plan. Isn't that the opposite of our problem? We have multiple names going to one page not one name going to multiple pages. I think the first paragraph can easily avoid confusion in conjunction with the redirects. When reading the firt paragraph for the Barnardius zonarius page, as a redirect from Australian Ringneck, it will be very obvious there is a nomenclature problem so no user should find it confusing. Chris Day (talk) 17:12, 30 September 2007 (CDT)
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