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Archive created
November 19
2006
Doc Tropics
Message in a bottle
01:07, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
Dysgenics falls into the scope of this article. Are there any suggestions where and how this should be mentioned? -- Zero g 15:36, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
Dysgenic is used as an adjective for negative traits in modern research:
http://www.ionchannels.org/showabstract.php?pmid=1650725 Muscle fibers from dysgenic mouse in vivo lack a surface component of peripheral couplings. http://www.ionchannels.org/showabstract.php?pmid=2558151 A novel calcium current in dysgenic skeletal muscle. http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/abstract/77/10/6042 Site Specificity of Mutations Arising in Dysgenic Hybrids of Drosophila melanogaster
In the devolution section it might be worth mentioning that an accumulation of negative traits is known as dysgenic, this because many people seem to use devolution where dysgenic is more appropriate.
One mention of dysgenic research in humans:
There's also some information in the history section of the dysgenics article which might be of use since it involves early thoughts about human evolution. The word hasn't been used a whole lot after WWII, though dysgenic has 100K entries on google. I only bothered skimming past the first 100, so there's likely more to be found on the subject. -- Zero g 12:00, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
I really don't think we should be using The Bell Curve here: It's widely considered bad science, and, indeed, racist. Adam Cuerden talk 00:22, 8 November 2006 (UTC)
The article states that there is overwhelming consensus for the evolutionary position. This is simply not true. According to a Gallup poll 95% of American scientists are evolutionists. [1] ken 05:00, 17 November 2006 (UTC)kdbuffalo
(edit conflict)
(edit conflict)
I like that you ignore the first paragraph on the page you linked "That would make the support for creation science among those branches of science who deal with the earth and its life forms at about 0.14%" Adam Cuerden talk 05:19, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
Michael Johnson is correct. There is a method to their madness-trolling and wikilawyering. There have been a number of Science articles on the subject of evolution belief. World wide there is no problem with evolution, except North America and specifically the U.S. (Canada and Mexico no problem), but this article is not about belief. It is about Evolution. It doesn't matter what any of us believe about the subject. It is clear that this is POV pushing and not a valid attempt to improve a science article. GetAgrippa 13:00, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
Ken, the simple answer on the issue is that famous phrase "Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution" by evolutionary biologist and Christian, Theodosius Dobzhansky. Outside of the evolutionary framework, especially common descent, there is no science in biology, only stamp collecting, because without the (very well-supported) assumption of evolution there are no tools for inference outside of the species on which you are working. Without evolution animal testing has no value, it's only ritualised cruelty. Anyone who tries to make scientific inference in biology does so by embracing evolution. Guettarda 13:29, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
Had to dig deep for that one, did you Ken? Grassé also said "Zoologists and botanists are nearly unanimous in considering evolution as a fact and not a hypothesis. I agree with this position and base it primarily on documents provided by paleontology, i.e., the [fossil] history of the living world." -- Michael Johnson 09:46, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
Hi, I don't have time to enter this debate but I just wanted to say that I support from the sidelines the efforts of MJ,Skittle, Plumbago and others to repel trolling and other uninformed and small minority POV attempts to spoil an otherwise excellent article about a branch of science important to us all. I have a suggestion ... why not enforce the statement at the top of this talk page and push this discussion elsewhere, so that you can get on with the more important job of further improving this article. Abtract 14:18, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
I have taken the liberty of investigating "ken" aka kdbuffalo's history on Wikipedia. I was very dismayed to realize that what we are seeing on this page is just the tiniest tip of the iceberg. For example, take a look here. I am not sure what the answer is, but I get the impression this is a radical fundamentalist who is not open to reason. I as well have to reluctantly say that maybe the only solution is to delete any trolling by ken/kdbuffalo on sight. I could say far more, but this is not the place.-- Filll 17:46, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
I have often noted that these fundamentalist Christians are their own worst enemies, and statistics support that there is a slow drop in the last couple of decades in the number of self-identified Christians in the US since they have begun this last "offensive" on other religions, other Christian sects and assorted heretics and nonbelievers (see the religioustolerance.org site for example for statistics). It is a reasonable conjecture that the drop in people claiming to be Christian is associated with some of these combative tactics. Basically, they present themselves and their beliefs in the worst possible light and drive people away (I was going to write something far less charitable but I thought the better of it and censored myself). There is apparently a growing body of evidence in the psychiatric literature and mental disorder literature that people who are drawn towards highly erratic and irrational thinking such as evidenced in the more extreme forms of religious fundamentalism often are suffering from some sort of mental disorder (this was from a long conversation with one of the authors of the revised version of the DSM which will appear in a few years). So to your list of contributing factors to this problem, besides immaturity and mentally challenged, I would add mental instabilities of various kinds which appear to be more prevalent in those espousing these kinds of views. Therefore, certain articles in Wikipedia will be magnets for deranged and irrational and incapable individuals. A policy must be created to deal with these situations, accordingly.-- Filll 18:51, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
I figured you would not. I did not go to any effort to develop my thesis here because it has nothing to do with this article, and this talk page is not an encyclopedia article. However, this is not the place to discuss this. This page should be for the discussion of the article. In fact, I would suggest that this entire discussion and any further off topic material from kdbuffalo in particular be removed from this page.--
Filll
00:45, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
At this point, it would appear that there is clearly no consensus for the proposed change, and the discussion seems to have wandered off-topic. I do not feel that continuing this thread is productive and will plan to archive it. — Knowledge Seeker দ 01:11, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
Remove it and archive it. This is typical of what ken/kdbuffalo has done over and over. You cannot discuss anything with him rationally, clearly, and this has been true for well over a year on Wikipedia. He has repeatedly been banned and caused disturbances on many many other pages where he just insists on some narrow religious interpretation.-- Filll 01:18, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
Hi. That definite article "the" before "changes" in the first sentence has been driving me crazy for months. Don't you think it sounds better without it? Can I change it? Or is it necessary?-- Ggbroad 04:13, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
Why are statements that are controversial being presented as fact? -- Ezra Wax 19:19, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
Why should the claim that it is an established scientific fact matter? It is a question of truth, and science just attempts to tell you what the truth is if you assume that nothing supernatural happened. That is an assumption made by science, but it is nothing more than an assumption. The law of gravity is no longer accepted scientific consensus. It has been replaced by Einstein, and it is well known that Einstein's theory will eventually be replaced as well. Although it is normal in scientific literature to treat hypothesis as facts, it remains a hypothesis. Evolution cannot be proven because you will never be able to get enough evidence to prove it conclusively. It thus remains a theory even if there were no alternatives to it. -- Ezra Wax 19:46, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
I am going to vehemently protest the censorship I was just subjected to. How dare you delete what I have written before it was addressed? So what if you are afraid of "Trolls". This is an open subject and it is flagrantly biased, and instead of addressing serious problems with the article, you are summarily censoring criticism of it.
I looked back at votes pointed out by Roland and the subject was not addressed there either. It was summarily dismissed by a straw poll which was given very little time to come to a conclusion being that the results were near unanimous and there is no doubt in my mind that there is no near unanimity on this subject. -- Ezra Wax 20:14, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
My comments have been deleted for a third time while I in the middle of having a conversation with someone. All three times it was by the same person. Is this policy generally supported over here? You can just go to history to see what I mean. -- Ezra Wax 21:20, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
Well Mr. Wax, take a look at your talk page. Although I should not have bothered, I have graced your talk page with an extensive reply to your deleted contribution.-- Filll 23:42, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
All contemporary organisms are related to each other through common descent, the products of cumulative evolutionary changes over billions of years.
Creationists don't believe in universal common descent -- Ezra Wax http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creationism#Young_Earth_creationism
Scientists don't agree on universal common descent -- Ezra Wax http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organism#History_of_life
There must be an explicit or clearly implied statement at the beginning of the article that common descent over billions of years is only a theory and is not believed by many creationists. It should also be noted that clearly that universal common descent is not a fact.
In support of the distinction between theory and fact above here is a quote from the article: 'In the same way, heritable variation, natural selection, and response to selection (e.g. in domesticated plants and animals) are "facts", and the generalization or extrapolation beyond these phenomena, and the explanation for them, is the "theory of evolution"' -- Ezra Wax 00:38, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
Please respond to the following: 'In the same way, heritable variation, natural selection, and response to selection (e.g. in domesticated plants and animals) are "facts", and the generalization or extrapolation beyond these phenomena, and the explanation for them, is the "theory of evolution"' -- Ezra Wax 01:02, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
Current version:
In
biology, evolution is change in the
heritable
traits of a
population over successive generations, as determined by shifts in the
allele frequencies of
genes. Over time, this process can result in
speciation, the development of new
species from existing ones. All contemporary
organisms on earth are related to each other through
common descent, the products of cumulative evolutionary changes over billions of years. Evolution is thus the source of the vast diversity of life on Earth, including the many
extinct species attested to in the
fossil record
Suggested version:
In
biology, evolution is the observed change in the
heritable
traits of a
population over successive generations, as determined by shifts in the
allele frequencies of
genes. Over time, this process can result in
speciation, the development of new
species from existing ones. Accordingly, scientists have theorized that all contemporary
organisms on earth are related to each other through
common descent, the products of cumulative evolutionary changes over billions of years. Evolution would thus be the source of the vast diversity of life on Earth, including the many
extinct species attested to in the
fossil record
The above are my suggested changes to the first paragraph of the article.-- Ezra Wax 02:55, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
You seem to be making a simple mistake. No scientist can reproduce common descent. Instead they take a bunch of facts like fossils and biology experiments and they connect them with a theory to deduce another "fact" namely that of common descent. The difference between the two facts is that the first set of facts are dependent only on observation while the second fact is dependent on observation plus a theory. If the theory is wrong, then the resultant fact is also wrong. So it has less validity than the first set of facts because it might not be true. -- Ezra Wax 03:37, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
Bob drops different sized balls 1 million times from different heights. The balls fall 1 million times. Bob measures the speed of the falling balls, and the time the balls take to drop. This information Bob has about the falling balls is data or the "facts" of gravitation that Bob has observed. Bob can say there are gravitational facts to explain.
Bob wants to understand why this is true and to predict how long it will take a ball dropped from a certain height. Bob develops some principles and rules, some of them in mathematical symbols and some not, to do this. This is Bob's gravitational "theory". Now Bob has a theory to explain his facts.
Bob can now use his theory to predict what will happen when he drops another ball. And if it is a good theory, it will be useful in predicting what will happen.
So the force of gravity is a fact. It is also a theory. It is also a prediction. It is even a scientific law.
All of these statements are also true of evolution. Clear? -- Filll 03:44, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
Very good. Now his theory will tell him that if he throws a ball up, it will come back down. And if he throws it higher it will still come back down, but it won't tell him that if he throws it really really high that it won't come down. So his theory will make predictions that are false, and those predictions are not facts. His law of gravity is true in some cases and false in others, so his law is not a fact. --
Ezra Wax
03:50, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
I prefer my version which is cleaner, shorter and more accurate. However, I would defer to my biology colleagues, since I am a physicist, and this is their field and their theory.--
Filll
04:06, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
Sorry Filll I didn't notice that you changed your original proposal. I originally saw that it said the theory of relativity and I assumed that you were simply making fun of my proposal. Your version is OK as well, except that I have an additional change to make to it.
Your version:
Change:
I have edited it a bit more and included the first sentence and get:
That's my current proposed version. -- Ezra Wax 04:25, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
There is no real need for this change. The current version is accurate and verifiable, and has achieved FA status. The proposed change doesn't significantly enchance the article. The only change that might reasonably be considered is a link to a simplified explanation (as suggested earlier). -- Doc Tropics Message in a bottle 04:22, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
As Filll agrees the data about evolution is not in dispute. What is in dispute is whether the theory that explains the data is true, and therefore whether common descent is true. It is verifiable that that is the case. You will not be able to verify that the theory is correct because like all theories it cannot be proven correct.
I don't understand those who say that wikipedia is about verifiability and not the truth. It makes no sense. The only reason for verifiablity is because otherwise there is no way of knowing whether something is true or not, and wikipedia is not in the business of stating things that might not be true.
The discussion has once again been deleted unilaterally. I was in the middle of a discussion with two people and it was simply deleted. This is the third time. If you are so concerned about the same issues being discussed over and over then you ought to make a summary of those positions so that people can know. -- Ezra Wax 05:09, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
This discussion is no longer relevant to how to improve the article; I will plan to archive it. — Knowledge Seeker দ 21:45, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
Thank you. Doc Tropics Message in a bottle 21:48, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
I think we've had enough vandalism for a while. Maybe protection will help to resolve conflicts. - Samsara ( talk • contribs) 03:00, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
You're going to take all the fun out of this if you make me stand up and defend standonbible. Please note that while this editor is (metaphorically) opposed to the information presented in the article, his/her behaviour on this talkpage has been exemplary. Contrast SOB's (sorry, couldn't resist) edits and exquisitely polite discussions with what we typically see here. If we are going to treat standonbible as an opponent, let us at least acknowledge a worthy opponent. -- Doc Tropics Message in a bottle 05:55, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
I have to say I appreciate SOB's reasonableness and rationality.-- Filll 06:00, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
If you have not already seen it, you may wish to familiarise yourself with internal consistency and the Bible, or, for those who like it spiced with a little serendipity, http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/donald_morgan/inconsistencies.html
Samsara ( talk • contribs) 05:35, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
I feel the current introductory picture has a negligible "stickiness factor":
For one thing, you can't read any of the words without a magnifying glass. Has anyone else noticed this? The first picture should work to pull the reader into the article. The current picture, in my opinion, has the opposite effect: the print is too small to be able to adequately explain what the picture is about in the caption. The current intro picture should go on its own page in bigger full-page size, possibly with its own article or possibly lower in the evolution article itself; with its own section. I propose replacing this picture with Darwin (possibly as shown below):
Or, if someone can think of a better picture (ideas are welcome)? I highly doubt that anyone gets anything meaningful from the current picture, but rather skips over it (because there is too much information there, in too small print). I know from previous talk pages that both the size of this picture and the caption amount is an issue. Any comments?
Also, has anyone noticed that this article is almost 100 kilobytes and 27 pages when printed out; online attention spans are limited, dial-up servers can't load pages over 32 kilobytes very well, and people don't usually read more that 10 pages or so on-line before moving on to something else. Web design theories and articles are very clear on these issues. Just some thoughts. (see: Wikipedia:Article size)? Later: -- Sadi Carnot 10:37, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
I like the taxonomic tree as well, but we'd probably do better with one of the older depictions, even if they're less accurate: They tend to be more visually appealing, often with illustrations of forms. Adam Cuerden talk 16:01, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
I'm not saying we should use this one, but something like it in style might be useful:
Trees, such as the one above, are only useful when studying one branch at a time. Possibly someone who is a regular on this page make a simple diagram, with only the main branches clearly labeled? Or could some one find a picture of three animals that evolved from each other? Or the evolution of fish to reptile to tree shrew is a good image. DNA trees with 50-100 scientific words (i.e. foreign to those who don't work in these areas) don't help much. Even the peacock would be better at the intro than as compared to the current one. -- Sadi Carnot 17:37, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
The Darwin pic is a little dark; I'll put in the peacock pic. If anyone finds a better one latter we can switch it. Later: -- Sadi Carnot 00:01, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
Also, someone should add to the article a section on how the current theory of evolution accounts for the length of the giraffe’s neck and how in history it was an issue of contention, e.g. here is a related talk discussion. Later: -- Sadi Carnot 00:14, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
I think you are missing the point. Before the recent change, I believe that evolution was the only featured article, out of 1149, that had a first page image, which contained 31 words on it, that no one could read. The article caffeine, for example, is a good featured article with an opening image (w/text) that has perfectly discernable text. I think you are simply caught up in this one specific article too much. It is a basic publishing rule not to use an image if you have to squint to see it’s details. Later: -- Sadi Carnot 08:05, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
The consensus seems to be that users want a new intro picture; one that has immediate recognition, one that has readable text, one that is visually appealing, and one that captures the essence of Darwin's theory of evolution. I just spent time making a new intro image, which I uploaded. Please do not revert. Let the change sit for a while so to see how people feel about the new intro image. I’ll move the other one lower in the article. Thanks: -- Sadi Carnot 15:43, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
Brilliant picture: -- Ec5618 16:34, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
Fastfission, I see you quickly changed my photo without a consensus. If you want to change the photos to a better quality, so they are not washed out looking that will be fine, but leave the dates in. If you can figure out a way to do this, while including the dates, then do so; if not than please do not modify my uploaded images. You can see here: User:Sadi Carnot/Sandbox6 that I toyed with a "gallery" but it didn't look good, so I copied the images, texted them, then scanned them, and then re-uploaded them. If you know how to do this (with the text) as I had it then feel free; for now I will revert. Thank you: -- Sadi Carnot 14:11, 8 November 2006 (UTC)
I think any actual relationship between the two animals would be better presented as a comparison between the skeleton of a glyptodon and the skeleton of an armadillo. -- G4rfunkel 18:52, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
I'm sorry if this has been brought up before, but spelunking through the talk pages is pretty difficult on a page like this. There already exists a pretty iconic image to represent evolution: the chimp evolving into man while walking. A somewhat ironic example. Thank you for your sense of humor, Google. I couldn't find something like it in the commons, but it could be hidden somewhere.—Preceding unsigned comment added by Adodge ( talk • contribs) 21:52, 15 November 2006
I like the idea of a tree of life, but agree the one we have isn't yet suitable. However, we've been going through a series of highly tangental pictures. There were objections to the unfortunate appearance of Darwin in his previous photo, so what about this one instead? We could use a good caption, though. Adam Cuerden talk 04:16, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
Why are so many of the links in the see also section redundant with the text and info boxes? This section is way to big. David D. (Talk) 04:49, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
Heh. I lost the edit conflict and saw that David provided two example instead of my one, so I'm changing my edit. The templates certainly have a cleaner, more organized look than an extensive "See Also" section does. -- Doc Tropics Message in a bottle 07:35, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
Hypothetically, if we were to do such a change; would we have all the see also listed articles in such a box? Would it be under a See also section, or would we leave it at the bottom? How would Template:Evolution and Template:Popgen play into all of this? Delta Tango • Talk 07:54, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
I just did a preliminary cross reference to see how many of the See also links are also included in one of the three templates on the page. i struck out those that are also in the templates. I'm actually surprised there are so many left as well as how many on the templates are not in the see also list.
I would recommend we remove those that appear in the See also and templates from the list. That will be a start towards making this more manageable. Then we can discuss if some of these links can migrate to templates and visa versa. David D. (Talk) 03:13, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
What do you think of the idea of an illustrated tree of life, with sketches (or photographs) of representative species? I'd be willing to make one (based on the information contained in the old diagram) if there's interest.
It would probably be easier to do just the Eukaryotes: The Archaea and Bacteria have divisions hard to visually explain. Adam Cuerden talk 14:33, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
Can we lose the Gould quote, which tends to muddy the waters? Consider the two parts of it: First we hear that facts and theories are different things:
Then we hear — wait a moment! — they're not so different after all:
If one reads the article from which these assertions are drawn, Gould basically contradicts his rhetorically appealing intro: after asserting that facts are different from theories, he takes care to show why evolution is a fact. Evolution (tho not necessarily speciation by natural selection, which is Darwin's theory) is a fact because many different sorts of observations bolster the idea (i.e. the theory) that creatures change over time, deriving from similar ancestral forms, rather than each being specially created (which was the older theory).
In short, a fact is (or at least can be) a very-well-established theory. This is not the place to argue deeply about this business, but basically, let's just guess that the world is a tissue of brute sensory impressions interpreted by theories that we don't question (e.g. if we see a two-foot-tall man, he's of normal size, but distant from us). These give us so-called facts whose interrelationships may puzzle us, giving rise to theories to explain them. And these theories, in turn, may be so serviceable that they become facts, and so on. Science comes into the picture to possibly bootstrap us up another level -- or remove several false levels -- of theory. A good scientific theory eventually gets to join the exclusive club of facts. A really good scientific theory actually throws out whole gangs of false facts that -- it now appears -- got into the club with forged credentials.
Anyway, Gould is a lovely writer, but does not do us any good here. Agree? Disagree? Jrmccall 00:23, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
Roland Deschain, I applaud your patience and dedication to this article. I admit I initially thought you and Graft were paranoid and over protective of this article, but I admit I was wrong. Your diligence is appreciated. GetAgrippa 01:19, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
Back to the topic of this section: theories and facts etc. Speaking as a scientist myself with multiple advanced degrees, albeit in a different discipline, there is no such thing in science as "proof". There is no such thing in science as a true theory, or a proven theory or a theory being a "fact". Proofs are found in mathematics, but not in science. In science the best one can hope for at any given point in time is an explanation that accounts for most of the data one has so far. That is why evolution is a theory and will never be a fact and never proven. The same is true of gravity, for example. Gravity is a theory and it will always be required to explain more and more complicated sets of data as they are available. Some people like to call the
"facts", so one can have facts in science, but only sort of. Because even these "facts" are only really measurements, and statistics have to be considered to assess our confidence in these "facts". However, things like theories are not facts. They are slowly crafted to explain more and more of the data. When new data is available that the old theory cannot explain, it is usually replaced with a newer theory that does a better job. So the Aristotlean Theory of Gravity was replaced by the Galilean Theory of Gravity, which was replaced by the Newtonian Theory of Gravity, which was replaced by the Einsteinian Theory of Gravity, and that will undoubtably have to be replaced. This should not be seen as any defect of science. It is a self-correcting system and one of the strengths of the system, compared to other systems that are inflexible and unable to change (like the creationist worldview, for example). This is true of everything in science, even the "laws" of thermodynamics. When encountering people who attack evolution, I usually find out very quickly that they
Hopefully this can help clear up some confusion.-- Filll 03:06, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
Oh I meant the confusion about the quotes mentioned earlier, discussing facts and theories and so on. I often even hear people who are biologists and supporters of evolution slipping into sloppy language that has a tendency to confuse matters.-- Filll 04:10, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
I changed the wording slightly in the theory and fact section, but I am not sure that it is optimal the way I left it. If you can clean it a little but still capture the meaning of what I am getting at it, I think that would be an advantage. What I am trying to do is to deal with some of the sloppiness that happens when biologists try to use physical science analogies to explain these already confusing issues, since the words have different meanings than their everyday meanings. I am contemplating addressing the question of "Laws" of science as well. Theories that are very well established tend to be referred to as laws, so it is not uncommon to hear about the "Law of Evolution" or the "Law of Gravity". This can lead to even further confusion. -- Filll 15:04, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
I added a link to the article on physical law which could also use a bit of work. I just wanted to at least put a link in there since a reader encountering something called the "law of natural selection" might get a bit confused.-- Filll 17:02, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
I would be glad to write a bit more or something slightly different or mold it into the article higher up if people wanted it. Where should it go?-- Filll 04:44, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
Listen. I am for evolution as against creationism, as I assume everyone in this discussion is. I am hoping to improve the Evolution article by removing something that, while tolerated (apparently) in its friends, cannot but put off the neutrals and give a point of attack to its enemies. In the essay from which the contested quotes came Gould gives as "facts" the fall of an apple and man evolving from ape-like ancestors. Later in this same article he quotes Darwin, who, he says admiringly, established the fact of evolution.
What Darwin did, by his own description, was overthrow the dogma of separate creations. To see that evolution is a theory, try substituting "that an apple falls" for "of separate creations". Doesn't work, does it? That an apple falls, rather than floats or goes sideways, is a fact of observation. That man has arisen from ape-like ancestors is an interpretation — oh, all right, a theory — to connect many different observations (the remains of fossil hominids and the close physical resemblance we bear to other primates) into one story.
Gould is trying to defend evolution from the creationists by making the point that evolution is a fact, and therefore to be respected, rather than a mere theory. Well, I'm glad he was in there pitching for many years; he did good work in keeping the enemies of science off balance. But, as must happen occcasionally to one so prodigiously prolific (and so lightly-edited!), he got sloppy here.
I now regret being so facile with the notion of "fact" in my original entry. I will back off from any definition it might imply. Filll had a better take on it, but the essential point is really that almost everything is theory, or at least has a lot of theory in it (e.g. the amperage passing through a wire, if registered by a meter, has as "data" the reading of a dial, and as theory the beliefs under which the ammeter was constructed).
The motivation for this section was to assure people that Evolution is well-established. So how about we take the bull by the horns and replace this Theory and Fact section, perhaps with something called "Mere Theory?", which argues that a well-confirmed theory is the gold standard in every science. — Jrmccall 00:04, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
Gould is simply pointing out that the modification of organisims within a population over time resulting in the creation of a new species at least in part as a reuslt of natural selection is a fact, and it is indeed an empirically verifiable fact. The modern synthesis provides a model for accounting for and explaining these facts, and that is a theory. People can thus use "evolution" to refer to two different things (much as one can refer to gravity as something they just experience, and theories of gravity - e.g. Newton or Einstein - that attempt to account for what people experience, and generate predictions. I do not see any "trick" whatsoever. Slrubenstein | Talk 06:56, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
Since this article is featured, I feel justified in being nit-picky. The footnotes do not use a standard form of notation. There are full on citations with author, title, publisher, date, ISBN, etc, and then there are footnotes that are simply an external link to a PDF file or webpage. I would urge everyone with spare time to convert the weaker references to a more standardized, using Magnus' tool, or one of the many citation template, like template:cite web. What do others think?-- Andrew c 02:51, 18 November 2006 (UTC)
NB {{ cite science}} - Samsara ( talk • contribs) 19:21, 18 November 2006 (UTC)
I suggest that this article needs a more elementary and accessible introductory paragraph.-- Filll 16:22, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
Of course, we should remove the duplication or incorporate the information from the technical information elsewhere in the text, leaving a relatively accessible introduction so that people can get a general idea of what the topic is about from the first few sentences. One of the most common problems I have noticed in Wikipedia is a sort of "introduction creep" where the introductions become more and more cluttered with technical terms, translations, names in other scripts, pronunciation guides, very detailed information, multiple dates and other material. Eventually a reader cannot tell what the article is about from the introduction at all, the articles become inaccessible and much less useful.-- Filll 18:10, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
It is much better in my eyes, but I am not a specialist in this area. I would defer to a real biologist.-- Filll 18:14, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
In biology, evolution is change in the heritable traits of a population over successive generations. This process results in the development of new species from existing ones and is thus the process by which life on Earth became so diverse. All contemporary organisms are related to each other through common descent, the products of cumulative evolutionary changes over billions of years.
The basic mechanisms that produce evolutionary change are natural selection and genetic drift; these two mechanisms act on genetic variation as it occurs. Natural selection is the process by which individual organisms with favorable traits are more likely to survive and reproduce. Those traits that are heritable are passed to the offspring, with the result that beneficial heritable traits become more common in the next generation. [3] [4] [5] Over successive generations this process can result in varied adaptations to changing environmental conditions. [6]
The modern understanding of evolution is based on the theory of natural selection, 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, these ideas concerning the process of evolution were combined with Gregor Mendel's ideas concerning the mechanisms of heredity to form the current theory of evolution, known technically as the modern evolutionary synthesis, or "Neo- Darwinism". 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, eusociality in insects, and sex ratios.
Although there is overwhelming evidence and scientific consensus supporting the validity of evolution, [7] it has been at the center of many social and religious controversies because it has implications for the origins of humankind. [8]
Most of the edit appears to be simply deleting somewhat technical parts of the intro, most notably the deletion of any reference to the change of allele frequency as the basic definition of evolution. I disagree with these deletions. The intro sentence is actually quite approachable, with a general definition in the first part of the sentence and a more formal definition in the second part. The later mention of allele frequency is the actual definition of the modern synthesis and should definitely stay in the intro. I also disagree with the rest of the deletions, as they are not technical at all, but rather serve to introduce the major players in such a large theory. Is there a specific change in the intro that you want to see implemented, as it's very hard to discuss that many changes at the same time.-- Roland Deschain 18:55, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
I agree with Roland. While the issue of allele fraquencies may not be the most accessible, it's an important element of the definition of evolution (there's a big discussion about it somewhere in the archives). I disagree with the removal of the statement regarding evolution being the source of the diversity of life - I don't see how removing that statement simplifies matters at all.
Including "ecological, sexual, and kin selection" is useful. I don't think it should be removed. I prefer to state what the sources of variation are - people are often confused about that. On the other hand, I would be happy to see something more accessible replace "with the result that beneficial heritable traits". I'm fine with either "given enough time..." or "over successive generations..." - actually I'd prefer wording that included both the ideas of time and generations.
I prefer "Darwinian natural selection" to "these ideas" though "with Gregor Mendel's ideas concerning the mechanisms of heredity" may be more accessible than "with the theory of Mendelian heredity" (again, I think there's better wording that lies somewhere between these two). I prefer that "eusociality in insects, and the staggering biodiversity of Earth's ecosystem" be retained. It's an end-of-section sentance - if people don't want to read it, they'll gloss over it, but if they choose to read it carefully they will get a better sense of scale. Guettarda 19:52, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
I think it's a very nice cleanup of the old intro. I've just added these examples. - Samsara ( talk • contribs) 20:06, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
I do think that is a great idea, and we might want to put an early link in to the simple Wikipedia article on evolution. In the meantime, I have taken the liberty of compiling a bit more feedback. -- Filll 21:34, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
As a contributor myself to Simple Wikipedia, it is a significant intellectual challenge to present complicated material in an accessible way, while keeping in mind the subtleties that exist. So if we were to provide an early link to the Simple Wikipedia article on evolution here, how would you modify the Simple Wikipedia evolution article to make it more reasonable and accurate?-- Filll 17:20, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
In biology, evolution is change in the heritable traits of a population over successive generations.
This process results in the development of new species from existing ones and is thus the process by which life on Earth became so diverse. All contemporary organisms are related to each other through common descent, the products of cumulative evolutionary changes over billions of years.
I will note that many times I encounter people that think the theory of evolution includes things like:
(somewhat similar to the objections to relativity based on the name, and thinking it has something to do with everything being relative to something else) People with these kinds of misunderstandings is the audience one has to reach out to somehow. They need to be reached. Many times when I just talk about survival of the fittest and mutations, people think I am being sneaky somehow and holding back some other big idea from evolution, because they are so confused about what biological evolution is.
The basic mechanisms that produce evolutionary change are natural selection and genetic drift; these two mechanisms act on genetic variation as it occurs.
Natural selection is the process by which individual organisms with favorable traits are more likely to survive and reproduce.
Those traits that are heritable are passed to the offspring, with the result that beneficial heritable traits become more common in the next generation. [3] [9] [10]
Over successive generations this process can result in varied
adaptations to changing environmental conditions.
[6]
The modern understanding of evolution is based on the theory of natural selection, 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, these ideas concerning the process of evolution were combined with
Gregor Mendel's ideas concerning the mechanisms of
heredity to form the current theory of evolution, known technically as the
modern evolutionary synthesis, or "Neo-
Darwinism".
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, eusociality in insects, and sex ratios.
Although there is overwhelming evidence and scientific consensus supporting the validity of evolution, [11] it has been at the center of many social and religious controversies because it has implications for the origins of humankind. [12]
-- Filll 21:36, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
I do not have a big problem with the current intro or the proposed intro either. I just think that given that this is such a high profile topic, and there is so much misunderstanding of it, we should think about how to help dispel some of the misunderstanding, while still having a useful resource for people who have a bit more background. What about a link to simple Wikipedia? How does that article look? Beginners could be given a link to that as a primer, possibly.-- Filll 21:53, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
My purpose in putting up the new, simplified lead section was to make the article more easily accessible to the average reader. I feel no particular ownership of the exact wording (which on re-reading is far from perfect) but I think we should remember that this is a very important article and a highly contentious one (as we have seen in recent 'discussions' here). I guess it is visited a lot (is there a way of getting figures on this?) and that the vast majority of people who look at this article are not biologists or even scientists. Again I have no figures but IMHO a subject like this is bound to attract most intelligent, curious people at some time or another. It is also going to get a lot of 'hits' from google and other searches. With all this passing trade to this article surely we must ensure that they get the true flavour of evolution before they get bored or scared off by the science. There are enough people out there giving misleading messages on evolution and we mustn't miss any opportunity to correct these views. It is for this reason that I believe it is very important that the lead gives a good account of evolution that is easily readable to the end by an average person; of course this must be consistent with the science but not confused by it. I leave it to you better able people to achieve what I set out to do above but please don't miss this opportunity to inform a lot of people of the facts about evolution by scaring them off at the very beginning of the article ... lead them slowly into the science step-by-step and they will get more out of it. Abtract 10:00, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
Just so we don't get torn into various battles on the edges of our camp, I thought I should mention the doubting Thomases have moved to Roland's talk page for now. - Samsara ( talk • contribs) 02:49, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
I am not complaining about the introduction exactly. I just want us to think about how to make this article more accessible to more people. Or barring that, to provide a link to a more accessible article or primer so beginners can get up to speed. I do not want to discard any important science or distort it. I just want to provide a more gentle onramp for people, since this is so important and many people seem to be confused about the issue. Having a difficult introduction definitely does not help matters when dealing with anti-evolutionists.-- Filll 18:23, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
I have placed a comment on Wikipedia:NPOV (Comparison of views in science) about the methods applicable to these discussions. DGG 05:24, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
The editors of this article will probably find this interesting [10]-- Pixel ;-) 19:20, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
I am using only the CRUDEST terms when I say that basically,to my understanding,evolution is many good birth defects. If it is not good for a human to have an extra thumb, the variation dies out, if it is, then it over comes the 2 thumbed variation.Is that basically the theory? PS. I did not know the proper word,, so i used variation
Despite many recent prunings, this page is evolving into a behemoth. Perhaps not literally, but it's extremely long at this point. There has been no recent activity in the sections on "Lamark" and "Dysgenics". If no one objects, I'll archive those. Also, the early discussion of images has moved down the page and is continued is several more recent sections. Can the earliest section of image discussion be archived, or should it remain (because that's where the images are actually visible)? -- Doc Tropics Message in a bottle 21:19, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
I have created User talk:Doc Tropics/Evo talk to discuss issues regarding this talkpage. This is not an attempt to "hide" the discussions, but to keep the talkpage itself free for efforts to improve the article. -- Doc Tropics Message in a bottle 19:18, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
Any talk about making clear that parts of evolution are theory is summarily archived. You will have to look into the history of the talk page to see it, because of course it's been archived. There is no addressing of the issues. --05:22, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
I would agree. I have no problem debating them, except for the fact they often are not interested in anything but "proving" their point, not in understanding the issues, which they seem to have completely confused notions about. However, real article improvement efforts get lost in the sea of creationist attacks very quickly, and many editors give up and walk away.-- Filll 19:02, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
It all boils down to the same thing. Creationists claiming that evolution is being described as a proven fact, and them being offended by that notion since it disagrees with what they feel is the revealed truth.-- Filll 20:25, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
I'm here because of the RfC. The article seems to do a fine job of describing the difference between fact and theory, and I don't see a content problem here. It doesn't need to be re-litigated, so speedy archiving of these issues seems appropriate. -- Ginkgo100 talk · e@ 21:23, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
It seemed to help at the Intelligent Design page so I've added a similar version here. Let me know what you think. I've gone through all the archives but I've only added meaty topics or discussions that have clear reference to Wiki-policy. It's not 100% comprehensive because there's a tendency on this page to delete absurd points (evolution not thoroughly supported by fossil records etc.) so I'd suggest that any creationist/ID talking point not already covered by the 'points already discussed' section should be allowed to run its course once. That way we can then add it to the list. Comments very much appreciated. -- Davril2020 19:10, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
It looks pretty good. Then all we need is a link to some FAQ and we have a couple of places to point new visitors and assorted malcontents when they visit the page.-- Filll
Good call all! This should help. FeloniousMonk 23:53, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
Hey - how would this look? I think it would clean things up dramatically and put an even greater damper on useless discussions. standonbible Talk! 00:30, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
Can I beg some help over there? It's drifted seriously towards the creationist POV, to the point where it all but dismisses accusations of creationists quote mining: "Many critics argue that these are quote mines (lists of out of context or misleading quotations) that do not accurately reflect the evidence for evolution or the mainstream scientific community's opinion of it." Adam Cuerden talk 00:26, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
This discussion on this page is ignoring the headnote:
IMPORTANT - If you wish to discuss or debate the validity of the theory of evolution please do so at talk.origins, True.Origins Archive or Wikireason. This "Discussion" page is only for discussion on how to improve the Wikipedia article. Any attempts at trolling, using this page as a soapbox, or making personal attacks may be deleted at any time.
Perhaps it is time for all such irrelevant comments to be deleted, and the page archived once more. DGG 07:31, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
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![]() | This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 15 | ← | Archive 19 | Archive 20 | Archive 21 | Archive 22 | Archive 23 | → | Archive 25 |
Archive created
November 19
2006
Doc Tropics
Message in a bottle
01:07, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
Dysgenics falls into the scope of this article. Are there any suggestions where and how this should be mentioned? -- Zero g 15:36, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
Dysgenic is used as an adjective for negative traits in modern research:
http://www.ionchannels.org/showabstract.php?pmid=1650725 Muscle fibers from dysgenic mouse in vivo lack a surface component of peripheral couplings. http://www.ionchannels.org/showabstract.php?pmid=2558151 A novel calcium current in dysgenic skeletal muscle. http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/abstract/77/10/6042 Site Specificity of Mutations Arising in Dysgenic Hybrids of Drosophila melanogaster
In the devolution section it might be worth mentioning that an accumulation of negative traits is known as dysgenic, this because many people seem to use devolution where dysgenic is more appropriate.
One mention of dysgenic research in humans:
There's also some information in the history section of the dysgenics article which might be of use since it involves early thoughts about human evolution. The word hasn't been used a whole lot after WWII, though dysgenic has 100K entries on google. I only bothered skimming past the first 100, so there's likely more to be found on the subject. -- Zero g 12:00, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
I really don't think we should be using The Bell Curve here: It's widely considered bad science, and, indeed, racist. Adam Cuerden talk 00:22, 8 November 2006 (UTC)
The article states that there is overwhelming consensus for the evolutionary position. This is simply not true. According to a Gallup poll 95% of American scientists are evolutionists. [1] ken 05:00, 17 November 2006 (UTC)kdbuffalo
(edit conflict)
(edit conflict)
I like that you ignore the first paragraph on the page you linked "That would make the support for creation science among those branches of science who deal with the earth and its life forms at about 0.14%" Adam Cuerden talk 05:19, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
Michael Johnson is correct. There is a method to their madness-trolling and wikilawyering. There have been a number of Science articles on the subject of evolution belief. World wide there is no problem with evolution, except North America and specifically the U.S. (Canada and Mexico no problem), but this article is not about belief. It is about Evolution. It doesn't matter what any of us believe about the subject. It is clear that this is POV pushing and not a valid attempt to improve a science article. GetAgrippa 13:00, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
Ken, the simple answer on the issue is that famous phrase "Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution" by evolutionary biologist and Christian, Theodosius Dobzhansky. Outside of the evolutionary framework, especially common descent, there is no science in biology, only stamp collecting, because without the (very well-supported) assumption of evolution there are no tools for inference outside of the species on which you are working. Without evolution animal testing has no value, it's only ritualised cruelty. Anyone who tries to make scientific inference in biology does so by embracing evolution. Guettarda 13:29, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
Had to dig deep for that one, did you Ken? Grassé also said "Zoologists and botanists are nearly unanimous in considering evolution as a fact and not a hypothesis. I agree with this position and base it primarily on documents provided by paleontology, i.e., the [fossil] history of the living world." -- Michael Johnson 09:46, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
Hi, I don't have time to enter this debate but I just wanted to say that I support from the sidelines the efforts of MJ,Skittle, Plumbago and others to repel trolling and other uninformed and small minority POV attempts to spoil an otherwise excellent article about a branch of science important to us all. I have a suggestion ... why not enforce the statement at the top of this talk page and push this discussion elsewhere, so that you can get on with the more important job of further improving this article. Abtract 14:18, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
I have taken the liberty of investigating "ken" aka kdbuffalo's history on Wikipedia. I was very dismayed to realize that what we are seeing on this page is just the tiniest tip of the iceberg. For example, take a look here. I am not sure what the answer is, but I get the impression this is a radical fundamentalist who is not open to reason. I as well have to reluctantly say that maybe the only solution is to delete any trolling by ken/kdbuffalo on sight. I could say far more, but this is not the place.-- Filll 17:46, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
I have often noted that these fundamentalist Christians are their own worst enemies, and statistics support that there is a slow drop in the last couple of decades in the number of self-identified Christians in the US since they have begun this last "offensive" on other religions, other Christian sects and assorted heretics and nonbelievers (see the religioustolerance.org site for example for statistics). It is a reasonable conjecture that the drop in people claiming to be Christian is associated with some of these combative tactics. Basically, they present themselves and their beliefs in the worst possible light and drive people away (I was going to write something far less charitable but I thought the better of it and censored myself). There is apparently a growing body of evidence in the psychiatric literature and mental disorder literature that people who are drawn towards highly erratic and irrational thinking such as evidenced in the more extreme forms of religious fundamentalism often are suffering from some sort of mental disorder (this was from a long conversation with one of the authors of the revised version of the DSM which will appear in a few years). So to your list of contributing factors to this problem, besides immaturity and mentally challenged, I would add mental instabilities of various kinds which appear to be more prevalent in those espousing these kinds of views. Therefore, certain articles in Wikipedia will be magnets for deranged and irrational and incapable individuals. A policy must be created to deal with these situations, accordingly.-- Filll 18:51, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
I figured you would not. I did not go to any effort to develop my thesis here because it has nothing to do with this article, and this talk page is not an encyclopedia article. However, this is not the place to discuss this. This page should be for the discussion of the article. In fact, I would suggest that this entire discussion and any further off topic material from kdbuffalo in particular be removed from this page.--
Filll
00:45, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
At this point, it would appear that there is clearly no consensus for the proposed change, and the discussion seems to have wandered off-topic. I do not feel that continuing this thread is productive and will plan to archive it. — Knowledge Seeker দ 01:11, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
Remove it and archive it. This is typical of what ken/kdbuffalo has done over and over. You cannot discuss anything with him rationally, clearly, and this has been true for well over a year on Wikipedia. He has repeatedly been banned and caused disturbances on many many other pages where he just insists on some narrow religious interpretation.-- Filll 01:18, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
Hi. That definite article "the" before "changes" in the first sentence has been driving me crazy for months. Don't you think it sounds better without it? Can I change it? Or is it necessary?-- Ggbroad 04:13, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
Why are statements that are controversial being presented as fact? -- Ezra Wax 19:19, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
Why should the claim that it is an established scientific fact matter? It is a question of truth, and science just attempts to tell you what the truth is if you assume that nothing supernatural happened. That is an assumption made by science, but it is nothing more than an assumption. The law of gravity is no longer accepted scientific consensus. It has been replaced by Einstein, and it is well known that Einstein's theory will eventually be replaced as well. Although it is normal in scientific literature to treat hypothesis as facts, it remains a hypothesis. Evolution cannot be proven because you will never be able to get enough evidence to prove it conclusively. It thus remains a theory even if there were no alternatives to it. -- Ezra Wax 19:46, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
I am going to vehemently protest the censorship I was just subjected to. How dare you delete what I have written before it was addressed? So what if you are afraid of "Trolls". This is an open subject and it is flagrantly biased, and instead of addressing serious problems with the article, you are summarily censoring criticism of it.
I looked back at votes pointed out by Roland and the subject was not addressed there either. It was summarily dismissed by a straw poll which was given very little time to come to a conclusion being that the results were near unanimous and there is no doubt in my mind that there is no near unanimity on this subject. -- Ezra Wax 20:14, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
My comments have been deleted for a third time while I in the middle of having a conversation with someone. All three times it was by the same person. Is this policy generally supported over here? You can just go to history to see what I mean. -- Ezra Wax 21:20, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
Well Mr. Wax, take a look at your talk page. Although I should not have bothered, I have graced your talk page with an extensive reply to your deleted contribution.-- Filll 23:42, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
All contemporary organisms are related to each other through common descent, the products of cumulative evolutionary changes over billions of years.
Creationists don't believe in universal common descent -- Ezra Wax http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creationism#Young_Earth_creationism
Scientists don't agree on universal common descent -- Ezra Wax http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organism#History_of_life
There must be an explicit or clearly implied statement at the beginning of the article that common descent over billions of years is only a theory and is not believed by many creationists. It should also be noted that clearly that universal common descent is not a fact.
In support of the distinction between theory and fact above here is a quote from the article: 'In the same way, heritable variation, natural selection, and response to selection (e.g. in domesticated plants and animals) are "facts", and the generalization or extrapolation beyond these phenomena, and the explanation for them, is the "theory of evolution"' -- Ezra Wax 00:38, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
Please respond to the following: 'In the same way, heritable variation, natural selection, and response to selection (e.g. in domesticated plants and animals) are "facts", and the generalization or extrapolation beyond these phenomena, and the explanation for them, is the "theory of evolution"' -- Ezra Wax 01:02, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
Current version:
In
biology, evolution is change in the
heritable
traits of a
population over successive generations, as determined by shifts in the
allele frequencies of
genes. Over time, this process can result in
speciation, the development of new
species from existing ones. All contemporary
organisms on earth are related to each other through
common descent, the products of cumulative evolutionary changes over billions of years. Evolution is thus the source of the vast diversity of life on Earth, including the many
extinct species attested to in the
fossil record
Suggested version:
In
biology, evolution is the observed change in the
heritable
traits of a
population over successive generations, as determined by shifts in the
allele frequencies of
genes. Over time, this process can result in
speciation, the development of new
species from existing ones. Accordingly, scientists have theorized that all contemporary
organisms on earth are related to each other through
common descent, the products of cumulative evolutionary changes over billions of years. Evolution would thus be the source of the vast diversity of life on Earth, including the many
extinct species attested to in the
fossil record
The above are my suggested changes to the first paragraph of the article.-- Ezra Wax 02:55, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
You seem to be making a simple mistake. No scientist can reproduce common descent. Instead they take a bunch of facts like fossils and biology experiments and they connect them with a theory to deduce another "fact" namely that of common descent. The difference between the two facts is that the first set of facts are dependent only on observation while the second fact is dependent on observation plus a theory. If the theory is wrong, then the resultant fact is also wrong. So it has less validity than the first set of facts because it might not be true. -- Ezra Wax 03:37, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
Bob drops different sized balls 1 million times from different heights. The balls fall 1 million times. Bob measures the speed of the falling balls, and the time the balls take to drop. This information Bob has about the falling balls is data or the "facts" of gravitation that Bob has observed. Bob can say there are gravitational facts to explain.
Bob wants to understand why this is true and to predict how long it will take a ball dropped from a certain height. Bob develops some principles and rules, some of them in mathematical symbols and some not, to do this. This is Bob's gravitational "theory". Now Bob has a theory to explain his facts.
Bob can now use his theory to predict what will happen when he drops another ball. And if it is a good theory, it will be useful in predicting what will happen.
So the force of gravity is a fact. It is also a theory. It is also a prediction. It is even a scientific law.
All of these statements are also true of evolution. Clear? -- Filll 03:44, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
Very good. Now his theory will tell him that if he throws a ball up, it will come back down. And if he throws it higher it will still come back down, but it won't tell him that if he throws it really really high that it won't come down. So his theory will make predictions that are false, and those predictions are not facts. His law of gravity is true in some cases and false in others, so his law is not a fact. --
Ezra Wax
03:50, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
I prefer my version which is cleaner, shorter and more accurate. However, I would defer to my biology colleagues, since I am a physicist, and this is their field and their theory.--
Filll
04:06, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
Sorry Filll I didn't notice that you changed your original proposal. I originally saw that it said the theory of relativity and I assumed that you were simply making fun of my proposal. Your version is OK as well, except that I have an additional change to make to it.
Your version:
Change:
I have edited it a bit more and included the first sentence and get:
That's my current proposed version. -- Ezra Wax 04:25, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
There is no real need for this change. The current version is accurate and verifiable, and has achieved FA status. The proposed change doesn't significantly enchance the article. The only change that might reasonably be considered is a link to a simplified explanation (as suggested earlier). -- Doc Tropics Message in a bottle 04:22, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
As Filll agrees the data about evolution is not in dispute. What is in dispute is whether the theory that explains the data is true, and therefore whether common descent is true. It is verifiable that that is the case. You will not be able to verify that the theory is correct because like all theories it cannot be proven correct.
I don't understand those who say that wikipedia is about verifiability and not the truth. It makes no sense. The only reason for verifiablity is because otherwise there is no way of knowing whether something is true or not, and wikipedia is not in the business of stating things that might not be true.
The discussion has once again been deleted unilaterally. I was in the middle of a discussion with two people and it was simply deleted. This is the third time. If you are so concerned about the same issues being discussed over and over then you ought to make a summary of those positions so that people can know. -- Ezra Wax 05:09, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
This discussion is no longer relevant to how to improve the article; I will plan to archive it. — Knowledge Seeker দ 21:45, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
Thank you. Doc Tropics Message in a bottle 21:48, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
I think we've had enough vandalism for a while. Maybe protection will help to resolve conflicts. - Samsara ( talk • contribs) 03:00, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
You're going to take all the fun out of this if you make me stand up and defend standonbible. Please note that while this editor is (metaphorically) opposed to the information presented in the article, his/her behaviour on this talkpage has been exemplary. Contrast SOB's (sorry, couldn't resist) edits and exquisitely polite discussions with what we typically see here. If we are going to treat standonbible as an opponent, let us at least acknowledge a worthy opponent. -- Doc Tropics Message in a bottle 05:55, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
I have to say I appreciate SOB's reasonableness and rationality.-- Filll 06:00, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
If you have not already seen it, you may wish to familiarise yourself with internal consistency and the Bible, or, for those who like it spiced with a little serendipity, http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/donald_morgan/inconsistencies.html
Samsara ( talk • contribs) 05:35, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
I feel the current introductory picture has a negligible "stickiness factor":
For one thing, you can't read any of the words without a magnifying glass. Has anyone else noticed this? The first picture should work to pull the reader into the article. The current picture, in my opinion, has the opposite effect: the print is too small to be able to adequately explain what the picture is about in the caption. The current intro picture should go on its own page in bigger full-page size, possibly with its own article or possibly lower in the evolution article itself; with its own section. I propose replacing this picture with Darwin (possibly as shown below):
Or, if someone can think of a better picture (ideas are welcome)? I highly doubt that anyone gets anything meaningful from the current picture, but rather skips over it (because there is too much information there, in too small print). I know from previous talk pages that both the size of this picture and the caption amount is an issue. Any comments?
Also, has anyone noticed that this article is almost 100 kilobytes and 27 pages when printed out; online attention spans are limited, dial-up servers can't load pages over 32 kilobytes very well, and people don't usually read more that 10 pages or so on-line before moving on to something else. Web design theories and articles are very clear on these issues. Just some thoughts. (see: Wikipedia:Article size)? Later: -- Sadi Carnot 10:37, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
I like the taxonomic tree as well, but we'd probably do better with one of the older depictions, even if they're less accurate: They tend to be more visually appealing, often with illustrations of forms. Adam Cuerden talk 16:01, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
I'm not saying we should use this one, but something like it in style might be useful:
Trees, such as the one above, are only useful when studying one branch at a time. Possibly someone who is a regular on this page make a simple diagram, with only the main branches clearly labeled? Or could some one find a picture of three animals that evolved from each other? Or the evolution of fish to reptile to tree shrew is a good image. DNA trees with 50-100 scientific words (i.e. foreign to those who don't work in these areas) don't help much. Even the peacock would be better at the intro than as compared to the current one. -- Sadi Carnot 17:37, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
The Darwin pic is a little dark; I'll put in the peacock pic. If anyone finds a better one latter we can switch it. Later: -- Sadi Carnot 00:01, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
Also, someone should add to the article a section on how the current theory of evolution accounts for the length of the giraffe’s neck and how in history it was an issue of contention, e.g. here is a related talk discussion. Later: -- Sadi Carnot 00:14, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
I think you are missing the point. Before the recent change, I believe that evolution was the only featured article, out of 1149, that had a first page image, which contained 31 words on it, that no one could read. The article caffeine, for example, is a good featured article with an opening image (w/text) that has perfectly discernable text. I think you are simply caught up in this one specific article too much. It is a basic publishing rule not to use an image if you have to squint to see it’s details. Later: -- Sadi Carnot 08:05, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
The consensus seems to be that users want a new intro picture; one that has immediate recognition, one that has readable text, one that is visually appealing, and one that captures the essence of Darwin's theory of evolution. I just spent time making a new intro image, which I uploaded. Please do not revert. Let the change sit for a while so to see how people feel about the new intro image. I’ll move the other one lower in the article. Thanks: -- Sadi Carnot 15:43, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
Brilliant picture: -- Ec5618 16:34, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
Fastfission, I see you quickly changed my photo without a consensus. If you want to change the photos to a better quality, so they are not washed out looking that will be fine, but leave the dates in. If you can figure out a way to do this, while including the dates, then do so; if not than please do not modify my uploaded images. You can see here: User:Sadi Carnot/Sandbox6 that I toyed with a "gallery" but it didn't look good, so I copied the images, texted them, then scanned them, and then re-uploaded them. If you know how to do this (with the text) as I had it then feel free; for now I will revert. Thank you: -- Sadi Carnot 14:11, 8 November 2006 (UTC)
I think any actual relationship between the two animals would be better presented as a comparison between the skeleton of a glyptodon and the skeleton of an armadillo. -- G4rfunkel 18:52, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
I'm sorry if this has been brought up before, but spelunking through the talk pages is pretty difficult on a page like this. There already exists a pretty iconic image to represent evolution: the chimp evolving into man while walking. A somewhat ironic example. Thank you for your sense of humor, Google. I couldn't find something like it in the commons, but it could be hidden somewhere.—Preceding unsigned comment added by Adodge ( talk • contribs) 21:52, 15 November 2006
I like the idea of a tree of life, but agree the one we have isn't yet suitable. However, we've been going through a series of highly tangental pictures. There were objections to the unfortunate appearance of Darwin in his previous photo, so what about this one instead? We could use a good caption, though. Adam Cuerden talk 04:16, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
Why are so many of the links in the see also section redundant with the text and info boxes? This section is way to big. David D. (Talk) 04:49, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
Heh. I lost the edit conflict and saw that David provided two example instead of my one, so I'm changing my edit. The templates certainly have a cleaner, more organized look than an extensive "See Also" section does. -- Doc Tropics Message in a bottle 07:35, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
Hypothetically, if we were to do such a change; would we have all the see also listed articles in such a box? Would it be under a See also section, or would we leave it at the bottom? How would Template:Evolution and Template:Popgen play into all of this? Delta Tango • Talk 07:54, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
I just did a preliminary cross reference to see how many of the See also links are also included in one of the three templates on the page. i struck out those that are also in the templates. I'm actually surprised there are so many left as well as how many on the templates are not in the see also list.
I would recommend we remove those that appear in the See also and templates from the list. That will be a start towards making this more manageable. Then we can discuss if some of these links can migrate to templates and visa versa. David D. (Talk) 03:13, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
What do you think of the idea of an illustrated tree of life, with sketches (or photographs) of representative species? I'd be willing to make one (based on the information contained in the old diagram) if there's interest.
It would probably be easier to do just the Eukaryotes: The Archaea and Bacteria have divisions hard to visually explain. Adam Cuerden talk 14:33, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
Can we lose the Gould quote, which tends to muddy the waters? Consider the two parts of it: First we hear that facts and theories are different things:
Then we hear — wait a moment! — they're not so different after all:
If one reads the article from which these assertions are drawn, Gould basically contradicts his rhetorically appealing intro: after asserting that facts are different from theories, he takes care to show why evolution is a fact. Evolution (tho not necessarily speciation by natural selection, which is Darwin's theory) is a fact because many different sorts of observations bolster the idea (i.e. the theory) that creatures change over time, deriving from similar ancestral forms, rather than each being specially created (which was the older theory).
In short, a fact is (or at least can be) a very-well-established theory. This is not the place to argue deeply about this business, but basically, let's just guess that the world is a tissue of brute sensory impressions interpreted by theories that we don't question (e.g. if we see a two-foot-tall man, he's of normal size, but distant from us). These give us so-called facts whose interrelationships may puzzle us, giving rise to theories to explain them. And these theories, in turn, may be so serviceable that they become facts, and so on. Science comes into the picture to possibly bootstrap us up another level -- or remove several false levels -- of theory. A good scientific theory eventually gets to join the exclusive club of facts. A really good scientific theory actually throws out whole gangs of false facts that -- it now appears -- got into the club with forged credentials.
Anyway, Gould is a lovely writer, but does not do us any good here. Agree? Disagree? Jrmccall 00:23, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
Roland Deschain, I applaud your patience and dedication to this article. I admit I initially thought you and Graft were paranoid and over protective of this article, but I admit I was wrong. Your diligence is appreciated. GetAgrippa 01:19, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
Back to the topic of this section: theories and facts etc. Speaking as a scientist myself with multiple advanced degrees, albeit in a different discipline, there is no such thing in science as "proof". There is no such thing in science as a true theory, or a proven theory or a theory being a "fact". Proofs are found in mathematics, but not in science. In science the best one can hope for at any given point in time is an explanation that accounts for most of the data one has so far. That is why evolution is a theory and will never be a fact and never proven. The same is true of gravity, for example. Gravity is a theory and it will always be required to explain more and more complicated sets of data as they are available. Some people like to call the
"facts", so one can have facts in science, but only sort of. Because even these "facts" are only really measurements, and statistics have to be considered to assess our confidence in these "facts". However, things like theories are not facts. They are slowly crafted to explain more and more of the data. When new data is available that the old theory cannot explain, it is usually replaced with a newer theory that does a better job. So the Aristotlean Theory of Gravity was replaced by the Galilean Theory of Gravity, which was replaced by the Newtonian Theory of Gravity, which was replaced by the Einsteinian Theory of Gravity, and that will undoubtably have to be replaced. This should not be seen as any defect of science. It is a self-correcting system and one of the strengths of the system, compared to other systems that are inflexible and unable to change (like the creationist worldview, for example). This is true of everything in science, even the "laws" of thermodynamics. When encountering people who attack evolution, I usually find out very quickly that they
Hopefully this can help clear up some confusion.-- Filll 03:06, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
Oh I meant the confusion about the quotes mentioned earlier, discussing facts and theories and so on. I often even hear people who are biologists and supporters of evolution slipping into sloppy language that has a tendency to confuse matters.-- Filll 04:10, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
I changed the wording slightly in the theory and fact section, but I am not sure that it is optimal the way I left it. If you can clean it a little but still capture the meaning of what I am getting at it, I think that would be an advantage. What I am trying to do is to deal with some of the sloppiness that happens when biologists try to use physical science analogies to explain these already confusing issues, since the words have different meanings than their everyday meanings. I am contemplating addressing the question of "Laws" of science as well. Theories that are very well established tend to be referred to as laws, so it is not uncommon to hear about the "Law of Evolution" or the "Law of Gravity". This can lead to even further confusion. -- Filll 15:04, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
I added a link to the article on physical law which could also use a bit of work. I just wanted to at least put a link in there since a reader encountering something called the "law of natural selection" might get a bit confused.-- Filll 17:02, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
I would be glad to write a bit more or something slightly different or mold it into the article higher up if people wanted it. Where should it go?-- Filll 04:44, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
Listen. I am for evolution as against creationism, as I assume everyone in this discussion is. I am hoping to improve the Evolution article by removing something that, while tolerated (apparently) in its friends, cannot but put off the neutrals and give a point of attack to its enemies. In the essay from which the contested quotes came Gould gives as "facts" the fall of an apple and man evolving from ape-like ancestors. Later in this same article he quotes Darwin, who, he says admiringly, established the fact of evolution.
What Darwin did, by his own description, was overthrow the dogma of separate creations. To see that evolution is a theory, try substituting "that an apple falls" for "of separate creations". Doesn't work, does it? That an apple falls, rather than floats or goes sideways, is a fact of observation. That man has arisen from ape-like ancestors is an interpretation — oh, all right, a theory — to connect many different observations (the remains of fossil hominids and the close physical resemblance we bear to other primates) into one story.
Gould is trying to defend evolution from the creationists by making the point that evolution is a fact, and therefore to be respected, rather than a mere theory. Well, I'm glad he was in there pitching for many years; he did good work in keeping the enemies of science off balance. But, as must happen occcasionally to one so prodigiously prolific (and so lightly-edited!), he got sloppy here.
I now regret being so facile with the notion of "fact" in my original entry. I will back off from any definition it might imply. Filll had a better take on it, but the essential point is really that almost everything is theory, or at least has a lot of theory in it (e.g. the amperage passing through a wire, if registered by a meter, has as "data" the reading of a dial, and as theory the beliefs under which the ammeter was constructed).
The motivation for this section was to assure people that Evolution is well-established. So how about we take the bull by the horns and replace this Theory and Fact section, perhaps with something called "Mere Theory?", which argues that a well-confirmed theory is the gold standard in every science. — Jrmccall 00:04, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
Gould is simply pointing out that the modification of organisims within a population over time resulting in the creation of a new species at least in part as a reuslt of natural selection is a fact, and it is indeed an empirically verifiable fact. The modern synthesis provides a model for accounting for and explaining these facts, and that is a theory. People can thus use "evolution" to refer to two different things (much as one can refer to gravity as something they just experience, and theories of gravity - e.g. Newton or Einstein - that attempt to account for what people experience, and generate predictions. I do not see any "trick" whatsoever. Slrubenstein | Talk 06:56, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
Since this article is featured, I feel justified in being nit-picky. The footnotes do not use a standard form of notation. There are full on citations with author, title, publisher, date, ISBN, etc, and then there are footnotes that are simply an external link to a PDF file or webpage. I would urge everyone with spare time to convert the weaker references to a more standardized, using Magnus' tool, or one of the many citation template, like template:cite web. What do others think?-- Andrew c 02:51, 18 November 2006 (UTC)
NB {{ cite science}} - Samsara ( talk • contribs) 19:21, 18 November 2006 (UTC)
I suggest that this article needs a more elementary and accessible introductory paragraph.-- Filll 16:22, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
Of course, we should remove the duplication or incorporate the information from the technical information elsewhere in the text, leaving a relatively accessible introduction so that people can get a general idea of what the topic is about from the first few sentences. One of the most common problems I have noticed in Wikipedia is a sort of "introduction creep" where the introductions become more and more cluttered with technical terms, translations, names in other scripts, pronunciation guides, very detailed information, multiple dates and other material. Eventually a reader cannot tell what the article is about from the introduction at all, the articles become inaccessible and much less useful.-- Filll 18:10, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
It is much better in my eyes, but I am not a specialist in this area. I would defer to a real biologist.-- Filll 18:14, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
In biology, evolution is change in the heritable traits of a population over successive generations. This process results in the development of new species from existing ones and is thus the process by which life on Earth became so diverse. All contemporary organisms are related to each other through common descent, the products of cumulative evolutionary changes over billions of years.
The basic mechanisms that produce evolutionary change are natural selection and genetic drift; these two mechanisms act on genetic variation as it occurs. Natural selection is the process by which individual organisms with favorable traits are more likely to survive and reproduce. Those traits that are heritable are passed to the offspring, with the result that beneficial heritable traits become more common in the next generation. [3] [4] [5] Over successive generations this process can result in varied adaptations to changing environmental conditions. [6]
The modern understanding of evolution is based on the theory of natural selection, 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, these ideas concerning the process of evolution were combined with Gregor Mendel's ideas concerning the mechanisms of heredity to form the current theory of evolution, known technically as the modern evolutionary synthesis, or "Neo- Darwinism". 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, eusociality in insects, and sex ratios.
Although there is overwhelming evidence and scientific consensus supporting the validity of evolution, [7] it has been at the center of many social and religious controversies because it has implications for the origins of humankind. [8]
Most of the edit appears to be simply deleting somewhat technical parts of the intro, most notably the deletion of any reference to the change of allele frequency as the basic definition of evolution. I disagree with these deletions. The intro sentence is actually quite approachable, with a general definition in the first part of the sentence and a more formal definition in the second part. The later mention of allele frequency is the actual definition of the modern synthesis and should definitely stay in the intro. I also disagree with the rest of the deletions, as they are not technical at all, but rather serve to introduce the major players in such a large theory. Is there a specific change in the intro that you want to see implemented, as it's very hard to discuss that many changes at the same time.-- Roland Deschain 18:55, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
I agree with Roland. While the issue of allele fraquencies may not be the most accessible, it's an important element of the definition of evolution (there's a big discussion about it somewhere in the archives). I disagree with the removal of the statement regarding evolution being the source of the diversity of life - I don't see how removing that statement simplifies matters at all.
Including "ecological, sexual, and kin selection" is useful. I don't think it should be removed. I prefer to state what the sources of variation are - people are often confused about that. On the other hand, I would be happy to see something more accessible replace "with the result that beneficial heritable traits". I'm fine with either "given enough time..." or "over successive generations..." - actually I'd prefer wording that included both the ideas of time and generations.
I prefer "Darwinian natural selection" to "these ideas" though "with Gregor Mendel's ideas concerning the mechanisms of heredity" may be more accessible than "with the theory of Mendelian heredity" (again, I think there's better wording that lies somewhere between these two). I prefer that "eusociality in insects, and the staggering biodiversity of Earth's ecosystem" be retained. It's an end-of-section sentance - if people don't want to read it, they'll gloss over it, but if they choose to read it carefully they will get a better sense of scale. Guettarda 19:52, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
I think it's a very nice cleanup of the old intro. I've just added these examples. - Samsara ( talk • contribs) 20:06, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
I do think that is a great idea, and we might want to put an early link in to the simple Wikipedia article on evolution. In the meantime, I have taken the liberty of compiling a bit more feedback. -- Filll 21:34, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
As a contributor myself to Simple Wikipedia, it is a significant intellectual challenge to present complicated material in an accessible way, while keeping in mind the subtleties that exist. So if we were to provide an early link to the Simple Wikipedia article on evolution here, how would you modify the Simple Wikipedia evolution article to make it more reasonable and accurate?-- Filll 17:20, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
In biology, evolution is change in the heritable traits of a population over successive generations.
This process results in the development of new species from existing ones and is thus the process by which life on Earth became so diverse. All contemporary organisms are related to each other through common descent, the products of cumulative evolutionary changes over billions of years.
I will note that many times I encounter people that think the theory of evolution includes things like:
(somewhat similar to the objections to relativity based on the name, and thinking it has something to do with everything being relative to something else) People with these kinds of misunderstandings is the audience one has to reach out to somehow. They need to be reached. Many times when I just talk about survival of the fittest and mutations, people think I am being sneaky somehow and holding back some other big idea from evolution, because they are so confused about what biological evolution is.
The basic mechanisms that produce evolutionary change are natural selection and genetic drift; these two mechanisms act on genetic variation as it occurs.
Natural selection is the process by which individual organisms with favorable traits are more likely to survive and reproduce.
Those traits that are heritable are passed to the offspring, with the result that beneficial heritable traits become more common in the next generation. [3] [9] [10]
Over successive generations this process can result in varied
adaptations to changing environmental conditions.
[6]
The modern understanding of evolution is based on the theory of natural selection, 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, these ideas concerning the process of evolution were combined with
Gregor Mendel's ideas concerning the mechanisms of
heredity to form the current theory of evolution, known technically as the
modern evolutionary synthesis, or "Neo-
Darwinism".
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, eusociality in insects, and sex ratios.
Although there is overwhelming evidence and scientific consensus supporting the validity of evolution, [11] it has been at the center of many social and religious controversies because it has implications for the origins of humankind. [12]
-- Filll 21:36, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
I do not have a big problem with the current intro or the proposed intro either. I just think that given that this is such a high profile topic, and there is so much misunderstanding of it, we should think about how to help dispel some of the misunderstanding, while still having a useful resource for people who have a bit more background. What about a link to simple Wikipedia? How does that article look? Beginners could be given a link to that as a primer, possibly.-- Filll 21:53, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
My purpose in putting up the new, simplified lead section was to make the article more easily accessible to the average reader. I feel no particular ownership of the exact wording (which on re-reading is far from perfect) but I think we should remember that this is a very important article and a highly contentious one (as we have seen in recent 'discussions' here). I guess it is visited a lot (is there a way of getting figures on this?) and that the vast majority of people who look at this article are not biologists or even scientists. Again I have no figures but IMHO a subject like this is bound to attract most intelligent, curious people at some time or another. It is also going to get a lot of 'hits' from google and other searches. With all this passing trade to this article surely we must ensure that they get the true flavour of evolution before they get bored or scared off by the science. There are enough people out there giving misleading messages on evolution and we mustn't miss any opportunity to correct these views. It is for this reason that I believe it is very important that the lead gives a good account of evolution that is easily readable to the end by an average person; of course this must be consistent with the science but not confused by it. I leave it to you better able people to achieve what I set out to do above but please don't miss this opportunity to inform a lot of people of the facts about evolution by scaring them off at the very beginning of the article ... lead them slowly into the science step-by-step and they will get more out of it. Abtract 10:00, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
Just so we don't get torn into various battles on the edges of our camp, I thought I should mention the doubting Thomases have moved to Roland's talk page for now. - Samsara ( talk • contribs) 02:49, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
I am not complaining about the introduction exactly. I just want us to think about how to make this article more accessible to more people. Or barring that, to provide a link to a more accessible article or primer so beginners can get up to speed. I do not want to discard any important science or distort it. I just want to provide a more gentle onramp for people, since this is so important and many people seem to be confused about the issue. Having a difficult introduction definitely does not help matters when dealing with anti-evolutionists.-- Filll 18:23, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
I have placed a comment on Wikipedia:NPOV (Comparison of views in science) about the methods applicable to these discussions. DGG 05:24, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
The editors of this article will probably find this interesting [10]-- Pixel ;-) 19:20, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
I am using only the CRUDEST terms when I say that basically,to my understanding,evolution is many good birth defects. If it is not good for a human to have an extra thumb, the variation dies out, if it is, then it over comes the 2 thumbed variation.Is that basically the theory? PS. I did not know the proper word,, so i used variation
Despite many recent prunings, this page is evolving into a behemoth. Perhaps not literally, but it's extremely long at this point. There has been no recent activity in the sections on "Lamark" and "Dysgenics". If no one objects, I'll archive those. Also, the early discussion of images has moved down the page and is continued is several more recent sections. Can the earliest section of image discussion be archived, or should it remain (because that's where the images are actually visible)? -- Doc Tropics Message in a bottle 21:19, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
I have created User talk:Doc Tropics/Evo talk to discuss issues regarding this talkpage. This is not an attempt to "hide" the discussions, but to keep the talkpage itself free for efforts to improve the article. -- Doc Tropics Message in a bottle 19:18, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
Any talk about making clear that parts of evolution are theory is summarily archived. You will have to look into the history of the talk page to see it, because of course it's been archived. There is no addressing of the issues. --05:22, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
I would agree. I have no problem debating them, except for the fact they often are not interested in anything but "proving" their point, not in understanding the issues, which they seem to have completely confused notions about. However, real article improvement efforts get lost in the sea of creationist attacks very quickly, and many editors give up and walk away.-- Filll 19:02, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
It all boils down to the same thing. Creationists claiming that evolution is being described as a proven fact, and them being offended by that notion since it disagrees with what they feel is the revealed truth.-- Filll 20:25, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
I'm here because of the RfC. The article seems to do a fine job of describing the difference between fact and theory, and I don't see a content problem here. It doesn't need to be re-litigated, so speedy archiving of these issues seems appropriate. -- Ginkgo100 talk · e@ 21:23, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
It seemed to help at the Intelligent Design page so I've added a similar version here. Let me know what you think. I've gone through all the archives but I've only added meaty topics or discussions that have clear reference to Wiki-policy. It's not 100% comprehensive because there's a tendency on this page to delete absurd points (evolution not thoroughly supported by fossil records etc.) so I'd suggest that any creationist/ID talking point not already covered by the 'points already discussed' section should be allowed to run its course once. That way we can then add it to the list. Comments very much appreciated. -- Davril2020 19:10, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
It looks pretty good. Then all we need is a link to some FAQ and we have a couple of places to point new visitors and assorted malcontents when they visit the page.-- Filll
Good call all! This should help. FeloniousMonk 23:53, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
Hey - how would this look? I think it would clean things up dramatically and put an even greater damper on useless discussions. standonbible Talk! 00:30, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
Can I beg some help over there? It's drifted seriously towards the creationist POV, to the point where it all but dismisses accusations of creationists quote mining: "Many critics argue that these are quote mines (lists of out of context or misleading quotations) that do not accurately reflect the evidence for evolution or the mainstream scientific community's opinion of it." Adam Cuerden talk 00:26, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
This discussion on this page is ignoring the headnote:
IMPORTANT - If you wish to discuss or debate the validity of the theory of evolution please do so at talk.origins, True.Origins Archive or Wikireason. This "Discussion" page is only for discussion on how to improve the Wikipedia article. Any attempts at trolling, using this page as a soapbox, or making personal attacks may be deleted at any time.
Perhaps it is time for all such irrelevant comments to be deleted, and the page archived once more. DGG 07:31, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
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