Wikipedia:Peer review/Parable of the Sunfish/archive1

Parable of the Sunfish
This peer review discussion has been closed. I've had several good reviewers who helped me bring "Parable" through DYK and GA, and at this point I'd like to have another round of polishing before sending it off to FA (or, of course, feedback as to why it shouldn't go there). I'm particularly interested in specific suggestions as to how to reduce the amount of quoted material and my general wordiness. The article rests at an intersection of literary theory and the history and philosophy of science; subject matter experts in those areas are also welcome.

Many thanks,

Garamond Lethe t c  17:54, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

Initial review comments
Interesting article. First obvious thing, the lead is too short. It needs to summarize the contents of the article, so it should mention Shaler, Scudder, and Cooper, etc.

Dogfish vs Sunfish (Opah, isn't it? Or do you have reason to know it's one of the sharks?). There's no comparison... I've put a beautiful image of an Opah inter alia at Alister Hardy, as it happens. My suspicion (WP:OR!) would be that Pound chose the sunfish as an incredibly bright, odd, and beautiful example that only a Scientist-Artist (like Hardy) could possibly describe; so a dogfish would not at all work in this regard. Would love to learn if this hunch is right. Maybe need to write an additional NFUR for the painting. Ah, I see you have a footnote; yes, Molidae also quite possible, but again, that kind of sunfish is a most striking and unusual animal. I can't at all see what the dinosaur has to do with it.

Definition of "red". Hadn't this better at least refer to Qualia and the Philosophy of science, as it has been massively discussed, as plainly Pound knew? Or are we saying he didn't?

I'm personally a great fan of 'passport photos' to support discussion of different people relevant to an article, in which case it'd be nice to have Lane Cooper in there. Right now he's not even bluelinked, doesn't he even get a stub article? However I have no idea whether FA reviewers would like such images.

"Pound contrasts this empiricism..." ... do you really mean Empiricism? (Though Pragmatism is certainly a kind of Empiricism.) Perhaps what is intended is more Holism, a sort of Zen-flavoured grasp of the entirety of the fish? The rest of the paragraph reinforces this feeling. Maybe say that Pound is anti-Reductionism, which is surely a better term than Pound's "abstraction" for this: had Pound not heard of reductionism? Abstraction has many meanings.

The existing 'clarification needed' tag needs to be addressed.

I feel that both Shaler and Scudder need some words of introduction: readers probably won't have come across them before. Perhaps something like "Nathaniel Shaler, who went on to become a paleontologist and geologist,... " I know it's really basic, but it feels helpful somehow.

I was wondering if I should mention William James, but the article does it already. So why does it not mention James's tough-minded / tender-minded distinction? I think it highly relevant: James, like Agassiz (it seems) insisted on pragmatic (there's another useful word in this context: dare I mention W. V. O. Quine - perhaps worth a mention as it shows where this is going; maybe a footnote and a citation) observation, of things actually seen as opposed to vaguely ("tenderly") generalized about. The web is rightly full of it, even if the Wiki article on James isn't!

Peter Nicholas Baker --- again, who is this guy? A bluelink or bit of introduction is needed. That's all for now, feel free to get back to me (on my talk page if need be). -- Chiswick Chap (talk) 18:17, 12 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Chiswick, great stuff there&mdash;thanks so much for taking the time to review. In particular you have me intrigued as to whether Pound was alluding to qualia when discussing his definition of "red".  I'll be on the UC Berkeley campus tomorrow where it will be easier to track that down.  I'll be relying inline to this and the rest of the issues you raised as I fix them.  Best, Garamond Lethe t c  16:38, 13 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Oh good. Well, I suspect I've strayed rather too far into WP:OR, but perhaps some of it will be useful. Chiswick Chap (talk) 17:24, 13 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Just wanted to let you know that Real Life has been monopolizing my attention and I expect to get back to this during the coming weekend. Garamond Lethe t c  07:02, 17 April 2013 (UTC)