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Darwinian Language
By Sally Morem
I will be the first to admit that Darwinian language falls far short of what is
needed to effectively convey the complex nuances of evolutionary theory to
the general public. However, I attribute most of the problem to the
shortcomings inherent in English—or perhaps, more accurately, to those of
all human languages.
Take a pair of verbs, “design” and “evolve,” and compare lists of synonyms.
Here are some compiled from “Synonym Finder.” Note the colorful variety
of activities connoted by the former and the rather forced expressions foisted
upon the latter:
Human beings are able to observe and report on claims of moral evolution in
real time. They don’t have to sift for evidence in the fossil record for its
existence. Humans can then form coherent opinions about the existence of
moral evolution in an individual or a group and argue their case with a
reasonable chance of being understood. No biologist, no matter how outré
his metaphorical language, would ever consider doing the same in order to
describe biological evolutionary processes.
But, scientists have to work with what they’ve got, which isn’t a whole lot in
the way of colorful, evocative words reserved to biological evolution, with
enough connotational oomph to do the job. So, they find they must raid the
“design” list of synonyms with all the resulting confusion I’ve noted above.
Perhaps as the “evolution of language” proceeds, scientists and writers will
be able to come up with a better selection, permitting the reader to get a
much better sense of evolution as a bundle of trends, tendencies, and
emergent characteristics in organisms’ lines of descent as they respond to
changes in their environment. Or perhaps “design” will pick up
connotations of “unplanned efficaciousness” from its continued use over a
long period of future scientific history describing evolutionary processes.
Such major changes in meaning have occurred over and over again in the
evolution of language.
If so, terms such as “natural selection” will then become better understood as
a metaphor for the survival of the fittest lineage in a world in which the
meaning of “fittest” must always change.