# Talk:Orthogenesis

This article needs to be fixed to remove the editorial bias. Scholar after scholar quoted here— Levit & Olsson, Gould, Popov, Ulett, Ruse, Guyer, Schropfer— tells us that orthogenesis includes a range of ideas and that it evolved toward fully materialistic ones with no teleology or mysticism. But the framing and tone of the article repeatedly reverts to the self-serving historiography of Synthesis partisans like Mayr and Simpson. The author makes his bias clear in the comments below, referring to "God-directed evolution towards a preplanned final goal, which is what orthogenesis is about." 
No, that is not what it is about. According to historical scholars who have studied the issue and published their results in peer-reviewed venues, orthogenesis has a more general meaning and is not intrinsically mystical, teleological, or theological.  Dabs (talk) 15:11, 2 May 2023 (UTC)

Making ad hominem personal attacks about years-old on-the-fly comments is obviously deprecated by Wikipedia policy, but the article is certainly not about any editor's theme, nor are any editorial or uncited claims made. Instead, as you rightly comment, the article presents multiple reliably-cited definitions, and explores multiple viewpoints on orthogenesis; it indeed contains a cited section on "Sliding between meanings" and one on "Facilitated variation" which mentions specific molecular mechanisms. In the absence of a mechanism for many of the historic proposals, the topic does readily veer towards the mysticism of Teilhard de Chardin; whereas Croizat's arguments about developmental constraints do clearly have possible mechanisms behind them. Chiswick Chap (talk) 14:54, 21 November 2023 (UTC)
If you click on Dabs userpage, he claims to be Arlin Stoltzfus the author of "Mutation, Randomness, and Evolution" [1]. Over on Extended evolutionary synthesis he has removed a source critical of his work, Erik I. Svensson [2]. He also deleted a comment by Svensson and added his own book. As far as I can see Stoltzfus has tried to equate orthogenesis with developmental constraints [3], [4]. Not many others use this type of language so I don't think we need to go into it. Psychologist Guy (talk) 23:20, 1 December 2023 (UTC)
What I say directly doesn't matter, bc I have done no historical research on orthogenesis. The issue is what scholarly sources say.  Of the two most recent historical analyses on Orthogenesis that I have seen, the one by Popov and the one by Ulett, both use the term "constraints".  So, you are factually incorrect to suggest that "constraint" is not how orthogenesis is interpreted by historical scholars. Meanwhile, neither of these recent sources mentions the word "Progress" even though the editorial slant of this article is insistent on mixing up orthogenesis and progress and presenting orthogenesis as a defunct theory, per the demands of Synthesis Historiography. Dabs (talk) 23:42, 14 March 2024 (UTC)
I notice on the article is the line "Recent work has supported the mechanism and existence of mutation biased adaptation, meaning that limited local orthogenesis is now seen as possible" which links to three of your papers. If you believe the article is wrong and you know of other sources supporting such content you should add such material. Chiswick Chap has done good work on the article but if it needs to be updated then go ahead. I personally wouldn't support removing anything major from the article. If you know of any other good sources discussing constraints then they can be added. Psychologist Guy (talk) 00:55, 15 March 2024 (UTC)
I have no problem with the modern language of constraints (already in the article), but it's obviously a perspective from the opposite end of the telescope from the more philosophical authors cited. Removing another author's comments and inserting one's own book is clearly a dubious behaviour for any editor (I hope I don't have to cite policy on that); far better would be to seek consensus first on the talk page. I do not see any reason why the historical and historiographic sources should be seen as less valid than any other reliable sources in the literature. Sniping at them on the talk page, and repeatedly asserting editorial "slant", is unhelpful at best and a direct violation of WP:NPA at worst. The article correctly spans the topic from its origins to modern times, representing many reliably-cited points of view, including but not limited to the modern one of developmental and evolutionary constraints. Chiswick Chap (talk) 11:18, 15 March 2024 (UTC)