Talk:Objections to evolution/Archive 2

message: It is quite relevant why his father Kent is not available to preach, since it illustrates the point being raised in this section quite vividly.--Filll 15:27, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Eric Hovind

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thread_title: Fair use rationale for Image:Darwinsblackbox.jpg

message: This section seems to overlook the situation for which this argument was intended. In the stages that are supposed to have preceded life, such as the arrangement of protons, neutrons, electrons, etc. to form new elements, and the transition between inorganic matter, and living "primordial goo", vast decreases in entropy (disorder) would be required. Dmitri Demidov 23:22, 10 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: To start with, this is not evolution, but abiogenesis or something similar. However, most creationists etc do not know what the argument actually is that they are using, since they parrot it without having the slightest understanding of thermodynamics, science, entropy or evolution. So the 2nd law is invoked in all sorts of ludicrous situations by a large group of assorted creationists.--Filll 23:47, 10 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: (Non-sarcastically) I feel compelled to apologize for commenting on this topic with a flawed understanding of the principles about which I am speaking. Dmitri Demidov 04:41, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

text: Dmitri: It is you who are ignoring a number of facts: like the fact that "the arrangement of protons, neutrons, electrons, etc. to form new elements" has been explained by astro- and nuclear physics, working well within the bounds of the laws of thermodynamics, the fact that "the transition between inorganic matter, and living 'primordial goo'" has large potential external energy sources (most notably the Sun and volcanic vents) that would easily overcome any potential thermodynamic problems. The 2LoT argument against evolution only works if (1) you don't understand thermodynamics (and so accept some popularised approximation to it) and (2) don't look too carefully at the energy flows. Hrafn42 15:31, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Dmitri, unfortunately you've picked up a common confusion between thermodynamic entropy and the (mis)use of the term in information theory: the second law is a strong statistical probability in thermodynamics, but has no equivalent in information terms. The description of entropy as "disorder" is a 19th century analogy referring to sub-microscopic movement of molecules, and while that old idea was widely used in developing statistical thermodynamics, studies have found that it confuses students and leads to misunderstandings.  Not least amongst creationists who equate dna with "information" from their favourite deity. For further info see Entropy (energy dispersal).. dave souza, talk 18:24, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Evolution violates the second law of thermodynamics

message: Is there another wiki that discusses this?  Seems to me that lack of imagining millions of generations of small changes, and extinctions separating populations, is behind most gut objections to evolution.Wikiskimmer 06:58, 10 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: This is closely related to the "Life is too unlikely to arise by chance" argument, as the probability of a complex series of evolutionary steps happening is related to the amount of time in which it has to happen. Additionally, any calculation as to the amount of time it would take would suffer from many of the problems identified with the probability calculations (imponderable input variables, too-narrow/ex-post definition of 'success', etc). Same sort of garbage-in/garbage-out abuse of mathematics. Hrafn42 10:01, 10 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not talking about abiogenesis, that's completely different and we have even less info about that.  I'm talking about microevolution and macroevolution of organisms.  Many people accept that offspring differ slightly from parents.  They accept that populations go up and down, maybe even some extinction.  But many people do not accept that there are 100s of millions of years for these two processes to produce macroevolution.  This is a major hindrance to people accepting the seemingly rediculous proposition that amoebas can turn into worms can turn into fish can turn into humans.Wikiskimmer 12:38, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

text: If you want to look at other wikis, feel free to cull through some of them listed on my talk page at .--Filll 12:35, 10 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: okWikiskimmer 12:38, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

text: The "Life is too unlikely to arise by chance" section covers evolution as well as abiogenesis -- the "complexity" of life as well as its mere existence, although it does tend to concentrate on the latter. Certainly the "Evolutionary argument against naturalism" bit of it is about evolution not abiogenesis, though further examples and scientific counter-arguments from the post-abiogenesis end of things for the section would be beneficial. Hrafn42 12:58, 10 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  There is nothing here about objections to ''not enough time'' for macroevolution to occur. 

message: Just for info, sciam's 2002 15 Answers to Creationist Nonsense might be of use... dave souza, talk 08:38, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: 15 Qnswers

message: This issue came up in a blog entry on a recent lecture by William Dembski:
I remember this also being used by Michael Behe as a last ditch defence of his position in Dover. Is it a sufficiently prominent 'objection' to be worth mentioning? It would presumably be a sub-section of 'Objections to evolution's evidence'. Hrafn42TalkStalk 05:35, 20 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Objection that scientific research is unable to provide 'sufficient' (meaning an unreasonable level of) detail 

message: I'm not trying in the slightest to get into a debate here but I was wondering what ever happened to the talk of the man-by-dino footprints? IE,  this I don't know how it's viewed in light of today or whatnot but I didn't see it mentioned in this article. --209.247.5.131 08:22, 22 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It was shown to be the result of erosion. The talk.origins website has a complete writeup of it, and how Baugh still maintains that the tracks are of men and dinosaurs, despite all of the evidence to the contrary. --Knight of BAAWA 02:20, 23 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  What ever happened to the footprints..? 

message: This was added to the symbiosis article. It strikes me that it would much more appropriate here.  –  ornis⚙ 08:44, 5 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Symbiosis 

message: Found this on Pharyngula:
I don't know if anybody considers this to be a sufficiently important or interesting objection to be worth documenting in the article. HrafnTalkStalk 04:14, 7 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Another objection 

message: The last portion about the diffrent %s doesn't add up in the general public part. The total of the general public section is 93% not 100%. Seems off or made up or something. I'm going to tag it.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Colin012 (talk • contribs) 03:08, 7 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: The Last Section doesn't add up mathmaticly

message: needs to be flagged for both, as its very point of view towards evolution. also the sources are mostly from a usenet group, if your going to refute the claims against evolution it should be from a verifiable source, with a reputation from accuracy.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Lukeyboymcr (talk • contribs) 18:53, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: See NPOV: Pseudoscience, NPOV: Undue weight, NPOV: Making necessary assumptions and NPOV: Giving "equal validity". If you have references supporting your opinion, please check that they comply with these policy requirements and come from reliable sources suitable for a science subject, then you're welcome to raise them here. ... dave souza, talk 18:38, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: POV & unreliable sources

message: I just deleted the following from the article:
:Many creationists, however, have claimed that evolution is unfalsifiable. This is in large part because, like theories such as gravitation, evolution is so widely accepted, and its claims so foundational and broad, that it is often difficult to imagine any evidence that could disprove it.
Because it is uncited, and seeks to explain the rationale (or lack thereof) of creationists, and does so using weasel words.  Ra2007 (talk) 22:03, 14 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: And I just reinstated it, as it is fairly easily citable (I've provided one to Henry M. Morris, there are probably other around the place). Please do not delete uncontroversial material without allowing a period (between  and deletion) for other editors to provide a citation for it -- that is after all what the -tag is there for! HrafnTalkStalk 03:31, 15 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Just for the record, the  was only one of the reasons given above for the removal.  Ra2007 (talk) 19:57, 16 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removed from article 

message: hmmm...--Filll (talk) 23:24, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks, I just fixed it.  I came accros the recantation after I changed the "recant" to clarify.  Your diff excludes some intermediate edits.  Using "recant" in quotes seemed loaded, but I was wrong.  Thanks again.  Do you think we need to re-add the "quotes" or not?  Ra2007 (talk) 23:27, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  When is a recantation not a recantation? 

message: Evolution is falsifiable. So is gravity. Creationists say evolution is not falsifiable for several different reasons:
*they claim speciation happened a long time ago, so it is not observable
*they claim that the theory keeps getting altered to incorporate the observations it does not agree with
*they claim that science will never reject it
*they claim evolution is like a tautology; accepted as true because it is accepted as true
And several other reasons. We can rewrite this to address all these. We can reference Morris for example and some other sources. We can hit on one or two reasons (which I tried to do but quickly became lost in a maze of nonsense from POV warriors). But this is just getting ridiculous, frankly, and approaching WP:DE.--Filll (talk) 21:08, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: GL appears to be dead set on edit warring and being disruptive.--Filll (talk) 21:27, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Filll, I think I have a version of the test that addresses all the concerns of the people arguing here.  Can you tell me if there is a problem with the version I just wrote?  And, if so, could you clearly and succinctly tell me what the problem is?  From your point of view I am apparently disruptive, but I have to say that from my point of view a lot of people keep attempting to insert material that is either wrong, ambiguously written, or uncited (or all of the above).   Geoffrey.landis (talk) 21:32, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

text: Without looking at the actual edits, I am not sure this is required.  It might be worth pointing out that below the "save page" button a message appears:  "If you don't want your writing to be edited mercilessly or redistributed for profit by others, do not submit it." Ra2007 (talk) 21:43, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

text: In reply to GL's comment that he thinks his version "addresses all the concerns". It clearly doesn't. I have already said, above, what I think the point of the passage is, and what the simple message is. It keeps getting muddied and confused by edits which introduce tangents about relativity etc. Gravity is a good analogy as another widely accepted and falsifiable theory, which is why it merits a brief mention; but it is not the subject of the article, which is why it does not merit two lines of text with numerous wikilinks to Einstein. GL - what do you think is the key point that this passage is (or should be) making? Let's say it very simply here, and then try to write it elegantly and clearly for the article. Snalwibma (talk) 23:15, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, I'd hoped that this would be a version that incorporated Hrafn's text and explained why "gravitation" was listed in the section and what the theory of gravity has to do with the topic "Evolution is unfalsifiable", but apparently I failed.  I find this rather discouraging.  (On the other hand, the part of the article that suggested gravitation was an example of an unfalsifiable theory no longer is in the article, so maybe I should just declare victory and leave). Geoffrey.landis (talk) 01:27, 20 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  There are multiple reasons that creationists say evolution is not falsifiable 

message: The section starts with a blatant lie ("Falsifiability was proposed by philosopher of science Karl Popper as a way to distinguish between science and pseudoscience") and goes on distorting the facts. It implicitly attributes to Popper a criterion philosophy, a philosophy trying to find criteria for goodness of something or good reasons for something. Popper himself actually rejected this view and falsifiability does not have the purpose which the section implicitly presupposes. Popper not only was not a philosopher of science, he harshly criticized the whole idea of such a philosophy, as you can for example read in his essay "On the non-existence of scientific method". Passages such as "In response to this criticism of evolution, numerous examples of potential ways to falsify evolution have been proposed. J.B.S. Haldane, when asked what hypothetical evidence could disprove evolution, replied "fossil rabbits in the Precambrian era"[39] (more recently, Richard Dawkins has made a similar observation)." display the incompetence of the writer: It was actually Popper himself who mentioned and discussed such arguments years before any of the cited sources. Popper has written more than a book about evolution, a fact which the section manages surprisingly well to not even mention once. It also fails to say why Popper opposed evolution in its naturalistic interpretation in the first place, and it fruther fails to say that he never changed his mind about that, and it also fails to say that Popper was from the very beginning a stark opponent of naturalism, scientific method, evidence-based science, support for theories, probability of theories and anything else put forward to give good reasons for or to justify belief in scientific theories. Or, to put it in Popper's own words: "The purpose of demarcation has been misunderstood completely." --rtc (talk) 15:02, 23 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Ok very good. So who invented the notion of falsifiability then, if it was not Popper? And what examples of falsifiability did Popper present before Haldane? And do you have WP:RS for these points we can look at?--Filll (talk) 15:17, 23 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Popper did invent falsifiability, but not for the purpose it it claimed to have here. Popper presented the example of a car in the Precambrian era, but noted that it would contradict only common descent, not the theory of evolution by natural selection (which Popper never opposed, contrary to what the article suggests). I do not understand what makes a source reliable. All this is clearly written in Popper's works themselves, but people obviously never read them. Did you? If you want to know a source for any specific point, feel free to ask. I can recommend with minor reservations The Philosophy of Karl Popper by Herbert Keuth (not to be confused with the book edited by P.A.Schilpp that has the same title), which gives a comprehensive overview over Popper's views, including evolution, especially section 15.3 "World 3 and emergent evolution" You can find the toc of the book at  --rtc (talk) 15:39, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

text: That's correct. It's not just me who says that, it's Popper's own words. --rtc (talk) 16:46, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

text: It reflects the truth a little bit better, though I would neither claim that I didn't accidentally put POV into it here and there, nor that it couldn't be improved further. --rtc (talk) 16:54, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

text: Our falsifiability article talks about the cars in the Cambrian.--Filll (talk) 17:01, 23 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I know, I added it there. PS: I just saw Talk:Evolution/falsifiabilitydraft2. This has of course many problems of the current version. It starts with the false "A falsifiable theory is a theory that can be shown to be incorrect." Falsifiability denies that any theory can be shown to be incorrect, and if you replace it by what it means, namely "A falsifiable theory is a theory that can be critized in a logically valid way." then it is wrong. A Falsifiable theory is a theory which can be criticzed by observational statements, and it is only one kind of valid criticism. In fact, W.W. Bartley, a prominent Popperian, held that no theory at all is uncriticizable. It goes on with "This is because religious statements such as those about miracles and supernatural beings are expected to be accepted on faith, and are assumed to be true. Therefore, by definition, these sorts of beliefs cannot be tested or shown to be incorrect." This gets the whole point wrong. Anything, even scientific theories, has to be "accepted on faith, and are assumed to be true"; Popper himself admits this several times. The whole trick that Popper offers is that this is not a problem, because the modus tollens provides a logically valid escape. All valid criticism of a theory starts with the assumption that this theory is true.  Problems only ever occur is people start to try to justify their beliefs in theories or their rejection of theories. --rtc (talk) 17:06, 23 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I am not aware of an earlier source; but I wouldn't be surprised if there were one. But also note that this is surely not an original idea of Popper. This test of common descent is so obvious that hardly anyone seriously thinking about it can miss it, and I suppose that Popper took it from somewhere else. The falsifiability article is above average, but still contains a lot of passages that sound uninformed or suggestive. For example, the section on naive falsification suggests does not say, but leaves more or less the impresssion, that Popper actually held this view. --rtc (talk) 18:03, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

text: The draft article you saw is in the sandbox, where versions of the draft have sat for about a year. If you have more information or corrections, or citations, I would be glad to incorporate them.--Filll (talk) 17:36, 23 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: First of all, the sandbox article fails to explain why Popper is skeptical of naturalistic interpretations of evolution to a certain degree in the first place. His reasons for this are completely outside of the creation-evolution debate; they have to do with historicism, and he described them originally in his book The poverty of historicism. Without a reference to the respective places in this work, Popper's views on evolution can only be misunderstood. Popper thinks that a naturalistic interpretation (note that the dichotomy often made between naturalism on the one hand and religious beliefs and superstition on the other is a false one) of evolution is at danger of incorporating historicist elements, because it does not sufficiently take into account the non-naturalistic aspects of evolution, which concern the preferences of the animals and the resulting behaviour. Sure, in the course of examining the issue, he even cites creationists positively, but none of this may in any way be seen as Popper advocating creationism or even moving into the creationist direction. It might look that way, but it isn't. The sandbox article does not say that, but it certainly suggests it to a certain degree. Popper's view on evolution can be summed up as follows: "Yes, the complexity of living beings has fingerprints of will and of ends, but these are not the will and ends of some god or mysterious being, but banally the plans and wills of the living beings themselves, as they try to achieve goals and face natural selection while doing so" --rtc (talk) 18:03, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

text: I care less about Popper's personal positions, although I will try to get those correct. I am more concerned about how others have used what they perceived as Popper's positions.--Filll (talk) 18:23, 23 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: You could read D.L. Hull: The Use and Abuse of Sir Karl Popper. Biology and Philosophy 14:4 (October 1999), 481–504, which I can recommend also with certain reservations (for example, it claims that "Popper introduced his principle of falsifiability to distinguish between science and pseudoscience. In order for a formulation to count as pseudoscience, it has to pretend to be scientific"). --rtc (talk) 18:31, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

text: Please do not disrupt this discussion if you have nothing to contribute to it. For you, original research and personal opinion is any claim that contradicts mainstream opinions. So if I say that Popper wrote X and Popper wrote and stressed X several times, but the mainstream sources always want to read Y, then obviously you accuse me that I am doing original research if I point that out because I don't have a reliable, peer-reviewed paper that repeats what I say.  Sure.  There is no problem about that.  We have to ignore this policy to a certain degree if it is abused by people such as you to promote misattribution of views. --rtc (talk) 21:35, 23 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: In all fairness we have to acknowledge that throughout history many silly claims have advocated as the truth. Today the mainstream position is that to prevent all kinds of charlatans from misleading us the scientific method is a good way of removing outlandish believes from serious debates. The result is that when presented with inadequately sourced material we should accept that such a postion cannot be presented as established fact. Having said that, I do agree that this is not equal to being wrong. It merely shows that we have no independent argument to determine its veracity and therefor we err on the side of caution by disallowing anything that is insufficiently sourced.Nomen NescioGnothi seauton 10:31, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Evolution is unfalsifiable 

message: The article says: 
"the phrase "survival of the fittest" is a tautology, in that fitness is defined as ability to survive and reproduce. However, this phrase was never used by Darwin"
In http://www.gutenberg.org there are two different editions of "On the Origin of species". In one edition the phrase "survival of the fittest" is part of a headline for chapter IV. So either the article is incorrect or one of the editions was not written by Darwin. DanielDemaret (talk) 00:23, 24 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Wasn't this phrase coined by Huxley? --rtc (talk) 00:31, 24 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  As far as I know, yes. Why do you ask? DanielDemaret (talk) 00:37, 24 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I vaguely remind something like Darwin adding this in a later edition according to a suggestion by Huxley. I might be completely wrong, though, so better check it carefully. --rtc (talk) 00:41, 24 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  You are probably correct, since they were close. So can we then conclude that Darwin did use the phrase? Not coined it, but used it. The article should then be changed to reflect this. DanielDemaret (talk) 00:50, 24 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  I don't believe that something can be probably correct, but only that it can be either true or false, so I went on to refute it, which was not that hard. Survival_of_the_fittest#History_of_the_phrase tells the story; it was not Huxley, but Wallace who suggested it. --rtc (talk) 01:26, 24 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Yes, but that is irrelevant. The point is that Darwin also used the phrase in his book, but this article claims that he did not. DanielDemaret (talk) 12:59, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

text:  I am merely claiming that Darwin wrote http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext99/otoos610.txt wherein the phrase "survival of the fittest" appears. And that the current article states that he did not write it.  DanielDemaret (talk) 13:11, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

text:  Ah, I see that the signature "Filll" has corrected this error in the article now. Great! DanielDemaret (talk) 13:16, 24 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  The phrase ... was never used by Darwin 

message: As far as I can tell 99% of the article is about Creationist Objections to evolution, followed by systematic rebuttal of each argument. I think that the article should either be restructured to make this clear at start, or the title changed to fit the content a bit more precisely. The original objections by Lamarck has long term value since it has to do with the development of evolution, whereas the objections by creationists are , as far as I can tell , ephemeral (i e not likely to last for long) and parochial (seems to me to be mainly a local US phenomena. I have never heard of those arguments taking root in Europe, not even within the Catholic church. ) DanielDemaret (talk) 00:50, 24 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: This seems confused to me. You claim the contents of this article are not objections to evolution? If they are not objections to evolution, what are they? It has had this title with no problem for almost a year. Also, I will note that Lamarck did not have objections to evolution, since Lamarckian theory was essentially an early theory of evolution. Even Darwin was somewhat partial to the Lamarckian mechanism. These complaints actually are common in the Islamic world, and throughout Europe and the world; everywhere where creationism flowers (although not all places have the same mix of complaints of course). Just go to a Harun Yahya publication or website and you will see lots of those. Your comment about the Roman Catholic Church is a bit strange since the Catholic Church has had little complaint with evolution for decades. However, there are individual anti-evolution unofficial Catholic organizations (e.g., The Kolbe Center for the Study of Creation, Faith Movement, Daylight Origins Society ) and they have the same sorts of complaints and objections. So please try to learn a bit first. Thanks.--Filll (talk) 04:35, 24 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:   No, I never claimed what you wrote. I have no idea how anyone could read that into my text. DanielDemaret (talk) 12:53, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

text:  I was just commenting on the overall structure of the article, that is all.  DanielDemaret (talk) 13:26, 24 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Surely the title should at least read Objections to evolution theory instead of Objections to evolution. (Are there people who want to stop nature evolve??) Regards, Guido den Broeder (talk) 15:25, 24 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Lamarck predates Darwin, so one can hardly call his work "the original objections" to Darwin's theory of evolution.  Nor can you call his ideas objecting to the idea of evolution, since he certainly accepted-- in fact, popularized-- the fact that species changed over time.  Geoffrey.landis (talk) 18:58, 24 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  The title of the article 

message: Many of the arguments against evolution have become widespread, including objections to evolution's evidence, methodology, plausibility, morality, and scientific acceptance. 
As far as I know, this is only the case in some parts of the USA, and the objections are mostly religious. Guido den Broeder (talk) 11:11, 24 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Correct, they are certainly not "widespread" among the scientific community.Nomen NescioGnothi seauton 11:40, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

text: Correct, the arguments are only widespread in some parts the USA. DanielDemaret (talk) 13:02, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

text: I've changed the text. Guido den Broeder (talk) 13:26, 24 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  I could not have re-written it better myself :p. DanielDemaret (talk) 13:38, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

text: Agreed -- Creationist movements exist in countries such as Turkey, Australia, Britain, and a number of other European countries, although only in Turkey is the movcement as influential as it is in the US. HrafnTalkStalk 15:26, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

text: Harassment of faculty members and sending material to schools do not make widespread support. To make such a claim, you would need evidence. Guido den Broeder (talk) 15:32, 24 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Also widespread in Africa - Kenyan bishops calling for the removal of displays of homonid fossils, etc.  Guettarda (talk) 16:03, 24 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Do you have a source, and how does this constitute 'widespread'? Guido den Broeder (talk) 16:08, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

text: This is interesting. "Our articles"? Am I correct to assume that you are a member of this movement, and that your goal is to spread 'the word' all over Wikipedia? Guido den Broeder (talk) 18:55, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

text: I take that as a 'yes'. Guido den Broeder (talk) 18:58, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

text: Your attempts at diversions are futile and too late, we know you now. Guido den Broeder (talk) 19:14, 24 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: "We know you know"?  Too funny.  "Our", in English, is also used a universal possessive, that is to say, something belonging to the whole of man, or in this case, the whole of Wikipedia.  If you wish to get into a semantic debate, so be it, but brush up on your English before you are drawn and quartered.  (<-- note the preceding is known as a figure of speech, so save us the trouble of responding to nattering nonsense when you go running off to AN/I with yet another silly complaint.) •Jim62sch• 20:36, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

text: If nothing else, the English of your suggested version is poor.--Filll (talk) 18:53, 24 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It's also quite inaccurate.  Besides, Polls are Evil.  •Jim62sch• 20:43, 24 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Widespread? 

message: * Many of the arguments against evolution have become widespread, including objections to evolution's evidence, methodology, plausibility, morality, and scientific acceptance. 
** ..
* Arguments against evolution theory, including objections to its evidence, methodology, plausibility, morality, and scientific acceptability, have found some local support in the United States, resulting in the revival of discussions on school material. 
** Guido den Broeder (talk) 18:39, 24 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: If nothing else, the English of your suggested version is poor.--Filll (talk) 18:53, 24 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It's also quite inaccurate.  Besides, Polls are Evil.  •Jim62sch• 20:43, 24 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Poll

message: This section seems correct, but I feel it could be even better if it were shorter. Most is written just as well in the article "survival of the fittest".
DanielDemaret (talk) 13:21, 24 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Agreed, it's quite long. •Jim62sch• 20:45, 24 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  The section on "Evolution is unfalsifiable" is a tad long 

message: Please explain why you thought my edits violated NPOV. GusChiggins21 (talk) 05:41, 25 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: You cannot by fiat and fatwa with no sources removed sourced material from WP to push some narrow religious agenda. WP is WP:NOT a religious recruiting tract. I would be glad to give you some wikis where you might be welcome to pursue that agenda, however, such as Conservapedia.--Filll (talk) 06:06, 25 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I have not, at any point, pushed any religious agenda. You wrongly assume that, because I disagree with the biased tone of articles, and challenge unsourced statements, I must support creationism, and therefore wrongly assume all of my edits are in bad faith. That is not true, I support evolution, and when you jump on anyone who may disagree with you, you only give more weight to the fundies who claim they're being persecuted. And whatever side you think I belong to is irrelevant; I am writing for the enemy [].20:24, 25 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: NPOV

message: I'm not going to make corrections directly in the text of the article. (I'm being followed by a few contributors who tend to delete my changes en masse without giving specific objections. So we better deal with everything in advance.)
We need to clarify in the intro the positions of "most Christians". First of all, are we talking about Americans, or British, the whole English speaking world, or what? All I know about are Americans who have written books; and about poll results from Pew and Gallup. Let's talk about these for a moment.
The three main Christian positions on evolution are:
*Young Earth Creationism: no evolution has taken place
*Old Earth Creationism: evolution occurred when and where geologists and biologists say so, but the cause was God and the method was direct intervention (see miracle?)
*Theistic evolution: denied by all YECs but held by some OECs
Actually, only the first two are positions. The third is more of an attitude or commentary on the degree of compatibility between creationism and evolution.
What needs to be distinguished, however, is which aspects of evolution are being considered. Some writers see evolution as an integrated package of ideas; others see evolution as consisting (broadly) of the following parts:
#After life came into being, various forms gradually appeared over hundreds of millions of years as shown by fossils.
#Forms of life that do not adapt to the environment die out (natural selection)
#Natural forces, such as mutation,  cause new forms of life to come into being
YECs, of course, deny all three of these. OECs, however, accept #1 and #2 while denying only #3.
Sometimes this distinction between OEC and YEC gets lost in certain discussions (polemics?) which lump "all scientists" vs. "all creationists", but it's a crucial distinction. American Creationists are divided evenly between OEC and YEC. I think the polls are 45% OEC, 40% YEC, and 15% accept evolution but are not Creationists (or believe evolution is consistent with Creation) or are undecided.  Let's check the wording of the poll questions before acting on the article together, okay?
The scientific view consists of 3 (or more?) major ideas. Various schools of thought within Creationism reject all, accept some, or accept all of these ideas. I'd like the article to clarify who rejects or accepts each idea. Fair enough? --Uncle Ed (talk) 15:39, 28 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: This is a good idea, except I think the situation is more complicated than you imply, and we really have lousy data, to put it kindly. I would love it if you can bring us better sources than we have. I am constantly searching for good sources in this area and statistics. So bring them to me and I will work them in as appropriate.--Filll (talk) 22:52, 28 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Christians and evolution

message: The article contains a larger number of currents, recents etc. These need to be replaced with time indicators that do not depend on the actual time at the moment of reading. I've tagged two occurrences as examples but there are a lot more. Guido den Broeder (talk) 22:35, 29 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It looks like a violation of WP:POINT.--Filll (talk) 23:09, 29 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Not at all. GusChiggins21 (talk) 10:32, 6 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Times 

message: What am I missing here? --Filll (talk) 01:42, 30 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: In Turkey, even in universities, evolution is forbidden. This is spreading like wildfire throughout the Muslim world. It is fairly prominent in Canada, Australia, the UK, and parts of Europe as well, although nothing like it is in the US. There are related sets of beliefs in Hinduism and Judaism. As I said over and over, I prefer to keep this vague until we eventually develop an article describing its existence and prevalence worldwide in excruciating detail. Until then, this sort of off the cuff, unreferenced, unsourced throw-away comment is just irritating and just another of the "improvements" to the article in the last few weeks that just serve to destroy it. I probably at some point in the future will just revert it back several months and be done with this nonsense.--Filll (talk) 01:56, 30 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Good example of an edit by someone who is not reading the article 

message: First it says most objections are religious. This is fine, because the topic of the articles is Objections to evolution. We should be talking about objections here.
Then it uses "However" to introduce a couple of sentences about non-objections. That throws me off, because this would be a great place to mention the tiny (but significant) minority of scientists posing scientific objections.
*Robert Crowther of the Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture told Baptist Press ... [that] Intelligent Design has become such a controversial issue in academia because of the scientific threat it poses. The Scopes Trial should have settled the issue, he said, but discoveries since then have altered the discussion.
*:"What has changed is the science. We know things now and there are new discoveries being made all the time that are leading a number of scientists to not just question Darwinian evolution but to actively pursue research into Intelligent Design," Crowther said. "The thing that is driving this really is the science. We wouldn't be having the debate if there wasn't something going on in science that was causing a lot of questions to rise from most of the scientists."   —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ed Poor (talk • contribs) 17:53, 30 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: *Which precisely illustrates neither the Discovery Institute nor Baptist Press is a reliable source. The only thing that has changed is that the creationists have a better PR engine than ever before.Kww (talk) 18:02, 30 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Intro is confusing