Talk:Flagellum

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Article Grading: The following comments were left by the quality and importance raters: (edit · refresh) Changed rating to "high" as this is high school/SAT biology content. - tameeria 21:42, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Although I generally agree with the anti-ID research pager I must remove most of it due to relevance, length and sytle issues -- this is an encyclopedia article, not a place to post research. Although much of the paper can and should be made to conform to our NPOV policy and style (for style examples, just look around). Making terms within the body of a paragraph link to an external URL is a stylistic no-no here and so is having long bibliographies inline with the text (we use a simple external link area for that here -- and then only list a few very informative links, not links to every single information source). --Maveric149

I agree - wikipedia is not the right place for this material, it's original research rather than an encyclopedia article and it's just too long! I've put it on meta.wikipedia.com which I think is a more appropriate home. Enchanter

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I believe the this removed paragraph and those that follow it have a claim to be restored to the article. Many have wondered, well, me anyway, about the paradox of these independent little swimmers:

Biochemist Michael Behe, of the Discovery Institute, wrote a 1996 book entitled Darwin's Black Box, in which claimed that "irreducible complexity" (IC) systems, systems which require several parts to function, were either impossible (or very unlikely) to reach via natural evolutionary mechanisms, and therefore must have been designed by an intelligence.

Most of the rest of the omitted material was stuff no one would ever come to an encyclopedia to read, but this caught my eye. I hope it wasn't removed because it gives comfort to creationists. We certainly want to play fair. Ortolan88 19:30 Jul 21, 2002 (PDT)

[edit] ==

Aack, I tried to post a comment, and that got messed up too.

Is there not a way to have the bulk of the text put up, perhaps in an "Evolution of the Flagellum" article, and have whatever NPOV and formatting issues be resolved by editing and fixing rather than wholesale deletion?

As noted above, this is a major topic in certain circles (Ohio), and I do think people would appreciate some actual information on this topic. If you take out all the references and details, then you just have another vague, useless article on the flagellum which won't give anyone, evolutionists or intelligent design advocate, any new information.

I will attempt to add the evolution stuff as a separate article, with a note to perhaps forestall the hatchets of the (very rapid) editors around here...

nic

Give it a try. The text does need a lot of work to become an encyclopedia article though. --Maveric149

Where was the intelligent design note? The text quoted here on talk doesn't actually mention flagella, so unless it is directly connected with something else shouldn't be included one way or another.
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Look in the history. As the resident creationist, I think it should be restored. -phma

The intelligent design note was in one of the subsequent paras I mentioned above, quoting only the first for identification purposes, which seems to have worked. No creationist, but the last of the deists maybe.Ortolan88

I personally don't think creationist notes belong on pages that don't directly involve the issue, for this reason. When you talk about the evolution of a given organism, you are giving information about it, because every organism and structure evolved by a different route. True, it's information some people won't accept, but it's information about the thing nonetheless. Whereas saying something was complex enough to need intelligent design or raw creation is no different than saying it's complex, because anyone who believes that will believe basically the same thing about everything. In which case it isn't really a statement about the organism in question, it's a statement about beliefs, so should go elsewhere.

I'm admittedly biased - I wouldn't mind seeing a lack of such materials for other reasons - but the above is why I think it doesn't belong. --Josh Grosse

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It should only go back in if it is made to conform to NPOV and remains very short (just a lead-in to the link to irreducible complexity) -- that particular idea has been discredited very thoroughly so dosen't really even deserve that much. More info on why is already in that article. --Maveric149

[edit] Does this relate to mammal spermatozoa?

Wikipedians, I'm not able to rectify this omission, but this page is linked from the spermatozoa page, which mentions the Flagellum.

The flagellum page in turn discusses several flagella but does not mention which (if any) of the discussed varieties is part of a spermatozoon.

I guess it is probably the eukaryotic one, but the author probably knows best, I don't dare edit this page.

Thanks! bert hubert ahu@ds9a.nl

I've rewritten the intro. I hope it makes more sense now. Josh

[edit] Basal body as part of bacterial flagellum?

From the Bacterial flagellum section:

A shaft runs between the hook and the basal body, passing through protein rings in the cell's membrane that act as bearings.

From Basal Body: (Bold added)

A basal body is an organelle formed from a centriole, a short cylindrical array of microtubules. It is found at the base of a eukaryotic cell cilium or flagellum and serves as a nucleation site for the growth of the axoneme microtubules. Basal bodies anchor cilia.

One or the other must be incorrect in some regard. As the wiki-link isn't working: [1] Abramul 22:10, 1 April 2007 (UTC)