Talk:Species/Archive 2

Archive 1

Archive 2

Wholesale issue of plagiarism of ideas, facts unaddressed, 1 December 2013

The issue of the plagiarism of content (ideas and facts, at least) continues in this article, despite it having been raised above. More than two-thirds of the paragraphs of the article lack even a single citation (38 of 56), as do more than three-fourths of bullets stating factual content (33 of 41). Indeed approaching half of all sections lack a single citation (6 of 15). This serious matter of intellectual and editorial integrity should be elevated. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.49.20.42 (talk) 00:20, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

Why not add citations yourself? If you believe that something has been plagiarised, that implies you must also know the original source(s), so you should be very well placed to add citations. PaleCloudedWhite (talk) 01:12, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

This response to 12.49...'s "scorecard" is principally and logically fallacious. Content that contains ideas and facts that are not common knowledge and not reiterating already cited information (e.g., in the lead or a segue), per WP policy, must be accompanied by citation, and "may be removed". Otherwise, by definition they are making use of another's intellectual effort without acknowledgment, and so are plagiarizing (see WP:Plagiarism and plagiarism). That the foregoing editor can report that statements contain facts or ideas that are not common knowledge certainly does not imply in any way that the reporter must know the original sources (!). As for suggesting "forensic referencing", this I have made clear is intellectually second-rate guess-work fraught with potential error, and so is the poorest possible, and most irresponsible way to proceed. Would this fly at the very venerable venues of Cambridge or Kew? As for the WP that unreferenced material "may be removed" ... apparently not here, as earlier attempts have shown, not so long as its ownership remains as it is. LeProf— Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.179.92.36 (talk) 14:02, 5 December 2013 (UTC)

Plagiarism requires creativity. Either original ideas or in the wording itself. They do not include simple statements of historical or scientific facts. What original ideas there are in the problematic section are also already properly attributed inline (by mentioning the author or in the case of Dawkins, the book). The unnecessarily confrontational attitude, the assumptions of bad faith, and the highbrowing combined with the apparent dislike of doing the actual grunt work of either trying to source it or rewrite it, is not going to win you any friends.-- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 19:15, 5 December 2013 (UTC)

I am not going to engage you again after this. If you cannot see anything in the long tracts of citation-free text here that is not common knowledge, then there is nothing I can say to you, at all. If you think that BSC "...does not work for asexually reproducing single-celled organisms and for the relatively few parthenogenetic or apomictic multi-celled organisms" is general knowledge; that "There is strong evidence of horizontal gene transfer between very dissimilar groups of prokaryotes, and at least occasionally between dissimilar groups of eukaryotes" requires no LARGE SET of citations for its vague, ill-defined, broad assertions; that "In plants, polyploidy is extremely commonplace with few restrictions on interbreeding" is common knowledge; that "DNA-DNA hybridization results have led to misleading conclusions, the Pomarine Skua – Great Skua phenomenon being a famous example" should not bear a citation at Wikipedia; that "most if not all taxonomists would strongly disagree" is not an unacceptable dangler without a great set of citations; that the definition for "Phylogenetic (cladistic) species" is common knowledge and requires no deeper reference; that the statement "Charles Darwin and Alfred Wallace provided what scientists now consider as the most powerful and compelling theory of evolution" can reside in an article with ZERO citations to Wallace, to take them to ANYTHING he has written ... then there is truly no hope of ever engaging you behind the wall that you have built.

As for doing work, you again speak in ignorance; but to be clear, I just reviewed two specialty physical organic angle-of-attack definition pages for up-to-date-ness with regard to the science, completed editing the new stub I created for a new NP chemistry article (200 words, 1 chem scheme, 7 citations), and I am near completing expansion of a 200 word stub on a venerable old chemist to a 3500 word bio with 20-30 citations. These are on my breaks from actual work. That another would call it lazy, that I will not waste time "good money after bad" on doing the forensic guess work for to clean up blocks of biology prose wholesale lacking citations, in a venue where even calling attention to the need for change was resisted—I do not care.

As for insults, you are the one who took initially and still takes quick offense at all proposals for change, IN ANY FORM, and seem to feel knee-jerk combatively insecure in the presence of confident factual assertion or other authority, etc. You hide behind Wikipedia, using its WPs as clubs, knowing full well you are often on shaky ground. You dish it out, sometimes even delivering first blows, but complain about the fisticuffs that ensue. That your style is more indirect—"The Onion" or other ascerbic wit—is immaterial. Your scorn and disrespect are just as clear, and have been from the start. I believe it a positive that I am direct and state things as I see them. Another thing we disagree on, and for me to leave in the rear view mirror. You have moved me beyond the ability to care about this article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.179.92.36 (talk) 23:04, 5 December 2013 (UTC)

Plagiarism means that the editor passes off text or ideas as his own. Try reading Wikipedia:Plagiarism#How to find text plagiarism, and notice that it is very specific on the criteria from which plagiarism can be identified. It does not simply say "find a sentence which has no citations", does it?

And when I say "common knowledge" I do not mean information that your average man off the street already knows, but information in which you can not attribute someone specific as the originator (i.e. already a part of the scientific consensus). This is termed "subject-specific common knowledge" in your little copy-paste below. These can not be plagiarized. In the same sense that saying "the sky is blue" can not ever be plagiarism because it is self-evident and already accepted.

• "...does not work for asexually reproducing single-celled organisms and for the relatively few parthenogenetic or apomictic multi-celled organisms" - is common knowledge. While it may seem full of jargon to the average non-biologist, the sentence is merely enumerating modes of non-sexual reproduction. All of which you can confirm by clicking the links.

• "There is strong evidence of horizontal gene transfer between very dissimilar groups of prokaryotes, and at least occasionally between dissimilar groups of eukaryotes" - is merely a summary of the Horizontal gene transfer article. Which is again self-evident.

• "DNA-DNA hybridization results have led to misleading conclusions, the Pomarine Skua – Great Skua phenomenon being a famous example" - is attributed inline to the ornithologist Charles Sibley my bad. Not Sibley's. I have provided refs for it instead.

In your yet-another-subsection below, you have further accusations of close paraphrasing. Again, can you please identify the actual sentences? Close paraphrasing is copyright violation, not plagiarism, and does require immediate blanking. But only if you can provide the source and prove that it has been closely copied.

And no, as far as I can remember, I wasn't the one who opened the discussion by insultingly declaring "Nonsense, utter rubbish". And yes, I am quite scornful of pomposity and people who apparently can't even stomach the viewpoint of anyone with lower credentials. This is Wikipedia, not Citizendium.-- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 04:00, 6 December 2013 (UTC)

Sorry mate. It's an important article. (It's why I'm here, I wanted to see it used.) But I'm done. I'm pretty sure you must know that "parthenogenetic or apomictic" and "Pomarine Skua – Great Skua" and the actual HGT frequency seen in euks and the definition of phylogenetic species—these simply beggar belief as common knowledge. Referring to the Wallace and Darwin's work without citing it is beyond the pale, and that stating "most if not all taxonomists would strongly disagree" is an opinion that demands citation. I picked these because they are clear to any willing to open their eyes.

You must know that the bulk of the called for citations are needed. Two thirds of paragraphs, three-fourths of bullets, 6 of 15 whole sections without attribution. Per the WP norm, little or none of this is material an average adult or a layperson would recognize as true. So it near all fails the common knowledge tests. (What matter's is not your self-affirming definition of sci common knowledge, but the WPs, below.) The question is not "Show me a sentence that is problematic", but "Show me a paragraph that is completely common knowledge." There are 38 bloody citation-free paragraphs, for goodness sake. Other statements like the taxonomists agreeing are clearly opinions/statements based on another's scientific work, and so per WP should also be cited. And from 20 years of teaching, I'd say to argue for no close paraphrase in over a thousand words of unattributed text is the absurd position to hold. And to clinch it, per WP, all "[m]aterial... challenged by another editor requires a source or it may be removed; and anything likely to incur a reasonable challenge should be sourced to avoid disputes and to aid readers". WPs apply when I am wrong, but not you, apparently.

So I return to where I began, sadly. This resistance, this argument of yours in favour of the status quo is nonsense, is utter rubbish. And I think you know it. I've been overestimating you if you don't. Either way, you're behind your wall. It's your article. Enjoy. Muck about. Pretend. Meanwhile, others can't send anyone here for a decent education on this subject. Nowhere in sight, given your attitudes, is an encyclopedia article to be proud of. Wasn't your fault before this, but it is now. LeProf. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.179.92.36 (talk) 07:42, 6 December 2013 (UTC)

Oh yes, this is very troubling indeed. Oh the humanity! It behooves me that no gallant knight has yet to come a-riding to vanquish this gravest of errors. This appalling breach of justice. This can not stand! I demand audience with your leader. And away with these pesky peasants. They can not possibly know what I'm talking about.-- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 03:38, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

Please create an account and learn to sign your posts, and I'll happily reply. I do not wish to correspond with an IP address. —Pengo 23:11, 5 December 2013 (UTC)

I have reasons relating to poor editor historic behaviour breaching the divide between Wikipedia and real world, and these lead me not to sign. The specifics are my business, not yours, and I would point out that my anonymity is only the slightest shade more than yours. Why not join me at Citizendium? And just as wikipedia allows you to engage or not in discourse with whom you please, it allows me to edit in this way. Whether your decision to marginalize a non-logging editor, or mine to ensure my professional privacy in the face of historical evidence that this institution does not protect it, is more in keeping with the spirit of Wikipedia, is something you might ponder. LeProf — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.179.92.36 (talk) 00:29, 6 December 2013 (UTC)

In re: Dawkins' ideas: Good online source to learn from before doing further reading, and then editing this article

The following is from the ever-astute UToronto Larry Moran's blog on recent attacks and rebuttals of Dawkins. It is useful, as context for later discussions on the role that references to Dawkins popular science books should have in this Species article (and about how "common knowledge" the article content is, as it now reads):

"The most damning criticism [of Dawkins' selfish gene concept] comes from evolutionary biologists who point out that the primary unit of selection is the individual and not the gene. Stephen Jay Gould and Richard Lewontin are prominent opponents of what they see as an unnecessary reductionism in Dawkins' writing. Clearly, hierarchical theory (Gould) is inconsistent with the selfish gene metaphor because evolution can also operate at the level of groups and species (according to Gould and others). There are plenty of other evolutionary biologists who object to selfish genes for these reasons.

The second objection comes from the focus on natural selection and "Darwinism" (or neo-Darwinism). Many evolutionary biologists have a pluralistic view of modern evolutionary theory. That view includes random genetic drift where the appropriate metaphor might be "lucky gene" or "accidental gene." The problem with the Dawkins' metaphor, according to these critiques, is not that "selfish genes" don't exist, it's that the metaphor is not appropriate for evolution in general."

• http://sandwalk.blogspot.com/2013/12/die-selfish-gene-die.html?showComment=1386371691611 LeProf. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.179.92.36 (talk) 23:33, 6 December 2013 (UTC)

Good, more philosophical sources on "species"

• http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/species/
• http://scienceblogs.com/evolvingthoughts/2006/10/01/a-list-of-26-species-concepts/

Probably, alongside John Wilkin's work, the Stanford appears the best readily available source on this article's subject (certainly among the best online), and a model for what this Wikipedia article could become with good stewardship. (My opinion.) John Wilkins list, the second URL citation, comes (gasp) with lead print citations provided. Wilkins book has also been out for some time, he has amazingly, early on, contributed to this Talk page, but he is nowhere cited here (except in passing, from an article in The Guardian !). He literally "wrote the book" for goodness sake.

Finally, I'm dealing elsewhere with editors on the subject that weak existing content begets weak article contributions, arguing for greater periods in sandbox and Talk before contributions are allowed to see light of day. Good luck at that, I am told. In any case, another byproduct of poor referencing in the failure of content to "evolve", because the connections to sources stimulate further ideas and realizations relevant to content. An irony, that the article content in Species is significantly, evolutionarily dead. (My opinion again.) LeProf. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.179.92.36 (talk) 23:45, 6 December 2013 (UTC)

A further content irony

I would admit that it is an irony, given my arguments above, that the section with the most references, on "Numbers of species", is surpassingly weak at its foundations. See for instance: http://evolvingthoughts.net/2011/08/counting-species/

It was an edit to that counting section that first brought me here, where earlier section content had various organisms miscategorized, and lacked explanation of the difficulties of counting species of Archae and Bacteria. (I re-wrote and entered the citations for the opening three paragraphs of that section.) Even with my and other later edits, that section remains overall, at best, a college draft vis-a-vis having authoritative content. Clearly, something more than being able to draw content from a published source and affix a citation is what is needed here. Help, experts! (LeProf) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.179.92.36 (talk) 00:06, 7 December 2013 (UTC)

Section needing citation tags ...

...were added to the following sections, so Obsidian can express his control and delete them again. These appear to be the sections that 12.49... referred to. LeProf

• Common names and species
• Placement within genera
• Abbreviated names
• Phylogenetic (cladistic) species
• Importance in biological classification
• Implications of assignment of species status — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.179.92.36 (talk) 14:02, 5 December 2013 (UTC)

I'm not touching the article again as I have already stated above. I'm sure you truly believe that adding large numbers of citation needed tags on every single sentence and subsection will spur someone else into action. But please, don't refer to your office computer as another person.-- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 19:24, 5 December 2013 (UTC)

Lol, what are you on about. I have one PC, use it always. Actually, I expect the article to remain in a dismal state, for the lack of willingness to take drastic action to remediate citation-free text dumping. I am certainly not going to try to think the original author's thoughts after them (for the "History and development of the species concept" section), so I can insert citations he or she should have put in, in stride, when they moved from sandbox to article space. In any case, my opinion of the impact of plagiarism in this and other articles stands (same for the responsibility of the original content "generator" vs. expectation of forensic referencing, etc.)—no matter how you or others may pour scorn upon it. And I believe, if not within Wikipedia, that I am in general in the best company on this. Cheers, and au revoir. LeProf — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.179.92.36 (talk) 21:50, 5 December 2013 (UTC)

You know that IPs can be traced, right? 12.49 is you, and it's dishonest to pretend otherwise.-- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 06:41, 11 December 2013 (UTC)

It's not just dishonest, it's a blockable offence. I nearly opened an SPI after these postings, but decided not to be so quick to put someone in the metaphorical dock. A shame that this desire not to judge harshly never seems to be reciprocated. PaleCloudedWhite (talk) 12:04, 11 December 2013 (UTC)

I have been 50.179.92.36, and earlier, from same office site, 67.175.244.80, and periodically, when traveling, various others (e.g., 98.223.9.222). In almost all cases I signed as LeProf. And I am LeProf 7272. (Period.) I have nothing to hide or disguise in my work. Per discussion regarding the conflicts in editing at this site with an administrator, I am now signing in whenever I address matters. But as I have noted, I am done trying to work with Obsidian. It is his article. Leprof 7272 (talk) 07:26, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

"The reason we have a notion of species in biology at all is because of Noah’s Ark…" [JS Wilkins]

The following list is the starting point I offered an interested student on the species and history question, which uses JS Wilkins' book and scholarly responses to it (esp. the likewise well-received Richards) to launch their learning in this area. (This was offered in place of the limited-scholarship, citation-barren closing section of the current wikipedia Species article.)

In my opinion, with such rich texts and web and other resources as the following, there is no reason to settle for an essentially unreferenced, Dawkins-citing 1500 word draft/student essay as this article's closing section. A senior editor here should replace it with a outline/stub section, even 5-10 lines with references (e.g., based on the following and the full "Species problem" wikipedia article), and then others will have something to work with in editing. (LeProf)

Things to start you on a scholarly understanding of the "evolution" of the genus and species concepts in history

• http://evolvingthoughts.net/2013/10/are-species-theoretical-objects/

[JS Wilkins species-rich blog, this being the latest entry, where search of the term "species" here provides a good starting point on one scholar's views on the subject]

• http://www.amazon.com/Species-History-Idea-Systematics/dp/0520271394

[JS Wilkins' well-received monograph; use "look inside" feature]

• http://icb.oxfordjournals.org/content/50/2/251.full#fn-1

[J Mallet, UCL, writing in review of Wilkins' "Species" monograph]

• http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs11191-012-9453-9#page-1

[RA Richards, UA, writing in review of Wilkins' "Species" monograph; if no Springer subscription, use "Look Inside" to read opening of review]

• http://www.amazon.com/The-Species-Problem-Philosophical-Philosophy/dp/0521196833

[RA Richards' well-received monograph; use "look inside" feature]

• http://ndpr.nd.edu/news/29700-the-species-problem-a-philosophical-analysis/

[Andrew Hamilton, writing in review of Richards' "Species Problem" monograph]

• http://evolvingthoughts.net/2013/10/the-theological-and-philosophical-origins-of-the-concept-of-species/

[Wilkins' blog, again, with description of further ideas/work since his text, and source of this Talk section title quote, see also Comment-derived discussion]

• http://www.slideshare.net/jswilkins/kircher-and-ray

[Wilkins' recent Berkeley/elsewhere talk, on Kircher and Ray (species, pre-Darwin), referenced by preceding essay] — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.179.245.225 (talk) 16:12, 15 February 2014 (UTC)

jimbo's perspective on "in without citation, or out"?

[WikiEN-l] insist on sources

Jimmy Wales jwales at wikia.com

Wed Jul 19 17:42:38 UTC 2006

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"The defining moment for Sergey, however, was when he met future co-president of Google, Larry Page. Sergey was assigned to show Larry around the university on a weekend tour. Reportedly, they did not get on well to begin with, arguing about every topic they discussed, and even throwing a few pies at each other."

Is that true? Is it not true? As a reader of Wikipedia, I have no easy way to know. If it is true, it should be easy to supply a reference. If it is not true, it should be removed. I really want to encourage a much stronger culture which says: it is better to have no information, than to have information like this, with no sources. Any editor who removes such things, and refuses to allow it back without an actual and appropriate source, should be the recipient of a barnstar.--Jimbo

Italics added. Source, this Jimbo quotation: http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2006-July/050773.html — Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.40.94.210 (talk) 22:40, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

..it is better to have no information, than to have information like this, with no sources.

Emphasis mine. That's an extension of WP:BLP.-- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 23:35, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

OK, so in your view, he is only referring to BLP, and not to other areas where citations are reasonably expected. Your opinion. I believe others will disagree. Leprof 7272 (talk) 01:49, 11 December 2013 (UTC)

You've been writing sections upon sections of text here for months complaining about the current status and insulting whomever tries to engage you. You could have used that time to add references or to rewrite the entire section. What exactly is it that's stopping you from doing this? You claim to be an academic. Though I would guess you're not a specialist in biology, that's not a barrier to understanding references you can use. Other editors have also already tried adding references in the meantime, so it's certainly not that hard.

Everyone here agrees that having no references is bad. The difference is that you somehow view it as so unforgivably bad that your only recourse is to remove it, no compromises regardless of the merit of the content. Jimbo is also just another editor as far as anyone is concerned, and he has said as much, no matter how many people seem to think that getting Jimbo's side wins them the dispute. Again this is not Citizendium where people can just say "because I say so!" and end of the discussion. That kind of attitude is the reason why it's never amounted to much in the first place. Repeating everything you've already said, the battleground behavior of insinuating bad faith or incompetence in others, pointing out weaknesses in the article while doing nothing about it, or trying to argue from authority does not help the article. This is not a contest on proving who's right or wrong. All I care about is that the article remains useful to the readers. I have real life obligations and still have a list of planned articles to write before I can try to focus my attention on this. I won't be engaging you further until you start to actually put your money where your mouth is. Good luck. -- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 03:29, 11 December 2013 (UTC)

Despite what you say, redacting problem text is doing something. It is simply something that you, in the role you have set for yourself here, will not allow. WP policy is that text without citations may be removed. You stand in defiance of this. Text which has remained in place for years was put back in when the prerogative of an editor to remove it was exercised. Hence, I am not insinuating bad faith. I am stating clearly that I see you sitting in lordship over the content of this article (despite claims to the contrary). As to your litany of my faults, each must decide for themselves what a writer's character might be, that will not state sources as they write. Incompetence is what you say J'accuse, but it may be other attributes as well; I am not deciding between them (speaking to motive), as you infer. I am just saying the practice of writing without stating sources as one writes is simply shoddy science writing. Whether the persons doing so are incapable of doing otherwise, are capable but ignorant of acceptable practice, or are capable but arrogantly indifferent to or rebellious against scholarly practices, or any other possible explanation—though you infer that I judge the person, I do not. I judge the practice. As for "money where your mouth" (too funny!): I too refuse to put more time here, for similar reasons to yours (professional time commitments), but also because of the role you have staked out for yourself (in lordship, that no redactions are allowed, that only forensic referencing is acceptable). I do refuse to forensically reference (to try to guess the sources an earlier editor relied on, to derive their factual material). Both because (to reiterate) it is necessarily a generally inaccurate, second-guessing practice, and because it supports sloppy earlier work. But I also refuse because to do so would inevitably lead to need for changes to the text itself (for all content will not be substantiated on referencing). I say this from years of working with students on their science writing: when forced to connect their loosely communicated ideas to actual source text, they inevitably find aspects of draft text where they overstepped or otherwise must correct. In the case of the closing section, with its 1600 words of fact-laden, non-common knowledge statements having, in toto, three sentences referenced—it has repeatedly been noted by others than myself as being problematic vis-a-vis redundancy in addition to referencing, to which I would add very loose use of language to express complex and not always agreed upon ideas. How can I embark upon a process where substantive textual change can be expected, with you calling the shots? To edit an article that has such fundamental flaws, and whose sanctity is so closely guarded... non, merci. It is all yours, still. Leprof 7272 (talk) 06:59, 22 December 2013 (UTC)

Oh please, would you stop your melodramatic accusations of WP:OWN already. As I've told you multiple times, I have not reverted and will not revert any of your edits since I said I would stop doing so (go on, check the article history), following WP:BRD. I actually have no idea why you seem to view me as the tyrannical article owner. I've reverted you for a grand total of two times (1, 2) then said I wouldn't again while we attempt to work it out in the talk page. Those reverts happened over a month ago and within the span of an hour. I haven't touched your edits since.

And let me say that again: I won't be engaging you further until you start to actually put your money where your mouth is. You obviously have the time to write long-winded paragraphs. And you've been doing that for months in several articles. Happy holidays! -- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 11:53, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

With all do respect, there is no context for me to edit here, either materially, or vis-a-vis respect. The current closing section is intractable, as useful, relevant draft material. It is long, strange in scope and structure relative to current scholarship (see next section), and periodically mysterious as to original editor meaning/intent (without citations that allow easy clarification); and, because it is citation-barren, it is non-authortative. With any deep regard for ones limited available editing time, nothing useful can be done with it. (One could expand upon a short replacement stub providing an updated, thoughtful outline of desired material, with references to make absolutely clear the earlier editor's meanings and intents.) Bottom line, in light of earlier acknowledged reversions: Until either a scholarship-motivated redaction of the current closing section appears (to provide a space for a fresh outline of updated, referenced material), or the gyst of the "after 3 years, full citations are a reasonable demand" argument of this theoretically equally empowered, but actually stymied editor is respected (e.g., by your replacing the long, weak tome with 5-10 line referenced stub that could serve as an editorial starting point), any overtures of your lack of control or of your objectivity regarding this editor's future offerings fall on deaf ears. Accusatory and demeaning language will accomplish nothing; I've text files full of draft chemistry material, and there are plenty of productive places to edit. I lose no sleep over your opinion of my "money where your mouth is" recurring judgment. This purportedly free-to-act editor acted on a 3 year issue, and you reverted. Only "a … total of two" is still two reversions, the one being the critical; until you redress that matter in some fashion, you retain the control you expressed through the original reversion. See next section for the starting point I offered an interested student, instead of this final section. LeProf — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.179.245.225 (talk) 16:50, 15 February 2014 (UTC)

Responsibility for referencing lies with original or deletion-reverting editor

Per "WP:PROVEIT": "Any material lacking a reliable source directly supporting it may be removed and should not be replaced without an inline citation to a reliable source. … Sometimes editors will disagree on whether material is verifiable. The burden of identifying a reliable source lies with the editor who adds or restores material, and is satisfied by providing any reliable source that directly supports the material." LeProf

@Leprof 7272: you've engaged in some selective quotation. The whole passage reads Any material lacking a reliable source directly supporting it may be removed and should not be replaced without an inline citation to a reliable source. Whether and how quickly this should happen depends on the material and the overall state of the article. Editors might object if you remove material without giving them time to provide references; consider adding a citation needed tag as an interim step. When tagging or removing material for lacking an inline citation, please state your concern that there may not be a published reliable source for the content, and therefore it may not be verifiable. If you think the material is verifiable, try to provide an inline citation yourself before considering whether to remove or tag it. The passage does not support immediate deletion without first adding a "citation needed" tag or explaining on the talk page that you believe there is not a published reliable source for the content. It also suggests that you try to find a citation yourself. However, this is water under the bridge; we need to move on. Peter coxhead (talk) 17:28, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

Peter, I note that while you point to process (more below), you do not negate the WP's demand that responsibility for referencing ultimately lies with original or deletion-reverting editor (Obsidian, Sminthopsis84, take note). And thank you for providing the full WP—I have been chided here for presenting/writing too much, and it is good to see another agrees that the full text of a WP can be important. What you fail to realize, is that the chief body of material in question has been tagged as needing citations for 4 years at time of tempest, see below, and was all but completely barren of them until I began to call attention. Moreover, I did add tags, both section and inline, and these became the source of complaint, and reversion. Finally, I have repeatedly and clearly "state[d my] concern that there may not be a published reliable source for [all of] the content, and therefore [that] it may not be verifiable." Bottom line, I am a fan of the WP, in its long or short form. The editors here have suggested I reference the tracts rather than delete them, and I will not do this, on principle (see elsewhere for long explanations). They have also been unwilling or unable, over 4+ years to do it themselves. (Their earlier arguments, for viewing the text as common knowledge, and Sminthopsis84's following short essay on his ideas of scientific prose quality, are telling as to real attitudes that constrain progress toward fully verifiable text.) So we are at am impasse, that I will no longer fight. Bonne chance, adieu. Le Prof Leprof 7272 (talk) 19:01, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

I've just looked in here to see if the "discussion" had calmed down since I despaired and took this page off my watch list last December, and it's almost nice to see that it has calmed down, but that is clearly because an editor who could be very helpful here (Obsidian, pardon me for dropping your name) has withdrawn in despair. The point made above by User:Obsidian Soul is important here, that WP:BLP is a different kettle of fish (so to speak, meaning no disrespect to any LP's!). My view of the situation on this page is that deletion of valuable material has occurred, material that was in part written by content experts who wrestled with how to come up with appropriate words. That material is now more-or-less lost in the page history, which I have a keen appreciation of because I just worked through the top-most 50 edits and laboriously made three edits of my own in response to those. Because there are people in wikipedia (I haven't seen them operating on this page yet, fortunately) who use WP:3RR quite savagely as a weapon, my rule is to not make more than 3 edits in one day on a contentious page, and this is a contentious page. Thus, I didn't get into much of the recent history, just the last 50 edits, most of which were vandalism/reversion pairs. Retrieving that material that existed as of 24 November 2013 doesn't look feasible if any more deletion occurs.

So, to summarize, the deletionism here has done tremendous damage. The deleted material may not have been perfect, but it could have become good. It is unlikely that it will ever be retrieved from the page history. This is not about dealing with lies, it is about dealing with poor writing. The poverty of writing is partly due to vandalism. A content expert may have the time and energy to insert some carefully chosen words, but chasing down suitable citations to support it is better done as a later process by someone who knows less and wants to learn. Coping with vandalism requires more page watchers, but page watchers are being driven away by the slash-and-burn attitude that is being justified by inappropriate citation of the WP:BLP policy. This page has suffered tremendously, as have most of the important science pages of wikipedia, and the deletionism needs to stop. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 17:08, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

I will keep this as short as I can. Sminthopsis84 completely misleads in his insinuations regarding the Fall 2013 history of this article. My early effort was to (1) to conservatively edit the "numbers of Species" section, for the gross errors it contained in the assignment of organisms to Eukarya and Prokarya, and to clarify concepts and issues there (an additive, and not a redactive effort); (2) to propose deletion of the extensive closing section, "History and development of the species concept", which has had a tag calling for improved citations for more than four years, and then, overall, to call attention to other areas of text where the material was not common knowledge, and so requiring citation for WP verifiability (where I refused, consistently, to forensically reference another's unsourced scientific material, as unprincipled and inefficient), and (3) to place various literature resources that I unearthed, at this communities disposal, via Sections in this Talk.

The positive results of these efforts were the modestly improved "Numbers" section, and the persistence of dated tags on the sections that continue to lack citations. No one has intellectually engaged or acted upon any literature offered here, as far as I can tell. What did not happen, contrary to Sminthopsis84's insinuation, was any substantive deletion of material, on my part, in this article. One can easily see that the full 4-year unreferenced, personal "take it on faith, it's true" closing essay Section still appears in this article. Hence, one may wax eloquent, and cast about for scapegoats, but neither speak to the real choke point here. The things for which I took responsibility—apart, mea culpa, for raising a firestorm, insisting that the citations improve, and perhaps alienating resistant editor Obsidian—were completed, and added modest value ("Numbers", section tags, resources provided in Talk). I can have no regrets for any of this, except for wasted time trying to persuade the unpersuadable about the need for immediate attention to overall mediocre referencing. Bottom line, Sminthopsis84 et al. must find another to cast blame upon for real or imagined "deletionism", and must accept that the ones primarily responsible here for content, both its quantity and quality, are he, Obsidian, and others that have sat in article control through team-supported reversions and similar status-quo conserving tactics. As I said earlier, I washed my hands of this, instead collecting journal articles, essays, and book chapters to provide any students that have interest in this important scientific area. (Any committed scholar or serious student is not going to take seriously a tome lacking uniform verifiability of the information, with 4+ years of all-but stagnancy for some parts.) Responsibility for scope and quality that leads to readership, or its loss, lies with the core of editors here, and the fly-by Huggle/Twinkle responders that flock in for touch-and-go action, in response to perceived article slights.

Finally, please note: on encountering just as vociferous opposition at another article—this time, amazingly, the mirror image of my reception here, where that article's cadre and flock demanded, on their narrow WP interpretation, immediate large scale removal of unsourced text (rather than tag and wait any length of time). This despite the fact that the text there was recent, innocuous, and aforeto un-contended. The time-after-time discovery of stubborn cadres and flocks of controlling editors lead me to pull the plug—I am moving to a new venture, and leaving that and this article completely to any editors that have the humours for this game. (Preferably bile and phlegm, if one understands these associations.) Not that I expect my staying would have made much of a difference. Rather than allowing truly free editing here, editors cast for people to blame for the site's poor quality. One might fully expect that the controlling editors' patience with the unreferenced and otherwise weak closing section will extend to a decade. Hope I am wrong, but the article has been, and now will permanently remain, fully this groups to wrangle. Cheers to honest, humble, scholarly persons who happen upon this tempest in a teapot. Best wishes to all that strive to make this into an article that can be given a wide variety of people, to learn from directly, and from its verifiable sources. Le Prof Leprof 7272 (talk) 18:42, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

Downgraded "Phylogenetic (cladistic) species" section tag, from "missing citations", to "need more…"

…because one citation has been added. Turned the first two opening non-sentence phrases into sentences (assuming I understood their intent). Changed the second paragraph example that bears the citation, from human to bovid, because that is what the cited article addresses. (If wishing to return it to human, please provide the appropriate secondary source via citation.)

Edited the expression "since its populations can be distinguished in to smaller and smaller units" to become "since smaller and smaller units of its population can be distinguished", since I am unaware that "distinguished into" is an accepted usage. Indicated points in the section text where I lost the meaning (appearance of weasel wording[1], specialist jargon, abbreviations appearing once in section without elaboration, etc.), and used someone else's < !- - xxx - - > in-text notation style to make clear why tags were added where they were.

This short section edit can serve to illustrate what I would have felt compelled to do here, were I to stay, to be able to understand loose prose that appears throughout the article. Realize, vis-a-vis common knowledge, I TA'd an evolutionary genetics course at an "ivy" during graduate school (Charlesworth as text, if I recall). This stuff is not common knowledge, but I should be able to understand it in a quick pass if it is well written, and if confused, should be able to go to a cited source. I know, good bye already. Cheers. Le Prof Leprof 7272 (talk) 20:31, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

When to cite, when not to cite

FYI, all comers, from Wikipedia:When to cite. Feel free to collapse this section after a few days.

When a source is needed

See also: Wikipedia:You do need to cite that the sky is blue

Material that is actually challenged by another editor requires a source or it may be removed; and anything likely to incur a reasonable challenge should be sourced to avoid disputes and to aid readers (see WP:BURDEN). In practice, this means most such statements are backed by an inline citation. In case of multiple possible references for a statement, the best reliable sources should be used.

• Quotations: Add an inline citation when quoting published material, whether within quotation marks or not, whether using direct or indirect speech. When using footnotes, the citation should be placed in the first footnote after the quotation. In-text attribution is often appropriate.
• Close paraphrasing: Add an inline citation when closely paraphrasing a source's words. In-text attribution is often appropriate, especially for statements describing a person's published opinions or words. In-text attribution is not appropriate for other forms of close paraphrasing, such as if you paraphrase "The sky is usually blue" as "The sky is often the color blue".
• Contentious statements about living people: Editors must take particular care adding biographical material about a living person to any Wikipedia page. Such material requires a high degree of sensitivity; do not leave unsourced information that may damage the reputation of living persons or organizations in articles.
• Exceptional claims: Exceptional claims in Wikipedia require high-quality reliable sources (see WP:REDFLAG):

• Surprising or apparently important claims not covered by mainstream sources;
• Reports of a statement by someone that seems out of character, embarrassing, controversial, or against an interest they had previously defended;
• Claims that are contradicted by the prevailing view within the relevant community, or which would significantly alter mainstream assumptions, especially in science, medicine, history, politics, and biographies of living persons, and especially when proponents consider that there is a conspiracy to silence them.

• Other: Opinions, data and statistics, and statements based on someone's scientific work should be cited and attributed to their authors in the text.

When a source may not be needed

See also: Wikipedia:You don't need to cite that the sky is blue, Wikipedia:Likely to be challenged, and Wikipedia:The Pope is Catholic

• General common knowledge: Statements that the average adult recognizes as true. Examples: "Paris is the capital of France" or "Humans normally have two arms and two legs."
• Subject-specific common knowledge: Material that someone familiar with a topic, including laypersons, recognizes as true. Example (from Processor): "In a computer, the processor is the component that executes instructions."
• Plot of the subject of the article: If the subject of the article is a book or film or other artistic work, it is unnecessary to cite a source in describing events or other details. It should be obvious to potential readers that the subject of the article is the source of the information. If the subject of the article is a work that has been published or broadcast in a serial manner, then citing the episode, issue or book can aid comprehension for readers not familiar with the whole of the serial work. It also aids verification if editors are concerned about inappropriate use of the artistic work (a primary source) for interpretation.

Emphases added. I would argue that nothing much in question is covered by the General common knowledge and Subject-specific common knowledge exclusions, and much in question is covered by the Close Paraphrasing and Other categories, as well as the Introduction to the "When a Source is Needed Directive." LeProf.

Move of long-standing unreferenced dubious sentence to talk

This sentence has been marked as dubious since 2011, and is moved here in preparation for a touch-up edit to the section Difficulty of defining "species" and identifying particular species.

In a few cases it may be physically impossible for animals that are members of the same species to mate. However, these are cases, such as in breeds of dogs, in which human intervention has caused gross morphological changes, and are therefore excluded by the biological species concept.

Please, if you can, explain this better and put it back in, along with a source for the ideas. Thank you. 50.141.77.128 (talk) 16:04, 27 November 2014 (UTC)

Why

Despite all the past discussions, why is so much of this article still without inline references? Why not bite the bullet, and make this a good, standard science article? Most of those have good, paragraph-by-paragraph footnotes indicating where the information came from, don't they? 98.222.34.214 (talk) 12:07, 27 November 2014 (UTC)

The answer to your first question is because no-one has yet appeared who is willing to do the work involved. Peter coxhead (talk) 15:50, 27 November 2014 (UTC)

I would if I could, but I don't have the expertise (and the time sadly). This is a massive undertaking. Maybe someday we can make a focused collaboration of the various WP:TOL subproject members or something, but that depends on how active people are. Most are specialized in different topics as well, and this article is really very general. It's also more history, than actual biology.-- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 15:57, 27 November 2014 (UTC)

If the implication of your replies to the question above is that future major edits are welcome here, this is good to know. This is not evident from the discussions and history of edits and reversions. Thank you. 50.141.77.128 (talk) 16:04, 27 November 2014 (UTC)

More than welcome, they are sorely needed. That has never been denied. The only objections raised in the past were of blanket deletions of vast areas of the text with no replacements. Even wholesale rewriting is very much welcome, as long as it relatively retains the current (unsourced) information's coverage. -- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 16:13, 27 November 2014 (UTC)

Edit to Difficulty of… section

On the strength of the foregoing encouragements, the title of this section was shortened and simplified, the section was restructured (Darwin quotes moved up, last paragraph revised, etc.), a prose touch-up was performed (e.g., "difficulted" and other irregularities were removed, missing punctuation added, segues created, etc.), and citation needed tags were added. Note, no there is 'no' newly added material, just a revision of the existing text. 50.141.77.128 (talk) 16:24, 27 November 2014 (UTC)

Two proposals for article improvement

To make a big difference on the article's broad usefulness, I would make these two proposals. First, I would propose we focus for a time on the lead — Does the lead capture the title subject adequately? (Is any important material missed, and is any material in it not important enough to warrant being in the lead? Is all material in the lead, as required, also in the main body of the article? Is all of it referenced when it appears later? Etc.)

Second, is the following outline:

Extended content

1 Biologists' working definition 1.1 Common names and species 1.2 Placement within genera 1.3 Abbreviated names 1.4 Identification codes 2 Difficulty defining or identifying species 3 Definitions of species 3.1 Typological species 3.2 Evolutionary species 3.3 Phylogenetic (cladistic) species 3.4 Other species concepts 4 Numbers of species 4.1 Number of prokaryotic species, Domain Bacteria 4.2 Number of prokaryotic species, Domain Archaea 4.3 Number of eukaryotic species 5 Importance in biological classification 6 Implications of assignment of species status 7 History and development of the species concept

still the organization of the content that is desirable, base on the review of the lead? (Are any elements redundant, or unimportant enough to consider deleting? Are any further elements needed, that we could stub in? Are any elements overly long? Is the order of elements that appear best for the articles understanding by lay audiences?)

I propose, for instance, that Section 2 might actually be the best way to open the article, but did not want to make this gross change without discussion from others interested. Cheers. 50.141.77.128 (talk) 16:45, 27 November 2014 (UTC)

Regarding the removal of uncited content yet again

For clarification, this is the reversion that this Talk section addresses: [2]. 50.141.77.128 (talk) 16:59, 27 November 2014 (UTC)

Removing those paragraphs render the article more or less incomprehensible and misleading. The removal of the paragraph on Linnaeus for example, for the mere reason of being in an uncited paragraph is comparable to the removal of any mentions of Einstein in the article on Relativity. The removals does the article more harm. Since it leaves the article a piecemeal of information without connecting paragraphs to give readers context. Any future work done on the article in such a state would either result in more haphazard patching or will necessitate the complete rewriting of the article itself.

As discussed since forever in the talk page archives, the existing content is uncited, true. But is otherwise NOT factually incorrect, nor are they copyright violations. In light of the lack of replacement text, we have no choice but to retain it in the meantime and hope that it will provide a framework for future work done on the article. Yes, it is not in the ideal state, but it is good enough.

Especially given that it is a VERY important article referenced by hundreds of thousands of other articles in Wikipedia (with some sections being directly redirected to). We can not leave it a stub. I invoke WP:IAR for the good of the readers, rather than shitting on them because of bureaucratic wikilawyering. We serve them first.-- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 10:40, 20 November 2014 (UTC)

P.S. One error already became obvious when you removed the explanatory paragraph treating it. The abbreviation of species is not "spp.", it's simply "sp." (one p). The abbreviation "spp." is used only when it is referring to two or more species (such as all the members of a particular genus).-- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 10:47, 20 November 2014 (UTC)

Is there any way to address the substance of this editor's observation and edit, without reversion? Is all of the material he removed worthy of remaining — none is redundant, and none suspicious? Every mistaken edit is still an opportunity for article improvement. (I personally feel that there is much here in the article that is suspect, besides the material that this established editor proposed for deletion. I say suspicious both for its lack of citation, and because after a read-through of the article, start to finish, it seems unready as a stand-alone piece suitable for lay encyclopedia readers.) And as a teacher, I cannot agree that an article is good enough that provides students with factual information that they cannot read deeper into. We try to teach students that "trust me this is true" is a matter of religion, and not science. 50.141.77.128 (talk) 16:59, 27 November 2014 (UTC)

I made the most recent attempt at removing the uncited sections, as is discussed here. So please allow me to address a few of Obsidian's points, one by one:

• Regarding leaving the article is in incoherent state after wholesale removal of uncited sections, you are likely correct. That is not a valid reason, though, to return all of the removed uncited content to the article. In other words, please reinstate only that which you notice harms the remaining flow of the article, and graciously allow the rest to go away. Otherwise, we will be deadlocked on several uncited sections just because a couple of uncited paragraphs are needed in the short term.
• As far as this being "discussed since forever in the talk page archives", that's somewhat irrelevant. What was done—or not done—in the past should have no bearing on what we do to improve the article today. Yes, this is a perennial issue. And what causes perennial debates? One or more parties that are too stubborn to give a little and reach a compromise. Not to name names or anything...
• Your assertion that the article is not factually incorrect is very arrogant. I'm sorry to say this so bluntly, but it is. How can anybody be sure that something is error free? They can't! The only thing that they can be sure of is that they themselves don't see any errors, given the limitations of their own knowledge. Heck, the Encyclopædia Britannica is written by scholars and even it isn't error free.
• Similarly, your assertion that the article doesn't make any copyright violations is arrogant. The only possible way you could know this is if you wrote every sentence of the article yourself (which would certainly explain the apparent ownership). Otherwise, it's impossible to prove a negative.
• Look at my edit again. I did not make the error that you claim. I introduced "spp." as the abbreviation of the plural form. While I moved spp. up top because it redirects here, sp. does not redirect to species, so it isn't required to be in the lede per MOS:BOLD. I decided to forgo that one until a reference could be found.
• When you said, "...when you removed...", were you talking to the IP address? Because I made that edit—not the IP address. And before anybody asks, the IP address is not me. I personally wish he'd sign in, though.
• You're absolutely right about serving the readers first, which is why we either owe them reputable information or none at all. So please, let's work together to increase the percentage of this article that's cited, whilst not mutilating the article.

– voidxor ^{(talk | contrib)} 01:42, 29 November 2014 (UTC)

• By asking me to revert only the ones I think harm the article, you are acknowledging that you don't actually know which ones are worth keeping. Your only basis for removing stuff is because there is no reference at the end. Leading to situations like the Linnaeus removal. I'm sorry, but that is not arrogance, that is high school biology.
• It is relevant if you think I'm the one here being disruptive. This is not the only article bombarded with the "remove everything without a reference" diatribes for... 3 years I think? This is the only one I've defended, IIRC. There are several others. I'm scared to see how the other articles fared by now.
• I admit, it does sound arrogant. But here's a better exercise: try to identify which ones are incorrect, rather than blanket assuming that each and every sentence without a source is false, and then try to confirm it. To give you some examples from the text you removed (and thus I assume you thought were likely false):

"Taxonomists are often referred to as "lumpers" or "splitters" by their colleagues, depending on their personal approach to recognizing differences or commonalities between organisms (see lumpers and splitters)."

and

"In the 18th century Swedish scientist Carolus Linnaeus classified organisms according to easily observed differences. Although his system of classification sorts organisms according to degrees of similarity, it made no claims about the relationship between similar species. At that time, it was still widely believed that there was no organic connection between species, no matter how similar they appeared. This view was influenced by European scholarly and religious education at the time, which held that the categories of life are dictated by God, in a hierarchical scheme."

Notice that both of them are wikilinked to other articles. Try following those links.

• No it's not. Try spot-checking the paragraphs. See if you can get any verbatim hits in Google. Accusations of copyvio require incontrovertible evidence. A lack of sources does not automatically make the text suspect. See what constitutes actual copyvio: Wikipedia:Copyright violations. And also no, I'm not doing this because of WP:OWN. None of the current text, much less the problematic ones, are mine. I myself am very strict about using references in the articles I write (e.g. flower urchin), and I'd be ashamed if this article was actually mine.
• And yes you really did. This article is not about how we make it clear which pages redirect here. The usage of sp. and spp. in biology is what matters to the reader. They couldn't care less how much the article follows Wikipedia's rules regarding which things should be placed on top and which ones should be bolded. That paragraph was necessary. What catches the eye first is a secondary concern. You could have easily fixed that by changing the redirect to a subsection. Not the lead. And then you won't have to resort to ambiguous and cluttered sentences to force that bit to fit. MOS:BOLD also does not state that every single page that redirects to another page should be bolded. In fact, that is specifically cautioned against in another MOS rule: WP:R#PLA.

But mostly it's about the simple fact that the usage of sp. and spp. are so non-controversial and readily apparent that it's almost a case of Wikipedia:You don't need to cite that the sky is blue. But even if you think it isn't, the very first thing that should be done before removal is to find a usable source. And there are plenty. Here's one source that could have been used instead of deleting those paragraphs.

• I'm talking about this edit. But it refers to any similar edits in the past as well. Which were guilty of the same things.
• No. There is no Wikipedia policy that demands perfection or nothing. That's one of the reasons why I dislike WP:Wikilawyering so much. Because it assumes that rules are rules for rules' sakes. Perhaps a better way to explain this is to understand why Wikipedia even has a WP:IAR policy in the first place. A policy that asks you to ignore all policies. This is because why rules were made is more important than the rules themselves. And this is one of those cases where applying the rules rigidly actually harms the article and thus negates the benefits of the rules.

Additionally, here are some thoughts on more specific points of the mistakes done in the past for the sake of rule compliance. I simply can not and probably never will understand why so many editors think that they are doing an article a great service by adding {{citation needed}} at the end of every single sentence. This does not help the reader nor does it make the errors get fixed faster. It's easy to tag bomb articles, but not so much to fix them. The latter is the one that is actually needed.

It doesn't help that some of those tags are seemingly just for tagging's sake. For example, this sentence:

"Lamarck suggested that an organism could pass on an acquired trait to its offspring (i.e. the giraffe's long neck was attributed to generations of giraffes stretching to reach the leaves of higher treetops[according to whom?])."

It asks a blindingly obvious question. According to Lamarck of course. The beginning of the sentence says so.

Not to mention that some of these tags are placed in sentences which actually have a source at the end of the paragraph. I may add that this practice of adding a source at the end of multiple sentences they verify is the default practice in Wikipedia to avoid ref clutter.

Here's one example:

"It has been argued,[weasel words] that operation of the phylogenetic species concept (PSC) will lead to taxonomic inflation,[clarification needed] since smaller and smaller units of its population can be distinguished—even down to individuals.[citation needed] Species of bovine (i.e., cattle) for example, could be split up into any number of species based on this concept.[32]"

ALL of that is actually sourced at the end of the paragraph to this paper: Heller et al., 2013. It's not unsourced at all.

Now do you now understand why revamping this article is a huge undertaking and requires someone who actually, at least, has a passing familiarity with the subject? As I've stated I do not have the time nor expertise for this. And honestly, I don't have the interest anymore. Every time I go back to this article and try to make this point clear, it saps my will to continue editing.

Lastly to avoid this leading to another wikibreak again, this will be my last "great essay" on this article. I will not revert anything in the article again or argue for anything in it. I've said all that I needed to say above and I sincerely hope they can guide in improving the article. I think my energies are better focused elsewhere. I bear no ill will to anyone here. I'm just really tired of this. -- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 11:07, 29 November 2014 (UTC)

And this bears repeating: our goals here are the same. We all want the article to be completely policy-compliant and useful to the readers. The problem is how we go about doing that. By retaining the problematic but useful content temporarily (with the negative effect of being difficult to verify, and thus the possibility of undetected errors), or removing them completely (with the negative effect of compromising article coverage possibly indefinitely).-- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 11:16, 29 November 2014 (UTC)

Is "species" a social concept?

See discussion on Talk:Race_(biology)#Social_concept Captain JT Verity MBA (talk) 14:29, 16 June 2015 (UTC)

Difficulty defining or identifying species

i see quite a few "citation needed" tags in this section. now, it may not be really much of a help, but this link (http://www.macroevolution.net) discusses all or most of these topics (though this is just a starting point, someone would still need to find the exact part of the text that could be used as reference).

the species concept seems to be a scientific artefact from the times when divine creation was the sole scientific theory with the most explanative power, and its survival must be partially explained by its deep embeddedness int common sense, eg: how to tell the dog from the hog.80.98.114.70 (talk) 23:40, 27 April 2016 (UTC).

Species or specimen?

"In the earliest works of science, a species was simply an individual organism that represented a group of similar or nearly identical organisms." I would call that a specimen.

saved at about 1:00, aug 11, 2016 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.5.106.186 (talk) 17:17, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

Can't be bothered?

I've made a few "minor" edits with respect to some edits from over 2 years ago namely the "more sources" flag - as the section seems to have a reasonable number of robust sources, and some of the inline comments. IMO a lot more of these latter edits could be deleted. They add nothing useful and seem to use the article mark-up text to vent and peacock instead of to improve the article itself of to raise the issues here on the Talk page so they may be addressed in a reasonable manner. The section could benefit from some polishing but the markups made on it give the impression that it is of a considerably lower quality than it is. IMO that is not helpful to anyone. LookingGlass (talk) 15:06, 19 August 2016 (UTC)

Ring species

The status of the ring species section is rather different from the other concepts listed, as nobody is using "ring species" as a proposed definition of what all species are. Instead, a ring (if any such exists, which is doubtful) would be a challenge to the Mayrian concept of "reproductively isolated breeding population", as a ring would allow continued gene flow. Therefore, I've put the ring species section outside the list of definitions, as one of the challenges that Mayr-type concepts would have to face; of course, if there are no genuine rings, then there isn't a problem for them. I hope this is clear and obvious to everyone now that it's been stated. Chiswick Chap (talk) 21:24, 10 March 2017 (UTC)

No, and not so fast. The chief difficulty in finding ring species is apparently because they tend to be unstable, they tend to either speciate or revert to simple species by gene flow.

And in general there seems to be problems with the article. It's implicitly assuming that there is *a* definition of a species. But the reality, which the text of the article acknowledges, but the structure of the text doesn't, is that while they are all reasonably good, none of them are completely ideal.

And this applies to the Mayr definition too.

So is a ring species a definition of "species"; or is it a *type* of species. Isn't it identifying a set of creatures as being the same species? And aren't all of the definitions doing that, including Mayr? According to a strict reading of Mayr, a ring species isn't a species because the endpoints can't breed. So it's a distinct definition from Mayr. But of course most biologists would agree that it's a reasonable concept of a particular type of species since there's potentially gene flow.

And while ring species are rare, similar species where related (for example) plant species can cross polinate are quite common.

I think we need to move the article more towards there being different definitions of species for different purposes. The Mayr definition doesn't necessarily work for asexual reproduction. The text doesn't need to change much, but the structure does.GliderMaven (talk) 13:33, 11 March 2017 (UTC)

The article absolutely does not say there's only one definition: it starts from Mayr, which as you say everyone would like to use but can't quite, so it's the obvious starting point (used as such by many sources). The article shows that neither Mayr nor any of the long list of proposed alternatives, each one described and cited, fully work, and Jim Mallet's quote says as much. The ring species is not an attempt at a definition of what a species is, unlike all the other offerings; it's a strange (and possibly non-existent) situation, which challenges the Mayr definition without quite unseating it. I've added examples and citations for the putative rings: nobody, of course, has proved that no ring will ever be found. Chiswick Chap (talk) 14:39, 11 March 2017 (UTC)

But isn't this a glass half-full kind of thing? Do none of them really work, or do they all work? In a very real sense, they all work, they each give you different picture of the incredible complexity that is the 'tree of life', which is more realistically a 'web of life', particularly at the bacterial level. The fact that they don't capture everything says less about the definitions, and more about what they're trying to deal with.GliderMaven (talk) 16:05, 11 March 2017 (UTC)

Exactly, they may start out looking like tedious definitions, but you quickly realise they are all attempts to grapple with a very slippery but essential biological concept. If 'nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution', and evolution works on species, then the concept is somewhat central, which makes its awkwardness uncomfortable, but unavoidable. Chiswick Chap (talk) 13:36, 12 March 2017 (UTC)

The proposition that evolution works on species is dubious. Populations, perhaps; "gene pools" more plausibly. Peter coxhead (talk) 21:06, 12 March 2017 (UTC)

Yes. Doesn't take away the problem, however. Chiswick Chap (talk) 21:08, 12 March 2017 (UTC)

Speciation

I'm very unhappy with what has happened to the speciation section since it was added. Speciation is a very important process that falls squarely under the the topic of species. This article cannot simply consist of a bunch of definitions of types of species. There seems to be a subtle, but pretty grievous mistake that we are trying to define the word 'species' here. Encyclopedia articles are about topics, not words. That's not at all how this place works. An FA quality article, which this article should aim for, should cover everything about species, in reasonable detail; how they are created, how they grow, how they die, the different definitions of species, how many species there are, give examples, etc. etc. We're not just listing definitions of the word 'species'.GliderMaven (talk) 13:33, 11 March 2017 (UTC)

Sorry you feel that way. We certainly aren't after a dictionary definition, but the article is (already) very far from just defining terms: it's describing a pretty complex set of conflicting concepts, with the oeople they're associated with, and reasons why there's a difficulty in nailing down the whole thing, and more. Chiswick Chap (talk) 14:32, 11 March 2017 (UTC)

Even to the extent it's defining concepts, it's tending to *only* define concepts. The unit of information in Wikipedia is the article. The article is supposed to at least briefly cover everything on a given topic. Unless we rename or redefine the article to be 'definitions of species' then it's been missing material on extinctions, speciation and Gene_flow#Gene_flow_between_species.GliderMaven (talk) 15:56, 11 March 2017 (UTC)

These three are all good suggestions and deserve a section each, properly cited. Chiswick Chap (talk) 16:04, 11 March 2017 (UTC)

Many, thanks, the article feels much more complete and less one-note now, closer to B-class.GliderMaven (talk) 00:31, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

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Edit of Lead 1st paragraph

My edit of the Lead 1st paragraph had been reverted, with an invitation to discuss, so here goes.

My edit: In biology, a species (ˌ/ˈspiːʃiːz/, // is the basic unit of classification and a taxonomic rank, as well as a unit of biodiversity. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate sexes or mating types can produce fertile offspring, typically by sexual reproduction. However, this definition fails to take into account hybridisation, species complexes, microspecies, or ring species. Further, evolutionary processes cause species to change and to grade into one another; and when dealing with fossils - since reproduction cannot be examined - the field of palaeontology uses the concept of the chronospecies. Other ways of defining species include karyotype, DNA sequence, morphology, behavior, and ecological niche.

Current version: In biology, a species (ˌ/ˈspiːʃiːz/, // is the basic unit of classification and a taxonomic rank, as well as a unit of biodiversity, but it has proven difficult to find a satisfactory definition. Scientists and conservationists need a species definition which allows them to work, regardless of the theoretical difficulties. If, as Carl Linnaeus thought, species were fixed and clearly distinct from one another, there would be no problem, but evolutionary processes cause species to change continually, and to grade into one another. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate sexes or mating types can produce fertile offspring, typically by sexual reproduction. While this definition is often adequate, when looked at more closely it is problematic. For example, with hybridisation, in a species complex of hundreds of similar microspecies, or in a ring species, the boundaries between closely related species become unclear. Among organisms that reproduce only asexually, the concept of a reproductive species breaks down, and each clone is potentially a microspecies. Problems also arise when dealing with fossils, since reproduction cannot be examined; the concept of the chronospecies is therefore used in palaeontology. Other ways of defining species include their karyotype, DNA sequence, morphology, behaviour or ecological niche.

Comparison:

• 1) I have moved the sentence on the common definition "up front" to become sentence 2.
• 2) I have retained all of the enumerated difficulties with the common definition, but with some trimming of verbiage for word economy.
• 3) I have deleted "Scientists and conservationists need a species definition which allows them to work, regardless of the theoretical difficulties. If, as Carl Linnaeus thought, species were fixed and clearly distinct from one another, there would be no problem, but evolutionary processes cause species to change continually, and to grade into one another.." This IMO is not needed: this is belaboring the problem with the definitions which to me is self-evident, and not a summary of the contents of the article.
• 4) I have deleted "While this definition is often adequate, when looked at more closely it is problematic." and "Problems also arise when dealing with..." Instead I have simply described the problems.
• 5) I have deleted the description of microspecies which IMO does not belong in the Lead: "For example, with hybridisation, in a species complex of hundreds of similar microspecies, or in a ring species, the boundaries between closely related species become unclear." I have reduced this to one word - microspecies - as a problem, which is both linked and explained in the article
• 6) The first and last sentences are unaltered.

Perhaps others can weigh in. I invite compromise. It would be useful to me if anyone not satisfied with my version would comment how they would change it to make it acceptable to them. Let's at least move the common definition to become sentence 2...

Regards, IiKkEe (talk) 14:45, 6 February 2019 (UTC)

@IiKkEe: I prefer it. On style, you need to use one of the options detailed at WP:DASHES, rather than hyphens. cygnis insignis 16:17, 6 February 2019 (UTC)

Minor point, but All species are given a two-part name, a "binomial" isn't true of virus species. I'm not sure if it's worth pointing this out in the lead section or not. Peter coxhead (talk) 21:53, 6 February 2019 (UTC)

List of species

There is no List of species on Wikipedia. There should be though. Because there is no list, this information is very important to the term "Species"--Wyn.junior (talk) 19:48, 10 March 2019 (UTC)

Wyn.junior - there isn't and won't be because the list would contain some millions of entries, clearly unmanageable, and also a waste of time and space because species names and descriptions are accessible BOTH by the category system AND by the taxobox system. The information is not important to the concept (not "term") of Species, which does not depend on any particular list, on the encyclopedia or off it, but on the challenge of constructing a usable and practical method of dealing with species decisions. The article makes it clear that such decisions are always local in time and place, becoming steadily more difficult as one tries to generalise, as Darwin correctly noted. A list is, to repeat, a complete chimaera - a hopeless data structure, and a total irrelevance to this article and to the encyclopedia. I do hope you'll drop the idea, and quickly. Chiswick Chap (talk) 19:53, 10 March 2019 (UTC)

Wyn.junior - since we have a discussion under way that you very reasonably began, it is not acceptable for you to start edit-warring on the article without justification or explanation, and without any kind of reply here. I have rebutted your arguments, and in that situation it makes no sense to repeat the offending edit. It was wrong before, technically; now it's wrong procedurally as well. I have accordingly reverted the edit and issued a warning. Chiswick Chap (talk) 17:30, 11 March 2019 (UTC)

Wyn.junior - It does not appear that you have taken on board the argument for the irrelevance of the number of species (or a list of their names) to an article on the species concept. The concept is not altered if a thousand species are added to the list of those known or described. The concept is a slippery one, and much of the article is devoted to describing alternative attempts to grasp that concept, none of them perhaps wholly successful. Adding details of biodiversity databases or records is very likely of interest to other articles, but not to this one, which is in no way affected by the existence of any such lists. I do hope this is clear. Chiswick Chap (talk) 18:00, 11 March 2019 (UTC)

This is so crazy

I understand now why it's so important for me to not be round alot of people unless they like me. My immune system is not like others pretty genius. I love learning discovering connecting. This world this life is beautiful if we have understanding and are not so close minded greedy & cruel.

1. dreamcatchers4gifted Dreamcatchers4gifted (talk) 03:39, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

Species pluralis

Does sp. stand for species pluralis and spp. stand for species plurales? Esszet (talk) 18:36, 3 November 2020 (UTC)

Sources for lead

I think there should be more sources in the lead especially in the part that defines species. CycoMa (talk) 18:40, 11 April 2021 (UTC)

No, we don't repeat sourcing in the lead when it summarizes sourced materials in the article body. Chiswick Chap (talk) 18:45, 11 April 2021 (UTC)

Possessive spellings

Singular possessive is 's every time without exception (unless you make the traditional exception for Jesus). This is not controversial or disputed, and is not a matter of style; singular possessive with just the apostrophe is an error plain and simple, and there is zero chance that it was "better as it was". TooManyFingers (talk) 08:52, 14 August 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for your firmly-held view. However, that's not so. In British English, words ending in "s" are put into the genitive with an apostrophe to match our pronunciation. Thus we'd say "the spesheez characteristics" not "the speesheezes ..." and we accordingly don't add "'s" but just "'". Other varieties of English may well differ; the point is not that one pronunciation or spelling is right or wrong, but that here on Wikipedia we follow the usages of natural speech, and there is no better guide than what native speakers actually do. Dictionaries, even the OED for British and Webster's for American, are descriptive rather than prescriptive; they observe usage and describe it accordingly. All the best, Chiswick Chap (talk) 09:32, 14 August 2021 (UTC)

The image displayed

We use language to describe life, do you think that we should consider me revising the image? UniversalHumanTranscendence (talk) 01:11, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

It sounds as if you're talking about another article? Chiswick Chap (talk) 05:57, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

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Boa constrictor

In the lead, Boa constrictor is given as a first example of a binomial name. It's not wrong, but I'm not sure it's a good choice. In plain English, constrictor means "any snake that kills its prey by constriction"; hence, you can interpret "boa constrictor" in plain English as a boa snake that kills by contriction. This may not be an accurate circumscription, but it makes the example more confusing than necessary. An example where neither part is also a word in plain English would be better. Homo sapiens, Canis lupus, Pinus pinea - there's no end of examples, among them fairly well-known ones, that I think would be better - but I'm not sure which would serve us best here. Thoughts? Nø (talk) 08:11, 22 March 2024 (UTC)

Hierarchy graphic

I'm pretty sure the hierarchy graphic near the top of the page is upside down. All the versions in different languages on the image page have life at the top and species on the bottom. Is there a specific reason why this graphic lists the ranks in reverse order, or is it just a mistake? 76.78.85.60 (talk) 05:10, 5 April 2024 (UTC)