Talk:Introduction to evolution

WP:BRD & related

Hey!
I did improve structure and readability recently and got a revert-war on my tail;) You can see it through (bottom) I did very light edits to content, nothing serious, rather due to understanding and grasping the contents by going through one topic at a time from top to bottom with repeats to better learn the stuff. This is an intro, right? Header is now better in concordance with main body. I differentiated between theory of evolution and proof of evolution in experiment (sligthly - an accademic necessity too often neglected!). Dear valued wikipedia-co-autors, you may also decide to help me get (part or all) of my good changes through. Thanks-a-lot, yours --78.51.211.140 (talk) 03:19, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

Link to IP's version: [1] --NeilN ^{talk to me} 03:24, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

Thank you for the help - that was quick! Highly appreciate it! --78.51.211.140 (talk) 03:31, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

FWIW - another way (perhaps better) of reviewing the actual (rather substantial imo) IP Edits => CLICK HERE - hope this helps in some way - in any case - Enjoy! :) Drbogdan (talk) 03:36, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

Simple overview changes

I've reworded the "Simple overview" section in the following ways (red items are originals; green/more-indented items are new; comments in brackets):

The main ideas of evolution may be summarized as follows:

[Added an introductory sentence so the section doesn't start with (and consist solely of) a list.]

• Life forms reproduce and therefore have a tendency to become more numerous.
  • Life forms reproduce and therefore have a tendency to become more numerous.
  • Factors such as predation and competition work against the survival of individuals.

    [No change to first item; second item links idea of growing population to that of differential survival.]

• The offspring differs from the parent in minor random ways.
  • Each offspring differs from their parent(s) in minor, random ways.

    [An offspring may have one (asexual) or two (sexual) parents; also "the" doesn't make sense for first mention of offspring.]

• If the differences are helpful, the offspring is more likely to survive and reproduce.
  • If these differences are beneficial, the offspring is more likely to survive and reproduce.

    [Minor wording change.]

• This means that more offspring in the next generation will have the helpful difference.
  • This makes it likely that more offspring in the next generation will have beneficial differences and fewer will have detrimental differences.

    [Described change is not guaranteed, only probable.]

• These differences accumulate resulting in changes within the population.
  • These differences accumulate over generations, resulting in changes within the population.

    [Clarify that the changes happen over generations.]

• Over time, populations branch off to become new species as they become separated.
  • Over time, populations can split or branch off into new species.

    [Speciation does not necessarily depend on physical separation.]

• This process is responsible for the many diverse life forms in the world.
  • These processes, collectively known as evolution, are responsible for the many diverse life forms seen in the world.

    [Wrap it up in a bow.]

I hope others will accept my reasoning on the more significant changes. - dcljr (talk) 12:17, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

Emphasis

ISTM that a lot of people have a mistaken impression about evolution, and this article misses the opportunity to clear it up. Many think that evolution is only something that took place in the distant past, and is only concerned with fossils. (1) As this article is written, it begins with a discussion of the past. It could begin with something like: "Evolution is something which we see happening throughout the world of life ... And we see the results of it having happened in the past in today's comparative anatomy and biogeography ... And we see how life has changed in major ways over long spans of time ..." (2) The first extended description of evolution can leave the impression that evolution is natural selection. There are other mechanisms involved, notably genetic drift and sexual selection, and it is not out of the question that there might be other mechanisms. I don't intend to make any changes on my own. I'm just bringing up some thoughts. TomS TDotO (talk) 16:37, 5 June 2016 (UTC)

Not only is genetic drift mentioned (twice) in the lead section, there's an entire section by that name already in the article. It does seem, however, that the article doesn't mention sexual selection at all (not by that name, certainly — there is one instance of the phrase "mate selection"). The sexual selection article places it firmly as a subset of natural selection, but this article should probably at least mention it (by name). As for the first point, having not read the entire article before replying, I can only say that the direct (present-day) observation of speciation is mentioned both in the lead section and the Species section. - dcljr (talk) 22:35, 5 June 2016 (UTC)

External links modified

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Science template

Since we already have the more specific Evolutionary Biology template, I agree that the Science template is too much. Thanks, —PaleoNeonate – 05:21, 10 January 2018 (UTC)

That applies to most all the other sciences too. We really don't need more navboxes hogging the (very scarce) real estate at the tops of articles. Navbars are far less intrusive, but frankly I can't see any need for one with the apparent purpose of what's just gone. Chiswick Chap (talk) 08:23, 10 January 2018 (UTC)

Paring down the lead section

I think the lead of this article is way too long, and much of it is redundant or off-topic for what should be an introduction to "introduction to evolution". I propose that we make the following cuts:

1. Cut most of the second paragraph. I suggest "The age of the Earth is about 4.54 billion years.[1][2][3] The earliest undisputed evidence of life on Earth dates at least from 3.5 billion years ago.[4][5][6]", and then straight into "Evolution does not attempt to explain the origin of life ...". The extensive material about first life forms is not about evolution.
2. Cut what is now the fourth paragraph, "The forces of evolution are most evident..."
3. Cut what is now the fifth paragraph, "The majority of genetic..."

This material is either covered in the previous paragraph, or would fit better integrated with a main section. Danstronger (talk) 01:57, 18 January 2019 (UTC)