Talk:Objections to evolution/Archive 10

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Website that isn't objection -related ?

@Isambard Kingdom: - I see you've put in an external link to Human Evolution Timeline. While it's pretty, it belongs in an article such as Evolution and particularly Human evolution, but I don't see how that is felt relevant or useful and speaking to the topic criticisms and denials of evolution. Please explain. It does not show an objection to evolution or a response to objection, or material that relates to the existing sections. That is, it doesn't show anything related to 'second law of thermodynamics', 'Cambrian explosion', statements about the 'Status as a theory', and so forth. So -- unless you can explain where it has content specific to Objections, please remove. Thanks. Markbassett (talk) 03:33, 10 September 2016 (UTC)

Well, one needs to understand what one is objecting to! Therefore, the linked site is relevant. BTW, same would hold for anybody invoking the 2nd law of thermidynamics as an ojection to evolution. One would need to know what it is, and once one did, it would be clear how erroneous the objection is. Thanks. Isambard Kingdom (talk) 03:49, 10 September 2016 (UTC)

Isambard Kingdom - So nothing specific to the subject of this article, showing an objection to evolution or response to one, or background to the content that is currently in this article. I'll point out the lead already starts by links to the whole of History_of_evolutionary_thought and Evolution (far more visible than at the bottom) and that others links like Natural selection or Macroevolution show topics at at the objection involving them. Think WP:OFFTOPIC and WP:EL apply, particularly WP:ELNO number 13. This one isn't tightly related and guidance points to not include.

I'm going to take it out again, suggest you might consider the article really could use more help instead at the WP:BETTER writing style, and improving clarity such as on what is the objection. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 05:31, 10 September 2016 (UTC)

This article extensively discusses human evolution, without providing all the information contained within that link. Information therein can be useful to a reader by helping to contextualize or refine information contained within this article. That is absolutely the purpose of external links. Your claims that this is off-topic are flat-out wrong. This has been discussed at WP:ELN by several users, all of whom agreed that it was appropriate to keep it on articles such as this one. Threatening to edit war over this is not how we collaborate, and I will call in an admin to take a look at this page if you insist upon following through. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 13:31, 10 September 2016 (UTC)

 Done I put the link back in. Isambard Kingdom (talk) 16:26, 10 September 2016 (UTC)

User:MjolnirPants - thank you for the pointer to ELN previously not visible at this article, though I see this article was not one of the ones mentioned at that WP:ELN. I will point to the lines in WP:ELBURDEN "Every link provided must be justifiable in the opinion of the editors for an article." and "Disputed links should normally be excluded by default". Discussions about whether it suited some other article do not auto-magically mean it fits here. Since this seems an EL getting pasted about, and that discussions seems to have been confused with a universal permission, I will post a note at that ELN about the pasting here and that this looks like becoming a WP:LINKSPAM.

For this article of Objections to evolution, please note that your mention it "extensively discusses human evolution" factually is incorrect -- in topic this article simply is not one that focuses on that topic nor in content is it one that "extensively discusses human evolution". Factually, I see only small percentage that even indirectly relates: the phrase "human evolution" occurs only once in text; humans are at section 8.1 Morality.Humans as animals; section 4.2 Unfalsifiability at para 4 uses humans as example re apes; and the "human timeline" is not mentioned in text at all but is one of the already-better-presented items embedded at see also parts of the sidebar template in section 2 Defining Evolution and (less usefully) 6.1 Improbability.

The talk here has already stated the link in question is not about an objection or related to an objection, and seems mostly a pretty picture unrelated to this article, so I point to WP:OFFTOPIC and WP:EL, particularly WP:ELNO number 13. There also is not (yet) consensus here nor at the ELN so EL guidance points again to not include. And it's also bad for this article. All the relevant background is already more directly and better presented in other ways in the article at the places that are concerned. The EL to the picture is instead a tailend that hurts the article a bit, as it is a WP:SURPRISE whose information is not easily understood and basically a ending with diversion to an unrelated pretty picture. Cheers. Markbassett (talk) 18:21, 21 September 2016 (UTC)

please note that your mention it "extensively discusses human evolution" factually is incorrect No, it is not. The word "human" appears 43 times on that page, only once in a context that is unrelated to human evolution. There is a timeline of human evolution on the page. The genetic relationship between humans and other apes is covered extensively under the "Unfalsifiability" section. There is a subsection called "Humans as animals". There is another subsection called "Social effects" that deals heavily with human evolution. Furthermore, the phrase "human evolution" occurs 2 times in the article, not once, and an additional time in one of the sources.

I think you've confused the words "extensively" and "exclusively". MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 22:59, 21 September 2016 (UTC)

User:MjolnirPants - This article simply is not one that focuses on that topic nor in content is it one that "extensively discusses human evolution" by realistic percentage or extent. Try looking again at these:

• Over-simplistic to count any "human" as Human evolution -- gives mostly unrelated word hits such as "humanism", "human souls", "nonhuman", side occurances in templates that are not part of article body text, parts of ref titles not included in article text itself, and so on. The ones LOOSLY related I've already mentioned as basically at 8.1 Morality.Humans as animals; and section 4.2 Unfalsifiability at para 4. (on second look, that's para 5.) And the EL to pretty picture isn't related to either of those two.
• Perspective on Tiny count - out of 45 screens of text, 73 with cites, or 21 sections, and roughly 18 to 23 THOUSAND words total depending on if you include refs pages... the 43 'humans' (more like 18 points of human related to human evolution) is just minute. It's just not enough uses of the word to DO 'extensive discussion' on humans, and "extensive discussion" on "human evolution" would have to use the phrase more than once. That's appropriate though because the objections are usually about the evolution of any creature, or abiogenesis of life at all, or the moral effects of evolutionary view -- the which hominid stood up when is just not what these objections are about.
• Lack of extensive Human evolution content - this article is also visibly lacking discussion of the content of Human evolution so it's not "extensive discussion". The topics of Human evolution such as bipedalism, stone tools, Australopithecus, East Africa simply are not here.
• Recheck your objections to my input -- No, when I said "human evolution" only occurs once in text is correct, at the Unfalsifiability section para 4 -- you're apparently miscounting the footnote in the sideimage that describes Huxley text as if it were part of the body content. No, Unfalsifiability para 4 (recounting it's para 5 of 17 there) was mentioned by me as slightly related since it's comparing chromosome counts to chimps implying some relationship is tested, though not explicitly stating what let alone extensively. And no, "Moral implications - Humans as animals" is a mere 4 lines saying that teaching humans are animals would lead to animal behavior, hardly extensive or about human evolution details. Lastly 'Social effects' is variously saying evolution leads to moral relativism or constitutes its own religion or was a cause for the Holocaust -- not about hominids of Human evolution.

Look, this article is the objections and human evolution timeline is not the focus nor significantly involved in this article. An odd EL stuck waaaay down there that is hard to figure out and without an easily seen connection is just not helpful to this article. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 07:12, 22 September 2016 (UTC)

This article has a chart of human evolution already. (a much simpler, non-interactive one). You keep confusing words like "focuses" with "extensively discusses". MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 01:13, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

You know what? Nevermind. I didn't realize until Jytdog removed it that it was the only EL, and having it as the only one would look too POV pushy. Take a note, Mark: With a good reason, some of us will change our minds. Of course, if someone were to put some good EL's in, I'd support bringing this one back. Just not as the only one. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 01:49, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

In fact, please accept my apology for not taking your final comment at face value. I took it as a hyperbolic implication that this particular EL stood out, and I should have interpreted it more literally. I still think the rest of your argument is hyperbole and failure to listen, but that doesn't mean you can't make a good point or two. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 02:00, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

Thermodynamics applies universally

One can apply thermodynamics to open systems. The mathematics may be a bit more complicated, but one doesn't just throw up one's hands when working with an open system. TomS TDotO (talk) 04:49, 10 September 2016 (UTC)

TomS TDotO: Yes, "thermodynamics" can be applied to open systems, but the sentence is not about all of thermodynamics, but, rather, the 2nd law. What is the 2nd law for an open system? I don't know that there is a corresponding adjustment of the law for open systems, though I'm happy to learn about it. Otherwise, I suggest changing the sentence. We can, of course, add a note about the general applicability of thermodynamics. Thanks. Isambard Kingdom (talk) 07:10, 10 September 2016 (UTC)

I'm a bit of a physics geek, so this is quite familiar territory for me. The 2nd law is often formulated as "the entropy of a closed system can never decrease," because that is a concise way of putting it that engineers and scientists can easily understand. It can get confusing, however, because the precise definitions of "entropy" and "closed systems" needs to be understood, which in turn requires one to understand the precise definitions of "energy," "work," "open systems" and -of course- "system". I'm not going to get into that, now because I'm sure n0o-one wants to get a physics lecture from some random editor.

Suffice it to say, that with respect to the usage in this article, it is absolutely true that the 2nd law applies only to closed systems, and that none of the following are closed systems: The solar system, the Earth, terrestrial environments, multi-cellular organisms, colonies of single-cellular organisms, individual single-cellular organisms, the individual cells of multi-cellular organisms, the nucleii of individual cells, DNA, and specific proteins. All of those systems are open to outside energy. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 13:26, 10 September 2016 (UTC)

I know that some of the creationists are clever enough to exploit lack of precision in any pro-evolution argument. In the case of saying that the 2nd law applies only to isolated systems, the creationist can point to the uselessness of such a law: As if a steam engine cannot be studied by thermodynamics, because it is not an isolated system. Yes, the statement that "the entropy of a closed system can never decrease" is an OK formulation of the 2nd law. But I liken that to the law of mechanics that "the momentum of a object not subject to a force can never change" - that does not say that momentum applies only in systems with no forces applied: It would be as if one said that mechanics applies only to motion on frictionless surfaces. I am asking that we can be a little careful in our language. Can we say something like a living thing is being supplied by low-entropy energy being supplied from the Sun, or some such language, so the total entropy, when everything is accounted for, is not increasing? I think that something like that is at least as clear to the general reader - indeed, it doesn't need to mention explicitly the new concept of "isolated" or "closed" systems. TomS TDotO (talk) 14:40, 10 September 2016 (UTC)

Well, it's not so much that the second law applies only to closed systems. It's just that the statement "The entropy in a system cannot decrease over time," applies only to closed systems. The actual formulation of the 2nd law as is actually useful in physics is more like "You cannot transfer heat from a cold body to a warm body without making a change in the system," or "Heat will always flow only from warmer bodies to colder bodies unless energy is expended," or "Heat cannot spontaneously flow from a colder body to a warmer body." People often get hung on on laws having 'loopholes' and 'technicalities' and so on, because of the analogizing of physical laws to legal laws, but that's just a problem with the way people think about it. Physical laws are not analogous to legal laws. They're immutable statements of truth, and if someone finds a loophole in the way it's worded, that loophole can closed simply by wording it another way.

Another thing that often gets overlooked is that there actually are cases where the entropy of a closed system will be lower at a given point than it was at a previous point, due to complex internal workings of the system. Most formulations which mention entropy say that the entropy of a closed system tends to increase over time. As long as the overall trend is upwards from the starting point to maximum entropy, over the course of the system's existence, minor fluctuations of entropy within it are possible. Despite it being 150+ year old science, it's actually really complex. The physics we learn in high school, and even in junior college doesn't really give us any insight into how complicated classical thermodynamics and Newtonian physics can actually be. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 15:20, 10 September 2016 (UTC)

Agreed, totally. My question is whether we can address the creationist appeal to the 2nd law in such a way that it can be understood by the general reader, and be accurate, and not leave obvious loopholes for the clever creationist. I don't think that saying "the 2nd law applies only to closed (or isolated) systems" is the way to go. TomS TDotO (talk) 15:45, 10 September 2016 (UTC)

It's a convenient shorthand, because it directly refutes the specific formulation creationists use. But in my opinion, the section as it currently is does a good job of explaining the terms used, and why the objection is wrong. Keep in mind however, that this is the opinion of a self-admitted physics geek. I'm much more familiar with thermodynamics than the average reader would be. If there's something in there that you or anyone else here feels may not be obvious to the typical reader, I'll happily write up a new draft and we can all tweak it until it's good to go. Not to pat myself on the back too much, but I've been told numerous times that I'm very good at explaining these sorts of things, so hopefully what I come up with would be easier to parse. (Honestly, the way the section is written is not the way I would have written it for the most part. I just think that it still works just fine.) MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 16:38, 10 September 2016 (UTC)

Actually, I will tweak one thing in the section. Let me know what you all think. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 16:40, 10 September 2016 (UTC)

TomS TDotO - mmm, well convey what objections are said as best we can, just follow the cites in due WP:WEIGHT of their prominence, and show the cite. At least that conveys there is such an area of objections and from where. After that it seems we have to accept this isn't the easiest of the objections to understand or for people to read, and that there is a lot of confusion. (I just saw literally 3 statements made about earth-sun entropy -- is increasing, is decreasing, remains the same -- used on both sides. And I think I've seen some who have two or more combinations within the same argument, as well as many who are just into Word salad territory. I'll accept this is a topic where physics can verge into philosophy but ... Meh.) Markbassett (talk) 17:34, 1 October 2016 (UTC)

I could not understand a word of what you said here, except that you seem to be under the impression that there was some sort of debate going on in this thread. That is not the case. An editor commented that a statement in the article seemed to be written poorly, a brief discussion ensued in which we all agreed on just about every point, I tweaked the section a bit, and everyone seemed happy, several weeks ago. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 15:07, 2 October 2016 (UTC)

User:MjolnirPants - that was addressed to the TomS post questioning whether the objection based on 2ndlaw of thermodynamics could be conveyed understandably and accurately. My input back is that the obligation only goes as far as conveying what sources said as best able -- that it's difficult to understand anyway is just the way it is. Markbassett (talk) 02:36, 3 October 2016 (UTC)

Thank you, that's much clearer. I've already tweaked the section, as I mentioned in the comment immediately preceding yours. At least one other editor has also changed some wording around. If you have any suggestions as to how to improve it further, I'm all ears. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 02:58, 3 October 2016 (UTC)

Social effects / Objection that evolution is racist

Hmm - was googling for presumption of naturalism and ran across objection that evolution is racist .... Does that seem prominent enough to add ? If so, would it go as a subsection in the Social effects section at Morris ?

It also seems a bit odd the way that section has grown -- to have a series of named authors and then a list of the various ills winds up author A says racist, etcetera; then author B says immoral, Hitler, rascist, etc; then author C says ... That seems to get repetitive and to have to pick which authors to include, and grows in repetition by each author added. Wouldn't it be clearer to have a single bullet list and skip which author says what ?

Cheers Markbassett (talk) 14:45, 4 October 2016 (UTC)

As an objection to the scientific theory of evolution, this seems like a waste of time. This refers to racism among groups of people, I assume, but evolution would happen and has happened even before these groups of people existed. Acknowledging that, I don't see how this "objection" is relevant. Isambard Kingdom (talk) 20:06, 4 October 2016 (UTC)

Isambard Kingdom - I came across the one during something else, and searching for others of the theme evolution is racist], it seems a common flavor with some variety -- from the book 'Darwins Plantation' claims that mentioned Darwin was motivated by racism &/or intended to justify racism; that Evolution is inherently racist because it always portrays sub-humans as dark-skinned, or that belief in evolution leads to racism (and eugenics, Hitler, etcetera), or re Darwin promoted racism, or combined claims not only does Evolution endorse and promote racism, but also that Charles Darwin himself was a racist and arguing that the refutation was wrong, or that racism exists because you believe in evolution. Lots circling the 'racism' label, arguing that because evolution is racist, evolution is an evil philosophy, or [Ad hominem] criticizing Darwin, or [Association fallacy|Guilt by association].

But I didn't see this article lay out this sub-theme as a kind of objection. The word "racism" is only under the section Social Effects para5 author, "...Kent Hovind blames communism, socialism, World War I, World War II, racism, the Holocaust, Stalin's war crimes, the Vietnam War, and Pol Pot's Killing Fields on evolution, ...". Seemed kind of unexplained and under it's prominence in objections WP:WEIGHT Markbassett (talk) 12:53, 7 October 2016 (UTC)

• I've heard this objection many times. I'm surprised it isn't already mentioned in the article. I'm all for inclusion, provided a good RS can be found. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 20:24, 7 October 2016 (UTC)

Pruning Falsifiability at Kitcher

The Falsifiability section has a number of short collected tidbits, and then a lengthy bit on Kitcher.

Spending a couple screens on explaining an alternative to Falsifiability seems a bit much detail, and also going a bit off the section thread whether or not evolution is falsifiable and instead talking about an alternative to falsifiability.

So I've shortened it to just the lead/summary para that says he and others in philosophy of science have other views than falsifiability, and the wikilink to his article if people want to follow it. I also moved the detailed descriptions of the 3 parts there.

Cheers Markbassett (talk) 03:07, 27 December 2016 (UTC)

NPOV

This article constantly tries to refute evolution based on the known fact that it is not truth it is scientific, that is such a FALSE OPPOSITION. Arent christian happy enough with their absolute truth that try to refute with no senses a humble refutable scientific theory? Scientists do not make theories that predict theories as it is trivial even to epistemology, they make theories that predict facts. if each one on its field did its best effort on it we would have much more than better articles: that is invaluable good speculations on absolute truth and much more accurate scientific theories.--Neurorebel (talk) 10:57, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

Please see your comment in the above thread as well as WP:TPG. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 13:10, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

That, and this article DOES NOT ATTEMPT TO REFUTE evolution, it is a catalogue of reasons given by people who object to evolution, and related discussions about each recorded reason.--Mr Fink (talk) 13:40, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

Alternatives to evolution

Would it be appropriate to include in this article, or some other article, or in a new article, a discussion of Alternatives to evolution? This has been brought up from the mid-19th century, that there has been no alternative which accounts for the variety of life which does not include mention of "common descent with modification". There have been alternative mechanisms, such as natural selection, Lamararckism, etc. But the dissent from evolution has only argued a negative case, that there seems to be fatal flaws in evolutionary explanations, and therefore there must be a better explanation without mentioning evolution. TomS TDotO (talk) 13:31, 18 April 2017 (UTC)

Is there a specific change to the article that you would suggest? Thanks, —░]PaleoNeonate█ ⏎ ?ERROR░ 21:43, 18 April 2017 (UTC)

I was thinking of pointing out that "objections to evolution" do not present an "alternative to evolution" (such as "creationism" or "intelligent design"). This has been mentioned in court cases, and some reliable resources. Phillip Johnson referred to TH Huxley, for a secondary citation. I think that this may be thought Original Research on my part or some other Non-Encyclopedic. Just arguing on my part, in other words. I would like to have some opinions before wasting Wikipedia resources on a hobby-horse of mine. TomS TDotO (talk) 13:24, 19 April 2017 (UTC)

This would begin with a couple of anti-evolution claims that it's only fair to consider all (scientific) alternatives to "darwinism", or that scientists shouldn't exclude explanations which rely on other than materialistic or naturalistic explanations, or the definition of Intelligent Design which says something like "there is a better explanation than naturalistic evolution". This is treated as an "objection to evolution" - is there a answer to this objection? Herbert Spencer's 1852 essay "The Development Hypothesis" in Wikisource.org points out that there was no alternative - this is an early answer. TomS TDotO (talk) 23:27, 19 April 2017 (UTC)

TomS TDotO - 'alternatives to' would be a different topic than 'objections to', so no it wouldn't belong here. Any alternative to Common descent of note I suppose would have its own article if it meets the WP:NOTE guide for what would have its own article, and would be mentioned at Common descent article if it had enough WP:DUE weight to be there. Alternatives to the 'with modification' part might depend -- the handling for an 'instead of' type could be different than the 'in addition to' type. (Or perhaps all are treated as something 'instead of'.) Markbassett (talk) 21:54, 22 April 2017 (UTC)

Title of Article

Since this is an article that appears to be arguing the validity of objections to evolution, I believe that your title should be edited. A more appropriate title would be "rebuttals regarding objections to evolution" or 'arguments against objections to evolution." If keeping the title the same, then the content should be adjusted to give a simple listing of the objections against evolution rather than an evolutionary argument against these objections. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.149.92.102 (talk) 01:12, 26 February 2017 (UTC)

Keep the title. The article is heavily dubbing from the better organized TalkOrigins Index to Creationist Claims anti-ID period, and a WP tendency to Scientism, but the pervasive rebuttals are listing the objection so it is at least loosely telling some objections and is sort of obvious where being a WP:BIASED or WP:OPINION so one still does get a view of things. Markbassett (talk) 19:53, 9 April 2017 (UTC)

As there are no valid objections to evolution I have long wondered why this article even exists. It is all basically fringe stuff.Charles (talk) 19:59, 9 April 2017 (UTC)

It exists for the same reason the Flat Earth article exists.--Mr Fink (talk) 22:29, 9 April 2017 (UTC)

Also Barry Allen s biography, nobody is blaming DC here.--Neurorebel (talk) 11:02, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

There are several people called Barry Allen, none of which seem to be relevant here, and DC has a few dozen meanings, none of which seem to be relevant here. Again, I have no idea what you are talking about. Could you please at least try to be coherent? --Hob Gadling (talk) 14:36, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

I got what they were saying. We have articles about fictional characters, which analogizes to articles about fictional logic. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 14:50, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

Charles - well of course there are valid objections, and the United States polls seem to say it is somewhat common to object so not fringe in the sense of uncommon -- the article is supposedly showing what is voiced as an objection shown with WP:WEIGHT according to prominence in WP:RS after all. Although it does seem to channel TalkOrigins and add a bit of "rebuttals to objections", I think it obvious enough where various WP:BIASED and WP:OPINION occur and just not avoidable anyway. Markbassett (talk) 03:51, 18 April 2017 (UTC)

Valid objections? Really? What are they and why did I never hear about them in spite of over 20 years of familiarity with the subject? I know about a thousand (literally about a thousand) invalid objections though. Maybe the valid ones are secret? --Hob Gadling (talk) 11:08, 18 April 2017 (UTC)

Indeed, I (and the entire biological scientific community) also await the disclosure of such "valid" objections with baited breath. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 12:13, 18 April 2017 (UTC)

It is not about what poorly educated people say to pollsters. It is about what is empirically verifiable.Charles (talk) 19:48, 18 April 2017 (UTC)

I also suggest reading evidence of common descent and related references, which I personally found to be a great summary. Some may still argue for divine intervention in evolution, or have philosophical or moral objections (which most of this article is about), but there is no credible scientific debate against the fact that we have evolved. —░]PaleoNeonate█ ⏎ ?ERROR░ 21:38, 18 April 2017 (UTC)

User:Hob Gadling, User:MjolnirPants, Charles, User:PaleoNeonate - the article is reporting on objections as shown valid by WP:V, presented in WP:DUE weight of their prominence. Though that has been questioned in this thread if the sources used are Strawman argument that would fail WP:INTEGRITY, I think that despite the channeling of TalkOrigins etcetera it is obvious enough where various WP:BIASED and WP:OPINION occur and just not avoidable anyway.

I suspect you're simply working from emotion or your own definitions above, but will further point out that these also suit the common English meaning of "valid objection" which is simply a disapproval which has internal consistency and is relevant to the topic. In other words, someone gave a negative response to the topic 'evolution' is all it takes, a scientist approval on it should be obviously not a factor required for listing in the article "Objections to Evolution". Cheers. Markbassett (talk) 00:55, 19 April 2017 (UTC)

It's a delicate topic indeed, and I think that there are various possible "scopes"... For instance, if its main purpose was to debate science, we have discretionary sanctions against representing pseudoscience as science, and NPOV must report on the expert's view on a scientific topic (i.e. biology experts in the case of evolution), and WEIGHT specifies that minority views are non-expert-consensus views in this case and should have minimal covering if any. On the other hand, if an article is to discuss theology or to describe the beliefs of a religion, it's quite different. It may be difficult in this case to properly classify the article and define properly its scope. Also, when a topic is very notable, like creation-evolution debates, and an article is on that subject, it's normal that we should cover such as we can in the relevant articles... —░]PaleoNeonate█ ⏎ ?ERROR░ 01:33, 19 April 2017 (UTC)

User:PaleoNeonate - I think you mean WP:VALID there, the guidance to not portray non-science as science, as WP:WEIGHT refers simply to the article should give an amount of coverage to bits according to their prominence in citeable sources. Markbassett (talk) 05:37, 21 April 2017 (UTC)

Every one of these objections either lacks internal consistency or contains one or more false postulates. No-one has suggested that this list of arguments needs to be pruned; they've objected to you claiming there are "valid" objections to evolution. If that was not your intent, then say so. But if you start arguing that some of these objections are sound arguments, you are in for a very one-sided argument. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 02:11, 19 April 2017 (UTC)

User:MjolnirPants I'm speaking just of valid objections for the list, described above as "simply a disapproval which has internal consistency and is relevant to the topic." (Oh and has WP:DUE prominence.)

But I also think in the above that you're missing a trick of the article scope is it's not a dualistic battle, which is a different article. These are objections to evolution, which is by nature objecting *to* evolutionary biology and not *part* of evolutionary biology. So statements on both areas (or neither) could be correct when they're on different topics. For example -- whether or not a sociological objection to evolution were correct, that would have no impact on the validity of the theory of evolution itself. And similarly, even if moralistic objections to evolution were valid, that would have no impact to the validity of the theory of evolution itself. Cheers. Markbassett (talk) 06:36, 21 April 2017 (UTC)

Markbassett, I don't see how your comment responded to what I said, which was simply clarifying for you the nature of the miscommunication which caused I and other editors to ask that you list some "valid arguments" (by which we took to mean sound arguments). I don't have any problems with or misunderstandings about the scope of this article. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 14:53, 21 April 2017 (UTC)

MjolnirPants -- I did respond to what you said. I responded to your mentioning sound arguments by brief summary of how I'd said and further explained "valid objection", since your mention seemed unrelated to that. I also responded to the concern over "sound arguments" by a longer mention to offer that you seem misconstruing the article scope 'objection' to mean an 'argument against'. Perhaps the presumption of dualism bleeds in from it being a contentious topic or the USA being strongly dualistic. Cheers. Markbassett (talk) 21:18, 22 April 2017 (UTC)

Mark, responding to what I said and talking about something I mentioned are two different things. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 02:01, 23 April 2017 (UTC)

No, we are not using our own definition, and emotion has nothing to do with it, unless love of truth counts.

When every objection contains at least one whopper of a rookie mistake, and most contain several, there is no useful definition of the phrase "valid objection" which fits any of them.

By "useful" I mean: if "valid" is defined in such a way, then every objection to anything is "valid" by that definition. --Hob Gadling (talk) 15:56, 21 April 2017 (UTC)

Mark clarified that he meant valid in the sense in which it is used in logic. With that definition, there are some objections that are valid in that their conclusions arise naturally (and exclusively) from their postulates, but all of those objections contain patently false postulates. There are no sound arguments, as I pointed out. The problem is that on WP, we usually use common parlance, and in common parlance, "valid" is synonymous with the formal logical meaning of "sound". ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 17:33, 21 April 2017 (UTC)

MjolnirPants - my input was towards it being in the article -- whether they are accurate would be a judgement that should not be presented in the article. WP:V rules, and content about each should be presented in WP:NPOV fashion. Markbassett (talk) 21:00, 22 April 2017 (UTC)

Mark, whether or not something is accurate is emphatically not a judgement, but a fact. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 23:20, 22 April 2017 (UTC)

User:MjolnirPants - Apparently articles trying to state such are a concern enough that there are essays to not do so -- WP:Accurate or WP:VNT (Verification, Not Truth). In any case this seems to have gotten away from the article scope of objections and this indenture on "valid objections". If you want to talk further about whether one of these is accurate or contains a sound argument, I suggest it's a side topic we can continue at my TALK page if you wish. Cheers. Markbassett (talk) 21:14, 23 April 2017 (UTC)

WP:Accurate is about whether taking a certain action on the project is "correct", and it rightfully argues that accuracy is not a property of actions. WP:VNT doesn't disagree with anything I said, it simply argues (again, correctly) that every claim WP makes needs to be verifiable, even if an editor believes it is incorrect. Instead of citing inapplicable essays, let me offer you a policy page: WP:NPOV which states, in bold letters: Avoid stating facts as opinions. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 23:59, 23 April 2017 (UTC)

missing apostrophe

Technical problem is preventing me from editing the page. Someone should add an apostrophe to "1930s" in this sentence: Although evolution was unchallenged, uncertainties about the mechanism in the eclipse of Darwinism persisted from the 1880s until the 1930s [7] inclusion of Mendelian inheritance and the rise of the modern evolutionary synthesis. Should read, "Although evolution was unchallenged, uncertainties about the mechanism in the eclipse of Darwinism persisted from the 1880s until the 1930's [7] inclusion of Mendelian inheritance and the rise of the modern evolutionary synthesis." Be good! 238-Gdn (talk) 15:24, 6 November 2017 (UTC)

As usual, the guideline (MOS:DECADE) is not very clear. However, "1930s" is correct, and inserting an apostrophe would be wrong. Johnuniq (talk) 00:52, 7 November 2017 (UTC)

I agree that in general "1930s" does not require an apostrophe (just like the 1880s, three words before it), but in this case, since it is referring to the "inclusion of Mendelian inheritance" etc., which began in the 1930s, it should read "until the 1930's inclusion..." Either that, or edit the sentence to read, "Although evolution was unchallenged, uncertainties about the mechanism in the eclipse of Darwinism persisted from the 1880s until the inclusion in the 1930s [7] of Mendelian inheritance and the rise of the modern evolutionary synthesis" (or such like). Be good! 238-Gdn (talk) 07:32, 7 November 2017 (UTC)

Went over to MOS:DECADE and commented on the example there too! Be good! 238-Gdn (talk) 07:43, 7 November 2017 (UTC)

I see what you mean. For reference, an edit on 20 April 2015 introduced "The unresolved difficulties led to the eclipse of Darwinism from the 1880s until the 1930s when pangenesis was replaced by Mendelian inheritance, leading to the rise of the modern evolutionary synthesis." A week later (diff) gave the "from the 1880s until the 1930s inclusion" wording. Rather than "1930's inclusion" I think some wording similar to the first version would be cleaner. Johnuniq (talk) 09:49, 7 November 2017 (UTC)

Feel free to go ahead and make the change. As mentioned, I have technical difficulties with editing the page myself (my internet filter takes objection to certain words and phrases and it won't allow me to edit the page). Be good! 238-Gdn (talk) 10:01, 7 November 2017 (UTC)

Objections_to_evolution#Unfalsifiability

The section contains the following statement:

The most direct evidence that evolutionary theory is falsifiable may be the original words of Charles Darwin in chapter 6 of On the Origin of Species: "If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed, which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down."[64] If empirical evidence supported this instance, it would be affirmation of the creationist argument in favor of irreducible complexity.

This statement is unsourced interpretation of a primary source. It is also incorrect. The section begins with "A statement is considered falsifiable if there is an observation or a test that could be made that would demonstrate that the statement is false" However, it is clearly not observable whether an organ "could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications" This would require not "an observation or a test", but an infinite number of them. --rtc (talk) 09:49, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

User:Rtc - I am not seeing that in article, but yes if the commentary before and after the quote lack a cite so fine to delete them. They also do not match well... the quote might be the earliest mention of falsifiability for this, but not “most direct evidence of falsifiability”. And the other line “If empirical evidence supported this instance” is just not understandable. Thanks for pointing this one out. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 20:54, 27 April 2018 (UTC)

Bad cite placement

per BRD:

The cite of Transitional Vertebrate Fossils FAQ top sheet eemed misplaced by a line in the Lack of Observation section, it seemed belonging to the line

"Transitional fossils, for example, provide plausible links between several different groups of organisms, such as Archaeopteryx linking birds and non-avian dinosaurs,[83] or the Tiktaalik linking fish and limbed amphibians."

Rather than to the line

"Creationists dispute such examples, from asserting that such fossils are hoaxes or that they belong exclusively to one group or the other, to asserting that there should be far more evidence of obvious transitional species."

The Transitional FAQ has no use of the exact phrases "hoax", "creationist", "more evidence", and nothing seems related to those either.

I moved it with message " move cite - it's FAQ about transitional fossils topic of prior line, not a mention of "hoax" or about creationists"

It was reverted here, with message "Undid revision 839703004 by Markbassett (talk) utter misrepresentation of the source".

User:Sjö or others -- please discuss. In particular, do you see content there that is about what creationists saying hoax and wanting more evidence for the line it was moved from, and if so please quote and explain. If you see it as a support for the line that transitional fossils provide plausible links, please quote and explain. Thanks Markbassett (talk) 00:40, 9 May 2018 (UTC).

You said in your edit comment that it was not a mention of hoax or about creationists. I counted the number of "creationism" or "creationist" in the source and came up with 29 mentions. The sources does discuss creationists view on fossils and it supports the statement pretty well even though the word "hoax" doesn't appear. For instance it says; "First, though there are several different sorts of creationism, all of them agree that there should be no transitional fossils at all between "kinds".", "Creationists often state categorically that "there are no transitional fossils"." "Separately created fossils. In this model, the "species-species transitions" do not represent evolution. This implies that every individual fossil in the species-to-species transitions must have been separately created, either by creation of the animal that later died and was fossilized, or by creation of a fossil in situ in the rock. I have heard this model called the "Lying God Theory"." So the source does support the sentence. Sjö (talk) 19:15, 9 May 2018 (UTC)

User:Sjö - Where are you counting ??? Regardless, it's mostly about transition not about creation and I still see no claim creationist asserted "hoax" or are calling fo "more evidence", and .. the lines you cite are not that close to what the article has. The specific cited page is the Content or introductory page for the transitional fossils FAQ. It has 17 uses of "transition" and one of "creation" and below that there are hundreds of transitional items with specific examples. So maybe a generic support cite for transitional fossils in the line ABOVE this one of the "such as Archaeopteryx" and "or the Tiktaalik". (The FAQ coverage specifically talking re the Archeoptyrx is in Part 2C, and the Tiktaalik area is in Part 1A but not named since the Tiktaalik filling a gap in the late Devonian was discovered after this 1997 document.)

I see your mentioned creationists claim "there should be no transitional fossils" on the lower Predictions of creationism and evolution page and "there are no transitional fossils" on the http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-transitional/part2c.html#conc Conclusion] page, but WP:STICKTOTHESOURCE for that is "Creationists however often state categorically that there are no transitional fossils." -- it's a stretch to say 'dispute' and has nothing for the other parts. In order to WP:STICKTOTHESOURCE it would have to provide a cite using the word 'hoax' and otherwise closely matching to the phrases and portrayal.

I do see the predictions page has creationist positions varying about "there should be no transitional fossils at all between "kinds"", and various positions that fossils should either not be in a sorted order or appear in Genesis order or sorted by flood. That's in the general area of a separate statement 'They belong exclusively to one group or the other', but or a combined line "Creationists however often state categorically that there are no transitional fossils, and that "kinds" belong exclusively to one group or the other."

But I see nothing for 'hoax' or calling for more evidence. Please state where or if you think there is something more in the FAQ to support the line elements

• "Creationists dispute such examples";
• "asserting that such fossils are hoaxes";
• "that they belong exclusively to one group or the other"; and
• "asserting that there should be far more evidence"

Cheers Markbassett (talk) 06:48, 11 May 2018 (UTC)

I have not gotten a response, and believe the Transitional FAQ is not a good cite for the line shown -- I found nothing about calling fossils hoaxes or asserting that there should be more evidence. The section Predictions says something alternative and mostly talks about "Flood Theory" layering. Rather than editing the line down to what the cite would support, I will just delete the cite from that line as probably SOMEwhere sources could support creationists calling fossils hoaxes. I'd wanted to insert the FAQ cite to the prior line about transitional fossils Archaeopteryx (it is a really nice website about transitional fossils) but now think it would be jamming it in and leave that part to someone else. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 23:23, 3 June 2018 (UTC)

Esthetics objection ?

Would "Moral implications" be the section to put objections to evolution of distaste such as

“for some tastes, too destructive, too wasteful, too cruel to count as beautiful” ?

(Richard Dawkins, Redundancy redistribution and pattern recognition in This Explains Everything") Markbassett (talk) 23:04, 3 June 2018 (UTC)

Just for closure, noting no response I will not presume as an ok. Markbassett (talk) 14:39, 3 September 2018 (UTC)

There's a lot of bias

Wikipedia clearly believes in evolution, which makes sense. It is the popular theory. However, this page is pretty biased, for a page about an argument. I tried to add some common defences against evolution, as the page already lists common arguments for it. I also took "evidence" from the list for evolution because it seemed to biased. The edit was deleted and called "vandalism". I was privately warned. If someone could please edit the article and make it less biased, please do. I am not looking to start an argument. TroyTRFan420 (talk) 03:27, 11 May 2019 (UTC)

This article discusses various objections to evolution as they are covered in WP:Reliable sources. I believe the vandalism part referred to was when you changed "International" to "Int10ernational", although that was probably a typo not vandalism and so shouldn't have been called that. CMD (talk) 03:45, 11 May 2019 (UTC)

I called the edit a mixture of POV, non-RS and vandalism. Yes, it was the "Int10ernational" that I considered to be vandalism. It was not a typo since the editor did not add that ref or change it. It's difficult to understand how someone could accidentally type two characters in the middle of a reference that is in a different section of the article than the rest of the edit. I might have given it a pass, but not combined with the obvious bias of the rest of the edits and the use of a completely unacceptable source. Meters (talk) 04:01, 11 May 2019 (UTC)

Wikipedia doesn't believe in anything. It's an encyclopedia based upon reliable sources, in this case academic sources, and it is the scientific consensus. Being popular is good, but not why our articles accept the scientific consensus. Doug Weller talk 15:22, 11 May 2019 (UTC)

Not from a neutral stand point?

I am not saying I don't believe evolution however I do feel as if this article is form the perspective of evolutionists and not from a middle-ground I.E. debunking every point made that is pro-creation. Rather I request that all of the debunking be moved to its own section... Unless of course someone wants to change the evolution article to be criticized like this one... -aman0226

That is intentional. Please read WP:GEVAL. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 17:10, 12 February 2018 (UTC)

Mainstream scientists working in the field are debunking evolution? --NeilN ^{talk to me} 17:13, 12 February 2018 (UTC)

User:Aman0226 - Well, obviously. It seems to have started as largely channeling the advocacy site TalkOrigins (badly), and their points are that way. Besides that, WP in general struggles with contentious issues and about 5 years ago it developed a fad for the vague pejorative "pseudoscience" and scaled up the mentioned policy WP:GEVAL and also WP:PSCI that anything somebody calls pseudoscience can be (and that winds up always read by somebody as MUST be) slanted and incomplete. For anything involving evolution the reaction seems to veer too far the other way into Scientism. For such topics you'll often do better by checking Google or Britannica or kids.net.au. At least the bias is fairly obvious so you know not to rely on such coverage. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 04:46, 21 April 2018 (UTC)

• user:Charlesdrakew ... cease deleting other users posts, that is contrary to TALKO. “you should not edit or delete the comments of other editors without their permission” and “stop if there is any objection”. As I already posted at your talk page, if you feel the post is not constructive please do Talk about it. We may come to some improvement or you may convince me to strike out my prior content. Or hey, maybe I will be educated to something new. We can talk the concern here or at either personal talk page.

Reverting out article edits is freely done, but Talk should only be deleted for legality issues such as libel, personal data, or copyright ... or if I was a sock. But in this case, just accept the Talk and move on. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 19:34, 22 April 2018 (UTC)

I think you don't understand what scientism is: it is the misapplication of science to problems which are not amenable to science (like philosophical questions, who you should vote for, is abortion moral, etc.). Applying the science of biology to the biological problem of evolution is not scientism. Tgeorgescu (talk) 19:47, 22 April 2018 (UTC)

User:Tgeorgescu Ah but there are varieties of scientism -- it can be things other than that and more than that. More widely, an excessive portrayal of knowledge and applicability to the point that science is certain and complete, or the only means of truth and the solution to everything. As noted, the debunking aspect causes a perception that the article is not neutral or complete. Moving the debunking to a separate paragraph/section may help, but between draws from TalkOrigins plus the policy of GEVAL and PSCI the article can (or MUST) be slanted and incomplete. How to set a curb on any Scientism I think would need a bit more. I am dubious the concern will be addressed, but here are some other possible approaches towards that end, and see if you have other ideas.

• (a) Stick to the topic of objections and avoid attribution or blaming of "creationists" -- and likewise avoid portrayal of dualism or of joining 'sides'. Those are a bit off for WP:LABEL or WP:OFFTOPIC concerns anyway.
• (b) Clarify or delete objections and rebuttals. Where the wording of the rebuttal is more conclusion (says disproven) but gives no details -- I think delete it. If the cite gave no more than a brief mention, then do not use it.
• (c) Show some objections which are not sourced to creationists, perhaps simply that for some tastes evolution is too destructive, too wasteful, and too cruel to count as beautiful.
• (d) Portray more variation in the responses where able -- compare Gould to Dawkins positions for example.

Cheers Markbassett (talk) 04:02, 24 April 2018 (UTC)

"there are varieties of scientism -- it can be things other than that and more than that" - That is true. Often "not falling for obvious bullshit" is called "scientism" by those who spread that bullshit.

True story. --Hob Gadling (talk) 04:20, 25 April 2018 (UTC)

Hob Gadling - do you wish to add that as a way to restrain scientism in addition to my suggestions above? I can certainly see that claims posing as science to “debunk” could this be called “pseudoscience” and may be obvious, but I think more specific guides like the rules above are more easily shown than just someone claiming “that response is obvious not something to fall for”. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 20:32, 27 April 2018 (UTC)

Your grammar is beyond me. I cannot make out what you are trying to say, beyond what looks like a wrong assumption that I might want to help you spread bullshit (or "restrain scientism", as you call it). But "claims posing to “debunk” could this be called and may"? Meh, it was probably not important. --Hob Gadling (talk) 06:05, 28 April 2018 (UTC)

Hob Gadling - I'll take that as a 'no' then. Just as an explanation, in the topic of 'not from a neutral viewpoint', 'setting limits/controls vs scientism', the response about yes there are multiple forms and the obviously bogus - you are bringing up the flavor of scientism pushing fake-science known as Pseudoscience or WP:FRINGE/PS. In this article, I think just pushing for better grammar and for having cites will do a lot, though again WP:GEVAL and WP:PSCI says coverage can be slanted and incomplete. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 22:48, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

Still gibberish. Meh again. --Hob Gadling (talk) 07:03, 1 May 2018 (UTC)

Hob Gadling - you were saying it is a "true story". Got a RS for that ? Please show what RS got you to "Often "not falling for obvious bullshit" is called "scientism" by those who spread that bullshit." Or is that just something you made up and not from some supporting item  ? Cheers Markbassett (talk) 02:45, 3 May 2018 (UTC)

I get the impression that you are just writing here in order to write something. No matter whether it makes sense or is about improving the article.

Statements on Talk pages do not need sources. Please stop that, you are boring. --Hob Gadling (talk) 07:16, 3 May 2018 (UTC)

Hob Gadling -  ??? Nope, seems you did not know it but this is a discussion for edits that you've contributed to. Not so much of ways to curb scientism or to the general thread about POV and focus, but your mention that some things are obviously bogus during the talking of scientism flavors reminded me that the same WP policy for pseudoscience covers some flavors of scientism as well. If you'd literally had a 'True story' from RS that might have been a whole edit right there. Anyway, thanks for the contribution. Markbassett (talk) 23:50, 3 May 2018 (UTC)

I am not falling for your bullshit.

By the way, you should stop your failing attempts to ping me. Just click on Hob Gadling to find out why they failed.

EOD. --Hob Gadling (talk) 05:47, 4 May 2018 (UTC)

For this argument " The scientific community does not recognize such objections as valid, pointing to detractors' misinterpretations of such things as the scientific method, evidence, and basic physical laws." , there is no evidence that supports this argument. There has never been an extensive questionnaire in science community on whether objecting to evolution. — Preceding unsigned comment added by TristanSuper (talk • contribs) 07:18, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

There does not need to be. Science does not work by voting. Whenever someone utters an objection to evolution, scientists show him the rookie mistakes he made.

Please familiarize yourself with the subject of science before mouthing off on it. --Hob Gadling (talk) 08:49, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

@TristanSuper: Scientific consensus and arguments from authority on YouTube shows how scientists can know what the scientific consensus is. Tgeorgescu (talk) 08:59, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

Definition of ‘’theory’’ is wrong

The article defines “theory in science” as “an explanation whose predictions have been verified by experiments or other evidence”.

This is clearly wrong. It is common and natural in science to refer to “the theory of geocentrism” or “the theory of intelligent design”. Heck, even “the theory of Newtonian Mechanics” doesn’t meet the definition given above: it is wrong, proven so by countless experiments since Mitchelson and Morley.

I propose instead:

Science defines theory the same way logic does: any non-contradictory set of unambiguous assertions. This does not mean that it is right or wrong, thoroughly accepted or thoroughly debunked.

Natural Selection is now among the most thoroughly accepted theories in all of science, much the same as the theory that the Earth orbits the Sun or the theory that complex organisms are composed of cells. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gisborne~enwiki (talk • contribs) 05:18, 5 June 2020 (UTC)

@Gisborne~enwiki: You don't define the terms of the debate, WP:RS do. Tgeorgescu (talk) 05:54, 5 June 2020 (UTC)

And there is a good reason for that: Your reasoning fails. Newtonian mechanics has been "verified by experiments or other evidence". It has also been falsified, but only in specific circumstances: very large velocities, very large gravity, very small distances. And it it is still very useful, except for specific purposes such as GPS, lasers, or anything else that needs quantum mechanics or relativity.

Intelligent design, on the other hand, cannot be verified because it does not predict anything, and is therefore not a theory. I never heard geocentrism be called a theory except maybe by crackpots - it is a model, or a reference system. --Hob Gadling (talk) 07:46, 5 June 2020 (UTC)

@Hob Gadling:It is common to refer to an entirely wrong collection of ideas using the term “Theory” anywhere from “Phlogiston Theory” to “Flat Earth Theory”. eg — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gisborne~enwiki (talk • contribs) 01:15, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

That's "conspiracy theory" which is rather different from "theory". Johnuniq (talk) 03:21, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

Adding to which, the "flat Earth" concept, like relativity, is a question of scale. Newton is right for most scales of gravity, the flat Earth can work at a limited perception of the scale of the Earth. The linked source is rather dodgy when it says "The evidence for a spherical Earth is overwhelming", since the Earth is an oblate spheroid rather than perfectly spherical. . . dave souza, talk 05:01, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

Common within which population? Not scientists. This is a science article, so we use the wording scientists use. --Hob Gadling (talk) 05:57, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

American scientists with professional degrees unrelated to evolution?

How can having a professional degree in business administration or computer science possibly tie at all with belief in evolution o creation or atheism or theism when it's totally unrelated? Of those five fields listed in the asterisk note, the one most related to evolution is physics and the one most unrelated to evoluton is business administration (which is not a science degree, business administrators are not scientists, therefore American "scientists" is not the correct term) followed by computer science, or maybe both are equally unrelated. Maybe people that accept the theory of evolution are more intelligent than creationists, and atheists more intelligent than religious people, not just in matters related to evolution (also religion), but also in general matters like math, language, and information technology. IQ of atheists and people of different religions and evolutionists as creationists, doesn't take moral intelligence into account though. Why isn't there something called MQ (Moral Intelligence Quotient)? Probably because it's subjective and not measurable like IQ or EQ. Either that or people with professional degrees unrelated to evolution take general education classes teaching evolution regardless of their major. Or people that accept the theory of evolution are more likely to be accepted/admitted and more likely to graduate. Or after they get the professional degree, their experience in their career affects their belief in God. Or public education has a bias (e.g. liberal bias). Wikipedia should have an article about what I'm talking about in this section, and it should be written from a neutral point of view, not give undue weight to minor objections and give due weight to major objections and not portray as equal validity, and give less validity to pseudoscience than true science (because according to Wikipedia's policies, equal validity to creation and evolution would not be a neutral point of view, it would kind of be biased), and such. See NPOV: Pseudoscience, NPOV: Undue weight, NPOV: Making necessary assumptions, and NPOV: Giving "equal validity". Read them all the way first before jumping into conclusions right by reading the titles. Either way, the information in Religiosity and intelligence doesn't cut it. WorldQuestioneer (talk) 23:43, 1 August 2020 (UTC)

May I remind you that this talk page is for discussion of improving the article? PepperBeast (talk) 07:55, 2 August 2020 (UTC)

Time to check the facts

User:Doug Weller reverted my edits saying: " Off-topic, article is about biology, lead is meant to reflect the article not discuss something not in the article, and of course "Darwinists" is a bit of a red flag." Here is an explanation why reversion was wrong:

• "article is about biology". No - false two ways. It actually states it is about evolution. Now, if WP is giving people the idea that Darwin's theory was the theory of evolution, it will have to be removed from all pages. Darwin was an evolutionary theorist who applied the evolutionary ideas of Wilhelm von Humboldt and many others to biology, but also to culture and language, as it was quite correctly stated.
• "lead is meant to reflect the article not discuss something not in the article". Well, I could try to find the time to write a section about the issue in the article. Nonetheless, the lede has to be quite truthful and not misleading at all.
• "Darwinists" is not a red flag. It is a movement within natural, human and social sciences. Time to check the facts. I'll start with this article and then have a look at what is claimed on the Charles Darwin page. Weidorje (talk) 13:15, 25 December 2020 (UTC)

• The word "evolution" is usually used for talking about biological evolution. When it is not, one can see that from context. The context here is the article. All of the article, every single section, is about objections to biological evolution. So, the lede should reflect that. You cannot just pick a word, strip it from its context, point out it has another meaning than the one it has within the context, and then put the context back and recolor it in the light of your redefinition. What Darwin did and did not do has nothing to do with that.
• The lede is misleading if it says stuff that is not in the body of the article.
• Oh yes, "Darwinists" is a red flag. Most people who try to use it on Wikipedia articles are trying to insert creationist bullshit. Yes, there are people who actually embrace the term, such as Dawkins and Dennett, but that does not change the fact that using it will make the people suspicious who are rebutting those insertions daily. You need to know that if you want to use it. And you need to have real good reasons, because those people are battle-hardened and will not let you get away with less than that. --Hob Gadling (talk) 15:23, 25 December 2020 (UTC)

Ok, Hob Gadling, I see your point. To make it clear, I'm not into any creationist BS. The problem is that the current wordings are too exclusive. There should also be room for other versions of anti-Darwinism (check the link - and this) because these are historical facts. Darwin had many rivals in biology, and in humanities his theory is highly controversial. As regards Dawkins and Dennett, these are "the Darwinists". Of course you can say that they only represent a minority view, but the fact is that with all the weight of Darwin's name, we're talking about some powerful opinions. What we could do is create a different page for other types of anti-Darwinism. But it has to be clear from this article, then, that it is not the full picture. Weidorje (talk) 16:51, 25 December 2020 (UTC)

@Weidorje: Darwin was not a Social Darwinist. You conflate him with Herbert Spencer. Social Darwinism isn't Darwinism. It's like saying Metallica is a famous band of classical music. Tgeorgescu (talk) 17:26, 25 December 2020 (UTC)

This article is very definitely about biology, not about concepts of "evolution" applied more broadly. XOR'easter (talk) 17:56, 25 December 2020 (UTC)

Weidorje is not talking about Social Darwinism, but about the acceptance of Darwinian evolution in certain circles: in humanities his theory is highly controversial is certainly true. There are anti-science loons there, and there are anti-evolution loons too. They use canards they copied from the creationists, and they have their own ones. Of course, ignorance of biology plays a big part; historian Brigitte Hamann for instance, in "Hitler's Vienna", seems to be unaware of Darwin's central position as father of modern biology and treats him as just another one of those crazy weirdos, like Lanz von Liebenfels, who influenced Hitler. I don't think she is an outlier.

Dawkins, Dennett and others complicated that situation by trying to generalize the natural-selection idea (see memetics, for example), which is, naturally, seen by social scientists as an invasion of their territory. But that part is beyond the scope if this article, since it is not about biology.

So, the question still is: how is this relevant for this article? Are there any reliable sources which have a look at those anti-biology fringe positions within the social sciences and humanities? --Hob Gadling (talk) 21:40, 25 December 2020 (UTC)

So, language evolving/not evolving — what has that to do with biology. Also, postmodernists debunk grand narratives and think that evolution is another grand narrative to debunk. Tgeorgescu (talk) 21:49, 25 December 2020 (UTC)

Adapting what I said at the fringe theory noticeboard:

This revert was absolutely right. I agree with PaleoNeonate that the editor appears to be "trying to push a humanist view" of language development and that this is one-sided. That material, for one thing, was being given seriously WP:UNDUE prominence - the nature-nurture debate regarding humans is hardly an objection to evolution as a whole, so it in fact may be WP:SYNTH. We can see the POV in such wording as "fierce criticism", "profoundly contested", and "pointing out". Regarding the line "Social Darwinism was banished from the humanities at the end of World War II, but has more recently returned to challenge the humanistic paradigm.", if the source is really equating Social Darwinism with modern cultural evolution theories (which have nothing do with the 19th century theories by that name), or even with evolutionary psychology, then it is WP:UNDUE or fringe. Even if the editor is not a creationist, if they are pushing a "only humanities scholars are correct" POV, in contradiction to the vast scientific literature on human biology and culture, that is not going to fly.

Also: It is well-known and documented in many reliable sources that some in the humanities are anti-science. We are not going to give undue weight to such ideas. Crossroads ^-talk- 23:17, 25 December 2020 (UTC)

Thanks guys. Some interesting points, some are silly. Whatever you think about the dispute between the (possibly falsely named but yet) Darwinists and structuralists, it is a fact. I sent the one link discussing anti-Darwinism in the humanist position, so it's now clear that there is a notable anti-Darwinian movement which is not creationist. However, you say that this article is about biology, so that view doesn't fit in. So, that's the issue here. Solutions: (1) the article has to state much more clearly what it does and doesn't discuss; (2) there has to be room somewhere else for the other type of anti-Darwinism and anti-evolutionism. Weidorje (talk) 09:11, 26 December 2020 (UTC)

Time for decision

So, what say you? How will the problem be solved? There are many objections to evolution and anti-Darwinian positions in the science literature, but the current WP idea is that anyone who dares question Darwin's Truth is a religious lunatic. This is not a possibility. Please avoid the kind of "debate" we had at the bonkers section. A constructive solution required - thank you. Weidorje (talk) 11:06, 27 December 2020 (UTC)

Adding loosely related concepts coatracking, and is inappropriate. This article is not objections to "Darwin's Truth", but biological evolution which has advanced a long way since Darwin. The neutral theory of molecular evolution is about changes without selective pressure so it is not Darwinian, but is part of the extended evolutionary synthesis. The objection to the implications of molecular clocks is therefore not an objection to Darwinism. There is no reason to go off-topic BiologicalMe (talk) 22:20, 27 December 2020 (UTC)

You can call it whatever you want as long as you answer the question. Objections to evolution/anti-Darwinism in humanities, for example in structuralism, is a valid topic an will be included in Wikipedia. You get to have a say on how we do this: in the same article or in a separate one? If separate, how do we name it? In any case it's likely you'll need to make some modification to this article. Weidorje (talk) 07:52, 28 December 2020 (UTC)

This article is specifically about biological evolution (although it is not restricted only to Darwin). Objections to other meanings of evolution belong with due weight in the relevant articles and sub-articles of those topics. CMD (talk) 08:21, 28 December 2020 (UTC)

I'm afraid that's not good enough. For example, Structural linguistics discusses anti-Darwinism, but if I link the word "anti-Darwinian" in the article, it will redirect here. The reader is given the false idea that everyone who criticizes Darwin is a nutcase. I understand this would seem very convenient for those who are opposed to humanists – label them as idiots and lunatics. This was in fact exactly what was done after my edits: the discussion was sent to the fringe theories noticeboard. The truth however is that Darwinism is a fringe theory in humanities and social sciences, so it's all a show. Anyway, give me something better or it's agreed I can use this article as usual. Weidorje (talk) 09:43, 28 December 2020 (UTC)

Also, objections to evolution will include the universal Darwinism of the universe/solar systems/celestial bodies. As it stands, the topic is treated in a misleading, sub-standard way. The default option is to fix this article. I'll listen to reasonable alternative solutions. Weidorje (talk) 11:21, 28 December 2020 (UTC)

Can you point to some sources which use the term "anti-Darwinian" in the way you propose is standard in structural linguistics? Incidentally, your attempt to claim that there is a substantive objection to Universal Darwinism approaches to astronomy that deserves a hearing on this page does not cut it for this astronomer. jps (talk) 02:05, 29 December 2020 (UTC)

Thanks jps. Astronomy is cool. It has a lot in common with philosophy because both deal with universal issues. I've got the same link as before, Sériot's 1999 article. He has published a book in 2014 on the same topic. Here are thousands more, but this is more illustrating - edit; and this - edit2. I could start a new page, e.g. Academic Anti-Darwnism or anti-Darwinism in philosophy. I might need some minor protection against creationists and the most fanatic Darwinists. It is clearly a third perspective. Weidorje (talk) 10:03, 29 December 2020 (UTC)

I cannot read the Seriot paper for whatever reason (it's a 404). The rest of your links are to search engine results, most of which do not provide a coherent anti-Darwinian perspective in the fashion that you are arguing. jps (talk) 13:24, 29 December 2020 (UTC)

I can get all the necessary material for your approval here. So, you're an admin, right? And you'll be deciding whether I can start the page or not? Weidorje (talk) 14:32, 29 December 2020 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for creation is somewhere you can get assistance with page creation. CMD (talk) 15:16, 29 December 2020 (UTC)

I am not an admin, but AfC works well for workshopping new ideas such as a proposed article on anti-Darwinian perspectives. Right now, I feel like we're very light on sources. jps (talk) 23:00, 29 December 2020 (UTC)

Will you be the judge of that? Weidorje (talk) 12:52, 30 December 2020 (UTC)

I typically do not involve myself with AfC decisions, but would be happy to look over whatever you make. Occasionally, the AfC process fails and the community might step in to object to an article that is created and I do sometimes weigh in on those discussions. jps (talk) 12:55, 30 December 2020 (UTC)

And your qualification was..? Weidorje (talk) 13:21, 30 December 2020 (UTC)

Wikipedia decisions are determined by consensus, not qualifications. Many experienced editors help out at AfC. CMD (talk) 13:35, 30 December 2020 (UTC)

I hope they are the ones with expertise on structuralism and philosophy and not just someone who thinks they know everything. Weidorje (talk) 13:56, 30 December 2020 (UTC)

Please be advised that no specialist knowledge is required to accept or decline articles at WP:AFC if a topic is shown to be notable then it will be accepted. Wikipedia:PAGEDECIDE could be useful for the decision making process. Theroadislong (talk) 14:14, 30 December 2020 (UTC)

This discussion is drifting away from the purpose of a WP article talk page, which is meant for discussing improvements to this article. I have no "expertise on structuralism" but have read Malcolm Bradbury's My Strange Quest for Mensonge: Structuralism's Hidden Hero. (For those unacquainted with this recondite work, it may be considered whimsically adjacent to Sokal and Bricmont's Fashionable Nonsense.)

Structuralism (biology) may be a better place for the content Weidorje is advocating. Just plain Bill (talk) 14:51, 30 December 2020 (UTC)

Okay, so you're saying that you're taking Sokal's side in the Science Wars, and therefore use what power you have to limit the number of structuralist pages on Wikipedia. And also, that you will consider WP articles discussing philosophical criticisms of Darwinism as campaigning against Darwin, and that these should be stopped or removed so people cannot read why phenomenologists, existentialists others disagreed with Darwin? Or not in principle, but because such arguments/pages tend to be tenuous or of poor quality, and not very interesting for the general audience? Weidorje (talk) 15:06, 30 December 2020 (UTC)

Bill was simply saying that this discussion would be better held on a page more relevant to its topic, where you are more likely to come across editors with the expertise you seem to be seeking. CMD (talk) 15:30, 30 December 2020 (UTC)

Thanks CMD, we're good. Weidorje (talk) 18:32, 30 December 2020 (UTC)

There it is: that weird idea that scientists use "power" instead of reasoning for determining which idea wins. The foul postmodern stink is getting stronger and stronger. I have no idea how much "power" Sokal has, but his reasoning is far more convincing than your Potemkin jargon. --Hob Gadling (talk) 14:02, 1 January 2021 (UTC)

Because they think in terms of divine revelation by Authority. To them, Darwin is the scientists’ prophet, whose word is Holy Writ to us, and if they discredit him they think it’s like discrediting Mohammed or Buddha. They can’t understand the idea that Darwin was just a guy who observed the world, thought about it and wrote a book, and if he had never been born it would have held the advance of evolutionary theory up by about five years. To them, No Darwin = No Evolution.

Most of them not only don’t understand the evidence - they don’t understand what evidence *is*.

— Claire Jordan, quora.com

So, it's all right to criticize Darwin. Scientists understand that Darwin wasn't all-knowing. And the present-day theory of evolution is only partly based upon what Darwin wrote, e.g. he knew nothing about DNA. Tgeorgescu (talk) 09:35, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

Unsourced?

User:Pipsally Unsourced? Source is right there. KEleison (talk) 01:38, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

you’re adding your own spin, and I’m not sure that a single source is sufficient to do si.Pipsally (talk) 02:40, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

To what I linked, "While the Church permits belief in either special creation or developmental creation on certain questions." Where here is my "own spin"?

Other sources:

https://nwcatholic.org/voices/daniel-mueggenborg/can-catholics-believe-in-evolution

"the Catholic Church has neither denied nor affirmed the theory of evolution to be a matter of fact."

http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/conlaw/vaticanview.html

"Catholics... do not have to decide either for Evolution or against it.  Authority has not spoken on the subject;" KEleison (talk) 02:55, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

You see, better sourcing. Go for it.Pipsally (talk) 02:58, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

Apologetics piece

This is not an historical analysis of objections to evolution. It is an apologetics piece defending evolution. This is quite obvious. I have re-written the article from the perspective of a professional historian focusing on the actual history of objections to evolution. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Veritashistorica (talk • contribs)

Suggested article text

Objections to evolution have been raised since evolutionary ideas came to prominence in the 19th century. When Charles Darwin published his 1859 book On the Origin of Species, his theory of evolution (the idea that species arose through descent with modification from a single common ancestor in a process driven by natural selection) initially met opposition from scientists with different theories.Darwin's theory was a simple re-stating of several scientific observations known to scientists for decades. The creator of the science of taxonomy, Linnaeus, was well aware of similarities between various animals and he unhesitatingly included apes and humans together as primates. Darwin's "breakthrough" was to provide an explanation in materialistic terms for these similarities-to Darwin, genetic similarity and relationship equaled materialistic evolution. Darwin was not without his critics. In his book, "Darwinism: The Refutation of a Myth", Soren Lovtrup points out that "some critics turned against Darwin's teachings for religious reasons, but they were a minority; most of his opponents ... argued on a completely scientific basis." Content removed due to WP:COPYVIO, assessed & assumed from otherwise unreachable book sources — IVORK Talk 00:31, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

It's clear from your citing of the Discovery Institute that you are coming here from a religious perspective rather than a scientific one. Your references are not strong enough to change the existing article. Binksternet (talk) 21:49, 28 March 2021 (UTC)

title change merited

I believe a better title for this article would be "Refuting Objections to Evolution" because that is what the article does. Exactly how this article is considered to be "content neutral" is certainly a mystery to me-perhaps as mysterious as those micro-mutations creating elephants from bacteria. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Veritashistorica (talk • contribs)

@Veritashistorica: Your beliefs are yours to hold, however, content in the article is all extensibly sourced from reliable sources. All subjects on Wikipedia should not be summaries of the editor's opinions, but summaries of content published by reliable sources. As to your content above, as aforementioned, the Discovery Institute does not hold enough weight to outdo the majority of sources for existing text. Additionally, the text you posted is a raw copy-paste from their website which per their terms of service is a copyright violation. — IVORK _Talk 00:25, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

again, article name needs altered

Duplicate sections combined. CMD (talk) 03:01, 29 March 2021 (UTC)
Regardless of my personal convictions, and regardless of yours, this article is biased and is not a statement of objections to evolution, but instead a series of arguments against objections to evolution. A far better title would be "Refutation of Objections to Evolution". I was unaware of the subjective and selective nature of Wikipedia's acceptance process. I am glad I have been duly enlightened. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Veritashistorica (talk • contribs) 02:38, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

@Veritashistorica: If you can gain consensus via a WP:RM, the article can be renamed — IVORK _Talk 05:54, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

Be advised, though, that such a requested move would not have a have a snowball's chance of passing, and requesting it COULD be seen as disruptive. Firejuggler86 (talk) 06:14, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

if by "unbiased" you mean we ought to give equal weight to supernatural explanations for the origin of life, taken from all the various creation myths from around the world...then, if that's what is 'unbiased', we are not that.

Elephants did not evolve from bacteria, either. If you wish to know about the earliest forms of animals that are known, see Cambrian explosion. After that, familiarising yourself with the different arrays of fauna that existed at different times, see Palaeozoic Mesozoic and Cenozoic.

Also, consider the following. You grant that a teacup chihuahua and a Great Dane are both dogs, and ultimately descended from ancestors that were alike in size and form, yes? Yet behold their stark difference in forms - that is itself a form of 'evolutuon by selection' - only artificial rather than natural selection, done by humans. natural selection more or less works the exact same way, just on far, far larger time scales (because it's natural and thus takes a very long time). Firejuggler86 (talk) 05:58, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

Michael Behe

You would also be well advised to have someone (that you actually allow access) edit the sections referring to Behe's ideas and critiques on them. His new book "A Mousetrap for Darwin (2020)" provides emails, published letters to the editor of various peer reviewed science journals, etc. that refute every single one of the arguments advanced against his views on irreducible complexity, multiple mutations, Lenski's work with E Coli, etc. I recommend you, or someone else with enough intellectual freedom and independence, actually take the time to at least provide up-to-date information in this piece. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Veritashistorica (talk • contribs) 17:11, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

Behe's task isn't to convince us (Wikipedia); it is to convince the scientific community and he failed at that. As H. Allen Orr stated, So when the Christian Right tries to tell you that evolutionists instinctively circle the wagons whenever anyone dares question the Darwinian status quo, you should ask yourself why Wright and Kimura got through, but Behe not. The answer is, I think, straightforward: Wright and Kimura knew what they were talking about. Tgeorgescu (talk) 17:36, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

quick response to "firejuggler06"

If you wish to debate, that's fine. 1) Elephants did in fact evolve from one celled creatures. According to Darwin, all life on earth, you, me, your pet cat, the blue whale, the petunia in the garden, are all results of the process of evolution over billions and billions of years-is that not so? Utterly random, completely mindless. non-directed mutation coupled with natural selection is responsible for all life on earth. In some ancient past, in some yet undetermined way, some matter that apparently magically formed utterly on its own came together and formed a planet, then that matter from an undetermined origin formed a primordial "soup" and in yet another undetermined process some electro-chemical reaction accidently and randomly occurred to form the first one celled creatures, who apparently must have evolved every aspect of cell machinery through random, senseless mutation via natural selection in a way that enabled them to miraculously possess every portion of the inner cell machinery necessary for life function at the same time, or it would have died. Then this one celled life, through billions of years, and perhaps billions of utterly random, non-directed mutations began to branch off into the myriad animals, plants, etc. that populate the earth, yes? Because if any intelligent outside agent applied any planning, direction or thought into this process, then the entire basis of Darwinian materialistic evolution ceases to exist.

2) You use the example of dog breeds to illustrate the process of evolution. You correctly note that most of the variation within the species was created, on purpose, by an intelligent agent-a human dog breeder. Actually this example illustrates the limitations of evolution. If the capabilities of Darwinian evolution were limitless, why have dogs remained dogs? They have not evolved into a new creation-they have remained dogs-some big, some small, some short, some tall, but all still dogs. They conform to a type. Most of the "evolution" touted by Darwinists is exactly that-variation within a known species or type. Definitions are very important here. I think you will find that almost every advocate of intelligent design has no problem with micro-evolution, or variations within a species such as dogs, cats, etc. Macro-evolution that claims to create entire new species from existing species is the source of the disagreement. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Veritashistorica (talk • contribs) 20:01, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

This page is not a forum. You are welcome however to continue on your own talk pages where people interested in this article won't have to see it. --McSly (talk) 20:42, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

Removing edits for no reason

I’m concerned that Dave Souza completely reverted some perfectly reasonable edits. I’m not sure all of them were reasonable, but certainly many were. The editor provided explanations for what he was doing and why, Dave completely did not address any points and just reverted all the edits. One edit he reverted just updated some numbers on a statement, and added in some notable signatories. Dave provided 0 reason for the removal of any of these edits. WP is not a dictatorship. I’d like to see those edits back up 67.81.163.55 (talk) 04:00, 24 January 2022 (UTC)

Among other things, the edits had Evolution News as a source, which has a reputation for being unreliable and biased, and you were introducing obviously untrue statements, i.e., your claim that "Darwinian" evolution was not universally accepted in the scientific community.--Mr Fink (talk) 04:21, 24 January 2022 (UTC)

Yes at least two sources I noticed are familiar pseudoscientific creationism advocacy sites with no impact on biology. WP is not a dictatorship Jimbo is not the sole arbitrator of what is in articles (pun intended). But it's also not a democracy (WP:NOTDEMOCRACY) or a platform for free speech (WP:FREESPEECH) or to promote pseudoscience (WP:PSCI, WP:FRIND, WP:FRINGE, WP:GEVAL, WP:YESPOV, etc.) This talk page is not to debate evolution itself but I recommend evidence of common descent as a starting point. More importantly, WP:RS: unreliable advocacy sources should be avoided. It's entirely possible for some individual scientists to not agree with the scientific consensus about evolution. In most cases they aren't biologists so it is irrelevant. Some are, but still, the previously-linked GEVAL policy warns against presenting a false balance between those personal views and the scientific consensus. This article should present arguments from the point of view of the analysis of reliable sources, not that of religious apologists (WP:POVFORK). —PaleoNeonate – 05:29, 24 January 2022 (UTC)

Advocacy sources? As in, coming from members of a group or society with an established agenda? Wouldn't that make the works of Charles Darwin advocacy sources, seeing as he was part of the Plinian Society, a radical democratic group that at its inauguration established a plan, objectives for achieving said plan, and an 18 chapter code of rules?

Also, if almost all objections to evolution are raised by religious apologists, and this article is supposed to be a list of objections to evolution, wouldn't not allowing the near-exclusive source of said objections defeat the purpose of the article's existence? ATimeTravelingCaveman (talk) 15:44, 16 May 2022 (UTC)

References

False balance issues

I might try to eventually improve this but in case someone can before I do, examples are "Supporters of evolution have argued in response that [...]", "Supporters of evolution have argued in response [...]", etc. Since apologetic and scientific views don't work with the same standards of evidence, the latter can be presented in Wikipedia's voice instead of as only arguments or opinions, to better comply with WP:YESPOV and WP:GEVAL. —PaleoNeonate – 13:00, 23 January 2022 (UTC)

I agree with this. XOR'easter (talk) 20:05, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

I removed all instances where "supporters of evolution" were used like that. There may still be other wordings of false balance. --Hob Gadling (talk) 09:31, 26 January 2022 (UTC)

There is no need to attempt to support something when it is already scientifically proven and universally accepted. Thank you for removing them. Wretchskull (alt) (talk) 11:33, 26 January 2022 (UTC)

I just audited the recent changes and thank you all for the improvements, —PaleoNeonate – 06:20, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

User:Hob Gadling - I just reverted one of those. A quote cited to talkorigins.org arguing in their CA611 Response section has WP:VERIFY support for "Supporters of evolution have argued in response [...]". It is inappropriate to rephrase that into wikivoice as “actuality”. Cheers Mark bassett (talk) 22:25, 9 June 2022 (UTC)

The second one I let be, though it is now grammatically confused, and you might revisit that. Changing “Evolutionary supporters point out” to “But” ... at “But evolution is neither dogmatic nor based on faith, and they accuse creationists of [...]” leaves it confused — who are the “they” making accusations, and what cite supports that? They nearest cite is for the next line about a court decision. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 23:21, 9 June 2022 (UTC)

The third one I reverted to revised phrasings. The cite to talkorigins CI100 can be attributed as “Supporters of evolution generally respond by arguing that” ... but that cite does not WP:VERIFY give support for “Actually” in wikivoice and no attribution. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 23:34, 9 June 2022 (UTC)

You do not need to notify me, I have a watchlist. Your changes are not unreasonable. --Hob Gadling (talk) 05:41, 10 June 2022 (UTC)

Objection to calling "Evolution " proven science.

To prove that an otter slipped into the water and became a dolphin who then had a sexual desire for his similar mate has been proven scientifically? How would you design a double blind experiment that would prove such an hypothesis? Would it not involve radioactive tracers observed over thousands of years? I object to "scientists " trying to pass off "ologies" for science. Tormarquis (talk) 06:26, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

A starting point may be evidence of common descent. The above sounds like a voluntarily unrealistic parody, not a representation of what happened or how. Animals don't evolve in a lifetime, it's more complex than that. —PaleoNeonate – 06:38, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

Also, nobody says dolphins are decended from otters. Creationists probably hold the record for cramming most falsities per sentence into a text. --Hob Gadling (talk) 09:04, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

Dolphins are even-toed ungulates, so pretty distant from Mustelidae including otters. Unsurprisingly. Sounds like the crocoduck fallacy, think it's a tie? Oh, and proof is for whisky and maths, not so much science. . . dave souza, talk 10:59, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

User:Tormarquis - is this about something in the article ? This article has a section on the Status as theory, which seems the only place where ‘proven’ is discussed. That says evolution is unproven, as any theory is ‘just a theory’, but that in colloquial meaning ‘proven’ of having compelling evidence it has been ‘proven’. (p.s. Evidence being what has been found so far — there were fossil duckocrocs found but so far no crocoducks found.) Cheers Markbassett (talk) 22:02, 9 June 2022 (UTC)

A scientific theory is not "just a theory" and also not a hypothesis, you may want to read the linked article... —PaleoNeonate – 03:18, 21 June 2022 (UTC)

User:PaleoNeonate The article has a section that says evolution is unproven, as any theory is ‘just a theory’, but that in colloquial meaning ‘proven’ of having compelling evidence it has been ‘proven’. If you don’t feel what the article states is correctly phrasing the cite, feel free to make your proposals for rewording it; if you don’t feel the OP was referring to that then feel free to make your own proposal or question subthread. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 13:20, 3 July 2022 (UTC)

Evolution itself is a proven fact, there are multiple examples of evolution. Obviously the theory isn't a fact. Doug Weller talk 15:45, 3 July 2022 (UTC)

Rampant Censorship problems

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

This article is supposed to be for objections to the theory of evolutions. The article establishes early on that the majority of these objections are raised by religious groups. Despite this, the article's edit history shows repeated examples of new objections being removed for citing a creationist-biased source for the objection. This defeats the entire purpose of the article. What's the point of an article on objections to evolution that can't cite objections to evolution? Furthermore, considering Charles Darwin was a member of the Plinian Society, a radical democratic group with an established agenda against the accepted consensus of the time, isn't it hypocritical to exclude articles from members of creationist organizations? --ATimeTravelingCaveman (talk) 15:19, 16 May 2022 (UTC)

@ATimeTravelingCaveman Says the editor who had never edited an article and whose first talk page edit was an anti-Catholic commment, correctly deleted. Anyway, as this article has barely been edited this year, please provide some links to specific examples. Without those no one really knows what you are complaining about. Doug Weller talk 15:57, 16 May 2022 (UTC)

Creationist sources are among the most unreliable sources there are. It would be crazy to allow them as sources except for their own opinions, and they typically word even their own opinions in a way that distorts the facts they reject. It is far better to use reliable sources talking about them. It's the same principle as that of the sewage plant.

And you seem to misunderstand the purpose of the article. Its purpose is not to help creationists propagate bullshit. --Hob Gadling (talk) 05:49, 10 June 2022 (UTC)

Regarding radical democrats: The reason why we do not allow creationist sources is not that creationists disagree with the majority, as Darwin did, but that they are unreliable. --Hob Gadling (talk) 05:53, 10 June 2022 (UTC)

State the fringe source with attribution. As a general practice, trying to portray fringe views by third-hand comments of their opponents is not a reliable sourcing. In an article with a mainstream topic one can and should use scholarly second-party sources and avoid even mentioning UNDUE views that are not mainstream and hence also OFFTOPIC. But in an article whose topic is fringe views one should directly convey fringe views while being clear that they are not mainstream, and neutral second-party sources are probably just not available. To relate what fringe views say, it’s better to actually relate what they say and directly cite to where they say it. Any proponent pieces and opposing pieces should be treated as WP:BIASED sources by stating attribution. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 13:23, 11 June 2022 (UTC)

WP:PRIMARY disagrees with you: primary sources that have been reputably published may be used in Wikipedia, but only with care, because it is easy to misuse them

Creationist publishers are not reliable. --Hob Gadling (talk) 13:49, 11 June 2022 (UTC)

On the contrary, that agrees with me in that WP:SECONDARY sources are preferable, repeated at WP:SCHOLARSHIP, and those reliable secondary sources should be the source for any article statement of evaluation and synthesis. Opposing advocates are not disinterested secondary sources in this context of articles on fringe topics. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 15:24, 11 June 2022 (UTC)

Everybody who understands the subject of evolution is an Opposing advocate, so your criterion leaves only ignoramuses as reliable sources. Creationism is just like other pseudosciences and is treated as such. --Hob Gadling (talk) 16:32, 11 June 2022 (UTC)

Hmmm, this provides an example why the context of non-consensus views needs directs cites to unusual sources. Distinguishing factually what was said versus what is consensus views requires avoiding sources that do not separate fact from denunciation, so the scholastic honesty of stating the non-consensus view may need to go to the PRIMARY. Whether it is ‘what the Daily Mail said’ or ‘what John Doe blogged about himself’ or what some evolution objection was ... for WP:RS “the policy on sourcing is Wikipedia:Verifiability”.

On a side note, are there any biologists having enough hubris to claim complete understanding of evolution or referring to those lacking such as “ignoramuses”? Such claims would appear to have gone too far and hurt their own credibility. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 20:34, 14 June 2022 (UTC)

It would be unprofessional for true professional biologist to use such unprofessional language. --StellarNerd (talk) 20:36, 14 June 2022 (UTC)

Biologists don't engage with creationism in a professional capacity, because they are scientists, and there's no science to be found in creationism. Happy (Slap me) 22:18, 14 June 2022 (UTC)

I wouldn't be too sure about that. See sections 6 and 7. I agree that to have a consistent article you need to use the primary sources. Subuey (talk) 19:30, 16 June 2022 (UTC)

Neither of the authors of that paper are biologists. Thorvaldsen has a degree in bioinformatics, but that's not biology, but the development of tools and mathematical methods for use by biologists. The other is a mathematician.

Also, they're both creationists who used deceptive tactics to get their paper published. See the publisher's disclaimer. Happy (Slap me) 19:54, 16 June 2022 (UTC)

Looks like the only thing they had added to was the keyword section. The words "intelligent design" and other "design" references are still in the article, so that they used "deceptive tactics" doesn't make sense to me. In any case, biologists - yes, bioligists - respond to Behe's work at various times. It's possible to have a conversation here without hurling an insult like "ignoramous". It just gets the conversation off track. Subuey (talk) 00:22, 17 June 2022 (UTC)

Only if people keep harping about it. --Hob Gadling (talk) 04:47, 17 June 2022 (UTC)

The disclaimer by the journal explains it all quite clearly, so if you don't understand, there isn't much I can do to fix that. Your new link is a book review. I promise you that not one experiment was run, not one culture grown, not one beaker sterilized in the writing of that review. Honestly, it's rather odd that you seem to think you've a leg to stand on here: You're arguing that biologists take creationism seriously, when the fact that they don't is widely acknowledged, even by creationists. Happy (Slap me) 15:10, 17 June 2022 (UTC)

The source I cited challenging Behe was published in an academic journal; not everything is an experiment. And the disclaimer is no surprise, the predictable uproar is consistent with being cancelled these days. But the peer-reviewed article is still there. NOW, if we could get back to the topic of this section which is how are you supposed to write an unconventional article like this if you don't use unconventional sources. Subuey (talk) 18:45, 17 June 2022 (UTC)

"Peer-reviewed" is not enough. See WP:RS.

how are you supposed to write an unconventional article like this if you don't use unconventional sources You won't get around WP:RS. --Hob Gadling (talk) 04:43, 18 June 2022 (UTC)

Book reviews are not normally peer reviewed. Your assertion to the contrary requires evidence.

I'm going to stop discussing this with you now, because explaining why creationist POVs do not belong on this project is tantamount to explaining why water is wet: If it actually requires explanation, then no amount of explanation will be sufficient to foster understanding. Happy (Slap me) 05:31, 18 June 2022 (UTC)

When I said "peer-review" I was referring to the article with the disclaimer...the point here is that you said biologists do not engage with IDers in any professional way, but the review in a scholarly journal by biologists proves otherwise...a mistake you made but everyone makes them. But I agree, enough of this. Subuey (talk) 13:52, 18 June 2022 (UTC)

QED. Happy (Slap me) 19:06, 18 June 2022 (UTC)

Nah. Subuey (talk) 23:35, 18 June 2022 (UTC)

requires avoiding sources that do not separate fact from denunciation This excludes creationist sources.

I have discussed creationists for several years. Ignoramus is the correct word. You don't need a lot of knowledge to discern that, let alone complete understanding of evolution. --Hob Gadling (talk) 14:13, 16 June 2022 (UTC)

Thank you but that’s ‘avoiding sources that do not separate fact from denunciation’ about the article topic. Anti-creationists just are not RS about objections, any more than creationists should be allowed as cites in the Evolution article. It is a matter of journalistic ethics and credible content about objections to state the fringe source with attribution. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 13:40, 3 July 2022 (UTC)

Since creationists typically manage to cram about three rookie mistakes into one sentence on average, if we used their wording, we would have to explain in detail all the things that are wrong with the way they are wording it. That would be too much detail, so, paraphrasing by actual experts is better.

Of course you would regard scientific sources (what you call "anti-creationist") as non-RS, but you have no consensus for that. Scientific sources are fine. --Hob Gadling (talk) 06:17, 4 July 2022 (UTC)

What are "three rookie mistakes" in this example of an objection to evolution from a prominent Ider? (I am giving you the benefit of a paragraph and not a sentence): "As I have laid out in various publications (e.g., Bechly & Meyer 2017) and lectures, the fossil record demonstrates that the history of life was not a series of gradual transformations by an accumulation of small changes over long periods of time. Instead of conforming to this gradualist prediction of Darwin’s theory of evolution, the fossil record consistently documents a series of saltational transitions with abrupt appearances of new body plans within very short windows of time. This implies a fatal problem for Darwinism called the waiting time problem, because population genetic calculations and simulations show that the windows of time established by the fossil record are orders of magnitude too short to accommodate the required genetic changes for these body plan transformations." Subuey (talk) 00:35, 6 July 2022 (UTC)

very short windows of time—what is this: creative writing or science? That very short time, e.g. the Cambrian explosion, meant in reality millions of years. tgeorgescu (talk) 00:48, 6 July 2022 (UTC)

"Millions of years" is very short in terms of the age of earth and the fossil record. This is common speech in science. Common. Subuey (talk) 00:58, 6 July 2022 (UTC)

You would be right if speaking of geology, biology is however another science and it is not written in the stars that many species cannot appear during some millions of years.

And if you're speaking of https://www.theguardian.com/science/2022/jun/28/do-we-need-a-new-theory-of-evolution , that's a controversy within mainstream science; ID is a controversy outside of science. tgeorgescu (talk) 01:10, 6 July 2022 (UTC)

We're not doing journalism, we are writing a mainstream encyclopedia, just like Britannica and Larousse. So, obviously, we have no reason to obey the ethics of journalism. See https://undsci.berkeley.edu/article/sciencetoolkit_04 tgeorgescu (talk) 08:39, 4 July 2022 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

References

Overstatements about falsifiability

From the Unfalsifiability section:

human DNA should be far more similar to chimpanzees and other great apes, than to other mammals. If not, then common descent is falsified.

"If not" would not falsify anything here. If DNA is part of the construction code for organisms then morphological similarity should correlate with DNA similarity, whether or not the DNA has arrived in its current state through evolution.

DNA analysis has shown that humans and chimpanzees share a large percentage of their DNA (between 95% to 99.4% depending on the measure).[62]

We would not reject evolution if the similarity to chimps were only 89 percent. The 95-99 figure is confirmation of evolution, but not the result of a falsifiable test. The falsifiable prediction is much weaker: that similarity will be higher with chimpanzees than with animals of clearly bigger morphological distance from us, such as elephants or reptiles. Estimates of the expected amount of similarity can be made within particular models of how morphology and DNA co-evolve, but if the predicted numbers are wrong, that only disconfirms the model used, not evolution.

Also, the evolution of chimpanzees and humans from a common ancestor predicts a (geologically) recent common ancestor. Numerous transitional fossils have since been found.[63] Hence, human evolution has passed several falsifiable tests.

This probably falsifies "no evolution at all", i.e., an unchanging set of species, but it does not falsify "limited morphological random walk (or extinction) within each species, but no genuine speciation". It is, after all, believed that modern humans interbred with many of the earlier forms so an anti-evolutionist could just say that the nature of humans changed over time but no real speciation happened.

Even if the transitional fossils falsify all nonevolutionary accounts of human-chimpanzee origins, that doesn't mean evolution has passed another falsifiable test. For falsifiability, it would have to be true that if numerous transitional fossils had not been found over time, evolutionary theory would have been modified or discredited. What would probably have happened in that case is to continue searching, based on confidence in evolution and a lack of competing explanations. So the quoted passage is confusing confirmation of evolution and disconfirmation of alternatives, with a falsifiable test.

The current wording in the article is overstated. Rather than BRD this I am posting on the talk page first, as this subject is prone to edit wars. Sesquivalent (talk) 22:03, 25 September 2021 (UTC)

• "DNA should be far more similar" - it does not matter that one can construct other models which predict the same thing as evolution does. This is one possible falsification of evolution.
• "humans and chimpanzees share a large percentage" - We would indeed not reject evolution if the similarity to chimps were only 89 percent, but 89 percent are still "a large percentage". Try 10%. This is one possible falsification of evolution.
• "(geologically) recent common ancestor" - Again, one can construct other models which predict the same thing as evolution does. This is one possible falsification of evolution.

More to the point, those refutations of creationist poppycock come from reliable sources, and your original research trying to find fault with them is 100% irrelevant. --Hob Gadling (talk) 13:10, 8 December 2021 (UTC)

Regarding transitional fossils, the concept of Fossil rabbits in the Precambrian is relevant. Kauri0.o (talk) 00:49, 28 October 2022 (UTC)

Hovind

Young Earth creationist Kent Hovind blames communism, socialism, World War I, World War II, racism, the Holocaust, Stalin's war crimes, the Vietnam War, and Pol Pot's Killing Fields on evolution, as well as the increase in crime, unwed mothers, and other social ills."

Blames them on what or for what?

Young Earth creationist Kent Hovind blames communism, socialism, World War I, World War II, racism, the Holocaust, Stalin's war crimes, the Vietnam War, and Pol Pot's Killing Fields on evolution, as well as the increase in crime, unwed mothers, and other social ill" 86.191.214.39 (talk) 07:16, 14 November 2023 (UTC)

….Hovind blames [long list] on evolution, as well as [short list]. Not entirely easy to parse, but conveys the information you asked about. Sjö (talk) 08:18, 14 November 2023 (UTC)

I think it is easier to read now. --Hob Gadling (talk) 08:28, 14 November 2023 (UTC)