Essay 3

Deceptive Definitions

Revised Version Dec 2020

A further exposition of how the language and teaching of evolution eludes logic and immerses fact within fiction.  Given that the term ‘evolution’ can be defined from so wide an angle of perspectives, and employed to describe so diverse a range of phenomena, the author makes the case that ‘evolution’ holds no precise or consistent meaning in scientific understanding.  Accordingly, in the interests of scientific clarity, the term ‘evolution’ – along with ‘microevolution’ and ‘macroevolution’ – should be abandoned in favour of a whole vocabulary of terms that define more accurately and explicitly the observations, processes and principles to which they apply.  The habitual insertion of ‘evolutionary’ and ‘evolved’ into written and spoken discourse adds no substance or meaning, and such terms serve only as code words for acceptance into the scientific community and allegiance to naturalistic philosophy.  New definitions of ‘evolution’ expanded to accommodate epigenetic inheritance are so broad in meaning as to have no meaning at all.  The challenges and controversies presented by the emerging field of epigenetics to orthodox Neo-Darwinian theory are examined, with the conclusion that the underlying controversy is not really about epigenetics at all, but about the adequacy of Neo-Darwinian theory.  A more truthful and humble appreciation of the mysteries of the natural world is gained, this essay maintains, by studying life and the history of life without ‘evolution’.

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