Chapter 2

EVOLUTION HAS A SERIOUS SEMANTIC PROBLEM

Biology teachers can violate their own state education code.

Biology teachers who are materialistic evolutionists tend to deceive K-12 students. For the teacher who told her class that human beings exist because of an evolutionary accident, it would have been far better if she had prefaced her reply with something like: “This question gets us into philosophical issues well beyond the ability of science to resolve. I can only tell you how I personally would answer that question.”

Under California law, public school teachers cannot say anything they please in their classrooms. Without such a preface, that teacher created several serious problems for herself. The first problem is that by stating that “human beings exist because of an evolutionary accident”, she has inferred that human beings exist only because of an evolutionary accident. This view contradicts doctrinal positions in all three monotheistic world religions. By answering the student’s question in this way, the teacher has also violated Standards of Section 60044(a) of the California State Education Code:

Purpose: The standards enable all students to become aware and

accepting of religious diversity while being allowed to

remain secure in any religious beliefs they may already have.

Method: The standards will be achieved by depicting, when

appropriate, the diversity of religious beliefs held in the

United States and California, as well as in other societies

without displaying any bias or prejudice against any of those

beliefs, or religious beliefs in general. (ref.)

In addition, I have found no mention of human evolution in the California State Dept. of Education Science Framework.(ref?) It is also worth noting that 17% of all high school biology teachers in the United States teach nothing about human evolution. (ref? Birkland?)

Biology teachers should stay within the legitimate domain of science.

In the context of evolution, the term, “accident”, is usually considered synonymous with “blind chance”. In 1967, Nobel laureate Jacques Monod claimed that “Man knows at last that he is alone in the universe’s unfeeling immensity, out of which he emerged only by chance”.(J. Monod, “Chance and Necessity”, Vintage Books, N.Y., 1967.) Also in the 1960’s, a well-known evolutionist, George Gaylord Simpson, stated: “Man is the result of purposeless and natural processes that did not have him in mind. He was not planned.”(Simpson, G.L., “The Meaning of Evolution, ______________, 1967, p.345) In 2005, 38 Nobel Laureates signed the statement: “Evolution is understood to be the result of an unguided process of random variation and natural selection.” (www.2.1jworld.com/news/2005/sep/15)

Any of the above three statements would violate Section 60044a of the California State Education Code if the statement was used in a lesson given by any public school teacher in California. The problem is that each of the above three statements extends well beyond the legitimate domain of science. Why? Because the discipline of science has a boundary. There is no way the scientific method can address the important philosophical issues imbedded in the above three statements. It doesn’t matter that 39 Nobel Laureates agreed with their statement. The reason that group of scientists agreed was that they had previously chosen the worldview of philosophical materialism.

Great care must be taken whenever a science teacher uses the word, “chance”. According to Jacques Monod, “Pure chance, absolutely free, but blind, (is) at the very root of the stupendous evidence of evolution: this central concept of modern biology is no longer one among other possible or even conceivable hypotheses. It is today the sole conceivable hypothesis, the only one that squares with observed and tested fact.” (Monod,112-113)

In this quote, Monod tells us that he has no idea where the legitimate boundary between science and philosophy actually is. His statement about the meaning of chance is simply the only one his materialistic worldview will allow! What appears to some scientists as “blind chance”, may actually involve “divine providence”. But it is not within the domain of science to comment one way or the other, because the issue is well beyond the ability of science to resolve. When that Long Beach, California biology teacher claimed that human beings exist because of an evolutionary accident, she was letting her own personal worldview creep into the classroom.

“Evolution” is an equivocal word.

Over the past 150 years, the word “evolution” has become an equivocal word. The dictionary defines “equivocal” as: “allowing the possibility of several different meanings, as a word or phrase, especially with the intent to deceive or misguide, susceptible to double interpretation, deliberately ambiguous: an equivocal answer.”

(Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language, Random House, New York, 2001) S. I. Hayakawa is probably the best-known semanticist of the 20^th century. He claimed that “evolution” is a word that can hinder and misdirect our thought process “by creating the illusion of meaning where no clear-cut meaning exists.” (Hayakawa, S. I., “The Use and Misuse of Language”, Greenwich, Connecticut: Fawcett Publications, Inc, 1943, p. viii) In other words, if a word such as “evolution” has multiple meanings it may be difficult for the reader to discern the meaning the writer intended, using only the context. If the reader happens to be a high school biology student, the task could be difficult indeed!

Back in the mid-seventies, tension filled the air in one of the Watergate congressional hearings. There was a semantic dispute. Finally, Senator Sam Irvin, Chairman of the investigating committee, could stand it no longer. He moved closer to the microphone, and bellowed: “Well, that’s what the word means in the English language! Now, ah don’t know who you learned the English language from. Ah learned the English language from muh muthah!” Shrieks of laughter filled the room and tension immediately dissolved. The lesson is very simple. Scientists, especially, should use words that have only one unmistakable meaning in the context in which they are placed!

In 1963, I took a course in abnormal psychology at U.C., Berkeley. The professor was on a crusade against the use of the term “mental illness”. He complained that the term confused two possible meanings: (1) a physical disorder of brain tissue itself, and (2) a psychological problem that should more properly be called a “behavior disorder”. To be clearly understood, scientists should use words with the fewest number of possible meanings. A word that has only one well-understood meaning (in its scientific context) would be the best choice.

But unfortunately, scientists too often use the word “evolution” as though it had only one well-understood meaning. When K-12 teachers use the “e-word”, resistant students raise their guard. (Meadows, L. “The Missing Link”, Heineman, Portsmouth, N.H., 2009, p.57) Despite the statement by 38 Nobel laureates, “evolution” does have a number of different definitions. This was pointed out, early on, by Maynard Metcalf, the first expert witness for the defense in the 1925 Scopes trial. Metcalf testified that a critique of evolution in one sense did not necessarily count as a critique of evolution in another sense. (Author? “World’s Most Famous Court Trial”, 1990, p.139)

Whenever the e-word is used in a K-12 science classroom, the student is expected to get its intended meaning from the context. How often will the average K-12 student find that intended meaning? Such a task can challenge a university student. But the average high school student has had little or no experience with semantic challenges. To choose the right meaning from many possibilities --it’s too much to expect.

This semantic situation cannot be compared with the use of a word such as “gravity”. “Gravity” is a word that elicits neither confusion nor a negative emotional reaction in the minds of students.

How did the word “evolution” “evolve” into an equivocal word?

Prior to 1860, the word “evolution” was not equivocal. The word “evolution” comes from the latin word “evolutus”. The past participle of the latin verb “evolvere”, means “to gradually unroll”. (For a rabbi to read the torah, he would have to “evolvere” (unroll) the torah scroll as his reading progressed.) In 1744, Albrecht von Haller used the word “evolution” to refer to the gradual development of the embryo into a fetus.(Barbieri, M., lucy.ukc.ac.uk/courses/SE30 2) Over time, the word “evolution” came to mean any gradual process.

In his “Origin of Species”, Charles Darwin used the verb “evolve” only once.

He used it in a very figurative, almost poetic, sense as the very last word in the very last sentence of “The Origin of Species”: “There is a grandeur in the view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms, or into one, and that, whilst the planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning, endless forms, most beautiful and most wonderful, have been and are being evolved.”(ref?) Notice that he used the word “evolved” figuratively, in the sense of a gradual unrolling, or developing process.

In later editions, Darwin added the words “by the Creator” after the word “breathed” in the last sentence of the book (Frankenberry U.K., “The Faith of Scientists” Princeton U. Press, Princeton U. Press, Princeton, N.J., 2008, p. 125). Darwin stands in awe of something inanimate having life “breathed into it”. Perhaps, from his early theological education at Cambridge, he remembered Genesis 2:7: (“…God breathed into his nostrils the breath of life …”). Perhaps, to Darwin, the emergence of life on our planet was like the gradual unrolling of a marvelous manuscript.

Biologist Herbert Spencer was impressed with Darwin’s figurative use of the word, “evolved”, at the end of his book. He was so impressed that he gave the word “evolution” a more literal meaning in his 1864 biology text. (Spencer, H., “Principles of Biology” Appleton, New York, 1864.)

To Charles Darwin, “evolution” was not an equivocal word. But in 1864, five years after Darwin published “Origin of Species”, Herbert Spencer published “The Principles of Biology” (Appleton & Co, New York, 1882 edition). Spencer appears to be the first to use the word “evolution” in a way that started it down the path toward becoming the equivocal multi-definitional word it is today. In his book, Spencer used the word “evolution” 125 times, and the word “evolved” 7 times. He referred to the “hypothesis of evolution” 26 times, and the “process of evolution” twice. He referred to

“laws of evolution” three times, “doctrine of evolution” six times, and “belief in evolution” five times. And he once referred to evolution as a “universal process”.

But in 1864 Spencer used the word “evolution” even more broadly than it is used today. He speaks of the evolution of heat, evolution of light, evolution of electricity, evolution of language, and evolution of society.

Why was Spencer so enamored with the word “evolution”? The reason seems to be that Spencer was a philosophical materialist who seized upon the explanatory power of evolution as a universal naturalistic process. Over and over again in his 1864 book, he attempts to explain life, (and perhaps the universe as well) in terms of “the universal laws of the redistribution of matter and motion”.

Spencer takes Darwin to task in not going far enough in his ruling out of supernatural activity: Darwin reveals “an unconscious mingling of the belief in a supernaturally impressed tendency to develop, with the belief in a development arising from the changing incidence of condition.” (Spencer, p. 409, 1882 edition) Spencer also makes the point that Darwin’s “ ascription of organic evolution to some aptitude naturally possessed by organisms as miraculously imposed upon them is unphilosophical”. Un-philosophical? No, not at all. The only reason Spencer could have used this term is that there is no room for anything miraculous in Spencer’s materialistic worldview.

It seems quite clear, therefore, that Herbert Spencer is the one to blame for linguistically revising the word “evolution” into a multi-definitional equivocal word. And remember, he did this in 1864 --long before any of the genetic mechanisms involved in some of the more modern definitions were known!

Spencer’s lead was soon followed by other scientists, who used the single word “evolution” to replace Darwin’s more cumbersome “descent with modification through variation and natural selection”. (Darwin, C. “The Origin of Species”, Modern Library ed., The Modern Library ___________1993, p.612) One of those scientists was anatomist and paleontologist, Thomas Huxley. However Huxley had doubts about the role of natural selection in evolution. He considered natural selection unproven. But Huxley became convinced of its importance soon after Darwin published in 1859.

Thomas Huxley was a very skilled orator. From 1860 to 1890, he gave so many lectures and debates on evolution, that he became known as “Darwin’s bulldog”. Early (give year) during that period, Huxley debated Bishop Wilberforce. In that famous debate it became clear to all that evolution was being used as the secular alternative to the Biblical account of the origin and appearance of life. It should come as no surprise that now, after 150 years, conservative Christians still regard evolution as materialistic dogma whenever the word is used.

(Add material about the beliefs of Wallace here.)

“Evolution” has at least five different definitions.

Now let’s examine, in some detail, five differing definitions. Each definition differs from the others in an important and significant way.

A. CHANGE WITHIN AN INTERBREEDING POPULATION OR SPECIES:

Such a change could involve a change in the degree of adaptation of one or more subpopulations (or subspecies), a change in gene frequency, or change in the proportion of different alleles of a gene, over generations, due to mutation, genetic drift, or other cause. (Alleles are pairs of differing genes at the same location on a chromosome pair.)

It can refer (1) to a change in inherited traits, (2) a change in the degree of adaptation, (3) a change in the diversity of organisms, (4) a change in allele frequency, or (5) some other change in the gene pool of the species. (A gene pool is the complete set of alleles in a population. Allele frequency refers to the fraction of alleles that have a single allele form. A change in allele frequency is a specific type of gene pool change.) In an interbreeding population, mutation, natural selection, and genetic drift can all produce gene pool changes. Genetic drift refers to a random change in allele frequency.

In 2001, Harvard Professor Ernst Mayr reiterated an earlier definition (Goldschmidt, 1940) of microevolution as evolution within a species. (Mayr, E., “What Evolution Is”, Basic Books, New York, 2001, 287) Fredric Nelson gives us a more modern definition of microevolution: “an alteration of the information present within DNA molecules, which already exist and already function.” “Examples of microevolution, therefore, include point mutations, deletions, recombinations, exon shuffling, and the addition of DNA via plasmids, viruses, or other DNA segments.” (Nelson F.P. “Needed: A New Vocabulary for Understanding Evolution”, Perspectives on Understanding Science and the Christian Faith” 58(1), 2006, 28) (An exon is any portion of an interrupted gene that is represented in the RNA product and translated into protein. A plasmid is any segment of DNA, in yeast or bacteria, that is chromosome-independent, but capable of replication.)

B. CHANGE WHICH RESULTS IN AN INABILITY TO INTERBREED

This definition refers to gene pool changes in a population that result in a new species, due to a modification of inherited characteristics. Possible causes include mutation, genetic drift and natural selection. Although Charles Darwin preferred the more general term, “descent with modification”, natural selection is more specific. It refers to the process whereby an anatomical change is favored if it increases the reproductive survival of a population that becomes isolated in a new environment. In other words, natural selection refers to the survival and reproduction of organisms that are better suited to function in a new environment. Natural selection usually predominates in a larger interbreeding population, while genetic drift is more apparent in a smaller population.

When a population becomes isolated, due perhaps to migration into another geographic region, natural selection and genetic drift, acting over generations, can certainly produce new varieties within a species. A new species may be produced, but this process has proven very difficult for modern scientists to observe directly. (It is necessary to show that back-crossing between the new species and the original population cannot be done.) Eminent University of Massachusetts biologist Lynn Margulis claims: “Mutations, in summary, tend to induce sickness, death, or deficiencies. No evidence in the vast literature of hereditary changes shows unambiguous evidence that random mutation itself, even with geographic isolation of populations, leads to speciation.” (ref.?)

Charles Darwin and Alfred Wallace had no conclusive evidence of the origin of any new species. All they did was hypothesize. Darwin was fond of the term, “descent with modification.” But, in principle at least, such mechanisms might explain how two separate species (that cannot interbreed) could descend from a common ancestral population. (In 1940, Richard Goldschmidt referred to definition B as “macroevolution”.) (ref.?)

C. CHANGE IN COMPLEXITY

This definition refers to the historical appearance of organisms going from simpler to more complex forms. Scientists observe a progression from simpler to more complex life forms as they examine fossil remains in geological layers dating from very old to more recent.

D. A VIEW THAT ALL LIFE DESCENDED FROM A COMMON ANCESTOR

This definition assumes that all species of living organisms descended from a single common ancestor by transmitting genetic changes over many generations (universal common descent). This single common ancestor came to exist, by chance, from inorganic matter.

E. A DOCTRINE THAT ALL LIFE CAME TO EXIST BY UNGUIDED PROCESSES

This is the philosophical view that all life came to exist by

unguided materialistic processes, starting from a single primitive ancestor. (A better term for this definition would be “evolutionism”. James Birx, writing in the journal, “Bioscience”, claims that: “Due to its historical and cosmic orientation …evolution is by its very nature philosophical. …It is unfortunate that many evolutionary texts do not give sufficient weight to the philosophical issues that are inevitably raised in class discussions.” (Birx ref.)

[References: Columbia Encyclopedia

Veterinary Dictionary

Futuyama, D.J., (1997) “Evolutionary Biology, 3^rd Ed.”,

Sinauer Associates

www.talkorigins.org/faqs/evolution

www.answers.com/topic/evolution]

In my opinion, there is nothing in definition categories A-C that must necessarily be in conflict with all creationist views. However, the same cannot be said for definition E. (Among creationists, it is likely that only an “evolutionary creationist” would accept definition D.)