Talk:Evolution/Archive 35

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social and religious controversies

Comments about the atheist agenda, and redirection to the FAQ.

These issues are addressed in the FAQ and other articles.
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There needs to be a description about the atheist agenda to promote atheism by evolution materialism. Especially since dawkins has labeled teaching children religion is 'child abuse' like my edit that was just undone. its clearly that such a controversial topic is not only driven by passionate religious individuals as well as atheist naturalists. I think this is evidence since gravity is considered a theory and evolution is considered a fact. Wyatt 16:24, 21 March 2007 (UTC) Evolution has nothing to do with religion, Atheism or Richard Dawkins except in your mind. illspirit|talk 17:05, 21 March 2007 (UTC) As I explained to Wyatt on his talk page, this is simply not relevant here. Also, please read up on what theories and facts are. (The talk archives are an excellent place to start, as is the article itself). Mikker (...) 17:24, 21 March 2007 (UTC) Evolution has nothing to do with religion? you are brilliant. feel free to delete the social and religious sections Wyatt 19:20, 21 March 2007 (UTC) I'm afraid you misunderstood, Whoutz/Wyatt. Evolution, and science in general, makes no statement about God or the validity of religion, only that there is no evidence of God and that we can develop plausible models to explain the way the universe works and how it has proceeded to this point. However, these explanations may not be consistent with the mythologies of various religions, and this may give rise to controversy. I find the suggestions you make a bit incoherent, but I don't see how claims of teaching religion to be child abuse to be relevant here. If you have some specific suggestions with citations, please feel free to bring them up here. — Knowledge Seeker দ 20:16, 21 March 2007 (UTC) Let's all remember to maintain civility and assume good faith.  :) Gnixon 12:26, 22 March 2007 (UTC) The issue of theory vs. fact is addressed in the FAQ for this page. I believe the relationship between atheism and evolution is discussed at Objections to evolution, but not all of that article's information will fit in the summary on this page. Gnixon 12:26, 22 March 2007 (UTC) There is no such agenda with regard to "evolution materialism", something that doesn't even exist. Information about Dawkins should go in the Richard Dawkins article or possibly the atheism article. thx1138 06:14, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

Theistic Evolution

Coverage of theistic evolution
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There is a need for a section about Theistic Evolution. Talk about Evolution's status in big religions such as Islam, and Christianity, and Hinduism, etc. Believe it or not, there are Muslims, Christians, and Hindus who believe in Evolution. Armyrifle 23:21, 25 March 2007 (UTC) Believe it or not, Theistic evolution.--Ķĩřβȳ♥♥♥ŤįɱéØ 23:29, 25 March 2007 (UTC) Hmm, a link somewhere in the article might be nice. i kan reed 23:38, 25 March 2007 (UTC) Please see the Social and religious controversies section. — Knowledge Seeker দ 02:27, 26 March 2007 (UTC) This is a science article that is not about religious beliefs at all. That some religious organizations feel the need to have a religious position on a particular aspect of science is best discussed elsewhere, and linked from the "social and religious controversies" section. thx1138 06:20, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

Observation

A question about where species come from, with a redirection to the FAQ
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Where are the examples of new species observed to come into existence? I've heard claims about medicines being invented by evolution and things, but I don't know of any where that evolution has actually been observed? This is different than seeing a chain of similar animals, because those animals are actually distant from each other even if they followed a similar path. All I've seen is beaks getting longer or shorter, but no real macro changes or new features. It would be nice to have some statements about it, but I may have just overlooked them. Wyatt 21:28, 26 March 2007 (UTC) This issue is addressed somewhat in the FAQ. You'll also find information in Objections to evolution since some have argued that "macroevolution" has not been observed. Gnixon 22:33, 26 March 2007 (UTC) Wyatt is right, macroevolution is the main objection in recent memory. On first thought it could be unburied from Objections and placed in its lead, which would then be replicated to Evolution. I could see some objecting to this as too specific for the lead; but to not have macroevolution in the content of the Evolution article (templates at the bottom/side don't count folks) seems to be a glaring blind spot. - RoyBoy 800 03:11, 28 March 2007 (UTC) New features have been observed, such as extra limbs and digits and such, but no new species have been observed coming into existence. The closest I could find is this: "Electric Fish in Africa Could Be Example of Evolution in Action" --Savant13 12:36, 4 April 2007 (UTC) This is also addressed in the FAQ. Gnixon 12:47, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Suggestions from TxMCJ

A number of discussions with a researcher and university lecturer in evolutionary biology

Definition

Proposed definition of evolution for lead. General support. Concern about "biological" qualifier. Brief discussion of strategy for addressing creationist reactions.

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Mandaclair recently made some interesting edits to the introduction. They were quickly reverted because they changed the lead significantly, adding a lot of detail, but her paragraph defining evolution seemed useful, and I wonder if we could work it in somewhere without making the lead too unwieldy: Strictly speaking, biological evolution is the process of change over time in the heritable characteristics, or traits, of a population of organisms. Heritable traits are encoded by the genetic material of an organism (usually DNA). Evolution generally results from three processes: random mutation to genetic material, random genetic drift, and non-random natural selection within populations and species. In common vernacular, evolution is also used more generally to refer to the greater outcomes of these processes, such as the diversification of all forms of life from shared ancestors, and observable changes in the fossil record over time. The way she enumerates three processes and separates the technical definition from the vernacular could guide the introduction and first few sections of the article, especially if we can find a way to avoid getting too technical too early. By the way, she also made several good small changes to the intro that were reverted with the others. It'd be nice if someone went through the history and copied some of the changes back in. Gnixon 16:58, 27 March 2007 (UTC) I'm not an evolutionary biologist, nor play one on TV, so it really sounds good. I don't like "biological evolution", for no other reason than I'll bet some creationist will beat up on the point that it's not really "evolution". But I could be paranoid after several months of bickering with creationists on here. Furthermore, I would like one of our more scientific types to review the sentence. Sometimes someone might simplify technology so much, that the essential meaning is lost or confused. Mandaclair is a new editor, so I'm always wary until they have gone through several rounds of discussion on these pages. But, for a first pass, I'm pretty impressed. Orangemarlin 17:32, 27 March 2007 (UTC) Hi. Thanks for listening. As I mentioned on a user talk page somewhere, there is nothing "creationist" about specifying "biological evolution" as a way of distinguishing life from other systems that evolve, such as languages, societies, or the universe as a whole. And in general, I recommend not worrying too much about what creationists will (or won't) "beat up" upon, because very little progress is to be made in those [rhetorical] dialogues, anyway. Don't write this article with "defense against creationists" in mind. The only sensible thing to do is ignore them, and write the best article you can. (Comment from User:Mandaclair.) I very, very, very strongly agree. Gnixon 02:39, 28 March 2007 (UTC) Sounds good to me. Suggest changing "common vernacular" to "everyday speech." I will see what I can do about incorporating some of the other edits.--Margareta 18:35, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Recommendations

A number of recommendations for the article. Few responses. Proposal of "Misconceptions" section discussed in later subsection.

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If "bold editing" was a bit easier to accomplish, I might recommend the following (Comments by User:Mandaclair): strip down some of the basic genetics in the article. Keep it streamlined toward Evolution. Much of the article seems like it should be a genetics article, or population genetics article. Those topics definitely play into Evolution, but in my opinion, this article gives them too much space. Strongly agree. Gnixon 02:38, 28 March 2007 (UTC) include a new section entitled "common misconceptions about evolution". These can be documented, and such a section is extremely valuable to persons approaching this subject for the first time. What misconceptions do you have in mind? A similar section once existed, but it sort of turned into "Why Creationists' objections are wrong because they don't understand stuff." That caused lots of problems. Gnixon 02:38, 28 March 2007 (UTC) (Discussed in its own subsection below.) Stabilizing selection, directional selection, and DISRUPTIVE SELECTION [left out in the current version] are the three MODES of natural selection, and they are not really correctly described here (for example: all three of them favor the "beneficial" alleles and select against "harmful" ones.) Artificial selection should not be invoked in this section -- it is trivial (arguably meaningless) in the grand scheme of things, and probably better discussed in the section about the history of Evolutionary thought, since Darwin began his treatise with an examination of artificial selection, and reasoned: if humans can produce breeds and varieties (as he called them), then why couldn't nature? As mentioned, reduce the adaptationist language as much as possible. Adaptations certainly can and do occur, and they are important, but it is also very important to get across that "the race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong", etc. "Fitness" has nothing to do with "strength" or "being better" (although it can). Fitness is reproductive output -- pure and simple -- and nothing else. It's important to keep these concepts separated. The discussion of speciation can be improved, mainly by introducing the problem of species concepts (and how no species concept is universally useful), and how the most important thing in speciation of sexual organisms is not necessarily geography (allopatry or sympatry), but reproductive isolating barriers of ANY kind. They may be geographic, but they could also be ecological, biochemical, behavioral, etc. The Huxley graphic showing the skeletons of hominids is all right, but it unfortunately resembles all-too-closely the kind of iconic left-to-right linear evolutionary "progress", that doubtlessly causes Steve Gould to roll over in his grave, and will cause me to do so as well when my time comes. The image presented here is not exactly the kind of "linear progress" graphic that is so common, but I am sure we could find a much better graphic to illustrate the concept of *homology* being the signature of evolutionary descent. A lot more can be said in the "History of Evolutionary Thought" section -- specifically, on the kinds of *observations* that had been around for years, that were consistent with Darwin's explanation. For example, the Linnean system of classification predates Darwin and knows nothing of common ancestry and descent, yet its structure as a set of "nested groups" very neatly reflects the true branching nature of the history of life. Even the main article on this subject looks like it could use some work. There seems to be confusion about what evolutionary ideas predated Darwin and how fast his ideas were accepted. Gnixon 02:38, 28 March 2007 (UTC) Some fleshing-out of the very true statement that "evolution is the organizing principle of all biology" would be justified on this page. Here's the sort of topic that could really benefit from an expert's perspective. Gnixon 02:38, 28 March 2007 (UTC) There are some ideas. Take 'em or leave 'em. I'm willing to help, as long as the debate and round-&-round is kept to a minimum. Kind regards, Mandaclair 19:53, 27 March 2007 (UTC) Excellent suggestions from an expert in the field. Thanks, Mandaclair. Let's get to work! Gnixon 20:20, 27 March 2007 (UTC) Thanks. (Mandaclair)

Cooks in the pot

More students using Wikipedia as authoritative source. Experts may be discouraged from contributing by "too many cooks in the pot."

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A final note, for now (from User:Mandaclair): The main reason I have taken an interest in this article, is because University students are using Wikipedia more and more as an authoritative source -- a fact that is potentially exciting on one hand, and terrifying on the other. As someone who interacts with biology majors on a daily basis, it would make my job (and my colleagues' jobs) much easier if we helped out in making popular resources (like Wikipedia) as accurate as possible. Otherwise, we spend a lot of time helping students "unlearn" what they thought was true about Evolution (such as: it's all adapation, or it's all a directional process of improvement, or the notion that simply because we refer to "evolutionary theory", that therefore evolution must be some kind of tentative hypothesis that has not been "proven" one way or another... you get the picture.) Unfortunately, I am sure that many academics in many fields are deterred by the too-many-cooks environment at Wikipedia, and yet, they may feel compelled to help out in some way -- especially if their students use Wikipedia. All of that being said, the Evolution article (as it stands now) does cover most of the main points, and is a decent introduction to the field and its concepts. It could just be a lot clearer, a lot more accurate on some fundamental points, and it could cite more (and better) examples, in many places. There really are a lot of cooks stirring this pot, but a little word of mouth around the department could go a long way toward increasing the proportion of master chefs. I've wondered sometimes about the idea of creating, for example, a "HarvardBiologyProf" account on Wikipedia that could be shared by a number of experts who each have limited time available. (BTW, I'm not a Harvard bio prof.) Gnixon 04:22, 28 March 2007 (UTC) Thanks, and for now I think I'll leave most of the editing to the more passionate editors here -- I'm happy to help upon request, Mandaclair 20:54, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Natural selection

Proposed definition of natural selection. Criticism of adaptationist tone in article. Importance of superfecundity.

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Here are some of the other changes I made last night, and the rationale (Comments by User:Mandaclair.): Natural selection, one of the processes that drives evolution, is a self-evident mechanism that results from the difference in reproductive success between individuals in a population. Natural selection occurs due to two biological facts; 1.) the existence of natural variation within populations and species, and 2.) the fact that all organisms are superfecund (produce more offspring than can possibly survive.) In any generation, successful reproducers necessarily pass their heritable traits to the next generation, while unsuccessful reproducers do not. If these heritable traits increase the evolutionary fitness of an organism, then those organisms will be more likely to survive and reproduce than other organisms in the population. In doing so, they pass more copies of those (heritable) traits on to the next generation, causing those traits to become more common in each generation; the corresponding decrease in fitness for deleterious traits results in their become rarer.[1][2][3] The important thing about selection is that it is a *self-evident* process, in that: given the undeniable, observable biological facts that 1.) organisms vary, 2.) most variation is heritable 3.) organisms produce more offspring than can possibly survive, and 4.) some heritable traits will influence reproductive success, it *necessarily follows* that heritable traits that increase reproductive success will increase in frequency, while heritable traits that do not increase reproductive success will decrease in frequency or disappear entirely. This is why a very common reaction in the scientific community to the publication of The Origin, was basically along the lines of: "well, DUH, how come *I* never thought of that?" It is self-evident to any thinking, rational human. Also, it is tempting to think of all evolution and natural selection as "adaptation to the environment", but that is a somewhat naïve point of view, mainly in that it is incomplete (many traits are preserved due to random factors, or evolutionary constraints that prohibit their disappearance, i.e. genetic linkage or developmental constraints. Adaptation need not enter into the preservation of traits over time.) I strongly recommend toning down the adaptationist tone of this article in general. Natural selection is perhaps best understood if reduced to the self-evident mathematical outcome of perpetuation of certain heritable forms due to the simple fact that there are more copies available to reproduce, and they are better at reproducing. Yes, adaptation occurs, but it is not the driving force. Mutation, drift, and selection are the driving forces. Also, any discussion on drift *must* point out that drift applies to sexually reproducing organsisms, since drift is generally understood as a result of random matings. Thus: In sexually-reproducting organisms, random genetic drift results in heritable traits becoming more or less common simply due to chance and random mating. Again, with the concept of speciation and divergence, sexual reproduction must be assumed if you're going to invoke "interbreeding". Many organisms (including eukaryotes) are asexual, and so the ability to interbreed cannot define or describe the divergence process. Thus: With enough divergence, two populations can become sufficiently distinct that they may be considered separate species, in particular if the capacity for interbreeding between the two populations is lost. Great suggestions. Two things I'm a bit uncertain of: one is superfecundity - organisms certainly don't always produce more offspring than can possibly survive, and that's certainly not required for selection to take place. All that's required is that you do better than your neighbor, as in any race. And two is the above misconceptions section. I was never a fan of its inclusion before, and I don't want to see it making a prominent return. It hurts the article. Graft 19:12, 28 March 2007 (UTC) Hi Graft -- you are right about "doing better than your neighbor", but superfecundity is absolutely, indispensably part of the mechanism of Natural Selection. It is the reason that survival and struggle for existence becomes an issue. Remember Darwin's argument about the elephants: he picked the LEAST fecund animal he could think of, and reasoned that if all elephants ever born survived and reproduced, the earth would be swamped by them. Here: The elephant is reckoned to be the slowest breeder of all known animals, and I have taken some pains to estimate its probable minimum rate of natural increase: it will be under the mark to assume that it breeds when thirty years old, and goes on breeding until ninety years old, bringing forth three pair of young in this interval; if this be so, at the end of the fifth century there would be alive fifteen million elephants, descended from the first pair. (Darwin. On the Origin of Species. Ist Ed. Ch 3.) Even though it was shown later that Darwin got the calculations wrong, his point is still true and *fundamental* to natural selection. And this is elephants! Think of the superfecundity of arthropods, marine non-vertebrates, bacteria, fungi, rodents, plants that reproduce by wind-pollination... the fact of Superfecundity is fundamental to life on earth, to Natural Selection, and to Evolution. In "Recapitulation and Conclusion" (Chapter 14) Darwin also calls superfecundity "a ratio of increase so high as to lead to a struggle for life". Not sure how related this is, but evolutionary biologists have a term called LRS, "Lifetime Reproductive Success", which is an additive function of the probability of surviving to any given age, times the potential number of offspring that could be produced in each unit of time (such as a year), added up over the entire lifetime of the organism. LRS can never reach infinity, because of selection, deleterious mutations, evolutionary trade-offs, etc. It may help to think of superfecundity at the species level rather than at the level of the individual. You can also think of it this way: if organisms were NOT superfecund, and did NOT produce more offspring than could possibly survive, then there would be no struggle for existence. Selection might result in the *increase* of your neighbor who is "doing better" but without superfecundity it won't result in the *extinction* of those that "do worse". (Comments from User:Mandaclair.) Ah - as to elephants. This is true and good, but populations frequently do explode and grow in size exponentially, and we can still see the influence of selection in this context - that is, allele frequencies can change as a result of differential fitness (or reproductive ability) in an exploding population. So why would we then say that superfecundity is *indispensible* for selection? Graft 20:58, 28 March 2007 (UTC) Superfecundity is indispensible because 1.) it is a blatantly obvious fact of biology, and the mechanism of Natural Selection is firmly rooted on this and other biological facts (variation, heritability, superfecundity, survivorship) -- and 2.) superfecundity is the primary reason for the "struggle for existence" in the first place. Also, consider gene flow in a world where there is no superfecundity and thus no struggle for existence. If all variants that are born (hatched, germinated, etc.) *could* survive and reproduce, and there is no struggle for existence, it is hard to imagine how allele frequencies are going to change significantly over long periods of time. Sure there are population explosions but eventually, something's got to give, and it "gives" because THERE ARE TOO MANY INDIVIDUALS, MORE THAN CAN POSSIBLY SURVIVE, GIVEN THE AVAILABLE RESOURCES. Selection *means* selection of certain individuals out of a pool of individuals who can't all "make it" because there are too many of them to all "make it". This is what Darwin believed and what he stated explicitly, and should be included on this page, if only for that reason. It is in Darwin's Introduction, and my quick inspection shows (not surprisingly) that his quotation is already included in the Wiki entry about Darwin: As many more individuals of each species are born than can possibly survive; and as, consequently, there is a frequently recurring struggle for existence, it follows that any being, if it vary however slightly in any manner profitable to itself, under the complex and sometimes varying conditions of life, will have a better chance of surviving, and thus be naturally selected. From the strong principle of inheritance, any selected variety will tend to propagate its new and modified form. Here is a lovely link I found showing Ernst Mayr's schematic of Natural Selection. Note that Superfecundity is first principle. www.scepscor.org/outreach/bio2010/workshop-summary-files/supplemental-material/naturalselection.pdf Mandaclair 23:11, 28 March 2007 (UTC) This may be how Darwin defined selection, but as far as I've ever seen it defined, technically, it entirely in terms of differential reproductive success, and nothing else. That's all that's encoded in the idea of fitness. So, while I agree that superfecundity exists and is a fact of nature, I don't see how it is *necessarily* related to selection. Anyway, this is getting abstruse and maybe out of the scope of this article in general. Graft 15:47, 29 March 2007 (UTC) Well, Ernst Mayr was arguably the most important Evolutionary Biologist of the 20th century, and his schematic of selection (as in the link I've given) has superfecundity as a first principle of selection. Also: technically, Darwin never spoke of reproductive fitness in The Origin using that word (fitness), although differential reproductive success is certainly implied. Note however that fitness is *not* a "differential" (relational) concept in itself. Finally (and this shouldn't be news to anyone), "Survival of the Fittest", in Darwin's time (and meaning) was not a statement of fitness as we define it now -- in The Origin, he really meant survival of competition and, that word you hate, struggle.Mandaclair 23:21, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Common misconceptions

Continued from Recommendations. Suggestion for section on common misconceptions about evolution. Some support. Concern that such a section would devolve into anti-creationist POV, as did a similar section before.

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Hi -- the last thing I'd like to reply to, is Gnixon's request for more details about "common misconceptions" about evolution. Here's the short list -- some of these may *seem* targeted for the creationists, but they're really not. Even atheists sometimes misunderstand the true meaning of the word "theory". I also realize that many of these issues are addressed piecemeal throughout the article as it stands, but a "bold rewrite" attempt might want to consolidate them into a single section. I think that would be extremely valuable. (From User:Mandaclair.) Evolution is [only] a "theory" that remains to be "proved" Survival of the fittest means survival of the best Human evolved "from" apes (or, any extant X evolved "from" any extant Y) Most of an organism's traits are adaptations for some beneficial function Humans/mammals/vertebrates are the "most advanced" organisms -- everything has been "leading up" to us Evolution always optimizes organisms and improves them over time Evolution is usually a slow, gradual, evenly-paced process The historical path that evolution took was obvious and unavoidable, and how things will evolve in the future can be somewhat predicted Please e-mail me for questions or details. Thanks, Mandaclair 18:18, 28 March 2007 (UTC) The only reason I suggest the misconceptions section, is because Evolution is probably the most misunderstood science of all, because it is so prominent and conspicuous in the popular, public eye. Thus Evolution is in a unique position of having to deal with public misconception, more than any other science has to. There is a way to compose a section like this that does not appear like it's catering to creationists, but rather, caters to the very real need to educate and adjust what many people erroneously believe the position of Evolutionary Science to be.Mandaclair 19:37, 28 March 2007 (UTC) Hi Mandaclair, I take your point, and believe me I am sympathetic, but this is not an advocacy site; I don't really see the justification for including what's undoubtedly aimed at countering a specific cultural trend here, no matter what the views of the editors. I know others feel differently here, but I think that we should be true to WP, here, not our selves. Graft 20:54, 28 March 2007 (UTC) Hmmm, I'm not sure how education = advocacy... most of the points I raised are not about advocacy at all, as much as they are about misconceptions people have of Evolution as an optimizing, directional, gradual process of increasing complexification where X evolves "into" Y. I don't need to argue this point any further, but it's a fact that most people view Evolution that way (regardless of their personal "advocacies")... and that view of evolution is thoroughly incorrect.Mandaclair 21:19, 28 March 2007 (UTC) Misconceptions=Misunderstandings. We used to have a 'Misunderstandings' section but it was thought by many to be WP:POV to have such a section, so it was removed by consensus, on 22 February. There is a separate article called Misunderstandings about evolution, which survived a vote for deletion in January, but its future is still unclear. User:Silence has referred to the title Misunderstandings as 'unacademic and unneutral'. EdJohnston 00:35, 29 March 2007 (UTC) Interesting... Well, at least this information is still posted somewhere. Cheers, Mandaclair 00:47, 29 March 2007 (UTC) I support implementing the bulleted points made by Mandaclair above. I also think some mentions of the misunderstandings are needed. As a complex and touchy issue, many people have preconceived notions or blatantly wrong information about evolution, which is a big reason why it has encountered so much opposition. --Hojimachongtalk 01:02, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Changes implemented

Changes to intro by Mandaclair. Support for them from GetAgrippa.

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Heads up -- I'm going to make a few changes, but none should come as a big surprise. Questions? See archive above.Mandaclair 18:00, 29 March 2007 (UTC) Wow! Drastic improvement to the intro (also finally corrected the definition to include "time" or "successive generations"). I'd just leave out the last paragraph about history for later. The speciation section could really use the same hand as it is sadly lacking. GetAgrippa 19:46, 29 March 2007 (UTC) Thanks -- will be tackling Speciation next.Mandaclair 19:49, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Struggle to survive

Debate over "struggle for survival" phrase as too Victorian, Marxist, anthropomorphic. Defended as accurate description, used by Darwin. Resolution via "roundabout verbage."

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Question, Graft: I see by your edit comment that you "hate the word struggle", but I wonder how much bearing your personal hatred of the word has, given the fact that Darwin consistently used the phrase "struggle for existence" throughout The Origin, and this "struggle" is very much viewed as fundamental to Natural Selection. Seems to me that any description of selection ought to be true to Darwin, at least...Mandaclair 23:07, 29 March 2007 (UTC) Maybe, but the sentence doesn't really add anything other than flavor. Since you've already expressed an aversion to the adaptationist tone of the article, I'd think you'd be in favor of trimming such sentences. I'm actually quite pleased with the fact that this article has, in general, managed to avoid the "struggle to survive" cartoon of evolution in its language. Most of the positive selection that goes on does not take the form of a visible struggle - it is totally invisible to any observation and can only be detected via statistics or genetics. I dislike that language because it leads people to expect competition - lions snarling over meat, etc. This both presents a distorted picture of evolution and results in misconceptions (like "there is no selection going on in humans right now", because we can't see it). Also, I'll point out that this article has taken great pains to move past Darwin in its language and in its treatment of ideas. Origin of Species is, after all, almost 150 years old now. Graft 03:03, 30 March 2007 (UTC) The undeniable fact that all organisms struggle for survival (think about it for just a moment -- think about all the energy that is required for all the vital processes. It's no cakewalk) -- has nothing to do with adaptation. The adaptationist perspective is not one of "constant competition and struggle", but one of "every trait is an optimized adaptation for the function it currently serves, and evolution is an optimizing process". Also, even though the Origin of Species was only written about 150 years ago... the principles go back at least 3 and a half billion years. ;-)Mandaclair 03:50, 30 March 2007 (UTC) Another short note: I find it patently odd that Graft is so opposed to the inclusion of principles that have always been integral to the mechanism of natural selection: namely superfecundity and struggle for existence. I am not aware of any academic reference from a working evolutionary author, alive or dead, that purports to give a complete explanation of natural selection without citing superfecundity and struggle. I think the concept that may be slipping through the cracks here is: natural *selection*, like artificial *selection*, means perpetuation of a *select subset* of the individuals from the previous generation. This *selection* occurs because they cannot all survive. There are too many of them (superfecundity), and life is tough (struggle). This is why it is *selection*. Darwin began his argument for natural selection by thinking and talking about artificial selection. Dachschunds are long and squat because only the long and squat individuals were *selected* for breeding in that lineage, despite the existence of plenty of puppies that weren't long and squat enough. Those other puppies did not become part of the Dachschund lineage. Out of all the bizarre Cambrian animals we find in the Burgess Shale, only a few types were *selected for* and became the modern animal phyla. The rest didn't make it. Superfecundity and struggle. They are part of the process and always have been.Mandaclair 04:11, 30 March 2007 (UTC) My point about Darwin being 150 years old is that our understanding of these issues has certainly evolved since his time. Case in point, selection. You suggest that *selection* means a select subset of individuals from the previous generation are perpetuated, but this is wrong. *Selection* acts on traits, and more properly acts on allele frequencies. It is an allele that is being *selected* for, and the change in frequency of an allele as a result of differential reproductivity is all that is meant by selection. As I've said before (and which I've yet to see a reply to), superfecundity has nothing to do with this idea. Unless I'm missing something, which it's perfectly possible I am. At this point it seems to me we're talking about very different things - you're talking about species selection and I'm talking about selection within a species. How to resolve this, I'm not sure, other than to outline both of these ideas.Graft 04:51, 30 March 2007 (UTC) Selection acts on whole organisms -- not genes, not traits. Yes, traits and genes can be selected FOR or AGAINST, and yes it's all about changing allele frequencies over time, but all of this happens only through the vehicle of the organisms that live, reproduce (or not), and die. There is no other way. Even the "selfish gene" needs the organism to be the phenotypic vessel exposed to natural selection. I will agree that citing the Cambrian was a poor example for me to give, since that is more about interspecific competition, but it was the first thing that came to mind. The principles are clearly applied to the "within a species" level, but I really can't spend any more time trying to justify the rock-solid-established fact that superfecundity and struggle for existence are integral elements of selection, both within a species and for life on Earth in general. The artifical selection example I gave for Dachshunds is perfectly analogous to selection within a species. I am sorry if you don't "see" this point, but you don't have to go 150 years back to Darwin to learn about it. Try looking to Mayr -- he only died a few years ago. I often rode the elevator with him in the Museum of Comparative Zoology... You should have seen him wearing pipe-cleaner ant antennae in the audience on the day of Ed Wilson's last lecture before he went Emeritus...Mandaclair 05:06, 30 March 2007 (UTC) Also, there's no need to address me in the third person - I can follow along just fine. Graft 04:51, 30 March 2007 (UTC) Sorry, didn't mean to offend. But since this is the public talk page and not your user page, I figured other folks would be involved in this discussion. My apologies,Mandaclair 05:06, 30 March 2007 (UTC) I agree with Graft on the issue of "struggle for survival" - it's a metaphor from an earlier age, and it's about as dated as "nature red in tooth and claw". No one talks about species interactions in those terms any more. Guettarda 05:33, 30 March 2007 (UTC) The funny thing is, I am modern enough to agree with this point of view as well, but only to a certain point. I will be the last person hopping up to paint a picture of "nature red in tooth and claw" and I certainly do not think that "struggle for survival" needs to be *emphasized* greatly when talking about evolution. But it is an *inseparable part* of selection, and of evolution -- not a mere metaphor. That is all I'm saying -- that I can't see justification for leaving it out, but I am 100% on the same page with you that evolution shouldn't be emphasized as some vicious competitive battle out there... although frankly, it really is. This may be hard for humans in industrialized nations to perceive, but do not doubt for a minute that competition for resources among humans worldwide is deadly and fierce. Do not doubt for a minute that organisms by the millions die in floods, droughts, and frosts, that they are consumed by herbivores and predators, that they are driven from their habitats by invasive species, and that they starve to death when a more efficient predator or forager comes along. This shouldn't be emphasized as the central theme of evolution, but it's sheer insanity to deny that it's true.Mandaclair 05:43, 30 March 2007 (UTC) I'm not saying that the effect of inter- and intra-specific species interactions should be left out, just that calling it a "struggle for survival" is too Victorian, too Marxist, too anthropomorphic a presentation. It also points people in the wrong direction - to think about drastic and dramatic floods, rather than far more mundane features like being shaded out by another individual or killed by a pathogen. Big events don't structure populations nearly as much as do a whole lot of small ones. Guettarda 06:14, 30 March 2007 (UTC) I dunno, I think pathogens are pretty dramatic too... I may have listed some big dramatic struggles above to make a point, but there are large struggles and small struggles -- even being "shaded out" by another... the main point being that life is never a walk in the park, and there is no free lunch. That's all, and I certainly do agree that we should steer clear of anthropomorphism...but what is another way to word this central concept, other than using the traditional wording "struggle for survival"? Like I said, it doesn't need to be emphasized (at all, and I have never argued for emphasizing it), but it is a key element that I just can't see any reason to justify its exclusion. Any alternative wordings you want to suggest?Mandaclair 06:38, 30 March 2007 (UTC) It is an old metaphor and the naive also equate it with the survival of the fittest metaphor, but the point I think Mandaclair is making is that biotic competition is a fact of life and superfecundity relates as organisms tend to reproduce more than can survive in any given ecological setting. The terminology maybe a contention but the point does need to be made. I think we would be remiss not to mention both as this is an encyclopedia and the audience needs the basics. Introductory text and books (Gould, Mayr, etc)all mention it to my recollection.GetAgrippa 14:33, 30 March 2007 (UTC) Yes, I am only arguing for its inclusion for the sake of accuracy and completeness. It is not our fault if readers want to misconstrue this as an "only the swift and the strong shall survive" statement. But just because the concept of a "struggle for existence" may be out of fashion, does not make it untrue.Mandaclair 16:51, 30 March 2007 (UTC) Sorry to keep harping on this, but I simply don't find this apt in many instances. For instance, let's take skin color. There's strong selective pressures to maintain the right amount of melanin, but they're entirely about reproductive success and nothing else - there's no competition for resources involved, and there's no struggle against other members of the same or any other species. I don't think struggle is an appropriate metaphor for evolution *in general*, and the language above doesn't make me any more inclined to believe it's a useful way of phrasing things. Graft 18:33, 30 March 2007 (UTC) Graft, "struggle for existence", or whatever you'd like to term the fact that "life is not easy and requires a great investment of energy", is a first-principle because of superfecundity: more offspring are produced than can survive in a world with limited resources. It is as simple as that, the concept has always been central to Selection and Evolution (and Ecology: please recall K, carrying capacity) -- and I personally am tiring of this argument. Achieving any kind of reproductive success always implies struggle, in terms of energy expenditure, acquiring resources, access to mates (in sexual organisms), and biological investment in reproduction. Whether the trait you're looking at is skin color or anything else: if selection favored it, it necessarily implies that individuals carrying the trait were selected FOR and those that didn't carry it were selected AGAINST, and not because life is a bowl of cherries available for the taking. Whether or not you like the word struggle or the concept of struggle: maximizing your fitness IS AN UPHILL BATTLE, and individuals that are better at it persist, while others will not. It doesn't require invoking hand-to-hand combat, tribal wars, and "quarreling over the kill" as being connected to every single trait. Can we please table this topic until we hear a few more views, and until someone bothers to review the primary modern literature that describes Natural Selection. And may I please remind you: nobody is suggesting including anything in this article about "struggle", other than mentioning it briefly as one of the first principles of natural selection. Thanks Mandaclair 19:35, 30 March 2007 (UTC) Proposed solution: In an attempt to dress up an old concept in less Victorian/anthropomorphic language, I have gone ahead and replaced the classic "struggle for existence" phrase with some roundabout verbage that, to my mind, means exactly the same thing: "organisms in a population are not all equally successful in terms of survivorship and reproductive success". Conceptually, it is identical to "struggle for existence" -- does this wording satisfy the dissenters?Mandaclair 19:58, 30 March 2007 (UTC) Good edit, Graft -- I dig, Mandaclair 20:22, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Variation and Heredity

Call to cut Variation and Heredity sections. Some support for only summarizing variation and heredity within another section. Is adaptationist perspective a POV issue? How is evolution taught these days? Few comments.

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I kind of feel like the short "Variation" and "Heredity" sections don't belong here (mainly because the way they are written does not really address Evolution). What do folks think about deleting these sections -- keeping in mind that there will be embedded links to the variation and heredity articles, throughout this one?Mandaclair 04:24, 30 March 2007 (UTC) I would agree with a rewrite of Variation and Heredity, but variation (mutations and recombinations)and heritable need to be explained just like superfecundity should be mentioned. It doesn't have to have a separate section. I tend to agree with your analysis of adaptation, but that is a POV issue (I can see the Gouldian influence in your education)as many authors emphasize adaptation. I do agree that exaptations should be mentioned. I am curious how evolution is taught nowadays (it has been over twenty years since I taught an introductory biology course and molecular biology and genomics has drastically altered the state of affairs).GetAgrippa 14:33, 30 March 2007 (UTC) Here's how evolution is (mostly) taught today: phylogeny, phylogeny, phylogeny! Students get the fundamentals and the history of the field... but then a lot about evolutionary genomics, evo-devo, gene & genome duplications, etc. As you might expect...Mandaclair 17:05, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Selection and Adaptation

Edits by Mandaclair to Selection and Adaptation section. Brief debate over ecological selection.

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I have now made some bold(ish) edits to the Selection and Adaptation section, a bit more consistent with the way these concepts are taught in Evolution courses for biology majors. The previous version of this section was really a bit off... for example, the 3rd mode of selection is disruptive selection (not artificial selection), and all 3 modes could be argued to select against harmful traits and select for beneficial ones. I also tried to improve the description of sexual selection a bit, and removed the distinction of "ecological selection" because it seemed a bit redundant with the existing description of natural selection in general. "Ecological selection" is not a term I hear used a lot... it makes sense, sure, but I don't think it's any kind of standard category of selection... As I go through this article, though, I am generally very impressed with its quality. My intention here is just to tidy-up, not do any drastic rewrites! Thanks, Mandaclair 05:20, 30 March 2007 (UTC) I also have to disagree with you on ecological selection. I'd say it has a lot of use in the last 5 years. I'd say it's at the very least presented as a distinct type of selection - e.g., [1], p.127. Guettarda 06:16, 30 March 2007 (UTC) I know Patrick, and in fact worked with people in the Shaw lab for many years. In that paper, I think the term "ecological selection" is used mainly as a convenience (in context) to distinguish it from sexual selection in the argument they are making. That's just my opinion, but I do have to say that, although the term "ecological selection" certainly makes sense, I don't hear it used often as *its own term* (most people just say natural selection and sexual selection, or talk about the 3 modes). I do note, as you say, a lot more recent usage of this term... My only objection was the prior categorization scheme in the article, which divided selection first into "ecological" and "sexual", and then later into "directional", "stabilizing", and "artificial"... the divisions were somewhat confusing. But if more people here think ecological selection belongs in the article in some way, I say put it back, as long as it is implemented in a way different from that previous categorization. In my opinion "ecological selection" is not in such common use that it warrants status as a category of selection in this article... (e.g. ecological selection, in quotes, gets about 20,000 google hits, while sexual selection in quotes gets over 900,000... not really terms or categories in equal usage) Thanks, Mandaclair 06:38, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

A note on the system of boxes just above (used for Mandaclair's comments and the responses): User:Gnixon is the one who wrote the summaries and created the system of boxes. (It would be more clear if he would add his own signed comment to announce the refactoring). In fact, it does save space on the Talk page, and I like the system, but perhaps not everyone does. Please respond here either for or against this type of refactoring. I think there is a consensus that it should be done for questions answered in the FAQ, but there is not yet a consensus for doing it more generally. There is a sub-question as to whether some further action should be taken on Mandaclair's suggestions. Respond here on that issue as well, if you have an opinion. EdJohnston 16:53, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

For' (obviously). You're right, Ed. I should have said something about it. I certainly hope the archiving and subject headings haven't stifled discussion, but it was getting so long and covering so many topics that I couldn't follow things anymore. Gnixon 20:55, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

For so long as its employed sparingly to avoid confusing new/casual readers. But it is so obviously useful for high traffic talk pages such as this; I hope to utilize it elsewhere. - RoyBoy ⁸⁰⁰ 23:14, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Lead

Recent changes to the lead seem to have been well-received, but I think they've also exacerbated an existing problem: the lead is far too long and detailed.

WP:LEAD recommends that the lead be concise and accessible, and suggests that it should be between one and four paragraphs long. The current lead is 7 paragraphs long, and I think one could easily argue that its neither concise nor accessible to the average reader. What's more, from glancing at the table of contents, the lead hardly seems to be an "overview" of the article. (Granted, the article's contents are not well organized.) Some articles about major scientific fields have addressed the issue by including only the definition in the lead, then following with an "Introduction" section. I'm not sure that's the best solution, but we have to do something. Any ideas? I'll try to make a content-neutral revision sometime soon unless someone beats me to it. Gnixon 18:39, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

A survey about the lead took place here. Thanks, Ed, for mentioning it. Gnixon 18:58, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Reviewers during January's FAR stressed that this article needed work on being accessible to its readers, especially in the intro. See FAR section below. Gnixon 19:39, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Organization

A glance at the table of contents is enough to prove that this article has become very poorly organized. I'd like to undertake a major reorganization, one that is content-neutral but better sorts things under headings and subheadings. I think a similar change at Physics worked out well (compare before [2] and after [3]). I'd appreciate some input regarding what the table of contents should look like and what goes where. Thanks! Gnixon 18:39, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

I would need to review User:Silence's previous plan, and the feedback questionnaire that he created for the lead, to get some ideas. (It's all in this Talk page or the archives). He also made a list of issues he thought would need to be fixed to get back the FA status. I can try to dig up all the diffs pointing to that stuff later. EdJohnston 16:57, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

The lead survey is here. Gnixon 18:53, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

The featured article review, including Silence's extensive comments, is here. Gnixon 18:56, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Language

After making extensive changes to help resolve items on his list, as well as making improvements to several related articles, Silence left this comment:

Unfortunately, I lack the biological expertise to fix some of this article's largest problems: the opaqueness of some of the more technical sections, lacking even an attempt to provide readers with context in many cases, rnders large portions of this article essentially useless as a general reference tool. What we need is some more work on clarifying concepts by people who are both very familiar with the processes and mechanisms involved, and able to explain them in sufficiently clear, engaging language. We need a Dawkins! :( -Silence 06:25, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

He also voted "remove" for similar reasons:

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)

Other reviewers also stressed the need to explain concepts in accessible language, especially in the Intro. Gnixon 19:37, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

You and I, given that we have strong disagreement on many issues pertaining to these articles, cannot be the only two who are involved. I would "hold your horses" until other editors weigh in with their opinions. You have a tendency to go "ready, fire, fire, fire, aim." Slow down. Orangemarlin 19:58, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Whereas your tendency is "revert, revert, then maybe read."  ;-) Just trying to be bold until there seem to be objections. I haven't yet changed anything about the article. I think the area where we disagree is pretty well-defined, so we can probably cooperate on other things. It's a shame that there haven't been many editors around here lately. Gnixon 20:27, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

By the way, what happened to the lead? It is way too long. I think it grew by creeping. Orangemarlin 19:59, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Yes, indeed. See my comments above. Gnixon 20:27, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

I have said over and over that this article needs to be accessible. Unfortunately, that seems to be a very difficult thing to achieve.--Filll 20:04, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

We're trying. Come back and help, this article needs you too. Orangemarlin 20:11, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Semantics

I'm not seriously proposing a move, but can anyone see how many of the problems we have here would be solved by changing the article name to "Evolutionary biology"? Many of the tensions on this page are due to confusion over whether we're writing about

1. Evolutionary biology, a field of study like Physics.
2. Theory of Evolution, as in, the Modern Synthesis, a theory like the Theory of General Relativity
3. Evolutionary processes, as in the observable aspects
4. Evolution by natural selection, meaning the concept of it, as in Darwin's revolutionary idea that changed science and society, like Adam Smith's Invisible Hand.

How did the English language come up so short here? How do other encyclopedias handle the problem? Gnixon 20:49, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Let's keep the name Evolution. The idea of changing the name comes up promptly every six weeks, and is always rejected. The name has been this way since 2001. EdJohnston 14:05, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

Hey, I said I wasn't proposing a move!  :-) On the other hand, I think it's worth discussing which definition we're writing about, or which parts of the article address each meaning. I also think we have almost enough material to make a separate "Theory of Evolution" article, and I wish we had enough to make "Evolutionary biology" (as in the branch distinguished from molecular bio). Gnixon 14:50, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

LUCA again

FYI, apropos our debate of a week or two ago, I today read a bit by Doolittle (and Eric Bapteste) about the Tree of Life, in PNAS, Feb 13 2007, titled "Pattern Pluralism and the Tree of Life hypothesis". He uses some strong language which I have no doubt will end up in some creationist quote mine (cf. his first sentence, "The meaning, role in biology, and support in evidence of the universal ‘‘Tree of Life’’ (TOL) are currently in dispute." Good read. Graft 22:37, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Excellent, thanks Graft. I remember at one point in the past evolutionary webs was emphasized more than trees, but apparently it is a little of both. I agree this will end up in creationist quote mines. Doolittle admits that tree patterns suffice for most of life and that he is referring predominately to prokaryotes because of HGT and fusion events. He gets rather philosophical also (which I tend to agree with some of his sentiments but don't agree with reaction of stifling the whole pursuit). I do think that Doolittle is fatalistic about it as others disagree:

Kurland CG, Canback B, Berg OG. Horizontal gene transfer: a critical view. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2003 Aug 19;100(17):9658-62. Epub 2003 Aug 5. Review. PMID: 12902542 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

Lake JA, Rivera MC. Deriving the genomic tree of life in the presence of horizontal gene transfer: conditioned reconstruction. Mol Biol Evol. 2004 Apr;21(4):681-90. Epub 2004 Jan 22. PMID: 14739244 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

Ge F, Wang LS, Kim J. The cobweb of life revealed by genome-scale estimates of horizontal gene transfer. PLoS Biol. 2005 Oct;3(10):e316. Epub 2005 Aug 30. PMID: 16122348 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

Kurland CG. What tangled web: barriers to rampant horizontal gene transfer. Bioessays. 2005 Jul;27(7):741-7. PMID: 15954096 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE

I think Doolittle is correct to throw a red flag of reasonable doubt, but it should be a cautionary tale to proceed with caution rather than render it mute. In the end, the article will be used by creationist quote mines that another Darwinist scientist disproves evolution theory is feasible. GetAgrippa 14:08, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Sounds like stuff that would fit very nicely into a "current research" section. (Also, I wouldn't sweat the creationist angle too much. It's always easy to distinguish between arguing the details and arguing the big picture.) Gnixon 14:22, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Doolittle's last paragraph deals with the issue of Creationists:

Holding onto this ladder of pattern is an unnecessary hindrance in the understanding of process (which is prior to pattern) both ontologically and in our more down-to-earth conceptualization of how evolution has occurred. And it should not be an essential element in our struggle against those who doubt the validity of evolutionary theory, who can take comfort from this challenge to the TOL only by a willful misunderstanding of its import. The patterns of similarity and difference seen among living things are historical in origin, the product of evolutionary mechanisms that, although various and complex, are not beyond comprehension and can sometimes be reconstructed.

But I do think his point should be well-taken, that one shouldn't assume a rooted, branching tree extending back to the beginning of life when we have no way of showing that this must be the case for the deepest parts of the Tree of Life. I haven't read the above HGT review yet, but what do you think of Doolittle's central point - that the assumption that there's something to be identified beyond all that HGT is unfounded to begin with? Graft 16:55, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Adam has made some good edits regarding LUCA and HGT. Gnixon 12:38, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

Suggested Edit

As a biologist, I have issue with the use of word 'design' in the following sentence in the 'Academic Disciplines' section: The capability of evolution through selection to produce designs optimized for a particular environment has greatly interested mathematicians, scientists and engineers. Could 'design' be replaced with 'biological processes and networks' or something similar? Evolution doesn't generate function through 'design' but with whatever paradigm works.

Thanks! —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 69.181.191.134 (talk) 06:18, 5 April 2007 (UTC).

Done. Thanks for the notice. By the way, you can create an account and edit this article.--Ķĩřβȳ♥♥♥ŤįɱéØ 06:24, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

Fisherian runaway

I've done a cleanup on Fisherian runaway and trimmed it somewhat. Can someone do a sanity check and make sure I haven't removed anything important? Also, it would be good if someone could add some references to it. (I'm posting here because Fisherian runaway is pretty low traffic.) Regards, Ben Aveling 08:27, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

BNME:Monkeys

bnme:this is myvirgn attmpt at a internet talk site. I can't type and I have to soetimes hit the keys twice to get em to work. If I a using someones post, please let me k(twice)now. With these thumbs I save monkeys. There had to be some miracle.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Bnmeee (talk • contribs) 08:52, 7 April 2007 (UTC).

Evolution as bushy, and intelligence as only one adaptation

I most recently came across this in Ben Bova's FAINT ECHOES, DISTANT STARS: THE SCIENCE AND POLITICS OF FINDING LIFE BEYOND EARTH, HarperCollins, 2004, p 247. We vaguely think of evolution as a ladder with intelligence at the top. And that's just not the case. Evolution is bushy and goes in all kinds of different directions. Other useful adaptations include sharp eyes, strong legs, a keen nose, increased wingspan, a hunting strategy of sitting and waiting and thus conserving energy, having lots of offstring, long tail feathers to attract mates, thick wooly coats for mammals in cold climates, and etc, etc.

Bova also cites Stephen Jay Gould, who takes this same general view. And here’s a website giving the transcript of a Nov. ’96 interview between Stephen and political consultant/commentator David Gergen [4] . Now, Stephen doesn’t actually use the word ‘bushy’ here, which I have heard attributed to him in other contexts. But it’s a very, very good description of what he is talking about.

I agree with Mandaclair that the Huxley graphic is great for showing a previous view of evolution and it's kind of quaint in its own way, but it is definitely not the modern view! And if you look closely at the captions, they say "Gibbon, Orang, Chimpanzee, Gorilla, Man.” Yes, these five are the currently living species of great apes (six if you wish to count the bonobo chimp as a separate species). But we are cousins!

But this same idea, slightly more sophisticated, is still in wide currency. As a young boy (I'm now 44), I remember seeing a long line of about twenty hominids, as if the whole thing is so neat and orderly. It simply is not. In fact, if we list the usual cast: Ramapithecus, Sivapithecus, Oriopithecus, Australopithecus afarensis, Australopithecus africanus, Australopithecus robustus, Australopithecus boisei, Homo habilis, Homo erectus, Homo sapien neaderthalis, all those cool cats! Well, most of these guys are our cousins, not our ancestors. (The immediate ancestor of us modern humans is Homo erectus, who is also the immediate ancestor of the neanderthals. So please note that we and the neanderthals are cousins.)

Another thing I might ask in the article is a longer, fuller explanations of L-amino acids in proteins. I take it this is the left-hand amino acids vs. the right-hand amino acids. This is a topic I find fascinating but don't know too much about. And as far as the writing style itself, sometimes a piece of wrting can include a technical description, and then a resaying of the same thing in briefer everyday language. I don't suggest this as anything mechanical and required, but rather as one more feathered arrow in your writer's quiver.

I think one of our main articles on a subject, like evolution, should be long (as long as it stays good!). One of the advantages of the Internet over a set of Encyclopedia Britannicas sitting on a shelf is that bandwidth is so much cheaper than printing! Yeah, I’ll kind of jump in the middle here. I think length in and of itself is not such a bad thing. FriendlyRiverOtter 00:52, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your comments. If you see any possible improvements to the article, please make them! (If they're big changes, probably mention them on this page.) Gnixon 19:23, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Archival

This talk page tends to fill up quickly. Can we agree on a policy for archiving old discussions? I would suggest the following:

• Keep any discussion with a comment less than 2 weeks old. Regularly move older ones to the archives.

• For very long but ongoing discussions, use the hat/hab tags to hide older comments. Use the reason= parameter to explain. For example, {{hat|reason=Older comments hidden to save space. Feel free to continue the discussion below.}} produces

Older comments hidden to save space. Feel free to continue the discussion below.
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
blah blah blah blah blah blah

• When someone raises a controversial subject that is addressed in the FAQ, leave the original post, but immediately use hat/hab on the inevitable flamewar that follows. For example,

Evolution is unproven! It's a theory, not a fact! User:GenesisTellsAll

This issue is addressed in the FAQ.
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
You're an idiot. You don't even know what those words mean. Evolution is true, no matter what a bunch of stupid religious people say. User:DarwinFishEatsYou Screw you! Evolutionists are just atheists trying to promote their anti-faith as science. They ignore clear evidence for design. User:GenesisTellsAll Die in a fire! To refute you, I'm going to write ten pages of text proving my point, and add ten more pages of quotes from my favorite people who agree with me. User:DarwinFishEatsYou So am I. Ready, set, go! GenesisTellsAll ...

What do you guys think? Gnixon 16:31, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

An excellent suggestion Gnixon. The warning banners and FAQ do little to stop POV pushing and vandals, so addressing it in the Talk but hiding it seems reasonable. It is difficult enough to get consensus on the topic from evolution enthusiast without wasting time addressing side issues not related to the topic. I have to admit I was initially naive to the depths of concern over creationist and ID vandalisms-I thought the editors paranoid, but was I wrong. Fill spends quite a bit of time refuting such claims from creationist and ID proponents. I am shocked as some seems less than honest (not all I should amend)which does little for their cause. GetAgrippa 18:32, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. Credit where due: the hat/hab archives were EdJohnston's idea. We could all try harder to keep our comments tightly focused and avoid starting off-topic discussions. Gnixon 02:16, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

I'd propose regular archiving in a simple manner, not topic-by-topic, which is too labor-intensive to be done regularly by a human, and prone to error. It probably requires a bot to do topic-by-topic archiving without tons of work, and the available bots leave something to be desired. The hat/hab scheme for boxing up topics seems fine for questions answered in the FAQ. In general I'd suggest that this Talk page is too large when it gets over 120 kb and that the archiver should leave the most recent 80kb in place. EdJohnston 18:53, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Oh yeah. I didn't mean that each topic should be archived separately. I imagined someone glancing at the page and saying, "none of the topics above here have comments within the last two weeks, so they all get archived." As for keeping the page to 80-120 kB, I think it's better to decide a reasonable time since last comment and cut on that instead. (Of course, keeping the page small puts an upper limit on that time.) This page fills up so fast that cutting on size will often remove ongoing discussions. Editors shouldn't miss the chance to comment on recent topics just because they haven't logged onto Wikipedia in the last 3 or 4 days. Gnixon 02:16, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

By request, here's my comment. The problem with "leaving the original comment" is that you have to apply the strategy with consistency. For example, even after this strategy of "leaving the original comment" was apparently agreed upon (by consensus of two), there was a comment here about "Thesitic Evolution" or something like that, where someone mentioned that other religions allow for evolution, and another about how evolution does not violate the 2nd law of thermo. Both of those comments were archived in their entirety, whereas the initial creationist POV comments regarding "the atheist agenda" and "scientific controversy" and "where do new species come from?" seem to have been left, with all rebuttal archived. I have modified the archival to remove POV from the formatting. Many people do not click through to read the archive, so my suggestion is one of the following: EITHER you archive the WHOLE THING with a short description of what the archive is about (as Gnixon does with most of the scientific content), OR you leave the original comment/posting, no matter what POV it comes from. Thanks, TxMCJ 19:48, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the comment. The justification for leaving the first comment is that it might offend people if their original posts are immediately hidden. The point of hat-habbing FAQ stuff, after all, was to discourage others from engaging in debate on issues in the FAQ---it's the responses that are problematic, not the original post. As for archival of other things and issues of fairness, the two topics you mentioned were not immediately archived like a FAQ topic would have been---instead, I or someone else archived them later just to save space because the discussions seemed to be over. I didn't bother leaving the first comments because I didn't think hiding them would offend the original posters. I certainly didn't intend to bias this page. Bottom line: I'm happy to try immediately hiding FAQ-covered posts, but if they start flipping out about it, I suggest we reconsider. Gnixon 20:18, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Topical archiving

I must have missed when it happened, but this new archiving methodology isn't very useful. I remember there used to be, at the top of the discussion page, a great reference source that had archives of discussions by topic. For example, the "Evolution is only a theory" topic, which happens over and over again, had it's own link. One could go and read it, maybe realize "oh someone's said that, and it's been set aside." Now I can't find all that stuff. Anyways, all IMHO. Orangemarlin 18:16, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Archiving by topic is really useful, but also tons of work to maintain. I suspect people switched to the simpler scheme out of laziness. Keep in mind that this talk page generates about an article's length of comments every couple weeks. See also the discussion about an "Evolution Debates" archive and its deletion as a POV fork. Gnixon 18:52, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Too bad. It was nice to refer people to old arguments. If they didn't read them, we could beat them up mercilessly. It made my days so much happier. Orangemarlin 17:33, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

It would be useful if someone created such a table at the top of the page with links to discussions in the archives. Gnixon 17:33, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

With User:EdJohnston's help, I think I've found the pages OM refers to. They're linked to in the 2005 archives. Gnixon 04:04, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Bot archiving

To save us effort, I've set up User:MiszaBot to automatically archive conversations older than 2 weeks. Hopefully, I got all the settings right. If it causes problems, please let me know and I'll clean things up. If anyone doesn't like this idea, please say so. Or, if you like the bot but not the settings, certainly feel free to change them yourself---it's pretty easy. Cheers, Gnixon 16:17, 3 April 2007 (UTC).

Controversy (2)

Revision of Social and religious controversy
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
The Social and religious controversy section is probably the most neglected one in the article, but it is one of the most important for many of the new posters on this discussion page. The section has long had "citation needed" tags. It discusses both objections to evolution and controversial social theories derived from it, but the two topics are not well-separated. The paragraphs seem to have each been developed independently and don't transition well. Can we try to improve things? Gnixon 16:09, 26 March 2007 (UTC) I attempted a major revision several days ago. I thought it would be uncontroversial since I only used the previous text and the introductions of the sub-articles, but the change was reverted by someone who preferred to discuss it here first. In response, I've created a Work in Progress page and copied my edit there. I would appreciate if people would take a look, comment at the bottom of the page, and make improvements. Thanks!! Gnixon 16:09, 26 March 2007 (UTC) Thanks to the users who made comments at the WIP page. I've recently made several edits to the Controversy section, keeping their comments in mind. Particularly, instead of trying to copy in the introductions of related articles, which made the section too long, I've simply organized the section with subsections and cut redundant material. One editor argued for cutting the "Social theories" stuff, but I've left it in for now. I hope this is satisfactory to everyone. Let's work hard to keep this section short, well-referenced, and free of both anti-evolution and anti-creationist POV. Gnixon 16:31, 28 March 2007 (UTC) Deleting the page. Gnixon 19:20, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

FAR

The featured article review in January resulted in delisting, but also produced a number of well-received recommendations from User:Silence and others. Not all of them have been carried out. I've copied Silence's list of recommendations in the hidden archive below. Please comment either within the archive or below it. Gnixon 19:28, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Silence's FAR recommendations.
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
25 problems to resolve, for starters: The third paragraph of the lead section goes into too much detail about the circumstances surrounding The Origin of Species. That level of detail might be appropriate in the "History" section, but no more than a few words should be devoted to it in the lead section. The armadillo image has an excessively long caption, bloated by trivia. It is also poorly-placed; having two lengthy vertical blocks of text and image at the top of the article makes the page look clumsy and cluttered. The armadillo thing should probably be either shortened and transplanted to another part of the article, or removed altogether. Section titles should not be capitalized. "Basic Processes" and "Mechanisms of Evolution" are thus incorrect. It is incorrect to italicize "e.g." and "i.e.". (There is also some excessive and inconsistent use of the latter.) It is incorrect to italicize quoted text. Some languages crosses the line from being simple and user-friendly to being overcasual. Academic, encyclopedic tone should be maintained, and we should avoid treating our readers like infants with phrases like "phenotypic variation (e.g., what makes you appear different from your neighbor)". Although the article does a good job of explaining most terms, some new terms are still unexplained, and a surprising number are unlinked, like gene, genotype, genetic variation, and many more. There is an overuse of parentheses in this article. These can be replaced by em-dashes, commas, etc. in some cases, to avoid making the text seem fragmented. *Avoid external links in the article text, like the Tetrahymena link. There are various minor grammatical errors that are not significant enough to mention here; a thorough copyedit should fix them. "Selection and adaptation" seems to be a little too long and a little too listy, relative to the other, more compact sections. Cutting down on all the subtypes listed could probably cut this section's length almost in half; that level of detail is more appropriate for the daughter articles anyway. This section also needs references, badly—especially for its paragraph on evolutionary teleology. *Bolding should not be use to emphasize a random word in a prose paragraph. There are several redlinks: J.L. (from a formating error in the references), sampling variance, Hill-Robertson effect, Colin Norman. *There is some inconsistency in reference style in sections like "Cooperation". There is poor illustrative balance in the "Evidence of evolution" section. All three images deal with aquatic animals, suggesting to uninformed readers that there isn't any evidence for evolution from other species; this impression should obviously not be implied, so at least one of the images should be removed, and other images should be added. The "nasal drift" image seems like the least useful one at the moment; although it's very pretty, the sequencing and similarity is least obvious. Considering how drastically the rest of this article has been shortened, you may want to consider shortening the "Evidence of evolution" section too, to avoid imbalance. This can be easily done by cutting down on examples and trivial details. We should also consider what the point is in having "Evidence of evolution." Is there a better title, like maybe "Examples of evolution"? Gnixon 19:53, 3 April 2007 (UTC) "History of the modern synthesis of evolutionary thought" should clearly be a subsection of "Study of evolution", and should be shortened to a simpler title, like "History of evolutionary thought". The "History" section is currently far too short. Important information that was removed should be re-added to make it at least 50% bigger ("Academic disciplines", below, is a good example of a nice-sized section). To give an idea of how much compression is appropriate, 3-5 fair-sized paragraphs (about 4 sentences in length each) should be the goal. Anything much shorter or longer than that is not appropriate. We're still on the short side of things here. There are only about 2 paragraphs on history. The section appears long because it has a subsection "Academic disciplines". Surely that would work better as "Current research". Gnixon 19:53, 3 April 2007 (UTC) The "Misunderstandings" section is too short, and some very important information (e.g. about the fact-theory distinction) has recently been removed from the article, making it much less informationally valuable to readers. Of course, whether a "Misunderstandings" section (or its new daughter article) is appropriate here at all should be discussed; there is little precedent for such a move, and it seems to fly in the face of academic and NPOV conventions, as well as to be a very useless categorizational method--a misunderstanding about the nature of mutations, for example, would be very useful if put under "Mutations", but useless if put under the generic heading of "Misunderstandings". Ideally, thus, a "Misunderstandings" section should simply be split up into sections dealing with the specific topics involved in each misunderstanding. From an NPOV perspective, it is particularly troubling to see statements to the effect that the creationist movement was caused by misunderstandings of evolution; it is perfectly fair to say that creationists regularly misunderstand evolution, but to make inferences and judgments from that is not NPOV; at the very least, such statements should be replaced with attributed ones, so it is not Wikipedia itself that is making them. Misunderstandings was cut. It spawned a Misunderstandings subarticle and the "Objections to Evolution" subarticle, which are mentioned in the Social controversy section. Others have independently argued that a Misunderstandings section would be useful, but still others have expressed concerns that it's too vulnerable to POV. I wonder if we could reintroduce "Misunderstandings," but excercising *extreme* care to avoid anything about creationism? Gnixon 19:53, 3 April 2007 (UTC) This article needs to have a "social effects" section. The effects of the study of evolutionary biology on society and culture over the last few hundred years is immense, and highly noteworthy. This would be a more appropriate and useful place to (briefly) discuss creationism than a POVed "misunderstandings" section, obviously. Implemented. This might make an NPOV "Misunderstandings" section more feasible. Gnixon 19:53, 3 April 2007 (UTC) The "See Also" section is too large. Ideally, there should be no "See Also" section at all for a time-level article like this; any highly important articles should be mentioned in the article text and/or series templates, and any less important ones should not be mentioned in this article, but rather in daughter articles. Some of the articles listed here are not even real articles, like Animal evolution. *Why is there an empty "Notes" section? A number of the references are broken or inconsistent. It will take an in-depth review and copyedit to make them all consistent. The external links should be cut down a little. 10-15 is ideal for an FA; there are currently 20. One good method to shorten the list without removing important information is to simply use some of the links in the "References" section; this gives them the added value of having relevance to specific parts of the article, as opposed to just being "add-ons". EL section reduced to 9 items in February. EdJohnston 20:04, 3 April 2007 (UTC) Is there any particular reason that Evolution, rather than Modern evolutionary synthesis, is under Category:Theories? -Silence 19:58, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

The references have been corrected, broken links removed, internal links were formatted according to WP:CITET, and outside references have been shortened. Other activities to make this an FA are required. Orangemarlin 19:31, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

For technical items where it's absolutely clear they've been resolved, I suggest striking through the items. Gnixon 19:53, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Gnixon, thanks for digging up this useful info. I struck out Silence's action item about external links, since they were reduced to nine back on 9 February. If I see more things I can fix I'll edit the boxed copy of his list you provided above. EdJohnston 20:09, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

I also struck out some items that were completed. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Orangemarlin (talk • contribs) 20:12, 3 April 2007 (UTC).

AOL, I'd like to strike out the infant issue. I agree with the idea of not over explaining concepts in article, but I would emphasize that a "phenotype" is not common knowledge. - RoyBoy ⁸⁰⁰ 23:42, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Fine to strike it out if it's no longer a problem, but the complaint was justified: "e.g., what makes you different from your neighbor" is far too casual language for an encyclopedia. Gnixon 19:19, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

The lead

...My god, what happened to it? It's not a summary of evolution any more, it's back to using undefined jargon (genetic drift is *NOT* a term you can just drop into the lead without comment, and is generally completely inappropriate.

Discussion of lead's history with examples. How long should the lead be? How technical?
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
I tried to raise the issue a few topics up, and there was no response. We seem to have a lot of editors here who are interested in the details of the theory, but not many who are interested in good writing. By the way, I explained there "what happened to it." Gnixon 12:53, 7 April 2007 (UTC) ...Really, I don't see how this article is ever going to reach FA again at this rate. For every step forwards, someone turns around and makes in incomprehensible to non-biology majors again. Does anyone really expect a layperson to understand the second paragraph with talk of the Hadean era, RNA world, and so on? Adam Cuerden talk 11:57, 7 April 2007 (UTC) Here's the old verson of the lead. Maybe this and the new version can be combined into something useful? I dunno. I'm tired of this nonsense. It seems like every month a new simple lead gets made, then someone replaces it with an incomprehensible one. In biology, evolution is the process of change with time in the inherited characteristics, or traits, of a population of organisms. Heritable traits are encoded in the genetic material of an organism (usually DNA). Evolution results from changes in this genetic material (mutation) and the subsequent spread of these changes in the population, and explains the observed changes over time in the fossil record. Natural selection, one of the processes that drives evolution, results from improved reproductive success by individuals best adapted to survive and reproduce in a given environment. These successful survivors and reproducers pass their beneficial, heritable traits to the next generation. If these traits increase the evolutionary fitness of an organism, they will be more likely to survive and reproduce than other organisms in the population. In doing so, they pass more copies of those (heritable) traits on to the next generation, causing advantageous traits to become more common in each generation; the corresponding decrease in fitness for deleterious traits results in their becoming rarer. In time, this results in adaptation: the gradual accumulation of new beneficial traits and the preservation of existing ones results in a population of organisms becoming better suited to its environment and ecological niche. Though natural selection is decidedly non-random in its manner of action, other more capricious forces have a strong hand in the process of evolution. Genetic drift results in heritable traits becoming more or less common simply due to random chance. This aimless process may overwhelm the effects of natural selection in certain situations (especially in small populations). Differences in environment, and the element of chance in what mutations happen to arise and which ones survive, can cause different populations (or parts of populations) to develop in divergent directions. With enough divergence, two populations can become sufficiently distinct that they may be considered separate species, in particular if the capacity for interbreeding between the two populations is lost. Evidence such as the wide distribution of the canonical genetic code indicates that all known cellular organisms are ultimately descended from a common ancestral population. While the idea of evolution (as opposed to the fixity of species) is ancient, the modern concept of evolution by natural selection was first set out by Alfred Wallace and Charles Darwin in a joint paper to the Linnean Society, followed by the publication of Darwin's 1859 book, On the Origin of Species. In the 1930s, the modern evolutionary synthesis combined Darwin's natural selection with Gregor Mendel's genetics. As more and more evidence was collected and understanding of the processes of evolution improved, evolution became the central organising principle of biology. Even the old version is too long by WP:LEAD standards. I really think a big problem is that editors can't decide if we're writing about evolution in general or about the details of the theory. I don't think natural selection and speciation need to be explained in nearly so much detail, and I don't think genetic drift needs to be mentioned at all (in the intro), but clearly other editors disagree. I'd love to see an expert (I don't qualify) try to write a concise 2-4 paragraph lead (not even "introduction", just "lead") that covers the big ideas in a readable, engaging way. Gnixon 12:53, 7 April 2007 (UTC) I always get a little defensive when people complain about Lead length. Lead length should never be an issue so long as the lead does indeed accurately summarize an article. If the article is long, detailed and conveys a complicated subject... I'm sorry but the lead had damn well better be long! :"D I get defensive, because a comprehensive (rather than light introductory) lead is essential; since, as I understand it, some projects propose to just use the leads of articles for various publications/replications. - RoyBoy 800 00:01, 10 April 2007 (UTC) That's an interesting point. It often seems to me that big articles would do well to have something even more concise than WP:LEAD, followed by some sort of "Introduction" before getting to other topics. Maybe a good analogy would be the dustjacket and introduction of a book. The dustjacket has to be brief enough to grab the reader's attention, but an introduction has a beginning, a middle, and an end, and can be quite long if necessary. Gnixon 00:09, 10 April 2007 (UTC) Sounds about right. Although not necessarily relevant, I have been heavily involved in shaping two leads. Abortion because it was mired in debate, and Blade Runner because I wanted it featured (after I had substantially increased the article size). I think the Blade Runner lead is a solid example of what a lead should be for beefy articles; and I actually had a minor disagreement with a user who was under the impression leads should be a few sentences long. If I remember correctly that helped tighten up the lead enough to then create the 4th paragraph. Um.... I should stop rambling now. - RoyBoy 800 00:26, 10 April 2007 (UTC) Pointedly abortion is very short, and that does make me consider expanding it to summarize the great article underneath... but I'd need to ditch my real life to make that happen. :"D RoyBoy 800 00:31, 10 April 2007 (UTC) Something we did for abortion is to create a subpage for debate and discussion of the lead, which helped focus things a great deal. Then when everything had been said and differences in opinion had solidified; many versions were created, criticized and rewritten, again and again in subsections to provide a chronology and direction for what the lead eventually became. - RoyBoy 800 00:43, 10 April 2007 (UTC) As someone who used to edit here regularly, I must say the lead has gone seriously downhill. Step one: just put the old lead (from ~mid 2006) back and then try to make it a bit more user friendly. The current lead is just horrible. Mikker (...) 13:09, 7 April 2007 (UTC) Here's the mid 2006 lead. It has one major problem in paragraph 2 - too many unexplained terms - but I think something could be made of it: In biology, evolution is the change in the heritable traits of a population over successive generations, as determined by shifts in the allele frequencies of genes. Through the course of time, this process results in the origin of new species from existing ones (speciation). All contemporary organisms are related to each other through common descent, the products of cumulative evolutionary changes over billions of years. Evolution is the source of the vast diversity of extant and extinct life on Earth. The basic mechanisms that produce evolutionary change are natural selection (which includes ecological, sexual, and kin selection) and genetic drift; these two mechanisms act on the genetic variation created by mutation, genetic recombination and gene flow. Natural selection is the process by which individual organisms with favorable traits are more likely to survive and reproduce. If those traits are heritable, they are passed to succeeding generations, with the result that beneficial heritable traits become more common in the next generation. Given enough time, this passive process can result in varied adaptations to changing environmental conditions. The modern understanding of evolution is based on the theory of natural selection, which was first set out in a joint 1858 paper by Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace and popularized in Darwin's 1859 book The Origin of Species. In the 1930s, Darwinian natural selection was combined with the theory of Mendelian heredity to form the modern evolutionary synthesis, also known as "Neo-Darwinism". The modern synthesis describes evolution as a change in the allele frequency within a population from one generation to the next. The theory of evolution has become the central organizing principle of modern biology, relating directly to topics such as the origin of antibiotic resistance in bacteria, eusociality in insects, and the staggering biodiversity of the living world. The modern evolutionary synthesis is broadly received as scientific consensus and has replaced earlier explanations for the origin of species, including Lamarckism, and is currently the most powerful theory explaining biology. Because of its potential implications for the origins of humankind, evolutionary theory has been at the center of many social and religious controversies since its inception. An early 2007 version reads Evolution is the process in which some inherited traits in a population become more common relative to others through successive generations. This includes both pre-existing traits as well as new traits introduced by mutations. Over time, the processes of evolution can lead to speciation: the development of a new species from existing ones. All life is a result of such speciation events and thus all organisms are related by common descent from a single ancestor. Natural selection is a key part of this process. Since some traits or collections of traits allow an organism to survive and produce more offspring than an organism lacking them, and genes are passed on by reproduction, those that increase survival and reproductive success are more likely to be passed on in comparison to those genes that do not. Therefore, the number of organisms with these traits will tend to increase with each passing generation. Given enough time, this passive process can result in varied adaptations to changing environmental conditions. Other mechanisms of evolutionary change include genetic drift, or random changes in frequency of traits (most important when the traits are, at that time, reproductively neutral), and, at the population level, immigration from other populations can bring in new traits ("gene flow") and the founder effect, in which a small group of organisms isolated from the main population will have more of the traits of the founders for many generations after isolation, even when some of the traits are detrimental. An outline of the theory of natural selection was jointly presented to the Linnean Society of London in 1858 in separate papers by Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace. Detailed support for the theory was then set out in Darwin’s 1859 book, On the Origin of Species. In the 1930s, Darwinian natural selection was combined with the theory of Mendelian heredity to form the modern evolutionary synthesis, also known as "Neo-Darwinism". The modern synthesis describes evolution as a change in the frequency of different versions of genes, known as alleles, within a population from one generation to the next. With its enormous explanatory and predictive power, this theory has become the central organizing principle of modern biology, relating directly to topics such as the origin of antibiotic resistance in bacteria, eusociality in insects, and the biodiversity of Earth's ecosystem. Which is probably nearer what we need. Adam Cuerden talk 13:25, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

Thank you, Adam, for continuing to fight the good fight on behalf of accessibility. Yes, the current lead is a mess. I'd be in favor of restoring the old one (the last one you pasted) wholesale and then working from there.

A question: what did the lead look like when this article qualified as an FA?--Margareta 00:08, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Well, bloody hell, now it's nearly gone entirely. For what it's worth, this was the lead when it was an FA. It's not perfect, but arguably better than what's there now, or was there before:

Evolution is a change in the genetic makeup of a population within a species. Since the emergence of modern genetics in the 1940s, evolution has been defined more specifically as a change in the frequency of alleles from one generation to the next. The word "evolution" is often used as a shorthand for the modern theory of evolution of species based upon Charles Darwin's theory of natural selection, which states that all modern species are the products of an extensive process that began over three billion years ago with simple single-celled organisms, and Gregor Mendel's theory of genetics. As the theory of evolution by natural selection and genetics has become universally accepted in the scientific community, it has replaced other explanations including creationism and Lamarckism. Skeptics, often creationists, sometimes deride evolution as "just a theory" in an attempt to characterize it as an arbitrary choice and degrade its claims to truth. Such criticism overlooks the scientifically-accepted use of the word "theory" to mean a falsifiable and well-supported hypothesis.

--Margareta 20:53, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Honestly, the lead section when this article was an FA was quite lacking. It's better than what was there before, but why settle for the lesser of two evils when we can have a good? There's no reason we can't have a lead section that very briefly goes over the most essential aspects for someone who has absolutely no understanding of evolution, and then have the rest of the article go into things in more detail; although I agree that functionality is more important than blind adherence to arbitrary standards or conventions, there is a very important practical (and thus functional) reason for an article's lead section to be as short as reasonably possible: accessibility.

Evolution is a complex topic, so none of us should be surprised to see some extremely important topics covered too little, or not at all, in the lead section; that is not only tolerable, but preferable, because it means that the lead section isn't bloated. The other main concern, then, is that the lead section be reader-friendly and, in particular, informative. This involves a difficult balancing act, but there's no reason we can't reach that point of equilibrium again; we've come very close in the past.

For example, we may want to mention and link to "gene" at the start of the first paragraph, if only to account for the many uses of the word "genetic" that are simply unavoidable in the lead section to an Evolution article; however, we might not, on the other hand, need to mention DNA quite yet, and saving that for slightly later in the article will also spare us the difficulty of having to waste valuable lead space on footnotes (in the context of evolution, at least) like RNA. -Silence 21:11, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Spin-off

A debate about a proposed "Theory of evolution" article.
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
I think it would be really great if someone created a "Theory of evolution" article using the information already in this article. The idea would be to discuss the ins and outs of the modern synthesis and current research in greater detail without bogging down the Evolution article. For example, the lead we currently have, which is far too detailed for the average reader of this article, would work very nicely in "Theory of evolution." It would also be a great place to discuss issues like horizontal gene transfer, population bottlenecking, etc., which frankly aren't too interesting to the average reader. There's more than enough material here to make a good start on what could be a very interesting new addition to Wikipedia. Just like "Misunderstandings" spawned its own article, I think the time has come for "Theory of evolution" or "Evolutionary theory." Gnixon 13:03, 7 April 2007 (UTC) NO. There is already an easy to read article, Introduction to evolution. And second there is no "theory" of Evolution. It is a fact of Evolution. Orangemarlin 14:07, 7 April 2007 (UTC) How does a less technical article negate the usefulness of a more technical article??? Regarding theory vs. fact, please see the FAQ. Gnixon 15:40, 7 April 2007 (UTC) For comparison, see Quantum mechanics. Although there is also Introduction to quantum mechanics, the main article manages to stay nicely general, with a good balance between the theory, its applications, its history, its relationship to other fields, and its philosophical consequences. You don't see that article going on about details of, say, the WKB approximation (think HGT), and major subtopics like quantum field theory are discussed briefly and have main articles (think genetics). Gnixon 15:48, 7 April 2007 (UTC) Regarding theory vs fact, please see Evolution as theory and fact. Also see Theory of Evolution]. "Theory" of evolution is a canard to throw off the casual reader that somehow Evolution is just some random thought that entered Darwin's brain.Orangemarlin 16:52, 7 April 2007 (UTC) Give me a break. I'm talking about creating a new article that can discuss the theory in more detail, which I think would be useful. Is Theory of relativity a canard to throw off the casual reader about its truth? I'm starting to feel my temperature rising. Gnixon 17:12, 7 April 2007 (UTC) Regarding the differences with Quantum mechanics. There had been numerous conversations about simplifying this article. Those conversations (cough cough) were much easier to find a while ago, until a certain someone (cough cough) decided to reformat this discussion without consensus (cough cough). OK, I'm being passive aggressive and getting off point. Evolution is complicated, and to simplify it demeans the subject. We try to spin off forks to more easily explain certain complications. But my biggest criticism of what you write is your assumption that people are either too stupid or too lazy to read this type of article. Once again, if they want the real FACT of Evolution read this article. If they want the simplistic form, then go to the easier article. As a suggestion, why don't you suggest some changes to this article to clean up language. But do it on this page, don't mess with the main article. Maybe we can compromise between too complex and too basic. Orangemarlin 16:52, 7 April 2007 (UTC) You've implied before that I somehow messed up the archives, which I've explained before is not the case. If you're objecting to the hat/habbing, why don't we discuss it in the topic above created explicitly for that purpose, where you've so far left no comment. Gnixon 17:12, 7 April 2007 (UTC) Please stop trying to provoke a theory vs. fact debate. We usually hide those discussions on this page and refer people to the FAQ. Gnixon 17:12, 7 April 2007 (UTC) I think you're implying that the true motive of my suggestion is to allow us to dumb down this article to the level of Introduction to evolution. That's not the case. This isn't black or white. There can be a general article, a simpler one, and a more complicated, technical one. I think the latter would be very useful, and I'm not sure what your problem is with it. Gnixon 17:12, 7 April 2007 (UTC) I most certainly will "mess with the main article" if I think I can make an improvement consistent with consensus established here. WP:BB and WP:OWN are well-established policy, and good policy, to boot. I'm not saying I won't first discuss changes that might be controversial, but I really hate the idea of discouraging editors from making any changes that aren't first discussed. Gnixon 18:52, 7 April 2007 (UTC) By the way, I read the FAQ long ago, and just now. What's your point? Orangemarlin 16:54, 7 April 2007 (UTC) Evolution is both a theory and a fact. See /FAQ#Why is evolution described as though it's a fact? Isn't evolution just a theory?. I would have thought you'd be familiar with that point. Gnixon 17:12, 7 April 2007 (UTC) I'm going to ignore the callous violations of WP:CIVIL, and basically hope that you come to your senses, and try to understand what I wrote. Orangemarlin 00:55, 8 April 2007 (UTC) You know what, I actually give up. You win. You own all of these articles, because frankly, it's not worth the time and energy having an intelligent discussion with you, because you are absolutely certain of your being right on every issue. There are many more editors out there who will stand up to you, but maybe they've given up. I've never seen an editor of your intelligence level who believes in absolutes as much as you do. Go ahead and edit away, make them into Christian POV articles, if that's your wish. I'm sure you'll just archive this so you can hide what one editor feels about your editing. I'm done with you and standing up to your "I'm right and the rest of you are wrong" attitude. Enjoy buddy. 01:04, 8 April 2007 (UTC) Paranoia Gnixon 01:39, 8 April 2007 (UTC) Sorry, Gnixon, I wasn't arround earlier to show support - of course Orangemerlin is just a troll, You are right that evolution is (not only a fact but also) a theory, and you explicitly say it is both a theory and a fact, and it is wrong for Orangemarlin to be so dismissive of and insulting towards you. Better to ignore him. I wanted to say this: I believe that many years ago we actually had an article, theory of evolution. I think it ended up getting merged with either Natural Selection (an obvious mistake, but because at that time theory of evolution really was about Darwin's theory of evolution not the modern synthesis) or it was merged into this article. Of course, evolution is both a fact and a theory (and perhaps we should even say so in the first paragraph). In any event, content forking when an article gets long and unweildly is common, and it is not at all the same thing as simplifying an article. Slrubenstein | Talk 13:38, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Spin-off section 2

Back to the issue. What do people think of creating a more technical "Theory of Evolution"? (I'm a little disappointed that discussion on this article seems to have died down over the last couple weeks. Maybe it's the level of drama? I hope we can return to active, productive discussion---please let me know if I can somehow improve my role in it.) Gnixon 01:39, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

I wouldn't support having a separate 'Theory of Evolution' article. If the lead is having problems we should fix the lead, not just split off another article. The lead of Evolution was too technical around January 1, it got better till about March 1, and recently it became too technical again. I'd also support moving more technical material to subarticles, e.g. stuff about specific genetic mechanisms. Here are some topics that, while intriguing, might not need to be covered in our main article on evolution:

1. DNA methylation
2. Gene flow
3. Epigenetics
4. Non-DNA forms of heritable variation
5. Transposons
6. Hill-Robertson effect
7. Muller's ratchet

Others may have their own suggestions for what's not needed in the main article. EdJohnston 01:57, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Agree with the idea of moving things like that to main articles. (For the record, I wasn't proposing the other article only in order to move stuff from here. I really think it would be helpful to have a more technical article in one place, even if this one didn't change.) Gnixon 02:00, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

I think it is a great idea to move the topical material listed above to articles on those topics, however I don't like the idea of having multiple tiers of articles on the same topics. Two is plenty, possibly too many, we should not have three. My two cents... --TeaDrinker 02:04, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

I think we need Gene flow, and a brief mention of epigenetics. The others, well, the last two might be useful in explaining other things, but not more than a sentence each. Adam Cuerden ^talk 02:53, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

I think that anything that is an important component of the theory of evolution ought to be mentioned here, with a link. But I see no reason why we canot have three tiers of articles: at the top, an article on evolution as fact and as theory that provides a general overview; then an article on the theory of evolution that goes into details about models for evolution, how they have changed, points of contention (comparable articles at this "level" would be evidence for evolution as well as articles on the evolution of actual species e.g. human evolution); then linked articles on natural selection, genetic drift, and other, more technical or contentions elements at play in current models/theorizing of evolution. Slrubenstein | Talk 13:38, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

A suggestion: since it seems you really want the article to be about the modern synthesis, why not call it "Modern Synthesis" and have "Theory of Evolution" redirect there? Hey look, there is already a modern synthesis article. Maybe instead of creating a new article, you could work on this one?--Margareta 00:04, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

That's a reasonable suggestion, but Modern Synthesis, at least in its current incarnation, seems to be specifically about the historical merging of Darwin and Mendel. I was thinking of something more general that, as Slrubenstein described above, would discuss various models and aspects of the modern theory. Gnixon 21:55, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

More comments from TxMCJ

Click here to expand.
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Leapin' Lizards, I step away for a week and things go completely bananas around here. Would it be incorrect to conclude that a Wikipedia article is *NEVER* finished, and *NEVER* satisfies everybody, and thus will *ETERNALLY* evolve and be the subject of endless tweaking and debate, as long as there is someone out there who doesn't like the way something is worded? Would it be fair to point out that in the history of writing and publishing, there has never been such thing as a board of self-appointed editors (who do not need to be experts on the topic), who can truly agree on a "consensus"? This is the "too many cooks" problem that I have already posted enough about... and it is why no other successful publishing process works like Wikipedia... But anyway: (See WP:PERFECT. This site is what it is. Gnixon 21:02, 9 April 2007 (UTC)) Sure, I get it -- but it has gotten a ton of justified criticism for that, which I really wish Wikipedia'ers would think about and try to address. If nothing else, Wikipedia sure seems like a gigantic waste of time by everybody who has 2 cents and unlimited time to contribute to a continuously evolving article that is never left to experts in the field, and is also never "done". This Evolution article has been rewritten and modified about 10,000 more times that the number of editions that the Origin of Species went through. I can't imagine that any of that is *intellectually* justified. Concepts in the field of Evolution are not changing at a rate that justifies the rate of change to this article. Like the Malagasy proverb goes: "too many people are like eels, squirming about in the mud". Mandaclair 21:32, 9 April 2007 (UTC) True, many experts leave in frustration. This article is constantly challenged and changes like a yo-yo. I partially agree with you concerns, but I should point out that many experts have strong POV's that slant an article (my understanding is that Race and Intelligence was written by an expert and it has a definite slant). The Nucleus article was written and developed by a non-expert with the assistance of experts and it turned out quite nice (well the last I looked at it, but since then who knows). I do agree that it would be nice to have some form of hard copy less prone to change. GetAgrippa 14:31, 11 April 2007 (UTC) I only want to mention that I will be working on the Speciation section a bit, and then I figure I'll leave the rest of this process to those who are more passionate about "the process". I do have two general suggestions though, about recent conversations: 1.) The desire to keep an article's lead "between four and seven paragraphs" or some other benchmark number set by Wikipedia seems absurd to me, as if both Silly Putty and the science of Evolution should be given equal lead lengths. Lousy, senseless standards pave the way for lousy, senseless writing. Do not fear a longer, more involved lead -- Evolutionary Biology is certainly worthy of it. Standards aren't set in stone, but they usually arise for good reasons. Surely EB isn't the only complex topic Wikipedia has ever had to deal with? Gnixon 21:07, 9 April 2007 (UTC) Like evolutionary "adaptations", standards *might* arise for good reasons... or they may be baggage left over from conditions that are no longer present. I still argue -- as I teach in my courses -- that Evolutionary Biology is one of the most complex sciences *ever*, if not *the* most complex science based on what we can actually observe on Earth. Thus if any scientific topic is worthy of a bit more robust article, I think Evolution has to be it. Mandaclair 21:32, 9 April 2007 (UTC) "I teach in my courses -- that Evolutionary Biology is one of the most complex sciences *ever*, if not *the* most complex science based on what we can actually observe on Earth." Wow! POV pushing or naive of other biological disciplines. I have never published in field of evolution, but I have in neuro, cancer-immuno, developmental, and cell signalling. All these fields are changing and have drastically changed in the last twenty years and are just as complex as evolution. I have to disagree. I publish in genomics and neuro as well as evolution, and I invite you to think of this: for every complex system in Biology you may decide to study, be it neuro, development, oncology, cell signalling, WHATEVER -- the field is made immeasureably more complex when you admit and begin studying the millions or hundreds of millions of years of evolutionary change and history that formed those systems that, traditionally, have been studied "outside" of an evolutionary point of view. But Evolution is, by all accounts, the central organizing theme of all Biology now (and isn't this in the Wikipedia article too?) -- and that is really what I mean. No level of nobel-prize winning medical or cellular inquiry can ever reach the complexity of investigating how that system came about as a result of hundreds of millions of years of history, natural selection, genetic processes, speciation, extinctions, gene and genome duplications, et cetera et cetera. Mandaclair 22:42, 10 April 2007 (UTC) It is a silly argument as it is all complex and all interlinking and related (it is still a POV unless you can provide a peer reviewed article to justify such a claim). I can't imagine any biologist not being interested in evolution (so I gather the gist of what you are saying). Further we shouldn't mention any experience or expertise (I did sorry) because without a real name to validate it can all be a bloated load (many real scientist are reluctant to post their names, and it is obvious why). Apparently numerous editors have lied about their experience and expertise so I am wary of the "good faith" clause of Wikipedia. This is not an accusation (you are obviously knowledge about the subject) but in this Wiki I encourage editors to make a case with referenced materials. Initially all my arguments were just a posit and numerous references to justify the argument, however it is amazing how many people will just ignore the literature and continue arguing POV without any backing. I swore off Wikipedia about four or five times because of the frustration of evolution related articles. Funny I completely altered one non-related science article without a single citation or any references. It is all accurate and I can provide the literature but no one has challenged or seems concerned. I firmly believe that if Pennisi, Mayr, Gould, and Dawkins could have collaborated to write this article many editors would still hate it. GetAgrippa 14:15, 11 April 2007 (UTC) If evolution can only be explained by a War in Peace length article or like Structure of Evolution theory then this is a lost cause for an encyclopedia. A War in Peace length article is not necessary, and this is an absurd comparison. The arguments above seem to be AGAINST a lead that is "too long" based on some arbitrary measure, or an article that is "too complex" for the general nonbiological mind. Nobody wants to post a lengthy War and Peace tome here, but you simply cannot achieve transparency by sacrificing accuracy and completeness. Raw length and jargon don't need to enter into the article, but accuracy and completeness do. I'll repeat: there is no functional bubblegum summary of Evolution that is accurate and complete. Sorry. Mandaclair 22:42, 10 April 2007 (UTC) Well I apologize for the dramatic use of words. I have generally argued for disregarding concerns over the length (because I like the idea of a comprehensive article) and would prefer an article that just discussed evolution and not lots of side issues (there are so many related articles already developed to some degree that cover many topics). I have also argued to include examples of speciation in birds, fish, insects, plants, etc (pictures would be nice). I also like the idea of basic and advanced sections for articles so that the inquiring mind can pursue the topic further and in more detail. This article has no central organizing strategy for presenting the material nor any guidelines as what to present. I have argued that the correct terminology should be used but many editors see it as jargon and decreasing accessibility. I can't see an evolution definition not straightforward mentioning shifts in gene allele frequencies. One of my early comments was to develop population genetics and modeling maybe mention Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium but that was received like a Ledzepplin. Few editors suggest a central organizing plan (Silence did with strict Wiki guidelines as a rule)perhaps if you have time you could offer some suggestons. It seems a shame not to use the extensive literature to paint a rich, colorful, and expansive picture of evolution. GetAgrippa 04:17, 11 April 2007 (UTC) There are many scientist, students in field of evolution, and actual published evolutionary biologists who have contributed to this article (even the experts don't always agree on any particular point). I would agree that the conflation of novice, expert, and vandals tends to generate an ever changing article that always seems to lack focus and be somewhat disjointed.GetAgrippa 17:29, 10 April 2007 (UTC) 2.) The complaints about the article not being transparent enough to "non-biology majors" are unfortunate, but I would like to argue that nothing can be done about this. Evolutionary science *IS* a complex science -- arguably the most complex science in biology -- and thus it necessarily requires a sound understanding of many concepts (yes, including genetic drift). People who argue against Evolutionary Science mainly argue against it out of sheer ignorance of the core concepts. Thus, failing to provide those concepts in their entirety will only serve to perpetuate a senseless debate. There is no way to distill evolutionary science down into a bubblegum version that everyone can understand and reconcile with their pre-existing beliefs about science and origins, (just as there is no way to distill general relativity into a pop-science version), and I would strongly argue that any attempt to write a solid, accurate, and informative article about Evolution that is accessible to "the uneducated masses" (i.e. those who are afraid of, or unfamiliar with biological concepts) -- will ultimately fail. Thanks, Mandaclair 20:52, 9 April 2007 (UTC) If you teach an introductory biology course then you are aware that some of what you teach is not current or just incorrect, but it is a starting point and a foundation for further details later. Introductory courses often teach the basics and are not current. The article should be gauged for an encyclopedia audience which is generally considered high schoolers. I have never known any academic to suppport the use of Wikipedia for their students. There is always a compromise of being concise and precise in an encyclopedia article. GetAgrippa 17:29, 10 April 2007 (UTC) Agreed... my only point is that perhaps this article has lost a lot of its accuracy (a thing different from precision) via a push to be too concise. Mandaclair 22:42, 10 April 2007 (UTC) The article need not be written to the lowest common denominator, but we should also keep in mind that this is an encyclopedia, not a textbook or journal review article, so it's important to consider the audience. If Quantum mechanics can be made accessible, surely Evolution can, too. What do you think about the idea of creating an explicitly technical article called "Theory of evolution" or something? (Please contribute to the discussion above.) Gnixon 21:07, 9 April 2007 (UTC) I would be very interested to know if working quantum physicists approve of the "accessible" Quantum Mechanics article, or if they have also abandoned it hopelessly to the editorial wolves of the popular voice. Accessible does not necessarily mean accurate, scientific, or well-written. Mandaclair 21:32, 9 April 2007 (UTC) At least one working ("quantum") physicist considers the early sections of Quantum mechanics to be sufficiently accurate and scientific and does not think the accessible language used in the article damages its accuracy. I wouldn't go too far pushing that article as a model of good Wikipedia output, but how about today's featured article, Solar System? Gnixon 21:48, 9 April 2007 (UTC) I'm not sure that a comprehension of the solar system requires the same complexity of scientific understanding that Evolution does. Even the most rabid creationist will only debate the earliest origins of the solar system, but will not argue the order of the planets, their orbital and rotational periods, their chemical compositions, etc. The comparison isn't really apt, in my opinion. Mandaclair 22:00, 9 April 2007 (UTC) Simply put: my point is that the lamentably idiotic and life-sucking popular debate against Evolutionary Science is the result of two things: 1.) Humans evolved to be more tribal than intellectual (selection for cooperation and gregariousness was stronger than selection for analytical reasoning) and therefore, conforming with your peers (political, cultural, municipal, or religious) will always prevail over intellect and reason.... and, 2.) Exactly zero percent of the individuals who argue against Evolution understand Evolution enough to argue about it intelligently. Thus if the goal of this Wikipedia article is to be educational, functional, informative, or useful *at all*, it must be complete and true to the core concepts of the Science -- accessible, or not. Mandaclair 21:40, 9 April 2007 (UTC) Hmm. I disagree with parts of both points, but I'm more concerned by the tone of disinterest in outreach from a science lecturer. No offense intended. Gnixon 21:52, 9 April 2007 (UTC) No offense taken, because on the contrary: I do a tremendous amount of educational outreach, more than the majority of my professional peers. However, I am generally not faced with a horde of individuals outside of my field, all jostling and competing for equal voice, authority, and editorial status. A central concept of outreach is the distinction between the educators, and those who are there to learn something. Certainly education goes both ways, but academics simply *do not* have the time for the kind of bureaucratic "education by committee" that seems to go on around here. It doesn't have anything to do with a disinterest in outreach, it is more a question of organized, accurate information vs. a chaotic editorial process. Mandaclair 22:00, 9 April 2007 (UTC)\ I agree humans are not intelligent creatures but intuitive. However the same "logic and reason" of modern man has been around 100-200,000years and given rise to both religion and science. Both have evolved and are still evolving and both have had a dramatic impact on the life history of humans. The fact is both have been completely wrong at times, but they are different domains and this is not a comparison. GetAgrippa 17:29, 10 April 2007 (UTC) Absolutely! But come on man: there's NO WAY IN HELL you'll ever get this crowd of editors to allow "non-overlapping magisteria" in this article!!! "Too jargony", "Too war and peace", "Too catering to creationists", "Too opaque", etc. etc. I personally would love to see that point addressed, but I suspect there is another article somewhere that handles it. Mandaclair 22:46, 10 April 2007 (UTC) It's here. But a link to it would probably be appropriate in Creation-evolution_controversy and a few other places.--Margareta 23:52, 10 April 2007 (UTC) Well, we seem to be conflating distinct issues. I'm not sure what the "eels in the mud" have to do with using accessible language appropriate for the readers of an encyclopedia. As for the eels, sure they can be a pain, but I don't know if they're worth getting quite so worked up about. Less patient editors should be able to find plenty of less popular and contentious articles to contribute to. For example, horizontal gene transfer and Hell on Wheels (doesn't yet exist) would probably welcome all the expert edits they can get. Gnixon 22:33, 9 April 2007 (UTC) I'm not much of an expert on horizontal gene transfer, and so I have the sense to stay away from that article. Read that sentence again.  :) Also, I am much more interested in this Hell on Wheels article, as I personally am much more involved in it, as you may already know. Mandaclair 22:41, 9 April 2007 (UTC) And see: "disagreement" with scientific points that are made is precisely a gigantic part of the editorial problem here. Whether or not you personally "disagree" that selection was stronger for cooperation and gregariousness than for rational/logical human thought, the fact remains that hominids and the great ape sister-groups were gregarious and cooperative animals for millions of years before logical thought was refined, indicating a history of very strong selection for gregariousness (which I colloquially like to call "tribalism" -- not that it necessarily needs to have anything to do with "tribes".) Throughout the history of humankind (and our primate relatives), we have done and believed countless stupid, irrational, illogical, and ridiculous things, and not gone extinct because of it... but we have always been gregarious. Evolution didn't have to go that way in humans, but it did. Compare cephalopods for an example of a lineage where intellect is likely to have been selected for more strongly than gregariousness. An interesting book on this topic is Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel, which argues (in part) that humans were only able to indulge in philosophy, science, and the development of technology, arts, and highly rational thought, after food surpluses accumulated as a result of sedentary agricultural lifestyles. Which requires gregariousness. Mandaclair 22:23, 9 April 2007 (UTC) Give me some credit---I was disagreeing with your conclusion. We seem to be getting off-topic. Maybe we should take further discussion to our user talk pages. (I love GGS by JD. His other, nice, but not as thrilling.)Gnixon 22:33, 9 April 2007 (UTC) _____ I just saw the following comment by the now-departed Orangemarlin: "Evolution is complicated, and to simplify it demeans the subject. We try to spin off forks to more easily explain certain complications. But my biggest criticism of what you write is your assumption that people are either too stupid or too lazy to read this type of article. Once again, if they want the real FACT of Evolution read this article." To that, I say HEAR, HERE. I am glad to see that there was another editor who took this point of view (and I don't mean POV). Too bad he was also driven away by the frustrating environment around here. It's enough to make one want to scoop one's own eyes out with a spoon. I am currently pondering whether perhaps this group of editors may have a particular problem with anti-elitism, which is the most surefire way to drive off individuals who often have the most to contribute. A comment on my talk page, "Surely non-experts can contribute to articles in some ways and experts don't need to have their holy authority worshipped at every turn?" is the sort of comment that *Never* occurs in academic settings. My answer to that question, by the way, is generally NO. Non-experts are rarely as equipped with sufficient knowledge and experience to write the most accurate and representative articles on things. Sorry for the reality check, but that's why none of us is likely to be offered an authoring deal for a textbook or encyclopedia entry on resuable spacecraft engineering. Wikipedia is not journalism, and neither are other encyclopedias. The only thing I'll add is that "authority" is not holy and need not be worshipped, but a lot of progress might be made around here (and on Wikipedia in general) if people knew their limits, knew what they are (and are not) qualified to write about, and do not worship academic authority, but at least respect it. I see that this particular user has driven away another experienced editor recently, with his impossible attitudes and rhetoric. I encourage the rest of you, strongly, to do something about this. Meanwhile, I'm going to make some edits to Speciation in the next couple of days, and then give up on this process in favor of more pressing (and productive) matters. It's way too much work and wasted time, for way too little progress. I'm sorry if that sounds like a poor attitude about things, but it's a very prominent one (regarding Wikipedia), and it is certainly well-justified. Mandaclair 23:00, 10 April 2007 (UTC) Wow. I think that's all I can say in a civil tone. Gnixon 00:59, 11 April 2007 (UTC) Yes, I initially thought "wow" myself when I saw you had posted that "experts don't need to have their holy authority worshipped at every turn". I guess I had wrongly assumed this was an intellectual environment, but that statement of yours just completely blows my mind, and all intellectual sensibilities out of the water. "Wow", indeed. If global educational and scientific communities operated under that philosophy, Gnixon, the human race would be nothing today but a writhing sea of murderously competitive cannibals living in war and filth -- and that is not an evolutionary hypothesis, it is a social one. Please think about what a stupid statement that was to make, in the context of what we are trying to do here as intelligent adults writing an article on science. Mandaclair 01:40, 11 April 2007 (UTC) No need to call me stupid. I suggest we close this discussion. Gnixon 01:49, 11 April 2007 (UTC) Once again: a thoroughly nonproductive, nonintellectual statement from your end, better suited for a wrestling ring, a soap opera script, or a roller derby game, than for any form of academic exchange. Nobody called *YOU* stupid. The statement you posted to my user talk, however, was incredibly and astoundingly stupid, and I will stand firmly by that. Mandaclair 02:33, 11 April 2007 (UTC) I agree to close this discussion, as I would rather spend time on the article. Does someone need to separate you two?--Margareta 02:14, 11 April 2007 (UTC) I think I'm done with the article for now (I know, I've said that before, but at this point I've really made almost all of the edits I felt were necessary -- finally got to the Speciation and Evidence sections). In the process I've gotten a lot of backlash for what people think is an impatient, arrogant, and dismissive attitude on my part. Maybe that is justified, maybe not, but if you're curious on my true point of view on those topics (and the recent history of the actual article), please have a look at my talk page. Thanks and I'll check back in again, one of these days... probably sooner rather than later :) Oh, and P.S. I am probably changing my username to TxMCJ. Not trying to be anonymous (y'all know who I am) but I'd like to cut down on some of the user-Googling, if you catch my drift. Thanks,Mandaclair 17:50, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

New lead

New lead: overly reductionist? In general I often applaud serious, bold attempts at massive streamlining, but I wonder if the lead edit by Silence isn't a bit extreme? Plus -- throwing the word theory out front so soon, in such a short lead, could cause all kinds of problems to arise due to the popular misundestanding of the word "theory".

I'm tempted to revert, but I won't "own" this article... I think many of the bold deletions Silence made might be able to really simplify the lead, but the currently posted solution might be a bit overboard... we'd also need to make sure that all of that material gets re-integrated SOMEWHERE in the article, if not in the lead. It may be detailed information, but it's not trivial information. Also: I will differ on the claim that non-organisms are non-biological. DNA is not an organism, but it is biological. As is a virus. TxMCJ 18:29, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

I think that the new rewritten lead of Silence is an immense improvement. I could not believe how horribly the lead had deteriorated over the last few months. I think there is no problem with jamming technical material into the body of the article, but since the lead is probably all that over 90% of the readers will ever read, it better be well written. The lead should be short and succinct and interesting. It should not be overly technical but should give a rough idea about the subject matter. If there is material that you feel ABSOLUTELY must be included, put it in the body, not in the lead. Leave the current lead alone.--Filll 21:16, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

To avoid confusion, it should be noted that Mandaclair was responding to my initial edit (which just trimmed some of the trivia out of the lead section to make it easier to see what was crucial before expanding upon that), whereas Filll is responding to my (provisional) rewrite. I don't agree with Filll that we should "leave the current lead alone"—there are a lot of improvements to be made to it, and immediately after any major change we should expect plenty of discussion and revision. However, I agree with your point that most important topics in evolution shouldn't even be alluded to in the lead section, simply because there are so many dozens of them that it would overburden our readers, plus most of them are too technical to meaningfully explain in only a few words. Objective "importance" is not the only criterion for coverage in the lead section, nor even the most important one; practical value to completely uninformed readers is. -Silence 21:30, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for a much needed and very well done edit. Agree material lost should be covered somewhere in the article. Of course this version of the lead is open to improvement, but next time we find the lead spiraling out of control, I suggest returning to this very good one. Glad to see you back here, S. Gnixon 21:36, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Impact

The rewrite is indeed excellent and really accomplished a lot in one stroke. However, historic/current resistance to evolution should be tacked on near the end; perhaps after the 1st sentence in the 3rd paragraph. Without it, there is absolutely no sense evolution was a revolutionary paradigm shift... which reminds me, that paradigm shift also needs mentioned and wikilinked (what did evolution displace). - RoyBoy ⁸⁰⁰ 21:34, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Mentioning controversy in the lead may or may not be a good idea in principle, but I'm worried that it will just become a big target for warring with creationists. The last sentence has nice wording about how important evolution is to biology, and the Controversy section displays prominently in the TOC. If we mention controversy in the lead, let's be very careful about it. Gnixon 21:40, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

You are talking to the guy who did the Abortion lead; not to boast or anything, but that beats Evolution hands down in the controversy category. :"D RoyBoy ⁸⁰⁰ 21:56, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Haha, duly noted, but there's a lot more of substance about evolution that doesn't pertain to controversy and competes with it for space in the lead. That's to say, abortion is a relatively simple thing to describe, but its controversy is highly notable. Evolution has a somewhat smaller degree of controversy, and evolution itself is much broader and more complex. Gnixon 22:13, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

True :'D, but the quality science smackdown by Silence makes me not too concerned with that anymore. The science could bloat again if it wanted to, but if controversy/social aspects are kept in a paragraph on their own, so it can be compartmentalized successfully. Just as we did for abortion, people have been killed and clinics bombed, but we kept the second paragraph down to one sentence and well placed wikilinks. - RoyBoy ⁸⁰⁰ 22:20, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

I don't see the need for such a tack-on, RoyBoy, as this is a biological article, rather than a sociological or historical one. The top priority of this article is to explain to our readers the scientific understanding of biological evolution; whether or not it constituted a "paradigm shift" (itself a somewhat controversial idea within philosophy of science; it would probably be opening an unnecessary can of worms for Wikipedia to endorse a specific perspective on it here!) is at best an afterthought, and arguably barely merits inclusion in the article body (perhaps in the "Social effect" and/or "History" section), much less in the lead. Remember that at the end of the lead section we haven't even begun explaining many of the basics of what is actually physically happening in evolution; compared to that, evaluations of its social significance are, at least for the purposes of a biology article like this, of peripheral importance.

I also doubt that one sentence could properly convey the idea without misrepresenting the scope and significance of the controversy—especially since this would be the only sentence in the lead section not dealing directly or indirectly with the science of evolution. Describing "resistance" in such a context would imply that there is significant scientific resistance to evolutionary theory, which couldn't be further from the truth. Furthermore, I would like to keep the third paragraph as short as possible, and expand the "History" section instead where possible, because that section is currently woefully diminished. -Silence 21:43, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Top priority does not denote only priority, for an article, and especially for the lead. I hate to be the spoiled sport, but I must remind everyone here this is not a biology article. Okay? This is an article on the subject of evolution. This includes biology and controversy. No mention of controversy is a glaring oversight. See the Encarta beginning for a guildeline. Evolution displaced dominant historic views; if that isn't lead material, I don't know what is. The focus should, is and always has been on the biology. Great! That does not give us license to push other stuff to the bottom of the article. - RoyBoy ⁸⁰⁰ 21:54, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

This is an article about biological evolution. (There are other articles for other types of evolution.) Thus, it is a biology article. Controversy is relevant here only insofar as it is relevant to understanding biological evolution. No mention of controversy in the lead section is infinitely less of an oversight than no mention of dozens of other, more important topics for understanding biological evolution, like the fossil record and DNA. Yet these, too, are mentioned nowhere in the lead. For an article as immensely complex and broad as this one, we simply need to stop trying to squeeze every single "important" topic into the lead section, or it'll grow unmanageably large once again; if something is "important" we should work first on improving its coverage in the article body, and only afterwards, if there is wide agreement, insert it into the lead. If anything even the current lead is a little longer than would be ideal.

Every major scientific discovery in history has "displaced dominant historic views", in one way or another. Without proper context and details, this is too vacuously vague to be very useful to readers in the "bite-sized" format that a lead section demands.

The introduction to the Encarta evolution article is twice as long as the lead section of evolution. Since that means that at least half of the information in that introduction wouldn't fit here without us beginning to re-bloat the newly-trimmed section, pointing to the inclusion of something there wouldn't be sufficient grounds for inclusion even if Encarta was the pinnacle of encyclopedic achievement.

The fact that this article's focus is on biology not only gives us "license" to push other stuff to the bottom of the article (and to other areas of the article body, many of which desperately need just that kind of "pushing" in order to flesh out missing information!); it gives us the duty to do so. -Silence 22:18, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

False comparison, DNA is implicitly referred to in the lead multiple times, and fossils are simply mineralized relics of DNA variation. Heh, yeah that's a stretched connection... but the point is both are central evidence for evolution. Controversy is a different sub-topic entirely; having nothing to do with biology, but everything to do with evolution... especially historically, the history (of the controversy and evolution's historic context) are under serviced in the lead.

I get the distinct impression that now that the lead is "in shape", nothing can be added? Another way to see it, is that you've created room for other notable aspects of evolution to be mentioned.

Don't obfuscate the issue with re-bloat. Encarta is a clear example that an encyclopedic article and lead is not exclusive to its main subject. Ever. Encarta is long and I have no intention of replicating the topics/coverage it has.

The disambig notice at the top clarifies what concept of "Evolution" this article is covering. It's function is to keep people from placing concepts from Stellar evolution here. It provides absolutely no editorial mandate to focus exclusively on the biological aspect of that concept. I'll understand if I need to repeat this several times since this has obviously been an assumption carried forward by the dominant/active editors here, but that disambig notice does not change the fact this article needs cover all aspects of biological Evolution. That includes controversy (religion), history, politics and if notable enough, sociology. I'm not debating this with you, I'm trying to, with as light a touch as possible to a valuable contributor, to say... incorrect. Disambiguation is just that, disambiguation; it does not set (or force) tone on an article. - RoyBoy ⁸⁰⁰ 22:52, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

"Implicit" references to DNA and fossils are obviously useless to readers who don't know anything about DNA or fossils! (And Wikipedia articles ought to assume as little as possible about what article-readers know.) If the controversy has nothing to do with biology, then it also has nothing to do with evolution (i.e., biological evolution); what you meant to say is that it's not a biological topic, but it still obviously has to do with biology, in the sense that it has to do with (the social effect of) a major scientific theory in biology. That is why it merits mentioning in this article at all; if it was irrelevant to biology (and thus to biological evolution), it wouldn't have even a single word devoted to it anywhere on the page.

Evolution itself has no "historical context" in the sense you mean; what you mean to say is that the theory of evolution has a certain historical context, but remember that this article is about the biological process of evolution, not just about the scientific theory explaining that process (although obviously the theory must be significantly explained in order to convey the modern scientific understanding of evolution to our readers); the correct article for the theory (which, unlike the process, does have a historical context and a social effect in the sense you mean) is modern evolutionary synthesis.

Things can certainly be added to the lead; it's "in shape" in the sense that it's not in terrible condition now, but it's certainly far from ideal, and I'm not averse to major, systematic changes being implemented if they're improvements. However, most things that can be added to the lead shouldn't be added, for the simple reason that the lead would be unmanageably large if we let most relevant and important topics in evolution be covered in the lead; only those that are crucial for a very basic understanding of biological evolution should be mentioned at all, and even those only briefly. For this reason, the evolution lead section isn't 100% "closed" to new input; it just needs to be kept on an extremely tight leash, and all proposed additions must be subjected to intensive scrutiny and wariness, in order to avoid the section becoming bloated yet again (as has happened dozens and dozens of times in the past).

It doesn't provide a mandate to focus exclusively on strict biology, but it does provide a mandate to focus primarily on it. (I find it strange that you would suggest that I want the article to "exclusively" discuss strict biology; if that were so, I'd be arguing against keeping the section on "Social effects" around, not just arguing against adding a sentence about social effects to the lead section.) In my view, the level of primary importance of this area over others, combined with space limitations in the already overburdened lead section, combined with the difficulty of concisely and clearly explaining the nature of the controversy without conferring undue weight to minority views, warrants saving mentioning of a "social controversy" until later in the article. In your view, the importance of the social controversy overrides these three concerns; that's perfectly fine, and a valid opinion. I'm open to hearing suggestions on how add-on sentence you are proposing would look. But understand that there is a long-standing consensus, and a lot of editorial history in this article, opposing the inclusion of even a brief mention in the lead section of the topic you wish to add. For this reason, we should be doubly cautious in weighing the options, and not rush to assume that such an inclusion would be more helpful to our readers in this case than an exclusion, considering the (not exclusive, but exceedingly primary) focus of the article as a whole. Further discussion is needed first; I recommend devising at least one version of the proposed sentence and open a new thread (since this one has been scrolled up a bit) for discussing it at the bottom of this Talk page. Then we can get a better idea of consensus, act accordingly, and move on to more productive matters. -Silence 02:50, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

"Silence" must be latin for "wisdom." Hmmmmmmm.... Gnixon 04:36, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

But aren't you underestimating the notability of the impact of biological science on society? For analogy, is it reasonable for the Physics lead to mention the impact of say, nuclear weapons and semiconductors? Gnixon 22:22, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

This article isn't analogous to physics because it discusses a biological process, rather than a field or discipline of science; the proper analogy would be between physics and evolutionary biology. The social impact of a certain area of science is of more relevance to the article on the study of a phenomenon (e.g., evolutionary biology) or the explanation of that phenomenon (e.g., modern evolutionary synthesis) than on the phenomenon itself (e.g., evolution). This is not to say that the social impact of such study isn't important enough to mention in this article, merely that it's not quite important enough for the lead section, if only because there's always so much vastly more important information that we're currently leaving out for the sake of brevity and comprehensibility. -Silence 22:28, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Information that should be left out. - RoyBoy ⁸⁰⁰ 22:52, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

That's what I get for picking a poor analogy. It's the idea of evolution that has impact, not the products of the field (physics). Maybe a better analogy would be Marxism or Adam Smith's take on economics. Meh. I agree with your comment below that these things should be addressed in the body before updating the intro. Gnixon 22:44, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

An analogy I would refer to is Age of the Earth, which I helped out on. While almost entirely science oriented there still needs to be mention of notable dissenting views. Now here is the kicker, those views have sub-articles, young earth creationism and such... but they do still merit a mention in the parent article. As they are indeed a part, a small part, but nonetheless a part of the subject matter for the article. - RoyBoy ⁸⁰⁰ 23:16, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

We don't have to say it was a paradigm shift, but we must provide historic context for evolution; and wikilink to the dominant scientific theory prior to Darwin. If memory serves, it Gradualism or something like that... Huxley comes to mind; it was based on slow changes of terrain being analogous to biological changes. I can't really remember. - RoyBoy ⁸⁰⁰ 22:07, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

I think you make a good point that this topic deserves to be broader than just the science, but it will be challenging to discuss the social impact without bloating the lead or giving undue weight to objections to evolution. Do you have specific suggestions? Gnixon 22:01, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Not this second, but it should be short, a sentence or two; although it think it could grow to a small paragraph with historic, Darwin's time, and modern sentences providing a clear understanding resistance has been notable, historic and is ongoing in certain places. - RoyBoy ⁸⁰⁰ 22:07, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Such an addition might be a superb one for the exceedingly short section "History of modern evolutionary thought"; I recommend adding it there first. If something isn't even important enough for the article body, it's certainly not important enough for the lead section. Also, gradualism (proposed in 1795 by Hutton) is part of the essential basis of evolution (and of modern geology and evolutionary biology), not the "dominant scientific theory prior to Darwin"; perhaps you're thinking of Lamarckism. Regardless, none of this is remotely significant enough for the lead section. -Silence 22:23, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

I agree it at least makes sense to start by including these things in the body before the lead. Gnixon 22:44, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

It's not notable for a biology article, but this isn't just biology article. Again look at Abortion, we have sub-articles wikilinked in the lead; which is still very tightly written. - RoyBoy ⁸⁰⁰ 22:59, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Evolution is indeed "just a biology article". Abortion is not, but the fact that abortion isn't a biology article hardly shows that Wikipedia has no biology articles! Evolution is, quite simply, one of Wikipedia's biology articles; where it touches on non-biological topics, it does so only because of their relevance to evolutionary biology. For confirmation, just look at the "Abortion" infobox at the top of Abortion: none of these daughter articles are biology topics! They're all social, legal, and at best medicinal. In contrast, just about all of the daughter articles linked in Evolution's infobox at the top of the article are biological. That shows the relative importance of the social controversy to these two topics, and explains why the importance of mentioning the controversy in Abortion's lead section doesn't necessarily establish the importance of mentioning a completely different controversy in Evolution's lead section. If you want the article on evolution's social effect, go to Social effect of evolutionary theory; that's where this sort of information most belongs, not here. -Silence 00:04, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

I disagree that Evolution is "just a biology article" in the sense you mean---it's much more important than that, and very notable for reasons other than its scientific significance. A brief, well-placed reference to Social effect of evolutionary theory in the lead could resolve a lot of these issues. Gnixon 04:41, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Every sub-topic in the Evolution infobox should ideally be touched on in the lead of the parent article. That won't happen for relatively obscure topics like phylogenetics for example, however, controversy over evolution is hardly obscure! The notability of said daughter articles is what's pertinent; not a thematic breakdown of sub-articles which obviously reflects the nature of the respective topics. To put another way, resistance to evolutionary biology didn't happen? Someone volunteers, "yes many people disagreed with it passionately, as it contradicted their beliefs up until that point, but over time it has increasingly been accepted." Then I say, "how would I know that from reading the lead in evolution?" Wikipedia is not a science textbook, it aspires to be an encyclopedia. That lead simply does not meet that criteria, based on my practiced judgment of notability and understanding that topics are larger and more complicated than their scientific discipline. Leads are summarized reflections of that. - RoyBoy ⁸⁰⁰ 03:29, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Information does indeed belong in appropriate sub-articles, but to not mention and point to those notable sub-topics/articles ignores the encyclopedic goal of Wikipedia. - RoyBoy ⁸⁰⁰ 03:27, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

I don't like quoting policy, but I hope it will help in this instance. From the lead in WP:LEAD: "The lead should be capable of standing alone as a concise overview of the article, establishing context, explaining why the subject is interesting or notable, and briefly describing its notable controversies, if there are any." Emphasis on overview, meaning cover each sub-topic; and notable controversy. - RoyBoy ⁸⁰⁰ 03:35, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

I agree with these sentiments. It would be an interesting challenge to try and incorporate notable objections to evolution in the lead without giving undue weight. (But I certainly think it's possible.) Gnixon 04:30, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Off the cuff, while I'm eating lunch at work, the most notable aspect is that evolution contradicts literal religious interpretations; and has therefore been accused/labeled as atheistic by said groups; not much else beyond that needs to be said about current objections, although if intelligent design is deemed notable enough I can be slid in as the modern evolution to the movement. Then there would be another sentence about past objections and the initial controversy/criticism Darwin faced, and maybe mention a key evolution champion of that time. So all that would be 2-3 sentences, then another sentence for whatever I'm forgetting. Sociology misuse? - RoyBoy ⁸⁰⁰ 17:03, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

And of course, all this still is framed by introduction/conclusion sentences to provide historic/modern context for evolution; telling readers what it displaced and how dominant useful it is (which is already in the lead); but it can be expanded beyond "central organizing principle of modern biology" and wikilink to other disciplines/applications it has used for, in order to emphasize its broad scientific usefulness and acceptance. - RoyBoy ⁸⁰⁰ 19:16, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

The words paradigm shift sometimes get thrown around too casually. For starts, let me say that any claims about a "paradigm shift" need to come from reliable, verifiable sources, not our own views. Let's see what the major sources have to say before deciding anything. However, my own view - and yes, I know this can't go into the article but believe me I have been exploring this issue for a long time is this: first, to whatever extent "evolution" is used throughout Western culture, metaphorically or in some other rhetorical way, to describe and explain all sorts of phenomena, people usually use the word to mean "progress." In this sense, neither Darwin nor the founders of the Modern Synthesis accomplished any paradigm shift; on the contrary, their attention to change and the ways change can be good fits into a paradigm that established itself with the Enlightenment. See the classic books by JB Bury and by R. Nesbitt. Second, to whatever extent people throughout Western Culture explicitly appeal to Darwin and Mendel to explain all sorts of phenomena, they are usually really using Darwin and Mendel to authorize a sort of biological reductionism that Darwin and Mendel probably would not have supported and that certainly does not have the full support of evolutionary scientists (see works by Gould and Lewontin - you do not have to agree with their specific claims about specific biological debates to acknowledge their credentials as evolutionary scientists). I do believe that "progress" and "biological reductionism" are indeed powerful ideas in our culture, and I acknowledge that many uneducated people identify both with the theory of evolution, but in fact I think they are separate, have a separate existence, and need to be addressed separately. If someone can provide good secondary sources that provide another view, let's by all means examine them. But my reading of intellectual and cultural history suggests that at best the theory of evolution fits in with other dominant thoughts and ways of thinking - but not that they in any way caused these thoughts and ways of thinking to exist or become dominant. Slrubenstein | Talk 15:55, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Common descent

Are we ever going to have a war about this? The lead now states common descent quite baldly as tracing down to a single ancestor. Are we resolved to ignore confusion on this subject, or should we somehow amend the sentence to clarify? Will I ever shut up about this? Graft 22:33, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

If your problem is with the fact that we say "common ancestor" rather than "common ancestor or ancestral gene pool" (which will just confuse most readers, since we haven't yet said what a gene pool is), dictionary.com attests to the fact that a "common ancestor", in this context, need not be a singular, specific individual organism; it defines a "common ancestor" as "the most recent ancestral form or species from which two different species evolved". The universal common ancestor can thus be a grouping of organisms, at least as far as I can tell. That's the very reason that terms like last universal ancestor are so often used. -Silence 22:45, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Quoi? Non, as far as I've read. Maybe a population or species, as is certainly the case with "common ancestors" for sexually reproducing creatures, but certainly not a grouping of disparate organisms that are genetically distinct. Common descent should mean a single root to the tree of life. Graft 23:52, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Well, this isn't Baraminology. There is a single root, as far as can be told: it's just obscured horrendously by extreme HGT at an early phase of divergence. Unless you're claiming that the same genetic code could independently evolve repeatedly... Adam Cuerden ^talk 07:02, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Well, no, I'm not claiming that, and really I don't know the field incredibly well. But see the Doolittle & Bapteste paper I linked to above; the position you cite above is one of three that Doolittle highlights, and it's certainly under attack. Eugene Koonin gave a talk on my floor a month or two ago on his theories of origins, and he definitely does NOT claim a single organism at the root. (I won't be able to do his scenarios justice, but you can probably look 'em up.) Graft 17:14, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

To be clear, I'm of course not claiming that there's multiple roots for, say, mammals, or animals, or probably even eukaryotes. But going beyond that it's not clear... Graft 17:15, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

This is a really fascinating topic to me... my most current understanding of "origins" is that, due to the (mainly) universal genetic code and the strict use of L-amino acids, that all life on earth *now* is likely to be descended from one ancestral lineage. However, the RNA world hypothesis and other early-earth ideas definitely allow for other (i.e. multiple) origins of life on Earth at that time... but I'm fairly sure that all *extant* lineages of life are believed to be traceable to an ancestral form, largely based on phylogenetic evidence. Do you know Carl Woese's paper on the Darwinian Threshold? I will try to find a link to it... I always have my students read that paper, near the end of my course. TxMCJ 04:33, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

• I'm hesitant to re-insert "common ancestor or ancestral gene pool" simply because it seems needlessly complicated and lengthy for the lead section. How about if we changed "All known species are descended from a single ancestor" to "All known species are descended from a single ancestral gene pool"? That would keep it relatively short, but make the statement accurate to all noteworthy scientific views on the matter (since presumably the "single-individual universal ancestor" view would also need there to be a single gene pool). Then we can discuss the matter in more detail later down the page, if anywhere. -Silence 23:28, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Moment of silence

...for Kurt Vonnegut.
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
So... A moment of silence please, for Kurt Vonnegut who died today at age 84. I only mention it here because I hope most of you have read his novella "Galapagos", about a group of tourists in the Galapagos who end up being humanity's only surviving individuals after the rest of the world is wiped out in a nuclear war. Population bottleneck, great evolutionary story... pick it up if you haven't read it... and give it a read (or reread) this weekend... :( Mandaclair TxMCJ 04:41, 12 April 2007 (UTC) I remember reading Slaughterhouse five in the late sixties. Vietnam and everything else going on-Billy Pilgrim struck a note with me personally and the time warp thing was pretty cool. I enjoyed his writings. My condolences to his family. I'd say God bless em but I don't think he would appreciate that. GetAgrippa 16:47, 12 April 2007 (UTC) Died after brain injuries sustained from a fall in his home. It's sad how these things often go with the elderly. Beats Alzheimer's, I guess. Gnixon 17:22, 12 April 2007 (UTC) He was still as sharp as ever. I remember seeing him on the Daily Show only a few months back, and reading one of his essays in the New Yorker maybe last year? One of my favorite quotes of all time is his - "There is a tragic flaw in our precious Constitution, and I don’t know what can be done to fix it. This is it: Only nut cases want to be president." Graft 17:42, 12 April 2007 (UTC) I was doing work-study at the UMASS Amherst campus hotel one year, when K.V. came through to give a talk to students. I couldn't make the talk because I was working at the hotel, but from what I heard, he was drunk and grouchy and basically told a standing-room-only audience of students that nobody should bother trying to become a writer anymore, because there are no more original ideas, least of all among college students. (Maybe typical Vonnegut humor, but it rubbed a lot of folks the wrong way.) The epilogue to this is that K.V. was in fact staying in the campus hotel, and I saved his registration card with his signature. I still have it... TxMCJ

More on Drift

Factors contributing to Drift (passionate debate!)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Graft: please review the elementary principle of Drift. Drift is **entirely** dependent on the stochastic effects of the randomness of mating (the flipside of the probability of an allele being in the parent generation, is the probability that it is passed on to the progeny generation, and in the context of drift, this is only a result of the randomness of mating = deviation from any fixed probability) You use the word "assortment" which in biology means independent assortment. Independent assortment does not change allele *frequencies* from Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium. Natural selection can change allele frequencies from generation to generation, and so can a separate process: drift. And drift does this, as a result of the stochastic effect of the randomness of matings. I am not going to fight about this or "own the article" with future edits in the near future, so I hope someone else will fix this. Thanks, TxMCJ 15:54, 12 April 2007 (UTC) Um. Random mating occurs in hardy-weinberg equilibrium, where drift and evolution of any sort are explicitly disallowed. You've got it precisely backwards. Um um um um ummmmmm (what is this, a yoga meditation class?) What exactly do I have backwards? [ah, I see now, what you viewed as "backwards"... you thought that above, after I mentioned HW, that I was then continuing and speaking of drift and selection as if they were part of HW. This was not my meaning: my meaning was, given HW, you can add selection -- evolution happens. Or you can add drift -- evolution happens.]. Anyway, you are correct that random mating, zero drift, and evolution are disallowed in HW, but your edit invoked *assortment* -- which Hardy Weinberg specifically proves does not change allele frequencies (mainly because HW populations are large). Please review. TxMCJ 18:02, 12 April 2007 (UTC) Drift occurs because you must sample from your gametes to produce the next generation. Correct. And the MAIN way that happens, in sexual organisms, is through the stochastic effects (sampling error) that result from who "happens" to mate with who in each generation, to produce the next one. Perhaps you are thinking of "random mating" as strictly meaning: every individual has an equal probability with mating with every other individual. (Or you could counter -- and I would accept this -- that perhaps "random mating" was the wrong wording for me to use.) But my point is that the *actual observed* matings of who mates with who (and how many times they mate, and if mating occurs at all, and who gets wiped out by a bottleneck or disaster before mating occurs, et cetera, et cetera) are the main source of the sampling error that results in drift from generation to generation in sexual organisms. TxMCJ 18:02, 12 April 2007 (UTC) If random mating by itself produced drift, H-W equilibrium would be impossible. Again, it seems as if we are not defining "random mating" in the same way -- and that's fine. Choose a different wording if you like, but you can't say that drift is "not about mating". TxMCJ 18:02, 12 April 2007 (UTC) Mating preference has nothing to say about drift one way or another... Note that I am not talking about mating *preference*, as in sexual selection. I am talking about stochastic effects of actual mating events and histories, which are for the most part random. TxMCJ 18:02, 12 April 2007 (UTC) It's WHICH alleles end up in your gametes (an issue of assortment) that is the cause of drift. Graft 17:10, 12 April 2007 (UTC) This is true, but only partly so. WHICH alleles end up in gametes is not just an issue of assortment, it is also an issue of mating history in the previous generation. And please note again, that under Hardy Weinberg, assortment alone will not change allele frequencies. TxMCJ 18:02, 12 April 2007 (UTC) This comment is out of context and it is not clear what the conflict is over. I agree with TxMCJ's characterization of drift, and that drift must be included in any article on evolution. Is this just a matter of wording? Slrubenstein | Talk 16:30, 12 April 2007 (UTC) Conflict was only about an edit that claimed "Drift is not about mating". TxMCJ 18:02, 12 April 2007 (UTC) For the record, cutting up comments is generally considered bad form. I think you misread what I said. Random mating is in fact a requirement for HW equilibrium. If you have mating preference, that is a primary way to get deviations from HW. E.g., there's a correlation for mating choice based on stature in humans, so we should expect to find short alleles co-occuring with short alleles more than we would by chance. Although it occurs to me that it's probably wrong to invoke HW at all, since the primary reason drift is impossible there is the assumption of infinite population size. In fact, drift has exactly nothing to do with who you mate with - it's entirely based on the distribution of allele frequencies in the population and nothing else. To make this clearer for yourself, think about separating things out into two steps: I first choose the gamete I'm going to pass on to the next generation. Then I choose my mate. Regardless of who I mate with, the exact same alleles will be passed on to the next generation. The allele frequencies in the second generation have already been determined in the first step. The choice in that step is based on random assortment of alleles. Gravy? Graft 18:15, 12 April 2007 (UTC) Your new point about population size is very true, and really one of the central concepts of drift. And yes, random mating is requirement for HW. But in your two step example above: Assortment is step 1 (and completely without consequence in large HW populations.) Mating (whether you mate at all, how many times you mate, and who you mate with (and I don't mean by choice) is step two of determining the *sampling error*. How are you proposing that alleles get "sampled" from one generation to the next, if not through the actual events and histories of reproduction? Again: please look at HW again and note that it proves assortment doesn't change allele frequencies. And sorry for the bad "form" about parsing the comments (which makes it much easier to read and break-down, in my view), but as you know, I haven't spent a lot of time studying the Wiki-etiquette. Apologies. TxMCJ 18:26, 12 April 2007 (UTC) It makes it easier to digest your follow-up, but not the thread of the conversation. As to your mating question, it doesn't matter who or what you mate with. Let's say that each person mates exactly twice, producing exactly two offspring, and they all survive to reproduce. You would STILL get drift. Why? Because of gamete choice. That's the sampling step. Think about it: I have two alleles, A and a. What do my offspring have? Well, they could end up with either one from me with equal probability. The expectation, then, is that each of my offspring would inherit each allele, A and a. But what they ACTUALLY end up with is a stochastic choice based on how gametes assort, not on who I mate with or how many times I mate. Sometimes I'll pass on A to both offspring, sometimes I'll pass on a to both offspring. I'm sampling every time I mate. Actually, mating can be ignored entirely. When you make simple Wright-Fisher models of evolution, you can even leave out the mating step if you want - just look at the counts of alleles and sample the next generation using a binomial distribution. Graft | talk 18:48, 12 April 2007 (UTC) Your whole argument on assortment is based on an assumption of heterozygosity. Consider again "who you mate with" in terms of homozygous crosses at one locus: if a homozygote randomly mates with a homozygote of the same allele, it results in zero probability of any other allele at that locus in their progeny, regardless of assortment and independent of selection. Assort into gametes as much as you want, till the cows come home -- you won't get ANY sampling error in those progeny at that locus due to assortment, because of the simple dumb-luck fact that 2 homozygotes got together. Dumb luck and random mating could result -- especially in small populations with unequal allele frequencies at a locus -- in a generation of successful crosses only between homozygotes. What happens then? Bye-bye to the other alleles, and not because of assortment. Because of the wacked out roulette of mating. At this point, though, I am wondering if it's just semantics. I agree with you on most of the above, but ultimately drift is about allele *frequencies* that change for reasons other than selection, due to stochastic effects of allele sampling between generations. I am willing to agree however that "random mating" may not be the correct wording for my meaning here. TxMCJ 19:16, 12 April 2007 (UTC) I think you are both talking at each other rather than to each other. TxMCJ seems to be making a better argument here,but I think the dialogue is off course. As long as the article covers:genetic drift, gene flow, non-random mating, mutation, and natural selection we are moving in the right direction. It would be nice to develop phylogenetics and have a cladogram illustration for an example. It would be nice to have some speciation pictures-like lateral plates in stickleback fish and diagram of shift in ectodysplasin alleles or plant or insect examples. Just an observation. GetAgrippa 19:45, 12 April 2007 (UTC) I don't think it's just semantics. But I think both of us are wrong here, in arguing about specific processes rather than the general concept. This is a Wright-Fisher description of the process: Consider a random individual in the population passing an alelle on to the next generation. If there are two alleles of frequency p and q = 1-p, with probability p, this individual will pass the p allele, and 1-p the q allele (a binomial process). Now consider N such individuals (or rather, N such samplings, since the only requirement is constant population size). It doesn't really matter how many heterozygotes or homozygotes are in the population, so long as there is no selection going on - selection of gametes in the subsequent generation will be random and distributed according to its frequency in the previous generation. I suggest we forget about mating or assortment, since now it seems to me that both of those are wrong. I'm not sure what the best language here is... previously people have taken issue with my saying 'sampling error'. I think genetic drift might have better language, but my memory is that it avoids the issue just by being wordy (as above). Graft | talk 19:39, 12 April 2007 (UTC) Drop it? Fine. My only point is that the actual history of mating crosses does enter into the "sampling error" of sexually reproducing organisms (and I consider "sampling error", by the way, to be perfectly accurate and appropriate language for this article, although it will certainly get voted down as too "jargony" for the average Fred Flintstone out there.) I do however recommend removing "assortment" from the article section on drift, if it hasn't been removed already. TxMCJ 19:48, 12 April 2007 (UTC) Well, you're right about frequency of mating (if it's not due to selection) being a source of sampling error. The other source is assortment in heterozygotes. If we were to do a real simulation involving mating diploids, we'd have errors from both of these factors - first we'd have to pick two random individuals, then we'd have to pick one of each one's alleles at random. This is why I'm saying we're both wrong - or maybe we're both right. I'll stick with "sampling error". Graft | talk 20:04, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

P.s. GetAgrippa, I like and support all of your suggestions (especially about phylogenetics, but *that* would require a whole new section teaching readers how to interpret trees...) but consider: if there is this much confusion and debate and disagreement and argument between authors of this article, then how on *blesséd Earth* can anyone here expect that a concise, general-public, "no-biology-background-required" article on Evolution is even possible? -- Nevermind the ability of *this* group of editors to produce it? Point being: before anyone else tries to make a future argument for keeping this article "short and sweet and non-technical and non-jargony", have another look at the pages and pages and pages of talk that's gone on about the content. Then ask yourself: how much of it do you understand, personally? Evolution is NOT a one-dimensional subject, nor an intuitive one, and any attempt to distill it to an easily digestible morsel in plain English will utterly, utterly fail. The article needs to be rich and robust, and there is a way to achieve this without writing "War and Peace" (as someone recently put it..." TxMCJ 19:53, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

I was the idiot who made the War and Peace comparison (poor argument and word choice). I guess I am biased and I like the idea of a rich and robust article. My tendency would be to saturate the article with information and dazzle the reader with nice illustrations as examples. Evolution touches on every subject of biology so why not get touchy. I always thought the Simple Evolution article addressed the issue of an accessible short and sweet version. Perhaps it is time to restart with a new game plan. Just get a consensus of what to put in it and how to organize it (this may qualify as a "miracle"). I have always been more concerned what is in the article (or left out) rather than how to say it. It seems without a good foundation and some plans this article will never develop. Perhaps a comittee of evolutionary biologists (graduate students in field also) can have a meeting of the minds and bring method to the madness. I would agree that those trained in the field are better equipped for such a task, although I think scientist and biologist in general can help build the article with the Master plan. I can't imagine that a group of evolutionary biologist could not agree on a Master plan (of course the devil is in the details). It is an idea anyways. GetAgrippa 21:09, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

GREAT idea, GetAgrippa. So let's start out by taking a roll call of the evolutionary biologists editing this page.

"Here". TxMCJ 22:01, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Master plan

A debate about editing and the value of contributions.
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Doctors of theology should also please self-identify. Those who do not fit within those two categories will please avoid sullying this article with their "contributions." Gnixon 23:26, 12 April 2007 (UTC) Two questions: 1.) which category do you fall into, Gnixon? and 2.) WHAT POSSIBLE ROLE could a doctor of Theology have in editing an article about a science that s/he has no formal training in? There are other articles for them. I'm not going to bumble over to the Theology pages and start mucking around over there, because I haven't studied that field in much depth. TxMCJ 23:30, 12 April 2007 (UTC) Apologies if my sarcasm was not evident. Also apologies if it was impolite, but I was only trying to make a point. (Follow the wikilink.) My ability to contribute to this article or my lack thereof may be judged by the quality of my past contributions. I recommend applying the same standard to all editors. Gnixon 23:41, 12 April 2007 (UTC) "Here", "here". I'd suggest that this philosophy should be extended to all walks of life. Screw credentials. To quote Batman, "It's what you do that defines you." Graft | talk 23:54, 12 April 2007 (UTC) It might be most practical to start with just Wikipedia.  ;) Gnixon 00:20, 13 April 2007 (UTC) I believe Graft and RolandDeschain are both grads or new PhD's in evolutionary biology. Slrubenstein is an anthropologist. I believe there are several others who float about???? Lots of very knowledgeable scientist in varying biological fields. I'm old school B.S., M.S., and then Ph.D. I guess cardiovascular biology was my main endeavor, but I bounced around a little too (my Ph.D. was in developmental biology and why I have an avid interest in EvoDevo). I have always had an interest in evolutionary biology and still follow some journals and read books. I think it is a very exciting time to be a scientist (I miss research in particular). I digress. Anyways give it a few days and more evolutionary biologist should speak up. GetAgrippa 23:48, 12 April 2007 (UTC) GA, I know your intentions are good, but I object to any attempt to limit editing to a club of editors willing to self-identify as biologists. I understand that's an exaggeration of your intent, but it's headed in that direction, and I don't think it's a good idea. Gnixon 23:53, 12 April 2007 (UTC) I would point out that the editor who made the most well-received edit to this article in recent history describes himself extensively on his user page, but makes no mention of his professional credentials. He has previously indicated that he is unqualified (on the subject matter) to perform a major overhaul of this article; nevertheless, he has arguably contributed as much to the quality of this article as any other editor. Gnixon 00:02, 13 April 2007 (UTC) I agree, but for a Master plan it would be nice to have experts in the field if available. I also believe that non-experts have written excellent articles (with assistance) and made significant contributions. I only point out that I am no expert in evolutionary biology (as some would guess), but I am knowlegeable. Why not use experts as a valuable resource? Wikipedia is anyone can edit (which does reflexively make me cringe I have to admit). I would not discourage editors from participating, least I would shut my big yap (which seems unlikely). GetAgrippa 00:14, 13 April 2007 (UTC) I'm not sure what "self-identifying" as an evolutionary biologist means. Some like myself are identified *by others* to be evolutionary biologists, in that we are hired to teach the subject at top universities, our papers get accepted to top evolutionary journals, and we get invited to NSF-funded symposia on teaching evolution. That's not really "self-identifying", it is recognition and acceptance by your scientific peers. Also, not to be too critical, but the article that many of you are so proud of working on "despite your lack of credentials", had (and still has) a number of factual inaccuracies and clumsy explanations, not to mention a universally recognized lack of organization and flow. So: good work, but don't pat yourselves on the back too much. The article needs a ton of work, and the best people for that job are people who work in the field. Grad students included. TxMCJ 01:01, 12 April 2007 (UTC) By "self-identifying," I mean, for example, you explaining that the Wikipedia user TxMCJ is the same as a real-life biology postdoc and lecturer. The dangers of relying on such self-identifications as qualifications for editing an article or directing the editing thereof were illustrated by the Essjay controversy. My objections in principle to that approach were stated above. Gnixon 01:20, 13 April 2007 (UTC) So, let me get this straight: you're basically saying that just because there was one pathetic slob out there who faked credentials and used them in content disputes, that the solution therefore is to mistrust and doubt anyone and everyone who ever comes through here offering their services as a knowledgeable expert in their field? Brilliant strategy, man -- simply brilliant. Bravo! But here's a suggestion: when you doubt someone's credentials, why don't you save you (and them) a lot of hassle by FIRST researching whether their contributions are sound. Think a contributor doesn't know what they're talking about? Well, fine -- but go look it up elsewhere and check, before you erect your impassable wall of personal skepticism and doubt. Go to the primary literature, and compare it with what editors write here. Wikipedia charlatans ought to be easy to see through, but (Lo!) if you find that you CAN'T see through charlatans, then you've proven to yourself that you aren't knowledgeable enough about the subject matter to be editing the article. TxMCJ 01:50, 13 April 2007 (UTC) Did you read my post before you "responded" to it? The straw men are out in force. Gnixon 01:52, 13 April 2007 (UTC) What's out "in force", is a lot of micromanaging/bickering/wikibabble that is not getting this article anywhere. I will be *thrilled* (if not stunned) to see your next posting, to this page or the article, about the topic of the article itself. Go ahead and do some actual writing about Evolutionary Science. Go ahead: contribute in a meaningful way that enhances the article. And then I will take you up on your offer above where you say "my ability to contribute to this article or my lack thereof may be judged by the quality of my past contributions." Unless, of course, you really want me to go after your past contributions. Just let me know. TxMCJ 02:13, 13 April 2007 (UTC) Do you double-dog dare me? Feel free to "go after" my past contributions. I think you're probably not qualified to do so, but that's just an educated guess on my part. Reciprocally, I'll be happy to sum up my opinion of your contributions in a few words, but I'm not sure if this whole exercise would really do much to improve the article. On a more substantive note, I think you're implying a mistaken equivalence between the title of this article and the details of the current theory of evolutionary biology. Gnixon 03:36, 13 April 2007 (UTC) I've looked at your past contributions, and really don't have much motivation to dissect them. They are largely concentrated in a section of the article that might belong elsewhere, but that's neither "here nor there". I get into phases where I like to talk about the Ev/Cre debate, but man oh man, if anything ever gets tiresome to me, it's that. But for the record: having taught with Gould for 3 years (which I say as a statement of fact and not of elitism) I can assure you that I am well-versed in every aspect of that "debate" (or non-debate, rather), including the history of that thought, the philosophy, the logic flaws, the history of legal cases involving public schools, and all of that. I used to give 2 whole lectures on that for my undergraduates, but have since stopped doing that, since these days almost everyone taking biology classes in college is "over" the "debate". TxMCJ 04:42, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Restrict editing even more?

Also: this is probably a concept from chipmunk fantasy-world, but being that the core of Evolutionary science does not change at a *fraction* of the rate that this article changes: does Wikipedia allow for successive "editions" posted at intervals, rather than constant editing? I strongly feel that we do the article (and anyone on the internet interested in Evolution) a great disservice by re-molding it all the time. It gives the sense of disorganization, and of uncertainty. It also gives the incorrect impression that evolutionary biologists can't get their story straight, which is something that gibbering creationists love to believe. I really think that for an article like this -- especially something of such high scientific AND social import (as Janis Joplin might say) -- a much better strategy would be to allow editing and the release of a new edition every three MONTHS or so (instead of every three minutes). Core concepts are not going to change over three months (or three years, or thirty years), but... I doubt that Wikipedia allows for that sort of thing. People would be at a loss, of what to do with all their spare time!  ;-) But could we make an argument perhaps, that because of extensive vandalism here, that we disable editing of this article for periods of 3 months at a time (after reaching our... ahem... "consensus" article?) I know other heavily vandalized articles can have disabled editing, so this is just an idear... My point is not only about vandalism, but it's more about this: as an educator, I would be very very happy if a quality article about evolution was posted here and STAYED HERE FOR A WHILE WITHOUT GETTING REARRANGED ALL THE TIME. As you know, this article is Google's first hit for the word "Evolution", so it's really important (*REALLY* important) for there to be quality work here -- and I'll say it again -- written mainly by people in the field, and not hobbyists or people with casual interest. Quality work, in my opinion, is not constantly hemming and hawwing and changing itself around. The facts and theory of Evolution hardly change that much to justify the amount of editing that goes on around here, and if the folks here really view themselves stewards of this information, there ought to be a push to recruit the best authors you can, get the thing written, and then STOP CHANGING IT so often. Thanks for listening, TxMCJ 20:14, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

This isn't a concept from a fantasy-world, just a non-Wiki world. Text has no sanctity here. There's almost always a better way to say something. Parts of the text that are satisfactory don't tend to change. There's a lot of text here, and we certainly shouldn't be reluctant to let people make incremental improvements as they see fit. I'd think this would appeal to an evolutionary biologist :) Graft | talk 20:17, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Modern evolutionary biologists recognize that evolution is rarely a process of constant gradual change, and usually more characterized as a tempo of punc. Eq. : Long periods of stasis, interrupted by short bursts of change. That's PRECISELY the evolutionary "pattern" I would like to see in this article, so you are right, Graft, although you didn't mean to be ;-) TxMCJ 22:00, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

TxMCJ did you read this Science article in relation to the subject? :Pagel M, Venditti C, Meade A. Large punctuational contribution of speciation to evolutionary divergence at the molecular level. Science. 2006 Oct 6;314(5796):119-21. Erratum in: Science. 2006 Nov 10;314(5801):925. PMID: 17023657 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]. I thought it was an interesting analysis. GetAgrippa 03:28, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

After this point, more debate largely about the efficiency of the wiki-process.
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Problem being, again, that the idea of there "always being a better way to say something" and/or the concept of "satisfactory" are highly subjective and will vary tremendously from one person to the next, forever and ever amen. You will never ever ever ever ever ever ever reach consensus, as a whole, on the best ways to say everything in the article, and an article that is satisfactory to everyone. I'm not talking about sanctity of text, I'm just talking about a little more permanence of a quality article, for the sake of education and for the sake of writing an article that is actually useful and meaningful to persons other than ourselves. TxMCJ 20:25, 12 April 2007 (UTC) It's simple to go to the history and find a link to your favorite version. Gnixon 20:23, 12 April 2007 (UTC) "Favorite"? There are no "favorites" in accuracy and completeness. Science is not about "which version of this article tickles me pinkest". Sure, people have different editing and writing styles, but a constantly changing article does other readers a huge disservice. Not every child, high-school kid, college student, or inquiring mind is Wiki-geek enough to go seeking for more complete truths by browsing the article's history. This thing is for the PUBLIC, not for experienced editors. TxMCJ 20:25, 12 April 2007 (UTC) I meant that you could easily find a link to a "good" version to provide to anyone who was interested in your opinion. Someone has to decide which version is best, right? Gnixon 03:53, 13 April 2007 (UTC) This article is not about "opinion"!!! It is meant to be a summary of the science! And would you mind telling me who you think that "someone" is who decides which version is best? I think I can venture a guess. TxMCJ 04:25, 13 April 2007 (UTC) Obviously my point was that everyone has their own opinion about which version is best. How do you propose we decide? Gnixon 04:48, 13 April 2007 (UTC) Practically speaking, one could also probably get away with copying everything to one's own page, as in User:Gnixon/Evolution, and maintain the perfect article there. Gnixon 20:26, 12 April 2007 (UTC) OK, and who in Hell is going to ever read that, other than you? TxMCJ 20:25, 12 April 2007 (UTC) Everyone who wants things your way. Also, perhaps, students in the course you lecture. Gnixon 20:34, 12 April 2007 (UTC) Man, I never cease to be amazed at how "wanting things one's own way" seems to be the driving force around here, above all else. All I'm saying is: for sake of consistency, this group should get an article written, set a deadline for it, post it, and then shut off editing for a little while and let it stick. Then come back later and do it again. The overwhelming majority of people see THIS ARTICLE, not articles on user pages, and I repeat: it is a crappy science article indeed that is constantly shifting around and rewording itself when the field isn't doing the same. And in our case, it gives people who unreasonably doubt evolution (and there are *plenty* of them) a little more more reason to doubt, and little more reason for confusion. Discontinuity = disservice, = disinformation, = disorganization. This whole editorial journey may be entertaining to us, but it's completely dysfunctional as a quality means of information composition and dispersal. That's all I mean to say. TxMCJ 20:40, 12 April 2007 (UTC) My brilliant wit is rarely appreciated. Gnixon 03:53, 13 April 2007 (UTC) If a certain version seems better, perma-link it. Wiki works by being living documents; its the core of what is Wiki is. Eventually a stable version feature will be implemented on the English Wikipedia; where a broad consensus will make one version the "display version" and further edits will be done in the background until a new version is deemed display worth. I love it! TxMCJ 20:49, 12 April 2007 (UTC) I will to, specifically that vandalism, POV wars etc. won't make it to the display version. It's a heavily requested and much anticipated feature. Last I heard, it was being tested/optimized on the German Wikipedia prior to broader implementation. - RoyBoy 800 21:10, 12 April 2007 (UTC) So the amount of change day by day will go down significantly from that point. Evolution may also be a special case, and in transition, since some recent editors seem to be confused as to the appropriate tone and coverage for evolution's parent article. Things will settle down eventually. - RoyBoy 800 20:44, 12 April 2007 (UTC) Yeah, yeah, yeah!!!I may bother to write a wikiarticle again. I just knew the mechanics of this Wiki would eventually evolve to a new level. There is hope in Pandora's box. I still think a new Master plan built by evoltionary biologist (as I mentioned above)could get things moving again towards a goal. I would hope some of you evolutionary biologist could offer that if your time permits. Just an outline would suffice for a start but a detailed plan would be even better. GetAgrippa 21:39, 12 April 2007 (UTC) A good start would be to have featured article banners link prominently to the version approved by FAR. Gnixon 23:20, 12 April 2007 (UTC) Would love to help, man, but it's just too time- and life-consuming with the free-for-all environment around here, and the "edit-to-my-every-whim" culture. I spent a lot of time working on the article over the past couple of weeks, and maybe about 20 times that amount of time trying to justify my positions, which come from professional and daily experience working and teaching in the field. I'm all for education and sharing the task, but the time investment required to swim through all the debates is just too much to ask. Anyway... I've ranted enough on that topic in the past, and won't any further. Nutshell: as a scientist and an educator, I would desperately love to see this article improved, and I came here to help in that process, but beyond what I've done, I've sadly found that I really don't have time for all the intellectual bushwhacking that is expected. My only request is that editors in general spend more of their time suppressing personal editorial whims and fancies, and less time micromanaging. For the record, I did post a list of article deficiencies that I attempted to fix, on my user Talk page. Ignore the unfortunate argument it's buried in, which was largely about anti-elitism. Kind regards, TxMCJ 21:55, 12 April 2007 (UTC) I have yet to understand what you mean by "micromanaging." Gnixon 03:53, 13 April 2007 (UTC) Yep! The process is a mix of insane and inane. Quite maddening (not a huge leap for me!). I agree that time could be better spent improving the article rather than the lengthy debates. Perhaps a pool of evolutionary biologist will appear to get the ball rolling and share the load for a Master plan. I would really love to see it. A number of articles have done well to recruit experts in the field. GetAgrippa 00:03, 13 April 2007 (UTC) Unfortunately, GetAgrippa, it seems as if some of the most active "editors" around here, when you actually check the histories of their contributions, have had next to nothing to contribute to the science of the article and seem to spend most of their time micromanaging and fueling the social debates. I suppose it's easier to micromanage something you don't know much about, than go contribute something original and productive to an article about something that you *do* know a lot about... but I guess it's all about personal choices, and how people decide to spend their time. Some people just get a kick out of debating and don't give a rip whether it ever amounts to anything. TxMCJ 01:21, 12 April 2007 (UTC) It sounds to me like that unkind comment was directed at one particular editor. I think the characterizations are inaccurate, and I'm liable to get riled up when someone starts guessing about what others do and don't know about. The pot herself has shown no aversion to arguing simply for the sake of venting her emotions. Gnixon 01:45, 13 April 2007 (UTC) The pot has contributed more evolutionary science to this article in the past week than the kettle has contributed since 2006. And that is a purely factual statement that the article's history will clearly show. TxMCJ 01:52, 13 April 2007 (UTC) If we're done trading zingers, please remember that once upon a time I spent a lot of time trying to encourage you as a content expert to continue contributing here despite your disdain for Wikipedia's "process" and your tendency to constantly spit on others who contribute here. I also spent a good bit of time encouraging others to be patient with your rudeness. Frankly, though, through an incredible amount of effort on your part, you've managed to convince me that your contributions aren't worth the headaches you cause around here. Others have alluded to the fact that there is a large population of evolutionary biologists who have more impressive credentials, institutional associations, and careers, and I, for one, am happy to wait for someone else when I need expert consultation in order to improve this article. I'm tired of dealing with the consequences of personal hang-ups. Gnixon 02:11, 13 April 2007 (UTC) Then maybe you should find some other article to work on (same advice I was given when I got frustrated). I don't care how long you've been here, you don't own Evolution, although your weighing of "whether I'm worth the headache" and your willingness to "wait for someone else" until "you need expert consultation" sure makes it sound like you think you're the C.E.O. around here. And if you're not contributing scientific content to a scientific article, and instead spend all your time debating the politics of Wikipedia, I'm really not sure why you're even here in the first place. I at least have a good reason as a University educator of many years now, to be here trying to improve Google's first hit on the keyword "Evolution". As many many others have noted throughout the history of Wikipedia, and many times in the above arguments and on my talk page: the micromanaging approach that cares everything about Wikipolitics and almost nothing about content, is the vile cancer that's eating Wikipedia alive. TxMCJ 02:21, 13 April 2007 (UTC) Again the straw men. I most certainly do not think I own the article. I'm just trying to help. In fact, most of what I've done here has been to try and facilitate useful discussion focused on improving the article. I admit I've become a little derailed from my purpose here. I'd love it if "Wikipolitics" didn't have to be worried about, but the collected wisdom about how to make this site work needs to be mentioned when opinionated editors like you pop up. By the way---I'll damn well contribute to any article where I think I can help and I'm interested in doing so, and if I'm chased away by you, it will be by exhaustion, not by succumbing to your ill-founded elitism. Gnixon 02:31, 13 April 2007 (UTC) Well welcome to a taste of the old medicine [being chased away by exhaustion, that is...] Just a suggestion: "facilitation" without *contribution* (especially if you're not too fluent in the material) may not be as helpful as you think it is. And I'm not an elitist, just a worker in the field who is amazed at the uphill struggle and weedwhacking that is necessary to contribute. Knowledge + experience + frustration with obstacles does not equal elitism.TxMCJ 02:35, 13 April 2007 (UTC) I think I've made a contribution, and others have said so independently. I'm familiar with that equation, and it's true it doesn't equal elitism, but you've found something else on the LHS to provide the RHS, and you haven't been very nice about it. Gnixon 02:44, 13 April 2007 (UTC) Fellas. Regardless of the validity of your grievances with each other, I don't see the relevance, or purpose, of all this. Wikibickering about wikibickering is an exercise in profound futility. If you genuinely care about improving the article, then rather than complaining about others not improving it enough, why not return to improving it, or at least discussing direct improvements to it? If you feel the other person has done something wrong, take it to that person's Talk page or, if necessary, seek a mediator (see Wikipedia:Resolving disputes for further information). There is absolutely no sense in using Talk:Evolution to complain about another user; complain about the article, instead! -Silence 02:28, 13 April 2007 (UTC) Amen, brother. Thanks. TxMCJ 02:30, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Second law of thermodynamics vs. creationists

A request for an explanation of why evolution does not violate 2nd law of thermodynamics
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
I would like to see the following quote (or, the information in it) included in this article. It simply and elegantly explains why evolution does not violate the 2nd law. --Thorwald 02:57, 13 April 2007 (UTC) Another favorite of the theists is the second law of thermodynamics, or entropy. Savvy creationists have given up this as an argument against evolution, but it is still pulled out to argue for the existence of a creator. According to the second law, the total entropy, or disorder, of a closed system must increase over time. If the universe started as chaos, the theist argues, a miracle was needed to impose order upon it. On the other hand, if the universe was maximally ordered at the beginning of time, this could be interpreted as the signature of a perfect creator. But the cosmological evidence indicates that the universe began in a state of maximum entropy — and that the total entropy of the universe has been increasing ever since! This apparently contradictory state of affairs is explained by the fact that the universe is expanding, with the maximum possible entropy of the universe growing faster than the total actual entropy. Thus, the universe only appears to be getting more ordered, but this is only because there is more room to spread out the clutter. In short, no miracle, and hence no creator, is needed to explain the origin or current state of the universe. Source: God: The Failed Hypothesis. How Science Shows That God Does Not Exist - by Victor J Stenger by David Ludden The "second law of thermodynamics" argument is not an accepted scientific view, nor an overwhelmingly noteworthy creationist argument, so it is not relevant enough to mention in Evolution; consequently, neither are counter-arguments against it. However, this information would be exceedingly welcome in the daughter article Objections to evolution, which has an entire section devoted to this objection. -Silence 03:05, 13 April 2007 (UTC) I agree with Silence. Slrubenstein | Talk 10:54, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Expanded to-do list

I'm seeing a lot of talk on this Talk page, but not a lot of action, or even a lot of talk about the article. Here's my attempt to organize and start to codify a plan of action for improving the article and addressing unresolved content issues; additions and discussion are welcome. Hopefully this will help jumpstart a new wave of improvements that will get this article back on track for FA status—and, in the process, back on track for achieving higher value and usefulness to laypeople who want information on evolution. -Silence 06:17, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

0. Lead section

Status: Good length. Decently accessible. Probably receives more focus than the entire rest of the article.

• 0a - How much should genetics be addressed? How can genes be concisely but accurately explained here? Do we need to mention DNA?
• 0b - How many evolutionary processes should be discussed, and in how much detail? Do we need to mention mutations? Do we need to mention genetic drift? Should we add a mention of gene flow or genetic recombination?
• 0c - Does an entire paragraph need to be devoted to natural selection? The argument for this is that natural selection requires a more in-depth explanation to gain even a superficial understanding of, and can be explained in that much detail without appealing to confusing terminology, unlike genetic drift; the argument against this is that natural selection isn't any more important than genetic drift and the like for understanding how evolution works.
• 0d - The explanation of adaptation, speciation, and comment descent is currently relatively poor: it's clumsy and not as clear as it could be. This is probably the clearest area of potential improvement in the lead section.
• 0e - Should a sentence be tacked on to the third paragraph mentioning the social controversy surrounding evolutionary theory?
• 0f - Should supporting evidence for evolution (e.g., the fossil record) be mentioned?

0g - Where should the distinction between evolution as theory and fact be briefly explained, if anywhere? Here? Basic processes? Study of evolution?

1. Basic processes

Status: Decent length and quality, but could be better. As this section immediately follows the lead section, it is currently the most important section in the article to work on improving, as it should provide all the more detailed, but still basic, explanations for how evolution works. Also, the distinction between this section and "Mechanisms of evolution" is unclear. A substantial reorganization may be necessary if a non-arbitrary line between the two cannot be found.

• 1a - The discussion of Gregor Mendel is a useful device for explaining heredity in a simple way, but it is a bit out-of-place, especially since Darwin himself isn't discussed in the same level of detail until near the end of the article. Consider reworking the basic explanation to transfer the historical details to the "History" section. This section should ideally only explain heredity itself, not the history of scientific views on heredity.
• 1b - The relevance of the last three paragraphs of "Mutation" to the topic of mutation is unclear.

2. Mechanisms of evolution

Status: Same as "Basic processes". Major reorganization needs to be discussed if the current layout is arbitrary.

• 2a - "Selection and adaptation" needs references.
• 2b - Considering that "Gene flow" and "Gene migration" are synonyms, do we really need a separate section for "Migration"?
• 2c - The hybridization section should be shortened. We only need a very, very brief overview; detailed examples like wheat and mules are unnecessary.

3. Evidence of evolution

Status: Overly long. This is not an especially important section; the job of this article is to explain evolution, not to justify it. Any non-essential information should be removed, as there's already an extensive daughter article for covering any details or examples, Evidence of evolution.

• 3a - Specifically, "molecular evidence" should probably be shortened by at least a paragraph or so, if possible.

4. History of life

Status: Good length and good information, but disjointed.

• 4a - Going over "history of life" before "origin of life" makes absolutely no sense.
• 4b - Likewise, not going over "common descent" before going over the common descent-based theory of how life has developed makes no sense. If anything, these sections are exactly backwards. Old formats like this were simpler and made much more intuitive sense.

5. Study of evolution

Status: Needs some expansion.

• 5a - Why "History of modern evolutionary thought" when the daughter article is History of evolutionary thought? Isn't "modern" redundant? For the purposes of the evolution article, the concept of "evolution" is modern by definition, since it is Darwinian by definition. Moreover, pre-modern "evolutionary thought" is indeed already touched on (albeit very briefly) in this section, so that satisfies any concerns about chronocentricity.
• 5b - "History of modern evolutionary thought" is far too short of a section. It could be almost twice as big without problems. Because of its shortness, it lacks many very important details, like modern conflicts in evolutionary science (punctuated equilibrium, neutral mutation, etc.).

6. Social and religious controversies

Status: Decent, but needs some tidying in general.

• 6a - The creationism paragraph should probably either be expanded a little and split into two paragraphs, or shortened a little, depending on how important it is.
• 6b - The eugenics/social darwinism paragraph needs a POV check.
• 6c - We should consider whether there are any social effects other than social darwinism and creationism that merit mentioning here; if so, we could expand the section's title from "Social controversies" to "Social effects" in general.
• 6d - The daughter article Misunderstandings about evolution is largely redundant to Objections to evolution, and raises POV concerns in its very framing. Should it be deleted, or reworked? Does it have enough content that isn't also used as an "objection"?

7. Footnotes/References

Status: Inconsistent and confusing. Should be significantly longer as well.

• 7a - "Footnotes" is an inaccurate and misleading name; it should be changed to "References", "Citations", "Footnotes and citations", "Notes and references", or something of the sort.
• 7b - The "References" section below is so short that it should just be integrated into the above section. Find out what parts of the article are being backed up by the texts in question, then attach them to the text in question.

8. External links

Status: Just right. Concise, useful, and unbiased; nothing more could be asked for in a link section. The lack of a "See also" section is also a plus, as it prevents the accumulation of cruft.

-Silence 06:17, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Discussion of expanded to-do list

Way to go, bro -- I'll have some additions eventually but I'm exhausted at the moment. This outline format is great. TxMCJ 06:51, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Looking good. May I suggest that "Social and religious controversies" should have 6d – indicate early controversy, and fluctuations in level of controversy. The current opening sentence "Ever since the publication of The Origin of Species in 1859, evolution has been a source of nearly constant controversy" is misleading, as controversy was at a peak around 1810 – 1830, there was wide interest and less controversy in the later 19th century, then the current concepts of creationism gained headway in the 1920s: History of the creation-evolution controversy covers this in outline. Something on the lines of "Since concepts of evolution were put forward around the start of the nineteenth century there have been varying levels of controversy." would be more appropriate, with reference then being made to Darwin's natural selection being the focus of 20th century attention. Will think about it, .. dave souza, talk 10:12, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Ditto - thanks, Silence. One suggestion i have been mulling over for a while. I hesitate to make it only because I do think the intro is good and don't like to muck with good things. But I wonder whether it would be helpful to our lay audience to specifiy in the lead that "evolution" refers both to a fact (observable phenomena) and a theory (a model to explain that phenomena)? We can do so in a way that also introduces the structure of the article, as 1 and 2 are largely on the theory/model and 3 and 4 on the facts/observed phenomena. Slrubenstein | Talk 10:58, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure we need to go into the fluctuation, since that won't give much information to readers without specifying how and when and why it fluctuated; we could, however, replace the "Ever since the publication of The Origin of Species in 1859" with "Ever since the early 20th century", if editors agree that the relevant controversies and objections surrounding Darwinian evolution largely started then.

As for the theory/fact distinction, I've been thinking about that as well, but I don't think it would be helpful to discuss that in the lead section, just because properly explaining it there could overwhelm readers. If we always use "evolution" in this article to mean "the process of evolution", and always use "the theory of evolution" or "evolutionary theory" or similar when referring to the theory, then I think we should be fine, since we are careful to define "evolution" as a process (rather than theory) at the start of the article, and readers shouldn't be expected to assume otherwise about definitions unless we specify otherwise. I wouldn't be averse to trying to include that information somewhere in the article, though (perhaps under "study of evolution"?), since it may indeed be valuable to clearing up some potential misconceptions. We don't need to go into it in much detail regardless, though, since we already have a daughter article going into all the gritty details (evolution as theory and fact).

I am more interested in the idea of reorganizing the article along something like the lines you mention. We need some sort of meaningful overarching structure to the article, because currently the "Processes/Mechanisms" division doesn't seem to make much sense (unless someone could explain and justify the distinction). However, I'm not sure how we would successfully implement a layout trying to distinguish the theory/model from the observation for an article like evolution; theory is just too pervasive and vital in an article like this. It is the theory that makes evolution the "light" in which biology makes sense; without that theory, the fact is just a trivial observation. This is a particularly counterproductive way to present evolution to laypeople, who won't have any such grasp on history or philosophy of science. I also don't see how section 4 ("history of life") in any way constitutes "facts" or "observed phenomena"; since when have we directly observed the evolutionary development of all life forms? -Silence 12:03, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

I can't argue as I have already said I feel ambivalent about the point already. However, I think a lot of lay people are confused over the relationship between fact and theory and that in the past we have sometimes gotten hung up on the best way to explain to a lay audience the relationship when the simpler/simplest thing to do is just state that evolution is both - and I don't think it would be too hard to show the difference (e.g. the fossil record, genetic evidence, and contemporary field studies provide overwhelming evidence that species change, diverge, and form new species; the theory of evolution provides a modle to explain how this happens ... or something like this). I agree that the two are deeply entwined which is why it makes sense to start with the more theoretical sections. I know as it stands 4 is kind of anomolous. I lump 4 with 3 and "evolution as fact" as a proposal really for how to develop 4 because the history (not origin) of life is reconstructed largely on fossil evidence and increasingly on genetic evidence but either way, well, call me old-fashioned but this is evidence and while it may be interpreted in light of the model, it nevertheless is empirical evidence for evolution. Put anothe way: the fossil evidence indicates that hominids evolved from australopithicenes - this is an inductive, not a deductive claim. How and why this occured is explained by the theory. Anyway, this was my thinking more or less. Slrubenstein | Talk 12:13, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

The easiest thing might be to say "evolution is both a theory and a fact", but I'd argue that that's far away from being the simplest thing, since it actually constitutes misleading our readers and confusing important scientific terminology; a fact can never be a theory, and a theory can never be a fact, in science. What we really mean by "evolution is both a theory and a fact" is that the word evolution is sometimes used to refer to a theory, and at other times to a fact; but these two words are not the same "evolution", and do not constitute one "thing".

I think it would be much, much harder to show the difference than you seem to realize. Consider, for example, your claim that various things "provide overwhelming evidence that species change, diverge, and form new species"; but new species have also been directly observed arising in studies! Is speciation theory/explanation, or observation/fact? What about mutation? Couldn't someone argue that even the cell model is just a "theory" to explain various facts (including the fact that we see certain things under a microscope)? Moreover, I don't see how it makes any sense to discuss the theory explaining evidence before we discuss the evidence itself; wouldn't it be less counter-intuitive to first tell readers what the facts are, and then to seek to explain those facts with some "theory" sections?

As for 4, you correctly note that "the history of life is reconstructed largely on fossil evidence and increasingly on genetic evidence"; the key phrase here is "reconstructed... on... evidence". The reconstruction isn't itself the direct evidence; it's the cluster of theories (with the overarching theory being "common descent") explaining the evidence (specifically, the fossil and genetic evidence, e.g., homology). To say that common descent is evidence of biological evolution is like saying that the Big Bang is evidence of stellar evolution; if you're using "evidence" so loosely as to apply even to the most theoretical of ideas, then you have already lost your "theory/evidence" distinction and the article layout becomes arbitrary again. The idea that hominids evolved from australopithicenes is not an observation, but a theory explaining the distribution of fossils; to say that this explanation is any less theoretical than the occurrence of speciation or mutation or many other processes/mechanisms of the evolutionary theory seems arbitrary to me. The fact that our evolutionary history might seem more "obvious" or "fact-based" to us than natural selection or other models doesn't make it any less theoretical. The key distinction is that it's still "fact-based", not factual: it's accounting for and explaining the evidence. -Silence 12:30, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Well said and entirely correct. Another major source of confusion is equating "fact" and "truth" (along with "theory" and "conjecture"). Thus "evolution is both a theory and a fact" has been used/understood by some to mean "evolution is both a scientific theory and true," as in, "the choice between theory and truth is a false dichotomy based on misunderstanding of theory." The problems with the language are too complex to be explained in the lead. (IMHO) Gnixon 13:11, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Well, I certainly did not mean to belittle the status of evolutionary theory or the complex relationship between theory and fact. I agree with everything Silence and Gnixon have written. I only meant to suggest that it might clarify things for a lot of readers to say in the lead that evolution is both a fact and a theory. I do not think that having one section on mechanisms of evolution and another section on evidence for evolution - a structural issue - suggests that theory and fact are entirely divorced. It is just a point about organizing the article. Slrubenstein | Talk 13:39, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

I don't have any problem with separating mechanisms and evidence for evolution (especially if we are clear on what does and doesn't constitute a "mechanism"); indeed, that's the current status of the article. My problem was with how we should distinguish "fact" and "theory" in such a way as to have separate sections for the fact and theory of evolution here; distinguishing mechanisms from evidence is much easier. It doesn't resolve the current processes/mechanisms confusion, however.

I also agree with you that it would be helpful to readers to clarify that process of evolution (evolution) is a fact/observation, and the theory of evolution (modern evolutionary synthesis) is a theory/explanation/model. I just haven't seen an adequate way to insert that information into the article yet; I'm very hesitant to add it to the lead section and risk overloading the first few paragraphs with subtle terminological distinctions. We could certainly add it to Evolution (disambiguation) and Evolution (term); perhaps we could mention it in Evolution as a footnote at the start of the third paragraph? That would raise the problem that most people wouldn't bother clicking the note, though, plus it would introduce inconsistency in the reference style... Perhaps the solution is to priefly discuss the issue at the very beginning of "Basic processes" or something. That section's pretty short. -Silence 13:59, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

The fact and theory issue has come up before and initially I think a Gould quote was used to address the issue. It definitely needs to be addressed somewhere in the article, but I think many people still don't get it when it has been addressed. I think the history section spends too much time on ancient history and Darwin and not enough on the Modern synthesis and hardening thereafter. Since most of the definitions, nomenclature, etc. are derived from the Modern synthesis and NeoDarwinism, it seems approriate to emphasize the roots of current evolutionary thought. I also think it is a good idea to address misconceptions as they arise by topic, so more Modern can bring up distinctions between fitness and fittest, natural selection and population genetics rather than mutationism, etc. Just a suggestion. Oh yeah, I think Silence deserves a big hand for consistently being so methodical in addressing issues within the artilce. It generates the most productive bouts of change in the article. GetAgrippa 14:30, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Approve strongly of addressing misconceptions within relevant sections (as opposed to a separate section or ignoring them altogether). Gnixon 15:23, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

As for this fact/theory thing, maybe it would make sense to point out in the lead that "evolution" refers to both the general observation/idea of populations changing over time and the scientific theory explaining those observations. We might be able to avoid problems of terminology by not using charged words like "fact" and "theory" (but use only "scientific theory," perhaps). I notice another language issue: we can use "theory" to refer to the theory, but we seem to have trouble coming up with a way to refer to the basic observations that don't depend on the full structure of the theory. For example, "evidence" has horrible connotations. I won't attempt any specific suggestions just yet. Gnixon 15:23, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

On second thought, perhaps "observations" fits the bill. What would people think about retitling the "evidence" section? (I've never understood its raison d'etre.) Gnixon 15:24, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

I would recommend bringing this issue up on Talk:Evidence of evolution. I personally agree 100% with you that this is a troubling section as currently presented, but if it is troubling then the article should be troubling for the same reason, so if anything that article would need to be moved first (and it would probably then have to be rewritten..). On the other hand, there are analogous sections in other articles, like Big Bang#Observational evidence. Perhaps part of the problem is that we aren't clear on what the "evidence" is evidence for. Is it evidence for common descent? For natural selection? For the occurrence of evolution (i.e., populations genetically changing over time)? Another problem is that there's simply too much evidence for evolution; evolution is such a fundamental, widely-supported phenomenon that having a section on evidence for it comes across (to anyone who understands evolution) as being as silly as having an evidence section for, say, cell theory. -Silence 00:09, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

My Apologies In Advance

Complaints two editors have had about a third
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
I posted what I view to be an important statement here, that was subsequently deleted. I am not going to contest the censorship, because I agree that this kind of thing really brings Wikipedia down to a very poor level, but instead of reposting here I am moving the content and argument to my Talk page, for the record. Please have a look if you are remotely interested. Thanks, TxMCJ 18:38, 14 April 2007 (UTC) Just to be clear, the discussion was between TxMCJ and I, and it was removed by a third editor. Gnixon 18:51, 14 April 2007 (UTC) I encourage anyone else interested in this topic to peruse the talk pages of Orangemarlin, Gnixon, Enormousdude, and the administrator FeloniousMonk, to see how Gnixon's (often POV-driven) editing without expertise has been maddening to editors of the Physics and Relativity articles as well. Not trying to witch-hunt, just trying to shed light on a pattern. TxMCJ 01:49, 16 April 2007 (UTC) Likewise, I'll encourage everyone to read through what TxMCJ has deleted from her user talk page. You might also be interested in looking over other editors' interactions with Enormousdude and FeloniousMonk. TxMCJ, if this stalking and general offensiveness continues, I will seek assistance from an administrator. Gnixon 03:21, 16 April 2007 (UTC) Yes, please read anything you'd like that I house-cleaned from my talk page during the first 2 days I had one, before I was schooled in the "wiki way" that I should archive instead of delete. I don't mind, since I have nothing to hide. And... stalking? Gnixon, YOU were the one who has, on several occasions, taken it upon yourself to Google who I am and post your little public reports here of my hobbies, experience, and incorrectly estimated credentials without asking permission. YOU have been the stalker -- I have only investigated your interactions on other articles to see if you've been as difficult to deal with elsewhere, as here. Your little Google-quest of me and who I am is the reason many people decide to be anonymous, but I am not going to let it faze me. I am sorry that you are not comfortable enough with yourself to be non-anonymous as I have chosen to be, but any accusations of "stalking" on your part are simply ridiculous and hypocritical, given the prior investigation you've clearly done on me AND POSTED TO THIS PAGE. I won't continue this thread, but at this point I believe it's wrong to censor it . TxMCJ 08:12, 16 April 2007 (UTC) As can be seen from the history of Special relativity (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) and the discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Physics, Gnixon's edits to special relativity were in line with the consensus of pretty much all editors working on that article other than User:Enormousdude. Claiming that his edits are "maddening to the editors of the Physics and Relativity articles" is greatly distorting the situation. By all means check the edit histories and talk pages involved to verify this for yourselves. --Christopher Thomas 04:37, 16 April 2007 (UTC) It was I who removed the statement. It was one user's complaint about the behavior of another user. It was an inappropriate use of an article talk page. I don't believe TxMCJ's current comment is an appropriate use of this talk page either and am considering removing it as well. Please discuss your complaints on your personal talk pages, or if that fails, utilize standard channels of dispute resolution. — Knowledge Seeker দ 05:03, 16 April 2007 (UTC) Believe it or not I am somewhat agreed on that (even though I was the second user to voice this particular complaint)... so I won't continue this thread any further. But for important reasons I've tried to explain, I unfortunately did feel that it was appropriate (necessary) use of the article talk page, as the issues really go beyond personal disputes. I agree it is awful use of this page, but there have been plenty of other inappropriate things posted here recently, and those comments have not been censored. For that reason I think it is wrong to single this comment and thread out for censorship. I am finished with this now if everyone else is, but if it is censored again I will simply repost it, and be happy to endure whatever "administrator assistance" is sought, and provide my own description of stalking and "general offensiveness" that has been directed at me, not to mention an inquiry into why this particular complaint should be censored from the article talk page while others weren't. Thanks, TxMCJ 08:12, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Keeping things simple RE: (Pattern/Process, and Theory/Fact.)

I realize immediately upon posting this new section, that this could erupt into the "least simple" debate one could imagine... and that's sort of my point. I suggest that we try to view all of the above discussions as indicative of the distinction that is made across many sciences, the distinction between pattern and process. You observe a pattern. You discover or propose the process. The process describes the pattern you observed. Note that this is not "hypothesis testing" -- you still have to design experiments to test the validity of the process you propose (which of course is why Evolution is science and ID is not.(in your opinion)) I think keeping a distinction between pattern and process is the simplest way to organize one's thoughts within any science.

Pattern: Life is diverse. Process: Speciation (which of course has several sub-processes)

Pattern: Taxa are naturally ordered hierarchically. Process: Shared ancestry/common descent (has sub-processes)

Pattern: Taxa show ranges that are either continuous or disjunct. Process: Historical relationships between lineages and land areas.

Pattern: Variation exists in every species. Process: Mendelian genetics

Pattern: Homology. Process: Phylogeny

Pattern: Allele frequencies in a population. Process: selection, gene flow, drift

Pattern: Fossil record shows forms that no longer exist. Process: Evolution over time, and extinction

et cetera. Note that this "pattern/process" distinction is not some clever tool I am coming up with on the spot to help solve our problems. It's really the way that almost all sciences are structured.

OK, now: you might want to make the logical leap and say that pattern is fact, process is theory. Makes sense at first, however, that is not really the best distinction to make, as even the processes above are now regarded as "facts" in the same way that any other "fact" outside of formal logic or geometry becomes accepted as "fact". I know the FAQ covers this and that most of us understand the distinction, yet it seems like we spend a lot of time dwelling on it, and I'm not sure why.

My second point on this, therefore, is please let us not bog our readers down (and our discussions down) with too much cud-chewing on theory and fact, and "what gets categorized as theory, what as fact". All the article needs to state is the following concise points: 1.) Theory and hypothesis are not synonyms (in science); 2.) Evolution is a theory (a body of ideas and processes that accurately describe data), much like Number Theory or Atomic Theory -- and thus it is not a concept that is somehow "still on the table awaiting proof"; 3.) The core conclusions of Evolutionary Biology are also facts (selection, change over time, shared ancestry, old Earth) by the same definition that any other falsifiable hypothesis that matches the data perfectly every time, eventually becomes accepted as fact. End of that story. Need not elaborate. Move on to the article.

I argue for a simplification of all of the above, mainly because most people are not going to have the patience (and maybe not the cerebral constitution either) to join us in our deep contemplations of theory and fact. I know the distinction is made in the FAQ, but I also think our own discussions on this page could be simplified and cleaned up a bit by not referring to "fact" and "theory" as much, as if a quality article requires us to somehow categorize the information for our readers (it doesn't). Thanks, TxMCJ

Please Include Specific Examples in Plain English

Here’s an article arguing that bird lungs are superior to mammal lungs [5] . Well, evolution sometimes works that way. It fashions a solution that is simply good enough. And it does not backtrack later to fashion a perfect solution. Here is another article about the respiratory system of birds [6] .

A couple of weeks ago, Gnixon invited me to contribute to the article. Thank you very much for the compliment, but I have not yet found the sweet spot. My writing has been criticized for sounding too much like an essay. Well, I don’t think the writing should be all that difficult to read (afterall, our concepts here are difficult enough!). There is a sweet spot between formality and readability.

And, I’m even more convinced that our article should be longer. This is a major destination article. This might well be our best chance to describe, to explain, to teach. So, if you have found the sweet spot, or even if you feel you’re close, please contribute. I think we could easily use five straightforward examples of evolution working, a much longer history of life on earth, and a longer section on controversy, including claims on “irreducible complexity” about the hemoglobin molecule and bacteria flagellum. When creationists talk about such things, they are really doing us a favor. These are great examples we can discuss. They are bringing up puzzles which do in fact pique people’s interests. Let’s keep the discussion going. I’m thinking about two paragraphs on each topic, even if there is another wiki article that discusses it at greater length, we just include a link (much longer for history of life on Earth). Much too much of wiki is people simply linking together blue words. That’s just the skeleton of the article! We need people who will fill in with good description and explanation. Please talk just like you would to an interested high school or college student. And maybe toward the latter part of the article, allowing it to become more challenging, talk just like you would talking to a professional colleague who’s in a slightly different field and who’s sincerely interested, What’s the latest going on in evolutionary biology? Go ahead and tell us. I want a readable, teachable article. I want to read stuff, be reminded of what I already know, and then go a little bit further. For example, the part about Archaea, that’s a completely different taxonomy than what I grew up knowing (I graduated from high school in 1981). I would very much like having this spelled out in plain English, and the implications. I understand one thing that makes this early taxonomy so difficult is that bacteria swap DNA all the time.

I do appreciate everyone’s efforts. I realize just how hard writing is. I’m making suggestions the best I can, but do it your own way. FriendlyRiverOtter 03:22, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Evolution is "guided" by natural selection and other activities, it attributes no human "value" to anything that happens. I guess I find the word "superior" to be attribute a "value" to something that evolved for different reasons. Birds have extraordinary metabolism (think about flying for 2500 miles when birds migrate), and their lungs evolved to provide oxygen to that metabolism. Humans don't need that, and in fact, bird lungs would not provide enough oxygen for humans to have the massive brain that we do. So, in that case, our lungs provide a superior advantage for humans over birds. Orangemarlin 05:10, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

I participate as an interested lay person (and I do hope I’m one of the intended audiences! at least for the first half of the article or so). I may well raise issues/ask questions that are obvious, but not yet obvious to me.

1) By “superior,” I mean it in the engineering sense, extracting more oxygen from a given volume of air, that type of thing.

2) And why do brains require more oxygen than muscles? FriendlyRiverOtter 18:22, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

I beleive that the lungs of birds are often considered superior to human's due to their "circular breathing", which allows them to continue breathing at the same time as exhaling. Our lungs have "dead space", ie a volume of stale air that remains in lungs and bronchi with every breath, and, as a closed sac, there is a period of time where we do not breathe. Jared743 05:15, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

New page

I suggest creating a seperate page on "Evolutionary theory", which, when searched, leads to the article on Evolution. The article would focus more on the mechanisms of evolution, allowing this article to focus on the factual side of evolution. Any comments, reactions? --THobern 20:51, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Already exists. Modern evolutionary synthesis. -Silence 20:55, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Then can we have "evolutionary theory" link there? Thanks, --THobern 21:12, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Not a bad idea. Though we could also make it a dab page linking to Evolution, Modern evolutionary synthesis, and even past evolutionary theories, like Lamarckism. -Silence 21:15, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Well that was my orginal problem with the linking. I suggest a page covering the different schools of Evolutionary thought, historical and modern. It can link, of course, to the main articles. Thanks

--THobern 21:56, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

There are no other modern ones, except for religious attempts to "create" science where none exists. Orangemarlin 16:05, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

Are you claiming that all is hunky-dory between advocates of gradualism and punctuated equilibrium? Neither believes that they are taking a religious position, as I understand it. Mdotley 19:18, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

Mdotley, that's not what I was referring to. When someone throws in "theory", I know what they mean, and it wasn't what you described. BTW, it may not be hunky-dory (haven't heard that in years), but one side is NOT claiming that G_d is on their side.  :) Orangemarlin 19:24, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

You brought religion into it, Marlin. Anyway, I'm with Mdotley on this one. A history of evolutionary theory would be more appropriate than linking "evolutionary theory" to Evolution (I recently changed this to link to Modern evolutionary synthesis, but that's not quite right).--THobern 05:27, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

I mean along the lines of Genetic drift, Phenotypic plasticity, Gene-centered views of evolution as opposed to earlier Lamarckian models. The article would focus more on the mechanisms of evolution, allowing this article to focus on the factual, as opposed to the theoretical, side of evolution.--THobern 20:34, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

I think it would be a mistake to try to separate the description of what has happened in the history of life and the explanations for why this has happened. You need to explain one to understand the other, so I don't think separating the two would make this any clearer to the reader. TimVickers 21:28, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

I see where you're comming from, and I have to agree. Perhaps seperate articles on both. One for evolutionary theory, the other for the history of evolution. Thanks for the feedback, --THobern 21:59, 22 May 2007 (UTC)