Talk:Wilhelm Olbers Focke

	Biography portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Biography, a collaborative effort to create, develop and organize Wikipedia's articles about people. All interested editors are invited to join the project and contribute to the discussion. For instructions on how to use this banner, please refer to the documentation.BiographyWikipedia:WikiProject BiographyTemplate:WikiProject Biographybiography articles
	This article is supported by the science and academia work group (assessed as Low-importance).
	An editor has requested that an image or photograph be added to this article.

Plants Low‑importance

	Plants portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Plants, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of plants and botany on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.PlantsWikipedia:WikiProject PlantsTemplate:WikiProject Plantsplant articles
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.
	This article is about a botanist or someone who contributed to the field of botany
	An editor has requested that an image or photograph be added to this article.

Germany Low‑importance

	Germany portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Germany, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Germany on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.GermanyWikipedia:WikiProject GermanyTemplate:WikiProject GermanyGermany articles
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.
	This article has been marked as needing an infobox.
	An editor has requested that an image or photograph be added to this article.

Notable?[edit]

It's not at all clear from the article at present that this botanist satisfies the notability criterion. At present he seems to be worth including because, once upon a time, he wrote a book in which Mendel's (subsequently famous) work is passingly, and dismissively, noted. A book which Darwin possessed (at least at one point) but didn't note the skeptical reference to Mendel in. Is that it? As such the article just reads like someone having a go at Darwin (... for not reading every sentence of every book that ever passed his way). --Plumbago (talk) 08:23, 1 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Certainly notable. This botanist even has a botanist abbreviation. The fact that Darwin never mentioned Mendel's experiments has been a rather big deal. It's hypothesized that if he had known about Mendel (by reading Focke's book), he might have been more bold with his theory and had published it sooner. That's why that line is important and shouldn't be viewed as a swipe at Darwin. If it is a bit awkward, perhaps it just needs to be reworded. --Rkitko ^(talk) 02:27, 4 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]