Talk:Natural selection/Archive 3

message: Let me then also explain my reasons for resigning from editing this article.
For the past few days, I have been trying to mediate the discussion between the increasingly entrenched views of different editors here. I sympathise with most of the points raised, and have repeatedly applauded various efforts made in expressing views and trying to achieve consensus. I feel that particularly those editors that have repeatedly made attempts at achieving consensus have been unduly attacked - but I would be repeating myself. Often, all that could be brought against such edits was a destructive criticism of the choice of vocabulary. This is entirely unnecessary, and I would strongly suggest to the admin involved that he reconsider either his role in this discussion or his admin status. Repeated reverts do not lead to progress.
On several occasions, I have restrained myself from editing the article myself in order to not deepen the conflict that exists here. In fact, I have on several occasions copyedited edits that I did not entirely agree with.
Finally, I have been fed up with the repeated unwarranted rudeness inflicted upon myself and others. If we cannot be civil, we should not be pretending to be capable of such a fine cultural achievement as Wikipedia.
Yours gravely,
Samsara contrib talk 21:05, 23 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: If you're all referring to the reversions of Macrosantezana's efforts, frankly, his/her prose is extremely bad, and I agree with the reversions. The level of bickering on this talk page is minimal. If you think this is heated, you ain't seen nothin'. I think you're overreacting. Also, I'm not sure where you detect rudeness, Samsara. This is a minor tiff at best, and suggesting that SLR needs to abandon his admin status (?) is out of all proportion. Graft 06:12, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

text: I am going to make a serious attempt in the weekend, by generating a version in the sanbox of my own user pages. I would appreciate the input of you on that. --KimvdLinde 01:19, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statement of resignation 

message: * DARWIN - Origin of Species 
:But if variations useful to any organic being do occur, assuredly individuals thus characterised will have the best chance of being preserved in the struggle for life; and from the strong principle of inheritance they will tend to produce offspring similarly characterised. This principle of preservation, I have called, for the sake of brevity, Natural Selection.
no more synecdoche, i apologize.  let's read this thing again:  "if variations useful [...] do occur" ... "individuals thus characterised"[... will be] "preserved in the struggle for life".  read: will survive.  
"This principle of *preservation* I have called[...] Natural Selection" [my emphasis].  
the guy couldn't be that stupid and he wasn't.  initially i didn't care about reading carefully the passage since it was so wrong what it was purported to say.  and wrong it was, but not what darwin wrote but rather the reading made of him by people who obviously do not know how to read victorian english. 
again:  variations useful to you (read: that make you function better) increase your chance of surviving.  who survives has been naturally selected.  period.  the inheritance thing is separated by a semicolon.  know anything about punctuation?
what is saddest here, however, is the biblico-exegetico-literalist attitude of too many:  e.g. if darwin wrote it, even if patently obfuscating and wrong, it must be right.  Unfortunately this does not bode well for wiki since scientists produce tons of garbage even when their texts are read correctly.   wiki should be an instance in which one makes sense or dies regardless of one’s medals,  not a place in which supine exegetes display their ability to embrace and rationalize any idiocy as long as it is backed by some monumental philopautic oeuvre.  
since when does it make sense to use the same word for a cause and its (sometimes) result ?  can anybody profit from such a disorderly verbalization? 
since when it is good for anything to say that A=B but A is not always equal B?  ("natural selection is the same as evolution by natural selection but curiously natural selection not always results in evolution by natural selection" [sic]).  this stuff is truly only for very insightful minds, indeed.    
p.s. note the laughable circularity of the wiki entry to debunk circularity.  with defenders of evolution like these who needs creationists.  :(  Marcosantezana 05:32, 4 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Evidence for Position 2

message: From the Encyclopedia of Life Sciences:
* Natural Selection: Introduction 
* Adaptation and Natural Selection: Overview 
--Rikurzhen 05:08, 4 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Some sources to look at for inspiration 

message: Marcosantezana proposes the following arternative:
:Natural selection is the process by which individual organisms endowed with favourable traits come to reproduce more than those displaying less favourable traits.  Natural selection evaluates the performance of organisms in the struggle for existence as determined by each individual's phenotype (traits) and by the way these differ from those of other individuals. When traits favored by natural selection are heritable, their frequency will tend to increase over the generations resulting in adaptive evolution.  Natural selection is the force driving the evolution of adaptive organismic characteristics, can let populations become different from each other until they become different species, and is a central organizing concept of modern biological research.
:The term was introduced by Charles Darwin in 1859 in his book The Origin of Species, in analogy to how farmers select individuals that display desirable characteristics in the hope of improving crops or live stock (see artificial selection).
I have serious problem with this text for the following reasons:
*It is at various places incorrect English Example: individuals [...] come to reproduce. Individuals do not come to reproduce, they just do.
*By writing Natural selection evaluates the performance of organisms, it suggests an entity (as the farmer in artificial selection) who judges the performence of the individuals in front of him/her. The venue that s/he uses to evaluate the individuals is the struggle for existence, as if nature is sitting at the site as a jury observing the performace of ths indiviuals, and than makes a decision. Along the same line, endowed includes an action by an actor. 
*Natural selection not only leads to differential reproduction, but also to differential survival. (Which a anonymous editor changed with the edit summary: Read a biology book!)
Because of these arguments, I have reverted the text. Could you be so kind to contribute here at the talk page on this lead section, that would be appreciated. --KimvdLinde 09:14, 8 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Marcosantezana proposal

message: I started to doubt myself. Maybe KimvdLinde was right? Maybe Darwin's defintion emphasising increase in frequency of good characteristics is no longer in use. Maybe it's not mainstream, and maybe Dictionary.com has not got it quite right.
I returned home to London from Toronto, and went to the largest bookstore on Oxford St. I found myself in the basement surrounded by science books, biology books. Would there be any concesus? Would the defintions be limited to differential reproduction or would they go further? I had a sneaky look at Darwin to reassure myself he was talking about a response. 
A dictionary of science: 'a process by which, according to Darwin, new species can evolve'. Too generic so I needed more. I looked at genetics books, books on evolution, biology text books, dictionaries of science, of biology, of zoology. And only 2 books out of the 20 I consulted defined natural selection as pure and simple differential reproduction. One went out of its way to try distinguish selection from the outcome of selection but the rest did not. Some talked about a wider theory, 'a process, that according Darwinism that results in the evolution new species...' but nearly all the rest mentioned in one form or another propagation of good genes, heritable traits, change in gene or allele frequency in a population. All of these alluded to inheritance as part of the defintion and the build up of favourable heritable traits over generations, and many defined natural selection in terms of this build up. Dictionary.com is not wrong after all. Phew! — Axel147 15:11, 08 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Axel, what is different from that with what I am saying? --KimvdLinde 15:49, 8 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: My recollection - I do not have the book on me - is that Darwin defined natural selection as the process by which beneficial traits are passed on and increase over time, and harmful traits are eliminated.  Everything else is icing on the cake - either working out how this actually happens, modeling it with mathematics, or exploring the philosophical ramifications. Slrubenstein   |  Talk 16:48, 8 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: He describes the process using the prerequisite of available heritable variation to describe what the result/effect is of the process of Natural selection. Stabalizing slection also increases the number of good genes, as does directional selecion. --KimvdLinde 16:53, 8 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Axel's book review

message: this nonsense should finally end.  it's differential reproduction.  the citations of darwin are ambiguous.  what secondary sources say about what scientists mean is unimportant.  finally the idiocy of saying A=B but at the same time A is sometimes not equal B is indefensibly pernicious.  scientific verbalizations are not poetry.
—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Marcosantezana (talk • contribs) .
:There are two different things going on. One is that you single handed, and against the consensus archieved here at the talk page, edit new pieces that have been inserted. The language of those pieces is suggesting something different than you want to say. Secondly, this article is not your property (see Wikipedia:Ownership of articles#Control of Wikipedia articles), and as such, you might have to compromise at places with other editors. I think you and I are pretty much at the same page, and we both want the focus on the mechanism. However, as you do exactly yourself, a mechanism is often easiest explained using its outcome (see your gazelle example). Instead of continuing this slow edit dispute and have the twice/trice dailey reversions from one version to the other, it might be nicer to discuss here, bring your arguments forward, and get consensus. I have made it one of my projects to get Natural selection article that deals with the current usage of the term, is clear to the wide public, understandable, written in good English, deals adequatly with all the confusion that is surrounding this term and explains the change in the usage of the term over time. I hope you want to be cooperative on this, instead of the continued push of your own version. --KimvdLinde 18:23, 8 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Marco, before you claim again that it only differential reproduction, I suggest that you brush up your knowledge by reading section 6.2 Reproductive effort and survival, page 157-172 of Roff, D. A.  1992.  The Evolution of Life Histories. Theory and analysis.  Chapman & Hall, New York. After reading, it will be clear that in cases of a negative genetic correlation between survival AND reproduction, a reduction in life reproductive effort (for example with 10%: 0.9R) resulting in a disproportional better survival (for example 20%: 1.2S) will result in a increase of the underlying genes (0.9R * 1.2S = 1.08 versus 1 in the unchanged situation) and result in adaptive evolution. As such, both survival AND reproduction are of importance for NatSel. --KimvdLinde 01:48, 9 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: don't be ridiculous. differential reproduction includes mortality. didn't you read the cute gazelle example i kindly included for your mommie ?  ;) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Marcosantezana (talk • contribs) . as posted at my talk page --KimvdLinde 06:09, 9 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Sigh. Differential reproduction of the GENOTYPE, not individuals. And NatSel acts on the individuals, even in kin selection. For individuals, survival and reproduction are of importance. --KimvdLinde 06:29, 9 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Discussion with Marcosantezana

message: I would like to know whether there are any editors out there who are willing to work on this page, and want to seek consensus about the text of this article, or that we let the page go to the most persistent editor despite that it is unreadable and factuall incorrect at places. If so, please let me know here. --KimvdLinde 06:29, 9 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Request: is there interest to make this a good page by discussion and seeking consensus?

message: I think people might find this interesting. Ernst Mayr The_Growth_of_Biological_Thought persuasively argued that "Darwin's theory of evolution" actually consists of five theories:
#Evolution as such
#common decent
#gradualaness
#populational speciation
#natural selection
--KimvdLinde 23:21, 10 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ernst Mayr on Darwin 

message: I have filed a mediation request. The current situation is not going to work, and I think it is time for a different type of action. --KimvdLinde 08:12, 12 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: removed RfM tag. KimvdLinde 16:47, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

text: You can indicated yourself here there that you do not want mediation. --KimvdLinde 08:20, 13 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Mediation request filed

message: I have created a page at my own userspace User:KimvdLinde/Natural selection for the development of a Natural selection page based on discussion and consensus. I will copy pieces from here to there when consensus is reached, but also feel free to discuss there at the talk page or to edit the main page, as long as you are willing to discuss about the topics, and strive to reach consensus. KimvdLinde 19:01, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sandbox development 

message: What a wonderful book by John Endler (1986) Natural Selection in the Wild describing exactly what we have been talking about over that last few months! I have never read it before. Thanks to Pete Hurd for providing it. Endler's Chapter 1 or highlights below. We would not have been debating this so fiercely if it were not the case that both defintions are used. Endler refers to the defintion apparently favoured by Kim et al. as phenotypic selection not natural selection.  — Axel147 11:57, 15 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: So I agree with Endler that,  'To say natural selection is synonymous with phenotypic selection is to trivialize it—this is tantamount to saying that there are differences among different phenotypes, which can easily lead to tautolgy.'   I hope this persuades Kim and others to do justice to the wider defintion as a current defintion not a historical one. — Axel147 11:57, 15 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Axel, do you want to solve the issue which definition we have to use, or are we going to document the variation in how the definition is used over time upto these days? --KimvdLinde 16:21, 15 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It is not possible to do the latter until the former is resolved. — Axel147 20:24, 15 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Why not? KimvdLinde 20:34, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

text: And the short answer is, NO, this is not convicing, as he defines the differences between NatSel and drift not by the process, but by the prerequisites and the need to distinsuish them in studies. Furthermore, he first defines it, and shows that the other definitions are not good, because they do not fit the definition..... Talking about circular arguments. --KimvdLinde 16:21, 15 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Kim, I wish you would have the grace to accept there are 2 defintions currently in play. We may disagree which is the most important or most widely used and can worry about the history later.  — Axel147 19:52, 15 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I did that already here: Talk:Natural_selection#To_define_or_not_to_define. Yes, I agree that there are several defintions going around. That is why I think that we have to avoid to define it in detail. KimvdLinde 19:59, 15 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: That is a cop out, avoiding the issue. What fun creationists will have if we can't even define it. — Axel147 20:24, 15 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It is not our place here to solve the definition issue that is obviously present within the scientific community, that would original research in conflict with WP:NOR. It does not change the machanism, just what is exactly included in the defintion or not (aka, is the response to selection part of the definition, or not). KimvdLinde 20:34, 15 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Maybe we can't solve it but I think we should present all widely accepted defintions rather than no defintion, as neutrally as we can. — Axel147 20:39, 15 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: There are two widely accepted definitions. Besides that, how are you going to judge which of the two is wider accepted? That in itself is also original research. KimvdLinde 20:45, 15 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Endler - Thankyou! 

message: I have now read most of Sober's Nature of Selection. I was hoping he would tackle the definition question but he doesn't do so as directly as Endler above. He asks whether "the fit tend to survive" is a tautology but doesn't say whether this is equivalent to Natural Selection. Despite this, I have to conclude that Sober uses natural selection in the 'phenotypic' sense but for him the debate is unimportant:
:When conjoined with assumptions about heritability, natural selection may account for why 50 percent, or all, or none of the individuals in a population have opposable thumbs.
Sober says phenotypes are selected with certain properties. His focus is not whether the properites are heritable: it is whether the properties are the cause of selection (selected "for") or whether they are free-riders. The fact that there are two widely held definitions of natural selection is unfortunate. It does not help understanding. The best we can do is identify both.
— Axel147 13:12, 19 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Futuyma does discuss the two different defintions and than for the clarifty, adopt one for the book without making an explicite choice. KimvdLinde 16:48, 19 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Good. I have never read Futuyma. Hopefully we can put clarity in the article (without adopting either defintion). — Axel147 17:05, 19 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I am waiting till the RfM gets closed because of non-response (Marcosantezana has still not responded there). After that, I am going on with other paths to resolve this conflict. KimvdLinde 17:12, 19 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: RfM has been rejected, becasue of non-response of Marcosantezana. KimvdLinde 04:51, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

text: At the end of the day this is just use of words. Both definitions can be expressed 'cleanly'. In my opinion using Natural Selection in a narrower sense than originally used by Darwin leads to confusion, particularly among the general public.  I think it would be better to use some other term such as  'phenotypic selection'  for the narrower meaning. Maybe this would confuse some scientists but I think most would be intelligent enough to recognise the 2 positions. My focus is not to confuse the general public. However I have not been trying to change the status quo: I am just trying to report what's out there. — Axel147 21:01, 22 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Phenotypic selection is a term I never heard yet beyond Endler. I would argue against it as it is kind of introducing a different term to descibe something that is normally also called NatSel. I have been busy the last days, but I will see if I can come up with an defintion paragraph that clarifies most issues. --KimvdLinde 21:16, 22 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Well there are 111,000 hits on Google. Though I admit it doesn't seem to be widely used. (And when it is used it appears to be frequently used to distinguish artificial selection methods that focus on phenotype from those that focus on the gene.) — Axel147 21:23, 22 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sober 

message: I have filed a request for Arbitration with regard to Marcosantezana here.KimvdLinde 06:43, 21 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The case has been accepted, and can now be found here: Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Marcosantezana. KimvdLinde 05:35, 27 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Request for Arbitration 

message: Just to muddy the waters some more, I looked at an old version of Dictionary of Genetics by King and Stansfield (5th edition, 1997).  The definition it gives for Natural Selection is: "the differential fecundity (q.v.) in nature between members of a species possessing adaptive characters and those without such advantages."  This definition is essentially unchanged since the second edition in 1972 (the only two copies I possess).
An encyclopedia should be readable by an educated audience, but still ring true to professionals in the area.  All the recent introductions I have seen fail the readability test. Ted 20:25, 22 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree! Ideas enough, just not the time for it because I do not want to start an edit war. But it will come. KimvdLinde 21:01, 22 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Dictionary of Genetics 

message: The header was edited to include:
Herbert Spencer's term survival of the fittest was later introduced as an alternative, and is still commonly used, but loses the analogy and can be misleading if "fittest" is not read as "best fitted".
instead of "it is comonly described as survival of the fittest".
Now, the former may be technically and semantically correct, but in the lead paragraph it amounts to needless pedantry.  Of course we can include this stuff, but we appear to be trying to get the entire article into the lead the whole time!  At its root, this is a very simple concept.  Why not state it simply?  It has underlying complexities.  We can explore them, but there is no need to intimidate / confuse / bore the pants off the reader with them in the first sentence! Just zis Guy you know? 23:48, 23 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  This is what I mean... 

message: how about doing some real work, folks?  these two sections will be very hard to write and are very complex conceptually.  no, writing "fitness is the process *in*[sic] which" won't cut it. ;) Marcosantezana 06:14, 25 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  need sections on "fitness" and on "measuring natural selection in the wild" 

message: Removed Wallace ref and puff. This is about NS. In any case Darwin and Wallace corresponded, cooperated and agreed on publication timetable.
The Modern biologists para doesn’t make good sense and needs a reference.
NS is about much more than “non-random diffs in repro”. What the ref to random or non-random all the time? Mccready 05:35, 26 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  further work 

message: Note to Marcosantezana: your failure to discuss your edits is not good WP behaviour. pls do so. Mccready 05:35, 26 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Marcosantezana

message: Concerning the following two sentences:
Individuals best adapted to their environment survive and reproduce. Those not adapted do not survive.
Strictly speaking, these statements are not true.  There is always randomness involved: "Individuals best adapted to their environments are more likely to survive and reproduce.  Those less well adapted are less likely to survive."  However, I'm worried that once we start correcting these mistakes, the paragraph will become quite unreadable.  On the other hand, it allows some editors to state categorically that the paragraph is wrong and to undertake major rewrites.
On the third hand, it is small things like this that have forced me to tell my students that I will mark down any papers that use Wikipedia as a source (normally half a grade for each such reference).  Of course, my students are not the intended audience for Wikipedia.
: I strongly prefer the longer version.  I don't think it's onerous reading, and don't view this as the thin end of the wedge. Pete.Hurd 00:32, 27 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Another first paragraph concern 

message: I think we should rename this article to Darwinain natural selection. The focus is to much on his ideas, and not enough about the current understanding of that idea. We can than also make a seperate article about the current usage of that term. KimvdLinde 05:08, 27 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: To explain a bit more. I think the lead paragraph is getting worse, not better. And I think there are to many people who are to much focussed on Darwin this, Darwin that. I think we have to seriously think about NatSel, but I have the feeling that splitting the article in a Darwinian and a modern version might be needed. KimvdLinde 05:28, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

text: Why? It is not NatSel as we use it nowadays. KimvdLinde 06:00, 27 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  With separate articles already for History of evolutionary thought, Inception  of Darwin's theory and Development of Darwin's theory I would argue that the stuff of historical interest ought to go there, and this article represent current state of the art.  On the other hand, having a Darwin's five different definitions of natural selection page might mean we don't have to regularly re-debate this issue here (last debated on March 14th).  I get the feeling that a modern definition is going to be easier than deciding what Darwin *really* meant, but most useful would be something that avoids this debate again in two weeks when someone else comes along and decides that the wrong Darwinian definition has been used.  Perhaps relegating discussion of Darwin's various definitions to a subsection, with a sentence in the lead section saying that Darwin used the term to mean a number of different things, but scientists now use the term to mean FOO BAR BAZ. Pete.Hurd 06:05, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

text: Why should we be concerned with highy specific aspects when we can not even get the basics right? KimvdLinde 06:00, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

text: Sorry, the current definition is evolution/adpatation by means of natural selection, which is not natural selection, but the result of prolonged natural selection. KimvdLinde 17:55, 27 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I disagree.  Take out the last sentence of the second paragraph.  Change "less adapted" to "least fit" and "adapted" to "most fit".  It may be poor English, but it is a core definition of natural selection.  I would love to take out the last sentence.  However, I can read adapted in a non-evolutionary sense -- and it may actually be understood better by the general public than using fitness.  I guess I'm not ready to tear apart this article over one sentence and a couple of words. Ted 18:12, 27 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, I am ready to do that, precisly over the type of arguments you are putting forward. KimvdLinde 18:33, 27 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I didn't realize I had such power. I'll not stand in your way.  Chalk another one up for your side. Ted 19:32, 27 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Darwinain natural selection 

message: I was for a conference out of town, and I just was reading the new talk just now. So, where are we? We are at a point that the article is still bad, does not get improved, all specialist leaving the ship. Where are we going from here? KimvdLinde 23:04, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: And for those interested, I will continue to work on an seperate article in my user space User:KimvdLinde/Modern_usage_of_natural_selection and I invite those who want to contribute to it. KimvdLinde 23:40, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  General response to talk of last week

message: I see numerous Marcosantezana edits on Kin selection, some of which are clearly POV.  However, the pre-Marcos version contains errors according to natures' reviewer.  So a wholesale revert seems inappropriate and a more detailed approach may be necessary.  JeffBurdges 19:25, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yup. Same problem as here. KimvdLinde 23:04, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Kin selection]]