Talk:Natural selection/Archive 11

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Intention

This article makes a couple of references to intention, which are problematic within the wider detail in the article ("in natural selection there is no intentional choice"). The article states that sexual selection is now usually included as part of natural selection and this is a known challenge to the idea of "natural selection" as "unintentional selection" [1]. Earlier statements of unintentionality were to dispute a divine intention, but the modern notion of intention fully incorporates animal mate selection (the giveaway seen in the article's statement "one gender chooses mates"). On that basis I think it would be better to remove the statements of natural selection as unintentional from the article, or frame these statements differently as "no intention from man or a creator".

Note, we also have inter-article confusion as this article frames the difference between natural selection and artificial selection as one of intention, yet the latter article prominently states "Selective breeding can be unintentional" in the lead. I'm less sure what is needed there, but even the layman knows that selective breeding causes the generation of unintentional traits. @Chiswick Chap: Any thoughts on how to resolve the contradiction in this article and between the two articles? SFB 18:06, 1 February 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for discussing. The first and most obvious point to make is that Darwin himself alluded to artificial selection's intentionality, so we can certainly attribute the distinction to him in the article, and maybe that should be done more sharply: that matter is I hope entirely uncontroversial.

If we need to go beyond Darwin at all here (perhaps we don't), I think you are confusing mate choice, the "intention" to get the best mate, with intent to improve a bloodline, as is the case with an animal or plant breeder: there is no such intention to improve a stock among any sexually-selecting animals. It is true that a farmer or plant breeder's actions "can be unintentional" (so the other article shouldn't need fixing)— though nowadays that must be rare: their choices are carefully planned and absolutely deliberate; what is meant there is that a Neolithic farmer, say, could drive a plant in a certain direction by taking certain actions not connected with the intent to breed at all. Thus, harvesting wild wheat by picking the ears automatically selects for non-shattering (like all modern varieties), because you tend to get all the non-shattering ears in your bag, but to lose the ones that fall to bits as you grasp them. Some indeed might call that unintentional "improvement" of wheat natural. Be that as it may, we can agree that artificial selection doesn't have to be 100% intentional, it just seems that way (and nowadays usually is), whereas natural selection is 100% unintentional vis-a-vis improving a stock. As for your statement that "selective breeding causes the generation of unintentional traits", well, natural selection does the same - you get people very sick with sickle-cell anaemia as the price of resistance to malaria. I therefore don't think your distinctions hold water. But as I said already, I suspect that simply attributing the distinction to Darwin will more or less resolve the matter; I've added "in his view" as clarification, and a brief note about the nature of intention in sexual selection. Chiswick Chap (talk) 19:16, 1 February 2019 (UTC)

Natural selection is Andrew Deninger.

In the first sentence of the article it states "Natural selection is Andrew Deninger. " What is this and what does it mean if anything? I have never heard of such a name in relation to any part of natural selection or evolution. I believe it may be an improperly/accidentally pasted text or intentional insertion of an editors name, if not some other form of error.24.45.97.206 (talk) 21:10, 17 May 2019 (UTC)Richard

Yup, random vandalism, all fixed now. DMacks (talk) 21:43, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress

There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Natural Selection (disambiguation) which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 07:32, 21 November 2019 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 7 September 2020 and 11 December 2020. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Abrow110.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 05:00, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Merge 'Directionality of Selection' section (Under Genetic Basis) with 'Classification section'?

The Directionality of Selection section seems oddly misplaced to me, and is partially redundant with the 'Classification section'. I propose that these be merged under classification Ethan Bass (talk) 15:08, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

Adding to the Bibliography

Hello everyone,

Long story short, my professor had my class and I choose and article and make edits to it as a part of our grade. I was able to add onto Darwin's adventures by going into detail on the finches and tortoises that he observed, but for some reason I can't edit the references to add mine... how would I do that?

Abrow110 (talk) 15:34, 23 November 2020 (UTC)TB

That's not how this works. The References section is generated automatically from the <ref> keywords in the rest of the text. Those are all sources for statements in the article. So, if you want your literature to end up in the References section, you need to quote from there. But the quotes need to fit the article, so usually, it's the other way around: Find a quote, add it, and give the source as a reference.

You want may want to add your literature to "Further Reading" instead. --Hob Gadling (talk) 16:31, 23 November 2020 (UTC)

Bibliography

Abrow110 (talk) 15:33, 23 November 2020 (UTC)TB

Semi-protected edit request on 24 May 2021

Elephant Trunk Size Natural Selection Shazad Qureshi (talk) 18:40, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. Run n Fly (talk) 18:42, 24 May 2021 (UTC)