Talk:Evolution

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"See also"

I recently deleted the section at the end of the article called "See also." It contained a list of five things that readers might see also.

I deleted it on the grounds that it is not helpful and has the potential of expanding to enormous length whenever somebody wants to insert their favorite topic. I can think of dozens of topics that are just as relevant as the ones currently listed.

My deletion was reverted. What do the rest of you think? Is this a rabbit hole we want to go down? Genome42 (talk) 19:13, 7 April 2026 (UTC)

"See also" is a fairly standard section. See MOS:SEEALSO. - UtherSRG (talk) 20:08, 7 April 2026 (UTC)

MOS:NOTSEEALSO says not to repeat links already in the body text. A simple Ctrl-F search shows that orthogenesis (x 1), sympatric speciation (x 3) and parapatric speciation (x 2) are already there. I'd like to see a justification for what we do choose to include beyond the two that would be left after removing these. Mike Turnbull (talk) 12:03, 8 April 2026 (UTC)

That leaves "Devolution" and "Chronospecies," which don't count as major topics that readers need to go see (IMHO). Should we add mutationism, maladaptation, drift-barrier hypothesis, junk DNA, and many others? Genome42 (talk) 19:04, 8 April 2026 (UTC)

I have removed the items already linked in the article. I encourage addition of any reasonable links that would be of interest to readers of this article, though if the word or phrase can be linked in the body of the article directly, that would be better. - UtherSRG (talk) 19:07, 8 April 2026 (UTC)

Here's the opening sentence of the article on Devolution (biology, "Devolution, de-evolution, or backward evolution (not to be confused with dysgenics) is the notion that species can revert to supposedly more primitive forms over time."

I have removed this link because I don't think we should be recommending this to readers of an article on evolution. It is not possible for humans or chimpanzees to "revert" to the common ancestor of humans and chimps that lived about six million years ago. Genome42 (talk) 17:29, 9 April 2026 (UTC)

I removed Chronospecies because it's just a fancy word used to describe Phyletic gradualism. Phyletic gradualism isn't covered very well in the main article so I added it to the "See also" section. Genome42 (talk) 17:45, 9 April 2026 (UTC)

I added a bunch of other links in order to show everybody where this could go if we allow it. Many of these other Wikipedia articles conflict with this one.

This is meant to illustrate a serious problem that's the fault of Wikipedia editors over the past 20 years. They have allowed a proliferation of specialized niche articles that have not been updated when the main article (e.g. Evolution) has changed.

The result is a bunch of conflicting and confusing articles that cover the same topic. We can't fix that right away but we don't have to compound the problem by linking to them as I've done here for illustrative purposes. Genome42 (talk) 18:21, 9 April 2026 (UTC)

I agree with your sentiments but as the related topics are well outside my areas of interest, I'm not going to make further suggestions on the details. Perhaps you should start a formal WP:RfC to get a wider view from interested parties? Mike Turnbull (talk) 12:20, 10 April 2026 (UTC)

I have already done this, at WikiProject Biology. There is so far one comment from that ping, from Cyclopia.

I'm not super experienced with RfCs though. Would submitting it also to related WPs like Evolutionary biology or Molecular biology cast a wider net? Or is it just whomever is subcribed to the sci thread at RfC? Mausfield (talk) 18:40, 23 September 2026 (UTC)

Did you read WP:RfC? Because what you posted there completely ignores WP:RFCOPEN. EducatedRedneck (talk) 18:56, 23 September 2026 (UTC)

Editors are not supposed to edit articles "to show everybody where this will go". Edits are supposed to be for improving articles, not messing them up to prove a point. Sumanuil. _{(talk to me)} 23:19, 10 April 2026 (UTC)

Please explain your rationale for leaving "Devolution" and "Chronospecies" and removing all the others that I added, some of which are much more relevant than an article that talks about humans "reverting" to a more "primitive" species. Are you seriously interested in improving this article? Are you knowledgeable about evolution? Genome42 (talk) 20:46, 11 April 2026 (UTC)

I removed the ones you added because they were not added in an attempt to improve the article, but, as you said, "to show everybody where this will go". Sumanuil. _{(talk to me)} 21:48, 11 April 2026 (UTC)

POV concerns and general link spam is the reason why parent articles of this nature that cover a wide variety of articles have created outlines and portals.... To avoid pointless arguments not really related to content of the page. Outline of evolution and the Portal:Evolution provide two different layouts to navigate all the sub articles related to this topic. Ideally top level articles should link to a well-organized "Outline of ..." , alongside the main portal(s) to facilitate navigation of the overall topic. Moxy🍁 21:01, 11 April 2026 (UTC)

What's the point of "See also" if it only contains links to a nonsensical article like Devolution and a largely irrelevant article like Chronospecies?

If you leave in those two, then what's the criteria for deleting all the others that I proposed?

Outline of evolution is ridiculous. It's the perfect illustration of the mess that Wikipedia has become. Nobody is ever going to find that article useful.

Portal:Evolutionary biology is even worse. It starts with a figure that has been refuted and fails to even mention the standard definition of evolution. Genome42 (talk) 19:29, 13 April 2026 (UTC)

only molecular?

@Mausfield: your recent changes to the basically remove all references to traits, characteristics, and phenotypes, scrqpping them from the definition of evolution, and instead defining it as any DNA change. So this is a major redefinition of a very important term in a broad range of biological sciences. I am not sure we have a consensus for that. I see that as a justification you link to Neutral theory of molecular evolution, but is that really a proposal that we can say has led to a new definition of the term "evolution" in biology? Our article's use of the qualifier "molecular" does not make it seem so, and I see nothing in the article that addresses the issue of whether drift requires a new definition of the term evolution itself. Also, the way I read it, molecular change which is neutral with regards to survival/selection is not the same concept as molecular change which has no effect on physical traits at all, which is how you have changed the definition I think? For example, I don't feel confident that the ups and downs of repeat numbers in a microsatellite are really now included under "evolution"? Andrew Lancaster (talk) 10:10, 28 August 2026 (UTC)

The definition of evolution was change in the heritable characteristics and is now change in the heritable allele frequencies. That is not satisfactory because evolution has a meaning outside the underlying process. Even if there were no such things as allele frequencies, evolution (if it occurred) would have meaning. Johnuniq (talk) 10:21, 28 August 2026 (UTC)

I agree, although to refine this point a little our article is clearly not about ALL meanings of evolution. I do however think it covers changes in heritable characteristics, in biology (or biology-like) contexts. OTOH I don't have a problem with it being allowed to cover drift and selection-neutral change, but I think it is important that the new edits seem to EXCLUDE a major definition which this article is intended to cover. (I also don't think this is a case where we can say that this is an old concept that should be in a history of thought article or section.)--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 11:42, 28 August 2026 (UTC)

Perhaps review the first line in this article:

This article is about evolution in biology. For related articles, see Outline of evolution. For other uses, see Evolution (disambiguation).

Mausfield (talk) 13:44, 28 August 2026 (UTC)

For example, I don't feel confident that the ups and downs of repeat numbers in a microsatellite are really now included under "evolution"?

They absolutely are, and have been so for probably about 50 years as a mainstream consensus and earlier as a growing position. What are you basing this lack of confidence on?

I don't mean this to be rude at all, but what determines the content of a scientific article is the consensus and literature published by scientists in that field, and in our situation means it must come from editors who are either in those fields or (more commonly) well-read in their literature. Phenotypic change is not the definition of evolution among any working biologist I have ever met or heard of. Even the people who didn't like Kimura agreed that neutral evolution can and does occur, they just disagrees that it is the vast majority of overall genetic change in livings organisms, but by the sheer math we now know that is true. Fisher in 1930 described how evolution more broadly would also occur in areas whose contribution to fitness went asymptotically to zero, and published on how even "minute variations in chance or environment" would overpower their spread through a population, and that is the mathematical basis for understanding drift. This is not inclusive of pleiotropic effects where a net reproductive success is unchanged because of other balancing contributors, that is antagonism and from the perspective of each gene is not neutral.

Also, the way I read it, molecular change which is neutral with regards to survival/selection is not the same concept as molecular change which has no effect on physical traits at all

"Physical traits" is not a term we use, because many genetic changes can result in even very tiny changes (like the loss of a particular epitope important to the immune system) which are not "physically" visible often even with microscopy. The "phenotype" is all material results of the genome, including those changes which are neutral contributors to fitness. The "genotype" is the string of letters. Evolution is the change in the latter, which sometimes produces a change in the former. Change in the former accumulates over time and is differentially pruned by the many contexts of selection, and the result is reproductive isolation over evolutionary time, which gives us our many wonderful species.

I'm totally happy to write or discuss alternative wordings. The proper definition of evolution is exactly what you stated: heritable changes in genetic sequence. Generally, in biology we denote a heritable (i.e., germline) sequences with variation in a population as alleles, but if you take issue with this phrasing I'm certainly happy to disucss alternatives. "Alleles" do not cover all mutation because somatic mutations (like, some benign mutation in your forearm somewhere) are not heritable in the context of eukaryotes. Personally I don't feel this is too technical for the average reader.

tldr: defining evolution with "physical characteristics" has been incorrect in a very basic technical sense for several decades. Mausfield (talk) 14:05, 28 August 2026 (UTC)

I am ok on using the term phenotypes, obviously, and I understand also that scientific disciplines can change their basic understandings. However I have not seen any evidence for what you are saying in any part of biology and even if it is happening I am not confident that it applies to the general way words are used in all parts of biology (if any). We often see that there is a philosophical part of a field that has however not yet won consensus from the whole field, and these situations create problems. Apart from the issue of whether biologists really refer to genetic blips with no effect at all on individual organisms let alone populations as evolution; I think another logical problem we should discuss is that your description implies that everything which is heritable is DNA and I'm not sure we are certain of that? --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 14:27, 28 August 2026 (UTC)

If we are going to use your personal familiarity with a term as a basis for a discussion on whether to include it in a scientific wiki article, I think its fair to ask what your background is in this space. Mausfield (talk) 16:47, 28 August 2026 (UTC)

For context, its because the "citations" I would give you in this discussion are like... very basic intros directed at high schoolers and the lay public. Which I would imagine might be annoying, but that's the level of "basic info" we're talking about here, and why I'm concerned that you are considering what you, personally, have and have not seen as a valid basis for debate here.

All emphases below are mine:

From the University of California's Museum of Paleontology, "Understanding Evolution" educational program, specifically the "Evolution 101" course section titles:

[Mechanisms of evolution: Grades 9-12] Speciation is the splitting of one ancestral lineage into two or more descendant lineages.
[Mechanisms of evolution: Grades 9-12] Evolution does not consist of progress in any particular direction.
[Mechanisms of evolution: Grades 13-16] Evolution is often defined as a change in allele frequencies within a population.
[Mechanisms of evolution: Grades 13-16] Evolution occurs through multiple mechanisms.
[Mechanisms of evolution: Grades 13-16] Natural selection and genetic drift act on the variation that exists in a population.
[Mechanisms of evolution: Grades 13-16] New heritable traits can result from mutations.

From the National Center for Science Education:

Misconception Monday! Natural Selection and Evolution, Part 1

Natural selection and evolution are the same thing.

No, they aren’t; they really aren’t. Evolution is descent with modification, heritable change in populations of living things. A common definition of evolution is change in a population’s allele frequencies. (Quick refresher: alleles are versions of genes. The gene that codes for a certain protein on the surface of human red blood cells, for example, has three variations, or alleles, A, B, and O, which in turn contribute to overall blood type.) Natural selection is a mechanism of evolution, a process that leads to shifts in allele frequencies within a population. But natural selection is just one way—albeit a really powerful way—that such change can occur. The others are genetic drift, gene flow (migration), and mutation. Let’s look at each one—genetic drift here, and then gene flow and mutation in part 2 later today...

So, drift (which is the floating of neutral variant frequencies due to chance) is part of evolution. Drift can influence phenotype, and it can be copy number variation from slip mutations in a microsatellite, or it can be hair color in a species and context where hair color doesn't influence fitness. That means the meaningful, encompassing definition contains only these elements:

1. Heritability: mutation can occur outside the germline genome, and will not be inherited thus will not affect frequencies of variants in the next generations
2. variation: in order for a "frequency" to exist (other than 1), there must be more than one version of a sequence that exists in the population, and that variant arises from mutation, which we call an....
3. allele: the term used to describe heritable variants in a homologous region of a chromosome in a population.

As allele frequencies change (due to selection, drift, flow, etc), we say that evolution is occuring. Your mention of inheritance not being restricted to nucleic acids is not outlandish, but it is still fringe and not part of the extremely widespread acceptance of evolution as the change in allele frequencies over generations. The subset of evolution that arises from selection is called adaptive evolution. In the mid-20th century we used to have people who are now called pan-adaptationists, and that position is now uncontroversially debunked because it requires evolution to be an active, forward-thinking agent, when of course we know that evolution is no agent at all: it is a rearview, statistical description of populations in motion over generations. Mausfield (talk) 17:57, 28 August 2026 (UTC)

@Johnuniq, please give this comment a look if you are still unsatisfied with my change to the lead. I am almost verbatim quoting major educational institutions dedicated to evolutionary biology. If you want the lead to go back to defining evolution as a change in phenotypes, please provide a comparable ref to similar major institutions justifying that. Mausfield (talk) 17:59, 28 August 2026 (UTC)

@Mausfield: of course I am not saying we should take my ideas as a source, so please don't accuse me of that. However, you should find a source? If you can only find University coursework that is not really making a straightforward case, but again I fully accept that there is probably a complication building up here in some parts of the biological field. To me it still looks like something which is happening in a part of biology though, until you can find evidence to prove otherwise. Put it this way, if people use this article to understand what evolution means in 90% of biology related articles, I don't think it is going to fit perfectly with the new changes? I think that creates a dilemma. I hope other Wikipedians will chip in.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 18:12, 28 August 2026 (UTC)

So I'm going to again ask you what your background in biology is, to justify you presenting your personal judgements of terms in biology as something I need to debate and provide citation against.

However, you should find a source?

I need a list of citations for adhereing to the consensus defintion of evolution, but you don't need citations for the defintion of evolution as changes in phenotype? As it happens, I've already given you some, including wiki articles that simply could not logically exist if the defintion required a change in phenotype.

If you can only find University coursework that is not really making a straightforward case

Is this a joke? The fact that its so settled it's in high-school (not just university) coursework shows you that you are simply not educated enough in this topic to be debating it like this. It is not a current debate in biology that evolution includes variation with no effect on phenotypes and no effect on fitness. It such a basic fact that contemporary, peer-reviewed publication delve into it, just like contemporary neurology research won't contain the phrase "the brain is in the skull".

To me it still looks like something which is happening in a part of biology though, until you can find evidence to prove otherwise.

I just showed you two educational resources meant for teenagers which state, unequivocally, that the common defintion for evolution is the heritable change in allele frequencies, so you are sea-lioning here. I also provided you with background about neutral evolution as an example which breaks the previous defintion, as some portion of evolution occurs without effects on phenotypes or fitness, thus categorically contradicting the previous version of the lead, which used "characteristics".

The situation is not a claim that needs citation, the situation is a person with no education in biology demanding that I supply citation for basic, uncontroversial facts about biology. That is sea-lioning. Citations are for specific, often numerically quantitative claims that are not part of broad consensus and accepted facts about biology.

Put it this way, if people use this article to understand what evolution means in 90% of biology related articles, I don't think it is going to fit perfectly with the new changes? I think that creates a dilemma

Since I'm kinda tired of the hyper-philosophized statements where you declare things are they way they are with literally no basis, please describe one article which works better with a defintion of evolution of changing phenotypes versus changing allele frequencies. For contrast, almost every single one of the "Key concept" articles in the population genetics template fundamentally breaks if evolution = phenotypic change, including:

• Hardy–Weinberg principle
• Genetic linkage
• Linkage disequilibrium
• Fisher's fundamental theorem
• Neutral theory
• Shifting balance theory
• Selection coefficient
• Fitness
• Heritability (which requires alleles be fundamental to heritable traits)
• Population structure
• Constructive neutral evolution

That's all except a couple, including Price's equation where you can use quantitative trait distributions intead of alleles, because it is a model parameterizing fitness and natural selection, not evolution. Mausfield (talk) 18:47, 28 August 2026 (UTC)

I asked you for a source to justify a major change. Can you please just bring sources to this discussion? This is how we work on Wikipedia. See WP:ONUS. The situation actually is a claim that needs a citation, and that has nothing to do with me personally, so don't make it personal please. I don't recall you providing any example which did not involve "phenotypes", but you did mention that the loss of epitotes would also be evolution and that seems to mean that evolution can be non-genetic? Please explain how this is consistent with the changes you've been made, without any personal attacks please. You also mentioned that "for probably about 50 years" there has been a "mainstream consensus" that a change in microsatellite repeat numbers is "absolutely" evolution, so there must be good ways to source that side claim?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 19:51, 28 August 2026 (UTC)

There are multiple issues here. The first one is how to define evolution in a Wikipedia article for the general public. What we want is a scientific definition that represents the concensus view of experts in the field. Mausfield is correct that the minimal definition of evolution is a change in allele frequencies of a population and he is correct that this covers changes such as changes in allele frequencies in junk DNA or other neutral sites.

Our goal should be to teach the general public that this is the proper minimal definition of evolution and that population genetics is the core of evolutionary theory.

Lots of scientists have struggled with the best approach to teaching this important concept and many of them have started with a somewhat more general definition of evolution that focuses of the three most important ideas; namely, that the changes must be heritable; that it is populations that evolve; and the process takes a lot of time. That's why they often have a definition like my preferred definition: "Evolution is a process that results in heritable changes in a population spread over many generations." I wrote several blog posts about this over the past 30 years ([What Is Evolution?]).

This was a good start but in previous long and tedious discussions about how to define evolution it turned out that it was still a bit too radical for most editors so we modified it a bit and came up with, "Evolution is the change in the heritable characteristics of biological populations over successive generations." The addition of "characteristics" is acceptable because we say later on that it refers to any allele.

Mausfield thinks that this restricts evolution to just changes in phenotype but that's actually a misreading of "characteristics." It was never intended to be taken in that sense. Think of it as just a way to ease the average reader into a more accurate scientific definition later on in the article.

Here's the problem. The correct scientific definition (allele frequency change) is described later on under "Evolutionary forces" but much of the article still gives the impression that phenotypic changes are the only ones that are important and that natural selection is the most important process. The whole article needs to be rewritten in order to reflect the current consensus among knowledgeable evolutionary biologists (i.e. those who understand population genetics as it was developed more than 100 years ago).

There's a lot of unnecessary garbage in the article and a lot of misleading statements that reflect the view of amatuer editors who have inserted them over the past 25 years.

I think the time has come to explain the scientific definition in more detail in the introduction. Mausfield has the right idea but I think it needs some tweeking. I still think we need to ease into the description of "allele" and not throw it out in the first sentence. Genome42 (talk) 22:00, 28 August 2026 (UTC)

Well, it is a Featured article and a Top in WP Biology and WP Genetics, so I think a rewrite might be a bit drastic (and we'd need a solid consensus). Per WP:OKFORK I can create a temp subpage and we can edit that, and then I'd say add Template:Expert needed and tag WP Bio and/or WP Genetics, and submit to peer review and see what they think. I agree there are factual and organization errors that amplify each other, and that the basic structure needs work, like there is basic layout that kind of relies on misconception to flow, such as organizing mutation as one source of variation rather than its definition to be subcategorized into duplication and other larger structural variation, etc. And pretty wild (and unreferenced) stuff like:

"About half of the mutations in the coding regions of protein-coding genes are deleterious—the other half are neutral."

Lastly:

and that population genetics is the core of evolutionary theory.

Not sure I fully agree with this, modern synthesis and all. It's certainly half the picture, but to be holistic evolutionary theory, population genetics still needs needs the jazzy part, which is everything that comes out of the pop genetics as it gives rise to non-identical organisms who interact with each other and the world around them. An inherent part of that is the physical biology of traits and environment which has nothing to do with the stats.

It's definitely a central pillar though: evolution is a statistical, retrospective description of gene pools. Gene pools exist and change because replication is imperfect (mutation), creating variants (alleles). Those variants exist in frequency distributions (allele frequencies), which change because reproduction is not identical among alleles (drift, flow, and selection). That's basically where the most basic, inclusive, and holisitic definition in the lead has to stop. Mausfield (talk) 00:30, 29 August 2026 (UTC)

If you are worried about the FA status then it is important that instead of changing the lead on its own, the lead should match what is in the body, and the body should contain solid sourcing. There also has to be sufficient consideration to allow for awkward cases whether that be epitotes or epigenetics, and there needs to be a lot of consideration of the fact that the article should explain how the word is used in all parts of biology. In most of biology, the observation of phenotypes is still part of how evolution is described, even if genetic change is presumed in the background, so non-specialist readers need to be able to see that connection. I feel that the recent changes are not user-friendly. Switching from every day words to more technical "insider" vocabulary is occasionally useful or even necessary but I am not convinced that was the case with the recent edits. --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 05:24, 29 August 2026 (UTC)

Did you review Genome42's comment? Mausfield (talk) 10:31, 29 August 2026 (UTC)

Yes. It contains new proposals about reviewing the whole article which may or may not be a good thing, but this was originally a thread about changes to the lead. That discussion is still open and is not really addressed in Genome42's post. A full review of the article might take a long time, might never happen, and might involve a lot of extra problems, but for now I would like to propose that we change the wording in the lead back to how it was (or something more similar). I see you've made a self-revert for now though, so thanks. To be clear, various points have been raised but one key practical concern I had is that the new lead was more hieratic and opaque. It is difficult for many types of reasonably educated readers by defining things in terms of alleles and removing the clear link to the way evolution is often observed by biologists in real-world animals and plants. I think this is a very important article for many different types of people.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 17:21, 29 August 2026 (UTC)

From the National Center for Science Education, "Defining Evolution" which is for educators of children.

The "allele-frequency" definition of evolution has survived to become the "standard" definition in textbooks and discussions about the nature of evolution. Here is a more-or-less random collection of quotations from various sources to illustrate how different views have developed based on this initial insight.

Peace, I'm done with this discussion. Mausfield (talk) 11:52, 4 September 2026 (UTC)

Andrew Lancaster, regarding consensus, do you now accept that the change in heritable allele frequencies, relevant to phenotypes or not, is the most broadly accepted definition of biological evolution among scientists and major academic/educational institutions? And thus that it is not in any sense me "redefining" a major term in biology. Mausfield (talk) 13:17, 15 September 2026 (UTC)

I thought you were done? The honest answer is that I am not sure about the details, but I still object to your edits. I do not claim specialist expertise but that's not really the only relevant way to look at this: (a) you have not been able to provide good sourcing (governments are WORSE than school books, especially when the government is American and the topic is evolution); (b) I have read enough to realize there is a topic called epigenetics (and indeed you mention epitotes) and also that philosophical debate about evolution covers a broader concept that is not dependent upon any specific set of chemicals being involved; (c) putting all those thing aside, wording. With all due respect (of course I can't read your mind) your push feels arrogant. The first sentences need to help as many types of people as possible - or at least people with a decent reading or education level - so they can connect it to whatever they were thinking of when they searched this topic. We are not writing a priestly work for insiders only. This is neither a school, nor an academic debating exercise. This is for better or worse one of those topics which is important in a lot of different areas (even American politician unfortunately). I see your edits and remarks above, and I fear you are quite consciously pushing to exclude people outside your area of expertise within the biology related sciences. I am hoping more Wikipedians and better sources will be come into this discussion.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 18:28, 15 September 2026 (UTC)

Andrew Lancaster With all due respect, your comments don't make a lot of sense.

You admit that you are not knowledgeable about this topic but you criticize those of us who ARE experts on this topic. You seem to want us to write an article on evolution that conforms to the views of the general public who may not understand evolution and may even reject it.

You claim that if we produce a scientifically accurate description of evolution that's like "writing a priestly work for insiders only." This is exactly the problem scientists often encounter with non-expert Wikipedia editors. You don't trust experts because they often disagree with the misconceptions of the general public and the average Wikipedia editor. Genome42 (talk) 15:18, 16 September 2026 (UTC)

I was done, but I figured another person saying the same thing may convince you to actually read comments instead of sea-lioning.

(a) you have not been able to provide good sourcing (governments are WORSE than school books, especially when the government is American and the topic is evolution)

Did you read any of the citations I gave you? Mausfield (talk) 18:34, 18 September 2026 (UTC)

You mean the one from National Center for Science Education?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 19:00, 18 September 2026 (UTC)

Okay, so you actually did not read them at all. Awesome. Very honest, very productive.

1. The National Center for Science Education is not a governmental organization, which is another huge, incorrect, and easily resolved assumption you made. It is a pro-science non-profit org, founded by a highschool science teacher and dedicated to education on evolution and climate change.

2. If you did read, you would see that link is actually a decades-spanning list of textbooks and peer-reviewed publications providing their definitions of evolution.

3. You were given other citations as well, such as from the University of California's Museum of Paleontology, many other Wikipedia pages which rely entirely on the allele frequency definition, and Genome42's blog post which also lists out textbooks and peer-reviewed articles sharing the same definition.

I'm going to directly ask you to step away from this discussion now, until you can commit to being an honest, productive participant. You are sea-lioning to the point of ridiculousness. Mausfield (talk) 13:25, 19 September 2026 (UTC)

I can't follow what you're trying to achieve with this. Is it meant to be an insult or joke? You've also posted a personal attack warning on my talk page?? I am not sure what you're trying to achieve with that either. I think you are twisting things to make some kind of point, which I can't really understand, but I also think you are missing all the most important concerns to do with the practical job of editing. You aren't being constructive. Museums, NGOs, Wikipedia editors, etc are not great sources for this type of topic. I did not claim to be making a complete list, and I think the general point would be obvious. You claim to be an academic, so would you cite those as sources in a peer-reviewed paper? Is there nothing peer-reviewed and/or highly cited in peer reviewed works about this definition change and how it applies to evolution in biology generally? Please don't rush to answer. I am NOT trying to block article improvement but we need a careful approach to this, not only concerning citations but also wording. (The best sources, if we can find them, should help with the wording.) --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 16:28, 19 September 2026 (UTC)

I can't follow what you're trying to achieve with this.

Bummer. Figure it out and then feel free to rejoin the dicussion. Mausfield (talk) 17:38, 19 September 2026 (UTC)

I don't think you have succeeded in creating any discussion on this talk page for me to RE-enter. I am the only editor who made an effort to have a discussion about your posts and you've done everything you can think of except to make discussion impossible. I see you've now opened an ANI case about this, and that also seems really strange. --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 18:47, 19 September 2026 (UTC)

No longer interested in speaking with you until you admit the many instances when you've been blatantly wrong here, and commit to actually reading what is said to you. Mausfield (talk) 19:32, 19 September 2026 (UTC)

Intrigued to see the draft on your Sandbox which opens: In biology, evolution is the change in how common different inherited mutations are in a population. Citing:

• "Defining Evolution | National Center for Science Education". ncse.ngo. Retrieved 2026-09-04. The "allele-frequency" definition of evolution has survived to become the "standard" definition in textbooks and discussions about the nature of evolution. Here is a more-or-less random collection of quotations from various sources to illustrate how different views have developed based on this initial insight.
• "Mechanisms of evolution". www.khanacademy.org. Khan Academy. Retrieved 2026-09-04. Formally, evolution is a change in allele frequencies in a population over time, so a population in Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium is not evolving. This is an educational website, so not ideal.
• Curtis, Helena; Barnes, N. Sue (1989). Biology. Internet Archive. New York, N.Y. : Worth Publishers. p. 974. ISBN 978-0-87901-394-3. In fact, evolution can be precisely defined as any change in the frequency of alleles within a gene pool from one generation to the next. A textbook from 1989
• Futuyma, Douglas J. (1998). Evolutionary biology. Internet Archive. Sunderland, Mass. : Sinauer Associates. p. 4. ISBN 978-0-87893-189-7. Biological (or organic) evolution is change in the properties of populations of organisms or groups of such populations, over the course of generations. The development, or ontogeny, of an individual organism is not considered evolution: individual organisms do not evolve. The changes in populations that are considered evolutionary are those that are 'heritable' via the genetic material from one generation to the next. Another old textbook. Definition implies something similar to current version, not "alelles".
• Hall, Brian K. (Brian Keith) (2008). Strickberger's evolution : the integration of genes, organisms and populations. Internet Archive. Sudbury, Mass. : Jones and Bartlett. p. 4. ISBN 978-0-7637-0066-9. Because evolution acts at genetic, organismal and population levels, a definition ideally should reflect evolution at all three levels. In many respects, Darwin's concept of descent with modification remains an inclusive definition of (biological) evolution. Evolution is descent with modification, encompassing evolutionary change at genetic, organismal and/or population levels. This comment is really relevant to the discussion on the Evolution talk page, and seems similar to some of the concerns being raised!--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 19:19, 19 September 2026 (UTC)

I note the article has an entire subsection on epigenetics and other sources of variation, and the "Heredity" section notes, with a source, The complete set of observable traits that make up the structure and behaviour of an organism is called its phenotype. Some of these traits come from the interaction of its genotype with the environment while others are neutral. If there are more recent sources stating definitively that evolution is about allele frequency and not characteristics, we'd need quite a few high-quality sources per WP:EXTRAORDINARY. I note that while Mausfield has claimed they provided sources, the only I saw on my quick perusal of this discussion two: both are teaching aides, and both don't say the definition is a change in allele frequency, but that it is commonly defined thus. If there are more sources, please present them, ideally with a quote and a link to the source. EducatedRedneck (talk) 16:30, 20 September 2026 (UTC)

Excuse me? What, exactly, are you suggesting? Are you actually challenging the idea that changes in allele frequencies in a population do not count as evolution? Do you not realize that this idea dates back to the 1920s and the development of population genetics? It formed the basis of the modern synthesis of evolution and its subsequent expansions.

The entire field of molecular evolution (my area of expertise) is based on the fact that evolution is defined as a change in the frequency of alleles in a population. This is standard textbook stuff - it does not require any "extraordinary" sources.

Here's a quote from the Wikipedia entry on Population genetics.

The original, modern synthesis view of population genetics assumes that mutations provide ample raw material, and focuses only on the change in frequency of alleles in a population. The main processes influencing allele frequencies are natural selection, genetic drift, gene flow, and recurrent mutation.

Why don't you pop on over there and demand extraordinary sources and see what happens? :-)

Or, you could take your chances on the talk page of the Genetic Drift article where it says,

In natural populations, genetic drift and natural selection do not act in isolation; both phenomena are always at play, together with mutation and migration. Neutral evolution is the product of both mutation and drift, not of drift alone. Similarly, even when selection overwhelms genetic drift, it can act only on variation that mutation provides.

While natural selection has a direction, guiding evolution towards heritable adaptations to the current environment, genetic drift has no direction and is guided only by the mathematics of chance. As a result, drift acts upon the genotypic frequencies within a population without regard to their phenotypic effects. In contrast, selection favors the spread of alleles whose phenotypic effects increase survival and/or reproduction of their carriers, lowers the frequencies of alleles that cause unfavorable traits, and ignores those that are neutral.

If you are feeling particularly bold you could challenge the Wikipedia editors on what they say in the Molecular evolution article.

Genetic drift is the change of allele frequencies from one generation to the next due to stochastic effects of random sampling in finite populations. These effects can accumulate until a mutation becomes fixed in a population. For neutral mutations, the rate of fixation per generation is equal to the mutation rate per replication. A relatively constant mutation rate thus produces a constant rate of change per generation (molecular clock).

Slightly deleterious mutations with a selection coefficient less than a threshold value of 1 / the effective population size can also fix. Many genomic features have been ascribed to accumulation of nearly neutral detrimental mutations as a result of small effective population sizes. With a smaller effective population size, a larger variety of mutations will behave as if they are neutral due to inefficiency of selection.

Good luck with that! Genome42 (talk) 19:43, 20 September 2026 (UTC)

Genome42 please read it more carefully. The question is how to carefully word (and source) a long standing definition in an important article. No one has implied that allele evolution is NOT evolution. But is ALL evolution, and indeed all inheritable change, by definition only caused by alleles? There is certainly a long standing tradition that it is inheritable traits which are what gets something called evolution. (Indeed evolution the concept existed before DNA was discovered.) You are right that in the 20th century DNA was discovered and seen as THE definition of everything hereditary, to put it in simple words. I think however traditional definitions of evolution itself have often (not always) allowed for other forms of heredity, and I think there are also at least some people who believe they exist. More to the point for a true definition, it is common to think "philosophically" in terms of extremes. If we discover an alien tomorrow who inherits characteristics through another chemical pathway, is this then by definition not evolution? If we had never discovered DNA, and people were still studying evolution, would we say they were not studying the same topic as we study since the discovery of DNA? And so on. I only mention such philosophical questions as a reminder that we are hear talking a definition question, rather than a biological discovery as such. In any case there are surely good published sources out there about this very matter. It would be better to be looking at those.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 20:01, 20 September 2026 (UTC)

Andrew Lancaster said, "No one has implied that allele evolution is NOT evolution."

Good. Then he said, "But is ALL evolution, and indeed all inheritable change, by definition only caused by alleles?"

Yes. That's the point of a definition. We are not going to say that evolution is a change in the frequency of alleles in a population, except for the times when it isn't.

Is this good enough for you?

In this book, we will use a very simple and unequivocal definition. Evolution, according to this definition, is the process of change in the genetic makup of populations, that is, a change in genotype and allele frequencies. By providing an exact and measurable definition of evolution, we can apply strict scientific methodology to what is essentially a historical process.

        Molecular and Genome Evolution by Dan Graur (2016)

If you think there are other forms of heredity that are relevant to evolution but don't involve DNA/RNA and alleles then feel free to propose them here along with your extraordinary sources and I'll take the time to show you why you those sources are wrong. Genome42 (talk) 20:27, 20 September 2026 (UTC)

Are you actually challenging the idea that changes in allele frequencies in a population do not count as evolution? No, and I don't appreciate the tone which I read as snide. It should be clear that nobody here is saying changing allele frequency is not evolution. What is being said is that there are sources which suggest it is not the ONLY criteria for evolution. All squares are rectangles, but not all rectangles are squares. We're saying, "Maybe we shouldn't claim a rectangle has 4 equal sides" and are being met with "Are you saying a square isn't a rectangle?!"

I'll also point out that none of your provided sources have said that evolution is defined as a change in allele frequency. You have provided a book, written by a molecular biologist, saying that for that book, evolution is defined thus. But 1) that is a very narrow usage of that working definition, and 2) I am supremely unsurprised by a molecular biologist claiming that evolution is defined by allele frequency changes. Just as I'd be unsurprised, and unconvinced, by a quantum physicist claiming that the only true physics take waveforms into consideration.

Finally, what I think doesn't matter. What you think doesn't matter. The only thing that matters is what WP:RS say. We have RS defining evolution vis a vis heritable traits. I have not seen a mainstream academic source presented which says the definition (n.b.: not a definition, or this definition) of evolution is vis a vis allele frequency.

If you would like to discuss more, I'll happily respond to any professional message. If there's more attitude and what I perceive as condescension, I've made a good faith effort to discuss and can simply hold my objection. After all, the long-standing consensus on this page is that evolution is defined vis a vis traits, not alleles, and all that has to be done to maintain this is for people to say they are unconvinced. EducatedRedneck (talk) 00:09, 21 September 2026 (UTC)

In answer to the question I think EducatedRedneck's explanation is correct. (And isn't it obvious?) I would also like to mention that this whole thread's practical reason for existence seems increasingly unclear. Is any specific edit still being proposed? A lot of the thread seems like one or two individuals letting off steam about the "stupidity" of other editors. (See ) It is not clear what is being proposed and on what basis. For any field including biology there are going to be highly cited authorities who discuss the definitions and "philosophy" of central terms of the whole big field. Furthermore we all know that many ideas about how evolution works, and indeed how the term can be used, have, erm, evolved since the 20th century. Epigenetics has been mentioned several times as a concern in this thread. How are we to handle that topic?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 04:26, 21 September 2026 (UTC)

@Andrew Lancaster asked about epigenetics and how we are going to handle it in a Wikipedia article on evolution.

We are going to link to Epigenetics where the topic is covered and where readers will learn that epigenetics by itself has very little to do with evolution because epigenetic modifications are secondary phenomena caused by transcription factors that bind to specific DNA sequences and any changes in that process require mutations in the genes for transcription factors or the regulatory DNA biding site. Those changes, not epigenetics, cause evolution.

This will require editing and correcting the Epigenetics article. There's a lot of work that needs to be done by experts who understand these topics. Genome42 (talk) 21:39, 21 September 2026 (UTC)

Wikipedia does not settle disputes between reliable sources. Some reliable sources report that epigenetic driven evolution occurs. It would be a violation of NPOV to exclude that information from this article.

For the record, pure epimutations do exist (e.g. Linaria vulgaris), so your claim is strictly not correct. Katzrockso (talk) 03:26, 22 September 2026 (UTC)

Epimutations in L. vulgaris are not themselves evolution. They may cause evolution to occur when they correlate with alleles containing nucleotides more likely to epimutate (which is the actual context in this case), but that is still a change in allele frequencies. Pure epimutations cannot enrich over evolutionary time because their inheritance is not durable and they change within a lifespan, eg at germination, similar problem to horizontalism.

It's like how a wildfire can cause evolution to occur, but evolution is not the change in the number of wildfires over time. Mausfield (talk) 10:30, 23 September 2026 (UTC)

@EducatedRedneck says, "the long-standing consensus on this page is that evolution is defined vis a vis traits."

We've pretty much eliminated that error because you can have plenty of evolution without changing anything that can be reasonably identified as a "trait" and because some traits don't have a genetic component.

The current opening statement refers to "characteristics" but that still leaves some ambiguity when dealing with changes in the frequencies of neutral alleles in an evolving population. That's why I propose introducing the more precise, scientific, definition ("change in the frequency of alleles") later on in the introduction. Genome42 (talk) 21:49, 21 September 2026 (UTC)

I don't recall anyone showing a consensus against the longstanding version, so if that is indeed an error, it has yet to be eliminated.

I feel like you may be missing the core point of Wikipedia. Wikipedia is about verfiability, not truth. I believe that you feel that what you're saying is true. Heck, I even agree. The problem is that we need sources to say that. We can't say it just because we believe it to be true. That's why we've repeatedly asked for sources; there is no amount of argumentation you could make here which would change what Wikipedia says. You're an expert in the field, however, so you're uniquely well-placed to know where to find some outstanding sources. I'd suggest literature reviews; those are the gold standard for WP:RS. If you find 2 or 3 which describe Evolution unambiguously as the change in the allele frequencies of biological populations over successive generations (or something synonomous) then making this change would be trivial.

Does that make sense? I keep hearing you argue that defining evolution by heritable characteristics is wrong, but WP:OR explicitly forbids us from using our own logic and argumentation to change an article. Which has got to be frustrating, since as an expert, it likely feels like you're trying to argue the sky is blue and others insist the article say, "The sky is a Luminiferous aether of ultraviolet coloration..." Does this help you understand where I'm coming from? Have I misunderstood your own stance? EducatedRedneck (talk) 23:41, 21 September 2026 (UTC)

Earlier in this discussion, weight was put on the University of California's Museum of Paleontology's "Understanding Evolution" educational program and on the National Center for Science Education's material as both employing the definition of evolution as a change in allele frequencies. But the former has

Biological evolution, simply put, is descent with inherited modification. This definition encompasses everything from small-scale evolution (for example, changes in the frequency of different gene versions in a population from one generation to the next) to large-scale evolution (for example, the descent of different species from a shared ancestor over many generations).

The latter has

These examples illustrate that there is a wide range of approaches to defining evolution and that "experts" disagree over what to emphasize in their definitions. Some think that genes are a very good place to start, while others insist that important concepts about evolution are not captured in allele-frequency definitions.

The definition of evolution as a change in allele frequencies is, according to the former's list of conceps, how "Evolution is often defined", avoiding describing it as the sole or most appropriate definition. It's a prevailing definition of evolution in molecular biology, but it is not the sole prevailing definition in life sciences and should not be presented as such in this article. NebY (talk) 09:48, 21 September 2026 (UTC)

@NebY Here are the essential elements of change that are required in order to label that change as "evolution."

1. Populations evolve, not idividuals.

2. The change must be genetic, or heritable.

Thus, in order to claim that what you are seeing is actually evolution you must demonstrate that it affects the population and that there is a genetic component.

So, when someone says that evolution is "descent with inherited modification" it is assumed that both criteria are fulfilled. In other words, what you are observing is a "change in the heritable characteristics of a biological population over time." That's the definition that's in the current version of the lead. (Just saying "descent with modification" is wrong because some modifications don't have a genetic component.)

That definition works for most people who have a superficial view of evolution and it works for most biologists who are studying plants and animals in the wild as long as you can provide convincing evidence that the "characteristics" you are observing have a genetic component.

But things get a bit messy when you look at what's happening at the molecular level. Then you see lots of genetic changes that are neutral and have no effect on the phenotype of the organisms in a population. The question is whether this is really evolution or something else.

In the past, many biologists (e.g. Ernst Mayr, Richard Dawkins) claimed that this didn't count as evolution even though it fulfilled the two criteria . Their claim was based, in part, on the belief that evolution had to require changes in the phenotype of organisms. In other words, they believed that "heritable characteristics" had to be something that you can see. I think that's how most people interpret the word "characteristics" - they don't apply that word to invisible neutral alleles that have no observable effect.

I think it's fair to say that this controversy has been resolved and the vast majority of scientists, including Richard Dawkins, now agree that changes in neutral alleles is evolution.

It's important to let Wikipedia readers know that this is also evolution since it's the basis of the molecular clock and is an essential element of evolutionary theory. It's even a major component of explanations that ultimately involve visible phenotypes. In fact, many visible phenotypes are neutral with respect to fitness.

We can now follow the genetic changes in a population as it evolves and this includes changes in the relative frequencies of beneficial, neutral, and detrimental alleles. All these changes may come under the definition of "changes in the heritable characteristics" but that wasn't obvious in the past and it's not obvious today.

This is why the scientists who work on population genetics and molecular evolution have come up with a much more scientific and precise definition that covers all types of evolution; "change in the frequency of alleles in a population."

There is no type of evolution that doesn't absolutely require changes in allele frequency in a population. In many cases you don't know the alleles or their exact frequency but you must infer that this is happening and, ideally, provide evidence.

That's why this is the very best MINIMAL definition of evolution that resolves all cases that are controversial.

There's lots of discussion about genes, genetics, alleles, and alle frequencies in the main body of the current article because previous editors knew that this is the fundamental process of evolution. (Some of those discussions need to be edited.) I think it's important to introduce the minimal scientific definition in the lead so that readers will know about it. As you know, most readers never get beyond the first few paragraphs of a lengthy scientific article. Genome42 (talk) 21:23, 21 September 2026 (UTC)

There is no type of evolution that doesn't absolutely require changes in allele frequency in a population. That is one perspective, but it certainly isn't the only perspective from reliable sources. There has been a host of literature on non genetic inheritance arguing otherwise - Developmental systems theory work in evolutionary theory has been increasing in recent years. Katzrockso (talk) 03:17, 22 September 2026 (UTC)

As EducatedRedneck says above, Wikipedia relies on sources and not on what editors know, and to now dismiss a source previously presented as reliable in arguing for the allele definition is problematic. That "things get a bit messy when you look at what's happening at the molecular level" does not mean we need to tell Wikipedia readers that a definition that works (is held by many to work) at the molecular level is the sole correct definition; at the least, we need sources that indicate this is the modern consensus in other relevant life sciences outside molecular biology as well as among molecular biologists, and we need this to be satisfactorily addressed in the article body per WP:LEAD.

Opening the article with that definition as here would still be problematic. There's sound guidance throughout WP:LEAD but I'll highlight

It gives the basics in a nutshell, introduces the article, and cultivates interest in reading on, though not by teasing the reader or hinting at what follows. It should be written in a clear, accessible style with a neutral point of view.

and in MOS:INTRO

Editors should avoid lengthy paragraphs and overly specific descriptions – greater detail is saved for the body of the article. Where possible, avoid difficult-to-understand terminology, symbols, mathematical equations and formulas.

Like it or not, much of our general audience won't know what an allele is, won't understand evolution any better for reading that sentence, and will be deterred from reading on and learning more. All that would be clear would be that the article wasn't written for them.

There are many ways to approach such a situation. The 2019 SI redefinitions of the metre, kilogram and second are metrological wonders and it's most impressive that international consensus has been achieved on such fundamental matters, but the definitions are also impenetrable for ordinary people. Instead, our articles on them and other units - with many variations - describe the units before providing the current definitions. Such an approach is taken by those University of California's Museum of Paleontology's pages on evolution too: open with "simply put", go deeper later. We might have "a more precise definition, at the molecular level, is" or similar - but not as the first or the second sentence. It might not even work in the first paragraph. NebY (talk) 16:34, 22 September 2026 (UTC)

It's interesting that you say "like it or not", and then present a totally unsubstantiated opinion that the average reader is incapable of learning a new term in an article about evolution, in which they will learn 50 other new terms you presumably have no issue with. Mausfield (talk) 16:36, 22 September 2026 (UTC)

I haven't written that the average reader is incapable of learning a new term or suggested it. NebY (talk) 16:42, 22 September 2026 (UTC)

Doubtless some readers are like that. I know plenty who are not. Regardless, the two cited MOS entries are part of Wikipedia guidelines, whether you agree with them or not. Arguing against them here is like arguing with a traffic cop that the speed limit makes no sense; you may even be right, but the side of the road isn't the venue and the officer isn't the party with which to debate it. EducatedRedneck (talk) 16:42, 22 September 2026 (UTC)

I'm not arguing against MOS policies. I'm arguing against you arbitrating what content does and does not violate them based on nothing but a declarative statement.

The allele frequency definition is used in textbooks for children. It is perfectly simple enough for Wikipedia. Mausfield (talk) 16:53, 22 September 2026 (UTC)

Maybe a better way to phrase it (because I do actually agree with your point on accessibility) is: if we are not permitted to use terms people aren't already familiar with, then this article is going to be like one paragraph long and of zero informative value. Mausfield (talk) 16:56, 22 September 2026 (UTC)

If we're arbitrating how the MOS applies, you are, too. That's actually good; as editors, we're supposed to try to figure out how to best apply it, so thank you for your part in making sure we abide by the MOS.

I think it's better to back away from that "fully technical or 3rd grade level" binary thinking. It's not all-or-nothing. "Heritable traits" is supported by sources, and seems accurate enough for an introductory sentence. I understand you believe it is incorrect; the key for that is to present, ideally in Wikipedia-style citations and with quotes, the sources you feel show this. Because ultimately, you can argue forever, but unless other editors are shown the WP:RS which back it up, not merely faced with claims they exist, you won't get any traction. It's frustrating as hell, especially for folks like us with academic backgrounds, but Wikipedia is an odd duck that doesn't care about truth, only about verifiability. EducatedRedneck (talk) 17:08, 22 September 2026 (UTC)

@EducatedRedneck I'm not sure if you understand the depth and seriousness of the underlying problem.

It's all very nice to say that Wikipedia requires reliable sources but how are you going to figure out which sources are reliable unless you have an in depth knowledge of the subject? We all know that books, the popular press, scientific publications, and the internet are full of misinformation so if those are your only standards for reliable sources then this discussion is hopeless because we can easily come up with half a dozen conflicting definitions of evolution.

You think that "heritable traits" is the term that should be included in the definition but I've given you a good explanation of why that is wrong - it's because neutral alleles do not cause traits and all the molecular time scales that you read about every day are based on the evolution of neutral alleles and not "traits."

What I'm saying is that any sources that define evolution solely in terms of physical characteristics (traits) are unreliable. They are NOT reliable sources because they conflict with the consensus view of knowledgeable evolutionary biologists. But how would you know this unless you have invested a lot of time and effort into studying evolution?

As support for my claim I've given you a "reliable source" from a book written by a world-famous population geneticist who specializes in evolution and evolutionary theory. You dismiss his definition. Why?

The National Center for Science Education is a non-profit American organization whose goal is promote the proper teaching of evolution. It has been doing this for half a century. Please read the report on Defining Evolution that it published in 2001 (25 years ago).

The "allele-frequency" definition of evolution has survived to become the "standard" definition in textbooks and discussions about the nature of evolution. Here is a more-or-less random collection of quotations from various sources to illustrate how different views have developed based on this initial insight.

The article then goes on to list several reliable sources from the 1980s and 1990s. Today, of course, there are lots more recent reliable sources.

This report is interesting because it goes on to discuss some of the issues with the allele frequency definition. The important point is that NCSE states, correctly, that it has become the standard definition in textbooks on evolution.

Do you and the others on this thread accept NCSE as a "reliable source" and do you accept the quotes from leading textbooks as "reliable sources"?

How about this description of Evolution from the now-defunct teaching website of the journal Nature, the world's leading science journal.

The study of evolution can be performed on different scales. Microevolution reflects changes in DNA sequences and allele frequencies within a species over time. These changes may be due to mutations, which can introduce new alleles into a population. In addition, new alleles can be introduced in a population by gene flow, which occurs during breeding between two populations that carry unique alleles. In contrast with microevolution, macroevolution reflects large-scale changes at the species level, which result from the accumulation of numerous small changes on the microevolutionary scale. An example of macroevolution is the evolution of a new species.

Would it help if we introduced the term microevolution in the lead and linked to Microevolution where it says,

Microevolution is the change in allele frequencies that occurs over time within a population. This change is due to four different processes: mutation, selection (natural and artificial), gene flow and genetic drift. This change happens over a relatively short (in evolutionary terms) amount of time compared to the changes termed macroevolution.

We could then briefly explain that all valid forms of evolution at large scales involve microevolution although it may not be sufficient to explain macroevolution. Genome42 (talk) 22:44, 22 September 2026 (UTC)

Okay, I think I hear what you're saying. You're disputing the reliability of the sources used for the longstanding definition. Here's a couple problems with that.

1. You dispute it solely based on their conclusions. This sounds like a WP:POVPUSH.
2. Your argument for why they're reliable is because you say they're wrong. But again, you're a stranger on the internet; why should anyone on Wikipedia trust your word over a well-known publisher?
3. If you want to dispute the reliability of those sources, you need to first identify them, then take them to WP:Reliable sources/Noticeboard. Because there is a clear and apparently irreconcilable difference on their reliability on this article talk page, RSN is the next step to get broader community input.

I warn you that I doubt you'll get much support there. We tend to evaluate sources based on their credentials, editorial oversight, and the like.

Two other concerns:

• Your user page suggests you have a background in biochemistry with an interest in molecular biology. That suggests that the lens with which you're examining things is one naturally predisposed toward the definition you advocate. This doesn't mean you're wrong, but it does mean that you're more likely to hold this view even if it weren't correct, in the same way my background makes me more likely to hold certain view about agent based models, even if those views were incorrect.
• This is exemplified in the NCSE source you cite. After describing BOTH definitions in dispute here, it says, Notice that some say that observable change in the frequencies of alleles is sufficient to define evolution, while others, such as Futuyma, think it necessary to go into more detail. For the purpose at hand, the dispute is unimportant. It goes on to say, These examples illustrate that there is a wide range of approaches to defining evolution and that "experts" disagree over what to emphasize in their definitions. Some think that genes are a very good place to start, while others insist that important concepts about evolution are not captured in allele-frequency definitions. However, when it comes down to the nature of the evolutionary process, much of this is a matter of semantics — what to spell out and what to leave implicit. Despite the superficial differences in these descriptions, the apparent disagreements do not usually entail differences of opinion about what happened in the course of evolution, at least not in broad outline. It even says near the conclusion, The important thing to recognize is that we must consider the phenomenon of evolution simultaneously at many levels — the ecological, climatological, geological and developmental, as well as genetic.

Basically, even your own source says that your definition is needlessly restrictive.

Regarding textbooks, as I said above, a literature review is preferable; textbooks are acceptable but not authoritative. I'd trust a recent lit review peer reviewed by the scientific community over a textbook edited by its 3 authors and 4 publisher tech writers any day. EducatedRedneck (talk) 00:12, 23 September 2026 (UTC)

Can you give me an example of evolutionary change in a real, natural population where the allele frequency definition is insufficient? Mausfield (talk) 09:10, 23 September 2026 (UTC)

The quote above (begins "The important thing...") is an RS saying why it is insufficient. EducatedRedneck (talk) 11:01, 23 September 2026 (UTC)

From the current lead of Genetic drift: "Genetic drift is the change in the frequency of an existing allele in a population due to chance."

ref: https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(11)00882-7 Mausfield (talk) 10:08, 23 September 2026 (UTC)

That's an argument for the definition of genetic drift, not evolution. EducatedRedneck (talk) 11:02, 23 September 2026 (UTC)

"Traits" is fundamentally the worst part about the current lead, and the most in-conflict with the most widespread and accepted definition, which is allele frequencies and is sometimes simplified to "change over generations" for young children. We use allele frequencies for a single, critically important reason: they include neutral evolution, which "traits" excludes. "Traits" directly suggest that all evolution affects the phenotype, which the fact is mathematically opposite: most evolution occurs in neutral fitness space.

I would even be happy with excluding the term allele for the first sentence (if you like you can check the article fork I have in my Sandbox, where this is the case), but including "traits" is just categorically wrong. The pervasiveness of this misconception in the lay public is (as evidenced by this discussion) extremely widespread.

https://www.edutopia.org/article/teaching-stronger-definition-evolution

Also, your suggestion that bio textbooks are somehow less reviewed than articles is way, way off. It may be the case in econ, I have no experience in that realm. Genome42 can personally tell you about this, he has helmed several undergrad introductory bio textbooks. The amout of review that goes into them is immense, and they are beholden to presenting information in the most consensus-driven way possible, which is of course the opposite of an individual article where disruptive opinions are often favorable for hype reasons.

In the rare instances you see "traits" from legitimate sources, they're using it in the technical capacity where it doesn't actually mean the phenotype, as it does when 99% of the general population hears the term:

Evolution is defined as the change in the inherited traits of a population of organisms through successive generations. When living organisms reproduce, they pass on to their progeny a collection of traits. These traits may be tangible and obvious, such as the patterns in a butterfly's wing or the number of scales on a crocodile, but they also include characteristics as relatively anonymous as the sequence of nucleotide bases that make up an organism's DNA. In fact, when we talk about evolutionary inheritance, the latter is what we are actually referring to: the transfer of genetic sequences from one generation to the next. When particular genetic sequences change in a population (e.g., via mutation) and these changes are inherited across successive generations, this is the stuff of evolution.

https://www.nature.com/scitable/knowledge/library/evolution-is-change-in-the-inherited-traits-15164254/ Mausfield (talk) 09:30, 23 September 2026 (UTC)

First, you'd have to provide a compelling source that says bio textbooks are reviewed by more scientists than an article in a prestigious publication. By "reviewed", I mean viewed by other scientists who have an opportunity to submit corrections, typically by submitting a response to the article in the journal.

Second, the quote you provided begins, Evolution is defined as the change in the inherited traits of a population of organisms through successive generations. That directly supports the longstanding definition. I see that there's more text after it, but it begins with an explicit endorsement. EducatedRedneck (talk) 11:06, 23 September 2026 (UTC)

It is only an explicit endorsement if you for some reason chose to ignore the rest of quote, where it explicitly specifies that in fact its not "traits" alone, but allele frequencies because the latter includes variation which does not result in trait variation. ie, the latter is the more proper and inclusive definition. In a niche, very technical and TBH outdated usage you can use "traits" to include neutral genetic variation eg in non-coding regions, but so far the main arguments against my suggestion have been that alleles is too jargony, so now your suggestion is the flipped, invoking a far more niche and technical terminology than I was.

You simply will not see microsatellites and the like described as "traits" in any mainstream biological literature in the last 50 years I'd say. Genome42 may be the better person to answer when that usage of "traits" fell out of favor among working biologists, but it has never been in the common parlance. Traits = phenotype, including molecular. eg blood type antigens are trait variation, but STRs are almost universally excluded from "traits", which is a problem because neutral variation is still evolution, ie genetic drift. Mausfield (talk) 18:32, 23 September 2026 (UTC)

Just noting that the above is clear WP:SYNTH, which states, do not combine different parts of one source to state or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by that source. You are attempting to combine that it makes a definition in one spot, then emphasizes alleles as "the stuff of evolution" in another, to mean the definition is alleles. Please be sure your sources explicity state what you advocate. EducatedRedneck (talk) 19:07, 23 September 2026 (UTC)

But is ALL evolution, and indeed all inheritable change, by definition only caused by alleles?

Describe an example of biological evolution which is not the change in allele frequencies over generations. Mausfield (talk) 09:37, 23 September 2026 (UTC)

You were given the example of Linaria vulgaris above, no?  Tewdar  09:44, 23 September 2026 (UTC)

No, I was not. L. vulgaris was listed as an example of epimutation.

Epigenetics is fundamental to cell differentiation as it enables cells with identical genomes to adopt distinct fates. Some epigenetic information can also be transmitted between generations, in a process known as transgenerational epigenetic inheritance. This means that potentially epigenetic differences between individuals could contribute to diversity and thus be acted upon by evolution. These epigenetic differences are termed epimutations by analogy to the well-characterized DNA sequence mutations that underpin the standard model of evolution. Here, we evaluate the properties of epimutation, discussing their rate, genome-wide distribution, stability, and effects. Focusing on epimutations in animals, particularly the nematode C. elegans, we explore how epimutations compare to DNA sequence mutations in their potential to influence the processes of drift and natural selection that characterize evolution.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12993070/

Epimutation is still based on DNA sequences, as nucleotides are not equally methylated, etc. In other words, evolution likely does act on mutations which provide a new nucleotide with an altered propensity to epimutate (which is the situation with L. vulgaris), but that is still an allele. This is yet another example of non-experts misunderstanding a very technical topic and completely misusing citations, thinking they support an argument when they in fact explicitly work against it. Further, epimutations are not heritable, only the DNA sequences which may become methylated, etc, is inherited. Thus if an epimutation has effects in a fitness landscape, that effect is ultimately translated through a nucleotide. Plus this is a crazy niche topic, the argument against the allele definition was originally that it was too jargony, now people are throwing in stuff that is literally cutting edge and highly controversial. How is that simpler than the allele definition which as filled almost all textbooks and research articles for 50+ years?

However, if someone really wanted to die on this hill, I would be happy to swap "allele" for "heritable mutation", which is in fact already the case on the fork of this article I'm writing in my Sandbox. My real fear here is that the current lead provides support to the pan-adaptationist attitude I'm seeing become more and more popular on social media, especially with the weirdos trying to force what they think is evolutionary reasoning into their attacks on the marginalized. Its effectively "survival of the fittest" resurrected if you define evolution as purely based on "traits" and the phenotype. Mausfield (talk) 10:05, 23 September 2026 (UTC)

Why not "heritable variation"?  Tewdar  10:12, 23 September 2026 (UTC)

Allele is literally a synonym for a genetic variant. This is precisely what Genome42 and I are arguing for. Mausfield (talk) 10:18, 23 September 2026 (UTC)

I think it's a fairly neat way of sidestepping the issues surrounding the underlying mechanisms, nicely summarised in this book. Which, by the way, gives us the following: In simple terms, evolution can be defined as the transgenerational transformation of organizations due to differential reproduction that is due to selection or genetic drift. What do you think?  Tewdar  12:20, 23 September 2026 (UTC)

As much as I love the idea, that book seems to be coming at it from an approach of, "Let's reject the mainstream definition; here's one that works better." But for the opening sentence, we should be describing what the mainstream view is. EducatedRedneck (talk) 19:03, 23 September 2026 (UTC)

The mainstream view is what Mausfield, Genome42, and cyclopia are saying - change in allele frequencies within a population over successive generations 🙂  Tewdar  23:11, 23 September 2026 (UTC)

That's great! And how is a reader to verify that? It should be trivial to find sources which say this explicitly. All it would take is someone presenting 2 or 3 lit reviews in Bio journals that consistently say, "Evolution is the change in allele frequency over successive generations" or something that means virtually the same. Heck, given that the two sources cited are National Academy of Science and a book, I think we could even make something similar work. I don't understand why it's so difficult to produce such sources if it really is the prevailing definition. That really is the easy way out of this discussion; just source it well. EducatedRedneck (talk) 00:11, 24 September 2026 (UTC)

[Behaviour, Evolution and Life Histories https://link-springer-com.wikipedialibrary.idm.oclc.org/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-82879-0_3] Evolution is defined as “change of gene frequencies within a population”

[Organization in Biology https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-031-38968-9] The Modern Synthesis reconciled Darwin’s theory of natural selection with Mendelian genetics through population genetics and put forward a reconceptualization of evolution as the change in allele frequencies in a population

Evolution "On Purpose": Teleonomy in Living Systems The neo-Darwinian definition of natural selection has always tended to be narrow, gene-centered, and circular. Evolution is defined as “a change in gene frequencies” in a given “deme,” or breeding population, and natural selection is defined as a “mechanism” which produces changes in gene frequencies. As the biologist John H. Campbell put it in a review: “Changes in the frequencies of alleles by natural selection are evolution” (Campbell, 1994, 86).

Now, personally, I'd actually prefer something like Evolution is any change in the distribution of heritable variation within a population across successive generations which is not wrong, less technical sounding, and mechanism agnostic. But the 'standard' definition is what I've given above, there are probably hundreds of good sources that would say pretty much the same thing...  Tewdar  08:26, 24 September 2026 (UTC)

[Diversity, Ancestry, and Evolution The Genetics of Human Populations In population genetics, evolution is defined as a change in allele frequencies over time.  Tewdar  08:36, 24 September 2026 (UTC)

Evolution and the Emergence of Complex Organisms And the population perspective also led to a population genetic definition of evolution as: the change in allele frequencies in a population over generations. This fusion of population thinking and genetics has been very successful in predicting genetic change. But it has a very high level of abstraction because it focuses on populations and the relative abundance of particular alleles.  Tewdar  08:57, 24 September 2026 (UTC)

What’s wrong with the modern evolutionary synthesis? A critical reply to Welch (2017) (some nice criticisms in here too) Inevitably, the evolutionary approach of the discipline (population genetics) that won the no-holds-barred pre-paradigmatic competition—and, ipso facto, that of the MS [modern evolutionary synthesis] itself—was also somewhat distorted, lopsided or skewed: it identified ‘evolution’ with its genetic dimension and, more particularly, with changes in allele frequencies. As Dobzhansky (1937, p. 11) put it: “Since evolution is a change in the genetic composition of populations, the mechanisms of evolution constitute problems of population genetics.” This became the standard or default meaning of ‘evolution’ in the MS.  Tewdar  11:37, 24 September 2026 (UTC)

These are fantastic! This last one especially not only states the definition, but that it's mainstream. I wouldn't include the fourth, as it's defining the term in the subset of population genetics, but the last plus the first and maybe the second to last should be more than sufficient for the change. Thanks so much for doing the work and providing sources that address the definition. I withdraw my objections on the basis of sourcing, and as I mentioned elsewhere, I'd rather be verifiable to a source than use accessible language, if I had to chose.

I would prefer alleles to variation, as variation could lend itself to misconception. (E.g., someone imagining variation just meant cosmetic variation, or different behaviors, both of which could be environmental rather than genetic.) EducatedRedneck (talk) 11:48, 24 September 2026 (UTC)

They are good sources that state the standard model accurately... Any nuance and dissent can either be hedged in the lede ("can be defined as, but...") , or dumped in the body if that's too messy... 🙂  Tewdar  11:58, 24 September 2026 (UTC)

Up until epimutations were understood as canonical molecular biology, alleles meant nucleotide variants. Now, some people suggest epimutations should be included in "alleles". This is a debated topic because A) they are not formally inherited and B) they seem to universally disapper after a small number of generations . However, my background is in another of the jazzier molecular areas within evolutionary theory (structural carbohydrates), so I'm lightyears away from the person who wants a restrictive definition of change. Alleles is used because its inclusive: its means variants of a type, whose frequency changes because the real world is messy.

From my sandbox fork:

In biology, evolution is the change in how common different inherited mutations are in a population. It arises inevitably from two basic realities of natural populations: individuals vary in their genetics and in their numbers of surviving offspring. Genetic variation in populations exists as differences at various locations between individual's genomes, the total set of their inherited genetic material. For a particular gene shared by the population, these variants are referred to as alleles of that gene, and the fraction of the population which carries each allele as its allele frequency. As a whole, the set of alleles in a population is called the population's gene pool.

Mausfield (talk) 10:21, 23 September 2026 (UTC)

We don't have to justify why WP:RS use the words they do. We just have to follow them. I would still object to "mutations" because it remains specific to DNA, without reliable sources. The sources you provide include: 1) The NCSE source which I detailed above actually rejects the allele-based definition in the majority of the article, 2) A Khan Academy source, which has no statement on editorial oversight and I would not characterize as reliable as peer-reviewed publications. 3) Another equivocated "Evolution can be defined as..." (emphasis mine) Note, not is defined as, and the very construction of the sentence suggests this is in contrast to the prevailing definition. 4) A source that says, "evolution is change in the properties of populations..." (emphasis mine), and 5) A source which says, " In many respects, Darwin's concept of descent with modification remains an inclusive definition of (biological) evolution." Which again, seems to deliberately include but extend beyond genetics only.

I want to be very clear here. I do not care what the definition of this article reads, only that it matches the preponderance of reliable sources. EducatedRedneck (talk) 11:20, 23 September 2026 (UTC)

The NCSE link categorically does not reject the allele definition. I have no idea how you gleaned that, even from the quote you mentioned. Mausfield (talk) 13:47, 23 September 2026 (UTC)

I think I see a bit more what you're getting at. You're saying above that "allele" includes the other non nucleotide factors linked with these heritable trait changes. The issue is that this is not the common use of allele. That term is, in common parlance, specific to nucleotides.

So the statement by the NCSE of These examples illustrate that there is a wide range of approaches to defining evolution and that "experts" disagree over what to emphasize in their definitions. seems to me to be very explicit that there is not a single consistent definition of evolution, and thus your claims of the allele definition being the definitive one goes directly against this. If you cannot think of a way to interpret the quotes I provided in a way consistent with my stance, or inconsistent with your stance, I don't think there's anything left to discuss. EducatedRedneck (talk) 14:08, 23 September 2026 (UTC)

I am not saying the standard definition of allele includes non-nucleotide variation, nor did I say that. Mausfield (talk) 18:21, 23 September 2026 (UTC)

The "range" of approaches listed in the NCSE page's examples all still rely on the foundational allele frequency concept. Mausfield (talk) 18:22, 23 September 2026 (UTC)

If you cannot see how a reading of that source, in its entirety, is contrary to your definition, then we're at an impasse, because a straightforward reading of it suggests exactly that. As I said before, I don't have to convince you; the longstanding consensus is for the definition vis-a-vis traits. WP:ONUS is clear that if you want a change, you have to convince the community of it. I'm not convinced by you not acknowledging a straightforward reading of the source you supplied. EducatedRedneck (talk) 18:25, 23 September 2026 (UTC)

I mean... these are technical terms. "Straightforward" reading doesn't really apply to scientific terminology, you have to abide by the definitions used in the field. So far, there are three biologists in this discussion, and all three disagree with you.

You're in econ, right? If I were to just read a paper on quantitative easing and try to force all the technical terms therein to abide by my understanding of them as they exist in general English vernacular, as someone unedcuated in economics I would come away with lots of misunderstandings. If I then sought to disagree with working economists and favor my own understanding of those terms, I think we both agree I would not be justified in doing that. Mausfield (talk) 18:53, 23 September 2026 (UTC)

You have described the source as "for educators" and "for children". As in, for a general audience. And if they somehow are still technical terms... then they don't work as a definition for the lead of this article, which is meant to be accessible.

Regarding Econ, if you misudnerstood a term there, it would be trivial to correct you and say, "See, no, adverse selection doesn't make sense when we use 'selection' to mean evolution, but it DOES make sense if you use it to mean 'who opts in'." Or more likely, y'know... I'd link to a source that defines it clearly and unambiguously.

At this point, I think we've exhausted whatever we could say to each other. I feel that you are so married to your point of view that you cannot be swayed with any evidence. Let's just assume going forward that my silence indicates dissent. I maintain that if your definition really is standard, it should be easy to find a source which makes that definition in a way that cannot be misunderstood. EducatedRedneck (talk) 19:02, 23 September 2026 (UTC)

I mean... Page 2 of the book I linked above: The Modern Synthesis reconciled Darwin’s theory of natural selection with Mendelian genetics through population genetics and put forward a reconceptualization of evolution as the change in allele frequencies in a population (Dobzhansky, 1937)  Tewdar  19:14, 23 September 2026 (UTC)

Sorry, that probably wasn't what you were asking for at all 😂  Tewdar  19:41, 23 September 2026 (UTC)

Hi, univolved editor and former molecular biologist here, I had seen a RfC alert on my talk page. I assume the diff we're talking about is this. For what I can see, I agree with the position of User:Mausfield. I frankly do not understand the objections that have been put in this thread. Scientific consensus is quite clear on the formal definition of evolution.

However, I would keep the "Change in the heritable traits of populations" short description and the initial wording "change in the heritable characteristics of biological populations over successive generations" because it is more accessible to non-expert readers, without losing in accuracy. I endorse, instead, the edits "result in different rates of reproduction among genetic varients (or alleles), resulting in certain alleles" and "Eventually, alleles may become fixed (i.e., 100% frequency) or lost, both resulting in reduced genetic variation in a population." We could also add that such alleles can result in phenotypic changes.--cyclopia^speak! 10:49, 23 September 2026 (UTC)

I am totally fine with "characteristics" provided we contextualize that only sometimes does this make its way into the phenotype. "Traits" I take issue with, because trait = phenotype in the minds of like 99% of English speakers, so if we define evolution as the change in "traits", we are starting out having excluded the large majority of actual evolution in natural populations, which is neutral. Mausfield (talk) 18:49, 23 September 2026 (UTC)

I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on an alternative lead I wrote in a sandbox fork:

In biology, evolution is the change in how common different inherited mutations are in a population. It results when two basic realities of natural populations hold true: individuals vary in their genetics and in their numbers of surviving offspring. Genetic variation in populations exists as differences at various locations between individual's genomes, the total set of their inherited genetic material. For a particular gene shared by the population, these variants are referred to as alleles of that gene, and the fraction of the population which carries each allele as its allele frequency. Alleles may or may not be in functional regions of a genome, and thus may or may not affect the organism's physical body, or phenotype. As a whole, the complete set of alleles in a population is the population's gene pool.

Mausfield (talk) 18:58, 23 September 2026 (UTC)

For context, here's how some editors have dealt with this issue in other related articles. Note that they don't shy away from using the correct scientific term allele.

1. In biology, evolution is change in the heritable allele frequencies of biological organisms over generations due to natural selection, mutation, gene flow, and genetic drift. Outline of evolution

2. The modern evolutionary synthesis is based on the concept that populations of organisms have significant genetic variation caused by mutation and by the recombination of genes during sexual reproduction. It defines evolution as the change in allelic frequencies within a population caused by genetic drift, gene flow between sub populations, and natural selection. Introduction to evolution

3. In biology, evolution refers to observed changes in organisms over successive generations, to their descent from a common ancestor, and at a technical level to a change in gene frequency over time ... Evolution as fact and theory

4. But the central core of evolution is generally defined as changes in trait or gene frequency in a population of organisms from one generation to the next. This has been dubbed the standard genetic definition of evolution. Evolution as fact and theory

5. Genetic drift[a] is the change in the frequency of an existing allele in a population due to chance. Genetic drift may cause alleles to disappear completely and thereby reduce genetic variation. It can also cause initially rare alleles to become much more frequent possibly leading to fixation where the initially rare allele displaces all others. Genetic drift

6. Microevolution is the change in allele frequencies that occurs over time within a population. This change is due to four different processes: mutation, natural and artificial selection, gene flow and genetic drift. This change happens over a relatively short (in evolutionary terms) amount of time compared to the changes termed macroevolution. Microevolution

7. The original, modern synthesis view of population genetics assumes that mutations provide ample raw material, and focuses only on the change in frequency of alleles within populations. The main processes influencing allele frequencies are natural selection, genetic drift, gene flow and recurrent mutation. Population genetics

8. The neutral theory of evolution holds that most of the genetic variation within and between species is due to random genetic drift of mutant alleles that are selectively neutral. A neutral mutation is one that does not affect an organism's ability to survive and reproduce. Neutral theory of molecular evolution (sic)

Genome42 (talk) 22:20, 23 September 2026 (UTC)

I don't understand why you keep bringing up other articles. They're not reliable sources, per WP:Don't cite wikipedia on wikipedia. Perhaps they're wrong, or have other factors in play, or are talking about something different entirely. (E.g., microevolution, population genetics, and so on.) And probably most importantly is WP:ONEDOWN; articles about specifics can be more technical, but something as core as evolution needs to be accessible to far more readers.

Of course, this is secondary to the sourcing issue. If we had really solid sourcing for a different definition, I'd probably say "go with it" on account of being verifiable is more important than being accessible, but we need those sources first. EducatedRedneck (talk) 00:19, 24 September 2026 (UTC)

He is not using other articles as sources. He's using them to illustrate that this whole discussion is based on some people simply extremely unfamiliar with the subject they're attempting to qualitatively debate. You're asking us to cite that the sky is blue (which we have in fact done, general times). It is very frustrating, and I hope you can understand this a bit. Imagine someone continually demanded more citations that economics is the study of economies?

You yourself have continually missed that "genetic variation" is literally a synonym for alleles, and thus objectivity misunderstood some sources in the NCSE link to disagree with that definition, totally misjudging that reference.

but we need those sources first.

How many more do you need? Give me a number and a particular type of publication which would absolutely leave no doubt for you that the definition you're arguing against is in fact the uncontroversial consensus among the vast majority of working biologists, and I will provide them. I will even make sure they are from different journals and newer than 2010. Mausfield (talk) 06:48, 24 September 2026 (UTC)

Who's attempting to qualitatively debate the subject? My stance has always been, "Great, a stranger on the internet says the definition is different. Great, get me a source that says that." Tewdar did, above. It was that easy. I also asked for 2-3 lit reviews as ideal sourcing earlier, which was ignored. I never asserted that genetic variation is not a synonym for alleles. I would have gladly stipulated that. What I was saying is that the definitions that you provided discussed heritable traits, i.e., phenotype changes, not strictly genetic changes. I don't know why you keep strawmanning as if I'm an uneducated rube who's confusing two things unrelated to my actual point, which is sourcing. EducatedRedneck (talk) 11:52, 24 September 2026 (UTC)

You were absolutely right to ask for good sources that support the claim.  Tewdar  12:21, 24 September 2026 (UTC)

To be fair your sources were mostly a bit old and crappy, and you spent way too much time arguing from personal knowledge, and to boot you came across as pretty hostile and condescending.  Tewdar  12:26, 24 September 2026 (UTC)

It's frustrating that it's 2026 and this discussion is still going on. Here's an article that I wrote for the newsgroup talk.origins back on January 22, 1993.

What Is Evolution?

And here's an extended 21012 discussion of the allele frequency definition and alternatives on my blog.

What Is Evolution?

Note: I do not propose these as reliable sources in any edits that I make although they are referenced by other editors in other Wikipedia articles. Genome42 (talk) 22:49, 23 September 2026 (UTC)

Both of those links are dead, my guy.  Tewdar  15:52, 24 September 2026 (UTC)

About your alternative lede: while correct, I find it a bit hard to follow for non-expert readers. I think it is important to deal with the fact that 1)most people have a different intuitive concept of evolution, and I would lead them from the "common sense" idea to the actually accurate definition 2)I would not dive immediately in the genetics' definitions, but present how it gives rise to the most remarkable result of evolution, that is the generation of biodiversity. I propose a merge, so to say, between your proposal and the current lede:

Evolution is the change in the heritable characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. It results when two basic realities of natural populations hold true: individuals vary in their genetics and in their numbers of surviving offspring. Processes such as genetic drift and natural selection act on genetic variation, resulting in certain genetic variants becoming more or less common within a population over successive generations. The process of evolution has given rise to biodiversity at every level of biological organisation. (This summarizes the main concept at the basis of evolution)

In the current scientific understanding, evolution is thus defined from the gene pool, the pool of genetic material, and how the distribution of alleles, the variants of a given unit of genetic information in the population, changes in such pool. While evolution is understood, in common parliance, as a change in the organism's external appearance or behaviour, that is, the phenotype, alleles do not necessarily have a visible effect. Therefore, in a strict biological sense, evolution happens even if the phenotype is unchanged. (Here we take the reader to understand that evolution actually acts on the gene pool and we lead them to the counterintuitive finding that evolution does not mean necessarily a change in the phenotype)

cyclopia^speak! 08:49, 24 September 2026 (UTC)

Mausfield, Genome42, this is clearly a valid discussion about how to word an important definition. We can all see that various sources also use different terminologies, and it is a valid concern that the word allele might not be the most clear for readers or experts (because of variations in usage). I see no evidence that the problem is the stupidity of other Wikipedians, and I think you both really have to stop distracting yourselves, and wasting the time of others, by filling this page with statements to that effect.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 07:25, 24 September 2026 (UTC)

Being uneducated in biology doesn't make someone stupid, nor did I say anyone here is stupid. I'll ask (yet again) that you stop the incessant strawmanning of what I've said. Mausfield (talk) 15:51, 24 September 2026 (UTC)