English Wikipedia @ Freddythechick:Articles for deletion/Misunderstandings about evolution

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The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was keep*. Closing this as a keep hopefully won't end discussion about a possible renaming if consensus is for that, perhaps even a broader discussion about the overall organization of evolution-related articles could be in order, this discussion indicates not everyone is happy with the current setup. But there is clearly not a consensus to delete this particular article. W.marsh 17:44, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Misunderstandings about evolution

Misunderstandings about evolution (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Following several days of discussion on Talk:Misunderstandings about evolution (see also Talk:Evolution), there seems to be significant support for the idea of deleting this article, and moving whatever useful information it has to other articles, such as the newly-planned article Objections to evolution (a more NPOV approach to addressing misunderstanding-based criticisms of evolutionary theory). Although it is indeed important to clear up common misconceptions about evolution, the topic does not merit an entire article (it can be addressed briefly on articles like Evolution, and in more depth on articles like Evolution as theory and fact, Evolution (term), and Entropy and life; a middleman article is quite unnecessary and superfluous), and there is no precedent for naming articles about people's views (even clearly counterfactual views) specifically as "Misunderstandings".

The NPOV of such an article seems very dubious; consider that in many cases it touches specifically on creationist arguments, not just on the misunderstandings that underly many of them. It has an entire section for the creation-evolution controversy, thus practically stating outright that the entire controversy is a "misunderstanding". Regardless of whether or not this is true, it is not Wikipedia's place to make such judgment calls; we should simply present the facts, backed up by reputable sources, and allow readers to weigh the arguments largely on their own. Therefore, although it may indeed be accurate to characterize most, or even all, creationist arguments as resting on misunderstandings, that doesn't make it acceptable (or necessary or helpful, for that matter) to bend WP:NPOV just to over-emphasize that. We only discredit ourselves in the process.

The topic and title of the article, thus, is at the very least a borderline violation of NPOV, if not a clear-cut case (not to mention grammatically dubious; misunderstandings "about", rather than "of"?). And the informational contents of the article can all much more easily and thoroughly be provided by transferring those contents to other pages, such as the in-development "Objections" page, and the many more specific articles on these topics. Without any good reason to bend or ignore our NPOV standards just for the sake of a largely redundant and unhelpful article, I propose that we either delete this article outright, or, if the edit history is deemed important enough to save, move it to Objections to evolution, where it can be rewritten almost from scratch and where we will be able to provide a much more in-depth, thorough, balanced, and informative article on pretty much all of the same topics. Silence 00:15, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

  • Comment We should move this material to a new Objections to evolution article. It is all good stuff, however (although more editing and cleaning up wouldnt hurt). I wonder if in the meantime, we should just change its name to Objections to evolution so it can continue to garner contributions and ideas while the other sections of the Objections to evolution are being worked on?--Filll 00:25, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
    • Perhaps. Almost all of the article will need to be rewritten if we change its scope so thoroughly, however; we'll still be able to provide most of the contents, but the wordings, presentation, layout, introduction, etc. will need revising. I've posted up a preliminary draft of one possible layout (and a few sections I've worked on, drawing significantly from your excellent work on things like the "Falsifiability" page) at User:Silence/Evolution which anyone can feel free to edit. That page also incorporates most of the important information from Misunderstandings about evolution already, so it's another candidate for moving to the new name if users decide to delete, rather than move, this page. The main advantage I can see to a move is that it would preserve the Talk and the longer histories; the main disadvantage is that it would give more of an impression of bias to later outside observers, though I don't see that as a major concern. Our main concern should be providing users with a valuable resource for information, not with looking good. -Silence 00:29, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Redo and move to the proposed article or Delete. It's an odd coincidence that these "misunderstandings" are basically Creationist arguments. The article should be re-written as "Objections to evolution", or otherwise deleted. Obviously, it's far, far better to rename and rewrite... but it seems to be too POV to keep if it remains in its current form. .V. (talk) 00:53, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
Why does that seem odd? You think that creationists and others might have different misunderstandings? And of all the misunderstandings out there, which misunderstandings do you think are repeated more often and more loudly? Those of a graduate student trying to learn the material and making a mistake? Or the "misunderstandings" of a willfully ignorant but heavily funded creationist that presents evolution as a threat to civilization as we know it and responsible for everything from Hitler to plugged toilets, and makes his living by repeating these misunderstandings over and over, in the shrillest possible voice, at high volume?--Filll 00:57, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
It seems odd because it's taking Creationist statements and turning them into misunderstandings, thereby systematically invalidating them. I make no claim as to whether Creationists or Evolutionists are right, but when it comes to this article, we should call a spade a spade. .V. (talk) 02:15, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Oppose Deletion and Close AfD. If the general consensus is that this article needs to be renamed, or merged to one or more of the existing articles on the subject, there's no need to _delete_ it. It can quite happily exist as a redirect, no matter where the text ends up. The article talk page is the place to discuss moves/merges, not AfD. Tevildo 01:00, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Delete and Redo and move to the proposed article. The text is best in an article with a different name. No redirect neccessary. — CJewell (talk to me) 01:53, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Close AfD - the aim and scope of the article is appropriate and necessary, can be of encyclopedic value, but the title is very NPOV. Discussion of renaming the article and/or changing the content of the article should be taken to the Talk page. Be bold; rename, merge, and/or redirect. If that turns into an editing problem then see about arbitration, not deletion. -- wtfunkymonkey 01:53, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
  • By "the title is very NPOV", did you mean to say "the title is very POV"? -Silence 03:39, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
  • That's EXACTLY what I meant. I swear it looked perfectly understandable, to me, when I wrote it. -- wtfunkymonkey 05:51, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Speedy keep and close. Arguments based on misunderstandings is a misunderstanding; not a valid argument. It is how creationists frame their misunderstandings that make them arguments; but they remain, for the most part, misunderstandings. (Further, unnecessary sub-articles like Evolution as theory and fact should be merged into this article. - RoyBoy 800 02:34, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
Actually, given the fact that we just went through another lengthy exchange on the talk pages of both Evolution as theory and fact and evolution about this very issue, it is clear to me that the "theory vs. fact" issue continues to be poorly understood and poorly explained. I am in the midst of a substantial rewrite of Evolution as a theory and fact to address more of the confusion and misunderstandings that these discussions have amply revealed, and still exist in public discourse and the media. It will have many more references and be more carefully written. If you look at the talk page of Misunderstandings of evolution, you will see that there is a substantial amount of other material that will go in this article once it is renamed, and quite a bit already exists in two other separate sandbox articles. It would be nice if everything could be addressed in one short article or in one short paragraph, but the fact is, this is a huge issue, and it is not going away any time soon. And it has many many facets. Just take a look at Support for evolution for example, another proposed "subarticle" in this series, which will probably survive in a renamed form.--Filll 03:31, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
Sure thing. I agree with that. - RoyBoy 800 22:30, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
  • You misunderstand the meaning of "argument": an argument cannot be a misunderstanding, anymore than a book can be a misunderstanding. An argument, or book, can be based on misunderstandings, or can contain misunderstandings, but neither can themselves be "misunderstandings". You also misunderstand the meaning of "valid": validity is not dependent upon the truth of premises (i.e., it doesn't matter whether the premises are misunderstandings), but on whether the conclusion follows from the premises. It is impossible to "frame" a misunderstanding into an argument; creationists' arguments aren't misunderstandings, they're reliant upon misunderstandings. For example, "Evolution is a theory. Theories are just guesses. Therefore evolution is just a guess." This argument is not a misunderstanding, but it's based on one ("Theories are just guesses"), which makes it, although valid, entirely unsound.
That's why we decided to focus on misunderstandings.
  • But it is outside the scope of an article on "Misunderstandings" to assess arguments against, criticisms of, or objections to evolution, even though doing so has much more potential to be informative to readers than only addressessing the misunderstandings; in contrast, an "Objections" article to address every single one of the misunderstandings involved in the page, since, as has been noted, the misunderstandings form a key part of the objections (but the objections are not themselves misunderstandings, so we couldn't do the reverse and interject every major creationist argument into the "misunderstandings" page). I couldn't care less whether we end up moving, redirecting, or deleting this article (there is already one explicit vote for just "deleting" so far, and several votes considering that possibility, so it seems worthwhile to continue the discussion rather than speedying anything, since there's no hurry anyway), but I don't see any reason at all to keep it around as-is.
It is more informative, and it also means replicating a lot of stuff that is already well laid out elsewhere, like talk.origins. The point initially was to actually avoid doing that.
  • Moreover, it is important to note that just because a premise is factually inaccurate, doesn't make it a "misunderstanding". To conclude from the fact that a creationist argument is faulty that it must be based on a misunderstanding is to assume that we can see into the minds of everyone. Obviously it is fully possible for someone to make an argument that simply deliberately relies on falsehoods. Because there is no reliable method for reading someone's mind to see whether they "understand" something (it can only be inferred from their actions), distinguishing misunderstandings from deliberate falsehoods is impossible, and it's not Wikipedia's duty to stick its neck out to try and discern such things. What matters for our purposes is the various arguments, and the factual errors they may involve, surrounding evolution; an "Objections" article can address all the relevant issues much more effectively and directly than a "Misunderstandings" article.
That's why we focus on known misunderstandings; magically no mind reading is required. It can also be said we assume good faith for those who put forward the arguments, and that they would not rely on falsehoods. Again, we didn't see an immediate need to address "all the relevant issues" in that initial section; but I feel it did address the relevant issues insofar as misunderstandings go. If you feel the scope needs to be changed; well then the sections focus does need to shift.
Good faith only applies to our interactions with other editors, never to article contents. It is a violation of WP:NOR to always assume good faith of public figures and other article subject matters. We should not have to assume anything at all, at least in dealing with opinions like these. Simply reference and state what people have said, and leave speculating about motives to others. -Silence 01:13, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
I'm abundantly aware Wikipedia policy is applied to Wikipedians; but its simply a POV one can adopt regarding a subject to maintain a NPOV framing of a debate. Nothing is being violated so long as you do not reference specific people, but rather provide generic examples of known misunderstandings... and with a misunderstanding there is no motive. - RoyBoy 800 04:02, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
"Its simply a POV one can adopt regarding a subject to maintain a NPOV framing of a debate"? How on earth can adopting a POV help maintain NPOV?! Wikipedia should neither adopt the POV that creationists do not misunderstand evolution (and thus are disingenuous in their objections), nor adopt the POV that creationists are genuine in their objections (and thus misunderstand evolution); it should simply state the fact that they object to evolution, explain their objections, provide verifiable responses where appropriate, and not participate in, or weigh in on, the disagreement itself.
Besides, isn't it much more valuable to our readers, and much more verifiable and concrete, to provide specific examples of these claims rather than shirking from "referencing specific people"? And if we can't reference specific examples of these misunderstandings (because to do so would be to assume that the speaker misunderstands, when you yourself acknowledge that there are other possibilities), then we can't provide any direct sources to back up any of the claimed misunderstandings at Misunderstandings about evolution. So the article is POVed, useless, and unverifiable either way. -Silence 04:16, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Also, Evolution as theory and fact is really just too long to merge anywhere. If you want to merge that article elsewhere, you'll need to delete most of the text currently on the page. And will you do the same for every other comparable sub-article, like Entropy and life? -Silence 03:39, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
Agreed. Filll quickly convinced me by mentioning legal battles. - RoyBoy 800 22:30, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
I will note that when Evolution as theory and fact is rewritten it will be longer with more material yet. From my conversations with both people in favor of evolution and creationists, both sides badly understand this issue, which seems like a trivial issue to me. It clearly needs to be explained carefully because it is a recurring source of confusion. After all, the confusion has been written into state law or considered for inclusion as part of state law in over 20 states, if I am not mistaken (maybe as many as 40 states). Since there is a strong opinion that the previous status quo was adequate, I think this is worthy of inspection, since that is what spurred Orangemarlin and I to create it in the first place. We asked for a while if anyone was interested in making the sections that existed in evolution actually readable, and no one responded after days of asking. So we made one and invited comments for days and days. No one responded. So we made an article. If the original article was readable and adequate at addressing this question, we would have never gone down this road.--Filll 04:41, 11 January 2007 (UTC)


  • Keep -- as a pedagogical idea, "misunderstandings" and misconceptions are very encyclopedic. I do not buy the argument that such an article cannot be NPOV. It is well-documented that there are many misconceptions and misunderstandings about evolution that surface during the creation-evolution controversy. This is not to take sides: it is to simply point out where those verifiable and documented misunderstandings take place. I think this has the propensity to be an excellent article and think that its surpression is the result of people being too wary of addressing misunderstandings (which are well-documented in the article by the way) head-on. --ScienceApologist 05:49, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
  • How are we wary of addressing them head-on? Thanks to my summarizing and re-adding removed content to Evolution, all of them are adequately addressed in Evolution#Misunderstandings, a much more direct approach than a daughter article. Further details can be provided quite fine in other articles, such as the "Objections" one. The problem is as much that this article is useless as that it is POVed (which it is). Removing this article will have no negative effect on people learning about misunderstandings, since the "Misunderstandings" section on evolution is where most people will get their info anyway; and it will have a positive effect on the people who want more detailed information, as we will be able to provide a much more in-depth and comprehensive coverage of misunderstandings in an "Objections" article. -Silence 11:42, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
You haven't produced any evidence that the article is "POVed". It is basically on your say-so. There is obviously enough material for an article here, so I cannot for the life of me divine what exactly your rationale is for trying to get this particular article deleted. To me "Objections" looks like a much bigger problem in terms of article naming. While a misunderstanding can be documented as a lapse in rational thought or due to a lack of complete information, "objections" can be levied with impunity and without regard for research. No, "objections to evolution", as I see it, shouldn't be an article while "misunderstandings" seems much more appropriate and NPOV. --ScienceApologist 15:47, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
A "lapse in rational thought" cannot be documented, nor is it NPOV for Wikipedia to state as fact that a person, organization, or movement is suffering a "lapse in rational thought", even if it's true. To claim that it is suitably NPOV to explicitly state in an article title that certain common beliefs are "lapses in rational thought" is to demonstrate a profound misunderstanding (or "lapse in rational thought"?) of WP:NPOV itself.
And nobody has "complete information", so if lacking complete information is sufficient to make something a "misunderstanding", everyone misunderstands everything. Misunderstandings are defined by being false, not solely by being based on incomplete information; an article called "Falsehoods spread by creationists", "Errors in creationist arguments", or "Irrational objections to evolution" would be POVed, so why is a "Misunderstandings" article which lists common creationist claims so much more acceptable, much less ideal?
The reason I haven't bothered to go into specific examples of POV in the article itself in depth (e.g., the presence of a "Social and religious controversies" section in a "Misunderstandings about evolution" article) is because POV problems within the text should be resolved by fixing them, not by deleting or moving the article; it is because the POV problems are with the article title/topic itself that merely changing the text would not resolve the problem. Therefore it is the title/topic, not the specific claims within the article, that are important to discuss, and that is exactly what I've been discussing, and provided a number of valid arguments against, thus far.
Your argument against making an "Objections" article ("'objections' can be levied with impunity and without regard for research") is absurd, as it is not Wikipedia's responsibility to censor objections based on how well-researched they are; our standards for including a certain argument on the encyclopedia are notability and commonness, not validity or evidential basis. Indeed, it is the very fact that objections can be levied with impunity and without regard for research that makes having an article on them so important, since that's the only way to neutrally point out how poorly-researched just about all of the objections to evolution really are! -Silence 17:44, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep, does a good job of expanding an existing section in the evolution article. Any change of name would also be a change in scope. This article is not concerned with objections, only with misconceptions. —Pengo talk · contribs 00:01, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
  • I agree with you on all counts. Which is exactly why this article should be deleted (or moved). As you correctly note, this article is not about objections; and while it does a good job, an objections article would do a much better job. And to change the name here would require changing the entire scope. So, changing the name, and scope, is necessary. -Silence 01:13, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep per ScienceApologist. — ceejayoz talk 19:53, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep we have several other articles on science subjects (and probably elsewhere) where articles are oriented around a way of presenting or teaching or using the material. Its a practical way for complicated subjects. DGG 04:20, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep. ScienceApologist said what I wanted to say more eloquently than I could have done. I should also say that I'm finding it very difficult to "assume good faith" about this nomination, the nominator's professed personal beliefs on his userpage notwithstanding... WMMartin 18:26, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Why's that? -Silence 18:31, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
Well, Silence, you are taking a somewhat "creationist" stance here. You support an article "Objections to evolution" but want to delete an article on "misunderstandings about evolution" seemingly on the grounds that "misunderstandings" are POV while "objections" are NPOV. That, to me, does have a little bit of a creationist spin (to the tune of "teach the controversy"). --ScienceApologist 15:50, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
I disagree. This is an effort to broaden the article by incorporating this article material into an article that includes both misunderstandings, and other kinds of objections in one article.--Filll 19:07, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
  • I don't see how it's a "creationist stance" to want Wikipedia to cover an article as important as "Objections to evolution", nor how it's creationistic to take the commonsensical view that such an article would have so much overlap with "Misunderstandings about evolution" as to render the latter article superfluous. A "creationist stance" would be to argue for making an article like Problems with evolution or Evolutionist lies, or would argue for deleting "Misunderstandings" because it's false (which it isn't) rather than because it's POVed and too limited in scope. Conflating my arguments with a typical creationist's arguments is clearly both inaccurate and a failure to assume good faith, and serves no purpose except to polarize an important discussion and discourage reasoned, open-minded discourse. Consequently, whether the purpose of this association fallacy is to vilify me or simply to shame me into changing my mind, it seems rather counterproductive.
  • I support an article called "Objections to evolution" because such an article will be much more useful for clearing up people's misunderstandings than one called "Misunderstandings about evolution", a much more limited and stunted topic with much more debatable contents. For example, which of the creationist claims on TalkOrigins are misunderstandings, and which are not? Is everything incorrect a misunderstanding? If so, we can list anything we want on a "misunderstandings" page, including amazingly subjective arguments (i.e., ones that aren't strictly factual and don't directly address the science of evolution, but rather are more philosophical or vague) like "Evolution is immoral", "Were you there?", "Evolution is atheistic", "Evolution is a religion", "Evolution assumes naturalism", "Evolution assumes uniformitarianism", "The Bible contradicts evolution", or "Design requires a designer". Are all of these simple "misunderstandings"?
  • Where do you draw the line between misunderstandings and non-misunderstandings, when dealing with so many complex claims that so many people believe passionately in? Distinguishing between the two is simply too subjective, and too contentious and counterproductive in the long term, for an article like this to be practical, as long as it's dealing so heavily with common creationist claims.
  • The reason "Misunderstandings" should be changed to "Objections" is not to appease creationists, but to appease Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view#The_neutral_point_of_view. There is simply no precedent on Wikipedia for outright saying that a certain common point of view is false, which is what a "misunderstandings" article on such a disputed issue amounts to. Even articles like racism never once simply come out and say "Racism is false" or "Racism is a misunderstanding", even though racism contradicts science much more directly and thoroughly than even creationism does! Rather, they merely present the different facts and opinions on the issue and let readers come to their own conclusions.
  • The reason it is inappropriate to list a bunch of widely-used creationist arguments in a "Misunderstandings" page is the same reason it is inappropriate to make a "Creationist lies" page; it might be a fact that many creationists misunderstand many aspects of evolution, and it might be just as much of a fact that many creationists deliberately lie and deceive (though how verifiable these facts are may be debatable), but neither of these claims should be part of the article title itself, as this presupposes a specific point or agenda that is being made about common creationist arguments. Even if we make that point perfectly clear in the article text, by providing well-referenced objections to creationist arguments like "Evolution is just a theory", we should not give readers of Wikipedia even the impression that Wikipedia is biased by making the article title itself so loaded in scope.
  • Whether or not it is a "fact" that these are misunderstandings is immaterial; Wikipedia judges whether or not something is a "fact" based on whether or not it is seriously disputed (from WP:NPOV: "By 'fact' we mean 'a piece of information about which there is no serious dispute.'"), not based on how obvious something seems to an article's editors. Thus, although it may be a "fact" that creationist claims are misunderstandings from our view, it is not a "fact" in the Wikipedian sense (except in articles that are specifically and solely scientific, like Evolution itself, where experts in the field, not popular opinion or movements like creationism, are relevant), because it's not 100% undisputed. This is the exact reason why it is not stated anywhere in the Young Earth creationism article that "Young Earth creationism is false", or even that "Young Earth creationism misunderstands science". It's because, even if something is true, it should be attributed to a source (rather than claimed by Wikipedia itself) when it is disputed. This is the same reason that an "Objections" article is so much more Wikipedian, and encyclopedic, than a "Misunderstandings" article. As soon as you successfully and lastingly change the lead section of "Young Earth creationism" to state "Young Earth creationism is false" or "Young Earth Creationism is a misunderstanding", I will stop opposing this article. Until then, it is applying a double standard for us to treat this article differently than we treat all others.
  • The easiest, simplest, and most productive solution to avoiding years of fruitless squabbling over where to draw the line between misunderstandings and non-misunderstandings is simply to sidestep this trivial issue while still presenting all the same information to our readers, by changing the scope of the article to "Objections to evolution". Although there may still be some article disputes over a topic like this over time (that's inevitable for any article related to the creation-evolution dispute), at least these are likely to mostly be concerned with content issues, not with the basic question of what to include, making improving, fleshing out, polishing, and maintaining such an article in the long run much easier and more efficient. It will also provide a much wider range of topics to users, and will indirectly clear up their misunderstandings without resorting to the rather unencyclopedic tactic of listing a bunch of severely lacking and objectionable arguments against evolution as mere "Misunderstandings". -Silence 17:44, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
This discussion has been added as a test case to the proposed guideline Wikipedia:Notability (science). ~ trialsanderrors 18:13, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
Oppose - As a non-American I find this conversation bizarre and I wonder why it is included in a world-wide encyclopedia. Should we have pages on "objections to gravity", "objections to the proposal to use fire for cooking and heating"? The problem stems from the failure of parts of the US eduction system and an article on "Misunderstandings about evolution" might help clarify this issue.--Grahamec 04:13, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
First, although this is a worldwide encyclopedia, since this is such a huge issue in the US, it is also important from a world perspective, since the US includes a large fraction of the Western world, and also forms a large part of the world's economy. The US also has an inordinately large effect on the culture of the rest of the world, so if this does happen in the US, it is a bit premature to expect that similar things might not happen elsewhere. Also, there have been problems with creationism in the UK, in Russia, in Serbia, in Poland, in Italy etc. The Muslim world also struggles with their own brand of creationism, as does the Hindu World. So if we start to add up the people affected or potentially affected by creationism, a conservative estimate is well in excess of one out of three people on earth, and certainly more than one out of three people in the developed Western world. If we concentrate on the AngloSaxon world, the ratio might be even more pronounced. It is partly because of problems with the US education system, but it is far more complicated than that. If you make such a claim, it tells me that you know very little about the US, and it demonstrates an even greater reason to include this sort of material in an encyclopedia, because you clearly do not understand the US, which has a huge influence on the English speaking world, and on Australia in particular. Misunderstandings is just a subset of the Objections. And that is why it is more appropriate to have an Objections article. Also Misunderstandings opens itself to charges of NPOV far more.--Filll 04:25, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
As soon as creationists start objecting to gravity in enough detail and with enough verifiable frequency to merit a separate article, feel free to make Objections to gravity. Likewise, I could see a strong case being made for creating an Objections to the Big Bang article, as this is a very common creationist theme and has a lot of different facets, though not nearly as many as the objections to evolution do—and the objections to evolution are much more noteworthy because they have played a central role in a number of recent U.S. court cases that have shaped and reaffirmed the implementation of the Establishment Clause. At best, such objections to evolution will be an important historical footnote; at worst, they could foreshadow a future anti-intellectual dark age. In either case, they are noteworthy, verifiable, and relevant enough to merit an article. The fact that an objection or criticism is ridiculous or baseless does not make it non-noteworthy! What Wikipedia policy page says that an article's topic is inappropriate for Wikipedia if it is "bizarre"?
You yourself note that this is a "world-wide encyclopedia", which means that topics that are important only in a specific part of the world—including the United States—are worthy of inclusion. They do not need to make international headlines; national ones suffice. As an American, I find creationism's claims bizarre too, and in many cases laughably unsubstantiated. But that doesn't mean that they don't exist, nor that they aren't important enough to be neutrally reported on in a Wikipedia article. If you want us to make up for the U.S. education system's failures, then the correct article for us to work on is Evolution, not Misunderstandings about evolution; the best way to clear up misunderstandings is to nip them at the bud and try to clearly and thoroughly explain what evolution is, rather than just what it isn't—the best way is not to presume that we can predict every aspect of evolution that will be misunderstood by anyone. If a lot of people misunderstand George Washington, does that mean that we should leap to make a Misunderstandings about George Washington article, or that we should try to further clarify and improve the George Washington article itself?
For the same reason, misunderstandings of evolution should be covered on Evolution and, for more depth, in their specific areas (e.g., misunderstandings of natural selection in Natural selection, misunderstandings of vestigial structures in Vestigial structure...), not in a generic "Misunderstandings" article. And since clearly the main intention of such an article was to undermine the major creationist objections to evolution, both the stated and the unstated purposes of Misunderstandings about evolution can be better served by an "Objections" article. Where misunderstandings merit in-depth coverage (i.e., beyond the level at Evolution#Misunderstandings), they by and large merit it as a result of their common usage in the creation-evolution controversy, which means that the ideal place to thoroughly, and neutrally, discuss them is at an article like Objections to evolution. -Silence 04:28, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
  • The Objections article is explicitly not about scientific objections, but about objections in general. See User:Silence/Evolution for the draft, which, unlike the "Misunderstandings" page, makes it exceedingly clear that there is no scientific controversy regarding evolution. -Silence 16:45, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Also, other than the "Evolution is a theory" and "Devolution is possible" sections on the Misunderstandings page, I don't think that any of the topics covered on Misunderstandings about evolution are very common among laypeople, other than laypeople who are either creationists or perhaps agnostics who have been significantly exposed to creationist literature. There might be a common misconception that "Evolution is unproven/hasn't been observed", but the specific claim that speciation hasn't been observed is a creationist trademark; even more so, the the entropy and information arguments are exclusive creationist arguments. They're creationist claims first, and misconceptions second, because they didn't arise until after creationists tried to think up possible scientific-seeming ways to object to evolution and ended up resorting to thermodynamic laws and information theory. It is disingenuous to present arguments which only creationists use as though they were general-use misunderstandings, i.e., the kind of things that high-school biology students, for example, are remotely likely to get wrong. Although they are based on misunderstandings, the information theory and thermodynamic arguments are quite complex and sophisticated (albeit pseudoscientific) falsehoods. -Silence 17:04, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
    • That sounds like an edit dispute to me, not an argument that the misconceptions article needs to be deleted. ~ trialsanderrors 22:28, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
I think you misunderstand. If I read Silence correctly, he is proposing incorporating this material in a more general article, the Objections to evolution article in preparation.--Filll 22:41, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
Yes. The reason this article is different from the "AIDS misconceptions" article is that the distinction between misunderstandings and objections to evolution is so fluid, and the two topics are so fundamentally interwoven. To try to artifically subdivide the two would be both an unnecessary hardship on editors, as it will require much more work to try and neutrally distinguish misunderstandings fom non-misunderstandings, and a disservice to interested readers, as it will be withholding tons of important and relevant information from them. Misconceptions about AIDS are almost solely a result of lack of education; misconceptions about evolution, in contrast, are a complex mix of natural misunderstandings and a huge number of deliberate distortions and falsehoods resulting from decades of creationist propaganda. Once we strip away all the misunderstandings that aren't used by creationists as objections to evolution, we strip away pretty much everything that would make a "Misunderstandings" article useful to begin with. I say, kill two birds with one stone by presenting the two interrelated topics together, and thus avoiding the problem of having to sort mere misunderstandings from lies, distortions, arguments, and criticisms. -Silence 23:06, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
If you incorporate material from this article into yours, that's an automatic redirect or, more likely, a page move. ~ trialsanderrors 01:52, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
Is that bad?--Filll 02:10, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
No, but no grounds for deletion. Deletion, amongst others, removes the edit history necessary for attribution under GFDL. ~ trialsanderrors 02:13, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
I'm fine with a page move or redirect. This deletion discussion is a useful way to get broad community input before we decide what to do; it shouldn't be assumed that the only two options are to delete the page and its history, or to keep the article exactly as it is. We should discuss all the options. I'm not in favor of deleting any page histories just because I proposed this AfD; even if it ends up getting "deleted" rather than moved, it makes more sense to turn it into a redirect. -Silence 02:22, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.
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