Talk:Evolutionary biology

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[edit] Stuff

Cut from intro paragraph:

One who studies evolutionary biology is known as an evolutionary biologist, or less frequently evolutionist.

It is excruciatingly obvious that one who studys any -ology is an -oligist. I don't see why that has to be in the intro. It certainly doesn't tell the reader anything he doesn't already know.

Worse, it blurs the distinction between advocates of evolution (particular materialistic theories) and those who are merely students of the field. Someone who studies stellar objects like stars, galaxies, black holes, and what not, is called an astronomer. As astronomy has progressed, various astronomers have had their pet theories - such as the Big Bang. But not everyone who studies astronomy is a Big Bang advocate, and not even everyone who learns a lot about the Big Bang hypothesis is an advocate of it. Uncle Ed 17:13, August 23, 2005 (UTC)

I would have thought that the most common short form of evolutionary biologist in everyday use was simply biologist.SheffieldSteel 17:26, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] List of notable figures isn't useful

Recently I rewrote the artificial life page. It had a long list of "contributors" much like this page. These long lists aren't really all that useful, especially in the core article for a field. If you're a lay person, a list of names isn't going to let you suddenly understand a field. If a list of names is to be maintained anywhere, it should probably be in a seperate article.

Preferably, the names of anyone of merit would be included in the article itself as part of a sentence that touches on that person's contributions. For instance, if you discuss selfish gene theory, you would drop Dawkin's name. Any "notables" that can't be "name dropped" in this way probably aren't all that notable afterall. --Numsgil 12:03, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Notables?

I would prefer to remove Ohta - to me she is only a minor contributor to the controversy about distribution of mutational effects and definitely not a "notable". If she is included, so please be John H. Gillespie, whose work in that particular field I think has been more influential. Let's try and keep the list tight and sweet, and only include the 20-25 most notable! I'll remove her for now. - Samsara 17:26, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

Seeing that Steve Jones, another clear "minor", has been included, I compromised on including Gillespie. Would prefer if all three were omitted.
Edit: include Dawkins in that - maybe Jones and Dawkins could go into the writers section? Or a new transitional section for writers who make some contribution to science, but not a notable one? - Samsara 17:32, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

I've added Weismann and Malécot to redress the anglophonic bias. - Samsara 22:26, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

In fact, this is where evolutionary biologists should be listed (by including the appropriate tag in their biographical article) Category:Evolutionary_biologists. So this here page would be the place for a more curated list. - Samsara 22:56, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

I've curated the list. I also think it would be nice to give a half-line summary of the contribution each has made, e.g.
August Weismann - advanced theory that only germ cells reproduce; Weismann barrier
The list is still too long. I propose to limit it to people who have made discoveries directly relevant to how evolution works. Lynn Margulis would be an example of someone who is not in this category; rather, I would say she discovered a very interesting just-so-story (in spite of me admiring her work). Watson and Crick, after all, are absent for the same reason! I've already excluded some others who could be said to use evolution as a tool rather than contributing to an understanding of its mechanisms. Debate? - Samsara 23:09, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
Here I don't agree, Tomoko Ohta is an extremely important evolutionary biologist. She's not a very public figure, not known as much as Maynard or Wilson, but her contributions to our knowledge of population genetics and molecular evolution is fundamental, in fact, in all my books on those subjects, she always have more citations than Gillespie (which is also a very brilliant scientist). In my opinion, it's important not to give too much importance to some scientists just because they are known by the public. Personally, I would add Tomoko Ohta (for the nearly neutral theory), and I would cut James F. Crow, Gregor Mendel and Alfred Wallace. --PhDP 02:03, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Less subjective?

Stephen Jay Gould has been moved to the section of "people known primarily for their science popularization" (I should check whether wikipedia is supposed to be British or American English...) I think whether he is primarily known for popularization or his scientific contributions depends on who you talk to. The man in the street will say science pop, the scientist will say "punctuated eqm". Thoughts? - Samsara 13:09, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure about Gould, he made some interesting contributions (Ontogeny and Phylogeny, "Spandrels"...) even if it wasn't always easy between him and evolutionary biologists. Dawkins hasn't made any great contributions to evolutionary biology, he's mostly spending time defending a very orthodox view of evolution à la Williams --PhDP 02:03, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Monographs

I removed "The Plausibility of Life: Resolving Darwin's Dilemma" and "Earthdance: Living Systems in Evolution" from the "Notable monographs and other works" section. Those are not important monographs in evolutiony biology. I've added Motoo Kimura's book. Perhaps Susumu Ohno's book on duplication ? Also, about Mayrand's "Major transistions", I'm not sure it's a notable contribution to science. His book on the evolution of sex, however, that was a real contribution. However I don't want to change everything without a warning, so if somebody have an objection... ? - PhDP 04:11, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] embryology

would sympathtic editors consider a positive vote here? [1]Slrubenstein | Talk 15:18, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] merging in current research section

At present, I don't think 'current research in evolutionary biology' needs its own article. There's a whole separate set of problems with having an article devoted to "current" things, but just as far as article size and scope I think it should be merged in. Opinions? --Alynna 00:36, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

It has to be noted one of the reasons I moved that bit out to its own article is because it wasn't very good, but had just enough merit that it was being put back into Evolution repeatedly despite reversion out. Since there were a few useful things in it, thought I'd move it out, see if anything developed, and then see about a merging back in.
I'm not sure there's anything all that worth keeping in it at present: You xcould do far better by just copying the introduction from microRNA, a few sections from Evolution, a little abiogenesis, a smattering of Hardy-Weinburg equilibrium, and so on for this article (they'd be duplicates for a bit, but they'd diverge in time.). Perhaps leave it be a week, and if not been improved by then, AfD it? You can do better for article sections elsewhere in Wikipedia. Adam Cuerden talk 01:51, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Merge, it's practically useless on its own.Meson man 04:13, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

It should probably be merged to History of evolutionary thought, which already has a similar section.--ragesoss 21:33, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Uncertainty of evolutionary biology should have more emphasis

I think that the uncertainty of evolutionary biology should be stressed more. For example, here is what was published by a evolutionist scientists:

"When discussing organic evolution the only point of agreement seems to be: "It happened." Thereafter, there is little consensus, which at first sight must seem rather odd." - Simon Conway Morris (palaeontologist, Department of Earth Sciences, Cambridge University, UK), "Evolution: Bringing Molecules into the Fold," Cell, Vol. 100, pp.1-11, January 7, 2000, p.11

"If it is true that an influx of doubt and uncertainty actually marks periods of healthy growth in a science, then evolutionary biology is flourishing today as it seldom has flourished in the past. For biologists collectively are less agreed upon the details of evolutionary mechanics than they were a scant decade ago. Superficially, it seems as if we know less about evolution than we did in 1959, the centennial year of Darwin's on the Origin of Species." (Niles Eldredge, "Time Frames: The Rethinking of Darwinian Evolution and the Theory of Punctuated Equilibria," Simon & Schuster: New York NY, 1985, p14). 128.205.191.52 03:46, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Unfortunately these quote mines misrepresent the picture. There is no significant disagreement on the validity of evolution by any mainstream organisation or group. What these refer to is debate about the particulars of the processes behind it. I recommend you read the entire articles as then you will see how the quotes have been taken out of context. Eldredge's work has been consistently and sadly misrepresented by creationists. I recommend looking also at the talk.origins quote mine project, where dozens of mangled quotes are used (many from the works you cited) to try to argue that there is doubt over evolution. --Davril2020 04:36, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
Davril2020, I don't believe you have shown the quotes were taken out of context. 128.205.191.59 00:49, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Independently of possibly being a "quote mining", if indeed it is a legitimate opinion of some researcher, it would far from a consensus or even of opinon held by a a representative part of researchers of the area. Independente lines of evidence of rather distant areas of science mutually support universal common ancestry in a way that would be absurdly unlikely to be just chance, so that makes the major point of agreement that "it happened". It is not as if they first agreed that it happened, but then no one knows why, which evidence would favors that - as the quote sounds a bit like, even if unintentionally. The "little consensus", is that, despite of the abundant amounts of evidence of relatedness for a single genealogical tree of all life, the actual details of the unfolding of the history that led to that, can still be argued in many points and levels. For example, even without the knowledge of mendelian genetics and the theory of natural selection, universal common ancestry would still be greatly supported by evidence, and could still be argued about the mechanism of change in lineages, if hereditary change were somehow environmentally-induced, directed by individual efforts; if it were somehow pre-programmed in an way analog to the developmental process of individuals; or if it was essentially random. And even when some of this points are settled, some points can still be argued within the acceptation of that. Such as, even if it is accepted that mutations are random in respect to fitness, perhaps they are not totally random at the biochemical level. And so forth. --Extremophile 14:54, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Firstly, the quotes are by definition taken out of context. They are not in context. No [context] is provided.
Secondly, what is the proposed solution to the issue of "uncertainty" in this field? I suppose we could add a little notice to the top this - and indeed every other - science article that says, "This article documents an area of ongoing scientific research. Scientific theories may be revised as new observations come to light," although, given the subject matter, I suspect our IP address might be happier with "This is a theory, not a fact," an assertion which is, in this context, worthless.SheffieldSteel 17:57, 20 February 2007 (UTC)