Talk:Evolution/Archive 67

This introduction needs an own table of contents - but seriously: please make it shorter, especially for the mobile page it is really confusing. --94.254.226.36 (talk) 20:46, 11 December 2017 (UTC)

Over history there has been a cycle of efforts to re-focus it and indeed it may now be trying to do too much. Playing Devil's Advocate, whole paragraphs could be removed (and if necessary moved to the body). Paragraphs 3-6 are expendable if shortening is considered a high priority. On the other hand, I can see why the introduction has become a special extended discussion, and I'm not sure it is such a bad thing. So which bits are most confusing?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 21:27, 11 December 2017 (UTC)

I doubt the IP will be back (but you never know). You are right, I think, about paras 3-6, which are tangential to an immediate understanding of evolution; and para 7 is pretentiously padded out ("In terms of", "an understanding has been instrumental", "numerous fields", "significan impact", "not just .. but also", "involves the application of Darwinian principles") and should be cut down drastically, or removed. Leads are meant to be 3 or 4 paragraphs. Perhaps it's time for the axeman to strike. Chiswick Chap (talk) 21:36, 11 December 2017 (UTC)

If anyone has the energy this is at least one article where good feedback is quickly available to change proposals.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 17:18, 13 December 2017 (UTC)

Or did we just make a proposal?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 17:18, 13 December 2017 (UTC)

We've just about agreed to cut it down a bit, perchance ... Chiswick Chap (talk) 23:52, 13 December 2017 (UTC)

Chop it drastically and without mercy. An “overview” section atop the body might be a place to park the vital pieces that don’t quite fit in the short summary intro. If I find time and energy I will look it over and make a start, unless someone else gets there first. Just plain Bill (talk) 00:38, 14 December 2017 (UTC)

So a big cut has been made by Chiswick. I think much of it is honestly self-evidently unnecessary in an intro. For the sake of good practice and potential discussion I'll name a few removed sentences which could maybe be recovered somehow, if anyone thinks necessary:--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 11:25, 14 December 2017 (UTC)

• The four most widely recognised evolutionary processes are natural selection (including sexual selection), genetic drift, mutation and gene migration due to genetic admixture.
• In the early 20th century the modern evolutionary synthesis integrated classical genetics with Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection through the discipline of population genetics. The importance of natural selection as a cause of evolution was accepted into other branches of biology.

Two or three editors having a quiet discussion on the talk page is not sufficient consensus to make wholesale changes to a feature article. At the very least you should be starting an RFC for this level of change. - Nick Thorne ^talk 11:55, 14 December 2017 (UTC)

We aren't making wholesale changes, we're trimming the lead to comply with the MOS and to focus on the topic of the article rather than ramble about tangentially related issues. Chiswick Chap (talk) 12:54, 14 December 2017 (UTC)

BRD but I can't see anything controversial requiring an RFC either: The intro is clearly a bit overloaded, but shortening a lead is not the same as massive deletion because leads should reflect the body--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 13:50, 14 December 2017 (UTC)

Agree we have consensus on careful trimming (even a whole lot of trimming), but not hacking. --A D Monroe III^(talk) 16:20, 14 December 2017 (UTC)

So how to do this unless there are comments explaining precise concerns--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 17:38, 14 December 2017 (UTC)

Starting stating precise concerns would be great if anyone has them, but just some general suggestions would still help. Or just boldly make some focused reduction that can be simply justified in edit summary, and see what follows per BRD. In effect, that's just what happened -- a bold removal of several paragraphs, a revert, and this discussion. This is all typical WP methods; I don't think we require anything unique here. --A D Monroe III^(talk) 20:17, 14 December 2017 (UTC)

Comment - Nick Thorne, I would say that speciation is a widely recognized and important factor in evolution as well. It definitely needs a brief mention in the intro.Andrew Z. Colvin • Talk 02:02, 15 December 2017 (UTC)

Agree with all the above. Suggest we just proceed in small steps, each one commented to explain its specific improvement. The principle is extremely simple - the lead should summarise the article's contents, and nothing else. Chiswick Chap (talk) 09:23, 15 December 2017 (UTC)

Small steps certainly, but each issue raised and discussed here and consensus sought before actual changes made to article. Remember, this is a featured article and there is no deadline, lets take the time to do this right. - Nick Thorne ^talk 13:13, 16 December 2017 (UTC)

Dear Colleagues, I would like to ask you to discuss the possibility of introducing the section “Physical basis” into the article “Evolution”. The section I propose concerns the physical basis of Darwinism. The presented results do not contradict the achievements of the biological evolution of Ch. Darwin. The presented physical theory is fully consistent with Ch. Darwin's idea of the need to search for general physical laws that determine the origin of life and its evolution. These issues are discussed in numerous articles and a number of monographs. These papers state that the physical foundation of Darwinism is the thermodynamic theory, created on the basis of the most accurate physical theory - the thermodynamic theory of J. W. Gibbs. The proposed theory explained many facts and made predictions that were confirmed. I am not aware of any serious objections to the physical basis of Darwinism. Thank you — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gladderstock (talk • contribs)

You’re gonna have to rewrite it with words I can understand because it seems to assume I already know a lot about thermodynamics and evolution. I have no idea what’s going on in that section   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  14:35, 10 December 2018 (UTC)

The evolution of the universe, including chemical and biological evolution, can be studied from the perspective of thermodynamics ^[1][2][3][4]. Thermodynamics studies the driving forces of natural processes, as well as their direction and their degree of advancement. One of the branches of thermodynamics is hierarchical thermodynamics^[5][6], which allows us to consider the biological evolution from the perspective of extended Darwinism^{[7][8][9][10]}. Biological evolution is accompanied by a desire to minimize the Gibbs specific free energy of formation of the supramolecular structures of the body, due to changes in its chemical composition and structure. The evolutionary change of all hierarchical structures also is accompanied by a desire to minimize the Gibbs specific free energy of formation of these structures. Nature seeks the maximum stability in all hierarchical levels^[11]. These changes, caused by the spontaneous guiding action of the second law, proceed against the background of non-spontaneous (involuntary) processes initiated by the environment. Thermodynamic theory of biological evolution explained and predicted many facts based on quantitative calculations^{[further explanation needed] [12]}. Figure 1 shows a spiral of evolution, which symbolizes the general evolution of matter, including biological evolution. The application of thermodynamics to biological evolution is difficult. This is due to numerous mistakes and misunderstandings in this area of knowledge. In this regard, it is important to keep in mind that the criterion of increasing thermodynamic entropy applies only to isolated simple system, the internal energy and volume of which are constant and only the work of expansion is performed in this system ^[13]. The isolated ideal gas system is the system of this type. Of course, these systems do not exist in nature. These statements are consistent with generally accepted textbooks ^{[14][15][16][17]}.

Gladderstock (talk) 14:27, 10 December 2018 (UTC)

Okay well I bolded the sentences that make no sense, and I italicized the sentences that are unnecessary   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  19:00, 11 December 2018 (UTC)

Although a physical basis (or equivalent) section could be relevant, I am very skeptical of the heavy reliance on Georgi Gladyshev as references. Perhaps such information would be better placed in or Objections_to_evolution#Violation_of_the_second_law_of_thermodynamics or Entropy_and_life#Gibbs_free_energy_and_biological_evolution (definitely needs work anyway).

1. It's certainly uncontroversial that living systems reduce local entropy via an overall increase in gibbs free energy.^[1][2]
2. There is also analysis of the necessary thermodynamics of abiogenesis.^[3]

However I can find very little evolution-specific discussion that isn't just stating those features. T.Shafee(Evo&Evo)^talk 12:28, 11 December 2018 (UTC)

• Possible lead images?
• 
• 
• 

...per MOS:LEADIMAGE: “to give readers visual confirmation that they've arrived at the right page.”

I made a suggestion which was reverted pending discussion. It strikes me as a shame that one of our most high profile pages should be without illustration until one scrolls down. And there are so many interesting images on this topic to choose from.

Re my proposal, the ape-to-man image is the most iconic representation of evolution. Of course, the theory is wrong, which is what makes it so stimulating to have it at the beginning of the article. It brings readers in with a sense of comfort that here is something they are familiar with, and then piques their interest with a caption which tells them that common knowledge is mistaken.

Onceinawhile (talk) 22:44, 12 February 2019 (UTC)

Or we could do a picture of Darwin and Wallace or the diagram of Darwin’s finches   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  22:56, 12 February 2019 (UTC)

I agree with the value of a lead image. Another alternative might be File:Homology_vertebrates-en.svg or similar. T.Shafee(Evo&Evo)^talk 04:26, 13 February 2019 (UTC)

These are great. A collage of different types might work too, perhaps with a balance of humans, (other) animals, plants, and microorganisms. Onceinawhile (talk) 06:57, 13 February 2019 (UTC)

I support a collage, like we see at Paris -- Somedifferentstuff (talk) 02:06, 15 February 2019 (UTC)

FWIW - yes - a collage seems ok to me as well atm - perhaps the following collage (w/caption) may be worthy - iac - Enjoy! :) Drbogdan (talk) 02:43, 15 February 2019 (UTC)

Clockwise from top: Huxley - Mans Place in Nature,
Darwin's finches by Gould, Homology in vertebrates.

Clockwise from top: Huxley - Mans Place in Nature,
Darwin's finches by Gould, Homology in vertebrates.

 Done BRIEF Followup - added collage images/captions to Template:Evolutionary biology - *entirely* ok with me to rv/rm/mv/ce the edit of course - in any case - Enjoy! :) Drbogdan (talk) 03:01, 15 February 2019 (UTC)

@Drbogdan: For a collage, perhaps it'd be better to have them all black-and-white line art just from an aesthetics point of view. There are a few examples to choose from in this category. T.Shafee(Evo&Evo)^talk 05:09, 15 February 2019 (UTC)

A good option could be File:Arm_skeleton_comparative_NF_0102.5-2.png by Wilhelm Leche T.Shafee(Evo&Evo)^talk 05:36, 15 February 2019 (UTC).

 Done - @Evolution and evolvability: Thank you for your comments - and suggestions - to me, at the moment, the current colored image (ie, File:Homology vertebrates-en.svg) seemed ok - however - a bw version (ie, File:Homology vertebrates-en-bw.svg) was created/uploaded/installed - hopefully, the new bw image is ok - in any regards - Thanks again - and - Enjoy! :) Drbogdan (talk) 06:31, 15 February 2019 (UTC)

Somewhat dubious about the Icons of Evolution approach, particularly Huxley's "march of progress", but if we're having it suggest adding links to the caption; for Huxley, Darwin's finches, Gould and homology. . . . dave souza, talk 13:29, 15 February 2019 (UTC)

 Done - @Dave souza: - added wikilinks to the collage image captions - seems ok - please comment if otherwise of course - iac - Enjoy! :) Drbogdan (talk) 14:24, 15 February 2019 (UTC)

Thanks! A minor grammatical point: should "Homology vertebrates" be "Homology in vertebrates"? Don't know if there's any scientific terminology that would mean leaving out "in". . . . dave souza, talk 20:56, 15 February 2019 (UTC)

This edit request to Evolution has been answered. Set the |answered= parameter to no to reactivate your request.

Include the work of Al-Jahiz who gave the theory of evolution in the Middle ages. 103.95.120.153 (talk) 10:30, 6 April 2019 (UTC)

 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. – Þjarkur (talk) 12:38, 6 April 2019 (UTC)

The destination of reference 14

Ohtomo, Yoko; Kakegawa, Takeshi; Ishida, Akizumi; et al. (January 2014). "Evidence for biogenic graphite in early Archaean Isua metasedimentary rocks". Nature Geoscience. 7 (1): 25–28. Bibcode:2014NatGe...7...25O. doi:10.1038/ngeo2025. ISSN 1752-0894.

states at the top of the page that the current destination (http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2014NatGe...7...25O) will be retired in October 2019, and links should be redirected to the new format. The new page is at https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2014NatGe...7...25O/abstract I am uncertain about the details of editing a complex reference like this, so request a knowledgeable editor do it. Gjh42 (talk) 16:34, 19 July 2019 (UTC)

After a quick look, the bibcode appears to be the one pointing to the old site, the DOI link still works. A related thread is here: it seems that the old site will keep being used by WP:CS1 citations until it's really necessary to change it, or until current issues with the new one are fixed. There seems to be nothing to do about the citation itself, when WP:CS1 is adapted to point bibcode links to the new site, all citations using WP:CS1 |bibcode= will automatically use the new site. I hope this helps, —PaleoNeonate – 02:00, 20 July 2019 (UTC)

We've been having repeated reverts on the short description, mainly involving these two versions:

1. change in the heritable characteristics of biological populations over successive generations -- 90+ characters long.

2. Development of new biological species -- 38 characters long.

Version 1 accurately and precisely defines the subject. But that's not the purpose of the short description. If it were, we'd just use the whole first paragraph for any article. The reason the short description system was created is to clarify the subject subject when it's listed with several other related subjects, such as a search on a mobile device, that is, to as briefly as possible distinguish the subject, not define it. That's why the guideline for short descriptions states "no more than 40 characters". See Wikipedia_talk:Short_description#Should_a_short_description_define_or_distinguish? Version 1 is opaque, both by its length and technical verbiage, so completely fails as a helpful short description.

Version 2 is simplistic to the point of not being very accurate. But when this subject name is listed only by its title and this short description, it actually helps the user get to the article they want. If the want this article, they can then read the lede sentence and get the fully accurate (but complicated) definition.

Of course, the whole short description system is very new, and countless editors are creating short descriptions using their own criteria; the system may even soon evolve (no pun intended), but AFAIK this is where we are at the moment. --A D Monroe III^(talk) 19:30, 4 August 2019 (UTC)

"opaque... completely fails" is hyperbolic, not a useful framing here. One problem I see with the shorter version is the "new species" bit. That is a small, somewhat fuzzy part of the process of evolution. One might call it a synecdoche (part standing for whole) but IMO it oversimplifies too much, and does not distinguish the topic from speciation. Just plain Bill (talk) 19:51, 4 August 2019 (UTC)

This is not an edit war, so please don't turn it into one. The fact that there have been several reverts tell us only that there is no consensus on this, and that there needs to be more constructive engagement on the discussion. WP is driven by consensus, not by character counts. Irrespective of the number of characters, the meaning must be accurate and the wording must be agreed. Plantsurfer 19:58, 4 August 2019 (UTC)

Interesting problem. I can see a case for both versions. One is indeed shorter and looks clear, but I tend to lean in the longer direction for the simple reason that modern evolutionary theory destroyed the concept of a species, at least as a clear concept which you could build upon like a rock. Evolution is now a more clear concept than a species. Of course many people don't realize this, and find it an odd sort of thing to say. I hope this observation does not make things worse!--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 21:18, 4 August 2019 (UTC)

At this point I will not offer a short description, but I flatly oppose #2. That is speciation. #1 is the opening sentence of this article and it has been crafted and endured the critical eye of many editors. #1 should suffice as a short description. Rowan Forest (talk) 22:35, 4 August 2019 (UTC)

We might consider replacing "characteristics" with "traits", and, perhaps, drop "successive" as fairly obvious (in the short description, not in the lead, of course). I oppose #2. It is not a good definition of evolution at all. Retimuko (talk) 00:01, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

FWIW - yes - agreed - #1 seems accurate, but too long; #2 is brief, but could be better; perhaps a new #3 suggestion *might* be ok? => "study of inheritable generational changes" -- 41 characters long - OR - #4 => "process of inheritable generational changes" -- 43 characters long - in any case - Enjoy! :) Drbogdan (talk) 00:48, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

I think using #1 as the starting point is probably best. #2 is more of a definition of speciation. #3 could be even shorter by dropping 'study of' (otherwise closer to definition of evolutionary biology). T.Shafee(Evo&Evo)^talk 00:53, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

How about "Descent with modifications?" It's accurate and short. My two cents. :) danielkueh (talk) 04:27, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

OK, #5: "descent with modification" was Darwin's expression in "Origin of Species".

I would vote for that if it is followed up with an explanation that it is about populations (rather than individuals) and the modifications are to inheritance (or genetics, genotype rather than phenotype). Another possibility would be a shorter version of #1, let's call it #1a: "generational change in genetics of populations". (45 characters, close enough.) It's ugly, but surely a better writer than I could do better. TomS TDotO (talk) 13:34, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

? "genetic change in populations over time". Plantsurfer 14:55, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

? "change in population genetics over time" is 39 characters. Just plain Bill (talk) 15:07, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

[ec] Point of information to put the "40 characters" business in context: The short description should be as brief as possible. A target of 40 characters has been suggested, but this can be exceeded when necessary.

change of heritable traits over generations is 43 characters.
change of heritable traits over generations of populations is 58 characters.

"Descent with modification" says enough in three words for those familiar with the subject. I like it, but for newcomers it could be cryptic, so a little extra clarifying verbiage might be appropriate. Just plain Bill (talk) 14:58, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

I favor Dr Bogdan's option #3: "Inheritable generational changes". Rowan Forest (talk) 15:09, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

No, frankly that's just word salad. It isn't generational changes that are inheritable, it is traits. Plantsurfer 15:36, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

Given this is for the layman, and ≤40 characters, can't be picky like that, and cant be overly scientific. How many people know what a phenotypic trait is? Rowan Forest (talk) 15:43, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

What do you mean, it is for the layman, @Rowan Forest:? We don't dumb down maths articles for the layperson so why would we for biology? Short description doesn't mean dumbed down, it merely means concise. ♫ RichardWeiss talk contribs 15:51, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

Because we are not writing and "article" of ≤40 characters. It is a descriptor for Wikipedia. Rowan Forest (talk) 15:58, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

Inheritable captures what phenotypic would be saying I think and perhaps does a bit more. I can see the problem with generational change, but it is difficult. What biology really looks at are inheritable differences or variants within populations. So the generational changes are indeed only patterns and tendencies and very much to do with how humans try to summarize what they see.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 16:08, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

so "heritable change in populations over time" or "change of heritable traits in populations over time" would cover it without triggering issues about what a generation means. Plantsurfer 16:30, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

"change of heritable traits of populations over time" seems OK, but with links to Heritability and Population. On a related issue, I searched Wikis and couldn't find any reference to the famous "descent with modification", which seems a major lapse. I am going to try to repair that, in this article at an appropriate place in the discussion of Darwin, and under Darwin quotes in Wikiquote. TomS TDotO (talk) 20:38, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

That works nicely, but Links should not appear in a short description, at least for now. (With discussion ongoing, that may change.) Just plain Bill (talk) 21:08, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

I agree that #2 could be improved, but at least it includes something about species, which really needs to be in the short description. By far the most notable thing about evolution is the fact its flooded our world with all sorts amazingly different species, which pretty literally makes the world we live in. What could be more important than that? To state that, long the way, it causes things like making blue eyes a bit more prevalent amounts to mere side-effect in comparison. Yes, those kinds of tiny steps is how it eventually gets to new species, but the end result is stunning, while the individual steps in the process probably wouldn't be noticed. The fact that evolution leads to new species is by far the most important fact about it. (Even Darwin called it "the origin of species".) I can't see how leaving new species out of the short description can be justified.

Also, biology needs be in the short description, since people hear about all sorts of other evolutions, and they can't see our "About" template when the short description is presented to them.

So, can we come up with a short description that includes new species and biology? --A D Monroe III^(talk) 22:56, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

I don't think that "species" should necessarily be mentioned especially in a short description. This is a very fuzzy concept, and not a key to understanding evolution. Yes, Darwin mentioned it in the title of his book, but we know better now. Retimuko (talk) 23:16, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

FWIW - a 45-character suggestion may be => "species adaptation to changing bioenvironments" (or related => "species adaptation to a changed bioenvironment") - iac - Enjoy! :) Drbogdan (talk) 23:39, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

IMHO (1) Species play only a part of the scope of evolution. Darwin's original title mentioned "species and varieties", and his editor changed the title, and even at that, it mentions "races" (another word for varieties). Anyway, we have progressed beyond Darwin. Evolution is important today because of changes within species, and also because it accounts for the tree-like structure of taxonomy, as well as a lot of other biology. It is important that we not mention species, because of the misunderstanding that is current that it is only about species.(2) Adaptatation, natural selection, etc. are not evolution. They are mechanisms of evolution. It is important that we let it be known what evolution is. (3) Evolution is the change in the hereditary traits (genotype) of populations, whatever the level of the results (whether the result is speciation or cladogenesis or just a minor variation, or even no discernable change in phenotye), whatever the mechanisms are (for example: genetic drift, sexual selection, symbiosis, artificial selection, hybridization). IMHO TomS TDotO (talk) 01:34, 6 August 2019 (UTC)

I agree that there should be no mention of species and that it should be clear that we are talking about biology, and not e.g. stars. So I offer the following versions for consideration:

1) change in the hereditary traits (genotype) of populations (57)

2) change of heritable traits in biological populations (52)

3) change in the heritable traits of populations (45)

4) heritable change in biological populations (42) - I don't immediately see how the concept can be reduced further than this. Should it be "in" or "of"?

The word trait appears in the second paragraph of the lead without definition, and I wonder whether it should appear in the first line as follows:

"Evolution is change in the heritable characteristics (traits) of biological populations over successive generations." Plantsurfer 10:26, 6 August 2019 (UTC)

Not bad. I could go along with 4) "heritable change of biological populations", which can be further shortened to "heritable change of populations" because all populations are biological. Rowan Forest (talk) 16:01, 6 August 2019 (UTC)

Yes - "heritable change of populations" seems good to me as well - iac - Enjoy! :) Drbogdan (talk) 16:07, 6 August 2019 (UTC)

hmmm - "heritable change in populations" is ambiguous because it can be misconstrued as referring to human populations. The qualification "biological" is therefore needed. Plantsurfer 23:18, 6 August 2019 (UTC)

@Plantsurfer and Rowan Forest: and others - maybe "heritable change of biopopulations" (34 characters) would be better? - for support, please see => https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/behavioral-and-brain-sciences/article/biopopulations-not-biospecies-are-individuals-and-evolve/A20A52EDD50505B76CAD516AC299E0F4 - iac - Enjoy! :) Drbogdan (talk) 01:54, 7 August 2019 (UTC)

Yes, that could work Plantsurfer 09:32, 7 August 2019 (UTC)

"Biopopulations"? My Newspeak dictionary seems to have gone missing, and the OED goes from "bioplast" to "biordinal" with nothing in between. Over-cryptic brevity is no virtue here. Again, 40 characters is a suggestion, not a hard limit. Just plain Bill (talk) 11:13, 7 August 2019 (UTC)

OK, so is there consensus for "heritable change in biological populations"? Plantsurfer 11:24, 7 August 2019 (UTC)

OK by me... Just plain Bill (talk) 11:32, 7 August 2019 (UTC)

OK by me as well -- Drbogdan (talk) 14:11, 7 August 2019 (UTC)

Looks good to me. Rowan Forest (talk) 14:46, 7 August 2019 (UTC)

 Done - added to the main article => "{ {short description|heritable change in biological populations}} - for details => please see Talk:Evolution#Edit war over short description?" - *entirely* ok with me to rv/rm/mv/ce the edit of course - iac - Enjoy! :) Drbogdan (talk) 14:54, 7 August 2019 (UTC)

Updates

• I wrote a page on Mutation bias. Please check this out if you are interested. It covers a bunch of the issues identified below, like providing examples of mutation bias and linking to the literature Dabs (talk) 18:13, 29 August 2019 (UTC)
• I did all the things on the list below Dabs (talk) 19:49, 30 August 2019 (UTC)
• below are some sections preserved from the previous text, which I think are worth saving

The Mutation bias page takes care of some of the things in my initial list of suggestions. Below is my revised list. Dabs (talk) 13:43, 26 August 2019 (UTC)

Specific things to add or fix

• refer to Mutation bias for examples
• note some of the main arguments for mutation bias: effects of nucleotide mutation biases on genome composition or codon usage, e.g., GC bias or strand bias. This is the main body of literature, and the effects typically are assumed to be neutral. There is very solid empirical work on the likely effects of mutation bias on patterns of composition in bacterial genomes.
• cite Bulmer (1991) for the mutation-selection-drift theory, not Lynch or Smith
• relate to Developmental bias (separate article)
• refer to effects of biases in the introduction of variation, in adaptive or neutral evolution, per Yampolsky and Stoltzfus
• history: Sueoka (1962) and Freese (1962) were the first to invoke a mutational hypothesis to account for genome composition. Cox and Yanofsky (1967) characterized an E. coli mutant with a GC bias.
• the phenotype-first theory is not relevant here. biases in phenotypic responses are not mutation biases.
• the arguments about loss of function are confusing here. The pressure of recurrent mutation is a classic explanation for the loss of features but it is probably not generally the correct explanation because it occurs too slowly, although the case of Maughan, et al cited here is appropriate if atypical. This was never previously called "mutation bias." What is the bias?

Anaxagoras "that animals originally came into existence in moisture, and after this one from another" link to orgin of life Afrodite aVrodiTe/maTriya/nasTroyenye/(2make3) from foam of sea quite curent view [[origin of life] . 99.90.196.227 (talk) 02:34, 22 September 2019 (UTC) By the way why this is closed so it may be worth to look if sourced.

Not done: because you need to make your request clearer. Also, wasn't that Anaximander?— Preceding unsigned comment added by Sumanuil (talk • contribs) 03:46, 22 September 2019 (UTC)

Evolution ≠ abiogenesis. -Rowan Forest (talk) 00:39, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

Please review article content versus source content for the second reference appearing, superscript [2], linking to an NAS webpage. The citation does not support the sentence to which it is attached—the page that the link currently opens contains no definition of evolution; rather, it is a page promoting NAS activities on education in evolutionary biology. And even if elements of a definition might be patched together from fragments of meaning on the page, this is no way to create a consensus definition of this important term. As the first sentence of the lede of a very critical article in the biosciences, the definition deserves 3-4 citations from top tertiary and secondary sources, supporting a consensus meaning (or laying out variant meanings in use by experts). To have one citation and one misdirect does the article and subject no service. And while the NAS source is of some interest, it does not belong as a citation to this definition—perhaps rather, in Further reading. (From one that has taught evolutionary genetics to undergraduates at an Ivy.) Cheers. 67.167.8.141 (talk) 17:04, 13 November 2019 (UTC)

Agreed, "http://www.nas.edu/evolution/definitions.html" would probably be a better link. GNT316 (talk) 18:02, 13 November 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for bringing this up. Do you have any sources that you would like to recommend? danielkueh (talk) 18:47, 13 November 2019 (UTC)

Harvard2TheBigHouse (talk · contribs) created Maximum genetic diversity and edited the following articles:

• Allele frequency
• Ancient DNA
• C-value
• Cladistics
• Convergent evolution
• Evolution
• Genetic drift
• Human microbiome
• Microevolution
• Minor allele frequency
• Molecular evolution
• Natural selection
• Neural oscillation
• Neutral theory of molecular evolution
• Population genetics
• Sexual selection

I looked at half of them and the edits involved adding text linking to Maximum genetic diversity and adding two references (Mae Wan Ho and Shi Huang). Any thoughts on the new text and references? Is this a reasonable (WP:DUE) reflection of the literature? Johnuniq (talk) 00:02, 14 November 2019 (UTC)

Sorry for any trouble, I got prompted that my poor article was orphaned so I went around linking it around as much as I could. For what it's worth the link to the MGD wiki out to NCBI's roughly 500-scientist listserv yesterday since the guy who built dbSNP and was on PubMed's original design team thinks it's sound. But I suppose that's hearsay so feel free to ask questions that'll I'll either answer or send them on to those with big degree energy who can. Harvard2TheBigHouse (talk) 00:11, 14 November 2019 (UTC)

No problem, but the details are over my head and I am posting to give others the opportunity to look. Johnuniq (talk) 00:16, 14 November 2019 (UTC)

WP:DUE is definitely a concern and WP:COI is a potential one. I've asked @Joannamasel: to weigh in on this. I myself do not have much time to thoroughly vet all of these edits. danielkueh (talk) 00:28, 14 November 2019 (UTC)

Interested editors should also take a closer look at the more extensive discussion on Talk:Maximum genetic diversity for more context, specifically the section on "Scientific theory." danielkueh (talk) 15:41, 15 November 2019 (UTC)

I'm on vacation and unable to weigh in repeatedly or do the work of follow up editing, but I took a look at Maximum genetic diversity and its talk page. As somebody currently in the process of coauthoring a review article on the relevant topic of mutator mechanisms, I would classify it as a fringe view. (Not meaning to argue from authority here, just giving background to my one voice.) Key cited sources by the key proponents include book chapters (not the most reliable source in this field) and Nature Precedings (a preprint server), which is problematic. WP:DUE definitely applies in my view, and because of that, I feel that WP:COI kicks in. On those grounds, I would vote in favor of reverting the various edits linking from other pages unless an independent source, i.e. not by the same cluster of authors, can be found referring to the theory in a serious manner. I suspect that cannot be found. As for the page itself, I'm happy for the conversation to continue a while longer to see if NPOV can be achieved, but agree with Chiswick Chap that it hasn't been achieved yet. There is no support for presenting this as a grandiose overarching theory. It's fine to cite the primary source data papers for sentences referring to specific findings in them even if those papers are not highly cited in the primary literature, but a broader theory needs to be taken seriously by scientists other than its authors before it is appropriate to highlight it on wikipedia.Joannamasel (talk) 07:09, 16 November 2019 (UTC)

Thanks Joannamasel, that was what I suspected. I'll see about reverting the back-links if someone hasn't done that already. Chiswick Chap (talk) 08:47, 16 November 2019 (UTC)

Thank you both! And enjoy your vacation, Joannamasel! danielkueh (talk) 20:47, 17 November 2019 (UTC)

The scientific definition of evolution is "changes in allele frequency over time". The terms generation and changes in characteristics are wrong in the way one can describe phenotype and the other is too vague. Varjagen (talk) 12:44, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

I wonder if the current definition might be necessary in order to also encompass theories like the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis, which incorporates epigenetics and therefore not just alleles. Jancarcu (talk) 17:51, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

Many scientists disagree with the paradigm of Neo-Darwinism. Please include their thoughts in the article.--HalMartin (talk) 22:46, 4 December 2019 (UTC)

Not really. There's a few fringe examples that are publicized out of proportion by creationists. There is a controversy in public opinion. There is no serious controversy within science. GMG^talk 22:51, 4 December 2019 (UTC)

Such so-called "controversies" appear prominently in the article's section on "Social and cultural responses". Just plain Bill (talk) 23:00, 4 December 2019 (UTC)

the articles talk page debunks alot of attacks against evolution. or have you got a new argument that isnt copy and pasted from answers in genisis? or however you spell it. Clone commando sev (talk) 00:33, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

should this article have an example of evolution? or is there already one that i missed? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Clone commando sev (talk • contribs) 23:19, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

There's the Outcomes section   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  00:07, 6 May 2020 (UTC)

thank you for telling me! Clone commando sev (talk) 00:26, 6 May 2020 (UTC)

I was reading through the ‘earth’ page. unsurhprisingly, I was dissapointed because it only shows the beliefs of evolutionism. I am not here to dispute with anyone, however if Wikipedia wants to be a place where you can find information about everything, this should include a header for creationism’s opinion about the age of the earth. In this case there would be many more things that would have to be changed to make the site more inclusive for different pages. Not just creationism beliefs but others too, and in that also the different headers of 7 day creation, the gap theory, etc. There is enough proof to show that the world isn’t millions of years old and there are people who believe that to be the truth. So, if you want wikipedia to be a place where you can find accurate knowledge on different topics, include the different theories to make your case more plausible.

For ideas on how to make this happen, watch as an example: dr Kent Hovind, age of the eart and his creation seminars. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lovenialler79 (talk • contribs) 01:38, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

@Lovenialler79: NO. Evolution isn't a belief, it's a scientific fact of which we have theories. Outside of American Conservative Evangelicalism, almost the entirety of Judaism and the majority of Christians accept Theistic evolution, which is not a scientific theory but a theological position about the scientific fact of evolution. Ian.thomson (talk) 01:50, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

@Lovenialler79: There are other articles in Wikipedia that discuss in detail alternative beliefs about the age of the earth, for example Young Earth creationism. I don't think such repetition in this article would improve it. You could add any new discussion of the gap theory, for example, on those pages. Michael D. Turnbull (talk) 13:36, 29 January 2020 (UTC)

Also evolution doesn't deal with the origin and development of the Earth. Evolution is about how life changes over time. Questions about the age of the Earth are outside of evolution. 2600:1700:E660:9D60:BC73:FA4A:AE92:DC7F (talk) 16:05, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

Wikipedia editors are not omniscient, nor are we experts equipped with a strong peer review system, so we cannot make edits based on our personal beliefs about what's true. Instead, what we try to do is report accurately and fairly the facts as presented by WP:Reliable sources. The current scientific consensus is heavily in favour of the modern evolutionary synthesis, so per WP:FRINGE we are not to create a false balance by inserting young-Earth creationist claims. This insistance on reliable sources and scholarly consensus is not a conspiracy against Christianity (see Resurrection of Jesus for a page where the consensus works out in favour of Christianity) but rather the proper way of gathering and presenting facts when we as Wikipedia editors do not have the authority needed to decide facts.

The fact is that the theory of evolution and an old Earth are well-supported by scientific studies and the observed scientific facts. To make it appear otherwise would be contrary to WP:NPOV and a form of WP:false balance. It would be akin to adding information about the flat earth hypothesis to the article on Earth. Jancarcu (talk) 17:56, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

Scientific theories cannot be proven and generally speaking cannot be true. Google K.R. Popper. Tgeorgescu (talk) 06:01, 10 December 2020 (UTC)

In their book called "The Anthropic Cosmological Principle" they outline ten steps in human evolution that are so unlikely to have occurred that before ONE happened the Sun would have ceased to be a main sequence star and would have destroyed the Earth. I feel as though this should be included.--Phil of rel (talk) 02:13, 24 March 2021 (UTC)

The article is about biological evolution, and appeals to the Sharpshooter fallacy made by non-biologists who have no understanding of biological evolution have no place in this article.--Mr Fink (talk) 02:31, 24 March 2021 (UTC)

Okay, I'm sorry, I thought they were reliable sources on evolution. My apologies if they aren't.--Phil of rel (talk) 02:35, 24 March 2021 (UTC)

They don't seem very reliable in terms of sources if they're arguing against the plausibility of occurrence of a series of events that have already occurred.--Mr Fink (talk) 03:18, 24 March 2021 (UTC)

Are there any sources that mention that there is a consensus among scientists that evolution is real. Not saying evolution is wrong but, I think the article should mention there is a consensus. CycoMa (talk) 02:17, 26 April 2021 (UTC)

I'm sure if we wanted to do that we could find something. I can't speak as to why there is no such statement in the article, or whether including such a statement would be appropriate. I'm sure there's a better answer to your question that could be given by someone who is more involved in writing the article.

For comparison, our article on climate change, another subject that shouldn't be controversial but it is anyway, has such a section. Maybe it's because the scientific consensus on evolution has been settled for a few decades longer? —pythoncoder (talk | contribs) 18:13, 8 May 2021 (UTC)

It's a matter of the history of science: the only serious competition it ever had was Lamarckism. Creationism wasn't even part of the competition, same as Usain Bolt never competed in Special Olympics. tgeorgescu (talk) 01:17, 9 May 2021 (UTC)

Lots of sources already compiled at Level of support for evolution "Nearly all (around 97%) of the scientific community accepts evolution as the dominant scientific theory of biological diversity."Moxy- 01:22, 9 May 2021 (UTC)

I’m just saying it would be nice of there was a source that directly stated there is a consensus amount biologists that evolution is real. I’m not saying isn’t true, I just think it would be a good idea to have a source that directly states it.CycoMa (talk) 03:36, 9 May 2021 (UTC)

There are many academic sources on the page presented above. However this page explains many aspects and is a good starting point .Moxy- 03:51, 9 May 2021 (UTC)

But, is that cited in this article?CycoMa (talk) 04:05, 9 May 2021 (UTC)

Evolution#Social and cultural responses includes "the modern evolutionary synthesis is accepted by a vast majority of scientists" with a reference. More than that is not needed. Johnuniq (talk) 05:07, 9 May 2021 (UTC)

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-55769269 109.166.139.141 (talk) 08:06, 21 November 2021 (UTC)

1. A theory does not have to explain everything, just make useful predictions;
2. This article is about evolution as natural phenomenon, not about Darwin. tgeorgescu (talk) 12:10, 21 November 2021 (UTC)

(Personal attack removed) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.122.250.223 (talk) 20:54, 30 November 2021 (UTC)

About my English: native speakers have told me my English would be bad for a native speaker, but as a foreigner I have nothing more/new to learn about English. tgeorgescu (talk) 18:41, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

Issues with this article include: choppy paragraphing, inconsistent ref style, bloated and unhelpful further reading and external links sections... I have not evaluated the content or sourcing otherwise. (t · c) buidhe 07:40, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

I'll go through and make the references consistent. It looks like it generally uses Citation Style 1 and I'll stick with that unless there are other proposals. It'll take a while, but I'll start soon. SchreiberBike | ⌨  18:34, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

Having looked more carefully, there's also a lot of {{harvnb}} and some {{sfn}} which I'm less familiar with. Should we standardize on one of those? They seem to be more common in featured articles than in-line citations. (I'm enthusiastic about evolution, and I've made a lot of edits, but I'm not familiar with the rarefied world of featured articles.) SchreiberBike | ⌨  00:16, 14 February 2022 (UTC)

Am a bit rusty about this, but in my view individual citations work well when it's something like a scientific paper or a web page where you don't cite page numbers, {{sfn}} is great when citing page numbers in a reference; you don't have to type <ref> every time and it automatically shows combined citations for identical references/page numbers. It can be mixed with using {{harvnb}} when you want to use a named reference, use "|quote=", or combine multiple citations into one inline link. Both can have external links to page numbers then available. Am gradually introducing sfn more into the Darwin articles, will no doubt get told if I'm doing it wrong. . . dave souza, talk 20:44, 25 February 2022 (UTC)

Kwikwivk - I reverted your change here for a number of reasons. First, it seems superfluous - the common ancestor is discussed in the third paragraph of the lead section. The addition of your sentence broke the flow of the first paragraph, coming as it did between the introduction of 'heritable characteristics' in the first sentence, and the mention of 'these characteristics' in the second. Please also note that citations should follow punctuation. Best Girth Summit _(blether) 08:41, 16 March 2022 (UTC)

Is there a reason why Ibn Khaldun's evolutionary ideas in his Muqaddimah book are not mentioned in the history section? Makeandtoss (talk) 14:18, 7 April 2022 (UTC)

This edit request to Evolution has been answered. Set the |answered= parameter to no to reactivate your request.

Wikipedia -Evolution reads "The theory of Mutationism has been proven false" when infact this article and scientific study proves otherwise https://www.discovermagazine.com/health/genes-addiction-or-why-ozzy-osbourne-is-still-alive 2603:800C:2001:C07E:8C29:965:4E8C:EFEF (talk) 11:09, 21 April 2022 (UTC)

 Not done Article has nothing to do with mutationism. PepperBeast (talk) 12:28, 21 April 2022 (UTC)

Evolution cannot be scientific, as it affirms the consequent, ie. relies on false logic, see this link . I feel such faulty argumentation deserves its own section, given its commonality among evolutionists. Phil of rel (talk) 23:25, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

Please see FAQ at the top of the page. --McSly (talk) 00:00, 27 May 2022 (UTC)

The opening sentence of the lede is more than deserving of the status given to it, while the lede itself contains a reference that is self-contradictory.

The paper is in the form of an arbitration ("an adversarial collaboration"), and the quote is taken from its judgement or 'commentary', which is the majority of its content. The quote is used here to justify the statements in the lede with regard to 'sexual selection', however these are definitively rejected by a 4-1 majority in the paper's concluding evidentiary statement:

Evolutionary change is change in gene frequencies, and evolutionary processes are those processes that bring about this. There are four such processes: natural selection, mutation, migration and drift. It is a category error to add niche construction to this list. (my emphasis)

However, by including the interpretation that NCT makes of sexual selection as a process that has a "directing role" in evolution, the paper's sommentary effectively still adds niche construction to the list. The category error that then arisesis is because 1. niche construction is an inevitable result of evolution not its cause, and 2. a guiding wisdom behind evolution is a matter of belief not science. It arises irrespective of the fact that eminent scientists - such as Darwin, Fisher, et al - make it. The striving to merge belief systems with scientific observations is human, but not scientific.

The quote from the paper, that includes sexual selection, stands out. It appears to be written in another hand, as evidenced by its concluding phrase: "the other two sort it", and is either misleading or disingenuous as it contradicts the evidence the paper itself is supposedly based on. Meanwhile, its inclusion in Wikipedia presents it as a globally authoritative fact.

The statement in the lede regarding sexual selection should therefore be deleted, and the quote that is taken from the commentary of the paper, included here through the page's Markup, should be replaced with the published statement on the subject made by the 4-1 majority of the paper's contributing authors.

LookingGlass (talk) 09:39, 18 June 2022 (UTC)

What exactly is your issue with the statement regarding sexual selection in the lede? Scientific articles in the past and many contemporary less informed sources treat sexual selection as a separate process from natural selection. It is there to clarify that sexual selection is a mode of natural selection in standard evolutionary theory; the paper supports this. Nowhere on the wiki article or in the paper it is stated that sexual selection is a concept exclusive to NCT, and nowhere it is stated that sexual selection is a process that has a "directing role". By including sexual selection as a part of the process of natural selection it does not automatically include niche construction as an evolutionary process. The paper gives a good overview of what the standard evolutionary theory is and is used for that purpose not for including NCT.

The jump from including sexual selection as a mode of natural selection to asserting unsupported claims about guiding wisdom in evolution does not follow. Kardoen (talk) 12:45, 18 June 2022 (UTC)

@Kardoen:, I agree that the quote I have included above provides a good overview of evolution; it is the view of the 4-1 majority of the 'authors' of the paper. It is ONLY in the commentary/judgement of the paper that sexual selection is added as being on a par with the four basic processes of evolution. The paper itself gives three examples of studies of specific traits where organisms modify the world: (i) social evolution theory, (ii) coevolutionary theory, and (iii) sexual selection. The "diverse theoretical and empirical literature" that "has developed within both evolutionary biology and evolutionary ecology using the neo-Darwinian framework" has provided many 'extensions' of evolutionary theory. The underlying processes however remain unchanged. Selecting sexual selection for inclusion in the lede implies an unwarranted status in and relevance to evolutionary theory.

With regard to the directing role, the paper states:

It is this directing role that leads NCT to view niche construction as an (hitherto unrecognized) evolutionary process. 

I find your conclusion a little confusing. The reference that is being used to justify the inclusion of sexual selection as a "mode of natural selection", as you put it, or an "example" as the paper puts it, is the NCT paper by way of the statement of its commentary - one which does not echo the views of the majority of its authors. Sexual selection only applies to sexually reproducing species. Logically it cannot be a fundamental process of evolution as evolution applies to ALL life. It should feature in the body of the article but not be singled out as at present. Doing so, without adequate contextualization, only gives rise to confusion.

LookingGlass (talk) 11:22, 19 June 2022 (UTC)

This should be added in as well:

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-55769269

It's from the BBC, it's official, it happened, this is an encyclopedia which is supposed to document truth.

It is historical fact.

Don't be prejudiced, don't be biased. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2603:8080:A702:EA85:29E2:A978:54EC:91D7 (talk) 18:17, 1 June 2022 (UTC)

We cannot quote every article ever written about evolution, otherwise the article would be millions of pages long. What is so special about this one that we should include it? --Hob Gadling (talk) 19:05, 1 June 2022 (UTC)

Looks like a minor case of punk eek – see punk eek#Darwin's theory. A BBC article about a paper by a Professor (Associate) in the QM School of Biological and Chemical Sciences doesn't have much weight in relation to all the histories of Darwin – have reputable historians covered this? Note that he often used melodramatic language humorously when writing to friends. . . dave souza, talk 20:57, 1 June 2022 (UTC)

There’s no mention of Punctuated equilibrium at the BBC story, and Flowering plant has the Cretaceous flowering as noted. The concern that this sudden appearance does not fit the classic image of evolution gradualism might be a better fit to Flowering plant or perhaps Objections to evolution alongside the Cambrian explosion. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 03:26, 10 June 2022 (UTC)

There’s no mention of Punctuated equilibrium at the BBC story Doesn't matter since we do not want to mention punk eek in the article.

might be a better fit to True, but only on Conservapedia. On Wikipedia, we have rules such as WP:DUE and WP:PROFRINGE. --Hob Gadling (talk) 16:36, 6 July 2022 (UTC)

Some aspects, at least minor ones, of the theory of natural selection have been probably refuted, while other aspects of his theory were proven right. The lead asserts, contrary to facts, that there's no credible objection to even some parts (as to why it happened, not what happened.) More and more scientists are aware of this, and it has nothing to do with religious motives. But I don't believe I'll succeed in changing the lead (for example, expressing, in some way, the complexity of the matter, by generally mentioning "holes" [like this]. However, the truth eventually tends to prevail, and deception, IMO, won't succeed in the long term. This is an important discussion, that I hope would continue in the long term. Archway (talk) 19:53, 16 September 2022 (UTC)

Evolutionary theory moved a lot since Darwin. There is no doubt that he got many things wrong. But scientists do not stubbornly insists that those things would be right. Maybe natural selection isn't the only mechanism that drives evolution, as Wright and Kimura showed without being booed down or cancelled. But, according to H. Allen Orr, they knew what they were talking about, unlike the proponents of Intelligent Design. Wright and Kimura changed the understanding of the mechanisms of evolution because they did proper science. ID proponents by and large do political and religious propaganda instead of science. Science has no position upon the existence of the Abrahamic God, and this was endorsed by vast numbers of scientists, Christians, atheists, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Shintoists, Taoists, agnostics, and so on. Only a few cranks got irritated by this long-standing consensus. Most cdesign proponentsists are not scientists but ideologues. While it could be true that a god has created the Universe, it isn't science, it is theology. tgeorgescu (talk) 18:08, 17 September 2022 (UTC)

The fact that you use an article called "Charles Darwin got sexual selection wrong" as a reason to believe that evolutionary theory has "holes" shows that you do not understand how science works. Evolutionary theory is not a belief system where Darwin's writings are the Holy Word, and Darwin getting things wrong is a matter for historians of science, not for biologists (who will only shrug and say "so what?"). Your rhetoric More and more scientists are aware of this sounds very familiar to someone who has debated creationists. That evolution is on its way out is one of the many false rumors that make up their pseudoscience. Another such false rumor is that evolution is based on "deception".

The reason you won't succeed is that your reasoning is invalid. --Hob Gadling (talk) 19:03, 17 September 2022 (UTC)

The Guardian isn't a WP:RS for this subject. Invasive Spices (talk) 19 September 2022 (UTC)

Issues with this article include: choppy paragraphing, inconsistent ref style, bloated and unhelpful further reading and external links sections... I have not evaluated the content or sourcing otherwise. (t · c) buidhe 07:40, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

I'll go through and make the references consistent. It looks like it generally uses Citation Style 1 and I'll stick with that unless there are other proposals. It'll take a while, but I'll start soon. SchreiberBike | ⌨  18:34, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

Having looked more carefully, there's also a lot of {{harvnb}} and some {{sfn}} which I'm less familiar with. Should we standardize on one of those? They seem to be more common in featured articles than in-line citations. (I'm enthusiastic about evolution, and I've made a lot of edits, but I'm not familiar with the rarefied world of featured articles.) SchreiberBike | ⌨  00:16, 14 February 2022 (UTC)

Am a bit rusty about this, but in my view individual citations work well when it's something like a scientific paper or a web page where you don't cite page numbers, {{sfn}} is great when citing page numbers in a reference; you don't have to type <ref> every time and it automatically shows combined citations for identical references/page numbers. It can be mixed with using {{harvnb}} when you want to use a named reference, use "|quote=", or combine multiple citations into one inline link. Both can have external links to page numbers then available. Am gradually introducing sfn more into the Darwin articles, will no doubt get told if I'm doing it wrong. . . dave souza, talk 20:44, 25 February 2022 (UTC)

MOS:OVERLINK needs attention, and looking at the citation dates in this sample section (which references "recent" research) gives an idea that the article has not been kept current. A top-to-bottom fresh look is in order, particularly as the article is now 50% larger than what passed FAC in a period when FAC standards were low. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:54, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

@Dave souza: You're probably busy, but being the most knowledgeable about the topic, do you mind taking a look if you have time? Wretchskull (talk) 10:10, 25 February 2022 (UTC)

@Wretchskull: Regrettably, I'm generally ignorant about the subject. Have nosed into the history a bit, but don't keep up to date, and am currently struggling to get on with projects – including checking over Charles Darwin in a similar exercise! Can try to look at it eventually, but can't say when, and my input would be very limited. Thanks for asking, anyway. . . dave souza, talk 20:18, 25 February 2022 (UTC)

Working on the checks now ... tidied refs, removed overlinks, fixed an instance of excessive sourcing, de-weaseled a bit. Marked up a few statements with "Citation needed", i.e. we're not complete. Chiswick Chap (talk) 15:09, 13 October 2022 (UTC)

It seems to me that the article sort order is off.

We currently begin the article with 1332 words about and 4 pictures of the rich, dead white guys that figured out how evolution works. That history lesson makes the subject seem dead, can be alienating to anyone who is not a rich white guy, and walls off the important information about the scientific system. To be clear, I'm not saying we should pretend the path to discovery was different, I'm just saying that leading with a long history lesson is not helpful.

We are describing a scientific system, so let's lead with how the system works and what it's implications are. That is also consistent with how the topic is now taught in a modern educational environment. Our current approach looks to be out of a textbook from the 1980s.

Here is the current TOC:

1. History of evolutionary thought
2. Heredity
3. Sources of variation
4. Evolutionary processes
5. Outcomes
6. Evolutionary history of life
7. Applications
8. Social and cultural responses

Here is what I'd like to change it to:

1. Heredity
2. Sources of variation
3. Evolutionary processes
4. Applications: Currently this content gets treated as an afterthought near the end of the article. It fits better here after describing processes that drive evolution, as that is what applications are built upon. It also seems to me that it needs more visibility as it describes how evolution is currently relevant and not just a relic of the natural world.
5. Natural outcomes: Renamed from "Outcomes", to clarify how this section differs from "Applications" and because this section is really about how organisms look and behave
6. Evolutionary history of life
7. History of evolutionary thought: This fits in well after evolutionary history of life as it is largely a reflection on the discoveries in that section and helps back that section up. It also belongs immediately before "Social and cultural responses", as that section focuses on the reactionary forces as evolutionary thought progressed.
8. Social and cultural responses

It's a fairly major change so I figured I'd float it here first. Hopefully someone else likes the change? Efbrazil (talk) 17:17, 19 October 2022 (UTC)

Well, it's indeed fairly major, and I'm not at all sure it's an improvement. More to the point, the article urgently needs its citations to be completed or it'll be demoted, so rearranging the Titanic's deckchairs should wait until the ship has been saved from sinking. Chiswick Chap (talk) 18:14, 19 October 2022 (UTC)

I'll be happy to take a pass on citations if we can get things organized to lead with the science instead of a history lesson. I'm personally not interested in investing in an article until I think it is structured correctly. Regarding this proposed change, are there particulars of the proposal you oppose? Efbrazil (talk) 20:19, 19 October 2022 (UTC)

@Hob Gadling: @Invasive Spices: @Pepperbeast: I'd like some more input on this to see if there's support for proceeding with all or part of the proposed changes. You've all be active recently on the topic, so I'm hoping you'll offer an opinion in favor or opposed. Efbrazil (talk) 19:09, 21 October 2022 (UTC)

Although I am mainly concerned with shooing away the creationist Octopus wolfi individuals who believe to be krakens about to drag the ship down into the abyss, I also think that the science is more relevant than the history and should be moved down, as is customary with articles about science. Efbrazil's TOC looks good to me. --Hob Gadling (talk) 06:46, 22 October 2022 (UTC)

"a history lesson": well, the topic is at once biology, history of science, and like it or not history of society and the interaction of science and religion, and it's disingenuous to pretend otherwise. As a biologist, I know that evolution is a central theme in biology, and nothing makes sense without it: but that's an end-point for our readers, not the starting-point. If folks read the article and come to the view that this is pretty central, then we've done well, but an encyclopedia article is not a "lesson" of any sort – not history, not religion, not science, and we are not allowed to adopt a point-of-view in any article, certainly not a major one on what is at least historically an intensely controversial topic. On "until (you) think it is structured correctly", past editors of the article might gently remark that they got it through GAN and FAC with the current structure, so it's not obvious why it'd be incorrect; nor are you under any pressure to edit the article in any way. My personal view is that it makes good sense to begin with the history, as the current biological understanding of evolution grew out of Darwin's proposal, by way of quite a wobble about whether selection was important and quite a lot of emphasis on Lamarckism too, before the 20th century "modern synthesis" reassembled the pieces and showed how ecology, genetics, and selection actually interlocked. As for arguing that the history of research fits next to the evolutionary history of life, well, they have no connection whatsoever. The article's structure is better as it is. Chiswick Chap (talk) 09:11, 22 October 2022 (UTC)

I must agree with CC on the place for history. I think history sections are always at the top and this should be no exception. [They have nothing to do with each other but they are both history.] Efbrazil's other changes would be an improvement. I hadn't noticed that processes and applications fit naturally next to each other – that is a very good point – applications are dependent on what mechanisms are available. The only justification to move history down is that it is the least exciting section and so readers may be better retained by starting with excitement. However…I think that's what the lede is for. Perhaps the lede could be rewritten for younger readers to foreshadow the excitement to come – extinction may occur, and humans may use or interfere in evolution. Invasive Spices (talk) 22 October 2022 (UTC)

Hob Gadling I don't understand the joke. Is Octopus wolfi not real? Invasive Spices (talk) 22 October 2022 (UTC)

It's about the size. The kraken is described as a huge beast capable of sinking ships, while O. wolfi is the smallest known octopus species. A fight between a creationist and the theory of evolution is like a fight between a one-inch octopus and an ocean liner. --Hob Gadling (talk) 16:18, 23 October 2022 (UTC)

I surveyed articles about scientific systems.

Where the history section goes is a mixed bag. Climate change puts history at the end, and it is a recent FA. So do Anatomy and Evolutionary biology.

Articles that put history at the beginning and are covering a theory have very brief history sections. See Theory of relativity, planetary science, or scientific method.

In no case could I find an article covering a theory that walled off the theory and its relevance to modern life behind anything like what we're doing in this article.

The typical history section of articles covering scientific systems is about 250 words with no pictures of dead white guys. We have 1332 words about and 4 pictures of dead white guys. Our history section is flat out alienating and boring to the vast majority of our readers.

The facts of evolution would have been discovered one way or another by somebody, so who discovered them is really not important.

Part of what makes me sensitive to this is I am doing curriculum review for my school district's high school science classes. We would openly laugh at this article if it was brought to us.

I would be OK cutting the history section down to 250 words if you prefer. We already have a separate article on the history of evolution that we can refer people to. Is that a better compromise for you? Efbrazil (talk) 16:15, 24 October 2022 (UTC)

I'm in agreement with Efbrazil. I do not come to a scientific article primarily to learn about its history - and this section is a boring, waffling turn-off for any interest I had in the subject. You masochists already have your "History of evolutionary thought" article.

Whether or not it belongs at the beginning - meh. I do agree a concise summary would be more effective, and more likely to draw interest to the subject of history.Kauri0.o (talk) 02:20, 27 October 2022 (UTC)

Per WP:SDESC, I've reverted a revert to a change to the article's short description, changing it back from "a Change in the heritable characteristics of biological populations over successive generations" to "Change in the heritable characteristics of biological populations". This description is shorter and more concise (as well as properly capitalized), making it follow the guidelines (however it could, and should, be shorter). ~ Eejit43 (talk) 04:28, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

short descriptions cut off after 50 characters Dunkleosteus77 (talk) 06:06, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

no they don't. lettherebedarklight晚安 06:15, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

WP:SDFORMAT "Short descriptions exceeding 40 characters may be truncated in some contexts" Dunkleosteus77 (talk) 06:19, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

Exactly, so it should be shortened even further. I'll think about alternatives, but anyone can feel free to change it. ~ Eejit43 (talk) 12:50, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

I did the reversion as I did not think the new wording was descriptive. I reviewed many definitions online and came up with "How species adapt over generations to their environment". It's 48 characters. I'll make the edit now. Efbrazil (talk) 16:22, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

That is much better, it is actually 55 characters, but that is visible on most devices, so that should be fine. ~ Eejit43 (talk) 16:34, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

"How species adapt over generations to their environment" is only part of biological evolution. I don't feel the new short description distinguishes evolution from related articles, like adaptation. Kardoen (talk) 16:43, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

That is a valid point; how about something similar to the article such as "Change in heritable characteristics over generations"? ~ Eejit43 (talk) 16:55, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

Wording I came up with is 48 characters if you don't count the spaces.

I don't like "Change in heritable characteristics over generations" as it doesn't describe what evolution does as a function. It's not any change in heritable characteristics, it's the mechanism for adaptation to the environment. Keep in mind that the goal is 50 characters that describe what evolution is (not what it is not, ie adaptation). So, in other words, I still prefer my wording. Efbrazil (talk) 17:01, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

Ah well sadly spaces are included but that doesn't matter. Nonetheless, Kardoen does have a good point, differentiating it from adaptation is a good idea. ~ Eejit43 (talk) 17:37, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

Also, if what I proposed isn't fully accurate, the article's introduction might need to be expanded, as it states "Evolution is change in the heritable characteristics of biological populations over successive generations". ~ Eejit43 (talk) 17:46, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

"Heritable" implies "generations", so if the shortening is needed, that is ok. It is certainly not how species adapt. This would include cultures, such as apes, etc have.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 18:42, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

Do you think that the current short description is alright? It is a bit long, but that is alright if it is needed to properly describe the article. ~ Eejit43 (talk) 19:04, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

It is not correct to say "Change in the heritable characteristics of biological populations"- that applies whether there is evolution pressures or not (genetic drift). If prayer turned apple trees into cherry trees and change was heritable, would that be evolution? What people want is a synopsis of the theory of evolution here, after all that's what the article is all about and what online sources talk about.

I changed it to "How inherited characteristics of a species change to fit their environment", which is a bit longer but at least describes what's going on. We could use words like "Genes" to shorten it, but that's going to be gobblygook to anybody who doesn't know what evolution is. Efbrazil (talk) 20:07, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

It doesn't necessarily affect a whole species, isn't population more correct there? ~ Eejit43 (talk) 20:25, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

That would be fine too (although again, letter count), I mostly just don't think we should be abandoning the idea of adaptation or fitness when we define the word. Also, when evolution is talked about it is usually at a population size that includes all interbreeding members, and that generally means species, unless populations of a species are separated.

I realize I'm somewhat arguing with how the article itself is written, so if people disagree with this change as well I'll take a step back. My concern is that we're pushing a definition that is really about a conceptual space, not about what people are coming to the article for. We had a similar debate on the climate change page, where many people want to define climate change in a general way "e.g. a climate that has changes", and not define it in terms people reading the article actually want, which is the common usage of the term, and also what the entire article is actually about. We should probably do a similar fix to this page as was done there. Efbrazil (talk) 20:46, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

I agree that most people will probably be looking for evolutionary adaptation when coming to the article. But there is a lot of misconception in the general public around evolution being just adaptation. Because of that I think it merits a short description that does not heavily lean into only evolutionary adaptation in lieu of a more general meaning of evolution. Kardoen (talk) 21:30, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

It's not any change in heritable characteristics, it's the mechanism for adaptation to the environment.

No, that is mutation and natural selection. Evolution is actually defined as change in heritable characteristics, and we quote that definition in the first sentence. Besides adaptive evolution, there is also the neutral theory of molecular evolution and sexual selection. Both are types of evolution but not adaptive. So is Spandrel (biology). --Hob Gadling (talk) 21:42, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

@Efbrazil: by suggesting that genetic drift is not evolution it seems you believe that real evolution has a "direction", and that "nature" acts as if it was intelligent, and adapting its strategies. That might have been how evolution was once seen but I think there are logical problems with that approach and it is no longer what we mean by this term. If, on the other hand, prayer really could cause change in the characteristics which organisms inherited then I'm not sure why it wouldn't be seen as something to discuss in this article? Fact is that it doesn't. My comparison to learned behaviours in animal populations was in contrast not an imaginary example but something which really happens, and which really needs to be clearly distinguished from the topic of this article. I think the comparison to climate change is also a concern at first sight. Evolution is a scientific term and not a "hot topic" in popular culture? I think evolution is clearly a topic where the latest scientific understanding needs to be the standard, and not this or that popular debate.

@Eejit43: I am ok with the short or long version, but not with the "how species adapt" version. I think it is wrong. Evolution concerns types of change which are not defined by any direction, but by the fact that they are inheritable. Terms like "adaptation" should be seen as metaphorical because what drives the change is not changes in strategy, but simply different individuals succeeding or failing to breed. --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 22:02, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

Oh no I completely agree with you on that, yes. The currently displayed version is what I believe is best as well. ~ Eejit43 (talk) 00:11, 9 December 2022 (UTC)

I would suggest the heading may be expanded. It is currently the smallest heading within the article. In find this reasonable due to evolution probably being one of the scientific theories who has had the largest non-scientific impact on human life and perception. It could be expanded with status in different world regions, recognition within major religions, a public support chart, and/or a mention of its impact on philosophy.--Marginataen (talk) 23:36, 19 December 2022 (UTC)

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 15 January 2023 and 11 May 2023. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Andrewgarcia1973 (article contribs).

— Assignment last updated by Andrewgarcia1973 (talk) 04:39, 21 February 2023 (UTC)

This text is unnecessary, there is nothing indicating that natural selection wouldn't include sexual selection. — Treetoes023 (talk) 17:21, 9 March 2023 (UTC)

I agree. Genome42 (talk) 18:21, 9 March 2023 (UTC)

Disagree on not mentioning sexual selection in the lead somewhere. If it gets moved to a separate sentence instead I'd be happy with that. Far too often evolution is cast in terms of "survival of the fittest". That phrasing makes people think simply in terms of whichever animal is fastest or strongest being the winner because they survive while the other does not. Sexual selection was a major revelation and a controversial line of thought when discovered because it empowered females, who typically take on more of the burden of raising offspring. It also explained features not explainable otherwise and which creationists held up as counter examples, with the classic example being a peacock's feathers. Efbrazil (talk) 20:53, 9 March 2023 (UTC)

The main purpose of this article is to explain evolution to the general reader. We start off with a simple introduction to the basic definition of evolution as a change at the level of genes (alleles). Natural selection and genetic drift account for most of those allele changes in all species including bacteria, protozoa, fungi, and plants.

Sexual selection is a form of natural selection that can be mostly observed in organisms with eyes who exhibit sexual dimorphism and those organisms represent only a tiny percentage of all organisms and therefore only a (very) tiny percentage of all of evolution over the past three billion years. It doesn't need to be mentioned in the lead because it just perpetuates the misleading idea that evolution is only about big animals and morphological differences.

BTW, Charles Darwin described sexual selection in Origin in the chapter on "Natural Selection" and his description included bird plumage. That was in 1859 and I don't think it was a "major revelation," especially in comparison to the main theme of the book. Genome42 (talk) 22:53, 9 March 2023 (UTC)

I don't agree that there is an idea out there that evolution is only about big animals. It's always talked about in terms of diseases and the immune system for instance. Where do you get that idea from?

I also fundamentally disagree that gender is unimportant in evolution. Gender supercharged evolutionary processes in several ways, and it is unlikely there would be large, complex creatures without it. Introductory texts on evolution always feature the issue. Relative to other literature, we are under emphasizing it.

For instance, consider how PBS/NOVA covered evolution here. 7 hours of content, 1 hour dedicated exclusively to sex: https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/

If you are looking to make cuts, how about the last paragraph of the lead? It's mostly just fluff and generalities. Efbrazil (talk) 16:18, 10 March 2023 (UTC)

One sentence claims the following: "Despite the estimated extinction of more than 99% of all species that ever lived on Earth, about 1 trillion species are estimated to be on Earth currently with only one-thousandth of 1% described.", while the next section claims something different: "Estimates on the number of Earth's current species range from 10 million to 14 million". This is why I removed the first section, it's bad to have contradictory statements like this. Can we have a discussion to remove this contradiction and instead only have the most accurate figure that is agreed upon? TheVictoryOfTheProletariat (talk) 16:16, 9 June 2023 (UTC)

There are an estimated 10,000,000 species formally described, but there may be as many as 1 trillion which have not yet been described. One-thousandth of 1% of 1 trillion is 10,000,000 Dunkleosteus77 (talk) 18:20, 9 June 2023 (UTC)

to quote "The honest answer to the question, “how many species are there?” is that we don’t really know. Some estimates span several orders of magnitude, from a few to 100 million. But most recent estimates lie somewhere in the range of around 5 to 10 million." - from https://ourworldindata.org/how-many-species-are-there. A Trillion is an enormous number that I suspect has very little scientific backing. Maungapohatu (talk) 21:09, 9 June 2023 (UTC)

There are lots of things that need fixing but I have to become an "autoconfirmed user" in order to edit this article. How do I do that?

The first thing that need to be changed is the second sentence which now reads, "These characteristics are the expressions of genes, which are passed on from parent to offspring during reproduction."

This is misleading since gene expression refers to the molecular gene while this article is talking about the Mendelian gene. Evolution can be due to changes in the allele frequencies of junk DNA so we need to make sure people understand that we aren't restricting evolution to changes in the frequencies of alleles in molecular genes.

I suggest, "These characteristics are traditionally referred to as Mendelian genes or changes in DNA sequences that are passed on from parent to offspring during reproduction." Genome42 (talk) 19:01, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

@Genome42 You are already autoconfirmed, having made well over the threshold for that status. (See WP:AUTOCONFIRMED.) So you can go ahead and be WP:BOLD but should be prepared to discuss your changes here if reverted (per WP:BRD). This is a featured article, so it has been extensively reviewed by experienced editors but that doesn't mean it can't be improved! Mike Turnbull (talk) 19:13, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

P.S. You are proposing a change to the WP:LEAD of the article, which as that link explains should be a section which is a concise overview of the content given in full detail later on. Hence you need to check that your new text is consistent with what is written in the main part. Mike Turnbull (talk) 22:01, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

The most important problems with this article are: (1) it focuses too much on "genes" as the only target of evolutionary change, (2) it ignores or dismisses molecular evolution and even makes the false claim that the neutral theory has been "abandoned," (3) it ignores population genetics and doesn't describe any of the fundamental equations that form the basis of modern evolutionary theory, (4) it fails to make a clear distinction between evolution as a process and the history of life, which is explained by evolution, (5) it doesn't deal with the issue of adaptationism, which is responsible for much of the misunderstanding of evolution, (6) it does not explain macroevolution correctly, (7) it gets the history of evolutionary theory wrong and ignores the real controversy over the modern synthesis, (8) it doesn't mention levels of selection and hierarchy theory.

The lead is bad for several reasons but the most important is that it doesn't put enough emphasis on the current definition of evolution. It also emphasizes natural selection and downplays random genetic drift in spite of the fact that drift is the main mechanism of evolution. It has a paragraph devoted to the history of life which contains data, not a summary. It is too long - the second paragraph should be deleted.

The figure at the top of the page is incorrect. It depicts the history of life according to the Three Domain Hypothesis but that view was discarded more than 20 years ago. We now know that eukaryotes arose as a fusion between a protobacterium and a species within the Archaea.

According to Wikipedia, "Featured articles are considered to be some of the best articles Wikipedia has to offer, as determined by Wikipedia's editors." I don't think this qualifies as the best we can do. Let's make it better. Genome42 (talk) 22:09, 15 July 2023 (UTC)

@Efbrazil Please see my suggestions above for changing the lead. I think they are reasonable and necessary. There are two kinds of genes: Mendelian and molecular. The Mendelian gene is any bit of DNA that plays a role in evolution. It includes things like regulatory sequences, origins of replication, centromeres, and chromosome rearrangements. The molecular gene is the DNA sequence that is transcribed to produce a functional RNA (see Gene).

When you talk about “expression” of a gene you are referring to the molecular gene but the lead is actually talking about the Mendelian gene, not the molecular gene. Later in the article we should be discussing molecular evolution, which can be changes in alleles in junk DNA so perhaps we should avoid any mention of gene in the lead and only refer to changes in allele frequency. Maybe we should define heritable changes correctly as any change in DNA sequence? Genome42 (talk) 09:48, 16 July 2023 (UTC)

Anybody who is coming here to learn about the basics of what "evolution" is certainly isn't going to have any clue what "Mendelian" means. We need to keep the reading level of the lead in a basic article like this at an elementary school level, especially the first paragraph or two, which is all most people will ever read or understand. If you believe substance needs to be changed, please suggest text that is jargon free and could be understood by most english speaking fifth graders. If you want to write something below I could look to wordsmith it with you. Efbrazil (talk) 18:52, 16 July 2023 (UTC)

Also, to be clear, the existing lead already has too much jargon. I just went in and tried to cut some of the most unnecessary bits out. Readability checkers say the text requires a college graduate level of education to understand. Here is how ChatGPT rewrites the lead at a middle school level. I'm not saying we adopt this, but it has some interesting simplifications:

Evolution is a process in biology where characteristics in living things change over time. These characteristics come from genes that are passed down from parents to their offspring. Genetic variation happens because of mutations and recombination. Evolution occurs when things like natural selection and genetic drift act on this variation, causing certain traits to become more or less common in a population over generations. This process of evolution is responsible for the diversity of life we see in different levels of biology.

The theory of evolution by natural selection was developed by Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace in the mid-19th century. They observed certain facts about living organisms that support this theory. First, more offspring are produced than can survive. Second, individuals have different traits in terms of their physical characteristics, how their bodies work, and their behavior. Third, these traits affect how likely individuals are to survive and have offspring. Finally, traits can be passed on to future generations. This means that over time, individuals with favorable traits are more likely to have offspring, replacing those with less favorable traits. In the early 20th century, other ideas about evolution were disproven as scientists found evidence that supports Darwin's theory.

All life on Earth, including humans, shares a common ancestor that lived billions of years ago. This can be seen in the fossil record, which shows a progression from simple life forms to more complex organisms. The diversity of life we see today is a result of new species forming, changes happening within species, and species going extinct throughout Earth's history. Similarities in physical and biochemical traits can tell us how closely related species are and help us create family trees.

Evolutionary biologists continue to study different aspects of evolution by making hypotheses, testing them, and creating theories based on evidence from the field or lab. Their discoveries have had a big impact not only on biology but also on other fields like agriculture, medicine, and computer science. Efbrazil (talk) 20:18, 16 July 2023 (UTC)

There’s no way we can write this article for fifth graders. Evolution is a controversial topic and there are lots of misconceptions that we have to deal with. Let’s start with the definition. The two most important points are change in heritable characteristics and the fact that it is populations that evolve. The correct definition should be in the first sentence. (ChatGPT doesn’t understand the correct definition.)

“Heritable characteristics” requires expansion but we need to avoid confining them to genes because that’s not correct. How about just saying “heritable characteristics are changes in the DNA sequence”?

We also need to avoid phrases like “characteristics are passed down from parents to their offspring.” That doesn’t make a lot of sense when you are talking about bacteria, algae, mushrooms, and maple trees. There no reason to perpetuate such misleading baby talk in a scientific article on Wikipedia. Genome42 (talk) 20:47, 16 July 2023 (UTC)

Sorry, I don't think I was clear. I'm not trying to suggest we rewrite the whole thing to be fifth grade level or adopt chatgpt's take on things. I just think we should try to take out jargon and shorten sentences whenever possible. Adding a distinction between molecular and Mendelian genes is not really where this article needs to start.

Going back to the edit you made previously, we could strike out "traditionally referred to as Mendelian genes or ". That would leave your edit as changing this:

These characteristics are the expressions of genes, which are passed on from parent to offspring during reproduction.

to this:

These characteristics are changes in DNA sequences that are passed on from parent to offspring during reproduction. The most important points in the modern definition of evolution are that changes have to be heritable (genetic) and that it is populations that evolve and not individuals.

There are still problems in that new text. First, it is longer and the lead is overlong already. Second, you say "These characteristics are changes in DNA sequences", but I don't think DNA sequence changes can be equated to characteristics like that, so we could change that to say "These characteristics are caused by changes in DNA sequences", but then it feels like we are dancing around saying the word "genes", and the following sentence in the existing text begins with genetics.

The second new sentence you wrote is a major claim and pretty long winded. I don't see the value in including it except in defining the word "genetic", which is grounding the following sentence needs. All you say though is genetic = heritable, which is pretty iffy. The existing wording is better I think, even if it lacks the precision you want. The statement that populations evolve and not individuals is I think pretty self evident and not worth mentioning at the outset like this.

So that's why I'm asking for a proposal and I'm trying to frame what I'll be looking for in your proposal. First, please don't add jargon. Second, please try and make things more concise than they are today rather than adding content.

Note I don't disagree with any of the high level points you are making in your critique of the article. We just need to be careful with the text in the lead. It may be more productive to start your work by making article modifications, then revisit the lead. You won't get nearly as much second guessing if you attack the article text :) Efbrazil (talk) 23:09, 16 July 2023 (UTC)

I’m not sure if you understand the problem. What we’re talking about is changes of frequencies of alleles in a population. Alleles are not genes and they are not confined to genes. Alleles are DNA sequences. Calling them “characteristics” is confusing but I understand the necessity of avoiding the proper scientific term (allele). What do you mean when you say that “I don’t think DNA sequences can be equated to characteristics”? What do YOU think these characteristics are if they aren’t alleles? Genome42 (talk) 03:29, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

In terms of defining characteristics, the lead in the second paragraph equates characteristics with traits, where it says traits are attributes of organisms that impact their ability to survive and reproduce- their behavior, morphology, or physiology. I think that is also the definition that most people opening this article will assume. Oxford dictionary defines an allele as "one of two or more alternative forms of a gene that arise by mutation and are found at the same place on a chromosome." Efbrazil (talk) 22:01, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

The second paragraph is a description of natural selection. It should not be in the lead, especially since random genetic drift isn’t explained as well. This paragraph uses an incorrect definition of traits and doesn’t explain how they relate to the heritable characteristics mentioned in the first paragraph.

The Oxford dictionary definition of allele is incorrect, see allele. Alleles are not restricted to genes.

These are exactly the kinds of misconceptions that Wikipedia was designed to correct. Genome42 (talk) 04:36, 18 July 2023 (UTC)

Wikipedia is designed to distill information from authoritative sources, like the oxford dictionary for instance. If there's more authoritative sources then I'm all for using those. Regardless, let me know if you can come up with new text that addresses your concerns while considering the issues I raised. Efbrazil (talk) 17:49, 18 July 2023 (UTC)

Do you intend to revert my edits unless I get your approval beforehand? Why? Do you think my suggestions aren’t scientifically accurate? Genome42 (talk) 18:07, 18 July 2023 (UTC)

If you submit the same text you did before then I'll revert it for the reasons I listed above. While small changes can just be made on wiki, large changes need to be wordsmithed and get buy in before they go live. What I recommend is you start a new section here on the talk page with the text changes you think are needed for the lead, so we can get to consensus. For more, see: Wikipedia:Dispute_resolution. Efbrazil (talk) 18:30, 18 July 2023 (UTC)

How about this for the complete new lead?

"In biology, evolution is the change in heritable characteristics of biological populations over successive generations.[1][2] Genetic variation occurs within any given population as a result of mutation and recombination giving rise to a population where different individuals have different sequences of DNA at any one site on their chromosomes.[3] These different variants are called alleles.

Evolution occurs when evolutionary processes such as natural selection (including sexual selection) and genetic drift act on this variation, resulting in certain alleles becoming more or less common within a population over successive generations.[4] It is this process of evolution that has given rise to biodiversity at every level of biological organisation.[5][6]

All life on Earth shares a last universal common ancestor (LUCA),[10][11][12] which lived approximately 3.5–3.8 billion years ago.[13] The fossil record shows a change from early biogenic graphite[14] to microbial mat fossils[15][16][17] to fossilised multicellular organisms. Existing patterns of biodiversity have been shaped by repeated formations of new species (speciation), changes within species (anagenesis), and loss of species (extinction) throughout the evolutionary history of life on Earth.[18] Morphological and biochemical traits are more similar among species that share a more recent common ancestor, and these traits can be used to reconstruct phylogenetic trees.[19][20]" Genome42 (talk) 21:43, 18 July 2023 (UTC)

You need a new section for this proposal, and I think you should break it down into digestible changes rather than taking on the entire lead all at once. Clearly state your goal, then show how you want the text to change to meet that goal, then ask for support.

The current lead was the result of many editors working together over many weeks. See here for a history of lead discussion- it is in archives 59 to 64, and is quite endless: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Evolution/Archive_64

My personal view is that the current lead is better than the text you are proposing for somebody who does not know what evolution is. Concepts need to be built up one after the other for an introductory article to a major topic like this. I think that ifGenome42 (talk) 21:04, 24 July 2023 (UTC) the text you are proposing was taken to a middle schooler they would not understand it. This article needs to be as accessible as possible. Efbrazil (talk) 18:33, 23 July 2023 (UTC)

@Efbrazil This is the thread where I proposed changes to the lead. Nobody but you has responded to my suggestions in the last 8 days. I stated my objections to the current version and I proposed changes to fix the mistakes.

You referred me to old discussions on changes to the lead but those discussions were not productive or informative. What's clear is that there have been many editors who objected to the older versions of the lead and even the current version. Clearly, there's a problem. There are many editors who point out that the definition "changes in allele frequency in a population" is the correct minimal scientific definition of evolution. They repeatedly make the point that words like "traits" and "heritable characteristics" are not suitable synonyms for "alleles." These objections are usually ignored or rejected on the grounds that the word "allele" is too technical for the average reader.

I see their point, so I tried to find a middle ground by keeping the current version but then immediately expanding it by introducing the word allele to explain heritable characteristics. I don't think there's any way to avoid the word "allele" in the lead since it is a necessary part of the article later on and because the term "heritable characteristics" can be very mispleading.

On Aug. 28, 2018 Danielkueh made extensive changes to the lead, mostly by reverting to the description that was used 20 years ago. He added the following sentence to the first paragraph of the lead, "These characteristics are the expressions of genes that have been passed on from parent to offspring during reproduction. " This was an attempt to further describe "heritable characteristics" but rather than use the acceptable scientific term "alleles" they used a different explanation that is indefensible as I explained above.

This is not really controversial if you know anything about the minimal definition of evolution. Alleles are NOT the expression of genes no matter how you define "gene."

I do not understand why anyone would object to removing this incorrect statement. Here is my proposal for the first two paragraphs. It explains that heritable characteristics are alleles and it eliminates the misleading "expression of genes" statement. It then describes evolution as a change in allele frequency. I'm anxious to hear from any editor who has serious objections to my proposal. I'd like to point out that the most important goal in a scientific article is accuracy and we should never sacrifice scientific accuracy for readability.

"In biology, evolution is the change in heritable characteristics of biological populations over successive generations.[1][2] Genetic variation occurs within any given population as a result of mutation and recombination giving rise to a population where different individuals have different sequences of DNA at any one site on their chromosomes.[3] These different variants are called alleles.

Evolution occurs when evolutionary processes such as natural selection (including sexual selection) and genetic drift act on this variation, resulting in certain alleles becoming more or less common within a population over successive generations.[4] It is this process of evolution that has given rise to biodiversity at every level of biological organization.[5][6]"

Genome42 (talk) 21:04, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for reviewing the lead editing history. I think the new text you are proposing is better as you are defining the word allele, but I think the first paragraph is the wrong spot to put that idea.

What is more relevant to someone learning about evolution- the ideas of heredity and natural selection, or the idea of alleles? The more relevant and accessible ideas should be put first. We can either hand wave dna and genetics in the first paragraph as happens now, or get more technical with that content and put it later in the lead.

If you want input from more people, you can use the ping template. Typically once there is a long discussion like this people don't just jump in. That's why I was suggesting a new section with a proposal, particularly if you disagree with my critiques or want a fresh perspective. Efbrazil (talk) 17:59, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

You ask an important question, "What is more relevant to someone learning about evolution- the ideas of heredity and natural selection, or the idea of alleles?"

The answer is not as straightforward as you might think. The idea of "heredity" is important but it's just as important to explain what it is that's inherited. It's not things like zebra stripes, big brains, and the size of finch beaks. It's the DNA that's responsible for those characteristics that's inherited as well as many other segments of DNA that don't even express a phenotype. It's alleles that are inherited.

Most of our readers don't know this because they have been taught simplified and misleading information about evolution. That's why it's important to start correcting this misinformation right from the start.

Same with natural selection. Most people think that the only mechanism of evolution is natural selection but that's something that we have to correct as soon as possible in this article. In order to do that, we have to steer readers away from the old-fashioned, and incorrect, view that evolution is only concerned with very visible phenotypic changes in animals.

I will start a new thread to see if anyone else wants to comment. Genome42 (talk) 21:08, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

I propose to change the lead to,

"In biology, evolution is the change in heritable characteristics of biological populations over successive generations.[1][2] Genetic variation occurs within any given population as a result of mutation and recombination giving rise to a population where different individuals have different sequences of DNA at any one site on their chromosomes.[3] These different variants are called alleles.

Evolution occurs when evolutionary processes such as natural selection (including sexual selection) and genetic drift act on this variation, resulting in certain alleles becoming more or less common within a population over successive generations.[4] It is this process of evolution that has given rise to biodiversity at every level of biological organization.[5][6]"

Genome42 (talk) 21:11, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

To clarify, it looks like you are suggesting replacing the first paragraph that is there now with these two paragraphs (you are not suggesting we replace the first two paragraphs of the lead). I hope more people comment. If not, I encourage you to submit an RfC or use the ping template.

• Oppose: My main concern with this proposal is that the second sentence is a jumble of ideas that doesn't connect back to the first sentence the way the current text does. I don't think someone unfamiliar with evolution is going to be able to handle a sentence with genetic variation, mutation, recombination, dna, "giving rise to a population", and chromosomes all at once. What is currently on site does a good job of building up concepts one at a time. It goes from characteristics --> genes, then genes --> genetic variation, then genetic variation --> natural selection, and finally natural selection --> biological diversity. Regarding your core idea of talking about alleles instead of genes and genetic diversity, I have no basic objection, but it does complicate the lead to introduce jargon like that. Genes are the more common term and connect to genetics. An alternative would be to omit all mentions of genes and alleles and genetics and chromosomes simply talk in terms of DNA. That other stuff can come later.

Efbrazil (talk) 20:21, 28 July 2023 (UTC)

Let me try one more time to explain why your reasoning is scientifically inaccurate.

You like the idea of describing “characteristics” as the expression of genes as in the current lead. This is not correct and it’s embarrassing to see this in a Wikipedia article on evolution. I have explained this many times. The best way to argue in favor of the current lead is for you to find an scientific source that says evolution is restricted to changes in the expression of genes. Good luck with that.

You like the idea of a progression of concepts that lead to natural selection and then “natural selection —-> biological diversity.” But this is scientifically incorrect in the sense that there’s more to evolution than natural selection. In fact, the rest of the article explains that random genetic drift is an important mechanism of evolution. That concept is even in the current lead. Most biological diversity at the molecular level is due to neutral alleles and random genetic drift. One could make a good case that a lot of biological diversity at the gross phenotypic level is also not adaptive (i.e. not due to natural selection).

One of our goals should be to explain the correct scientific concepts and not to cater to the standard misconceptions that most people have about evolution. Genome42 (talk) 10:37, 29 July 2023 (UTC)

"These characteristics are the expressions of genes" can be interpreted to include which genetic variant is being expressed. It doesn't necessarily mean which genes are turned on and off.

Having said that, I'm really not defending the current text. I care primarily about having any changes be more accessible, not less. Shorter sentences, less jargon, connected ideas that build up a mental model.

If you want text that is both accessible and less open to misinterpretation, we could simply cut those two sentences from the first paragraph. For instance, the first paragraph could be changed to this:

In biology, evolution is the change in heritable characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. Evolution occurs when evolutionary processes such as natural selection (including sexual selection) and genetic drift act on heritable characteristics, resulting in certain characteristics becoming more or less common within a population over successive generations. It is this process of evolution that has given rise to biodiversity at every level of biological organisation.

We could then cut the last parargaph of the lead entirely (it's fluff) and create a new paragraph beginning with "In the early 20th century, other competing ideas of evolution were refuted as the modern synthesis concluded Darwinian evolution acts on Mendelian genetic variation." That would give us the opening to talk about genetics. Efbrazil (talk) 17:39, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

I don’t think you are paying attention to what I’ve been saying. A lot of evolution is due to the fixation of neutral alleles and in many organisms these neutral alleles are not in genes. Thus, there’s no way that heritable characteristics can be defined as which genetic variant is being expressed because nothing is being expressed.

I agree with your proposed change to remove the incorrect sentence. It’s too bad that it took so long to reach agreement on such an obvious correction to the current lead. Genome42 (talk) 00:32, 1 August 2023 (UTC)

Yes, junk DNA is not junk, but it's also true that genetic variation is what leads to variability in heriditary characteristics. I don't agree that the current sentence is incorrect, it's just that you're determined to read it that way.

Maybe as a path forward you could take what I suggested as a compromise and make a new proposal along those lines. If you can get people agreeing with your proposal it could move forward. So far, you don't have people agreeing with you. And again, if you want more voices because you think I'm off base, use the ping template. Efbrazil (talk) 03:17, 1 August 2023 (UTC)

I note that you don’t have people agreeing with you either. In fact, only one other person even cares to participate in this discussion. I don’t know what the “ping template” is or how to use it.

You seem determined to avoid reading the word “express” as in “expression of genes” and determined to avoid defending the idea that heritable characteristics can be defined as the expression of genes when we’re talking about the fixation of SNPs in junk DNA. Please try and come up with a scientific argument to defend the current lead. Find a scientific source that supports your view. Genome42 (talk) 08:52, 1 August 2023 (UTC)

Ping template Efbrazil (talk) 17:55, 1 August 2023 (UTC)

I agree with your suggestion to delete the second and third sentences of the lead. I will make the change. Genome42 (talk) 18:44, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

Good, progress! I tried to build on what you did by adding in a variant of your wording into that spot in the lead I was previously talking about. Take a look and make changes as you see fit. I think it is best if we simply talk DNA and try to avoid "allele", "gene", and "chromosome". All those words are really just about how DNA gets converted into physical characteristics. Efbrazil (talk) 19:32, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

• I still don't get the aversion to the word "gene". An allele is a variant of some gene, so calling it a gene is not exactly incorrect, maybe less specific sure. And if we're not using the word "allele", then there's no reason to further complicate the word "genetics" with Mandelian or molecular genetics or population genetics, etc., since the entire thing boils down to just how many alleles a gene could have, which is really outside the scope of at least the lede Dunkleosteus77 (talk) 01:46, 29 July 2023 (UTC)

  A lot of evolution at the molecular level takes place outside of genes. Even phenotypic changes are often due to changes in regulatory sequences and they are not part of the molecular gene. Alleles are not only found in genes but in all kinds of DNA sequences, including junk DNA. It’s the frequency of alleles that change and not just the frequency of (molecular) gene variants.

  Some of the major misconceptions in evolution have to do with confusion over the meaning of “gene,” as in “gene-centric” view of evolution, and over the role of random genetic drift. It will be far easier to correct these misconception if we introduce the correct scientific terms as soon as possible. Genome42 (talk) 10:12, 29 July 2023 (UTC)

None of these are opposing concepts Dunkleosteus77 (talk) 21:21, 29 July 2023 (UTC)

I have no idea what you mean by “opposing concepts.” If you say that the heritable characteristics are the expression of genes and I say that’s not correct then those seem to be opposing concepts to me.

If you say that evolution is defined as changes in genes and I say that’s not true then those sure seem like opposing concepts to me.

If you define an allele as a gene variant and I say that you can have alleles that are outside of genes then how are those not opposing concepts? Genome42 (talk) 03:03, 30 July 2023 (UTC)

• Maybe we should just use the words of an expert by quoting the definition/description in the leading textbooks. Here's an example from one of the best textbooks on evolution. Does anyone object to putting this in the opening paragraph of the lead? Later on in the article we can explain that alleles aren't confined to genes and that evolution embraces other slight changes that are outside genes?

"Biological (or organic) evolution is change in the properties of populations of organisms ..., over the course of generations. The development, or ontogeny, of an individual organism is not considered evolution: individual organisms do not evolve. The changes in populations that are considered evolutionary are those that are ‘heritable' via the genetic material from one generation to the next. Biological evolution may be slight or substantial; it embraces everything from slight changes in the proportions of different forms of a gene within a population, such as the alleles that determine the different human blood types, to the alterations that led from the earliest organisms to dinosaurs, bees, snapdragons, and humans."

Douglas J. Futuyma (1998) Evolutionary Biology 3rd ed., Sinauer Associates Inc. Sunderland MA p.4

I gather that many editors would be uncomfortable with the definition used by one of the best biology textbooks of all time even though this is the definition that was taught to generations of undergraduates.

"In fact, evolution can be precisely defined as any change in the frequency of alleles within a gene pool from one generation to the next."

Helena Curtis and N. Sue Barnes, Biology, 5th ed. 1989 Worth Publishers, p.974

Keep in mind that our goal is to define/describe evolution in a way that encompasses all forms of evolution. It's especially important to include molecular evolution since that's the focus of much scientific activity these days and because it's the form of evolution that's the least understood by the general public (and creationists).

The experts in molecular evolution (population geneticists) all agree with a definition similar to this,

"Evolution, according to this definition, is the process of change in the genetic makeup of populations, that is, a change in genotype and allele frequencies. By providing an exact and measurable definition of evolution we can apply strict scientific methodology to what is essentially a historical process."

Gruar, Dan (2016) "Molecular and Genome Evolution" Sinauer Associates Inc.

I don't understand why some editors are objecting to the proper scientific definition of evolution.

Genome42 (talk) 14:52, 29 July 2023 (UTC)

I've seen this assertion repeatedly, but it is far from self-evident and I would like to see a citation to a proper quantitative analysis. The article on Blending inheritance cites a Guardian article by Richard Dawkins that dismisses a straw-man version of the model -- one that does not include the possibility of mutation. My intuition is that it may require strong selection to overcome the high mutation rate needed to maintain variation -- but that it would still work find under some circumstances. AdamChrisR (talk) 01:35, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

The statement is backed by 3 sources in the blending inheritance article, not just dawkins, but also ^[1] and ^[2]. I can't verify either source, but I admit I find the claim to be self evident. Do either of those sources work for you? Efbrazil (talk) 02:41, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

I agree with AdamChrisR that the statement in the article is far from self-evident (i.e. probably wrong). It's not true that variation would be "rapidly lost" by blending inheritance and I can easily imagine how natural selection selection could act on individuals in a population with differing blends of inherited alleles.

But that's not the main problem. The statement on blending inheritance doesn't belong in the introduction to a section on "Sources of variation" and it doesn't even belong elsewhere in the article. There's not much point in bringing up ideas that were rejected more than 100 years ago. Somebody should put it in the section on "History of evolutionary thought" if you think it's important.

I will delete the two sentences that refer to blending inheritance along with the following sentence that makes an incorrect statement about the Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium. The Hardy-Weinberg equation allows you to test whether the frequencies of two alleles that are present in a diploid population show evidence of selection on homozygotes and/or heterozygotes. The current statement in the article says, "The Hardy–Weinberg principle provides the solution to how variation is maintained in a population with Mendelian inheritance" and that's totally false. The only way to maintain variation is a population is by some form of balancing selection. In all other cases variation will be eliminated by selection and/or drift. Genome42 (talk) 18:16, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

That's a good point -- blending inheritance is really tangential to the topic. It may fit in the history section; I'll see if I can put it in there when I get down there. Regarding the other sources, I've only looked at the Larson source which quotes the Jenkin argument. The problem is that the Jenkin argument does not compare blending inheritance to Mendelian inheritance; the scenario presented by Jenkin would play out the same way under either model of inheritance. Specifically, according to modern theory, a single copy of an adaptive allele is still likely to go extinct -- if one migrant brings a set of adaptive alleles into a population, most of those alleles will go extinct rather than replacing everything. AdamChrisR (talk) 21:20, 12 August 2023 (UTC)

Shouldn't there be more emphasis on adaptation early in the article? It's the most obvious consequence of evolution and the one most people will think of, yet it isn't even mentioned until the section on the evolution of sexual reproduction. It's also missing from the introductory paragraphs of the Introduction to Evolution article.

I'm thinking of a first-paragraph sentence such as "The most dramatic outcome of evolution is adaptation, the fine-tuning of an organism's characteristics that enables it to grow and reproduce." Rosieredfield (talk) 21:19, 12 August 2023 (UTC)

Good point. I edited the second paragraph to note that natural selection was proposed as an explanation for adaptation (confirmed in the Intro of "Origin" that Darwin was motivated to explain "the coadaptations of organic beings to each other and to their physical conditions of life"). It may require more attention, but this is a start. AdamChrisR (talk) 23:36, 13 August 2023 (UTC)

The discussion is going nowhere so here are some small changes that will improve the lead a little bit.

The first paragraph has been fixed by removing the incorrect statement. The second sentence now reads, " Evolution occurs when evolutionary processes such as natural selection (including sexual selection) and genetic drift act on genetic variation, resulting in certain characteristics becoming more or less common within a population over successive generations."

The second paragraph emphasizes natural selection. It begins with, "The theory of evolution by natural selection was conceived ..." This is misleading because it confuses evolutionary theory with the mechanism of natural selection. By saying "The theory of evolution" we create two problem: (1) it plays into several common misconceptions such as natural selection is a theory (it's a fact) and there's only one theory of evolution, and (2) it conflicts with the third paragraph (see below).

I suggest we avoid these problems by just saying, "Natural selection was conceived ..." Please let me know if you object to this change and your reasons for objecting.

The third paragraph begins with, "In the early 20th century, competing ideas of evolution were refuted ..." This is confusing because genetic drift was not refuted - it was added to evolutionary theory along with mutation and gene flow. I realize that the existing sentence was referring to other ideas about evolution that were discarded but we don't really need to go there in the lead. The important point is that other ideas besides natural selection were added in the 20th century including the Neutral Theory and the Nearly-Neutral Theory. Also, it's not clear that mutationism has been refuted.

I suggest we edit this sentence so that the entire paragraph reads,

"In the early 20th century, natural selection was combined with Mendelian inheritance and population genetics and expanded to give rise to modern evolutionary theory.[8] In this synthesis the basis for heredity is in DNA molecules that pass information from generation to generation and the processes that change DNA in a population include natural selection, genetic drift, mutation, and gene flow.[3]"

This has the added advantage of avoiding the misleading term "THE theory of evolution." Please let me know whether you agree with this change; if not, please offer another suggestion that will make the history more accurate. Genome42 (talk) 16:28, 10 August 2023 (UTC)

In your proposed paragraph, natural selection is being used a noun. Shouldn't it be an adjective? Something "natural selection theory"?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 13:59, 13 August 2023 (UTC)

@Andrew Lancaster

Natural selection, genetic drift, mutation, and gene flow are all nouns and they are used as nouns in the main article; for example, "Natural selection can act at different levels of organisation, such as genes, cells, individual organisms, groups of organisms and species."

Chapter 4 of "Origin of Species" is titled "Natural Selection." Here's what Charles Darwin said, "This preservation of favourable variations and the rejection of injurious variations, I call Natural Selection."

Also, natural selection is a well-demonstrated fact, not a theory. Evolutionary theory proposes that populations evolve by the mechanisms of natural selection and random genetic drift (and other things).

Someone above suggested that, "This discussions seems to be more difficult than it needs to be?" and I agree with him. Genome42 (talk) 21:08, 13 August 2023 (UTC)

I think you have missed my point. In the sentence I am referring to you are not referring to the phenomenon, but rather the scientific narrative. Your word use is a kind of short hand, but I think technically wrong, not good for encyclopedic writing. Perhaps you missed my point because you seem very distracted about trying to avoid the word "theory". (Strangely "evolutionary theory" is ok for you, but not "theory of evolution".) Isn't this going along with the way creationists over-interpret that word? Why bother? Science does not demand finality about facts. It is made up of various types of narratives. I see no reason to apologise for using the word theory. Anyway, if you don't like the normal term for this narrative find another one but please distinguish the natural phenomenon from the accounts people make of it.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:13, 14 August 2023 (UTC)

@Andrew Lancaster I think everyone needs to step back and look at the entire lead. I think it's too long, it contains information, such as a partial history of evolutionary theory, that doesn't belong in the introduction.

With the recent addition of adaptation it's even longer and the emphasis on the 18th century view of evolution has been strengthened.

The first paragraph correctly describes the current view of evolution and correctly identifies the two main mechanisms of allele frequency change; natural selection and genetic drift.

The next paragraph describes the 18th century history and contains a simplistic 18th century view of evolution by natural selection.

The third paragraph begins by stating that in the early 1900s competing ideas of evolution were refuted. What does that mean? The only idea other than natural selection that has been mentioned is genetic drift and it certainly wasn't refuted. It then says "evolution was combined with Mendelian inheritance and population genetics." What does "evolution" mean in this context? Does anyone think that makes sense? If not, why hasn't it been corrected and why is everyone being so critical of my attempt to fix it by saying "natural selection was combined with ..."?

We need to be very careful about saying "THE theory of evolution" (note the emphasis on "the"). That's because evolutionary theory is complex and controversial. It includes things like the neutral theory, the nearly-neutral theory, kin selection, the drift-barrier hypothesis, constructive neutral evolution, the gene-centric view of evolution, and many others. There is no single theory of evolution that justifies referring to THE theory of evolution.

In addition, by referring to "THE theory of evolution" we play into a major misconception that views the whole idea of evolution as just a theory. That's the view of evolution critics but it's also common among the rest of the general public. We know that evolution (change in allele frequencies) is a fact, not a theory, and I believe we have an obligation to explain this in the article. Genome42 (talk) 17:10, 14 August 2023 (UTC)

I actually can't parse the second sentence as it is proposed. Should the word 'include' be 'including', and perhaps be preceded by a comma? Girth Summit _(blether) 15:15, 13 August 2023 (UTC)

That sentence does the reader no favors, running on at great enough length to obscure who does which, and with what, and to whom. A comma after "generation to generation" might make it clearer that "the processes ... include [selection, drift, mutation, and gene flow.]"

Just plain Bill (talk) 15:39, 13 August 2023 (UTC)

@Girth Summit,@Just plain Bill

Okay let's revert to the two sentences that are currently in the main article. I didn't think it was clear that the new modern evolutionary theory also proposed the inclusion of genetic drift, mutation, and gene flow. If you read it that way then it's okay. The paragraph will now read,

"In the early 20th century, natural selection was combined with Mendelian inheritance and population genetics and expanded to give rise to modern evolutionary theory.[8] In this synthesis the basis for heredity is in DNA molecules that pass information from generation to generation. The processes that change DNA in a population include natural selection, genetic drift, mutation, and gene flow.[3]"

Genome42 (talk) 20:54, 13 August 2023 (UTC)

No complaint from me about carving that sentence into two digestible pieces. cheers! Just plain Bill (talk) 21:18, 13 August 2023 (UTC)

I mentioned earlier that the lead contained a description of natural selection and this shouldn't be there. I deleted it but Efbrazil immediately reverted my edit. They did not try to defend putting a description of natural selection in the lead while ignoring the other mechanisms of evolution that are described in the article.

Instead, Efbrazil says, "Undid revision 1168878355 by Genome42 (talk) This is too large a change to not run through the talk page first. Also, consider how a fifth grader will read what you have written in this edit- it is far too advanced for someone without background to understand. At least what was there was a hook for a fifth grader to begin to understand the concepts involved." That's a bizarre statement since I only added two extra words to what was already in the lead. Furthermore, this is a science article in an encyclopedia, not a book for fifth graders. Britannica and other encyclopedias do not write for fifth graders.

I'd also like to note, for the record, that the current description of natural selection is not very good in spite of the fact that this is supposed to be a featured article.

I intend to restore my edit unless someone can come up with a good reason why we should be explaining (poorly) the mechanism of natural selection in the lead to a large article on evolution that discusses many aspects of the subject. I'm confused about why Efbrazil is resisting the effort to make the article better without engaging in a serious discussion about the issues. Genome42 (talk) 21:25, 5 August 2023 (UTC)

Wikipedia is an educational tool that is used worldwide, principally on smartphones to look up basic facts. That is particularly true for a foundational article like this. We need to offer accessible content to someone new to evolution.

The existing text makes the foundational element of evolution clear to people without scientific education. Jumping straight into Mendelian inheritance, mutation, gene migration, and genetic drift without that grounding is going to confuse and alienate our audience.

Restoring reverted edits is warring, see WP:WAR. Efbrazil (talk) 16:25, 6 August 2023 (UTC)

I don't understand your reply. The text you are objecting to was already in the lead. (It's still there.) All I've done now is add "population genetics" and moved genetic drift to second place in the list. Do you want to remove that entire paragraph? Why?

Why haven't you replied to my proposal to delete the bad description of natural selection from the lead? That was the most important part of my edit - the one that you just reverted because it's not suitable for fifth graders.

I propose to remove it unless you can come up with a good reason for keeping it in the lead while ignoring random genetic drift, mutations, and gene flow.

Reverting reasonable edits with no attempt to discuss the science is warring. Please stop. Genome42 (talk) 17:09, 6 August 2023 (UTC)

Natural selection is foundational for understanding evolution and a clear description was put there for good reason. I don't see what is "bad" about the description. It just appears you want to see other evolutionary mechanisms more prominently discussed.

I am fine with mendelian genetics being talked about after we lay down the basics of natural selection. I have no objection to you adding a sentence on mendelian genetic mechanisms to that 3rd paragraph of the lead if that scratches your itch.

Again (and again), if you think I am off base then see WP:DR. Efbrazil (talk) 21:08, 6 August 2023 (UTC)

There are three kinds of natural selection: positive, negative (purifying), and balancing (see natural selection. The description in the lead only describes "favourable" selection. It lists four "facts" but only three principles are mentioned in the section on natural selection. The point about more offspring being produced than can possibly survive is not required for selection. Think about what happens when a growing population of bacteria is treated with a drug. (This needs to be corrected in the main body of the article.)

I'm not asking for the other mechanisms of evolution to be described in the lead. That would be just as inappropriate as picking only one of them. That kind of detail does not belong in the introduction to a comprehensive article on evolution - it will be covered in considerable detail in the rest of the article.

But there's a more important issue at stake. Most people have only a rudimentary understanding of evolution. They think that the only important thing worth knowing is some simplistic fifth grade understanding of positive natural selection. But evolutionary biology is much more sophisticated and complex than that and we owe it to our readers to disabuse them of their misconceptions. You can't fully understand evolution if you think that positive natural selection on big animals is all there is and you certainly can't challenge the facts of evolution if you think that's how real evolutionary biologists view evolution. Creationists make this mistake all the time and we need to correct that false view of evolution and teach everyone how scientists really think about evolution.

The current lead feeds into the common misconceptions of evolution by presenting a simplistic description of natural selection right up front in the lead, giving the impression that this is just about all you need to know. We can, and should, do better than that. Genome42 (talk) 15:16, 7 August 2023 (UTC)

I'm worried about your to and fro with Genome42 in relation to this article on Evolution, because I think you need to explain why you disagree with him. I should declare an interest as I agree with what he says, but even if I didn't I think he should be allowed make edits without having them reverted for no clearly stated reason. Genome42 is a highly respected Emeritus Professor of Biochemistry at the University of Toronto, the author of a major textbook, and of a more recent book on the genome. Your user page is extremely vague about your qualifications, but on your Talk page I read "I'm a liberal who lives in Seattle that has a graduate degree from UW and all that good stuff". OK, but a graduate degree at what level and in what subject? That doesn't of course mean that Genome42's opinion needs to be accepted without question, but it does mean that it should be taken seriously, not only by you but also by other editors of unknown qualifications who have reverted his edits to other pages. Athel cb (talk) 17:41, 8 August 2023 (UTC)

Please let's not get off track by reporting or calling for information about anyone's private lives. Wikipedia aims to report what experts have published. Qualifications should not be part of the discussion because that would mean we are talking about something beyond that mission, i.e. this is not the place to publish new research. Clearly the above discussion is however within our normal mission, and it is about how to report published information. No one seems to be debating complex technical matters. What I see is a discussion about how to present and break up the information.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 19:18, 8 August 2023 (UTC)

Genome42, are you talking about Modern synthesis (20th century)? Dunkleosteus77 (talk) 01:39, 9 August 2023 (UTC)

@Dunkleosteus77 I’m talking about two things. (1) whether a description of positive natural selection needs to be in the lead, and (2) whether that description is the best we can do. So far, nobody has come up with a good reason for keeping a description of positive natural selection in the lead while ignoring other kinds of selection and other mechanisms of evolution. Do you have a good argument for keeping it?

We should have an explanation of the Modern Synthesis in the main body of the article along with a discussion about whether it is the current best model of evolutionary theory. Genome42 (talk) 03:17, 9 August 2023 (UTC)

@Andrew Lancaster Thank-you for joining the discussion. Please feel free to give us your opinion on how to improve this article. Genome42 (talk) 14:02, 9 August 2023 (UTC)

Thanks. At this stage I have neither taken a side nor come up with a proposal. I think I sort of understand why positive natural selection has a privileged position. If we think about how to write a lesson for example, we typically start with whatever concepts we think the students will be best able to lock onto as a starting point. Does that make any sense? Again, I am not taking a side, but just trying to think through the pros and cons.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 15:20, 9 August 2023 (UTC)

@Andrew Lancaster Thank-you for taking sides and expressing an opinion. If I understand you correctly, you think we should retain a description of positive natural selection in the lead because that's what students expect to see when they consult the Wikipedia article on evolution. That only makes sense if the version that students can "lock onto" is the correct view of evolution.

Do you believe that's the best scientific view of evolution that we should be presenting in this article? What evidence do you have that this is the view described by experts in textbooks of evolutionary biology? The next paragraph in the lead says that evolution is a process that changes DNA in a population and the mechanisms are natural selection, genetic drift, mutation, and gene flow. Do you think that will confuse students who think that positive natural selection in animals is the only mechanism they expect to hear about?

If the rest of the article goes out of its way to describe other mechanisms of evolution then what's the point of emphasizing just one of them in the lead? Don't you think this could reinforce a common misunderstanding of evolution; namely, that it's all about positive natural selection? I've actually taught evolution and that's not how I wrote the lesson plan.

I believe that one has to have a deep understanding of the correct scientific view of a subject in order to edit/write a Wikipedia article. Do you agree or do you think we should cater to the common beliefs and not write articles that might challenge what students expect to hear? Genome42 (talk) 16:50, 9 August 2023 (UTC)

No, I did not take a side, and that's because I think the core of your concern is reasonable. The practical question is whether you are being so principled that it is counter productive. (Please also consider your talk page style. Your post is filled with leading questions and attempts to pin ideas on me which have nothing to do with anything I said. Don't treat people like idiots.) OTOH I'm not sure we need to take a side. A lead is different from the body. Whatever we write in the lead, it is not the body of the article and so I think we all agree that the lead does not need to explained everything. The most important thing is that the lead should not mislead or give a wrong impression.

Is this correct? You want readers of the lead to be alerted to the fact that there is more than one way in which natural selection works. You want us to be saying that "you might already know about X, but that is only one example". --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 21:27, 9 August 2023 (UTC)

Discussion of the editor's identity and qualifications is entirely appropriate in this case. He lists it on his User: and it's directly relevant to this article and questions of paedogogy. Invasive Spices (talk) 19:15, 9 August 2023 (UTC)

I don't see how this makes such sophistic debate strategies useful to the discussion. It is a distraction at best, and looks a bit deliberate. Let's just think through what is best for the article, as editors? I don't see anything particularly technical about this discussion.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 21:27, 9 August 2023 (UTC)

@Andrew Lancaster I apologize. I though you were defending the idea that positive natural selection should have a “privileged position.” Are you okay with removing it from the lead and alerting readers that there are several important mechanisms of evolution?

BTW, do you agree that I’m not trying to publish new research in this article? I’m simply trying to explain basic principles that have been around for half a century. Genome42 (talk) 21:53, 9 August 2023 (UTC)

I wanted to say that I could understand and empathize with both ideas. (1) The idea that we use the most well-known example as a hook to open the article without making the lead too complex. (2) The argument that this might encourage a traditional over-simplification and misunderstanding. I don't see any reason (apart from polarizing styles of discussion) that both aims can't be considered, and possibly even used at the same time. For example in an article about early Frankish kings the lead might say "Frankish emperors, such as Charlemagne" (who is particularly well-known example). The wording here alerts readers to the fact that this is only an example. Such use of well-known examples does not need to create misunderstandings if the wording is well-chosen? Using illustrative examples is quite a normal way of writing even in academia.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 22:01, 9 August 2023 (UTC)

This article is on an extremely broad subject that is introduced early in education. Our primary audience for this article is not graduate students, it is middle schoolers. If your concern is how qualified an editor is, I would suggest the best qualification would be a middle school science teacher. This article needs to be an appropriate WP:TECHNICAL level, favoring clarity over jargon. I do not want to see this article turn into Modern synthesis (20th century).

The article has already been through WP:FAR so it was very carefully constructed and reviewed. I did not write much of any of the content, but I think it should be protected against narrow perspectives demanding a complete rewrite. The changes Genome42 has demanded so far have been almost exclusively focused on the lead, ignoring the content of the article and holding previous lead content in contempt. I have been trying to guide them towards constructive inputs. Efbrazil (talk) 21:27, 9 August 2023 (UTC)

@EfbrazilCan you give me an example of an important science article on Wikipedia that’s written at the level of middle schoolers? Can you give me an example of a middle school science teacher who understands evolution well enough to write an encyclopedia article for Britannica or any other encyclopedia?

Also, I challenge you to find an evolutionary biologist who thinks this article is carefully constructed and accurate. I’ve already corrected a number of serious errors. I will continue to do so in order to make this article scientifically accurate unless I’m blocked by other editors. Genome42 (talk) 21:44, 9 August 2023 (UTC)

FWIW I agree that there is no need to write at middle school level. We should avoid errors, and simplifications are errors. Please let's not make unreasonable demands on each other. This discussions seems to be more difficult than it needs to be?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 21:53, 9 August 2023 (UTC)

The reason I said middle school level is that is both the age at which this topic is typically introduced and also is going to be the primary reading level of our audience. Accessibility of content is particularly important in the lead, which is all the vast majority of visitors ever read. Good writing is both accurate and accessible. We need to introduce people to the topic and walk them through the basics, not throw up a wall of jargon and alienate them. Efbrazil (talk) 16:04, 31 August 2023 (UTC)

I don't think anyone disagrees with that either. The question in practice is where simplification actually starts to create different messages. This can be difficult to agree upon, but it is sensible that we focus on that question a bit from all sides?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 17:43, 31 August 2023 (UTC)

Absolutely, I'm not trying to be exclusionary at all. Efbrazil (talk) 03:30, 2 September 2023 (UTC)

The FAQ section for the explanation as to observed evolution links to an article about a flower that doesn't include evidence supporting that view. Find a better article. 2405:6580:D420:5C00:483D:F518:3E09:635D (talk) 08:32, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

I'd suggest reading the article again. - Sumanuil. _{(talk to me)} 19:53, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

Greetings I am a professor attempting to show students how to edit and do research using Wikipedia. I am curious if others have done this and if they found ways to help students understand better what information is relevant and what information is not. Lady3Eye (talk) 18:43, 7 December 2023 (UTC)

• Hi - this and this are very useful links for teachers and professors looking to educate their students on how Wikipedia works. Black Kite (talk) 19:12, 7 December 2023 (UTC)

  Thank you so much! Lady3Eye (talk) 02:08, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

@Lady3Eye: There's no easy way to tell what information on Wikipedia is relevant and there's no easy way to tell whether the information is accurate or not. If you want to use this article (Evolution) as an example, you could ask your students to look at the section on epigenetics and discuss whether it correctly represents the current views on the importance of epigenetics in evolution. Is epigenetic inheritance a significant phenomenon?

You could also ask them to read the Gould and Lewontin "Spandrels" paper, which is a critique of the adaptationist view in evolutionary biology. Many evolutionary biologists think that this is one of the most important papers in evolution but it isn't mentioned anywhere in this article.

There's also no reference to Richard Dawkins in spite of the fact that he's the best known popularizer of evolution. That should generate a good discussion about relevance and Wikipedia. Genome42 (talk) 16:22, 8 December 2023 (UTC)

This is fantastic! Thank you :) Lady3Eye (talk) 02:18, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

The redirect Theroy of Evolution has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Readers of this page are welcome to comment on this redirect at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2024 February 4 § Theroy of Evolution until a consensus is reached. Bearcat (talk) 19:39, 4 February 2024 (UTC)

“The debate over Darwin's ideas did not generate significant controversy in China.” Why is this odd comment slapped onto the end of the intro? Sounds like couched nationalism to me. Alexandermoir (talk) 01:10, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

It's also the last sentence in the article, and sounds weird there too.Newzild (talk) 22:51, 7 September 2024 (UTC)

That's a large academic study summarized in a sentence. If you want to be bold, you could read the paper in full (it is available via JSTOR or The Wikipedia Library) and add a fuller account. Wikipedia should cover details from all over the world, so Chinese reactions to the theory should not simply be ignored. Mike Turnbull (talk) 13:32, 8 September 2024 (UTC)

Multicellulary arosed much longer than the Ediacaran. The fossils of Bangiomorpha Pubescens and Proterocladus Antiquus are undoubtly considered pluricellular algae, and are 1 billion years old and there are also the fossils of Rafatazmia and Ramathallus which are also considered algae. Why my edits are being reverted? The page already shows a graph in which multicellulary is shown having appeared 1,5 billion years ago.

DaComputer (talk) 17:15, 5 February 2025 (UTC)

It does seem the original material was clearly confused. I replaced it with cited material from History of life, but I don't think your additions as such are needed in what is meant to be a very brief summary. Remsense ‥ 论 18:01, 5 February 2025 (UTC)

Though I have no specific concerns, I'll ping @T g7, the first evidently qualified active editor who came to mind, to double-check my tweaks here. Remsense ‥ 论 18:44, 5 February 2025 (UTC)

I agree with the current version of the article as of 02:30 UTC 6 Feb, after Remsense's changes. Thank you. T g7 (talk) 02:52, 6 February 2025 (UTC)

Ok, the most important thing was that the huge error in the page was corrected --DaComputer (talk) 09:54, 6 February 2025 (UTC)