Wikipedia:Featured article review/Introduction to evolution/archive1

Introduction to evolution

Featured article review/Introduction to evolution/archive1

Notified: User:Filll, WikiProject Evolutionary biology, Evolution

I would like to nominate that Introduction to evolution be reconsidered and removed as a FA. I am a biologist with a BSc, MSc, I am working on my MEd in ecoliteracy, and I have been teaching evolution to university students for the past ten years. I also hold grants and research in the field of evolutionary biology. There are MANY conceptual errors in this article. It is not entirely clear why this article exists in the first place, it is almost as complex as the main article Evolution and it is misleading in many respects. This is a very poor introductory article to be read by schoolkids for example - it would confuse the hell out of them.

Reviewing the criteria:

1. It is—
         * (a) not well-written: its prose is not engaging, hardly brilliant, and of a un-professional standard;

For example:

"Several basic observations establish the theory of evolution, which explains the variety and relationship of all living things. There are genetic variations within a population of individuals. Some individuals, by chance, have features that allow them to survive and thrive better than their kind. The individuals that survive will be more likely to have offspring of their own. The offspring might inherit the useful feature."

Please re-read that last paragraph. It is clearly not well-written. It is confusing because it makes broad generalizations that miss the premise and requires huge conceptual leaps.

         * (b) comprehensive: it neglects lots of major facts or details and places the subject in context;

There are entire sections that have few if any references that are entirely based on conjecture. For example, the first few paragraphs on Introduction_to_evolution#Source_of_variation is original research that cites only Darwin. I hardly doubt that Darwin reflected on how he was mistaken about heredity. The first sentence in this section is also a run-on sentence and so I refer you back to criteria 1a. This article cannot deliver on the type of information that is required of any person to grasp the concepts of natural selection (e.g., [1])

         * (c) well-researched: it is a thorough and representative survey of the relevant literature on the topic. Claims are verifiable against high-quality reliable sources and are supported with citations; this requires a "References" section that lists these sources, complemented by inline citations where appropriate;

Some sections are well-researched, however, the interpretations are oftentimes incorrect. For example, the lead states: "Traits which help the organism survive and reproduce are more likely to accumulate in a population than traits that are unfavorable, a process called natural selection." This is NOT natural selection - it conflates adaptation with natural selection in an awkward way only to confuse the issue. Hence, it does not serve its utility as an introduction. This topic is of such importance and has been addressed time and time again by many scientific organizations, such as The National Academy of Sciences’s book, "Teaching about Evolution and the Nature of Science (1998)" -- the concepts must be presented accurately.

         * (d) neutral: it presents views fairly and without bias;

There are lots of missing examples that would give the article balance. For example, there is no mention of sexual selection - which is one of the simplest examples that is used to demonstrate the principals of natural selection in an introductory level. What about ring-species? Every introductory book on evolution teaches the ring-species example, because it is conceptually the simplest way to demonstrate how breeding and geographic isolation has occurred.[2] Some of the references are suspect - some of them take you to websites rather than peer-reviewed literature source, which introduces bias.

         * (e) stable: it is not subject to ongoing edit wars and its content does not change significantly from day to day, except in response to the featured article process.

Did the reviewer even read the talk pages? What a mistake this nomination was. There is an effort taking place to re-write the entire article from scratch because of the problems it faces.

  2. It follows the style guidelines...okay, it does this, but the structure is poor:

1 Darwin's idea: evolution by natural selection
2 Source of variation
3 Modern synthesis
4 Evidence for evolution

   * 4.1 Fossil record
   * 4.2 Comparative anatomy
   * 4.3 Molecular biology
   * 4.4 Co-evolution
   * 4.5 Artificial selection

5 Species
6 Different views on the mechanism of evolution

   * 6.1 Rate of change
   * 6.2 Unit of change

Looking at this from afar you can see that it jumps around. This is an introductory article and #3 is about the Modern synthesis?? It is highly inconceivable that someone without any knowledge of the subject would be able to understand and comprehend the modern synthesis in the way it is presented. This introduction should be presented using a time-line of the topic, such as Historical Figures in Evolution. There are few sub-headings that would help in the organization of this article.

and

  4. Length. It stays focused on the main topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style).

For an introductory article the paragraphs are long and tedious. None of my students would be able to maintain consciousness long enough to get through one of the un-captivating paragraphs. They go into too much detail and need to be broken down. The sub-heading issue discussed above would help this.

Without going into too much detail - there has been much debate on this controversial topic - this article is DEFINITELY not worthy of FA designation. Please see that this article is removed from the FA list so that people do not get a misleading idea of what evolution is really about. This would confuse the hell out of the kids I teach. Thanks.Thompsma (talk) 19:01, 10 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Delist for three reasons: (a) clarity and conciseness; (2) scope; (iii) quality of writing. (These pertain to WP:FA? 1a and 4. I think criterion 1b "comprehensive" can be bracketed for the moment, since an introductory article is expected to overlook at least some major issues that are too 'complex' to be adequately treated in a mere introduction.) a and iii are pretty self-evident, but regarding scope, I question why an article 'introducing' readers to the concept of evolution would spend 2 pages explaining evolution, 2 pages polemically defending evolution ("here's evidence for why you should believe us!"), and 2 pages discussing the history of evolutionary biology and the complex network of changing ideas in the field. Should our Introduction to general relativity article spend as much time discussing the lives and politics of physicists as it spends explaining the actual content of the theory? As I understand it, an article merely introducing a scientific idea or concept to readers should spend 99% of its time on that concept alone, and at most 1% explaining its historical background and social context. Framing the first section of an intro article as 'Darwin's idea: evolution by natural selection' does absolutely nothing to clarify what evolution is to anyone; if someone's taking a British history test and needs to know what Charles Darwin's big idea was, this might help (though not much, since Darwin never once used the term "evolution"), but if they're here to understand biology and the natural world, they'd be much better served by sections with titles like 'Natural selection: Traits helping and harming organisms', or even just 'Selection'. -Silence (talk) 20:33, 10 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comment In regards to stability. The article is essentially identical to the version that achieved FA status over a year ago (The concern raised does not seem related to archaic information). The changes that have occurred are extremely minor at best. Perhaps the concern over stability raised by the nominator is based on the torrid history up to the Fa achievement. If so, then please see Raul654 comments on the original FA listing Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Introduction to evolution regarding edits for improvement during FA. Since the article has not changed since the original FA; this request; I can only assume is a rejection of the original decision to list. No doubt, Raul654, filtered through the massive amounts of commentary during that period along with the even more dramatic Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Introduction to evolution (2nd nomination) that was occurring simultaneously. Essentially, we are opening an old case. Few, if any of the many contributors during that period wish to re-live that event. I suspect the members of "The Wiki-gang" from the past hung up their guns and went into seclusion. This should prove interesting... I'll watch list the page.--Random Replicator (talk) 14:26, 11 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]