Talk:Theory of evolution/Archive 14

Precise definition of evolution

Conservative, the panel, way back when declared "However, we agree that the article lacks an adequate, concise explanation of the Theory of Evolution" then said they report back on what they thought of the current article in this regard. Since they haven't reported back do you not think it is about time the actual modern theory of evolutionary biology, the so called modern synthesis was at least briefly introduced on this page? --Igor nz 22:37, 1 October 2007 (EDT)

Is the role of an encyclopedia to refute subjects or to explain them? This article seems to be long list of reasons why Evolution (which i think is flawed) is wrong? Are encyclopedias meant to do that? Wikipedia seems to have just a clear concise explanation of what the theory is and does not purport to whether or not it is wrong or right. Does this not reduce our creditability as this article seems to be just a baseless attack on a heavily debated subject? If the folks at wikipedia are wrong, wouldn't it be best to just let the people who come across the information decide for themselves as opposed to trying to influence how they think? --User:DjWizard

"Wikipedia seems to have just a clear concise explanation of what the theory is and does not purport to whether or not it is wrong or right" -- No trolling please. Wikipedia treats it as a fact the same way they would talking about gravity. Questions against evolution are never discussed unless you go to side articles and even then I didn't see any of the specific issues that are brought up in our article. You can read what wiki has to offer at any number of sites, but our article brings up the objections that would be much harder to find. Learn together 02:43, 7 October 2007 (EDT)

Evolution is not a theory

The gradual evolution of species is not a Theory (scientific or otherwise). It is an observable fact. The theory that is commonly called the theory of evolution is the Theory that explains the observed facts of evolution, that is, Natural Selection, or more properly The Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection. This article fails to show this. This needs to be corrected—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Shniken (talk)

And what facts have you or anyone else observed? Has anyone conclusively shown that one species came from another?--TerryH^Talk 10:34, 8 October 2007 (EDT)

Even cursory research could tell you that speciation or transition has occurred http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-speciation.html http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evosite/evo101/VC1fEvidenceSpeciation.shtml http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/ Wisdom89 11:54, 8 October 2007 (EDT)

Here is probably the best rebuttal to the above: A Critique of "29 Evidences of Macroevolution," part 5.--TerryH^Talk 12:17, 8 October 2007 (EDT)

Wisdom, the theory of evolution article clearly states that creation scientists believe in speciation.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Conservative (talk)

And User:Wisdom89, not to give the impression that I don't believe in speciation, even within the meaning of the references you cited: First, your argument assumes that the experiments had enough control over conditions that no stray pollen grains got into someone's planting plot without him knowing about it, for example. And second, creation science recognizes a larger group of organisms--the kind (within the meaning of Genesis 1 )--within which speciation can take place all the time, but between which speciation does not occur. Wolves (from which dogs derive--did you know that the familiar "man's best friend" is actually a subspecies of the gray wolf Canis lupus?) and "big cats" (lions, tigers, leopards, and so on) are two different kinds. You don't get big cats from wolves, nor wolves from big cats.

In order to go from speciation to common ancestry, you have to show that life is all one kind. Can't do that, can you? Plants are plants, and animals are animals--and within those two "kingdoms" are many different kinds.

By the way: this also might explain, at least to those interested in the truth of the matter, how Noah could carry "two of every kind of living thing" on his ark. He didn't necessarily have to carry two of every species; just two of every kind. (And even so, the ark was at least 450 feet long, if not 600.)--TerryH^Talk 09:28, 10 October 2007 (EDT)

"In order to go from speciation to common ancestry, you have to show that life is all one kind." I can do this. Euglena is a fast moving protist that has chloroplasts. Is this not both plant and animal? As for the division between single cell and multicellular organisms, dictyostelid slime molds have both single cell and multicellular adult forms that they can switch between. Shiritai 00:04, 5 November 2007 (EST)

Yes, I remember: certain organizms rate placement in the Protist Kingdom because they can move. You can show that certain living things have characteristics that belong to both plants and animals. But that's not to say that anything else definitely derived from them.

All this to say that the chief dispute involving evolution does not involve science at all, but history. We have a Historical Record that says that each kind of living thing was created out of nothing. Charles Darwin proposed an alternate history. Observations actually favor the former over the latter.--TerryH^Talk 10:07, 5 November 2007 (EST)

Next up why the Grand Canyon was made by God, because even though we can see the erosion we can't see the entire canyon forming... what they have already done that! Okay here's a better example-you never get to witness your own birth and you never get to watch and record someone grow to be your age (people can't catch up if you have a head start). Notice however we accept the fact we were born. You are only using extreme scepticism on something you don't agree with. In conservapedia we call that bias. -Sam

We accept the fact of when we were born because we have trustworthy eye-witnesses to it who have verbally told us or put it in writing for us (birth certificates). Just like we have the eye-witness testimony of the Bible as to what happened in history. I'd rather believe the trustworthy eye-witness testimony than the stories involving naturalism-based assumptions of scientists who didn't witness it. Philip J. Rayment 21:26, 28 November 2007 (EST)

Interesting Poll

"Many adults in the United States believe human life has a divine origin, according to a poll by Princeton Survey Research Associates released by Newsweek."[1]--Tash 23:43, 15 October 2007 (EDT)

Evidence for Evolution

Evidence like homologous and analogous structures and adaptive evolution does indicate that evolution may have occured. I'm not trying to undermine the whole article here, but it seems a little one-sided. Is there any way we could include some information on good evidence for evolution?

I don't believe you demonstrated that the homology argument demonstrates that the evolutionary position may be true. Conservative 20:07, 3 November 2007 (EDT)

The Great Intellectuals?

The sentence "The great intellectuals in history such as Archimedes, Aristotle, St. Augustine, Francis Bacon, Isaac Newton and Lord Kelvin did not propose an evolutionary process for a species to transform into a more complex version." should be removed. Listing people who did not come up with a theory in no way contributes to an article. I can list thousands of intellectuals who didn't come up with any single theory that you would care to name. This undeniable fact says nothing at all about the theory itself. Gadflie 19:29, 3 November 2007 (EDT)

I completely agree. This needs to be edited. The aforementioned men also did not propose the theory of relativity, the concept of electromagnetism, quantam mechanics, radioacivity, internal combustion, the list goes on and on. Does this notion discredit these other discoveries? No! Science advances. It never stays the same. Probus1

Dr. Jonathan Sarfati

Dr. Sarfati's quote in the introduction should be removed, since it refers to the general theory of evolution (GTE), rather than the theory of evolution. The GTE is a combination of the theory of evolution and the hypothesis of chemical evolution (which deals with abiogenesis). Shiritai 23:26, 4 November 2007 (EST)

Are you not making a distinction without a difference?--TerryH^Talk 10:08, 5 November 2007 (EST)

There's a difference. Dr. Sarfati's GTE goes "from particles to people." The theory of evolution just goes from single-celled life to people. Edit: Since evolution isn't defined here, I can see how what I said previously is confusing. Shiritai 08:26, 7 November 2007 (EST)

I can't accept that. What you are now calling "the theory of evolution" is almost tautological. As such it is a clever ruse to make the word evolution acceptable. This is typical liberal incrementalism, applied to scientific (or to be more precise, historical) discourse rather than to public-policy debate. Get people to accept something called "evolution," and the General Theory of Evolution cannot be far behind.

This project exists to thwart that campaign.--TerryH^Talk 09:30, 7 November 2007 (EST)

See Definitions of evolution. It's not as clear-cut as you think. Philip J. Rayment 09:32, 7 November 2007 (EST) (P.S. That was a reply to Shiritai; written as TerryH was doing his; I got an edit conflict.) Philip J. Rayment 09:34, 7 November 2007 (EST)

Ok, I'll try to clear things up. I'm a bio major, and I never saw anything called the "General Theory of Evolution" before I read Dr. Sarfati's writings. No textbook I've read, and no professor I've had has connected the theory of evolution with abiogenesis. These things are seperate. Abiogenesis does not depend on the theory of evolution, and the theory of evolution does not depend on abiogenesis. Also, evolution is a scientific theory, while abiogenesis does not have a scientific theory, only a bunch of hypotheses, and is still a subject of scientific controversy. Attaching abiogenesis to the theory of evolution would be like attaching the discovery of the Ark of the Covenant to intelligent design. Also, Definitions of evolution is of limited use, since it's not definitions of the theory of evolution. Shiritai 17:23, 7 November 2007 (EST)

I don't understand your last comment; Definitions of evolution is discussing definitions of (the theory of) evolution. And it shows that people other than creationists have at times included abiogenesis in "evolution", even though it seems that these days most evolutionists want to distance the idea from abiogenesis.

Of course, I would say about evolution what you say about abiogenesis: "[evolution] does not have a scientific theory, only a bunch of hypotheses, and is still a subject of scientific controversy"

Furthermore, evolution is an attempt to explain how life developed naturalistically. Abiogenesis is an attempt to explain how life began naturalistically. If you are going to believe in naturalistic evolution, you have to believe in (some version of) abiogenesis.

Philip J. Rayment 20:42, 7 November 2007 (EST)

I wouldn't rely on semantics in this case. If we're going to start touting credentials - I have a masters in biology and the general consensus among evolutionists is that abiogenesis and evolution are not mutually exclusive. One does not depend on the other to exist. Abiogenesis seeks to understand how inorganic chemicals may have produced naturalistic life in the primordial stew. Evolution already presupposes that life had begun. I'm afraid that Shiritai is absolutely correct. The field of evolutionary science looks at the changes life has undergone over billions of years. Whether you choose to beleive Darwin's mechanism to explain that or not is up to you. This argument demonstrates the inescapable misconceptions some people have about the science. Evolution is not abiogenesis, it is not how the universe began, it doesn't say man evolved from modern day monkeys etc, evolution is not linear from bacteria to man..etc..all that junk. Wisdom89 22:47, 7 November 2007 (EST)

Despite my comments above, I do accept that there is a distinction between abiogenesis and evolution; I just think that evolutionists try and make too much of this distinction, and tend to choose definitions that suit the circumstances, rather than be clear and consistent.

But this is all getting away from the original complaint, that Sarfati's comments shouldn't be there because he is talking about abiogenesis, not evolution. Not so, in my opinion. Sarfati quotes evolutionist Kerkut's definition of GTE (which includes abiogenesis) to argue not for abiogenesis being part of evolution, but to argue that evolution is more than just "change over time", i.e. it includes the whole evolutionary family tree. As such, the quote is quite appropriate.

Philip J. Rayment 00:58, 8 November 2007 (EST)

"... talking about abiogenesis, not evolution." I never said that. I said he was talking about abiogenesis and evolution, and calling them the same thing. Why are you so set on using Kerkut's "General Theory of Evolution" which 1. isn't a scientific theory 2. isn't the theory of evolution and 3. isn't used by the scientific community? Shiritai 08:33, 9 November 2007 (EST)

Okay, it appears that I've misunderstood you, but I think you've misunderstood Sarfati and others. You seem to be of the impression that there are clearly-defined theories each with distinct names. I do not believe that this is the case.

Evolution generally just goes by the name "evolution", but sometimes "Darwinian evolution", "neo-Darwinian evolution", "biological evolution", etc. I suggest that "General Theory of Evolution" is simply another term for evolution in general, not a specific version of the theory.

This is what Sarfati is commenting on, that evolutionists switch definitions. He is quoting Kerkut's definition (and using Kerkut's term) to show that evolutionists do not always define "evolution" as merely "change over time".

I also wonder what your definition of "scientific community" is that you can exclude definitions used by members of the scientific community.

Philip J. Rayment 07:17, 10 November 2007 (EST)

I am of the impression that there is "one" clearly defined scientific theory of evolution. That's how scientific theories work, and I would suggest you read up on them, as it would make this conversation much smoother. For the definitions, Darwinian evolution refers to what is set out in Darwin's books, and is only used in a historical context. Neo-Darwinian evolution refers to evolutionary thought based on Darwin's books, which would be all evolutionary thought, so the name is terribly redundant. Evolution is the name of a process, one that are used in many areas other than the biological sciences. For example, evolutionary algorithms are used in computing to create robust AI and programs. Evolution is also used to model the changes of social memes, among other things. The process of selection, recombination, and mutation has created useful, hearty offspring in many disciplines. Evolution works.

Now, the Theory of Evolution states that the process of selection, recombination, and mutation led to the diversity of life. What Kerkut said doesn't matter; one man calling something a theory does not make it a scientific theory. There is no "bait-and-switch" going on with the Theory of Evolution, unless you believe doctors "bait-and-switch" because some doctors say health is determined by the flow of qi, and the rest say it's physiological. You can find some member of any group saying anything if you look hard enough; what matters is the consensus of the group. Shiritai 16:31, 12 November 2007 (EST)

(unindent) I don't follow your comment "that's how scientific theories work", as there are often competing theories.

I noticed that you didn't actually define what 'evolution' is. As pointed out before, the Definitions of evolution article demonstrates that there is no consensus on exactly how to define it (that article lists more than just Kerkut's definition).

The "bait-and-switch" is rife, with evolutionists defining evolution as "change in gene frequency" or similar, demonstrating variation within populations (such as the peppered moth), then implying or claiming that the whole "family tree" of evolution has thereby been proved. Variations in gene frequency do NOT result in new genetic information, which is absolutely required for the evolutionary family tree. Evolution—if that means the creation of new genetic information—does NOT work. It is not only not observed, but is contrary to both biological observations and information theory.

My understanding, by the way, of "neo-Darwinian evolution" is that it refers to Darwinian evolution modified to account for genetics, which were all but unknown when Darwin published his ideas. Then of course there is punctuated equilibrium, a competing idea to (neo-)Darwinian evolution (although some try to combine the two).

Philip J. Rayment 21:06, 12 November 2007 (EST)

You're confusing "bait-and-switch" with inductive reasoning. Anyways, everyone agrees that the theory of evolution includes speciation, so I don't know how a "bait-and-switch" would even work with that. However, calling something "the theory of evolution" and then including abiogenesis is definately bait and switch. Also, I'm not sure where you got the idea that punctuated equilibrium competes with the theory of evolution. Both punctuated equilibrium and gradualism describe the tempo of evolution, and both assume that evolution takes place. Gene mutations can result in new genetic information, and although it's a slow process, it has had several billion years to work. It is not contrary to conventional information theory, and is hardly contrary to biological observations. However, there are valid questions about the specifics of evolution, but when those questions are answered, the theory will be updated to reflect that. What would you replace the theory of evolution with, anyways? ID? Sure, it fits that data, but it explains nothing and has no predictive power. It's like saying the moon is made of a special kind of green cheese that has physical properties identical to various rocks and minerals. Not only is ID not right, it's not even wrong. Shiritai 23:00, 12 November 2007 (EST)

I described the "bait-and-switch" tactic; your straw-man argument of what I said is not what I said.

Evolution has been and can be defined as including abiogenesis, just as it can include stellar evolution, etc. Biological/Darwinian evolution is all part of the larger picture where everything, including the universe, evolved.

I didn't say that punctuated equilibrium competes with evolution. I said that it competes with (neo-)Darwinian evolution. But you are right that they both assume that evolution takes place—they certainly don't prove it.

Gene mutations cannot result in new genetic information. Or can you supply examples where nobody else—including Richard Dawkins—has been able to? If evolution is true, then there has to have been billions of instances of mutations creating new genetic information, so you should have not trouble listing ten for me.

That it has had billions of years to work is part of the evolutionary, sorry, atheistic origins myth. There's little good evidence of the billions of years, and plenty of opposing evidence.

Information theory says that information cannot arise by chance, and must arise from an intelligence, so it is contrary to information theory.

Biological observations are that mutations destroy information, if they are not neutral. Why don't you irradiate yourself? Because you know that it's harmful!

I'd "replace" evolution with special creation, which explains as much as evolution and has at least as much predictive power.

Philip J. Rayment 05:59, 13 November 2007 (EST)

Since you think there's a global conspiracy of scientists, there's not really anything I can do to help you. Edit: Taking Genesis literally is really silly. I mean, it practically screams parable. Could you imagine God explaining DNA to a bunch of nomads? Also, how the heck would creationism account for human-specific diseases? P.S. Let me know when you find water in outer space. Supposedly, it should be made of the stuff.Shiritai 22:42, 13 November 2007 (EST)

I made no such claim of a global conspiracy. Perhaps you are making up accusations to avoid providing evidence, such as information-gaining mutations. You claimed they existed, I asked for examples, and you have instead resorted to accusations and ridicule.

Genesis doesn't "practically scream parable". The language is that of history, and history is the way it has always been understood from the time it was written until secular mythology started challenging it. If it "practically screamed parable", it would long have been understood that way.

You are judging it according to your evolutionary ideas and intellectual snobbery. There's no reason for nomads to be any less intelligent than you, and God created Adam without flaw, so he would have been far more intelligent than you (and me), who have 6,000 years of accumulated defects.

Philip J. Rayment 03:37, 14 November 2007 (EST)

Philip, homologous recombination during gametogenesis, mutations that do not produce deleterious effects, gene duplication events, and molecular transposition (movable DNA elements) are all processes by which new genetic information maybe created - either through expansion of the genome, the generation of a new allele, or the creation of divergent or homologous proteins. This is why higher organisms may exhibit numerous isoforms of a protein with related function that evolved from a single gene. Wisdom89 16:19, 14 November 2007 (EST)

What you've done is given me the evolutionary story, but no examples to show that the story is correct. Philip J. Rayment 21:01, 14 November 2007 (EST)

Philip, you claim that, for the past hundred years or so, biologists, paleontologists, and geologists have been covering up the "truth" of creationism. If that doesn't count as a conspiracy, then I apologize for misrepresenting you. As for information theory, are you refering to Dembski's work? If so, you should be aware that he's never bothered publishing in a peer-reviewed journal. Also, it wouldn't matter how smart the nomads were; what matters is their foundation of knowledge. Finally, what about human-specific communicable diseases?Shiritai 19:36, 14 November 2007 (EST)

A conspiracy is where people agree, usually secretly, to do something that they know to be wrong. I'm not claiming that scientists in general (or even just ones in the disciplines you mentioned) have come together and agreed to suppress something that they know to be true.

Rather, evolution has become the "ruling paradigm", with the result that opposing views are marginalised and suppressed, but not as part of any scheming or secret agreement.

Has Dembski never "bothered", or have his attempts been blocked? Nevertheless, I was referring more to the research of Dr. Werner Gitt.

If the nomads were as intelligent as you or me, they would be quite capable of understanding DNA, although it might take a little longer to fill in background information that you and I already know.

What about human-specific communicable diseases?

Philip J. Rayment 21:01, 14 November 2007 (EST)

Cutting, more concise version needed

Conservative, the extra paragraphs I omitted are located at User:Jallen/extratoe. If anyone takes note of the notice at the top of the talk page, it clearly states that the CP Panel wants this article to be more concise. If you want to reinsert the information into the rest of the article, go ahead, but the introduction was just too long the way it was. Jallen 10:26, 7 November 2007 (EST)

I have also changed the article so that the copy of the "social effects of the TOE" remain a link to another article in see also. Jallen 10:38, 7 November 2007 (EST)

Jallen, I put a lot of hardwork into this article and as a result it is highly ranked by the search engines (for example, yahoo ranks it #5). The search engines rank for relevance and this article is highly relevant to the subject at hand. I also spoke to a creation scientist and he wrote the following to me recently: "Also you are doing excellent work with Conservapedia. I have heard many good things from numerous persons." I would also point out that you removed Andy's material which he has insisted is relevant to the article and should be kept. I realize that you may not be a creationist but please do not gut this article as the creation perspective is certainly a position of staunch conservatives and goes back to at least ancient Judaism and the early church fathers. Conservative 20:30, 7 November 2007 (EST)

Andy, thanks for your recent feedback regarding the article. For example, as a result of your input regarding the first 5 sentences of the article I rearranged the article so those 5 first sentences are now at the beginning.Conservative 21:47, 7 November 2007 (EST)

Ok, so you've put a lot of hard work and time into this article, but this is the nature of a wiki for another user to change your work. The article in its current state is stale, dull and needs improvement. The introduction in particular is what I'm targeting. Would a potential reader of Conservapedia rather read a near 1000-word introduction (which most of the content would be better featured later in the article) or a concise 300-word introduction? I'd like to think the latter.

1. Well done with the search engine work. We now rank quite high for about 20/19,000 articles that you've promoted (and the majority of these have been exclusively edited by you). This is another debate, but how have these high-ranking articles really affected new and legitimate sign ups to Conservapedia?
2. I also spoke to a creation scientist and he wrote the following to me recently: "Also you are doing excellent work with Conservapedia. I have heard many good things from numerous persons." - What are you insinuating? That others are not allowed to edit your work, especially on the theory of evolution? Perhaps hearsay, or something.
3. I would also point out that you removed Andy's material which he has insisted is relevant to the article and should be kept. - I didn't particularly remove it permanently, as stated on this talk page, at least half of the introduction should be integrated into the rest of the article, rather than bunching up the introduction with unnecessary information. So now the first 5 sentences are what Andy has explicitly stated should be included in the introduction, what about the rest that is not needed in the introduction. I have also noted that many of your edits to the article are simply rearranging sections. Perhaps you may like to rearrange the latter half of the introduction into the rest of the article.
4. I realize that you may not be a creationist but please do not gut this article as the creation perspective is certainly a position of staunch conservatives and goes back to at least ancient Judaism and the early church fathers. - Well that idea really has nothing to do with the subject at hand. This is a wiki environment. I can change/modify your versions and vice-versa. I did not remove the excess information to insert any perceived creationist/evolutionist bias, just to make the introduction of the article more concise, as stated above.
5. Social effects of the theory of evolution - What is the advantage of copying the articles into both Social effects of the theory of evolution and also this article? The heading of this section directs you to the article which is exactly the same? I just do not see the point of including this section, I would rather place it in see also, or something similar.

Jallen 01:05, 8 November 2007 (EST)

Jallen, people cannot sign up for conservapedia unless they first now it exists and the liberal media is probably about done telling people that conservapedia exists at least for a while. Also, Wikipedia gets a huge share of its web traffic via the search engines. Jallen, I strongly suspect you are a evolutionist and I think that is the reason you want to gut the article. Nevertheless I think it is fair to say that Andy and the panel want staunch conservatives to come to Conservapedia via a high ranked search engine article against the theory of evolution. Lastly, I don't think it is fair for you to make accusations like this without demonstrating them: "We now rank quite high for about 20/19,000 articles that you've promoted (and the majority of these have been exclusively edited by you)." In short, I would suggest looking the the search engine rankings for the homosexuality and theory of evolution articles. I will briefly tell you that yahoo ranks the theory of evolution article #5 and Google ranks it #16 out of 91,000,000 plus articles and MSN ranks the theory of evolution article #8 as can be seen here http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=theory+of+evolution&fr=yfp-t-501&toggle=1&cop=mss&ei=UTF-8 and here: http://www.google.com/search?q=theory+of+evolution&hl=en&start=10&sa=N and here: http://search.msn.com/results.aspx?q=theory+of+evolution&FORM=MSNH

Conservative 18:47, 8 November 2007 (EST)

"Jallen, I strongly suspect you are a evolutionist and I think that is the reason you want to gut the article.". And I think you are wrong. Not about her being an evolutionist perhaps, but about her motives and intentions. But regardless of what I think, the point is that you are concluding things (a person's motives and intentions) that you have insufficient evidence to conclude.

"...I don't think it is fair for you to make accusations like this ...". I don't believe that she was making an accusation. I believe that she was paying you a compliment, acknowledging what you have achieved.

Philip J. Rayment 20:30, 8 November 2007 (EST)

No, she is a gravitist! She doesn't believe in "divine falling". -Sam

PJR, I really don't want to get into conflict with Jallen or be mean or accusatory towards her. She did pay me an act of kindness on my talk page. However, the fraction 20/19,000 is quite low regarding articles that I have written that rank high for the search engines and I know it is not reflective of reality. I do think you have to take a look at the math involved in her fraction. I do think that most people can learn how to write articles that are high ranked by the search engines and I would like to teach people who are interested. I did learn from a man who is an expert at getting high rankings. However, for popular search engine categories, I do think that it is a lot of hard work to get articles than rank high for popular categories but worth the investment. So I don't want to see conservative articles that are ranked high for the search engines gutted merely because people don't like them. And again, I do have no wish to be accusatory towards Jallen however she has not supported her contentions. She claims material is unnecessary and needs to be removed but she does not demonstrate it. Therefore, she leaves me no choice to believe that it is for purely ideological grounds that she removes the material in question. In short, she wishes to offer the choice of removing web traffic to Conservapedia without offering any compelling justification.

Conservative 21:09, 8 November 2007 (EST)

PJR, I do try to listen to people who are evolutionists and creationists alike in regards to the article. With that being said, I did take Andy's advice via email in regards to sharpening up the article in the beginning of the article to make it more critical of the theory of evolution article and I believe I did it in a reasonable way. I do think it is important to have very relevant information either for or against a position early on in a article that focuses on a philosophy/theory/ideology/etc. Also, upon further reflection I did take Jallen's advice and shortened up the introduction and put the material in other more appropriate places in the article that fit better. Lastly, it may surprise people but I do agree with Wikipedians that the issue of the social effects of the theory of evolution should be mentioned as they do discuss this matter in their evolution article. However, given that this is a conservative encyclopedia it should be no surprise that I consider their analysis flawed and not reflective of reality. Conservative 23:20, 8 November 2007 (EST)

Conservative, can you please stop pointing your "you're an evolutionist, so don't edit my article" finger. You have absolutely no right or reason to call me an evolutionist on the basis of that I removed some of ideas in your article. As I have stated before, I did not remove/archive any information to create any bias of either viewpoint. "Nevertheless I think it is fair to say that Andy and the panel want staunch conservatives to come to Conservapedia via a high ranked search engine article against the theory of evolution" - I think that Andy and the panel want staunch conservatives to come to Conservapedia in any way possible, as long as they are willing to contribute positively, not exclusively through one article. The figures you've stated actually support my statement. You've only displayed three articles with a high ranking. I don't necessarily have a problem with the information you've presented, it's just how you have presented the information.

• "So I don't want to see conservative articles that are ranked high for the search engines gutted merely because people don't like them". - That's not what I'm doing.
• "And again, I do have no wish to be accusatory towards Jallen however she has not supported her contentions". - Yes, I have above, to make the article more concise.

I also do not think we need a separate article on the social effects of the theory of evolution when it is already featured within this article. Perhaps we may consider cutting this article into sections, storyboarding almost, like the American Civil War series. A student or reader of Conservapedia is certainly not going to read this 10,000-word essay in one sitting.

Jallen 02:52, 9 November 2007 (EST)

Jallen, I have not contributed to conservapedia exclusively through one article and that is another unfair accusation you made. Please go here and you will see you are throwing out another unfair accusation: http://www.conservapedia.com/User:Conservative Secondly, I gave the search engine results for one article using three separate search engines. You saying I gave the search engine results for 3 of my articles tells me you are not reading my talk page comments with any care which I see as discourtesy as I am reading yours. Thirdly, the social effects of the theory of evolution article is an important and relevant section of the theory of evolution article and Google ranks that separate article #3 as can be seen here: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=social+effects+of+the+theory+of+evolution It definitely helps the article. So evidently, people do have an interest in that material and it is likely boosting the conservapedia theory of evolution article. I also noticed the traffic increased to the article after that material was put in. So you cutting that out of the article didn't help. Next, deleting the separate article "Social Effects of the Theory of Evolution" would not help conservapedia as the article is ranked #3 by Google and Wikipedia realizes it is an important subject and has an article on it too. Lastly, the introduction has been shortened as per your useful suggestion but Andy wanted some material that provided evidence that the evolutionary position is false in the introduction and I do agree with him there. Conservative 03:31, 9 November 2007 (EST)

micro v macro

This 'distinction' is one that CMI has cautioned against in their 'don't use' article [2] and they make a valid point. Creationists believe in natural selection, so why not call it what it is, rather than the more confusing micro-? Logophilos 23:01, 12 November 2007 (EST)

*Theories* of evolution

The article should mention, in its first paragraph, that there are multiple theories of evolution, but that in normal use, "theory of evolution" usually means Darwin's theory of evolution through natural selection. As it stands, the article does not make this clear until much later. --Andy 09:50, 17 November 2007 (EST)

Are the Bible and Evolution compatible?

Adam and Eve recieved hide skins to cover their "shame" or nakedness. An animal was killed so they could not be embarasssed. If billions of years came before the fall of man, so was death. And death before the fall of man keeps Evolution and the Bible away from each other. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Desmond (talk)

How is this relevant to anything? Wisdom89 19:11, 24 November 2007 (EST)

It's relevant to the question in the heading, but why the question was raised, then immediately answered, I don't know. Philip J. Rayment 09:08, 25 November 2007 (EST)