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Statistical species

I can't remember who it is that always puts the notion forward that Darwin was the first to conceive of species in statistical terms. For example, "Beginning with Darwin, "species" were conceived in statistical and historical terms; actual individuals were expected to be different, with most diverging from the average form and species were viewed as variable and intergrading units." - This is an error and it was already debated a long time ago. Darwin didn't just start to look at species in statistical terms and this doesn't help to explain the concept. It is both historical and statistical - not just statistical. Moreover, Darwin didn't use those terms - he did not refer to divergence from an average archetype, for example. That was not the language he used and it isn't the sort of language that helps the general reader understand what a species is, so I really wish the person who keeps putting the statistical context in here would stop it. If you want to put a statistical element in this article - describe it in the appropriate section - like Templeton's cohesion species concept, or something to that effect.Thompsma (talk) 03:16, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

It's in the history of course: e.g. [1]. (User:Slrubenstein). I wish you good luck in this quest. I agree with you concerning the subject matter. But Slrubenstein is very tenatious and very skilled at playing according the Wikipedia rules. --Ettrig (talk) 07:47, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

I agree, it should be removed or changed. danielkueh (talk) 15:02, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

I had gone ahead and changed it anyway. Thanks for the link to the history of this - I was going to look it up if the discussion started up again. I remember that Slrubenstein keeps referring to the following reference: Louis Menand (2001) The Metaphysical Club New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux 123–124 in defence of his statistical argument. However, that book is not about evolution - although some content within the book talks about Darwin - its primary focus is about metaphysics. It is fine as a reference as a Pulitzer winning book on metaphysics - but obscure in evolutionary literature and I know that Slrubenstein will disagree with this. However, I am also convinced that Menand's book never stated that Darwin saw species only in statistical terms and I would like to see the specific quote from the book. If you want to read a paper on the metaphysics of species by an author who has written extensively on evolution (David Hull) - you can read: Hull, D. L. (1967). The metaphysics of evolution. The British Journal for the History of Science, 3(4), 309-337[2]. There are additional references to other metaphysical papers on evolution in that paper and I can provide links to more recent discussions in this direction - none that present this statistical notion. Darwin wrote about varieties and incipient species - his notions of species was about divergence and extinction increasing the gaps between varieties.[3] He did not subscribe to the Aristotelian essences nor did he think of them as unreal as the nominalists (e.g., Buffon) would suggest. Darwin agreed that species evolved - so they couldn't be unreal.[4] Nowhere in this history, in my readings from Aristotle, Linnaeus, John Ray, Buffon, Cuvier and up to Darwin do I find any hint an idea that would even come close to resembling the statistical idea that Slrubenstein is trying to portray here. I don't have access to Menand's book and really don't feel like purchasing a copy - it isn't in our library either. However, I have read the complete works of Darwin many times over and I am aware of the influence of Malthus and know that Galton was his cousin. However, none of this leads to to believe that Darwin only viewed species in a statistical context. Darwin never used these words and in all my readings of philosophers and evolutionary biologists since Darwin have I come across this idea. It is abundantly clear that Darwin's species were historical in the ancestral descendant context and they were divergent in the context of natural selection. If you want to argue the divergence of characters as a statistical concept - I am fine with this, but that was never the terms that Darwin used.Thompsma (talk) 17:12, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

I have found the following information about Darwin's statistical inquiries: "It was not until 28 September 1838 that he read Thomas Malthus's Essay on the principle of population—‘for amusement’, he later recalled.86 Yet, as Janet Browne has written, he was ‘clearly following up lines of inquiry relating to individual variation, averages, and chance, as well as seeking information on human population statistics’."[5] I followed up on the citation 86 - which is Browne's Voyage, but you can also find online her more recent work on Darwin where she states: "Natural selection, as [Darwin] viewed it, was a completely different theory, in which an organism's adaptation to its conditions of life was firmly based on statistics and the rules of chance."[6] This accords with my synopsis above "divergence of characters as a statistical concept" - (i.e., chance in natural selection), but is a far fetch to a statistical species concept.Thompsma (talk) 19:38, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

Menand's book is not about metaphysics; I find it hard to believe than anyone who has read it would think that. Moreover, the claim is not that Darwin used the word "statistics." The claim is that a view of the concept "species" as statistical was an essential condition for Darwin's theory. Thompsma argues that for Darwin species were "historical and statistical" and non only statistical, but these are not mutually exclusive; that the conception of species is tatistical is tied up with viewing actual species historically. I would nver argue that biologists' views of evolution be excluded from this article. But the views of intellectual historians (like philosophers of science or sociologists of science) should not be excluded either. Slrubenstein | Talk 22:19, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

Hi Slrubenstein...was waiting for you to return onto this boring topic - especially the continued reference to Menand's glorious book (and I'm sure it is a good book). This argument is boring and it is wrong to belabour on this issue. I'm fully versed in the history - I've read the works of Aristotle, I've read through the natural theology from John Ray and the works of Paley, I've read the complete works of Darwin, I've read the complete works of de Vries, and so on...the idea you are trying to put forward is peculiar. I wonder if there is someone else in here who can help us? I haven't read Menand's book and have asked for you to provide the appropriate quote. I am not arguing that his book be excluded - but I am suggesting that you are misinterpreting his book, because it is a Pulitzer winning book and I'm sceptical that it could achieve that kind of status making the kind of argument you are making here. Here is an example of what Darwin thought of statistics:

"If Darwin had received and read Mendel's article, he would have found a detailed analysis of the frequencies observed for different inherited traits from generation to generation of the edible pea. But these results were given in a mathematical form that might have put Darwin off from reading any more of the article. Darwin said that: ‘Mathematics in biology was like a scalpel in a carpenter's shop – there was no use for it.’"[7]

Realizing, of course, that you have stated that the claim isn't made that Darwin used statistics in his writing - it is clear that he wasn't thinking in these terms. Moreover, if you flip through "Evolution: the history of an idea" by Bowler (1989)- you will note how he discusses the rise of statistical influence around the turn of the 20th century - strongly influenced by Galton. I understand what you are trying to get at by saying that the Greek essences or ideals were changed to "probabilities rather than determinism". Perhaps you are referring to the work of Buffon? I would hardly Buffon's natural science statistical, which didn't even come around until 1663. Mendel and de Vries were the first to start to investigate statistics as de Vries communicated with Galton and his colleagues to learn how stats worked so that he could understand Mendel and put forward his own theory on pangenetic inheritence. Much of what was going prior to that time was based on natural theology. Comte de Buffon (from 1749–1788) is one of the exceptions, as he rejected the notion of ideals subscribed to the notion of natural laws that could be discovered through investigation. I've read the complete works of Buffon (picked up his encylopedia's in a used book bin!!) and I didn't get the impression of the statistical notion that you are trying to present. Linnaeus in his economy of nature (also influenced Darwin) kinda went in this direction - but it had more to do with ecology. " but these are not mutually exclusive; that the conception of species is tatistical is tied up with viewing actual species historically. " Who cares!?? - It does not help to explain the concepts, it is an incorrect interpretation, and I think you really need to step back and ask yourself - why are you so in love with this idea? It does not hold up to the lens of history as I have read it. You have been in here for a number of years and clinging to this pet idea so dearly when there is so much more. What is so important about your wrong idea? So just drop this stupid point.Thompsma (talk) 22:38, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

"Menand's book is not about metaphysics; I find it hard to believe than anyone who has read it would think that." - I hadn't read the book (stated that already). It is listed under metaphysics in the bibliographic information. Reviews about the book have talked about its metaphysics content. It even shows up in the journal The Review of Metaphysics.[8] Plus I interpret from the title: "The Metaphysical Club" - that it has something to do with metaphysics. Just sayin..Thompsma (talk) 22:51, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

Can we just resolve this with a vote and be done with it? danielkueh (talk) 23:12, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

So you think my idea is stupid. Sorry, I am not going to stoop to your level of argumentation. You think that "there is so much more" and so what? You have added a lot to the article, which I have not challenged - most empiricists would take this as evidence that I think there is much more to be added to the article. Anyway, you do not own this article. That Menand interprets Darwin differently from you is neither here nor there. When you publish your views in a reputable outlet, as Menand has, we can include your historical interpretations. Slrubenstein | Talk 23:14, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

It is stupid to argue one single point so vehemently and I'm going to delete it because what you have written and what I read in the quote by Menand are two different things. I'll keep deleting it, because it doesn't belong here.Thompsma (talk) 23:30, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

Why are you acting like such an asshole? You will keep on deleting it? Is this acting in good faith? Look, it is not my wording, it is wording a number of editors arrived at. if you can improve upon it, fine. But it expresses accurately a view from a verifiable source. So you can't just keep editing it because you think it is so stupid. Maybe I hit a nerve when I suggested you publish your own ideas about intellectual history in a reliable source. Sorry. But the fact remains, until you have published your own ideas about intellectual history, you cannot force your views into Wikipedia. Se WP:NOR. Slrubenstein | Talk 23:39, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

I also removed the Menand text because it is controversial. So far, three editors (myself included) are not in favor of its inclusion. I think we really need to to look closely at WP:consensus, WP:identifying reliable source, and WP:Fringe before deciding whether or not to include it in this article. I would like to invite other editors to weigh in on this issue as well. In the meantime, I recommend that everyone take some time to cool off a little bit. It's the weekend. :) danielkueh (talk) 23:43, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

It comes from a reliable source (and was part of this article for quite a long time - at least 2006). If you have another view and it comes from a reliable source, please add it. At Wikipedia, we do not delete content that comes from reliable sources. Instead, following NPOV, we work to ensure that other views are included. The Menand text is not controversial among intellectual historians. But you seem not to like it. So? At Wikipedia, your not agreeing with something is actually a reason to include it. As editors we have to include things we do not agree with, as long as they come from reliable sources - this is the heart of NPOV. Slrubenstein | Talk 23:56, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

For starters, perhaps you could list the editors or at least provide a link to a discussion thread that shows a number of editors who have agreed to the following text:

• With the Enlightenment, natural scientists began to view regular patterns in nature statistically (that is, in terms of probabilities rather than determinism[27] and historically through connections to the fossil record.

As you well know, the duration of time is not reason enough to include a text in a Wikipedia article. For example, if there were false, misleading, or unsubstantiated information in any article, it would be removed, regardless of the duration that it has spent in that article. The statement such as "that natural scientists from the enlightenment onwards began to see regular patterns statistically" is indeed an incredible statement, even by today's standards. I know many prominent scientists, and many of them know nuts about statistics. So far, you have only one source written by a non-scientist to support that statement. As prominent as Menand is, he is not a notable figure on this subject. If you are going to include the views of philosophers and/or historians of science, you are better off citing academics such as Kuhn or Popper. Thus, it is not a question of including other views, but a question of providing high quality sources that are notable and relevant to substantiate a claim. The more I look at this, the more it appears that the above statement is potentially a WP:Fringe view. You would need to provide another reference not associated with Menand, preferably a peer-reviewed reference, that says almost word for word the above statement (see WP:Fringe:reliable sources). Otherwise, it really should be removed or at least not given such prominent sitting in a major section of this article. danielkueh (talk) 01:56, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

Slrubenstein - it is not the book, it is your interpretation of what is said in the book that is the problem. Your incorrect interpretation does not accord with the history or philosophy of evolution proper - and if you can't understand it properly then don't cite it. I will explain in detail my reason for rejecting the idea in the way it is being proposed.

I will direct your attention to Ernst Mayr who was the first in 1959 (one hundred years after the Origin) to contrast the essentialist (typological) vs. population thinking - reprinted on page 25 here.[9] You will note that 'population thinking' didn't spread until after the nineteenth century - and even then it was slow - John Ray, Maupertuis, Bonnet, Linneaus, Buffon, and Lamarck were essentialists. It is clear where Menand contrasts against essences and contrasts this against the adoption of "the language of statistics and probability, which is predictive (telling us what the average finch, under specified conditions, is likely to do)." - nowhere in that quote does it say when this occurred in a historical timeline -you place it "With the Enlightenment" - which is false. Mayr says that Darwin was the first to introduce a new way of thinking (population thinking) that differs from typological thinking. Population thinking stresses the uniqueness of all living things - they are individuals (spatially temporarily restricted).

Compare Mendeleev's periodic table as the model of essentialism, you can find gold in its position and assign it to that essense in any point in history - gold is gold 2000 years ago and fits in position 79 of the periodic table no matter. Species are evolving lineages, not static classes of organisms. Hence, you couldn't apply statistics to a population in 350 BCE and to a descendant population in 2011 and rely on that information alone to reconstruct genealogical descent - you would require an outgroup for one thing because statistics says nothing about ancestral descendant relationships, but you could certainly say something about the averages, the variance and so on about the populations. You can talk about the causal relations among the similarities of the members, but only with history do you require causal relations among the members in a temporal context (causal relations can be among parts that exist at different times and causal connections among parts that exist at the same time).

• "For the typologist, the type (eidos) is real and the variation an illusion, while for the populationist the type (average) is an abstraction and only the variation is real. No two ways of looking at nature could be more different."[10]

Here is a wonderful historical example through Henslow of the populationist thinking that influence Darwin greatly.[11] If you want to cite something that is interesting and useful, cite that article. Now if you want to go from essentialism to another form of classification you can shift to cluster analysis - to an essentialist each trait is necessary for membership, but cluster analysis all members must share a cluster of similar traits and they must occur in all and only that group. Pheneticists like Sneath and Sokal (1973) give an example of cluster classification, suggesting that classification be based on shared qualitative properties.

Now, lets look at the historical versus the statistical approach - where you foolishly claim that "these are not mutually exclusive". I begin with Darwin:

"All true classification is genealogical; that community of descent is the hidden bond which naturalists have been unconsciously seeking, and not some unknown plan or creation, or enunciation of general propositions, and the mere putting together and separating of objects more or less alike" (1859, p. 420)

You want to argue that genealogical is statistical (lol!). If the genealogical approach is statistical - I ask that you read Willi Hennig's book on phylogenetic systematics (the father of modern cladistics). Cladistics is not traditionally aligned as a statistical approach - although Joseph Felsenstein has given a statistical view on this (strict cladists will dispute this - I won't bore you with the literature). Alan Templeton combines cladistics with his Baysian approach to create nested statistical cladograms (http://crandalllab.byu.edu/Portals/20/docs/publications/Cladistics.pdf) - but even with all these approaches (Templeton included), you will discover that the genealogical history is how the species taxon is defined. Templeton's cohesion species concept has two components:

"First, an overlay of geography upon the gene tree is used to test the null hypothesis that the sample is from a single evolutionary lineage....a second null hypothesis is tested that all lineages are genetically exchangeable and/or ecologically interchangeable."[12]

Now Allan Templeton is about as statistical as a person I can think of - he is a statistician and even he realizes the importance of an evolutionary lineage (history). Populationist thinking is the break away point from essentialism - and I will accept for a moment that this is the language of statistics and probability that Menand is referring too, but I have my doubts that Menand is familiar with the history of phylogenetics - pheneticists, cladists, parsimony, likelihood, and bayesian approaches to building phylogenetic trees. I have been building phylogenetic trees for at least 15 years and regularly analyze both morphological and genetic data for graduate students and professors, so I will stake my claim that I know a bit about biometry, quite a bit about cladistics philosophy, and a bit about statistical tree building methods in this context. Statistics can look at populations in a UPGMA cluster analysis tree - for example, but this still lacks that historical element and "only the historical approach to classification is the proper one for biological taxonomy."[13] Here is what Mark Ereshefsky has to say about Darwinian histories (I could just as find citations by David Hull, Gould, Mayr, Hennig...etc. - most evolutionists are familiar with this):

"None of the qualitative approaches to classification properly address the concerns of biological taxonomy. The reason is fairly simple. They all neglect Darwin's insight that we can understand the organic world's diversity only by studying its evolution...any post-Darwinian application of a qualitative approach to biological taxonomy is out of step with a well accepted tenet of Darwinism, namely, that an important way of explaining the frequency of a trait in a taxon is to cite the evolution of that taxon with respect to that trait. As we shall see, such evolutionary explanations require that local populations, species, and higher taxa form genealogical relations. Thus only the historical approach can serve as a basis for evolutionary explanations...a Darwinian history explains the frequency of a trait within a taxon by highlighting the evolution of that taxon with respect to that trait."[14]

Hence, you can see two aspects to this - 1) the frequency of a trait (statistical), and 2) the Darwinian history (not-statistical). Can you imagine talking with a straight face to a historian while trying to make the argument that history is nothing but a statistical phenomena? You have to make a causal connection and in Darwinian evolution that causal connection is genealogical, the statistics is just the evidence that is left behind. I hope this is settled.Thompsma (talk) 02:31, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

I have checked the archives. For starters, check 42. There is no consensus for the statement that "With the Enlightenment, natural scientists began to view regular patterns in nature statistically..." I'm afraid this statement qualifies as WP:NOR and WP:Fringe. As mentioned by Thompsma, it does not appear to be supported by Menand's book either. danielkueh (talk) 03:05, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

• More information's available on this, there was an important but complex progression from Plato's idealism and Aristotle's classification of everything, including living organisms, through the great chain of being to Ray's concept of fixed generative species, taken up by Linnaeus, in which variations were merely minor departures from the ideal. The idealism of Goethe and Oken, taken up by Owen, saw idealistic archetypes developing through time in a form of evolution constrained by concepts, opposing the transmutation of Lamarck which itself had idealistic elements. The question of whether genera or species were any more than a classification of similarities goes back to the Middle Ages or earlier. Darwin didn't originate many of his concepts, his idea of species can broadly be taken as a loose description of similar organisms sharing descent, in which varieties were potentially new species. Will have to check to find his antecedents.
  So, it's important to note shifting concepts, whether "statistical" is a good word is another aspect to review. . dave souza, talk 09:26, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

I put in "since the Enlightenment" because the trend has its origins then. Menand is speaking only of the 19th century. Also, some people here are mistaking the populationist view that Mayr talks about for the statistical view Menand is talking about. Menand is talking about the shift from thinking of "species" (not just "H. Sapiens" but all species, any species, thus, the abstract concept species) not as ideals represented by ideal types, but as a collection of different members, where the actual distribution of differences is more important than any ideal. Darwin did not have to use statistics - that misses the point; as an intellectual historian Menand is looking at trends in scholarship, work by others that Darwin read, and that readers of Darwin read, and this includes work by Gauss prior to Darwin and work by Boltzmann after Darwin — Menand's point is not just that this Darwin's approach to "species" (not the plural, but the singular, a concept) is an example of this trend, but that this trend also helps explain why others coincidentally (e.g. Wallace) were beginning to think the same way, and, most important (for an intellectual historian) why, despite intense opposition, Darwin's ideas gained traction so quickly. I think the confusion has to do with two definitions of "species." "Species" can refer to a concept, a theory of kinds, that is to say, how we think about what "a kind" of (any) organism is. It can also refer to a specific kind of organisms, say, H. sapiens. The populationist approach Mayr is talking about relates to the second meaning of species. Menand is talking about the first meaning of species. I have no objection to people changing the wording - as I said, it was not my wording to begin with. But this article is not owned by biologists - Menand is a notable intellectual historian and his views are significant among intellectual historians, so it makes sense to include his view in the section on the history of the idea. Slrubenstein | Talk 11:00, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

Let's clarify another statement here. Menand is not a historian, either by training or by trade. He had a Ph.D. in English. He had an interest in reading and writing about 20th century American cultural history, but that does not make him anymore of a historian. In fact, the details are summarized quite nicely in this Wikipedia article about him. I agree, this article is not owned by biologists. But the statement you would like to include appears to be a WP:fringe view and its inclusion is therefore very questionable. Furthermore, you need to buttress it with a wide range of references. For example, if you say that the "trend had its origin" in the enlightenment, then I would like to see a reference that says that. Preferably a reference from someone with an expertise that matches the ideas that you would like to put forward. Since you wish to emphasize "statistical views and concepts," may I suggest that you find a reference written by a statistician? But until then, the statement above stays out. danielkueh (talk) 17:45, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

I agree with you completely danielkueh - this is a WP:fringe view and Slrubenstein is not even reporting accurately on what Menand has said. He insists on adding this idea into the history section - which is already too lengthy. Slrubenstein - you are trying to be a historian yourself and not doing a good job at it. You are distorting what is being said in the reference material and sticking things in the article that cannot be supported. I will continue to delete your posts on Menand.Thompsma (talk) 19:06, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

Menand is a well-respected intellectual historian. That his PhD is in English is not the issue - many people with PhDs in English, even in English departments, write history. In this case he is making a claim about the intellectual historical context for the rise of modern evolutionary theory. If you think that the account of his view can be better worded, go for it! But the argument that one has to be a statistician is just as facile as the argument that one has to be a biologist. He is a respected intellectual historian writing about Darwin. NPOV demands we put in competing views. You can't just delete it because of WP:IDONTLIKEIT. Slrubenstein | Talk 19:16, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

Slrubenstein you are abusing your privilege in here. I am not deleting it because I don't like it, I am deleting it because you are reporting an incorrect interpretation. This has nothing to do with biologists owning this article. Many of the citations I include are from philosophers and other academic branches. Your synopsis of Menand's work in relation to other citeable material is incorrect and that is the reason why it is being removed.Thompsma (talk) 19:25, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

In an effort to try to resolve this issue, I would like to respond to the reasons given by Slubernstein for including the text that " scientist or Darwin viewed species as statistical phenomena or natural scientists viewed the world in statistical terms, starting from the Enlightenment."

1. Removing it violates WP:NPOV. No, it doesn't. NPOV does not mean including false, misleading, or distorted information. It also does not mean including WP:fringe or WP:NOR as well.

"False?" According to whom? You? You had better reread our NPOV policy. The threshold for inclusion is not "truth" but verifiability. And this is a verifiable source. Slrubenstein | Talk 19:57, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

No, it is not. Menand never used the word "statistical," averages, etc. He never talked about the Enlightenment either in that quote. You are taking it out of context and engaging in WP:synthesis. danielkueh (talk) 20:20, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

The book won a Pullitzer prize - not for English literature, but for intellectual history. It is quite notable 19:57, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

Yes, the bible is quotable too. Doesn't mean we have to quote it. danielkueh (talk) 20:20, 13 August 2011 (UTC) Misread previous statement. Yes, he is "notable," but not for this topic. danielkueh (talk) 21:47, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

2. Menand is a notable intellectual historian. No, he is not. He has a Ph.D. in English and has taught English and American Literature and Language at Harvard University. He has an "interest" in 20th century American cultural history. It's all there in the Wikipedia article on Louis Menand. Richard Dawkins writes about religion, does that make him a theologian? By calling Menand a historian would be WP:synthesis and WP:POV pushing.

Ad homenim. The book is a work of intellectual history. I am not citing any of his work on English literature. As for this being an "interest" well of course it is an interest of his, just as natural history was an interest of Darwin's. The bottom line is he wrote a work of intellectual history that is highly well-regarded and widely well-reviewed and won a Pullitzer Prize. It is certainly a notable source and meets our threshold for inclusion. Slrubenstein | Talk 19:57, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

Not Ad hominem. That fallacy is misapplied. I am just correcting a misstatement. Besides, what was the main theme of his book? Species? Come on. Get serious here. Why don't you find a reference that is dedicated to that subject. danielkueh (talk) 20:20, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

3. This article on evolution is not owned by biologists. True, but it is not owned by propagandists either. Besides, that is not even the issue. The issue is WP:accuracy and WP:accuracy dispute.

What is inaccurate? If you think my representation of Menand is inaccurate, you are free to rephrase what we include in the article. I provided two extensive quotations from Menand; if you see a more accurate way to summarize his view, rewrite what I wrote - but do not delete it. Slrubenstein | Talk 19:57, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

The view that species are not essentialist can be discussed. I am open to that. But that is not what you're saying is it? You're putting a spin that need not be put. danielkueh (talk) 20:20, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

4. There is consensus for its inclusion. There is none. I encourage editors to visit archive 42 onwards and see if there is any editor that explicitly agreed to the content of this text. What they were agreeing with is that the concept of species is a difficult one to define.

5. This text has been in the article for a while. Not a good argument. Duration of time is not a good enough reason to include misleading information.

Quite right, but duration of time means it should not be deleted before there is adequate discussion. Slrubenstein | Talk 19:51, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

Yes, preserve what is appropriate. This is not one of them. See WP:Preserve. danielkueh (talk) 20:20, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

What is the misleading information? Slrubenstein | Talk 19:51, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

Misleading in the sense that it does not accurately report what the source is saying and may therefore mislead readers to infer or interpret in a way that is not intended. danielkueh (talk) 20:20, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

Well, this would be my fault - but I would ask you to come up ith a sentence that beter expresses the meaning of the quotes. I object to deleting the view entirely from the page - I do NOT object to anyone rewriting what I wrote especially if it produces a more accurate account of the source! Isn't that what collaborative editing is all about? Slrubenstein | Talk 20:34, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

Fair enough. Propose a sentence here. Put an RfC on it. Once it is good and ready to go, we can insert it into the main text. I'm not one for cheesy quotes, but as one Wikipedia user, SCjessey says, "If in doubt, leave it out. Consensus before contentious." danielkueh (talk) 20:57, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

6. We cannot delete a text because we don't like it. That is not the reason why we are deleting it. We are deleting it because it is not accurate. See WP:Accuracy. I would like to invite other editors to look at this issue carefully. I am open to discussing a text that describes changes in the way we view species from one that was essentialist to one that was not. I am not open to unsubstantiated claims such as views of natural scientists being statistical or that Darwin employed such a view, etc without a credible reference from a credible source. danielkueh (talk) 19:27, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

What do you mean, unsubstantiated? I provided the quotations from Menand. Slrubenstein | Talk 19:51, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

Yes, he was making a general commentary. We can talk about that. In fact, we can do a lot better than that. He did not use the term "statistical" or make the kind of extrapolations that your statements were making. danielkueh (talk) 19:57, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

True - but it is a point made by the chapter it comes from ... you have to decide whether you trust me enough to suggest that if you have a spare half hour you might enjoy reading the chapter. For copyright reasons I cannot quote it all, and in this case what makes his point important are sentences in which he does not talk about statistics. Slrubenstein | Talk 20:32, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

This is my position and I will leave it as that. If you want a short description on the change of how a species is viewed, from one that was essentialist, to one that is not, we can all work on that. There are plenty of sources for that. All of us can find more comprehensive references than the one by Menand. I'm not disputing the quality of his work. I'm sure he writes well. But we are talking about a very specialized topic. It may not be quantum mechanics, but it is close. We can cite peer-reviewed references as recommended by WP:sources. The issues are the following:

• Description of the views by natural scientists as "statistical"
• Darwin employed a statistical perspective.
• Darwin's views of species as part of a larger scientific movement in seeing the world statistically.

The word statistics as it is now understood has a special meaning. See the Wikipedia article on statistics to know what I mean. It is not helpful to use it. Which makes the above statements unverifiable. Let's just drop them. It seems to obscure the larger point you and Menand are making, which is the change in our conception of what a species is. danielkueh (talk) 20:46, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

I could not have argued it better danielkueh and support your comments. In my opinion there are far better resources to look at the movement from essentialist to population thinking (or historical entities). There are thousands of papers and hundreds of books that have written on this very topic. I have no problem bringing Menand in as a citation - but I don't buy the argument that he presented anything new in relation to this particular topic. I'd love to read the book - but it isn't in any library where I live. Until then - I remain skeptical of Slrubenstein capabilities to interpret and then report on his work correctly.Thompsma (talk) 21:37, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

I managed through my amazon account to read the few pages that Slrubenstein is referring too - and I don't get the same interpretation at all. There actually seems to be an error in the book: "Darwin gleaned his evidence for the inheritability of variations from domestic dog and pigen breeding..." - I think that should have said heritability?? Anyway, I have access to pages 124-127 and Menand does not talk about Darwin's shift from essenses to statistical thinking in any shape or form. He compares Agasizz's works as an opponent of Darwin's and how his contemporaries were reading the Origin (including Asa Gray) through a phenomenonistic perspective: "an explanation of phenomena, not an account of final causes." He goes on to say that Asa Gray had statistical data (post Darwin) to show how species migrate. There is even reference in there to natural theology that you disregard in the talk pages below. Hence, we can ascertain that Asa Gray read Darwin's text phenomonistically, which is different from Darwin. Gray used statistical thinking and Darwin presented a new way of science. This is what I am able to glean from Menand's book - the limited bit I have. This does not match what you have written and it brings nothing new to light that I haven't already read elsewhere. So what are you arguing over anyway Slrubenstein?Thompsma (talk) 07:00, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

Based on Dave Souza's comments below, there are now four editors who are uncomfortable with the statistical species text and its variants and would prefer not to see it included. A lot of time and energy has been expanded on this issue. This article is now locked from editing as a result of disputes over that text. I think the way forward now would be to put this behind us and move on to something more productive such as streamlining the length, content, and structure of this article. Based on WP:consensus, the consensus right now is that the text should be left out. This matter should now be closed and resolved. danielkueh (talk) 22:33, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

Menand's quote explicitly uses the term "statistics." Danielkueh obviously does not understand the meaning of the word "verifiability" at Wikipeida - or he is deliberatly distorting our policies. The view I added to the article five years ago, that Thompsma deleted a couple of weeks ago without discussion, was and remains verifiable; I provided the source, a Pulitzer-prize winning work on intellectual history. The bottom line is Thompsma's "There actually seems to be an error in the book" This is why you object to the citation, and your objection is entirely contrary to Wikipedia policy. Our threshold for inclusion is not truth, it is verifiability. That you think it is wrong is not grounds for excluding it. In fact, it is grounds for including it. The spirit of WP:NPOV is that we should include views we do not agree with. If you have another reliable source that holds a different view, then by all means add that other view. Wikipeidia's NPOV policy works by adding more views, especially ones that are different or in conflict.

But Thompsma is not even providing another historian as a reliable source against Menand. He is just providing his own view having read the primary sources. And this is OR. That is to say, it is a violation of WP:NOR.

The matter is neither closed nor resolved when you are making decisions about editing this article that violate core policies.

You can keep arguing, but all you are doing is making the same points Thompsma made yesterday, made a couple of years ago - he thinks it is wrong, therefore it doesn't belong in the article. Sorry, but passionate though your feelings may be about keeping this one view out of the article - keeping just one sentence you don't like out of the article - all your arguments do not add up to a consensus. It is a well-established principle at WP that consensus must be based on our core policies. That a gang of editors share a view about an edit that is contrary to policy is not a consensus. Collaborative editing is meant to enable editors with different views to work together, and our core policies enable us to do this. If you think it is just about editors with the same views owning an article, you really don't get it. Slrubenstein | Talk 06:50, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

Slrubenstein, this matter is now closed. There have been discussions over it, all the way back to Archive 54. Truth or not, your statement is not very verifiable, pure and simple. You agreed with me when I said the term, "statistical" is not even present in the quote you gave (see above). And now you are backtracking. Unless, there is another editor that is able to confirm verbatim what you have just said, there is nothing more to discuss. Now, if you don't mind, we all have better things to do than to waste anymore time on this. danielkueh (talk) 14:35, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

I am now "backtracking" because I reread the quotes more carefully. The word 'statistical" is there - i did not invent it. Do I really need to produce the quote here on the talk page, when it was in the article? And the discussion is not closed as long as you fail to support your claim that my statement is not verifiable. An odd statement indeed given that i have verified it. Slrubenstein | Talk 14:55, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

No you have not. The quote on the main page does not contain the word statistical and it does not support your statement. The burden of proof is not on us, it is on you! If you want to pursue this, take it to a committee. danielkueh (talk) 15:02, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

• I think people here are hung up on the word "statistical" which is of course an anachronism in relation to Darwin's views. I think the important part is to stress that Darwin's species was not "essentialist" but exhibited internal variation (which is what makes us able top see them as "statistical" today). It is not difficult to find citations that this is an important and exceptional feature of Darwin's thinking - not just from Menand, but a number of other historians and philosophers of science. What if we drop the word "statistical" and reformulate it into a more clear description of the fact that for Darwin a species was not an ideal type but a group of variables?·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 19:44, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

Proposed trimming of History of evolutionary thought

I agree with the general sentiment that the current history section of this article is long, lacking in focus, and written in such a way that is too personalized. Rather than starting back from scratch, I would like to instead propose the following trimmed version of this section.

Prior to the published works of Darwin, a theoretical synthesis threading what seemed at the time to be disjointed facts forestalled advancement in the life sciences. Nonetheless, the roots of knowledge that culminated into evolutionary theory bring us back to a historically rich research tradition in natural history. Natural historians had the goal of describing, classifying, and discovering the mysterious products of life in their attempt explain what seemed to be an underlying order of nature.[19][20] Prior to Darwin, however, most natural historians were influenced by scholars of classical Greece, such as Aristotle, who conceived of "species" in terms of essences or ideals; actual individuals were either good or bad examples of the ideal. Few advancements of evolutionary significance appeared in the Middle Ages. Greek philosophy was supplanted by natural theology during the renaissance. Natural theologians asked why organisms were adapted in form to their environment or to serve particular tasks. These adaptations were attributed to the work of a creator, or God, and manifested into the modern creationist views about intelligent design.[21][22] Natural theology reached an apogee in the writings of William Paley. Paley, who is best known for his argument from design as evidence for the existence of God, he had a great working knowledge of biology, his published works on natural theology were required reading at Cambridge University from 1787 to 1920, and he was a great inspiration to Charles Darwin: "I do not think I hardly ever admired a book more than Paley’s Natural Theology: I could almost formerly have said it by heart"[23][24][25] In 1842 Charles Darwin penned his first sketch of what became On the Origin of Species.[26]

From 1802 until 1822 Jean-Baptiste Lamarck can be credited as the first person to put forward a wholly coherent theory of evolution.[27][28] Lamarckism fell from favour after August Weismann's research in the 1880s indicated that changes from use (such as lifting weights to increase muscle mass) and disuse (such as being lazy and becoming scrawny) were not heritable; some of Lamarck's ideas, however, remain relevant.[29][30][27][31] In 1798, Thomas Robert Malthus published An Essay on the Principle of Population that provided an explanatory basis for Darwin's selection process.[32] Darwin noted that Malthusian population limits would lead to a 'struggle for existence' where favorable variations could prevail as others perished. The reasoning was that species produce far more offspring than can survive to age of reproduction as food and other resources become limited in supply. The process of natural selection (heritability, reproduction, variation) through common ancestry explained the origin of diversity.[33][34][35][36] Darwin was developing his theory of natural selection from 1838 onwards until Alfred Russel Wallace sent him a similar theory in 1858. Both men presented their separate papers to the Linnean Society of London.[37] At the end of 1859, Darwin's publication of On the Origin of Species explained natural selection in detail and presented evidence leading to increasingly wide acceptance of the occurrence of evolution. Thomas Henry Huxley applied Darwin's ideas to humans, using paleontology and comparative anatomy to provide strong evidence that humans and apes shared a common ancestry. This caused an uproar around the world since it implied that humans did not have a special place in the universe.[38]

Precise mechanisms on reproductive heritability and the origin of new traits remained a mystery. Towards this end, Darwin developed his provisional theory of pangenesis, which was speculatively based on the transmission of tiny heredity particles called gemmules from parent to offspring.[39] Darwin emphasized that important role of cells in the regeneration of new tissues and reproduction and theorized that gemmules were formed by cells and would diffuse into the reproductive organs.[40] In 1865 Gregor Mendel reported on his experiments suggesting that traits were inherited in a predictable manner through the independent assortment and segregation of elements (later known as genes). Mendel's laws of inheritance eventually supplanted most of Darwin's pangenesis theory.[41] Pangenesis presented a mix of theory of 'blending' coupled with 'prepotent units of inheritance' (in Darwin's terminology) that was partly consistent with Mendelian inheritance: "when two breeds are crossed their characters usually become intimately fused together; but some characters refuse to blend, and are transmitted in an unmodified state either from both parents or from one."[40]:92 It is not known if Darwin read Mendel's published research.[42][43]

Mendel's work was rediscovered independently in the 1900s by several biologists, including Hugo de Vries. De Vries was the first to suggest that the nucleus of each cell contained heritable units he called pangenes (from pangenesis, the source for the modern term genes).[28] Soon after the rediscovery of Mendel's work, researchers noticed the parallel between his laws of inheritance and chromosomes in cells.[44] August Weismann made the important distinction between germ cells (sperm and eggs) and somatic cells of the body, demonstrating that the stream of heredity passes through the germ line only, whereas mutilation to somatic tissues would not be inherited. De Vries connected Darwin's pangenesis theory to Wiesman's germ/soma cell division and proposed that pangenes were concentrated in the nucleus and when expressed they could move into the cytoplasm to change the cells structure. De Vries believed that Mendelian traits only served to transfer existing variation, but still could not explain, however, how new varieties would originate. He developed a mutation theory that led to a false rift between those who accepted Darwinian evolution Darwin's gradual evolution by means of natural selection on existing variation against the biometricians who allied with de Vries mutational leaps through Mendel's laws of segregation.[45][46][28]. Even though early geneticists tended to reject gradual natural selection, their pioneering work on genetics eventually provided a solid basis on which the theory of evolution stood even more convincingly than when it was originally proposed.[47]

At the turn of the 20th century, pioneers in the field of population genetics, such as J.B.S. Haldane, Sewall Wright, and Ronald Fisher, set the foundations of evolution onto a robust statistical philosophy. The false contradiction between Darwin's theory, genetic mutations, and Mendelian inheritance was thus reconciled. This opened a new historical chapter in the 1920s and 1930s in what has been dubbed the modern evolutionary synthesis where natural selection, mutation theory, and Mendelian inheritance were connected into a unifying evolutionary explanation. The modern synthesis was able to explain patterns observed across species in populations, through fossil transitions in palaeontology, and even complex cellular mechanisms in developmental biology.[48][28] The publication of the structure of DNA by James Watson and Francis Crick in 1953 demonstrated revealed a physical basis for inheritance.[49] Molecular biology improved our understanding of the relationship between genotype and phenotype. Advancements were also made in phylogenetic systematics, mapping the transition of traits into a comparative and testable framework through the publication and use of evolutionary trees.[50][51] In 1973, evolutionary biologist Theodosius Dobzhansky penned that "nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution", because it has brought to light the relations of what first seemed disjointed facts in natural history into a coherent explanatory body of knowledge that describes and predicts many observable facts about of life on this planet.[52] Evolutionary theory has greatly expanded and is a fully matured interdisciplinary enterprise involving scientists from diverse fields and enabled many advancements in conservation biology, developmental biology, ecology, physiology, paleontology, medicine, agriculture, anthropology, sociology, economics, philosophy, psychology, computer science, and more. The modern synthesis has been further extended through the last century to explain biological phenomena across the full and integrative scale of the biological hierarchy, from genes to species this extension has been dubbed eco-evo-devo.[53][54][15][15]

Please feel free to make suggestions. danielkueh (talk) 19:45, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

No, consensus seems to be be that it is more appropriate to move back to a prior stable version. Thanks, Mathsci (talk) 20:29, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

Not yet. There are only two editors (Andrew and Joanna) who explicitly supported your proposal. I suggest that you take a look at WP:consensus first. It takes more than a simple majority for major changes. I am also interested in the views of other long time editors of this article. Besides, you are late to this game and we have until August 20 before editing can start. danielkueh (talk) 20:36, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

We will have to wait to see what dave souza, Slrubenstein and other editors think. Since, however, this is a top level featured article that has been substantially changed, resulting in serious disputes, it might be wise to seek input from wikiprojects associated with this article. The mismatch with History of evolutionary thought seems to be one of the main problem at the moment, as dave souza has written. There is no rush at all. Mathsci (talk) 20:55, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

Indeed, there is no need to rush at all. Hence, I would like all options to be explored first by many of the long time editors here before any final decisions are taken. danielkueh (talk) 20:57, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

I disagree with much of what Mathsci claims in reference to the older version and we should not go back to it. The following claim is weird: "The proper use of secondary sources is essential when writing about the history of science" - I would partly agree, but are you discounting primary sources? Stephen Gould and other historians have often written on the importance of going back to the original sources and how this has become a lost art. I always go back and read the originals and discover meaning that has been lost in translation.

I will go back to the originalversion and will give examples of where it was in error, misleading, or oversimplified to the point that all meaning is lost.

• The first sentence: "Prior to the work of Charles Darwin, the study of evolution was not scientific." It cites Michael Ruse (1997) to back the claim. I've read that book and nowhere in that book does Michael Ruse make any such nonsensical claim. Are you going to claim that Cuvier, Buffon, Lamarck, Lyell, and others that pre-date Darwin not scientific? (I suggest reading Gould's paper on Deconstructing the Science Wars[15]).WP:fringe and WP:accuracy

I read the book recently, and Michael Ruse makes exactly this claim. He devotes substantial space to protoscience vs. science vs. pseudoscience demarcation. When I finish travelling, I can find page numbers to refine this reference to make it more easily verifiable.Joannamasel (talk) 17:37, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

Ruse does not make this claim. He refers to pseudo-science, but you have to read his description of this to understand where he is going. First, page 172. "People, including professional scientists, became evolutionists because single-handedly Darwin had moved evolution up from the status of pseudo-science, or from its epistemological equivalent. No longer was evolution just a theory that ignored, flagrantly, the norms of good science, an idea that existed only because of a cultural value." - That is a far cry from - "Prior to the work of Charles Darwin, the study of evolution was not scientific." - it is a distortion of his message. He refers to this book[16] - and if you read in that book, you will find that the distinction is not so simple. Moreover, the quote speaks in absolutes. That book also has some chapters suggesting that pseudo-science served important historically and is science in context - or proto-science. Once again, we are oversimplifying to the point that the original meaning is being lost here. Furthermore, I think you need to read Gould's paper[17] and think deeply about this statement. It is WP:fringe.Thompsma (talk) 20:46, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

• Next section moves onto the statistical claim, which is nonsense as well (see above for discussion on this ridiculous debate - a complete re-write of history with no sources to back it up). Ernst Mayr, Provine, and Peter Bowler are good sources for this part of the history and I've read most of their published works and this claim cannot be supported.WP:fringe, WP:NOR, and WP:accuracy

I agree that this needs fixing.Joannamasel (talk) 17:37, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

Even if one source can be found, we should not present it as an unattributed consensus of the whole field if discussion here makes it apparent that it is not. So in the spirit of getting to basics, how important is this sentence?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 18:48, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

Not too important. At the most, we only need to say that Darwin noticed that there was variation within a species, which is different from the essentialist concept of species that predated him. This has already been covered in various parts of the current article. danielkueh (talk) 18:53, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

• The next part places Thomas Malthus at the forefront of Darwin's discovery - but this is misleading. I would argue that Paley and Henslow had a much larger influence and many would agree with me on this point. For an example of the influence of Henslow - this paper[18] gives a great bit of insight. Others have noted how influential Paley was. I'm not debating that Malthus wasn't important, but we can draw on a large number of inferences and historical figures to contextualize the history without misleading the reader into thinking that Darwin didn't have an evolutionary picture until Malthus was read - which is false.WP:fringe, WP:NPOV, WP:source and WP:accuracy

I agree that we should try to make this more balanced, while trying to stay concise.Joannamasel (talk) 17:37, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

• Another sentence: "This caused an uproar around the world since it implied that the creation myth in the Christian Bible was false and humans did not have a special place in the universe." - this is the stuff of legends and myths. First, it says the whole world and yet it refers only to the Christian Bible - I'm sorry, but there is more to the whole world than the Christian Bible. Did it really create and uproar? It cites the following link[19], but that citation makes no such claim. It also contradicts what has been made in other peer-reviewed commentaries on this time - for example[20].WP:fringe, WP:source, WP:NOR, and WP:accuracy

I agree with this criticism with regard to the creation myth, but I think the statement is still reasonable with regard to the special status of humans.Joannamasel (talk) 17:37, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps just take out "creation myth in the Christian Bible" and replace with "many traditional understandings of the origins of mankind"? --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 18:48, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

• The next paragraph - first sentence: "Debate about the mechanisms of evolution continued and Darwin could not explain the source of the heritable variations which would be acted on by natural selection." - That isn't true. Darwin did offer an explanation - pangenesis - it isn't true that he couldn't explain it. Moreover, if you actually read his work on pangenesis in light of our modern understanding of inheritance, Darwin was prescient and lots of it has been misinterpreted as some peer-reviewed authors have claimed. His use and disuse terminology was about phenotypic plasticity.[21] If you look at the footnote citing the source material for that sentence, it refers to the Origin - as though Darwin ended his thoughts on the matter there. Read the following: [22] - that paper suggests that Darwin had a very good explanation for heritable variations. Think about the Spliceosome for a moment - and I will quote from wikipedia here - "One particular Drosophila gene (DSCAM) can be alternatively spliced into 38,000 different mRNA." (the original source: http://www.cell.com/retrieve/pii/S0092867400808788). There is a lot of pangenesis (Epigenome) going on in in the events that link the genotype to the phenotype.WP:NOR, and WP:accuracy

I agree that citing the Origin here is not appropriate. I think the first part of sentence 1 "Debate about the mechanisms of evolution continued." is still appropriate, while the second half could be simply deleted, with minor consequential changes to sentence 2.Joannamasel (talk) 17:37, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

• The next section glosses of Lamarck's contributions as though his contributions were completely rejected and can be left at that - which contradicts what you see in contemporary discussions from cultural evolution (Gould, Maynard-Smith, and many other evolutionists have made this claim). Other evolutionists have discussed at length the importance of Lamarck's work - for example [23], [24], [25], [26], [27] - Now I am not claiming that we all embrace hands and claim that Lamarck was absolutely correct, but to dismiss his contributions as a incorrect sideline misses an important part that Lamarck has played through history. Here is an example from a recent peer reviewed paper[28]:

"We conclude that both Darwinian antigen-binding selection and Lamarckian soma-to-germline feedback play key roles in the evolution of antibody variable genes. There is also evidence supporting the view that reverse transcription is central to a better understanding of the somatic and germline evolution of these genes."

• Those authors are not alone in making these kinds of factual claims. Provide a neutral point of view on Lamarck - do not paint him in a negative light just because his theories look like a failed venture, because of Lysenkoism/Manchurism. Lamarck provided the first and fully coherent theory of evolution at the turn of the 19th century - quite a feat!!WP:NPOV and WP:accuracy

This is a long discussion of itself. Lamarck shared with Darwin a belief in the inheritance of acquired characteristics, the part that is now being revisited. Lamarck also said a lot of crazy things about spontaneous generation at the bottom of the Great Chain of Being. Michael Ruse's book is a reasonable source on the historical Lamarck rather than "Lamarckism". While Lamarckism should be and is reviewed in this old version, I do not see the gain in confusing matters with the historical Lamarck, whose other ideas remain rejected.Joannamasel (talk) 17:45, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

Crazy in hindsight - which is the thrust of my point. You can't look at history through that lens - you have to realize what information was available to the researchers in their time. Here is a quote from a publication in Nature:

"But within the maddening, confusing and repetitive pages of Lamarck's exposition lurk concepts that are central to modern evolutionary thought. Stated in contemporary terminology, they include the ideas that species change through evolutionary time; that evolutionary change is slow and imperceptible; that evolution occurs through adaptation to the environment; that it generally progresses from the simple to the complex, although in a few cases it proceeds in reverse; and that species are related to one another by common descent. Furthermore, Lamarck incorporated into his theory the fact that the world is old, and proposed that the evolutionary process started with abiogenesis — the origin of life from inanimate matter...Another notable champion of Lamarck was the German biologist Ernst Haeckel. He recognized the injustice in attributing all aspects of evolutionary theory to Darwin, and in 1902 suggested: "The portion of the Theory of Evolution (Entwickelungstheorie), which maintains the common descent of all species of animals and plants from the simplest common original forms might ... with full justice, be called Lamarckism. On the other hand, the Theory of Selection, or Breeding, might justly be called Darwinism."...In fact, the amount of scientific rubbish that Lamarck put on paper certainly exceeds the quantity of good science in his scientific oeuvre. In this respect, he is no different from Aristotle, Isaac Newton, Darwin, Albert Einstein, Fred Hoyle or Francis Crick. But by writing about evolution directly rather than en passant (as did dozens of philosophers from Empedocles to Count Buffon), and by tackling the subject of evolution in scientific rather than poetical terms (as did Erasmus Darwin), Lamarck is without doubt the father of evolutionary theory."[29]

I am not stating that we confuse readers, but I am suggesting that the negative retrospective view conflicts with WP:NPOV. His crazy idea about spontaneous generation is a far cry from his actual text suggesting that "that the evolutionary process started with abiogenesis — the origin of life from inanimate matter", which is wholly consistent with our modern view. He wasn't crazy - he was a scientist, there is a difference (albeit a mild one :).Thompsma (talk) 22:48, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

• Another sentence: "When Mendel's work was rediscovered in the 1900s, disagreements over the rate of evolution predicted by early geneticists and biometricians led to a rift between the Mendelian and Darwinian models of evolution." - This is incorrect. The rift was not between Darwin and Mendel's models - it was between Darwin, Mendel, and the macro-mutation theory of de Vries. The explicit interpretation of this sentence suggests that there was an actual rift between Mendelian and Darwinian models of evolution. Mendelian and Darwian 'models' (I think explanation is better wording) of evolution are complementary. Add de Vries macromutation theory onto Mendelian genetics and then the explanations are not complementary.WP:accuracy

This sounds like a matter of wordsmithing. The historical rift was very real. We now know that the explanations were complementary.Joannamasel (talk) 17:45, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

• Next sentence: "While the concept of genes was originally part of an alternative mutation theory of evolution,[32] the gene theory ultimately described variation, which is the main fuel used by natural selection to shape the wide variety of adaptive traits observed in organic life." - The first part of that statement is very confusing and based on my reading of de Vries and others I would say it is incorrect - the concept of genes was not originally part of an alternative mutation theory. de Vries properly placed genes in the nucleus and envisioned how they were expressed:

"The hypothesis that all living protoplasm is built up of pangenes, I call intracellular pangenesis. In the nucleus every kind of pangene of the given individual is represented; the remaining protoplasm in every cell contains chiefly only those that ought to become active in it. (Intracellular Pangenesis - 1889)"

I agree that the wording is confusing and should be improved, but I don't see the problem with the content. Joannamasel (talk) 17:56, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

• That sounds a lot like our modern understanding of DNA to RNA translation and cellular differentiation and quite unlike "an alternative mutation theory of evolution" as claimed. (Actually - as I re-read that sentence I think I understand that it is referring to de Vries Macromutation theory - it should just say that directly.). I also read the cited paper for that sentence[30] and it does not describe the history in this way at all.WP:accuracy

I agree with more clearly specifying that it is the de Vries theory that is discussed here.Joannamasel (talk) 17:56, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

• Second, I would argue that the gene is not the ultimate fuel for variation and many others would agree with me on this. It is the hierarchical pleiotropic network of genetic regulation (including RNA, proteins, and complexity within the genome):

"This is again the familiar feature of hierarchy, that relatively few higher-level processes and individuals are assembled relative to the vast number of permutations from lower levels that theoretically seem possible.) A variety of mutational combinations will lead to the same result in gene expression. The variety of morphological phenotypes derivable from change in cellular interactions is also severely restricted."[31]

• I put that quote up because it shows what is missing in the understanding here. Just because you have a mutation in DNA - this does not necessarily translate into phenotypic variation. Our most recent understanding from evo-devo shows that it is regulatory networks that are involved in the evolution of traits (phenotypes). A large number of genetic mutations are neutral. The sentence gives an incorrect perspective on the relation between genetic mutation and phenotypic variation.WP:fringeWP:source, and WP:accuracy

I think this will be fixed when the de Vries indications are clearer. We are talking about historical events here.Joannamasel (talk) 17:56, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

• The next paragraph:

"In its early history, evolutionary biology primarily drew in scientists from traditional taxonomically oriented disciplines, whose specialist training in particular organisms addressed general questions in evolution. As evolutionary biology expanded as an academic discipline, particularly after the development of the modern evolutionary synthesis, it began to draw more widely from the biological sciences.[14] Currently the study of evolutionary biology involves scientists from fields as diverse as biochemistry, ecology, genetics and physiology and evolutionary concepts are used in even more distant disciplines such as psychology, medicine, philosophy and computer science."

• That is complete hogwash. Read that first sentence again - was Herbert Spencer from a taxonomic orientated discipline? What about Ernst Haeckel? What about Alfred Lotka? What about Leon Croizat? (Croizat came a little later - there are better examples - e.g., [32]) What about Waddington? The first sentence hardly characterizes these and others who contributed to evolution in its early history. There were lots of papers in psychology early in the history (here is one[33], for example). Whoever wrote that paragraph has not read on the history of the social sciences and evolution. There is no citation for the last sentence.WP:fringe, WP:NPOV, WP:source, WP:NOR, and WP:accuracy

I agree that the first sentence here needs a complete overhaul. In the next sentence "during and after" rather than "after" the synthesis would help by automatically including figures such as Waddington, and generally making it more accurate.Joannamasel (talk) 17:56, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

Why not cite something appropriate toward the end - as I did - John Avise, Francisco Ayala, and Stephen Hubbell recently put out a great series of papers on "In the Light of Evolution" through the National Academies Press (http://www.pnas.org/content/105/suppl.1/11453.short, http://www.pnas.org/content/105/suppl.1/11453.short, http://www.pnas.org/content/106/suppl.1/9933.short, http://www.pnas.org/content/107/suppl.2/8897.short) where numerous authors write about broad applications of evolution - the last link in particular is an issue on the human condition. Much of the older version on the history completely glosses over the main points and in translation the reader is left with a distortion of what really happened. We need to find the right balance - keep it short, unbiased, and accurate.Thompsma (talk) 22:50, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

I think the history section should focus on history not current stuff.Joannamasel (talk) 17:56, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

Contemporary history is history. It isn't a focus - it is a citation to back up the claim that evolution has culminated into an interdisciplinary and mature science. It is also an effective citation, because it was a commemorative piece.Thompsma (talk) 20:58, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

I started out assuming good faith on the part of Danielkueh, but I have to say, the statement, "Indeed, there is no need to rush at all. Hence, I would like all options to be explored first by many of the long time editors here before any final decisions are taken. danielkueh (talk) 20:57, 14 August 2011 (UTC)" is so obviously disingenuous and self-serving, I am starting to question my assumptions. Thompsma is obviously widely- and well-read in the natural sciences, and has made some valuable contributions to the article. bravo. unfortunately, he now thinks he owns it. Bad news for any article, but especially bad with regard to this discussion because Thompsma is an amateur historian who, like many dilettantes, knows many facts, and misunderstands history. Mathsci's point, that we should rely as much as possible on secondary sources, is sound advice for precisely this reason: those works reflect the views of the real experts. in fact, Thompsma repeatedly makes judgments about secondary sources like they are "stupid" or "wrong" or :false" as if Thompsma is the arbiter of truth. Two problems: first, the threshold of inclusion in Wikipedia is not "truth" but verifiability (and gentleman, it should be obvious to you that "verifiability is not being used as a synonym for "truth," although this is how Danielkueh routinely uses the term); second, we editors are not supposed to insert our own views into articles. Our task is to write up well-written accounts of significant views from notable sources. WP:NOR forbids us from using WP as a means to self-publish. Sorry, Thompsma, but WP is not your vanity press. This is why we favor secondary sources - when we rely on primary sources we often end up violating NOR through WP:SYNTH (and Thompsma's version of the history of evolutionary thought is full of SYNTH violations.

And now we get to Danielkueh's disingenuous dismissal of the majority. Since 2006 this article has had a sentence on the statistical concept of species, a verifiable view with a citation to a Pulitzer-Prize winning work of intellectual history. A couple of weeks ago, Thompsma deleted it with no discussion, certainly no majority, but every time I restored the consensus version - or even made changes in response to Daniel's comments - he deleted it. Daniel, what was the rush? Ohhhh, but now all of the sudden when the majority is against you, now you say that majorities do not count and that we should not rush to make changes. Hypocritical?

What Daniel neglects to point out is that "consensus" at Wikipedia is the consensus of arguments based on policy. It is true that we do not always make decisions by majority, but there is a specific reason for that: some majorities consist of people who are disregarding or contradicting policy. Here we actually have a minority - Daniel and Thompsma - who don't give a damn about any of our core content policies, but they think they own the article. When I objected to a verifiable view being deleted from the article, Daniel said that we should not make a decision without having some discussion (but ... why did he not tell Thompsma not to delete it, until there had been discussion?) Well, anyway, now we have had some discussion and it turns out that a majority of editors actually do care about WP policy and wish to make changes. And now Danielkueh panics and says not to rush. Hypocritical?

I'd like to assume good faith, but this is possibly only when arguments about adding or deleting content are based on our core content policies. Slrubenstein | Talk 07:10, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

Even though I agreed with MachSci's proposal for practical reasons, I do not think it is a good way forward to start coming up with long posts accusing one's interlocutors of being bad faith editors who do not give a damn about policy. The reason I thought MathSci's proposal might be the way forward is precisely because discussion appears to be getting stuck concerning many "pet" parts which are in my opinion verging on being digressions within what is already a long article. It seems pretty clear that this discussion is again getting stuck with over-extreme defenses of material others do not agree with. And concerning the people who disagree, we are talking about long term editors who have made many contributions to this article over time. Accusing them of being bad faith editors will not lead to a better article? I think arguing so strongly for pet digressions is not appropriate for another reason: This is the main Evolution article on Wikipedia and very long already: I believe the aim has to be to stick to relatively non-controversial basics, and avoid digressions which can better be handled in specialized articles?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:24, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

You can disregard my statements about good or bad faith - my important point is that consensus has to be made on the basis of our core content policies. As to your general point about digressions, we may sometimes disagree as to what is or is not a digression but I agree with your general point. Slrubenstein | Talk 08:47, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

• Thompsma makes a number of good points, which is why in my view new restructuring of this section is needed to become a simple historical outline of the main issues. A caution: the cited sources that I've looked at are really too specific, and range from the excellent article about Henslow's influence on Darwin, which is valuable in the articles on Darwin but too tiny a detail for this broad overview which should be more focussed on changing principles, to this which appears to confuse Lamark's views with the neo-Lamarckism of the late 19th century, giving primacy to his secondary mechanism of acquired heritable characters, and understating the primary "drive to improvement" which was derided by Cuvier and others at the time, including Lyell.
  A simpler structure based on historical sequence will be more successful, I'm thinking this over and intend to propose an opening paragraph. .dave souza, talk 09:17, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

The key is to identify good sources (in history of science, etc) and, having identified those sources, as dave souza says, write a simple and uncontroversial summary without modern jargon or anachronisms. I am certainly willing to help locate sources, although that could take a while. I agree with Andrew Lancaster: this is a top level article on a fundamental subject and should be free from minor digressions, giving a clear and well-explained account to non-specialist readers. Mathsci (talk) 10:06, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I would like input from other editors. If the overwhelming consensus is to restore the previous version, I certainly would not stand in the way. What I object to is being hasty and dismissive of the present version. Plus, it was the weekend and not everyone had a chance to view this discussion yet. I believe the present version has merit and is easier to fix than the previous version. As Thompsma exhaustively showed, there are errors of WP:accuracy in the previous text. If all we have to do is fix the language of the present version, then that would be much more doable and simpler. Look at the proposed trimmed version and look at the previous version that it was designed to replace. Ignore for the moment the inelegant language. Judge the text based on its own merits and I think you will see that it is not as bad as some would make it out to be. danielkueh (talk) 14:08, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

Statistical diversion

Slrubenstein, it was not meant to be self-serving at all. The ratio of for:against restoration of the previous text was 3:2 in one day. A simple majority, but not consensus (see WP:consensus). The ratio of for:against your statistical text is 4:1 over 2-3 days. I waited for Dave to weigh in. Besides, the controversy over your statement is not new, see Archive 54. I challenge any editor to confirm your statement that "natural scientists started to view the world statistically and that Darwin was one of them." That is just a fantastical statement, and as Thompsma pointed, it is not even in the source you gave. It's original research. Pure and simple. The matter is closed (see above)and I really have nothing more to add. danielkueh (talk) 14:08, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

The "controversy" is not new because Thompsma has been obsessed with this for as long as he has been trying to insert his original research into the article. As to the word "statistical" it is right there in the quote, from the book. If you want to accuse me of original research you will have to do better than just accuse me. Show the disparity between the quote and the sentence that Thompsma deleted, without any discussion. "No original research" means that we just have to confirm that the idea is in the book being quoted.

Here is what Menand wrote, and I m simply reproducing the block-quotes that were provided within the reference:

Once our attention is redirected to the individual, we need another way of making generalizations. We are no longer interested in the conformity of an individual to an ideal type; we are now interested in the relation of an individual to the other individuals with which it interacts. To generalize about groups of interacting individuals, we need to drop the language of types and essences, which is prescriptive (telling us what finches should be), and adopt the language of statistics and probability, which is predictive (telling us what the average finch, under specified conditions, is likely to do). Relations will be more important than categories; functions, which are variable, will be more important than purposes; transitions will be more important than boundaries; sequences will be more important than hierarchies .... Charles Darwin concluded that species are what they appear to be: ideas, which are provisionally useful for naming groups of interacting individuals. "I look at the term species," he wrote, "as one arbitrarily given for the sake of convenience to a set of individuals closely resembling each other ... It does not essentially differ from the word variety, which is given to less distinct and more fluctuating forms. The term variety, again, in comparison with mere individual differences, is also applied arbitrarily, and for convenience sake." (Louis Menand (2001) The Metaphysical Club New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux 123–124)

I bolded the word statistics, since you seem to have such difficulty reading it.

These are the two sentences I inserted into the article, which Thompsma and you deleted: "Finally, as historian Louis Menand has argued, the 19th century saw the rise of statistical studies of the natural world. Darwin's work played a crucial role in a shift from thinking of the concept, "species," not as ideals represented by ideal types, but as a collection of different members, where the actual distribution of differences is more important than any ideal." If anyone thinks they can summarize Menand's view more concisely or accurately, Danielkuey, my understanding of "consensus editing" is that another editor would rewrite what I wrote, and I have never objected to that.

You accuse me of original research, but all I am trying to do is to inject one idea from a Pulitzer-prize winning intellectual history into the article. I assure you it is not my idea. You accuse me of violating WP:V, but I just provided the quote, and the page numbers, and the reference to the book. Are you claiming that the book does not exist, or that I have fabricated the quotes? I am claiming that you are violating NPOV because you keep deleting a verifiable view from the article because, well, because you just don't like it. Slrubenstein | Talk 15:12, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

There is a "controversy" because Thompsma insists on controling the contents of the article. I have not deleted his contributions, although they are major, but he deletes my one contribution, although it is minor. This is not a "controversy." This is WP:OWN. As soon as you accept the fact that NPOV requires us to add views we do not share, as long as they come from a verifiable source, there is no controversy at all. Just the one you keep creating. Slrubenstein | Talk 15:15, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

Editors, please go to http://books.google.com/books?id=-hpHYbwdCCkC&pg=PA123&dq=and+adopt+the+language+of+statistics+and+probability+menand&hl=en&ei=oThJTovKAaWnsQKwhZXBCg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CC4Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false and read it to determine if indeed it supports the statement that "natural scientists started to view the world statistically and that Darwin was one of them." danielkueh (talk) 15:22, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

I hope other editors take a look at Slrubenstein's comments regarding Menand and realize what a diversion it is. My response was lengthy - because I thought it would help to go through the old history section in detail to show in each section where it went wrong. This is just the history section - there are similar problems throughout the article. Slrubenstein is pushing the statistical notion so hard that it has blinded him to the big picture and it is what has been muddling up the history section. What Slrubenstein posts is not what Menand says in his book. I don't access to the full book (it isn't in any our cities libraries) and I'm not inclined to purchase hit. However, through Amazon I am able to read p. 124-127 - the pages where Slrubenstein claims that he writes about this statistical bend in the history that took a turn after Darwin. Nowhere in that passage does Menand make any such claim. Why he is fighting so hard for one citation that isn't even a book focused on evolution in particular? Louis Menand is not a historian. What Slrubenstein say's above is not what he originally posted: "With the Enlightenment, natural scientists began to view regular patterns in nature statistically (that is, in terms of probabilities rather than determinism."[34] The time frame is wrong - Menand didn't say after the Enlightenment (which ended well before Darwin). Menand does not put this fictional statistical tale in context of a historical time line as Slrubenstein is trying to contrive here. We can even go to an earlier version where we see Slrubenstein's handy work:

"Prior to the work of Charles Darwin, the study of evolution was not scientific. For example, most natural historians at the time conceived of "species" in terms of essences or ideals; actual individuals were either good or bad examples of the ideal. But natural scientists began to view regular patterns in nature statistically (that is, in terms of probabilities rather than determinism). Thomas Robert Malthus took this approach to human populations in An Essay on the Principle of Population that influenced Darwin. Beginning with Darwin, "species" were conceived in statistical terms; actual individuals were expected to be different, with most diverging from the average form and species were viewed as variable and intergrading units."

We see the non-scientific statement at the start - I hope everyone can see how absurd that is. The next sentence is okay. The third sentence, however, is where it falls apart. He is trying to suggest that with the work of Malthus that Darwin started to conceive of species statistically in an effort to contrive history into his statistical fairy tale - and this is not what Menand says. Just because the word statistical shows up in Menand's text, does not necessary translate into this reconstruction of history as Slrubenstein is trying to imply here. That is not how things happened and it is a re-write of history, a misinterpretation of Menand's text, and it is inconsistent with what other real historians (not English majors) have noted on this time. It was not until de Vries started working on translating Mendel's work and working with his colleagues (including Francis Galton) to learn about statistics that we see the statistical transition start to take place. Darwin was the switch from ideals and essense to population thinking through reference to historical lineages as Mayr, Provine, and other historians, evolutionists, and philosophers have noted (see discussion above for a full complement of citations). You could possibly contrive Mayr's population thinking into a statistical interpretation, but you still need to couple this to the historical perspective of species (statistical and historical), but even that borders on WP:Fringe. Slrubenstein continually posts information with citations to follow, but if you are diligent and read up on his posts and citations you will regularly find a large difference between the literature and Slrubenstein's interpretation of it. For example, he posted on Cuvier as being the source of antiquity in the fossil record suggesting that this gave a time frame for Darwin's theory - but that is not true, because during Darwin's time Lord Kelvin insisted that the Earth was 20 million years old - this was a heated debate and Cuvier preceded the whole event. Slrubenstein completely misconstrued the cited material - Cuvier was the founder of palaeontology and was one of the first to demonstrate that extinctions occur and that there were whole faunal assemblages that matched geological strata. This is not personal - it is a matter of insisting on good practice. What you are seeing above from Slrubenstein is an angry response that is not grounded in logic and in his effort to discredit me he has accused me of WP:SYNTH violations. I fully encourage every editor to read the citations I linked and you will find that I am in good faith taking careful notes and recasting the information accurately. I am certain that others will see the ruse behind Slrubenstein's statements and I hope that Slrubenstein will eventually recognize his mistakes and start to bring some accurate and helpful information in here.Thompsma (talk) 16:22, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

I posted this above - I'm going to repost it here so people can see what a re-write of history Slrubenstein has made here:

"If Darwin had received and read Mendel's article, he would have found a detailed analysis of the frequencies observed for different inherited traits from generation to generation of the edible pea. But these results were given in a mathematical form that might have put Darwin off from reading any more of the article. Darwin said that: ‘Mathematics in biology was like a scalpel in a carpenter's shop – there was no use for it.’"[35]

Does that sound like we can credit Darwin as the beginning of a statistical era?Thompsma (talk) 16:26, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

If you substitute "population thinking" for "statistical era", it may be clearer. Further comment to follow. . dave souza, talk 16:45, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

That is what one might think - but you have to read Mayr to understand what he means by this. Furthermore, it is abundantly clear that it is not just statistical - Darwin's text also gave us the historical/genealogical notion of species, which is not statistical.Thompsma (talk) 16:50, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

• Bowler (2003) p. 156:
  Mayr emphasises Darwin's move to what he calls "population thinking" as opposed to the old typological view of species. To admit that variability within a population is significant, one has to abandon the old idea of an ideal type for the species on which all the individuals are modelled. On this older view, individual variations are trivial, like minor imperfections in toy soldiers cast from a mould. In modern Darwinism, there can be no ideal type or mould".
  Mayr's view has been contested as an over-simplification, with predecessors to Darwin such as de Candolle, but that's what I see as the shift from focus on a type to focus on the statistical population group. Darwin didn't introduce the genealogical notion of species which goes back to the ancient Greeks, what he introduced was variation within species leading to common descent as statistical distribution of traits varies. Don't think anyone is saying that Darwin invented statistics, Galton gets credit for that, though Darwin did use statistical analysis of his experiments on plant breeding with the assistance of his mathematically competent son. But we digress. . dave souza, talk 16:59, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

Thank you Dave for that insightful comment that Darwin introduced variation, which I agree. danielkueh (talk) 17:04, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

I don't want to beat this to death since Thompsma has done an excellent job of rebutting Slrubenstein's claim that there was a movement by natural scientists to view the world statistically, and that Darwin was part of that movement. First, Menand is not a historian. I invite editors to this Wikipedia article on Menand, which does an excellent job of summarizing his credentials and current occupation. Also, listen to this NPR interview with Menand. He is introduced as an English professor of Harvard [36], which he does not dispute or try to correct. The claim that he is an 'intellectual historian' simply because he won a Pulitzer in that category is ludicrous. Many scientists such as James Watson and Santiago Ramón y Cajal won the Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine. But I would never for one second claim that scientists such as these two are physiologists or practitioners of medicine. So the use of Louis Menand's book in this area is just not good practice. There are many other books that are more comprehensive, such as "Darwin and the nature of species" by David N. Stamos that MathSci suggested. We should look to those books first, and then maybe Menand's book as a bonus reference.

With respect to that quotation by Menand, it was taken completely out of context. If you read that chapter or just few paragraphs [37], you will note that what Menand is saying is nothing new. He is just saying what other prominent scientists have said. That Darwin's observation of variation within a species was a move away from the essentialist conception of species and that such variation may occur as a result of chance. This is already covered in the article and by other sources. That quote given by Slrubenstein is just Menand inviting his readers to consider the idea of making generalizations based on statistics. Fair enough, this is well covered in any elementary course in statistics. But no where in there, does it make the leap that allows us to insert a text in the history section of an encyclopedia article that says "natural scientists, including Darwin, viewed the world statistically and that his conception of species is an example of that" or something to that effect. That is original research and is simply not verifiable.

I think I have said all I need to say about this (sigh, I have said this before). This is not a fundamental issue and it is, as one editor correctly noted, an unnecessary digression. I would like to invite all other editors to consider this issue closed and resolved, so that we can all move on to something more important. danielkueh (talk) 17:26, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

I'm really sorry for the recent screw up when editing this page. I tried as best as I can to reinsert all the text that was accidentally deleted. I don't know what happened but it was not intentional. If you see your comments missing, please accept my apologies and reinsert them back. Sorry again! danielkueh (talk) 18:21, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

For reference here is the direct link to Mayr's original essay on this topic[38]. I should also note that Mayr has been criticized in several papers and some even suggest that population thinking goes back to Linnaeus (e.g., [39]). However:

"Given the sheer volume, range, and depth of Mayr’s published works, he occupies a unique place in the developments of twentieth century evolutionary biology, and to adequately understand those developments we need to understand his work."[40]

The problem here is not about equating population thinking with statistical era - it is about the interpretation of what Menand is saying and as danielkueh has so aptly said, Menand is not offering a paradigm on this topic - he is asking the reader to consider what is already well known. We need to use the reference material appropriately. Nowhere (that I can see) does Menand give a time line or suggest that statistical thinking began with Darwin - he certainly doesn't say in the passages that I can read that this happened after the enlightenment. Hence, that would be WP:NOR. This a huge issue in evolutionary literature - debated in philosophy and history journals over and over again (e.g., [41]). You cannot, however, disregard the historical element that was central to Hennigian cladistics stemming directly from Darwin's thesis on common ancestry plus natural selection:

"A species concept can be traced at least to Aristotle (Dewey 1910), and it has been debated vigorously from seemingly all perspectives: philosophical, operational, typological, populational and historical. The most recent discourse concerns the class-individual dichotomy (Ghiselin 1974; Hull 1978).It has been especially helpful because the species category is distinguished as a class from particular species which are instances of that kind (see, however, Rieppel 1986; Cracraft 1987,p.343; Mishler and Brandon1989)." [42]

You can see in the previous quote that historical is different from population type thinking - I don't see statistical in that list. That citation comes from Arnold Kluge who has written extensively on species as historical individuals. You then have to put this argument into context of homology - where we turn to Richard Owen (who built on the concept of serial homology) and his archetype (essentialism). Homology has two components - the 'similarity' (statistical) and the causal explanation for that similarity 'common descent' (historical). It can't get any simpler than that. Darwin had a two part thesis in the Origin - one was natural selection on variation and the other was common descent:

"Instead of describing Darwin’s theory as evolution by natural selection, the theory is better described as common ancestry plus natural selection."[43]

Here is a quote from John Avise and Francisco Ayala:

"The parameters that might impact available time for mating include the probabilities of encountering mates, individual survivorships, mating latencies (times-out between mating events), and fitness distributions, all of which are likely to vary as functions of the natural histories and the evolutionary histories of species...This is because, under Darwinian logic, arguments about natural selection often require the supposition or backdrop of common ancestry (i.e., genealogy and heredity), whereas the logical defense of common ancestry does not require natural selection."[44]

Here is what David Hull has to say about this:

"Scientific theories, like biological species, are best construed as historical entities...When it comes to biological species, Mayr and Gould opt for species as being historical entities, individuated in terms of descent, not similarity."[45]

Hence, I am able to produce citation after citation that talks about the historical component. I could go on - Kevin de Queiroz talks about this as well.[46] Alan Templeton's cohesion species concept is founded on this notion as well [47] - you need to first determine if you are dealing with a single lineage and then you can apply the statistical element on top of the genealogy. This (genealogical/common descent + variation) can be traced back to Darwin and it is spread all throughout the evolutionary literature. Yet Slrubenstein wants us to use a single bit of obscure and misinterpreted information from a Pulitzer book on metaphysics that has a chapter on species essences. This debate will go on forever and it hinges on Slrubenstein's insistence that there is something very unique in Menand's summary that we can find nowhere else. This magical statistical view point changed our entire perspective on things - according to Slrubenstein's interpretation (not Menand's).

dave souza states: "Darwin didn't introduce the genealogical notion of species which goes back to the ancient Greeks, what he introduced was variation within species leading to common descent as statistical distribution of traits varies." - I disagree. Foremost, the ancient Greeks believed in spontaneous generation with no connections to the fossil record. That notion didn't come for a long time. Once again, you are doing what Slrubenstein is doing and putting words into Darwin's mouth and saying that he looked a statistical distribution's of traits. Darwin didn't use that terminology - so stop re-writing history. Of course Darwin didn't invent statistics - that was never the argument - Galton didn't invent statistics either. Moreover, we didn't have tree-like evolutionary thinking until after Darwin:

"Let us recall that biodiversity and its history, in which speciation events play a crucial role, are currently represented (at least after Darwin) by a tree visualizing genealogically-related forms."[48] "Tree thinking became widely accepted somewhat later than population thinking, as it can be said to have originated with phylogenetic systematics (Hennig 1950)."[49]

Of course, there was tree thinking in linguistics that pre-date Darwin.[50] Moreover,

"“Relationship” in the Darwinian sense means genealogical relationship. It does not mean anything like the pre-Darwinian ideas of “similarity” or conformation to an ideal type."[51]

Hennig was the first to put forward a coherent systematic method for testing the geneology, but the true founder of 'tree-thinking' and phylogenetics in an organic context was Ernst Haeckel as he depicted the tree of life.[52] Hence, I disagree with your point that this kind of thinking began with the ancient Greeks.Thompsma (talk) 19:18, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

Philologists had been using tree models to describe linguistic genealogies for a long time before Darwin, Darwin mentions that he got the idea from linguistics (as well as the principle of descent with modification).·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 19:38, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

·ʍaunus - see above, I already stated that and gave a direct reference to it. Notice that I explicitly referred to 'organic' in my text. I also want to add that variation within species does not lead to common descent as statistical distribution of traits varies - contrary to dave souza. Just think about that statement for a moment and I think you will understand the flaw in that line of thought.Thompsma (talk) 19:41, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

Ah, yeah, sorry for not noticing that. I think that the problem is a disagreement of the meaning of "statistical" I think that what we really want to argue is that Darwin didn't see species as homogeneous but as having internal genetic variation and hence not representing any ideal type. I think this is one of the really important points that are emphasised by many historians of evolutionary thought without using the word statistical. I think we can do the same.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 19:47, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

I think we can agree on a few things here:

• Darwin observed variations within a species and/or variety.
• Darwin's observation of variation is contrary to the essentialist concept of species which predated him.
• Darwin did not calculate averages, plot frequency or probability distributions, or used any other descriptive statistic (e.g., z scores) to describe variation in the Origin of Species.
• Menand's book on this topic does not assert anything profoundly new.
• Menand's book does not make the claim that natural scientists viewed the world statistically or that there was a movement to conduct more statistical studies.
• Menand's book should not be used as the first or primary source for this topic.

Am I missing anything? danielkueh (talk) 19:54, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

I don't see any reason for dismissing Menand as a source. No one source should of course be "first" or "primary" but all relevant sources should be viewed in the context of eachother. I don't think anyone is arguing that Darwin used statistics - but the usage of the word "statistical" by Menand doesn't imply that he did - it is still a defensible argument to say that for him a species was a statistical entity in that it wasn't defined by any inherent essential characteristics, but by family resemblances (a concept of statistical nature) and history. I think we can say this without using the word "statistical" which seems to be understood in a very strict sense by some people, but which needn't be. However I see no reason for hanging on to the word if it is a potential source of confusion or controversy - i think the point can be made as well with another choice of words. ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 20:01, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

The myth of prevalent pre-Darwinian Essentialism#In biology is disputed by modern scholarship, for one thing. Goes back to trying to find a form of words rather than keeping debating this specific issue. :-/ dave souza, talk 20:33, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

The summary by danielkueh sounds reasonable. I also agree with snunɐw· that Menand should not be dismissed as a source so long as the information translates properly. dave souza you are absolutely correct about the debate - it is very complex indeed. I thought that the statistical idea was a diversion from something that was already complex enough.Thompsma (talk) 20:53, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

Agreement on the Statistical diversion?

It seems that we have a few editors that have agreed that the statistical idea was more complex than original portrayed - or that it is a potential source of confusion or controversy. In an effort to remove the edit block can we have a show of votes to see if this dispute is resolved? I will repost danielkueh's summary above as a motion with a few minor revisions and will recluse myself from the vote to avoid COI:

• Darwin observed variations within a species and/or variety.
• Darwin's observation of variation is contrary to the essentialist concept of species which predated him.
• Darwin did not calculate averages, plot frequency or probability distributions, or used any other descriptive statistic (e.g., z scores) to describe variation in the Origin of Species.
• In Menand's book where he discusses this particular topic, he does not assert anything profoundly new.
• Menand's book does not make the claim that natural scientists viewed the world statistically or that there was a movement to conduct more statistical studies.
• Editors are free to cite Menand's book so long as the information accurately relays the message within that book.
• The use of term statistical as a break or departure from essentialism or typology of species is too confusing and debatable, hence we will not use this terminology pending another reliable source that states something to the contrary.Thompsma (talk) 21:34, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

Support. danielkueh (talk) 23:18, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

• At least one of these points seem only to be constructed to suggest that some editor has misrepresented Menand - I don't believe that is the case. The question of whether Menand's statements are profoundly new is also a red herring, it doesn't seem anyone has argued that. Otherwise it seem ok to me.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 01:23, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

Reposting trimmed history section

Here is the history section with suggested trimming by danielkueh above. I'm removed the deleted sections and added a few minor changes:

Prior to Darwin, most natural historians were influenced by scholars of classical Greece, such as Aristotle, who conceived of "species" in terms of essences or ideals; actual individuals were either good or bad examples of the ideal. Few advancements of evolutionary significance appeared in the Middle Ages. Greek philosophy was supplanted by natural theology during the renaissance. Natural theologians asked why organisms were adapted in form in a way that seemed fitted to their environment or particular tasks. These adaptations were attributed to the work of a creator, or God. Natural theology reached an apogee in the writings of William Paley, who is best known for his argument from design as evidence for the existence of God.

From 1802 until 1822 Jean-Baptiste Lamarck published a theory of evolution.[27][28] Lamarckism fell from favour after August Weismann's research in the 1880s indicated that changes from use and disuse were not heritable; some of Lamarck's ideas, however, remain relevant.[29][30][27][31] In 1798, Thomas Robert Malthus published An Essay on the Principle of Population that provided an explanatory basis for Darwin's selection process.[32] Darwin noted that Malthusian population limits would lead to a 'struggle for existence' where favorable variations could prevail as others perished. The reasoning was that species produce far more offspring than can survive to age of reproduction as food and other resources become limited in supply. The process of natural selection through common ancestry explained the origin of diversity.[33][34][35][36] Darwin was developing his theory of natural selection from 1838 onwards until Alfred Russel Wallace sent him a similar theory in 1858. Both men presented their separate papers to the Linnean Society of London.[37] At the end of 1859, Darwin's publication of On the Origin of Species explained natural selection in detail and in a way that lead to an increasingly wide acceptance of Darwinian evolution. Thomas Henry Huxley applied Darwin's ideas to humans, using paleontology and comparative anatomy to provide strong evidence that humans and apes shared a common ancestry. Some were disturbed by this since it implied that humans did not have a special place in the universe.[38]

Precise mechanisms on reproductive heritability and the origin of new traits remained a mystery. Towards this end, Darwin developed his provisional theory of pangenesis, which was speculatively based on the transmission of tiny heredity particles called gemmules from parent to offspring.[39] In 1865 Gregor Mendel reported that traits were inherited in a predictable manner through the independent assortment and segregation of elements (later known as genes). Mendel's laws of inheritance eventually supplanted most of Darwin's pangenesis theory.[41] It is not known if Darwin read Mendel's published research.[42][43]

Mendel's work was rediscovered independently in the 1900s by several biologists, including Hugo de Vries. Soon after the rediscovery of Mendel's work, researchers noticed the parallel between his laws of inheritance and chromosomes in cells.[44] August Weismann made the important distinction between germ cells (sperm and eggs) and somatic cells of the body, demonstrating that the stream of heredity passes through the germ line only. De Vries connected Darwin's pangenesis theory to Wiesman's germ/soma cell division and proposed that pangenes were concentrated in the nucleus and when expressed they could move into the cytoplasm to change the cells structure. De Vries believed that Mendelian traits only served to transfer existing variation, but still could not explain, however, how new varieties would originate. He developed a mutation theory that led to a false rift between those who accepted Darwinian evolution against the biometricians who allied with de Vries mutational leaps through Mendel's laws of segregation.[45][46][28].

At the turn of the 20th century, pioneers in the field of population genetics, such as J.B.S. Haldane, Sewall Wright, and Ronald Fisher, set the foundations of evolution onto a robust statistical philosophy. The false contradiction between Darwin's theory, genetic mutations, and Mendelian inheritance was thus reconciled. In the 1920s and 1930s a modern evolutionary synthesis connected natural selection, mutation theory, and Mendelian inheritance into a unified theory that applied generally to any branch of biology. The modern synthesis was able to explain patterns observed across species in populations, through fossil transitions in palaeontology, and even complex cellular mechanisms in developmental biology.[48][28] The publication of the structure of DNA by James Watson and Francis Crick in 1953 revealed a physical basis for inheritance.[49] Molecular biology improved our understanding of the relationship between genotype and phenotype. Advancements were also made in phylogenetic systematics, mapping the transition of traits into a comparative and testable framework through the publication and use of evolutionary trees.[50][51] In 1973, evolutionary biologist Theodosius Dobzhansky penned that "nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution", because it has brought to light the relations of facts in natural history into a coherent body of knowledge that describes and predicts many observable facts of life on this planet.[52] Evolutionary theory has greatly expanded and is a fully matured interdisciplinary enterprise involving scientists from diverse fields The modern synthesis has been further extended through the last century to explain biological phenomena across the full and integrative scale of the biological hierarchy, from genes to species this extension has been dubbed eco-evo-devo.[53][54][15][15]

I think danielkueh has done an excellent job at picking out the worst parts and this reads a lot better. The next question - do we continue to work on this newer version, or do we revise the old one? I prefer this one - but I'm not impartial.Thompsma (talk) 06:22, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

I think it's a better start for discussion, but the first two paragraphs in particular suffer from a muddled approach. More in the subsection below. . dave souza, talk 09:21, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

The first paragraph

I do not like the new proposal. I certainly think it can be more to the point. Objections have been raised above by others also.

"Prior to Darwin, most natural historians were influenced by scholars of classical Greece, such as Aristotle, who conceived of "species" in terms of essences or ideals; actual individuals were either good or bad examples of the ideal. Few advancements of evolutionary significance appeared in the Middle Ages. Greek philosophy was supplanted by natural theology during the renaissance. Natural theologians asked why organisms were adapted in form in a way that seemed fitted to their environment or particular tasks. These adaptations were attributed to the work of a creator, or God. Natural theology reached an apogee in the writings of William Paley, who is best known for his argument from design as evidence for the existence of God."

1. In order to avoid anything controversial I would simply say...

"Prior to Darwin, most natural historians were influenced by scholars of classical Greece, such as Aristotle, who conceived of "species" as fixed, and adapted for their role in nature by a conscious entity in control of all things. In the generations before Darwin, one author who represented this approach, and was known to Darwin, was William Paley."

(I see no reason to get into an argument about whether Paley added anything to the arguments which can be found in Aristotle and Xenophon, and which were clearly older than them. He is just one among many, and the real reason we want to draw attention to him is that Darwin read him.)--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:10, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

Agree in principle with simplification and revision, but why start with Darwin? "For any proper understanding of the context of Darwin’s great book, it is important to remember that by 1859 the concept of evolution had been in the air for fifty years and had been hotly debated for over thirty years (at least). In principle, the concept had been largely accepted in the scientific establishment."[53] While Paley's design argument was one issue, the revived influence of Aristotle's classification on various versions of the late Medieval great chain of being sets the context for Ray and Linnaeus introducing modern classification but with fixed species defined by biological descent, and for the various evolutionary ideas that competed with fixity before Darwin's refinement and synthesis of these concepts into "a 'palace coup' amongst elite men of science rather than a revolution. Indeed recent research suggests that the reaction to Darwin's Origin was less of a furore than once believed."[54] . . dave souza, talk 09:21, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

I do not disagree with these comments, but I guess it will always be the case that Darwin will affect the structure of anything we write about this subject, because he is a critical turning point and also very recognizable to most people who will come to this article. Many people will need to see his name fairly early or else they will loose orientation?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 09:43, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

Thompsma comments below: "I'm not a fan of 'a conscious entity in control of all things', couldn't we just say supernatural?" I would say many people will also have problems with the word "supernatural". The concept of something above nature presupposes that you think using the concept "nature" but you also have a specific theory that there is something above it. That seems to describe the position of Medieval science pretty well, but not all the early Greek philosophers, and also not people before Darwin like Thomas Hobbes. In other words, the supernatural is a very specific concept, and does not cover all the alternative ways of describing this idea that there is an intelligence which causes reality and the forms of things we see, based on particular designs and intentions.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 10:13, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

2. I also think we need to add a linking sentence from the first to second paragraph, so that the alternative view is not made to start with Lamarck. Something like "On the other hand, the idea that animals might change over time, or even that different species might share a common ancestry, had been considered based on biological evidence for a long time." I believe even Linnaeus considered something like what the creationists call "micro evolution"? And remember that amongst the Greeks, the argument of Aristotle was NOT universally accepted. (Otherwise he did not need to make it.)--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:10, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

As above, rather than a linking sentence we should start by outlining the developing ideas of organisation of genus/species classification, with various ideas of evolution emerging. It may be worth mentioning that both Aristotle and Linnaeus allowed for rare instances of hybridisation leading to novel species, and Ray in particular saw species as fixed but with variation (or microevolution) occurring within the species defined by descent, forming new varieties. Very good point about Aristotle, which is why I propose starting with ancient Greek philosophers such as Empedocles... more later. . dave souza, talk 09:34, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

I would be interested in this proposal.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 09:43, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

One problem it faces is that we have so little evidence about what non Socratic philosophers like Empedocles really believed. I am tempted to say that we can probably only say something of the nature that "there are indications of other understandings of species as early as"?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 09:53, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

I support suggestion 1 by Andrew Lancaster, and think suggestion 2 may become redundant with my changes proposed below.Joannamasel (talk) 09:26, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

Lamarck

I do not like the description of Lamarck. It does not acknowledge the extent to which use-and-disuse was embraced by Darwin, eg in the Descent of Man. It does not acknowledge the utter rejection of Lamarck's other ideas, eg spontaneous generation at the bottom of a great chain of being. I would delete it, or replace it with the text from the old stable version, which distinguished between the historical Lamarck's ideas and what we call Lamarckism today. Lamarck was one of several proposing the idea of evolution in general, and can be placed in that context as per Dave souza's suggestion. However, none of the evolutionary theories in the air, including but by no means limited to Lamarck, was really scientific pre-Darwin (see first sentence of old version, and Michael Ruse ref to back it up. That book is an excellent history).

I would also delete the last sentence. Eco-evo-devo is a current trend. This is a history section. We should not write history prematurely. It belongs elsewhere.Joannamasel (talk) 09:26, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

The description of Lamarck is misleading, in particular "Lamarckism fell from favour after August Weismann's research in the 1880s indicated that changes from use and disuse were not heritable;" is anachronistic and wrong. Lamarck's main proposition was in inherently progressive element in transformation, so that with time organisms increased in complexity and rose gradually towards perfection. The metaphor of a single great chain was implicit in his entire system, but it was now a mobile hierarchy, with agents possessing an inner drive to ascend. Since that didn't sufficiently allow for complexity, he proposed a secondary mechanism, use and disuse leading to heritable changes. His radical theory got a very hostile reception from Cuvier and from the French and English scientific establishment, who pointed out the lack of empirical evidence for the "drive to perfection". Darwin strongly dismissed such a drive, but continued to accept "use and disuse" which became the focus of neo-Lamarckism and was promoted as a rival to natural selection in the eclipse of Darwinism. So, two phases of dismissal of Lamarck's various ideas. If we want to mention a modern revival of use-and-disuse that could get a brief note in the modern context, but it's not clear if this has much significance to the overall topic. As a side point, evo-devo itself has been promoted as a revival of Owen's essetentialist archetype ideas, it's common for those promoting new ideas to seek support from illustrious predecessors. . dave souza, talk 09:47, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

Great feedback. I agree with Andrew Lancaster's simplification of the first paragraph - I'm not a fan of 'a conscious entity in control of all things', couldn't we just say supernatural? For the second part - sounds fine, but can you provide citations. I have tried to read some of Linnaeus' work - but had to translate it from Latin and it is slow reading. I haven't actually come across (to my memory) any of his 'evolutionary thoughts' and don't think I would classify any of his ideas as micro-evolutionary, but perhaps you know of a resource that I do not. I translated and read his paper on the economy of nature - due to my interest in ecology. I also read Larson's book[55] a long time ago and remember that Linnaeus distinguished between essential and accidental characters. The accidental characters might be the microevolution that you are referring? To my knowledge - Buffon is the first to have supported limited evolution within species (evolution in a truer sense than Linneaus through his reference to inheritance, and infertility of hybrids). I am aware that Aristotle was NOT universally accepted, but I cannot think of any among the ancient Greeks (in my readings) of any who gave the idea of common ancestry? I think Maupertuis would be the first for ancestry, then Buffon, Lamarck and Erasmus Darwin. You can find 'survival of the fittest' notions among several of the ancient Greeks. So couldn't we be a little more specific than saying 'for a long time' and simply state that several Greek philosophers (Epicurus, Lucretius, & Empedocles) that believed that species origins were fully formed, but they did express rudimentary notions of Survival of the Fittest? Perhaps you could state: "On the other hand, the idea that animals might change over time, or even that different species might share a common ancestry, was first proposed by Maupertius in a crude to general way that failed to leave a lasting impression. After this we could lead into something on Lamarck (leave Buffon and Erasmus out of it?? - Although I do like the poems by Erasmus - perhaps we could put one up in a quote box??). In response to Joannamasel - I followed up on the Ruse non-scientific sentence above and reject that claim. That is not what Ruse said. Moreover, Darwin's use and disuse is not the same as Lamarckism - it is more in line with phenotypic plasticity (see [56] - I can provide other references that agree with this point). Your comments are in line with the general negativity toward Lamarck and it may be in conflict with WP:NPOV. I posted this in my talk pages in reference to this kind of presentation in the negative of historical figures and suggest that people read Gould's Science War's article - you need to realize what limited information these people were working with at their time. In hindsight they look stupid - think of Natural Selection and Huxley's comment on how stupid he thought he was for not thinking of it first:

"I raise this point, because there is a tendency in the writing to write negatively or dismissively of the 'failed' parts of history. History doesn't work that way, neither does evolution. It is integrative and it is symbiogenetic. Bacteria can pick up old pieces of DNA or genomes and adapt them for functional purposes, we can do the same with literature. The same problem applies to Lamarck as it applies to Darwin's theories - people write dismissively of Lamarck as though we shouldn't go and look at his work, because he was proven wrong. We all know that is not how science or history works."

I would also not erase the last sentence.Thompsma (talk) 09:53, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

Thompsma, just concerning your comments on the first sentence, for neatness I will answer in the above sub-section, which is dedicated to that.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 10:08, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

Just a brief comment on common ancestry, Lamarck held that continuing spontaneous generation of life led to parallel lines of descent each driving towards increased complexity, with species being no more than a current snapshot of where the various lines were at a given moment. So he didn't have Darwin's concept of branching common ancestry, though Lamarck did allow sideways branches driven by external circumstances and use and disuse. Check out Bowler and Gould on this topic. As for "really scientific", science itself was evolving and being defined in the early 19th century, and competing versions still had elements that we wouldn't recognise today. . dave souza, talk 10:36, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

Darwin also held a similar view on multiple origins:

• "No doubt it is possible, as Mr. G. H. Lewes has urged, that at the first commencement of life many different forms were evolved; but if so, we may conclude that only a few have left modified descendants."Darwin C (1959) On the Origin of Species—a Variorum Edition, ed Peckham M (Univ of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia) - rp. 753

The difference between Lamarck and Darwin on this matter is a matter of degree. Moreover, we really don't have an answer for the origins in this context - it was certainly abiotic to biotic and it seems most parsimonious that it was a single origin, but we cannot rule out the multiple origins hypothesis nor alternatives, such as panspermia. As for "really scientific" - are you referring to Michael Ruse (1997)? I will re-iterate my point: Ruse does not make this claim. He refers to pseudo-science. From page 172. "People, including professional scientists, became evolutionists because single-handedly Darwin had moved evolution up from the status of pseudo-science, or from its epistemological equivalent. No longer was evolution just a theory that ignored, flagrantly, the norms of good science, an idea that existed only because of a cultural value." - This article translates this in absolute terms - "Prior to the work of Charles Darwin, the study of evolution was not scientific", which is a distortion of his message. It is a very bold claim indeed - and I have never seen it expressed it as such. Ruse (1997) refers the reader to this book where he discusses this point [57]. If you read in that book, you will find that the distinction is not so simple. Ruse (1997) directs the reader to that book to open the discussion on this topic not in such absolute terms.Thompsma (talk) 16:05, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

I'm afraid you're profoundly mistaken about the difference between Lamarck and Darwin on multiple origins being just a matter of degree. Darwin visualised a branching process from "one or a few" origins to the massive bush of the modern phylogenic tree, in complete contrast Lamarck's view was of simple organisms constantly being created by spontaneous generation in what has been described as a 'steady-state biology', with each created organism forming a line of descent over time with a progressive force pushing it towards greater complexity, but as it reached a more advanced stage a newly generated organism would take its place in the simple stage of this "scala natura" spread over time with multiple parallel lines of descent. See figure 9 on p. 90 of Bowler (2003) showing these parallel lines of increasing complexity from the spontaneous origins, so that at any given time there appears to be a range of different species from simple to complex. The secondary mechanism of adaptation by acquired characteristics added some branches on to this parallel scheme. . . dave souza, talk 17:00, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

dave souza - it was a simplification, I didn't want to go into extensive detail. By matter of degree I was thinking in terms of the early origins of life - Darwin obviously didn't have a problem with the idea of multiple origins. Compress events of abiotic origins down to the earliest stages of evolution (Hadean to the Archean) as singular or multiple origins from that whittled down to singular descent (Darwinian) or stretch multiple origins over time (Lamarckian). The Lamarckian idea doesn't seem so far fetched in retrospect. This was a point made by Sober:

"Darwin’s view about common ancestry concerns tracing-back, not the number of start-ups. Perhaps life started up one time or many; this may be unknowable and, in any event, was not something that Darwin thought he knew. Darwin’s claim is that all of the life that exists now, and all of the fossils that are around now too, trace back to one or a few original progenitors."[58]Thompsma (talk) 19:15, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

Don't forget he thought that any new life arising spontaneously would have a problem of surviving competition, hence the one or a few in contrast to Lamarck's continuous spontaneous generation of life. Anyway, glad it's just that we were at cross purposes a bit, . dave souza, talk 19:31, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

I won't have access to Ruse's book for another few weeks, but based on the quote you give, the sentence could be written to say that "prior to Darwin, the study of evolution was a pseudo-scientific." I'm not sure that the distinction between "not scientific" and "pseudo-scientific" is meaningful. If anything, the latter term, used by Ruse, is more perjorative.Joannamasel (talk) 16:13, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

I think the point is that he left it open to interpretation as he refers to a whole book where that topic is debated. If you go onto GoogleBooks you can search and will find that nowhere does he say 'not scientific'. I don't like the idea of putting "pseudo-scientific" into the text either - it will confuse readers. Moreover, the claim being made is that no researcher prior to Darwin took a scientific approach. I would counter that this is false. I would agree that some or possibly most was "pseudo-scientific" - but would reject that there was no science in evolution prior to Darwin. That is a very bold claim and I would like to see other reliable sources citing such a claim before I see posted in here.Thompsma (talk) 16:19, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

The book that you link to as cited by Ruse discussed the demarcation problem in many contexts and in general. The specific application of this problem to the history of evolutionary thought is one of the central points of Ruse's book. Ruse is the appropriate source here, unless there is another historian of evolutionary thought of similar stature who can be cited in explicit disagreement. You may personally disagree with the statement, but Ruse clearly makes it, and so you need to find a source.

Pseudoscience is a subset of "not science", making the original statement a logical consequence of the restricted version, and the restricted version is in turn a clear summary of your quote of Ruse. I agree that "pseudo-scientific" will confuse readers, which is why I prefer the original "not science". Yes, there was science in biology pre-Darwin, but insofar as it was science it was not evolutionary, and insofar as it was evolutionary it was not science.Joannamasel (talk) 16:28, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

It was disputed whether Darwin's own On the Origin of Species was science or not, with supporters favouring the empiricism of John Stuart Mill's A System of Logic, while opponents held to the idealist school of William Whewell's Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences, in which investigation could begin with the intuitive truth that species were fixed objects created by design. We might not accept either system as science today, but these were knowledgable discussions in the context of the development of science at the time. . dave souza, talk 17:16, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

Dave, I agree that the scientific status of Darwin's work was a reasonable subject of dispute in his time, but I think Darwin unambiguously meets today's standards of what is science. In contrast, Lamarck's evolutionary musings and those of others met neither today's nor his own day's standards for scientific work, a case clearly argued by Ruse.Joannamasel (talk) 17:24, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

But would everyone agree uncontroversially on where to draw the line? If Wikipedia reports something as if it is a consensus then we need to be sure of that.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 17:49, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

At this point we have one reputable source (Ruse) in agreement, and no sources cited in opposition. We have an editor in opposition, but that's obviously not the same.Joannamasel (talk) 18:04, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

I agree with Andrew Lancaster on his points above. I disagree with the statement "insofar as it was science it was not evolutionary" and I don't think (or interpret) that Ruse (1997) makes this claim (but he may come close to this claim in subsequent publications - see below). It seems like a very bold claim to suggest that Lamarck wasn't a scientist and his work wasn't evolutionary. I would agree that Lamarck dabbled in the 'dark arts' of pseudo-science, but so did Alfred Wallace. At what point do we pick apart the scientist from the science? We can claim that Darwin invented a new way of conducting natural history science, but was all before him non-scientific? Was it proto-science? These are the questions that are asked in the book that Ruse (1997) directs the reader toward. Thinking of this in relation to Kuhn's paradigm shift:

"Indeed, evolutionary biology may be one of the most glaring exceptions to philosopher Thomas Kuhn's idea (Kuhn, 1970) that progress in science takes place through occasional revolutions (paradigm shifts), as in the transition between the Ptolemaic and the Copernican systems, or between the Newtonian and relativistic conceptions of the universe. Since Darwin's original idea was, as far as we can tell, essentially correct, it stands to reason that all the work of the Modern Synthesis, as well as all current attempts to improve on the latter, are best thought of as additional ramifications stemming out of the same base tree, not as plots to uproot the Darwinian construction."[59]

Bernard Cohen addresses this idea in his book - Revolutions in Science[60]. Karl Popper took great pains to distinguish between pseudo-science and science proper (i.e., falsifiability) and initially saw Darwinism as a pseudoscience.[61] However, for Kuhn - science is a social phenomenon. In page 328 in the afterword of another book by Ruse[62] - he does give give a description unlike his 1997 book that would back up the claim in the sentence - that prior to Darwin evolution was not scientific. He also makes the following statement in a more recent paper:

"The first period, from the early 18th century (the time of the French Encyclopediast and early evolutionist Denis Diderot) to the publication of the Origin in 1859, was the time when the status of evolutionary thinking was that of a pseudo science: an emergent on the cultural value of progress."[63]

Do we just go with Ruse on this one? David Sloan Wilson has gone so far to say that science is akin to religion as a unifying human social organization - so the lines of demarcation on this one are not exactly clear. It's a tough call - I tend to lean on the Kuhnian philosophy (as would Gould and other philosophers) that science is a social phenomenon and we can't demarcate from pseudo to true science in retrospect:

"The fact that paradigms are entities with definite beginnings and ends turns the history of science into a genuinely historical discipline, since it implies that one can only understand the science of a past era by trying to think oneself into the conceptual scheme of the then-dominant paradigm. Trying to evaluate the past by modern standards-depicting the past as a series of discoveries each representing a step towards our modern level of knowledge - can only lead to misunderstanding. Bowler (2001) [64]

Perhaps we could say that prior to Darwin, evolution was not presented in a way that theories about nature could not be objectively refuted?Thompsma (talk) 19:03, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

That was actually a criticism of Darwin at the time, as I recall his methodology of historical analogy and massing facts which were best explained by the theory were seen as lacking the true induction. Better to look at it the other way, Darwin's work was taken up by the X Clubbers and, as discussed in The eclipse of Darwinism#Theistic evolution, "A secular version of this methodological naturalism was welcomed by a younger generation of scientists who sought to investigate natural causes of organic change, and rejected theistic evolution in science. By 1872 Darwinism in its broader sense of the fact of evolution was accepted as a starting point. Around 1890 only a few older men held onto the idea of design in science, and it had completely disappeared from mainstream scientific discussions by 1900. There was still unease about the implications of natural selection, and those seeking a purpose or direction in evolution turned to neo-Lamarckism or orthogenesis as providing natural explanations." Put more concisely, Darwin's work helped change science away from an ultimate dependence on supernatural causes, remove theological influence and move science to a secular methodological naturalism, or something on those lines. . dave souza, talk 19:31, 16 August 2011 (UTC) revise suggestion. dave souza, talk 19:36, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

Thanks Dave, I think a simple solution is simply to keep the original sentence, and replace or supplement the Ruse 1997 citation with the less ambiguous Ruse citation that you found. I don't think we want to get into the definition of science in this already-long article, especially as its application to evolution has been complex and taken a long time to play out, eg with Popper changing his mind. The function of that sentence was originally to serve as implicit explanation for why the history section focused on Darwin and later, which I think is the time period of greatest interest to the typical reader. I am open to short alternative proposals that deal quickly and accurately with the pre-Darwin thought. The Ruse 1997 citation was there in part because it is a good full-length history of both pre and post Darwin: this could be a reason to cite both, rather than do a replacement.Joannamasel (talk) 19:51, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

One thing we can say about consensus and the definition of science is that there is none, so yes, to be avoided.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 19:58, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

If only Ruse had said - "not scientific", but instead he said "pseudo science". If the meaning was equivalent (debatable) this would be simple.Thompsma (talk) 20:58, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

A nuance: Ruse doesn't say the earlier work was pseudoscience, he says that prior to 1859 "was the time when the status of evolutionary thinking was that of a pseudo science: an emergent on the cultural value of progress." [emphasis added] He then describes the status as "popular science" when evolution was accepted but in his view there was a lack of serious work until the 1930s brought "a fully professional science of evolutionary biology". So, the status pre 1859 was that evolutionary proposals did not achieve or get scientific legitimacy, and we can use this source to comment on this in the paragraph on Darwin. Something to look forward to, . . dave souza, talk 22:10, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the insight Dave Souza. Going back to Ruse (1979/2009): "Lamarck, however, opposed extinction for almost the opposite reason. Other than by appealing to a supernatural cause, something he as a scientist was loath to do, he could not see how any species could become extinct (except, he came to concede, in special circumstances where man destroyed all its members)."p. 6 [65] If Lamarck is a scientist and an evolutionist (he also states this), then this does not match with "Prior to the work of Charles Darwin, the study of evolution was not scientific" - i. Lamarck was prior to Darwin (of course), ii. Lamarck studied evolution, iii. Lamarck was a scientist. i-iii, all stated by Ruse, is incompatible with the statement that evolution was not scientific. This speaks to dave souza's insight above - the status of science changed and he is looking at it in a cultural context.Thompsma (talk) 00:49, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

That does not follow as a matter of logic. Lamarck was a scientist doing recognised biological work. I can't remember what offhand, but most scientists did taxonomy/systematics back then. Lamarck ALSO published evolutionary musings, quite apart from his scientific work. Just because someone is a scientist, that doesn't make all their publications science... I know some scientists who write quite good poetry, for example...Joannamasel (talk) 17:13, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

I think that is a far stretch Joannamasel - to say that Lamarck published evolutionary 'musings', but did scientific research in other areas. That is quite the contrivance! In context of reading the deeper meaning of what Ruse is saying - 1) Ruse states that Lamarck was a scientist and an evolutionst, and 2) he is referring to the status of science. The question is if the study of evolution prior to Darwin was scientific, not if the status of evolution was scientific. There is a difference. You are suggesting that Lamarck studied other things in a scientific way, but not evolution? Ruse refers to Whewell's conscilience and how Cuvier discounted the status of evolutionary proposals, because it wasn't consistent with the rest of science at that time. Once again, Ruse is talking about the cultural construct of science. It may be true that Ruse thinks that the study of evolution prior to the Origin was not scientific, but he does not say this and so we cannot know.Thompsma (talk) 19:44, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

Concept of fist two paragraphs

Ideas that living organisms could change over time go back to ancient Greek philosophers such as Empedocles, who envisaged a non-supernatural origin of animals in a jumbled assembly of parts with only those able to fend for themselves continuing to survive and reproduce. In contrast, Plato's Theory of Forms classified everything conceivable as having been created on the plenitude principle of a complete designed structure. On similar principles Aristotle placed organisms in a great chain of being classified in a hierarchy of structures and abilities, a scale of subtle variations from lowest to highest with no "jumps". In Medieval Europe, nature was widely believed to be unstable and capricious, with monstrous births from union between species, and spontaneous generation of life, but the reintroduction of Aristotle's thought via Islamic sources popularised various versions of the great chain of being as a moral hierarchy, with all creatures in their divinely appointed place.

In the 17th century an emerging science sought mechanical explanations open to empirical investigation. To develop a rational taxonomy, John Ray gave the previously more general term species its first purely biological definition, determining species by the distinguishing features that perpetuate themselves in propagation from seed. The originals of these generative species had been designed by God, and so species were fixed but included any varieties which merely showed differences caused by local conditions. The biological classification introduced by Carolus Linnaeus in 1735 also viewed species as fixed according to the divine plan. Other naturalists of this time speculated on evolutionary development of species from natural origins: among them, Maupertuis wrote in 1751 of natural modifications occurring during reproduction and accumulating over many generations to produce new species, Buffon suggested suggested that species could degenerate into different organisms, and Erasmus Darwin writing that all warm-blooded animals could have developed from a single filament. By the 1780s geologists assumed that the world was extremely old, with Werner's Neptunian concept the main opposition to James Hutton's proposal of a self-maintaining infinite cycle. The first fully fledged evolutionary scheme was Lamarck's "transmutation" theory of 1809 which envisaged spontaneous generation continually producing simple forms of life that progressively developed greater complexity in parallel but separate lineages with no extinction due to an inherent progressive tendency, and side branches to these lineages adapting to the environment by inheriting changes in adults caused by use or disuse (The latter process was later called Lamarckism). These ideas were condemned by establishment naturalists as speculation lacking empirical support. In particular Georges Cuvier insisted that species were unrelated and fixed, their similarities reflecting divine design for functional needs. Cuvier's palæontological work in the 1790s had established the reality of extinction, which he explained by local catastrophes, followed by repopulation of the affected areas by other species. In Britain, Ray's ideas of benevolent design had been developed by William Paley into a natural theology which strongly influenced English science, and proposed complex adaptations as evidence of divine design. Transmutation was supported by a radical fringe, but strongly opposed by the mainstream. Continental ideas of idealism and development from divine archetypes were taken up cautiously by Richard Owen, who suggested an ordained evolutionary process, and by Louis Agassiz who continued to oppose evolution.

This is a first go at pulling the various strands together, and would be followed by Darwin's intervention and influence. Still needs a lot of refinement, but thought it worth putting here to give an indication of topics I think are sufficiently significant to the general history of evolutionary science. I've been working from several sources, and intend to get this fully cited in due course. . dave souza, talk 14:08, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

Thanks Dave, starting with the start:

Ideas that living organisms could change over time. I would say "Record of proposals that the characteristics of species could change over time". That organisms change over time is not controversial, of course. :)

a non-supernatural origin. I wonder if we can avoid "non-supernatural". It seems an odd construct, and it is also anachronistic in the sense that it is our modern way of describing a pre medieval theory as different from medieval. What about just saying a "natural" origin?

In contrast, Plato's Theory of Forms ... divinely appointed place. I think this section, is somewhere in the no-mans land of being too compressed to be easy to understand for more readers, and not compressed enough to avoid looking like a digression. I think the lucky solution is that we can honestly say that basically there is a simple continuity from Plato to Paley: "In contrast, Plato and Aristotle conceived of "species" as fixed, and adapted for their role in nature by a mind in control of all things. This became the standard understanding of the Middle Ages, and in the generations before Darwin, one author who represented this approach, and was known to Darwin, was William Paley."--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 14:22, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

I would also adapt what you say about the first Greeks. I started writing a draft now of the first paragraph suggested by Dave, but of course now I find I am expanding and may be creating a digression of my own! Anyway, I'll put the expanded part in italics. I am guessing it might surprise some people...

"Record of proposals that one type of animal could descend from animals of another type, go back to the first pre-Socratic Greek philosophers. Anaximander of Miletus proposed that the first animals lived in water, during a wet phase of the Earth's past, and that the first land-dwelling ancestors of mankind must have been born in water, and only spent part of their life on land. He also argued that the first human of the form known today must have been the child of a different type of animal, because man needs prolonged nursing to live. Empedocles, argued that what we call birth and death in animals are just the mingling and separations of elements which cause the countless "tribes of mortal things". Specifically, the first animals and plants were like disjointed parts of the ones we see today, some of which survived by joining in different combinations, and then intermixing, and wherever "everything turned out as it would have if it were on purpose, there the creatures survived, being accidentally compounded in a suitable way. In contrast, Plato and Aristotle conceived of "species" as fixed, and adapted for their role in nature by a mind in control of all things. This became the standard understanding of the Middle Ages, which was still being defended in the generations before Darwin."

Comments?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 15:09, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

From the sources I'm looking at, the concept of fixed species in our terms seems to have originated with Ray: Plato and Aristotle had concepts of classification revealing a transcendental reality against which the material world was a shadow, their most significant influence was the chain of being containing all possible organisms with no big jumps between places on this linear chain. Paley followed Ray rather than the Greeks. Will try to check this out and give more detail soon if this is an issue, but there's a huge shift from the classical linear hierarchy of thought to the five ranked taxonomic system of Linnaeus based on empirical characteristics. Also, it's more important to give some idea of the variety of evolutionary ideas from the 18th century to the 1850s rather than suggesting simplistic forerunners to Darwin . dave souza, talk 15:14, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

Yes, and I guess the potential digression would be "in our terms". The term species is classical, and how it was understood meant that they were fixed. But there were species for more things than just animals. What happened in essence is that biology recovered the old concept, just for use with animals and plants, which for the other sciences had been demolished by Francis Bacon in the Novum Organum. Bacon said that he was not getting rid of the "forms" but just clarifying that what we should mean by them are (to use our terms today) laws of nature. But he knew what he was doing, and so did the international audience who read him in Latin. Concerning those who resisted this, exactly who followed who is not something I am up to here, but there is a basic similarity between classical and modern arguments for fixed species. I do agree with your basic idea of giving extra attention to the 18th century of course, and the above is meant to lead into your second paragraph.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 15:21, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, perhaps we should move the second paragraph into a new section for discussion once we've got the first more resolved! From Wilkins, John S. (2009). Species : a history of the idea. Berkeley: University of California Press. pp. 10–21. ISBN 978-0-520-26085-6., the word "species" is a Latin version of the Greek eidos which can mean idea or form. Plato proposed a general classification of everything, and eidos (plural eideai) were "metaphysical or ontological realities that were neither changeable nor in the transitory world and that were preconditions for knowledge." They were as much or more likely to be concerned with social justice than with natural objects or organisms. His significance is that Aristotle followed a modified version of this concept in subdividing by differentiation to classify a topic, in this case biology, developing "science by definition". It's argued that Aristotle did not depend on species in the biological sense being eternal or fixed, but the kinds were eternal. A passage is discussed in which Aristotle gives credence to tales of different species of animals hybridising, but it's disputed whether this means that he accepted this degree of species change. A bit out of my depth, but don't think we should cover this in detail. dave souza, talk 16:02, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

A reminder that if you go back before Jun 17 2011, there was much more pre-Darwin stuff in this history section. Pre-Darwin and other material was deleted (with some rewrite as necessary for transitions) in an attempt to make the article shorter, and more focused on subjects of interest to a very general reader, given the presence on excellent article just on the history. Worth checking out that version in case some kind of merger is helpful, if the consensus is to discuss pre-Darwin at any length. Back when that shortened draft text (the stable text to which return has been proposed) was on the talk page, not very long ago, there was no controversy...Joannamasel (talk) 16:42, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

Dave, just exactly what Plato and Aristotle thought might be real species is a subject you could spend your life studying and still have no answer. That is one reason I think we should not even go that way. And so, coming to Joannamasel's remark, I agree. Whatever we put here, needs to be well compressed material that will fill the basic needs of most readers, with the understanding that they can go to "child" articles for more details.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 16:52, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

Fair points, which is why I wanted to just show the minimum to make it clear that proto-evolutionary concepts were discussed by some Greek philosophers, but more influentially Plato and Socrates developed an influential classification leading to the great chain of being concept. Will review how to minimise that paragraph on the basis of expecting readers to follow it up on the relevant "child" main pages. Similarly, the 17th to mid 19th century section needs to be much compressed, probably by leaving out the explanations of the various evolutionary concepts etc. . . dave souza, talk 17:07, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

One thing I noticed when working through that section in the draft now immediately below is how there is lots of repetition of X believed species were fixed and then Y believed it also and the Z also did. It seems to me we could just say that everyone did, except for the others to be specially discussed.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 17:18, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

Another try

I'll put some stuff together from above sections, and with lots of edits. This is intended to bring us up to Darwin or nearly to him. I have cut a lot into Dave's 18th century stuff.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 17:15, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

Proposals that one type of animal could descend from animals of another type, are known to go back to the first pre-Socratic Greek philosophers. Anaximander of Miletus proposed that the first animals lived in water, during a wet phase of the Earth's past, and that the first land-dwelling ancestors of mankind must have been born in water, and only spent part of their life on land. He also argued that the first human of the form known today must have been the child of a different type of animal, because man needs prolonged nursing to live. Empedocles, argued that what we call birth and death in animals are just the mingling and separations of elements which cause the countless "tribes of mortal things". Specifically, the first animals and plants were like disjointed parts of the ones we see today, some of which survived by joining in different combinations, and then intermixing, and wherever "everything turned out as it would have if it were on purpose, there the creatures survived, being accidentally compounded in a suitable way. In contrast, Plato and Aristotle conceived of "species" as fixed, not only for living things, but for things in general, and adapted for their role in nature by a mind in control of all things. Variations of this idea became the standard understanding of the Middle Ages, which was still being defended in the generations before Darwin.

In the 17th century the new style of modern science sought explanations of natural phenomena in terms of laws of nature which were the same for all species of things. This approach was slow to take root in the biological sciences, which continued to see living things as fixed natural species. John Ray gave the previously more general term "species" its first purely biological definition, determined by the distinguishing features that perpetuate themselves each generation. These were designed by God, but showing differences caused by local conditions. The biological classification introduced by Carolus Linnaeus in 1735 also viewed species as fixed according to the divine plan.

Other naturalists of this time speculated on evolutionary development of species from natural origins. Maupertuis wrote in 1751 of natural modifications occurring during reproduction and accumulating over many generations to produce new species. Buffon suggested suggested that species could degenerate into different organisms, and Erasmus Darwin proposed that all warm-blooded animals could have developed from a single filament.

The first fully fledged evolutionary scheme was Lamarck's "transmutation" theory of 1809 which envisaged spontaneous generation continually producing simple forms of life developed greater complexity in parallel lineages with an inherent progressive tendency, and that on a local level these lineages adapted to the environment by inheriting changes caused by use or disuse in parents. (The latter process was later called Lamarckism). These ideas were condemned by establishment naturalists as speculation lacking empirical support. In particular Georges Cuvier insisted that species were unrelated and fixed, their similarities reflecting divine design for functional needs. In the meantime, Ray's ideas of benevolent design had been developed by William Paley into a natural theology which proposed complex adaptations as evidence of divine design.

On the other hand, by the 1780s geologists assumed that the world was extremely old, and the study of fossils was becoming important. Cuvier's palæontological work in the 1790s had established the reality of extinction, which he explained by local catastrophes, followed by repopulation of the affected areas by other species.

I like this! Great job. Suggested change - "Erasmus Darwin proposed that all warm-blooded animals could have developed descended from a single filament microorganism." - left alone as filament leaves too much to the imagination.Thompsma (talk) 19:33, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

Good progress, at first glance I'm happy with the basic trimming of the paragraphs, and with Thompsma's "microorganism" suggestion. The first paragraph seems to me to miss the point and have excessive detail, will propose a revised and cropped version. . dave souza, talk 19:42, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

I agree, good progress. I still believe we need at least one sentence about the break (or movement0 away from the Linnean understanding of the concept "species" Menand points out as decisive. I know some editors found my summary of Menand confusing. I would welcome them or anyone else to propose a sentence that summarizes Menand's point in that chapter of his book, especially the material I quoted and provided. I also note that another editor does not think Menand's point is new. Great! This means that some other historian has made a similar point! I think it would be great to add another citation to work by another historian that makes the same point. If anyone can provide an example of a historian of science or intellectual historian who argues a point that conflicts with Menand, I am sure that following NPOV we can find a way to provide both views but so far no one has provided any sources contradicting Menand, so ... Slrubenstein | Talk 23:17, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

First paragraph revisited

The concept that one type of animal could descend from animals of another type goes back to some of the first pre-Socratic Greek philosophers, such as Anaximander and Empedocles. In contrast to these materialistic views, Plato and Aristotle conceived of "Forms" of things as metaphysical and unchanging, unlike the material word. Aristotle's classification of life in a great chain of being in which every created life form had its place, graded higher or lower by mobility and spiritual qualities, was influential from the later Middle Ages onwards.

Don't really think we have to spell out the proto-evolutionary concepts as long as they're shown in the linked articles, the significance of Plato and Aristotle is in the lasting idea of higher and lower creatures, also found for example in Lamarck. . . dave souza, talk 20:19, 16 August 2011 (UTC) Add piped links to sections on evo concepts, avoid disamb for Anaximander. . . . dave souza, talk 20:27, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

Agreed.Thompsma (talk) 21:03, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

• Concerning compressing the pre Socratics, sadly I accept, and had already suggested it would be needed when I wrote that draft. Just in case it was not obvious, I did add text based off my proposal to the Greek section of the History of evolutionary thought article.
• I am not sure I like the proposal to talk of Plato and Aristotle's "theory of forms". It is anachronistic and basically means that we are taking a position in the ancient debate about how close Plato and Aristotle are to the way they are taught to undergrads. Furthermore, all the terms are jargony/academic, in ways which experts on Plato and Aristotle would find debatable, whereas Plato and Aristotle often tried to build upon everyday words. So I still prefer my proposal of "In contrast, Plato and Aristotle conceived of "species" as fixed, not only for living things, but for things in general, and adapted for their role in nature by a mind in control of all things. Variations of this idea became the standard understanding of the Middle Ages, which was still being defended in the generations before Darwin." I think is more accurate and clear and easy to read.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 17:00, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

I am fine with merging Andrew Lancaster's sentence with dave souza's simplification of the first paragraph. My agreement was speaking more toward the simplification of that first paragraph. I don't like the wording of 'a mind in control of all things' - it seems out of character. Can we refer to supernatural and teleology in contrast to materialism?:

"The concept that one type of animal could descend from animals of another type goes back to some of the first pre-Socratic Greek philosophers, such as Anaximander and Empedocles. In contrast to these materialistic views, Plato and Aristotle conceived of "species" as fixed, not only for living things, but for things in general, and forwarded a teleological philosophy suggesting that species were adapted by a supernatural wisdom giving cause, purpose, and meaning to life. Variations of this idea became the standard understanding of the Middle Ages, which was still being defended in the generations before Darwin."Thompsma (talk) 19:04, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

I think I prefer this to Dave's version, although materialism, supernatural and teleological are putting things into modern terms, I do tend to think these particular terms are a bit less vaguely defined and a bit more easy to correlate to things really in the original classical authors. I definitely do not like the change from proposal to concept though (opening words).--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 19:29, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

As discussed in #Concept of fist two paragraphs above, Wilkins is clear that "species" did not mean the same to Aristotle or Plato as it does to us, so using the term is misleading. Species were objects of knowledge rather than biological species. It's also very questionable to what extent they considered [biological species] (in our sense) to be fixed, Wilkins does not think Aristotle thought they were fixed.
Later medieval writers, influenced by neo-Platonism rather than Plato, were concerned with a divinely created eternal pattern rather than insisting that each species was fixed, thus Albertus Magnus lists five ways plant species could change their species, but this may be more to do with the definition of species as "sort" in the absence of the later biological definition. Thomas of Aquinas allowed species to be generated by spontaneous generation from putrefaction, but any new species were expressing "various active powers" already present as given by God at creation. Nicholas of Cusa had a concept of the great chain of being in which "no species descends to the point that it is the minimum species of some genus, for before it reaches the minimum it is changed into another species".
Their interest was primarily conceptual and spiritual, with little interest in the physical. So, it's wrong to simply say that there was a continuing notion of species being fixed, but there was this more metaphysical and spiritual belief in unchanging concepts as created. Hence my wording above. We can expect readers to go to linked articles to get a deeper understanding of these complex thoughts, for our purposes the main issue is this earlier framework of classification which had a lasting influence in the idea of a hierarchy of higher and lower organisms. Please be aware of these issues in any rewording, avoiding misleading suggestions of "fixed species" . dave souza, talk 20:13, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

Some fair comment. I guess the point is that Plato and Aristotle and many of their philosophical pre-modern followers, did not want to get too stuck concerning which species, which types of things, were fixed or by nature. How about "In contrast, Plato and Aristotle argued that all things we perceive can be grouped into natural, and not just conventional, types or species. They had a teleological understanding of nature in which all things have an intended role to play in the cosmos. Variations of this idea became the standard understanding of the Middle Ages. The idea that specifically the animal and plant species are such fixed types was being defended in the generations before Darwin."--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 20:33, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

Aristotle did refer to individual peculiarities, but these were fixed in the eternity of their essence and form. To Aristotle form was more important that matter - and final causes were the dominant factors that created a rigid cosmos.. Although, I'm okay with the changes that Andrew Lancaster has made, but prefer the former for its brevity.Thompsma (talk) 20:45, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

<ec> Not too sure about the "natural, and not just conventional", as there seems to have been a continuing debate between nominalists who thought the naming was a convention, and those who thought the naming reflected an underlying reality (not necessarily a material reality). More concerned about the use of "or species", perhaps better "groups or types", or even just "types". The later defence of fixed species follows on from the second paragraph etc, so isn't needed here. There wasn't really a standard understanding in the Middle ages, but variations on the chain of being are significant for this topic, hence my proposal above. Thompsma, "form was more important that matter - and final causes were the dominant factors that created a rigid cosmos" is a great description of Aristotle's views, can we summarise that in just a few words? dave souza, talk 20:53, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

Hmm. I also feel some attraction to those words, but they don't get us away from the need to digress into non biological digressions and controversies. I don't know if Aristotle ever actually said form was more important than matter, and I don't recall any doctrines about rigid cosmoses. I also tend to think that the Aristotelian concepts of formal and final cause are complicated and not interpreted by everyone the same way. I think the key non-controversial and lasting point about the Platonic-Aristotelian understanding are that all types of things have a divinely ordained role in a natural order. That is not so hard to put in everyday words. It essentially links to "the argument from design" which we still hear today sometimes, but which can also be found in Plato, Xenophon etc. But I think Dave is right that just exactly what aspects of the biological and botanical species are divinely pre-ordained and fixed as "formal causes" is more implied than stated, and that gives the complication about how to word this.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 06:05, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

Small afterthought: worth pointing out that using quotes, and adding not only for living things (""species" as fixed, not only for living things") was meant to draw the reader's eye to the fact that the species involved are not quite the ones in biology today.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 14:12, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

next try on those first two proposed paragraphs

No posts for a while, so I'll record where I think my best proposal would be right now for those first two paragraphs. I not only merge material from drafts above, but also try to keep compressing, and of course trying to smooth out the flow and address on-going concerns:-

The proposal that one type of animal could descend from an animal of another type goes back to some of the first pre-Socratic Greek philosophers, such as Anaximander and Empedocles. In contrast to these materialistic views, Plato and Aristotle understood all natural things, not only living things, as being in fixed natural categories ("forms", "ideas", or "species"). This was part of their teleological understanding of nature in which all things have an intended role to play in a divine cosmic order. Variations of this idea became the standard understanding of the Middle Ages.

In the 17th century the new method of modern science rejected this approach, and sought explanations of natural phenomena in terms of laws of nature which were the same for all visible things, and did not need to assume any fixed natural categories, nor any divine cosmic order. But this new approach was slow to take root in the biological sciences, which became the last bastion of the concept of fixed natural types, applying it in a strict way to animal and plant types. John Ray gave the previously more general term "species" its first purely biological definition, determined by the distinguishing features that perpetuate themselves each generation. These were designed by God, but showing differences caused by local conditions. The biological classification introduced by Carolus Linnaeus in 1735 also viewed species as fixed according to a divine plan.

Comments?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 09:21, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

I like this, a lot, although my concern is still with pegging these claims to appropriate sources (e.g. biographers, historians of science, intellectual historians). Menand is writing about a pivotal break with Linneaus and I think we need to include it in the main article on evolution because (1) we still use Linnean classification so we need to be clear where the break is and (2) many people still think of species as ideal-types (there is a show on BBC's Radio 4 on this week, about how persistent is the notion that our own species is best represented by ideal types ... this is not a programme on biology or natural history, I bring it up anecdotally just to show how deeply held the view is, at least outside of specialists). The point is that long before specific statistical methods were applied to the study of gene frequencies, people had begun thinking of the idea of "species" itself in a way that it more with this later approach than with Linneaus's approach, and that Darwin's work and its growing popularity played an important role in this change. And while this is a point that biologists and probably anyone editing this chapter takes for granted, it is actually a point many non-specialists (even ones who say they believe in evolution) do not understand or agree with. Chapter Six of Menand's book describes this transition in fine detail - I provided a quotation that I think best capture the point but I recommend all of chapter 6 to others. I would love it if the separate article on the history of evolutionary thought covered the emergence and importance of this idea in detail (we would want to make use of other sources; I do not know of any but Danielkueh or Thompsma said they knew of other sources).

But it is important (and misunderstood) enough that it deserves inclusion in this article. I am certain that this can be accomplished in two lines, maybe even one. Above, a couple of editors criticized my summary of Menand's view. Okay - I would be happy for Andrew or Daniel or David or someone else to craft the sentence. Someone else – either Danielkueh or Thompsma – pointed out that many others have made this point. That's great!! There is no reason why we cannot have one sentence with several citations. I am not sure that anyone has brought forward those citations yet, I have not seen them, but I certainly agree it would be an improvement to add them. Slrubenstein | Talk 10:32, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

Hi SLR, yes I cleverly stopped at Linnaeus indeed, knowing that there is another dsicussion about the sequel which has been on-going. :) --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 10:43, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

Andrew, you're doing a great job. You should continue all the way to Lamarck. Darwin doesn't come into the picture until then anyway. I also recommend integrating your text into the trimmed version of the History section to create a temporary "integrated text". Tomorrow or whenever you have time, you could then replace the present text with the integrated text. We can then discuss and make more appropriate modifications as needed. Again, great job! As always! danielkueh (talk) 15:26, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

I am a bit leery about Slrubenstein's suggestion in the sense that I'm not sure if the meaning of what he is trying to propose here can be accomplished in this article in one or two lines. There is a bit of clarification that is needed here: "(1) we still use Linnean classification so we need to be clear where the break is" - not in the new phylocode (see [66]), they have broken with the Linnean system into rank free taxonomy. Surprisingly, the rank free phylocode is based on precisely the same sorts of arguments that Lamarck made - "Nature has made nothing of this kind: and instead of deceiving ourselves into confusing our works with hers, we should recognise that classes, orders, families, genera and nomenclatures are weapons of our own invention...We may, therefore, rest assured that among her productions nature has not really formed either classes, orders, families, genera or constant species, but only individuals who succeed one another and resemble those from which they sprung. Now these individuals belong to infinitely diversified races, which blend together every variety of form and degree of organization; and this is maintained by each without variation, so long as no cause of change acts upon them" (Lamarck 1809). This will get far more complicated than I think you realize. Moreover, Buffon gave a very good definition of the biological species concept that Ernst Mayr later championed: "We should regard two animals as belonging to the same species if, by means of copulation, they can perpetuate themselves and preserve the likeness of the species; and we should regard them as belonging to different species if they are incapable of producing progeny by the same means" (Buffon 1749). Lamarck defined species thus: "Any collection of like individuals which were produced by others similar to themselves is called a species." (Ibid.) Linnaeus' later work questioned if species were the right category and wondered if it might be the genera that were separately created. I'm also a little confused with your comment Slrubenstein: "people had begun thinking of the idea of "species" itself 'in a way that it more with this later approach' than with Linneaus's approach" - could you fix that sentence, there is a grammar mistake and so I'm not sure what the point is? The problem with the Menand book is that he may give an overview of the change in thought, he does not give an explicit timeline in the way that Ruse (1999) does (for example), he reviews the transition from ideal forms (essence typologist - teleological thinking) to seeing the importance of relations among things, but he does not talk at all about evolutionary thinking in terms of tree thinking (genealogical - common descent) and so it makes it difficult to put his perspective into a chronological sequence and translate it relative to what others have written on this same topic in greater detail. If someone wants to take a stab at it - please do. Suggested changes to Andrew's proposal above:

I am sorry for the grammatical mistake - frankly I do not think it maters as I have said hat it would be better for someon else to write any line (or two) representing Menand's point. You bring up Michael Ruse, who is a philosopher, not a historians — but certainly, if Menand can write competently about the intellectual history so can Ruse and I agree with you that he is just as acceptable a source (my point is that their training may explain some of the differences in their books). You are right about Menand being less attentive to the chronolkogy; he is less interestee in specific dates and more interested in the shaping of larger trends, the kinds o trends that unexpectedly make work by statisticians have an inluence that goes beyond their discipline and profession, just as (Menand argues) Darwin's views about things like species end up having inluence that goes far beyond biology.

You say that Ruse is more precise about time It seems to me tht we could use both sources. First, a sentence or to summarizing Menand's point about a general trend linking the sciences to philosophy, and then a sentence or two summarizing Ruse's points about very specific moments. Or maybe have it the other way around - describe key momnts with specificity and then explain the larger trend. I have already agreed not to write the sentences myself, but why not have one of the more trusted editors write out basic accounts of their (Menand and Ruse)'s arguments in no more than two sentences each and then we can compare putting one before the other and vice versa and see which flows better. Then, once we decide on the order, we can revise the wording to make sure it reallhy flows well.

Thompsma also expresses concerns about the ability to represent them concisely in this section of the article. I have two suggestions. First, add material from Menand and from Ruse in greater detail or with more exposition in the linked daughter article. It is often easier to write more and then summarize than vice versa. After impoving the daughter article, where one can devoe more words to any particular view, it might be much easier to know how to summarize these views in ths section. Second, I think we need clarity about what the purpose of this secion is (and I'd turn to Andrew and Dave, who have been doing such great work, for their opinions on this).It is clear to me that the purpose of this section is NOT to detail every position that natural philosophers or, later, scientists held about "evolution." My own view is that it should summarize they key discoveries and shifts in how the world or elements of it were being conceptualized, that made Darwin's key breakthroughs and their widespread acceptance possible, and perhaps also to call attention to those elemenst of evolutionary theory that people believed to have moral and political implications (althogh perhaps this stuff should go into the social and cultural responses section - I ould propose writing it first and then deciding where it best belongs. But I would like to know what Dav and Andrew think the purpose of this section is. My point is that once we have consensus about the purpose of the section, then it will be much easier to add concise accounts of debates or views of historians (including intellectual historians, including the philosopher Ruse). They will be concise because we will add only what is necessary to accomplish the purpose of this secion (not to provide a complete account of the source). Slrubenstein | Talk 02:07, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

• Scientists in the 17th century the new method of modern science rejected this approach, and sought explanations of natural phenomena in terms of laws of nature which were the same for all visible things, and did not need to assume any which was a transition in the scientific method from the antecedant practice that envisioned fixed natural categories, nor any and a divine cosmic order. But This new approach was slow to take root. in the biological sciences, which became the last bastion of the concept of fixed natural types, applying it in a strict way to animal and plant types.

I am not happy with the next sentences: "John Ray gave the previously more general term "species" its first purely biological definition, determined by the distinguishing features that perpetuate themselves each generation. These were designed by God, but showing differences caused by local conditions. The biological classification introduced by Carolus Linnaeus in 1735 also viewed species as fixed according to a divine plan." - It's clunky and I would steer away from 'purely biological definition' - not to be confused with biological species concept. I think that these sentences need to be revised and please add citations so that we can follow through.Thompsma (talk) 18:46, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

Here is a quote that will show some of the complications that will come out of Slrubenstein's suggestion to follow Menand's general overview (that misses some of the more specific nuances in chronology and phylogenetic thinking):

As Darwin states:

"I believe that [the] element of descent is the hidden bond of connection which naturalists have sought under the term of the Natural System. On this idea of the natural system being...genealogical in its arrangement, with the grades of difference expressed by the terms genera, families, orders, &c., we can understand the rules which we are compelled to follow in our classification. We can understand why we value certain resemblances far more than others."

In concluding as he does in this quotation that certain kinds of similarities and resemblances are, on his theory, to be valued as more highly significant for indicating natural affity than others, Darwin is to be seen as endorsing a philosophical position which serves to link him not, as we might expect, with a biological tradition which shows most clearly a break with the essentialism and Aristotelianism of previous biological thought, but one which really serves instead to connect Darwin more closely with these ancient patterns of thought than with that of many of his predecessors.3 For much of eighteenth- and early nineteenth century biology, the question as to whether one was philosophically justified in assigning a differential value or weighting to some characters of the organism over others was precisely the point at issue, with those biologists most closely associated with the anti-essentialist, anti-Aristotelian philosophical movements arising in the seventeenth century forming the main personnel of the anti-weighting position. (Taken from: [67] - pages 2-3)

I hope that this is not taken as a personal attack on Menand or Slrubenstein. I am trying to highlight the complexity of this piece of history and Menand's text doesn't really give enough specifics that would help us to navigate through this clearly enough.Thompsma (talk) 20:19, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

Regarding the sentence "This new approach was slow to take root." - it should be noted that even some modern scientists still appeal to the notion of essence. Essentialism is far from dead - it may not be expressed in the same Aristotlian terms - but it is still alive and well (see for example [68]) - I can provide other cited examples. As Sober (1980)[69] stated: "If essentialisms is simply the view that species have essential properties (where a property need not be purely qualitative), then the doctrine remains untouched (as Hull himself realizes)."Thompsma (talk) 22:23, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

Thompsma, NPOV requires us to provide accounts of notable views from verifiable sources, whether we like them or not. I respect your knowledge of biology, but with respect I have to point out that your arguments (even if you were arguing that Menand was hitting on a truth) are just irrelevant to this discussion, because (1) truth is not the threshold for inclusion and (2) WP editors must keep their own views out of articles. You think Menand is wrong about some things. Well, just do what we do in any other article: find an appropriate secondary source (a historian of science or an intellectual historian for example) that holds an opposing view and, following ourNPOV policy, we add the opposing view. If in addition to Menand you wish to add properly sourced opposin views I would applaud you for improving the article.

That said, I must point out that you are not quoting from the passages I wish to represent in the article. You are quoting a whole other page. Do you believe that if we make reference to a view of Menand's, we are then obligated to represent all of Menand's views? This is not my understanding of policy. We must represent views accurately, but we are never obliged to represent all views held by a person. The reason I selected pages 123-124 isw because I believed that on those pages menand was making a persuasive and relevant point about the relationship between Darwin's approach to natural history and broader trends in both the sciences and in moral philosophy. Yes, Menand writes many more things, including more things about Darwin, but I never thought that what menand had to say about those things were realy insightful or important enough to ad to the encyclopedia. This is why I did not quote pages 2-3. I did not quote them because I did not think they were making the important and insightful point. Now, Thompsma, it just seems to me that you agree with me. i mean, we agree not to cite pages 2-3 of Menand's book. No argument from me - I decided a long time ago not to cite pages 2-3. So we are in pure agreement here.

As for the pages I did quoe (and chapter 6, from which they come), you have pointed out that others have made the same claims. Great! I appreciate your making this point. As you know, we often make a statement and then support it with multiple citations. I have never objected to anyone adding additional citations to a point I added to an article. I thinbk we just have to be careful about NPOV, and when there is a real difference of opinion we need to report it. But if we can return to the pages that make the point I do want included in the history section, if you could provide quotes from those historians you say make the ame point, perhaps then we can come up with a wording we can all agree on and add it to the article, with as many citations as is appropriate! I want to thank you again for helping! Slrubenstein | Talk 02:31, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

When Slrubenstein recently stated that "Someone else – either Danielkueh or Thompsma – pointed out that many others have made this point," I'm assuming that he was referring to my last comment on Menand's book above. At this moment, I am not at all clear as to what exactly Slrubenstein would like to see added with respect to the concept of species. If he wants to see a sentence or two that says "Darwin introduced the concept of variation within a species, which differs from the essentialist concept of species," then this is something that we can all work on as there is nothing controversial or contentious about this statement. Indeed, as I have pointed out above, it is indeed "nothing new" and Menand does makes this point on p. 122 or three paragraphs before the "block quote" (that quote is at best a thought experiment, not a description of historical trends) from p. 123 that Slrubenstein gave [70]. If this is Slrubenstein's suggestion, then I (I suspect all the other editors as well) have no problems with it or with the inclusion of Menand's book as a reference for it.

However, I don't think this is the sentence that Slrubenstein would like to see included. Based on the above discussions, his previous edits (e.g., [71]), the block quote that he gave, and his recent comments, I'm assuming Slrubenstein would like to see a sentence that makes a "point about the relationship between Darwin's approach to natural history and broader trends in both the sciences and in moral philosophy." If so, there is nothing on pp. 123-124 or in that entire chapter in Menand's book that makes that point. That was the point of contention in the above discussions. Statements such as "broad historical trends" are not trivial and need to be buttressed extensively with reliable sources. Thus, it has never been a question of WP:NPOV, but rather a question of WP:accuracy, WP:fringe, WP:source, and WP:NOR. Based on their comments above, other editors (e.g., Thompsma, Joanna, Ettrig, Dave, Andrew, etc) have also expressed reservations about this particular issue.

The reason why I'm commenting on this is to avoid any misunderstanding of my last comment of Menand's book above and also to try to clarify what it is that is being discussed or disputed here. Like Thompsma, I wish to reiterate that this is nothing personal and that my intentions are primarily devoted to improving the quality of this article. danielkueh (talk) 17:43, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

First stab at Lamarck

Thought I would give a first go at Lamarck:

Since antiquity, natural historians refer to a metaphorical scheme of chains, cords, ladders and stairways depicting life in a natural order ascending from simple, primitive, or low to complex, advanced, and high. From 1802 until 1822 Jean-Baptiste Lamarck published the first theory of evolution that allowed for infinite diversification of species ascending progressively from simple to complex. According to Lamarck, primitive life forms originate abiogenetically and evolve, over time, into complexly organized beings, humans being the most perfect. The environment was important in Lamarck's two part teleological explanation for the inheritance of acquired traits: 1) change in bodily organs grew with use and atrophied with disuse, and 2) these changes were faithfully preserved through reproduction if both sexes had adopted the same habits and thus acquired the same traits. Lamarck coined the term biology, but he died blind and penniless with many of his ideas subject to ridicule and rejected, and yet some of his broader concepts on evolutionary inheritance continues to influence even the modern sciences.

Comments?Thompsma (talk) 18:46, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

In general we should follow the practice that is widespread in Eikipedia, and avoid primary sources like Lamarck, as they often lead to original research. I think Michael Ruse is a perfectly good source, but as a philosopher surely his main point is not that "some" of Lamarck's ideas continue to influence scientists, but that specific ideas of Lamarck have this effect. This paragraph is good but it would be much stronger if it were clear abou Ruse's claim about Lamark. Earlier Danielkueh accused me lf violating WP:ACCURACY and I agree that we must be careful not to violate this. When we cite someone, we must be sure to represent that author's view as accurately as possible. Slrubenstein | Talk 01:38, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

Spread the light

This talk page is now filled with wonderfully insightful discussions about the early history of modern evolutionary thought. I thinkit would be very valuable if the participants also looked into Inception of Darwin's theory, History of evolutionary thought and Darwinism. Many of the good ideas discussed here will not make it the the necessarily very short passage on history of the science in this article. But there is ample room in other articles. --Ettrig (talk) 07:11, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

Have already had a look at some parts of History of evolutionary thought (by the way I just fixed your link), but I agree with your sentiment. Many of these articles appear not to be edited as carefully as this one, and yet we keep telling other, rightfully, to avoid digressions on this article because they should be handled on those other articles.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 09:04, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, Wikipedia got stuck when I was about to fix it. Then I forgot. --Ettrig (talk) 10:52, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

OK, a new try on the history section

Because I understand we are trying to avoid making major changes on the article itself, but in order to start getting refs and wikilinks in order, I have made a draft on my sandbox. I suggest commenting here, because I am not intending to keep that sandbox like it is.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:11, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for producing this draft. It seems fine to me, although it needs a little polishing.Mathsci (talk) 09:14, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

Also thanks, this is a considerable improvement on the current section and a good basis for refinement. If you like, I can make suggested revisions here. . . dave souza, talk 10:08, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

Fine by me of course. I did this on my sandbox in order not to overload this busy talk page. I guess should consider whether we should move it to the article itself though, if enough people are happy. Then normal editing can start again?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 10:10, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

Looks great. Do what you need to do. If problems come up, we can always fix them. :) danielkueh (talk) 14:51, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

Paragraph 1 refined

Here's my proposed refinement of the first paragraph, with the sources used. Obviously there may be more sources covering these points, but these sources cover the wording.

The proposal that one type of animal could descend from an animal of another type goes back to some of the first pre-Socratic Greek philosophers, such as Anaximander and Empedocles.[1] In contrast to these materialistic views, Plato and Aristotle understood all things, not only living things, as being in eternal metaphysical categories ("forms" or "ideas"). This was part of their teleological understanding of nature in which all things have an intended role to play in a divine cosmic order.[2] In the Middle Ages nature was widely held to be capricious and unstable. Aristotle's scale of order was Christianised as a created static great chain of being, finely graded from lower to higher, with every position filled.[3]

Refs: [1.] Larson (2004) p. 12, [2.] Wilkins (2009) pp. 10–21, [3.] Bowler (2003) pp. 45. 62–65, Wilkins (2009) pp. 50–53.
If you like, I can go through specific reasons for changes: for example, removed "natural" from Plato's "all natural things", as Wilkins is clear that Plato made no distinction between the natural and artificial, and the early Greeks would not have fully accepted this distinction. The great chain of being is significant as it was taken seriously by 18th century naturalists, with early evolutionists adapting it into a scale of increasing perfection over time, while their opponents such as Pope stressed that extinction would destroy the unity of creation. Both Bowler and Wilkins cover this point. . dave souza, talk 11:34, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

For reference, the sandbox version in plain text::

The proposal that one type of animal could descend from an animal of another type goes back to some of the first pre-Socratic Greek philosophers, such as Anaximander and Empedocles. In contrast to these materialistic views, Plato and Aristotle understood all natural things, not only living things, as being in fixed natural categories ("forms", "ideas", or "species"). This was part of their teleological understanding of nature in which all things have an intended role to play in a divine cosmic order. Variations of this idea became the standard understanding of the Middle Ages.

Hi Dave, I would like to see the changes discussed. In general changes tend to puff up the sentences, which was something I had been trying to avoid. This is not only a style thing, but also a concern because every time someone throws in a modern technical word is raises a new discussion point and potentially requires the article to digress.

• Plato and early Greek philosophers are normally argued to have made a very big point out of the term natural. It is has been claimed that they invented the concept and that it did not even exist before. I am not surprised that almost any position can be sourced, but the one you give above does not seem standard to me.
• Similar point about medievals thinking nature was capricious and unstable. I think the opposite is true, at least arguably. And do we need to get into that here?
• Chain of being references comes under my concern frequently mentioned that we should try to avoid anachronisms. I know this is a balancing act. Modern terms for old theories help us explain things, but if they are not very common and if they make it harder to read instead of simpler I am not sure it helps.
• I am a little concerned with getting the balance right between overloading every sentence with adjectives (you have added eternal and metaphysical for example, in the place of the simpler "fixed", which BTW is now the term which keeps the discussion flowing in later paragraphs in my draft); and on the other hand making sure we get in key wikilinks to help readers. I already had teleology, forms, ideas, divine cosmic order, and a wiki link to [[Nature (philosophy)].
• I understand your concern about the word species, which you removed, but please I think we need to deal with this word and that was one aim of the draft I have made if you look at the new way that discussion flows. Species is a genuine classical term and concept, which has "evolved". It is very a common word in classical contexts and in modern biology. In some ways, this section is about the evolution of this word and concept.

--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 11:44, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

Hi, this is an attempt to refine what is already a big improvement on the current section, so no objection if your version is put in place. My concern is that oversimplifying can create a false narrative, which runs contrary to good quality sources. At the same time we want to present this complex history as concisely as possible.

• The term natural seems to have included things we'd describe as artificial, thus Plato uses as the model for his system a classification of fly-fishing. Our readers might not expect angling to be included in "natural", so best to leave the term out.
• Bowler p. 45 describes a significant issue that the Medieval worldview often saw nature as capricious and unstable, with new organisms arising from monstrous couplings between species or spontaneous generation. He contrasts this with the new taxonomy of Ray and others in the 17th century: "The new taxonomy rested on the assumptions that nature is a stable, orderly system and that species retained their characters unchanged from the creation. Such assumptions were not, however, part of the worldview favoured in Medieval and Renaissance times." Wilkins similarly credits Ray with introducing the idea that species are fixed, he covers the introduction of fixism briefly here but goes into more detail in his book and I want to take care not to overstate his position. Thus, we shouldn't imply that species were always seen as fixed, but instead should show this as part of the 17th century transition to semi-modern science with the presupposition of natural theology that science would reaffirm God's greatness.
• The chain of being is linked by both scholars with the 18th century concepts of designed creation as well as with progressive evolution. It doesn't seem to have been a universal view in Medieval times, but had recurring influence on evolutionary thought and reactions to such thought. Concise is good, and although the principle of every position filled was also influential, that bit can be left out.
• Agree with minimising linked adjectives, but in my view these changes are more informative as well as avoiding misleading anachronisms like "fixed species".
• The term species has changed its meaning, and of course is anachronistic to the Greeks who used the term eide which translates into Latin as species or forma, and into English as species, idea, kind, sort, form. It's misleading to readers to show this term before explaining that its meaning changed, originally with Ray's specifically biological definition.

That said, these are issues that can be resolved in normal editing, and this also applies to the other paragraphs. . dave souza, talk 13:51, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

Have up-loaded to article, but I'll comment anyway:-

• I do not recall Plato discussing fly fishing? Anyway, the Socratics compared nature to human ordered things, because they saw nature as being ordered, but being ordered in a superior way to humans. Just to give an example, at one point Aristotle says (in the Politics) that nature would never have made a Swiss Army knife (actually he says a Lesbian knife) because nature makes things perfectly suited to play a role. So there is no conflict here with the idea that there is a thing called nature which is strongly contrasted with what is artificial. In fact, it is often argued that it the modern perspective which can not distinguish the two.
• I think you have to consider the difference between Medieval science and philosophy (or whatever you want to call what the wisest people tended to think) and medieval superstition. Of course there is also modern superstition and there was ancient Greek superstition. Anyway, it would be difficult to handle this subject in the Evolution article.
• What does the "chain of being" and "principle of plenitude" add to the section, keeping in mind that I imagine we can probably come up with 20 such interesting terms to be fitted in?
• Concerning "fixed species", whatever we do I think we need a single term that we carry through the passage, like I have now down. I see fixed as just as everyday word, not a technical word that can be anachronistic, and...
• Personally I think readers can not be protected from the fact that the word changed meaning because that is a part of the story. I have tried to do it gently.

Will be interested to see what others think.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 16:07, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

Suggested change for Paragraph 4

The first sentence in paragraph 4 is unclear. I see what it is trying to get at but I think it could be more effective. Plus, there needs to be a transition from the first sentence to the rest of the paragraph. Here's a suggested change to replace the first three sentences of paragraph 4:

The essentialist concept of species as fixed and immutable was again challenged when Darwin observed that there was considerable variation within any single species.<insert citation suggested by Maunus> Darwin noted that Malthusian population limits, as described in Thomas R. Malthus's An Essay on the Principle of Population in 1798 [28], would lead to a 'struggle for existence' whereby favorable variations would prevail while others perish.

danielkueh (talk) 15:36, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

OK, but just to explain the aim of that first sentence, which is new, is that it tries to link back to the previous few paragraphs which also explained things about the concept of fixed species. I think personally that it is a good thing to keep this flow if possible.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 16:15, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

I think this misses the most important part - namely that that Darwinian evolutionary theory crucially depends on variation - that he observed variaton was just the beginning. ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 01:39, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

I agree that the flow should be kept. Hopefully, the suggested change maintains that. danielkueh (talk) 16:19, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

Well I am watching to see what others think. In any case the section is now a tiny bit shorter!--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 16:38, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

Was just thinking about that paragraph, here's my draft to date:

Evidence from his travels convinced Charles Darwin that species were not fixed, and that variations could accumulate over generations to form new species in a branching line of common descent. By analogy with farmers selecting seeds or breeding animals to form new varieties, natural selection would automatically follow when, as Malthus had shown in An Essay on the Principle of Population, numbers of offspring inevitably exceeded resources, leading to a struggle for existence in which variations best suited to the circumstances would tend to produce the next generation.

This follows on from Ray and Linnaeus introducing fixity of species, with varieties part of the species, and this becoming the establishment view by the 19th century. Note that the "struggle for existence" is credited by Darwin to de Candolle and Lyell, but guess that's excessive detail. No great issue if you'd rather not link his travels, but that voyage showed him facts that "would undermine the stability of Species" . As for essentialism, that's contested but became significant with Hegel and Goethe onwards, and for our purposes there should be a mention of Agassiz and Owen using this to explain homologies in fixed species. . dave souza, talk 17:17, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

Thumbs up! I like. :D danielkueh (talk) 17:35, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

I think the wording is a bit convoluted and the sentences are a tad too long. I think the contents are fine.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 01:29, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

I would be happy not to include the word essentialism. I thought it was being demanded. For my part feel free to remove it. No strong opinion on whether to include the other things mentioned by Dave, but I note once again that this article is enormous. Not only does the article itself seem to have a tendency to accrete digressions, but individual sentences also, and I agree with Maunus that the sentence proposed above is long and awkward. Not that I haven't made long sentences myself many times, but concerning this article in general I am going to continue to tend to agree with anything which pares down the article, the sections, and the sentences themselves.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 06:51, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

I have conducted further shortening of this section only. I think often there were things being said twice in slightly different ways, or digressions better left to specialist articles.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:50, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

I like the content given in Dave's version. Nevertheless, I also agree it can always be made more concise. Do what you think is best. danielkueh (talk) 14:37, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

I like both Daniel's and Dave's versions, so if Daniel likes Dave's version, I suppose we should work from that. I want to thank everyone for taking the additional time to wok on this in a thoughtful way and informed by reliable secondary sources. I always liked the article and I think that these discussions are leading to more improvements. Slrubenstein | Talk 12:12, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

I'm glad we are in agreement then. I'll leave it to Andrew or someone else to make the appropriate changes. We can then put it behind us and move on to something else. danielkueh (talk) 14:19, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

Well I've been going for the minimalist approach, trying to strip this down, so actually adding stuff might not be psychologically easy for me! :) More seriously, I fear that adding stuff sometimes breaks a pre-existing flow of discussion, so could we approach this by first looking at the version now on the article (which I tell myself, perhaps wrongly, now has better "flow" than past ones), and can you perhaps define the request in terms of "missing" things which need to be added?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 15:16, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

The present version is just not clear. It says there is a critical break, and that the critical break is identified as the theory of evolution of Charles Darwin. That is not quite right. Darwin's theory is that evolution occurs by means of natural selection. In this case, the critical break would be that Darwin observed a lot of variation within any given species. He gave examples of variation among fancy pigeons and different dog breeds. From his perspective, there is no fixed or ideal type of species and that a species is simply an arbitrary designation for a group of similarly looking animals and plants. Also, there is no linkage between the first sentence to the next. It is not clear how the critical break is related to Malthus, struggle for existence, etc. At minimum, I recommend something like the following for the first sentence of the present version:

"The critical departure from the concept of species as fixed came when Darwin observed considerable among members of any given species such as dogs and pigeons.<insert citation given by Maunus>"

danielkueh (talk) 15:30, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

I like this, but I think it is critical to add that he not only observed this, but recognized the importance of the variation. I think this is an important point, not just his careful observations, but his realization of what made these observations so important. Slrubenstein | Talk 19:15, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

Yes, presumably every other breeder of pigs and pigeons or dogs had observed the same thing - Darwin did more than that.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 20:21, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

Well yes I think Maunus's point makes a difference. We are already saying, or I hope the article is already saying, just be we mention this critical break, that many scientists were already effectively looking for a theory of evolution, and this came from stuff like looking at farm animals, embryology, fossil study, things like the Voyage of the Beagle. But Darwin did something different and went the further step didn't he?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 20:25, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

The importance of variation comes when into play because it allows for selection to occur. This is where the second sentence comes in. Of course, everyone was able to observe variation. Variation is important not because it made us realized that a species is not fixed (that is just a side note), but because Darwin realized that nature could play breeder and select for variations that are favorable and reject those that aren't. Thus, all the different members of any given species are not individually created as some people thought, but are linked together through common ancestry. That is the link. danielkueh (talk) 20:44, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

A minority of other scientists in the 1830s were suggesting variants on Lamarck's idea of a force directing transmutation towards greater complexity, a great chain of being changed into a temporal chain of improvement in parallel lines of evolution from spontaneous generation. Embryology had led to concepts of progressive development to explain the progression of fossils that Cuvier and Lyle explained by successive creations, but von Baer opposed this development idea by showing a branching pattern of specialisation in more advanced embryos. Darwin incorporated these ideas into his argument that evolution happened through common descent in a branching pattern. He innovated in looking towards farm and bird breeders, something not part of the gentlemanly science of the time, and conceiving of his analogy of variations being selected by the struggle for existence in the same way as variations were selected by breeders to establish varieties that bred true but differed from the parent stock. Note that Ray had defined variations and varieties as being part of the fixed parent species, Darwin turned this round in the same way that he turned Ray's and Paley's natural theology of the design argument into an argument for natural selection producing adaptation to the environment. Should also note sexual selection producing non-adaptive beauty etc. Now put that in ten words or so, sources available on request. . dave souza, talk 20:50, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

OK, so coming back to the text we have, which I stripped to a minimum, or tried to, I avoided mention of the Beagle, but I kept in Malthus. Should I have kept in farm animals and dropped Malthus? In a sense what you are saying is that farm animals played the role our article now says Malthus did. Or should we not even try to talk about influences and spend more time thinking about what the critical break was exactly. Anyway, point is we want to get the essence in a few words. It would be much easier to do this with a lot of words.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 21:02, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

Keep Malthus and animal breeding as there are two things occurring in parallel here. The use of artificial selection by animal breeders inspired Darwin to think of a similar process in nature, i.e., natural selection. Where Malthus comes in, is that given limited resources and an overproduction of offspring, only those animals/plants with favorable variations will survive and pass own their traits to future generations, whereas those without favorable variations didn't. The branching pattern described by Dave of course results from this process of natural selection. danielkueh (talk) 21:25, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

I understand and agree, but I wonder how we avoid this article from expanding beyond the point that anyone can even edit it practically any more. I see the article has just received a whole new section. Do we need to list all the inspirations of Darwin, given that there is another article about the history of evolutionary thought, or is it enough to just say what they inspired?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 05:07, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

I know I am coming in a little late here, but I think Daniel really hit the nail on the head in his 20:44, 26 August 2011 post. Andrew, I understand your concern but I do not think Daniel is introducing lots of new material, I think he is showing how much of the information already in the article connects and this actually can make the section tighter. We don't need to list every inspiration or influence, but I do think this one point is essential. I think that is the point that the history section must make. Daniel is already somewhat concise, i am sure we can find a way to word it so it is even more precise. But with regards to this topic, I think the key thing is to say something like what Daniel says in 20:44, 26 August 2011, and this does not require us to go into lots of detail. In addition to what Daniel wrote, it seems to me that Darwin was extrapolating up in scale (i.e. what he saw going on among breeds within a species, he realized could be going on among species) - this seems like a radical jump, but I think the real jump is that he realized that "nature" could "select" just as farmers had been doing, that random forces could produce effects that were indistinguishable from those produced by intelligent designers (by which I mean dog and pigeon breeders). Slrubenstein | Talk 12:59, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

I definitely do not want it to seem like I am taking a strong position. I slipped into the role of defending conciseness for the time being on this article. I am struggling to find a concise way to insert all this, but I am not against the idea of trying to find a way.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 13:07, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

Andrew, believe me, I completely understand your position in wanting to be concise. That has always been my position as well. But the information that I think should be included is pretty standard and I think it would help "tie it altogether."

On a separate note, you can delete the following sentence from the fifth paragraph:

"However de Vries still could not explain how new varieties could originate."

This sentence isn't informative. Its removal will would help free up some space that can be devoted to other more important information (like the ones we are discussing now). danielkueh (talk) 14:21, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

You can also delete the first two sentences from paragraph 6. The first sentence is a digression and the second sentence is redundant.

"Evolutionary theory has greatly expanded and is a fully matured interdisciplinary enterprise involving scientists from diverse fields and enabled many advancements in diverse fields. Also, because the theory of evolution eventually ended the use of any theory of forms or essentialism in mainstream science, it has had a critical importance to science and philosophy generally."

danielkueh (talk) 14:43, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

Those 2 suggestions look fine to me also.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 17:00, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

Evolution Portal

Can the Evolution Series "Portal" with all the numerous links so well organized located at the beginning "upper right" of this article be hijacked by the Introduction to Evolution article? It could replace the image of the evolution of the horse or worked in somewhere at the start of that article. Cheers --JimmyButler (talk) 17:45, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

A general comment

I think that Slrubenstein is making some good points that are being missed in the quick progress, but which deserve to be highlighted: 1. The section of history should not be exclusively sourced to summaries by biologists but historians of science should be given prominent roles since history of ideas is their specialty. 2. we should avoid using primary sources in the history section, but rather rely on summaries of the history of evolutionary ideas made in secondary sources. Relying on primary sources often results in unwitting OR - no conclusions or analysis about the history of evolutionary ideas should be made that cannot be sourced to secondary sources. I am mentioning this because I do see a high level of reliance on primary sources in the history section and too few citations to secondary ones and to sources written by historians rather than biologists.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 17:47, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

I agree with both these comments of Maunus, which were also raised a week ago prior to the subsequent constructive discussions for the restructuring and rewriting of the section on the history of evolutionary thought. Perhaps the additional thing to do now is to list the sources that will be used for the revamped material, bearing in mind Maunus' two points. Mathsci (talk) 18:03, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

I have no issue with including or citing literature from other sources. Nobody has ever stated that this should not be so. The issue was the broad interpretation that was being made and several of us felt that the information being posted was an incorrect portrayal of the source being cited. To make the claim that we should not go back to 'original' sources does not sit well with me and it is completely unjustified. What does that even mean? Every author built upon the works of others - so you can keep going back further in time. Moreover, just because you cite an 'original' source does not mean that you are doing original research. You can cite, for example, Lamarck stated...Thompsma (talk) 20:26, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

Yes, it does unless you can show that your summary of Lamarck is inline with what historians of science understand him to say. The claim that we should rely on secondary and noy primary sources is completely justified - by wikipedia policy.23:07, 21 August 2011 (UTC)·ʍaunus·snunɐw·

History is also a kind of research. Drawing general conclusions from primary sources is research. If done in Wikipedia it is WP:OR, which is not accepted. --Ettrig (talk) 23:40, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

Exactly. This involves the history and philosophy of science, an established subject, particularly in this context, where there are plenty of secondary sources. Wikipedians cannot act as if they themselves are historians of science, as Ettrig rightly says. Mathsci (talk) 00:04, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

I agree that reliable and reputable secondary sources should be the first place to go to to find information on a topic to be presented in Wikipedia but not just for the reasons given, i.e., WP:NOR. While I agree that WP:NOR is indeed a problem, the larger concern is whether the presentation of the material is in line with the prevailing view of experts in the field. A concern that I suspect was the impetus for a policy such as WP:NOR. If WP:NOR does not result from the use of primary sources, then I don't think it matters whether the source is secondary or primary. That said, I also don't think we should replace the primary sources that were given but to cite them altogether side by side. That way, readers who are interested in learning more can look up both primary and secondary sources and see for themselves how the information is described. danielkueh (talk) 17:49, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

So we shouldn't read anything? According to that criteria that has been suggested here - we couldn't read Ruse's recent work, because that would constitute research. This 'primary source' criteria is make believe. The historical authors read all sorts of other works and their work was built on the shoulders of giants - as has been the tradition. According to your argument, as I read Ruse's work (contemporary history) I am drawing general conclusions about what he has written. Hence, it is research and as my mind incorporates the information it takes an original meaning out of the work and so that is not permissible on this site. Or are you arguing that we can only rely on recent published works? This is what your argument amounts too - indirectly it suggests we can only cite recent works. Come on guys - think this through a little more! That is not what the wikipedia message on is about - please re-read WP:NOR carefully. It is an absurd argument to suggest that we can't go back and read what people wrote in history and then to cite what they said. Moreover, Mathsci has suggested that we shouldn't just rely on scientists, philosophers, or historians and need to draw from elsewhere. So far we only have Menand as an alternate example. This is not reasonable. Evolution is a science and we rely on scientists, philosophers, and historians for the resource information - they are the ones who write on this topic. Would we write an article on Shakespeare and draw on the words of a microbiologist just to be fair and balanced? I can find scientific articles that do refer to Shakespeare. I have no issue with drawing from other sources - but they are fewer in number. If someone wants to use Menand - I have no problem with this, but all I ask is that the information be relayed properly.Thompsma (talk) 17:50, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

Yiou are either misunderstanding or misrepresenting the issue that I state. The worst part is that your statement suggest that you are not very familiar with our basic poolicies on OR and V. We can read any work we want but wikipedia articles are to be based on secondary sources, not on our own research in primary sources. When you summarise Lamarck in your own words your a conducting original historical research - if you use Ruse's summary of Lamarck then you are writing an encyclopedia. Also writing about the history of evolutionary theory falls within the fieold of histry of science, not within the field of biology - so your suggestion of using a biologist to write about shakespeare is off the mark. We of course use historians of science as sources to write about the history of science. ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 22:56, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

Just to clarify, I am not saying we cannot or should not use primary sources. I'm saying that the presentation of historical events in this article should be consistent with the prevailing view of experts in the field. I suspect that was why the WP:NOR policy was invented, precisely because OR may lead to deviations from that view and may therefore be WP:fringe. The easiest way to present the prevailing view of experts is of course is to use secondary sources because all the hard work of writing, reviewing, and verifying have already been done. In any event, there is no WIkipedia policy that states that we cannot use primary sources. The policy states that we should use them with care and cite secondary sources that are consistent with our presentations of primary sources. So the solution is simple, if there is a primary source, then have a secondary source alongside it. Editors should carefully consult the WP policy on this issue. danielkueh (talk) 18:07, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

Thompsma write, "It is an absurd argument to suggest that we can't go back and read what people wrote in history and then to cite what they said." "Can't" is a strong word, so I would have to agree with this sentence. But this sentence does not accurately represent what MathSci or Maunus wrote. Thompsma, if you want to summarize your interlocutors, say "we should not go back and read what people wrote in history and then to cite what they said if we do so in a way that introduces a novel theory, or forwards our own views." And stated thus, there is nothing absurd about it, it is our policy in all other articles. Including the Shakespeare article.

Thompsma, you seem confused when you write, "Would we write an article on Shakespeare and draw on the words of a microbiologist just to be fair and balanced?" You seem to be introducing an analogy to explain your point, but your analogy is all mixed up. Why did you chose Shakespeare in order to make a point about Menand? Was it because Menand has a PhD in English literature? If so, your point about microbiologists editing the Shakespeare article involves a real slip in logic. The reason that microbiologists should not be used as sources on the Shakespeare article is because as yet there are no microbiologists who have published award-winning work on Shakespeare. It does not surprise me that this hasn't happened, since microbiologists are not trained in any of the skills one would normally need to write important scholarship on Shakespeare. But let's now turn the analogy around. Are you suggesting that only work by playwrighters or actors be used as sources for the Shakespeare article?

Would you really argue that? That we should use only works by playwright as source for the Shakespeare article? No, Thompsma, that is not our rule. In fact, it is not even our custom. We have many articles on playwrights, novelists, and poets. We do not rely on other work by playwrights, novelists, or poets in writing these articles. In fact, if you look at the article on Shakespeare, you will see that most of the sources are not be playwrights!

In other words, we do not privilege members of the same profession as experts. Most of the sources we rely on in the article on Shakespeare are by academics who are not playwrights, but who have the skills to research plays and playwrighters critically. This includes people with PhDs in English literature or comparative literature, because they have the appropriate training. Since you do not seem to know much about research on Shakespeare, let me tell you a little bit more because it is relevant to this discussion. Some people with PhDs in English are trained to have expertise in the close reading of texts as autonomous phenomena. But many people with PhDs in English, especially ones who research Shakespeare, must have other skills because they are interested in the meaning Shakespeare's plays in their historical context; why of all the playwrights of the Elizabethan period is Shakespeare the one who is best remembered and had the greater impact on English literature. These scholars need to be able to relate a text to its historical context - not just trends in English literature during the Elizabethan period, but politics, changing class relations, and changes in the relationship between England and other parts of the world. These English and Literature scholars, in short, overlap considerably with historians. Put another way, English (or French, or Portuguese, or Spanish, etc) scholars who study literary works in their historical context, and historians who look at literature as evidence about their historical context, often have very similar training and skills and publish in the same journals. Louis Menand is obviously an example of this kind of scholar.

It is absurd to think that the principal sources for articles on Shakespeare and Shakespearean literature should be works by other playwrights. Analogously, there is no necessary reason why articles on evolution should depend on work by evolutionary biologists as their principle sources. Obviously work by evolutionary biologists are the basic primary sources on evolutionary biology, just as work by playwrights are the basic primary sources on plays.

But if we want to write articles on plays that look at plays and drama from a critical perspective, we will not rely on sources by playwrights, we will look for scholars who have some critical vantagepoint, people who are not playwrights, like literary scholars. By analogy if we want to write articles on science from a critical academic perspective we will look for scholars who have some critical vantagepoint on science - anthropologists of science, sociologists of science, historians of science, and philosophers of science. These scholars will often reach conclusions that scientists themselves do not agree with. But this is to be expected, no? Evolutionary biologists may be objective about frogs or snails, but they won't be objective about themselves - that is why they are studied, with more objectivity, by sociologists of science, historians of science, etc. And these scholars analyze the work of scientists in terms of the larger cultural and historical context. This broader, critical perspective means no one should be surprised if they reach conclusions that their objects of study do not themselves share .... Just as a literary critic will reach findings that a novelist would not necessarily share. That is their job.

So thank you for bringing up Shakespeare, I am fining this a very useful analogy.

Now, I do not think that we should rely on the aforementioned scholars exclusively and I hope you will agree with me! But surely in the section of the article on the history of the theory, the obvious experts are historians and intellectual historians. Intellectual historians, because they are specialized, do not come exclusively from history departments. I have explained why someone like Menand would have the skills required of an intellectual historian. But let's not make this decision on my say so. Menand wrote a book that has been received very positively as a major work of intellectual history, and he won the Pullitzer Prize for it. So this is how we know he is a reliable source. Anyone who has followed me this far will know that I sure hope we draw on other historians of science and intellectual historians in this section!!! Slrubenstein | Talk 20:24, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

• For what it is worth in Handbook of Evolution Vol 2 Franz Wuketits states on the first page of his chapter summarising the history of evolutionary theory, that the shift from essentialism and typological tinking to a variationst view of the species was the most important ingredient in the darwinian revolution. Through out the chapter he describes how Darwinism broke with earlier essentialist ideas or ideal type based ideas of species. ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 23:05, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

"Darwin’s theory – which is of course one of the focuses in the present article – meant no less than a shift from static (essentialist) to dynamic thinking. This might be regarded as the very meaning of what has been frequently called “Darwinian Revolution”, for Darwin showed that what is real in nature is not the “type”, but “variation”." Franz M. Wuketits, The Theory of Biological Evolution: Historical and Philosophical Aspects, in Handbook of Evolution, Vol. 2: The Evolution of Living Systems (Including Hominids) Edited by Franz M. Wuketits and Francisco J. Ayala, 2005, Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim ISBN: 3-527-30838-5, p. 57. ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 18:04, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

Thanks Manus. A good example for all of us. danielkueh (talk) 18:08, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

So we now have two reliable sources for this point, let's just add it to the history section and provide the two references. (And perhaps "Darwin and the nature of species" by David N. Stamos; clearly there are plenty of reliable secondary sources so there is no need for us to be trying to work through the primary sources) Slrubenstein | Talk 23:14, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

I was about to write a long criticism on the above Slrubernstein's uninformed rant on science and Shakespeare but stopped after the first two sentences. Because in the end, what would be the point? It serves only to distract us from the recent constructive work done by Andrew, Dave, Thompsma, Joanna, etc. Plus, this is not a full time job for me. Like others, I have a life and do not wish to get into a back-and-forth with another WP editor.

Wikipedia already has a policy on the use of primary and secondary sources. Editors should just read and follow them. Besides, based on some of the long drawn discussions above, it is not the type of source (primary or secondary) that worries me but whether the editor, who suggested it, has actually taken the time to carefully read the source, understand it, and accurately represent it in this Wikipedia article.

I think Mathsci makes a good suggestion by asking editors to list the sources they would like to see included in this article. I would go further by suggesting that editors also provide relevant page numbers and summarize in one or two sentences the type of information that can be obtained from their sources. That way, we can all do some "double checking" to make sure WP:OR does not occur. danielkueh (talk) 22:22, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

Danielkueh, there is nothing positive served by your characterizing Thompsma's comments about Shakespeare a "rant." If all you are doing is asking Maunus for a page number I am sure you can find a polite way to do so. Slrubenstein | Talk 15:49, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

Actually, I was referring to your long drawn response to Thompsma as a "rant." Indeed, there was nothing positive about your response to him. My comment about page numbers was not directed at Manus either. danielkueh (talk) 17:34, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

outside view

• From an outside perspective on this argument (the use of Lamark) both Maunus and Slrubenstein have made great points. But to add something, that I hope will clarify teh matter, the key problem with using primary sources on wikipedia is "novel interpretation" (which is defined here as 'original research'). As Maunus points out if a reference to a primary source in a WP article differs from the mainstream views/interpretations of it then it is violating wikipedia's policies.
  SLR's Shakespeare analogy is spot on - wikipedia articles are neutral records of what 3rd party, reliable, secondary sources state about a subject, without novel synthesis or interpretation of existing ideas/sources.
  Since you are all discussing a history section you need to be using books that have a scope appropriate to that section and primary sources will not have such a scope--Cailil ^talk 20:18, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

I do not know if this helps, but I this everyone involved has a point in this discussion. I think it is just a normal Wikipedia dilemma and we should not see it as all that special.

• Not using raw materials directly from specialists is a great idea, but the danger is that commentators from outside the field sometimes show no clear consensus. On WP we must be careful of using one or two favorite commentators and make it look like they are a consensus. Ideally you need "magisterial" sources that everyone is known to cite all the time. I am not sure we have that in this case, so there is good reason to be at least a bit cautious.
• Just citing the original authors is sometimes a reasonable way to summarize them, even if not ideal. It often happens on articles about subject that have "too many" commentators, like Thomas Hobbes or Machiavelli. (There is currently a discussion on the talkpage of the latter because some of the few commentators' remarks are being removed by one editor on the grounds that it breaks the flow of the discussion.)

My main practical advice is that we should not try to orient by extreme positions, because this is a known type of balancing act. It is a case where compromising should not be a dirty word.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 18:22, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

Andrew, I second your positions. I think you should continue to take the lead on this (fixing the history section) and not be too distracted by recent comments about WP:sources. Problems of WP:OR from citing primary sources can be easily fixed. All we need to do is follow the existing WP policy and just accurately cite the secondary sources alongside the existing primary sources. danielkueh (talk) 18:37, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

Thank you very much for that vote of confidence, but I have honestly been having a problem finding the time to think through this subject enough to do it justice, and keep the different concerns in mind. If I find time I'll try, but I can not promise.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 19:38, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

I also want to thank Andrew. I agree with many of the points Daniel made above but have to qualify one, if I understand it correctly: "On WP we must be careful of using one or two favorite commentators and make it look like they are a consensus. Ideally you need "magisterial" sources that everyone is known to cite all the time." Certainly if there are any "magisterial" sources that are widely accepted we must use them, and present them as such. But NPOV requires us to provide non-consensus views. It enriches an article to show points where there is debate or difference, as long as it is properly framed and attributed. This way, a POV is not presented as fact. For example, Gould and Dawkins are often presented as holding opposing views on consequential matters. Where Gould and Dawkins agree should be made clear, and where they disagree should be made clear (many of our readers are not scientists, and they must understand that just because one scientist does not agree with another does not mean that we have left science and have entered the domain of "belief"). In some cases, evolutionary biologists may have different views of the theory of evolution than philosophers of science, or different views of the scientific method than sociologists of science, or different views of their own history than historians of science. When we can source these diverse views to verifiable secondary sources, we should include them in the article. Showing that there are different views, as long as they are identified as views and properly attributed, only strengthens the encyclopedia. Slrubenstein | Talk 12:21, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

Thanks Andrew Lancaster - I agree with your post. I was away for the past few weeks doing thesis research, but have returned to help.Thompsma (talk) 05:02, 6 September 2011 (UTC)