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Archives

2003–2005 Historical POV forks September 24, 2003–February 23, 2005 December 31, 2004–June 6, 2005 June 12–October 24, 2005 October 24–November 23, 2005 November 28–December 14, 2005 December 14, 2005–January 10, 2006 2006 January 2–February 6, 2006 February 6–March 23, 2006 March 3–April 5, 2006 March 31–May 4, 2006 April 20–July 7, 2006 June 24–August 25, 2006 June 27–August 26, 2006 August 18–October 2, 2006 October 1–November 16, 2006 November 6–27, 2006 November 26–December 20, 2006 December 11–23, 2006 December 19, 2006–January 6, 2007 December 20, 2006 December 26, 2006–January 6, 2007 2007 January 6–9, 2007 January 9–11, 2007 January 11–15, 2007 January 15–20, 2007 January 21–February 8, 2007 February 8–February 18, 2007 February 19–March 12, 2007 March 12–...

social and religious controversies

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

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 . 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

• 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

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 Misplaced Pages 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

Controversy (2)

Observation

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.

Recommendations

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

Cooks in the pot

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

Natural selection

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

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.

Changes implemented

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

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."

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.

Selection and Adaptation

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

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 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 and after ). 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)

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 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

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

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

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.

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

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 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

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 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 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 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 Misplaced Pages 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 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 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 Misplaced Pages 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 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 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 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 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 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 Misplaced Pages has no biology articles! Evolution is, quite simply, one of Misplaced Pages'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?" Misplaced Pages 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 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 Misplaced Pages. - RoyBoy 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 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 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 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 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

More on Drift

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

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 Misplaced Pages 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 Misplaced Pages 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 . I thought it was an interesting analysis. GetAgrippa 03:28, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Second law of thermodynamics vs. creationists

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 Misplaced Pages 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)

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 Misplaced Pages, 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 Misplaced Pages 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 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 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

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)

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)

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 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.

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

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)

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)

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)

1. ^ Futuyma, Douglas J. (2005). Evolution. Sunderland, Massachusetts: Sinauer Associates, Inc. ISBN 0-87893-187-2.
2. Lande, R. (1983). "The measurement of selection on correlated characters". Evolution. 37: 1210–1226. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
3. Haldane, J.B.S. (1953). "The measurement of natural selection". Proceedings of the 9th International Congress of Genetics. 1: 480–487.
4. ^ "Mechanisms: the processes of evolution". Understanding Evolution. University of California, Berkeley. Retrieved 2006-07-14.
5. Gould, Stephen J. (2002). The Structure of Evolutionary Theory. Belknap Press. ISBN 0-674-00613-5.
6. Dawkins, Richard (1989). The Selfish Gene. Oxford University Press Press. ISBN 0-674-00613-5.
   Lake, James A. (2004). "The Ring of Life Provides Evidence for a Genome Fusion Origin of Eukaryotes" (PDF). Nature. 431. Retrieved 2007-03-18. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
7. UCLA Report (2004). "Ring of Life". Retrieved 2007-03-16. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help); Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
8. Doolittle, Ford W. (February 2000). "Uprooting the Tree of Life". Scientific American: pp. 72-77. {{cite journal}}: |pages= has extra text (help)CS1 maint: year (link)
9. Lake, James A. and Maria C. Riveral (1999). "Horizontal gene transfer among genomes: The complexity hypothesis". PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Science). 96:7: pp. 3801-3806. Retrieved 2007-03-18. {{cite journal}}: |pages= has extra text (help)
10. Bapteste; et al. (2005). "Do Orthologous Gene Phylogenies Really Support Tree-thinking?". BMC Evolutionary Biology. 5:33. Retrieved 2007-03-18. {{cite journal}}: Explicit use of et al. in: |author= (help)
11. Gogarten, Peter (2000). "Horizontal Gene Transfer: A New Paradigm for Biology". Esalen Center for Theory and Research Conference. Retrieved 2007-03-18.
12. "IAP STATEMENT ON THE TEACHING OF EVOLUTION" (PDF). the Interacademy Panel on International Issues. Retrieved 2007-03-20.
13. "Statement on the Teaching of Evolution" (PDF). American Association for the Advancement of Science. 2006. Retrieved 2007-03-20.
14. Futuyma, Douglas J. (2005). Evolution. Sunderland, Massachusetts: Sinauer Associates, Inc. ISBN 0-87893-187-2.
15. Gould, Stephen J. (2002). The Structure of Evolutionary Theory. Belknap Press. ISBN 0-674-00613-5.
16. Lande, R. (1983). "The measurement of selection on correlated characters". Evolution. 37: 1210–1226. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
17. Futuyma, Douglas J. (2005). Evolution. Sunderland, Massachusetts: Sinauer Associates, Inc. ISBN 0-87893-187-2.
18. Haldane, J.B.S. (1953). "The measurement of natural selection". Proceedings of the 9th International Congress of Genetics. 1: 480–487.
19. Gould, Stephen J. (2002). The Structure of Evolutionary Theory. Belknap Press. ISBN 0-674-00613-5.
20. Lande, R. (1983). "The measurement of selection on correlated characters". Evolution. 37: 1210–1226. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
21. Haldane, J.B.S. (1953). "The measurement of natural selection". Proceedings of the 9th International Congress of Genetics. 1: 480–487.
22. Myers, PZ (2006-06-18). "Ann Coulter: No evidence for evolution?". Pharyngula. scienceblogs.com. Retrieved 2006-11-18.
23. IAP Statement on the Teaching of Evolution Joint statement issued by the national science academies of 67 countries, including the United Kingdom's Royal Society (PDF file)
24. From the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the world's largest general scientific society: 2006 Statement on the Teaching of Evolution (PDF file), AAAS Denounces Anti-Evolution Laws

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