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So like, uh, is nobody going to say anything about how the user Toedi3614 completely rewrote essentially the whole article on 3-6 May 2020? The page went from [1] to [2] where there has been no significant change since then. Basically the entire article changed from the concept of macroevolution being evolutionary change beyond the species level, to a group selection idea. As far as I know, group selection is still a pretty contentious idea, so I'm not sure how much of a good representation of the current state of the art this new page is. It appears that the article is written basically along the lines of just one article written by Michael Hautmann. I mean really, one guy? Really? We're going to re-write the entire article based off of one author? C'mon now. Can someone else please comment on this? BirdValiant ( talk) 04:42, 12 November 2021 (UTC)
This page needs a complete rewrite. It has barely anything to do with macro-evolution. I have already deleted 2 sections, namely those on "Evolutionary faunas" and on "speciation", both of which literally said nothing about macro-evolution. What's most urgently needed are sections on explanations and good examples. Thoughts? Peteruetz ( talk) 17:10, 6 August 2022 (UTC)
(Moved from my Talk page, where it does not belong) -- Hob Gadling ( talk) 18:39, 18 September 2022 (UTC)
Please justify your radical cuts before you do them. I am happy to discuss but just deleting stuff without even thinking or reading is pretty offensive. This section was ABOUT criticism of macroevolution, do you understand that?? Peteruetz ( talk) 18:29, 18 September 2022 (UTC)
Pseudoscientific reasoning against science is not "criticism". -- Hob Gadling ( talk) 18:41, 18 September 2022 (UTC)
However, meeting this standard indicates only that the idea may be discussed in other articles, not that it must be discussed in a specific articleand the next. There is no way that te misunderstandings of fundie loons are WP:DUE in a science article. -- Hob Gadling ( talk) 11:25, 2 June 2023 (UTC)
Fringe views, products, or those who promote them, may be mentioned in the text of other articles only if independent reliable sources connect the topics in a serious and prominent way. However, meeting this standard indicates only that the idea may be discussed in other articles, not that it must be discussed in a specific article. If mentioning a fringe theory in another article gives undue weight to the fringe theory, discussion of the fringe theory may be limited, or even omitted altogether. If no independent reliable sources connect a particular fringe theory to a mainstream subject, there should not even be a link through a see also section, lest the article serve as a coatrack.
prevalence in reliable sources. From the sentence
There are many reliable sources prominently connecting and comparing evolution to the pseudoscience of creationismit does not follow that creationism is "prevalent" in reliable sources on macroevolution. Only a very small part of biologists' writings is about defending science from creationists. Your reasoning
and thus they should be mentioned in this articleis a non sequitur, especially in light of the "may be" and "must" sentence.
I find being compared to Gish to be inaccurateCreationists only use bad reasoning, such as quote mining and non sequitur, because it is all they have - there are no good justifications for their beliefs. Their opponents can use good or bad reasoning but they should only use good reasoning to make the difference clear. If you don't do that, do not blame me. -- Hob Gadling ( talk) 10:37, 6 June 2023 (UTC)
I am having a hard time following. You want to write a criticism section to explain that criticism is unfounded? I think you may be in the wrong place, if that is the case. We are here to document what reliable sources say about a subject. If reliable sources say that "criticism is unfounded", then our content should reflect that criticism is unfounded. To have a section that is titled simply "criticism" is ceding a point to unreliable claims that we need not cede. Maybe this is a good rhetorical technique for a class or a pedagogical exercise, but in an encyclopedia we need to stick primarily to facts and not entertain things that aren't true excepting that there are reliable sources which say that the things that aren't true are relevant and important to the subject at hand. Getting this balance right is important because we run the risk of WP:FALSEBALANCE otherwise. jps ( talk) 19:17, 7 June 2023 (UTC)
You asked me to indicate the problems and then proceeded to remove the tags even though the problems persist. Please find attribution and explanations for the statements that are tagged. jps ( talk) 01:58, 8 June 2023 (UTC)
n the field of creationism everything is unreliable.Have you read any of the literature I recommended above about creationism? There are plenty of social scientists and scholars of science education who have written extremely reliable sources about what creationists say and do. Those are the sources which you have not yet used. Behe is perhaps a worse example of a source because it is so misleading for readers. You need to do better with this and stop using the WP:PRIMARY sources. You aren't writing original copy here. You are writing a tertiary reference about what has been reliably documented regarding creationism. jps ( talk) 18:10, 8 June 2023 (UTC)
Here are some sources that can be used which may help solve some of the dilemma:
I am happy to continue this exercise, but suffice to say that I think this is the direction we need to go in.
jps ( talk) 18:29, 8 June 2023 (UTC)
I am in favor of that approach. Thanks. We might have a single sentence that drives people towards the appropriate section of creation-evolution controversy or something if they want to delve into this business, but macroevolution shouldn't be monopolized by this sort of thing even at this minor level, I think I agree. jps ( talk) 07:59, 12 June 2023 (UTC)
I may be wrong here (perhaps User:Peteruetz can clarify), but it seems to me I never hear biologists today make the distinction between macroevolution and microevolution. Though I am aware that it crops up in historical texts by biologists of earlier generations, I only really know this distinction from the confused ramblings of religious fundamentalists who want to claim they reject the former but not the latter, thus allowing themselves to defend six-day creationism without being bothered by the evidence around us that species can be observed to change over time. The article seems to acknowledge this by including a section on religious views near the bottom, but if this is the main locus for the terminology today, that ought to be in the head. As it stands, the article sounds like these are standard categories in modern biology, which is really not helpful. (If I am wrong, and these are still standard categories, then how about including in the head a quote from a current big name, Dawkins or someone of his ilk, documenting that it is still used.) Doric Loon ( talk) 09:55, 2 June 2023 (UTC)
In reality, the fossil record does not contain missing links
That is the reason they are called "missing"... but I think the sentence is not meant that way and should be reworded to avoid that possible misunderstanding. Something like "Actually, there are no large gaps in the fossil record".
Do we have a source for it? -- Hob Gadling ( talk) 10:23, 26 June 2023 (UTC) @
@ Pepperbeast why did you revert my edit? There was consensus on the talk page. Scientists don't spend enough time debunking creationism to warrant its inclusion on this page in line with WP:ONEWAY. Watch Atlas791 ( talk) 01:59, 2 August 2023 (UTC)
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![]() | This article links to one or more target anchors that no longer exist.
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So like, uh, is nobody going to say anything about how the user Toedi3614 completely rewrote essentially the whole article on 3-6 May 2020? The page went from [1] to [2] where there has been no significant change since then. Basically the entire article changed from the concept of macroevolution being evolutionary change beyond the species level, to a group selection idea. As far as I know, group selection is still a pretty contentious idea, so I'm not sure how much of a good representation of the current state of the art this new page is. It appears that the article is written basically along the lines of just one article written by Michael Hautmann. I mean really, one guy? Really? We're going to re-write the entire article based off of one author? C'mon now. Can someone else please comment on this? BirdValiant ( talk) 04:42, 12 November 2021 (UTC)
This page needs a complete rewrite. It has barely anything to do with macro-evolution. I have already deleted 2 sections, namely those on "Evolutionary faunas" and on "speciation", both of which literally said nothing about macro-evolution. What's most urgently needed are sections on explanations and good examples. Thoughts? Peteruetz ( talk) 17:10, 6 August 2022 (UTC)
(Moved from my Talk page, where it does not belong) -- Hob Gadling ( talk) 18:39, 18 September 2022 (UTC)
Please justify your radical cuts before you do them. I am happy to discuss but just deleting stuff without even thinking or reading is pretty offensive. This section was ABOUT criticism of macroevolution, do you understand that?? Peteruetz ( talk) 18:29, 18 September 2022 (UTC)
Pseudoscientific reasoning against science is not "criticism". -- Hob Gadling ( talk) 18:41, 18 September 2022 (UTC)
However, meeting this standard indicates only that the idea may be discussed in other articles, not that it must be discussed in a specific articleand the next. There is no way that te misunderstandings of fundie loons are WP:DUE in a science article. -- Hob Gadling ( talk) 11:25, 2 June 2023 (UTC)
Fringe views, products, or those who promote them, may be mentioned in the text of other articles only if independent reliable sources connect the topics in a serious and prominent way. However, meeting this standard indicates only that the idea may be discussed in other articles, not that it must be discussed in a specific article. If mentioning a fringe theory in another article gives undue weight to the fringe theory, discussion of the fringe theory may be limited, or even omitted altogether. If no independent reliable sources connect a particular fringe theory to a mainstream subject, there should not even be a link through a see also section, lest the article serve as a coatrack.
prevalence in reliable sources. From the sentence
There are many reliable sources prominently connecting and comparing evolution to the pseudoscience of creationismit does not follow that creationism is "prevalent" in reliable sources on macroevolution. Only a very small part of biologists' writings is about defending science from creationists. Your reasoning
and thus they should be mentioned in this articleis a non sequitur, especially in light of the "may be" and "must" sentence.
I find being compared to Gish to be inaccurateCreationists only use bad reasoning, such as quote mining and non sequitur, because it is all they have - there are no good justifications for their beliefs. Their opponents can use good or bad reasoning but they should only use good reasoning to make the difference clear. If you don't do that, do not blame me. -- Hob Gadling ( talk) 10:37, 6 June 2023 (UTC)
I am having a hard time following. You want to write a criticism section to explain that criticism is unfounded? I think you may be in the wrong place, if that is the case. We are here to document what reliable sources say about a subject. If reliable sources say that "criticism is unfounded", then our content should reflect that criticism is unfounded. To have a section that is titled simply "criticism" is ceding a point to unreliable claims that we need not cede. Maybe this is a good rhetorical technique for a class or a pedagogical exercise, but in an encyclopedia we need to stick primarily to facts and not entertain things that aren't true excepting that there are reliable sources which say that the things that aren't true are relevant and important to the subject at hand. Getting this balance right is important because we run the risk of WP:FALSEBALANCE otherwise. jps ( talk) 19:17, 7 June 2023 (UTC)
You asked me to indicate the problems and then proceeded to remove the tags even though the problems persist. Please find attribution and explanations for the statements that are tagged. jps ( talk) 01:58, 8 June 2023 (UTC)
n the field of creationism everything is unreliable.Have you read any of the literature I recommended above about creationism? There are plenty of social scientists and scholars of science education who have written extremely reliable sources about what creationists say and do. Those are the sources which you have not yet used. Behe is perhaps a worse example of a source because it is so misleading for readers. You need to do better with this and stop using the WP:PRIMARY sources. You aren't writing original copy here. You are writing a tertiary reference about what has been reliably documented regarding creationism. jps ( talk) 18:10, 8 June 2023 (UTC)
Here are some sources that can be used which may help solve some of the dilemma:
I am happy to continue this exercise, but suffice to say that I think this is the direction we need to go in.
jps ( talk) 18:29, 8 June 2023 (UTC)
I am in favor of that approach. Thanks. We might have a single sentence that drives people towards the appropriate section of creation-evolution controversy or something if they want to delve into this business, but macroevolution shouldn't be monopolized by this sort of thing even at this minor level, I think I agree. jps ( talk) 07:59, 12 June 2023 (UTC)
I may be wrong here (perhaps User:Peteruetz can clarify), but it seems to me I never hear biologists today make the distinction between macroevolution and microevolution. Though I am aware that it crops up in historical texts by biologists of earlier generations, I only really know this distinction from the confused ramblings of religious fundamentalists who want to claim they reject the former but not the latter, thus allowing themselves to defend six-day creationism without being bothered by the evidence around us that species can be observed to change over time. The article seems to acknowledge this by including a section on religious views near the bottom, but if this is the main locus for the terminology today, that ought to be in the head. As it stands, the article sounds like these are standard categories in modern biology, which is really not helpful. (If I am wrong, and these are still standard categories, then how about including in the head a quote from a current big name, Dawkins or someone of his ilk, documenting that it is still used.) Doric Loon ( talk) 09:55, 2 June 2023 (UTC)
In reality, the fossil record does not contain missing links
That is the reason they are called "missing"... but I think the sentence is not meant that way and should be reworded to avoid that possible misunderstanding. Something like "Actually, there are no large gaps in the fossil record".
Do we have a source for it? -- Hob Gadling ( talk) 10:23, 26 June 2023 (UTC) @
@ Pepperbeast why did you revert my edit? There was consensus on the talk page. Scientists don't spend enough time debunking creationism to warrant its inclusion on this page in line with WP:ONEWAY. Watch Atlas791 ( talk) 01:59, 2 August 2023 (UTC)