Talk:Rate of evolution

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Multiple image[edit]

The multiple image shows many animals that are claimed to be unlike their ancestors.

The article discusses animals and plants, claiming rapid difference from their ancestors.

Perhaps the images should be of both animals and plants, and both "before" and "after" domestication. This suggests a fourfold pattern for useful images: animal ancestors, descendants; plant ancestors, descendants. Chiswick Chap (talk) 07:00, 23 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Some things to include[edit]

From WT:GEN

I think this article will need to make clear the difference between evolution rate, mutation rate, evolvability, molecular clock and which sections are discussing DNA sequence or phenotypic traits.

Possibly useful refs:

Thorne, JL; Kishino, H; Painter, IS (December 1998). "Estimating the rate of evolution of the rate of molecular evolution". Molecular biology and evolution. 15 (12): 1647–57. PMID 9866200.

Fraser, Hunter B; Wall, Dennis P; Hirsh, Aaron E (2003). "A simple dependence between protein evolution rate and the number of protein-protein interactions". BMC Evolutionary Biology. 3 (1): 11. doi:10.1186/1471-2148-3-11.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: unflagged free DOI (link)

Hirsh, Aaron E.; Fraser, Hunter B. (28 June 2001). "Protein dispensability and rate of evolution". Nature. 411 (6841): 1046–1049. doi:10.1038/35082561.

Lanfear, Robert; Kokko, Hanna; Eyre-Walker, Adam (January 2014). "Population size and the rate of evolution". Trends in Ecology & Evolution. 29 (1): 33–41. doi:10.1016/j.tree.2013.09.009.

Additional refs within this page

T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo)^talk 13:03, 18 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Criticism of current content[edit]

This Wikipedia entry is misleading, underresearched and sometimes just wrong. For example, the definition of ‘silent’ mutations appears to include neutral and nearly neutral mutations that are not silent in the technical sense. The author seems to think group selection is needed to explain sexual reproduction, but few evolutionary biologists do so. The author claims that humans have created many new species, but offers the one example of corn vs teosinte, which (contra his claim) cross with fertile hybrids. No citations are offered for his claim about species.

The author seems to think that macromutations are the key to speciation and adaptation. This feels like a particularly uninformed version of SJ Gould, who was largely wrong about this subject himself. The author's attachment to macromutations is a distinctly minority position within evolutionary biology.

This Wikipedia article should be erased and restarted. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Patrickxfoley (talk • contribs) 15:28, 19 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

You are leaping to wrong conclusions. The article had multiple authors. Nobody thinks that macromutations are the thing: the diagram shows that the same effect is achieved by natural selection, and I've fixed the caption to make that clear. The article doesn't advocate group selection to explain anything, either. You are right that the article needs work and more citations, but deletion isn't a sensible route. Chiswick Chap (talk) 07:23, 20 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with the first complaint. It's a terrible article. Take the first sentence "It concerns the limits of adaptation to natural environments as well as the limits of artificial selection". This is nonsense. Evolution rates are a function that measures origination of species, driven by mutation, mating choice, competition, resources, biotic communities, migration, genetic drift, isolation. There are no limits to adaptation - evolution is inherently creative. Domestication is hardly a major focus, though not incidental.

And this is just the first sentence. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.80.117.214 (talk) 07:03, 26 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Disappearing without a change in appearance[edit]

In the section Fossil record, the penultimate line reads, "During each species' existence new species appear at random intervals, each lasting many hundreds of thousands of years before disappearing without a change in appearance." How can something disappear without a change in appearance? The very definition of the word "disappear" implies a change in appearance. I suspect the author meant something else and worded this erroneously. This needs to be corrected.—Anita5192 (talk) 23:37, 20 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

They are saying that there is little or no change in a species 'appearance' (i.e. the way they look) from their time of origin to their time of extinction (i.e. no anagenic change). They can disappear (cease to exist) without their appearance (they way they look when alive) changing. But I agree that the wording is confusing. LarryBoy79 (talk) 09:43, 21 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]