Talk:Rejection of evolution by religious groups/Archive 13

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Eugenics-tree image?

Can someone explain to me what purpose this image serves? In its caption is a very lengthy explanation of why creationists feel evolutionism leads to support of eugenics. In fact, without that caption, it would be nearly impossible for the reader to figure out why that image is included. So why do we even need the picture, when the caption is doing all the explaining? Move the caption to the text body at that point and remove the image. I consider it a rule of thumb that when an image has a caption that runs on to extreme length, you can be sure that the image isn't doing a very good job of explaining whatever it is it's supposed to be explaining. (If the image was very informative as to its purpose, it wouldn't need the caption.)

I feel the inclusion of this image could be construed as an attempt to portray all creationism opponents as eugenecists. Of what notability is the logo of a congress of a now-discredited and abandoned theory's adherents? Notable enough for mention, but not notable enough for an image of this propagandistic nature. Kasreyn 22:46, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

I remain puzzled as to the possible reasons for the inclusion of this image, as no one has responded. Are there any objections to my removing it? As I stated above, I cannot see the use of an image that requires a caption larger than the image just to explain its purpose; the entire point of including visual aids in an encyclopedia is to convey information that cannot be easily expressed or represented with text. Either the caption should be greatly condensed, or the image should go. Kasreyn 21:33, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

One rule of thumb I found usefull. Make a change and start a topic in discussion at the same time. If you just start a topic without trying to implement the change, people are more likely to ignore you. So if you feel strongly enough about this, make the change yourself and if anybody feels negative about that change, well, that's why this discussion thread is here.--Roland Deschain 22:15, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

Boldly following RD's advice - it is gone. Now we'll see if anyone cares to discuss. Cheers, Vsmith 02:20, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

fossil evidence?

anyone want to bring up stuff on prehistoric fossils/discoveries, things that seem to contradict (by predating when humans were supposed to have evolved) the modern theory of evolution? like meister+leakey print, oklo reactor, klerksdorp spheres, patterson's kenyan humerus, etc. etc.

• Please provide detailed publications (in scientific journals in possible) of these discoveries and a detailed explenation of why it contradicts the modern theory of evolution. If possible, find only printed sources. Also double check the TalkOrigin website and see if these examples haven't already been discussed.

also, why not include an argument about whether or not the first life could/couldn't have been created in the 'primordial soup'. i.e though miller's experiments yielded w/ amino acids, and further experiments yielded 'pseudo'cells, proteins are far more complex, etc.

• The Theory of Evolution does not deal with the beginning of life. In addition, this article already discusses this type of arguement (see here). Other fields of science (especially chemistry) are concerned with that question. Go over to Abiogenesis if you want to contribute to the detailed controversy of that topic.--Roland Deschain 15:05, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

personally i'd have to agree that the creationist evidence are pretty flimsy. i mean, lunar dust?

New poll

Evolution Less Accepted in U.S. Than Other Western Countries, Study Finds. Update article please. --Zzzzzzzzzz 10:44, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

Added that info to the US section as the study primarily addressed the issue of low acceptance of evolution in the United States.--Roland Deschain 04:09, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Popular culture references

Should this article make any reference to popular culture depictions of the creation-evolution controversy? Shawnc 14:04, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

Comment

What pop culture references would you be talking about? #Diez2

Minor counter argument on "theory"

Why do the people who state that it is only a "theory of evolution" not make the same claim about the "theory of gravity" and similar titles? Jackiespeel 16:05, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

This is an old point and they don't have any dencent response (it also isn't very germain to the talk page which is for improving the article, not debating the topic). JoshuaZ 16:16, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

Because there aren't billions of people who believe in religions that say gravity doesn't exist. Consider it a courtesy; scientists could call it the "Law of Evolution" if they felt like it. They're just being nice about it. Kasreyn 21:28, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

I was just making a trivial point. Given that in the Bible it IIRC says that for God a thousand years is no more than the shortest watch of the night (on ships in modernish period) this was two hours, it could be argued that the "days" referred to are much longer than solar days (if one chose to believe in such things). Given that historical knowledge etc has advanced since the days of Bishop Usher, have the creationist proponents attempted to recalculate the timeline?

My position btw - evolution (as distinct from Mendel's laws) is more complex than the theory/ies presented.

Jackiespeel 17:04, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

See Day-Age Creationism. --ScienceApologist 17:49, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure but I think the reason it's still stated as the "Theory of Evolution" is because it hasn't actually been proven yet. I understand there's overwhelming evidence to suggest that evolution is a valid reason to explain human and animal existence but to claim it as "law" would be unscientific as it has still yet to be proven absolutely. With things like gravity and the laws of motion, these are "laws" because they have been proven scientifically. A theory only becomes law when the theory is proven.--Apoc100 11:47, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Sorry but not so. The Theory of Evolution as the fact is proven. As a mechanism, scientists are still sorting some of the finer points, but that's it. The word "theory" in popular parlance as a guess, an hypothesis that reminas to be proven, does not mean the same than "Theory" in the scientiic world. Theory in the scientific world means a complete body of explanatons, supported by evidence, to explain a phenomenon.--Ramdrake 11:56, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Not at all. See Theory, which explains that a scientific theory is an explanation of natural observations. Thus the apple falls from the tree, and so there are various theories as to why that happens. The one that best describes the observation is the one that is adopted. Check out Gravity to find that there is no current theory of gravity that is accepted as correct. And there is no law of gravity. By contrast the theory of evolution best describes the evidence that is available to us, and more evidence in support of it is continously discovered. That is the reason it is pretty well universally acceptied by biologists. --Michael Johnson 12:08, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

My point was only that it was wrong here to apply the common definition of "a guess, a hypothesis" to the Theory of Evolution. Evolution wth common descent is probably as proven as any scientific body I know of.--Ramdrake 12:33, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Sorry I was replying to Apoc not Ramdrake ;-) --Michael Johnson 12:50, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

"Proven" is a word of little meaning in science. Most scientists considered Newton's laws of motion "proven" in 1800, but 100 years later the "laws" were known to be problematic and 30 years after that they were a special case of Relativity. Notice that, despite almost a century of incredible success and total acceptance, Relativity is still a "theory of". Scientists are largely abandoning the word "law" because it just implies a state of certainty that doesn't occur. All scientific ideas are subject to revision with the discovery of more evidence (Mercury not acting according to Newton's "laws" being the catalyst there).

Theories are never proven. They match the evidence or they do not. Creationism does not match the evidence. Evolution and common descent do. It's that simple. Some day we may find a rabbit in Precambrian strata and common descent will have to be thrown out or seriously modified, but until then, it stands. Even if we found the rabbit, creationism would still be false (something the creationists just don't understand as they continue to attack "evolution" as if it helped their case at all). --Suttkus 12:45, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Suttkus. I think we're trying to say the same thing here. You're right that theories are never proven, not if you ask for absolute, incontrovertible proof. Science doesn't deal in absolute certainties. What I object is or people to say that Evoluton is called a Theory because it's "not totally proven". Until we find that Precambrian rabbit, it is as good as proven. When and if we do, then we'll revise things as the need may be.--Ramdrake 12:50, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

I agree we're saying the same thing. I just thought my version could help clear up confusion people less familiar with the structure of science might have. --Suttkus 12:56, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

new additions by Simpsons contributor

I've moved our disccusion on edit proposals here

and within the creationist community the two terms have no explicit definition

I think this addition doesn't flow with the rest of the paragraph and the same sentiment is covered lower in the section.

It is worth noting that speciation has been observed in real time.

Again this doesn't flow and is covered pretty heavily in the Evidence of evolution article.

despite the fact that the events in Genesis supposedly occurred more than 6000 years ago.

Not sure this is a valid argument, creationists argue that written records like the bible CAN give us a valid glimpse of the past. This may still be hypocritical of them but not sure this is the best way to try to point that out. Nowimnthing 19:59, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

It is indeed hypocritical, and dare I say, systematic of the claims used by creationists to debunk evolution. Can you see a more appropriate way of “pointing it out”?Miller 20:17, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Maybe more like:

Some creationists have even called into question whether it is philosophically tenable to make any claims about the past at all; even though many of their hypotheses do just that.'

I think a more general wording would work better, but then again this whole ploy by creationists is not really to say that we cannot have ANY certainty about the past, just that the level is so low that their certainty is on a level playing field with science, making it a matter of faith vs science. I think it will leave it up to others, as you said I am not a regular contributer here, but I do watch it. Nowimnthing 22:45, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

There is a profound difference between looking back in time using radiocarbon dating and fossil evidence rather than looking back in time using a human manuscript backed up by no physical evidence, so I don’t believe science and religion are on a level playing filed in this context. If you believe the above wording is appropriate I’ll insert it. Thanks for your help. Miller 23:00, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

References

Evolution is a fact merger

There is a POV fork concerning the status of evolution being a fact. The article does have some usefull info, but it is currently set to be deleted. Here are quotes form the article that I think should be included here (either complete, shortened, or as footnotes):

• "However, certain theories, like that of gravity, are considered as fact because the daily observation of data that seems to prove the theory reinforces gravity's position as fact in the minds of the average person. Thus, the controversy engendered by the statement "evolution is fact" centers on the inability of the average non-scientist to observe evolutionary phenomena and artifacts in the day-to-day world."
• "Proponents say that biological evolution has been established so firmly as to be regarded as equally factual as gravity." (see article for supporting evidence)
• "In his book What Evolution Is (2002), Ernst Mayr explains that the "fact" of evolution derives from "inferences" that have "enormous certainty" because of the combination of 1) derived predictions that are verified, 2) confirmations from many lines of evidence including fossils, genetics, and geology, and 3) "in most cases no rational alternative can be found."
• "Frankly, I cannot see why such an overwhelming number of well-substantiated inferences is not scientifically as convincing as direct observations. . . . The endeavor of certain philosophers to construct a fundamental difference between the two kinds of evidence strikes me as misleading." (this is a quote from a book).

This article does have instances of POV. User talk:Gazpacho has already moved a large part of the article over here, but I do not believe that it should compeltly replace our current section.--Roland Deschain 22:37, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Roland, I see no reason to keep the previous theory vs. fact text as it was entirely unsourced. There was a little overlap on the description of the argument, but that was all. Gazpacho 22:28, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

A sourced article does not necessarily mean better. This article has several POV issues and, worst of all, it states: "use of the word "fact" by scientists (a theory that has overwhelming evidence) ". That's wrong, and in this article, that is one big mistake. A theory, in scientific terminology, can never become a fact even after a million years of evidence. There are several other such instances from sourced articles that deeply confuse the nature of the contraversy (even though the citations are by educated scientists). II'll wait around for somebody else to speak in on this before starting an edit war.--Roland Deschain 22:49, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

My point is that there two paragraphs should me merged, not that one utterly replace the other. However, it might just be me, so if there's no real outcry over this replacement, I'll go along with the concesus.--Roland Deschain 22:54, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Complaint about this

This paragraph consistently takes quotes from books out of context by failing to differentiate evolution (fact) which is an observable process today (mutations, speciation, variation, etc etc) with theory of evolution (explaining the mechanisms of how evolution occurs). This needs to be explained very carefully, and this paragraph does not do that.--Roland Deschain 04:37, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

The muddled Stahler statement had been removed but the counterargument was left, rather confusingly. I've substituted Gould's old statement which to me as a layman explains it concisely and clearly. If that's ok, the link to Gould's statement under External links could be removed. ..dave souza, talk 09:04, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, excellent subsitution. I was feeling guilty about removing the entire paragraph (even though it was bad) hoping that somebody would replace it with more coherent quotes. It's an important section of this article and removing most of it would be a big step backwards. I was gambling between reverting it to the previous version or waiting for somebody to find a better quote. Gamble payed off.--Roland Deschain 15:13, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

I agree that that the facts of evolution (i.e., indications in the fossil record that new species have emerged over the eons; genetic drift; etc.) should be distinguished from the theory of evolution. A theory explains facts.

So, as you say above, use of the word "fact" by scientists (a theory that has overwhelming evidence) sounds a bit strange. If there are scientists who do this, we can quote them but should explain what they mean. In my first version of my Evolution is a fact spin-off I think I made this clear, but someone changed it. And when people started calling it a fork, I gave up.

I've been studying WP:SS and I think that summary style encourages this sort of article. It's not automatically a content fork, not if there's no duplication. And it's not "POV" unless (1) the article it split from lacks a neutral summary, and (2) the subtopic itself cannot be made neutral. Is their an Wikipedia:NPOV dispute tag on it? --Uncle Ed 15:40, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Article Biased against creationism

Hi, I read the article and i find it very biased against creationism. Here are some points. "The issue of creation versus evolution is not a matter of controversy within the scientific community or academia, whose members overwhelmingly tend to oppose creationism" OK, this does not prove that evolution is good and creationsim is bad but it can prove that some creationists are not wellcommed. "Typical of these challenges are the somewhat rhetorical questions asked by creationists "What caused the Big Bang?" or "What was the nature of the first lifeform?" These questions are in principle subject to scientific investigation, but if and when answers are provided it is likely that the answers will themselves be subject to similar kinds of regressive inquiry. " Evolution needs to respond to these questions to be fact. If it can not respond to these questions it is theory. "While certain subjects involved in origins-research remain an open-ended question in scientific discourse, there are also scientific descriptions and parameterizations of origins on which there is considerable consensus. " Consensus does not mean that a theory is fact and consensus can change. "For example, while almost all biologists consider it a matter of fact that life was formed through natural means, evolutionary theory in and of itself does not necessarily include abiogenesis, the formation of life out of non-living matter. " I think that some school books consider that evolution includes the apparition of life. If evolution does not include the apparition of life then this should be specified in schollbooks right away. "In science, "fact" can only mean "confirmed to such a degree that it would be perverse to withhold provisional assent." I suppose that apples might start to rise tomorrow, but the possibility does not merit equal time in physics classrooms."[7] " No, "In science 'fact' is an objective and verifiable observation" so the definition above has no place here. If evolution uses science fact should mean objective and verifiable observation not consensus, because multiple groups can have different consensus.

Since this article is creation against evolution, normally would be that one part of the article like "Evidence against evolution" to be lead by a creationist and another part to be lead by an evolutionist. For example in "Evidence against evolution" chapter, evolutionist are speaking which should not be the case and the big concerns about evolution are not presented . I would mention some: Young Earth evidence: -every 2 years the Earth rotation period decreases with 1 second, so if Earth would be billions of years old, the rotation would be too fast -the Earth Magnetic field decreases in half every 1400 years. If Earth would be too old the magnetic field would be too powerfull -if Earth would be too old, the Niagara fall wouldn't exists -if Earth would be too old the Sahara desert would be much bigger, this determination was based on the speed of expansion of the dessert -the oldest tree on Earth is about 4000 years so why there are no trees older than 4000 years Residual or geological layers: -there are trees, half in one geological layer and half in another geological layer even if those two layers are milions of years apart -the time of geological layers is determined based on the time of the relics. The time of the relics is determined based on the time of the geological layer so there is circular thinking and no science. -the fossils appear in the geological layer not in the order they are supposed to be, and some fosils milions of years old are found alive today --Adrian

Most of your claims are irrelevant, or are tired old creationist claims which have been massively debunked or are simply irrelevant. For example, in fact the earth's rotation is slowing down by about 0.005 seconds per year per year. This extrapolates to the earth having a fourteen-hour day 4.6 billion years ago. No problem there. All the other above arguments are similarly flawed. I'm not going to go in detail because this page is not for debating evolution v. creationism but is for improving the encyclopedia. JoshuaZ 23:24, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

http://tycho.usno.navy.mil/leapsec.html

"Since the first leap second in 1972, all leap seconds have been positive and there were 23 leap seconds in the 34 years to January, 2006. This pattern reflects the general slowing trend of the Earth due to tidal braking. " Let me do the math. Every 2 years the year increases 1 second so going in the past it decreases 1 second. In 4 billion years the year should be 365 days - 2 billion seconds = 365 days - 23148 days so it looks like there were many Earth rotations in one day, around 65. Does not look right. Being a real debate between creationist and evolutionist rather that an evolutionist explaining the devate would make wikipedia much better.--Adrian

You are confusing different things. Leap seconds are not due to tidal breaking, they are due to the fact that leap days don't perfectly align days and years, so the days would slip relative to the year otherwise. The article we have on Leap seconds gives a good summary of the basic astronomical issues. JoshuaZ 00:00, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Wow, nice way to manipulate the facts, typical creationist tactics. From the exact same Navy source you cited above:

"The length of the mean solar day has increased by roughly 2 milliseconds since it was exactly 86,400 seconds of atomic time about 1.79 centuries ago (i.e. the 179 year difference between 1999 and 1820). That is, the length of the mean solar day is at present about 86,400.002 seconds instead of exactly 86,400 seconds."

"This leap second can be either positive or negative depending on the Earth's rotation." Nowimnthing 00:29, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Before this spins out of control: this post, to be of any use, needs to abide by Wikipedia:Verifiability. As most claims made (if true) show evolution lacking, they need to be heavily backed up with various publications (not web-based); any publishing house would kill to have a groundbreaking book that shows that the earth is 10,000 years old. So Adrian, provide sources for your claims and open them up to discussion. Otherwise I agree with JoshuaZ and Nowimnthing: most of your claims are age old creationist talking points--a lot of rhetoric, but no substance or validity.--Roland Deschain 00:34, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Adrian:

"Evolution needs to respond to these questions to be fact. If it can not respond to these questions it is theory."

No. Evolution is not an origin-of-life theory nor is it an origin-of-the-universe theory. It attempts to explain speciation and adaptation. Period. It is creationists and those ignorant of science who mistakenly believe the theory of evolution attempts to explain ultimate origins. (Note that for this reason, the "creation-evolution controversy" is a textbook example of a false dichotomy. There is no fundamental reason that an intelligent designer couldn't have used evolution as a tool. I would suspect that anyone powerful enough to create the universe and set its arbitrary laws of physics wouldn't mind waiting a few billion years for it to sit up and say "hello" back. Creationists need to quit thinking on such a pathetic mortal scale. What are a few billion years to God? A light nap.

"I think that some school books consider that evolution includes the apparition of life."

I also hear that in some schools, ten kids have to share one microscope. Is it the theory's fault that Americans are cheapskates when it comes to funding public education? Outmoded schoolbooks are not our concern.

"Since this article is creation against evolution, normally would be that one part of the article like "Evidence against evolution" to be lead by a creationist and another part to be lead by an evolutionist."

Actually this article is creationism vs "popularly-misconceived-conflation-of-evolution-with-origin-theory-set", but to say so would make the title a bit of a mouthful, don't you agree? Since you won't find a scientist who would conflate the two, you won't find a "proponent" for arguing a false dichotomy. Kasreyn 02:01, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Looks like American Chemical Society got it wrong too:"The Board of Directors of the American Chemical Society supports "evolution as the only scientifically accepted explanation for the origin and diversity of species." [10]"

What don't you get about the difference between the phrases "origin of species" and "origin of life"? Because I can certainly explain if you're having a hard time with it. Kasreyn 23:24, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Evolution or creation debate is not an easy one. It touches you at the core of who you are. If it doesn't touches you, you would not be here. But we should let Joe Doe who visits Wikipedia make his own mind reading facts and not conclusions. You have a lot of facts but I think that half of the article should be made by leading creationists or at least volunteers that have an creationist thinking. Why don't you send an email to Kent Hovind and say, Kent do you have anybody to volunteer for completing the chapter Evidence against evolution that should contain evidence published and all those good rules, and also fill a web page regarding your teory? And then go to a leading evolutionist and ask him the same thing? Doing so, you will have a real debate and Joe Doe can make his own mind.Both evolution and cretion uses scientific methods and I didn't see a creationist coming and saying I believe this and this so this must be it, but the complains against evolution look very scientific to me. Like the one I made with earth slowing down is scientific is not a religious. Maybe the argument was not good but this is a scientifical not religious argument. This is where I think that the things are right now. Evolution has microevolution facts and macroevolution theory. So far there are dogs with different dimensions and characteristics but they are dogs. So far nobody has seen an in between dog and flying dog or a dog with an organ with no use so we need to wait milions of years to see what it will turn into. I personally consider evolution just o theory. I would strongly recommend for those working in this field to rent those DVDs that you can find here: http://shopping.drdino.com/shopping.php?cat=DVDs and take just the anti evolution facts.--Adrian

Hi again. Would you please refrain from advertising any product that is for sale anywhere on Wiki? It's really not an appropriate use of the talk page.

As to creationism using scientific methods: that is precisely why scientists are best equipped to judge whether evolution or ID is the better scientific explanation. And scientists have so judged; overwhelmingly in evolution's favor. By spinning creationism as science, ID necessarily opened themselves up to being judged and critiqued by scientific standards; they were found wanting. Kasreyn 07:25, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

This is an encyclopedia, not an opinion piece. You don't give equal space just because a few people disagree. Is equal space in the solar system article given to the 20% of Americans who think the sun orbits around the moon? Equal space in Neil Armstrong's article given to the conspiracy nuts who think he faked the moonwalk? No, because as an encyclopedia (well... wikipedia) it is verifiable data only. Find a scientifically proven fact which does not fit evolution and put it in the article (and win a Nobel Prize, probably). The fact that there is no science against evolution in this article is pretty convincing in itself, considering how many Creationists work wikipedia, wouldn't you say? Sad mouse 05:52, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

drdino.com? So that would be Kent Hovind? One of the most debunked and scientifically ridiculed Creationists out there? I'm all for balance in an article but you really need to have better sources than a fraudulent private interest. DarkCryst

"This is an encyclopedia, not an opinion piece. You don't give equal space just because a few people disagree." Hmm, while that may be true, Kasreyn, this is an article about a significant and current controversy. By definition, there are two opposing viewpoints. Can you really have an informed and accurate representation of an issue from only one of them? If it were a simple argument, your logic would be correct, however it is multifaceted and complex. In the interests of fairness and readability, I would support restructuring each individual issue of this article to clearly represent the view of both sides of the controversy, with a possible third subsection of synthesis to offer interpretation of the stances given. Therein would lie the only real controversial matter, allowing for the clear representation of both sides with minimal distortion of facts. --Vajdaman

Importance to religious people

• The issue of creation versus evolution is not a matter of controversy within the scientific community or academia, whose members overwhelmingly oppose creationism. Nor is it considered of great importance to most religious groups, even those that tend to support creationism.

I added a {fact} tag to the sentence which I have marked here with bold formatting. Is it really a matter of common knowledge that most religious groups are not very concerned about creation vs. evolution? Even if so, this sentence implies that most individuals don't have a strong opinion on the issue.

Worst of all, it also insinuates the idea that most people agree with evolution, which I think is a misinterpretation of evolution polls. Not only do 45% of Americans utterly reject evolution, but an additional 35% agree only with the idea of evolution guided by God (as opposed to evolution set in motion once by God and then left alone, i.e., "unguided evolution"). This distinction needs to be clarified. --Uncle Ed 15:13, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Ed two things:

1. Creationists are mostly found among Protestant Christian confessions (mostly in the US). Protestantism is a significant minority (albeit still a minority) of Christianity. Creationism has very few adherents (Barring some fundamentalist Muslims) outside of Christianity. So, put into its proper (worldwide context), no it is not an issue for most religious groups.
2. Again, try to view the world as slightly larger than just the United States. The U.S. is where by far the creationist movement is strongest. In most other countries the creationist movement is somewhere between a definite minority and a fringe movement. Put in the proper worldwide context, creationism is still definitely a minority movement.--Ramdrake 15:21, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Ramdrake, we've been through the side point about the "world" many times before. I only quote U.S. statistics because that is all we have.

No, it is not "all we have". The National Geographic reported [1] on a comparative study of surveys conducted in 32 countries asking who did and who didn't think evolution was true (mostly European countries, with the addition of Japan and of course the USA). It turns out that of the 32 countries surveyed, the United States had the next-to-lowest acceptance rate of all, right after Turkey. Overall, acceptance of the theory of evolution by people in Europe is about 80%. So, I would say it answers your concern about "most people agree with evolution". Indeed, it seems to be the case.--Ramdrake 16:34, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Now will you (on somebody) please address the main point I am making? I said that the passage insinuates the idea that most people agree with evolution, which I think is a misinterpretation of evolution polls. Not only do 45% of Americans utterly reject evolution, but an additional 35% agree only with the idea of evolution guided by God (as opposed to evolution set in motion once by God and then left alone, i.e., "unguided evolution"). This distinction needs to be clarified. --Uncle Ed 15:43, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Statistics in the USA are not reliable in regard to the world as a whole. For example: a discussion about the official position of the Catholic Church in this topic can be found in: "Evolution and the Roman Catholic Church". It alone represents at least half the Christians in the world. (My country, Brazil, - pop. 160 million - is 75% Catholic... AFAIK few here disagree with evolution). --Leinad ¬ »saudações! 15:51, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

the US was one of the 32 countries polled. In the majority of countries the acceptance of evolution was very high. So I have no problem with saying that most religious people (see Leinad ¬ ) do accept evolution.--Roland Deschain 17:05, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Agreed. Kasreyn 23:25, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

I don't agree. I am from an european country, where do you see the great 80% acceptance of evolution or even more. You imply that creation got a similar expose to the people like evolution . Evolution was taugth in schools, evolution got all the ait time and people that held different point of view were possibly thrown in prison.The only country were creation was exposed beside evolution is US , and this is why only the polls taken here are real. To say that 80% of people of a country that didn't hear about creationism , hold the truth and the people of a country that can see other theories are wrong, is wrong. -- Adrian

The question being discussed is whether people support evolution, not whether they have been sufficiently educated in alternative theories. Until you can back up your claims that other theories are unfairly treated except in America (and thusly, in your opinion, non-American polls should be discarded), it is best to presume that the rest of the world have made an educated choice in favor of evolution. To say that the opinions of all other countries should be discarded is a very extraordinary suggestion and requires extraordinary evidence. Kasreyn 08:33, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

The False dichotomy argument

• Most supporters of evolution (especially religious ones) disagree with the claim made by creationists and some "evolutionists" that there exists an inherent, irresolvable conflict between religion and evolutionary theory. Since many, if not most religious people do accept evolution (see evolutionary creationism), they argue that this is a false dichotomy. Religious beliefs cover a very wide spectrum, from strict Biblical literalism (which implies Young Earth creationism) to atheism.

This passage asserts that "most religious people accept evolution". I'd like to see some research on this point. The two polls we quote indicate around 45% of Americans reject evolution completely (that leaves 55%).

Among religious people who don't completely reject evolution, what aspects do they accept and what aspects do they reject? We need to be more specific than "accept evolution", because this depends upon the specific definition of evolution being used.

1. Unguided evolution, for religious people, means either God had nothing to do with it; or God created the world in such a way that evolution of "higher species" like homo sapiens was inevitable. (This is according to my decades of discussion with other religious people, and wide reading on the topic.)
2. Guided evolution means that God intervenes at various points to create new species. This religious idea usually entails the argument that no significant new species can come into existence without God deliberately making it happen.

It would be a service to our readers if some religious viewpoints about evolution were included in this controversy article. --Uncle Ed 15:31, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

What kind of religious viewpoints are you thinking about? (There are millions of them, each one contradicting the others.)--Roland Deschain 00:24, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

Ones about Creation (i.e., origin of life) or Creationism (emergence of new species). There aren't too many of them.

The main split among creationists is called the young earth / old earth split. About 45% of Americans believe in Young Earth creationism, the religious viewpoint asserting that God created all species in a short period of time (around 10,000 years ago). Other creationists accept the Fossil record and the theory of geologists and biologists that new species appeared at widely separated times, over the course of tens of millions of years. --Uncle Ed 09:29, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

These are just the various forms of creationism and are already included in the article. --ScienceApologist 13:44, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Edits by Gazpacho

Gazpacho has been trying to rewrite the Fact vs Theory section. Most of his edits are simply shifting the paragraphs around (which I have no problems with), but hidden within that are insertions/deletions which I disagree with (and which he won't justify, even after I left him a message on his talk):

• "Disagreement exists among evolution researchers as to whether evolution should be described as a fac"

  Clearly false. NO such disagreement exists and he does not provide any sources to support it.

• Arthur Strahler

  Several editors have already noted that Strahler writes horribly about evolution, muddling many concepts. Most of his comment have already been deleted by concesus from this talk page.

• Use of the term hard science

  That term is not in use anymore. Science is science. Even the link to that topic doesn't offer any good defenition for hard science and soft science (right and wrong science maybe?)

Again, due to the large amount of restructuring, it's very hard for me to find all these small insertions which are either wrong, misleading, or confusing. I've reverted him three times, so hopefully this will encourage him to state his reasons here (I've already written him a personal massage after the first revert which he has ignored).--Roland Deschain 01:56, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

So you think the Strahler comments should be removed then? That's a possibility. I had two goals in my edits: first, to get rid of that well-poisoning word "misunderstanding." It's not consistent with NPOV to characterize Gould as the final word, and it's somewhat inaccurate to imply that "theory not fact" advocates are open-minded people who have just "misunderstood." Second, I wanted the section to flow better; it's a rather jumpy series of quotes with no real unity. Do you think these are reasonable goals? Gazpacho 01:22, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

First a request. Change around the paragraphs for better flow without changing any of the content. Save that edit. Then start editing the content. It makes it a lot easier to track what changes have been made.

I have no problem with the word "misunderstanding". That is what most creationist objections are (this section is heavily cited): objections based on misunderstanding on what the science says. Scientific terms are very precisely defined. For example, the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) defines theory as "a well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world that can incorporate facts, laws, inferences, and tested hypotheses." and a fact as "an observation that has been repeatedly confirmed and for all practical purposes is accepted as true." So saying that evolution is only a theory and not a fact is a misunderstanding on two fronts:

1. A theory rests on facts. There are no valid scientific theories that do not have strong evidence based on facts.
2. As Gould says (who is an excellent source as his resume in science clearly shows), evolution is both theory and fact (evolution we observe and the theory to explain what mechanisms produces those observations).

Now most readers have two choises in seeing the creationist POV. When creationists use the "evolution is only a theory not a fact" we can assume that they don't understand evolution and theory/fact as defined by the scientific community (ie: misunderstand the topic they talk about) or they DO understand it and lie to confuse the public.--Roland Deschain 02:07, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

German Poll

I just edited the results of a german poll (Forschungsgruppe Weltanschauungen in Deutschland of the German). It is true that the poll uses the term intelligent design for one of the answers. However, this term does not in any way relate to intelligent design (the U.S. creationist movement). Rather, the question that they use intelligent design as a summary word for is:

"das Leben auf der Erde wurde von einem höheren Wesen bzw. von Gott erschaffen, durchlief aber einen langwierigen Entwicklungsprozess, der von einem höheren Wesen bzw. von Gott gesteuert wurde"

(:life on Earth was created by a higher being (God); thereafer, life passed through a lengthly development (evolution), guided by that higher power (God))

Notice that this question does not specify the age of the Earth/Universe. The question says that evolution occured, but that it was guided. Such a general question reflects theistic evolution, not intelligent design (which is far more specific in its postulates). The confusion here is about direct translation. It is the context of the question that matters, not the summary word that the researchers used for that question (which was very unfortunate, as it does create confusion). --Roland Deschain 04:07, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Ah, thank you. Sad mouse 05:55, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Sad mouse, please don't make the paragraph incorrect.

• IHA-Gfk is not an advocacy group. It conducts polls if you pay them. The advocacy groups are ProGenesis+factum (conservative evangelical) and Giordano Bruno Stiftung (GBS, atheist). GBS has its own poll analysis agency attached (from existing data they get from outside), called "Forschungsgruppe Weltanschauungen in Deutschland" (fowid)
• All polls published by advocacy groups are biased by definition, since no advocacy group would publish anything that does not advocate their position (simple, isn't it). Advocacy groups commonly order several polls from reputable poll research companies and then cherry-pick and publish those which happened to have results at the outer range of standard deviation. That's how you get biased polls with a reputable name attached to.
• In fact, we see clearly here that the polls are biased, because we have two independent, reliable sources. Spiegel and Zeit are very reputable media in German speaking area.
• The poll analyzed by fowid was not asking for intelligent design, it was asking for the text cited above by Roland Deschain. This text is unspecific and was labelled Intelligent Design merely by GBS for publication. They use the term "intelligent design" for polemic reasons when we would use "theistic evolution". They do this to discredit roman catholics (which have a big share in German speaking countries) with the term (which has negative connotation), because they say "believing in god is all the same" etc. They are very negative, aggressive and hostile towards anything religious. Dr. Horst Groschopp from a German humanist union speaks of "fundamentalist humanism" and "an especially avid sect" in the context of their "Leitkultur Humanismus".[2]

--Rtc 15:34, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

Should all those Creationism links really be there?

I know that many people will want a bunch of Creationism links at the bottom of the article, but clicking on a few of them I can see examples of fraudulent claims in them (the ones I checked, anyway). These are the type of pseudo-scientific claims that would be edited right out if they were inserted into the article, so why should they be endorsed as links? It implies that the content is worthy of representation in an encyclopedia when it is clearly not. Personally, I think that only those Creationism links that do not make fradulent claims about science should be included, just as any evolution link which made a fradulent claim should be eliminated. Or at the very least a proviso that the links are supplied as examples of the debate only, and do not contain verified arguments. Sad mouse 15:09, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

We are traveling on thin ice in this regard. From a scientific point of view, all major creationist theories are wrong at worst or doubtful at best. What makes matters even worse is that a common creationist strategy is often to muddle/lie about science. I think WP:NPOV dictates that we include those links, as wikipedia isn't about truth, but rather about verifiable information (which those sites are). As this topic is actually about creationism and there is a strong following of this philosophy with many verifiable sources of publication, those links should be there (can't use Undue Weight. However, I think this article does a good job at showing that all the claims made by those sites are wrong. Can you point out a couple of websites that are especially vile to you; maybe you can convince the community to delete them.--Roland Deschain 15:28, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

I don't know that I agree with you about the information being verifiable. The information is not verified, which is my entire point. If wikipedia really has "written on a blog or website" as the burden of evidence for verified it is not an encyclopedia. I think that having all of these unverified Creationism links is actually undue weight.

Consider http://www.evolutionfairytale.com and the very first slide claims that "Evolutionists have a very difficult time explaining how these types [symbiotic] of relationships could evolve with time." Symbiotic relationships have a firm evolutionary basis.

In http://www.darwinismrefuted.com/embryology_01.html they talk about bacterial resistance to antibiotics and claim that resistance is gained by loss of function (which is still evolution, even though they do not admit it) saying that "there is no example of mutation that "develops the genetic information." Evolutionists, who want to present antibiotic resistance as evidence for evolution, treat the issue in a very superficial way and are thus mistaken." However there are a number of antibiotic resistances that have evolved as gain-of-function, for example allowing a protein pump to remove new classes of molecule, so this is simple a lie

Or from http://www.drdino.com/articles.php?spec=6 and his "proof" that the world is only 10 000 years old : "It has been estimated by evolutionary anthropologists that the earth could have easily supported 10 million hunter/gatherer type humans. To maintain an average of 10 million people, spread over the entire plane, with an average life span of 25 years, for the last 100,000 years . . . .would mean that 40 billion people had lived and died. Archeological evidence clearly shows that these "stone age" people buried their dead. Forty billion graves should be easy to find. Yet only a few thousand exist. The obvious implication is that people have been around for far less time." Or his claim that there is a relative lack of meteorites in sedimentary layers. Or that "The outer solar system planets should have long ago cooled off", ignoring the internal heat generated by radioactivity.

Finally, the article is about the Creation-evolution controversy, not about the claims of Creationism. Put the links there, but putting them here does not seem appropriate. Sad mouse 17:12, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

These links are clearly lies, but they are verifiable lies (ie: they are published in books, websites, interviews) that relate directly to this topic (ie: the claims of creationists and the claims of science). We cannot censor opinions that are this clearly represented, even though they are clearly wrong and inflammatory to science and scientists. When I use the word verifiable (see WP:V) I don't mean true or false. I mean that there are enough publications (see WP:REF) to justify their inclusion in this article, regardless of the nature (ie: lies, slander, outright hostility, etc etc). Plus they are a great example of every fallacy that this article points out. Let's wait for somebody else to weight in on this argument. We both made our points, so lets wait for somebody else to weigh in. I don't care about those links myself so I'm playing the devil's advocate in this case--Roland Deschain 17:30, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Agreed, we'll wait to see what other say. Just this about verifiable - "Anyone can create a website or pay to have a book published, and then claim to be an expert in a certain field. For that reason, self-published books, personal websites, and blogs are largely not acceptable as sources." Sad mouse 18:00, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

All of these make sense as being links to major creationist organizations except http://www.darwinismrefuted.com/ http://www.godandscience.org/ http://www.amazingdiscoveries.org/beginning_main.htm. Also http://www.creationequation.com/ http://www.uark.edu/~cdm/creation/index.htm which should be removed. Also, http://www.creationequation.com/ doesnt seem to want to work and so should be removed also. The others should stay essentially per Roland's logic. JoshuaZ 17:52, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Agreed that the sources listed are verifiable as "Claims of Creationism", but that is not the subject of the article. They do not contain verified arguments against evolution or intellectually honest debates about the controversy, or any information about the level of controversy, reasons for controversy, or really any section that is covered in this article at all. I would have thought they belonged in an article about the claims of creationism, but I don't think that any link (be it evolution or creationist) should be endorsed by wikipedia if they use intellectually dishonest claims in their treatment of the argument. Sad mouse 18:00, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

We aren't endorsing the content by linking to them anymore than we are by linking to the evolution pages or linking to neo-nazi sites on the page about neo-nazis. We are linking to them because they are notable and referenced and interested users may benefit from the links. JoshuaZ 18:04, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I agree that they should be linked in articles about Creationism, but this is not an article about the claims of Creationism or Evolution, or even about the comparative merits of Creationism and Evolution, and therefore the links should be moved to where they are relevent. Sad mouse 18:18, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

If this site isn't about "claims of Creationism or Evolution" or about "comparative merits of Creationism and Evolution", what is this site about? --Roland Deschain 18:23, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Claims of Creationism is covered on the Creationism article. Claims of Evolution is covered on the evolution article. A point by point comparison of Creationism vs Evolution doesn't seem to have its own article, but the content is not in this article either. The article is about the Controversy surrounding the claims. Sad mouse 18:35, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

A point-by-point comparison does not have an article because it was determined a few years back to be too unencyclopedic and an article of thise nature was agreed upon by consensus to be deleted. Here are the reasons for this:

1. Because the verifiablity standards for creationist claims are simply "they make them", it is nearly impossible to have a comperhensive, neutral, and verifiable list of the claims.
2. With such low standards for creationist claims to be verified as "made", it is impossible to provide a verifiable "alternative" to every creationist claim. Since the standard for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability and not fact, if someone finds an obscure creationist claim in some dark corner of the internet, there may not be any verifiable counter-claim to this.
3. Wikipedia is not a debunking website and it is not up to editors to develop the arguments regarding evolutionist/creationist proposals. This would be a violation of original research policy.
4. Side-by-side comparisons promote the "debate quality" of this controversy which may or may not be a reasonable characterization of the controversy. Presenting the sides as such would violate the spirit and letter of NPOV policy.
5. Many creationists balk at the attempts of non-creationists to describe their claims. Accurately describing creationist claims is done best by quotations which would defy summary style recommendations.
6. Such a comparative article would encourage users to include counterarguments as well as arguments. Unlike a formal debate, it is difficult to place limitations on the rebuttals likely to occur in such an article. This has the effect of creating an article that reads like a chatroom or a usenet discussion rather than an encyclopedia article.

This controversy article is meant to describe all the "major" claims and "types" of claims that creationists and their opponents make in the context of the controversy. If you know of any common ones that are not verifiably described in this article, please feel free to include some prose describing them, but specific claims are simply not encyclopedic enough for inclusion.

--ScienceApologist 18:56, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Yes, so if the article isn't about evolutionist claim vs creationist claim (and I agree it shouldn't be) why are we linking to a bunch of websites that have intellectually dishonest arguments for Creationism? Sad mouse 19:05, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

We should only link to notable creationist organizations for reference. The criteria for inclusion should not be "this is a creationist site". However, it would be doing our readers a disservice not to link to AiG, ICR, etc. I like the proposal above by User:JoshuaZ for the removal of the non-notable links. --ScienceApologist 19:18, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Wouldn't links to the "Creationism" and "Evolution" articles solve the problem? They contain a verified description of the topics, including links to notable organisations. Too many wiki articles have gratitutious links. Sad mouse 19:20, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

While I understand your motivation, we should keep the reader's interest in mind. Imagine being a reader who comes to the creation-evolution controversy page after doing a Google search for "creation evolution debate". It is conceivable that this person might want to see the places on the internet which directly describe this controversy. These are mostly the creationist sites and a few sites that attack creationism. Notice that there aren't any generic sites that describe evolution linked here -- only those that are part-and-parcel to the controversy. Readers will expect some external links, especially because it is claimed that this controversy takes place on the internet. At the very least, including the links of creationist organizations and individuals we mention in this article should be done. That's standard practice for referencing. --ScienceApologist 19:24, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

If they are after a point-by-point rebuttal, like you said this is not the article, and it would be against their interest to redirect them to intellectually dishonest sites included in the Creationist list (I haven't gone through the links under the Evolution banner but would also advocate removing any that are intellectually dishonest). Links should generally be kept to the minimum, which in this case I think is the few links that address the controversy in and of itself, internal links to "evolution" and "creationism", perhaps two or three sites that deal with the point-by-point comparison in an intellectually honest manner, and links to organisations directly cited (but these should be under a title which indicates they are advocacy groups cited for their position). Reproducing the mess that Google would give you serves no purpose, in fact it is counter-productive as a higher standard should be expected from wikipedia than google for verifiability of content within attached links Sad mouse 19:45, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

I agree we have a somewhat large list of links on here, but using any type of weeding criteria such as organization notability would remove several of the evolution links as well. And while the creationist links may be well represented on other pages like Creationism, the anti-creationism links are not very well represented on Evolution, because evolution is soooo much more than responses to creationists. To weed the creationist links would appear to the layman to be biased if we do not apply the same criteria to all the links. Maybe we can come up with a criteria that we can apply evenly without losing too much of the evolution stuff. Nowimnthing 19:35, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Yes, we have to hold the evolution links to the same standard. I would like to have only those links that use intellectually honest arguments, but it is tough because I couldn't find one on the Creationist list was that intellectually honest. I am not saying that Creationism is by nature intellectually dishonest, just that the links included all used pseudo-science. So the problem is do we cull the dishonest list and make it look like evolution is over-represented? Or do we leave links in that we know are dishonest? Ideally all links would conform to the wikipedia standard of NPOV and verifibility in their content before they are present in the list Sad mouse 19:45, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

While I agree that many of the creationist websites use intellectually dishonest tactics, I don't think that this should disqualify them for inclusion in an external link section. After all, that's what this "controversy" is all about, isn't it? Readers should be prepared to see what creationists have to say about the controversy "from the horse's mouth" as it were. Anything else would strike me a bit like spoon feeding. --ScienceApologist 19:50, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

I agree. It's not about truth (in this case: scientific validity). It's just about reporting what's out there. If it's a total lie that's told throughout the US, wikipedia should report that lie and offer sources that criticize that lie (as this article does).--Roland Deschain 19:54, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Okay, I'll change the titles of the links to reflect this. Would be nice if wiki was vaguely more useful that google, just throwing up random links. An encyclopedia is meant to boil down knowledge and discard junk. Sad mouse 20:50, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Okay, how is this? I have changed the sections to basically represent debates and discussion sites, claims of Creationists, and analysis of claims of Creationists. I have shortened the list by removing the worst quality links of each section (eg fringe groups of Creationists, Creationist sites which don't really make clear claims, pro-Evolution sites that do not use scientific positions to address claims). It could still do with some tightening, but I didn't want to cull too much to start. Sad mouse 21:22, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

I don't have time right now to go link by link, but I really like the format change. It creates less of an evolution vs creationism vibe which I thought brought evolution down to their level. Nowimnthing 13:50, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

evowiki link removal

Ah man, I really like evowiki, to me it is a more dynamic and easier to navigate version of talkorigins. Maybe just a link to their List of creationist arguments? Nowimnthing 14:23, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, go ahead and put it back in. Sad mouse 14:32, 6 September 2006 (UTC) I only took it out because when cleaning up the reference list I couldn't connect to the site to take a look at it. Still can't connect now actually, but if you say it is good... Sad mouse 14:36, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

Yeah I think their site is down, I will wait until it comes back up. Nowimnthing 15:34, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

Missing link

A link which seems useful is here: are there no transitional forms? - I've not added it yet as it may be a bit specific, but it clearly addresses creationist claims. ...dave souza, talk 20:19, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

not a bad page, but it doesn't look like it has been updated in a while and I think most of that stuff can be found on pages like List of transitional fossils. The links could really get long if we start linking to pages that debunk just specific creationist assertions rather than more general ones like talkorigins. Nowimnthing 20:37, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

Good Article Dispute

Someone has opened a GA dispute entry on this article, at WP:GA/R. The accusation is that it has a bias and was primarily written by "fire and brimestone Christians", but considering the names I see on this talk page, I doubt most editors participating on this page would be so keen to let that happen. There seems to be some sort of edit war with one User:Rtc or something though, has this been just vandalism or what? Homestarmy 12:54, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Retribution for defending Raymond Damadian

Ever since I marginally defended the historical status of young-earth creationist Raymond Damadian in the discovery of MRI, my posts everywhere on Wiki have been getting deleted and reverted for what appear to be spurious reasons. Similarly, a bio I submitted, John McGinness, drew an immediate delete petition from one of the usual suspects, Duncharris, and got mobbed by people from these very pages. Or maybe they are mostly sockpuppets. With proxy servers, there is no way to be sure. Classic case of passive-aggressive behavior.

Checking the various histories, this vandalism it seems to be from people associated with the anticreationist opposition here on wikipedia. Whenever a new culprit shows up, I check around the creationist/evolutionst history pages and sure enough, their name pops up. What are the chances, out of 1.4 million entries on wiki?

Ironically, they seem to have the wrong idea. By chance, I am well-known in human evolutionary biology, having discovered one of the few examples of classic Darwinian Evolution in Humans [3]. Evidently, saying anything good about the occasional creationist (but not his ideas) is somehow heresy, even if you are an evolutionary biologist in good standing. Treating people like this only reinforces the paranoia of the creationists.

Last time I posted this here, it lasted only until one of the usual suspects discovered it and reverted, contrary to custom on talk pages. It will be interesting to see how long this lasts this time and who does the reversion. As a reflection of how deeply the lines are drawn and how there are true beleivers on both sides, I think it is quite relevant to this discussion, which is about "controversy" after all. Pproctor 02:05, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

The word "fundamentalist"

Is not NPOV... it carries negative connotations and is used in an exclusively negative sense nowadays. 203.118.158.142 00:30, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

Certain groups still use it but I agree that to many it has negative connotations. Is there an WP:NPOV other word you would prefer? JoshuaZ 00:34, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure what word could be synonymous without being even more negatively loaded. "Radical" is somewhat more harsh, and "evangelical", despite popularly being linked to fundamentalism, does not mean exactly the same thing and shouldn't be treated as a synonym. Kasreyn 06:35, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

Debate over evolution as science

One of the controversies in the minds of non-adherants to evolutionary theory is the nature of science itself. Science has always been the study of things observable and repeatable. This is why no one questions the theory of gravity: it is easily observable and repeatable. However, evolution is not. It seems this would be pertinent information to an informed and neutral article about the controversy. Why is something so fundamental to the argument missing? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Vajdaman (talk • contribs) 20:44, 25 September 2006

Creation-evolution controversy#Limitations of the scientific endeavor --ScienceApologist 20:47, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

I see that the broad stroke of the subject has been broached, but I must be missing the part I mentioned above. It might be helpful to first declare the standards of science before discussing viewpoints and whether either side has merit in light of them. --Vajdaman

"This is why no one questions the theory of gravity: it is easily observable and repeatable. However, evolution is not." That is not true. Evolution is both observable and repeatable. Especially with the advent of genetic engineering, the repeatable testing of evolution has become common place. The best example I can pull out of my head is the manipulation of major developmental genes to recreate major morphological changes in the evolution of life. Evolution is much like astronomy. More so than evolution, it is within astronomy that nothing can be repeated (which will remain true until we learn how to manipulate stars and planets). Furthermore, a direct repeat of a specific scenario is not necessary for science. Nobody can repeat the formation of the Earth, yet many theories are proposed that explain it (based on data that is repeatable); nobody can repeat the formation of a sun, yet there are volumes on the formation of suns: their birth, growth, death. The same applies to evolution: there are certain instances where evolution cannot be repeated (ie: evolution of homo sapient) but there are many other repeatable experiments that clearly show the picture of human evolution (ie: comparing genetic sequences between the human population to that of Neanderthals, comparing human genomes across the globe, etc etc). The claim that evolution was untestable and unrepeatable might have been true before the modern synthesis, but even then evolution was a solid science. With the advent of genetics and the understanding of the mechanism of evolution, many experiments have been done to confirm that evolution does indeed happen and that it can account for the biodiversit of Earth. My personal favorite is using evolutionary mechanism to create ancient proteins which actually work perfectly and have novel features (which can give us information about the animals of the past).--Roland Deschain 23:37, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Many sections need citations

There are many sections here that do not have citations and do not link to another article. This needs to be corrected or this article will be checked for original research by an administrator. #Diez2

Excuse me? First of all, that isn't with the admin duty set. Anyone can "check for OR." Second of all the article looks well-cited to me, are there particular sections or statements you have an issue with? JoshuaZ 21:11, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

A lot of the "Conflicts Inherent to the Debate" sections go uncited, namely: "Limitations of the Scientific Endeavor," "Defining Evolution," "Accusations of Bias," the Steven Jay Gould statement in reference to McLean v. Arkansas, "Religion and Historical Scientists," "Religion as Science," and the Scientism movement inside of "Science as Religion." Even if these sections could be referenced with many different sources, at least cite one of those sources. It makes the article more credible and more encyclopedic. Diez2

Oh, one more thing, anyone can check for OR, but when they try to change it, everyone accuses the person of vandalism. It's happened to me before. That's why I refer an admin to check it. Diez2

Admins get reverted too :/. Maybe if you discussed what you want to add in terms of references? Homestarmy 03:40, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

De-Listed GA

At this time, the article has been delisted from the Good Article Listings for no longer meeting the requirements of the Good Article Criteria as noted below. Once this concerns have been addressed, the editors of the article are free to resubmit a Good Article Nomination for consideration.
1. It is well written. - Weak Pass bordering on Needs Improvement

• It is clear that the Creation-evolution controversy has many spokes to this wheel with the center contention being the fact that a controversy does exist in various ways and for various reasons. The article attempts to comprehensively deal with all those spokes, seemingly all at once and the end results is an article that doesn't read with a tighten focus. As I noted in the review request on WP:GA/R "I'd be curious if we can get some valid content forks with section 4 "Noteworthy participants in the controversy" and taking info from various parts into a History of the Creation-evolution controversy." I also think the splintering of content forks will help a share in the stability because there would be less text to edit war over. I do think article would be better served as a general summary of the Creation-evolution controversy with forks to the meats and potato elements in adjoining articles.

2. It is factually accurate and verifiable. - Needs Improvement

• There is quite a few areas here that could use more referencing and cites. For brevity, I will only list a few examples but on the whole I encourage the article's editors to do a through vetting of the article in this regard.
• Some OR concerns in the Overview of the Controversy section with lines like Antecedents to the controversy can be seen in the challenges made by various religious people and organizations to the legitimacy of certain scientific ideas since the Age of Enlightenment (see Galileo and his advocacy of "natural philosophy" in relation to the Inquisition of the Roman Catholic Church). This could use a cite of a reliable source to alleviate those concerns.
• Also in the above section is the line "Most of these groups are explicitly Christian, and more than one sees the debate as an opportunity to evangelize." with the "more then one" being weasel-wordish without a cite attached.
• In Common venues for debate the line "Conflict occurs mostly in the public arena, as creationists have been unwilling or unable to publish their ideas through academic channels or in scientific journals." is there a cite that can attached to avoid OR synthesis? Creationist could prefer public venues for a different reason or how do we verify the "unwillingness" with the academic channels. It is easy to cite the "unable part" and I don't see that statement being challenged but the "unwilling" is a curiosity.
• There should also be cites attached to Official Denomination proclamations on the creation/evolution stances with the churches listed in the above section. I think research in this area will find that some of these denominations don't view the issue as black and white as it is presented.
• There is quite a few statements in the Conflicts inherent to the controversy (especially prior to the "Theory vs Fact" sub-section) that could use a cite, especially those tied to what creationist claim. The label of "Creationist" can be a broad term and claims like those definitely need a "WHO" attached to them.
• Someone added a line to the article to this effect but I agree that the section Accusations of bias needs more sources and cites.
• In Religion and historical scientists the line Since most of the scientists creationists tend to list as supporters weren't aware of evolution because they were either no longer alive when it was proposed or the idea was outside their field of study, this kind of argument is generally rejected as being specious by those who oppose creationism. could use a cite for OR concerns. I'm sure this wouldn't be difficult to find who rejects this argument. In general, this entire section could use some sourcing.

'3. It is broad in its coverage. - Needs Improvement

• This article fails on a main point noted by User:Eusebeus in WP:GA/R that is a very valid consideration to the context of this debate. "Despite an effort at the end to contextualise the debate within a global context, the fact remains that this is an overwhelmingly US-based controversy. I raised this objection earlier at FA level and it has not yet been resolved. It is not that the topic needs to be expanded to discuss other countries - the article itself makes it abundantly clear that elsewhere in the developed world evolutionary theory is not a matter of contentious public debate. Rather, the article needs to explain why this debate is happening in the US - what about American society is it that allows this controversy even to exist. For those of us in the rest of the world, THAT is the most interesting aspect of this debate."
• However, while I feel that Eusebeus point about curbing US-centricism is very relevant to an article focused on the Creation-evolution, controversy I do feel that the article's overall quality and instability is hurt by breadth of information that would be better served with supporting content forks as I noted above.

4. It follows the neutral point of view policy - Needs Improvement

• Throughout the article this is a concern and it mostly comes down to POV wording that can be rephrased in a more NPOV tone. For brevity, I will list some specific examples with emphasis on where the POV is standing out but there are more instances then these that editors should work towards NPOV. I tried to actively find examples of POV on both sides of the discussion but most of creationist POV (correctly and thankfully) doesn't last long in the article before the edits are removed or reworded. That is the proper course but unfortunately the article is still left with a lot of evolutionist or anti-creationist POV that should be dealt with just as aptly and swiftly.
• In Overview of the Controversy the line "The controversy continues to this day with the secular mainstream scientific consensus on the origins and evolution of life actively attacked and denigrated by a number of creationist organizations and religious groups who desire to uphold creationism (often "Young Earth creationism"), "creation science" or "Intelligent design" as an alternative." - I'm sure this happens at times but the wording of this phrase makes it seem like a generalize method of operation for the majority creationists. As a theistic evolutionist, I have found the majority of creationist to be more interest in active dialog and debate on the subject. That doesn't mean they are attacking and denigrating it.
• In the same section "More accommodating viewpoints include believers in theistic evolution, who see science and religion as fully compatible disciplines which ask fundamentally different questions about reality and posit different avenues for investigating it." is clearly POV on the evolution side.
• The section Accusations involving science is pretty POV'd with the powder-keg words "accusations" and "attacked" used a bit. A more NPOV would probably utilize "disagreements" and "contentions" as substitutes.
• In Science as Religion another one of the favorite POV buzz words "A popular accusation among creationists is that evolution is itself a religion based on secular humanism, scientific materialism, or philosophical naturalism."
• In Public Education in the United states we have in the second paragraphs parents who strongly oppose creationism in schools and religious conservatives who merely perceive evolution as a threat. The dynamic of that comparison is very POV. It assumes an imbalance in both perception and strength of belief.

5. It is stable - Needs Improvement

• With a topic like this, the strive for stability is an uphill battle with POV influences on both sides wanting to inch more and more in. However, it must be noted that while this is an article on the Creation-evolution controversy the editors on this page much be vigilant in not fighting the battle of this controversy here. Judging by the climate of this most recent edit war, I don't see stability potential in the near future. I hope that the editors here can come to a amicable agreement on content before this article is resubmitted for GA consideration.

6. It contains images, where possible, to illustrate the topic - Needs Improvement

• It has images to satisfy the criteria but the tags on Image:Truth fish.JPG and Image:T-Rex 200.jpg are obsolete and needs updating

Of all the issues, the referencing and the NPOV are the biggest concerns and the area that I would request the most attention to be paid to. As contentious of a subject matter as this is, the strive for NPOV must be based on a mutual level of respect among editors for the opposing viewpoint. In reading the talk page and the most recent archive as well as the recent edit history, I fret that emotions are taking their toll on both sides. The ultimate objective of an encyclopedia article is not to proclaim that any one side is the truth but rather to present the facts in as dispassioned of a matter as possible and let the reader come to their own conclusion. A conscious endeavor towards more through referencing and minimizing personal emotional investment will go a long way towards improving the quality of this article. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact me. Agne 03:09, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

Most of the above is outright ridiculous. Stability is for obvious reasons as good as it is going to get, and since the current version has the consensus of almost all the relevant editors, it is stable. The matter of NPOV has been extensively discussed on this page and indicates a deep misunderstanding of the relevant matter and what NPOV actually says, especially in regard to pseudoscience. The only claims that have any validity of the above are the sourcing matter which is serious, the writing which does need some slight improvement. JoshuaZ 03:29, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

And note further that even User:Homestarmy who is very much involved in the GA process and has argued before that related articles might not be NPOV for being essentially anti-creationist said in the GA that this article was "fine anyways" in regard to NPOV. JoshuaZ 03:40, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

Keep in mind Joshua, alot of us reviwers have slightly different standards on the GA criteria :/. For instance, whereas I might pass an article with 500 references listed at the bottom, someone else might fail the same article for having a single "citation needed" tag. I don't agree with the stability charge either, (I mean, look at the history and compare diffs down the whole line, the article doesn't really change much overall) but to me, since the article is extremely long, the few NPOV errors (like the one's Agne noticed which I didn't) seem outweighed by the non-POV parts of the article, so overall I think it barely passes. Yes, its a very subjective review process, but its worked so far :/. (Well, except for this mess concerning references on technical articles....) Homestarmy 03:46, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, it is a good thing I don't care much about the GA process anyways, or I'd have been seriously miffed by the reference debacle (it seems to have affected a lot of math and science articles that I edit). Anyways, when I have time I'll try to help with the sourcing matter which seems to be the most serious issue and then probably resubmit it. JoshuaZ 03:54, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

I was not the only GA reviewer concerned with stability as the WP:GA/R shows. Plus there are other considerations that the article needs improvement on for GA purposes. As for NPOV, I look to the guideline as it notes "As the name suggests, the neutral point of view is a point of view, not the absence or elimination of viewpoints. It is a point of view that is neutral - that is neither sympathetic nor in opposition to its subject." This is not a matter of undue weight because NPOV IS a point of view. It is not an evolutionist point of view (so why be in opposition to creationism?) It is not a creationist point of view. (So why be sympathetic to it or in opposition of evolution?). It is not even a balance point given balance weight to both sides. For several places in the articles, including the examples I noted, the article presents itself as a view that is in blatant and open opposition of part of it's subject. The solution is not (as several creationist have tried to do and were properly rebuffed) put in a "sympathetic tone" to creationism. The solution is to reword the article to remove both the tone of opposition and sympathy towards the subjects of creationism in how it relates to the creation-evolution controversy.Agne 03:56, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

Again, Agne, it might help if you a) would read the section about NPOV specifically dealing with pseudoscience and the section on undue weight and then if you could point out specific parts of this article that you think fail NPOV consistent with that. Thanks. JoshuaZ 04:02, 5 October 2006 (UTC) I still think that you need to reread the undue weight and pseudoscience sections but some of your points above may be valid. I will take a look at them in detail and adjust accordingly. JoshuaZ 04:05, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

Thank you Josh. I appreciate your consideration. I understand the concern about undue and I have no interest, whatsoever in seeing a glowing presentation of creationism as being scientifically valid. I am personally an evolutionist with theistic belief. I have personally debated against creationist and ID proponents within the realm of Christian Apologetics and how they interpret scripture (which I don't see as opposing evolution). However, regardless of my personal beliefs, I think for the benefit of this article that more can be done to not present this article as in open and blatant opposition to creationism. With some rewording the vast majority of things that appear POV can become more NPOV in tone with the same contention being made and no "undue weight" being given to Creationism. Agne 04:33, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

I am appalled by the poor language used in writing the rationale for delisting. "There is quite a few areas..."? "Is"? "...tighten focus"? Even if tighten were made into an adjective with the addition of -ed, the phrase would still be meaningless. Quite frankly, if one is to criticise the writing in an article, noting that it garners a Weak Pass bordering on Needs Improvement, I should think one would be at least a competent writer.

I note too that the delister rails about OR, then offers his/her own, noting, "I think research in this area will find that some of these denominations don't view the issue as black and white as it is presented." Then, User:Eusebeus is quoted as stating, ”Rather, the article needs to explain why this debate is happening in the US - what about American society is it that allows this controversy even to exist. For those of us in the rest of the world, THAT is the most interesting aspect of this debate." -- a real recipe for an OR section.

How would the proposed "content forks" differ from POV forks?

In discussing POV, the delister offers his/her opinion, "As a theistic evolutionist, I have found the majority of creationist to be more interest in active dialog and debate on the subject. That doesn't mean they are attacking and denigrating it.". Not to be snarky or dismissive, but who cares?

Re stability, the delister offers, "Judging by the climate of this most recent edit war, I don't see stability potential in the near future." Have ye a crystal ball? Have ye any idea that "stability" should be considered on a sliding scale given the subject matter?

Any chance this could be reformed into a complete, meaningful sentence? In Science as Religion another one of the favorite POV buzz words "A popular accusation among creationists is that evolution is itself a religion based on secular humanism, scientific materialism, or philosophical naturalism."

Re 6. It contains images, where possible, to illustrate the topic -- this is a topic that needs no bloody images.

Overall, I find the reasons for the delisting to be insufficient, poorly worded, poorly organized and poorly or barely thought out. Were I to rate this delisting on a scale of 1-10, I'd give it a 2. Maybe.

I could go on, but Josh has also raised a number of issues that needn't be raised again. •Jim62sch• 11:27, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

The failing in criteria six is because of obsolete tags not because of an absence of images. Replacing it with the proper tags is an easy fix. Secondly, the difference between content forks and POV forks is kind of obvious. One creates a sub article dealing with the a subsection of content (such as "History of the creation-evolution controversy") while the other deals with a particular POV (such as "Why Creationism is false"). As for OR, I kindly direct you to WP:OR. My request is for citations of reliable sources to alleviate OR and I mention Eusebeus' concern because it is a valid consideration in whether or not the article is "broad in coverage". I can't speak for him but I assume that he would want any addition to also be attached to reliable published sources. As for my writing, I will be glad to clarify anything that you have difficulties in understanding. Agne 11:45, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

And the obolete tags are sufficient? Come on, this could have been raised in the discussion (assuming there was one) and easily remedied at that point.

I needn't see WP:OR, but thanks for the invite.

Oh, I understood everything -- I managed to parse my way through it -- except for the incomplete sentence I noted above. Nonetheless, my point remains -- if one is to criticise the way an article is written, I expect one's critique to be extremely well-written, logical, substantive, grammatically and syntactically correct, etc. To present acritique that is anything less is to make a farce of the process.

There is also the issue of precisely how you came to decide to delist the article -- it is my understanding that you had made similar decisions regarding physics articles, and were roundly criticised for those decisions.

Also, as someone who co-wrote two Featured Articles in his first 6 months at Wikipedia, I think I know quite well what is and is not a good article, and it is my considered opinion that this article should not have been delisted. That, of course, is not to say that I see it as an FA candidate, I do not, but it most certainly is a "good article". In all honesty, I think your decision is a travesty. •Jim62sch• 12:21, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

Actually, no. I have not delisted any physics article so your source of information is obviously a dubious one. Agne 19:03, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

On the minor point, [4]

Now, what of the remainder of the points? •Jim62sch• 22:13, 5 October 2006 (UTC)