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 == WP:Lead#Length == 
 The lead of this article is currently six paragraphs; WP:Lead#Length notes that leads should generally not exceed four paragraphs.  Shorter leads will naturally leave out some detail, but other featured articles of similar importance and scope  like Metabolism, Genetics and DNA (and this article before a few months ago)  have been deemed by the community to adequately summarize their contents with four paragraphs or less.  I see no reason why this article should be an exception.    

 :WP:Lead#Length is only a general guideline to gauge an appropriate size when deciding on which content to include. We shouldn't be removing useful content (and in so doing not adequately summarize the whole article) due to a general stylistic suggestion. Also, the three other articles you point to are more specific than Evolution as a whole. In fact, this article is twice the size of any one of them, and it's to be expected that it has a longer lead to cover all that content. I'm not opposed to shortening the lead if you can suggest an acceptable rewrite. Is there content in the lead you think is superfluous and can be safely removed without impacting the summary? | "