Talk:Evolution

Important notice: Some common points of argument are addressed at Wikipedia's Evolution FAQ, which represents the consensus of editors here. Please remember that this page is only for discussing Wikipedia's encyclopedia article about evolution. If you are interested in discussing or debating evolution itself, you may want to visit talk.origins or Wikireason.

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social and religious controversies

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

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

Evolution as bushy, and intelligence as only one adaptation

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

Bova also cites Stephen Jay Gould, who takes this same general view. And here’s a website giving the transcript of a Nov. ’96 interview between Stephen and political consultant/commentator David Gergen [1] . Now, Stephen doesn’t actually use the word ‘bushy’ here, which I have heard attributed to him in other contexts. But it’s a very, very good description of what he is talking about.

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

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

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

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

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

Archival

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

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

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

Older comments hidden to save space. Feel free to continue the discussion below.
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blah blah blah blah blah blah

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Topical archiving

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

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

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

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

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

Bot archiving

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

Theistic Evolution

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

Controversy (2)

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

Observation

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

Suggestions from TxMCJ

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

Definition

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

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

Recommendations

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

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

Cooks in the pot

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

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

Natural selection

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

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

Common misconceptions

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

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

Changes implemented

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

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

Struggle to survive

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

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

Variation and Heredity

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

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

Selection and Adaptation

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

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I have now made some bold(ish) edits to the Selection and Adaptation section, a bit more consistent with the way these concepts are taught in Evolution courses for biology majors. The previous version of this section was really a bit off... for example, the 3rd mode of selection is disruptive selection (not artificial selection), and all 3 modes could be argued to select against harmful traits and select for beneficial ones. I also tried to improve the description of sexual selection a bit, and removed the distinction of "ecological selection" because it seemed a bit redundant with the existing description of natural selection in general. "Ecological selection" is not a term I hear used a lot... it makes sense, sure, but I don't think it's any kind of standard category of selection... As I go through this article, though, I am generally very impressed with its quality. My intention here is just to tidy-up, not do any drastic rewrites! Thanks, Mandaclair 05:20, 30 March 2007 (UTC) I also have to disagree with you on ecological selection. I'd say it has a lot of use in the last 5 years. I'd say it's at the very least presented as a distinct type of selection - e.g., [2], p.127. Guettarda 06:16, 30 March 2007 (UTC) I know Patrick, and in fact worked with people in the Shaw lab for many years. In that paper, I think the term "ecological selection" is used mainly as a convenience (in context) to distinguish it from sexual selection in the argument they are making. That's just my opinion, but I do have to say that, although the term "ecological selection" certainly makes sense, I don't hear it used often as *its own term* (most people just say natural selection and sexual selection, or talk about the 3 modes). I do note, as you say, a lot more recent usage of this term... My only objection was the prior categorization scheme in the article, which divided selection first into "ecological" and "sexual", and then later into "directional", "stabilizing", and "artificial"... the divisions were somewhat confusing. But if more people here think ecological selection belongs in the article in some way, I say put it back, as long as it is implemented in a way different from that previous categorization. In my opinion "ecological selection" is not in such common use that it warrants status as a category of selection in this article... (e.g. ecological selection, in quotes, gets about 20,000 google hits, while sexual selection in quotes gets over 900,000... not really terms or categories in equal usage) Thanks, Mandaclair 06:38, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

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

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

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

Lead

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

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

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

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

Organization

A glance at the table of contents is enough to prove that this article has become very poorly organized. I'd like to undertake a major reorganization, one that is content-neutral but better sorts things under headings and subheadings. I think a similar change at Physics worked out well (compare before [3] and after [4]). I'd appreciate some input regarding what the table of contents should look like and what goes where. Thanks! Gnixon 18:39, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

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

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

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

FAR

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Language

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

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

He also voted "remove" for similar reasons:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Semantics

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

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

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

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

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

LUCA again

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Suggested Edit

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

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

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

Fisherian runaway

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

BNME:Monkeys

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

The lead

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Spin-off

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

Spin-off section 2

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

More comments from TxMCJ

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

New lead

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

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

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

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

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

Impact

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Common descent

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Moment of silence

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

More on Drift

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

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

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

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

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

Master plan

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

Restrict editing even more?

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

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

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

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

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

Second law of thermodynamics vs. creationists

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

Expanded to-do list

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

0. Lead section

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

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

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

1. Basic processes

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

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

2. Mechanisms of evolution

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

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

3. Evidence of evolution

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

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

4. History of life

Status: Good length and good information, but disjointed.

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

5. Study of evolution

Status: Needs some expansion.

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

6. Social and religious controversies

Status: Decent, but needs some tidying in general.

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

7. Footnotes/References

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

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

8. External links

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

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

Discussion of expanded to-do list

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

My Apologies In Advance

I posted what I view to be an important statement here, that was subsequently deleted. I am not going to contest the censorship, because I agree that this kind of thing really brings Wikipedia down to a very poor level, but instead of reposting here I am moving the content and argument to my Talk page, for the record. Please have a look if you are remotely interested. Thanks, TxMCJ 18:38, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Just to be clear, the discussion was between TxMCJ and I, and it was removed by a third editor. Gnixon 18:51, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

I encourage anyone else interested in this topic to peruse the talk pages of Orangemarlin, Gnixon, Enormousdude, and the administrator FeloniousMonk, to see how Gnixon's (often POV-driven) editing without expertise has been maddening to editors of the Physics and Relativity articles as well. Not trying to witch-hunt, just trying to shed light on a pattern. TxMCJ 01:49, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Likewise, I'll encourage everyone to read through what TxMCJ has deleted from her user talk page. You might also be interested in looking over other editors' interactions with Enormousdude and FeloniousMonk. TxMCJ, if this stalking and general offensiveness continues, I will seek assistance from an administrator. Gnixon 03:21, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

As can be seen from the history of Special relativity (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) and the discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Physics, Gnixon's edits to special relativity were in line with the consensus of pretty much all editors working on that article other than User:Enormousdude. Claiming that his edits are "maddening to the editors of the Physics and Relativity articles" is greatly distorting the situation. By all means check the edit histories and talk pages involved to verify this for yourselves. --Christopher Thomas 04:37, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

What's it all for, anyway?

Let me just say first off, Silence rocks.

I am in the middle of massive projects in real life right now, so haven't had a lot of time to commit to this or other articles lately (and won't for awhile), but there has been something buzzing around in my mind for awhile that I really want to bring up. It came to mind during one of the numerous discussions over the lead. It seems that we here have been ignoring--or are simply unable to follow--the cardinal rule of good writing: know your audience. There is a lot of back-and-forth on length, how much detail to include in the lead and the article, how much "jargon" to use, how much background to expect etc., with different editors clearly holding different opinions on the matter. But we haven't really asked what it is that we think readers want from this article.

TxMCJ drew attention to the fact that this page is the first one that comes up on a Google search of "evolution." So who's Googling "evolution?" What information are they looking for? I think little bit of dicussion of this question could go a long way to helping focus the article, and in particular improve the lead (which, as you all know, is what most people will read).

Chances are we can come up with a few categories of people who will be browsing to this article. Of course we can't know for sure, but I think for the most part this is a fairly perceptive bunch of editors, so we can make a good start. Once we have those categories, I think it would help to make sure that the lead, at least, provides something for each of them, directing them, if necessary, to the article or section that will answer their questions. It might also help with the occasional discussions that come up over moving, renaming, splitting, etc. the main article.

So I'll start with some ideas:

People Googling "evolution," or searching for it on Wikipedia, may include:

• People like TxMCJ, who are well-versed in the subject but want to see what else is being said about it. Probably these people should not be considered part of this articles true "audience."
• People who know little about the subject, or who may have gotten some misleading information in the past, or who have heard one side or another of the ID-evolution "debate" and are trying to find more information to make up their own minds (I originally came to this article looking for a good place to point these sorts of people to, as I found I could locate remarkably little about evolution that was written in an engaging, lay-oriented style).
• High school or even university students looking for something to use in an assignment.
• People who know a little about biology, or maybe just saw a documentary or zoo/aquarium exhibit that piquesd there interest, and want to learn more.
• Creationists wanting to see if there is "bias" in the articles and "correct" it if they find it. (Again, probably not our target audience--unless they are what I would call "soft" creationists, i.e. folks like those in #2 who may be fence-sitting or leaning towards ID because they heard some convincing, but incorrect, arguments, in which case providing them with corret information could help bring them around).

Additionally, considering that most people will read only the lead, and that they will probably remember at most 2 or 3 main concepts from it, what is the "take-away" message that we want them to have after they read it? If they remember one thing a month from now, what should it be? Agree on that, and you'll be halfway to the perfect article IMHO.

Finally, I'm sure most of you have seen the National Geographic article from a few years ago, "Was Darwin Wrong?" This is one of the best lay introductions to evolution I have seen, and perhaps some of it could be used as a model for this article. If you haven't seen it, do check it out.

Ok, I'm outta here for awhile. I'll be back in a few weeks to help copy-edit and cite check. A big thanks to every single one of you for all the work you're doing here.--EveRickert 15:48, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Hi -- I would like to point out that my interest in this article has nothing to do with "wanting to see what else is being said about it", and everything to do with the fact that I'm a science educator and would like to see all of the people in the categories below* above have immediate access to a quality, accurate, and complete article. I have stated this point on a number of occasions. Thanks TxMCJ 16:25, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Man TxMCJ you don't get a break. Even if you were an elitist egomaniac that doesn't deny your valid concerns and contribution to the article (as you pointed out there was some basic information either partially described or not at all). As I have said before this is often a poor medium to communicate and often debates are semantic, often editors can jump the gun in conclusions without fully researching the debate and proponents, and some people are just abrasive (but who cares if they do good work!). The process can be like a ward of bipolar obsessive compulsives arguing over the meaning of life.GetAgrippa 17:06, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

I don't think Eve's post was in any way intended to be critical of MCJ. Gnixon 17:12, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

No, it really wasn't. Had I thought that there was any way to construe what I said as critical of anyone, I would have left any and all user names out of my comment--as I wish I had done, because regrettably it seems the point I was trying to make was totally obfuscated by this little sidetrack. And for the record, I have never said, nor do I believe, that anyone's concerns are invalid.--EveRickert 21:38, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Jeez I made my own point about a poor medium to communicate. I just described myself, and bipolar obsessive compulsive probably fits also. Sorry! My misunderstanding!GetAgrippa 17:15, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

The meaning of life is obviously cheese. Graft | talk 17:38, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

42 Gnixon 17:39, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

(*Re-threading this to keep individual comments together, and small edit to TxMCJ's comment so the re-threading makes sense...) Sorry, of course that's what I was trying to say, but of course you can state your intentions better than I. What I meant was, seeing "what else is being said about it" is the first step in finding out if "what else is being said" amounts to "immediate access to a quality, accurate, and complete article." After all, if you'd found that when you came here, we wouldn't be having this discussion, right? And a "quality, accurate, and complete article" might amount to different things for different groups.--EveRickert 16:40, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Excellent points. I would add as major components of the readership

• Undergraduate biologists learning the field, wishing to "read ahead" or read deeper, and wanting to help out by editing the stuff they already know about.
• Grad student biologists, a more advanced version of the above breed, possibly with more time and inclination to contribute.

I would also suggest that creationists, particularly "soft creationists" (as defined by Eve) are a larger part of the readership than most editors here appreciate. I think we could better address the interests of those readers without turning this article into creation-evolution controversy. Gnixon 15:59, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Sections

In hopes of provoking a better organization of the article, here are some thoughts on the major sections:

• Basic processes Probably too detailed and certainly misplaced. Why are we leaping into genetics immediately after the lead? Section doesn't follow its intro, which refers to drift and selection, topics that are covered in the next section. Why are there separate "Variation" and "Mutation" subsections?
• Mechanisms of evolution Starts out well with a reasonable discussion of natural selection and adaptation. Again, far too much genetics in the rest of the section. Having more than "natural selection" and "genetic drift" as next-level subheadings is inconsistent with the intro. "Speciation" is not a mechanism.
• Evidence of evolution I have no idea why this section exists in its current form. Are we trying to prove evolution? Is the existence of evolution debated among scientists?
• History of life This section probably contains the information that most general readers are most interested in. It's sad that it has to be a separate section so that readers don't have to slog through the textbook-like other sections to find this info. Obviously not well organized.
• Study of evolution Subsections "History of evolutionary thought" and "Academic disciplines" are basically unrelated. Not sure history needs its own section. Isn't current research more notable than "academic disciplines?"

Gnixon 18:57, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Proposal

Related to my thoughts above, I would propose that the following makes a better outline:

• Observations. The data on which the theory of evolution rests and notable consequences of evolution. Discuss the fossil record in detail, including common descent, speciation, etc. Discuss how organisms appear to fit into categories and have commonalities. And so on. I might start the section with a brief historical outline of pre-Darwin observations, Darwin's studies of finches, etc., Mendel's studies leading to genetics, then mention that they lead to evolution by natural selection via transmitting genetic information, then discuss all the various interesting aspects of evolution we've seen since then---without detailing the theory. Distinguish immediately between observations and the theory explaining them. Some material is available in "Evidence," but it needs to be refocused and greatly expanded.
• Theory. Here, give a full-blown exposition of the theory of evolution. Not the idea that evolution happens, but the explanation of how and why. Maybe start with a brief outline of the synthesis of Darwin and Mendel. Give MCJ's very nice argument that natural selection is a logical consequence of certain simple facts. Say the same thing about genetic drift. Detail the processes of variation and heredity. Discuss all the notable aspects of genetics. Discuss explanatory power along with examples of predictions and verifications. First two sections of current article should go here.
• Research. Discuss here the wide array of ongoing research in EB, mol bio, etc. Sadly, there's not much material currently in the article, except for a bit from "Academic disciplines."
• Social impact. Keep this section very brief, even though it's very important to our readers. Again, I would start historically. Discuss reception of Darwin's theory and its acceptance by science. Discuss when and how controversial social ideas flowed from it. Briefly discuss the conflict with religious origins beliefs, and the history of opposition to evolution's ideas, particularly regarding public education in the U.S. Mention current status, keeping in mind regional distinctions.

I think the above outline would improve the article significantly, but I don't have the perspective to carry out such a reorganization. We need an expert on the subject matter (late-stage bio grad student or a postdoc, perhaps?) who is capable of writing well and willing to write each section at its appropriate level. If and when the article takes on some sort of reasonable overall structure, I'll be much more capable of improving it directly, and I'll be glad to do so. Best, Gnixon 18:57, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

By the way, I'd point out that starting to enact that proposal wouldn't be a gargantuan task---one could rearrange text and compose a few transition sentences in probably under an hour. After the completion of that crucial first step, others could fill things in and improve consistency in the evolutionary style that Wikipedia is so good for. That style only works when there's already a reasonable overall structure. Gnixon 20:33, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Discussion of proposal

I cannot support either of these proposals: Genetics is important to evolution, indeed, much of evolution is applied genetics. Removing as much from the basic processes and mechanisms sections as you suggest and cutting genetics would leave the article much less useful. Also, the history section is probably the least relevant, and there have been frequent proposals to cut it. This places it at the top and expands it, while specifically refusing to allow it to begin to communicate information about evolution proper. No. Simply no. Adam Cuerden ^talk 22:14, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Strongly agreed. This article needs to focus on processes and mechanisms. TxMCJ 01:29, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Wait a minute. I must not have been clear. I made one proposal, which was to reorganize the article. (I objected separately to how we slam readers with genetics from the very beginning.) I'm just suggesting that the most involved details should come a little later in the article. I'm not proposing a history section at the top---in fact, I'm arguing that we should cut any separate section on history. I only mentioned that briefly introducing each subtopic in a historical style can be useful for situating the readers. Does that resolve your objections? Also, after reviewing the table of contents, do you think the article is properly organized now? Thanks for responding. Gnixon 22:23, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure i follow either proposal, then. Could you re-explain in more detail what you want done? As for how it is now... well... a lot of nonsense down at the bottom; I did the last major reorginisation, but couldn't garner support for removing much, so I just put the less useful sections last. A couple of them later did get removed, I believe; we used to have a huge section on misunderstandings of evolution. I don't think we really need the "study of evolution" section, and there might be a case for swapping "evidence of evolution" and "history of life".

I must admit to utter confusion as to what your "Observations" section would contain. Adam Cuerden ^talk 22:42, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Concurred TxMCJ 01:29, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Well, the proposal is simply to have an article based on the second outline rather than the first. I think we could get there largely by rearranging what's already in this article. For "Observations" I'm imagining all the facts that support and illustrate the theory---a major component would be the fossil record. I realize the distinction between data/observation and theory is clearer in, say, physics (e.g., big bang cosmology based on Hubble redshift relationship, presence of cosmic microwave background, etc.), but it's relevant here, too, and could provide structure. It would also help with theory/fact issues, because things like common descent, speciation, etc., can be discussed as "observations" directly inferred from fossils, genetics, and so forth. They would be obviously distinct from issues of the theory like why natural selection and genetic drift happen or how exactly traits are passed from one generation to the next. Gnixon 01:12, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

I've tried rephrasing parts of the "proposal" to be more clear. I'll also rephrase my comments under "Sections" so they won't be confused with the proposed outline. Gnixon 01:30, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

MCJ, I lost track of your comments within those threads. Can you please clarify what you were agreeing with and concurring on? Gnixon 01:40, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Discussion above this point seems to be focused on my comments about the current organization, not the "proposal" for a new outline. I've cut any suggestions from those comments under "Sections" in order to avoid further confusion. Gnixon 01:49, 14 April 2007 (UTC))

Another suggested structure

Another way to write this article would be to organize it into the basic themes that all Evolutionary textbooks (e.g. Futuyma's two texts) and most university courses in Evoluion are taught. I know this article isn't a textbook nor a college course, but there exists a time-tested logic and effectiveness of the way Evolutionary concepts are organized for people new to the concepts, and I think we'd be doing well to use those models. Understanding basic genetics is genererally a prerequisite for Evolution, so although genetics are essential to Evolution there may be a way to crosslink this article to genetics articles, and trim a lot of RAW genetics info out of here.

Based on courses I have taken, TA'ed, and taught myself (all in all, involving maybe 10 different professors at 3 universities), I recommend something like this. Note that other than the lead, I am being very specific here as to the *actual* topics and themes.

1. The lead

2. Observable aspects of the natural world that imply shared ancestry and descent with modification (fossils is only one of about ten or so things, a few others of which I've listed above. Don't emphasize fossils -- that is only one record, and it is one of the weakest records because it is piecemeal and incomplete. There are plenty of things we can observe *TODAY AND NOW* that imply shared ancestry and descent. Focus on those.)

3. The step by step, self evident mechanism of natural selection (this section would also describe variation, and fitness)

4. Population genetics/dynamics: would include gene flow, migration, and drift

5. Special cases of selection: would include sexual selection, kin selection, and adaptation

6. Speciation (mechanisms) and extinction

7. Molecular evolution: would include more detailed information on mutation and chromosomal/genome evolution (e.g. gene and genome duplications, a *huge* component of eukaryote evolution), HGT, and the like

8. A rundown on phylogenetics ("tree-thinking"), and how this field are used and applied to all fields of comparative biology (this is the "evolution is the central organizing principle" section)

9. Biogeography... integrated history of landmasses and taxonomic groups

10. Coevolution (why are angiosperms and insects so diverse? What's an evolutionary arms race? Parasites/herbivores/hosts/mutualisms/pollinators, etc.) A short coevolution section is sorely missing from the article.

11. Evo-Devo (evo devo is a very prominent theme now for eukaryote evolution) I can help write this section. A HOX genes blurb would be great, even though some people think it's too specific or jargony, it is a wonderful and fascinating story in Evolution, and really gets to core themes like origin of novelty, evolvability, homology, etc.)

12. Early origins of life on Earth (including early chemical evolution of earth and the RNA world... endosymbiosis, etc.)

13. "The big epic story"... a synopsis/rundown of the diversification of major lineages of life (3 domains, then basic Eukaryote diversification, major adaptive radiations and extinction events, etc.)

14. Common misconceptions (yes I think the article would be well served by this... this is where you define the words theory and fact, and talk about adaptations and exaptations, and ideas of generalism vs. punc. eq., and ideas of contingency vs. optimizing "improvement", etc.

15. History of Evolutionary thought... talk about Malthus, Darwin/Wallace, Lamarck, and the Modern Synthesis. BTW, does this article currently mention Lamarck? That is a gigantic topic and a very important one that MUST be included (the fact that acquired traits are not inherited)

16. Social controversies (keep this BRIEF, SHORT AND SWEET, and link out of this page). Focus on legal cases involving schools.

17. Links and references

This may seem like a lot, but I really can't justify leaving any of the above topics out of this article. The article is incomplete if any of the above are omitted... and there may be a couple of things I'm forgetting. TxMCJ 01:57, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Discussion of structure

Mainly about organization vs. content. People in the field (of any rank) should be primary editors here.
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Should we have 17 separate sections in this article? Gnixon 02:01, 14 April 2007 (UTC) Why not? Is that some kind of sarcastic comment? Meaning: are you really asking if seventeen is the magic number? I don't care if it's seventeen or seven or seventeen thousand, you've got to be complete. The number is arbitrary and irrelevant. Your comment reflects the type of wholly trivial concern that in the past has prompted me to say: stop micromanaging the irrelevant, and focus on content.TxMCJ 02:05, 14 April 2007 (UTC) I was not being sarcastic. Let's not get involved in another silly fight for no good reason. 17 main sections is far too many for an encyclopedia article. Your outline in it's current form would only be appropriate for a textbook. I think the outline I offered above is much more appropriate for an encyclopedia, but yours might be acceptable if you grouped sections within a hierarchy. Gnixon 02:11, 14 April 2007 (UTC) Please provide the impeccable math by which you calculated 17 as too high of a number of sections. I'm sorry that this article won't fit onto a matchbook cover, but we're not talking about a synopsis of an I Love Lucy episode. We are talking about the history of life on Earth, and how it came to be, and the mechanisms involved, and damn it, it's just not short and simple. If any article in Wikipedia justifies completeness, it's this one. If you can think of a way to classify all the above topics into a fewer number of sections (though the actual article length wouldn't be shortened by that), and if those section headings are well-descriptive and not too overgeneralized, then please be my guest. But you're going to have a very hard time justifying omission of any of those topics, with the possible exception of the last 2, history and controversy sections. I would support removal of those if length is a concern. TxMCJ 02:15, 14 April 2007 (UTC) See my proposal above. Subsections would obviously be appropriate. I wish your tone was less combative. Gnixon 02:20, 14 April 2007 (UTC) And I wish, for the sake of progress, you'd focus on content rather than "how many sections will there be". My outline above was simply dividing topics up conceptually, not a demand for precisely seventeen sections, and this is a topic that I cannot believe you are even remotely concerned about. The length of the article in terms of word-count is a totally different issue from how many subdivisions there are. TxMCJ 02:33, 14 April 2007 (UTC) Also, I don't think starting from the traditions of textbooks and college courses is likely to yield a good format for this article. College courses and textbooks have goals and responsibilities that are entirely different from encyclopedia articles. For example, a good encyclopedia article on quantum mechanics would look nothing at all like a textbook on the subject. The goal of a textbook is to help students practice and understand the hard parts of the theory. The goal of an encyclopedia article is to inform a general readership about the big picture. Gnixon 02:20, 14 April 2007 (UTC) Trust me: nobody is trying to write a textbook here. This article can include all of the above topics without being overly long, technical or verbose. Don't believe me? I could produce the thing myself, and I guarantee it would be about 1/100th the length of a textbook. The only "big picture" in Evolution is a complete picture. Please reread what I posted above in my preface to the outline: I am well aware this isn't a textbook nor a college course, but the logical structure and flow of textbooks and college courses are TIME-TRIED and TIME-PROVEN MODELS for how to organize this information. We can learn from those models and it would be moronic to instead follow some kind of vague "how are encyclopedia articles written?" model that nobody here has any real professional experience in (although if you'd like, why don't we just have a look at the Britannica article for comparison, if "encyclopedia article format" is our goal? I would support that little experiment.) Furthermore: I cannot fathom, for the life of me, what possible objection you might have to the actual content I've suggested. ONCE AGAIN: PLEASE FOCUS ON CONTENT. Just take a moment to compare your proposal with mine. Yours is strictly organizational, and nothing more than that. You suggest almost no content. Mine is organizational AND it provides the required content. Want to cut down on what I've suggested? Fine --tell me what content you would omit. I've already suggested omitting the history and social controversy sections. TxMCJ 02:33, 14 April 2007 (UTC) Obviously your outline is focused on content over organization, whereas mine focuses on organization over content. I happen to think the organization is more important at this point. Please read what I posted immediately above your last comment: I don't think starting from the traditions of textbooks and college courses is likely to yield a good format for this article. Gnixon 02:40, 14 April 2007 (UTC) I am not talking about *traditions* of textbooks and courses. I am talking precisely about the thing you claim to be so concered with: organization. And furthermore, this is what really boggles my mind, and what I mean when I say that your "facilitation" is an obstacle to progress with the article. Why are you spending so much energy arguing how many sections there will be, and waxing philosophic about your perceived differences between encyclopedia articles and other forms of information delivery... and so LITTLE energy on considering what content to include and how to organize it? Here is some good faith for you, and a peace pipe you may choose to smoke, or not. If you're *really* interested in facilitating things and *really* interested in organization, and you've already admitted a number of times that you do not really have the background to provide core content, then I have a kind suggestion, and request for you. Go through my outline above, develop and present sound arguments here for anything I listed that you think should be omitted (or anything you feel I forgot), and once you've done that, group all of the resulting *specific* topics of content into a set of organization categories that you think fit within your idealized model of what an encyclopedia article should look like. In all good faith and honesty: that would be truly helpful at this point, and I will thank you in advance. Produce that document, and we're ready to go, and you will have been the facilitator.TxMCJ 02:47, 14 April 2007 (UTC) Three points: A 17-item laundry list of topics to cover does not constitute organization Gnixon: my list above is *absolutely* organized into a logical and clear order, where each point builds on the previous one, and I have absolutely organized specific topics under each of those headings. It is organization AND content. Like I said, I don't care if the article has 17 headings or 7, but that is the list of information that belongs in ANY article about evolution. Still want to argue this futile point and continue wasting time? A few sections above you tried to argue that "organization at this point is more important than content". REALLY? Well here's a painfully obvious question: what exactly is it that you are "organizing", if it's not topics or information? Organization of an article without a "laundry list" (as you call it) of what goes into the article, is an inane exercise in utmost futility, and it is what I refer to as micromanagement. Please: if topics and information are not what you're organizing, then what *are* you organizing? And don't answer "the article", as that is not a meaningful response. The only thing there is to organize here, is information INTO an article. TxMCJ 06:28, 14 April 2007 (UTC) I'd just be repeating myself if I tried to respond. An ordered laundry list of topics still does not constitute organization. Gnixon 14:25, 14 April 2007 (UTC) And I'd be repeating myself to counter, again: I don't care how many subheadings there are, my outline above does *organize* the topics into a hierarchical conceptual structure. #2, Observations/Evidence: I list further up what belongs in this section. #4 Population dynamics: I list what belongs in that section. #5 Special cases: I list what belongs in that section. #7 Molecular evolution: I list what belongs in that section. Continue reading my outline. It is not a laundry list, it is a conceptual breakdown of topics. I will also add, that perhaps the most important organizational aspect you can introduce is what *order* to present the information in, and I have also provided a logical suggestion for that. TxMCJ 16:03, 14 April 2007 (UTC) I think your constant, lengthy complaining about all things under the sun, and your frequent attempts to pick fights are more disruptive here than anything I've done. Please just be nicer. I have complained about only one thing: debate about pointless things standing in the way of progress. I will be a lot nicer (i.e., less impatient with this process) if you would stop immediately objecting to every contribution of content I provide, and countering it with some banal complaint about encyclopedia philosophy or organizational structure or not wanting to follow educational models or textbook models. Those objections are not meaningful. You are not contributing substance. You are impeding the process. You have objected to my information-packed outline for totally absurd reasons, none of which have anything to do with the information itself. You are not commenting on the information or suggesting what to include or not to include. You are wrapped up in meaningless jibberjabber about vague organization of mysterious unidentified content that you have not laid out. What I've done above is laid it out. If you want me to be less impatient (or more "nice"), then quit trying to *own the article* as others before me have accused you of, and as is abundantly clear now. My snappy tone is not arrogance or nastiness -- it only comes from impatience with your refusal to consider and focus on the pertinent information and content, while instead building eternal obstacles of vague objections and wikibabble. Please, stop. TxMCJ 06:28, 14 April 2007 (UTC) I can think of one other editor who said I was trying to own an article, and some other editor said he was just being a troll. But you knew that. Your snappy tone is both arrogance and nastiness, and it didn't start with me. Gnixon 14:25, 14 April 2007 (UTC) As for content. In my experience, someone who swims in details without being able to organize their thoughts or explain them clearly is in fact showing that they don't really undertand the "content" all that well. Someone famous has a pithy quote about it. For all the time you spend boasting about your teaching experience (that'd be a few years as a grad student and a year or two as a postdoc by my count), I'd think you would have by now learned something about presentation. Gnixon 14:25, 14 April 2007 (UTC) 6 years in grad school and 5 as a postdoc, 3 of the last 5 which I've spent teaching Evolution specifically. I also write and publish in Evolution, and have written grants for Evolutionary research that were funded by the National Science Foundation. Writing and teaching are *all about* presentation. How about you, Gnixon? What's your experience in presenting evolutionary content in a way that lets you keep your job? Look, I really have no need to post my resume here, other than to show that you're mistaken, and I have never *boasted* about teaching experience -- I just refer to it a lot because it is completely relevant to what we're trying to do. Quit the attacks, as they are quite juvenile. Focus on the task at hand. TxMCJ 16:26, 14 April 2007 (UTC) I need to stop attacking you? Sorry for being wrong about the length of time you've spent in grad school and your postdoc. I agree your teaching experience has great potential to be useful here. Gnixon 17:01, 14 April 2007 (UTC) Saying "I think you would have by now learned something about organization" based on your failed attempt to discredit me by making an incorrect calculation about my experience, is a failed attack. And it wasn't the first attack. As Orangemarlin has said before, "I know what you're doing, and others will too" TxMCJ 17:05, 14 April 2007 (UTC) In good faith, I'll work on your list if you'll return the favor by suggesting any changes that are needed in my broad outline above, then suggesting content that would be included in each of the major topics. Gnixon 03:05, 14 April 2007 (UTC) I would be more than happy to rethink your outline, since as I've said, an organizational scheme without any prior consideration of *what you are organizing*, is a completely backwards approach to *anything*. TxMCJ 06:28, 14 April 2007 (UTC) Just trying to help out, since you seem incapable of organizing anything. See my above comment about the implication. Gnixon 14:25, 14 April 2007 (UTC) See my comment above about what constitutes meaningful organization. You need to know what the "anything" is, before you can attempt to organize it TxMCJ 16:03, 14 April 2007 (UTC) Okay, I'll agree you know more about this subject than I do, if you'll agree you can't write well or organize your thoughts. Maybe then we can stop this stupid bickering and each look to others to fill in where we're lacking. Gnixon 16:09, 14 April 2007 (UTC) Are you joking? You want me to agree that I can't "write well"? (please compare my contributions to the article with your own)? I write professionally about evolution, and I have also won two specific literary awards (both previously won by Ralph Waldo Emerson and John Updike as well) that are *specifically* awarded to essay-writing geared to a layman audience. I am not bragging about this, I am just saying that any attack on the quality of my writing is nothing more than a simpering attack on your part. And you want me to agree I can't "organize my thoughts"? Buddy: you've got to have the thoughts before you can organize them. My thoughts are plenty organized in that I am able to organize, to an order of magnitude more effectively than you can, what the key concepts and topics in Evolution are, and how to group them into a logical sequence (grouping + sequencing = organization.) Please, man. Your little statement above is the silliest little jab I've seen here, second only to your little tirade about "worshipping authority". TxMCJ 16:20, 14 April 2007 (UTC) I was referring to choices like this one to detail natural selection in the lead (with an odd choice of formatting). But you're right. Whether true or not, it was a petty jab and I apologize. If we meet someday in real life, we can discuss the quality of each other's professional and personal capabilities, but I'll drop it in this forum from now on. I'd appreciate some measure of similar effort on your part, but this isn't a quid pro quo---no more personal critiques from me. Gnixon 16:33, 14 April 2007 (UTC) A previous attempt at describing selection was already in the lead, my dear. The edit you link to was my attempt to make it more accurate. I was not the one who chose to try to explain selection in the lead -- all I did was correct and improve the pre-existing presentation. If you think that the mechanism of selection needs to be removed from the lead and inserted further down, fine -- that's not a point I am particularly passionate about debating one way or the other. TxMCJ 16:47, 14 April 2007 (UTC) Please don't address me with diminutives. I've managed to avoid calling you names, and I don't think it'd be hard for you to return the favor. Gnixon 16:50, 14 April 2007 (UTC) You may not specifically call names, but you sure spend a lot of time calling me arrogant, googling who I am and posting your findings in an (unsuccessful) attempt to discredit me, and saying that I "boast" about things and "spit on others", and then you try to make an (unsuccessful) attack on my writing skills, et cetera et cetera, not to mention posting your extremely transparent and stupid comment on my talk page about "experts shouldn't expect to have their holy authority worshipped"... while all this time, providing almost no contributions to this article or our goals in terms of information, content, or actual WRITING. If you want me to cool down, then you'll need to BACK down. TxMCJ 17:02, 14 April 2007 (UTC) I googled you long ago in an effort to support you on this page and after you thanked me for discussions with you, provided your full name, and invited me to email you. I'd point out that you never made any attempt to correct me when I overstated your credentials; instead, you've used your credentials like a weapon to support your ideas on this page, and in my opinion, you've implied that they're stronger than they are in fact----for all those reasons, I felt it was proper to get the facts on the page. As for attacks, we've both provoked each other---I'm sorry for my share of it, and I'll try to do better. I'd love it if we never communicated again, but given our different opinions about this article, I doubt either of us will be able to resist responding to what the other posts here. We could try to be more civil and less combative. I'm willing to try. Gnixon 17:16, 14 April 2007 (UTC) Here's your big chance! 1.) When have you overstated my credentials, which I "let slide" in my sneaky attempt to ratchet up my credibility quotient around here? Please provide details so that I may publicly apologize for my slimy, self-serving oversight. and 2.) Where have I implied my credentials are stronger than they are? Please provide details, so that I may publicly apologize for those slimy, self-serving falsehoods. If you cannot do either of those two things, then all you have said above constitutes an attack, and worse than that: fabrication of things that never happened, in order to support your vague argument (whatever it is). JUST STOP IT. I don't use credentials like a weapon, I use them as defense against your attempts to trump scientific knowledge with your personal wiki-politics and rhetoric. Such a statement on your part is nothing more than an anti-elitist reaction (like your comment about "holy authority"), to the simple fact that I *do*, simply and factually, have more experience in these topics than practically anyone else I've seen edit this page since I've been here. That does not mean I think I'm always right. That does not mean I think I'm the boss. That does not mean I am full of myself, or that I want to rule the roost or run the show. It only means that I have quality content and knowledge to contribute, and that you, for whatever reason (I think it's article ownership) seem very threatened and dismissive of it. If you want the article to grow, you'll cut all this B.S. out. TxMCJ 17:22, 14 April 2007 (UTC) I twice called you a "professor" in prominent places on this page. As for implications of stronger credentials, perhaps there's just a misunderstanding because we have different ideas about the intellectual authority of grad students and postdocs---now that you've kindly provided details about your positions, there shouldn't be much room for misunderstandings. I don't mean for that to be rude or have any subtext, by the way. My opinion is that you don't have sufficiently more experience to command greater authority than the several advanced bio grad students and bio Ph.D.'s I've seen editing here---write back if and when you get tenure at a major institution. No disrespect to your accomplishments so far. Others can judge your authority for themselves. I'm done discussing the issue. Gnixon 17:37, 14 April 2007 (UTC) Calling me a "professor" does not constitute an overstatement, because although I do not hold a professor's *appointment*, it is common practice for the instructor of university courses to be called the professor within that context (students do it, the administration does it, etc.), so that was not a glaring overstatement that I somehow "allowed you to make" in order to bolster my position. Also, at no time have I tried to argue that I'm a better authority than anyone else working in my field. I will be the first to agree that Graft (an apparent Ph.D. student?) has posted some of the most thoughtful and meaningful content to these talk pages. But I will maintain that evolutionary biologists of any professional rank (and I do include advanced grad students) are the people who should be taking the lead writing this article. Not hobbyists, not "facilitators", not "organizers". People in the field, of whatever rank. If any person assumed that I thought I was the only one qualified to write here -- that person was you. And if "tenured professors" is the only authority you will ever respect, then you are likely to wait until Doomsday before any of them shows up to waste time around this dense and frustrating environment. Even tenure *track* professors don't have time for the debating and bureaucratic swimming that is required around here. If you have even the slightest interest in the article itself, you should be somewhat grateful that I *do* have the time (and limited patience) for this. Most of my peers do not, and tenured professors *most assuredly* do not. As a last note on this, I would like to post a little sentence that Filll kindly posted on my talk page: "it is too painful to edit articles in areas in which I am an expert and have to deal with assorted morons and dufuses". I'm not calling anyone here a moron, but whereas most experts apparently flee from that "pain" and go edit other articles, I have chosen to stick around (for the time being). I apologize if I come across as abrasive, but I am *not* an elitist, and any snappy tone I adopt only comes from the frustration that Filll eloquently described, which I've posted above. TxMCJ 18:02, 14 April 2007 (UTC) Err, this is all nice and everything, but could you guys please take this to a user talk-page or not do it at all? Graft | talk 18:00, 14 April 2007 (UTC) Point taken Graft... But when attacks and bad arguments are presented here on the article talk page, in what I view as a clear strategy to "own the article", I am compelled to respond to them on the article talk page, so that such ownership does not occur. I will be the first to agree that it wastes a huge amount of space and time, and the first to invite any future such garbage to the user pages. TxMCJ 18:06, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Discussion of structure 2

Britannica:

• Introduction
• General overview

• Evidence for evolution
• History of evolutionary theory
• The cultural impact of evolutionary theory

• The science of evolution

• The process of evolution
• Species and speciation
• Patterns and rates of species evolution
• Reconstruction of evolutionary history
• Molecular evolution

• Additional reading

Total article length is 73 pages. All subtopics under General overview and Science of evolution have further sub-subtopics. Gnixon 02:53, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

OK, now I'm really confused, utterly and thoroughly confused. Does you posting this outline mean (following your above insistence that we are writing an *encyclopedia article* and not a textbook, and thus 17 sections is "far too many"...) does you posting this Britannica report mean that you think we should model our article to be somewhere along the lines of 73 pages, since (as you insist) it is an *encyclopedia article* and not a textbook? I am now thoroughly bewildered at what your position on length could possibly be. Do you prefer the above "encyclopedic" model over my outline because it only has 12 headings instead of my 17, even though the Britannica article takes up 73 pages? I have to say, I really thought we could write ours in far fewer pages than that. TxMCJ 06:28, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure what's so hard to understand. You asked for the Britannica outline. It has four first-level headings, then 4-6 subheadings under each of the two main subsections, each of which has further sub-subheadings. This is the essence of organization. I would certainly hope that the entire content of our Evolution article and its subtopics would cover over 70 pages. Luckily, though, we have the advantage of providing links to sub-articles to make our ("entire") article easier to navigate. By linking to long subtopics, we should have no trouble keeping this article to around 10 pages. "Summary style" may be useful for such a deep subject as this. Gnixon 14:14, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

All right, I've done as asked, and here's my report.

Gnixon suggests four categories: observations, theory, research, and social impact.

After the lead, I agree that something akin to an "Observations" section is a good way to start (#2 in my list), but I think calling the section simply "Observations" is a little obtuse. Straight up "Evidence for Evolution" is a fine title for this section, and it is basically an "observations" section including the kinds of things I've listed above, and more.

I have a problem with the next section, simply "Theory", 1.) because as a section title, that's a loaded word for most readers, and so we should be smarter about its use in the article... but I also have a problem with a single "Theory" section because 2.) under a 4-part article as Gnixon suggests, this is the only section to place the bulk of the scientific concepts (my points 3 through 15, if we were to use them all.) An article built the way Gnixon suggests may only have 4 sections, but this second one will be the biggest one, and I kind of feel that it needs to be subcategorized quite significanty.

I also have a bit of a dilemma with a "Research" section, not because it's a bad idea (it's not a bad idea, it's a good one), but because there are so many possible research projects and programs that could be mentioned here. I mean, there are literally thousands of evolutionary research projects going on right now, as we speak... projects in systematics and selection and evolutionary ecology and phylogenetics and molecular evolution... so what belongs in this section? It's not very clear. And I have a strong sense that any inclusion of a "research" section may result in swift deletion because it kind of gets away from the point. It's not like there are 3 or 4 active research projects in evolution right now. There are thousands.

Social Impact -- as some have voiced, this section may not even belong in this article at all. I won't argue that point one way or the other.

So, in summary, while I like beginning with something like an "observations" section, and then going immediately into a description of the theory, concepts, and mechanisms (albeit without calling that section a straight-up one word title "theory" because 99% of readers can't define that word correctly), the problem that remains is that there is too much information that makes up evolutionary science to just lump and cram into a single section, and thus that second section would have to be huge. The proposed 3rd section (Current research) is not a bad idea, but I'm not sure what projects we'd pick, or why we'd pick ithem, or how much to include, or how much to leave out, and honestly a lot of such a "research" section may come across as being trivia and only tangentially related. An alternative way to integrate current research into the article is just to provide frequent links to recent papers, and mentions of recent or ongoing studies throughout the article. Social controversies: I'll take that section or leave it... there are other articles for most of that, right?TxMCJ 07:28, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. I'm not tied to the "Observations" title, but I don't want "Evidence" to become "proof that evolution exists." It's certainly as loaded a word as theory. I think that section could be broader than you imply, because as you've pointed out, there's tons of evidence for evolution, but beyond that, there are lots of observations supporting and verifying all aspects of the theory. The human genome project, for example, might be worth discussing there. I'm also not tied to the title "Theory," but it seems like any science can be usefully divided between "observation/experiment" and "theory." I'd point out that most of the things that might be confusing under "theory," such as speciation, common descent, timeline of history of life, would fit better under "observations" (or maybe "evidence"---see the difference?). Of course "theory" would have many significant subsections, and I probably should have filled in the next level in the hierarchy. Simply explaining "research" in the appropriate other sections might work well, but for such a big subject as evolution, I would have thought research could be divided into subfields whence having a section devoted to that classification would be useful. As for "Social impact/controversies," I've pointed out before that many readers of this article are more interested in that topic than in genetics, so I can't support cutting it. I'd point out that Britannica saw fit to include it after "evidence" and "history", but before any of the "science." I'll fulfill my half of the bargain later this weekend. Gnixon 14:14, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but your above distinction between "observations" and "evidence" doesn't make any sense to me at all. When you say observations, do you mean something like "controlled experimental data"? Even if that's what you mean: experimental data fits directly into the broader heading of Evidence (whether you use the word "evidence" or not, is not my point.) It is also not clear to me how the Human Genome Project fits into a section about evidence/observations. Or why you'd pick the "human" genome project when there are a number of other genomic models that have been sequenced. TxMCJ 16:12, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Genome projects.
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
I meant "observations" as a broader and less charged word than "evidence." It's really not a big deal to me. But Sweet Baby Jesus! Who cares which genome project I mentioned? The human genome project has been in the news a lot. Substitute drosophila if that makes you happy. Gnixon 16:17, 14 April 2007 (UTC) Mainly I don't know how ANY genome project fits into that section. Please clarify. TxMCJ 16:21, 14 April 2007 (UTC) Surely a complete gene sequencing can elucidate the evolutionary history of an organism, but let's not get hung up on one example. I was just trying to illustrate the possible breadth of an "observations/evidence" section, i.e., how much of interest to this topic can be discussed before getting into details of the theory. Others can disagree, and I'm not really interested in defending my brief thoughts against good faith objections. I was just trying to start a discussion about the overarching organization of the article. I thought it would be a simple matter to reorganize what we already have without getting into some protracted, rebuild-from-the-ground-up debate, but clearly I set off your "don't let this jerk have a say" button. I'm sorry. That wasn't my goal. Gnixon 16:40, 14 April 2007 (UTC) Do you mean a complete *genome* sequencing? To answer your question: no, a complete genome sequencing says nothing about the evolutionary history of an organism. A sequenced genome is one single data set. Evolutionary history is determined through comparisons with other organisms. So whereas *comparative evolutionary genomics* might fit exceedingly well into a section about "evidence", citing a single genome project in isolation without any further context is kind of meaningless. And by the way, I do not have a "don't let this jerk have a say" button, but I do have a hair-trigger reaction to people who waste a lot of time talking *around* issues instead of about them. TxMCJ 16:55, 14 April 2007 (UTC) Thanks for catching my typo. It's good to have people keeping a sharp eye out for things like that. I opened my post yesterday with "In hopes of provoking a better organization of the article, here are some thoughts on the major sections." I guess I at least succeeded in provoking discussion. Gnixon 17:06, 14 April 2007 (UTC) Although there is another typo in your sentence above: Even a complete genome sequencing *cannot* elucidate the evolutionary history of an organism (not "can"). Evolutionary history can only be reconstructed via comparisons between taxa. TxMCJ 18:14, 14 April 2007 (UTC) Actually most of the genome sequencing papers (maybe not the human one) had something to say about evolution. The mouse genome paper, for example, had an important bit of comparative genomics - it included an estimate of the fraction of the genome under selection. Graft | talk 18:02, 14 April 2007 (UTC) Right, but that's *comparative genomics*, looking across species. A single genome in isolation provides no information about evolution. TxMCJ 18:07, 14 April 2007 (UTC) That said I agree with TxMCJ that a genome project paper might not be the most appropriate - there are likely specific analysis papers that would be much better. Graft | talk 18:03, 14 April 2007 (UTC) It was really just an example, guys. Cheers, Gnixon 18:10, 14 April 2007 (UTC) Thanks for the suggestion -- but it's not a good example unless you discuss comparative genomics. That's my only point. TxMCJ 18:15, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

another proposal

I am not going to argue forcefully for the following - here are just two suggestions and my hope is that even if people criticize it it will help us clarify what we do want to do.

1. statement that evolution refers to the fact that species change over time and that different species are related, as well as concepts/models that explain how and why species change over time and are related
2. evidence that species change over time/history of life (this would include MCJ's 7, 8, 12, 13 - the story of life and the evidence are infused)
3. evidence that species are related (see paranthetical above)
4. basic genetics, assortment, mutation all explain how, even were all life descended from a common ancestor, life can take so many different forms
5. natural selection and drift explain why some forms endure and others do not
6. special cases: sexual selection, kin selection
7. historical background: the move away from Linneus and Lamarck to Darwin and Wallace to Mendel to Fisher, Dobzhansky, Sewell, Wright, Simpson, etc, to present. Can we tell this story in a way that emphasizes the recursive relationship between observation (and when appropriate experimental data) and theory? I think we should try.
8. recent developments: coevolution, evo-devo
9. social controversy
10. misconceptions

Like I said, just an idea - working on the fine work Silence and MCJ have done, and considering Gnixon's thoughts. Slrubenstein | Talk 11:31, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Hooray Slrubenstein! This is a fantastic contribution, and an example of good organizational thinking, since you refer to the actual topics. Merging an outline like yours with the key topics I've posted above (and Silence's earlier to-do list which focuses on fine-tuning the content) should be a fairly simple task, and is the right direction to move in. TxMCJ 16:32, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Looks good to me, in particular the point of presenting "explanations" rather than talking about "theories" (a much misunderstood term) .... dave souza, talk 19:29, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

I can understand wanting to avoid "theory" to avoid misunderstandings, but to me it diminishes the scientific stature of evolutionary theory to call it an "explanation." For me, common descent is an "explanation" of the fossil record, but evolutionary science also has a full-blown scientific theory. To make an analogy, the discrete spectrum of atomic transitions is "explained" by the idea of quantum energy levels, but to refer to quantum mechanics as an "explanation", not a full theory, would seem to be somehow detracting from its significance. Maybe just semantics. Gnixon 20:53, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

1. That species change over time (i.e., evolve) is a fact; that all species are related is an explanation for the similarities between organisms and for the distribution of species in the fossil record. I don't see a need to call the theory/explanation of common descent "evolution" when we already have the word "common descent" to refer to it, and using the word loosely will only lead to ambiguity when we speak of "evolution" later on. The theory of evolution states that all known life has developed through the process of evolution from a common ancestor; we should use "evolution" to refer to the process, but "theory of evolution" to refer to the explanation, and "common descent" to refer to an aspect of the explanation.

2. The "history of life" is a reconstruction of how species probably developed, on the basis that they are related and change over time; it is not "evidence that species change over time", anymore than the Proto-Indo-European language is evidence that languages change over time.

5. I'm not sure that's the best way to put it. Extinction is what really explains why some forms survive and others don't; natural selection and drift just account for differential fitness (which 4 is also essential to explain).

7. It will be difficult to do so without leaving anything important out and without letting the section grow too large yet again. I endorse an attempt to try and improve the history section in the way you mention, but don't be surprised if we end up needing to shorten it some more afterwards; ultimately, it may be most valuable to work on trying to improve History of evolutionary thought in the way mentioned, and then simply try to encapsulate the most essential ideas there here. We can't include everything interesting in Evolution, after all.

10. Are you proposing a separate section for misconceptions? Why? -Silence 21:07, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Silence here, whose points are quite clear. I would add, though, that I also support a section for misconceptions, because misconceptions about Evolution run rampant in popular culture. Misconceptions I would add are: Evolution is generally gradual; evolution is generally directional; evolution is generally optimizing; evolution is generally complexifying; life is a ladder/great chain, rather than a phylogeny; most traits are adaptations; "theory" means "hypothesis"; etc. TxMCJ 22:02, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

I think these concerns are best addressed (in the context of an encyclopedia) by presenting information that rebuts them (e.g. presenting a phylogenetic tree instead of a ladder, discussing exaptations, etc., in the appropriate context. Graft | talk 22:13, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Graft that it may be best to address some of the misconceptions as they arise, but there is also a developing Misunderstandings about evolution article that can be linked to address the subject in more detail. Since there are a lot of experienced editors, it would be nice to create a final draft proposal,plan, constitution, for a road map to build and keep the article on track. Face it, everyone has an opinion or perspective on evolution and people constantly want to change the article (it would be frustrating to finally build a solid article with sound reasoning and with experts bothering to contribute and then have it morph into drivel). Perhaps a well thought constitution to address the building, content,and reasoning behind the article will discourage vagrants from mucking with things, or at least a conscientous editor can read the plan and repair any damages. Controversial high turnover articles can discourage qualified editors because of such antics of digress rather than progress. There seems a good mix of editors to reach critical mass here. GetAgrippa 22:42, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Personally I think that we should not only address misunderstandings in their respective specific sections rather than grouping them all under a "Misunderstandings" section (for example, misconceptions about speciation belong under "Speciation and extinction", not stuffed at the bottom of the page under "Misunderstandings"), but that we should apply the same principle to articles: delete Misunderstandings about evolution and use various topic-specific articles to address any valuable information that's there. The first section there can be dealt with at Evolution as theory and fact, the second at Biological devolution, and the third at survival of the fittest. I see no value in having such a redundant page, when Evolution should already serve to summarize any important misconceptions, and the topic-specific daughter articles are the best think to link people to who want more information on any of those topics, since those articles can deal in much more depth with their respective issues. -Silence 08:50, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

From a scientific and rational standpoint, I agree with you, that there's not a great reason to group "Misconceptions" into their own section... EXCEPT FOR THE FACT, that this is not really a purely scientific and rational article, in that it is targeted towards "the masses", where those misconceptions exist quite strongly and soundly. The value of a "misconceptions" section is that it accomplishes two things: 1.) consolidates, in one place, incorrect (but popular) ideas about Evolution that pervade its understanding among people with a genuine interest in it, and 2.) consolidates, in one place, incorrect (but popular) ideas about Evolution that are continually cited by creationists as scientific flaws. I'm not saying the article should be targeted to one type of demographic or another, only that it should be targeted for "the masses" (since it IS an encyclopedia article -- people "look it up" because they need to). And I think you could really kill a lot of birds with one stone by providing a "Misconceptions" section like that in an article like this. TxMCJ 20:54, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

You mention two groups who would benefit from a "misconceptions" section. The first is "people with a genuine interest" in evolution who happen to have popular incorrect ideas about it; I would think that the best way to fix this problem would be to simply create as good, clear, and informative an Evolution article as possible! If someone is interested in evolution, he's more likely to read up on how evolution works than to assume that he's mistaken about evolution and go looking for a "Misconceptions" section; in the process of having evolution explained to him, the person will have his misconceptions cleared up as well, so two birds really will be getting killed with one stone—not only with the misconception be cleared up, but actual new information that is not erroneous will replace it. This not only eliminates current misconceptions, but also makes it less likely that future misconceptions will crop up! In contrast, focusing on telling people what's wrong, without intermingling that with examples of what's right, just leaves them just as susceptible to misunderstanding evolution the next time around (and thus just as susceptible to the next creationist argument that pops up).

The second group you mention is "creationists". Leaving aside for now the issue of whether we should really be tailoring our science articles to the misconceptions of creationists, I think this issue is already taken care of by an article I created expressly for this purpose: Objections to evolution. This article not only addresses countless creationist misconceptions, but also does so in a neutral fashion, since it doesn't frame the exercise in a biased way to begin with by characterizing a certain ideology as misunderstanding-based. (Which it is, but saying that with a "Misunderstandings" page would exhibit bias, whereas simply showing it through an "Objections" page makes the intended point quite clear.) -Silence 00:52, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

I spearheaded the first Misconceptions section in Evolution; it eventually grew and then was split off and renamed the Misunderstandings about evolution; disconnected from Evolution and with a mess of templates up top. Not exactly what I had in mind. I think my point being, there are a lot of misconceptions out there... keeping such a section short/tight/focused enough to keep within Evolution as a sub-section, I believe, is asking too much. As such I think a new lead for the Misconceptions article should be crafted, which would then be replicated in Evolution as a sub-section. Of course with its future in limbo with a proposed merge, that needs to be sorted out too. - RoyBoy ⁸⁰⁰ 03:38, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Going in the right direction

I like TxMCJ's and Slrubenstein's content suggestions (both see the weakness in the current History section and the opportunity to relay history, evolutionary thought, and theory for example). That should be the first priority-what to put in the article. How to fit it into some Wiki format may be an issue, but I would hope the goal is to produce a superior article on the subject. Face it, most encyclopedia's bite. It would seem an excellent opportunity to build a better encyclopedia article-informative, up-to-date, and not watered down drivel. I think many readers are looking for something more than your average encyclopedia article. I think one of the reasons that this subject generates so much controversy is naivety of the subject-fundamentalist, general public, and many scientists (even educated people who believe and support evolution are ignorant of the facts, and most scientist's education become restricted to an expertise). Rather than talk about social controversy lets help make it disappear with an article that is "Gee-whiz that does make sense, seems obvious, and those arguments are difficult to deny". Just a suggestion. GetAgrippa 14:00, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

I'm not opposed to those content suggestions. I'm just suggesting we consider first reorganizing what we already have in a more reasonable way. Gnixon 14:32, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

I think Slrubenstein's way is wonderfully reasonable. TxMCJ 16:33, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Be aware, though, that too much "fluff" at the top of the article - geeneral discussions of evidence, and so on, and you end up with a vicious cycle in which the lead has to get more and more detailed to give the background needed. Also, I have to ask whether the history and evidence is really the most important discussion in the article. I'm inclined to think that mosrt readers wouldn't really care much about the history, and might not be able to understand the evidence until after basic processes asnd mechanisms are explained. Adam Cuerden ^talk 01:03, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

By evidence I meant evidence - not a general discussion of evidence, but an account of the history of life as best we understand it relying on concrete evidence. I hav eno objectin, in principle, to putting the mechanisms first and the story of life/evidence second, but I also see no reason why opening with a story - necessarily selective (with links to other articles) - of the actual evolution of life and species cannot be a compelling and fascinating way to draw people into the article. Slrubenstein | Talk 11:26, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Scientific Controversies

A request to see more information about "scientific controversies", a rebuttal, and a redirection to the FAQ.

This issue is addressed in the FAQ.
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
I Noticed that there was not a section for scientific controversies. Even though it is taught in most schools that there is no opposition to this theory in the scientific community I found some articles even here on wikipedia about controversies surrounding evolution. I created this section to cover those topics and tried to develop a small paragraph addressing theses arguments from a neutral perspective.B89smith 18:31, 14 April 2007 (UTC) The fact that Evolution -- like any science -- is a field where hypotheses get tested and supported (or rejected) and concepts and ideas sometimes change, does not imply that there is scientific "controversy" as to whether Evolution is true (as we define anything to be "true"). There is no controversy among scientists that all life evolved from shared ancestry, via mechanisms of selection and population dynamics as outlined in part by Darwin, Wallace, Fisher, and the Modern Synthesis. Like any science, controversy sometimes exists on smaller points, such as the actual structure of a phylogenetic tree, or whether or not sympatric speciation can occur in sexually reproducing organisms. But those controversies do not mean that phylogenetics is under scrutiny, or speciation does not occur. Normal scientific debate about specific topics does not mean that the core structure and tenets of the science are under any debate whatsoever. TxMCJ 18:56, 14 April 2007 (UTC) This issue is addressed in the /FAQ. You may be interested in Objections to evolution. Cheers, Gnixon 18:34, 14 April 2007 (UTC) I still think it should be included on this wiki since social controversies is a section. It would be inconsistent to not include scientific controversies. As soon as we remove this section from the wiki we remove the objectivity of this article and replace it with a subjective opinion on evolution. This greatly lowers wikipedia's credablity down from a encyclopdia to a chat forum discussing what wikipedia members think about evolution.B89smith 18:45, 14 April 2007 (UTC) As everyone here will attest, I am very interested in the problem you are having inserting this material that is fully attributed to many Reliable Sources.  :)) Would you agree to the principle that the evolution page should contain only material that satisfies the standard of "Verifiability, not truth"? --Rednblu 19:16, 14 April 2007 (UTC) You may want to propose revising the FAQ. Gnixon 19:19, 14 April 2007 (UTC) Apparently, it is not safe to have this discussion in the public square. Therefore, let us disappear while we yet can and reconvene in the safety of the Role of truth page. --Rednblu 19:50, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Just a thought....

Thinking again about issues of organization and problems of language (e.g., theory/fact), what about these as the two sections with most of the meat?

• Observations and inferences

• (overview)
• Homology
• Fossil record
• Genetics
• Speciation and extinction
• History of life

• Mechanisms

• (overview)
• Variation and mutation
• Heredity
• Natural selection
• Genetic drift
• Gene flow

Subtopics were chosen from the current TOC (mostly). Additional sections might include "Research" and/or "Social impact." My hope is that this layout would clarify the difference between the "facts" of evolution and the inferences that immediately follow (e.g., speciation, common descent), versus the scientific "theory" that explains them. Putting things like speciation/extinction and history of life in the first section avoids associating them with "theory." I likely left out some subtopics, and subtopics may not be optimally ordered---just trying to get the broad ideas. I suggest untitled "overviews" beginning each main section so that subsections can be detailed without confusing the general reader.

These are just suggestions---nothing I'm tied to. If they won't work, I'll take no offense if someone improves upon them; if they're not acceptable for some reason, fine. Just my two cents. Gnixon 05:18, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

What's the difference between an inference and a theory? Aren't theories inferential? In what sense are variation, mutation, and heredity not "observations" or "inferences", while genetics and the history of life are? Also, doesn't it make sense to present facts and their respective explanations in the same sections, so that many readers don't only learn about the puzzling phenomena and then stop reading the article before they get to any of the actual meat—that is, how and why those phenomena occur? -Silence 08:46, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

I would say an inference is something that follows directly from the observations/evidence without significant theoretical structure. Thus the "fact" that all galaxies are moving away from us can be inferred directly from their redshifts, and one can also therefor infer that space is expanding. However, the theory of big bang cosmology isn't mere inference---it has a logical structure that explains how and why space is expanding (among many other things). Gnixon 13:03, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Likewise, evolution as change over time of populations and even the history of life are simply observations or direct inferences, but the processes of variation/heredity along with the mechanisms of natural selection/genetic drift form the structure of a scientific theory explaining in detail how and why things evolve. (Thus variation/mutation/heredity can be observed, but the fact that through natural selection and genetic drift they result in evolution constitutes the theory.) Gnixon 13:03, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

My point is exactly that the subtopics under that first section are a big part of the meat, and I think its useful to understand the facts about what happens via evolution before worrying about why evolution happens. Gnixon 13:03, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Regarding readability, I think overviews beginning each section should provide all the material someone would want on a first reading, and I think readers would naturally skip through details and go to the next overview if the article was reasonably structured. Gnixon 13:03, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your questions. Hope this clarifies what I meant. By the way, "Evidence and inferences" seems like it would work just about as well. Best, Gnixon 12:58, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Revising "Theory"-->"Mechanisms" since "theory" seems unpopular and "Mechanisms" probably works as well. Gnixon 19:28, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

If we want to provide the evidence for the theory, how should we lay out the article?

The recent push toward rewriting this article in a way that not only explains, but also evidentially justifies, the various aspects of evolutionary theory is a very interesting and compelling new idea. However, I find it strange that this push has not been accompanied by a move away from artificially dividing the article along lines like "Observation/Theory". Instead, the reverse has been the case: people are suggesting more than ever an "Evidence/Explanation"-style article sectioning. Yet surely such a division would have exactly the opposite effect than what is intended in giving readers the evidential basis for evolutionary ideas?

Look, for example, at Evolution#Heredity, a section which already (at least in part) explains the exact reasoning behind many of the basic ideas of heredity, thus achieving the desired effect of giving a grounded, reasonable justification for the theory rather than simply stating the theory authoritatively and moving on. Now consider how much less effective this section would be if we tried to artificially segregate the "theory" from the "observation": half of the first few paragraphs would need to be moved to "observation", where they would remain unexplained until many pages later, when the "theory" section gives a justification for them. This clearly wouldn't be an effective way to go about things; we should, instead, provide evidence in every single section if it's our goal to give the basis for evolutionary theory here, grounding each section's theory with concrete observations.

A consequence of this is that we can probably simply delete the section Evolution#Evidence of evolution, instead distributing the evidence according to what it's specifically evidence for. We could, for example, change "History of life" to "Common descent" (and the two subsections into one section explaining the current reconstruction of life's history) and move much of the "evidence for evolution" contents there, explaining, for example, how anatomical and molecular homology (e.g., from genetics and fossils) support common descent, before exploring the consequences of common descent for life's history.

Another consequence, at least in my view, is that we probably want to begin (rather than end) the article with a discussion of the history of evolutionary theory, since this will provide a suitable "background" section for explaining where many of the subsequent examples are coming from. This will be particularly useful if we draw upon actual historical examples of evidence used by biologists for evolutionary theory, such as Darwin's finches and Mendel's peas, since this will tie the whole article together nicely—whereas mentioning Darwin and Mendel and the like throughout the article before their importance in the context of the history of evolutionary thought is explained will leave many readers confused regarding why these strange people keep getting mentioned. -Silence 09:21, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Incidentally, since a lot of other people have been suggesting new layouts, I'll throw one out there:

0. Introduction

1. History of evolutionary thought

2. Heredity

3. Variation

3.1. Mutation

3.2. Recombination

3.3. Gene flow

3.3.1. Hybridization and horizontal gene transfer

4. Speciation and extinction

5. Mechanisms of evolution

5.1. Genetic drift

5.2. Selection and adaptation

5.2.1. Competition and cooperation

6. Common descent

6.1. Homology

6.2. History of life

6.3. Phylogeny and systematics

7. Modern research

7.1. Academic disciplines

8. Social effect

8.1. Controversies

9. Notes and references

10. External links

The basic idea is to move from a general overview and background look at the core ideas and history of evolutionary theory, then to explain, in a step-by-step process, (1) how variation is passed down from generation to generation (heredity); (2) what causes this variation (mutation, etc.); (3) the long-term results of this variation (speciation) and how it terminates (extinction); (4) what causes certain variants to become more common than others (natural selection and genetic drift); (5) the evidence (homology) that all life is related (common descent); (6) a brief overview of the informed reconstruction of the many speciations and extinctions through evolutionary history; (7) the scientific study of evolution; and (8) the social effect of evolutionary theory. Feel free to ask questions about or criticize the proposal, especially if I made an error in one of my categorizations of sections or if I overlooked an important section. -Silence 10:58, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Response from Slrubenstein

I hate to screw with what you are doing by raising a too-specific point, but I think it is important: I would put selection and extinction before selection and adaptation. One of the most common misunderstandings of evolution (even by non-creationists) is that "adapt" is something species actually "do." One of the things that makes Darwin so brilliant is that he makes nature the actor, rather than the species: nature acts by killing off the less-fit. Whatever is left is "adapted." I know natural selection is not the only cause of extinction, my point is that it is because natural selection acts primarily by causing individuals to die or under-reproduce and adaptation is the literally unintended outcome of a process of elimination. Slrubenstein | Talk 11:31, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

I know all that already. But why is that a reason to put speciation and extinction before natural selection? Actually, I see why you'd say that, and the very last change I made to the above list, right before I posted it, was to switch the order of 3.2-3.4 (originally it was Heredity, then Speciation and extinction, then Selection and adaptation, then Genetic drift), but I decided that genetic drift made more sense following heredity, that natural selection and drift should be grouped together, and that speciation/extinction was an excellent way to "transition" from natural selection to common descent. What order, specifically, would you propose they be in instead? -Silence 11:57, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Sorry I was not clear. I do not think we should put speciation and extinction before natural selection. The fact is, I misread what you wrote (your outline, above) so this may just be a big misunderstanding ... I guess it depends on how we execute your (or the final) outline. My mistake: I thought after genetic drift 3.3 was "speciation and adaptation" and 3.4 was "speciation and extinction." - in other words, I though you were dividing natural selection into these two topics. I just misread what you wrote. But to see if I can salavage my point (and my dignity!) let me just ask - thus a kind of thought-experiment - how it might work if 3.3 were selection and extinction and 3.4. were speciation and adaptation? Here is the difference: your current proposal (now that I read it correctly) introduces two important concepts - selection and adaptation - first, and then two concrete manifestations of these concepts - exitinction and speciation. I am suggesting that perhaps there may be more sense in linking concept to concrete manifestation, so first introduce the concept of natural selection and show how at a large scale it can lead to extinction, and then introduce the concept of adaptation and show how at large scales adaptationas accumulate to manifest themselves in new species. As with my earlier suggestions I myself am not sure this is better, I am just raising the possibility to see what ideas it sparks. Sorry for my initial misundersrtanding. Slrubenstein | Talk 12:14, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Ah, I see; when you listed "Speciation" two times, I thought it was just a typo. Anyway, your revised point is a good one, actually: it is true that going from the more concrete (speciation) to the more abstract (natural selection) makes sense, and it's also true that it would be very difficult to discuss natural selection without using the examples of speciation and particularly extinction. But still, I'm loathe to not have genetic drift and natural selection side-by-side for the sake of comparison, and I also still like the idea of speciation being a "bridge" between natural selection and common descent. But perhaps the original order (heredity, then speciation and extinction, then selection and adaptation, then genetic drift) is better, then? Though if we go along with the below post and remove "speciation and extinction" from the "mechanisms" section (and presumably move it higher up the page), then perhaps we can just have the three mechanism sections be "heredity", then "genetic drift", then "selection and adaptation", since that'll allow us to go from the concrete to the abstract more generally. I suppose what I really want to know is: which of the sections in my outline can and can't fairly be called "mechanisms of evolution" without being arbitrary or inconsistent? -Silence 17:27, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

I think "heredity," "natural selection," and "genetic drift" are good answers. I might also include "gene flow" to discuss issues like population bottlenecking, etc. (but perhaps that goes under something else). Gnixon 17:43, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Great discussion. A couple of comments: 1.) I think it's a little backwards to describe speciation before you describe selection, drift, and gene flow, because selection, drift, and reduced gene flow are the processes that drive genealogical divergence in populations that are undergoing reproductive isolation before speciation. I really think you need to lay out the basic principles and mechanisms early in the article: heritable variation results from allele variation; allele frequencies change as a result of selection, drift, and gene flow/migration; and then you can get to describing more complex mechanisms like speciation. Otherwise new readers won't really understand how speciation happens, until they get further down into the article and read about mechanisms. Seems like just recently there was a comment/objection from some (likely creationist) user who was perplexed about where species come from.TxMCJ 20:21, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

It's really a catch-22. Basic principles without concrete examples are vague, ethereal abstractions; concrete examples without an overlying structure or reason are arbitrary, trivial factoids. Either scenario will confuse readers. That's a large part of the reason why I'm advocating including evidence for theories in the same sections as the theories themselves: isolating either from the other renders both frustratingly hollow.

I see what you mean -- thus the 1-2-3 structure I also mention below (1. observations you can make today without any understanding of mechanisms or history; 2. mechanisms; 3. evolutionary histories that explain the observations in (1).) TxMCJ

In this case, if we address natural selection before speciation and extinction, we won't be able to expect our readers to understand how species arise and die out, which is a very valuable thing to know before natural selection is explained. On the other hand, if we explain speciation and extinction before natural selection, our readers won't understand why certain species survive and others don't until they reach the natural selection section. Of these two, I currently think the former is preferable (it's easier to describe speciation/extinction without explicitly refering to selection than it is to describe selection without explicitly refering to speciation/extinction), but the counter-argument that we should explain the most important aspects of evolution (e.g., common descent, selection, drift) as early as possible is a strong one, especially considering the simple fact that most people won't read very far into the article.

Well in this case I would have to disagree, strongly. Selection happens in populations and species in complete isolation of other populations or species. Thus even if you only ever studied ONE SPECIES ever, you would find that selection occurs. No understanding of speciation and extinction is required (selection against individual phenotypes is not the same thing as species extinction.) Thus I would strongly argue that understanding selection DOES NOT require any understanding whatsoever of speciation or extinction. And on the contrary, describing the mechanism of speciation *absolutely, without exception* requires an understanding of how 2 reproductively isolated populations differentiate from one another. Selection is fundamental to that (along with reduced gene flow and drift). I'm not trying to argue, I am just saying that I believe that the exact opposite of what you're saying, is the case. TxMCJ 21:09, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Ultimately this reader laziness is just something we have to live with; we can't put everything important at the top of the article and everything less important at the bottom or the page will be unbalanced and disjointed. We shouldn't sacrifice the value of this article to in-depth readers in order to appease the largely disinterested. However, the simple fact that many people don't bother with most of the article is a large part of the reason I've been pushing to keep an entire paragraph on natural selection in the lead section: because it makes up for the fact that we might not get into the in-depth explanation for that process until halfway through the article, simply because there's so much ground to cover (e.g., basic genetics) first. Hopefully having those brief explanations in the lead section and at the start of basic processes (now "variation") will help make up for the fact that common descent, selection, and drift are being left until much later in the article; it's not ideal, but I think it's by far the best compromise so far. -Silence 20:39, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Response from Gnixon

In this outline, I like having "History" first, because it can also serve as an introduction and overview. Is "Speciation and extinction" a "Mechanism" or a result? I might have put it under "Common descent." This outline doesn't distinguish between evolutionary facts (e.g., common descent) and evolutionary theory (e.g., the mechanism of natural selection), which I prefer, but I think it's reasonable. I also like that we could easily rearrange what we already have to match your layout. Gnixon 13:48, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

How is common descent an evolutionary fact, in any sense in which natural selection is not? -Silence 17:27, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Common descent is an almost direct inference that one can make from, e.g., homology (morphological and genetic). Natural selection is an explanatory mechanism for how and why organisms evolve the way they do. If "evolution" means "change in populations' traits over time," then I'd say common descent is one aspect of evolution, whereas natural selection explains how it works. Clearly the distinction is somewhat semantic since one can also infer natural selection from the data. But when I think of TxMCJ's argument that natural selection results from basic facts and has significant consequences, it seems clear to me that it's part of a scientific-theoretical structure. Perhaps the experts around here could comment on how the terms are used within the field. Gnixon 17:39, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

I don't see how common descent is "almost direct" in a way that natural selection is not; if anything, I'd say that natural selection is completely direct, while common descent is merely "almost direct". After all, it is quite common for people to say that natural selection is almost self-evidently true; in contrast, there are many ways to explain homologous-seeming structures (including horizontal gene transfer, convergent evolution, and simple coincidence), and common descent is only a reasonable inference because we lack any other way to explain the sheer number of homologous systems. The line of thought required to reach common descent seems to me to be much more complicated than even just "we observe similarities between all life, therefore we can conclude beyond all doubt that common descent is true"; and even though common descent is so well-supported that it might seem like simple "fact", it is simply misleading to characterize it as such when it is based entirely on theoretical reconstruction, not direct observation. Inferring shared ancestry from similarity is not any more "direct", or any less theoretical, than natural selection.

Common descent is not an "aspect of evolution" (at least, the process of evolution; it is certainly an aspect of the theory of evolution), because if organisms weren't all related by common descent, evolution would still work in the exact same way; the evolutionary history of organisms would be completely different, but the actual process would work in just the same way, still operating under natural selection, etc. It is much fairer to describe natural selection as "one aspect of evolution" than to describe common descent as such, such natural selection describes how evolution must work, whereas common descent describes how the evidence strongly implies it has happened to work in the past. -Silence 18:52, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

That's fair, and my words (or thoughts!) have probably been unclear. Maybe a better way to put it would be that common descent is simply an inference (at some level of depth) from the data and what we know about evolution---it's a result. Natural selection is an explanatory mechanism for how evolution works (as well as an inference). Gnixon 19:15, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Although I need to revise previous comments, the cosmological expansion of space and the big bang keep coming to mind:

• 1) observe redshift-distance relation (homology or fossils)
• 2) infer expansion of space (speciation/extinction and branches on tree)
• 3) infer further that there must have been a "big bang" (common descent, LUCA)
• 4) general relativity is an explanatory mechanism for how space expands, forming part of the theory of cosmology

All these things can in some sense be "inferred" from the data, but the first three are inferences about what happened, while the last item is an inference of how they happened. Admittedly, those distinctions are somewhat arbitrary in this language, but the confusion is exactly over the distinction between theory as inference and theory as scientific explanatory structure. Gnixon 19:15, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

I agree with everything you said above. What we're saying, then, is that common descent is a theory for how evolution actually happened to occur, whereas natural selection is a theory for how evolution always occurs. Both are theories, but one is necessary for (Darwinian) evolution to occur at all, whereas the other, common descent, isn't. In this sense, natural selection is exactly analogous to the Big Bang theory, just as you note: it's an extremely plausible inference from the evidence/observations, but it's not the evidence/observation itself. -Silence 19:28, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

I might argue, contrary to the above, that given the self-evident facts of selection, drift, and the behavior of alleles within populations, that even speciation necessarily follows when sexually reproducting organisms undergo reproductive isolation for extended periods of time. And speciation histories is what leads to histories of common descent (despite how many "original ancestors" there were. In every lineage there will be traceable patterns of shared ancestry and descent.) I think when you take evolutionary mechanisms as a whole package, that speciation (and thus shared ancestry of a lineage) are also *self-evident*, although not immediately evident to someone who doesn't understand how speciation works. Thus, perhaps another article to present microevolution (population based mechanisms) before macroevolution (species-based mechanisms). I don't know why this makes Gnixon go "egads" (below) -- macro/micro is a fair and scientifically sound distinction to make here. TxMCJ 20:34, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps, but reproductive isolation may not be a necessary aspect of developing life, and sexual reproduction certainly isn't. Moreover, by "common ancestry" we were really discussing "universal common ancestry", something that certainly wouldn't necessarily have to be the case for any planet's lifeforms; it's entirely possible for two species to live in the same habitat that have no common ancestor at any point in the history of the universe. In this sense, universal common ancestry is not "self-evident" even given speciation, selection, drift, etc. Common ancestry is only "self-evident" for species within a lineage—that is, for species that have a common ancestor! Clearly this is only trivially true. -Silence 20:47, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

I agree with your first point, but not sure that it is the task of this article to come up with a framework that allows for all conceptual versions of life or evolution that have not yet been discovered on alien worlds. I am not being flip by that statement -- my point is, we should focus on describing what we DO observe and what we DO know, instead of what we merely can imagine (which complicates our task greatly and needlessly). Also, I see what you mean about the UCA vs. "common ancestry" and I get your point, but as I said above -- regardless of how many CA's there were on Earth, you would still necessarily get histories of shared ancestry and descent within each of those lineages (as you also say above). Anyway... not sure exactly how this bears on the writing of the article, but in general, I do see your points. I'm just not sure whether these "hypothetical worlds" should really guide our writing too much here. It is interesting, though. TxMCJ 20:59, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

I don't think the question is something a "mechanism or result" is helpful. Causes and effects are known to us via evidence (and a story of this evidence would constitute a "fact" or "evidence" or "history of life" section. "Theory" or "model" is about the relationship between causes and effects. Now, we can describe the theory of evolution (or the model that is called the modern synthesis) in terms of concepts, mechanisms, processes, whatever ... but all the elements of the model or theory are ultimately claims about the relationship between causes and effects ... not "causes" in and of themselves. Slrubenstein | Talk 14:51, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Sure, I didn't mean to suggest a false dichotomy. However, I think "speciation and extinction" isn't really a mechanism of evolution (i.e., something explaining why/how populations change over time). Rather, I think it's sort of an extreme aspect of evolution---sometimes populations evolve so much that they're new species or are selected against so strongly that they vanish. That's why in my outline, speciation and extinction fall under "observations and inferences," whereas in Silence's outline, I'd suggest speciation falls under "common descent," whereas extinction may fit there or under natural selection. I don't feel strongly about these things, but I'm glad we're discussing the language. Gnixon 15:27, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Well, I think you are getting into semantics. Speciation and extinction are events that leave evidence and as such can be explained by processes - but you can also say speciation and extinction are the very processes by which evolution. If evolution is (as some say it is) a change in gene frequencies, speciation and extinction explain why the gene frequencies have changed. Saying this does not mean that speciation and extinction themselves do not have explanations. I think you are wrong to think that there is an "extreme" version of evolution (unless you mean macroevolution, which is different from microevolution only in scale - is this what you mean by extreme, a change in scale?). Slrubenstein | Talk 16:36, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Egads! The last thing I want to do is raise a distinction between macro-/micro-evolution! Still reading the rest of your post. Gnixon 17:45, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Explanation: getting this article too much into micro-/macro- could encourage confusion about their equal acceptance. Gnixon 00:05, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

If you see my comment above, from 12:14, I am suggesting to Silence something similar to what you are suggesting now. Like you, I don't feel terribly strongly about my suggestion. But I think the issue is this: do we have one section where we discuss different observable/observed phenomena (such as speciation and extinction) and another section where we discuss elements of the theory that explain/make sense out of the date (such as adaptation and selection)? Or do we have one section where we link one element of the model to that part of the phenomenal world it accounts for (selection and extinction) and another section where we link another element of the model to another part of the phenomenal world it accounts for (adaptation and speciation)? This is an editorial discussion and I think the decision should be based on how well it reads/clarity of explanation. However, whichever way we choose to go, we need to make it clear that (1) there are observable facts, and these facts feature changes in genotype and phenotype over time and at different scales (2) there is a theory that accounts for the facts i.e. a model of what causes lead to what effects, and (3) there is a recursive relationship between fact and theory namely observing facts led to the development of the theory; the theory leads us to look for and helps us make sense of new data; the new data leads to refinements in the model, and so on. Slrubenstein | Talk 16:36, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

I agree with your analysis of the alternatives. Gnixon 17:47, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Gnixon's point that speciation and extinction are more "extreme aspects of evolution" (i.e., consequences on a larger scale of things like natural selection) than mechanisms explaining how evolution occurs (this is particularly true in that they cannot, in themselves, account for any aspect of microevolution) is a good one, and reason enough to remove it from the "mechanisms" section (though, another question: is it acceptable to have "heredity" there? and are there any glaring omissions of mechanisms, in the context of the layout I provided?). But I don't really agree with adding it to the "common descent" section, since that would imply that speciation and extinction are somehow based on common descent, when in reality they're just observations; plus placing them lower than "natural selection" would fail to address Slrubenstein's earlier concern. So right now I'm tempted just to put it in a section on its own.

I'm also gonna try putting "Heredity" in its own section, either before "Variation" or before "Speciation and extinction", depending on whether it's better to deal with the basic topic of heredity before addressing things like gene flow and recombination under "Variation". I'm gonna put it at the beginning for now, on the grounds that it'll be a great way to introduce important basic ideas about genetics in a concrete way (e.g., from the "peas" example), which will in turn allow those ideas to be clearly explained in the "Variation" section. -Silence 17:27, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Certainly speciation and extinction aren't based on common descent, but I think they can either be considered an aspect of it or at least closely related to it. The issue of heredity is interesting. In my observations/theory divide, I like putting stuff about the peas into observations suggesting heredity, whereas the theory would probably consist of a discussion of how genetics works. My point is that there are two aspects of it, and only one aspect is a mechanism (genetics). Gnixon 17:53, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

I don't think it's fair to consider speciation or extinction to be "aspects" of common descent; both could occur even if there was no common descent, and likewise common descent could hold true even if nothing ever speciated or went extinct. Speciation and extinction certainly play a major role in understanding common descent and its role in the history of life, and it is only in this sense that they can be considered "aspects" of common descent; however, in this sense natural selection, genetic drift, mutation, and a host of other mechanisms are also aspects of common descent, because they all play a role in how life descended from a common ancestor. I think that's one of the reasons I love having common descent be the last big section concerning what the science of evolution tells us; common descent and the history of life tie together all the past themes that will have been discussed in article's other sections, providing a coherent narrative in which all the previously-discussed actors, from heredity to extinction to selection, play a part. They are the stage upon which our evolutionary dramatis personae play out their various roles; it's an eloquent and meaningful way to explain evolution to laypeople, I feel. But although speciation and extinction are certainly "closely related" to this narrative, playing a major part in it, that doesn't mean that we should categorize them under the "common descent" section, which should be reserved for things that provide direct evidence for common descent (morphological and molecular homology) or are based upon common descent (the reconstructed history of life, phylogenetics, etc.). Just like many things play a role in "variation", but I tried to reserve the subsections of Variation for things that generate variation. -Silence 19:37, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

I object, somewhat, into complicating our task (writing the article) by getting too caught up in philosophical speculations about situations that never existed on Earth, and in my mind cannot really logically have existed under Darwinian and population-based mechanisms (common descent without without speciation; speciation without common descent.) Whether or not you agree that those things can happen without the other, I'm not sure what the point of such a discussion is. The history of life on earth, and the mechanisms responsible for it, are clear. Evolution texts and courses (designed to present evolution to non-experts, which is also the goal of this article) are fairly straightforward in describing 1.) Incontrovertible "observations" you can make here and now that do not require an immediate understanding of mechanisms or history (e.g. homologous structures, nested hierarchical order of taxa, geographic ranges, vestigial traits); 2.) the mechanisms responsible for organismal evolution (heredity, variation, reproduction, selection, changes in allele frequencies from generation to generation) and 3.) the long-term histories and events that result from this, and thus account for (1) above (these events would include things like speciation, extinction, coevolution, adaptive radiation, etc.) To me (and I might add to the majority of writers and teachers on the subject), the above 1-2-3 flow is a time-tested one that works, and is really quite uncomplicated. Perhaps the distinction (one which is made in Evolution all the time) is the distinction between PATTERN and PROCESS. TxMCJ 20:46, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

This is the organizational principle I think we've been groping for: 1-2-3. Straight-up observations, processes and mechanisms, long-term histories. Credit to TxMCJ. Gnixon 22:02, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Well...thanks, but if you look at my 17-point proposal, it is also organized in this same logical sequence. Group things how you want to, the order of presentation is still the same. Either way -- I really think this is the best structure TxMCJ 22:19, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

I'd also point out that having a serious History section up front probably means social impact and controversy need to be addressed there, too. That could be a problem. Gnixon 14:43, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

I don't think we need to address social impact and controversy at the top of the article (at least, not in more than a sentence or so), because the top deals only with the history of scientific thought on the matter, as a way of introducing the science of evolution; its social impact is explicitly distinguished from this. -Silence 17:27, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

I just want to make sure we are clear - sometimes we talk about "history of evolutionary theory" (and I agree with Silence here, I think controversy can and should be dealt with separately because the main controversies never really had an impact on the development of evolutionary research or theory) and "history of life" which (unlike the current version) I think ought to largely be an evidence-based narrative. For clarity's sake, can we avoid using "history" alone and always specify, history of theory versus history of life? That said, i think there are major areas where Gnixon, Silence, and I agree - this has been very productive. I am content to let Silence mull over my comments and Gnixon's and then revise (and at this point, flesh out a bit more) his proposal accordingly, if he is willing. Slrubenstein | Talk 18:50, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. Of course, comments from others would also be helpful. Gnixon 18:56, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

What do you mean by an "evidence-based narrative"? The current narrative is "evidence-based"; do you mean that we should explicitly detail the evidence supporting each and every major development in the history of life? Because I'm very wary about going into that level of detail; I put a lot of effort into trying to keep the current narrative as short as possible because it's so exquisitely easy to go into too much depth with such a fascinating account as the history of life. This isn't the article for that, though. So, I'm open to revising the section in question to try and make it more clear, reasoned, and intuitive to readers (rather than just "one damned thing after another"), but I'm very wary about going into too much detail regarding the evidence for specific occurrences in the history of life.

(In contrast, I think providing plenty of evidence for the basic idea of common descent itself is an excellent idea; that's what I plan on having the entire "homology" section consist of, by trimming and adapting the current "evidence of evolution" section into the homology section. I also am proposing to the editors at Evidence of evolution that that article's name be changed to Evidence of common descent, per the concerns of myself and some other editors who find the current title ambiguous and defensive in its implications. See Talk:Evidence_of_evolution#Proposed_move for the discussion.)

And, I've made a few revisions to my above proposal (mainly to the "mechanisms" section), but feel free to suggest any other changes you think would be helpful! -Silence 19:16, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

I didn't read Slrub's comment as a call for more detail---I thought "evidence-based" was just an adjective used in passing. Surely we can distinguish between "History of evolutionary thought" and "History of life," at least for purposes of this discussion. Thanks for continuing to work on this stuff. Gnixon 19:22, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

YASO (Yet another stupid outline)

I couldn't resist. Having perhaps come to see the wisdom of history first and mechanisms before observations, here's another proposed outline. I've tried to get all the topics from the current article.

• 0) Lead
• 1) History of evolutionary science

1.1) Lamarckism

1.2) Origin of species

1.3) Mendel's genetics

1.4) Modern synthesis

1.5) Current research

• 2) Mechanisms

2.1) Genetics

2.1.1) Phenotypes and genotypes

2.1.2) Heredity

2.1.3) DNA

2.1.4) Chromosomes and alleles

2.1.5) Mutation

2.1.6) Other lifeforms

2.2) Natural selection

2.2.1) Superfecundity

2.2.2) Adaptation

2.2.3) Extinction

2.3) Genetic drift

2.4) Reproduction

2.5) Speciation

2.5.1) Migration

2.5.2) Gene flow

2.5.3) Hybridization

2.5.4) Horizontal gene transfer

• 3) Observations and inferences

3.1) Homology

3.1.1) Morphology

3.1.2) Cellular processes

3.2) Fossil record

3.2.1) Extinct species

3.2.2) Transitional fossils

3.2) Modern speciation and extinction

3.3) History of life

3.3.1) Common descent

3.3.2) Phylogeny

3.3.3) Abiogenesis

• 4) Social impact

Not trying to supersede the very good progress being made in discussion topic above. Just my current thoughts. Presumably some of the lowest-level topics wouldn't need section headings and thus wouldn't clutter the TOC. Gnixon 20:22, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Why "mechanisms before observations"? I would think that the reverse would be more helpful: give an observation, then explain it with a mechanism. Then move on to the next observation. Also, I don't think all molecular homology consists of cellular processes, per se...

A lot of interesting ideas here, but a few comments: (1) it seems strange to discuss reproduction so much later than genetics; (2) it seems strange to discuss extinction so much sooner than speciation; (3) migration, hybridization, and horizontal gene transfer are all examples of gene flow, not of speciation, and I'm not sure why gene flow is grouped under speciation; (4) "the history of life" is not an observation, and if it is an inference then so are all the "mechanisms"; (5) countless observations are left out of "observations/inferences" (not to mention countless inferences), including genetics, speciation, extinction, and reproduction; (6) what is a "transitional fossil"? more to the point, what isn't one?; (7) are you actually proposing that each of these numbers be a distinct section, or is this a way of laying out what topics to cover in some depth? For example, many of these proposed sections seem to me to deserve a few sentences or a paragraph, but not a whole section (particularly the subsections in the "history of evolutionary science" and "genetics" sections). -Silence 20:59, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

This is probably moot after your recent edits and mine. Evidence before genetics and mechanisms seems like the way to go, with broader aspects of evolution (speciation/extinction/common descent) coming after them. Gnixon 21:31, 15 April 2007 (UTC).

On second thought, most of what isn't in Variation or Mechanisms fits well under Common descent. Gnixon 23:38, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

I don't see how anything fits well under common descent other than the evidence for common descent (formerly "evidence of evolution") and the consequences of common descent (phylogenetics and the reconstructed history of life). Nothing else quite fits, as far as I can see. -Silence 23:52, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Continued under TOC discussion below. Gnixon 00:02, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Outlines

Since there have been 7 different outlines mentioned so far (3 from me, sorry), I've put each of them on a separate subpage so we can see their tables of contents.

• Gnixon's broad outline
• TxMCJ's textbook/course-based
• Britannica
• Slrubenstein
• Gnixon's two main sections
• Silence
• Gnixon's lengthy one

I tried to make them represent the original intents, but they may need to be improved. Gnixon 20:50, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

I've expanded my outline greatly; it now includes a paragraph-by-paragraph breakdown of every topic to be covered even within sections. (This, of course, will need to be heavily revised, but it should give a basic idea of the topical layout envisioned.) -Silence 21:43, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Changes

Silence recently moved some sections around (with some rewriting): Basic processes cut; History of thought, Heredity, Variation moved to top. I then combined Heredity/Variation into Genetics and put Evidence before Genetics/Mechanisms, but Speciation and extinction after them, before Common descent. Gnixon 21:23, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

I think this layout does a nice job by going

• History
• Evidence
• Genetics
• Mechanisms
• (Broader aspects): Speciation/Extinction and Common Descent
• Current research
• Social Impact

The overall result is to make Genetics and Mechanisms central, with other topics arranged logically around them. Gnixon 21:32, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

The only reason I didn't include "genetics" in any of my layouts is because it simply seems too vague to me. What aspect of evolution isn't, on one level or another, "genetics"? For example, why is gene flow "genetics", while genetic drift is not "genetics"? Dividing the article between genetic and non-genetic topics seems misleading to me; plus I suspect that more laypeople will be able to quickly grasp the scope of "heredity" or "variation" than "genetics". -Silence 21:41, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

True, genetics spans most of evolution. Perhaps "Heredity" would be a better title for combining those sections, but the totality of that section is essentially about the nature of genetic information and how it is transmitted (and that description doesn't apply directly to the other sections). I think the other sections can be reasonably separated from "Genetics." (Genetic drift being the only problematic sub-section I notice.) Gnixon 21:49, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Genetic drift isn't the only problematic section; natural selection is one of the most important concepts in population genetics. I don't see a lot of value for our readers in bothering to point out that topics X, Y, and Z are all "essentially about the nature of genetic information and how it is transmitted"; that's a suitably vague oversectioning as to not convey any useful information about the relationship between the subsections. -Silence 22:01, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Heredity, then? (As opposed to mechanisms influencing what gets inherited.) Gnixon 22:04, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

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

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

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

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

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

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

Pattern: Homology. Process: Phylogeny

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

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

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

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

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

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

Condensing the TOC

===Heredity=== Would it make sense to include the current version's "Variation" section under "Heredity"? Gnixon 22:30, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

That section would become

• Heredity

• Variation
• Mutation
• Recombination
• Gene flow

assuming hybridization and HGT could be trimmed to fit under gene flow without subheadings. Gnixon 22:32, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Speciation and Extinction

How about putting "Speciation and Extinction" in with "Common descent," which has turned into a major topic in the article? The section seems very out of place between "Variation" and "Mechanisms." Gnixon 22:30, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

In what way is it out of place there? It explains the eventual consequences of variation right after "variation", and that species have differential survival rates right before "natural selection". It's a pretty clear transitional section. -Silence 23:49, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Again, heredity, variation, selection, drift are fundamental processes of (micro-)evolution. Speciation/extinction are not---they derive from those more basic processes. Thus they disrupt the flow of the fundamentals and fit better under the broader theory of Common descent. Gnixon 00:01, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

There is no flow of the fundamentals! If those 4 sections happen to be more "fundamental" than speciation/extinction, that's purely a coincidence; the deliberate arrangement was not to arbitrarily place the most "fundamental" topics at the highest hierarchy, but rather to simply present information in an order that cumulatively expands on the reader's knowledge in an intuitive and clear way. And common descent and variation are not "processes", so I don't see how they're any more deserving of top-level notice than "speciation and extinction". But none of that matters, because speciation and extinction simply do not fit in the "common descent" section; there is no logical connection whatsoever, because speciation and extinction are not dependent upon common descent, nor vice versa (whereas homology and common descent are mutually dependent, as are phylogenetics and common descent). So even if we'd like it if we had a convenient top-level section to place them in, we don't; and it is especially absurd to try to pack speciation/extinction into such an ill-fitting oversection immediately after removing genetic drift and natural selection from a relatively nicely-fitting section, "mechanisms"! How can we be so strict in our standards for genetic drift and natural selection, and so arbitrarily loose in our standards for speciation/extinction? -Silence 00:26, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Surely you agree that Common descent of today's species from a LUCA (the whole thing) can't happen without massive amounts of speciation and extinction? Gnixon 00:35, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

First, that's irrelevant. Common descent of today's species from a LUCA also can't happen without every other section in this article on the science of evolution; if merely being necessary for Earth's current biodiversity to arise from a UCA is sufficient to justify including that thing in "Common descent", then every section of this article should be put under "common descent", with the exception of the history-of-science and social-effect ones.

Second, common descent can be true without any speciation or extinction occurring or ever having occurred; this was certainly the case at one stage or another in the history of life on Earth. So clearly, although speciation/extinction and common descent are related, they are important for entirely different reasons, and do not depend in any way upon each other. If every organism on the planet was the same species, that wouldn't imply that common descent was untrue; likewise, if lots of different species lived on the Earth, but they shared no homologous structures or other evidence of common ancestry, it wouldn't be fair to leap from speciation to common descent. The relationship between speciation/extinction and common descent is the same as the relationship between heredity and common descent, natural selection and common descent, mutation and common descent, etc.: the former plays an important role in the evolution of life under the latter, but is not restricted to common descent in its scope of importance or relevance, making it inappropriate to include any of the former as a subsection under the latter. -Silence 00:43, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

I think I'm somehow failing to get a point across, but I'm afraid I can't discuss it further tonight. I'll try to continue tomorrow. Gnixon 00:49, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

In the meantime (and this isn't meant to be rude), maybe have a look at some of the comments from Silence and I over the past few days, and think about how you may be complicating the process (and frustrating editors) with too much emphasis on neat-and-tidy organization and categorization of everything. The problem is not as opaque as you seem to think it is. We've laid out the topics, there seems to be consensus for an article structure that goes Lead, Pattern, Process, History of Life, then "other" (history of the field, misconceptions, social controversy, etc.)... so I suggest we just do that reorganization and let any other fine-tuning come after that. We know what the "boxes" are and what topics to put into them. Progress need not be postponed based on despair of not knowing how to label the boxes. TxMCJ 00:59, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Even if you don't intend to be rude, please appreciate that I'm not disposed to take personal advice from you right now. It hinders my ability to read the rest of your comments, which appear to be reasonable. Gnixon 02:35, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Homology

In the current version, morphological and cellular homology are included in common descent---after "Mechanisms." This doesn't follow the observations-explanations-implications layout suggested by TxMCJ. Do these work better under "Common descent" (after mechanisms) or before Heredity and variation are discussed? I personally prefer keeping them under Common descent, but then for consistency, I think Speciation and extinction belongs there, too.Gnixon 22:37, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Added Speciation/Extinction to Common descent for consistency. Gnixon 23:03, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

How does that help consistency? Why does speciation/extinction have any more to do with "common descent" than heredity or natural selection do? This doesn't make any sense at all to me. For the last time, the general processes of speciation and extinction are neither evidence for common descent, nor crucial aspects of common descent, nor consequences of common descent! -Silence 23:42, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Also, when did anyone ever suggest putting "speciation and extinction" at the start of the article?! There's been no support for stuffing all the evidence at the very beginning of the article; you misunderstand what an evidence-before-explanation model means within sections, assuming that anyone who agrees that we should put the evidence before the explanations think that we should put every observation first, followed by every explanation, when clearly it makes vastly more sense to put all observations immediately before their respective explanations. I just spent hours explaining exactly why it makes 0 sense to split up evidence from what it's evidence for, and you respond by doing exactly the opposite without any discussion?

"Speciation and extinction" fits well before "natural selection" because it provides the observations, and natural selection follows this up with the explanations and the general theoretical model. Moving it into common descent serves no purpose and makes the "natural selection" section (as well as the "common descent" section) much less valuable and coherent. -Silence 23:48, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Strongly agreed with your initial point regarding odd and arbitrary classification of topics. But please see my detailed objection above (under "response from Slrubenstein") to placing speciation before selection (because understanding how speciation occurs requires an understanding selection; while the reverse is not true). Speciation is not really an "observation", although extinction (as implied by fossils) might be. But other than the order of presenting speciation and selection (selection needs to come first), I agree with almost everything else you've said, Silence. Thanks for being vigilant. TxMCJ 00:20, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Doesn't Speciation/Extinction disrupt the logical flow from Heredity and Variation to Genetic Drift and Natural Selection (since those are fundamental processes)? It also fits well within Common descent because Homology-Speciation/Extinction-History of life makes a chain from direct observables to processes to the broad history. Speciation/Extinction are necessary processes for evolution to get us from a LUCA to a small set of highly-evolved, homologous species. I apologize if I jumped the gun on those moves. Gnixon 23:57, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Your typical reader couldn't care less about "logical flow" that verges on OCD like wanting all the "fundamental processes" (whatever those might be) in a continuous chain. "Logical flow" that will really matter to readers is flow of ideas; how we arrange the sections matters very little compared to how the information with each section helps one get a better grasp on the next one, and it's with that in mind, more than with any abstract aesthetic notions of inherent orderliness, that we should be organizing the article. An article is fundamentally something to be read, not something to sit there and look pretty and organized. I can understand and sympathize with the impulse to value consistency above utility, but order for its own sake is not what encyclopedia-building is all about. Just because we might think that speciation and extinction are somehow less "important" or "fundamental" than the other top-tier sections doesn't mean that we should go out of our ways to shove them into an oversection that they don't fit very well into, and that disrupts the flow of ideas in the "common descent" section, and in the article as a whole. Also, it is incorrect to say that "Homology-Speciation/Extinction-History of life makes a chain from direct observables to processes to the broad history"; homology and speciation/extinction are both direct observables (albeit both influenced significantly by our understanding of processes and theories), they're just observables for different things (homology directly supports common descent, by its very definition; speciation/extinction does not, at least any more than any other aspect of evolution). -Silence

Couldn't agree more -- except for only one single point, that speciation is not really directly observable, and thus belongs later on in the flow of arguments, not before selection. Otherwise, Silence, you are absolutely correct about all of this. TxMCJ 00:23, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

It seems to me to be directly observable in the same way that homology is; you can compare two organisms that share a common ancestor to identify a homologous structure, just as you can compare ancestor and descendant organisms to identify a speciation. I'll certainly concede that the latter is a lot more difficult and tricky than the former, though. -Silence 00:29, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Aha! I see what you're saying now. Only problem is: you can't compare ancestor and descendant organisms, you can only compare organisms that are equally descended from ancestors. The ancestors are long, long gone. Even with fossils, scientists rarely argue strongly for naming a particular fossil taxon the "ancestor" to some modern group, mainly because the fossil record is so piecemeal, that it's more parsimonious to view the majority of fossils as extinct cousins rather than direct ancestors. Anyway... no big deal, I just wanted to say that I do understand what (I think) you mean, but the only problem is we really *can't* compare ancestors and descendants, without already having other models in place (such as phylogeny) TxMCJ 00:54, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

(undent) Speciation and extinction are processes that logically depend upon more fundamental processes (or at least speciation, and extinction goes with it), so they have to go after the other things---not because they're less important, but because they rest upon them. Gnixon 00:44, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Given that the process has to come later in the article, what direct observations support it? Answer: modern observations, homology-->phylogenetics and the fossil record. In the story of common descent of today's species from a LUCA, speciation and extinction are the processes that link the macroevolution from the LUCA to today's small number of species. Gnixon 00:44, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

I'm not trying to be OCD about organization, just following TxMCJ's suggestion about observation-process-story and applying it to universal common descent. I think that paints a consistent story that will be more readable than throwing Speciation/Extinction in the middle of no-man's land. Gnixon 00:44, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your support, but I'm afraid I have to concur that you are pretty OCD about organizational themes. TxMCJ 01:05, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

That reads to me as sarcasm, and if so, I don't appreciate it. If that wasn't your meaning, I apologize for being oversensitive. Gnixon 02:32, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Balance

It seems like the current TOC is unbalanced according to the significance of its sections. Does Variation need so many sections when Mechanisms is so sparse? If, as the intro to variation says, evolution consists of two processes, variations and mechanisms, shouldn't Mechanisms have roughly equal coverage? Can we condense Variation? Gnixon 23:03, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

"Balance", as you mean it, is completely unimportant. The fact that evolution consists of variations and mechanisms doesn't imply that the two are equally important, and even if it did, two equally important things rarely merit the same coverage, because coverage is not based on a "merit system" ("the better the topic is, the more it's covered"), but rather on how much information is needed to coherently explain the topic. For example, the only reason "natural selection" is longer than "genetic drift" is because giving a basic-level explanation of the former takes longer than the latter, not because either one is necessarily more important. However, I do plan to condense "Variation"; it happens to have more now because it had more before any of the reorganizations to article layout were made. Balance between number of sections is 100% irrelevant, but the raw length can certainly be made a bit more balanced if we cut most of the information out of "hybridization" and "horizontal gene transfer", and some of it out of "mutation", which is exactly what I'd planned to do. -Silence 23:39, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Surely having lots of subsections suggests the section is long. I didn't mean to get in the way of you trimming Variation---more power to you. I started on hybridization by cutting some extraneous details about mules and wheat. Gnixon 23:53, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Silence: I couldn't agree more. Some vague criterion of "balance between sections" is totally irrelevant and has nothing to do with the information and goals of the article. TxMCJ 00:24, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Indeed. Gnixon is correct, though, that sometimes an excess of subsections can imply excess focus or bloat in a certain area. We should just be careful not to assume that all imbalance is bad; sometimes certain topics simply deserve more attention than others. Balance is only relevant when it implies that a certain section has received too little or too much attention relative to the information content needed to explain it and relative to its importance for the topic in question. -Silence 00:33, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Agreed, sorry for the misunderstanding. Gnixon 00:46, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Phylogeny

Suggest adding a subsection on Phylogeny to Common descent between Speciation/extinction and History of life. Gnixon 23:13, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Speciation and extinction 2

First of all, apologies. I think I got a little overexcited to see the article finally taking on some sort of logical structure. I've moved the Speciation/Extinction section out of Common descent so that it is immediately following Natural selection and before Common descent. I think that's where others wanted it. I know that saying this is going to expose me to labels of being a sly creationist under deep cover here, but I'll maintain that it seems useful to me to include Speciation and Extinction among other topics pertaining to the broader evolution of life on Earth---the macroevolution. All the topics under Common descent depend, of course, on the fundamental processes of evolution, but Speciation and extinction do too, and most importantly, Speciation and extinction are the additional key processes that glue together universal common descent from a LUCA to the species we have today---you've gotta have both tons of speciation and tons of extinctions. That's why it makes sense to me to give Speciation/extinction the same centrality in a discussion of common descent that we give to genetic drift and natural selection for the article as a whole. Call it OCD organization if you will, but I find that complex scientific explanations are much easier to follow---particularly for a non-expert general reader---if they're very well organized upon a logical structure. On the other hand, I can see a good argument for keeping Speciation/extinction in close proximity to Natural selection and in a place where it displays as a general phenomenon, not as some piece of Common descent. I hope my recent move of the section resolves any disagreements. The bottom line is that I'm very happy about the recent changes to the article's organization, and I think they immensely improve its overall quality as well as the likelihood that it will continue to get better. Cheers, Gnixon 02:49, 16 April 2007 (UTC).

...but now, Silence, I can't understand why you're insisting on putting Speciation/Extinction in between Variations and Mechanisms! Gnixon 02:54, 16 April 2007 (UTC) Under the assumption that it was part of an edit conflict mistake, I've put it back after Mechanisms. If someone moves it again, I'll leave it be. Gnixon 02:59, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

"Didn't we all want this after Mechanisms?" The thing I understand least about this entire exchange is how you can so consistently and unwaveringly misrepresent what everyone else wants. It shouldn't even be possible to misunderstand what structure people are advocating or trying out, when those people have explicitly listed their entire article layout proposals in ToC form! How could anyone look at Talk:Evolution/Outline6, for example, and interpret this to mean "speciation and extinction should come after mechanisms"? However, while your misunderstandings are baffling, your point is well-argued. I don't especially care whether we list "Speciation/Extinction" before or after the mechanisms, as long as we don't list them as a subcat of "Common descent". I'm certainly willing to try out the before-common-descent organization. -Silence 03:10, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Sorry for the misunderstanding. TxMCJ clearly argued for putting it after Natural selection, and I thought you assented. Gnixon 03:13, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

...or why it's worth having so much of History of life be about abiogenesis, and so little about what we actually know. Or why we need to mention the Hox gene. Gnixon 02:57, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

I don't think that a paragraph on abiogenesis is too much to ask, when one considers that probably over 90% of the people who do a Google search for "evolution" will be expecting an extensive discussion of the origins of life in the article. If only to help allay common misconceptions about abiogenesis and evolution (such as that abiogenesis is a part of evolution!), it seems worthwhile for purely informational, practical purposes. As for the Hox gene, if the Hox gene caused the single greatest explosion in genetic diversity in the history of life, it seems noteworthy enough to mention; weren't you just saying that we should include more of the things we actually know? -Silence

Sure, but I was taking from the total length of that subsection that we didn't have much space to devote to History of life, so I thought we should make room for other parts of the timeline. If we're willing to expand the rest of the section, I can live with keeping that much info on abiogenesis. Is the Hox gene really notable (in that context)? It just sounded like WP:OR to me, and the article on the gene says nothing about the Cambrian. Gnixon 03:17, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

...and in full awareness that I'm reinforcing my OCD organizational image over a minor point, I'd suggest swapping the order of Genetic drift and Natural selection, since one is closely related to Variation, whereas the other is closely related to Speciation/extinction. Wording that depends on the order could be easily altered. Gnixon 03:30, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

And on that note, I'm going to try and enforce a few days break from this article---so much stress to get anything done around here! Thanks to good work by Silence and others, this article is better now than it was when I started being a pain-in-the-neck about organization. I'm sure someone has an unkind retort ready for that---she's welcome to the last word. Gnixon 03:30, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Manual archive, to get caught up?

This Talk page is 392 kb, which would have been considered ridiculously huge some time back. I see that MiszaBot is set to archive topics older than 14 days. That sounds rather utopian. How about reducing it to 7 days? And what if I do a one-time manual archive to get it down to 80 kb or so? EdJohnston 04:08, 16 April 2007 (UTC)