User:Kcshaffman/Polyelectrolyte Theory of the Gene/Gretashum Peer Review

General info
Kcshaffman
 * Whose work are you reviewing?


 * Link to draft you're reviewing
 * User:Kcshaffman/Polyelectrolyte Theory of the Gene:
 * Link to the current version of the article (if it exists):
 * Link to the current version of the article (if it exists):

Evaluate the drafted changes
This is a de novo article, so I will be evaluating it as a new article and not addressing whether it was or was not present before.

Lead
The first sentence of the lead completely summarizes the Polyelectrolyte Theory of the Gene. The lead contains a brief description of the articles main sections and all of the information referenced in the lead is included in the article except the last section, Incompatibility with RNA World, the content of which also appears in the second section of "Polyelectrolytes in the context of genetic biopolymers" and seems important enough to include in the Lead.

The particular phrase, "Polyelectrolyte Theory of the Gene" is used a few times in the overview section, and some edits could be made to consolidate the section slightly.

The citation of "(Benner 2017)" could be added as a reference.

Content
The content added is relevant to the topic and up to date. It very nicely connects the topic to the Origin of Life on Earth, which has lower coverage on Wikipedia.

The detail and clarity in the "Polyelectrolytes remain physically uniform regardless of the information encoded" section is impressive, especially the sickle cell example. The last sentence (about why nucleotide content/sequence does not affect the structure of DNA) seems to be key DNA as the poster child of the theory, so maybe it could be moved earlier or expanded upon in future work.

The incompatibility with the RNA world hypothesis could perhaps be better integrated with the rest of the article.

Tone and Balance
Re: neutrality: Despite the fact that this article is about a theory and inherently must explain the particular point of view of that theory, the tone very nicely explains the point of view in an objective way and relies on sources other than Benner and Hutter, putting it in the context of view on the origin of life and lab experiments that call the theory into question. I might suggest adding a caveat to the first paragraph of "The Polyelectrolyte Theory of the Gene as an Agnostic Biosignature", that indicates some of the ideas in the last paragraph. To add balance, the last section on the incompatibility with RNA World Hypothesis, it might be possible to change the wording to describe the two theories as not fitting together as opposed to RNA World Hypothesis not fitting into the Polyelectrolyte Theory of the Gene (a framing that gives more credence to this the latter).

Sources and References
The article relies heavily on sources from Steven Benner paper (especially the 2017 paper), but I think this is justified because Benner is one of the creators of the theory, and this paper is the principal documentation of the theory.

I think some of the references might need copy editing, but they seem to be up to date and constitute the stae of the knowledge. Citations of Schrödinger's What is Life and other primary sources are included and relevant.

Organization
It seems like the first sentence of the first paragraph in "Lab experiments" could be moved later in the paragraph, though I do see narratively why it was placed there. I think it's fine to introduce the experiments first before their reception though.

There are a few minor fixes I would recommend:
 * I'm not sure the Darwinian evolution part needs to be so thoroughly explained, (though it was certainly helpful to me). But I can imagine shortening it to the following: "To participate in Darwinian evolution, which can be described as "descent with modification," [perhaps needs source], a unit of inheritance must be capable of imperfect replication. Occasionally producing a modified new unit of replication allows for variation on which evolution can act; but it must still possess the ability to be replicated."
 * Cosmos can be lowercase.
 * Link Erwin Schrödinger's page when first mentioned

Image and Media
The figure of how negative charge promotes linearity of biomolecules is relevant and enhances understanding. In particular, it allow the reader to see the structural properties of the theorized polyelectrolyte gene and characteristics of the structure of DNA that gives it resilience. It might be worthwhile to add a citation in the caption.

Notability
This article is certainly important and deserves a place on Wikipedia. This doesn't seem to already be in place, but it would make sense to link to it from Steven Benner, Darwinism, Erwin Schrödinger, and maybe the replication section of DNA.

Overall impressions
The article is de novo, this is a truly impressive article. Some of the strengths are its comprehensiveness while maintaining relevance. It explains a very complex and interdisciplinary topic very well. It's well organized and seems to cover the important elements of the theory.

The only shortcoming I see is that it can be slightly verbose, but that comes with editing, and I think that as the article evolves, it may be made more succinct, but for now, this shortcoming is dwarfed by the strength of its clarity!

What I did with Greta's suggestions
I took most of Greta's suggestions to heart. I made all the minor changes she suggested.

I fixed my citation problem.

I reworked this section: "Polyelectrolytes remain physically uniform regardless of the information encoded." So that the information about what the negative charges on DNA is doing was upfront.

I did not follow her suggestions to rework and integrate the RNA world incompatibility section because I felt like it is tangential to the rest of my paper and did not want to draw more attention to it.