Talk:George Christopher Williams

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The "Williams Revolution" is a Wiki-original term[edit]

I've already noted this on the talk page for "Williams Revolution", but this term seems to be a strictly Wikipedia term, invented for Wikipedia. All the references I can find to it online, including in chat groups, seem traceable to the Wikipedia entry. I've never encountered it in the literature of evolutionary biology, or anywhere else in print. It's also not a terribly appropriate term. I have nothing but the greatest admiration and appreciation for Williams' contributions, most notably his Adaptation and Natural Selection, but his critique of group selection and advocacy of gene-level selection were much more a "restoration" than a revolution (Darwin clearly rejected group selection, with the clear exception that he contemplated it as a possibility in social insects); furthermore, a number of others at about the same time (e.g. W.D. Hamilton) and slightly later (e.g. Richard Dawkins) had as much or more to do with the elaboration of a strictly gene-centered view (especially as opposed to an individual selection view) as did Williams, so it doesn't seem as if it should bear his name, or at least not his alone.But, regardless, Wikipedia should not be in the business of inventing terms.24.209.173.129 08:34, 8 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I can see that this is not a good situation; however, whatever you do - do not credit Dawkins with the gene-centric view! He is merely a populariser. That would be like crediting "Darwin's bulldog" Huxley with the theory of evolution! - Samsara 14:13, 8 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that Dawkins' role has been more that of a conceptual clarifier and popularizer. I'm not in a position to carefully analyze and evaluate the contributions of the various people involved (that would be original research, anyway), but part of my point about appropriateness of the term "Williams Revolution" was that more people than Williams were involved, which is clear enough without doing historical research. So, don't worry, I won't be apportioning credit! (PS: I'm the same person as 24.209.173.129)-- MayerG 04:58, 9 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
From what I've read of other scientists, Dawkins didn't just serve to popularize the view but also theorized a logical manner in which it could occur ("The Replicators" chapter in The Selfish Gene), which no other scientist had done at that point. He did contribute original scientific argument to the gene-centered discussion.--Gloriamarie (talk) 14:36, 16 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The article Williams revolution has been put up for deletion (Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Williams_revolution). See the extensive discussion in Talk:Williams_revolution. The content of "Williams revolution" has been incorporated into Gene-centered view of evolution.-- MayerG 20:37, 11 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Your assertion that the "Williams Revolution" was started by wikipedia is incorrect. Not much more than a superficial search on google will bring up numerous references of the "Williams Revolution" not at all related (at least to my knowledge) to wikipidia. Although I do not believe the name was used during the 60s while it was occurring, it was given that name soon after. Also, although there were people that asserted the same hypothesis around the same time as Williams, they were all after. And Dawkins attributes the gene-centric theory completely to Williams. The very fact that there was so much talk about this theory proves that it was indeed a groundbreaking enough revolution to be posted in wikipedia. In addition, Darwin did not discuss gene-centric theory in the slightest (Mendell's work on genes was not known at the time). Lastly, it is not wikipedia's job to express commentary on whether terms are correct or not, but is supposed to merely define terms that are in use, and the Williams Revolution, whether you believe it is a misleading term or not, is widely in use among evolutionary biologists today.

Cpitsiokos (talk) 03:52, 25 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Efforts in 2006 to document the use of the term outside its origin in Wikipedia all failed. Various claims to have seen the term somewhere else could not be sustained or verified. These discussions were on the "Williams Revolution" Talk page, which is now deleted. The term is not used by evolutionary biologists, and it is not the job of Wikipedia to create neologisms, even if someone thinks it would be a good term. MayerG (talk) 05:20, 26 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Photo[edit]

Getting a photo of him seems like a difficult task. There are no free ones on the internet, and only a few non-free ones, none of which have a clearly identified copyright holder. Richard001 (talk) 04:42, 7 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Needs to be expanded.[edit]

Briefly.... this man was a significant contributor to 20th century evolutionary biological thought. "Adaptation and Natural Selection" is one of the most influential books in the field. This article should be expanded to include more of his thought. He has more disciples than Gould and deserves more attention than this article provides. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Antigrandiose (talk • contribs) 11:39, 4 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Contents of "Group selection: a controversy in biology"[edit]

Hi,

can anybody provide a list of the articles being included in the collection of papers edited by Williams as "Group selection: a controversy in biology"? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.116.50.99 (talk) 14:55, 6 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Senescence[edit]

The first clear discussion of senescence as adjusted by evolution was: Medawar P.B. 1952. An Unsolved problem of biology. An inaugural lecture delivered at University College London, 6 December, 1951. London: H.K. Lewis. Alex Comfort's Ageing – the biology of senescence incorporated some of Medawar's ideas. John Maynard Smith was a lecturer in the same department at that time. All things considered, I think the Williams biog gives him undue precedence, and should be toned down. Macdonald-ross (talk) 13:33, 2 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

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