Talk:Level of support for evolution: Difference between revisions

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Revision as of 21:31, 14 January 2007

This article was nominated for deletion on 4 January 2007. The result of the discussion was no consensus.

NPOV warning

While I am in support of evolution, I do find that this article is difficult to put into the light of a neutral point of view. :: Colin Keigher (Talk) 03:19, 4 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I would dispute this. The topic is that support exists. Whether that support is justified or not is another issue. I have copious references from both sides and it is a bit hard to deny that support exists in the scientific, religious and other communities. How is that being biased to summarize the support that exists?--Filll 03:25, 4 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

First of all, there is no article for support on Creationism nor an article on support for Intelligent Design. Second of all, something like this would be better put into an article that discusses the debate, and not a separate article all together. What you may want to consider is maybe an article like List of groups that support the theory of Evolution instead of what we have here now. In all honesty, this cannot keep with the goal of NPOV, and so this is why the article has been tagged. :: Colin Keigher (Talk) 03:30, 4 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Great resource and good work gathering information. In the context of the Evolution article it is NPOV, because it pertains to evolution and it covers both science and religious support. It just states facts. As an independent article then I understand concerns of NPOV, but the article title states Support for evolution. There is no ambiguity on the topic, nor does it merit mentioning organizations against evolution or mention other topics like creationism or ID. Organizations that state support for evolution are making a statment of conviction or policy that is factual and useful for political or legal recourse. It may not warrant being a usual topic for an encyclopedia, but I don't see the NPOV issue. I don't see that Creationism or ID not having a similar article as pertinent as there is nothing stopping the creation of similar articles by agents in support of creationism and ID. My only qualm would be is it a useful topic (a few months ago I would have said no, but now I see it could be useful.) GetAgrippa 04:21, 4 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I do mention the argument on the creationist side in numerous places, plus have links to 4 of the major creationist organizations which also have lists of supporters that they compile, with links to the lists. I could remove them all and place them all in a separate section called "Dispute of support for evolution". I will see what others think..--Filll 04:24, 4 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

This is already covered elsewhere, and smells like a POV fork. This article is very unnecessary, and is basically a response to crazy creationists. Wikipedia is not a soapbox. Titanium Dragon 11:18, 4 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Do articles have addendums? The information is a reference pertaining to the "majority support" statement. The info gives a range of org., etc that support evolution. Gives the audience a taste what that statement means. I guess a review article would be more appropriate. GetAgrippa 15:22, 4 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Well my impression was that this was a review article, or that was its intent, but I can see the difficulty. I suggest that this material, with more supporting material, be placed under a different theme. For example, Creationism-evolution controversy measures or Measuring opinions on creationism or Measuring opinions on evolution, and then describing the different methods that have been used to gauge the level of support in different communities (polling, surveys, petitions, declarations of support by different organizations {religious, scientific, academic, government, educational, corporate, etc.}, court cases, laws, political speeches, and so on) and the results of these. Each side has some in their favor and some not:

polls on biologists-E dominates
polls on scientists-E still dominates but not as much
polls on the public-C dominates, but more ambiguous than at 1st glance
petitions-E dominates, but this is not independent of polls
declarations of support by scientific org-E dominates, again not indep.
declarations of support by academic, educ. orgs-E
declarations of support by corporations-surprisingly weak for E
declarations of support by politicians-C dominates
declarations of support by evang. religious-C dominates
declaration of support by mainstream religious-E dominates
court cases-E dominates, but it is far more ambiguous than people realize; there are huge loopholes in the court decisions
laws-E has slight edge, but C is making progress

Additional note: Although C has about half of the public behind it, with E capturing maybe another 35% in a religious version of E, and 15% or so believe in an areligious version of E, a large fraction of the population that favors a religious version of E is not averse to including C in schools and passing legislation favoring C, or at least not discriminating against C, etc. So although the support might be somewhat soft for C in some ways, in other ways the dominance of C is greater since most of the non-C public is amenable to allowing C in science and in schools etc.

Comments?--Filll 17:01, 4 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

You are buying into a false dichotomy argument WAY too much in this article. It also doesn't support a worldwide view. Creationism is a uniquely American (or at best English-language) concept as is the creation-evolution controversy. This kind of attempt to characterize its "support" is highly misleading. --ScienceApologist 16:08, 14 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I would respectfully disagree. There is a growing creationist movement in Turkey. There have been recent creationist controversies in the UK, in Italy, in Serbia, in Russia and in Poland. There is a substantial creationist movement in Australia. Many Muslim countries like Pakistan are confronting the issue, and teaching evolution is banned in many Muslim countries. India also has a creationist problem (which has a slightly different character, but exists nevertheless and shares many features with the one in the US). What false dichotomy am I buying into too much? Do you claim that creationism is not a threat anywhere? Is it only a threat in the US? Is it not really a threat in the US either? Is there no controversy? I would again respectfully disagree with any of those positions. Even if it was only in the US (which it is not, and it can be demonstrated with references that it is not), it would be important, considering the numerous lawsuits that have occurred and the proposed state laws on this issue and state laws that passed on this issue (dozens and dozens of these). The title might be a bad title, but removing all references and links to this article from Wikipedia and then campaigning to get it deleted puzzles me. What are you trying to do? What is your purpose? What is your position? Should science just surrender? Should the National Center for Science Education just fire all its members and close its doors? I do not understand what you are trying to do, clearly in the face of overwhelming consensus to do otherwise.--Filll 19:22, 14 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Neutral. This is an article about support for evolution (and a very good one!), not an article in support of evolution. I think the NPOV tag should be deleted. Snalwibma 20:41, 14 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Then someone should remove it. I am not sure that I am allowed to.--Filll 20:49, 14 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Redirected the article

I think that the "no conensus" was misread by the closing admin. I believe that pushing this article over to evidence of evolution is a better read. --ScienceApologist 16:08, 14 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

You are profoundly mistaken. The final vote was:

1 - Merge contents of support for evolution into creation-evolution controversy

2 1 - Merge contents of support for evolution into evidence for evolution

6 - Move contents of support for evolution to opinions on evolution, and turn support for evolution into redirect to evidence for evolution

8 - Delete

10 11 - Keep

You are the only person, with the possible exception of orangemarlin, who voted to have this article be merged with "evidence for evolution" (probably because that's such a silly idea; the level of support for a claim is not evidence that the claim is true, that's fallacious reasoning). I am amazed that you would so dramatically violate consensus in promoting your idea, without any further discussion, at the expense of the views of 25 other editors who voted to delete the article, keep it as-is, or move/merge it elsewhere. The only user who even arguably supported your views is orangemarlin, and his comment was a vague "Merge" that could have been in agreement with a number any of different merge proposals, though since he was replying to your comment I'll assume he was supporting yours.

To understand why you'd make such a dramatic error in interpreting the results of the discussion, I'll assume that you simply misread the comments of the many users who supported Philosophus' proposal (which was not to merge the article into "evidence", but rather to change its name and turn the old name into a redirect; no merging involved!) as supporting your own view. Though even if you conflated the votes for Philosophus' proposal with the votes for your own, that'd only give you 8 votes, 2 less than "keep" and the same number as "delete". So I'll assume good faith and hope that you simply miscounted; since the vote was long and complicated, this is much more likely than a deliberate distortion. Regardless, it is inappropriate to make such a move against consensus, so further discussion will be needed before a merger could be considered acceptable. -Silence 18:30, 14 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I as well am stunned to discover this. I do not understand ScienceApologist's opinion or what he is basing it on. I certainly understand that it might be better to change the title. I am not sure what title to change it to. I would unilaterally change it to Levels of support for evolution, which was Silent's suggestion, but it is a long title. I am not sure if it should be voted on. However, evidence of evolution is on a COMPLETELY different subject. I am truly amazed and I must assume this is the result of misreading or misunderstanding of some kind. Because otherwise it makes zero sense. And 25 other editors felt the same way. I also suggest that Orangemarlin was probably not supporting this idea, and I would be glad to get him to clarify his position if you wish. Especially considering that Orangemarlin helped me with the writing of this article.--Filll 19:29, 14 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

If you think Orangemarlin wasn't supporting the idea, I'll restore his vote to the "keep" section (his first vote) until he says otherwise, since his "merge" one is ambiguous. And, I don't think Level of support for evolution is too long (cf. History of evolutionary thought, etc.), though we can certainly discuss the different options here. There seems to be agreement that the article contents shouldn't be deleted (only 8 people felt otherwise), so we should discuss how best to present those contents: be it by merging it into some other article, like evidence of evolution or creation-evolution controversy, to change the scope and title of the article, like to opinions on evolution, to keep the current scope or title, or to keep the current scope but change the title to something less ambiguous, like Level of support for evolution. There seems to be some disagreement on which option is best, so we should discuss them all rather than leaping to assume that any of them already has consensus behind it. -Silence 19:37, 14 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Straw Poll

It seems to me that we have some options for the placement of this article's contents:

Don't move or merge article

Keep at Support for evolution

Move article

Move to Level of support for evolution

Agree--Filll 20:51, 14 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Agree. This is a somewhat more neutral and unambiguous title than "Support for evolution", as it makes it clear that this isn't an article supporting evolution, but rather one gauging the level of support (and opposition) to evolution. -Silence 21:05, 14 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Move to Opinions about evolution

Move to Measures of support for evolution

Merge article

Merge into Evolution

Merge into Creation-evolution controversy

Merge into Evidence of evolution

Discussion

I hope you don't mind if I change this into a straw poll to discuss and weigh the options and determine consensus. Decisions on Wikipedia are generally done through discussion and consensus-building, not simple popularity polls. I also added options for merging, as opposed to moving, since at least a few people (2-3) supported that option, and I could at least see a case being made for a merger into creation-evolution controversy or something similar, if not evidence of evolution. This poll is a good idea to help discern what our options are, however, and who supports what. Anyone can feel free to add new options by simply putting another option up in the poll (so an "Other" section isn't necessary). If you disagree, feel free to revert my restructuring of the poll. -Silence 21:05, 14 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Why the article needs to be redirect

Support for evolution is through its evidence. Who "supports evolution" is a topic of speculation that is not encyclopedic and the article as written pretended mostly that the support for evolution was demarcated along the lines of creationists and evolutionists. Very poor form. I have reinstated the redirect. Please try to understand that substantively, no one has made any argument that this article shouldn't redirect to evidence for evolution. Certainly some of the material can be kept elsewhere, but this article should go. --ScienceApologist 21:10, 14 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Of course the evidence is the most important thing that decides if a scientific theory is accepted or not. No one is denying this. However, substantial amounts of effort have been expended by both sides over the last 40 years or more to try to measure who accepts the theory of evolution and who does not. This has been done internationally. This has been done within different groups. This has been done over time. Different methods to try to gauge the amount of acceptance have been attempted. This has been part of the material presented at more than 10 trials, including at least one that was decided by the Supreme Court of the United States. This has been part of the reasoning of literally hundreds of schoolboards and tens of states as they have considered bills about the teaching of evolution, creationism, intelligent design, or other similar subjects. This article attempts to document some of the results that have been obtained by gauging this level of support over the last 40 years in the US and other places. Material on which laws are based and on which court cases are decided is certainly worthy of an encyclopedia article. It might be of less importance to the science, although this is not only about the science; it is about education, it is about laws, etc. Whether the science is permitted to continue will depend on these laws and the outcome of these court cases. Basically, the factual evidence that supports evolution is not near as important as what people think, since science is a human activity, and without the support of humans in state and federal legislatures and in the courts, the science will cease to be taught, cease to be funded or even made illegal altogether. So in that sense, this article is extremely important. Also, this material is important enough that it is worth having it all in one place so all of it does not have to be retyped everytime someone in the dozens and dozens of articles on this subject on Wikipedia wants to refer to it.--Filll 21:22, 14 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Good point. This article is about the sociological support for evolution—who, rather than what, supports (i.e., favors, accepts, etc.) evolutionary theory. Evidence for evolution, in contrast, is about the scientific support for evolution—what supports (i.e., justifies, proves, verifies) evolutionary theory. The two topics are very different, so they should not be conflated. And both are verifiable and noteworthy encyclopedic topics, so both merit articles. If there is concern over the sociological and scientific meanings of "support" being confused, then this confusion should mostly be resolved when we move Support for evolution to Level of support for evolution (since that will help clarify what the article's topic is), but if there's any lingering ambiguity, we can simply add a dab-style notice to the top of the article clarifying the article's scope and linking to Evidence of evolution in case anyone came to the article looking for the scientific, rather than popular, support for evolution. -Silence 21:31, 14 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

You are misunderstanding the meaning of "Support" here. "Support" in this article is being used in the sense of "Public support" or "Popular support", used as an antonym to "Opposition". It is not being used to mean "What makes evolution credible". It is comparable to usages like "Support for health care" or "They are supporters of string theory", not in the sense of "The evidence supports evolution". "Who supports evolution" is not a matter of speculation, because it can be verified through surveys and polls; but even if it was, it would still be a noteworthy topic, not necessarily because Wikipedia can definitively say "X% supports evolution and Y% opposes it" with absolute certainty, but rather because there are so many claims one way or the other about evolution's level of support, making it a significant topic to write about. We do not need to be 100% sure of who's right in order to neutrally report on what different verifiable sources have claimed about the issue. -Silence 21:18, 14 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

@@ Line 84: / Line 84: @@
 Support for evolution is through its evidence. Who "supports evolution" is a topic of speculation that is not encyclopedic and the article as written pretended mostly that the support for evolution was demarcated along the lines of creationists and evolutionists. Very poor form. I have reinstated the redirect. Please try to understand that substantively, no one has made any argument that this article shouldn't redirect to evidence for evolution. Certainly some of the material can be kept elsewhere, but this article should go. --[[User:ScienceApologist|ScienceApologist]] 21:10, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
 ::Of course the evidence is the most important thing that decides if a scientific theory is accepted or not. No one is denying this. However, substantial amounts of effort have been expended by both sides over the last 40 years or more to try to measure who accepts the theory of evolution and who does not. This has been done internationally. This has been done within different groups. This has been done over time. Different methods to try to gauge the amount of acceptance have been attempted. This has been part of the material presented at more than 10 trials, including at least one that was decided by the Supreme Court of the United States. This has been part of the reasoning of literally hundreds of schoolboards and tens of states as they have considered bills about the teaching of evolution, creationism, intelligent design, or other similar subjects. This article attempts to document some of the results that have been obtained by gauging this level of support over the last 40 years in the US and other places. Material on which laws are based and on which court cases are decided is certainly worthy of an encyclopedia article. It might be of less importance to the science, although this is not only about the science; it is about education, it is about laws, etc. Whether the science is permitted to continue will depend on these laws and the outcome of these court cases. Basically, the factual evidence that supports evolution is not near as important as what people think, since science is a human activity, and without the support of humans in state and federal legislatures and in the courts, the science will cease to be taught, cease to be funded or even made illegal altogether. So in that sense, this article is extremely important. Also, this material is important enough that it is worth having it all in one place so all of it does not have to be retyped everytime someone in the dozens and dozens of articles on this subject on Wikipedia wants to refer to it.--[[User:Filll|Filll]] 21:22, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
+:::Good point. This article is about the [[sociology|sociological]] support for evolution&mdash;''who'', rather than what, supports (i.e., favors, accepts, etc.) evolutionary theory. [[Evidence for evolution]], in contrast, is about the [[science|scientific]] support for evolution&mdash;''what'' supports (i.e., justifies, proves, verifies) evolutionary theory. The two topics are very different, so they should not be conflated. And both are verifiable and noteworthy encyclopedic topics, so both merit articles. If there is concern over the sociological and scientific meanings of "support" being confused, then this confusion should mostly be resolved when we move [[Support for evolution]] to [[Level of support for evolution]] (since that will help clarify what the article's topic is), but if there's any lingering ambiguity, we can simply add a dab-style notice to the top of the article clarifying the article's scope and linking to [[Evidence of evolution]] in case anyone came to the article looking for the ''scientific'', rather than popular, support for evolution. -[[User:Silence|Silence]] 21:31, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
 :You are misunderstanding the meaning of "Support" here. "Support" in this article is being used in the sense of "Public support" or "Popular support", used as an antonym to "Opposition". It is ''not'' being used to mean "What makes evolution credible". It is comparable to usages like "Support for health care" or "They are supporters of string theory", not in the sense of "The evidence supports evolution". "Who supports evolution" is not a matter of speculation, because it can be verified through surveys and polls; but even if it was, it would still be a noteworthy topic, not necessarily because Wikipedia can definitively say "X% supports evolution and Y% opposes it" with absolute certainty, but rather because there are so many claims one way or the other about evolution's level of support, making it a significant topic to write about. We do not need to be 100% sure of who's right in order to neutrally report on what different verifiable sources have claimed about the issue. -[[User:Silence|Silence]] 21:18, 14 January 2007 (UTC)