Talk:Evolution

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

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Please Include Specific Examples in Plain English

Here’s an article arguing that bird lungs are superior to mammal lungs [1] . Well, evolution sometimes works that way. It fashions a solution that is simply good enough. And it does not backtrack later to fashion a perfect solution. Here is another article about the respiratory system of birds [2] .

A couple of weeks ago, Gnixon invited me to contribute to the article. Thank you very much for the compliment, but I have not yet found the sweet spot. My writing has been criticized for sounding too much like an essay. Well, I don’t think the writing should be all that difficult to read (afterall, our concepts here are difficult enough!). There is a sweet spot between formality and readability.

And, I’m even more convinced that our article should be longer. This is a major destination article. This might well be our best chance to describe, to explain, to teach. So, if you have found the sweet spot, or even if you feel you’re close, please contribute. I think we could easily use five straightforward examples of evolution working, a much longer history of life on earth, and a longer section on controversy, including claims on “irreducible complexity” about the hemoglobin molecule and bacteria flagellum. When creationists talk about such things, they are really doing us a favor. These are great examples we can discuss. They are bringing up puzzles which do in fact pique people’s interests. Let’s keep the discussion going. I’m thinking about two paragraphs on each topic, even if there is another wiki article that discusses it at greater length, we just include a link (much longer for history of life on Earth). Much too much of wiki is people simply linking together blue words. That’s just the skeleton of the article! We need people who will fill in with good description and explanation. Please talk just like you would to an interested high school or college student. And maybe toward the latter part of the article, allowing it to become more challenging, talk just like you would talking to a professional colleague who’s in a slightly different field and who’s sincerely interested, What’s the latest going on in evolutionary biology? Go ahead and tell us. I want a readable, teachable article. I want to read stuff, be reminded of what I already know, and then go a little bit further. For example, the part about Archaea, that’s a completely different taxonomy than what I grew up knowing (I graduated from high school in 1981). I would very much like having this spelled out in plain English, and the implications. I understand one thing that makes this early taxonomy so difficult is that bacteria swap DNA all the time.

I do appreciate everyone’s efforts. I realize just how hard writing is. I’m making suggestions the best I can, but do it your own way. FriendlyRiverOtter 03:22, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

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

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

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

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

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

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

Pattern: Homology. Process: Phylogeny

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

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

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

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

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

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

Unexplained deletion

Actually explained at great length
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
I noticed the large section below was deleted a few edits back with "spelling" as the explanation. Seems like obvious vandalism but I thought I'd put it here instead of reverting since it looks like you guys are in the process of overhauling the article. Aelffin 13:08, 18 April 2007 (UTC) You need to learn to read the history properly. The deletion was not by Richard D. LeCour, who did use the edit summary "spelling", and correctly so [3]. I deleted the chunk, first with the edit summary "excess detail, unreferenced rants, and other diversions" [4], then with the summary "largely unreferenced cruft" [5]. The idea was to shake things up a bit, force people to think outside the box, and get this article back on track. However, it turns out that things are as entrenched as ever around here, and reverting is the most constructive thing we can apparently do. You guys need to be more nasty to each other, so that more people leave and real progress can once again be made. Just my two cents on articles that are on too many people's watchlists. This is exactly where citizendium is going to kick our asses. And that's in spite of osteoporosis. Yours opinionatedly, Samsara (talk • contribs) 20:09, 18 April 2007 (UTC) Samsara, please be advised that some of your recent edits constitute disrupting Wikipedia to illustrate a point. This article was already being "shaken up" through discussions, and if you wanted to institute change, you should have brought up such a discussion and argued your point, rather than trying to (1) sneak your changes through without any discussion, and (2) browbeat and revert-war to get your changes included. That's not how Wikipedia works. As an on-and-off editor here for several years now, I can say without reservation that this article is one of the least "entrenched" articles of its profile on Wikipedia—one of the most open to feedback, to criticism, and to revision, which is especially remarkable given how frequently it is barraged by creationist rants. And in particular, the article's become much more open to change since losing its FA status, as that helped "shake things up" here and make people realize that the article has serious deficiencies. In contrast, your actions thus far aren't shaking anything up in a productive fashion; they're not making people reconsider the article contents, they're just causing arguments and confusion so far. If you want to institute change, you need to explain and argue for your points, not just make the most dramatic edits possible to get people's attention. We aren't children. Maybe if you actually tried discussing what edits you'd like to see made, rather than attacking other editors in an effort to drive people you dislike away from this article (surely very unwikipedian-like behavior!), you'd find that this article is much less "entrenched" than you assume; you get out of Wikipedia what you put into it. If you put in level-headed reasoning, you'll get out change, or at least meaningful counter-arguments and discussion; if you put in hate, impatience, and aggression, you'll get the same back to you and nothing will get done. Ultimately, the choice is yours. If you consider Wikipedia a lost cause, why not leave? If you don't, why not try a more productive tact than "be as aggressive, impatient, antagonistic, terse, and uncompromising as possible to get people to either change their minds or leave". -Silence 22:07, 18 April 2007 (UTC) You can quit bullshitting me about POINT, and I'll spare you CIVILITY and FAITH. Shaking things up is a figure of speech, if you don't know. Samsara (talk • contribs) 08:35, 19 April 2007 (UTC) Sam, I could have simply reverted it, but I thought I'd be nice and put it up for argument here instead. The fact that you are bitching about having to go through civil discussion is proof that you are aware your edits are too weak to withstand legitimate debate. Aelffin 20:26, 19 April 2007 (UTC) Aelffin, you misread the edit history and incorrectly concluded that you were dealing with vandalism. There have been many months of discussion here following its demotion from FA status. One serious issue has been bloat. And still, people are trying to include extra, isolated topics like cooperation and horizontal gene transfer, often in separate sections, rather than being briefly mentioned with links to the appropriate articles. If you include cooperation, you have to talk about spite, and probably about evolution of life history traits. If you include horizontal gene transfer, you should probably talk in more detail about several topics in genomics (not because HGT is a genomics topic, but because they are equally new and deserving of attention), such as introns and regulatory sequences (yes, introns only concern eukaryotes, but introns happen to be one of the major transitions in molecular evolution, possibly the most important one that we have firm evidence of). Nothing at all is being said about inheritance under haplodiploidy, which affects a huge number of species. Mitochondrial and chloroplast genomes are only discussed in the contexts of gene flow and molecular homology. Nothing at all is being said of the proteins that are being inherited (yes, think about it - where does the basic machinery that translates the DNA in the zygote come from?). Hybrid speciation is discussed in the gene flow section, then we have a whole separate section on speciation later in the article. Why can't people accept that what's really needed in this article is a basic, well-structured overview that doesn't discuss every if and but, that it needs to be well-referenced throughout, and that (a) we already have a bunch of detailed articles on virtually all of these topics, and that (b) cuts are needed to achieve the aim of a basic, well-structured overview? I would also suggest, and not for the first time, that we keep to a "moving wall", where research that is younger than x years is deliberately excluded, just to be conservative. That way, we avoid embarrassment when it turns out the findings can't be replicated. Samsara (talk • contribs) 14:47, 20 April 2007 (UTC) Correction... I misread the log and thought it was vandalism by LaCour. Now that I've re-read the log, I still think it's borderline vandalism. Thank you for pointing out that the vandalism was yours and not LaCour's. The point is not whether the reason given is "spelling" or "unreferenced cruft", or whatever. The point is, it's just bad form to delete a chunk of this size without opening the deletion up to discussion here. I don't really care about the material, I just care that the edits are fairly vetted. So, now that the material is here and you've given your reasons, I'm satisfied. Aelffin 15:37, 20 April 2007 (UTC) Seeing that you have such an embarrassingly (for you) low opinion of me anyway, I feel no remorse in letting you know that my reply was not intended for your satisfaction. Happy editing! Samsara (talk • contribs) 17:36, 20 April 2007 (UTC) I didn't have a low opinion of you until you went on a rant as a result of a pretty straightforward and otherwise uncotroversial decision to put some material up for discussion. Maybe you should pay more attention to how your behavior appears to other editors, since it will be reflected in their view of your edits. Aelffin 18:16, 22 April 2007 (UTC) Perhaps you should get more data before you jump to conclusions. I've pointed this out to you, but it seems to be bearing no fruit. Specifically, before you accuse an editor of vandalism, make sure you've checked their contribs. You might be pissing up the wrong tree. Samsara (talk • contribs) 20:14, 22 April 2007 (UTC) Yes, after you pointed out my mistake, I amended my opinion to "borderline vandalism", that's all the fruit I've got for you. Sorry if you expected bananas. You have no reason to call me to task for placing deleted material on the article's discussion page. I'm sure the quality of your other edits has been impeccable, but in this case, you were out of line. Aelffin 15:40, 23 April 2007 (UTC) I agree with Aelffin. Your edits over the last few months seem of the shoot on sight variety with an very low threshold for the opinion of other editors. No one will listen to hostile editors, regardless of their message. Just my 2 cents. David D. (Talk) 17:54, 23 April 2007 (UTC) I'm not sure why you're sticking your neck out to be my mentor, seeing that we haven't exactly agreed in the past. Samsara (talk • contribs) 20:31, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Modern research

Further information: Evolutionary biology and Current research in evolutionary biology

Academic disciplines

Scholars in a number of academic disciplines continue to document examples of evolution, contributing to a deeper understanding of its underlying mechanisms. Every subdiscipline within biology both informs and is informed by knowledge of the details of evolution, such as in ecological genetics, human evolution, molecular evolution, and phylogenetics. Areas of mathematics (such as bioinformatics), physics, chemistry, and other fields all make important contributions to current understanding of evolutionary mechanisms. Even disciplines as far removed as geology and sociology play a part, since the process of biological evolution has coincided in time and space with the development of both the Earth and human civilization.

Evolutionary biology is a subdiscipline of biology concerned with the origin and descent of species, as well as their changes over time. It was originally an interdisciplinary field including scientists from many traditional taxonomically-oriented disciplines. For example, it generally includes scientists who may have a specialist training in particular organisms, such as mammalogy, ornithology, or herpetology, but who use those organisms to answer general questions in evolution. Evolutionary biology as an academic discipline in its own right emerged as a result of the modern evolutionary synthesis in the 1930s and 1940s. It was not until the 1970s and 1980s, however, that a significant number of universities had departments that specifically included the term evolutionary biology in their titles.

Evolutionary developmental biology (informally, evo-devo) is a field of biology that compares the developmental processes of different animals in an attempt to determine the ancestral relationship between organisms and how developmental processes evolved. The discovery of genes regulating development in model organisms allowed for comparisons to be made with genes and genetic networks of related organisms.

Physical anthropology emerged in the late 19th century as the study of human osteology, and the fossilized skeletal remains of other hominids. At that time, anthropologists debated whether their evidence supported Darwin's claims, because skeletal remains revealed temporal and spatial variation among hominids, but Darwin had not offered an explanation of the specific mechanisms that produce variation. With the recognition of Mendelian genetics and the rise of the modern synthesis, however, evolution became both the fundamental conceptual framework for, and the object of study of, physical anthropologists. In addition to studying skeletal remains, they began to study genetic variation among human populations (population genetics); thus, some physical anthropologists began calling themselves biological anthropologists.

The capability of evolution through selection to produce biological processes and networks optimized for a particular environment has greatly interested mathematicians, scientists and engineers. There has been some recent success in implementing these ideas for artificial uses, including genetic algorithms, which can find the solution to a multi-dimensional problem more quickly than standard software produced by human intelligent designers, and the use of evolutionary fitness landscapes to optimize the design of a system Evolutionary optimization techniques are particularly useful in situations in which it is easy to determine the quality of a single solution, but hard to go through all possible solutions one by one.

Article milestones

Perhaps "Article milestones" at the top could contain a link or two to the prefered version(s) of longtime editors of this article that feel it has gotten worse or that there is something special to recommend that previous version. WAS 4.250 16:39, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

I don't think this article's ever been consistently high-quality enough for there to be much of a point in isolating a version for general quality. On the other hand, we might isolate versions that have high quality in specific areas (e.g., a certain layout, certain well-done sections, certain images, and other things that might have subsequently deteriorated), which we can use to improve the current section. Although I don't think the article, taken as a whole, has ever been a lot better than it is today (and if it is, that's only because the current article layout and contents are in a transitional period following a major restructuring and reprioritization), I do think there are many aspects of the article that were better at various times. -Silence 16:49, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Asexual to sexual

How did organisms go from asexual reproduction to sexual reproduction? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Rhydd Meddwl (talk • contribs) 22:59, 23 April 2007 (UTC).

You should know better than this, Rhydd Meddwl!;) Please add new comments to the end of the page! Now, this isn't a big problem at all: there are clear evolutionary advantages to sexual reproduction. For its origins, see here. garik 01:55, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

In eukaryotes it's generally the other way around -- asexual lineages are well-rooted within sexual lineages, and tend to be less diverse TxMCJ 04:28, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

What the...? This is a HUGE problem. Even the page you linked to says, first off, "The evolution of sex is a major puzzle in modern evolutionary biology." Graft | talk 17:58, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Well, OK, I did overstate that rather; you're quite right – I don't know what I was thinking when I wrote it. On the other hand, I'm not convinced that that first line doesn't overstate its case somewhat too. The difficulty of testing hypotheses makes research into the origin of sexual reproduction very hard, but it's certainly not a major puzzle in the sense that no one has any idea how it might have happened. And it's also not a problem at all for evolutionary biology, in the sense creationists sometimes claim (i.e. they can't see how sex could have originated, so it must have been through design etc.). But yes, there are of course also clear advantages to asexual reproduction. garik 23:49, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Natural selection of rate of mutation?

A creationist, the other day, put the following to me: supposed declining health and lifespans (yes, from an analysis of the Bible) are due to the iterative passing on of mutations throughout the last 6,000 years (again Bible study). In other words, natural selection, rather than contributing the spread of advantageous mutations, has not succeeded in filtering out deleterious ones. Now, I don't buy this, for both factual and theoretical reasons. But it got me thinking: the force of natural selection, for it to work, has to be stronger than whatever forces of mutation (by whatever means). (*Speculation*: Which, from what I gather from thinking about it, means that there would be a naturally selected "ideal" rate of mutation (by means of DNA repair mechanisms etc.).) My question is: am I thinking about this wrongly, and if not, is there literature on this already? Jameshfisher 23:54, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Indeed there is, organisms have even evolved variable mutation rates. link and link TimVickers 00:05, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Credibility, and controversy

Evolution is a Theory but in this article it is discribed as fact, this needs to be rectified, also things such as Ireducible complexity (bacterial flagellum motor etc.) that provide hurdles for evolution theory should be included into the article... 124.181.46.194 01:17, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

First, you are misunderstanding what the term theory means in science. Theory does not mean guess but rather a well-tested hypothesis with broad explanatory power. Evolution is a theory in the same way that gravity is. Second of all, the overwhelming scientific consensus is that evolution occured and that claims such as Behe's regarding the bacterial flagellum have no basis. As such , Wikipedia's undue weight clause of the neutrality policy comes into play. JoshuaZ 01:58, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

You are a better man than I Joshua. This BS is getting really old, and I've been doing serious editing for only 4 or 5 months on these articles. I think I'm just reading to tell them to all screw off. Orangemarlin 02:19, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Read the Evolution FAQ--70.124.85.24 11:27, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

I start to wonder if people are being difficult on purpose, or if they do not know how to read, or just like to parrot nonsense some preacher spewed from the pulpit and repeat it in a brainless fashion without giving it any thought whatsoever. I agree with OM. This gets old. Very old. Please people, use your heads. Read. Think. It is the reason God gave you a brain; to use. --Filll 19:51, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

I believe that it takes people that 'think' to not accept propositions put out by the main stream, establishment science. Most of our great discoveries were made by those who doubted the mainstream beliefs in science. 'Parroting' dogma without allowing questioning of any sort is certainly 'brainless'. 'Please, people' believe what you are told without question. 68.109.234.155 21:44, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

And you believe I don't "think". My training has been, for at least 30 years, to examine everything with a critical eye. I've read and studied more biology than you could imagine, and if I thought at any point something didn't make sense, I would ask questions. Yes, great ideas come from question the status quo. That would be Darwin challenging the prevailing Christian viewpoint, or Gallileo challenging just about everything that was said. All the evidence, not just 99.9%, but all fit the theory of Evolution. Yes, I'm smart enough to know that maybe someday some piece of evidence will arise that will through the whole theory into doubt. Maybe we will find a fluffy bunny rabbit in Precambrian rocks. Orangemarlin 23:39, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Question posted on FAQ

Please read talk page header, this is not a forum.
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Moved from Talk:Evolution/FAQ [6] I thought that the scientific community believes that life evolved from non-living materials. Was there not an experiment in the early 50s that did something like that? 68.109.234.155 14:53, 26 April 2007 (UTC) Thanks for the question. In general Wikipedia article talk pages are intended for discussion of how to improve the article, rather than general discussion on the topic. You may have better luck with Wikipedia:Reference desk for these types of questions. Briefly, however, there is a distinction between abiogenesis (life from non-life) and evolution of living creatures. This distinction is important since there is different evidence for each. The former is (probably) a rare event, and fairly speculative, while the latter is well established. The specific experiment you're refering to is probably Miller/Urey. While perhaps many scientists do believe some form of abiogenesis, this is not a component of evolution. You may want to ask this question again at the reference desk for a more detailed response. --TeaDrinker 15:23, 26 April 2007 (UTC) I'd would suggest reading the abiogenesis article, since it describes in detail the theories of the formation of life, and, in fact, may answer your questions. Yes, most biologists believe life arose from non-living materials. Orangemarlin 18:03, 26 April 2007 (UTC) 'Most biologist believe life 'arose' from non-living material. Did not life evolve from non-living material. Do biologists believe it was a 'sudden appearance' situation? 68.109.234.155 21:46, 26 April 2007 (UTC) How you answer that question depends on your definition of life. If there was a slow increase in the complexity of self-replicating chemical systems, at what point in that process do you define the replicating entities as "living things"? To be honest, I don't think the question is answerable in any meaningful way. TimVickers 21:53, 26 April 2007 (UTC) This probably is not the best place to have this discussion, but I don't think anyone would mind. Biological evolution begins and continues with living things only. The start of life on earth was essentially a chemical and physical process--Evolution does not define nor include that process in its theories or inquiries. As I recall from my own education (which is about 30 years ago), my evolution courses did not include the study of abiogenesis. Where I first learned about it was in a Biochemistry course, which is the study of the chemistry of living organisms. I recall an interesting philosophical discussion. A virus is essentially a small packet of genetic information and a few chemicals, but it does everything a living thing does, including procreation. The virus might be the link between a soup of chemicals 4 billion years ago and living things. But I really think you should bring these points up elsewhere, specifically WP:Reference desk. Orangemarlin 22:00, 26 April 2007 (UTC) But species come from evolution correct. One specie through small steps becomes another one. I think 'living things' can be defined. Just as 'species' can be defined. I really do not see how if evolution can be applied to species it cannot be applied to 'living things' 68.109.234.155 22:03, 26 April 2007 (UTC) Do you mean, "Can we say that living things evolved from non-living things"? Not really, although I can imagine a hypothesis that came close to that, involving some generalised Darwinian process – but I can imagine many more that didn't. The point is this: biological evolution is about the evolution of biological things: i.e. living things once life has started. I think we know too little about where life comes from in the first place to say whether the term "evolution" would make much sense if applied to the the steps from non-life to life. garik 22:30, 26 April 2007 (UTC) And by the way, just for the sake of correctness: the singular of species is also species. garik 22:31, 26 April 2007 (UTC) But if living things did not evolve from non-living things what other way would they have come about? Supernatural or alien intervention? Now here is another point. Why did not dinosaurs achieve human like intelligence? It seems to me evolution would have predicted that smarter creatures would outsurvive the others and eventually what would come about is a continuing increase in intelligence until extinction. 68.109.234.155 22:51, 26 April 2007 (UTC) I'd recommend you started by reading this article carefully, will be much easier for people to explain this to you once you understand what evolution is and what it does. Once you have finished doing that, ask your questions at the WP:Reference desk. TimVickers 23:29, 26 April 2007 (UTC) I agree. The anonymous user's questions are becoming pejorative in nature. Orangemarlin 23:31, 26 April 2007 (UTC) Well, confused at least. Please read what I said carefully: I never said that living things didn't come from non-living things. They almost certainly did. The question is whether "evolution" is an appropriate name for that process. Your second question can be answered quite quickly: you just don't need the kind of brainpower we've got to survive in most environments. Too much is a waste of energy, and the time it takes to nurture human children because of this is a real liability. But please read the article carefully. http://www.talkorigins.org is also good. garik 23:35, 26 April 2007 (UTC) Pejorative??? I really do not believe 'evolution' should start after the first 'life' appears. Most people assume evolution starts with the 'primordial soup'. And this is the most parsimonious method. What authority states 'evolution starts after the first appearance of bacteria or whatever. I really do not know when this started but it seems like an 'urban legend' type error. And as far as intelligent dinos. This might be too subtle of a point to make here. But is there a source that state 'evolution' does not include the chemicals to bacteria sequence? 69.211.150.60 12:26, 27 April 2007 (UTC) Mmm, soup! If you check out the article you'll find a link for how stuff works, and thus a source for the point that evolution does not include the chemicals to life stage, though of course it does include the life to bacteria sequence. Enjoy! .. dave souza, talk 13:13, 27 April 2007 (UTC) Can you point me to it? Thank 69.211.150.60 13:15, 27 April 2007 (UTC) "Your second question can be answered quite quickly: you just don't need the kind of brainpower we've got to survive in most environments. Too much is a waste of energy, and the time it takes to nurture human children because of this is a real liability." I feel there is flaw in your logic and I would like to discuss it with you. I feel this is not the place but I do appreciate your conversation. Can we go on with this somewhere else? 69.211.150.60 13:21, 27 April 2007 (UTC) I agree this isn't the place, but I'm afraid I don't have a great deal of time for this sort of discussion today (I'm meant to be working!), but maybe at some point. Set up a user account and send a message to my talk page. The basic point of what I'm saying is that although larger brains and greater brainpower can be beneficial, they also come at an enormous cost. It's easy to look at human beings now and suppose that our greater brains are unambiguously beneficial, but this was certainly not always the case. There's a lot to be said for having young that matures quickly, for one thing. garik 14:16, 27 April 2007 (UTC) The source of this misunderstanding is that 69.211.150.60 does not understand the meaning of the word "evolution" in a biological context. Evolution is not "things arising naturally without being influenced by an intelligence"; if that were the case, then every process in the natural world would be "evolution". It is a false dilemma to claim that either something evolved, or it was guided by an intelligence; this is because the definition of evolution is not "arising naturally without being influenced by an intelligence"; rather, in biology, it is "the change in a population's genetic composition over successive generations". Since you are essentially asking "do biologists think that the earliest genetic information arose from non-living matter?", it is nonsensical for you to be asking whether the earliest gene pool "evolved" from anything, since there would have to have been a gene pool for the gene pool to evolve from; this is an infinite regress unless at some point we can postulate non-living matter becoming living matter. This occurrence, abiogenesis, is indeed accepted by all scientific accounts at some point or another, but it is not an evolutionary occurrence in the same sense that biological evolution is. Furthermore, just as intelligent design would not be implied by the absence of evolution (if you see a cloud and learn that the cloud didn't "evolve", does that imply that the cloud is intelligently designed?), the occurrence of evolution does not preclude intelligent design—in fact, most theists actually believe in abiogenesis, in that they believe that God formed life from non-living matter (e.g., Adam from dirt), rather than believing that God just "blinked" all life into existence completely ex nihilo. So the only real question, both among scientists and even among most non-scientists, is how abiogenesis occurred, not whether or not it did. As for dinosaurs: many dinosaurs no doubt were quite intelligent. We don't know exactly how intelligent many of them were, because the amount of information we can infer from fossil evidence is limited. But it is obvious why they didn't evolve "human-like intelligence"; for the same reason that they didn't evolve "human-like ears" or "human-like skin" or "human-like feet". It's because they weren't in the same situation that humans' ancestors were: they had different anatomical features to work with, and were in a different environment. It is as unlikely for dinosaurs to develop "human-like intelligence" as it would be to randomly see a dinosaur with a human head, or human feet; there is no apparent reason why such things would arise. Intelligence is not, in fact, always especially useful for survival; although a limited degree of intelligence is helpful in many species, the utility of advanced intelligence is rarely significant enough to promote significant increases in that respect. What good would it do a trout, for example, to have "human-like intelligence"? It certainly wouldn't be nearly as helpful for survival as things like improved camoflauge, agility and reflexes, strength and speed, endurance and stamina, etc. would, and since having a larger brain uses up energy that would otherwise be devoted to improving those other characteristics, it makes perfect sense for most species to have evolved in ways to utilize the more immediately efficient survival strategy. Well, in the same way that you don't expect to randomly run into fish who think in the same way humans do, you shouldn't expect to run into dinosaurs who think the way humans do; in fact, you should be much more surprised by the lack of fish of human-like intelligence than by the lack of dinosaurs, since fish are vastly more diverse and widespread than dinosaurs, and therefore have always had better odds of developing such an adaptation than dinosaurs ever did. The fact that you only find the dinosaur issue troubling shows that you are misunderstanding both how evolution works in principle, and how it actually has worked throughout history. -Silence 02:40, 28 April 2007 (UTC) Very good discussion. 'the occurrence of evolution does not preclude intelligent design' so you feel that a designer influence the process in some way? and you are saying that dinos were not in a situation where higher intelligence would have been a help in surviving and out competing less intelligent dinos. how do you know that? 69.211.150.60 13:21, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

To do list

Please note at the top, there is a to-do list to get this article back to FA status. Please strike through any tasks that you've accomplished, or you've noticed accomplished. There was an edit conflict (my fault), and I'm not sure who archived the to-do list, but thanks! Orangemarlin 18:23, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

I'm going to be making an effort to thoroughly reference and clarify this article, hopefully we can bring this core topic it back to FA level. TimVickers 01:46, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

I am so impressed with this organizational approach to improvement; a stroke of brilliance. It should eliminate most of the eclectic debates that plague this page. Well done and much luck. --71.77.209.218 00:57, 29 April 2007 (UTC) Random Replicator

And, oh look, somebody else seems to think that the academic disciplines section needs to go, like I've repeatedly said and repeatedly been reverted. Is there anything nice I can say about that? Don't think so. Samsara (talk • contribs) 01:15, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

I like you Samsara. You get right to the point, without worrying about BS. I hate that section, so will you help me if I delete it? Orangemarlin 01:45, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

Yes, let's do it! Samsara (talk • contribs) 21:31, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

By the way, what's a good size for an FA? We're at 80 KB for this article, which may be just right. Orangemarlin 01:52, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

About 40-60kb of readable text is good, the total size of the article will probably pass 100 kb when it is fully referenced. What about replacing the "academic" section with a summary of current areas of research in evolution? Origin of sex, genetic basis of speciation and the influence of developmental biology on the direction of adaptation come to mind, but I'm sure there are others. I think it is important to convey that this is an area of current research. TimVickers 02:56, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

The challenge is to enforce a moving wall in the spirit of WP:DUST. People will repeatedly want to include research that came out last week, and I'm of the firm conviction that this is not appropriate for an encyclopaedia. My suggestion for the wall period is five years. That will still give us lots of exciting stuff to talk about, if we want to go down that road. Samsara (talk • contribs) 21:31, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

History

It seemed rather disturbing to me that Lamarck popped up after 1859 rather than in 1809, so I've tried to reorganise and clarify that section. Some relevant minor points have been added: if references are needed these can be produced. .. dave souza, talk 21:23, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

descended from a single ancestral species?

Is this really a part of the theory, and should it be in the intro? There is now known to be a lot of horizontal gene transfer among the single celled organisms. Additionally, organelles such as mitochondria and chloroplasts are hypothesized to have once been independant living organisms. The shared genetic code would seem to suggest a shared ancestry, but perhaps there could have been a convergence on the same code once the symbiosis started. The single anscestral species hypothesis might be true, but does not seem essential to evolutionary theory.--Africangenesis 05:32, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Well, it's a significant part of it. Even organelles share the basic DNA code of the rest of the organism, so I would contend that mitochondria and chloroplasts share the same common ancestor. Common descent is a critical part of Evolution, and so far, not a single iota of evidence has been found to counter that theory. I dare say it is essential to Evolution. Orangemarlin 05:44, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

I don't think it's true that a single ancestral species is reqired for evolution, if life on earth had originated from two independent origin events, evolution would still have occurred and the life forms that would have been produced would still show adaptation etc. Evolution is entirely independent of the details of how life originated as it is just a description of how life changes over time. However, I agree that a single common ancestor fits the data best at present. TimVickers 16:06, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Yes, you're right. Should have written my comments more clearly. Orangemarlin 16:23, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

There is a lot of interesting horizontal gene transmission and confusion of lineages in archaea, fortunately the eukaryote lineages are cleaner. Some evolution is not strict vertical descent. I don't mean to be critical of the intelligent designer, but we could have used a sprinkling of different genetic codes to reduce the ease of transpecific disease transmission. 8-) --Africangenesis 16:45, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

I doubt it. But maybe one day they might find a random thing that might indicate something different, but right now everything lines up to a single common ancestor. Orangemarlin 16:59, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

The heck?

Why are comments listed in the "To-do" section as though they were mine, when I've said exactly the opposite in some cases? An absurd "9. Academic disciplines." comment is interjected right before "-Silence 06:17, 13 April 2007 (UTC)" as though it were my idea. Very, very strange. -Silence 18:30, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

My fault. I just cut and pasted, and I must have carried over your signature. And it was my comment on the academic disciplines. Several of us didn't want that section in there. Orangemarlin 18:38, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

I think the original cut an paste was mine. Apologies if attributions got mixed up. David D. (Talk) 20:40, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Oh so you were the edit conflict this weekend trying to create the to do list. I was all confused as to what happened!!! LOL. Orangemarlin 21:42, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

I thought you knew? I should have guessed not by the absense of flaming on my talk page ;) David D. (Talk) 21:49, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

I won't discriminate. Now that I know, I'm head over there right now for some serious flaming!!!! I couldn't figure out what happened on Saturday. The history didn't show anything, because of the edit conflict, so I couldn't tell who did it. But now that I know...... Orangemarlin 23:18, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

I oppose the removal of the "academic disciplines" section, and at least a few other editors seem to as well. I would like to see some damned good reasoning for this mass-deletion, and perhaps a straw poll to determine consensus, since Orangemarlin and Samsara seem to have assumed that "two people agreeing during a brief interim when everyone else is too busy to complain = consensus". -Silence 23:57, 30 April 2007 (UTC)