Talk:History of evolutionary thought/Archive 1

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Going to go for it

I think it is ready. Unless someone feels otherwise I am going to nominate it for GA in the next couple of days.Rusty Cashman 09:22, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

GA review

Draft will evolve as I finish copy-editing the article. :) Tim Vickers (talk) 01:35, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

1. It is reasonably well written.

a (prose)

• "He thought that members of the same Linnean genus (in terms of modern scientific classification the family) had all been derived through changes driven by the environment from a common ancestor, which had arisen through spontaneous generation." - this sentence is unclear, perhaps split into two shorter sentences.

Okay, maybe that sentence was a just little clumsy :) I took a stab at fixing it. Rusty Cashman (talk) 23:57, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

b (MoS)

OK

2. It is factually accurate and verifiable.

Yes.

3. It is broad in its coverage. a (major aspects):

• Doesn't mention Ernest Mayr's species concept. Tim Vickers (talk) 02:04, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

Good catch. I think I have addressed it now. I think I will also rectify the same problem in modern evolutionary synthesis Rusty Cashman (talk) 03:23, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

b (focused):

Yes.

4. It follows the neutral point of view policy.

Yes.

5. It is stable.

Yes.

6. It is illustrated by images, where possible and appropriate.

a (images are tagged and non-free images have fair use rationales): Yes b (appropriate use with suitable captions): Yes

7. Overall:

Pass Tim Vickers (talk) 23:51, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

Section on Symbiogenesis

Since I've expanded the treatment of symbiosis in the horizontal gene transfer section I don't think this section is notable enough to remain. Compared to the other things we are discussing in the modern developments section this is really very obscure. Tim Vickers (talk) 21:21, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

Jan Sapp's "symbiome" concept fits here, but in a different way than Margulis' proposals. A separate section could cover the various flavors of the role of symbiosis in evolution, including discussion of Wolbachia etc. JTBurman (talk) 22:55, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

Symbiogenesis

Main article: Symbiogenesis

Another extension to the standard modern synthesis, advocated by Lynn Margulis, is symbiogenesis. Symbiogenesis argues that acquisition and accumulation of random mutations or genetic drift are not sufficient to explain how new inherited variations occur in evolution. This theory states that species arise from the merger of independent organisms through symbiosis. Symbiogenesis emphasizes the impact of co-operation rather than Darwinian competition. This commonly occurs in multigenomic organisms throughout nature.

Handicap principle

Doesn't Zahavi's Handicap principle have a place here? Also the ideas of co-evolution and the Red Queen? Shyamal (talk) 06:22, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

I think the handicap principle might be a little too much detail for this article, but I thinky that you are right that there should be a mention of evolutionary arms races and probably of the Red Queen hypothesis for the origin of sexual reproduction. I wooud think the logical place for it would be in the section on the gene centered view of evolution, which could use a little expansion. If no one beats me to it, I will adress it in the next couple of days. Rusty Cashman (talk) 20:14, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

Ok, I took a stab at adressing these concerns. Rusty Cashman (talk) 08:26, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Rusty Cashman (talk) 09:39, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Ready for FA?

I kind of dread the prospect, but I am beginning to think that this article might be ready for an FA nomination. Is there anything that anyone thinks needs to get done to the article prior to putting it up for FA? Rusty Cashman 23:22, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

Lucretius section could be more specific; his ideas especially pertinent to heredity:
"For if each organism had not its own genetic bodies, how could we with certainty assign each to its mother?" [transl. of I, 167-8]
"For nothing is born in the body in order that we may be able to use it, but rather, having been born, it begets a use." [IV. 834-5]
"It can happen that children resemble their grandparents, [or] even more distant progenitors; for this reason parents often have concealed in their bodies many primordia, mixed in different ways, which they derive from the stock, and hand down from generation to generation". [IV, 1218-22].

The translation is that of Cyril Darlington in Darwin's place in history, Blackwell, Oxford 1959, p85-5. I feel the phrase 'for this reason' does not quite convey the sense of Lucretius' thought; I would have used a phrase like 'the reason is that' or even 'the explanation is'. Anyway, there it is, perhaps the first progenitor of hard heredity! (I've got a few more, but small, points, for which see below). Macdonald-ross (talk) 16:17, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Well, I've had the temerity to offer a brief para on Lucretius' ideas on heredity in the main page, but haven't quite got the reference working properly. You know I'm hopeless at this system, but anyway offer the quote for its specificity. When I get the chance, I will check other translations of L. Macdonald-ross (talk) 12:59, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

And true to form, I find in Leonard's translation (project Gutenberg) this rendering in Book I, Substance is eternal:

"Indeed, and were there not

For each its procreant atoms, could things have

Each its unalterable mother [t]old?"

But, since produced from fixed seeds are all,

Each birth goes forth upon the shores of light

From its own stuff, from its own primal bodies."

I think this is consistent, even convincing. And it helps to make my point that translations are themselves problematical. Macdonald-ross (talk) 15:20, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

other comments:

• Intro, para 3: 'natural selection was not widely accepted until the early 20th century' actually not widely accepted until after the new ev syn had started to have a real effect, after WWII. Arthur Cain, for example, was quite clear about the state of play early in his career (see 'Cain reminisces about pre-war Oxford').

You are correct. I have fixed it. Even Ernst Mayr and Bernhard Rensch were neo-Larmarckians until the late 1920s.Rusty Cashman (talk) 20:56, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

• Taoism: I don't know how Needham's view could possibly be supported, and I see no discussion of it on WP's extensive Taoism article. No specific references or quotations, either.

I don't really see a problem here. The source mentioned by Needham is Chuang Tzu. The Wikipedeia article on Zhuangzi (which is an alternate English translation for Chuang Tzu) has a subsection on evolution which says:

In Chapter 18, Zhuangzi also mentions life forms have an innate ability or power (机) to transform and adapt to their surroundings. While his ideas don't give any solid proof or mechanism of change such as Alfred Wallace and Charles Darwin, his idea about the transformation of life from simple to more complex forms is along the same line of thought. Zhuangzi further mentioned that humans are also subject to this process as humans are a part of nature.

The source cited by the Wikipedia article is a translation (by Burton Watson) that is independant of Needham. This seems to provide independant confirmation for what I would already consider to be a reliable source. Looking at all of this did lead me to catch an error in the refernece sections. The reference to the abridged Needham should have been to volume 1 not volume 5.Rusty Cashman (talk) 02:15, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

That's interesting, at least I can read Chang Tzu again. I hadn't noticed anything relevant to evolution. Macdonald-ross (talk) 07:52, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

• ditto Al-Jahiz: if there really is something approaching nat sel (which I doubt), I'd want to see excerpt, translation and reference. In the absence of that you might use the formula 'said to be' or 'said by some' so evading the trap of being too definite about a dodgy and controversial claim.

Actually the more I research this one the better I feel about the text the way it is. The sources cited by this (and by Al-Jahiz) really do support what is said. I was able to turn up a fair amount on this subject on the internet. Most of it traces back to just a couple of sources. One is a statement by the Muslim paleontologist named Gary Dargan who paraphrases Al-Jahiz as follows: "Animals engage in a struggle for existence; for resources, to avoid being eaten and to breed. Environmental factors influence organisms to develop new characteristics to ensure survival, thus transforming into new species. Animals that survive to breed can pass on their successful characteristics to offspring." Another is this site [1]. However, I was able to find a couple of papers with Google scholar, and a couple of books with Google books that talk about Al-Jahiz's ideas on evolution. At this point I think I would need to see something that clearly contradicts this material before I would treat the assertion as 'dodgy'.Rusty Cashman (talk) 09:39, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

You may be right; but I've looked at your Salaam ref, and the article depends upon the author's account of Al-Jahiz being accurate. You know what we have for classical Latin and Greek are side-by-side translations in several different editions, plus extensive commentary. Even with this help it is still difficult, and sometimes impossible, to be sure that a translation is a fair representation of what was said in the original. Interpretation is always a problem. Considerations like this still make me wary of accepting the word of any commentator who might have a vested interest in promoting his subject. But I have always been something of a skeptic, and you have certainly produced references. Macdonald-ross (talk) 07:52, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

I should have added that the paraphrase by Dargan is obviously suspect in its use of modern terminology. Macdonald-ross (talk) 08:04, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

• ditto Ibn al-Haytham: where's the impact, exactly? 'said by some', I think!
• You mention Liebniz and Kant, but omit Descartes. Note Darlington (op cit) p94 'Descartes on the idea of evolution', an excerpt from D's Principiarum Philosophiae (3, 45: 1644) that makes it quite clear he didn't believe in Genesis, all under the cover of a sentence starting 'I am far from wishing that everything I write should be believed.' Clever man, Descartes.

I added an allusion to Descartes and the rise of the mechanical philosophy. Rusty Cashman (talk) 16:54, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

• The men who took up the challenge of Lamark were two physicians William Charles Wells (which you mention) and James Cowles Prichard, and a surgeon, William Lawrence "All three men denied soft inheritance" (Darlington). Prichard and Lawrence could and should be mentioned briefly, I think.
• Also I note the absence of Thomas Malthus. Everyone was influenced by him.

Malthus was mentioned in the section on natural selection, but I have expanded and clarified the discussion of his contribution a little. Rusty Cashman (talk) 21:09, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Overall, after adjustments, I'd be happy to see this article as FA. Congratulations!

Macdonald-ross (talk) 18:33, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

• Indian thought - the statement is not the usual Hinduism-evolution connection that most people make (which is after the fact comparison of the idea of Avatars) and the website source seem not to meet WP:RS - and it would be very much better to find either a scholarly published reference on the subject, or removal of the section. Also you may be interested in some images such as these Image:BonnetChain.jpg‎, Image:SwainsonQuinarian.jpg or they could be classified into the commons link.‎ Great work. Shyamal (talk) 12:15, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Ok, I have deleted the section and the reference to it in the lead. To me the problem is not so much the qaulity of the source but rather that it seems to me that the concepts of spiritual evolution in Hinduism as described in the source and in every other source I have been able to find has little to do with the concept of biological evolution that is the topic of this article.Rusty Cashman (talk) 20:55, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

This website http://www.kamat.com/kalranga/prani/animals.htm reprints an article from the Quarterly Journal of the Mythic Society that contains the following statement: "According to Brihaddraoyaka Upanishad, Virdjan got bored of solitude and adopted binary division like an ameba and became two individuals, one of them acting like male and other the female. As the time passed by, these individuals assumed different animal forms such. as ants, cattle, donkey, goats and pigs. Thus, the whole world was populated by evolving one group of animals into another." The problem is, I have not been able to confirm this passage in any of the online translations of the Brihadaranyaka [more usual spelling] Upanishad. Any Sanskrit readers out there who may be able to help? StN (talk) 05:50, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Copyedits

Hi folx, I stumbled onto this article some way or another, and noticing the FA talk, I have to suggest that the prose in it isn't nearly what it could be. I've done a few copy-edits, but there's lots more I'd like to do. First, tho, I'll see if anybody complains about the first two paragraphs (which I've hacked up :). Mostly, I'm going for better readability in slightly younger audiences, but hopefully w/o dumbing anything down. Just better flow, etc. Comments? Eaglizard (talk) 04:43, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Please continue, as the FAC comments have shown, copyediting is much needed.Rusty Cashman (talk) 16:43, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Ok then, I will. :) Please make sure to dbl-check my work, I am less than a layman in this field. In particular, note that a reference named "Singer_SHB" was moved (or rather, the sentences before it were shuffled) in the paragraph beginning "These works contain..." in the section History of evolutionary thought#Aristotle and the Ladder of Life; please make sure it still pertains correctly.Eaglizard (talk) 06:04, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Understood. There is always a danger with vigorous copyediting of inadvertently altering the meaning of the original text. We just have to watch out for it.Rusty Cashman (talk) 02:27, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Ladder of Life

Question: Where does the term "Ladder of Life" come from, anyways? I dont think I'd ever heard it, and it's not mentioned in Great chain of being either. Is it really the proper term to use in this article, or should we change it to "chain of being", with "ladder of life" maybe being listed as an alternative? I flunked Latin, so I dunno if scala = ladder, but its a reasonable guess. Still, if we have an article on the "chain" then that is (presumably) the more common form, right? Or should the "chain of being" article be retitled "ladder of life"? Eaglizard (talk) 05:36, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

It comes from the cited source [[2]]. I don't know if it is the best possible translation but I would obviously prefer to stick with the form used by the source. It is useful NOT to use the term "great chain of being" for Aristotle's ideas because it is used for the larger medieval concept which may have derived from Aristotle's idea but which was not the same thing. Aristotle used his ladder of life as a scientific classification system for living things. The Christian theologians expanded it into the great chain of being a much larger metaphysical concept. I think (and so have others such as the author of the cited source) that it is best to use two different terms for the ideas even if the same Latin phrase (scala naturae) was often used for both.Rusty Cashman (talk) 17:16, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Another question: I removed the line noting that the chain o' being had "also formed a part of the argument from design presented by natural theology". Is anybody particularly bothered by that? It's not an article on said chain, so that detail seemed somewhat extraneous. Eaglizard (talk) 06:55, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

I have restored it. Platonic essentialism, the great chain of being, and natural theology form the intellectual heritage against (literally against) which the early transmutational ideas developed as such it is useful to allude to all of them in this article. The great chain is discussed in a little more detail because it was also part of some of the early evolutionary ideas. Rusty Cashman (talk) 17:16, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

One more and I'm done for the night: The section on Islamic thought mentions that Ibn al-Haytham wrote a book about these things, but I could find no mention of it in his article there. Anybody know the title, at least? Also, the claim that these works "appear to have had an impact on Western science" is a bit dicey - it sure needs a citation. I'm not saying it's wrong, understand, but it's definitely on the extraordinary side, I'd say. I've not bothered with the fact nag-tag, b/c I hate those things. Can somebody cite this, or must we remove it? Oh, and I deleted the subheadings b/c the small paragraphs they headed were not sufficiently detailed to warrant them. Imho, ofc. :) Eaglizard (talk) 07:27, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

There have been other comments about al-Hytham and the assertion. I am doing some research to see if the claims are justified. If I can't come up with a source I will delete the comments. If the original editor who added that text has a source to cite It would be helpful if he/she would provide it. I agree with you about the sub headings in the Islamic thought section. Be warned though that I have deleted them myself at least once before only to have them reappear :)Rusty Cashman (talk) 17:16, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

FAC failure

Well it looks like the FAC has been delisted. However, I just want to thank all the other editors and reviewers who have improved the article during this process, and encourage them to continue. I especially want to encourage Eaglizard to continue his/her copyediting efforts. I will continue to work on addressing several of the comments. I am still hopeful that we are not that far away from FA quality with this article, and I hope that I or some other editor will try the FAC process again with this article in the not too distant future.Rusty Cashman (talk) 04:26, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Damn, I'm sorry I didn't do more to help, this rather fell off my radar when I put NAD+ up as a FAC. Once you are ready for another try drop me a note and I'll give the article a full copy-edit. Tim Vickers (talk) 05:00, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Oh! I thought we were still busy. Well, I like it, and no doubt it will have its day in due course. I'll still try & pin down the Chang Tzu. Macdonald-ross (talk) 06:54, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Why does this article begin with Plato, the one Greek thinker who made absolutely no contribution to evolutionary thought? As other wikipedia articles make clear, other thinkers such Anaximander and Empedocles propounded evolutionary ideas (and Empedocles propounded the first statement of natural selection, so far as I know). I mean I don't have a problem with it, it just seems a bit...odd. User:BScotland —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.0.205.114 (talk) 19:30, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

I'm sorry as well, that I didn't help out with this. I still plan on giving it some attention when I can, I've just been putting little time into Wikipedia lately for various reason. Hopefully it will be in good shape for resubmission soon.--ragesoss (talk) 01:14, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Also sorry, had hoped to help out here but kept getting distracted by other panics. Can't promise anything in the short term, but it's on my watchlist. Glad to see progress being made, anyway. .. dave souza, talk 09:10, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

Empedocles, Anaxagoras, Plato, Aristotle

Well. I've looked at Empedocles: Fragments, Book II and I can't see anything resembling natural selection. To repeat: translation and interpretation of ancient languages are deeply problematical, and there is always a tendency to over-interpret. If anyone thinks they know better, please give chapter & verse of the passage and I'll look at it carefully.
Anaxagoras, no case at all as far as I can see.
Plato: interesting because a) his critiques of earlier philosophers, b) because of the use and misuse made of his ideas by later scholars, and c) universally acknowledged to be one of the greatest minds of the ancient world, so often consulted. No scientist, though. Macdonald-ross (talk) 21:26, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Yes it is necessary to cover Plato because the concept of essentialism was so important. Without discussing it you can't understand the intellectual context the early transmutationist ideas developed against. I also agree it is hard to fairly treat the early Greek philosophers in this article. Several of them (especially the Atomists expressed ideas about non supernatural processes involved in the formation of the world and the material objects in it, but there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of solid evidence of them explicitly extending the concept to biology. Some of them probably did but so little of their actual writing has survived...Rusty Cashman (talk) 05:18, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

I am not an expert but a quick websearch finds this from Empedocles: (Those animals) perished immediately, for they were not fitted to live, and only those random coalitions of elements which were fittest to live survived, and continue to survive today.

http://www.hypatia-lovers.com/AncientGreeks/Section12.html (Of course this may well be an 'imaginative' translation, so someone who actually speaks ancient Greek should probably comment on this).

I don't think anyone claims that Anaxogoras prefigured natural selection, only evolutionism.

Incidentally I am only quoting from other wikipedia articles which make these claims: i hold no particular candle for them. User: BScotland

Well, the Aristotle translation (from your above link) makes a good case for Aristotle Physics Book II, Chapter 8:

"Whenever all the parts turned out as they would if they had come to being for a purpose, these creatures survived, being organized spontaneously in a fitting way; whereas those which grew otherwise [and were maladapted] perished — and still do perish ...” [I have to admit here that Aristotle does credit Empedocles a bit later, and this is a better reason for your and WP's view that Empedocles was father to the thought.]

Whereas, using the Arthur Fairbanks translation of Empedocles Fragments and Commentary (link from WP Empedocles) I can't find a similarly convincing section from Empedocles himself. It seems to me that Khan Amore (your link) has over-interpreted Empedocles' rather obscure text. And on using WP articles: one can generally rely on the main-stream biogs, if only because there's a lot of biographical material in print to signpost the way. But interpreting fragments of pre-Socratic philosophers, well, that's quite another thing!

I'm coming round to the view that we might quote the section from Aristotle including his credit to Empedocles, because we have no real guarantee that what survives from Empedocles is actually the material which convinced Aristotle. Allow me pause to consult some non-web scholarship on Aristotle's physics.

Macdonald-ross (talk) 09:53, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

It would be nice if, a) we had the Greek for the Empedocles quote, and b) said text could reasonably be translated to include the words "fittest" and "survive". The quote would speak for itself. Absent that, tho, referencing Aristotle's props to him would be nice, I think. Eaglizard (talk) 13:55, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

Ok, I added some text on Empedocles and even a mention of Anaximander. I found a translation of the relevent text from Aristotle that I liked better at talkOrigins, but I included the Amore site as a reference as well. Thanks for the research.Rusty Cashman (talk) 08:09, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

That's an excellent paragraph, Rusty (although I ofc made a few minor copy-edits b/c I'm anal like that ;). I think most ppl will be quite surprised (like I was) to read how much of the "modern" synthesis and Darwin's "radical" ideas were prefigured throughout, stretching all the way back before Aristotle even. (I should also add that I love the sections detailing the Muslim thinker's ideas, and strongly encourage any possible expansion of that.) I find it amazing, and fascinating. :) Eaglizard (talk) 10:20, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

Hmm... Where's this "impact on Western science" mentioned in last sentence of Islamic thought? I think there was no influence on ideas about evolution, and that influences on other sciences are irrelevant to the context. Macdonald-ross (talk) 15:51, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

Maybe it's helpful to be more specific: the reference attached to the 'impact' passage contains all sorts of overstatements and wild claims. Reading the ref, I notice passages such as "Al-Jahiz’s zoology and theory of biological evolution have profoundly affected the development of zoology and biology." This is simply not true. Another case: "There is no doubt that the great evolutionist sufi, Mawlana, had already influenced Goethe, who called him “a Darwinian before Darwin”." This is interesting, because it shows the author isn't aware of the distinction between Erasmus Darwin and Charles Darwin. Another example: "Darwin was himself initiated into Islamic culture in Cambridge under a jewish orientalist called Samuel Lee." [gives ref "See Darwin (Sir F.), The Life and Letters of’ Charles Darwin, vol. I, London, 1887, p. 289. Samuel Lee (1783-1852), of Queen’s, was professor of Arabic and Hebrew."] The ref is welcome, but the substantive statement is far too strong.

Although I agree that some islamic authors proposed some kind of evolution, I see no reason to think they had the slightest effect on the the theory as proposed by Charles Darwin; and so I think that the final sentence of that section is incorrect. Macdonald-ross (talk) 11:08, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

After searching unsuccessfully for more direct evidence for a couple of days now, I have gone ahead and changed "appear to have had" to "may have had". It is true that the source cited does have a very questionable claim about a direct influence on Charles Darwin which was debated and resolved on this talk page a few months ago, but it also makes the valid point that some of this material had been published in Europe in the 17th and early 18th century. Personally, especially given the well known influence of Arab works in other areas of science and philosophy, I think it is quite likely that Lamarck, Buffon, Erasmus Darwin, Kant, Lord Monboddo, or one of the other figures discussed in the early modern or early 19th century sections might have been exposed to some of this material. However, I have been able to turn any direct evidence up. So until someone does "may have had an influence" seems like a reasonable compromise. Rusty Cashman (talk) 17:14, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

For the ancient Greek stuff see now David Sedley, Creationism and its Critics in Antiquity (Berkeley, U. Cal. Press, 2007). This is the first really authoritative complete survey, but see also my own (sorry!) 'Zoogony and Evolution in the Plato's Timaeus, the Presocratics, Lucretius and Darwin', in Wright, M. R. (ed.), Reason and Necessity: Essays on Plato's Timaeus (Classical Press of Wales, 2000). Glcampbell (talk) 20:30, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

Ready for FAC again?

I would like to get this article ready for another FAC try. I think the main thing I am not sure of is when Eaglizard might be done with his/her very valuable copy editing efforts.Rusty Cashman (talk) 02:13, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

==islamic natural selection?????

This is the reason why i have removed any refernces to islamic ideas on natural selection, yet another massive, gross misrepresentation of the so called "islamic science", clearly demonstrating that once again the proffessionals of islamic science have absolutely no clue about science themselves, or history and are only intersted in distortions of massive proportions.

here's little biology lesson for whoever writes this nonense about nautral selection and evoltuion on islamic thought. what is natural selection, well what darwin told is this species exist within a particular environment, then ones that posses certain charateristics, that is ones they are born with will be able to feed themselves better and survive and reproduce more then the species that do not have those traits, hence the fundemental principle of evolution though natural selection, nautral selection acts on individuals, but only populations can evolve, as Darwin said those species are naturally selected. So where does this apply here. Evolutionary thought has existed for millienia, what Darwin did is he provided us with the framework of how evolution happened, natural selection, as mentioned above. Nowhere has any muslim philosopher provided an ounce of a description of evolution through natural selection. all they have done is implied that certain species evoloved from others., but thats not natural selection. Natural selection is the framework within which evolution happens. Last and most importantly, Darwin went about scientifically proving natural selection, through his studies of species on the Galápagos Islands. He did not invoke God or any angles in his thesis, since thats not science, but mere religious philosophy, and he thesis consisted of several books, not a couple of paragraphs. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tomasz Prochownik (talk • contribs) 08:45, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Fossil evidence of human evolution (various)

3.2.3 Opposition to transmutation: re harsh treatment of Grant: see William Lawrence for an even better example.

Lawrence is an interesting topic. His is omitted from most accounts of evolutionary history and Darlington has been accused of mis-stating some of the facts. For example see this link: [3] Rusty Cashman (talk) 05:58, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

3.3.1 Application of theory to humans: If you check with Thomas Henry Huxley 1.3.1 Man's position in nature, you'll see that the first Neanderthal skull-cap was found in 1857, and THH reported his observations in 1863; 1884 was Dubois' discovery of erectus in Java. From the point of view of evolution the Neanderthal discovery was epoch-making; I think the description of them as 'very similar' is a judgement that doesn't need to be made here.

I don't know where you got the 1884 date for Java man but my sources say 1891. They also say Dubois didn't even leave for Indonesia before 1887. The Neanderthal skull find was indeed important. However Huxley himself realized that it made a poor candidate for a 'missing link' between humans and apes because the cranial capacity (which was the characteristic everyone was hung up on at the time) was essentially the same as a modern human. I have revised the wording to be more precise than 'very similar'. Rusty Cashman (talk) 05:58, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

The wording of the Owen/Huxley para tends to suggest that Lyell and Wallace had views on the Owen/Hux debates; but of course they were concerned with other issues. It's clear Wallace was concerned with how nat sel could give rise to the human brain; and Lyell is full of opaque comments which amount to an unwillingness to tolerate rational explanations which run counter to revealed religion. Did Lyell agree humans shared a common ancestor with apes? Hmm... I think I'd say less about Lyell.

Huh? Wallace most certainly had views on the Owen/Huxley debate and most certainly participated in it with vigor. His essay "The Origin of Human Races and the Antiquity of Man Deduced from the Theory of 'Natural Selection'" which he read to the Anthropological Society in 1864 was one of the most important scientific follow ups to Huxley's book (and to Lyell's), and a favorite of Darwin's. Wallace wouldn't have his fallout with Huxley and Darwin on the evolution of higher mental faculties until near the end of the decade. It is true that Lyell's ideas on evolution changed over time but it was actually Lyell (in his very important 1863 book Geological Evidences of the Antiquity of Man) who first suggested that the human body may have evolved incrementally from anthropoid apes but the human intellect was the product of great leaps forward that might not be part of the ordinary course of nature. Although Wallace would push the idea hardest. I think the text on Wallace and Lyell in this section is perfectly appropriate. Rusty Cashman (talk) 07:16, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Stone hand-axes had been correctly interpreted by the end of the 18thC, by Frere (I think).

Yes, but for purposes of this article the key insight was not that stone artificats had been produced by humans, but the acceptance of the idea that the discovery of them in association with fossilized remains of extinct pliestocene animals ment that humans had coexisted with extinct animals such as Mammoths and Irish elk, and that was not widely accepted until the middle of the 19th century.Rusty Cashman (talk) 07:21, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Under 3.3.2.1 Theistic evolution: I'm not quite sure how Asa Gray thought God acted, but I am sure that he was in a different league from Mivart and Argyle. Gray was a believer in natural selection, and in rational explanations of the natural world, despite being a believing Christian.

There were differences between Gray and Mivart and Argyle. Gray believed that natural selection was very important, but that God directed or biased the variations on which natural selection operated in order to guide the course of evolution. Mivart and Argyle did not put much stock in natural selection which they considered inherently immoral but instead believed that God ordained certain rules that guided the development of new species, which made them inherently antagonistic to Darwin's ideas where as Gray was not. Despite these differences many historians group them together under the heading of theistic evolution, and that does not seem unreasonable as they all believed that God intervened more or less directly in the evolutionary process in order to accomplish his purpose. Rusty Cashman (talk) 07:34, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

I have revised the text to reflect the fact that while Gray believed in theistic evolution, he did not reject natural selection the way that Argyle or Mivart did.Rusty Cashman (talk) 16:50, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Macdonald-ross (talk) 16:04, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Thank you indeed for the Lawrence ref; and of course you're right about Wallace (what was I thinking of?}. So I withdraw my objection to that passage. Macdonald-ross (talk) 07:45, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

The Darwin and design: historical essay has the slightly different take that "One point that Gray argued at some length was that natural selection was not inconsistent with natural theology. Darwin, according to Gray, said only that nature proceeded according to fixed laws; he wrote only of secondary causes, not of first causes. He left questions such as the origin of life, and the design of nature's laws open, for theologians to answer as they might." If that's useful, I've given it ref name=Darwindesign so the same ref can be cited as required.

I don't think we are dealing with conflicting sources here, but rather a case where sources emphasized different parts of the story, and a figure (Gray) whose views changed over time (much like the dispute over Lyell's evolutionary views). Bowler describes Gray's initial views on evolution in a way that is very much consistent with the source you cite. That is that he saw natural selection as a way to explain adaptation by law rather than by miracle, but he goes on to say that those views changed somewhat over time and in 1876 Gray wrote in an essay "Wherefore, so long as gradatory, orderly, and adapted forms in Nature argue design, and at least while the physical cause of variation is utterly unknown and mysterious, we should advise Mr. Darwin to assume in the philosophy of his hypothesis, that variation has been led along certain beneficial lines." (Bowler 2003 p. 206). This is pretty clearly an effort to reconcile evolution with natural theoology and the argument by design, and it was quite influential in America in the late 19th century.Rusty Cashman (talk) 05:51, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

The William Lawrence reference gives a different slant to that article, though it is referenced there. Perhaps the article should be reviewed to avoid giving too much of a suggestion that Lawrence had evolutionary ideas. Desmond & Moore's Darwin p. 253 has info that differs a bit from that article, stating that he was forced to resign and recant his views. They also note that Darwin used a pirated copy, as shown at Inception of Darwin's theory#Secret notebooks 4th para., and on p 295-296 mention the memory of Lawrence's fate as one of the factors stopping him from publishing his 1842 essay. Is it worthwhile me adding these points to that article, or does someone have a better source? . . dave souza, talk 17:33, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

I think it would be a good idea for someone to do a little research and take a hard look at the Lawrence article.Rusty Cashman (talk) 06:15, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

The Lawrence article has been revised and extended as a result of the Mudford ref and actually reading the book! Checking the various points is anything but simple, given the style of language and the absence of an index. Comments on it are more than welcome. Macdonald-ross (talk) 22:05, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Hi. Would it be helpful for the general understanding of all to include what appears to me to be a good latin motto explaining somehow more what Evolution of Life means to Evolutionists ? : VITA ORIUNDUS SUBSTANCIA FORTUITO : Life originates by chance from substance or mater. (Latin expression by : George F. Thomson, c.2008) Kind Regards: GeorgeFThomson (talk) 04:42, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

..................................................................................................

Major pruning

After reviewing the comments from the last FAC User:Dave souza has convinced User:Macdonald-ross, and I that this article is too long and too detailed to be consistent with the guidelines in WP:Summary style. Therefore in the next few days we are going start a program of streamlining this article by moving detail into subsidary articles with the idea of making the main article easier to navigate and the main points easier to grasp. If anyone has a problem with this idea, or with the specific edits please let us know.Rusty Cashman (talk) 20:16, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Islamic mini-thoughts

There is still a carefree use of the word 'evolution' in places, as if any ideas of change were qualified as an account of evolution: 2nd, 3rd, 5th sentences. Third para goes right overboard with "sophisticated evolutionary ideas", followed by examples which are nothing at all like Darwinian usage. I remain agnostic, if not quite an unbeliever on the subject, despite Draper.

Rest of article looks pretty good to me. Macdonald-ross (talk) 15:52, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

I am researching this topic. I have found a few good sources such as [4] but it is slow going. Rusty Cashman (talk) 21:42, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Similar edits have been made at the History of psychology article, to the dismay of the professional historians who contribute there. A debate has since emerged, at Chris Green's blog, which may be of interest to this group as well.[5] -JTBurman (talk) 09:13, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

As a sort of aside, Taner Edis (January 2008). "The History of Science Society : The Society". Islamic Creationism: A Short History. History of Science Society. pp. Newsletter, Vol. 37, No.1. Retrieved 2008-02-23. shows a rather less enlightened Islam. The newsletter looks like a useful resource, and serendipitously the lead article Wikipedia and the History of Science is trailed as "Can Wikipedia succeed as a public-education tool? When it comes to history of science, Sage Ross says yes, but only if historians learn to use this powerful tool."........ dave souza, talk 22:02, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Indeed, that essay by Ross was what catalyzed the debate at the blog.[6] -JTBurman (talk) 03:16, 24 February 2008 (UTC).

I have edited the first paragraph of the Islamic subsection so that it carefully matches only what Draper actually said and I have removed all the citation needed banners and notes.Rusty Cashman (talk) 16:34, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Still unconvinced, I draw attention again to this extract:

"Ibn Miskawayh's al-Fawz al-Asghar and the Brethren of Purity's Encyclopedia of the Brethren of Purity (The Epistles of Ikhwan al-Safa) expressed sophisticated evolutionary ideas regarding how the species evolved: from matter into vapor and thence to water, then minerals into plants and then animals, leading to apes and, finally, humans."

This is nothing at all to do with evolution as we think of it; almost every pre-scientific thinker has come up with a scala naturae with man at the top. Not only are these ideas not sophisticated or evolutionary, they are not scientific at all. Macdonald-ross (talk) 19:28, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

That is true of most of the ideas in the antiquity section. They were philosophic rather than scientific in nature. There is a reason why these folks thought of themselves as natural philosophers and no one even bothered to coin a term for what we could consider a "scientist" until Whewell did it in the 19th century. What it does show is that not every culture was as wedded to concepts like platonic essentialism and the fixity of species as the West. Admittedly the Islamic evolutionary ideas were more associated with concepts of alchemic transmutation than with what we could now consider science, but that was also true for 18th and 19th century western ideas (hence the phrase transmutation of species). As for "sophisticated" evolutionary ideas, that is clearly a WP:peacock word and I will remove it.Rusty Cashman (talk) 21:22, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Since the 1960s: Niche Construction

Is there room here for the inclusion of niche construction as a sub-section? As the contemporary general presentation of the Baldwin effect, it seems to have a place. -JTBurman (talk) 09:20, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

I believe you are correct. The Baldwin effect merits a mention. I am going to be reworking the "since the 1960s" section. Hopefully the result will be to condense it a bit, but I will try and work in an allusion to revived debate about the Baldwin effect. I will also add a brief historical discussion to "The eclipse of Darwinism article" where historically it belongs (as part of the response to Weismann's rejection of Lamarckism). Rusty Cashman (talk) 02:39, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

I added a brief discussion of the development of the Baldwin effect to the Eclipse of Darwinism article where it would historically belong. Rusty Cashman (talk) 20:42, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

Deleted material on Hinduism

I deleted the following material on Hinduism that was recently added:

Hindu thought The earliest literary evidence comes from Hindu sacred texts such as the Vedas which also delve into scientifically analyzing the concept of God. According to the Vedas creation of the universe is shrouded in mystery. The Rig Veda says:

"Then was not non-existence nor existence: there was no realm of air, no sky beyond it. What covered in, and where? and what gave shelter? Was water there, unfathomed depth of water? Death was not then, nor was there aught immortal: no sign was there, the day's and night's divider." There has also been some comparison between the avatars of Lord Vishnu and Darwin's Theory of Evolution, as the ten incarnations of the Hindu god mirror increasing phylogenetic sophistication in keeping with the theory's proposal of terrestrial reptiles and mammals evolving from aquatic and amphibian life. Accordingly, the list of the avatars goes as follows- Matsya-the fish, Kurma-the turtle, Varah-the boar, Narsingh-the half man-half lion being, Vaman-the dwarf man, Parshuram-the forest dweller, Rama-the ideal man, Krishna-the Divine man, Buddha-the spiritual man and Kalki-the tech-savvy avatar which is yet to take birth.

I deleted it becauese it does not seem connected to biological evolution which is the topic of this article. Rusty Cashman (talk) 15:52, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Pared down material on computor science

I deleted the following:

Computer sciences

Main article: Evolutionary computation

Recent decades have seen a rising interest in evolution within the computer sciences. Evolutionary computation, specifically evolutionary algorithms have found many applications in science and engineering as a means to solve complex problems, called combinatorial optimization problems. These algorithms have underlying mathematical principles based on an analogy with evolution, sharing concepts such as populations, generations, selection and mutation. The performance of these algorithms, also compared to other, more traditional optimization methods, are seen as evidence by some in support of evolutionary biology and its validity.

I replaced it with a sentence in "Evolutionary paths and processes" alluding to evolutionary computation which I think is more appropriate level of coverage for an article about biological evolution. Rusty Cashman (talk) 20:19, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

Darwin, controversy and secrecy

The current statement reflects to some extent a common, but in van Wyhe's well considered view mistaken, idea that Darwin delayed publication for 20 years due to fear of controversy –

Concerned by the intense controversy raging over other transmutational ideas, Darwin would develop this idea in private for the next 20 years, sharing it only with a handful of friendly naturalists through correspondence.[48][49]

Here's a more accurate suggestion –

With his outline theory “by which to work”[1] as his “prime hobby”[2] in the background to his main occupation, publication of the scientific results of the Beagle voyage, Darwin planned extensive detailed research to fully meet likely objections. His estimated 15 year timescale was lengthened by delays to 20 years. Though conscious of political and religious resistance to ideas of transmutation, he discussed the topic openly with several colleagues, while cautiously disclosing natural selection only to a few trusted friends.[3]

References –

1. Darwin 1958, p. 120
2. "Darwin Correspondence Project - Letter 419 — Darwin, C. R. to Fox, W. D., [15 June 1838]". Retrieved 2008-02-08.
3. van Wyhe, John (27 March 2007), “Mind the gap: Did Darwin avoid publishing his theory for many years?”, Notes and Records of the Royal Society 61: 177–205, doi:10.1098/rsnr.2006.0171

In my opinion that gives a clearer description of the situation. I've not tried to format the citations, as the system is unfamiliar to me. . .. dave souza, talk 23:06, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

This is a very subtle and difficult issue involving the relative importance of different factors in Darwin's decision making and there seems to be a clear difference of opinion among biographers and researchers in this area. The idea that Darwin delayed publication at least in part because of his concern over how controversial it would be is well established in modern scholarship. Besides Mayr and Moore, whom are mentioned by van Wyhe, there are the sources cited by this article (Bowler and Larson) with Larson (2004) being particularly explicit, and as recent a biographer as Quammen (2006) has emphasized how cautiously Darwin approached Hooker in 1844 before revealing his ideas. I suspect that a long time will pass before there is a consensus on this point, which hinges so much on interpretation and inference. I would suggest:

Darwin did not publish his ideas for 20 years, though he did share them with a number of other naturalists through correspondence. During the time permitted by his other scientific work, he slowly refined his ideas and, aware of the intense controversy around transmutation, amassed evidence to support them.

If this is acceptable to you, I would then add the van Wyhe paper to the two references already listed for the paragraph. I think this is something that can be considered consistent with all the sources without going into a greater level of detail than would be appropriate for this article. Rusty Cashman (talk) 01:55, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Broadly, I agree with Rusty. Attributing motives to others is always fraught, though with CD we have overwhelming evidence that he tended to avoid direct confontations. It's one thing to mention in a letter that you don't think species are unchanging, it's quite another to publish a full-blown theory with its materialistic mechanism (nat sel). The latter (nat sel) did not go beyond his immediate circle. Referencing Van Wyhe is essential, swallowing it is not required! The paper is as one-eyed as Gruber, and balance suggests CD had mixed motives in which caution and obsessiveness played a significant role. Macdonald-ross (talk) 09:11, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

As you say, the various interpretations all have common ground, as they accept that Darwin was doing an immense amount of work on the Beagle collections and related evidence, including barnacles, and differ as to the extent to which Darwin's various motives influenced the timing. Where I've drawn on van Wyhe, it's been after comparing the ideas with other accounts and with the primary material. Looking at the section, it will be worthwhile mentioning the 1844 sketch as an extract from that formed the main part of Darwin's contribution to the joint publication. Will suggest a form of words shortly. . . dave souza, talk 15:30, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

OK, here's a rough draft –

Darwin slowly amassed evidence to support his ideas and refined them as his “prime hobby” in the background to his main scientific work on the Beagle collections. He developed an early "sketch" of his ideas into an Essay of 1844, but was well aware of the intense controversy around transmutation and though he mentioned his interest in the subject to a number of other naturalists in correspondence, he only showed his theory to a few trusted friends. It was not until 1856 that he began to write up a paper for publication.

In the following paragraph, the piped link in "The result was the joint publication of Darwin's theory of natural selection with Wallace in July." should lead to the publication itself rather than the biographical page which is already linked in the header to the section. Suggest rewording as "The result was the joint publication in July of an extract from Darwin's 1844 essay on natural selection along with Wallace's paper."

. . dave souza, talk 15:59, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Ok I have made an edit to the article that I hope will make all three of us happy or at least not too unhappy :) Rusty Cashman (talk) 16:45, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, I've tweaked the mention of Hooker a little as he wasn't sent the essay, but collected it when visiting Darwin in January 1847. They'd first corresponded about transmutation in January 1844, not long before Darwin wrote up the essay, and Darwin had tentatively offered the essay to Hooker for comments near the end of 1845, but it was only in 1847 that Hooker actually took it away and read it, giving feedback as Darwin had hoped. . . dave souza, talk 18:27, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Anticipations

The summary near the end of this section, namely:

"the anticipations of Darwin were merely formal and verbal"

...goes too far. I've re-read Bowler p158 and he doesn't actually say this. I appreciate the difficulty with space, but having worked on Lawrence, Wells, Matthew &c. I believe their contributions were partial, and obviously not followed up, but genuine. They have this significance: Lamark, Geoffroy & co were simply wrong, whereas L, W & M (at least) produced partial and undeveloped solutions which were essentially correct. In that limited sense they were precursors of Darwin. Macdonald-ross (talk) 16:11, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

An interesting summary of the issue at "Genomicron: Natural selection before Darwin". discusses the issue and notes Bowler commenting that Matthew had failed to develop the idea, as well as being preceded by Wells who applied the idea in a partial way. It also notes another even earlier anticipation of natural selection forming varieties (but not species) by James Hutton, who I feel should at least be mentioned as the originator of the uniformitarianism that Lyell popularised. . . dave souza, talk 18:05, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, you are right that particular wording was left over from a very old version of this article. I have removed it, and tonight when I go home I will carefully re-read Bowler (and the source Dave has provided) to make sure that the paragraph matches the source(s) cited. Rusty Cashman (talk) 18:31, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

After careful review of the source I have replaced most of the paragraph. I think the problem is resolved now. Rusty Cashman (talk) 06:14, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

As requested I have added a mention that Lyell built on Hutton's ideas to the section on paleontology and geology. I now consider the issues raised by these comments to have been fully addressed. Please let me know if either of you disagree. Rusty Cashman (talk) 17:47, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

I've modified the section to put Hutton's ideas in the context of their time. Like Smith, his ideas were slow to be credited, but in the early 19th century they were the subject of heated debate wich subsided at least five years before Lyell published his popularisation of the same concept. The source is online and readily accessible, alternative sources can be found if preferred. . . dave souza, talk 19:15, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Huxley and Häckel

Not sure what it says in the cited sources, but this seems a bit over simplified – "One of the first and most important naturalists to be convinced by Origin was the British anatomist Thomas Henry Huxley. Huxley recognized that unlike the earlier transmutational ideas of Lamarck and Vestiges, Darwin's theory provided a mechanism for evolution without supernatural involvement." Huxley recognised the practical use of natural selection and branching trees to explain observations, but clung to saltationist ideas that species appeared in jumps, and was unconvinced that it could be shown that natural selection resulted in speciation. He took up The Origin as a "Whitworth gun" in fighting his battles, but retained reservations about natural selection. In Germany, my feeling is that Häckel (or Haeckel if you prefer) was already promoting Lamarckian and Spencerian ideas of evolution, drawing on a long tradition of ideas of metamorphosis, then seized on "Darwinismus" as a banner to promote his ideas, without accepting natural selection. Here, my feeling is that your sources will be more authoratitive than mine, but I've found hints about this in various sources. . . dave souza, talk 21:43, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

I have added a litle text to make it clear that what the Origin convinced Huxley of was the reality of evolution, not necessarily natural selection. I believe that the text in the article now reflects the source, and given the facts - Huxley had been an opponent of transmutational theories prior to the publication of the Origin and switched position immediately after its publication by writing one of the earliest favorable reviews of it, I don't see a problem with the position of the source I cite or with the text as it now stands. As for Haeckel, other parts of the article mention the fact that Lamarckism was very imporstant to his evolutionary theories, so I don't see a problem with the treatment of him. Also in other places the article makes it very clear that what the Origin succeeded at in regards to scientific opinion in general (in the 19th century at least) was convincing people that a branching form of evolution with common descent had in fact occurred, rather than necessarily selling them on the concept that natural selection was the key to evolution. Rusty Cashman (talk) 06:35, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

Fair enough, that covers Huxley well. It might be worth linking metaphysical idealism as what Haeckel was opposing, but not sure if that article clarifies things much. Now for some detailed quibbling which can be sorted out after the FA discussions –

This source, for what it's worth, confirms that Haeckel was suspicious of teleological and mystical explanation, and goes on to say that "German morphologists, influenced both by Goethe and by Hegel's idealistic philosophy, believed in progressive perfection of both the universal plan of creation and the recapituation of that plan in the growth of the embryo. Haeckel was influenced both by the German idealistic tradition and by the works of Darwin. After reading Origin of Species, Haeckel became one of the more prolific and vociferous supporters of evolution, but was less supportive of natural selection as the mechanism by which evolution occurred. Haeckel was certainly an evolutionist but less so a Darwinian." Browne touches on the issue on p. 141 of The Power of Place, in that "The German scientific public, already relatively familiar with notions of metamorphosis and transmutationary ideas, from Goethe's work through to Vestiges, encountered Darwin's ideas in [Bronn's translation] that differed considerably from the author's intention." My concern is that we shouldn't give too much of an impression that Haeckel was a close follower of Darwin, though as you say that is clarified in subsequent sections.

On page 144 Browne notes that "French naturalists never took easily to Darwin's ideas, and if they wished to explore evolution they generally opted for a generalised form of Lamarckism." She does say that The Origin had relatively little impact in France, but our statement that "acceptance of evolution among scientists in non-English speaking nations such as France, and the countries of southern Europe and Latin America was slower." may miss the possibilty that evolution in Lamarckian form was already well established in France, though it may have been set back by a new conservatism in Paris after the upheavals of 1848. Perhaps your sources are more explicit about this point.

Hope these can be reviewed when time permits, but these are relatively minor points and things generally look very good. . . dave souza, talk 19:46, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire

I am curious as to the importance of Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire in your article; you mention him but do not say why. I read the article on him but am not clear what aspect of him is worthy of the mention, other than that he supported Lamarck. —Mattisse (Talk) 19:20, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

Geoffroy was more than just a follower of Lamarck. His anatomical analysis, which emphasized the unity of design of many animal body plans, strongly influenced British transmutationists like Robert Grant (who studied at the Paris Museum of Natural history early in his career), and it was his evolutionary ideas even more than Lamarck's earlier ones that prompted Cuvier to make many of his famous attacks on transumtation. Thus Geoffroy is mentioned two places in the article, as an influence on Grant, and as a target of Cuvier. You could make a case that he deserved a fuller treatment than this, but that is also true of several other figures mentioned in passing in this article, and if you did them all justice the article would be twice as long as it already is. Rusty Cashman (talk) 19:53, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

Maybe worth briefly mentioning that his ideas of homology influenced both Grant and Darwin, this article emphasizes that point. . dave souza, talk 19:57, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

Yes, that is an interesting article and Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire's ideas on homology is a reminder of how many different but crucial lines of thinking went into the development of our current evolutionary models. —Mattisse (Talk) 20:14, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

Ok, I have strengthened the wording. Rusty Cashman (talk) 20:21, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

Suggestions

• The Antiquity section could benefit from a sentence or two at the beginning to tie together/summarize the significance of the three subsections (Greek, Chinese, Roman). Without such an introduction, that section feels like a laundry list rather than an integral part of the article.

I have been thinking about this for a while and I have come to the conclusion that the text already ties itself pretty well into the themes of the article. Rusty Cashman (talk) 02:43, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

• Rather than using the version of Plato from Christian tradition, where God is the creator, the section on Timaeus should probably refer to the Demiurge, or at least make clear that what's being described is not Plato, but the Christian reinterpretation of Plato.

Fixed. Rusty Cashman (talk) 02:29, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

• Sources are needed for the the first two paragraphs of the "Christian philosophy and the great chain of being" section. More specificity about who the "Christian thinkers" were would also be helpful. Lovejoy's classic The Great Chain of Being would be a good source here.

Fixed. Rusty Cashman (talk) 00:46, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

• Buffon gets short-changed; his work establishing the variability of species was enormously influential and important for subsequent evolutionary thought, even if his evolutionary ideas per se were insignificant.

Buffon is treated more completely in the child article Evolutionary ideas of the renaissance and enlightenment. I am reluctant to expand the coverage of him here because of space considerations. Rusty Cashman (talk) 02:24, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

I think some of the existing discussion of Buffon could be trimmed out to make room for his more relevant contributions, without taking up any additional space.--ragesoss (talk) 03:20, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

I added a little text mentioning how important Buffon's materialistic theories on the origin and history of the earth were. Rusty Cashman (talk) 16:44, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

• The "Paleontology and geology" section jumps right in with names, dates and discoveries, and it would benefit from an introductory sentence or two that makes the relevance to evolutionary thought more clear.

--ragesoss (talk) 23:04, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

• The paragraph on Grant and Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire is very vague (the first half in particular). The reader gets little idea of what was unique or significant about their work, aside from the fact that it influenced Darwin.

Again I am concerned about space. I would suggest instead expanding the treatment in transmutation of species.Rusty Cashman (talk) 02:24, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

Fair enough. It could still probably be reworked to be less vague but still be concise, but it's not a big deal.--ragesoss (talk) 03:20, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

I added a little more on Grant's anatomical work and Geoffroy's conflict with Cuvier. I got rid of one of the forward looking statements about Darwin, but I left the one about Grant working with Darwin on marine invertebrate reproduction in, because almost every mainstream account of the history of the theory of evolution I have read (including both Bowler and Larson) mentions it. I would still like to add still more on Geoffroy and Grant to the trasmutation of species article at some point. Rusty Cashman (talk) 16:44, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

• The "Anticipations of natural selection" section feels out of place, because it is all about explaining how the early work relates to Darwin's theory, and seems to assume knowledge of the following section. I think the section would be better after the "Natural selection" section (or as a subsection of it), especially since almost all the content is actually centered on what Darwin and Huxley said about the anticipations in the years following the publication of Darwin's theory.

I can understand your point but I don't actually think there is a problem here. The section briefly discusses early 19th century writers who anticipated some aspect of natural selection. It is true that it discusses their relationship to Darwin's later work, but I think that is what the vast majority of readers are going to expect, and is inevitably the way these figures are discussed by mainstream historical accounts. If we just move the section, I am nearly certain that someone else will complain that we talked about these figures out of chronological order. Rusty Cashman (talk) 02:24, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

Indeed, the solution is just about as bad as the problem. This is an example where perhaps we see the problem with too much emphasis on Origin!--ragesoss (talk) 03:20, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

• The second sentence in the "Darwin and his legacy" ("However, it was the publication of Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species (1859) that fundamentally transformed the discussion over biological origins.") is a claim that historians have begun to challenge. See, in particular, the eloquent Epilogue to James Secord's Victorian Sensation. The thesis of Origin's centrality is one that runs through this entire article, at times to the point of excess, but that's also the way most writers have approached the topic of the history of evolutionary thought. I think an expository footnote would be appropriate after this sentence, briefly explaining Secord's argument.
  • [I've added such a footnote.--ragesoss (talk) 01:31, 25 July 2008 (UTC)]

--ragesoss (talk) 03:30, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

I think the footnote is good. I do sometimes wish historians could move past zero sum thinking about importance though. Just because the importance of Vestiges needs to be emphasized more does not necessarily mean that the importance of Origin needs to be emphasized less. I would have objected to raising the objection in the main text because I think the idea that publication of Origin didn't transform the debate on biological origins is still very much a minority view! Rusty Cashman (talk) 02:24, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

I agree...still a minority view, and better off in a footnote than the main text. But if you've read Secord's book (which I highly recommend, or at least the last chapter and Epilogue), it's tough to accuse him of zero sum thinking on this.--ragesoss (talk) 03:20, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

Well, I remember reading the Epilogue and thinking it was grossly overblown! The word 'impact' is open to various readings. As far as sales and shock value goes, Vestiges is big; as far as profundity and long-term influence goes, it's not in the same league as O. I agree that promoting V should not mean demoting O in any way. Macdonald-ross (talk) 10:15, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

• The molecular biology/molecular evolution section needs to be redone, which I will do tonight and/or tomorrow. The history of molecular biology part is not tied to evolutionary thought (and cites only primary sources!), while the molecular evolution/neutral theory part neglects some of the major points and misdates the origin of the neutral theory.
  • Better late than never. There could, of course, be more, but since we have history of molecular biology and history of molecular evolution, I tried to be as concise as possible.--ragesoss (talk) 04:10, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

• Some parts of the "Late 20th century" section feel more like a literature review than a historical discussion. There is also an over-reliance on primary sources, and for much of this section there is relevant historical literature (Sapp's Genesis: The Evolution of Biology, and more importantly, many journal articles).
• The "Evolutionary paths and processes" section jumps from punk-eek to to sequencing and the three-domain system...that's kind of a strained connection that conflates different senses of "path" (i.e., the strictly phylogenetic sense of Woese's work vs. adaptational sense of Gould's). And then it goes from Woese to computational biology...a valid connection, but not one that fits well with the theme of the section, and it's about material that relates more to techniques in evolutionary biology than evolutionary thought per se. Instead, I think the Woese and the computation material should be moved to a new section on the conceptual issues of evolutionary computation (there is a bit of recent historical literature on this in journals) and developments in classification. The paths and processes section should instead include discussion of: the fadeout of the neutralist-selectionist controversy, the evolutionary significance of mutation mechanisms, and the changing significance of non-gene units of selection.

--ragesoss (talk) 03:58, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

Taxonomy

Should there be something about the development of taxonomy in the article? The development with Linnaeus of an extensive classificatory system for biology doesn't itself lead to evolutionary thought, but it surely made it easier to see the problem. (I'm putting this here, because it's clearly something that needn't affect whether the article becomes a Featured article or not.) N p holmes (talk) 10:31, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

I have been thinking the same thing. In my elementary and high school, Darwin's thinking was presented as if it popped out of thin air. Linnaeus is a name we have all heard of and his taxonomic organization of knowledge is related to evolutionary thinking for the reasons given above. —Mattisse (Talk) 14:45, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

I believe the relationship between the devolopment of taxonomy and evolution is treated appropriately in History of biology, and I don't think it is appropriate for this article. However, while thinking about his comment I discovered a serious mistake in this article about Linneaeus's position on human classification, which I have corrected. Rusty Cashman (talk) 02:39, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

FA thanks

Thanks to all the editors and reviewers who improved this article throughout the FAC process. It was grueling but it has been worthwhile. Rusty Cashman (talk) 21:22, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Congratulations, well done! . . dave souza, talk 22:40, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Yes! Very well done by all of you. —Mattisse (Talk) 22:49, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Edition of On the Origin of Species conflict?

In the references section, I just changed the second line of "3rd" edition for On the Origin of Species to "4th" edition, as from what I can tell at On the Origin of Species, the 1866 edition was the fourth edition. As I'm not familiar with the history of the book, I figured I'd note my change here in case it was in error. {{Nihiltres|talk|log}} 22:04, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Looks right, it seems to be a reference for Wells' idea of natural selection in the paper "An Account of a White Female, part of whose Skin resembles that of a Negro". That doesn't seem to be in the Historical Sketch in the 1861 third edition. Something to note – the linking down from the Harvard citations to the references doesn't seem to work with these two citations.

Oddly enough, the historical sketch first appeared in Appleton's revised version of 1860,[7] but Darwin Online doesn't seem to have the full text of that version. . . dave souza, talk 22:39, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Nihiltres is correct. I introduced the error a couple of days ago when I was converting all the references to use the cite book template per one of the FAC comments and didn't see it. The Origin reference entries now match with the pre-FAC versions of the article. The dreaded copy and paste error rears its ugly head once again. Rusty Cashman (talk) 01:48, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Spandrels and exaptations

A "spandrel" according to Gould and Lewontin (1979) is an incidentally produced structure. Gould and Vrba (1982) later discussed the appropriation of spandrels to new functions, which they named "exaptations." The 1997 paper by Gould erroneously cited previously concerned the way the concept of spandrel itself became an exaptation, an entirely different issue.StN (talk) 04:37, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

That is a good point. I have gone ahead and added a definition of the term spandrel (using the original source as a reference). Rusty Cashman (talk) 20:48, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Gaia?

If you're talking about Gaia, you should also include memes, and technological singularity. A meme's section should mention Dawkins and Dennett, but I'm not sure about others.

I'm dropping the sentence "Although not fully accepted by the scientific community, this hypothesis has been a useful spur to further research and is a topic of current scientific debate." which seems rather like unnecessary fluff.

Teilhard de Chardin deserves a little section on his Omega point before Gaia. Chardin's contributions was no less than the quasi-religious idea that evolution has a goal, an idea far more influential than merely Gaia, albeit equally derided by biologists trying to keep reporters form twisting their words. A small transhumanism section need not make Teilhard de Chardin's strong influence apparent, but you'll kinda guess once "Omega point" and "technological singularity" appear on the same page.

All these non-scientific theories should be kept short.

I'm not sure my edit was ideal. I'd prefer to have one "goal oriented theories section" for all of Omega point, Gaia, transhumanism, etc. since each "section" could be merely 1 or 2 sentences. But I'm afraid labeling them all as "goal oriented theories" is OR. I mean, Gaiaists & Tranhumanists hate one another's theories, so I'm sure they wouldn't view their goal directedness as sufficient reason for being listed together. Thoughts? ? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.85.188.249 (talk) 09:50, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

Besides which, I am not sure that the most common form of the Gaia hypothesis (the so called weak form), which just says that that living things that regulate the Earth's environment have co-evolved with one another in a way that keeps that environment in a dynamic equilibrium in a similar way to the way that a living organism maintains bio-chemical equilibrium, really should be called goal directed. Nor are the ideas of the transhumanists all goal-directed either. Some of them think the process of technological evolution just happens, the same way that biological evolution just happens, without any preplanning or telological goal. Having a trend is not the same thing as havinga a goal. It might be appropriage to say something (very brief) about memes. I will work on something. Rusty Cashman (talk) 16:27, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Is Esssentialism pre-18th century like a Flat Earth before Colombus?

There seems to be a slight inconsistency between this article and the article on [[8]]. While this article states, "...until the 18th century, Western biological thinking was dominated by essentialism..." the article on Essentialism seems to imply that this may just be a myth and is open to serious doubt. I don't know enough about the subject to know in what regard these doubts are held by historians at large and I hope that somebody that does can try and make these articles a little more consistent. My suggestions would be:

• If serious doubts have been accepted at large (by historians I guess) then to change this article to read more along the lines of: "However, it is held that until the 18th century, Western biological thinking was dominated by essentialism..."
• If these doubts have been disregarded at large then to say so on the Essentialism article (preferably with the reasons why the doubts are dismissed).

It is a very minor point and usually I would edit it myself if I knew about the subject but I wouldn't know which edit to put in place. 57.66.65.3 (talk) 11:56, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

It is not a minor point but there is no conflict. The article essentialism says that Linnaeus and his system of classification was not essentialist in nature, which is not an unreasonable (but probably not completely uncontroversial) assertion. However Linnean classification was developed during the first half of the 18th century (and the German idealists were later still). So there is no conflict between the statement in this article that biological thought prior to the 18th century was primarily essentialist and the statement in essentialism that Linneaus was not an essentialist. Every historian I have read (Bowler, Mayer, Larson, Lovejoy) states that before the 18th century most classification schemes were based in some sense on the great chain of being concept which clearly had strong essentialist elements. Almost everyone agrees that the 18th century represented a major change in thinking about biological species. What I think essentialism is saying (but not very well) is that essentialist thinking in biology was waning well before the evolutionary theories of the 19th century (ie before Lamarck let alone Darwin), and if you read the "Renaissance and Enlightenment" subsection of this article you will see that it says the same thing. Although it doesn't discuss Linnaeus (it is not history of systematics) it does discuss a number of other 18th century figures such as Maupertius, and Buffon who clearly expressed anit-essentialist ideas about species. So to summerize the main point. There is no conflict between the statements "biological thinking until the 18th century was dominated by essentialism" and the statement that the classification scheme of Linneaus was not dominated by essentialism because Linneaus developed his ideas (and he was one of many coming up with new classificatio schemes at the time) in the 18th century. I hope this clarifies the issue. Rusty Cashman (talk) 05:52, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Main page request?

The 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin’s birthday, and the 150th anniversary of the publication of Origin of Species, should be marked and commemorated by appropriate Featured Articles on the Main Page. Charles Darwin and Evolution have already appeared there, so neither are eligible. There are however a few relevant articles which could appear there:

• Alfred Russell Wallace on 8 January, his birthday;
• History of evolutionary thought on 12 February, Darwin's birthday;
• On the Origin of Species (not yet FA) on 24 November, 150th anniversary of publication. Origin of Species would have to be brought up to FA standards.

The method for proposing articles for the main page is set forth at Wikipedia:Today's featured article/requests. There is a point scheme, with varying amounts of points based on the relevance of the date, whether major contributors have previously had an FA appear on the main page, the importance of the topic, whether a similar article has appeared recently, and other criteria. 60 days out a notice should be posted on the talk page, Wikipedia talk:Today's featured article/requests, with the requested date and an estimate of the points. 30 days out the request should be made on the request page.

One of the principal contributors should else probably make the appropriate request. It would be nice to have good, solid articles such as these appear on the main page next year, and possibly also form the core of a suite of evolution-related articles to comprise the first life science Featured Topic.

Kablammo (talk) 23:59, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

I agree with you that both Wallace and this articles would be good candidates to feature on the main page, as it happens I made significant contributions to both of them, so I will look into it. Rusty Cashman (talk) 00:59, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

I note that Darwin's birthday would be his 200th so there should be plenty of points for this article unless someone else comes up with an appropriate one. Rusty Cashman (talk) 02:39, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

Note that 2009 will also be the 200th anniversary of Philosophie zoologique, which is having something something of a revival in reputation thanks to the growing attention to epigenetics. So something Lamarck related might be good as well. (Maybe inheritance of acquired characters, since that's very significant for Darwin as well.)--ragesoss (talk) 16:37, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

You mean, aside from its needing complete rewriting from beginning to end?! Macdonald-ross (talk) 19:09, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

You're right. It might make a good project for collaboration, but the inheritance of acquired characters probably isn't relevant to Main Page stuff. Actually, if we were going to shoot for a full-page spread for Darwin Day, there are a bunch of short-lived but significant post-Darwin theories of heredity that could be the basis for a bunch of Did You Know articles. And Philosophie Zoologique could easily be expanded 5-fold to make a DYK as well.--ragesoss (talk) 21:31, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

I certainly don't want to discourage anyone from improving articles on Lamarck, and the transmutation of species article might make a good target as well as a way to focus attention on pre-Darwin evolutionary ideas of the 19th century (including both Lamarck and Vestiges), but more in line with the original suggestion from Kablammo maybe we should try and make On the Origin of Species the history of science collaboration of the month for say December or January in order to get it to FA in time for the 150th anniversary of its publication. My experience has been that it actually takes several months from the time an article is made HoS collab of the month until it can be ready for FA, and that article clearly needs a lot of work. I am definately going to try and persue the idea of this article being featured for Darwin's birthday. One final thought, I would like to see the excellent History of biology article make it on to the front page. The trick might be finding an appropriate date hook... Rusty Cashman (talk) 21:51, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

• Collaboration nom for Origin - Once it gets a few votes, I'll update the history of science collaboration. I'll also start putting together ideas for a full slate of history of biology content, at FA, FP and DYK, for Darwin Day.--ragesoss (talk) 20:34, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, I'm for that as a long term project. This article here looks ideal for Darwin's birthday as setting the less known context. Another article which I've put some effort into lately is the second voyage of HMS Beagle which is probably pretty near good article standard, if anyone more up on these things cares to look. dave souza, talk 21:54, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

I started Wikipedia:Did you know/Darwin Day 2009, a place to coordinate a possible full page spread for Darwin Day if we could generate enough new articles for Did You Know.--ragesoss (talk) 22:41, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

History of evolutionary thought has now been nominated for February 12. If you wish to support this nomination please visit Wikipedia:Today's featured article/requests. Since this nomination technically has only 2 points, it can use as many votes as it can get. Rusty Cashman (talk) 08:00, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

Who finally decides? And when?StN (talk) 23:30, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Raul654 makes the final decision about what article is featured on the main page. He typically schedules them some days ahead, but just how many days ahead seems to be highly variable. Given the strong support the nomination has drawn at Wikipedia:Today's featured article/requests I am pretty confident, especially since no one has come up with an alternative article that is eligible (that is both FA and has not been featured on the main page already) with a connection to either Darwin or Lincoln (who also has the 200th anniversary of his birth on Feb. 12). However, there is still time for people to express their opinion. Rusty Cashman (talk) 04:41, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

Do other articles get nominated for featured based on what day and year it is, or is this a special thing for subjects Wikipedia endorses and likes best? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.73.70.113 (talk) 05:13, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Yes, other articles get on the main page based on significant anniversaries and dates. They must be featured articles already before they get scheduled for the main page, though. Normally, they just go up roughly in the order they became featured articles, modified by attempts to spread things out and avoid covering similar things too often, but specific articles for specific days get scheduled at Wikipedia:Today's featured article/requests.--ragesoss (talk) 05:44, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

It happens, yes. Not all that infrequently. And who doesn't like Darwin Day? -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 05:44, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Um... easily the majority of the non-scientific crowd?

Article on evolutionism

Hi all, I 'm trying to salvage my faith in WP. This is a good article on Evolutionary thought, so I'm hoping some reasonable minds can help me find a new equilibrium. Would the editors that frequent and watch this page please weigh in on the proposal at Talk:Evolutionism? One of my major concerns with WP is that it only really works when most people watch most articles; if it allows a subset of highly motivated, possibly biased editors to own a fringe set of articles, the content of those articles can very quickly become encyclopedic. So I would like to get some fresh perspectives. Thanks! --Thesoxlost (talk) 16:00, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Great Work!

This is a FANTASTIC article. It's the best one I've ever seen on Wikipedia. It's hard to believe this is all the work of volunteers. Kudos to all the editors who contributed here. Moby-Dick3000 (talk) 01:14, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Seconded. It's a great article. Congratulations to all concerned for getting it to FA status and onto the front page for Darwin Day. Cheers, --PLUMBAGO 09:46, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Agreed! And nice touch, requesting the article to be featured on Darwin's 200th and Origin's 150th. 140.247.238.81 (talk) 14:30, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

• It's a real joy to see this on the Main Page today :) and even more of a joy to see the outstanding qualit of the article itself. Darwin would be proud! Jolly Ω Janner 20:07, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Requested move

The following is a closed discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the proposal was No move Parsecboy (talk) 00:02, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

History of evolutionary thought → History of evolutionary biology — The current title of this article (History of evolutionary thought) does not seem appropriate. Firstly, evolutionary thought is not an encyclopedic topic as evidenced by the fact that it does not have its own article (I created it as a redirect to this article earlier today). "History of evolutionary biology" would be a much more appropriate title, as this article is the expanded history section of that article. This move would also serve to distinguish this article from the history of sociocultural evolution, galaxy formation and evolution, and other types of evolution. — Neelix (talk) 11:39, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Survey

Feel free to state your position on the renaming proposal by beginning a new line in this section with *'''Support''' or *'''Oppose''', then sign your comment with ~~~~. Since polling is not a substitute for discussion, please explain your reasons, taking into account Wikipedia's naming conventions.

• Let me be the first to say Oppose. If you read just the first few lines of the article you will see it is about the history of evolutionary thought. Evolutionary biology came a little later. --Johnuniq (talk) 11:56, 12 February 2009 (UTC)
  • Comment - If this article is about the history of evolutionary thought in the abstract, why is there no article simply about "evolutionary thought"?
• As Johnuniq puts well, evolutionary biology is only a small part of evolutionary thought. Even in modern biology, a lot of evolutionary research happens outside the discipline of evolutionary biology. I don't think there is a perfect name for this article, but I've thought about the issue before and I don't think there's a better one than this.--ragesoss (talk) 13:08, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

• Oppose. An article titled History of evolutionary biology would start about 1800, I would think. It is part of modern science. The present article with its long historical sweep includes much that is rational thought, but not science as we know it.
  The other consideration is that now 'evolutionary biology' is almost a tautology: if it's biology, then it must be evolutionary. How would we ever put a limit to it? Perhaps what the proposer really wanted was a History of the theory of evolution. But then again, we don't really regard it as a theory, do we?
  The article has come a long way, and the title should not be changed unless there is a clear majority in favour of such a change. Macdonald-ross (talk) 13:10, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

• Oppose: the article clearly includes a time period that predates the the science of evolutionary biology, rendering the proposed name inaccurate. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk^(P) 15:00, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

• Oppose: the users above have stated the case for not moving better than I ever could. -- Gramscis cousin (talk) 15:10, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

• Oppose Besides the good reasons mentioned by other people so far, "History of evolutionary thought" is a term frequently used in academic circles for this topic. For examples you can see the UC Berkley website as well as chapter titles in several books on evolution. Rusty Cashman (talk) 19:07, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Further comment History of evolutionary theory would be a better choice than History of evolutionary biology, but it still suffers from the problem raised above that the article covers philosophical ideas that really can't be considered scientific theories. This is probably why academics settled on history of evololutionary thought. Rusty Cashman (talk) 19:12, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

• Oppose - Alternative titles have been discussed thoroughly before. There are disadvantages to the alternative choices offered, including 'History of evolutionary biology for the reasons given above. —Mattisse (Talk) 20:32, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

• Support as nominator - I understand the concerns already listed, and I realize that I am in a solitary minority at the moment, but it seems to me that this article does not discuss the complete history of "evolutionary thought" because, although it begins with the philosophical concept of evolution, the rest of the article is biology-specific. Later development of theories about galaxy formation and evolution and sociocultural evolution are not developped, and these theories are significant in evolutionary thought. The article is currently biology-biased, which is acceptable if the title states that it is biology-specific. If the title remains the same, then much information will need to be added to this article about the history of evolutionary thought in other areas of study. Neelix (talk) 23:06, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

• Oppose, the article, as is standard with Wikipedia articles, uses the most commonly-accepted meaning of its title. Ask anybody what they think about "evolution" and they will reply with reference to biology. Narrowing this subject to "Evolutionary biology" would remove most of the early history before this became a science, so would not be acceptable. Similarly, the idea that you could cover such disparate and unrelated subjects as galaxy formation and natural selection in one article is completely unrealistic. Tim Vickers (talk) 23:13, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Discussion

Any additional comments:

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.