Wikipedia:Peer review/Objections to evolution/archive1

Objections to evolution

Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • Watch peer review

This peer review discussion has been closed.
I think this article is close to FA quality, I want to better identify issues that may stop that. Such as:

Missing objections
Re-org of objections if confusing/overlapping
More/better citations
I've worked hard on Objections_to_evolution#History_of_objections this year addressing Talk:Objections_to_evolution#GA_Review issues, but it could be too large now

With appreciation. - Roy Boy 20:58, 1 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

RJHall comments: Overall this is a really nice piece of work. However, I do have a few suggestions that I hope are of some use:

There is widespread use of the double quotation marks in the text. Are these meant as specific quotations, intended to be ironic, or to signal unusual usage? I'm not completely sure that the current usage is properly encyclopedic. For example, are quotes needed in the following? Are they specifically quoting somebody?
- Biologists do not consider any one species, such as humans, to be more "highly evolved" or "advanced" than another.
- The scientific consensus of biologists, not popular opinion or "fairness",...
- ...to make them scientific "alternatives" to evolution.
- The purpose of this criticism is to undermine the "higher ground" biologists claim...
"...evolution than calling it a "theory" is." It's usually not considered the best form to put an "is" at the end of a sentence. The wording would look more polished if this was addressed.
"...apparent design of snowflakes is." Ditto.
"...enthusiastically or dogmatically engaged in." is ending a sentence with a preposition.
"...beneficial to be selected for." Ditto.
"Critics also state that..."; the 'also' here is an additive term that is redundant, per User:Tony1/How_to_satisfy_Criterion_1a#Eliminating_redundancy. Perhaps this can be re-worded in some manner?
"One of the most recent major objections..." may be considered unnecessary vagueness. How recent was this?
In the sub-sentence, "...defined by how dogmatic, closed-minded, or zealous its adherents are...", are the 'closed-minded' and 'zealous' statements appropriate or necessary? The text here is only comparing religion to the supposed dogmatism of evolutionary supporters. It says nothing about them being 'closed-minded' and 'zealous'. Thus the wording appears to be deliberately adding extra emotive weight to one side of the argument.
I think the statement that "...certain fossils, such as polystrate fossils, are seemingly "out of place"." could use a counterargument.
The paragraph "In addition to complex structures... ...biological origin of these phenomena either." is missing a citation.
"Many still object to the idea ... have reconciled their beliefs with evolution through theistic evolution." Ditto.
From a readability perspective, I might suggest that a few of the later paragraphs are on the overly long side. Inserting an extra paragraph break or two would make for more pleasant reading.
An objection I didn't see mentioned was the early but important issue, raised by Lord Kelvin, that evolution hadn't had sufficient time to work because the Earth couldn't be more than a few hundred million years old. (Subsequently refuted of course.) But perhaps you didn't want to delve into that much detail.

Thanks.—RJH (talk) 21:38, 6 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Finetooth comments: I'm working my way through this article to see if I can add anything to what RJH has noted above. Clicking on the tools in the toolbox on this review page, I see that the link checker finds seven dead links in the citation urls, the dabfinder tool finds two links that go to disambiguation pages rather than their intended targets, and the alt text viewer shows that all of the images lack alt text. The latter is meant for readers who can't see the images. Please see WP:ALT for details. All of these things should be fixed before taking the article to FAC. I'll come back in a while and post a few more comments. Finetooth (talk) 19:47, 7 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Further Finetooth comments: This is quite interesting, certainly broad and illuminating. The prose is of professional quality and should be fine at FAC. I made a tiny number of proofing changes, and I have some further thoughts and suggestions.

"Heads and subheads"

Objections might be raised regarding the section heads, which repeat the main words of the article title over and over again. WP:MOSHEAD says in part, "Section names should not explicitly refer to the subject of the article, or to higher-level headings, unless doing so is shorter or clearer." Although I can usually think of short, snappy heads and subheads to replace long, repetitive ones, in this case I'm unsure. Perhaps (1) "Definition", (2) "History", (3) Scientific acceptance, (3.1) Just a theory, not a fact, (3.2) Controversial or contested, (4) Scientific acceptance, and so on would be better, but this may be a case where the usual guidelines do not apply.

Lead

"A number of objections to evolution have been raised... " - Tighten by deleting "A number of"?

Defining evolution

"Humans are led to believe otherwise by our tendency to evaluate nonhuman organisms according to our own, anthropocentric standards, rather than more objective ones." - Wikipedia generally avoids using first person pronouns except in direct quotes. For that reason, I'd suggest using "their tendency" and "their own" rather than "our tendency" and "our own". WP:MOS#First-person pronouns has details.

History of objections

"as this conflicted with First Vatican Council's (1869-70)" - All date ranges and page ranges in the article should use an en dash rather than a hyphen; e.g. (1869–70).
"This position has been adopted by denominations of Christianity and Judaism in line with modernist theology which views the Bible and Torah as allegorical removing the conflict between evolution and religion." - Tweak slightly for better flow by adding ", thus" after "allegorical"?

Evolution is unfalsifiable

The Manual of Style (MOS) advises against using blockquotes for any quotation of less than four lines. The Darwin quote in this section is only two lines on my computer screen. I'd recommend embedding it in the text with ordinary quotation marks. See WP:MOSQUOTE for details.
"Typically, a flourishing science is incomplete. At any time, it raised more questions than it can currently answer." - "raises" rather than "raised"?

Evolution cannot create complex structures

The Dawkins' blockquote is only three lines on my screen. It's pretty close to four, so it may be OK.

Evolution cannot create information

The Answers in Genesis quote is only two lines. I'd suggest embedding this one.

Evolution leads to immorality and social ills

"teen pregnancies, homosexuality, abortion, immorality, wars, etc. are caused... " - I'd either drop the "etc." or complete the list.
"Kent Hovind's son Eric Hovind has now taken over the family business while his father is in prison... " - Is it relevant that his father is in prison?

Notes

Citation 3 has a line of all caps that should be rendered in title case even though the source uses all caps. WP:ALLCAPS has details.
I see minor variances in the citations that should be eliminated. The date formatting, for example, should be consistent. Most are yyyy-mm-dd, but I see some in m-d-y format. In some citations "page" is abbreviated "p.", but in others it appears as "Pg." They should all be the same. Several of the citations are incomplete. When possible, it's good to include author, title, publisher, date of publication, url, and access date for Internet sources.

References

The Kitcher ref should take the same form as the refs in "Further reading".

Images

The license page for Image:Charles Darwin 1880.jpg lacks a source that can be verified by fact-checkers. You might be able to get the information from the original uploader and add it.
It's not clear from the image license page for Image:Haeckel drawings.jpg whether the drawing was scanned from the Richardson and Keuck book or whether the book is being cited to support the incorrect attribution claim. In either case, what is the provenance of the original? When was it published? How can a fact-checker be certain that the copyright has expired if no date of publication is included in the description? (Date of creation is not the same as date of publication.)
What is the source of Image:WilliamPaley.jpg? The given source link is self-referential, and won't be of any help to fact-checkers.

I hope these suggestions prove helpful. If so, please consider reviewing another article, especially one from the PR backlog. That is where I found this one. Finetooth (talk) 22:50, 7 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]