Misplaced Pages

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Wet dog fur (talk | contribs) at 11:55, 20 January 2009 (→Request for Comment on article length and style: question). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Template:WikiProject Genetics

	Human Genetic History (inactive)
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Human Genetic History, a project which is currently considered to be inactive.Human Genetic HistoryWikipedia:WikiProject Human Genetic HistoryTemplate:WikiProject Human Genetic HistoryHuman Genetic History

'Some commentators have argued that these patterns of variation provide a biological justification for the use of traditional racial categories. They argue that the continental clusterings correspond roughly with the division of human beings into sub-Saharan Africans; Europeans, Western Asians, Southern Asians and Northern Africans + Eastern Asians, Southeast Asians, Polynesians and Native Americans; and other inhabitants of Oceania (Melanesians, Micronesians & Australian Aborigines) (Risch et al. 2002).'

How many 'traditional racial categories' does that make? If only semicolons are being used to divide one listed category from the next it makes three. If both commas and semicolons serve this purpose then it makes eight. The punctuation of this sentence makes it very unclear; semicolons, commas, 'and', brackets, and a '+' are all used ambiguosly. Could somebody try clearing this up? Thanks. Donnachadh (talk) 19:20, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

I am not a wiki editor, I am not active enough to know how the community handles this. But "Variation in a trait under selection, skin colour" is lifted word for word from "The Use of Racial, Ethnic, and Ancestral Categories in Human Genetics Research," American Journal of Human Genetics, 77:519-532, 2005 without mentioning it is a direct quote. Thank you. 152.132.9.64 (talk) 19:44, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

The "groups" mentioned in "Section 3 - Physical variation in humans" are not defined. Are they separated by continent? Is there some geographic border being used between groups? It is notable that the corresponding picture is severely out of date and at best loosely descriptive of the section. --ThomasGFunk 07:38, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

this article includes some non-standard english: "than do populations in the rest of the world" should be "than populations in the rest of the world (do)"

"have higher levels of diversity than do humans"

Edwards and Lewontin

Regarding this Edwards nowhere claims that this distribution of variation is an unwarranted observation. This is what Edwards actually says it is often stated that about 85% of the total genetical variation is due to individual differences within populations and only 15% to differences between populations or ethnic groups. It has therefore been proposed that the division of Homo sapiens into these groups is not justified by the genetic data. This conclusion, due to R.C. Lewontin in 1972, is unwarranted It is clear that what Edwards claims that it is unwarranted' to claim that the division of Homo sapiens into discrete groups is not justified based on the observation that the majority of genetic variation is at the individual level. Edwards does not claim that the majority of variation is not at the individual level, he does not claim that Lewontin's data, or methodology are incorrect. Let's get this straight once and for all. Edwards observation has been misrepresented all over Misplaced Pages. Edwards argument is about classification, it is not about the extent of genetic variation. Alun 06:21, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

I wonder if an analogy here will be helpful.

Suppose I meet a man and am told he is either German or Italian, but not which. I can guess, and I'll be right a bit more than half the time, but I certainly can't be sure. Now suppose I meet 100 men, either all German or all Italian. I can be pretty certain which they all are. Does this mean that "Germans are different from Italians"? I don't know, I don't care, I consider it an ill-defined question. I think I can say all the above without fear of controversy. But anyone who asks the question "are black people different from white people" is likely to have his motives misunderstood, and to start arguments. Maproom (talk) 11:01, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Human dispersal and evolution

I'm wondering why there are such large sections discussing the multiregional and RAO modles. While these models obviously have some bearing on human genetic variation, they occupy a very large part of the article. Indeed the majority of this article does not seem to address human genetic variation at all. There is a big section on physical variation, something that is affected by environment a great deal, though obviously there are genetic factors. This article needs a rewrite. It also needs a lead section as there is none at all at present.

There are several points that need to be addressed in this article.

• Analysis of F_ST it's uses and validity.
• Clustering analyses, what do they tell us? What do they say about the distribution of variation?
• Comparisons of individuals from different parts of the world, what they tell us about the genetic similarities between people from different parts of the world?
  

I've been planning to write something about these observations for some time and may have something to contribute here in the near future. Alun 18:14, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

Epigenetics

The epigenetics section of the article needs to be expanded if anyone is interested. --Fat Cigar 16:22, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Article length

I propose a RfC to address the issue of article length. The article may be too long or meticulous. --Wet dog fur (talk) 18:20, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

Request for Comment on article length and style

Template:RFCsci Is the article unnecessarily long or too meticulous? --Wet dog fur (talk) 23:02, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

I've given it a quick look, but have not actually read it. I definitely think that the introduction is too long (and also, the references need formatting). The article as a whole does seem long, although I don't think that's automatically a bad thing. Please let me suggest that it would be helpful if you could list specific things that might be cut, and seek comment on those. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:16, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

• I shortened the introduction. --Wet dog fur (talk) 08:21, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Please don't. Alun (talk) 09:21, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

• Comment The article doesn't seem too long, but does have issues with its level of detail.

Human genetic variation is a topic of considerable interest and scope (consider the International HapMap Project and other large-scale scientific efforts), so the current ~66 KB length is not too long in itself per WP:LENGTH#A_rule_of_thumb. I agree that the lead is too long. It should be reduced to three or four paragraphs per WP:LEAD#Length; the bulleted list (if it is kept) should also be converted to paragraph form. If Harvard style is being used in a WP article, it should be reserved for articles in the social sciences. While human genetic variation may well be of interest to the social sciences, this article approaches the topic much more from the perspective of biological sciences. Thus the current Harvard style referencing should be converted to inline numbered citations (i.e. the cite template).

With regard to meticulousness, less focus should be given to whichever researcher and paper made which claim. Instead, attention should be focused more narrowly on what the claims actually are. The coverage of those claims seems to be at a suitable level of detail. Refocusing shouldn't require much in the way of structural changes, but should be something like changing the article to read from an appropriate perspective. As a related point, far fewer 3+ line block quotes should be used throughout the article. If quotations are being used in science-related articles they are typically quite short, and even these are used sparingly. Emw2012 (talk) 02:07, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

• Comment. Mostly I agree with Emw2012, the article length is not really an issue, I think we should concentrate on explaining the consensus opinions of the academic community. So we should present the conclusions of the academics. In that regard we should concentrate on the distribution of variation and what that tells us about human evolution and dispersal. For example most biologists think that the high diversity within Africa supports the RAO model etc. Does need a rewrite, but mostly to change the perspective, as Emw2012 points out. Alun (talk) 07:21, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

• Perhaps you could rewrite the blocks of text that you added. --Wet dog fur (talk) 17:45, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

• Question. Is this partial rewrite an improvement over the article as it is currently written? I had spent quite a bit of time on this and all my edits were reverted twice. --Wet dog fur (talk) 11:55, 20 January 2009 (UTC)