Talk:Parochial altruism/GA1

GA Review
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Reviewer: TompaDompa (talk · contribs) 12:49, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

I will review this. TompaDompa (talk) 12:49, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

General comments

 * An issue that immediately stands out to me is that the article is written in a style and tone more reminiscent of a research paper than an encyclopaedia article.
 * The article relies rather heavily on primary literature, rather than secondary or tertiary literature. As WP:MEDRS says: Cite review articles, don't write them.
 * Headings and subheadings should use "Sentence case", not "Title Case". See MOS:SECTIONCAPS.
 * There are no images. I don't have any specific suggestions, but it should be possible to find some kind of suitable image. Perhaps an illustration of the in-group and out-group concept?
 * Links should typically not be included in the "See also" section if they are already in the body. See MOS:NOTSEEALSO.

Lead

 * The WP:LEAD is rather short compared to the length of the article and does not summarize it particularly well.
 * It's a bit odd to link the second instance of altruism rather than the first.

History

 * In his 1871 book, "The Descent of Man," – book titles are given in italics, not "quotes". Wikipedia also uses WP:Logical quotation, i.e. punctuation that is not part of the quote itself goes outside the quotation marks ("It is time", he said. rather than ). I would also definitely link The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex here.
 * Darwin observed – "observed" is a MOS:Word to watch.
 * The stuff about Darwin is currently sourced to Darwin's work, i.e. the WP:Primary source. This needs a secondary or tertiary source.
 * When citing such a lengthy source as The Descent of Man, the specific page should be given for ease of verification. This is not strictly speaking mandatory, but it is best practice.
 * While Darwin first described the general concept of parochial altruism, he did not coin the term. – unsourced.
 * While Darwin first described the general concept of parochial altruism, he did not coin the term. – then who did?
 * Evolutionary biologists Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis were particularly influential – according to whom? The sources given here are all by Bowles (and at most one other author), which is not adequate for a claim like this.
 * a set of influential studies conducted with indigenous groups in Papua New Guinea were important contributions – "influential" and "important" are both MOS:Words to watch.
 * This work revealed – "revealed" is a MOS:Word to watch.

Definition and characteristics

 * The majority of the first paragraph is unsourced.
 * Evolutionary biologists, ethologists, and psychologists have investigated the roots of altruism, suggesting that it may have evolved as a means [...] – this phrasing makes it sound like the fact that it has been investigated by these disciplines is itself what suggests that it "may have evolved as a means [...]".
 * Cultural and societal norms significantly influence altruistic behavior, as evidenced by the diversity of altruistic norms and expressions across different human societies. – this goes far beyond what the cited source actually says. The cited source says nothing whatsoever about altruism, though it does describe related concepts such as sharing, gift-giving, fairness, and so on. It's also worth noting that this is from an economics journal (American Economic Review).

Evolutionary theories

 * In the context of parochial altruism, kin selection provides a compelling explanation for the preference for in-group favoritism. – that this explanation is compelling is an opinion—in this case, an unattributed one expressed in WP:WikiVoice. I should also note that the cited source says To summarize, our understanding of the existing theoretical models on parochial altruism is currently incomplete in two domains: it has not been fully illuminated to what extent positive contributions to the production of public goods represent: (i) behaviour that is mutually beneficial, and thus directly fostered by natural selection, given the modified incentive structure induced by intergroup conflicts; and (ii) behaviour that is altruistic but benefits sufficiently many relatives of the altruists, thus spreading through kin selection. and future work needs to analyse which selective mechanisms are at work in the standard models of parochial altruism. Candidates include individual selection for (i) mutually beneficial behaviour like group defence and (ii) selfish behaviour like status competition and mate acquisition, and furthermore, (iii) kin selection for discriminatory altruism and spite. In other words, the cited source does not actually support the notion that kin selection is a "compelling explanation", but rather, it argues that it may be a worthwhile future line of inquiry.
 * Reciprocal altruism (or reciprocal altruism in humans) should probably be linked, but more importantly this seems somewhat off-topic? This is admittedly not my area of expertise, but isn't reciprocal altruism a different kind of altruism from parochial altruism, rather than a component thereof? I'm also not clear on the distinction between reciprocity and reciprocal altruism in this section.
 * The "Co-evolution with war" paragraph has perhaps twice the word count it needs. The same information is repeated in different words in many cases. This theory argues that in-group altruism, a core component of parochial altruism, would have increased chances of success in warfare. [...] Conversely, the pressures and demands of warfare may have intensified the need for in-group altruism and exacerbated parochialism. This process may have led to a bidirectional relationship between warfare and parochial altruism, with each element reinforcing the other. is a clear example of being needlessly wordy ("conversely" implies "bidirectional", and "bidirectional" in turn makes "each element reinforcing the other" redundant).
 * The idea of war and altruism being intricately interconnected may also help explain the high frequency of intergroup conflicts observed in ancient human societies. – the idea isn't what may help explain it.

Third party punishment

 * This bias in third party punishment is a basis for parochial altruism. – this is a strong statement, and as far as I can tell not one that is explicitly made by the cited sources.

Cross-cultural perspectives

 * Like many psychological phenomenon – the plural is phenomena.
 * parochial altruism may manifest uniquely across different cultural contexts. – "uniquely across"?
 * Joseph Henrich and colleagues conducted a large-scale research study examining cross-cultural variations in economic and dictator games in 15 small-scale societies. [...] distinct from the in-group and out-group model of parochial altruism. – as above, Henrich et al. make no claim to have studied any aspect of altruism. That's a conclusion made by you, or in other words WP:Original research.
 * a history of intergroup conflict or scare resources – scarce resources, presumably.

Psychological and sociological implications

 * Parochial altruism influences both individual psychology and broader societal dynamics. – this should be cited explicitly.
 * While parochial altruism strengthens group cohesion within one's in-group, it also fosters conflict with out-groups. – ditto.

Animal models

 * For example, chimpanzees have been observed to exhibit behaviors that mirror human parochial altruism, such as defending their group's territory against outsiders and favoring group members in food-sharing and grooming practices. – does the cited source actually draw the parallel to parochial altruism here? It's a very lengthy book where the specific page isn't given in the reference, but I searched for "parochial altruism" in the book on Google Books and got zero results, which suggests to me that it does not. In that case, this is WP:Original research.
 * kin and non-kin group members, but not with other bats – the meaning of this is not clear.

Criticism and controversy

 * This concept contrasts the traditional and more scientifically backed view of Darwinian selection, which occurs at the individual level and promotes traits beneficial to individual organisms. – this is cited to Darwin's work On the Origin of Species. That's obviously not an adequate source for the assertion that Darwinian selection is "more scientifically backed" than group selection.
 * the group selection theory has faced critiques from scientists such as Richard Dawkins and Steven Pinker – why use Pinker as an example here? Pinker is not an evolutionary biologist (or any other kind of biologist, for that matter), which the descriptor "scientist" seems intended to obscure.
 * An alternative theory, multi-level selection, was proposed by David Sloan Wilson and Elliott Sober as a modern interpretation of group selection. – this is either too much information or not enough. Does this address the objections to group selection in the context of parochial altruism? If it does not, it has no business being mentioned here. If it does, that needs to be explained.
 * The findings revealed that conflict was associated with reductions in all types of altruism, including both in-group and out-group, challenging the notion that inter-group conflict unconditionally promotes parochial altruism. Instead, they suggest that conflict may lead to a reduction in all types of cooperation. – this phrasing seems rather redundant.
 * Critics have argued that the co-evolution of war and altruism is an oversimplification, which also fails to explain peaceful interactions between groups, defensive strategies, and sex differences in parochial altruism. – what sex differences? None have been mentioned in the article thus far.

Future directions

 * Emerging research – this is a time-sensitive phrasing that should be avoided per MOS:DATED and MOS:RELATIVETIME.
 * The intersection of neuroscience and social psychology (often referred to as social neuroscience or social cognitive neuroscience), offers a fertile ground for advancing the study of parochial altruism. – that's an opinion. It's also unattributed and unsourced.

Summary
I'm closing this as unsuccessful. The list of issues above is not exhaustive, but a sample of issues I noted while reading through the article. I have added a number of maintenance templates to the article itself.

This is a decent starting point for an article, but it has a long way to go before it is up to WP:Good article standards. The core issue that permeates this article is that it does not read like a Wikipedia article. Rather, it reads more like a secondary source. This is not trivially fixable, because it is not merely a question of individual sentences being problematic. The article is, as noted above, based to a large extent on WP:Primary sources. These sources are often used to verify the underlying factual basis for the assertions made, rather than verifying the assertions themselves. This is a subtle form of WP:Original research, and is the reason that policy says that References must be cited in context and on topic. I would expect sources to be used in this way somewhere where original thought is allowed or even encouraged, such as an essay or a research paper. Wikipedia articles, on the other hand, are supposed to be based on WP:Secondary sources (and to a lesser extent, WP:Tertiary sources). This is particularly important when dealing with certain topics such as WP:Biographies of living persons and WP:Biomedical information.

I gather that you are fairly new to this, and I don't want to discourage you from contributing to Wikipedia. To that end, I'll suggest WP:Peer review as a a more appropriate venue to bring this article to at this stage to get feedback and suggestions for improving the article.

My suggestion to bring this in line with Wikipedia's WP:Core content policies would be to pick a handful of review articles (or other similar sources that treat the entire overarching topic broadly), and use those to write the article. Sources on specific aspects (especially studies on the various facets of the topic) can be used to flesh out certain parts of the article by providing additional details, but should not serve as the basis for the article. WP:Cite reviews, don't write them. 20:45, 23 December 2023 (UTC)