Talk:Natural selection

Important notice: If you wish to discuss or debate natural selection itself (as opposed to the article), you may do so at talk.origins. The Discussion page for Natural Selection is only for discussion on how to improve the Wikipedia article, pursuant to Wikipedia policy on talk pages. Any attempts at trolling, using this page as a soapbox, or making personal attacks, regardless of your ideological position, may be deleted at any time, as is the rule for all Wikipedia articles and talk pages. In order to avoid rehashing the same discussions, some common points of argument may be addressed at Wikipedia's Evolution FAQ. Please visit that page first if you have any objections generally along the lines of "this article should include criticism of natural selection, or evolutionary theory". If your concerns are not addressed there, or if you have any substantive objections to the FAQ, you are free to bring up those objections on this talk page. However, please understand that currently the information in the FAQ is considered consensus and factually accurate.

Positive selection mentioned but not defined

The article refers to positive selection without defining it. There are many names for different types of selection, including positive, negative, directional, disruptive, purifying, balancing, natural, and stabilizing. Some but not all of these have separate Wikipedia pages devoted to them, and the pages do not all link to this page. This article does not have a concise and comprehensive definition of these terms.Tedtoal (talk) 19:09, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

Confusion between stabilizing selection and negative selection

The paragraph on Stabilizing selection is incorrect. The wikipedia page on Stabilizing selection has the correct definition; here it is confused with negative selection = purifying selection not equal to stabilizing selection. Natisto (talk) 18:11, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

How were favorable traits and natural selection measured?

"..Natural selection is the process by which favorable traits that are heritable become more common in successive generations of a population of reproducing organisms, and unfavorable traits that are heritable become less common...." Other than noting that certain traits became common how were their favoribility measured? The question was addressed a length here by Dr.Harshman and others: http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/browse_frm/thread/ac52c73b1fc53deb/8a86863346c98d5d?#8a86863346c98d5dTongueSpeaker (talk) 16:08, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

Neo-Darwinism or modern synthesis not the topic

"...as illustrated in the well-known phrase survival of the fittest - modern evolutionary theory defines fitness in terms of individual reproduction...."

This is revisionist history, we don't want to know what the MS is, we want to know what Darwin said with his background knowledge and he said that Sof is a "...better expression..." than natural selection, which causes problems for evolutionists trying to massage this out of the MS. TongueSpeaker (talk) 19:33, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

No it doesn't. They are two different words describing the same thing. Words are separate from the things they are describing. Talk pages are for discussing issues related to the editing of articles, they are not a forum. Please keep this in mind. --Woland (talk) 21:55, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

Ask, and it shall be given thee. But who are these "evolutionists" of whom you speak? Could it be that thou art an Creationist, with all the revisionist "history" that entails? Anyway, I've added some clarifications and context. . . dave souza, talk 22:12, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

The ones Darwin referred to in OoS: "...It is admitted by most evolutionists that mammals are descended from a marsupial form; and if so, the mammary glands will have been at first developed within the marsupial sack...." Darwin coined the term take it up with him. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 41.18.108.106 (talk) 23:25, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

On that basis, he also coined the term creationists. Offtopic.. dave souza, talk 07:25, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

Serious Confusion:- terminology and appropriateness

In the summary of this article it is stated that Natural Selection (a concept of Darwin's) was originated BEFORE any idea of genetics and in reference to artificial selection (breeding). However the body of the article decribes Natural selection in terms of genetics. The summary states:

The concept of natural selection was originally developed in the absence of a valid theory of inheritance; at the time of Darwin's writing, nothing was known of modern genetics. Although Gregor Mendel, the father of modern genetics, was a contemporary of Darwin's, his work would lie in obscurity until the early 20th century. The union of traditional Darwinian evolution with subsequent discoveries in classical and molecular genetics is termed the modern evolutionary synthesis.

This clarity is entirely absent from the body of the aryticle which in the main concerns itself with Modern Evolutionary Synthesisand AND NOT Darwin's theory of Natural Selection. In my opinion the majority of this article should be cut out and relocated there rather than presented here as a revisionist historical account.

Similarly, the reference to the confusion over the term "fit" is once again defined in a modern perspective. Such an approach is as irrelevant as it is confusing. The discussion is once more with relation to Modern evolutionary Synthesis and not Darwin's theory of natural Selection.

The ONLY thing to determine in this article, which is on Darwin's theory of Natural Selection (sorry if this is getting repetitive but this basic issue seems to have been completely overlooked here at the moment and therefroe in need of constant repetition to try and focus the article where it purports to be) and NOT on Modern Evolutionary Synthesis, is what it is likely that Darwin meant because .... we are here considering an entry on his theory of Natural Selection and not debating the meaning of the life the universe and eveything! Dawkin's avoidance of the terminology is because he is putting forward HIS theory. Again this is supposed to be an article on a specific theory not a philosophical debate on the validity or otherwise of the theory in the light of current genetic knowledge. References can and should be made and citations provided both internal and external to identified weakness in the theory especially those noted at the time to allow the reader to properly research the subject of evolution if that is their desire. This is an encyclopaedia and not a Dummies Guide to the Universe.

The key issue is what did Darwin mean? This can and should be deduced from the body of his work, his beliefs and the mores of the times and his closest colleagues and acquaintances. And that as far as wiki or any other encyclopaedia goes is an end to it. The question of ultimate veracity is a matter for other theses which themselves may or may not be suitable as encyclopaedic entries.

  In brief I believe that this article needs a substantial rewrite to do justice
  both to Wiki and to the man.

  If there is no objection I will simply cut out the sections concerned and paste them    
  into the entry on Modern Evolutionary Synthesis.  Even if only the summary of this 
  article remains that may well be sufficient.

In my opinion at the moment this article detracts from wiki as a reference as it duplicates and merges information already published in the correct locations and creates a short story loosely based upon Darwin's theory of Natural Selection. It is therefroe not a correctly defined encyclopaedic entry. An alternative to a reqwite might be to change the title to something like "Therories of Evolution" and simply create a new entry for darwin's theory containing only procipally the summary of this article. In any event I am flagging the article to reflect this and would be grateful for your comments.

LookingGlass (talk) 09:31, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

Having previously arrived at the same conclusions myself I was delighted to see them expressed here. On Earth the prevailing mechanism for natural selection indeed appears to be genetic, but where should that fact enter in an article on natural selection as a mechanism in its own right?

On another life-bearing planet, variation within a species might be of some other origin than genetic. The essence of natural selection is not the underlying mechanism of variation but rather the role of variation, however caused, in providing a range of individuals of varying degrees of adaptation to varying circumstancs. On such a planet natural selection could well proceed precisely as envisaged by Darwin, via some other mechanism of variation than genetics. Had Darwin instead of dying been transported to that planet and his life extended a hundred years, he and his alien colleagues could perfectly well have uncovered the machinery of variation on that planet, which would then in Darwin's mind complete his theory by explaining the origin of variation. This development would not contradict the theory he developed on Earth but be completely consistent with it, despite the fact that variation on Earth is of genetic origin.

It seems to me that the theory of natural selection is more readily grasped by an eight-year-old when the theory is not encumbered with genetics. That natural selection does not logically depend on genetics makes this all the more true. Of course no child will contradict the adult who says that variation is necessarily of genetic origin, but then one is asking the child to accept two theories when one is sufficient, and moreover more faithful to Darwin's original reasoning.

Ideally the article would develop natural selection from the point of view of variation within species, a phenomenon clearly visible even to a six-year-old! At some point in the article it would talk about the origin of variation, but not before the mechanism of natural selection had been explained.

Although one can argue for this separation on the purist ground that Darwin didn't know about genetics, I don't see the need for that argument. It's true, but a better argument in my view is that natural selection is a simple concept that depends only on variation within species, not on how that variation comes about. --Vaughan Pratt (talk) 00:45, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

Simulating natural selection

An interesting aspect not discussed in this article is a topic of Climbing Mount Improbable - how it is quite easy to simulate artificial selection on a computer (e.g. biomorphs) but exceedingly difficult to simulate natural selection. Richard001 (talk) 04:52, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Why another Dawkins advertisement? That isn't even true anyway. Natural selection is simulated by computers all the time. In fact, natural selection happens when we don't even expect it to.

"When Guy Hoelzer runs computer simulations of organisms living in the modeling equivalent of a featureless plain, he sees them break into different species — even though there’s no reason for natural selection to take place. "

[1]

Savagedjeff (talk) 18:34, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

This sentence... (phenotypes and genotypes)

"If these phenotypes have a genetic basis, then the genotype associated with the favorable phenotype will increase in frequency in the next generation."

This sentence appears in the lead section of the article. I was going to change the word "genotype" for the word "gene" or maybe even the word "allele" because organisms with different genotypes may possess the same favorable allele that makes both of their phenotypes prone to survive. What do you guys think? --Hamsterlopithecus (talk) 23:09, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

Richard Dawkins approves of this article

sorry, I'm not really contributing here, so go ahead and delete if you want, but I thought this might be of interest. Somwhere, in one of these 4 clips, he talks about this article. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6697390753170958006&q=richard+dawkins&ei=9HMOSKryMIaIjQLU07msBA —Preceding unsigned comment added by 160.5.225.170 (talk) 23:30, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Yea I watched this video too, and well thats why I'm here. Well I thought it was really fun to hear. Good job wikipedia contributors!

It is this video: http://youtube.com/watch?v=0gwV8etx4sI&feature=related

He mentioned that he tried to alter the article, removing a book reference that shouldn't have been there but it got cosntantly added back. :D

- SwedishPsycho

Out of interest, does anyone know which book reference it was? Shinobu (talk) 11:14, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

It's not here, so it must have been done anonymously. Richard001 (talk) 21:39, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

I am not sure why Dawkins is mentioned in this article at all. Almost seems like an advertisement for him and his book. It adds nothing to the article other than saying that Richard Dawkins has an opinion on it. Also, do we really need to bring up memes on the topic of natural selection?

67.249.240.96 (talk) 20:52, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

How Does Natural Selection Work?

In numerous places, the article says "Natural Selection acts..." or describes it as a process. How exactly does Natural Selection work? It would be helpful to non-biologist readers like me if the article described what exactly Natural Selection does (if indeed it does anything) to select for certain traits in an organism. I understand how how artificial selection works. Horse breeders, for example, mate their mares with fast studs. Genetics being what it is, the offspring may be fast or slow. If it's fast, it may have weak ankles. The breeder sets selection criteria and tests the offspring for their ability to meet those criteria. Most times he gets duds but once in a while he gets a winner. So, is Natural Selection a set of tests based on environment, climate, or whatever, that determines whether or not an individual survives in the real world? Virgil H. Soule (talk) 04:34, 4 July 2008 (UTC)zbvhs

Simply put by a fellow non-biologist (I hope someone else will explain better later); individuals with suitable genes for the environment survive longer and can produce more offspring, this offspring inherits this genetic material and will thus in turn produce more offspring as well, and so on. 'Good' genes are passed on, 'bad' ones die out. Isn't this clear from the article though? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.208.148.119 (talk) 08:47, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

The problem is in the word 'selection', which normally refers to a conscious, iterated process, which is quite the opposite of how natural selection works (which makes it so hard to simulate on a computer; see Climbing Mount Improbable). It can be very confusing. The term 'natural preservation' might have been better, though preservation tends to focus more on elimination and less on procreation, which is also very important. Richard001 (talk) 22:04, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

The problem isn't with the word 'selection', it is with the concept each individual has with the word: What is your concept that you are encoding for using the word 'selection'. Who did the 'selectus'? Nobody, then you can't use the word, it is not for me to figure out what your theory is. I can merely point out that given your premises certain words in the English language are not available to you.TongueSpeaker (talk) 17:13, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

The word that's problematic for me is "acts". The implication is that something (supernatural?)called "Natural Selection" actively does something to decide which variants survive and which don't. As I see it Natural Selection is a passive process by which an organism's environment tests variant forms for viability. For extreme variants just being born may be fatal. Variants at the other end of the scale have the same chances for survival as normal forms, which is why traits are so slow accumulating in a population. Virgil H. Soule (talk) 14:53, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

Darwin was using the term metaphorically. In breeding, human beings select which traits they do and do not want domesticates to pass on to offspring. Darwin is saying that nature has the same effect. The issue here is the distinction between cause and effect. When you ask your question about selection, you think it is a cause. When humans select, it is easy to unpack this cause by looking at the breeder's thought process and conscious acts. But Darwin is using selection as an effect; he is saying that however different the causes, nature has the same effect as a human breeder. Since Darwin was more concerned with the effects, he was not so concerned with unpacking the cause - but this is also actually central to Darwin's argument: natural selection is for Darwin non-teleological; it has no conscious plan - unlike human breeders. That is why there is no point in figuring out how the cause actually works. It doesn't matter. It can be random, or the aggregate of a host of different factors all interacting in very complex but non-teleological, non-intentional ways in the environment. There is no plan, no consciousness, no uniform mechanism. What is important is the effect. Slrubenstein | Talk 19:43, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

To point to an analogy that Darwin had read, Adam Smith's Invisible hand produces an effect without any intention or plan of producing the effect. (not to be confused with Charles Addams's disembodied hand) . . dave souza, talk 21:08, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

Natural selection in the wild

I think we should have an article 'natural selection in the wild', and the biologist John Endler may be able to write on for us (his book of the same name should give a good example of what the article would be like). Just a heads-up and invitation for input - since it would be a sub-article of this one, it would then be important to create a clear relationship between them, perhaps using summary style (though this would require some restructuring of the article as it stands). Richard001 (talk) 22:04, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

I thought natural selection only occurred in the wild (as distinct from artificial selection, which only occurs in the domestic realm). What would be the gist of the article? Virgil H. Soule (talk) 14:53, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

Agree with Zbvhs Slrubenstein | Talk 21:10, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

You have natural selection in a bottle. aka, you create a context, anf let natural selection do its work, as opposed to artificial selection in which man is the actually decider who is selected and who is not. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 03:56, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Natural Selection and loss of abilities

I think the article should talk about issues like why lack of the need of an ability causes a species to lose that ability. For example, birds that no longer need to fly, and loss of physical strength by humans. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dominicanpapi82 (talk • contribs) 01:16, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

That phenomenon is rather an effect of genetic drift. When a feature has no "purpose" (i.e. no selective value) it changes randomly, and almost all directions are to the worse. --Ettrig (talk) 18:14, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

I think it has more to do with economics. Building wings (in this example) is costly. If you do not need wings to survive and reproduce natural selection will get rid of them. 62.12.14.25 (talk) 07:23, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

See also: articifical selection

Could someone with editing permissions please consider adding a link to artificial selection in the 'see also' section? I think it's a really important contrasting yet related idea. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.189.98.196 (talk) 02:30, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Artificial selection is put in context and linked in the second paragraph of the introduction. --Ettrig (talk) 18:15, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

Incorrect definition

The article starts with the following sentence:

Natural selection is the process by which favorable heritable traits become more common in successive generations of a population of reproducing organisms, and unfavorable heritable traits become less common, due to differential reproduction of genotypes'

This is not natural selection but evolution by means of natural selection. natural selection is a process, and it results in evolution. Needs to be fixed if the article is to maintain it good article status. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 03:54, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Attempt at Reworking

My basic criterion for any wikipedia topic is: could a bright 14 year old with no prior knowledge make sense of the article? To this end, I have rewritten the first two paragraphs of the article in an attempt to make them clear to someone who knows little of biology, while keeping the essential ideas intact. The first sentence is surely the trickiest, and I invite your comments and edits.

The rest of the article is a mess. There is a lot of information, but it lacks a coherent structure or argument, proceeding from basic principles to more detailed critiques. For example, the very first section is a discussion of the genotype/phenotype distinction, which, while important, is not the central idea (the principles of natural selection can be explained without this, so genotype/phenotype can come later.) I also believe that examples are very badly needed; the current article says almost nothing about the evidence that leads us to believe that natural selection is occurring. This makes it abstract, unconvincing, and hard for the newcomer to grasp. Natural selection, as one of the key ideas behind evolution, is an important topic that deserves a top-quality article. I invite all editors to take a stab at major rearrangement. I know I will.

Remember, the article has to do a good job explaining natural selection to a reader who knows nothing at all about biology, genetics, or evolution -- if they knew what these things were, they would probably already know what natural selection is. We can certainly work up to the nuances, but we have to start very simple.

--Jonathan Stray (talk) 19:00, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

First of all, the intro describes Evolution by means of Natural selection, not natural selection itself. Natural selection is a mechanism, and doesn't care about the result. Evolution is the change in gene frequencies, resulting from NS or gene flow or drift. The article was a long battle bewteen people at the time, maybe it is now time to actually start working on it and make it good. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 19:24, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

In theory I agree with some of the points you make, however by simplification you have also lost a lot of information and what you've really done is mostly just cut large sections out instead of trying to simplify the concepts therein. This is after all one of the functions of the wikilinks interspersed throughout. I much prefer the more complicated version (even if it could be simplified to some extent). I believe a reader should be challenged when encountering something they don't know much about. --Woland (talk) 19:27, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

A good article build up from simple to more complex. That is not a problem. But we first have to fix the scope of the article. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 20:02, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

Actually, if you check the diffs you will see that I didn't delete very much at all from the intro, mostly just reformatted. Certainly there was nothing in the old intro that is not still present elsewhere in the article. I have also now reworked the sections and I took a stab at a new "General Principles" description, something which was entirely lacking in the previous version. Again, I think we have to assume that the reader has no genetics or biology knowledge coming into this, which means that the modern genetic basis is a bad place to start -- remember that Darwin did it without any genetics at all. If the untrained reader cannot get the basic intuition behind NS in the first two paragraphs, I think we have failed.

Also, responding to your criticism Kim, I have taken pains to note that NS is not evolution, merely one of several mechanisms -- though I think it's fair to say it's a pretty key mechanism, yes? --Jonathan Stray (talk) 21:20, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

Definition challenge

Ok, years ago, when I made this article a good article, we kind of skirted some issues. At the time, we had an editor who insisted that everything had to be as Darwin was using it. We progressed since he started this excellent idea. Anyway, there are a few issues with the article, and I am regularly tempted to delist it as a good article because of the issues with it. Here is the Gordian knot to solve:

1. Evolution is a change in gene frequency.
2. Natural selection is not the same as evolution.
3. Natural selection is a process that acts on which biological unit is fittest.
4. For NS to occur, a trait does not have to be heritable.
5. NS acts on the phenotypes, favourable traits.
6. Natural selection can act in any biological unit, individuals, cells, genes, species, etc.

Very abstract, NS is a mechanism in which a natural agent favours those types of biological units that are better capable in making copies of themselves than others, independent from whether those traits do have a heritable component. have fun. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 03:58, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

Kim, other than noting the units were better capable how did you measure their favorability?—Preceding unsigned comment added by 41.17.159.77 (talk • contribs) 13:27, 15 August 2009

Hi Kim, I think I agree with all of the points above. Where do you see the Gordian knot? I think traditionally the real challenge has been to define "fitness" without getting circular, and also to be clear that individuals do not "adapt" but rather "are adapted for." I am not sure but I have a hunch that these problems can be solved at least in part by explaining something about ecology (what a niche is, how ecosystems tend towards osme kind of local homeostasis but, because of a variety of reasons, are in fact dynamic). Slrubenstein | Talk 18:41, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

I believe that all of these points are in the article currently, Kim. 1 and 2 are in the intro, 3 is in the "fitness" sub-section, 4 and 5 are in "Nomenclature and usage", and 6 is in "Types of selection". So all of this is addressed in the introduction and the first section. I agree that the introductory sentence talks exclusively about natural selection of heritable traits in a population of organisms and that this is far from the whole story, however I would think that this "classic" definition and is the most important idea to get across quickly because of its connection with evolution. Again, I am assuming that the target audience knows nothing of biology, evolution, or genetics -- I like to imagine a retired grandparent checking wikipedia when trying to decide whether to vote to support the teaching of evolution in their local school system. Perhaps the "Natural Selection and Evolution" section is the place to gather your points explicitly. It could surely use a rewrite. --Jonathan Stray (talk) 22:22, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

Misconception:

The term “missing link” was coined by creationists in order to undermine evolution. The term generally points out missing transitional species or intermediary life forms. This, however, is a false generalization as all life forms according to natural selection, are in transition. Therefore, a "transitional form" is a human construct of a selected form that vividly represents a particular evolutionary stage, as recognized in hindsight. The term is inaccurate in its depiction of evolution as a chain when in fact it is more like numerous branches continuously growing, evolving.

Another misconception of natural selection is the assumption that one modern species can “turn into” another modern species. For example, a horse cannot turn into a dolphin and a chimpanzee will not evolve into a human. These are modern species with no relevance to each other except that we all have common ancestors. The span of evolutionary development is millions of years. Therefore we can only witness gradual changes in traits within our lifetimes. The domestication of dogs is a prime example of how humans over just a thousand years or so have managed to combine dog breeds to make their own categories. Not enough maybe to generate a new species but breeds have their unique characteristics.

The general misconception of natural selection arises due to conflict between religious notions of human existence. The evolution fact is a part of our everyday lives. We constantly take flu shots and vaccines for evolving viruses and we use various pesticides for constantly changing weeds. Astonishingly enough, chimps have around 98% identical genetic make up to humans, a clear indication of our common ancestor.

Overall, the discovery of Ida is a triumph of human intellect. The fact that we as a species can find evidence of our primitive ancestors is fascinating. Natural Selection is just as true a science as nuclear physics. It is not a theory but a fact backed by thousands of available fossil records. Science is a perspective based on facts and constant revisiting of those facts. The beauty of science is that it is not absolute, but like us, it is continuously evolving. Trying to understand the origins of our species is the first step towards our wisdom. The struggle between truth and belief may not have been resolved. And constant demonization of science may not have subsided. What is evident, however, is that as time goes on, our knowledge is accumulating. To hinder its process would be criminal to our intellectual progress as a species. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Akchishti (talk • contribs) 11:58, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

GA Reassessment

This discussion is transcluded from Talk:Natural selection/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the reassessment.

GA review – see WP:WIAGA for criteria

---

This review is part of Wikipedia:WikiProject Good articles/Project quality task force/Sweeps, a project devoted to re-reviewing Good Articles listed before August 26, 2007.

1. Is it reasonably well written?

   A. Prose quality:

   B. MoS compliance:

   There was a massive amount of overlinking, and I have attempted to fix this. However, links are not part of the GA criteria, so this is a non-issue. All GA-relevant MOS criteria have been met.

2. Is it factually accurate and verifiable?

   A. References to sources:

   B. Citation of reliable sources where necessary:

   There are large gaps between citations. Whole paragraphs and even sections are lacking citations. This is not acceptable, even for a "good article". And yes I am familiar with the citation requirements for scientific articles, however, this article presents a large quantity of information which should be cited.

   C. No original research:

3. Is it broad in its coverage?

   A. Major aspects:

   B. Focused:

4. Is it neutral?

   Fair representation without bias:

5. Is it stable?

   No edit wars, etc:

6. Does it contain images to illustrate the topic?

   A. Images are copyright tagged, and non-free images have fair use rationales:

   B. Images are provided where possible and appropriate, with suitable captions:

7. Overall:

   Pass or Fail:

   Article will be placed on hold until issues can be addressed. If an editor does not express interest in addressing these issues within seven days, the article will be delisted. --ErgoSum•talk•trib 04:15, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

As one of the main authors several years back, it is my opinion that this article does not meet the good article criteria anymore, because of weasel words, incorrect definitions, etc. And as I am not active anymore at wikipedia, I suggest delising the article. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 05:27, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

Article has been delisted after seven day hold. --ErgoSum•talk•trib 13:31, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

Darwin defined natural selection only once

"...I have called this principle, by which each slight variation, if useful, is preserved, by the term natural selection, in order to mark its relation to man's power of selection. But the expression often used by Mr. Herbert Spencer, of the Survival of the Fittest, is more accurate ...." How did Darwin measure the variations usefulness other than noting they were preserved? See http://scratchpad.wikia.com/wiki/TauTology for the concept of a tautology.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 41.18.108.106 (talk • contribs) 23:50, 14 August 2009

See the article which covers this point suitably briefly, and see also the important notice at the top of this talk page. . dave souza, talk 07:27, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

Peppered Moth

Isn't the peppered moth criticized, and a bad example but an example of bad science, as explained in Of Moths and Men: An Evolutionary Tale? Faro0485 (talk) 22:33, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

Creationists claim it is a bad example, but when you look at the real story, it is not. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 04:15, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

See peppered moth evolution as an excellent example of evolution in action, and a telling example of bad journalism, poor quality investigative writing in Of Moths and Men: An Evolutionary Tale, and disgraceful lies by intelligent design creationists. . . dave souza, talk 07:01, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

Dec 2008 to Dec2007 revision of natural selection on Wikipedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Natural_selection&oldid=259585753 "....Natural selection is the process by which favorable heritable traits become more common in successive generations of a population of reproducing organisms, and unfavorable heritable traits become less common, due to differential reproduction of genotypes...."

Present revision

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_selection Sept 2009 "...Natural selection is the process by which heritable traits that make it more likely for an organism to survive and successfully reproduce become more common in a population over successive generations. It is a key mechanism of evolution...."

Neither of these revisions cite any pages in Darwin's OoS , who wrote these paragraphs ? The 2008 one had "Genes", which Darwin and Aristotle didn't know about so whatever this author was talking about it had nothing to do with Darwin and Aristotle. Why was genes removed in the 2009 revision, it is like imagine somebody removes the word "Newton" in a revision of the gravity article. Any theory must explain genes as a cybernetic abstraction. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 41.112.194.120 (talk • contribs) 09:45, 24 September 2009

The article describes what "natural selection" means now (with some history), so the lead does not need to use original terminology. Natural selection works regardless of the underlying processes, so it is reasonable that genes are not mentioned in the lead. Johnuniq (talk) 11:28, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

The article described Evolution by one specific way. It almost completely fails to actually deal with natural selection. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 14:50, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

Who decided what the concept is with Natural Selection today? What is a natural selection. See http://scratchpad.wikia.com/wiki/TauTology for my notes on the issue. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 41.112.130.91 (talk) 19:37, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

Natural selection affects humans

An interesting paper detailing the effects of natural selection on contemporary human populations can be found at doi:10.1073/pnas.0906199106. I can't work out where in the maze of evolutionary articles it would be most appropriate to add this information. 69.172.70.187 (talk) 13:45, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

I dare to say this is not bound to living organisms

Any self-replicating mechanism may inherit the traits of natural selection and in extension evolution if it adheres to the simple and basic principle of self-replicating a population which will be inevitably in competition with itself or/and the environment. This may sound like original research - though granted a brilliant one I might say - but it is really not. The latest book of Richard Dawkins gives a great hint to it, even though it doesn't actually spell it: Since living organisms are in a certain frame of thought DNA replicators, it can be derived that all living organisms are self-replicating DNA propagators. This has nothing to do with the actual traits of life and it can clearly theoretically be attributed to anything that is self-replicating, forming groups, competing with each other or the environment. i.e. create a sufficiently competent self-replicating robot that has the characteristic of being slightly modified by chance, and it will clearly be following natural selection rules. --94.71.94.131 (talk) 23:45, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

Indeed, several papers are found by a single google search on 'robots' and 'natural selection'. This should be included. --94.71.94.131 (talk) 23:49, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

Dr. Georgia Purdom

"Dr. Georgia Purdom holds a Ph.D. in molecular genetics Ohio State University; RS)"[2] ..... "Did T-Rex Taste Like Chicken?" . . . . dave souza, talk 00:25, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

Four causes article: is modern science teleological or does it at least attempt the opposite?

There is discussion at Four causes relevant to this article. It is being claimed that "Most modern theories of evolution are unabashedly teleological", and it is being argued that the article should remove references to modern science not being teleological and say the opposite. Comments please.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 09:07, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

I am not getting the argument. Evolution is NOT teleological. Teloelogical causes are only needed if you want top introduce a higher power in the story. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 04:38, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

Misusing of refs

Jagged 85 (talk · contribs) is one of the main contributors to Wikipedia (over 67,000 edits; he's ranked 198 in the number of edits), and practically all of his edits have to do with Islamic science, technology and philosophy. This editor has persistently misused sources here over several years. This editor's contributions are always well provided with citations, but examination of these sources often reveals either a blatant misrepresentation of those sources or a selective interpretation, going beyond any reasonable interpretation of the authors' intent. Please see: Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Jagged 85. The damage is so extensive that it is undermining Wikipedia's credibility as a source. I searched the page history, and found 12 edits by Jagged 85 (for example, see this edits). Tobby72 (talk) 14:52, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

From Jagged 85's edits, the information that needs to be checked is the following text that is currently in the Pre-Darwinian theories section:

The struggle for existence was later described by Al-Jahiz, who argued that environmental factors influence animals to develop new characteristics to ensure survival. Abu Rayhan Biruni described the idea of artificial selection and argued that nature works in much the same way. Similar ideas were later expressed by Nasir al-Din Tusi and Ibn Khaldun.

The above was added by the problem user and has been slightly edited.

Such classical arguments were reintroduced in the 18th century by Pierre Louis Maupertuis and others, including Charles Darwin's grandfather Erasmus Darwin.

The above sentence was in the original.

While these forerunners had an influence on Darwinism, they later had little influence on the trajectory of evolutionary thought after Charles Darwin.

The above sentence was originally: "However, these forerunners had little influence on the trajectory of evolutionary thought after Charles Darwin." – that is, the original did not claim that the forerunners "had an influence on Darwinism".

I have seen the discussion of this editor's work, and there is wide consensus that enormous misrepresentations of sources have occurred, so this text needs to be confirmed. Johnuniq (talk) 05:23, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

Tobby, this article is inaccurate in so many ways, it was good it was delisted as a GA. Unfortunately, it is sheer impossible to fix this article because of turf-wars, otherwise I would take a stab at it. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 12:39, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

Just to say that I have finally found a good source on al-Jahiz's views on 'evolution' and I will be removing most of the claims about his views, on this and other pages. The source in question is a French PhD thesis, supervised by Ch. Pellat (one of the leading authorities on al-Jahiz):

• Bel-Haj Mahmoud, Nefti (1977). "Le Transformisme". La Psychologie des animaux chez les Arabes, notamment à travers le Kitāb al-Ḥayawān de Djāḥiẓ. Études Arabes et Islamiques, Série 3: Études et Documents (in French). Paris: Librarie Klincksieck. pp. 43–77.

I'll probably be doing the same soon for similar claims about people such as Miskawayh and Ibn Khaldun, all of whom are (or are reporting the views of) neoplatonists, who plainly cannot be evolutionists.

All the best. –Syncategoremata (talk) 23:26, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

Difficult opening sentence

In the opening paragraph of the article, the second sentence is rather hard to follow:

"This selection in interaction with the production of variation, the possible genetic fixation process and possibly, in several cases, with little epigenetic process determine the evolution of the species."

I would edit this, but I'm not sure what it's trying to say. Could someone familiar with the article please revisit this sentence? Thanks. - David McCabe (talk) 06:53, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

Agreed - I came in here to make that very point.163.156.240.17 (talk) 08:50, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

More examples of natural selection

There seems to be only one main example of natural selection at this point in time. Perhaps more can be added? Or is there a main article on them? ANGCHENRUI ^Talk♨ 06:54, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

There should be more, I agree.Liquidpappe (talk) 06:34, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

Adam Smith?

I see the assertion that Darwin was influenced by Adam Smith's "invisible hand" has been in the article for some time. Is there any evidence that he was influenced by him?

He's not mentioned in Origin or any of the Darwin biographies, unlike Malthus. There is one footnote about Smith in Descent of Man but that is about morals not markets. Googling gets quite a few wishes that he has, but that is rather different. Chris55 (talk) 00:30, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

differential reproduction?

Should this not be differential reproductive success? What else is differential reproduction supposed to mean? --FreezBee (talk) 14:27, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

WP:BRD for informed context in lede?

The second of two recent edits[3], and its immediate deletion, may variously indicate an apparent lack of AGF, an incomplete understanding of the wider subject, or a non-neutral consensual POV that is opposed to its inclusion because of the recentness of evo-devo genesis, typified by its 'Evolutionary biology' infobox. The latter mention is really only a matter of balancing WEIGHT and history of the subject more neutrally. The edit summary deleting this other-science and more historical context-content, noted "good stuff but is unsourced and fails WP:LEAD"; I will note, that it is sourced on the page, but so unweighted/buried within it that a proper understanding of the subject is not really possible for the reader. It might well not go in the lede, but re-recognition of it and its proper weighting may provide and avenue to re-attain the article's GA status.

Its import most immediately occurs in #Pre-Darwinian theories: However, the theory of uniformitarianism in geology promoted the idea that simple, weak forces could act continuously over long periods of time to produce radical changes in the Earth's landscape. The success of this theory raised awareness of the vast scale of geological time and made plausible the idea that tiny, virtually imperceptible changes in successive generations could produce consequences on the scale of differences between species. This seems quite notable, because it changed the context of the argument. Just below that, Lamarck is noted as an 'evolutionist' but is best termed a naturalist as were other notables of the time, including James Hutton, Cuvier, and Whewell, all of whom did much early work, but are not on this page. It seems, with the acceptance of deep time, the evo-devo view has lost some deep roots.

Geology/paleontology importance is evident every time the word 'environment' is used, some 20 times; these uses are legitimately both paleo and current, but in this overly evo-devo view, most mentions are written in the present tense, while most examples are geol/paleo. Take two early uses in natural selection the environment acts as a sieve through which only certain variations can pass. or In this way the natural environment of an organism "selects" for traits..., they are still true when 'acted' and 'selected.

Another notable example of this missing paleo/historic context occurs in the Modern evolutionary synthesis link, particularly its summary, which off page, "bridged the gap between experimental geneticists and naturalists, and between palaeontologists....All evolutionary phenomena can be explained in a way consistent with known genetic mechanisms and the observational evidence of naturalists..." this seems similarly notable, but missing here. I could go on, but won't, it is too off-topic, technical and esoteric; I only got here on a dog-leg from elsewhere. I will however leave you with a relevant reference of my view for your use; it seems to help the necessary re-balancing that the current article's evo-devo POV seems to have forgotten. From this, originally found at paleontologyby the way, I have crafted the following workable prose for use in biology; this is biology. Use it as you may somewhere near, but before Darwin's work. Biology is one of the historical sciences, (originally termed 'palaeotiological sciences' by Whewell) along with paleontology, geology, astronomy, cosmology describing the natural world, and archaeology, anthropology, philology and history describing the human side.
Reference

Regards, CasualObserver'48 (talk) 15:37, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

My edit summary was clear in that I was asserting (perhaps mistakenly) that the new material in the lead was unsourced and did not comply with WP:LEAD since the lead is a summary of the article, and should not introduce new material. I'm sorry but your comments above are a little long for me to quickly determine whether you are saying those points are not applicable. You did say the information is already sourced, but where?

Your original edit changed the lead from "It is a key mechanism of evolution" to:

It is a key mechanism for evolution of life on Earth and its outcomes over time. Nonetheless natural selection always operates subject to other events and selections made outside biology, causing either long-term gradual changes or less-frequent rapid changes of those conditions on the planet itself. In Geology and Paleontology, these processes of change are broadly and respectively termed uniformitarianism and catastrophism, with the former providing gradual impetus for evolutionary development and the latter mandating immediate acceptance of it, at times in a cataclysm; these force changes on existing life and natural selection adapts to them.

If no one else comments, perhaps you should make your edit again (which I would not change) as that will determine what others think. Johnuniq (talk) 05:14, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

re the introduction

If you want to use the Biston betularia case in the intro, suitable refs can be found in Polymorphism (biology)#Peppered moth. Macdonald-ross (talk) 05:59, 11 April 2011 (UTC)