Talk:Evolution/Archive 31

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Phenotypic plasticity

There seems to be an error near the head of the article in the "Basic processes" subsection. Firstly, the paragraph implies that all phenotypic variability is genetic in basis. Since development is subject to in utero (in ovo, etc.) influences (both maternal inheritance and accidents), and an organism's phenotype can adapt and respond to the environment post-development, it might make more sense to say "This phenotypic variation is primarily the result of genotypes ...". The paragraph goes on to say "Variants in gene sequences in the individuals of a population and the interaction of a genotype with the environment are involved in phenotypic plasticity". I'd certainly agree with the latter portion of this (that genotype-environment interactions are involved in phenotypic plasticity), but the former seems incorrect to me (the article on phenotypic plasticity seems to agree). I'll make appropriate changes to the article, but wanted to document my reasoning here. Cheers, --Plumbago 09:08, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Very Good! I agree. I think it would be appropriate to mention the different perspecitves in the processes of evolution. Like molecular evolution and organismic evolution. I found some good articles that are free access that articulate the differences. These are the Pubmed citations and you can follow to articles for those interested.

Nei M. Selectionism and neutralism in molecular evolution. Mol Biol Evol. 2005 Dec;22(12):2318-42. Epub 2005 Aug 24. Erratum in: Mol Biol Evol. 2006 May;23(5):1095. PMID: 16120807 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

West-Eberhard MJ. Alternative adaptations, speciation, and phylogeny (A Review).Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1986 Mar;83(5):1388-1392. PMID: 16578790 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]

West-Eberhard MJ. Related Articles, Developmental plasticity and the origin of species differences. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2005 May 3;102 Suppl 1:6543-9. Epub 2005 Apr 25. Review. PMID: 15851679 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

Fordyce JA. The evolutionary consequences of ecological interactions mediated through phenotypic plasticity.J Exp Biol. 2006 Jun;209(Pt 12):2377-83. Review. PMID: 16731814 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

I personally have a lot of problems with Neutralism and mutationism, but I thought Nei's paper was thought provoking. GetAgrippa 18:16, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Request

I would like to see the full evolutionary chain from bacteria, to invertebrate, to fish, to reptile, to mammal, to primate, to human with pics. I have never seen the whole chain. I think it would be very educational and demonstrative. 69.211.150.60 14:49, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

This would be highly misleading on the Evolution article because it would imply that humans are the "goal" or "end" of evolution; such a chain would have no more academic value than a chain from bacteria, to invertebrate, to fish, to reptile, to dinosaur, to bird, to penguin. Selecting a specific "end point" is misleading and biased; we could just as easily judge bacteria to be the "end point" for evolution, since bacteria still exist and are just as "evolved" as humans and penguins (though as a matter of practicality, their specific evolutionary history is much harder to reconstruct because they are so small and lack hard body parts).
However, it would be a superb addition to the Human evolution article, I agree. Something similar is available at Timeline of human evolution, but less consolidated and summarized. -Silence 15:04, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
However, one shouldn't entirely trust this: on the Timeline of human evolution, humans depicted at 100 Kya appear to have already adopted 1970s hairstyles. Yikes. Other than that though, it's not a bad place to start. It might be nice if it complemented the diagrams of our extinct ancestors with photographs of their nearest (in appearance at least) extant relatives. While scientifically inaccurate, it might give a better "feel" for what our ancestors were like. Cheers, --Plumbago 15:19, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
Yeah, although personally, I think that one of our top priorities (outside of Evolution itself) should be getting Timeline of evolution up to featured-list quality. It has huge potential, but currently there's a lot of important information lacking, and irrelevant information (who cares when humans walked on the moon?) present, especially near the bottom. It also needs at least three times as much sourcing, especially for the debated or ambiguous things (e.g., dating certain occurrences), and needs to be kept up-to-date on recent research for those areas. -Silence 15:36, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
Perhaps though something could be said in the evolution article about how the theory of evolution by natural selection marked a major departure from the prevalent view (In England if not in Europe) of "the great chain of being;" how chain and even tree are not great metaphors for imagining evolution, how a bush might be a better metaphor (but still just a metaphor) for evolution. However, if you think such a point is too tangential for this article perhaps it could go in one of the others you are considering ... Slrubenstein | Talk 15:41, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
??? Which article? What does that have to do with any of the articles we're discussing? -Silence 15:44, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
....However, if you think such a point is too tangential for this article perhaps it could go in one of the others you are considering. Nevertheless, people talk about science as well as the natural world through metaphors, and "chain" is just a bad one, and I think it is worth addressing this point briefly in the generaly article. Slrubenstein | Talk 15:51, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Is the article the History of Life on Earth and a timeline of extinction and diversity or is it about macroevolution and then mechanistically explain how the diversity and changes came about? One subject is just the geologic, fossil, etc evidence that this is the sequence of events. How does evolution play a role in this, is a different topic and would have to bring in a lot of different opinions and perspectives. Slrubenstein brings up a good point for Macroevolution and life as perspective has and is changing. A timeline of life forms on earth is not an article about evolution (or the process). The processes of evolution have themselves evolved. Sex evolved so natural selection was initially ecological, phenotypic plasticity evolved, etc. Then these evolved processes have themselves influenced evolution. Some life forms in the Ediacara are not easily classified and so evolution may have been different. A time line of evolution can be a life history of planet and what lineages gave rise to what to the present. That last part is complex and you can get different answers from systematic anatomical vs molecular approaches.GetAgrippa 16:19, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

I would have no problem with seeing Timeline of evolution moved to Timeline of life. I agree that it is only about evolution in the sense that a history of coins is about coin-minting. The article is also ambiguous in that "evolution" can refer either to biological evolution, or to cosmological evolution, or many other things; "life", in contrast, is unambiguous. It is also problematic in that many of the currently-included aspects of the article are completely unrelated to biological evolution, yet are important (such as the date of when the Earth was forced); perhaps an alternative title would be "Timeline of the history of the Earth" or "Timeline of Earth", analogical with our current top-level article on the history of the Earth and of life, History of Earth? One problem with such a move that I can see is that it disrupts the current similarity between this article's title and the title of Timeline of human evolution, suggesting that that article is about evolution while this one isn't. But it's certainly something to discuss. -Silence 20:42, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
Wow! I hadn't seen the Timeline article. A lot of work has gone into this, but it is an odd mix and the title is misleading. That is a problem with History of Earth and the Timeline article. I would say fuse them but it would be too long.GetAgrippa 20:52, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
They should NOT be fused. One is a list (Timeline of evolution), the other is an article (History of Earth). Just like we have Timeline of human evolution, a list, and Human evolution, an article. We should improve the titles and contents of each, not destroy one article in favor of the other. -Silence 23:10, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
I didn't see any links to the Timeline Article from this page .... should there be? --Random Replicator 23:34, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
I was just kidding they should be fused. I just don't think Timeline of evolution is an appropriate title. I haven't read History of Earth yet. Given the length of Timeline it has been around awhile. I am surprised there is no link. A Macro-evolution theory article would be a nice offshoot of the Timeline article. Present evidence that supports various hypotheses, fossil evidence, and molecular evidence that supports evolution and how things are related and how they came to be. Timeline touches on it in some places. The Timeline article is a significant effort kudos to the authors. GetAgrippa 00:15, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
There's been a link from Evolution to Timeline of evolution for a long, long time. It's in the "History of life" section. As for a timeline or description of macroevolution's history, I think that would be a good addition to Macroevolution itself. -Silence 17:26, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
There is a Macroevolution article too. Man I am out of the loop. You are right, Silence, about the Macro article would benefit from a timeline.GetAgrippa 12:56, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
Yep right there for all to see; well except me. If it had been a posionous snake .. I guess I'd be dead now. --Random Replicator 23:30, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
Just don't take any apples from it ;) ... dave souza, talk 23:46, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
I never noticed either. Some scientist, eh, very observant. Damn, I'm just getting blind, or senile, or both. GetAgrippa 00:02, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

I never cease to be amazed at the profusion of articles that exist on certain topics. Often different parallel efforts produced by different groups of editors that did not know about each other, and did not cross link enough, so certain articles are essentially orphaned, and unknown. Even in popular areas. Of course, what goes on in WP is just a microcosm of what happens in the real world on this issue. It is quite common, obviously and easy to do. So I would not feel too bad about finding out a few "unknown" articles slipped into a nook or cranny. As I compile my list of "creationist" and "intelligent design" organizations and individuals, it slowly gets longer and longer. Some of them have articles here that are completely disconnected from the main body of articles. Some important figures are completely ignored in WP.--Filll 13:59, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Requested move

Filll has provided a heads-up for a discussion at Talk:Level of support for evolution#Requested move: I've trimmed out the discussion from this page to avoid duplication. .. dave souza, talk 08:53, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Of possible interest to editors of this page:

I believe we have the start of a disagreement on this issue.--Filll 05:57, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

(duplicate of response from -Silence 06:21, 29 January 2007 (UTC) trimmed out)

Another request, suggestion

I have looked at the article on human evolution and it is very good. I think it could use a cladistics chart like this http://cas.bellarmine.edu/tietjen/Diversity/turtle_origins.htm.

I have looked but could not find one. 69.211.150.60 15:20, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

The problem is finding a good cladistic chart for humans. There is a lot of controversy of different assumptions giving different evolutionary histories and some question of the validity of cladistic analysis towards hominid evolution.GetAgrippa 21:35, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Can you give me any links? I would like to research this and maybe add it to one of the articles. I just have not found anything on the internet. 69.211.150.60 14:17, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

All organisms related?

All organisms, including extinct species, are related by common descent through numerous speciation events starting from a single ancestor

This statement is absurd and infact plays upon the beliefs of those who believe in Earth's uniqueness, some sort of panspermia or even divine creation. It should be changed to all known or all observed instead. If you *want* to drive a point then I'd guess all terrestrial would be much better too - even though that's somewhat less certain definition (known, studied & observed native species vs. all species found on Earth including possible "visitors" like, perhaps, Red rain in Kerala). However, a definitive statement about something that is completely unknown is extremely unencyclopedic, let alone scientific: All organisms as a term also encompasses every unobserved & unknown organism regardless of its or their (planet of) origin. - G3, 20:54, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Visitors? Yeah right!!! The thesis that the Red Rain is anything but a bunch of algae or dust is conjecture. And the two researchers who published the article speculate that it might be extraterrestrial matter, possibly comet dust--not living material. Sheesh. Every single organism on this planet has DNA and, therefore, shows common descent. Yes, there might be something out there that doesn't have DNA, but it hasn't been discover in the organisms found in every environment on earth. This is a great article, specifically because it does not include supernatural into it, because supernatural cannot be proven. Orangemarlin 21:16, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

We have been through this a million times. There is no need to write this article so that every sentence second-guesses itself just because the conclusions upset some philosophical musings within the general society. This is the way the evidence points and 150 years of scientific confirmation more than justifies this simple induction.--Roland Deschain 21:19, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
Deschain, there's no evidence that extraterrestrial life does not exist (absence of evidence is only evidence of absence if we would expect to have evidence, which we would not even if life exists, or if the evidence we have indicates that a certain thing is too improbable to occur, which we also lack), so it is mistaken to claim that. The real reason we don't currently include "known" is because Wikipedia is not a crystal ball, but that merely says that we shouldn't presume future discoveries, not that we shouldn't leave room for the possibility of future discoveries; therefore I could see a strong argument being made for adding "known" here, though I also understand why there is reluctance to do so.
On the other hand, I could see an even stronger argument being made for removing "including extinct species" from the sentence, as it's clearly redundant and adds no necessary information to the lead section, which should be as short and concise as possible. "All organisms are related by common descent through numerous speciation events starting from a single ancestor." is sufficient. (And I think we should also be discussing smoother and less convoluted ways to word the second half of the sentence as well; "by common descent through numerous speciation events starting from a single ancestor"? Horribly awkward.) -Silence 21:34, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
Silence, I understand your point. As I said, we've been over this a million times. I have no problem with drilling home the tentative nature of science in every sentence, if it is done in every scientific article. However, it is clear that only in this article is such a wording called for, for obvious reasons. Nobody is in the matter article, demanding that we say: "All known matter is made up of atoms" or "All known suns obey the laws of gravity". Science is inductive and tentative. Let's leave it at that and not degrade this article into a second-guessing and tentative mess just because some people don't like the conclusions of a vast mount of evidence. To truly ridicule this notion, imagine me going to the human article and demanding this change: "All known humans breathe air". At one point in time the vast amount of evidence trumps this strange need to degrade scientific conclusions.--Roland Deschain 21:44, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
The majority of biologists accept that it is plausible that extraterrestrial life exists somewhere. Therefore, it is the consensus scientific view that there is at the very least a significant possibility (and in fact, for most biologists who bother to consider the matter at all, a near-certitude) of life existing somewhere in the universe that is not related by common descent to life on Earth. Therefore it is a false analogy to compare "all known matter is made of atoms" to "all known organisms are related by common descent"; no physicists claim that there is a significant chance of any matter ever being discovered that is not made of atoms, whereas I can't think of a single biologist who disputes the significant possibility of extraterrestrial life. Science is inductive and tentative, yes, but it is the very fact that it is tentative that makes it important not to make presumptions about the rest of the universe just because we haven't seen extraterrestrial life. Attempts to compare this situation to things like "All known matter is made of atoms" or "All known suns obey the law of nature" are fallacious; there is no good reason to believe that some suns don't obey gravity, or that matter isn't made of atoms. In contrast, there is no good reason to believe that there isn't any extraterrestrial life in the universe, so your analogy actually works in exactly the opposite way than you intended. Saying (or in this case implying) "There is no extraterrestrial life" is akin to saying "There are X species in existence" (rather than "There are X known species in existence"). Known is appropriate in cases where there is good reason to believe that there are exceptions somewhere (as is the case both for the currently-known number of species, which scientists expect are not every species in existence; and as is also the case for the existence of extraterrestrial life, because the overwhelming majority of scientists expect that Earth isn't the only place in the universe with life). It is not speculative to acknowledge the scientific consensus that extraterrestrial life is quite possible; it is only speculative to jump the gun and try to make specific claims about that life, or about the discovery of it. I therefore see no problem with inserting "known", if only once; your repeated insistence that this has been discussed before may be true, but it is irrelevant, as I've seen and been in a number of those discussions and never seen any of them satisfyingly resolve this problem without appealing to "known" or similar. -Silence 02:00, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
Actually, not all scientist believe that there is extraterrestrial life. The Rare Earth Hypothesis is founded on very strong science, and I am inclined to believe that extraterrestrial organisms probably don't exist. Although your logic seems to indicate that the lack of information may mean something, there is logic that the lack of data means that it doesn't exist. We shouldn't invent it. From a statistical analysis, if we have examined 10% of organisms on earth that are from a wide variety of environmental niches, I'm inclined to say that the probability of finding a non-common descent organism approaches zero. Orangemarlin 16:44, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
Well let's change it to "All life on earth is related by common descent." This way we get around your objection about extra-terrestrial life (which I find very weak) and we still don't have to go down the road of tentative language which plagues this article.--Roland Deschain 02:13, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
Seems like hair-splitting to me, and your argument against the extraterrestrial argument seems absurdly weak to me: it's like arguing for replacing "There is no known natural cause for near-death experiences" with "There is no natural cause for near-death experiences". In contexts such as these, "known" is not wishy-washy, but necessary for factuality. "Known" is not any more tentative than "on Earth" (make sure to capitalize the planet). But I suppose either would work. -Silence 02:19, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
I've added "on Earth". Restricts the broadness of the sentence without adding that pitiful tentative language. While we are at it, shouldn't we make sure that the sentence "All suns obey gravity" be changed to "All suns obey gravity in our universe" ;) (kidding kidding).--Roland Deschain 02:23, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
The article is about evolution of life on earth (and only known to exists on earth). Only ten percent of present species of life is believed to be identified and the fossil record is similarly incomplete. I guess we need to rewrite the article that evolution occurs and pertains to known fossils and life that has been identified on earth. Come on. This talk of extraterrestrials is absurd and way off topic, since it is not a verifiable scientific fact. If the topic were origin of life then the mention of an extraterrestrial origin would be reasonable. GetAgrippa 02:30, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps just say:Evidence supports that all organisms on Earth,past and present, have evolved through common descent from a single ancestor. GetAgrippa 05:11, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Here's a quotation from Richard Dawkins' recent book The Ancestor's Tale on this subject. As you are no doubt well aware, Dawkins is not one to mince words or try to tone-down his points, so I don't think you can fairly dismiss his precision of language here as merely "second-guessing" or "tentative":

"We can be very certain that there really is a single concestor [common ancestor] of all surviving life forms on the planet. The evidence is that all that have ever been examined share (exactly in most cases, almost exactly in the rest) the same genetic code; and the genetic code is too detailed, in arbitrary aspects of its complexity, to have been invented twice. Although not every species has been examined, we already have enough coverage to be pretty certain that no surprises—alas—await us. If we now were to discover a life form sufficiently alien to have a completely different genetic code, it would be the most exciting biological discovery in my adult lifetime, whether it lives on this planet or another. As things stand, it appears that all known life forms can be traced to a single ancestor which lived more than 3 billion years ago. If there were other, independent origins of life, they have left no descendants that we have discovered." (emphasis added)

This indicates to me that "known" would be acceptable in this context, without conveying a sense of scientific timidity or exaggerated second-guessing. It is not comparable to the examples given by Roland above, like "all known matter is made of atoms". -Silence 09:07, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

"Known" organisms is an exact distinction but I don't think it is necessary for an encyclopedia article. Given the scientific nomenclature that has been removed as jargon (but more exact and precise terminology), then the argument could be made to re-introduce the more correct and exact wording that has been removed in the whole article by the same token. It is not misleading to leave out "known". The article doesn't explicitly state the modern definition of evolution as a change in gene allele frequencies with descent. Almost all encyclopedic articles emphasize Darwin or his notion of Natural Selection, which has little resemblance to the Modern Synthesis nor the changes that have ensued the last forty years. The version from months ago was more scientifically accurate, but I agree it was not accessible. GetAgrippa 15:38, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

I personally do not advocate removing the most accurate scientific discussions completely, only for moving them from the LEAD and the introductory paragraphs of the major sections. I would prefer that we do retain the more sophisticated discussions in some places in the body. However, this might have to wait until after the current revision cycle is complete; I am not sure.--Filll 16:50, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
Ah, Dawkins. Well, let me reply with this:
  • "In evolutionary theory it thus entails common ancestry, descent with modification, speciation, the genealogical relatedness of all life, transformation of species, and large scale functional and structural changes of populations through time, all at or above the species level (Freeman and Herron 2004; Futuyma 1998; Ridley 1993)."Talkorigins
  • "The theory (common descent) specifically postulates that all of the earth's known biota are genealogically related, much in the same way that siblings or cousins are related to one another. Because it is so well supported scientifically, common descent is often called the "fact of evolution" by biologists."Talkorigins
We could go back and forth out-quoting each other (I haven't brought Gould into the equation yet). The simple fact remains: only in this scientific article is such wording called for. In no other scientific articles do we need carefully partition near-certainties from slightly-less-than-near-certainties. However, this is a minor dispute and I will leave it up to other editors to weight the evidence and resolve it. Just remember: "Gravity is the only known force to cause an apple to fall towards a larger mass" because tomorrow we might find another new force ;). --Roland Deschain 01:46, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
Think I prefer the term "to be attracted" Roland. 8) Candy 12:27, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
(can't resist). Well, the apple just rolls down the space-time curvature created by a huge mass we so lovingly call Earth. ;)--Roland Deschain 00:21, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
Of the two examples you just provided, the second one agrees entirely with what I just quoted: it specifically says "all of the earth's known biota are genealogically related". So both Dawkins and talk.origins support using "known", even though Dawkins is an eminent scientist, and talk.origins a well-respected site on evolution, both of whom presumably know full well that all claims in science could, if taken to the point of absurdity, be qualified with "known". They use "known" nevertheless because they realize that unlike those other claims, in the case of biology there is strong reason to believe that this claim does not apply to various unknown organisms. Whereas there is absolutely no reason to suspect that there is matter that is not made of atoms, or stars that do not follow the laws of gravity, there is essentially a certainty that unknown organisms exist, and a near-certainty that some of those unknown organisms are not related to the others (specifically, extraterrestrial ones somewhere in the universe). Dawkins and the "29+ Evidences" page thus both realize that "known" is a valuable, informative, factual, and non-trivial inclusion in any in-depth description dealing with common descent (e.g., an encyclopedia article on evolution!). The fact that "known" is inappropriate in some scientific contexts does not mean that it is inappropriate in all of them! -Silence 06:43, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

I support including the word "known", we have yet to have identified all present organisms, to be scientifically correct it must say "all known organisms" rather than "all organisms". Dionyseus 00:34, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Roland is correct. We haven't explored every nook and cranny of the universe or the atom and we can still make good predictions. Evolution only applies to organisms on earth so extraterrestrial life is out of the equation, and we only need to sample varying populations not examine every organism or species. All life on earth shares a common genetic code and the repertoire of structures, motifs, domains, signatures, etc. is highly conserved and used in varying degrees and complexity to generate all life. There is a molecular economy of life to reuse gene parts and gene networks to generate novely:like the molecular paths in eye development conserved from jelly fish to humans, or a developmental pathway in jaw development being deviated to form the ossicles of the ear, or parathyroid hormone-peptides conserved in fish to humans using similar Calcium receptors and similar cell signalling events to regulate calcium concentrations by absorption in gut or gills and calcium release from bone or scales, some heat shock proteins conserved from bacteria to humans, parallel evolution of invertebrate and vertebrate CNS features, etc. The common origin of life is undeniable. That all life is related by common descent is a fundamental assumption of cladistics and all biology-use of animal models to study every aspect of biology. If these basic assumptions were not accurate then biological and medical achievements would still be in the Dark Ages with little or no progress. You don't have to qualify with "known" to be scientifically accurate,if so every science article would have to be qualified. GetAgrippa 04:58, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
No room for prediction, it's either we know or we don't know, we haven't yet identified all present species so clearly we don't know, so it would have to say "all known organisms" rather than "all organisms". Also, even if we're only talking about organisms on Earth, it is entirely possible that a meteorite can carry living organisms from another planet, and maybe even survive in our planet. Dionyseus 06:22, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
"Roland is correct. We haven't explored every nook and cranny of the universe or the atom and we can still make good predictions." - You're absolutely, 100% correct. We can make countless good predictions, despite how incredibly limited our knowledge of the universe is. The dispute here isn't between "We can't make good predictions" on the one hand, and "We can make good predictions" on the other hand; your argument is thus against a straw man. Rather, the dispute here is between "'There is no extraterrestrial life' is a good prediction" and "'There is no extraterrestrial life' is not a good prediction". The dispute is not over whether we can make good predictions, but over whether this is an example of a good prediction! Whereas you and Roland are arguing for the former, Dionyseus, Orangemarlin, and myself are arguing for the latter, on the grounds that there is no reason to conclude that Earth is the only life-bearing place in the universe, and that the noninclusion of "known" in this one specific context implicitly denies the possibility of such life existing—or, worse yet, implies that evolution would be falsified if we ever discovered such life!
"Evolution only applies to organisms on earth" - False. Evolution applies to all life, according to every modern version of the theory. Scientific facts do not solely apply to the known: for the same reason that it is safe to say "gravity applies to unknown stars", it is equally safe to say "evolution applies to unknown organisms", even if it applies in a different way to those stars, or those organisms. But this is immaterial anyway, because it is simply a falsehood to claim that there is anything in the definition of evolution that restricts it to Earth alone. No such aspect of the definition exists.
" so extraterrestrial life is out of the equation" - WP:NOR. Do you have any references of scientific publications or institutions saying "evolution cannot apply to extraterrestrials"? Your own personal views on this matter don't belong in this article; neither do mine. That's why "known" is a good addition: it avoids making any implicit or explicit claims about these issues, but simply states the clear and factual consensus position of science: all known life is related.
"and we only need to sample varying populations not examine every organism or species." - I agree. But all of our samples are Earth-bound, even though we have no reason to believe that life exists solely on Earth, and, indeed, have excellent reason to believe that it doesn't (because there is nothing so unique about Earth that we would have reason to believe that the same circumstances never have and never will occur anywhere else in the entire universe; as noted above, such a view is more creationistic than scientific). We thus cannot make conjectures about the characteristics of extraterrestrial life based solely on observations of terrestrial life; hence the value of the qualifier "known" or "on Earth" in this context.
"The common origin of life is undeniable." - The common origin of known, terrestrial life is undeniable.
"That all life is related by common descent is a fundamental assumption of cladistics" - No, the fundamental assumption of cladistics is that all life which cladistics has been applied to is related. To generalize this to mean that all life, or all hypothetical life, in the entire universe is related, is as absurd as generalizing from "every planet the size of Earth we've seen has life" to "every planet the size of Earth has life". If extraterrestrial organisms that were not related to Earth organisms were ever discovered, cladistics would probably be applied to them exactly as it's applied to Earth organisms; they'd just be their own cladistic network, entirely separate from the terrestrial life network.
"You don't have to qualify with "known" to be scientifically accurate,if so every science article would have to be qualified." - This is a clear example of the slippery slope fallacy. "If you do X, then you'll have to do Y"; this argument is fallacious because we don't, in fact, have to do Y in order to do X. This is because Y is not a consequence of X: using "known" in contexts where it is appropriate (e.g., "all known life is related by common descent") does not somehow necessitate using "known" in contexts where it is inappropriate (e.g., "all known stars are affected by gravity"). To argue that we shouldn't correctly and accurately use a word just because there are hypothetical uses for that word which would be incorrect and misleading is absurd: you might as well say that we can't use the word "evolution" because creationists abuse the term. "Known" is appropriate in contexts where it adds important and relevant information that is non-trivial, as is the case for the difference between "all organisms in the universe, including extraterrestrial ones, are related by common descent" (the necessary implication of "all organisms are related by common descent" in a non-colloquial context) and "all known organisms are related by common descent", the latter of which is accurate and informative, and the former of which is inaccurate and misleading. In cases where it is more enlightening to use "known", it should be used; in cases where it is less enlightening to use it, it should not. This is clear enough, is it not? To make nonsensical attempts at a reductio ad absurdum against a correct use of "known" (and one supported by both Dawkins and talk.origins, as the quotes above show), just because one could hypothetically write a clearly incorrect use of it, is an extraordinarily weak and insubstantial argument. -Silence 06:43, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
We have excluded the option of extraterrestrials by the "on Earth" qualifier, which get this unneeded variable out of the equation. Another (very weak) topic can be started on evolution as it might apply to non-Earth life (kinda hard as we have zero data), but every single piece of data published deals with Earth life, so lets stick with what the science says. The extraterrestrial argument is very weak as it takes us right out of the range of experimental science. Let's stop bogging down this discussion with pointless what ifs (what if extraterrestrial life exist in the case of biology, what if other universes exist in the case of astronomy). Especially in astronomy, where an infinite parallel universes are a real possibility, the qualifier known is very appropriate. I'm sorry I don't have time to reply the few other argument that do not rest on the extraterrestrial postulate, but as a molecular geneticist and evolutionary biologist, I can tell you you are way off when you try to argue within the actual discipline. --Roland Deschain 16:35, 31 January 2007 (UTC)


I have never read an article disputing gravity is universal. I have read articles disputing life is universal. Scientist may assume that life evolves elswhere, but that is a conceptual statement. You cannot exclude that life elsewhere is not carbon based, DNA based, or cellular. The strict definition of evolution applies to genomic change with descent. Life elsewhere maybe peptide based. I guess we could add a section about the possibility of life elsewhere and what that would constitute but it doesn't seem appropriate for this article (maybe origin of life). "Evolution only applies to organisms on earth" - False. Evolution applies to all life, according to every modern version of the theory. So we don't need to qualify with "known"? "To generalize this to mean that all life, or all hypothetical life, in the entire universe is related, is as absurd as generalizing from "every planet the size of Earth we've seen has life" to "every planet the size of Earth has life"." You are contradicting yourself. You say that all modern versions state all life evolves (a generalization) then you state that you cannot generalize that all life is related by common descent. Anyways as I have said before, "known" is more accurate. I guess my fear (or paranoia) is that creationist will grab on to qualifiers: All known organisms on Earth are related by common descent, but the vast majority of living or extinct organisms are uncharacterized and thus may have been created by forces other than evolution. So I agree with being accurate and concise and for that reason the aricle needs to be rewritten to include all the correct nomenclature, add terms left out like parapatric speciation, and remove misleading statements. Candy also has expressed his concerns over the articles present status and I am sure others will sound out after all the present editing effort has subsided. So to be accurate it should state: All known organisms on Earth are ...... Hmmm, You know organisms (organism generally refers to cellular) don't include viruses which evolve and are related by common descent. Actually it would exclude some fungi and other life also the more I think about it. I am glad that the article has been shortened. GetAgrippa 16:43, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

At my prior job I heard a visiting scholar, a philosopher, present a lecture on how all life is descended from a common ancestor. The point is, he was speaking as a philosopher of science, i.e making a philosophical proof. I wish I remember his name - at the time the talk bored me because it seemed so obvious to me, but of course he was making a proof not obvious to philosophers. Now, it is possible that his argument was really mor enarrow, that if one accepts the theory of evolution then one must also accept the principle of common ancestry. Anyway, my point is that this is something argued not only by empirical scientists but by philosophers and it may be worth acknowledging at some point in the article this fact. Slrubenstein | Talk 17:13, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

The more I think about it I think both Silence and Slrubenstein make good points. Sadly I am falling prey to a defensive posture. I remember my first reaction to this article was the editors were paranoid towards creationist, POV pushers, and vandals, because of the resistance to any changes. After a few months of watching the interaction I was shocked to see their paranoia is warranted, however that doesn't mean we should exclude terminology that we think will evoke a perverse response. My apologies! Paint the kettle black. GetAgrippa 18:42, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
All known species is clearly accurate, and non-prejudicial. It's the best way to phrase it. Arker 21:39, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Arker. However, in reply to GetAgrippa, you shouldn't think that you are "wrong." Wikipedia is about verifiability, not truth. The claim that not only al known species, but all terrestrial species ever, are descended from a common ancestor is an established, verifiable view and must be represented in the article. NPOV requires that we include other important views. So the only question, with regards to your comments, is NOR: if you are reaching a conclusion based on a variety of research, it can't go in the article because it is your conclusion. However, if there are verifiable sources that make it clear that your view is shared by a significant number of evolutionary scientists, of course it must go into the article - not because it is right or wrong but because it is relevant, verifiable, and widely understood as a plausible possibility among evolutionary scientists. Slrubenstein | Talk 09:44, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

I am never too proud to admit when I am wrong. It has been my experience that we humans are often wrong as we are more intuitive than intelligent creatures. The problem I have with Wikipedia is the difficulty in being concise and precise, and semantics as the meaning of words change with time. I have noted many of my disagreements are often semantic. In biology there are always exceptions to the rule or advancements which change nomenclature, so it is difficult sometimes to be precise and concise. Like I mentioned above using "organism" has problems with being precise. I find it odd where we pick and choose to be precise in this article. There is a lot that is concise but not precise. Like saying "Ernst Mayr thought that gene flow is likely to be homogenising, and therefore counteracting selective adaptation. Obstacles to gene flow result in reproductive isolation, a necessary condition for speciation. " Which is a true statement,but there is significant literature supporting that gene flow occurs during speciation and gene flow as in HGT and hybridization produces speciation and adaptive evolution. So in HGT and hybridization gene flow results in speciation and reproductive isolation. I know I have provide twenty or more references on the topic of HGT and hybridization over the last few months. So the statement in the article is concise in context of the huge body of literature in population genetics and modeling and how gene flow effects speciation and reproductive isolation, but there is a exception to the rule to be precise. That is what I struggle with in biological science articles in an encyclopedia, because they are often concise and not precise and I often don't where to draw the line. GetAgrippa 15:09, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
Footnotes containing additional data can be usefully added to a concise but not quite true statement to add precision or to restate in a harder to understand but more accurate way. WAS 4.250 15:25, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
Good idea! I have often wondered why there weren't addendums to articles. I haven't noticed footnotes, but I am still pretty new to this Wiki and still finding my way. GetAgrippa 15:30, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
I like the addition of on Earth and am, well, satisfied with it even though it's still less than accurate statement, and infact probably will never be an accurate statement: There is no way we can study all the volume of lithosphere and atmosphere to discover all the lifeforms on Earth, especially if the issue isn't static (there *might* very well be a chance of extraterrestrial contamination). In other words: I'd prefer the addition of the word known for the added precision. In case you're afraid of creationist coming along and twisting the issue why not All known organisms on Earth, including human and extinct species, are related by common descent. :-) - G3, 16:09, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
I wouldn't call it fear of creationist. It is the frustration from the endless same old creationist arguments which wastes time in article development. It is a huge waste of time and creates distrust by editors who see unethical behaviors in attempts to POV push . It is difficult to promote constructive change when you spend time fighting destructive change-vandalisms. GetAgrippa 16:23, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
ridiculous. "on Earth". This is really uncalled for. You may as well include this to almost everything. The earthling known as Charles Darwin. The earth dwelling platypus. Tin is an element on earth. This is some sort of inane joke I assume. The sentence now has two redundancies. "Known" and "on earth". They should be struck. The sentence without them is clear and succint. Or should we be adding "We think.." to the start. The next thing I expect to see is "on earth (as it is in heaven)". And G3, you shoudn't be happy with it. Vagueness and uncertaincy have been added. The implication is there is life which has been discovered which will not conform. This is second guessing or wishful thinking. The earth as G3 says does not include all the biosphere. The biosphere in trun does not encompass areas where dormant life has been found. To me it just causes confusion.
This is an introduction. It needs to be simple and clear. The pithier the better. Yes, and reasonable generalisations are fine here becasue anomolies or exceptions that proof the rules shoudl be in the text later. I feel a major edit coming from my keyboard soon . Candy 18:37, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
Roland had the same reaction as you Candy. Roland and I have expressed our concerns over the qualifiers. I encourage you editing this article, especially the intro. GetAgrippa 21:49, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
I am vehemently against overreaching generalizations which predict something that cannot yet be studied or observed properly, if at all, when inserting one word converts the statement unequivocally both true - according to our knowledge - and falsiable - in case we find unrelated organism later. Plainly put: Stating all organisms is inaccurate while stating all known organisms is an accurate statement. - G3, 22:47, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
That is funny!! A lot of people say the same about creationism and intelligent design. Lets see the odds of finding unrelated life later. Hmmm. Fossil record to present 3 billion years. We have found new species, genuses, and phylums, but nope no sign of unrelated life. The genetic barcode still seems like a good idea. GetAgrippa 03:05, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
G3, please sign your comments with a normal signature. All organisms is accurate, because from a statistical standard, we have analyzed a significant (statistically speaking) portion of all organisms in almost every single environment found on earth, and all organisms have a common descent. Parsing words in attempt to "sound" scientific, when in fact it is not truly scientific, does not make it right. Orangemarlin 23:28, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

I think you are right Orange we do have a good sample and it is still growing. Over 3 billion years of fossils and then present life and still no sign of unrelated life (unusual maybe). That seems a good random sample to draw inference. GetAgrippa 03:14, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Please, you must think what having plain 'all organisms' implies. It's not as simple as looking at the available evidence and drawing "limited conclusions" about them - for then we would be comfortable saying Earth is the only place where life can be found, no that's not entirely true, it's more like Life has become to existence only once in the history of Earth and the Universe. Something which would be a strong weapon for certain spiritually, or even 'scientifically', minded people: An article about supposedly natural process of evolution implicitly declaring that there is definitely only one "kind" of life in the universe descended from a single point of origin. It's absurd to the point of making me nauseous. - G3, 17:26, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
I would say you were pontificating on something, but I'm not sure what you are saying. Who said anything about the universe??? I thought we were speaking about the Earth? Orangemarlin 17:39, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
Is there something about the term all organisms - or infact in the principle of evolution - that is limited to Earth? I already stated that I am fine with either on Earth (less accurate) or known (accurate) qualifiers. - G3, 18:14, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
Evolution makes no claims about the origin of life on earth or in the universe, that is another topic. Life could have evolved more than once on earth (and elsewhere) and been different and not related to present life (peptide based before nucleic acids). Evolution in this article strictly deals with life on earth and technically it goes back by common descent to the last universal common ancestor (which most agree was already a complex organism/s)and not to the first life on earth ever. On the topic of the origin of life some surmise the principals of evolution apply to chemical evolution. The point of the editing is to shorten and present a concise intro, which may not necessarily be precise but can be expanded on in text. Most people would assume the subject is evolution on earth as there is no known life to study on other planets. GetAgrippa 20:38, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

You're not to make any inferences or practice your own brand of left wing Christian-hating science here. How many double blind studies have you conducted on evolution? none. Zero. You're just regurgatating what you're read in other left wing Christian-hating books.Ymous 08:57, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Ymous,
  • an inference is a conclusion based on evidence and reasoning. This is ok, even on wikipedia:)
  • what do you mean by left-wing science? Are you just flinging left-wing around as some random insult?
  • Christian-hating science? There is no such thing. Nor Christian-hating mathematics.
  • Double-blind studies are used for testing effects where subjectivity may affect the outcome. They are not used for testing gravity, geology, evolution, or any number of other fields.
Many evolutionists are studying the hand of God in Creation. "Truth does not speak against truth" - a recent quote from a rather famous Christian leader about how the bible should be interpreted to accept the scientific evidence of evolution.Trishm 10:15, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
I like the sign. Good idea! Ymous there are plenty of Christians who are scientist and have no conflict with evolution. "You're just regurgatating what you're read in other left wing Christian-hating books." And an atheist (and many Christians) would retort you are just regurgitating some right wing fundamentalist hate of non-Christians (and some Christians). How does this fit into Christ's message? Let's see was it hate your enemy, or love and die for your enemy? Anyways back on topic. GetAgrippa 12:34, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

request for comments

Would people who regularly watch this page please consider commenting here [1]? Thanks, Slrubenstein | Talk 13:25, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Yes, the intro now reads like it did a few months ago. Quite stilted, contains non-sequiturs, rather jumbled. I thought for a while it was getting better but I never seem to get past the intro although it certainly reads better than if often has in the past. At least it's the right level for an intro imho.

"In biology, evolution is the process in which some of a population's inherited traits become more common, at the expense of others, from generation to generation. "

  • This can happen without evolution taking place of course. The expense of others is vague in the utmost. From generation to generation is also vague. What is this trying to say? Possibly the wooliest intro yet!

"This is usually measured in terms of the variant genes, known as alleles, that encode the competing traits. As differences in and between populations accumulate over time, speciation, the development of new species from existing ones, can occur."

  • In terms? Ack. Poor expression. Variant genes = alleles = nope. Alleles at the same loci perhaps. Vague again. Lots of commas - shouldn't be such a big need. Needs rephrasing. This sentence should be active not passive. In addition, I feel it should be talking about a species gene pool. The use of "populations" doesn't even necessarily really refer to the same species.

"All organisms on Earth, including extinct species, are related by common descent through numerous speciation events starting from a single ancestor.[1][2] "

  • They are not related through numerous speciation events. They are simply related through common descent. This sentence woffles.

"Mutation of the genes, migration between populations, and the reshuffling of genes during sexual reproduction creates variation in organisms. While a certain random component, known as genetic drift, is involved, the variation is also acted on by natural selection, in which organisms which happen to have combinations of traits that help them to survive and reproduce more than others in the population will, on average, have more offspring, passing more copies of these beneficial traits on to the next generation.

  • This is a huge sentence for an introduction. No wait. It's just a huge sentence. Snip, snip!!
  • A certain random component, known as genetic drift, is involved ... please. Come on biologists you know this whole sentence is odd in the extreme.

"This leads to advantageous traits becoming more common in each generation, while disadvantageous traits become rarer. [1][3][4] Given enough time, this passive process can result in varied adaptations to changing environmental conditions.[5]

  • Why is this a non-sequitur? Because environmental conditions are suddenly introduced and I have no understanding why! The reader will also be purprexed no doubt.

"The theory of evolution by natural selection was first put forth in detail in Charles Darwin's 1859 book On the Origin of Species."

  • Again, where does this come from? Surely better to mention that Darwin had one of the first mechanism which could be tested and that this was called ... I still object to Wallace being left out. Degrading his contribution is a big mistake.

"In the 1930s, Darwinian natural selection was combined with Mendelian inheritance to form the modern evolutionary synthesis.[5] With its enormous explanatory and predictive power, this theory has become the central organizing principle of modern biology, providing a unifying explanation for the diversity of life on Earth.[6][7][8]"

  • I like this sentence.

Well, you asked for my input and here it is ....Candy 22:20, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

request for comments

On race and intelligence, please [2] Slrubenstein | Talk 13:15, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Don't all these requests for comment belong better on Project talk pages than on other article talk pages? This page is specifically for discussing the Evolution article. -Silence 13:26, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
I did do that. But I believe informed contributors to this page have the knowledge to make useful comments in this matter. I do not think it is inappropriate or unusual for people to call attention to contributors to one article of an issue of possible interest at another article. Slrubenstein | Talk 13:47, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
Different articles aquire different sets of regulars who constitute social groups that over time establish by use ideosyncratic norms. Meaning we do that here. WAS 4.250 14:59, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
I agree with WAS and that is why I think it is often good to seek fresh perspecitve, especially for an encyclopedia. I would encourage others to do like Slrubenstein seeking outside help to help push through edit wars by "experts". A fresh neutral unbiased perspective can get an encyclopedia article back on track. I know editors can be resistant to newcomers or non-experts, but this is an encyclopedia not a forum to debate an expertise so sometimes the converstion needs to be reined in to what is best for an encyclopedia article. Some articles of incredible interest are poorly developed and other articles of minor interest are overkill. GetAgrippa 16:15, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

It has a value in bringing in fresh talent. I went there, did not find anything in the discussion of that article that grabbed me particularly, but I found a few red links that I went after and filled in with new articles. So it does serve a purpose.--Filll 00:52, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Another example of evolution: chicken --> duck

Just another small example of evolution at work [3];).--Roland Deschain 01:24, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

"Genetic mishap"? Excuse a creationist for being so simple-minded, but I thought there was no such thing as "negative" or "positive" mutations when it came to evolution ;). Homestarmy 02:43, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
Of course there are positive and negative mutations. Cystic fibrosis is a negative mutation and AIDS resistance in certain European populations is a beneficial mutation. I think what you meant to say that evolution has no ultimate purpose (ie: goal).--Roland Deschain 03:19, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
More to the point, whether or not there are mishaps in evolution, there most certainly are mishaps in animal-breeding, which is more salient to this article.Slrubenstein | Talk 10:21, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

What a hoot! That reminds me of a Science article about a fish with a placenta. Independent Origins and Rapid Evolution of the Placenta in the Fish Genus Poeciliopsis David N. Reznick, Mariana Mateos, and Mark S. Springer Science 1 November 2002 298: 1018-1020 [DOI: 10.1126/science.1076018] (in Reports)GetAgrippa 02:59, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Predictive power

In the lead paragraph, the article mentions the predictive power of evolution, but I can't see where that is explained. Do we need to add something, or have I just missed it?Trishm 11:26, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

What is the name of that lizard?

What is the name of that lizard specie that still has teeth and jaw that are halfway to evolving hammer, anvil and stirrup of the inner ear which more evolved creatures (such as mammals) have?

The Devonian fish,Panderichthys, has a middle ear like structures. GetAgrippa 20:07, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Is there a list of "what evolved from what" (what organ from what organ that is)? I mean - it's fascinating; and it would be a good thing if there would be a place to see it all shortly in a list. Googleing it a bit it seems that there's no comprehensive stuff like that on the Internet. What do you say?

The EvoDevo article should adress some of this, but a present it is poorly developed. I hope to contribute soon to address some of your suggestions. GetAgrippa 20:07, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

(and what about how mammary glands evolved? crazy stuff (from hair folicules that were in a zone of skin (fur) of a mother near a hatchling of those reptilian-like mammals-to-be, so they provided heat, moisture, grease, and - obviously nutrition - so it evolved further) Man, that's odd.) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 87.116.148.6 (talk) 19:00, 2 February 2007 (UTC).

Humans are no more evolved than anyother organism. Candy 20:42, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
On the other hand, the lizard in question may be a guy called Gary who I once met at a party. Candy 20:42, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
That's funny Candy! Met a few lizards too in my day. Thank you for changing the competitive trait statement in intro, that was driving me crazy!!!!! The success of a trait can be by genetic drift which is neutral and not a competitive process. Species branch into new environments with traits more suited to the new environment not that the ancestral trait was inferior. It sounds too much like the ole survival of the fittest. It is about differential survival and reproduction-(fitness not fittest) through successive generations. It is not about competition of traits that implies a direction towards perfection by competition of the fittest. Variations in traits prove adaptive per situation and environment and promote diversity, and traits can be gained and lost also(eyeless cave lizards and fish didn't lose the trait through competition). An ancestral parent species can thrive and be more successful in more environments than the branching species suited to a harsh environment. Competition is just a poor word choice because it gives the wrong impression, but that is not saying that ecological competition isn't a factor. GetAgrippa 21:49, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
Candy, that was the funniest thing I've read since someone posted that Dinosaurs and Man existed at the same time, and there's lots of proof on the internet. Orangemarlin 21:52, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
Orange, I must be a Dinosaur I just picked up on your comment "lots of proof on the internet" That is hilarious and true. I guess I missed the eight second rule. GetAgrippa 03:26, 3 February 2007 (UTC)
No Candy, the funniest is that dinosaurs were on Noah's ark. Now you have to admit that is funny. I can see Noah asking his sons "Ok whose turn is to feed the T. Rex. Sons, Sons, Where are you boys?" GetAgrippa 22:13, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
Now, now, all can be explained: I like this clarification – "Kirwan maintained that only animals that were most necessary for the use of man were present on the ark. Since the "ravenous animals" would have posed a threat to the immediate survivors of the deluge, Kirwan proposed that carnivores were probably created after the flood and after the "graminivorous" animals had greatly multiplied." from History of the Collapse of "Flood Geology" and a Young Earth .. dave souza, talk 23:55, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
Don't you love Creationists. Every time they come to a dead end, they just invent something else. I occasionally read the Creationist forums around the internet, and other than worried about the mental health of some of them, it is amusing. They have created a house of cards to get around every single block to their story of Creationism. Orangemarlin 18:22, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
"God works in mysterious ways." "That's why its called faith". "God is testing you." "Get behind me, Devil." "Don't question the power of God." "Scientists are only human, trust in the the Bible." "What about all those scientific frauds; why should I believe anything that admits it isn't revealed Truth?" "God loves me and I go to heaven when I die; you say I don't matter and when I die I cease to exist - screw that!" WAS 4.250 04:01, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Misunderstandings

First off, I AM NOT TRYING TO START A DEBATE!!! Now that that's established and I have your somewhat-divided attention, it should be noted that, if anyone's even caring about a tiny little thing called **GASP!** NPOV, one should start with the obvious; changing the title of the "Misunderstandings" section of the article to "Criticisms of Evolution." I might just be misunderstanding a few things, myself, but I thought that dubbing all criticisms of one subject as mere 'misunderstandings' was against WP:NPOV. --208.127.64.180 10:48, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

By the way, someone should put up the Neutrality Dispute and Expert-Needed tags on this article. --208.127.64.180 10:56, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
The title is appropriate because the discussion is about common misunderstandings about evolution. It is a science article and the issues discussed are common misunderstandings of science and evolution (not valid criticisms). There are criticisms within evolution, but so far no valid scientific ones outside (the level of support article deals with just how strong the scientific community and many faiths support evolution) as that is more the social and historic context which is discussed in another section. The article has been guided by dozens of experts and at one time was a graduate level article so the trend has been to make it shorter and accessible. The attempt is the present status, and since the big change there has been little activity. I think most are waiting to see the dust settle before the edits continue. I appreciate your using the Talk page rather than indiscriminately changing the article. I am a relative newcomer but this topic really brings out the accusations of NPOV and vandalisms, and a few faiths (mostly creationist) seem to think that evolution is some threat to their faith (which of course is absurd). If you have some expertise and want to contribute please use the Talk pages to advance and justify your suggestions. Then you will see the experts appear.GetAgrippa 15:03, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

If you are interested in those issues, please go to misunderstandings about evolution, objections to evolution, level of support for evolution, creation-evolution controversy and a huge array of related articles. This article is about the science, not about those topics. There just is not room to cover all those topics in this one article.--Filll 15:07, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Neutral point of view does not mean that all viewpoints are given equal weight. That is a misunderstanding. Evolution is a fact, and it is not disputed excepted by few people who, by faith, assume some god is in control of creation. Religious articles can be discussed in a number of other areas. Orangemarlin 18:19, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
The Misunderstandings section contains both genuine misunderstandings (often by people who accept evolution) such as the telelogical idea that things can be 'more/less evolved' and what are in fact creationist's arguments against evolution. I think these two groups need to be seperated. Ashmoo 06:02, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Opening sentence

I changed this back to include the word frequency. The previous version appeared to rule out mutation, the introduction of new traits (at least it could be read this way). Also the possibility of a change to lots of different traits without any of them being 'dominant'. — Axel147 15:31, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Neither my version nor the previous clarifies whether change in frequency of alleles that are not expressed (or expressed equally) and do not impact traits is considered 'evolution'? — Axel147 15:41, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

I agree with your change to intro is more in line with modern definition and population genetics. That is a great question and one I asked a bunch of students with the transposon that has altered insecticide resistance in the worlds population of drosophila. The transposon is something like 80,000 years old (as I recollect) but the jump and positive selection and adaptation is only 50-250 years old. I asked when did evolution occur (I got a wide range of answers by the way)? Pseudogenes undergo mutations which may eventually be useful and reintroduced as an active gene and a new trait with a new function. Variation proposing is evolution as much as nature disposing. GetAgrippa 16:21, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
You can also have phenotypic selection with a heritable epigenetic change and then the genetic change and reproductive isolation occuring later, so a mutation or genetic change doesn't have to occur first. It is difficult to word all the permutations in a concise manner, so for the intro we should keep it simple. GetAgrippa 19:34, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Vandalism

I'm wondering if it's time to protect this article. It seems like it's getting vandalized a lot, although it could be just one person switching names a lot. Orangemarlin 22:36, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

I semi-protected this talk page. The article is already semi-protected, with the current vandalism wave from a number of sock accounts created last month. The sockpuppeteer should run out of old accounts soon, if not already. --Ginkgo100talk 22:40, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
Now I know why Orangemarlin and Fill hold creationist with contempt-many are morally bankrupt and miss the whole point of Christianity! It is sad and gives all Christians a bad name. What's the ole saying: A few bad apples spoil the bunch. Seems applicable given he/she is just spamming with the bible the article, talk, and editors. Infantile isn't it?GetAgrippa 23:18, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
I thought I hid my contempt. I've been editing a few articles that have a lot of Creationists involved, many articles have reasonable discussions between reasonable people. What I never understood, and I continue to not understand, is that I cannot believe that a Wikipedia article has that much power--is Christianity going to fall because of this Evolution article? If it does, let's do something really good, like get the Orangemen to win the NCAA championships in Football (the real sport, not soccer), Basketball and Lacrosse all in one year. Orangemarlin 01:34, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
Actually I think you and Fill are exemplary of trying to follow NPOV and generally being fair despite having strong opinions and bias (like who doesn't). I think that is all any editor can do and the good editors have the NPOV mantra. There are some people who can't accept that concept. GetAgrippa 02:09, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
Or get other Orangemen to finally win the World Cup football. The real football, that is ;) AecisBrievenbus 01:40, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
Only one real Orangemen. Syracuse University. The Netherlands and soccer don't count.  ;) Orangemarlin 02:05, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
I try to be even handed, but I have too many war wounds from past battles with various "know nothings" and luddites. I can only take being cursed out by someone who claims to be speaking for God so many times, and then my patience sort of wears thin. And I guess it shows a bit. I agree. These are not what I personally regard as "Christians" at all, they just appropriated that name for themselves. They do not behave like Christians and they do not talk like Christians. It is very disappointing and they do give all religious people a bad name.--Filll 05:05, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
I do believe that most creationists would say the exact same thing about you: that you aren't a true "Christian", that you do not behave like a Christian, talk like one, etc., and that you have merely appropriated the term without truly accepting the messages of the Bible. I find it to be a peculiar characteristic of many religions that every denomination of that religion will claim that the other denominations aren't "really" members of that religion, because they disagree with the views or actions of those other groups. Although in many cases these criticisms may be perfectly valid, it introduces a very strange situation of mutual rejection: according to the orthodox, only the orthodox are practicing the "true faith", while according to the progressive, only the progressive are practicing the "true faith". In my view, all of this is nothing but rhetoric. What makes someone a "Christian"? Answer: If someone believes that he or she is following the teachings of Jesus Christ, then that person is a Christian. That seems like a straightforward enough definition, doesn't it? With such a definition, we can avoid these silly semantic disputes and get down to the real meat of the issue. What's actually being argued here isn't that one group or another isn't truly Christian, but rather that one group or another is behaving immorally. So just be direct and up-front about it and say that. Unfortunately, such a consistent and coherent definition is too easy for most religious people to accept; so instead of a Christian being someone who believes that he is following the teachings of Jesus Christ, a Christian is rather someone who actually is following the teachings of Jesus Christ. Which means that, since we can't be completely certain of what Jesus taught or didn't teach, absolutely anyone could fairly be called a "Christian", or a non-Christian, depending on one's personal opinion regarding what Jesus taught. This sort of definition is what leads to a lot of the lexical ambiguity in such discussions, and a lot of the fallacious reasoning (cf. no true Scotsman) and historical revisionism ("Hitler wasn't a Christian!"). The absurdity of such definitions is highlighted by the fact that, by such definitions, if Jesus himself appeared in the present day and taught something contrary to the views of various Christian denominations, those denominations would have to consider Jesus an anti-Christian. What's wrong with simply saying that you disagree with someone's views, and why? Trying to relabel them won't change anything. -Silence 05:44, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
People often use labels. Scientist do it , Christians do it, everyone does it. Actually Christianity is pretty explicit how people are to behave. I don't think Christ would care about evolution. He didn't speak about philosophy or social ills like slavery, etc., but encouraged people to submit to government and rules (even if your are a slave). He really didn't deal with earthly matters but always focused on spiritual matters (all his earthly miracles were to deal with spiritual matters). I agree when people say a true Christian or whatever that is suppose to qualify a particular view is correct. It is like saying a true scientist couldn't be a Christian. I tend to think that youths are responsible for these type vandalisms because it is so immature. I think a few bad apples do give a wrong impression-we see that with Islam. It seems human nature likes to label and gross objects together, and there are different perspectives in that regard. Speciation is that way-it can be a phenetic, biological, or an ecological perspective. There we go back on topic!GetAgrippa 12:35, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

<arbitrary indent> Of course, even the "immoral" label can also be gratuitously denied, since the Christian evangelists/creationists think they are being perfectly moral to try to force their views on others, to lie and cheat to get their way (I think there is even a great quote by none other than Martin Luther about how dishonesty is acceptable and even blessed or demanded when doing God's work or something). They will claim, even with bible verses, that a major tenet of their faith, maybe even the MAIN tenet of their faith and all Christians, above the Golden rule or anything in the ten commandments, is to proselytize, evangelize, convert others, etc. I just disagree with this position. And they think I am a blasphemer for disagreeing, and evil and cursed, and damned, and going to hell, and an atheist, or a satan worshipper, one of the devil's minions, etc. The reason I use the charge that they are not "real Christians" is basically to use the same charge that they throw around so lightly back at them (for example, the most common charge I hear is "Catholics are not Christians). I am being slightly tongue-in-cheek, but I have always been puzzled by this effort to relabel what they perceive as the enemy:

  • Anyone who does not believe in biblical literalism is the enemy
  • Jews are from the devil and worship Satan
  • The snake in the garden of eden was preaching evolution
  • If you believe in evolution you are an atheist
  • Muslims are all evolutionists; that is what makes them so evil
  • Hindus, Buddhists, Presbyterians, etc are all atheists

In fact, another funny thing I have noticed is they alternate between claiming that most people in the world are Christians and believe the same as they do, and claiming that they are a tiny persecuted group surrounded by hateful atheists that want to do bad things to them.--Filll 12:54, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Ehrm, are Christian evangelists/creationists allowed to defend themselves here perhaps, or should I just expect to be ignored under the assumption that whatever I say is likely some hypocritical lie? Homestarmy 14:20, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
Why not. I am an evangelical Christian/evolutionist. Of course I don't feel I have to defend anything as it is not about me,but writing an informative encyclopedia article. We shouldn't expect anyone to care about anyones POV as this is not a forum. I don't have a problem with creationism, except when I think they are being dishonest or give a poor example-like the repeated vandalisms yesterday of the article, talk, and editors. Some way to win friends and influence enemies. I tend to believe it was a young person-of course that is relative as everybody is getting to be younger than I. GetAgrippa 14:48, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
Well I didn't really expect that. Presumably as an evangelical Christian/evolutionist you believe in NOMA, a non-interventionist God and do not take the bible so literally. (Sorry for putting words into your mouth, but I'm genuinely curious!) I wonder if this view is properly represented? — Axel147 15:19, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
Well Agrippa, since the primary topic of debate concerns people like myself, (Which is sort of ironic, I always see people complaining about how Creationists or people objecting to Evolution bring up off-topic discussion on this talk page, yet now it seems the shoe is on the other foot) and it appears nobody objects heavily to Filll's sentiment, I think it's likely that anything I say has a high risk of being twisted in meaning to fit other people's pre-conceived notions that whatever I say must be false and incapable of being debated with, "since the Christian evangelists/creationists think they are being perfectly moral to try to force their views on others, to lie and cheat to get their way". I mean, I certainly wouldn't try some friendly debate with someone who thinks it is perfectly moral to lie and cheat to get their way, how could you possibly trust a person to hold a conversation without hiding important things? Homestarmy 15:40, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Homestarmy, you hit the nail right on the head, in my opinion. That is a central problem, at least in perception. I am a Christian, and taught Sunday School for years, but it really frosts me to have people lie to me when defending biblical literalism, and have them threaten and curse me for my religious upbringing, and then tell me I am an atheist and a satan worshipper etc, and tell me I am not allowed to disagree with them since they personally and solely speak for God. To disagree with them is to disagree with God. Well...I am not impressed.--Filll 15:47, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Neither am I from the sound of it, you ought to read some real fundamentalist evangelical things, you'd get to crush the preposterous attitudes of the people you seem to often come across, we'd hopefully get people out of the church who have no business calling themselves Christians, (or, even better, we'd get people who might reform themselves and really start acting like Christians), everyone wins :D. Homestarmy 16:41, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

OK, let me lay my cards on the table. As an atheist I must admit I'm baffled how Filll, GetAgrippa and others can be Christian evolutionists. It seems to me that knowledge obtained through evidence, deductive and inductive reasoning is the only objective way of knowing anything. The problem I have with faith — belief without evidence — is that there doesn't seem to be a good basis for distingishing between different points of view. It seems to me that many Christians are 'atheists' with regard to the existence of the devil, but why shouldn't they believe this? Central to Christian belief is the idea Jesus rose from the dead. Surely this question should be answered by consulting the evidence rather than (or in addition to) using scripture or revelation? — Axel147 17:04, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Axel, to understand typical religious psychology in modern society, it is important to understand that faith and reason, even if mutually exclusive in any one situation, are not mutually exclusive in any one person. The two can coexist in several ways. In this context, the most important way the two can coexist is through compartmentalization: the mind switches back and forth between a "faith-based" setting for religious matters, and a "reason-based" setting for most other matters. This is comparable to how someone could be both an artist and a logician, even though very different modes of thought are needed for creative expression and for logical deduction. You simply apply the one or the other mode of thought where appropriate. So, just because a person adheres to an irrational belief in one aspect of their life, in no way implies that that person is irrational, unintelligent, or in any way non-commonsensical in every other aspect of their life.
The patch of faith can be viewed as a "blind spot" in the otherwise-complete view of reason, often resulting from the influence of childhood indoctrination that places a strong emotional weight on continuing to adhere to that belief. This compartmentalized state is what makes it possible for the religious to function in society or the world at all; even the most devout spiritualist is a thorough empiricist when it comes to simple, secular day-to-day activities like drinking coffee and walking down the street. It is a testament to the power and complexity of the human mind that these two modes of thought can coexist without unduly interfering with each other in most situations.
It is true that there is no reliable method for determining true "faith-based" propositions from false ones. However, sensible religious people realize that that's because the real function of religious faith is not to ascertain the "truth", in any sort of objective, empirical, rational sense; rather, it's to provide emotional/spiritual support, a sense of peace and purpose, etc. In that sense, the "art" analogy is appropriate: there is no way to use the artistic mode of thought to ascertain true propositions from false ones, yet art is valuable and important to most humans. It is simply a category error to try to use religion, or art, to learn the truth (in any but a loose or metaphorical sense; art and religion, at their best, can tell us deep "truths" about human nature, but only in the sense of resonant, touching messages, not reliable factual information). The error, thus, is in misapplying one domain of knowledge (faith and religion, which apply to spirituality) to phenomena which properly belong in the other domain (empiricism and rationality, which apply to the natural world).
Of course, with all that in mind, the problem of reconciling faith and reason isn't an easy one for most religious people. The religious are always trying to find ways to justify what they've taken up on faith through reasoning. People want their religion to be a science, not an art, and that's where problems tend to arise. All people engage in this kind of after-the-fact justification for what they originally believed without good reason, if at all possible. The most powerful examples of this kind of reconciliation is the religious person who is deluded into believing that their faith is a necessary consequence of reason; this sort of conclusion is the one that fuels many of the most passionate and zealous evangelicals, including many creationists. For example, prominent Christian apologist and creationist Alvin Plantinga views atheism as irrational because he views theism as a necessary rational consequence of the apparent design in the universe. Thus, the various arguments for the existence of God, though rather weak from a more neutral standpoint (e.g., the appeals to Scripture of popular works like The Case for Christ), serve for many of the more "intellectual" theists a very valuable psychological function, by allowing them to "unify" the otherwise-distinct realms of faith and reason. -Silence 17:36, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
Yes, because as we all know, there's no way any sort of belief system could have any logical validity whatsoever in and of itself, and surely any approach to faith which doesn't admit that it can't be practical for application in the natural world is just a waste of time. I mean, who needs to ever search for something like the truth anyway, it's not like anyone cares, am I right? (Err, if Wikipedia had that rolling eyes emoticon, this is where i'd put it) Homestarmy 18:03, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
I had to go open my big mouth and breach the subject of faith. My apologizes. I was frustrated with creationist vandalism and trying to appeal to creationist that beliefs are like the stars seemingly countless. I probably have misrepresented myself as evangelical. I attend an evangelical church but I am not much on proselytizing. I am big on missions! South America, Africa, Indian, China, and Russia spreading good will, offering education, health services, building infrastructure for foster homes, etc. for poor and isolated areas. I like actually doing some good in the world. The Gospel is presented but it is usually minimal for obvious reasons in many areas. As far as my own beliefs, I have been a scientist, educator, and researcher long before my conversion in my late forties, so I doubt anyone could offer any opinions that I haven't shared myself (no offense). I wasn't suddenly struck dumb or became less productive. I found one editors take on faith interesting. He said he didn't believe in God or religion, but he didn't call himself an atheist either. He believed in the metaphor of God in spirituality in an evolutionary sense. He referred to a Wikipedia article (which I can't remember the name) that spoke of spirituality and seeking "God" were biologically ingrained behaviors from evolution. The belief in belief is real enough to produce the effect, which is often altruism, martyrdom, isolating or expanding groups, etc. Now we are talking about evolution again. Back on track! My apologizes again for getting off topic. GetAgrippa 18:05, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
I was only trying to get you to explain your beliefs at bit more. No offense was intended. But with the kind a belief above we have a different problem: that people are using the word God in really very different ways. — Axel147 18:13, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
I am not offended. I share your curiosity about peoples beliefs also. I don't criticize your assessment and in fact agree in part. I feel the same about some of Richard Dawkins comments. I see where the thinking is coming from. I just don't think this is a forum to discuss it, although I agree it is a worthy topic. I have a friend who is convinced of his miracle cure from cancer is from God. Another told me he audibly hears God. I told him I think one in three people hear voices or something like that. I really don't care for Hamas, but I applaud their humanitarian efforts to offer services for the poor and needy. Life is full of paradox. GetAgrippa 18:39, 6 February 2007 (UTC)


Yes, but it seems that when the mind is on the "faith-based" setting the reason isn't completely turned off. If that were the case they could have faith in God for the purpose of emotional/spiritual support without needing believe in the truth of his existence. But the residual rationality seems to be saying that God must exist in order to receive the spiritual support. Presumably when people come out of their state of "suspended rationality" they must concede in this setting that God does not exist if forced to face up to the question. Given all of this is it a fair representation of their position to say they believe in God? You almost seem to be saying that whether God exists is not a religious question: that would be making a category error. That Christians do not need to believe in the truth of God's existence: only to have faith in his power to provide emotional support? — Axel147 18:06, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
"Does God exist?" is a religious question in the sense that it is a question that deals with religious issues; it is not a religious question in the sense that it is a question that any religion can securely answer. Faith cannot answer questions about the world, cannot explain phenomena, because faith is dependent upon personal conviction, not upon reason or evidence. In saying that it is an error to try to explain the world using faith or religion, I am not saying that religions don't try to do this, but rather that they shouldn't try to do this (if they want to avoid affronting religion, by sacrificing it for reason, or affronting reason, by sacrificing it for religion), for the same reason that an artist shouldn't rely on his creative impulse or intuition to understand sunspots or butterfly migration patterns. Art and religion are profoundly ineffective in such areas, because how an idea makes you feel has no bearing on whether that idea is true or real. It's true that most people have a difficult time "turning off" their tendency to view religion in explanatory, rather than aesthetic, terms, but that's more a result of force of habit than of anything inherent to religion. It's the legacy of a time when some religious teachings were the best explanation available for many phenomena; now that those days are done, religion must be reframed as a non-explanatory domain or it will perish (and cause much suffering in the process). "Faith in God" should be understood as a sometimes-useful thought construct, not a metaphysical reality. -Silence 20:23, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

<arbitrary indent reduction>Let me try to explain myself a bit more. I guess I am just slightly to the deist side of agnosticism. I am unconvinced about a personal God, but I would like there to be one. I am afraid I have to admit that the evidence is very poor if not nonexistant on that score. I would like there to be an afterlife etc, and again I have to say that the evidence is not great. I would however really LIKE there to be an afterlife. I am hopeful let's say, but not convinced. I do have the same feelings of respect for creation and nature's order that Einstein did, if you ever read any of his religious thoughts. And not too different from Arianist Sir Isaac Newton. Or from Blaise Pascal. Or Thomas Jefferson or Benjamin Franklin or any number of others. I was brought up in a religious tradition that completely rejected biblical literalism, which strikes me as the most unfounded nonsense I could ever imagine. I think the bible is a very interesting text and I like to study it and learn about it. I like to take bible classes and go to bible study to learn about the bible and its history, which is absolutely fascinating. However, I also enjoy visiting other faiths, like going to lectures by our local Imam about Islam and classes at the Reform Temple on Judaism (my sister converted and my nieces are being raised Jewish). I like learning about Hinduism and Buddhism and visiting the Catholic Franciscan monastery near me to visit with the Brothers, who are a pretty great bunch of guys. I went to an Oblate college for a few months and I also got along pretty well with the Oblates. I read about all kinds of religions and at some point, I might even be sufficiently motivated to write a book or two about religions and deism and science etc. Where does my belief come from? I basically choose to believe because it is more comfortable for me (possibly because of my upbringing). I have no PROOF that God exists, but I have no proof that a God does not exist either. Is it irrational to believe in God then? Possibly, but I do not believe it hurts me to choose to believe that a God exists. And I like it. Just because I am trained as a scientist does not mean I do not have plenty of irrational quirks; I dress strangely, I have sported some strange haircuts, I have some unusual habits and an offbeat sense of humor, and lots of other peculiarities. Are these all rational? Nope, and I know they are not, but they give me a certain amount of comfort and pleasure, so I continue them. I have worked my entire career with atheists and agnostics, and I have never had any trouble with them professionally. Some of the most moral people I have ever encountered are atheists. It does make me somewhat uncomfortable to listen to Dawkins, but I do not find any huge flaws in his logic. I am sure he would be a great guy to hang out with and we probably wouldnt disagree about many things. But his brand of atheism is just not for me, at least right now. I do not see much to be gained by it. I was also brought up in a tolerant religious tradition, so to encounter intolerance really grates on me. At least my image of Jesus (if he existed) is that he also would have been far more tolerant than most of what I see among aggressive fundamentalist and evangelical "Christians". For example on gay rights; is there any doubt about which way Jesus would come down on that issue? To me there sure is not. On all these ludicrous fights about creationism and evolution? I am sure he would just dismiss it as pointless (remember, render unto Caeser that which is Caeser's etc). On acceptance of Muslims or Jews or Hindus? Again, no question, at least to me. The ONLY people he seemed to have a problem with were Pharisees, and money changers in the temple. Both of which are pretty much a caricature of our current biblical literalist, biblical inerrancy-espousing, evangelical fundamentalist right wing dominionist "Christians". So I apologize for clogging up the page with this slightly irrelevant response, but I was asked...--Filll 19:37, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Jesus said "Let the children [meaning Jews] be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs" calling non-Jews "dogs".[4] Maybe if Jesus were alive today he would be just another nut who thinks he knows the mind of God better than anyone else and the end of the world will come "in this generation" (a false prophesy of his). WAS 4.250 20:20, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
Actually I enjoyed reading Homestarmys, Axels, Silences, and Fills comments. It is a topic of interest and a good discussion, but it is off topic. So much for my powers of reasoning, I figured Fill to be an atheist. Maybe I'm an idiot savant, O.K. just an idiot. Back to one of my favorite interest-evilution. Hee, hee, hee. GetAgrippa 20:06, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
Uhoh Agrippa, might want to watch out, Filll's already gone over with me about how us craaazy fundamentalists are the ones who assume that skeptics are always athists :D. Homestarmy 20:09, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
I am a skeptic by nature. I don't dismiss the powers of logic and reasoning, but it has taken us a long time to get where we are. Have you ever read any of JP Ionnidis's research using meta-analysis and examing bias in medical research and clinical studies? One paper stated something like 70% of medical research proved insignificant or false (I think that was it.) in a ten year study. I am not picking on medical researchers. He also examines molecular evolution and deviations from Hardy-Weinberg and genetic disease. Interesting reading. Meta-analysis is an interesting subject in its own regard. One way the other I am going to get back to evolution. Devious aren't I.GetAgrippa 20:37, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
I am an atheist (raised Jewish), and I, too, would like there to be an afterlife, or at least a longer life, and perhaps even a God (as long as it was a good God; most Gods I've seen have not been very nice people). The only reason I don't is because I would not be satisfied with believing in something out of wishful thinking; I draw a sharp distinction between "things I wish were true" and "things that seem likely to be true", even in religious areas (where many people allow this otherwise-sharp distinction to be blurred). I don't think it is unreasonable to wish that there were an afterlife (though I have heard some very strong arguments for life being all the more precious for its transience; if we had immortality, what would be the point of doing anything with our lives?). And, although I think there is a certain aspect of transferred childish dependence in theism, I don't see it as altogether unreasonable to wish there were someone watching over us, either; it's a comforting idea for many people, because it helps reassure us that the universe isn't apathetic, that it isn't totally inhuman and alien. It's probably not the truth, but truth isn't the most important thing in life.
"I have no PROOF that God exists, but I have no proof that a God does not exist either." - The problem with this argument is that it lends itself so easily to reductio. You have no proof that unicorns exist, yet you don't believe in unicorns; what makes it less reasonable to believe in unicorns than in God? Nothing, really. You are correct, and refreshingly honest, in noting that you believe in God because you find it comforting to do so; the "it's not disproven!" argument, you surely are aware, is a silly one, because no a posteriori claim can ever be proven or disproven.
"Possibly, but I do not believe it hurts me to choose to believe that a God exists." - I do not believe so either. However, I believe that some religious beliefs can, and do, hurt people. What makes the difference is what sort of God you believe in; there are dramatic differences between different conceptions of God.
"Just because I am trained as a scientist does not mean I do not have plenty of irrational quirks" - I agree with this entirely. I consider myself a very rational person, but I have a strong appreciation for irrationality, in the right contexts; madness can be a delicious spice. Indeed, this view of mine is part of the reason why I find belief in God superfluous: most people who believe in God find it intolerable to think that the universe might be arbitrary, might not have a fundamentally rational basis, might not be part of some grand, cosmic machine working toward some mysterious end. But I don't find it all that comforting to think of my self as a cog in God's machine. I prefer to view life as an arbitrary and purposeless, but beautiful, work of art—one without an artist. Life's value is not dependent upon whether life leads to good ends; life, rather, is valuable in itself, and the purpose of life is life. Once one is able to truly appreciate the artistic splendor of a transient, unique, and purposeless universe, there is no longer any need to depend on a God to give one's life meaning; one can give life meaning, and a much more personal and true-to-oneself meaning, all on one's own.
"For example on gay rights; is there any doubt about which way Jesus would come down on that issue?" - Yes, there is. Most people who lived in the time and place of Jesus were homophobic, and nothing Jesus said specifically and explicitly rules out the possibility that he was intolerant of homosexuals. Indeed, there is good reason to conclude from his silence on the matter that he was intolerant, since he didn't take the time to explicitly contradict the Old Testament's teachings on this matter, and he praised the OT a number of times. It is wishful thinking, and a form of (in many cases literal!) hero worship, to suppose that Jesus must have had the "right" view on every issue. And this is actually a dangerous view to have, because it means that if we ever found out what Jesus "really" thought about some things, we would be forced to conclude that whatever Jesus thought was right, even if he had, say, racist or misogynistic views. It is safer to say that Jesus was right on a lot of things, but wrong on some things, since that allows us to accept the good teachings while tossing the rest. Don't ask, "What would Jesus do?"; ask "What should Jesus do?".
"On all these ludicrous fights about creationism and evolution? I am sure he would just dismiss it as pointless (remember, render unto Caeser that which is Caeser's etc)." - Perhaps; perhaps not. Here I agree with you that it is likely that he would find this dispute silly and pointless (because there is no indication that Jesus was a literalist; indeed, he clearly had an enormous appreciation for allegory and parables, and his often-enigmatic teachings suggest that he had little interest in speaking literally himself). However, we can't be certain of that because he doesn't weigh in on the matter; the "render unto Caesar" quote does not apply here, because he was talking about the conflict between God and state, not about the conflict between science and religion.
"On acceptance of Muslims or Jews or Hindus? Again, no question, at least to me." - That depends on what you mean by "acceptance". I think it's safe to say that Jesus would accept the Jews, because Jesus was a Jew, not a Christian; if anything, it's more likely that he would reject Christianity than that he would reject Judaism, since most of Christianity is probably not based on what he taught. However, it is not as easy to say whether Jesus would "accept" Muslims and Hindus, especially if those Muslims and Hindus (and the Hindus in particular, since Jesus might not see a terribly sharp distinction between Islam and Judaism) didn't convert. There's nothing specific in the Bible that clearly confirms or denies one view or another, so it's largely a matter of interpretation of Jesus' doctrines and character. -Silence 20:23, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
I agree these are things we definitely cannot know. And I might be extrapolating a bit. However, he did allegedly hang around with convicted criminals and the poor and thieves and hookers and tax collectors (who operated on a commission basis, and were widely loathed) and dared to talk about Samaritans as good (another group widely loathed at the time). So I am fairly sure he would be accepting, but this is of course pure speculation and extrapolation. And I suspect Jesus would not be particularly worried about what flavor of religion someone had (which was the problem with the Pharisees, who were completely obsessed with such things). The Caeser comment was about the relationship with the state, if you take it literally. However, again my pure conjecture is that he would be closer to subscribing to the Non-overlapping magisterium camp than many others. The reason I do not choose to believe unicorns exist, in spite of having no interest that they do, is that it gives me no comfort to believe that they do. Otherwise, I might decide that it would not hurt anything to believe in unicorns as well. Same thing with UFOs or the Loch Ness Monster or Ghosts or devils or astrology or anything else on a huge list of crap. --Filll 20:53, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
Well maybe you find no comfort in the belief that unicorns exist. But what if I find confort in the belief that homosexuals are evil? Maybe the belief that the world would be a better place without Hindus gives me satisfaction? Or that the best way to find out who murdered my brother is to consult a psychic? I suppose I am free to believe what I like. Maybe the problem only comes if I act on it! (Of course it goes without saying I don't really believe those things!) — Axel147 22:56, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
You might very well find comfort in all those things; other people do. The main problem I see arising is when beliefs start to impose on other people, break laws, lead to intolerance etc. As I have said many times, I advocate tolerance of all except for intolerance. As the famous quote goes, "The right to swing my fist ends where the other man's nose begins." (Oliver Wendell Holmes). The other difficulty which can ensue, which is admittedly not as serious, is that by believing in ridiculous things, one is not engaged in more productive beliefs, and this in itself can damage a society that is interdependent and a democracy, etc. So it might be my right to spend money on psychics. However, if enough people do it, it detracts from real law enforcement and criminal investigation because it is so widespread. And that will end up harming the whole of society, and thus effect others indirectly.--Filll 23:17, 6 February 2007 (UTC)


O.K. we have solved the worlds ills and weighed in our beliefs (at least to some extent). Let's just hope no one holds grudges for any set of beliefs. I sometimes think some people like to belittle or analyze other beliefs to justify their own sense of being right (that is not an accusation here by the way).I am interested in science's take on faith-the belief in belief, which is a growing body of literature. I was reading that psychiatrist are now encouraged to study faiths for their medical practice and some schools are including it in their programs. I remember reading Joe Campbell's Power of Myth with fascination. We may not agree with any particular belief, but it is difficult to dismiss the power of belief. The prevalence of faiths is also interesting in an anthropological sense. Anthropology-evolution. Back on track. GetAgrippa 20:54, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

<arbitrary indent reduction>If I can be permitted, I do think that there is a lot to be said for biological connections of various religious ideas and religious behaviors. Perhaps there was some evolutionary advantage conferred by wiring the brain to be predisposed to religious beliefs (which certainly appear to be close to universal in all autochthonous cultures and societies, even those widely separated), as there also seems to be in the widespread herd instinct or tribal tendencies. I wonder how far glossolalia from Tourette's Syndrome, biologically. And I keep hearing snippits of information about various transcranial magnetic stimulation experiments evoking religious awe, or other strange effects. What is fascinating to me is that apparently the levels of current induced in the brain are minimalUnfortunately, some of these reports do not appear to be repeatable or well substantiated, but it is still intriguing none-the-less..--Filll 21:18, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Absolutely Fill. Modern man has been using logic and reason for 200,000 years and see how long it has taken us to advance to this stage producing both religions and science. It is fair to say that both have probably been wrong in various circumstance. Observation and evidence (or lack of evidence) lead people to generate religions and science. Our perception of the universe maybe valid in human thought but have nothing to do with truth or reality. Logic and reason designed antidepressant drugs which modulate neurotransmitters alleviating the symptoms of depression, however evidence indicates that neurogenesis in the hippocampus may be the real mechanism (and also addressing the dogma that CNS neurons don't regenerate is incorrect after decades of evidence to the contrary). Even a blind squirrel will find an acorn every once in a while. That is how I see man:intuition and trial and error. I don't see much sign of intelligent life on earth. Just look at the fine mess we find ourselves presently-no sign of logic or reason or intelligence. Religions may drive the fervor to kill each other but science has given us the weapons to kill everything. Maybe extinction is a biological and evolutionary necessity (just like apoptosis is in development and homeostasis). Probably the evolution of religion and science has served some purpose, despite the perceived dichotomy. GetAgrippa 16:22, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

What a fascinating and civil discussion. Given the heading, perhaps it's significant that when the Vandals sacked Rome, they apparently belonged to a Christian denomination. Beware of projecting modern perceptions onto the past – Megalithic remains show evidence of collective scientific work, whether they demonstrate religion is more hypothetical. From a Darwinist viewpoint, the start of The Origin of Species points to understanding God's word through God's works: the problem then is theological, whether to see literal contradictions as defeating God or as pointing to deficiencies in our understanding of God's word. Which seems to be the real battleground in the Christian US, between Creationism and theistic evolution....... dave souza, talk 09:25, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

What a beautiful discussion between opposite viewpoints on Evolution. I would love to have this discussion printed somewhere, because it was absolutely engaging, thoughtful and considerate. I may not agree with some of what was written, but I gained more understanding of the "other side" than I have in months of reading what was written here. I hope this discussion is never archived, but sits at the top of this page forever. Orangemarlin 18:12, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Current top priority for improvement: Basic processes

In my view, the #1 priority for bringing this article up to FA quality should currently be to improve the clarity and informativeness of Evolution#Basic processes. This is currently the most convoluted, uninformative portion of the article (particularly near the top), failing to provide proper context, clear explanations of terms, or, in some cases, even understandable sentence structure. Now that the lead section is more or less stable, we should focus all our efforts on making the "Basic processes" sections just as clear as the lead section is; the fact that we will be dealing with more complex topics than are covered in the lead section is not an excuse to leave important concepts ambiguous. -Silence 05:36, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

You are right Silence, the section is in need. Shouldn't Basic Processes be an intro for the sections below to introduce the details? GetAgrippa 12:40, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

To an extent, sure, though we should keep it to a minimum for the sake of brevity, and to space out the difficult concepts a bit. The below sections should introduce their own details. However, I think we should treat the first section in "Basic processes" as though it were a sort of "second lead section", a bit more technical and involved than the first, but up to the exact same standards of quality, clarity, conciseness, etc. I am concerned that sections of the article below the lead are being disregarded, and this is especially apparent in the dramatic difference in quality between the lead section and the paragraph immediately following it. A little expansion, clarification, and polishing of the beginning of "Basic processes" can work wonders for the comprehensibility and quality of the article as a whole. -Silence 16:47, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
The way the outline reads it looks like Basic processes is Basic processes of genetic variation and the subsections more detail. Should it really be Basic processes of evolution which will include means of variation and processes that influence the outcome of variation (nat sel, genetic drift, gene flow)? Is that what you are suggesting that it be a second lead section with more detail of the processes of evolution? GetAgrippa 19:19, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

The DNA Animation

I think the rotating DNA animation is too large to include directly in an article. (1 MiB) Aside from potentially annoying dial-up users, some web browsers have difficulty displaying animations that large. Perhaps it would be better to use a static image. The animated version could be linked to instead. ManaUser 00:48, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

This was already discussed at Talk:Evolution/Archive_27#3-D_DNA_Molecule. For some reason the change was never made. -Silence 02:23, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
Well, then unless anyone objects, I'll go ahead and do that. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by ManaUser (talk • contribs) 03:27, 9 February 2007 (UTC).

Anyone want to help save this as a Featured Article?

Would there be support on this Talk page for making extensive changes to save the FA status? See the complete set of reviewer comments at [5]. In particular see a list of 25 numbered comments from User:Silence (scroll about half way down that page). Since he has given the most thorough comments, and he is now voting to have FA status removed, I believe that only drastic action will avert the inevitable. Here's his summary:

Remove unless dramatic improvements ensue. I can only do so much; the incredibly confusing mess of various parts of the "processes" and "mechanisms" sections will require a substantial rewrite by knowledgeable folk in order to be of any use to readers; there's nothing wrong with using complex concepts and important technical terms, but the article's frequent failure to keep its readership in mind and coherently explain these things, as well as poor writing quality in a number of paragraphs and inconsistency in references, makes the current article unfit to be an FA. Hopefully, if efforts aren't rallied beforehand, they will become more focused as a result of the demanding pressures of the FAC and peer-review process. -Silence 06:25, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Regrettably, Talk:Evolution seems to have practically no comments about the FA issue in the last three weeks. If I attempt to re-do the 'Basic processes' and 'mechanisms' sections to meet Silence's objection, will I get support on this Talk page? Also, does anyone want to help deal with the more mechanical items in Silence's list of 25 points to fix? Please respond, one way or another. EdJohnston 16:55, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

I was unaware of the list.Thanks for the info. The article is rather piece meal. It has also changed recently. Little useful discussion and activity has ensued since (I'm guilty and I apologize for any mental masturbation). I support constructive change and promise not to digress into bullhockey land. I haven't been very constructive lately, but I am also still finding my way around this Wiki. I applaud the methodical approach. Silence did a methodical useful critique. I thank him also. Wow, after reading all the discussion I see what is expected.GetAgrippa 17:42, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

One of Silence's suggestions is to shorten the Evidence of Evolution section. Should that encompass just a paragraph like the intro and exclude the developing sections, or include and shorten the subsequent sections. It seems with the linked article that a simple paragraph would suffice? Any opinions? GetAgrippa 18:29, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

I don't think that shortening "Evidence of evolution" to only one paragraph in length is necessary; that would make it difficult to adequately cover important topics like the fossil record and homology. In my view, the minimum length for that section is about 3-4 paragraphs; the maximum length is about 2-3 paragraphs shorter than current. Whether we lean more towards the minimum or the maximum depends on how much information we feel warrants inclusion here. -Silence 20:19, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

A suggestion to increase the History section was advised to 3-5 paragraphs. That seems a simple request. I wonder should the Social and religious controversy be a subsection of the history section? The misunderstandings section has also been proposed to be eliminated and deal with the points as needed in the text. I think many editors maybe resistant but I think it would shorten the article and allow room for more pertinent information to be included. GetAgrippa 19:28, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Moving "social and religious controversy" to "history" is an interesting idea. The main argument I can see against it is that "history of evolutionary thought", like the rest of this article, deals with evolutionary science (and specifically biology), not with the general populace's views; keeping the "social and religious controversy" at the end of the article helps keep the division clear. Plus "history" is currently a subsection of "study of evolution". Incidentally, whether or not we remove the "Misunderstandings" section here, we should also consider deleting or merging the Misunderstandings about evolution offshoot daughter article, which has the same POV problems as the article section plus dozens more problems besides. -Silence 20:19, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
I was thinking of a slight reorganization to include science and social issue to try and shorten, but I agree given its present organization it doesn't fit and the need to make that clear division at the end is appropriate as the topic is an aside issue. The Misunderstandings article is a shambles do you merge or just take the subject contents and reorganize into present text? GetAgrippa 20:46, 7 February 2007 (UTC)


I'd agree with you that Evidence of Evolution should be shortened. It seems to me that many of these topics are 'icing on the cake' and they could easily be located as far as two clicks away from the main Evolution article. They are not part of the minimal coherent narrative of evolution. On the other hand, I see where Silence (in #18) asks for the History of Evolution section to be lengthened. I agree with his thinking. It is most important to tell the 'core story' of evolution which (I'd argue) is handled by including (a) Darwin (b) Mendel (c) Fisher-Haldane-Wright, which only goes to about 1935. While DNA is important, people found the theory of evolution convincing before the double helix was discovered.
Personally, I don't have a problem with having a separate section for Social and Religious Controversy. (It helps make the article interesting). I do suggest that the 'Misunderstandings' section should be dropped, at least until we get through the FA review. I think it's just too hard to rescue it and make it NPOV in the time available. I'd also claim it contains a lot of 'icing on the cake' facts that don't need to be included in the main article.
There have also been a number of comments about 'See Also' and 'External Links' sections being too large. Do you have any ideas for shortening those?EdJohnston 19:49, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
I haven't examined the See also and External links yet. I do think we can eliminate much of the Misunderstandings by directly addressing in parts of text. Like the complexity and deevolution coudl be addressed in Selection and Adaption like: evolution does not generate purposeful or perfect structures nor is there a direction towards complexity. State it better of course. The species issues is dealt with by examples in the section, but perhaps an illustration of insect (butterfly), plant (sunflowers), or fish (cichlid or stickleback) speciation would be useful. The fact and theory issue could be explained in the text somewhere-Intro? History? GetAgrippa 19:59, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
There are numerous ways to shorten external links sections. We can move links to daughter articles where they deal with only a specific aspect of evolution; we can turn them into references if they substantiate anything in the article body; we can simply remove any that aren't noteworthy or helpful enough to merit inclusion; etc. For example, "Top Ten Myths" and "Talk.Origins Archive" could be moved to Misunderstandings about evolution, "Timeline of evolutionary thought" could be moved to History of evolutionary thought, "Becoming human" could be moved to Human evolution, some of the simulators could be delisted or moved, etc.
Regarding the "see also" section, I think the best option would be to simply delete that section altogether. I explained my rationale for this on the FAR page: such a section is inappropriate for a top-level, major article like this and will only continue to accumulate trivia. Any of the links in the "See also" section that are highly noteworthy should already be linked elsewhere in the article, such as in the many evolution templates and in the article body; any of the links that aren't highly noteworthy don't deserve mentioning on the top-level article anyway, and should be saved for daughters. So, everything on the list will be either trivial or redundant; we should go over each item, decide which is which, and incorporate the former into the article prose where appropriate (if they aren't linked already), and remove the others. It'll save us a lot of trouble in the long run, and discourage both trivia-bloat and not explaining important terms like experimental evolution in-context.
Also, I agree with GetAgrippa that the best way to address misunderstandings is to deal with them throughout the article text, rather than grouping them all together at the end. Misunderstandings of speciation, for example, can go under the "speciation" section; etc. Although this is no longer nearly as necessary as it was for many of the past versions of this section (which were sprawling and dealt in too much detail with many overspecific topics that were covered elsewhere), it remains something to consider. -Silence 20:19, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
I personally can see a number of external links could be easily removed as they seem redundant. There are a lot of ways to describe a rose, but a rose is a rose. Well I hope the present move will generate some opinions on how to proceed. I would hate to see the article falter and I believe it can be excellent. GetAgrippa 20:33, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
I disagree with the removal of the See Also links, I found them to be very helpful, linked me to many interesting articles I may not have found otherwise. Dionyseus 22:06, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
Well, I suppose this section should be titled 'get ready to go through FAC again'. I wish I'd had more time for this article, but so it goes. When the FAR first popped up, I trimmed the worst of the external links, but never did anything about those that have reasonable content but are just redundant. We should probably choose the best/most reliable of what remains and toss the rest (or link to a DMOZ category? do people still do that?). Not sure why we need four simulators either. I agree with Dionyseus that I like a well-chosen set of see also links, though in FAC/FAR terms I seem to be an extreme minority.
More generally, I like the idea of dispersing the misunderstandings section, which is justifiable as a separate heading only if you assume that refuting creationists is a primary goal of the article. I'm not sure I'm convinced the history section needs to be much longer - we have daughter articles for that - and the article length is already an issue. Ed, I think a rewrite of basic processes would be great if you want to tackle it, though I'm not sure I agree with the criticism that the current section is somehow hard to understand. Awkwardly organized and illustrated, yes. Opabinia regalis 01:31, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
The argument that the see also link is important because the articles it links to are "interesting" is a very weak one. What matters isn't whether the links are interesting, but whether they're necessary for an understanding of biological evolution; if they aren't, then they should be linked from daughter articles. The "it should be included if it's interesting" argument is weak simply because one could use it to justify including completely irrelevant and unnecessary pages in the "see also" section; no matter how fascinating a page is, if it isn't integral to evolution, we should save it for elsewhere. The main reason I see the "see also" section as superfluous, however, is because we essentially already have two "see also" lists imbedded elsewhere in the article: we have an "evolution" series template at the very top of the article, and we have a "topics in evolutionary biology" template at the very bottom, both in a "see also"-style format. This makes it redundant to also include a "see also" section outside of the templates. If something is important enough to merit such out-of-context mentioning in this article, it should simply be added to one or the other template, or both. That way we avoid redundancies and inconsistencies, and keep the information centralized and organized.
The argument that the history section doesn't need to be any longer simply because it has a daughter article is also a weak one, because we have a daughter article for almost every topic covered on Evolution, yet most of the others are given 5 or more times as much coverage as "history" is, despite how essential the history of evolutionary thought is to understanding evolutionary biology and its context. Featured Articles can have daughter articles to cover various topics in more depth, sure, but having such an article doesn't take away the FA requirement of "comprehensiveness"! FAs, and all articles on Wikipedia, are required and expected to be self-sufficient: they should not depend on other articles to be meaningful. This is why we are both expected to provide sufficient context for topics (even if that context is already explained in a parent article), and to provide an adequate explanation for important facts and concepts that are discussed (even if they're explained in more detail in a daughter article). The concept of daughter articles is that bonus information is included in them; information that is integral to the parent article is not removed just because there's a daughter article. At most, it's shortened and summarized. It is simply mistaken to assume that when a daughter article is created for a certain section, that section no longer needs to provide a thorough or useful understanding of the topic; any good FA must have full-fledged sections, not vestigial stubs, even where daughter articles exist on the same topic. Charles Darwin is an excellent example of this: despite its enormous number of daughter articles, the article does a better job than Evolution of providing a comprehensive yet concise overview of Darwin's life, because it understands the importance of adequately explaining topics even when they're covered in more depth in a daughter article. -Silence 03:51, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
To be fair, "Charles Darwin" is a much easier topic to summarize in one article than "evolution". With biographies, you get a narrative structure for free. I actually think you're right on the templates vs see also links. I didn't think of them because I never look at those anymore; so many of them are crammed full of entirely tangential stuff. Opabinia regalis 05:58, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
Well, I wasn't providing Charles Darwin as an example of an article with the same narrative structure as Evolution, I was providing it as an example of a high-quality article that is lengthy and doesn't have any stubby sections (like our history section) despite having a plurality of daughter articles. I'm aware that it's a much more difficult and tricky task to summarize a topic like "evolution"; my only point was that articles are expected to be comprehensive and self-contained regardless of their daughter article situation. -Silence 06:12, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Ever notice

How Mendel sort of looks like Dawkins?--Filll 20:44, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

See Also section removed (except for category pointers)

I went ahead and removed the entries from the See Also section, since that was frequently named as an issue by the FA reviewers. If the change gets reverted, it may be time for me to give up on this article.

But while we're discussing FA, note that the current article is at 65 Kb, and some FA reviewers felt that 40 Kb was the maximum they could deal with. How do others feel about 40 Kb as a goal? Since (above) I have specified some sections that I'd ruthlessly shorten, I believe this goal could be met, if other editors believe that's the right thing to do. Please respond on the issue whether you'd be happy with a 40 Kb article. EdJohnston 22:22, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

I disagree with the removal of the See Also links, I found them to be very helpful, linked me to many interesting articles I may not have found otherwise. I also would not like to see the article be shortened, if this means that the article would never regain FA status, then so be it. Dionyseus 23:00, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
Do you feel that the current article is tight and well-written? It is surely falling behind the standard set in other areas of Wikipedia. It's just a big lump of random interesting biology at the moment. Is that what you want? EdJohnston 23:03, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
It's recently proved acceptable for a 98 kb article to achieve FA status, though quite a lot of that was citations. .. dave souza, talk 23:34, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
Which article was that? EdJohnston 23:53, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
Ironically, Charles Darwin. -Silence 05:10, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

FA removed

Well, I will be blunt here. I joined in the editing of this article to improve it (naturally) during a time when it seemed to be having one of it's knee-jerks against creationism.

I started with the intro which was inaccessible to the layman and tried to get some handle on the structure (most of which was non-scientific and aimed at defending the article from creationists).

Despite some serious efforts, I found a great deal of reluctance by many people to entertain the idea of writing a scientific article than being apologists to creationism under some misguided PoV stance.

When I actually thought we had the article moving suddenly its FA status was up for question and then there seemed to be a great deal of uninformed and non-consultative editing going on. In my opinion, during this time the editors have caused a serious detriment to this article. On a good day I would refer to this like a group of headless chickens running around. In private I have far more disparaging remarks.

I find personal offense at being told to stop editing as X is more able/has more experience/is more likely to .. and we can always revert. This is a total nonsense. It is foolish to believe that one person acting on their own can improve an article. It is stupid in the extreme to think that by making a checklist which needs to be crossed off will encourage people to work to improve an article without consultation and discussion.

Perhaps I feel agitated because I feel discussion was cut off in late December. I certainly feel that there was a saviour mentality running through the editors at the time and that FA status would be rescued because of one or maybe two individuals. Perhaps I feel agitated because the editors really didn't bother to think outside the box and get into editing. I'm not sure what happened here but I know I was disenfranchised and I also know I was rebuked and pushed to one side. I don't do this for appreciation - I have plenty of that in RL but I expect communication and some response. I will come back to this article to improve it now it has lost FA status. To be truthful I don't care about it's FA status - I want it to be comprehensible, coherent and comprehensive. If it reads well, is accessible and has scientific depth that will be fine for me. Anyone else that tells me that people can't understand the word extant while seemingly expected to undersatnd extinct I will personally insert several copies of readers digest. "It pays to improve your word power" up their fungimode. Accessible doesn't mean meeting the oft quoted 2k word vocabulary of everyday speech.

From my perspective, if the truth be known, the last month has been a total waste of time. It hasn't been about improving the article but saving it from FA status relegation. To me, that is very sad. Candy 00:09, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

As the person who advised people to let Silent have a free hand, I guess I should respond. I am not an old hand here on WP like many are, but I have watched some horrendous editing here on evolution and related articles. I am not an expert in evolution or biology, but I have some clear goals:
  • a LEAD that someone in grade 9 or so can read and understand without looking a ton of words up or clicking to other articles. Barring that, at least one introductory paragraph that an average person can understand.
  • a sentence or two that is accessible to the average person at the start of each section
  • having at most of the body be as precise as necessary to satisfy the serious experts
  • not having an overly long article that is inaccessible
  • spinning off excess material into related accessible articles that go into certain points in greater depth.
  • not losing any important content if at all possible
I am not super concerned about how articles are rated. I do not really understand ratings anyway. However, I know that ratings are obviously important to the people who run WP and the old hands. I am sorry if my admonitions offended anyone. I have, however, seen some belligerent editors here (not claiming that Candy is one by any means) who were quite aggressive and produced basically unreadable text with nonEnglish sentences, text that is scientifically indefensible. I apologize if I hurt anyones feelings. I only want to see if we can move this article in a reasonable direction.--Filll 02:12, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
Ideally we want readable and scientifically defensible :) I admit I wasn't paying as much attention to this article as I wanted to (only 24 hours in a day, after all), but it seems like bad timing made two different editing goals conflict. Addressing the very specific, often stylistic points of a FAR discussion does not lend itself well to taking the time to carefully sort through the lead, and trying to rewrite the lead well makes it harder to substantially change the text. I don't see why this article can't get back to FA relatively quickly. Natural selection is the WP:SCOTM at the moment, so having the same group of editors scrutinizing both articles could be an advantage. (I apologize in advance if I'm not as active as some; I'm in the middle of working on RNA interference right now, and even with five eyes, I can only do one thing at a time.) Opabinia regalis 02:51, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
We can have both. Easily. But we need some people who are willing to let things change, instead of defending something that has been here for years, just because it has been here for years. I have had some very unhappy editing experiences on this article, and I had no one even back me up in pretty nasty spats here. So I have mostly given up editing this article because so many huge egos seem to be involved. I just want to encourage people to meet the goals I described above.--Filll 03:20, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
It is foolish to believe that one person acting on their own can improve an article.
I, in turn, find this comment offensive and believe I have repeatedly proven its contrary during my brief "career" here. Thoughtless comments like yours are among the reasons I will not be significantly contributing to articles in the future. As for whether FA relegation was necessary to help this article move forward, we shall see. As for commenting on other people's attitudes or achievements, remember that a lot of people will be reading and analysing your comments. Samsara (talk • contribs) 00:44, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
I don't see what was wrong with Candy's comment, I believe Wikipedia is a community effort rather than a "one person" or "elite group" show. Dionyseus 01:15, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Candy, I'm confused. To be honest, I would say the opposite - I would have been more likely to substantially edit this article for FAR purposes if there hadn't been an existing effort to 'simplify', generating oscillating lead variants and generally making it hard to do things like rewrite sections for consistency with references (because the sections would then go out of sync with the lead). I do think the FAR started at a time when there was an unusual amount of 'stand firm against the creationists' sentiment around, so you may be right on that point.

Maybe this isn't the place to delve into wiki-sociology, but I find it hard to believe you meant the sentence Samsara quoted. One person can't improve an article? What? The 'it takes all kinds' mentality may be refreshingly egalitarian - if you're of a mind that's refreshed by egalitarianism - but your statement as written is empirically wrong. A substantial fraction - a plurality, if not a majority - of current FAs have a single primary author. Wikipedia in general can be a 'community effort' while individual articles are largely maintained by one or a few editors. As a general statement, I will happily stand aside on a particular article for an editor whose expertise I trust, rather than let it devolve into the sort of puddingstone writing that so many Wikipedia articles consist of. Opabinia regalis 01:58, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

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