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From the Unfalsifiability section:
human DNA should be far more similar to chimpanzees and other great apes, than to other mammals. If not, then common descent is falsified.
"If not" would not falsify anything here. If DNA is part of the construction code for organisms then morphological similarity should correlate with DNA similarity, whether or not the DNA has arrived in its current state through evolution.
DNA analysis has shown that humans and chimpanzees share a large percentage of their DNA (between 95% to 99.4% depending on the measure).[62]
We would not reject evolution if the similarity to chimps were only 89 percent. The 95-99 figure is confirmation of evolution, but not the result of a falsifiable test. The falsifiable prediction is much weaker: that similarity will be higher with chimpanzees than with animals of clearly bigger morphological distance from us, such as elephants or reptiles. Estimates of the expected amount of similarity can be made within particular models of how morphology and DNA co-evolve, but if the predicted numbers are wrong, that only disconfirms the model used, not evolution.
Also, the evolution of chimpanzees and humans from a common ancestor predicts a (geologically) recent common ancestor. Numerous transitional fossils have since been found.[63] Hence, human evolution has passed several falsifiable tests.
This probably falsifies "no evolution at all", i.e., an unchanging set of species, but it does not falsify "limited morphological random walk (or extinction) within each species, but no genuine speciation". It is, after all, believed that modern humans interbred with many of the earlier forms so an anti-evolutionist could just say that the nature of humans changed over time but no real speciation happened.
Even if the transitional fossils falsify all nonevolutionary accounts of human-chimpanzee origins, that doesn't mean evolution has passed another falsifiable test. For falsifiability, it would have to be true that if numerous transitional fossils
had not been found over time, evolutionary theory would have been modified or discredited. What would probably have happened in that case is to continue searching, based on confidence in evolution and a lack of competing explanations. So the quoted passage is confusing confirmation of evolution and disconfirmation of alternatives, with a falsifiable test.
The current wording in the article is overstated. Rather than BRD this I am posting on the talk page first, as this subject is prone to edit wars. Sesquivalent ( talk) 22:03, 25 September 2021 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
This article is supposed to be for objections to the theory of evolutions. The article establishes early on that the majority of these objections are raised by religious groups. Despite this, the article's edit history shows repeated examples of new objections being removed for citing a creationist-biased source for the objection. This defeats the entire purpose of the article. What's the point of an article on objections to evolution that can't cite objections to evolution? Furthermore, considering Charles Darwin was a member of the Plinian Society, a radical democratic group with an established agenda against the accepted consensus of the time [1], isn't it hypocritical to exclude articles from members of creationist organizations? -- ATimeTravelingCaveman ( talk) 15:19, 16 May 2022 (UTC)
primary sources that have been reputably published may be used in Wikipedia, but only with care, because it is easy to misuse them
Opposing advocate, so your criterion leaves only ignoramuses as reliable sources. Creationism is just like other pseudosciences and is treated as such. -- Hob Gadling ( talk) 16:32, 11 June 2022 (UTC)
how are you supposed to write an unconventional article like this if you don't use unconventional sourcesYou won't get around WP:RS. -- Hob Gadling ( talk) 04:43, 18 June 2022 (UTC)
requires avoiding sources that do not separate fact from denunciationThis excludes creationist sources.
complete understanding of evolution. -- Hob Gadling ( talk) 14:13, 16 June 2022 (UTC)
very short windows of time—what is this: creative writing or science? That very short time, e.g. the Cambrian explosion, meant in reality millions of years. tgeorgescu ( talk) 00:48, 6 July 2022 (UTC)
References
Can I give an opinion on what I am reading? B/c I might be an editor but I also use Wikipedia to learn stuff. An on controversial issues I like to read NPOV to get a balanced reading of the conflicts. am... I am not getting that here. Someone mentioned "Wikipedia's voice"? It is like A and B have a debate and both parties have conflicting beliefs. Yet only B (pro-Darwin) gets to invoke Wikipedia's authoritive Voice over what A said. And that is what this article reads like. To the point where me (no horse in this race) reading this knows 100% that this article was controlled by subject B in the debate. I have seen others raise this objection and been closed down. So what hope do I have? But let the record reflect the tone of this article is not a NPOV position unlike other articles where there is a conflict of views. (Israel-Palestine) for example. Every device has been used to dismiss position A (against evolution). Start with the slant in the lede. Hausa warrior ( talk) 11:29, 22 May 2023 (UTC)
From what I've read, his 'evolutionary argument against naturalism' is not an objection to evolution, but an argument against metaphysical naturalism. I've never read anything that suggests he intended to disprove evolution, or even to critique it as unviable in the light of humans' reasoning capacities. Phil of rel ( talk) 05:23, 9 June 2023 (UTC)
a God would be expected to create beings with reliable reasoning facultiesand people are very obviously very fallible, it sounds rather like an argument for atheism.
Young Earth creationist Kent Hovind blames communism, socialism, World War I, World War II, racism, the Holocaust, Stalin's war crimes, the Vietnam War, and Pol Pot's Killing Fields on evolution, as well as the increase in crime, unwed mothers, and other social ills."
Blames them on what or for what?
Young Earth creationist Kent Hovind blames communism, socialism, World War I, World War II, racism, the Holocaust, Stalin's war crimes, the Vietnam War, and Pol Pot's Killing Fields on evolution, as well as the increase in crime, unwed mothers, and other social ill" 86.191.214.39 ( talk) 07:16, 14 November 2023 (UTC)
"This, then, is the general statement of the second law of thermodynamics:
the total entropy of any system plus that of its environment increases as a result of any natural process." Physics, Principle with Applications, SIXTH EDITION, p. 425, D.C Giancoli, Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, New Jersey,1998
This excerpt from a physics text book is at variance with: "The claims have been criticized for ignoring that the second law only applies to isolated systems." LEBOLTZMANN2 ( talk) 19:14, 18 April 2024 (UTC)
This is the
talk page for discussing improvements to the
Objections to evolution article. This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject. |
Article policies
|
Find sources: Google ( books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL |
Archives: Index, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10Auto-archiving period: 21 days |
Objections to evolution has been listed as one of the Natural sciences good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do so. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can reassess it. | ||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Frequently asked questions
|
This article is rated GA-class on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
To-do list for Objections to evolution:
|
From the Unfalsifiability section:
human DNA should be far more similar to chimpanzees and other great apes, than to other mammals. If not, then common descent is falsified.
"If not" would not falsify anything here. If DNA is part of the construction code for organisms then morphological similarity should correlate with DNA similarity, whether or not the DNA has arrived in its current state through evolution.
DNA analysis has shown that humans and chimpanzees share a large percentage of their DNA (between 95% to 99.4% depending on the measure).[62]
We would not reject evolution if the similarity to chimps were only 89 percent. The 95-99 figure is confirmation of evolution, but not the result of a falsifiable test. The falsifiable prediction is much weaker: that similarity will be higher with chimpanzees than with animals of clearly bigger morphological distance from us, such as elephants or reptiles. Estimates of the expected amount of similarity can be made within particular models of how morphology and DNA co-evolve, but if the predicted numbers are wrong, that only disconfirms the model used, not evolution.
Also, the evolution of chimpanzees and humans from a common ancestor predicts a (geologically) recent common ancestor. Numerous transitional fossils have since been found.[63] Hence, human evolution has passed several falsifiable tests.
This probably falsifies "no evolution at all", i.e., an unchanging set of species, but it does not falsify "limited morphological random walk (or extinction) within each species, but no genuine speciation". It is, after all, believed that modern humans interbred with many of the earlier forms so an anti-evolutionist could just say that the nature of humans changed over time but no real speciation happened.
Even if the transitional fossils falsify all nonevolutionary accounts of human-chimpanzee origins, that doesn't mean evolution has passed another falsifiable test. For falsifiability, it would have to be true that if numerous transitional fossils
had not been found over time, evolutionary theory would have been modified or discredited. What would probably have happened in that case is to continue searching, based on confidence in evolution and a lack of competing explanations. So the quoted passage is confusing confirmation of evolution and disconfirmation of alternatives, with a falsifiable test.
The current wording in the article is overstated. Rather than BRD this I am posting on the talk page first, as this subject is prone to edit wars. Sesquivalent ( talk) 22:03, 25 September 2021 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
This article is supposed to be for objections to the theory of evolutions. The article establishes early on that the majority of these objections are raised by religious groups. Despite this, the article's edit history shows repeated examples of new objections being removed for citing a creationist-biased source for the objection. This defeats the entire purpose of the article. What's the point of an article on objections to evolution that can't cite objections to evolution? Furthermore, considering Charles Darwin was a member of the Plinian Society, a radical democratic group with an established agenda against the accepted consensus of the time [1], isn't it hypocritical to exclude articles from members of creationist organizations? -- ATimeTravelingCaveman ( talk) 15:19, 16 May 2022 (UTC)
primary sources that have been reputably published may be used in Wikipedia, but only with care, because it is easy to misuse them
Opposing advocate, so your criterion leaves only ignoramuses as reliable sources. Creationism is just like other pseudosciences and is treated as such. -- Hob Gadling ( talk) 16:32, 11 June 2022 (UTC)
how are you supposed to write an unconventional article like this if you don't use unconventional sourcesYou won't get around WP:RS. -- Hob Gadling ( talk) 04:43, 18 June 2022 (UTC)
requires avoiding sources that do not separate fact from denunciationThis excludes creationist sources.
complete understanding of evolution. -- Hob Gadling ( talk) 14:13, 16 June 2022 (UTC)
very short windows of time—what is this: creative writing or science? That very short time, e.g. the Cambrian explosion, meant in reality millions of years. tgeorgescu ( talk) 00:48, 6 July 2022 (UTC)
References
Can I give an opinion on what I am reading? B/c I might be an editor but I also use Wikipedia to learn stuff. An on controversial issues I like to read NPOV to get a balanced reading of the conflicts. am... I am not getting that here. Someone mentioned "Wikipedia's voice"? It is like A and B have a debate and both parties have conflicting beliefs. Yet only B (pro-Darwin) gets to invoke Wikipedia's authoritive Voice over what A said. And that is what this article reads like. To the point where me (no horse in this race) reading this knows 100% that this article was controlled by subject B in the debate. I have seen others raise this objection and been closed down. So what hope do I have? But let the record reflect the tone of this article is not a NPOV position unlike other articles where there is a conflict of views. (Israel-Palestine) for example. Every device has been used to dismiss position A (against evolution). Start with the slant in the lede. Hausa warrior ( talk) 11:29, 22 May 2023 (UTC)
From what I've read, his 'evolutionary argument against naturalism' is not an objection to evolution, but an argument against metaphysical naturalism. I've never read anything that suggests he intended to disprove evolution, or even to critique it as unviable in the light of humans' reasoning capacities. Phil of rel ( talk) 05:23, 9 June 2023 (UTC)
a God would be expected to create beings with reliable reasoning facultiesand people are very obviously very fallible, it sounds rather like an argument for atheism.
Young Earth creationist Kent Hovind blames communism, socialism, World War I, World War II, racism, the Holocaust, Stalin's war crimes, the Vietnam War, and Pol Pot's Killing Fields on evolution, as well as the increase in crime, unwed mothers, and other social ills."
Blames them on what or for what?
Young Earth creationist Kent Hovind blames communism, socialism, World War I, World War II, racism, the Holocaust, Stalin's war crimes, the Vietnam War, and Pol Pot's Killing Fields on evolution, as well as the increase in crime, unwed mothers, and other social ill" 86.191.214.39 ( talk) 07:16, 14 November 2023 (UTC)
"This, then, is the general statement of the second law of thermodynamics:
the total entropy of any system plus that of its environment increases as a result of any natural process." Physics, Principle with Applications, SIXTH EDITION, p. 425, D.C Giancoli, Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, New Jersey,1998
This excerpt from a physics text book is at variance with: "The claims have been criticized for ignoring that the second law only applies to isolated systems." LEBOLTZMANN2 ( talk) 19:14, 18 April 2024 (UTC)