Talk:Evolution/Archive 1

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Archive This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Contents

Modern synthesis

We need a part or even better a separate article about the modern synthesis, i.e. the theory as it was formed in the thirties of the last century. Then the article could elaborate more on the developments of the last seventy years. As it is at the moment the article is still quite incomplete. Any takers? JackH 19:38, 24 Sep 2003 (UTC)


Looks like we already have the beginnings of an article on the modern synthesis. However, we must note that the modern synthesis did, indeed could not have existed before 1961. It wasn't until that year that we finally figured out how DNA encoded genetic information. Also, we must change the text; the modern synthesis is not based on Mendel's theory that genes might exist. Rather, it is based on the now proven fact that they do exist, and that we discovered their exact molecular structure, and how they encode biological information. RK 21:05, 24 Sep 2003 (UTC)

1953 DNA structure is resolved to be a double helix by James Watson and Francis Crick
1958 The Meselson-Stahl experiment demonstrates that DNA is semiconservatively replicated
1961 The genetic code is found to be arranged in triplets

Drift

In the section "Differential survival", there appear to be two types listed, "natural selection" and "genetic drift". I believe that I have been told that there is a third, whose proper name I don't recall--something like the keyhole effect. It is when a population drop causes mutations to become much more able to propagate and dominate rapidly, I think. The name has something to do with the population passing through a narrow channel (narrow in terms of numbers of individuals). If this is correct, perhaps someone more knowledgeable than I may be able to mention this intelligently :) Pagan 10:42, 30 Dec 2003 (UTC)

The term is bottleneck, and it is a situation where genetic drift is is very strong (selection is weak). AdamRetchless 23:52, 29 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Recruiting for Wikibooks Biology book(s)

Warm greetings from sister project Wikibooks where I am writing a general biology textbook all by my lonesome. My profs donated a sizable bunch of notes that make up the structure of an entire introductory biology book. However these notes are in outline form and need to be fleshed out into full text. Then, some images .. I am confident that this will become the standard college text over time but need some help to get it there. --karlwick


Non-linear

Anyone able to lead me to sources (preferably accesible to layfolks) discussing non-linear evolution? I found scant mention of this, the influence or study of discontinuity, shock, disaster, etc in evolution, in Thomas A. Sebeok's Zoosemiotics, but apparently lost the note I wrote to myself. Hyacinth 18:42, 14 May 2004 (UTC)

Computer models

Hey everyone, I think it would be nice to have a brief mention somewhere (maybe on developments?) on the modeling of evolution on computers, like in evolutionary models of artificial life... there seems to be a lot of people working on computer models which show evolving virtual creatures like animats or using the basic ideas of evolution to arrive at software solutions which could have a small mention (like 1 one sentence). Is there anybody who knows more about this or who thinks it is worth a mention? (not wanting to enter in any controversy :-)). Thanks144.136.150.158 06:35, 12 Jun 2004 (UTC)


Neo-structuralist

I removed the last sentence of the "neo-structuralist" section. I have no idea of what the author was trying to say, and the grammer was off. Since I couldn't make any sense of the sentence, I couldn't fix the grammer. Hence, it is here.

This line of inquiry is criticised by classic Darwinists such as Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennett, who perceive the intrusion of certain kinds of ordering in an evolutionary scenario a step away from strict materialism based on random, non-directed processes.

Huh? First, is that supposed to read "who percieve the intrusion...AS BEING a step away from strict materialism..."? Since the terminology is so strange I can't really tell. What is this "intrusion of certain kinds of ordering"? Is there a problem with "strict materialism based on random, non-directed processes"? No biologist would say that evolution is a directed process. AdamRetchless 22:03, 14 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Creationism and Atheism

What's the problem with mentioning that creationists think that evolution is connected to atheism? Don't they? Is the section getting too long? AdamRetchless 23:24, 29 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Assuming that can be handled as an NPOV topic, shouldn't it be put in the Creationism article? Many Creationists likely do think that Evolutionists are all athiests (or even devil worshippers), but this article isn't about what Creationists think, it's about the Evolutionists' view of the world, and your average scientist studying Evolution isn't really thinking of himself and his cohorts as athiests. Also, that's a hard thing to backup with facts, it seems more like unrelated info about what sort of character attacks Creationists have made against Evolution. - Eisnel 23:45, 29 Jun 2004 (UTC)
I think that it is important in describing why creationists are so fanatical about their opposition to evolution. I did a Google search and found a lot of pages that included both "Atheism" and "Evolution". It had about 1/6 the hits that "Atheism" alone did. If this article is going to keep a section about creationism, then I think this is relevant. A while ago, we talked about splitting out another article called "theory of evolution" which dealt with the history of the idea and the social issues surrounding the idea, but I guess that went no-where. If we did that and put a link to it in the introduction, I'd be happy to take creationism out of the article entirely. AdamRetchless 23:59, 29 Jun 2004 (UTC)
I think you're on the right track there, it's too bad the split idea went nowhere. I certainly agree that it's important to document the debate between Darwinian Evolution and Creationism and the long standing animosity among their most fervent supporters. Yes, I think it needs its own article. Sorta like you suggested, but with a name that suggests the article is about the debate itself ("Theory of evolution" sounds like it should just link back to "Evolution" or info on Darwin's Origin of the Species). I think this could be handled like the Abortion article, which takes a technical approach to the subject, and then links to articles like Morality and legality of abortion, which take on the debate and moral issues. If something similar were to happen here, then the Evolution article could be technical, appropriate for those who want to know the science behind evolution and not get mired down in the debate, and it could link (at appropriate points) to articles about the debate. I noticed that there is an article sorta like that called Argument from evolution, however its name doesn't do a good job of describing what it's about, its intro says its about the argument over whether Evolution proves the non-existance of God, and after that it's rather unstructured. My concern now is that the Evolution article handles a lot of technical data (about a very broad subject), and then at the end throws in info about the social debate. But if we keep adding info about the debate, it's gonna get really long (like my comment here), so I think the debate either deserves its own article or needs to stick to the main points and avoid getting lost in the details. I think an article about the debate would also help tighten up the Creationism article. Also, to take a cue from the Abortion series of articles, they have an article about Abortion Law; wouldn't an article about Evolution/Creationism law (both in the U.S. and abroad) be cool?

The science of evolution in itself doesn't have anything to do with the debate as such and is not by any means necessarily associated with atheism. If someone thinks that, put it in an article on the religious debate, not in the article proper. Sure, the debate should be mentioned, but some of us believe in God and evolution and have NO problem what-so-ever with it. I'm really not trying to be contrary or anything, but I do feel a bit strong about this, so help me understand if you don't think I'm seeing it right. If there's a problem with the change I made, switch it back and we'll discuss it. --DanielCD 13:40, 30 Jun 2004 (UTC)

First, I think that the new statement is redundant with the statement immediately following it (evolutionary creationism). Other than that, I see three main topics in the creationism section
  • Their criticisms of evolution and explanations
  • Their general beliefs
  • Their political actions
Really, none of these has anything to do with the science of evolution (facts and theory as presented by professional scientists). We could include creationist explanations as modified versions of evolutionary theory, but even that would be better under somewhere else (origin of life, creationism). Their general beliefs are only relvant if this is viewed as a social studies section (I think commenting on atheism is appropriate in this context). Similarly, their political actions are only relvant if this is social studies.
If we are going to mention atheism, we should probably mention the various theistic views that can include evolution (such as deism), but that would get rather long. However, if we are going to mention the religious beliefs of creationists, then we should mention how evolution ties into their religious beliefs (connection with atheism). We could just limit the section to listing the creationist explanations, without mentioning their beliefs. However, that wouldn't be good because that might imply that these criticisms are coming from professional scientists. I don't think that there is a way to briefly discuss creationism, and I think that it should not be allowed to dominate the article. Therefore, I think it would be good to remove all of the social studies material to another article that we link to in the introduction. AdamRetchless 14:22, 30 Jun 2004 (UTC)


Well, atheism is the Creationists' term in that it's describing something relative to themselves; it's not a term evolutionists use to describe themselves, and is not 'religious' as such. I don't think the comment is redundant with the next paragraph at all, it kinda leads in to it, but if it's that important to you, change it back.

As far as a new article, I think that might work. It does merit a mention here though, that some people disagree with evolution and maybe some scientific criticisms. --DanielCD 15:46, 30 Jun 2004 (UTC)


It sounds like people are cool with the idea of a new article, but I just noticed that there is already an article called Evolution and creationism about the debate. Maybe all of this stuff that we've been talking about should go there? It's got a year-long history, but it's not very long, and it could certainly use a lot more stuff. It hasn't been updated very much recently, and it's an orphaned article, I don't know why it doesn't have a link here. The Evolution#Creationism_and_evolution section could link to that article. Then the Evolution article could be kept technical, and even the Creationism article could be made more focused. So check out that article, see about adding all of the info on the debate into that. - Eisnel 18:07, 30 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Excellent point, Eisnel. This article should contain the absolute minimum amount of material necessary to ensure NPOV and to acknowledge the debate, such as it is, and a link to s separate article. Slrubenstein

I think that there is more to it than just Creationism. I'm thinking of an article that does a much more extensive review of the development of evolutionary theory and its impact on society. Creationism will be important since it was dominant in the Western world before Darwin (I lost my train of thought). Anyway, I think some books have been written about the philosophical implications of evolution (Darwin's Dangerous Idea), and we could talk about various spin-offs that have been inspired Darwinism (Social Darwinism). We could also discuss its reception in schools, how widely accepted it is in society, and such. It looks like Evolution and creationism is technical, while Creationism doesn't have much of a historical perspective and wouldn't be appropriate for other social controversies related to evolution. AdamRetchless 18:29, 30 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Probable Mutation Event

I don't know why "Probable Mutation Event" has it's own section. It seems to just be a consequence of mutation and selection (or lack of), which are already discussed in the article. It has been removed to here AdamRetchless 20:09, 29 Jun 2004 (UTC)

The Probable Mutation Effect is a proposed mechanism whereby structures that may have been beneficial to an organism become, for one reason or another, unimportant to its survival. Consequently the genes controlling this structure will degenerate through the acquisition of deleterious mutations, as they are no longer under selective pressure.
This is not a term found commonly in the scientific literature and I could only find 36 Google hits, usually this concept is grouped under the notion of the pseudogene, or associated with gene duplication, and I would suggest the wording be changed accordingly to point to those articles. The Muller's ratchet is also relevant to this discussion. --Lexor|Talk 01:06, 30 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Proposal to split article

I propose that we split this into two articles: one to cover the science (facts and current theory) and one to cover the development of the idea of evolution. This will allow us to give more extensive treatment to the science and not get distracted by discussion of other explanations. It will also provide us with a separate article to discuss the historical interaction of evolution and other explanations (with approrpriate pointers), the historical development of the theory of evolution (including the contribution of fields such as geology), the spread of the theory of evolution (Darwin's bulldog and other popularizers), and the impact of the theory on other disciplines (philosphy, theology, and sociology)

I think that these pages should be called "evolution" (explanatoin of the science) and "theory of evolution" (social impact of the idea). Apparently, not everyone likes using "theory of evolution" in this manner, but it is acurate (we will be talking about the idea, i.e., the theory of evolution). Other possible names include: theory of evolution by natural selection; history of the theory of evolution; social context of the theory of evolution; scientific and social controversies surrounding the theory of evolution.

When we make this new article, this statement should be placed in the introduction: "The theory of evolution by natural selection can be traced back to Charles Darwin, who proposed the first plausible explanation for why life changes over time. This theory has been the focus of many scientific and social controversies ever since, and has had a widespread impact on other fields thought. While evolution is still subject to intense research, several tenets are subject to scientific consensus. These are described below." -- AdamRetchless

I agree that there may be value to a separate page on the social history and impact of the idea of evolution. However, I do not think that as a result all discussion of the social history and impact of evolution should be excised from this article. I believe that would only contribute to what C.P. Snow described as the problem of two cultures, which isolates the sciences from the rest of society. I also think it would ill-serve our readers. I would say that this article (focussing as it does on the science) should have the bare minimum discussion of social context in order to be accurate, and to provide readers with reasons they might want to follow the link to the page you propose. I believe this reflects the general style of WIkipedia. For example, there are currently three paragraphs on creationism in this article. I do not think that is excessive, although perhaps one paragraph would suffice. My point is just that we not only provide a link to another article, we provide a minimum amount of discussion in this page. This is a good idea. Slrubenstein
No, please, don't call the second article theory of evolution, we already had an article called that (which covered the science aspect), and did a merge (see the Talk page history), so let's not open that can of worms again, it will confuse readers and editors alike (especially those familiar with the history of this page). An article with another title addressing the social controversies would be OK, but let's leave the science article here at evolution and the social/historical one can have another title, but not "theory of evolution". I also agree with SLR that we should leave a summary in this page, as per usual wikipedia standards of having Main article: link with a 2-3 para summary of the linked-to "Main article". --Lexor|Talk 01:12, 4 Jul 2004 (UTC)
Evolutionary theory (referenced from 3.3 The evolution of altruism) already exists, but redirects straight back to Evolution. I disagree with Lexor that the science aspects should remain here because - as the very first sentence says - "Evolution is any process of growth or development that entails change." The Evolution article can talk about how the word evolution is currently used in a biology context, but the current expression of evolutionary theory is the Modern synthesis, which is currently covered by a pretty sketchy article. Any general history in the Evolution article can then talk about the progression from Darwin (and link to him) through Mendelian inheritance to the discovery of DNA then genetics and how these are now all synthesised together. The appropriate place to gather the current scientific view is thus under Modern synthesis. Noisy 08:22, 4 Jul 2004 (UTC)
I agree with Lexor. theory of evolution and evolutionary theory should redirect back to evolution because of . It would be possible to have subpages, e.g. History of evolutionary thought. Looking at special:whatlinkshere/evolution, several pages have links in them via theory of evolution and evolutionary theory. The talk.origins archive has several suitable pages ideal for digesting and regurgitating onto a subpage. Dunc_Harris|☺ 14:42, 5 Jul 2004 (UTC)

In light of what's been said here, I'm thinking that we should have an introductory section (in place of the "Modern Usage" section) which explains the social importance/influence of evolutionary thought, and points to the main article, History of evolutionary thought. That could be followed with a section on the modern synthesis, in place of the current "scientific theory" section. Finally, we could finish with ideas that fall outside of the modern synthesis, such as symbiogenesis and complexity theory. AdamRetchless 18:19, 5 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I'm inclined to think we need more than one subpage. I think a social effect of the theory of evolution would be a good article to write. Dunc_Harris|☺ 15:37, 6 Jul 2004 (UTC)
I think that there's bound to be a lot of overlap between an article about the history of evolutionary thought and the social impact of such thought. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but at the moment I don't think that we have enough content to justify splitting the content to that level, such that each article will have a significant amount of unique information. The history of evolutionary thought needs to be considered in the context of other explanations for the diversity of life (spontaneous generation, creationism, pre-scientific evolutionism), which are also important in describing the social effects of evolutionism. If I'm not mistaken, both Linneaus and Lamarck believed in creationism, in some form or another. Further, much of the content might reflect the impact of the theory of evolution on other fields of knowlege, and that seems like it would fit in both articles. If we make one article now, I see no reason that we won't be able to split it in the future when we have more content. AdamRetchless 18:54, 6 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Proposed subpages

please add/ comment

  • History of evolutionary thought (better than history of evolution which could refer to the history of life or the idea).
  • social effect of the theory of evolution

Actually, there is a page on Social evolution -- why not work on that page? Rather than creating many new pages, I think the first thing is to inventory pages already existing on forms and impacts of the idea of evolution, and make sure there are appropriate links. Slrubenstein

I agree with SLR, let's inventory the pages first, and come up with a structure. Whatever we do, we should aim to preserve evolution as the primary "parent" article. I'm happy with splitting off large amounts of specialized articles to other articles (they're not subpages, by the way, that refers to an obsolete syntax where articles would have a structure like Evolution/History Evolution/Social and that style is now deprecated), so long as a summary of each article is kept in the main article, with prominent Main article: links as we have now. I'm inclined to move history of evolutionary thought to history of evolutionary biology, if the article's scope is primarily about biological evolution. But let's inventory the pages first:
Also, it may be profitable to consult some other encyclopedias to get an idea of what kinds of structures they use for the topic. --Lexor|Talk 01:09, 7 Jul 2004 (UTC)
I think evolution should be the disambiguation page, since there are non-scientific meanings that relate to the term also. --Samuel Wantman 06:29, 7 Jul 2004 (UTC)

We should not turn this page into a disambiguation page. Among English speakers (the audience for this encyclopedia) the word "evolution" almost always means biological evolution, which is the precise topic of this article. When people go to a library or an encyclopedia for info on "evolution", they are looking for this precise article - biological evolution. English speakers almost never use this word for other purposes. Our naming scheme should be based on real-world useage whenever possible. RK 14:42, Jul 7, 2004 (UTC)

RK is not exactly right. In the US it is true that when people use the word "evolution" without any context at all, they almost certainly mean Darwin's theory and theories that build on Darwin. BUT there are many cases where people use the word "evolution" by itself to mean social or cultural evolution, as well as other meanings. Also, popularly even when people mean Darwin's theory of evolution, they really mean a Lamarkian form of evolution -- they really don't understand Darwin (take this as a sign of the lack of good science education in the USA). I am inclined to agree with RK, however, that this should not be a disambiguation page -- although I think it is worth more discussion. Even if it is not a disambiguation page, though, it should have links to related articles. And before creating a new article we should see how the material AR suggested could fit into existing pages. Slrubenstein
All the discussion here about all the different ways to name all the articles that deal with evolution support the need for evolution pointing to a good disambiguation page. This artilce could be renamed something like Evolution (science) --Samuel Wantman 20:20, 7 Jul 2004 (UTC)

You could put some content on the Religion page. It says there that by at least one definition Evolution/Science is a belief system that influences behavior and is hence a Religion. Wouldn't that call for a Evolution (religion) article? --DanielCD 18:38, 12 Jul 2004 (UTC)

That is already covered in atheism and agnosticism, and under the "social effect" subpage. Though it is true to say that those who are opposed to evolutionary biology because of religious reasons will label "evolutionism" with all sorts of muck. Using self-identification, I and others like me prefer atheist (and others agnosticism), though I really prefer secular humanist as that emphasises the humanism part rather than the religious part. I "believe" in scientific philosophy because it is logical, and thus I "believe" in evolution. However, scientific atheism is not a religion because it is not supernatural. I think that should be adequately covered in those articles, so (say) the importance of evolution to (say) the history of atheism should be covered there Dunc_Harris|☺ 20:31, 12 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Suggested fixes for someone with edit privileges to make to the outline of Evolution

Someone with edit privileges in this age of censorship should please fix the outline to Evolution. The current outline is

  • History of evolutionary thought
    • Present status
    • History evolutionary thought
    • De Chardin's & Huxley's theories

If you see no flaw in the above outline, then please ignore the following suggestions. Otherwise, I suggest the following:

  • .
    • History evolutionary thought ....... (the subcategory) should be changed to "History of evolutionary thought"

and

  • History of evolutionary thought ....... (the primary heading) should be changed to some phrase generic enough logically to include the three subcategories, one of which is "History of evolutionary thought"

and

accordingly you may want to change the subcategory "Present status" to some phrase that would be a logical subcategory of whatever you propose for the primary heading. ---Rednblu 23:59, 18 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Yeah, sorry, that was my revision. I can see the edit was made in good faith and it does need a tidy/rewrite. I took one look at User:Rednblu and panicked a bit. I have since been told off by both User:Lexor and User:Mike_Jones. Just remember the NPOV. :) Dunc_Harris|☺ 17:19, 19 Jul 2004 (UTC)
You are a good man. All is well. ---Rednblu 19:42, 19 Jul 2004 (UTC)

---

I archived this whole section after User:Ignignot took care of the suggested edit. ---Rednblu 22:37, 12 Aug 2004 (UTC)

---

Archive of discussions from June to September 2004, archived Oct 11.

Don't You Feel Like a Bunch of Lemmings

If this site wishes only to repeat the hash collected in the k-12 textbooks and thereby somehow implanted in your feeble heads in perpetuity, then you are doing a fine job. If a tenet of this site is to communicate facts, then why don't you apply a little balance, rather than simply searching for fact upon fact upon fact that support your favorite hypothesis. That a discussion on evolution could take place without one word on Alan Wilson is beyond comprehension. There have been extensive recent modifications to the "theory" of evolution. Instead this article prattles on, excusing Darwin, excepting this notion and that, until you see assembled the biggest house of cards I've ever seen. What a mansion. It's become so comical, it should be on Letterman and Leno. To hold so vainly to the errors of people like Darwin, who had none of the modern tools for examining DNA, is nearly like the charletans who claimed the world is flat, even though Galileo had the tools to absolutely prove them wrong. If you want to make a social statement that fits your philosophy, then quit hiding behind Darwin and all this post Darwin manipulation. Otherwise, wake up and use your brain. That's why God gave it to you. ;) User: 63.201.80.247

Which "Alan Wilson" did you mean? Did you mean the Allan Wilson [1] who with several others examined DNA samples of people from all around the world--red, yellow, black and white--and concluded that people living all had a common black lady for a great-great-...-grandmother? You can find the picture of your black great-great-...-grandmother posted in Wikipedia by clicking on Eve. You will find at the bottom of that Wikipedia page on Eve that Allan Wilson's 1987 publication with Dr. Cann and Dr. Stoneking in Nature is cited to chapter and verse. But perhaps you had in mind a different "Alan Wilson." Which "Alan Wilson" did you mean? ;) ---Rednblu 15:26, 10 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I think he meant Allan Wilson. Adraeus 21:56, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Nomination for Feature article

This is a well written article and I want to nominate it for feature status, but unless there is a picture it will probably get shot down. I am not good at working with pictures and making sure they meet copyright requirments, but if someoene else adds a picture I will nominate this article. I suggest a diagram with divergence of different types of organisms throughout earth's biological history, but if anybody sees any other good ones go ahead and add it. ---Chubtoad 22:37, 20 Jul 2004

  • This article blows chunks and contains some truly horrific prose. No way should it be nominated. Graft 02:41, 21 Jul 2004 (UTC)
  • Yeah, it has issues. I don't think it would be a good topic for article of the week either because of its specialist nature; there are enough users watching this page but way the article has, er, evolved has made it a bit higgledy piggledy. We perhaps should include some images of phylogenies, sexually selected traits, etc. Let's get it up to featured article standard though; it can be an aim of this group instead of wasting our time playing with trolls. The subarticles also need to be chekced. Dunc_Harris|☺ 10:11, 21 Jul 2004 (UTC)
If you are not going to speak to me, then don't speak about me either. I have amply demonstrated to at least one rational person that I am not a troll, so kindly dispense with the ad hominem attacks and try to make this article NPOV, if you can. Frankly, you only hurt your own position when you attack this way. I at least recognize my POV and understand that on a highly polarized issue like this one it will take persons with both points of view to bring out an accurate article. Respectfully - DavidR 14:46, 21 Jul 2004 (UTC)
If you're referring to me, you haven't amply demonstrated to me that you are not a troll - until you have demonstrated that your intent is to contribute meaningfully to this article, which you have to this point failed to do. If you would suggest the changes that you think are appropriate to the article, it would go greatly towards increasing your credibility. Your continued failure to do so strongly justifies Dunc's label. Graft 15:02, 21 Jul 2004 (UTC)
I have already done so. Sorry it takes me a while to post meaningful content. I can respond to an illogical attack quickly (and have no intention of replying to such again) since the flaws in logic are obvious. DavidR 16:10, 21 Jul 2004 (UTC)
  • Actually the subarticles tend to be in much better shape than this one, probably because they are so specialized that most of the Creationists don't know the subject with enough depth to approach them and they tend to be cut up less. I think the main article bears serious reorganization, however - it's not really sure of its authetic purpose. Right now it's half-written like description of evolution and half-written like a proof that evolution is true. It ought to only be the former; the proof is not our job. Graft 13:57, 21 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Critical evaluation of Evolution

This discussion was moved to talk:Evolution/Creationism/DLR)

NPOV problem in Evolution as it now stands?

I think there is a NPOV issue in the article as it stands, "Opponents of creationism typically credit fundamentalists as the only group of people who hold creationism to be true [...] recent poll showed that over half of American voters supported the teaching of creationism in public schools." I'm not sure 'typically' is a good characterization. and to say 'some oppontnts' makes the statement a little argumentative. When you remove this sentence, it reduces this paragraph to a statement of poll data, "recent poll showed that over half of American voters supported the teaching of creationism in public schools." However, this is very misleading, because it doesn't make clear if it is a side-by-side or one-or-the-other poll question. One also wonders what this poll data is doing in an encyclopedia. I don't often see it in this one. I suggest we strike the whole paragraph to return to NPOV.--Pdbailey 01:21, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)

The paragraph in question is the following.

<<Opponents of creationism typically credit fundamentalists as the only group of people who hold creationism to be true. However, in the United States the viewpoint has a much broader base than only Christian fundamentalists, who are a minority in the American population. A recent poll showed that over half of American voters supported the teaching of creationism in public schools. [2]>>

First, NPOV would surely let the creationists state the facts about "evolution" on the Evolution page.

Second, this section is titled "Evolution and religion," so surely NPOV would allow the creationists state the facts about "Evolution and religion."

Third, the sentence "Opponents of creationism . . ." characterizes what those who believe in evolution say about religion. That sentence would certainly be true if 70% of evolutionists would say "The group of fundamentalists is the only group that holds creationism to be true." (Here, I am quantifying the qualifier "typically" to be "70% of evolutionist.") In my opinion, the only flaw in that sentence is that there is no citation or reference to a poll. But just check the arguments on Talk:Evolution to see that more than 70% of evolutionists making comments on Talk:Evolution ascribe to the statement "The group of fundamentalists is the only group that holds creationism to be true."

Fourth, the next sentences provide empirical data that what the evolutionists say about "evolution and religion" is wrong. So logically there is nothing wrong with the paragraph.

Fifth, you wonder "what poll data is doing in an encyclopedia"? In my opinion, poll data are crucial facts in presenting any encyclopedia article about anything like "Evolution and religion." Poll data would be irrelevant to Evolution (science only). But "religion" has no meaning for an encyclopedia without implicit or explicit poll data. The only reason Creationism even appears in Wikipedia at all is because of the reality that only poll data can touch, namely the reality that too many people cannot understand Evolution as the evolutionists explain it.

In my opinion, the paragraph that you criticize is a good example of good NPOV in that it states the facts and cites to the sources for the facts. And the text fairly represents the facts as stated in the sources. ---Rednblu 02:43, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)

What you are arguing for in your first two paragraphs is something like equal space. Scientists uncover evidence and look for ways to fit it all together, look for which theorys work with the data and which don't. Those who argue adminatly for creationism have an answer are looking for evidence, it means you have a point of view. Granted scientists have a point of view, but it is simple and straightforward, it's the scientific method, it's the simple idea that the we can increase our knowledge if we are systematic in our approach to studying the world. Don't believe in science? Better not fly on a plane, go on a bridge, take medicine, or eat prepaired food. All these acts are based on the idea that what worked yesterday will work today.
As for the third and fourth, you have spoken past me in two ways. First, you made an assumption that I contradicted without offering evidence for it. The specific assumption is that the poll was correctly represented in the paragraph. The poll may show an indecisive nation (equal-time argument) not a decisive nation (all-one-way argument), we don't know. Second, you offered 'referenced' evidence that has no reference (the 70% number).
As for the fifth, I'm not sure I understand what you are saying. I guess I think of an encyclopedia as somewhat more timeless and nationless than you do, care to put in poll data from any other continent?--Pdbailey 04:08, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)
"Don't believe in science? Better not fly on a plane, go on a bridge, take medicine, or eat prepaired food. All these acts are based on the idea that what worked yesterday will work today." Don't be so argumentative. You also seem to be misrepresenting RednBlue has said - he wants to keep the poll in because he thinks it is useful information. I don't see him editing in that science is made by the devil. The small portion of the evolution article devoted to creationist arguments is warranted because you would expect a little of that in the article. Obviously the main thrust of the article is about what evolution is and how it works, which is as it should be. You may think that wikipedia should be "timeless and nationless" but one of wiki's strengths is that it has information on current events and current attitudes much faster than other encyclopedias. I think a large portion of the English wikipedia readership is going to be American, so I don't see the problem with having some information about the controversy that is going on (and has been going on for years). Of course, polls are all inherently biased by the questions that are asked (switch "do you think creationism should be taught in our schools" with "do you think your child should be taught creationism" and I'm sure the approval would drop quite a bit, without changing the apparent meaning). The mere fact that the paragraph has lasted as long as it has means that most wikipedians involved here think it is alright; there must be 50 people watching the evolution page.
'Don't be so argumentative." Point taken. Another point you made again speaks past what I was saying. My claim is that there is little or no information in the poll result. Thus there is nothing to include. For poll data, you can look at this website http://1stam.umn.edu/main/pubop/creationism.htm, the poll taken on Jun. 25-27, 1999 by gallup and others is a good set of questions (in my opinion) and within the last 10 years (others are good but much older). All that said, the NPOV I'm most concerned about is the blanket statement about 'most' opponents of creationism. If you insist (as you are) on including poll data (do we need a license?) I suggest including it as is. That is, just pointing out that there is popular suport for creationsim. --Pdbailey 00:12, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)
<<What you are arguing for in your first two paragraphs is something like equal space.>>

No. In my opinion, the Evolution page has about the right proportions. Most of the page presents the subject that the reader came to the page to investigate. And at the bottom are a few sections--about one tenth of the page--in which the opposition can make their strongest and most succinct arguments against the point of view on the page.

<<care to put in poll data from any other continent?>>

No. In the context of that paragraph, I was glad to find that someone put a reference to poll data so that I could see for myself what the facts were, so that I did not have to just take the Wikipedia editor's word for what is going on in the United States in regard to "Evolution and religion." But in my opinion, the major anti-evolution movement is limited to the United States. Unlike the majority in the United States, the people in most industrialized nations on earth can deal with their problems without having to flee to religion to avoid having to facing reality. ---Rednblu 05:16, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Changes by 67.68.243.23

I reverted your addition. I think the complaints about evolution are discussed elsewhere. There must be a place for them in the Creationism article, or if not, perhaps there is a Creation Science article where they might fit. I just don't think that spot is the right place to voice them. Please speak up here if you disagee. --DanielCD 15:25, 14 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Why should questions about the theory of evolution be discussed on a page other than one about the theory of evolution? This truely seems the correct place for them. Respectfully - DavidR 12:37, 18 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Take a look at the revert. If you disagree, put it back. It pretty much speaks for itself. You did look at the revert in question...right? --DanielCD 15:48, 19 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I don't necessarily agree with the exact text you reverted, but I feel an edit would have been better than a revert. Nevermind, I'll post my own thoughts after a bit. I'm engaging in discussion first since some people in here seem to have itchy trigger fingers on the revert button. Respectfully - DavidR 20:10, 19 Jul 2004 (UTC)
Don't bother yourself; I'll put it back for you. I was trying to be helpful, offering help to the editor to try to find the proper place for it. I'll try not to be so helpful from now on. I just don't think that particular spot is right for it. Another place in the article perhaps? I didn't necessarily mean it had to go in another article. --DanielCD 20:27, 19 Jul 2004 (UTC)
Whoops! looks like someone else reverted it! Imagine that! --DanielCD 21:35, 19 Jul 2004 (UTC)

The beginning of the article states that the origin of life was likely a single cell. However, the theory ( for which there is an article in this encyclopedia) is that the original life form was RNA. The cell did not occur until after this when the RNA was surrounded by a lipid membrane (though probably not a bilayer at this stage.) --MattDal 12:05, 17 Jul 2004 (UTC)

All of which depends on what you consider to be "life". In any event, all that "origin of life" crap is mostly smoke and mirrors, anyway. There's no really good experimental justification of the RNA world (like, for example, a self-replicating RNA enzyme), and people are still hashing out whether the RNA world came before the protein world or vice-versa. For now, this is mostly nonsense, and any discussion of it should be HEAVILY qualified. Graft 15:00, 19 Jul 2004 (UTC)
This page should be an overview, and following the rule that in biology there is always an exception to the rule, it is worth ignoring it here but mentioning it on the "subarticles" to avoid unnecessarily confusing readers. The definition of life is somewhat blurred anyway. Dunc_Harris|☺ 16:18, 19 Jul 2004 (UTC)
Absolutely not, I say... There may always be an exception to the rule, here, but there's no "rule" to speak of - only vague propositions, which even as they are proposed in journals are heavily qualified. Why should we ossify them? I think it's perfectly valuable in an overview article to say that there are areas of disclarity - I don't think it will unnecessarily confuse anyone. The whole "history of life" section is far too sure of itself to give a realistic picture of the state of our knowledge. Lack of certainty is also important information for an encyclopedia to convey. Graft 17:08, 19 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Why isn't this article named Evolution (biology)?

The Evolution (disambiguation) page is one of the best disambiguation pages I've seen. Can anyone spell out the reasons why this article shouldn't be renamed Evolution (biology) so that Evolution points to the disambiguation page? The disambiguation page can be expanded a little to be a better overview of all facets of evolution, and this article, renamed, might provoke less controversy and vandalism from creationists. --Samuel Wantman 05:39, 19 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Good idea! At least that would be logically consistent in making the page symmetric to Creationism (theology). ---Rednblu 07:14, 19 Jul 2004 (UTC)
Because it is standard practice here to place articles under the most common and obvious title — this is the "least surprise rule". Evolution, unless qualified with a modifier (such as "cultural evolution") is pretty much universally taken to mean biological evolution. In short, the current placement is correct. (BTW, as you say, the disambiguation page is excellent. Do we have a Wikipedia:Featured disambiguation pages? It ough to be listed there!) Tannin 07:57, 19 Jul 2004 (UTC)
I personally would agree with you that the obvious meaning of evolution is biological evolution. But apparently that is not the obvious meaning to most Americans. Here is a link to some historical polls. [3] Apparently, to the 63% of the 2025 Americans polled in the September 9-12, 1999, NBC / Wall Street Journal Poll conducted by the Hart & Teeter Research Companies, evolution is not obviously a matter of biology but rather a matter of religion; accordingly, they voted for teaching creationism "in teaching the origin of man." In view of all of the above, I propose as a hypothesis that what is acting here on Wikipedia is simply the evolutionists' view on religion forcefully censoring in a public forum the expressions of the creationists' view on religion. You and I may feel that religion should be silenced on the evolution page. But the empirical evidence suggests that silencing religion on the evolution page violates the "least surprise rule" for 63% of the 2025 Americans polled in 1999. So as Mr. Wantman suggests, clarifying that the discussion is about Evolution (biology) might satisfy the "least surprise rule" better--assuming that the civilized world would allow a pedagogical remedial gesture to assist the 63% of Americans who are "slow learners." ---Rednblu 14:59, 19 Jul 2004 (UTC)
Does anyone know of an example of another article that has a corresponding disambiguation page as lenghthy as Evolution (disambiguation)? It seems from JUST from the contents of the disambiguation page, that Evolution can have many meanings, and it is not a foregone conclusion that someone searching on Evolution expects to get the biology article. Isn't that reason enough to rename this article Evolution (biology)? --Samuel Wantman 20:46, 19 Jul 2004 (UTC)
Sounds right to me. ---Rednblu 01:24, 20 Jul 2004 (UTC)
An interesting poll, Samuel, but this is not the Americapedia, it's an international encyclopedia. The peculiarities of any one nation's religious views cannot be permitted to dominate. Tannin 22:30, 19 Jul 2004 (UTC)
Sorry, I don't understand your point. I'm making no claims about any religious views dominating. I am not a creationist, and am not trying to put forward any particular view. Perhaps you are referring to the comment by Rednblu and not mine. --Samuel Wantman 08:39, 20 Jul 2004 (UTC)
Yes. The USA is particularly marginalised on this issue. There is relatively very little controversy over this issue in the rest of the heathen world. Mintguy (T) 22:38, 19 Jul 2004 (UTC)
I think that there is potential for a page at evolutionism (which presently redirects here) describing how the word is used by creationists (essentially as a synonym for evil atheists); I think I have read on talk.origins that it was invented by some lawyer chap at some trial, but I have seen it used by American scientists Jerry Coyne springs to mind. Dunc_Harris|☺ 23:29, 19 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Evolution of Species

Hey, SLR - regarding your intro-tightening, I'd like to nitpick about your use of the phrase "evolution of species". Since a lot of molecular evolution occurs intraspecifically, is it really appropriate to say "species"? Speciation is not the be-all and end-all of evolution, and lots of evolutionary adaptation can occur without crossing species boundaries... Graft 15:58, 12 Aug 2004 (UTC)

fair enough -- the main point is to be specific. Still, I'd say that Darwin's theory did concern the evolution of species. Also, it is my understanding that studies of intraspecific evolution nevertheless involves processes that are themselves involved in the evolution of species (in other words, the boundary that defines what is "within" a species -- the boundary that also defines the difference between two species -- is a conceptual boundary that in practice is fluid and permeable. I thought that the article is clear enough about the point you are making. But if you feel it needs to be clearer in the intro, I trust you to make what you think is the appropriate change,

Slrubenstein


De Charden et al

Do we really need this "De Charden and Huxley" bit? Can we scrap it? I'm not sure what it's doing in this article, really... for an overview article such an obscure bit seems very out of place. Graft 17:11, 13 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I think a link to another article would be sufficient (and appropriate), Slrubenstein
I moved the section to History of evolutionary thought which covers the mainstream of evolutionary history plus various more controversial extensions and recent developments. --Lexor|Talk 07:14, 18 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Evolutionary Thought

Err, so I wanted to hack up this "Evolutionary Thought" section, which right now consists mostly of a lot of nonsense about "good, bad and neutral" mutations, and turn it into a "history of evolutionary theory" section. But I realized that this is actually quite an undertaking and I don't know that much about it, not being very well-read in this bit of history. So, if y'all could help me hack together an outline:

  • Lamarck & Darwin, obviously, come first
    • Holes in Darwin's theory
      • Sources of variation
      • Mechanism of inheritance
  • Gregor Mendel's work
    • The biometrics/mendelian debate (which I know little about)
  • The modern synthesis
  • The genetic code
    • Max Delbrück, Nikolai V. Timofeeff-Ressovsky, and Karl G. Zimmer discover chromosomes store genetic information (?)
    • Watson & Crick - the structure of DNA
    • Crick et al. discover process of genetic transfer?
  • Molecular Biology
    • The neutral theory of molecular evolution
  • The "selfish gene"
    • The individual as the unit of selection, rather than the population
  • Modern challenges
    • Genetic load
    • Punctuated equilibrium

Please rework/add/subtract as necessary. Graft 19:41, 16 Aug 2004 (UTC)


Hrm if I recall someone else demonstrated that DNA was the genetic material well before Watson & Crick (who only deciphered the structure of DNA - or, rather, stole Rosalind Franklin's data), with that heat-killed infections bacteria study... what the heck was that called? I completely don't remember. Graft 20:30, 17 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Well I guess Watson & Crick only discovered the structure of DNA (which was enough for a Nobel prize) and not that DNA was the carrier for genetic information. I suppose they already knew that DNA was where genetic information was stored then. OTOH from Rosalind Franklin it seems that she did the work but W & C did the thinking which is not insignificant. Her co-author also recieved the Nobel prize, but she did not because she died before it was awarded. Also, I agree that only mentioning Mendel in passing in evolution is a glaring omission. --Ignignot 13:26, Aug 18, 2004 (UTC)
Watson, or maybe Crick, says explicitly in his biography that they stole the results. One of them saw an X-ray diffraction plot of the structure and knew enough to be able to decipher it. They were not Franklin's collaborators, they did not produce the data, and Franklin surely would have published the results herself (which were trivial once you had the diffraction data - there's no "thinking" involved) if Watson and Crick had not scooped her. Evil behavior, and I've never understood why biologists put up with it, even after the facts are known. Graft 15:59, 18 Aug 2004 (UTC)
I think every discipline has a few people who get too much or too little credit. I'm an electrical engineer, and the treatment of Nikola Tesla has always rubbed me wrong. But in the end it isn't so important, and people within the discipline almost certainly know better. --Ignignot 16:45, Aug 18, 2004 (UTC)
Added information from the DNA article. I'm not sure how right it is.

Category:White Separatist movements and Cosmotheist concepts

Lst27, I'm not seeing the connection between Evolution and "White Seperatist" movements, let alone "Cosmotheist concepts" (whatever those are). Evolution appears to me to have about as much to do with cosmotheism as astronomy, continental drift, and kinetics do (that is, not much). And it has even less to do with white seperatism. Can you explain what I might be missing? --Saucepan 18:16, 5 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Recent vandalism

Recently there have been a lot of NPOV edits vandalising the page. I think Gmlk's edit was lost in the shuffle of reverts. Not sure if it should be put back in or not. --Ignignot 13:54, Sep 7, 2004 (UTC)

Archive of September-December 2004.


Dawkins, Dennett et al.

I think Richard Dawkins should be re-inserted into the list of evolutionary biologist. He has done plenty of serious original work, and has done research in the past, even if he sticks to writing books these days. In particular The Extended Phenotype expounded an original idea of his. I also believe that he may be responsible for the idea that the gene is the essential unit of selection, see The Selfish Gene. Also, his role as perhaps the most promonent promoter and explainer of evolution to the general public should be noted on this page. I won't make the changes myself, as I notice that he has already been removed, and I don't want to get into an edit war. I think a more hardcore wikipedian should consider it though.

Please try to suffix your comments with four tildes in a row so we know who wrote the comments. I re-added the commented out researchers and altered the previous sentence to read "Notable contributors to evolutionary biology theory include:" so that all people listed are appropriate. Adraeus 20:29, 13 Sep 2004 (UTC)
I do dispute Daniel Dennett being called an evolutionary biology researcher because his primary work is in the philosophy of science. Oh, and Richard Dawkins does publish original material. Anyway, both are appropriately listed. Adraeus 20:29, 13 Sep 2004 (UTC)
I have separated out Dennett and Pinker into a section on popularizers which should help address concerns. Although Dawkins falls somewhat into both camps, (in fact he is more well-known as a popularizer than for peer-reviewed papers in evolutionary biology), on balance he should probably be left in the evolutionary biology section, because he is a zoologist by training and his forceful exposition of his ideas have had a good deal of impact within the field itself. --Lexor|Talk 02:30, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)
I think it makes sense to change 'Notable popularisers of evolution whose primary research isn't within evolutionary biology include:' to 'Notable popularisers of evolution:' and include Dawkins (and maybe some others) in both lists. I think the 2 lists will have different audiences, it does not make sense to hide a populariser in a list addressing a more technical audience.

Evolution & religion

Do we really need this section as it is? Moreover, creationism (as well as intelligent design and evolutionary creationism) is not a religion nor is it a theory. It's a belief system. I say let's leave creationism to the creationism entry writers. People who visit this wiki page intend to learn about evolution not creationism. If they wanted to learn about creationism, they should go to that wiki page. I think it is more appropriate to entitle this section "Opponents of evolution" and link-list opponents of evolution. Adraeus 06:13, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)

---

<<Ever since Darwin provided a persuasive mechanism for evolution, religious conservatives have claimed evolution is a lie.>>

I am curious what part of your above edit you would call 1) "minor" and what part of your above edit you would call 2) Neutral Point of View. A reference for the statistics implied in the above sentence might help. :) I personally agree with the partisan attack in the above sentence, (Bravo and cheers!), but I do believe that it must leave the Wikipedia page. ---Rednblu 07:18, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)

  • Objectively, religionists claim evolution is a lie. It may not be politically correct, however, it is the blunt truth and it is NPOV in that context. A lie is a statement that deviates from or perverts the truth. Those like creationists do not merely disagree with evolutionary theory but they claim it is untrue because their "God" created everything, etc. I don't know if there's a credible organization that polls hatred; thus, I'm unaware of any statistics that support the assertion that "religious conservatives" believe evolutionary theory is a competing a religion. However, from observation of the general attitude of "religious conservatives" towards evolution, that assertion appears to be substantiated. I've read of Gallup polls that concern creationistic, theistic, and atheistic views of humankind, but I've been unable to verify the existence of that data.

Evolution and the Law:“A Death Struggle Between Two Civilizations”
Gallup polls (1982-1999) addressing views of Americans on creation, evolution, theism, and atheism

Adraeus 21:43, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)

--- A page called evolutionism was created by a group of people. I personally see that page as a deliberate attempt to claim Evolution is just a belief not a scientific theory. It lacks essential content other than claiming evolution is just a belief, so I have sent it to the Votes for deletion page. If you would like to vote and or comment on this, please follow the link from the evolutionism page. CheeseDreams 20:54, 30 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Progressive

I don't want to get into a huge argument over this because it's just not that important, BUT. Gould theorizes that major transitions between genera (or the creation of radically different genera) happen sporadically. This is well and good and maybe even true. However, it is incontestable that evolution occurs in general as a continuous process. It doesn't always have dramatic phenotypic effects, but it IS always occurring. This is wholly compatible with Gould's thesis and he would have agreed 100%. Punctuated equilibrium is meant to describe "macroevolution"; minute changes in gene frequency and the introduction of new alleles occurs continuously; thus, the word progressive (i.e. gradual) is appropriate. Graft 18:44, 19 Oct 2004 (UTC)

OK, but should not punctuated speciation and macroevolution on geological timescales also fall under the rubric of evolution? if you only allow progressive evolution, then you preclude those concepts. I mean sure, in many usages, it is a progressive process, but in some cases (or on some scales) it is not. so we can't use the word to define evolution, at least not without qualification, right? -Lethe | Talk

I don't think that progressive is at all appropriate, since it seems to indicate a movement towards a goal. It is better without it. Noisy | Talk 19:59, 19 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Right. While "progressive" does refer some sort of change, its definition refers to some sort of goal. Since Wikipedia is not in the business of publishing original research, it's best to assume there's no intelligence, aside from us, that gives evolution momentum towards a goal. I don't think evolution has always made things better so "progress" and "advancement" are inappropriate descriptions of evolution's nature. Evolution is haphazard which is a provisional truth unknown to proponents of Creationism/Intelligent Design. See definition. Adraeus 20:06, 19 Oct 2004 (UTC)
The sense in which it's being used is "continually in progress", i.e. "in motion", but I see your point. Graft 21:38, 19 Oct 2004 (UTC)
The word "gradual" seems sufficient to cover the intended meaning without the undesirable connotation of goal-oriented, not to mention the connotation of "good" associated with "progressive.SMesser 14:26, 12 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Maybe in this context the word "accumulative" or "compouded" would be better? I understand objections to the word "progress," especially sinc emany people -- some scientists in the 1800s, many laypeople today -- identify "evolution" with a very crude and mistaken notion of "progress." Slrubenstein

Compounded or accumulative - I dunno. There's no real aggregation going on when you have, say, single-base substitutions. It's just movement from one state to another. Over time evolution can be said to have resulted in an aggregation of complexity, but to some degree it's also meant huge periods of loss of complexity (e.g. mass extinctions like the one following arrival of homo sapiens). I don't like 'gradual' much, either, since it implies a plodding, regular pace that may not be appropriate. I think it's going to be difficult to find one adjective that's appropriate here; maybe it's best left alone? Graft 18:45, 12 Nov 2004 (UTC)

What are the creationists' objections to the evidence that humans descended from the ancestors of the chimpanzees?

I cut a paragraph from the Evolution#Evolution and religion section. The immediately preceding sentence read: "Some of those who reject the scientific theory of evolution have proffered what they believe to be physical proof of the impossibility of macroevolution in particular; this viewpoint does not bar the idea of microevolution."

--- Begin paragraph for discussion container ---

To understand the basis for this object, consider evolution's claim that humans evolved from the same mater as all other living life (and are therefore not special), which conflicts with the christian bible's claim that humans were designed as the rulers of the Earth. This is similar to the problem posed by the copernican model of the solar system as opposed to the Geocentric universe which has the Earth in the center of the universe (as the pope mainteind it was).

--- End paragraph for discussion container --- ---Rednblu | Talk 23:53, 23 Oct 2004 (UTC)

This paragraph does not seem to me to expand on the idea in the preceding sentence of "physical proof of the impossibility of macroevolution." Instead, this paragraph seems to object to evolution because it does not put humans "as the rulers of the earth."

Consequently, this paragraph does not seem to me to belong either in this section or on this page. ---Rednblu | Talk 00:22, 24 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Answering this section's question, visit Talk.Origins and start reading. Adraeus 03:38, 24 Oct 2004 (UTC)
I think it builds on this, "Literal, or authoritative, interpretation of scripture demands that a supreme supernatural being directly created humans and other animals as separate species." Basically I was trying to flesh out that idea an put it in the context of other such problems (the copernican model for the solar system). I'm suprised it's contraversial, and I don't understand the objection. Please restate it for me. Pdbailey 15:27, 24 Oct 2004 (UTC)

---

So is that paragraph above supposed to say something like the following?

Those who accept scripture as the ultimate authority on the role of humans in the universe reject evolution whether or not there is physical proof that evolution is fact--because evolution does not make humans the rulers of the earth that scripture plainly makes them. ---Rednblu | Talk 16:42, 24 Oct 2004 (UTC)
I'm really more interested in the historical comparison to copernicus. Which is to say, the Catholic church's initial rejection of this theory because it had the Earth not being the center of the universe. I think this is a clear comparison and offers some insight into the topic at hand. Pdbailey 17:43, 24 Oct 2004 (UTC)

---

Sorry. It might help if you would cite to a published scholar who uses the "historical comparison to Copernicus" to explain the controversy between Evolution and religion. ---Rednblu | Talk 18:14, 24 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Okay, Andrew Dickson White, "The Warfare of Science" 1874. Reviewed in, "Beyond War and Peace: A reappraisal of the Encounter between Christianity and Science" by David C. Lindbert and Ronald L. Numbers. Borrowing from Lindbert and Numbers, White hypothesizes that religion slowed scientific progress. While his argument is far more complicated and nuanced than this, but recall that Copernicus, Galileo, and Darwin were all persicuted by the church for their writings and actions. I'm still having a hard time understanding your objection, would you mind stating it for me? Pdbailey 19:51, 24 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Discussion of the debate between scientists and creationists, however interesting, belongs in a different article. I think this article should note religious opposition as well as opposition from a smull number of scientists influenced by religion, and provide a link. And otherwise, stick to expounding research on evolution. Slrubenstein

I think the sociologicla history of the theory and the political strife it's author had to endure is of profound interest. This issue simply has a sociolgical aspect to it as well, and I don't know of a better place to document it.Pdbailey 20:53, 24 Oct 2004 (UTC)

---

What Mr. Rubenstein said above rings true for me--the "sociological aspect" of "religion slowing scientific progress" would make an interesting and useful Wikipedia article. But that discussion of "sociological aspect" should not appear in the Evolution page because the "sociological aspect" would detract from what Mr. Rubenstein, appropriately in my view, calls the "expounding research on evolution" clarity of the Evolution page as it is now. So that "sociological aspect," in my opinion, should go somewhere else. Let's see; where should that discussion of "sociological aspect" go? Hmmm. My immediate gut reaction is the following.

  • Let's look for the best name of the page where a "sociological aspect" would help Wikipedia readers understand the world, its history, and its potential for improvements.
  • Until we think of a name for the new page, or old page to augment, we should keep the discussion here on Talk:Evolution. We can cut it to an appropriate place later. What do others think? ---Rednblu | Talk 22:48, 24 Oct 2004 (UTC)

--- Arguments made by Rednblu and Slrubenstein suggest that the following paragraph should be removed.

In the United States creationism has a much broader base than only Christian fundamentalists, who are a minority in the American population. A recent poll showed that over half of American voters supported the teaching of creationism in public schools.[1] , and in some areas of the United States, creationists have occasionally elected a majority of the members of state school boards and changed rules to give equal time to their views in the science classroom.

Any thouhgs?Pdbailey 23:10, 24 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Yes. Why discuss a religious matter that is only of local interest in the U.S. on a page about the the science of evolution? If anything, it should be on a separate page about how evolution is treated in the U.S., when the rest of the world has minimal interest in trying to conflate religious matters with those of science. Noisy | Talk 23:17, 24 Oct 2004 (UTC)

---

I will let Mr. Rubenstein speak for himself in this matter. I do not agree with Mr. Bailey that Rednblu suggests that the second paragraph should be deleted. The current second paragraph of Evolution#Evolution and religion that begins "In the United States . . ." belongs on the Evolution page for the following reasons.

  1. Neutral point-of-view as a policy should permit no more than 10% of space on each page to dissenting documented scholarly points-of-view, condensed to one section, with links to detailed pages elsewhere.
  2. Here, as I read the section Evolution#Evolution and religion, the issue is whether or not the physical proof of "evolution" is convincing. Apparently, within the United States, the physical proof of "evolution" does not convince the majority of those who vote.
  3. The details of "why" the physical proof is not convincing is detailed on the linked pages--which of course focuses on the particular difficulties that voters in the United States have in trying to understand the physical evidence for "evolution." ---Rednblu | Talk 00:02, 25 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Rednblu, I've got a modification of the text you proposed:
When the theory was first proposed, the Cathoilc church rejected it. The church accpets scripture as the ultimate authority on the role of humans in the universe and therefore must reject evolution because evolution does not make humans the rulers of the earth that scripture plainly makes them. This rejection is similar to the rejection of the copernican model of the solar system which placed the Earth in orbit around the sun rather than the sun in orbit around the Earth, which when first proposed was rejected by the Cathoic church because of its conflict with scripture.
But this is more along the lines of conveying information--the motivation for the contraversy--than it is along the lines of propoganda--which you appear to view this section as space for. If you view it this way, it is clearly inline with the stated goals of the wikipedia, "to fairly present all views on an issue, attributed to their adherents in a neutral way." And, I'll concede the point.Pdbailey 00:46, 25 Oct 2004 (UTC)

---

I think we agree. :)

In my opinion, it is our job on the Evolution page "to fairly present all views on the issue of evolution, attributing the various POVs to the adherents in a neutral way."

But I also think that your idea of presenting White's idea that "religion has slowed the progress of science" would merit a good paraphrase on some Wikipedia page. However, I don't see White's idea as being used by those who find the physical proof of "evolution" unconvincing. And certainly, I don't see molecular biologists using White's idea to develop the physical proof of "evolution." So in my opinion, White's idea should be on a page other than Evolution. Where should we put it?

I think we agree. :) ---Rednblu | Talk 02:25, 25 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I don't want to beat a dead hoarse here, but take a look at copernican to see what happened on this far less emotionaly charged page Pdbailey 04:18, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC)
While I agree the comparison is accurate, I'm afraid the explicit comparison of creationism to a geocentric universe with a flat earth is NPOV and likely to be quite inflammatory. Such comparisons appeal to evolution's backers specifically because they paint religious detractors in a negative light. I expect that those religious detractors find the comparisons insulting for the same reason, and would probably point instead to the (at-the-time-they-were-introduced) controversial ideas of quantum mechanics, special relativity. Similarly, the article (and the talk page, for the sake of avoiding flame / edit wars) should avoid claiming that evolution's detractors are religious fundamaentalists. Groups such as the [Discovery Institute|http://www.discovery.org] claim scientific footing for ID. Such groups are careful to maintain at least the appearance of scientific formalism, citing peer-reviewed articles and using technical discussions (see [4]) despite open animosity from the mainstream academic community. In addition, the correlation between support for religion and support for evolution may be explained either as religious fervor among creationists or as atheistic fervor among evolutionists. Behe et al. are well-educated, intelligent individuals. Blanket a priori assumptione rejections of their ideas and ad hominem attacks on their lay supporters does not help persuade those laymen that evolution is a viable theory. Rather, it appears that the "evolutionists" refuse to listen to criticism - which supports the strategy of the ID camp. In general, I support the current form of the article, although perhaps we should add an explicit reference like "(See creation-evolution controversy.)" at the end of the introduction. The article can then go on to detail evolutionary theory without spending too much time on the argument.SMesser 17:46, 23 Feb 2005 (UTC)


The idea that humans evolved from monkeys is as well supported as a castle built on sand. Heck, all proof that humans evolved from monkeys is either (a)manufactured, (b)misinterpreted, or (c)exaggerated. Find real evidence to refute this and i will take back my comment. littoaznelf

Revert to Most Scientists Estimate?

Hello,

The most recent revision to the Evolution article replaces the sentence "Most scientists estimate the Earth is approximately 4.6 billion years old." with "Some scientists estimate..." This revision is misleading since it de-emphasizes the overwhelming dominance of the majority opinion. I suggest therefore that the article be reverted.

I'm a Ph.D. physicist and a member of the American Geophysical Union as well as the American Physical Society. EOS, AGU's monthly newsletter makes regular reference to events over a few million years in the past. Physics Today, the monthly newsmagazine for APS has less frequent articles on geology, but those that do appear there are well-researched and support . The 4.6 billion year estimate is well-supported by studies of radioactive decay, models of the Earth's, Moon's, and solar system's formation, observations of other stars, sedimentary and tectonic observations, as well as other data. Professional scientists do not consider the 4.6 billion year value to be controversial, and it is an estimate only in that some will prefer a value of 4.5 billion years. I go to at least two professional conferences per year and have yet to meet a scientist who questions this estimate.

See for example, [5] for a specific statement on the age of the Earth in the context of evolution, [6] for a proposal to use our understanding of the Earth's age to search for life-bearing Earth-like extrasolar planets, and [7] for evidence for surface water 4.4 billion years in the past.

Yeah, we're aware. Unfortunately it often goes into turf wars over who controls these pages. We're pretty firmly in control of this page, though others are sites of more conflict. Creationists aren't scientists, so yes the use word scientists as opposed to "some scientists" or "most scientists". The page is frequently under attack by anons. Dunc|☺ 00:21, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)


Morgan, Avery, etc.

I'm a bit confused writing this history stuff - it's hard to ken how people thought in the absence of knowledge you take for granted. Thomas Hunt Morgan did a lot of work in the 20s and 30s establishing that genes were carried by chromosomes. But Avery, et al, didn't prove that DNA was the transforming principle until 1943. How does this compute? Were people unaware that chromosomes were composed of DNA? That seems like it couldn't be true.

Lots of stuff still missing from this history bit. Graft 06:27, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)

History of life

I hate this "History of life" section. I want to trash it, or else severely trim it and move it down lower in the text. Right now, it's uglifying the beginning of the main body, which should launch into an explanation of evolution straightaway. Anyone want to defend it or second the motion? Graft 20:48, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I agree with you, but I think we should see if whoever wrote it wants to defend it. Nevertheless, I think I can see some value in some of it. Arguably, Darwin's theory would not have made sense until people began to believe that the Earth is really, really old. The incredible age of the earth provides some context for the theory of evolution. Also, perhaps someone put this in becuase many creationists continue to hold to a young earth theory -- and this section links to all those other scientists who think the Earth is old. Well, I think these two points are relevant, but much of this section can be cut and I do hate the title. Slrubenstein
The order does seem a little awkward. What about moving / melding this "History of Life" section into the end of the "Ancestry of organisms" section, deleting the separate "History of Life" heading, and providing a lead-in along the lines of the following? "Since abiogenesis is rare and common descent is a slow process, evolution requires that Earth is very old. This is compatible with geological evidence that the Earth is approximately 4.6 billion years old. (See Main article: Timeline of evolution." SMesser
Evolution does not require that the Earth is very old, because it is a process, and it can occur over relatively short periods of time (compared to geological time). A more explicit statement would be that the current state of biological diversity in the world is the product of hundreds of millions of years of evolution. Maybe I'm nitpicking too much. --Ignignot 16:36, Nov 22, 2004 (UTC)
I gather that's what SMesser meant, at any rate. I think that proposal has merit - shall we run with it? Graft 17:00, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)
I think Ignignot is missing the point., True, microevolution does not require that the earth be old. Arguable, macroevolution does. Most important, I just don't think people -- including scientists -- would have accepted Darwin's theories had they already not been convinced that the work is much older than they had thought. I have no problem with SMesser's idea -- it is worth a shot Slrubenstein

Evolution is not just science--according to NPOV policy

In my opinion, this edit is defective by any reasonable Wikipedia NPOV standard for at least two reasons: 1) deleting entirely a cited and documented relevant characterization of a POV about Evolution and 2) deleting a non-science POV from a page where a non-science POV is extremely relevant. What are your opinions on this matter? ---Rednblu | Talk 20:39, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I would say that the editor was correct to delete the paragraph in question. It is paragraph that is irrelevant on this page, and would belong on the Creationism page. — Asbestos | Talk 20:51, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Wouldn't NPOV require a short paragraph in Evolution citing to a significant POV on "Evolution"? ---Rednblu | Talk 21:00, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)
The paragraph doesn't do that. The fact that Americans elect creationists to school boards doesn't make this article more NPOV. — Asbestos | Talk 21:03, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)
I see that someone deleted a second paragraph that made the "view on evolution" clearer. I will copy in the two paragraphs. ---Rednblu | Talk 21:23, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)

--- The paragraph in question

In the United States creationism has a much broader base than only Christian fundamentalists, who are a minority in the American population. A series of polls in 1999 suggested that over half of American voters supported the teaching of creationism in public schools alongside evolution.[8], and in some areas of the United States, creationists have occasionally elected a majority of the state members of school boards and changed rules to give equal time to their views in the science classroom.

--- A second paragraph that should be combined with the above paragraph to get NPOV on the Evolution page

In some areas of the United States, creationists in the United States have tried to convince state governments to give equal time to their views in the classroom. The Oklahoma Textbook Commission recently adopted a disclaimer to be pasted into any textbook explaining evolution: "No one was present when life first appeared on earth. Therefore, any statement about life's origins should be considered as theory, not fact." [9] As of 2004, a very similar notice is being pasted into biology textbooks in Alabama as well.

---

Are you interested in working out a NPOV version of the two above paragraphs? ---Rednblu | Talk 21:23, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)


I'm not certain that NPOV is the issue here. I'd say that this is a lengthy aside on the current state of affairs of those arguing for creationism. The article mentions some info on creationism, but that's not the primary aim of an article whose title is Evolution. Such information should go on any of the sites listed in the section, namely Creationism, Evolutionary creationism, or Creation vs. evolution debate (particularly the last one). This article is not about the debate between creationism and evolution, so lengthy asides on how many Americans believe in creationism, or how many people are elected to school boards, is not relevant to this page. Links to the debate are already in the section. — Asbestos | Talk 21:33, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)
I have in the past lamented the fact that this page is overly focused on creationism at the expense of science, but neither do I think that the dispute over creationism should be confined to "creationism" pages. This article does discuss the social impacts of the biological theory (which were profound, world-shaking effects). Creationism is an important part of that and should not be excluded. It is not the primary aim of this article, but it is a secondary aim. Graft 21:44, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)

The fact that some people do not accept science does not change the fact that Evolution is science. The article should acknowledge that some people do not accept Evolution and provide a link, or links, to the appropriate pages. That is sufficient to provide NPOV. This is most definitely not a soapbox for religious beliefs. I am NOT saying there should be no mention of creationism. I just think, like Asbestos, that the two paragraphs above are too much and unnecessary. Look at it this way -- how much of the page on creationism should be devoted to explaining the theory of evolution? Slrubenstein

The paragraphs don't explain the theory of creationism, merely how the two theories are entangled. Asbestos proposes relegating social considerations to "creationism", thereby treating "evolution" as a purely scientific matter and "creationism" as mostly political. That is, the controversy exists only because of Them Pesky Creationists. I don't find that to be NPOV. These are two competing theories, regardless of whether they are two competing scientific theories. Both of them have enormous social currency (at least in the crackpot hyperreality that is the US). It would be wrong not to give a fair treatment of that controversy on both pages, or else to find some suitable middle ground. Graft 22:22, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)
"Entanglement" is the clearest NPOV statement that can be made about the religious POV on Evolution. In my opinion, the current Evolution page summaries of the religious POV on "Evolution" are factually wrong and statistically wrong--and that is only my secular take on the religious POV on "Evolution." The cited and documented summary of the entanglement however should qualify as NPOV and sufficient for the Evolution page in my opinion. Details of what "creationism" is should be in the creationism Main articles, I would say. After all, what else is there but "entanglement" between religion and evolution? They have no science in common, and they have no religion in common. What else other than "entanglement" could possibly be NPOV about the religious POV on "Evolution"? Are we getting somewhere? ---Rednblu | Talk 22:54, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)
I find Graft's characterization of what I was saying rather unfair. I specifically said that this would be preferably placed on the Creation vs. evolution debate page, not on creationist pages in general (the links I quoted were all those from the religion section). That said, I disagree with your statement that "the paragraphs merely explain how the two theories are entangled." This is not correct: the paragraphs do not address evolution at all. The paragraphs merely offer some factoids about how many people think that creationism should be taught in school. I don't have any problem with them, I just can't see what they would be doing on this page. The disclaimer by the Oklahoma Textbook Commission, on the other hand, is directly related to the evolution page, and I could see its inclusion. — Asbestos | Talk 00:14, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Hmm. I thought Graft was commenting fairly on the two paragraphs straight. I can see your point though. The first paragraph above does not extract from the cited poll the information about evolution. I have edited these two paragraphs immediately following to represent fairly what I read in the cited polls. What do you think? ---Rednblu | Talk 01:55, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Rewrite of the two paragraphs

--- The two paragraphs -- Version 2 -- Feel free to edit these to make them a NPOV representation of the citations

Opponents of creationism typically credit fundamentalists as the only group of people who hold creationism and not evolution to be true. However, in the United States the viewpoint has a much broader base than only Christian fundamentalists, who are a minority in the American population. A recent poll showed that over half of American voters thought that creationism was as useful an explanation for the diversity of life as was evolution. Hence, over half of American voters thought that considerable valuable time in biology classes should be devoted to teaching creationism either instead of or in addition to evolution in public schools. [10]

In some areas of the United States, creationists in the United States have tried to convince state governments to give equal time to their views in the classroom. The Oklahoma Textbook Commission recently adopted a disclaimer to be pasted into any textbook explaining evolution: "No one was present when life first appeared on earth. Therefore, any statement about life's origins should be considered as theory, not fact." [11] As of 2004, a very similar notice is being pasted into biology textbooks in Alabama as well.

---

Additional discussion of the two paragraphs

In my opinion, the Evolution page should have a short statement about the religious POV on Evolution. Also in my opinion, empirical data is better than generalities. What those two paragraphs state is one significant cited and documented religious POV on Evolution without resorting to name-calling or uncited and undocumented generalities that say nothing--like the current paragraphs in the "Evolution and religion" section. Hence, in my opinion the current Evolution page is in violation of express NPOV policy. I will not put the "NPOV" violation tag there myself, but I will support anyone who does. Alternatively, we could work out a cited and documented statement of the religious POV on Evolution. ---Rednblu | Talk 21:54, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)

The social effect of evolutionary theory is great and needs a section, but lets keep it strictly neutral, i.e. not written by a creationists, though they may approve of /recommend improvements to the text. The above text was POV in a classic "helpfully clarifying you misconceptions" way which is not what we need; simply state that there are religious objections and detail the religious movement that advocates such beliefs. Dunc|☺ 23:12, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)
By all Wikipedia standards of NPOV those two paragraphs were NPOV. With what specific set of words do you find fault? ---Rednblu | Talk 23:58, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Sorry for the misunderstanding about the npov. I can see how my comment could seem to be a problem. Despite that I still think the paragraphs should be removed. There are better ways of explaining evolution than by asking the American public what they think about this theory. Why not ask the Germans or Dutch? I've edited one of the paragraph to reflect this. PS I couldn't find a nice summary of the ISSP study about religion so I haven't added a link.Chardon

I personally have no problem with your comment. In fact, I personally agree with it. :)) But the Wikipedia NPOV challenge is to represent the POVs that the significant proponents hold. So, it seems to me that to be accurate, the Evolution page should have a few paragraphs that state the religious POVs that fundamentally disagree with the idea of "evolution." For the same NPOV reason, the Creationism page cannot just represent the pseudoscience views of the creationists. Already 90% of the Evolution page is about the science POVs on "evolution." That is fine. So the above two paragraphs is about right for accurately depicting the religious POVs that think that evolution is no better an explanation than creationism for how people got here. The German and Dutch religious POVs on "evolution" that you mention could easily be summed up in one sentence: "Religions outside the United States generally accept evolution as the origin of the diversity of life on earth." The

current Evolution page does not accurately represent the religious POVs that think that evolution is no better than creationism at explaining the origin of species. Consequently, the Evolution page should have a NPOV violation tag on it. I will not put it there. But I will support anyone who does put it there. ---Rednblu | Talk 10:21, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC)


New Paragraph

The paragraph offered by Chardon,

In countries where the majority of people hold strong religious beliefs, creationism has a much broader appeal than in countries where the majority of people hold secular beliefs. A series of polls in the US in 1999 suggested that over half of American voters supported the teaching of creationism in public schools alongside evolution. [12]

I think is NPOV and relevant.
One of my main problems with the paragraphs offered by Rednblu was that they appeared to be defending against something, which he made clearer in the second draft. The sole purpose of the paragraphs proposed were to state that it's not just fundamentalists who believe in creationism. I don't think such a defensive stance is relevent to the article at hand. Chardon's proposal, on the other hand, is in the positive: there is a correlation between religious beliefs and the appeal of creationism. It would be good, though, to get cited evidence for this correlation. — Asbestos | Talk 10:36, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC)

defensive stance. Not at all. Defensive stance against what? .ôô. The first paragraph describes the world outside the United States where, apparently, creationism is associated mainly with Christian fundamentalists. But in the United States creationism does not correlate with Christian fundamentalists because most of the religious people who want creationism taught in public schools are not Christian fundamentalists. We have to go with the empirical data, do we not? ---Rednblu | Talk 11:21, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC)
It contains an appeal to the majority and obfuscates about the word creationism, which has a variety of possible meanings and not just as is often assumed, young Earth Creationism. It should be mentioned that creationism is a bigger movement in the US than elsewhere, but the US is not (contrary to the belief of some) the centre of the Universe. There are some non-partisan polls somewhere too. Creationists tend to ask loaded questions. Dunc|☺ 11:51, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Also, the evidence that you want to include is not evidence for the number of people that believe in creationism. It is evidence for the number of people who think creationism could be held alongside evolution in schools. Therefore it is not a response to the paragraph above it. And I stick by saying that the paragraph you want is taking an unwarranted defensive stance: it is, as Duncharris says, and appeal to majority, attempting to disprove an unmentioned idea that only Christian fundamentalists support creationism. — Asbestos | Talk 11:57, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Nope. You are both wrong in this case. :(( And I understand your emotional attachment! This has nothing to do with Christian fundamentalists. If you delete fundamentalists from the first paragraph, then you should delete that bad word also from the second paragraph. :) And this has nothing to do with appeal to the majority. For if you look again, there is not even a hint of a trace of an implied suggestion that the majority is right. If anything within the context of this page, the implication is that the voting majority in America is dead wrong. Can't you see the facts? I will excuse you both somewhat in this case because I see that the link is down. Immediately following are a couple of sample polls in the meantime. Would you say that People for the American Way is non-partisan? 8)) ---Rednblu | Talk 14:33, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC)

CREATIONISM

How set are your opinions on the issue of teaching either creationism or evolution in public schools? Is your mind completely made up, or is it possible you might change your mind at some point in the future?

People for the American Way

Mar, 2000

                                      mind      mind       not
                                        is       can      sure
                                      made    change
                                        up
     should teach evolution only       59%       37%        4%
 teach evolution and creationism        46        53         2
   should teach creationism only        75        24         1


Based on Americans who believe public schools should: teach evolution only = 20%; teach evolution and creationism = 63%; teach creationism only = 16%.

2000

Universe: United States

From: People for the American Way Action Fund

           Research and Forecast, Inc.
           301 East 57 Street
           New York, NY 10022
           (212) 593-6424


Method: telephone

Sample size: 1500

CREATIONISM

Which of the following statements comes closest to describing your views about the origin and development of man: 1) God created man pretty much in his present form at one time within the last 10,000 years. 2) Man has developed over millions of years from less-advanced forms of life, and God had no part in this process. 3) Man has developed over millions of years from less-advanced forms of life, but God guided this process, including man's creation.?

Gallup Poll

Nov 27, 1991

                           1991      1982
1)        God created       47%       44%
2)  millions of years         9         9
3)        help of God        40        38
     other/don't know         4         9


1991

Universe: United States

From: The Roper Center for Public Opinion Research

           P.O. Box 440
           Storrs, CT 06268-0440
           (203) 486-4440


Method: telephone

Sample size: 1005

Reproduced with permission © 1991, Los Angeles Times Syndicate.

Fundamentalism

The issue is clouded by a whole pile of confusions. The first confusion was the introduction of the loaded term "fundamentalist." Contrary to the assumption that seems to be the majority on this page, fundamentalists are neither the majority of creationists, nor the leaders of the battle to keep creationism in the schools. While Christian fundamentalists are creationsists (mostly young earth creationists), the fundamentalist, if he were politically active, would be working to bar the teaching of evolution in the schools. The fundamentalists gave up that fight. Instead they home school their children or enroll them in a private school. The broader and more centrist base of religious viewpoints is to simply keep a place at the table for creationism. They would argue that blocking any reference to a creator tends to make science a god.

This is further confused by the lack of understanding of what a fundamentalist is. In most people's minds nowadays, fundamentalism is a negative concept, associated with terrorists and abortion clinic bombers, while in actuality Christian fundamentalists are law-abiding people who wish to keep their faith pure (perhaps to a fault). They have strengths and weaknesses, but, with a few exceptions, they are not leaders and coalition builders in the public policy arena. They tend to withdraw from these.

Another confusion is that creationism is usually understood (by both extremes) to only refer to young earth creationism, while creationism has many variants, including many creationists who accept evolution as a possible tool in God's hands.

This is further confused by a confusion of evolution, which is a secular, scientific theory; with evolutionism who claim to be secular but exhibits many religious characteristics. The religious evolutionists is at the opposite extreme of the spectrum of the Christian fundamentalist, but thinks in black-and-white, very much like a fundamentalist (other than being VERY politically active). The evolutionist religiously seeks to deny any vestige of creationism from ever being taught. ALL creationists, including those who accept the scientific theory of evolution have a problem with evolutionism.

A good example of evolutionism is the militantly evangelistic talk origins web site, which claims to be about evolution and claims to be secular. If you remove every element of propaganda from that web site, you don't have much left. Of course true believers cannot see how the science has been merged into a religion. One could also check out my talk page and find a fundamentalist evolutionist comment from John Woolsey, who leveled his guns without even knowing my viewpoint. Incidently, I've disagreed with Christian fundamentalists too, but never had one so discourteous or so utterly black-and-white. Pollinator 13:16, Dec 1, 2004 (UTC)

That's a good point, and the paragraphs that Rednblu wants to add seem to be specifically referring to this sentence in the Evolution and Religion section: "This view is commonly referred to as creationism, and continues to be defended by some religious groups, especially Christian fundamentalists."
If the statement is POV, then it should be removed. I'd be inclined to think that the sentence per se isn't POV, though I don't have footnotes that show that fundamentalists are among the most vocal in defending creationism (which is all the sentence is saying). I agree that the word "fundamentalist" brings up negative connotations, but, as you state above, such connotations are ungrounded. If there statement is correct, and, as you say, fundamentalist is a neutral term, then there should be no problem with it, and it shouldn't need two paragraphs rebutting it. — Asbestos | Talk 14:06, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC)

my revert

fossilized organisms did not always "choose" where to die; probably, most of them made no choice. Slrubenstein

I did NOT mean to revert back to Fubar's last edit -- the person whose work I reverted had made two other edits I had no problem with. I hope s/he will see that I objected only to one part of the work s/he did! Slrubenstein

OK, it was meant ironically. I'll try rewrite.
Hmmm, now I see that the universal genetic code (as evidence for evolution) occurs in two places. Cleanup needed? -- 193.66.64.231

NPOV disputed

Scientific evidence and observation is subject to interpretation. Interpretation depends on philosophical methodology. For example, if one has naturalistic / materialistic philosophy and methodology, he or she interprets the observations as confirming the theory of evolution.

Apart from religious and philosophical debate there is scientific debate over whether the known facts and evidence supports (neo)darwinian evolution or not. This legitimate debate is clearly ignored in the article and arguments are presented as if they were conclusive while there exists a scientific debate over the issue (not to mention religious and philosophical). Therefore the article as a whole is not NPOV.

It is clear that people who believe in evolution want to state that the article is neutral and people who do not would probably like to rewrite it completely. To satisfy everyone I suggest using wording like "some scientists claim that ... while other ... " or similar. Removing claims like "it has replaced ... creationism" would also help making it NPOV. Including opposing views or "arguments against" (as they are included in the intelligent design article) would be a good NPOV factor, too.

There are already enough mentions of pseudoscientific objections, for example links to [creationism]] and Creation vs. evolution debate. There is no reason to give evolution deniers more room here than holocaust deniers get at the holocaust article, or flat earthers at the earth article. --Hob 15:34, Dec 15, 2004 (UTC)
I don't know what you are driving at. But maybe that's because you don't know what I was driving at, so I'll clarify. Creationists have the same standing, scientifically, as flat-earthers or holcaust deniers. Therefore, they should have the same influence on the evolution article as those groups have on those articles, namely very little. --Hob 11:50, Dec 16, 2004 (UTC)
  • There is no reason to give evolution deniers more room here than holocaust deniers get at the holocaust article, or flat earthers at the earth article.
    Huh? Maybe those articles have changed since then. I think there was only one sentence to make the "flat earthers" happy, and the section satisfying the holocaust deniers was small compared to the whole article. Brianjd 08:37, 2004 Dec 16 (UTC)
I work in this field. There is no scientific debate. Period. No one who studies biology today would seriously question the fundamentals of Darwinian evolution, because it is far too well-founded, as anyone trained as a biologist should know. There is not a single scientific journal article that questions the fundamentals of evolution published within the last twenty years. Graft 16:54, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)
The problem is that people have been brought up to believe that NPOV means that more than one side of an issue should be given (I think that is stupid, but that's how it is). When a reporter writes something he or she has no choice but to put both sides in. That means that in the public's eyes, despite the fact that 99% of the academic community might think that theory 1 is better than theory 2, theory 1 and theory 2 seem equally valid. Evolution is one of the areas that is effected most heavily. Newspapers don't want to step on people's toes, so they report both sides of evolution despite the fact that biologists don't even recognize creationism as a scientific side. So the same people reading those newspapers (us) write articles in wikipedia, and make them like they've seen as factual reporting. --Ignignot 21:05, Dec 15, 2004 (UTC)
I understand this; my point is that there is literally NO scientific debate. 100% of the academic community thinks theory 1 is better. Therefore it is impossible to present a scientific debate on the subject as the anonymous editor desires. Graft 21:24, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)
...literally NO scientific debate. 100% of the academic community thinks theory 1 is better.
How can you be so sure? Brianjd 08:37, 2004 Dec 16 (UTC)
99.85% to be precise. See [[13]]. You could have found this out for yourself. - 130.233.136.69 Thu Dec 16 13:11:14 EET 2004
"...no scientific debate..." - sorry, but that is plainly false. See [[14]]. You could have found this out for yourself.--charon 14:57, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)
What's described is NOT a scientific debate. Yes, some scientists believe evolution is incorrect (to whatever degree). This number is first of all very small, and second of all, their belief does not translate into scientific work. That is, there is no scientific evidence categorically disassembling the work that supports evolution, and no publications that are pointed challenges at its basic doctrines. Much hay is made of things like the Cambrian Explosion, which does provide a real problem for evolutionary theory and I don't think is fully solved. However, no one mounts a scientific argument in favor of design as a result of these holes, because they are not positive arguments for design. See, for example, an interview with Paul Chien here:[15] Graft 17:34, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Those who would listen to what they have to say, wouldn't dismiss it as "not a scientific debate" unless they are faith-motivated or don't know much about science. Graft, you keep falling back to talking about creationists, design theorists, arguments of filling gaps and holes, but the current debate is about problems with the theory of evolution rather than some of the known alternatives to it.--charon 05:24, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)
There's several alternative concepts here: there's the idea that scientific theories have gaps in them. This is true of nearly all scientific theories - they can explain the world to some extent, but they are all imperfect models, and there are some events which cannot be fully explained by these models. It's one thing to say that such imperfections exist, and that the model needs to be strengthened to explain these things. It's another to say the model is completely incorrect and needs to be categorically rejected. Evolution is not a theory in crisis. Like any other scientific model of the world, there are debates over myriad questions fleshing out the process of evolution, but no one is rejecting the basic theory (e.g. common descent from a single ancestor, the development of new features through natural selection). Yes, there is scientific debate within the field of evolutionary biology - it's not a dead science, and there are open questions. However, there is no scientific debate rejecting the theory of evolution in general. On the other hand, there are many people who disbelieve this theory - and some of them are scientists. But they do not attempt to present any scientific work rejecting the fundamentals of evolution. Finally, no scientific consensus is overturned without the existence of an alternative model with superior explanatory ability. Intelligent design or creationism could provide this alternative, but no one is advancing scientific arguments in favor of these alternative models. Graft 08:05, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)
"...there is no scientific debate..." - you either lack googling skillz or you close your eyes purposefuly. Why do I read about those arguments every day? Why do sites like talkorigins keep posting articles like "refutation of a refutation of a response to a refutation of a..." and try to argue "scientifically" in them? If that's not "scientific debate" than what is?--charon 20:47, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)
That's not a "scientific debate". For a more obvious example, consider someone who believes the sun goes around the earth. Someone can explain to him the scientific evidence supporting a heliocentric model, and they can have an argument about it (as happens all the time, e.g. in talk.origins). But this is not the same thing as saying there is a "scientific debate" going on; well-informed people consider the question long since settled based on ample evidence, and the only debate that arises is from those who deliberately misrepresent or are ignorant of that evidence. A "scientific debate" means there is disagreement amongst well-informed people who can present evidence to support their disparate positions. In the end all such disagreements should be resolved, so that we may have a coherent picture of the world. However, such a disagreement does not exist in the scientific community regarding evolution. The only disagreement comes from uninformed quarters; laymen making unsophisticated arguments about things they do not fully comprehend. This sounds insulting, I know, but it's the honest truth. Graft 22:05, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Hmm, you didn't disprove what I already said, it still holds. You lack googling skillz or you close your eyes purposefully. I see the scientific debate, you don't. I claim it exists, you don't. I give you examples of the debate and you were unable to show specifically why that example is not a scientific debate in your opinion. "That's not a "scientific debate"" - what's not a scientific debate? I agree that simply saying "i don't believe" is not scientific debate. Presenting facts and scientific interpretations of facts is scientific debate. However, what we're talking here about is that you don't consider the arguments of any other side "scientific". How is that? They either do not present any arguments (which is not the case) or you dismissed their arguments without reading, assesing, evaluating and researching them (which is an unscientific approach) or you did and you responded, whis IS a scientifis debate unless you redefine what does "scientific" mean. So what is "scientific" (debate) according to you? If we can't agree on the basic terms, we each will keep repeating the same words ("there is not" vs. "here it is") and that will be unproductive.--charon 16:06, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Actually, there are some people ("skeptics", for example CSICOP and the Skeptics' Society) who are concerned with the border between science and non-science and try to keep the public informed of what is science and what is not. They are familiar with the methods used by pseudoscientists, and they agree among themselves that creationism is pseudoscience. Other scientists think so too. There are people calling themselves scientists who do think creationism is science, but as far as I know all of them are creationists. Care to name a scientist who thinks creationism is science, but is not a creationist himself? --Hob Gadling 15:30, Jan 4, 2005 (UTC)
  • Nice distinction, in my opinion. There should be some place in Wikipedia to preserve your last sentence. Perhaps somewhere in the context of Creation vs. evolution debate but unfortunately that sentence would be "original research," would it not? Maybe there should be a subpage of this TalkPage that would preserve only the best of the "original research" that appeared on this TalkPage. 8)) ---Rednblu | Talk 18:09, 4 Jan 2005 (UTC)
That information is rubbish. "...by one count..." Brianjd 12:07, 2004 Dec 16 (UTC)
I can be so sure because I work in the field, and I can tell you that no one has published work that disputes the fundamentals of evolution. I would be otherwise convinced if you could give me a single example of a scientist who works in biology (not a nuclear physicist who is giving her uninformed opinion) who has published papers attempting to prove that the current theory of evolution is fundamentally mistaken. No such papers exist, period. Behe is probably the sole example of a creationist biologist, and even he doesn't attempt to publish his stuff in peer-reviewed journals, because he knows his arguments are too weak to hold up to the scrutiny of his peers. If you wish to assert that there is a scientific debate, by all means - produce some evidence of that debate. Graft 17:32, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Of course there is no "scientific" debate when you discard opposing views as "non-scientific". But you're right at one point - general biologists don't dispute evolution. It's only when you actually dig those fossils and see for yourself that it's not what the textbook picrure showed. It's when you do your research in other areas as informatics, physics, biochemistry, methodology of science and others - only then you can see the problems with evolutionism. If the only argument for evolution is just the repetition of "authorities" statements (no matter how valid, accurate or up-to-date they are) then of course, debate and confronting the facts would be fatal to evolutionism. That's why it can't be allowed. charon
This is simply sophistry. Opposing views are discarded because they are poor science and don't hold up to examination, not because of dogmatism. Incidentally, the people who study evolution come from any number of fields - there's people trained in physics, computer science, mathematics, biophysics, etc. Also, I don't see why you wouldn't repeat "authorities" statements if they are valid, accurate and up-to-date. The strength of a debate relies on a credible challenge. There is no credible challenge to the modern theory of evolution. There's only half-baked arguments by people who have no idea what they're talking about. The "information theory" arguments, for example, are laughably ignorant. If they COULD overturn the scientific consensus through strength of argument, I guarantee you they would be published. Nature, for example, loves controversy and would rush to print any flashy bit of research that they thought would make a big splash. But no one is going to publish ill-thought-out trash that is just going to be laughed at. And that's what all the arguments against evolution amount to. Graft 18:14, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)
То deem something "poor science" and "dont hold up to examination" you would have to examin it and confront it first. Remember: first study, second discard or accept, not vice versa. Dogmatism means no discussion and no criticism is allowed, it is only as we say and thats the fact. Sorry, but it is precisely the evolutionist community that doesn't want discussion and examination. How do you know the repeated authorities' statements are valid if you don't want to allow examining them? You employ circular reasoning several times in your post. --charon 00:48, 18 Dec 2004 (UTC)
This is what I'm saying; the ideas presented by most creationists, when examined by biologists, don't hold up to even mild criticism. If you're interested in actually exploring some of these issues, I'd be happy to talk in private on my talk-page or via email. However, I don't feel that they are worth debating on this page, for the reasons eloquently outlined by FOo below. Graft 19:37, 18 Dec 2004 (UTC)

There is no scientific debate, but there is a social debate. That social debate is covered. The science is correct. The scientific community does not dispute evolution, only the ignorant, led by those blinded by faith and liars for Jesus, do. Dunc|☺ 22:21, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)

thats a pretty awful thing to say. Sam Spade Wants you to vote! 23:15, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Actually, it's a point recently made verbatim by Richard Dawkins last month on national public radio, and is a fair summation of the situation when one takes the time to learn the debate and the validity, basis and backgrounds of the various parties.--FeloniousMonk 23:53, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)
It's not awful to say it. The only awful thing is that it's true. These people who claim there is a real debate between science and rubbish such as old myths, curiously would not dispute the theory of general relativity. Evolution seems to be special in that regard, for some bizarre reason. Of course, if the religious fanatics are right, and the Genesis myth is true, then that means they need to show that most evidence gathered in such varied fields as astronomy, cosmology, geology, palaeonthology, archaeology, metheorology etc., to be completely false. Then they need to find evidence that support their "theory" and that has not happened - not even close. All the creationists have managed to do so far is to lie and decieve about science in order to show how false contemporary mainstream biology or cosmology are - in vain, obviously. Conclusion, there is as much debate between creationism and real biology, as there is debate between General Relativity and Intelligent Grappling. Maver1ck 08:06, 19 Dec 2004 (UTC)

One problem that I see in this discussion is that too many of the pro-evolution editors are discussing evolution as if it is a fact and not a theory. That it is a theory is actually one of its strong points in my opinion. The various aspects of the theory are testable and falsifiable. Dispite over a century of study and research evolution by natural selection is still overwhelmingly the best explanation for the observable facts, and each new discovery (such as genetics or DNA) only helps explain evolution better and never helps to disprove it. There is a spirited and healthy debate over different aspects of evolution, and the importance of various mechanisms and levels of evolution, but that only shows the vigor of the theory. There are so many areas of biology from comparative anatomy to biochemistry where the only credible explanation for the way things are the way they are is evolution by natural selection. Still, there are suggestions that evolution doesn't explain absolutely everything (see Gaia theory (science) for example), but those suggestions are only seen as a supplement to evolution and never as a wholesale replacement for evolution. Even intelligent design doesn't try to deny that evolution occurs, but only tries to replace the The Blind Watchmaker of natural selection that is currently the most accepted mechanism for evolution with some sort of g-d analogue. But ID has problems as science because of a problem with falsifiability, so they spend most of their time trying to knock holes in natural selection. gK ¿? 04:03, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Theories of evolution, that is, scientific models of how evolution functions and produces the variation among species that we observe, are indeed theories. However, evolution is also a fact. That is to say, evolution does in fact occur; the fact of evolution is what the theories of evolution explore and describe.
This is not strange at all. The same is true of most matters that science studies -- for instance, gravity. Gravity is a fact. When one holds an object up off the ground and lets it go, it falls. When one has two massive bodies in space, they are attracted to one another. There are also theories of gravity -- scientific models of how gravity behaves, and by what means it operates. For instance, there is Newton's theory of gravity; there is also Einstein's; there are furthermore conjectures regarding quantum gravity and so forth.
Using the expression "the theory of evolution" to describe the propositions "Evolution occurs" or "The variation we observe in species is due to evolution" is misleading. These propositions are not theoretical in the sense of being incompletely established or unproven, any more than "Gravity occurs" and "Things fall down due to gravity, not due to intelligent grappling" are theoretical. They are, rather, simply facts; and their negations are simply falsehoods.
(A note: Einstein's theory of gravity disagrees with Newton's. Likewise, many physicists today dispute quantum gravity and other conjectures about the operation of gravity. However, it would be absurd to say that Einstein had disproven gravity, or that physicists disagree on whether gravity occurs. Likewise, the modern synthesis in many regards disagrees with Darwin. Likewise, many biologists today have disputes over the specific operations of evolution (e.g. genetic drift, punctuated equilibrium). However, it would be absurd to say that evolution has been disproven, or that biologists disagree on whether it occurs. Yet that is precisely the claim that evolution-deniers attempt to establish in their discussion of "the theory of evolution".)
The parallel continues. In Newton's time, the proposition that the planets and terrestrial objects fell under the same force was indeed at one point an unproven hypothesis. It turned out under further observation that this hypothesis represented fact. Theories of gravity such as Newton's described mathematically the force of gravity, and today conjectures such as quantum gravity attempt to describe its nature.
Likewise, once upon a time, the proposition that the variety of species is due to evolution was an unproven hypothesis. It is no longer; observations in taxonomy, molecular biology and biochemistry, geology, and other disciplines all confirm the truth of this proposition. In short, it has turned out that this hypothesis represented fact. Theories of evolution such as Darwin's and the modern synthesis describe features of the process of evolution (such as its rate); specific mechanisms by which evolution operates; and so forth.
In short, claims such as "evolution is a theory" represent a mountain of misunderstandings -- of what evolution is; of the observations that have been made; of what a theory is; and of how science operates. Such misunderstandings are (frequently quite cynically) exploited by the evolution-denial industry -- for both political and monetary profit. However, there is absolutely no reason to treat these misunderstandings as anything other than just that. --FOo 04:55, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)
F = GMm / r^2 where r is the distance between the centers of M and m
F = GMm / r^2
where r is the distance between the centers of M and m
In my opinion, your analogy with "gravity is fact" is a good one. Let me explain. If I were trying to get a bunch of skeptics to look at the reality in what I see as gravity, I think I would start with what those skeptics would agree is "fact." That is, probably those skeptics would agree that observations of raw data in the Cavendish experiment are fact--for they could look with me through the telescope to see that m moves against a ruled background to get closer to M to twist the torsion cable more the closer I push M toward m. And probably they would agree that my calculation of G is "fact." After all I have just calculated a G value--and that would be just arithmetic. :)) And they might also agree that I had just weighed the earth because, knowing G and the distance of m from the center of the earth, then I could solve for the mass of the earth. But could I then assert that "gravity is fact"? If they would agree with me that gravity is fact, all would be fine.
But if they would not see from all of those calculations that "gravity is fact," it would be counter-productive for me to beat them over the head with "gravity is fact"--because surely what I would want to do is to get them to see for themselves. ---Rednblu | Talk 08:16, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)
You're all caught up arguing about language. Trying to find absolutely perfect definitions of fact and theory is impossible, and that's what you're arguing about. For gravity, the facts are that when things are dropped they fall, observations of where astronomical bodies are at different times, etc. The theory is something that describes a way to model these occurances and can predict future situations. One theory is better than another if it predicts future situations better (more accurately, more flexably). In evolution, the facts are the fossil record, observed microevolution, etc. The theory is what describes how all of these facts happened. From a scientific perspective, "God made it so" is a poor theory because you can't predict anything from it. On the other hand, natural selection allows for predictions of future events - for example, we predict that using antibiotics too often creates antibiotic resistant strains of bacteria. That is evolution in action, and natural selection can properly predict it. "God made it so" can't. That's why the academic community does not regard creationism as a viable theory. --Ignignot 14:30, Dec 17, 2004 (UTC)
  • I am not arguing about language, my friend. :)) You are the one arguing about language. I am looking not to the language but to the effect of the language. And I am merely pointing to the effect of the language when scientists attempt to get the creationists to deal with reality. That is, for the scientists to beat the creationists over the head with "Evolution is fact" is counter-productive--especially since evolution is fact and there ain't no God and there ain't no ultimate truth to lay down the law on what evolution is. You have just demonstrated the same religious fervor and ignorance that the creationists demonstrate; it is the religious fervor and ignorance that normally occurs when two alien cultures meet. And merely because you have demonstrated that religious fervor and ignorance on the right side does not mitigate your religious fervor and ignorance. And that is not an ad hominem. I am merely observing and judging only the words that you wrote--which I am sure do not accurately portray the "hominem." :)) ---Rednblu | Talk 20:49, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)
I can't tell if you are agreeing with me or disagreeing with me, I just said how scientists look at evolution. I didn't say anything about my own views. The "we" was meant as "we as a society." And if you want a link to an article, go read about Ludwig Wittgenstein for why you're getting caught up in an argument about how you define fact and theory. --Ignignot 21:36, Dec 17, 2004 (UTC)
  • There are two important issues under discussion here: 1) how scientists look at evolution and 2) how scientists communicate evolution to the American creationists.  :)) I understand that you, and apparently the defenders of the faith in the Evolution page, wish to ignore the second issue. Commentators charon, gK, and others have made excellent pointers for all of us, but apparently we are determined to blow another opportunity to fix the blatant NPOV violations in the Evolution page. ---Rednblu | Talk 22:23, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)
NPOV simply doesn't mean that falsehoods have to be represented equally with truths. The article Earth deals with the Earth as an oblate spheroid planet, not a flat plane or disc. The article Joseph Stalin deals with the man who actually did order killings and purges, not the heroic construct of '50s Soviet propaganda.
Wikipedia is not here to convince people who believe that Stalin was an innocent and virtuous hero that he was actually a thug and a killer; nor to convince people who deny evolution that it actually occurs. Wikipedia is not about propagandizing people to come around to some different viewpoint; it is about describing the facts neutrally. Those facts include many things that some people would like to deny: Earth is round; Stalin killed; evolution occurs; and so forth. We should make note of the fact that some people deny these facts; however, we are under no obligation to weasel on what the facts are. --FOo 02:48, 18 Dec 2004 (UTC)
  • Quite. Wikipedia is about NPOV. And NPOV consists of quoting, paraphrasing, and citing the arguments of the proponents on the dominant sides as indicated by polls of the general public. The capitalism page serves to illustrate the NPOV principle. That is, in addition to a clear explication of 1) how capitalists look at capitalism, the NPOV page must consider 2) how the capitalists communicate capitalism to China and Marxist countries. Reporting merely the mainstream and scientific conclusions that "capitalism occurs" and "capitalism is fact" in the style of the Evolution page violates any reasonable interpretation of NPOV. ---Rednblu | Talk 10:08, 18 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Wikipedia is not about NPOV. NPOV is a guideline or rule to be used in service to the goal of writing accurate articles. Neutrality is not a higher value than truth; it is a means to the end of writing truthfully. NPOV is a tool to help us do this -- a servant, not a master. It helps us cooperate on articles, and it helps us accurately represent disparate points of view when writing about them.
But neutrality is not a substitute for fact. There are many occasions where people dislike or seek to silence the truth -- for instance the many species of ideological historical revisionism, be they Marxist or antisemitic or Turkish-nationalist or American-nationialist. In these cases, it would not do at all for Wikipedia to be "neutral" between the facts and the ideological position that seeks to suppress those facts. How exactly can one propose a "neutral ground" between people like Serdar Argic who state that the Armenian genocide did not occur, and the fact that it did? You can (and must) state the fact that some people disbelieve in it, but to tell the truth you have to present their disbelief in a context which makes it not just "a POV" but a POV contrary to evidence, reason, and fact.
When there is a difference of opinion over values or definitions -- for instance, whether capitalism or socialism is better; whether a fetus is a life or a part of its mother's body; whether Nixon or Khrushchev was a worse person -- then neutrality must have free play. However, when a mathematician says that two plus two make four and an untrained child says it's twenty-two -- or when a person knowledgeable of geography says that Cambodia is located in Asia and an ignorant person says it is in Africa -- one person is indeed right and the other wrong. Some person's refusal to accept a fact, or ignorance of that fact, does not demote that fact from truth to "POV".
Just imagine what would happen if it did! Someone could go to the article on the Amanita virosa mushroom and recast as mere "POV" the statement that it is deadly poison -- and we would be obligated to respect their view and present it equally. Or to Abraham Lincoln and recast the fact that he was killed as a "POV", presenting the rival "POV" that he was turned into a vampire and today stalks the streets of Washington, DC. If neutrality comes before fact, then there is no reason not to present dangerous falsehoods and patent nonsense as equal to fact -- if someone believes something (or even as much as asserts it) that's a point of view and deserving of equal time!
(I must admit I am confused by your example of Capitalism. To say that "capitalism occurs" is not to favor the POV of "capitalists" (whatever those are -- the word has five or so disparate meanings). It is to say that the processes collectively called "capitalism" do go on in the universe -- for instance, people trade, labor, manage, and invest. It is not to ascribe value to these behaviors or their organization -- it is not to say that "capitalism is virtuous", just as to assert that evolution occurs does not imply that evolution is virtuous.) --FOo 18:18, 18 Dec 2004 (UTC)
  • I understand. :)) You and I disagree about what truth is. I would assert that NPOV is truth. That is, I would say that you do not have the truth on Capitalism until you have an adequate sampling of the POVs on capitalism. If you have only what the capitalists, the experts on capitalism, say about capitalism, then you have a very false and NotTruth view of capitalism, in my opinion. :)) Similarly, I would say that you do not have the truth on Evolution until you have an adequate sampling of the POVs on evolution. In contrast, you assert that you have the truth on evolution when you have only what the scientists say and exclude what the creationists say about evolution. Now, personally I would agree with you from the standpoint of where I would place my cosmic bets, :)) but I also recognize that that is only my POV. Unfortunately, the real truth about the Evolution page is that 60% of American voters assert that what is on that page is merely the biased politics of a religious prejudice. And I understand that that is just an artifact of American politics. You and I just disagree about what truth is. I would assert that NPOV is truth; NPOV is not just a tool. ---Rednblu | Talk 00:43, 19 Dec 2004 (UTC)
OK, I think I see where you're coming from. I agree fully that Wikipedia needs to describe all the relevant views on a subject. But it can't do so in a way that obstructs describing what the subject is.
(This has all become more than a little bit of a tangent from the issue above of how the expression "theory of evolution" is so frequently misleading, but I'll run with it.)
I think you might be mistaking my position when you say that I "assert that you have the truth on evolution when you have only what the scientists say and exclude what the creationists say about evolution." Of course we present what people who disbelieve in evolution say about it. But we don't let it get in the way of presenting, first and foremost, the facts about it.
This is nothing specific to articles on evolution, or even on science topics in general. In the article entitled Christianity, Wikipedia addresses what Christianity is, its history, doctrine, and so forth -- it doesn't rebut every point with the views of atheists, Muslims, Pagans, or Mithraists. (In fact, there's a whole separate article for relations between Christianity and other religions.) Likewise, in our article on Abortion, we deal foremost with what abortion is and then later get on into the bit about people thinking it's murder and should be illegal.
And yes, the views of biologists are probably going to turn out more relevant and merit more space on Evolution than those of "the general public" ... just as the views of people who have been to Paris are more relevant than those who haven't on that article, and the views of Christians and people who have studied Christianity are more relevant on Christianity than the views of people who think it's "that religion with the trees and the bunnies" or something. It's nothing specific to science -- in general, people who study a subject have more knowledge to contribute than people who do not. Knowledge is not egalitarian; given any subject, some people know more than others.
There is lots of space on Wikipedia. There's plenty of room to state the beliefs of creationists ... and of Raelians, Sufis, Scientologists, and people who think the universe was coughed up last Tuesday by the Great Pandimensional Llama. But evolution isn't creationism or Raelianism or Llamaism ... it's biology, and so we let the facts of biology talk here. --FOo 06:22, 19 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Extremely POV. Please re-read Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view. I quote, "In the Middle Ages, we "knew" that demons caused diseases. We now "know" otherwise." Since ~50% of United States citizens "know" evolution is false [16], I would like to see a much more serious critique of Evolution here in this article. This is absolutely necessary for NPOV. Don't water down the scientific-majority-opinion aspects of the article though. This article is very good from a scientific standpoint, but very poor from an NPOV standpoint. Connelly 05:19, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)

So... what would this critique amount to? Graft 05:24, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)
OK, I was exaggerating when I said "extremely POV" earlier. I came here looking for Creation_vs._evolution_debate, assuming that Wikipedia would give a succinct overview of the best scientific and philosophical evidence for each side. It's fine that this debate is presented in a different article. However, I think there should be a link from Evolution to Creation_vs._evolution_debate, so others who come to Evolution looking for this information will be able to find it. Sound reasonable? Connelly 01:31, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)

factual inaccuracy

The article contains contradictory statements: "[evolution] has replaced ... creationism ..." and that evolution is a scientific theory. Let me explain: 1.) if evolutionism (we're talking about the theory, not the process itself) replaced creationism, it follows that evolutionism and creationism are competing (or concurrent) theories (or philosophies). 2.) then it follows that evolutionism and creationism adress the same issues 3.) creationism adresses metaphysical (non-material) issues, the origin of the universe and others. 4.) therefore, evolutionism would also have to adress metaphysical issues 5.) therefore, evolutionism would be a philosophy rather than materialistic / scientific theory. conclusion: Either evolutionism is not a scientific theory or it has not replaced creationism. --charon 17:45, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Your general point is correct, but evolutionism is the body of teaching about Darwinian Evolution (DE), and not the theory itself. I back off from using the phrase 'theory of evolution' and use DE myself because people get very confused. Darwin's proposition was to do with the change in species due to natural selection, and not the origin of life itself, so putting 'evolution' which is commonly understood to stand for DE up against Creationism is incorrect (in my eyes). Creationism as an explanation for the world around us has been replaced by myriad subjects such as cosmogony, cosmology, and physics: DE, when put alongside abiogenesis, merely replaces the third, fifth and sixth days of creation according to Genesis. Noisy | Talk 12:10, Dec 18, 2004 (UTC)
I'm not so sure. This article is not about Darwinian Evolution, which is presumably a bunch of ideas written down by a guy named Darwin. It is about evolution, a process that takes place in populations of living organisms. It so happens that this guy Darwin wrote down an incomplete and dated description of some facets of the process of evolution. Today, we know a lot more about that process than anyone could in Darwin's day. Many of the ideas that make up our present knowledge are termed the modern synthesis.
It's a common enough mistake to confuse evolution (the process that Darwin studied, which is also studied by biologists today) with "evolutionism", an imaginary deification of Darwin's dated ideas. This confusion is a mistaking of the map for the territory. Darwin's writings, and today's modern synthesis, are descriptions of a process which goes on out in the world -- just as Einstein's and Newton's theories are descriptions of processes that happen out in the world. Gravity and evolution are not theories; they are the real-world processes which theories are written to describe. Einstein's description of gravity, and the modern description of evolution, are far more accurate than Newton's and Darwin's -- but they are still descriptions (maps), not the process being described.
The straw man of "evolutionism" is a symbol with no referent. Nobody believes in "evolutionism". People who don't know much about evolution (but write about it anyway) often write as if evolutionary biologists' profession amounted to defending Darwin's ideas against opposition. Nothing could be further from the truth. Modern biology is not a sequence of footnotes to Darwin; it is a massive and diverse body of work which has consistently described a vast number of living organisms and life processes, as well as the descent of modern species from ancient ones.
As for charon's "deduction" above, it is unsupported in each step. It is not clear that evolutionary science and creation theology do address the same issues; for instance, abiogenesis is beyond the scope of evolutionary science. Where modern "creationism" has attempted to address the same issues as evolution, it has failed rather badly, for instance in the popular and fallacious "argument from thermodynamics". Science in general does not address "metaphysical" issues, since it operates by observation and induction rather than armchair rationalism. And finally, much of what is today called "creationism" does not even predate evolutionary science (and thus cannot have been replaced by it) -- it is rather a reaction against evolutionary science. --FOo 20:21, 18 Dec 2004 (UTC)
"...it is unsupported...", "...it is not clear...": what do you mean it's unsupported? you just supported it :) my argument is an implication (if A then B) and is equivalent to (not-A or B) and that is also equivalent to (if not-B then not-A). It is clear that if creationism and evolutionism do not adress the same issues and if their scopes are different (which I believe is the case), then it follows that evolutionism could not replace creationism. --charon 10:25, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC)
The straw man of "evolutionism" is a symbol with no referent. Nobody believes in "evolutionism". Ahem...it's time to get a grip, Fubar. Yes, there is such a thing as evolutionism. Evolution is a scientific theory, widely accepted by scientists, which makes a framework for biological science, but which cannot be regarded as "fact" unless one can time-travel. Evolutionism is a militant system of philosophy/religion which seeks to evangelise the world and squelch all dissent. It sees vast hoards of evil demon "fundamentalists" engaging in a conspiracy, despite the fact that fundamentalists are a tiny minority who tend to ignore the public issues and home school their children (talk about straw men!) You wanna see the militant, religious form of evolutionism? Just go to Talk Origins on the Internet. If you removed all straw men, bandwagon, guilt by association, appeal to fear, scapegoating, stereotyping, and other kinds of propaganda, there would not be much left of the web site. Pollinator 21:37, Dec 18, 2004 (UTC)
(Please don't post negative personal comments to talk pages, such as telling other editors to "get a grip".)
It sounds to me like you've had a hard time with some people you disagree with, on a different Web site. (I presume you're referring to talkorigins.org.) I'm sorry; I have to imagine that this makes this subject difficult for you. Please bear with me.
What I see on that site is a not a bunch of religious militants (that is, persons engaged in violence), but rather a collection of rather calmly and professionally-written articles on the subject of evolution, written from the standpoint of mainstream science. Many of them focus on correcting popular misconceptions about evolution, such as the idea that speciation has never been observed or that we'd need "time travel" to observe evolution happening.
The site also seems to be widely respected in the science and science education community, having been cited by some of the foremost journals, publications, and organizations in science. I understand that some religious believers do believe that science itself is a form of "militant religion", just as some radical feminists (supposedly!) believe that Newton's Principia Mathematica is a "rape manual", but that's a pretty odd way of looking at things. As it happens, I deal with scientists all the time (I work for a rather well-known research institution) and they're really not violent people on the whole. :) --FOo 22:13, 18 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Nothing personal is intended, Fubar, except that you (and other evolutionists) have your eyes firmly shut to the abuses that have occurred in the name of evolution. Science should be strong enough to stand on its own, without the proponants of a theory scorning, ridiculing, and attempting to squelch any other viewpoint, or misusing science to make theological claims. Despite your condescension, it's not "difficult" for me (I've been shot at by fundamentalists from both the Christian side and the evolutionist side). I'm just trying to inject some common sense. The reason the both sides butt heads so vehemently is that their mind sets are so much alike. Can you see that? Pollinator 03:24, Dec 19, 2004 (UTC)
Well ... no, I'm afraid I don't. Can you give some examples? I understand that you're telling us these people are awful and nasty, but you haven't so far pointed to any actual cases of them being awful and nasty. Again, all I see on the talkorigins.org Web site are some really well-researched papers and an encrustation of awards and citations from various well-reputed journals and associations and such. (I sure wish Wikipedia were as consistently well-written, as thoroughly footnoted and cross-referenced, and as stunningly spoken-for.) There's no sign of any militants shooting at anyone there. --FOo 05:49, 19 Dec 2004 (UTC)
clarification of terms: I refer to evulutionism simply as the belief that the existing species came from a common ancestor by a natural process (called evolution) and creationism as the belief that the world has a non-material creator (as a metaphysical cause). Some definitions of creationism refer to the creator as personal. The [evolution] article clearly does more than it is required to by the objectives of this encyclopedia, because it doesn't only describe what the theory of evolution or rather DE is about and what it claims, it actually defends evolutionism and presents statements that not everybody agrees on, which is a sign of non-NPOV. The NPOV policy is not to present everyones views as some have mistakenly said, it is to present the facts, not what some people think are facts or how the facts are interpreted by some people. (Also the genesis account could be interpreted in such a way that it does not contradict what DE claims.) Noisy : "Creationism as an explanation for the world around us has been replaced by myriad subjects such as..." - Creationism is a phiolosophy adressing metaphysical issues, so it could be "replaced" only by a similar philosophy, not by materialistic science. Creationism is not even challenged by cosmology. No science talks about non-material non-spatial and non-temporal spiritual beings or causes or their existence or nonexistence. If it would, it woud cease to be a science, it would be a nonfalsifiable philosophy.

The Macro v. Microevolution section says speciation has been observed, which is news to me. Can someone with knowledge add a link? Thanks. SMesser 20:51, 18 Feb 2005 (UTC)

FOo already put up a good link above in this discussion: [17] siafu 21:30, 18 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I removed a small phrase

I removed a small phrase from the controversial "Evolution and Religion" paragraph:

especially Christian fundamentalists.

The context was this:

This view is commonly referred to as creationism, and continues to be defended by some religious groups, especially Christian fundamentalists.

The reason I removed it is because few conservative evangelicals actually call themselves fundamentalists; they usually call themselves "evangelicals" or just "Christians". I think we should use a name these conservative protestents use for themselves, instead of putting a pejorative label on them. Samboy 08:03, 18 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Hmmm, the term wasn't originally pejorative. And does it matter what they call themselves? Let's not go PC... I think the original formulation was appropriate in the sense that it is one particular fundamentalist attitude, the wish to take the Bible literally, that makes these people want to defend creationism. - 193.66.64.231 Sun Dec 19 16:01:09 GMT+2 2004
The wording should probably be "religious fundamentalists" or "religious conservatives" since conservative Islamic leaders are just as anti-evolution as their protestant counterparts. I imagine that the same probably holds true for conservatives in most other major religions (such as conservative Hindus?). gK ¿? 15:32, 19 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Fundamentalism does not denote literalist interpretation. Noone interprets every single verse literally. There can be fundamentalists with various methods of interpretation. The fundamentalism just means that they have their interpretation as a base (fundament) - not the culture, their preferences or opinions. --charon 12:39, 20 Dec 2004 (UTC)