Talk:Evolution

Important notice: Some common points of argument are addressed at Wikipedia's Evolution FAQ, which represents the consensus of editors here. Please remember that this page is only for discussing Wikipedia's encyclopedia article about evolution. If you are interested in discussing or debating evolution itself, you may want to visit talk.origins or Wikireason.

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Keeping things simple RE: (Pattern/Process, and Theory/Fact.)

I realize immediately upon posting this new section, that this could erupt into the "least simple" debate one could imagine... and that's sort of my point. I suggest that we try to view all of the above discussions as indicative of the distinction that is made across many sciences, the distinction between pattern and process. You observe a pattern. You discover or propose the process. The process describes the pattern you observed. Note that this is not "hypothesis testing" -- you still have to design experiments to test the validity of the process you propose (which of course is why Evolution is science and ID is not.) I think keeping a distinction between pattern and process is the simplest way to organize one's thoughts within any science.

Pattern: Life is diverse. Process: Speciation (which of course has several sub-processes)

Pattern: Taxa are naturally ordered hierarchically. Process: Shared ancestry/common descent (has sub-processes)

Pattern: Taxa show ranges that are either continuous or disjunct. Process: Historical relationships between lineages and land areas.

Pattern: Variation exists in every species. Process: Mendelian genetics

Pattern: Homology. Process: Phylogeny

Pattern: Allele frequencies in a population. Process: selection, gene flow, drift

Pattern: Fossil record shows forms that no longer exist. Process: Evolution over time, and extinction

et cetera. Note that this "pattern/process" distinction is not some clever tool I am coming up with on the spot to help solve our problems. It's really the way that almost all sciences are structured.

OK, now: you might want to make the logical leap and say that pattern is fact, process is theory. Makes sense at first, however, that is not really the best distinction to make, as even the processes above are now regarded as "facts" in the same way that any other "fact" outside of formal logic or geometry becomes accepted as "fact". I know the FAQ covers this and that most of us understand the distinction, yet it seems like we spend a lot of time dwelling on it, and I'm not sure why.

My second point on this, therefore, is please let us not bog our readers down (and our discussions down) with too much cud-chewing on theory and fact, and "what gets categorized as theory, what as fact". All the article needs to state is the following concise points: 1.) Theory and hypothesis are not synonyms (in science); 2.) Evolution is a theory (a body of ideas and processes that accurately describe data), much like Number Theory or Atomic Theory -- and thus it is not a concept that is somehow "still on the table awaiting proof"; 3.) The core conclusions of Evolutionary Biology are also facts (selection, change over time, shared ancestry, old Earth) by the same definition that any other falsifiable hypothesis that matches the data perfectly every time, eventually becomes accepted as fact. End of that story. Need not elaborate. Move on to the article.

I argue for a simplification of all of the above, mainly because most people are not going to have the patience (and maybe not the cerebral constitution either) to join us in our deep contemplations of theory and fact. I know the distinction is made in the FAQ, but I also think our own discussions on this page could be simplified and cleaned up a bit by not referring to "fact" and "theory" as much, as if a quality article requires us to somehow categorize the information for our readers (it doesn't). Thanks, TxMCJ

"See also"

Guys, I have to admit I liked it better when we had a short "see also" section rather than trying to cover every conceivable aspect of the topic in stubs inserted in the main body. I know it's a pain to keep reverting people who well-meaningly insert long lists of links to relevant topics, but hopefully, placing a comment in capital letters in the wikitext will stave off some of the flood. For instance, it would be far preferable to have a link to evolutionary biology rather than devote an entire section of the article to unsupported speculation of what the scope of different subfields is and how they are related to each other. Samsara (talk • contribs) 09:31, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

We already have links to Evolutionary biology at both the top and bottom of the article, through the use of templates. A "see also" link would thus be entirely redundant. The reason we have (and clearly should have; no one except you has ever in the history of the article agreed on the point that a discussion of the scientific field studying evolution is out-of-place in the evolution article!!) a section on evolutionary biology is because it's immensely important and relevant (much more so than the "social effect" section!), not because we're looking for an excuse to provide yet another link to it.

If you think the section has "unsupported speculation", then add references and note any dubious unreferenced information; improve the section, don't continuously mass-delete it in flagrant disregard for consensus and the entire editorial process. -Silence 14:09, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

Dude, don't lecture me on policy. Just because I'm the first to criticise the inclusion of that section doesn't discredit my point. The article is about evolution, not the study of it. Separate article, please. And just to return the favour, please remember WP:OWN. Thanks. Samsara (talk • contribs) 20:01, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

Yes, this article is about evolution, but clearly the study of evolution is relevant to an article on evolution! I see no problem with shortening the current section (and, indeed, I already proposed doing exactly that above), but deleting it altogether is even more absurd than deleting, say, the "social effect" section (which this article also isn't "about", since it's about evolution, not the social impact of evolutionary biology).

And, um? I'm not "lecturing you on policy"; I didn't even cite any policies above. I simply disagreed with your point, and explained why. I didn't say that the fact that you're the first to criticize the inclusion "discredits your point"; I merely pointed out, correctly, that you should wait for some degree of consensus (or at least a little discussion!) before rushing to (repeatedly) mass-delete a major section of a high-profile article. I didn't say that you're wrong because no one else has done what you did before; that would obviously be absurd, and Wikipedia relies on people doing things that no one's done before. Rather, I pointed out that all past editors have seemed to support the section, and therefore you should discuss the issue rather than immediately assuming that one editor (yourself) is necessarily correct, while everyone else who's worked on the section as been wrong.

There is no "favor" to return, as I didn't quote any policy at you, although WP:OWN would be much more appropriately ascribed to you than to me, as I haven't claimed that my own personal opinion outweighs editorial consensus; hell, I didn't even revert your last change, because I wanted to give you time to make your case—though I'll do so now!

Your comment suggests that you didn't read my comment, and that your time would be better-spent reviewing Wikipedia's WP:CIVIL policy than mass-deleting other editors' work without any discussion. Even I didn't do that, and my recent reorganization efforts on this article have been much more severe than yours—plus I discussed all major changes here first. Please reconsider this antagonizing and bullying of other editors; Wikipedia relies on discussion, not revert-wars. -Silence 21:54, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

Samsara, I really appreciate your blunt honesty, especially with regards to Creationist POV sneaking into articles. I wish you were around a few days ago for some of the crap happening here and in the Intelligent Design article. However, although I agree that shortening the natural selection part is useful, I'd hate to waste the good writing, and since natural selection is a critical part of the evolutionary process (if not the only part of the process), isn't cutting out as much as you wish defeating the clarity and the science of the article? I really hate seeing two pro-Evolution editors arguing so strongly, when the creationist POV is sneaking into so many articles. Orangemarlin 00:47, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

This dialogue illustrates my suggestion for a "constitution" to develop this article is a good idea. The constitution would be a plan and rules to implement the plan. It is bad enough to deal with vandals and creationist-I.D. distractions without conscientious editors arguing. If all could agree on a constitution then everyone can argue the details as the article develops. At least the article would finally have structure. The plan aspect of a constitution is moving along, however the rules for implementation and development needs more than standard Wikipedia rules. Even if this article develops to FA quality and excellence in science standard it will still morph into crap within a few months because there is no structure and framework for an excellent article. The standard of "good" and "bad" article (and whatever that means)will always drive change. GetAgrippa 13:46, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Which is a good thing. This article will always need to adapt, and most of those adaptations, in the long run, are for the best: just looking at the quality of this article even when it was first accepted as an FA is embarrassing, compared to our current expectations. The same will probably eventually hold true for an article of high quality today, for various reasons. The only "constitution" we should rely on are the policies and goals of Wikipedia, applied to the topic of evolution. If we need much more than that, we're deviating too far from Wikipedia as a whole. The cause of the above dispute was simple: Samsara has some personal grievance with the Evolution editors and with Wikipedia as a whole, so he decided to stir up some trouble by making an overly "extreme" edit without discussing the matter first. We don't need a constitution to resolve one editor's personal problems, especially if that editor is more interested in whining than in discussing practical solutions. Let's just get back to actually improving the article. -Silence 02:09, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

I disagree. I have noted many academics leave Wikipedia in frustration. Many believe the mechanics of Wikipedia is failing as in the Wikipedia:Wikipedia is failing essay. Wikipedia has absolutely no credibility with academics or the public in general. I personally like the idea, but I have to agree that it doesn't seem to be working. I personally hope that Wikipedia evolves a new and better way. GetAgrippa 11:48, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

Which comment are you replying to with this comment? The indention implies you're replying to Samsara. And what does this have to do with our discussion above? This Talk page is for discussing Evolution, not for implementing new general Wikipedia-wide policies. -Silence 14:10, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

Unexplained deletion

Actually explained at great length
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
I noticed the large section below was deleted a few edits back with "spelling" as the explanation. Seems like obvious vandalism but I thought I'd put it here instead of reverting since it looks like you guys are in the process of overhauling the article. Aelffin 13:08, 18 April 2007 (UTC) You need to learn to read the history properly. The deletion was not by Richard D. LeCour, who did use the edit summary "spelling", and correctly so [1]. I deleted the chunk, first with the edit summary "excess detail, unreferenced rants, and other diversions" [2], then with the summary "largely unreferenced cruft" [3]. The idea was to shake things up a bit, force people to think outside the box, and get this article back on track. However, it turns out that things are as entrenched as ever around here, and reverting is the most constructive thing we can apparently do. You guys need to be more nasty to each other, so that more people leave and real progress can once again be made. Just my two cents on articles that are on too many people's watchlists. This is exactly where citizendium is going to kick our asses. And that's in spite of osteoporosis. Yours opinionatedly, Samsara (talk • contribs) 20:09, 18 April 2007 (UTC) Samsara, please be advised that some of your recent edits constitute disrupting Wikipedia to illustrate a point. This article was already being "shaken up" through discussions, and if you wanted to institute change, you should have brought up such a discussion and argued your point, rather than trying to (1) sneak your changes through without any discussion, and (2) browbeat and revert-war to get your changes included. That's not how Wikipedia works. As an on-and-off editor here for several years now, I can say without reservation that this article is one of the least "entrenched" articles of its profile on Wikipedia—one of the most open to feedback, to criticism, and to revision, which is especially remarkable given how frequently it is barraged by creationist rants. And in particular, the article's become much more open to change since losing its FA status, as that helped "shake things up" here and make people realize that the article has serious deficiencies. In contrast, your actions thus far aren't shaking anything up in a productive fashion; they're not making people reconsider the article contents, they're just causing arguments and confusion so far. If you want to institute change, you need to explain and argue for your points, not just make the most dramatic edits possible to get people's attention. We aren't children. Maybe if you actually tried discussing what edits you'd like to see made, rather than attacking other editors in an effort to drive people you dislike away from this article (surely very unwikipedian-like behavior!), you'd find that this article is much less "entrenched" than you assume; you get out of Wikipedia what you put into it. If you put in level-headed reasoning, you'll get out change, or at least meaningful counter-arguments and discussion; if you put in hate, impatience, and aggression, you'll get the same back to you and nothing will get done. Ultimately, the choice is yours. If you consider Wikipedia a lost cause, why not leave? If you don't, why not try a more productive tact than "be as aggressive, impatient, antagonistic, terse, and uncompromising as possible to get people to either change their minds or leave". -Silence 22:07, 18 April 2007 (UTC) You can quit bullshitting me about POINT, and I'll spare you CIVILITY and FAITH. Shaking things up is a figure of speech, if you don't know. Samsara (talk • contribs) 08:35, 19 April 2007 (UTC) Sam, I could have simply reverted it, but I thought I'd be nice and put it up for argument here instead. The fact that you are bitching about having to go through civil discussion is proof that you are aware your edits are too weak to withstand legitimate debate. Aelffin 20:26, 19 April 2007 (UTC) Aelffin, you misread the edit history and incorrectly concluded that you were dealing with vandalism. There have been many months of discussion here following its demotion from FA status. One serious issue has been bloat. And still, people are trying to include extra, isolated topics like cooperation and horizontal gene transfer, often in separate sections, rather than being briefly mentioned with links to the appropriate articles. If you include cooperation, you have to talk about spite, and probably about evolution of life history traits. If you include horizontal gene transfer, you should probably talk in more detail about several topics in genomics (not because HGT is a genomics topic, but because they are equally new and deserving of attention), such as introns and regulatory sequences (yes, introns only concern eukaryotes, but introns happen to be one of the major transitions in molecular evolution, possibly the most important one that we have firm evidence of). Nothing at all is being said about inheritance under haplodiploidy, which affects a huge number of species. Mitochondrial and chloroplast genomes are only discussed in the contexts of gene flow and molecular homology. Nothing at all is being said of the proteins that are being inherited (yes, think about it - where does the basic machinery that translates the DNA in the zygote come from?). Hybrid speciation is discussed in the gene flow section, then we have a whole separate section on speciation later in the article. Why can't people accept that what's really needed in this article is a basic, well-structured overview that doesn't discuss every if and but, that it needs to be well-referenced throughout, and that (a) we already have a bunch of detailed articles on virtually all of these topics, and that (b) cuts are needed to achieve the aim of a basic, well-structured overview? I would also suggest, and not for the first time, that we keep to a "moving wall", where research that is younger than x years is deliberately excluded, just to be conservative. That way, we avoid embarrassment when it turns out the findings can't be replicated. Samsara (talk • contribs) 14:47, 20 April 2007 (UTC) Correction... I misread the log and thought it was vandalism by LaCour. Now that I've re-read the log, I still think it's borderline vandalism. Thank you for pointing out that the vandalism was yours and not LaCour's. The point is not whether the reason given is "spelling" or "unreferenced cruft", or whatever. The point is, it's just bad form to delete a chunk of this size without opening the deletion up to discussion here. I don't really care about the material, I just care that the edits are fairly vetted. So, now that the material is here and you've given your reasons, I'm satisfied. Aelffin 15:37, 20 April 2007 (UTC) Seeing that you have such an embarrassingly (for you) low opinion of me anyway, I feel no remorse in letting you know that my reply was not intended for your satisfaction. Happy editing! Samsara (talk • contribs) 17:36, 20 April 2007 (UTC) I didn't have a low opinion of you until you went on a rant as a result of a pretty straightforward and otherwise uncotroversial decision to put some material up for discussion. Maybe you should pay more attention to how your behavior appears to other editors, since it will be reflected in their view of your edits. Aelffin 18:16, 22 April 2007 (UTC) Perhaps you should get more data before you jump to conclusions. I've pointed this out to you, but it seems to be bearing no fruit. Specifically, before you accuse an editor of vandalism, make sure you've checked their contribs. You might be pissing up the wrong tree. Samsara (talk • contribs) 20:14, 22 April 2007 (UTC) Yes, after you pointed out my mistake, I amended my opinion to "borderline vandalism", that's all the fruit I've got for you. Sorry if you expected bananas. You have no reason to call me to task for placing deleted material on the article's discussion page. I'm sure the quality of your other edits has been impeccable, but in this case, you were out of line. Aelffin 15:40, 23 April 2007 (UTC) I agree with Aelffin. Your edits over the last few months seem of the shoot on sight variety with an very low threshold for the opinion of other editors. No one will listen to hostile editors, regardless of their message. Just my 2 cents. David D. (Talk) 17:54, 23 April 2007 (UTC) I'm not sure why you're sticking your neck out to be my mentor, seeing that we haven't exactly agreed in the past. Samsara (talk • contribs) 20:31, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Modern research

Further information: Evolutionary biology and Current research in evolutionary biology

Academic disciplines

Scholars in a number of academic disciplines continue to document examples of evolution, contributing to a deeper understanding of its underlying mechanisms. Every subdiscipline within biology both informs and is informed by knowledge of the details of evolution, such as in ecological genetics, human evolution, molecular evolution, and phylogenetics. Areas of mathematics (such as bioinformatics), physics, chemistry, and other fields all make important contributions to current understanding of evolutionary mechanisms. Even disciplines as far removed as geology and sociology play a part, since the process of biological evolution has coincided in time and space with the development of both the Earth and human civilization.

Evolutionary biology is a subdiscipline of biology concerned with the origin and descent of species, as well as their changes over time. It was originally an interdisciplinary field including scientists from many traditional taxonomically-oriented disciplines. For example, it generally includes scientists who may have a specialist training in particular organisms, such as mammalogy, ornithology, or herpetology, but who use those organisms to answer general questions in evolution. Evolutionary biology as an academic discipline in its own right emerged as a result of the modern evolutionary synthesis in the 1930s and 1940s. It was not until the 1970s and 1980s, however, that a significant number of universities had departments that specifically included the term evolutionary biology in their titles.

Evolutionary developmental biology (informally, evo-devo) is a field of biology that compares the developmental processes of different animals in an attempt to determine the ancestral relationship between organisms and how developmental processes evolved. The discovery of genes regulating development in model organisms allowed for comparisons to be made with genes and genetic networks of related organisms.

Physical anthropology emerged in the late 19th century as the study of human osteology, and the fossilized skeletal remains of other hominids. At that time, anthropologists debated whether their evidence supported Darwin's claims, because skeletal remains revealed temporal and spatial variation among hominids, but Darwin had not offered an explanation of the specific mechanisms that produce variation. With the recognition of Mendelian genetics and the rise of the modern synthesis, however, evolution became both the fundamental conceptual framework for, and the object of study of, physical anthropologists. In addition to studying skeletal remains, they began to study genetic variation among human populations (population genetics); thus, some physical anthropologists began calling themselves biological anthropologists.

The capability of evolution through selection to produce biological processes and networks optimized for a particular environment has greatly interested mathematicians, scientists and engineers. There has been some recent success in implementing these ideas for artificial uses, including genetic algorithms, which can find the solution to a multi-dimensional problem more quickly than standard software produced by human intelligent designers, and the use of evolutionary fitness landscapes to optimize the design of a system Evolutionary optimization techniques are particularly useful in situations in which it is easy to determine the quality of a single solution, but hard to go through all possible solutions one by one.

Article milestones

Perhaps "Article milestones" at the top could contain a link or two to the prefered version(s) of longtime editors of this article that feel it has gotten worse or that there is something special to recommend that previous version. WAS 4.250 16:39, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

I don't think this article's ever been consistently high-quality enough for there to be much of a point in isolating a version for general quality. On the other hand, we might isolate versions that have high quality in specific areas (e.g., a certain layout, certain well-done sections, certain images, and other things that might have subsequently deteriorated), which we can use to improve the current section. Although I don't think the article, taken as a whole, has ever been a lot better than it is today (and if it is, that's only because the current article layout and contents are in a transitional period following a major restructuring and reprioritization), I do think there are many aspects of the article that were better at various times. -Silence 16:49, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Asexual to sexual

How did organisms go from asexual reproduction to sexual reproduction? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Rhydd Meddwl (talk • contribs) 22:59, 23 April 2007 (UTC).

You should know better than this, Rhydd Meddwl!;) Please add new comments to the end of the page! Now, this isn't a big problem at all: there are clear evolutionary advantages to sexual reproduction. For its origins, see here. garik 01:55, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

In eukaryotes it's generally the other way around -- asexual lineages are well-rooted within sexual lineages, and tend to be less diverse TxMCJ 04:28, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

What the...? This is a HUGE problem. Even the page you linked to says, first off, "The evolution of sex is a major puzzle in modern evolutionary biology." Graft | talk 17:58, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Well, OK, I did overstate that rather; you're quite right – I don't know what I was thinking when I wrote it. On the other hand, I'm not convinced that that first line doesn't overstate its case somewhat too. The difficulty of testing hypotheses makes research into the origin of sexual reproduction very hard, but it's certainly not a major puzzle in the sense that no one has any idea how it might have happened. And it's also not a problem at all for evolutionary biology, in the sense creationists sometimes claim (i.e. they can't see how sex could have originated, so it must have been through design etc.). But yes, there are of course also clear advantages to asexual reproduction. garik 23:49, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Natural selection of rate of mutation?

A creationist, the other day, put the following to me: supposed declining health and lifespans (yes, from an analysis of the Bible) are due to the iterative passing on of mutations throughout the last 6,000 years (again Bible study). In other words, natural selection, rather than contributing the spread of advantageous mutations, has not succeeded in filtering out deleterious ones. Now, I don't buy this, for both factual and theoretical reasons. But it got me thinking: the force of natural selection, for it to work, has to be stronger than whatever forces of mutation (by whatever means). (*Speculation*: Which, from what I gather from thinking about it, means that there would be a naturally selected "ideal" rate of mutation (by means of DNA repair mechanisms etc.).) My question is: am I thinking about this wrongly, and if not, is there literature on this already? Jameshfisher 23:54, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Indeed there is, organisms have even evolved variable mutation rates. link and link TimVickers 00:05, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Credibility, and controversy

Evolution is a Theory but in this article it is discribed as fact, this needs to be rectified, also things such as Ireducible complexity (bacterial flagellum motor etc.) that provide hurdles for evolution theory should be included into the article... 124.181.46.194 01:17, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

First, you are misunderstanding what the term theory means in science. Theory does not mean guess but rather a well-tested hypothesis with broad explanatory power. Evolution is a theory in the same way that gravity is. Second of all, the overwhelming scientific consensus is that evolution occured and that claims such as Behe's regarding the bacterial flagellum have no basis. As such , Wikipedia's undue weight clause of the neutrality policy comes into play. JoshuaZ 01:58, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

You are a better man than I Joshua. This BS is getting really old, and I've been doing serious editing for only 4 or 5 months on these articles. I think I'm just reading to tell them to all screw off. Orangemarlin 02:19, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Read the Evolution FAQ--70.124.85.24 11:27, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

I start to wonder if people are being difficult on purpose, or if they do not know how to read, or just like to parrot nonsense some preacher spewed from the pulpit and repeat it in a brainless fashion without giving it any thought whatsoever. I agree with OM. This gets old. Very old. Please people, use your heads. Read. Think. It is the reason God gave you a brain; to use. --Filll 19:51, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

I believe that it takes people that 'think' to not accept propositions put out by the main stream, establishment science. Most of our great discoveries were made by those who doubted the mainstream beliefs in science. 'Parroting' dogma without allowing questioning of any sort is certainly 'brainless'. 'Please, people' believe what you are told without question. 68.109.234.155 21:44, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

And you believe I don't "think". My training has been, for at least 30 years, to examine everything with a critical eye. I've read and studied more biology than you could imagine, and if I thought at any point something didn't make sense, I would ask questions. Yes, great ideas come from question the status quo. That would be Darwin challenging the prevailing Christian viewpoint, or Gallileo challenging just about everything that was said. All the evidence, not just 99.9%, but all fit the theory of Evolution. Yes, I'm smart enough to know that maybe someday some piece of evidence will arise that will through the whole theory into doubt. Maybe we will find a fluffy bunny rabbit in Precambrian rocks. Orangemarlin 23:39, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Question posted on FAQ

Moved from Talk:Evolution/FAQ [4]

I thought that the scientific community believes that life evolved from non-living materials. Was there not an experiment in the early 50s that did something like that? 68.109.234.155 14:53, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the question. In general Wikipedia article talk pages are intended for discussion of how to improve the article, rather than general discussion on the topic. You may have better luck with Wikipedia:Reference desk for these types of questions. Briefly, however, there is a distinction between abiogenesis (life from non-life) and evolution of living creatures. This distinction is important since there is different evidence for each. The former is (probably) a rare event, and fairly speculative, while the latter is well established. The specific experiment you're refering to is probably Miller/Urey. While perhaps many scientists do believe some form of abiogenesis, this is not a component of evolution. You may want to ask this question again at the reference desk for a more detailed response. --TeaDrinker 15:23, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

I'd would suggest reading the abiogenesis article, since it describes in detail the theories of the formation of life, and, in fact, may answer your questions. Yes, most biologists believe life arose from non-living materials. Orangemarlin 18:03, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

'Most biologist believe life 'arose' from non-living material. Did not life evolve from non-living material. Do biologists believe it was a 'sudden appearance' situation? 68.109.234.155 21:46, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

How you answer that question depends on your definition of life. If there was a slow increase in the complexity of self-replicating chemical systems, at what point in that process do you define the replicating entities as "living things"? To be honest, I don't think the question is answerable in any meaningful way. TimVickers 21:53, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

This probably is not the best place to have this discussion, but I don't think anyone would mind. Biological evolution begins and continues with living things only. The start of life on earth was essentially a chemical and physical process--Evolution does not define nor include that process in its theories or inquiries. As I recall from my own education (which is about 30 years ago), my evolution courses did not include the study of abiogenesis. Where I first learned about it was in a Biochemistry course, which is the study of the chemistry of living organisms. I recall an interesting philosophical discussion. A virus is essentially a small packet of genetic information and a few chemicals, but it does everything a living thing does, including procreation. The virus might be the link between a soup of chemicals 4 billion years ago and living things. But I really think you should bring these points up elsewhere, specifically WP:Reference desk. Orangemarlin 22:00, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

But species come from evolution correct. One specie through small steps becomes another one. I think 'living things' can be defined. Just as 'species' can be defined. I really do not see how if evolution can be applied to species it cannot be applied to 'living things' 68.109.234.155 22:03, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Do you mean, "Can we say that living things evolved from non-living things"? Not really, although I can imagine a hypothesis that came close to that, involving some generalised Darwinian process – but I can imagine many more that didn't. The point is this: biological evolution is about the evolution of biological things: i.e. living things once life has started. I think we know too little about where life comes from in the first place to say whether the term "evolution" would make much sense if applied to the the steps from non-life to life. garik 22:30, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

And by the way, just for the sake of correctness: the singular of species is also species. garik 22:31, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

But if living things did not evolve from non-living things what other way would they have come about? Supernatural or alien intervention?

Now here is another point. Why did not dinosaurs achieve human like intelligence? It seems to me evolution would have predicted that smarter creatures would outsurvive the others and eventually what would come about is a continuing increase in intelligence until extinction. 68.109.234.155 22:51, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

I'd recommend you started by reading this article carefully, will be much easier for people to explain this to you once you understand what evolution is and what it does. Once you have finished doing that, ask your questions at the WP:Reference desk. TimVickers 23:29, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

I agree. The anonymous user's questions are becoming pejorative in nature. Orangemarlin 23:31, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Well, confused at least. Please read what I said carefully: I never said that living things didn't come from non-living things. They almost certainly did. The question is whether "evolution" is an appropriate name for that process. Your second question can be answered quite quickly: you just don't need the kind of brainpower we've got to survive in most environments. Too much is a waste of energy, and the time it takes to nurture human children because of this is a real liability. But please read the article carefully. http://www.talkorigins.org is also good. garik 23:35, 26 April 2007 (UTC)