Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Social evolution


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

The result was Make into a disambiguation page.  Sandstein  07:20, 12 April 2021 (UTC)

Social evolution

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The content describes sociobiology. Most links pointing here seem to be referring to sociocultural evolution. Should turn this page into a disambiguation. C9mVio9JRy (talk) 07:44, 18 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Science-related deletion discussions. C9mVio9JRy (talk) 07:44, 18 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Biology-related deletion discussions. –&#8239;Joe (talk) 16:29, 18 March 2021 (UTC)


 * Strong Oppose - social evolution and sociobiology are not even remotely synonymous; the former is a very small subset of the latter. If there are a preponderance of links pointing here that refer instead to sociocultural evolution (which is effectively disambiguated here), then the proper solution is to fix those links, not to delete this article. Dyanega (talk) 16:37, 18 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Huh? The current article seem to suggest the latter is a subset of the former. As far as I can tell they study the same topic using the same set of theories, namely, inclusive fitness and evolutionary game theory. The word sociobiology is coined later by Wilson when some study on the topic already exists, perhaps in the name of social evolution, but I'm not aware of any difference between the two. Can you point to some sources that clearly contrast the two? C9mVio9JRy (talk) 09:54, 19 March 2021 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus. Relisting comment: Note that the article was significantly reduced on 23 March 2021 (UTC) (diff). The article as it existed at the time of nomination for deletion is viewable using this diff.
 * Keep There are lots of books about this by this title – see above. Insofar as the topic is broad and controversial, that's a reason to develop it per WP:ATD, not to delete it. Andrew🐉(talk) 18:42, 18 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Comment The article's title is two common words that are commonly smushed together to mean any one of a variety of things. As often happens with technical or scientific topics, the bag of words approach to judging notability doesn't really work. Since we already have better articles on any of the topics this one might be about, I refashioned it into a list of pointers. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 16:33, 23 March 2021 (UTC)

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, North America1000 17:07, 25 March 2021 (UTC)
 * I think that was premature, and have reverted it. Turning the page into a disambiguation is functionally equivalent to deleting the article or doing a blank-and-redirect, which is preempts the result of this discussion. –&#8239;Joe (talk) 17:20, 25 March 2021 (UTC)


 * Keep. There is indeed a mess of similarly-named articles and if you search for "social evolution", the most common result is the concept described at sociocultural evolution. But that doesn't mean social evolution in the evolutionary biological sense isn't a notable topic. A quick search turns up whole books about it and while there's a lot of overlap with sociobiology, one is a natural phenomenon and one is a field of study – two different things. However, I do think it would be a good idea to turn this article into a disambiguation page pointing to social evolution (biology) (this article), sociobiology, sociocultural evolution, cultural evolution, etc. –&#8239;Joe (talk) 17:36, 25 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Disambiguify as in my edit (more or less, details obviously not set in stone). There's no need to keep the current text, which has hung around for years in a half-hearted, not-really-explanatory, superficial state, when we have more substantial writings that we can link to. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 18:42, 25 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Disambiguation is not appropriate as the title matches are not exact and WP:CONCEPTDAB states "A disambiguation page should not be created just because it is difficult to write an article on a topic that is broad, vague, abstract, or highly conceptual." Also, disambiguation pages do not have citations and the topic seems sufficiently controversial that citations will be required. Andrew🐉(talk) 08:13, 2 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Fine, call it a "set index article" or whatever the inside-baseball name is for those things that are obviously disambiguation pages but can't be called that for reasons no reader will bother to understand. Scientific controversies within the various topics listed certainly exist, but the existence of those subjects is not in doubt, so that's beside the point here. WP:CONCEPTDAB is a guideline, not a policy, and the quoted guidance is inapplicable here because there are multiple topics with similar names, some pertaining to biology and others to anthropology or sociology. It's all well and good to say that there should be a broad-concept article, except that nobody is going to write it and if they tried, it would be WP:SYNTH. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 22:29, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
 * Comment If the article is supposed to be the evolution of social behavior, that's what the title should be. However, given that we already have behavioral ecology, evolution of eusociality, sociality, and sociobiology, I don't see how this article is going to provide any added value even if it were to be improved. C9mVio9JRy (talk) 13:30, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Kieran207 ( talk - Contribs ) 02:04, 2 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Disambiguate, probably with more options than used by XOR&#39;easter - Joe Roe points out a few. The current article is a poor attempt at providing some bits and bobs of the possible meanings; if it were more developed, it would at that point become duplicative of the better developed articles on these facets. Let's abstract that and channel the user to the well-curated material already present. -- Elmidae (talk · contribs)
 * My list indeed was very short and could probably be expanded. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 22:29, 5 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Disambiguify The expression "social evolution" is used with different meanings by different authors, it is not possible to write an article about it. There is already a good article about sociocultural evolution, as well as other possible targets mentioned above, so we should point to them instead. Tercer (talk) 14:28, 8 April 2021 (UTC)


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