Talk:On the Origin of Species

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Should these be put in subcategories, as:

The Origin of Species/Chapter 1
The Origin of Species/Chapter 2
etc.?

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"although it is very wordy - a good general level of intelligence is a prerequisite for comprehending the arguments and subtle nuances put forth by Darwin"

What's a "good general level of intelligence"? I don't think there is common agreement on this point, and to the degree that there is, it's a rather pretentious statement anyway, sort of like saying "an iq of 120 is probably required to enjoy this book". Unless there are objections, I will remove this parenthesis. Vintermann

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Implementing as I type ... jmlynch

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Wow, this is fantastic.  :-) I would recommend that we go through later and put some introductory context remark at the front of each chapter. Perhaps some language like this:

"What follows is the full text of Charles Darwin's famous work The Origin of Species. You may want to also start with our main index page for evolution."

That way, when people accidentally surf in from search engines that index this stuff, they will be able to find what they might be looking for.

I'm somewhat iffy on the idea of including the entire raw text of this book in an encyclopedia at all. It's already available in the public domain from many different sources, including project gutenberg; why not just provide an external link there? I know that Wikipedia is not paper, but still, including entire unannotated sources is a bit much. What benefit does it add?

I, for one, find no useful purpose for including this. There are other web sites that are more suited to the publication of electronic texts. If the purpose be to provide ammunition for the opponents of Creationism, there have certainly been many more recent works that have incorporated scientific advances since Darwin's time that would accomplish this goal more effectively. Furthermore Victorian prose style does not make it an easily readable book. Also, it is a very common and easily found book. If electronic storage is going to be used at all for whole books there should be an emphasis on books that are rare and hard to find.

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This debate has happened elsewhere on Wikipedia. Some people like primary sources as part of Wikipedia proper, some don't (I don't, for technical reasons). Anyway, please examine the debate there --User:Robert Merkel

It has indeed, and in every case the conclusion of the debate has been that there's no point to dumping the raw text of public-domain source material like this. Not only is it available elsewhere, and not appropriate content for an encyclopedia, but here on Wikipedia the source material can be changed, which is very not good from a scholarly perspective. So, as I have done elsewhere, I'll be bold and delete all this stuff later today if nobody's come up with a compelling argument for me leaving it in here. Bryan Derksen, Saturday, April 13, 2002

• I for one agree with deleting it. It's found at numerous stable places on the Net, including Project Gutenberg and the talk.origins pages. I've seen it, ah, creatively taken out of context enough time to have a real concern about people editing the original teext if it's placed on a Wiki, and others being mislead thereby. -- April, Saturday, April 13, 2002

Since the articles can always be reverted if anyone comes up with a signficant objection, I think I'l get to work deleting them now. Bryan Derksen

Congratulations for doing this! Eclecticology

Hey, here's an idea. The Origin of Species/Glossary might actually be useful as a source of material for other articles in Wikipedia, though it's admittedly more dictionary than encyclopedia class material. I'm leaving it intact for the moment to take a closer look later on. Bryan Derksen

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"Origin of Species" (without an initial "the") was a redundant article, which I've replaced with a redirect here. The other article was very brief, but there are two bits of information that might be worth integrating here:

• "was first published in November of 1859."
• "It was the culmination of over two decades of work"

-- Ryguasu

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"It is often mocked by modern day specialists as being incredibly pompous in tone despite it's informative nature. As such, it is often lampooned both in literature and in pop culture." -- I don't think this is true, as written.

The text is often looked down upon by modern day scientists as being very condescending and pompous, despite it's usefullness and reader-friendly nature. As such, it is regularly the subject of mockery in pop culture, in both text and film. An example of this is the film Party Girl.

I dislike the theory of evolution and think Darwin was a dud, but criticism expressed in the Wikipedia must be up to standard. So I moved 1/2 the Party Girl thing to another article. --Ed Poor

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I don't doubt that some people find 19th century writing unapproachable, but surely this fact should not take up a third of what an encyclopedia article has to say about The Origin of Species? Accordingly, I've moved this bit back to talk. (also, it's its, usefulness, The, food-oriented, etc.)

"The text is often looked down upon by modern day scientists as being very condescending and pompous, despite it's usefullness and reader-friendly nature. As such, it is regularly the subject of mockery in pop culture, in both text and film. An example of this is the film "Party Girl" in which a library clerk is approached by a woman who simply says, with a lisp, "Orrngses n' spches." Ther puzzled clerk replies, "Oranges and Peaches? Well, you can try the food=oriented periodicals, but sometimes they're a little holier-than-thou.""

Someone else 21:44 Oct 8, 2002 (UTC)

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Moved EasterBradford's comments, and my reply, here from my user page:

I do not appreciate your removal of my totally relevant commentary in "The Origin of Species" entry. What I added was a direct quote from an actual movie along with factual information regarding how many esteemed scientists look upon the text; you removed it with a comment that it was a "crap joke." I am re-adding it, and if you remove it again I will have to take it up with the admins. -Easter Bradford-

I have added pop culture reference as to the current scientific viewing of this text as very pompous and holier-than-thou, and quoted a very popular film as reference. It has been deleted once, and I am adding it again. I request it not be deleted again without proper justification. - Easter Bradford-

Go on, then, give me a cite of these esteemed scientists' views. I'm interested to hear from you.

The film quote does not appear to be relevant, as it does not appear to mock the Origin of Species: it makes a joke about mis-hearing things. The Anome 21:41 Oct 8, 2002 (UTC)

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From the article:

The text is often put down upon as condescending and pompous, despite its usefulness and reader-friendly nature; it is often the subject of mockery in pop culture, in both text and film. An example of this is the film Party Girl.

1. The Party Girl quote, as written, does not appear to support this
2. This is contrary to my understanding
3. No evidence is offered to support this assertion.
4. Cites, please, to support this?
5. Otherwise, in my opinion, this comment should be deleted.
6. Still, at least we've started a Party Girl article...

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I'm an admin, what's the trouble? Some want the Party Girl thing here, some say keep it all in the Party Girl article. C'mon, let's hear some proposals. --Ed Poor

Hey, I don't care if the joke is in or out -- although I like jokes. Let's just find the right place for it.

And if Origin of Species needs criticism, for stodgy writing style or faulty scientific reasoning, let's go ahead and start filling out the article.

How important is one mumbled reference of a book title, anyway? --Ed Poor

I've never heard of the film in question, nor can I think of any other instances of popular culture mocking Darwin's writing style, much less "esteemed scientists". If it seems relevant to the Party Girl article, say for an example of the tone of the work, fine leave it there. But it seems rather vague and pointless here. --Brion 22:24 Oct 8, 2002 (UTC)

I have never heard anyone put the text down for being condescending and pompous (although I have heard some mock Darwin's apparent fondness for pigeons) -- indeed, I think few have read it, although I would not blame that on its style. The Party Girl example does not in any way suggest that the text is condescending or pompous. The comment is irrelevant and unsupported and I am taking it out. Slrubenstein

Agreed. The joke's fine. Let's keep the joke in the film article, and put modern-day criticisms of the book in the Origin of Species article. However, I'm unconvinced by some of the claims made -- and using the film's joke to support them appeared to be a non sequitur. The Anome 22:28 Oct 8, 2002 (UTC)

I agree with you Brion, Slrubenstein and the Anome. The reason I did put the comment back, is that Brion's edit note when he removed the comment did not support the comment's removal in my eyes. The above arguments are better. FvdP 22:37 Oct 8, 2002 (UTC)

Wasn't me, though I would have happily removed it had I seen it there. --Brion 22:45 Oct 8, 2002 (UTC)

Sorry, it was Someone else. For some reason that nickname fails to produce a lasting imprint in my brain ;-) FvdP 22:49 Oct 8, 2002 (UTC)

Looks like the disputed passage is going to stay out, unless:

• We find an example of modern day scientists "looking down upon" Origin of Species as condescending or pompous, or
• We find evidence that it's "regularly the subject of mockery in pop culture"

Apparently the oranges & peaches thing wasn't convincing enough by itself. How about a text reference? --Ed Poor

A slight error of Darwin in the book (at least the first edition)

(Sorry I forgot to register; my ID is François-Dominique on the French Wikipedia. I am not that sure of the quality of my English, so I would be grateful to any native english speaker to correct it if needed, and copy that part in the main topic, if she of he feels it wothwhile; this point is already described ad such in the French wikipedia, if anybody wants to take a look)

Though a common thought is that Lamarck believed in the inheritance of acquired characteristics while Darwin did not, the careful reading of the book's first edition shows that the reality is not exactly that simple. Darwin writes :

"It may be doubted whether any one would have thought of training a dog to point, bad not some one dog naturally shown a tendency in this line; and this is known occasionally to happen, as I once saw in a pure terrier. When the first tendency was once displayed, methodical selection and the inherited effects of compulsory training in each successive generation would soon complete the work" (the emphasis is ours, not Darwin's).

This belief in "the inherited effects (...) of compulsory training" appears like a slight error today (probably due to the youth of the theory) compared to the insight of the rest of the book. However, this shows that the popular characterization of Lamarck's and Darwin's positions at that time is not that exact, a fact that was honestly signalled by Stephen Jay Gould.

I think what you wrote was too long, and pardon me, but I am suspicious of your motivation. I believe that there is a statue somewhere to Lamarck crediting him with the "theory of evolution"; and the French were notoriously slow in taking up Darwinism and rejecting Lamarckism, even up to the 1960s, and I don't want this to be a bit of patriotism that has gone awry and made it POV. (I'll try that in French for a bit of practice):

Je crois que votre contribution est trop long, et (pardon, mais) je suis soupçonneux de votre motivation est patriotisme pour Lamarck. Dunc_Harris|☺ 13:11, 21 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I can understand that, but there is probably no need to, for the three following reasons : 1) As A.S.Neill once said "As long as my work is useful, my motivations do not matter" (or, as Deng Xiaping stated it : "It doesn't matter whether a cat is black or white, as long as it catches mice." 2) Nobody believes in Lamarck's theory today, not only in France, but in the whole Europe as fas as I know, so nobody would defend Lamarck. But defending historical precision as far as epistemology is concerned is quite another story ;o) 3) As incredible as it might perhaps seem in some American states, there is no such thing as contestation of Darwin's theory here in Europe (except by some marginal muslim immigrants), so in fact we do not have any raison d'Etat taboo about him and can criticize him freely without any fear to be identified as a Bible belt fan. In fact, as fact as catholics are concerned, the Vatican itself has admitted quite a time ago that natural evolution was "more than an hypothesis", hence the quotes. But of course, I understand the fact that Darwin was European may be seen as a case of European chauvinism ;o) Cheers ! François-Dominique 20:50, 23 Jul 2004 (UTC) (By the way, while Victor Hugo, who was not a scientist, never accepted Darwin's theory, Ernest Renan, who was one (and in the College de France) and lived at the same time accepted it and promoted it without any delay. Just my two cents. :o)

immediately?

"immediately sold out its initial print run" -- that would imply that it sold out the day it was published. is that so? Kingturtle 17:29, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)

"The entire first edition of The Origin of Species was sold out on its publication day, 24 November 1859. A second edition was ready by January 1860, and the book went through a total of six editions during Darwin's lifetime." - intro to Leakey's abridged and illustrated Origin of Species. The article needs more about the editions, esp. changes between 1 and 6, which I'm a bit tied up to do just yet...dave souza 07:02, 26 Nov 2004 (UTC)

According to the biography by Clark, "Legend maintains that all 1,250 copies were sold on the day of publication; in fact, they were all taken up by booksellers, an indication of the controversy the book was to arouse, but not quite the same thing."--Johnstone 02:38, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Supported by Desmond & Moore, who note the !st edition was "oversubscribed". Impressive re-editing of the whole article, many thanks..dave souza 19:04, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for independently confirming the statement, and for the compliment.--Johnstone 01:02, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)

A small addition

In the last line of the second box after the article, there is a list of Darwin's eponyms; there are a couple missing, minor but very significant: 1. the farthest west, one of the smallest and the most isolated island on the Galapagos Archipelago is Darwin. 2. the biological research station at the Galapagos National Park is Darwin Research Station. The box cannot be edited from the page, how is it done? Lcgarcia 07:00, 25 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Removed statements about Wallace and "first organism"

I have removed the following:

"It is important to remember that Darwin's version of natural selection was different from that presented by Wallace, in that Darwin held that natural selection was continuously operating whereas Wallace argued that selection only occurred when the environment changed."

This statement appears to be wrong. In Wallace's 1858 essay[1], he states that evolution is "...produced by the action of principles constantly at work in nature."

Also removed:

"As an interesting aside, Darwin could be regarded as the first organism in four billion years of life on earth to realise how he had come to exist."

Besides being unencyclopedic and POV, this is also wrong on its own terms: Patrick Matthew has a better claim to the title.--Johnstone 02:25, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)

"populations, and not organisms, gradually evolve"

Organisms do not evolve according to Darwin. It is populations that evolve.

• Well... that's true (and distinguishes a bit the vague notion that "organisms evolve," which could be interpretted in a Lamarckian way), but that sounds to me like a formulation which would be used later (i.e. in the work of Ernst Mayr) than something Darwin would say (Darwin was clearly not a "populations thinker", no matter how much Mayr wanted to interpret him in that light). Hmm. But I can't think of a better way to say it which would be more in accordance with Darwin's own beliefs. He did sometimes talk of "groups" of organisms, but never populations. --Fastfission 7 July 2005 19:48 (UTC)

• I've done countless essays regarding this book and his work, and never does he even use the word "evolve" or "evolution", I recommend a better word be found User:Leethal

Pseudoscientific Evidence

The first section of this article asserts that modern scientific evidence supports Darwinism. This is plainly not the case. Monkeys have totally incompatible DNA to humans - you cannot copulate with a monkey and expect to create fertile offspring. This article is plagued with anti-creationist POV. It must be changed to highlight both sides of the argument.

I am not a religious zealot, and I do agree with certain aspects of Darwinism. But the point is that scientific evidence does NOT prove it, so this article shouldn't be written as such. Darwinism is a just a theory (albeit a very sketchy one), not proven fact. When I tried to edit this page to make it have a more balanced view, my modification was unjustly denied. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Rennie84 (talk • contribs) .

I'll try to make this as straightforward as I can:

1. Mainstream biologists have yet to come across serious evidence which they think has gone against the general concept of Darwinism in its modern form (modern evolutionary synthesis), though there is of course debate over exact mechanisms.
2. The fact that apes (not monkeys) and humans are not the same species is not evidence against Darwinism, which does not claim that they do.
3. The article is about a particular book, and links very prominently to pages about the Creationist-Evolution controversy.
4. Nobody claims scientific evidence "proves" any scientific theory. Scientific theories are supported by the lack of dis-proving evidence. There is of yet no scientific evidence supported by the scientific community which disproves the modern form of Darwinism.
5. "Just a theory" reflects a lack of understanding over the meaning of a scientific theory. You might want to look at our page on theory if you plan on being taken seriously.
6. Your edits were reverted because they do not reflect attention to our NPOV policy. Modern biological evidence does not disprove Darwinism according to all mainstream biologists, and only someone with a complete lack of knowledge about the theory would think that the fact that DNA between species is incompatible for reproduction disproves Darwinism. In fact it is the definition of speciation, and was known even to Darwin in his day as such (albeit without reference to DNA, of course).

In short, your edits and comments here reflect either an accidental or purposeful lack of knowledge of modern biology, rudimentary philosophy of science, and a lack of understanding over what Darwin's theory actually was, much less its modern formulations. Hence your edits were reverted. If you'd like recommendations on how to correct these lacunae, I'm happy to recommend a few articles on Wikipedia which would put you in a position to make informed edits on this topic. --Fastfission 17:10, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

The original is bias as well:

As one of the opening paragraphs, the debated paragraph has a particularly strong obligation to be non-bias. The original is equally as bias as Rennie's proposed edit. It starts "Although" in support of a Point of view, and proceeds to make an argument that is equally unsupported. For example, what is "in come parts of the world" about? Any why repeat "scientist" as if trying to drive home a point (using negation when a positive statement suffices)?

In specific, Gallop-polls sited in National Geographic (Nov 2004, "Was Darwin Wrong?") note that over the last 20 years opinions have remind consistently divided on the subject. They note 45 percent reject the idea outright. This can not be ignored, even if you are among the 12 percent like me.

I have replaced the sentence with one I feel is less loaded, and hope further edits can improve in the same direction (mine still makes claims I can't support about the scientific community, and assumes the primary motivation for dissent, ignoring others in pursuit of brevity).

-- Cris 18:33, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

Theory or Hypothesis

Just a slightly pedantic point - The Origin of Species is not a scientific theory in that it has not been definitively proven (although its postulations do appear to be accurate). In a truly objective article, this should be edited to hypothesis. (The same is true of physical 'theories' such as Quantum theory and the theory of relativity. Articles to this effect have appeared in such scientific journals as the New Scientist over the past couple of months. Ck lostsword 17:29, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

To be truly pedantic, TOS is not a theory or hypothesis, it's a book. But if you mean Darwin's theory, I would say that it meets the criteria for a theory, not an hypothesis. Can you provide specific references to articles questioning this? Thanks. Guettarda 17:42, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Theories do not need to be (and frankly, are never) definitely proven to meet the definition of "scientific theory". See our article on theory. --Fastfission 19:39, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Very true. :D. Sorry for criticising TOS - I am strongly in support of evolution (having grown up with it, I cannot imagine any other way of thinking about it - I suppose I realise what Darwin was up against!). This is not an attack to the book or theory/hypothesis, merely an alternative way of thinking. When the NS article in question refers to evolution, it uses it as an example of a semi-provable theory (in my terminology), and is actually used as the argument by ID for the use of the word 'theory.' The NS article can be found at [[[2]]]

• "The work presents detailed scientific evidence he had accumulated both on the Voyage of the Beagle in the 1830s and since his return, painstakingly laying out his theory and refuting the doctrine of "Created kinds" underlying the theories of Creation biology which were then widely accepted.

Even for the non-specialist the book was quite readable (as it still is), and it attracted widespread interest. Although the ideas presented in it are supported by overwhelming scientific evidence"

this is not true. remove it. this is a biased opinion. The tone of the article is also biased. It avoids direct confrontation of the evidence, declares the opposition uneducated, and finds solace in name calling. It's not politically correct to question evolution now. To do so risks ridicule and being seen in the eyes of their peers as foolish and uneducated, when previously they were thought to be brilliant. The basic idea is " if you dont believe this, then your dumb and were not talking with you." The theory of evolution is the result of men wanting to rid themselves of what they saw as the bondage of religion, but until Evolution, there was no rational or intelligent alternative. To rid the feeling of guilt and justify their own lusts and desires, they needed something to justify a disbelief in God, because lets face it not believing in God simply because you don't want to doesn't cut it, with evolution one can hide behind the illusion of materialism and naturalism, seemingly rational, is in the embrace of evolution. It is widely accepted today, not so much because of evidence, but as hostory shows, controversy. Controversy is what made it so popular along with tactful use of humorously misleading remarks and name calling of all those who believe in God to be ignorant and uneducated. Closing one's mind off of a possibility doesn't mean the evidence isnt there. You aren't looking for it, therefore you wont find it. If you do find it, you must dismiss it because it doesn't fit into your preception of reality. Evolution can't leave room for free thinking and open mindedness. It is stricter and more dogmatic than religion and is potentially more dangerous if taken more literal. There are many difficulties in Evolution that are bigger problems then evolutionists are willing to admit, because human beings try to avoid anything which causes cognitive dissonance. Following detrimental issues that are a blow to the theory of evolution and are at least worth looking into are the following:

The fossil record: the sudden appearance of complex life forms and lack of transitional forms. The problem of life coming from nonlife the problem of complexity arising out of simplicity without the aid of intelligent intervention the immense amount of information encoded into the DNA The lack of true mutations that are beneficial to an organism's survival The limits to the amount of change possible within a species

Those are just a few. Now let's be real with ourselves, clear you mind of the emotional backlash you would want to throw at me and consider, just for a moment, that maybe you haven't objectively studied this. I mean why believe in a theory, which relies on the universe creating itself from nothing, randomly, a claim that can't be tested or observed, take convienient "accidents" that just so happened to manage to create life which decided that it would evolve, note that the evolving would have to go without the death of the creature doing the evolving (which in the real world it is observed that it's very unlikely if not impossible), and eventually we arrive at todays world where we are still "evolving", is asking us to take a larger leap of blind faith, and that could only happen in specific and perfectly controlled environments, which requires intelligent intervention, but that these states just happened by chance is completely ludicrous. The article should just state what evolution is, what it teaches, and what its core beliefs are. That's it. This is an encyclopedia, not a place for propaganda.

"This is an encyclopedia, not a place for propaganda." Exactly. So why did you write three long paragraphs of propaganda, while only one-eighth of a paragraph is about improving the article? You can remove things yourself, and this article is not about evolution--it's about Darwin's book. --Bowlhover 17:22, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

Darwin a Racist

What are these "favored races" Darwin talks about? Seems pretty racist to me. I tend to dislike acts of racism.

• The "favored races" in the subtitle of Origin of Species have nothing at all to do with the modern terms of human races; they refer taxonomically to a vague conception somewhere inbetween "species" and "varieties". Darwin's views on race are complex, you might look at our article on Descent of Man which is his book which actually discusses human races. --Fastfission 01:00, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

Darwin favoured group selectionism?

The following section from the lead

In it, Darwin makes "one long argument" for his theory that "groups" of organisms, (now called populations) rather than individual organisms, gradually evolve through the process of natural selection—a mechanism effectively introduced to the public at large by the book.

seems to suggest Darwin favoured group selectionism. Is this accurate? From what I remember of the Origin, Darwin always seemed to favour individual organisms as the units of selection. I might be wrong tho... Mikker ^... 10:35, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

• Hmm, yeah, it sounds like the sort of interpretation of Origin that someone like Ernst Mayr would offer (that is, reading him through the lens of the modern synthesis). I'll take a look at Origin again and see whether he really talked about populations at all. --Fastfission 14:00, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

Any more clarity on that section FF? Can I reword it? Mikker ^... 18:41, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

Capitalization Errors

The links under each section that go to main articles (such as history of evolutionary thought) are not capitalized properly. I tried correcting this capitalization, but this caused the link to no longer link to an existing article. I am rather new to this, so if someone could either tell me how to correct this or correct it for me, I would be eternally grateful. Thanks. Makeemlighter 20:08, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

Wallace's modifications

The article currently states: On Wallace's own first edition of The Origin of Species, he crossed out every instance of the phrase "natural selection" and replaced with it Spencer's "survival of the fittest." Since Spencer did not introduce his phrase until 1864, Wallace could not have made this emendation until five years after the book's publication, a delay not hinted at in the current description. --Blainster 21:32, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

Hmm, that's interesting, I hadn't thought of that. I'll try and figure out what edition it was in particular, if I can. I double-checked the picture of Wallace's copy from Janet Browne's book but the caption actually doesn't specify which edition it was; I may have mis-remembered it, but I have to check the text again myself. It would be very interesting to know when he did that to his book. --Fastfission 22:27, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

OK -- Browne's book says that it was Wallace's copy of the 1859 (first) edition. So who knows when he really went through and made the changes, in any case, though obviously clearly after the term had been coined by Spencer. Wallace wrote to Darwin many times that the latter should use "survival of the fittest" instead, and Darwin finally did include it in one of the later editions (fifth?) of Origin. --Fastfission 00:53, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

The article currently states: fifth edition published on 10 February 1869 incorporated more changes again, and for the first time included Herbert Spencer's phrase "survival of the fittest". ..dave souza, talk 07:09, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

Public Reaction

Should we not put someting to the effect that the Darwins theories were widely accepted by 1900 among the general public and the church. Although ther was indeed controversy at the time I think the work was well established as the orthodoxy in 1900. The controversy may be overemphasised in the light of some recent moves in America from a minority seeking to resurrect the 'young earth' theory, and who get attention due to their sheer lunacy of argument.

• Darwin's theories, per se, were not widely accepted either by the general public or the church. Evolution in general was accepted by many of the "general public" depending on which "general public" you are talking about (it has most likely not been accepted widely by the general American public at any given time, though I'm not sure there is data on that), but Darwinian evolution was actually in a very low ebb in 1900 which it would not come out of until the 1930s. --Fastfission 23:13, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

Good Article nomination has failed

The Good article nomination for On the Origin of Species has failed for the following reason:

This article needs a lot more sources. There are few, if any, in-line sources. Most sections, especially the historical ones really need to be cited. Use the <ref> </ref> tags.

I will nominate this article as an uncited good article because I think that it is well written and informative.

--The Talking Sock talk contribs 15:47, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Opinion / NPOV / Bias

Fastsission & Dave, I appreciate the discussions regarding the contributions to The Origin of Species. Fastfission, you stated that my efforts to present statements with a more neutral point of view would be “a waste of my time”. Well, after reading all the past discussions, posts, edits, & reverts on this subject, I have concluded that you are absolutley correct. Your extreme bias in this subject makes it a waste of time to discuss. It also makes it a waste of time to attempt to improve the article when neither of you are interested in NPOV.

It appears that you both have an agenda to promote this theory as scientific law. It also appears that allowing biased comments are fine as long as they agree with your opinion. Thanks for your time. I will no longer attempt to contribute to this subject. Erich, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

There isn't anything on there that tries to promote it to "law". You are likely dealing with an incorrect definition of "theory" of the sort that Creationists like to abuse. See our article on theory for a full explanation. In any case, the "waste of time" comment, as I said before, is purely from a practical standpoint. Creationist POV-pushers just never really seem to accomplish much on here, and I figured I could save you a little bit of wasted effort. If you consider my approach to this—to adhere to NPOV policy correctly and not misrepresent things—to be "extreme bias", then you wouldn't have gotten very far on Wikipedia anyway. Again, I thoroughly presented you with the options by which you could pursue any legitimate NPOV complaints, which you seem to have not pursued, favoring instead a little edit war. Your choice. --Fastfission 18:38, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Fastfission, I do understand the scientific definition of theory. Don't get me wrong, evolution is a good theory. However, it is a flawed theory and therefore can/will never be proven. As far as NPOV; the paragraph in question would be changed immediately if it were in some other (non-controversial) subject. The current wording is an obvious attempt to promote a specific opinion. I do thank you for presenting some options. However, as I said, after reading all the discussion on this subject, it does seem like a waste of time. Finally, you chose to participate in the "edit war". Couldn't you "talked" about it instead of reverting the edit? BTW, I have appreciated your pleasant attitude during our correspondence. Thank you,--Erich168 19:19, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

When multiple editors have reverted the same or similar addition the burden of proof rests with the person trying to make the comment to prove their point more than anything else, especially in regards to controversial changes to controversial articles (as anything evolution-related easily qualifies for). In any case you have not made a point at all for what you consider to be biased about it, only that you think the wording is an "attempt to promote a specific opinion." That in and of itself is not a POV problem. You'll have to be more specific: what opinion do you object to, why do you think the article text is wrong, what relevant POV do you think it is leaving out, etc. That particular sentence is just a way of saying "within the scientific community this issue is more or less uncontroversial at the moment, but outside of it there are people who consider it controversial, primarily because of their religious inclinations; see this other article for more information on this."

I'm surprised that you'd take issue with such a statement. Even the most "official" of the scientists who attack evolution can usually acknowledge that (i.e. Behe's testimony in the Dover case). The most sophisticated of them try to claim that scientists themselves play games of commitment by adopting strict methodological naturalism, but since that argument is basically that science should also study the supernatural, most people don't find that very compelling, despite it being strictly true. Creationists (of all stripes) generally acknowledge that 1. within the scientific community there is little dispute, and 2. the reason the Creationists oppose evolution is because of their religious beliefs (and, on the other side, the reason the scientific community supports it is because of their own beliefs). Are you taking offense at the notion that evolution is not considered controversial scientifically by almost all professional scientists? Or that the nature of the dispute is religious/cosmological in nature? You'll have to be specific, because frankly I don't quite see what point you are trying to push. Your edits make it sound like you want the article to read that there are significant scientific disputes—this is not true, and no, our NPOV policy does not require that we treat "Creation biology" as mainstream science.

I'm not trying to give you a hard time. I disagree with your changes—I think they make the paragraph highly misleading—and we probably don't see eye to eye on other things either. But I'm happy to discuss things as long as the discussion sticks to the issue of article content and is clearly a good-faith effort on the other side (i.e. it is not trolling). (By the way, I'm not sure why we are having this discussion in three places at once...) --Fastfission 19:43, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Hope it's helpful - I've reworded the offending paragraph a little, which I hope leaves both sides with some dignity? - Ballista 19:54, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

The sentence "Modern DNA evidence is consistent with this idea." could do with more helpful links, or ideally a citation: Phylogenetics and Pseudogene seem relevant to this point which is only obliquely referred to in DNA#DNA in historical and anthropological study, but I'm no expert. Also, Ballista has replaced "overwhelming" with "a body of " scientific evidence: there's probably a citation for overwhelming if memory serves me well, but haven't had time to search for it yet. ..dave souza, talk 12:11, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

overwhelming would be the word. Few other theories have as much support as Evolution. POV comments seem mostly the same garbage I get from dozens of other places on the net from un informed fundementalist christians. Introducing the idea of "scientific doubt" into any evolution article is in fact a exstremely biased point of view. It's the fallacy fo false dichotomy.