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Nominator: Chiswick Chap (talk · contribs) 13:52, 16 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Reviewer: RoySmith (talk · contribs) 17:01, 19 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Starting review...

Many thanks! I'll respond promptly to any comments. Chiswick Chap (talk) 17:16, 19 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I originally left this on the talk page, but now that I'm doing a full review, moving it here

• The lead sentence says Cephalization is an evolutionary trend in animals that, over many generations .... That's not incorrect, but "many generations" to me sounds like 10's or 100's. For example, in my own lifetime, I've noticed a lot more black squirrels in New York. That's a phenomenon which has evolved over "many generations of squirrels". But here we're talking about, I don't know, millions of generations? 100's of millions? Calling that "many" doesn't seem to give the right inference.
  • Edited to a "sufficient number of generations".

Working my way through WP:GACR6:

• The prose is generally well-written, but I think you could do more to help the general readership with WP:TECHNICAL. For example, I'd give a short in-line description for many of the technical terms you use such as "radially symmetrical", "photoreceptive", "ganglia", "basal", "eyespot" (the dab page Eyespot gives several plausible alternatives, so in addition to an in-line definition, link the the specific one that applies here), "phyla", "trunk segments" (maybe that one is OK as is), "ventral", thorax", "abdomen", "neural crest", "olfaction", "convergent evolution".
  • Added multiple glosses and wikilinks. None of the eyespot links are right for this one so I glossed it instead.

• Check with an expert, but I think gene names like HoxA are supposed to be in italics.
  • Yes, the genes are, but the proteins and groups of genes aren't. You read it here first.

• The lead doesn't strictly summarize what's in the body. For example Cephalization is an evolutionary trend ... vs. Cephalization is a characteristic feature .... I'd also mention something about Hox genes in the lead.
  • Ah, two related but not identical senses of the word. Edited lead/body, and added Hox genes.

• As a style issue, you've got a lot of very short sections. Do Acoela, Flatworms, Caphalopods all need their own L3 headings?
  • Merged Acoela and flatworms, and put the cnidarians there too. Cephalopods are one of the three "complex active bodies" groups so they definitely deserve a section.

• One of the random scripts I have installed is calling out "The Cambrian Explosion and the Origins of Embodied Cognition" as a "generally unreliable source". I'm guessing it's objecting to the URL pointing to wordpress .com. Is there a copy in a more conventional repository (JSTOR, etc) which could be linked to?
  • Don't think there is one. You can imagine the ref as not having a URL if you like! i.e. the basic ref is URL-less and valid. Have reformatted it like that.

• Other than that, the sources all look to be WP:RS. If this ever makes it to WP:FAC, I'm sure the sticklers over there will whine about extraneous links in some of the refs (PMC, PMID, Bibcode, S2CID, etc) but that's not a WP:GACR, not not an issue here.
  • Noted.

• The images are all appropriately licensed. File:Cuttlefish eye.jpg is difficult to understand. The description on commons talks about a "W-shaped pupil", which explains what's going on, so I'd include that in your caption.
  • Good point, added.

• You'd earn bonus points by including WP:ALTTEXT for all your images.
  • Noted.

That wraps up my review. RoySmith (talk) 15:27, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'll be spot-checking citations [5, 6, 8, 10, 13] from Special:Permalink/1272139696.

• I'm unable to find Godfrey-Smith, Peter (2017). Other Minds: The Octopus and the Evolution of Intelligent Life. HarperCollins Publishers. p. 38. ISBN 978-0-00-822628-2, could you please send me a copy of that (just the one page that you cited). Thanks.
  • Done.

• These groups, however, are not closely related: in fact, they represent widely separated branches of the Bilateria, as shown on the phylogenetic tree; their lineages split hundreds of millions of years ago. Other (less cephalized) phyla are not shown, for clarity.[7][8][9] the URL in [9] links to some malware-infested domain parking site.
  • Archived [9].
    • Resolved.

• Also, would it be possible to split [7] and [8] into distinct citations, each to the particular statement they support?
  • They're already citing a single sentence.
    • Resolved.

• The same applies to the [5][6] pair in the previous sentence, but no so much of a problem there because one of those is a single page and thus easier to search.
  • Which I'm sending you.

• Cephalopod molluscs including octopus, squid, cuttlefish and nautilus are the most intelligent and highly cephalized invertebrates, with well-developed senses, including advanced 'camera' eyes and large brains.[10][11] I'm unable to find most (any?) of this in [10]. It's possible that it's in [11] but as with the previous sections, splitting this into two citations would be a big help.
  • Used a fresh source, quotation attached.
    • Verified.

• Cephalochordates like the lancelet, a small fishlike animal with very little cephalization, are closely related to vertebrates but do not have these structures. In the 1980s, the new head hypothesis proposed that the vertebrate head is an evolutionary novelty resulting from the emergence of neural crest and cranial placodes (thickened areas of ectoderm), which result in the formation of all senses outside of the brain.[12][13] I found most of this in [13], but not all. I don't see any mention of the lancelet, for example. Perhaps it's in [12]? I downloaded a copy of [12] from JSTOR, but fie on them for exporting the PDF in a non-searchable format. I've skimmed the paper, but don't see anything about lancelets there either.
  • Added a ref. Lancelet = Amphioxus, btw.
    • Verified.

• Cephalization in vertebrates, the group that includes mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians and fishes, has been studied extensively.[4] The heads of vertebrates are complex structures, with distinct sense organs for sight, olfaction, and hearing, and a large, multi-lobed brain protected by a skull of bone or cartilage. has a {{citation needed}}
  • Cited.
    • Verified. As a minor nit, link skull the first time it's used (it's linked later down).

Work on the citations and I'll pick up when you've got all that sorted. RoySmith (talk) 18:16, 19 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• • All done to date.

• I do note extensive text duplication with https://www.vedantu.com/biology/cephalization, but based on our article history and archive.org's history of vedantu, I'm assuming they copied from us. RoySmith (talk) 18:26, 19 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Yes.

• Just a note that I haven't (completely) forgotten about this, but I may not get back to it for a few days. Ping me if more than a few days go by and I'm still AWOL. RoySmith (talk) 20:16, 20 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

OK, this all looks good. It's a nice article, and I learned a few things reading it. I was surprised, for example, to see that the Protostomia/Deuterostomia split happened after the advent of bilateral symmetry. I'll just note one last thing (which won't hold up GA), your philogenetic tree shows Bilatera split into Nephrozoa and "Acoela etc", while Nephrozoa has Xenacoelomorpha as the other branch. Just curious why they differ and if it's worth unifying the terminology between the two? RoySmith (talk) 20:45, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]