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The Problem with Darwinian Language
By Sally Morem
I will be the first to admit that Darwinian language falls far short of what isneeded to effectively convey the complex nuances of evolutionary theory tothe general public. However, I attribute most of the problem to theshortcomings inherent in English—or perhaps, more accurately, to those of all human languages.Our ancestors had virtually no means of examining or parsing the wanderingways of self-organizing systems (autopoesis), and this historicalinexperience is reflected in our present-day vocabulary. Instead, ancient peoples paid particular attention to the appearance of human or human-likeacts of intention and resulting artifacts, ignoring those phenomena thatdidn’t fit the template. Apparent cause/effect relationships had to be veryobvious to grab their attention.Take a pair of verbs, “design” and “evolve,” and compare lists of synonyms.Here are some compiled from “Synonym Finder.” Note the colorful varietyof activities connoted by the former and the rather forced expressions foistedupon the latter:
Design
 —plan, plot, scheme, organize, arrange, contrive, devise, develop,fashion, fabricate, frame, make, effect, produce, shape, form, mold, forge,construct, build, rear, erect. This particular list was derived from only one of many meanings for “design.” There are many, many more evocative wordslisted under the other meanings.
Evolve
 —develop, grow, become, turn into, become more complex, derivefrom, result, emerge, progress, go forward, increase, expand, snowball, produce, construct, formulate, build up, unroll, unfold, uncoil, open.
 
If you are a writer, you’ve been told by editors to “use the active voice.” Asyou can tell from comparing these lists, it’s much easier to do so whendescribing the deliberate, planned, intentional acts of human beings, asopposed to the unplanned, evolving systems of nature. No wonder “design”gets the juicier verbs. But even then, “evolve” is stuck with lame analogiesto human action. As such, Darwinian language is profoundly misleading.There is another problem with the word “evolve.” In everyday language, italso means moral improvement in human beings. This meaning has nothingwhatsoever to do with what scientists are trying to get across when theydescribe the processes that make up biological evolution. No wonder  popular debate over the existence of what has been referred to as Darwinianthought or neo-Darwinism is confused.Human beings are able to observe and report on claims of moral evolution inreal time. They don’t have to sift for evidence in the fossil record for itsexistence. Humans can then form coherent opinions about the existence of moral evolution in an individual or a group and argue their case with areasonable chance of being understood. No biologist, no matter how outréhis metaphorical language, would ever consider doing the same in order todescribe biological evolutionary processes.Chaotic, self-organizing phenomena refers to systems studied by chaos andcomplexity theoreticians, systems in which complex subsystems grow out of very simple rules, systems such as climate, stock markets, respiration, andriver tributaries. Chaos theory provides us with some tantalizing clues as tohow biological evolution may work. It also provides us with very usefulnouns and verbs by which we may communicate these new understandings.But, scientists have to work with what they’ve got, which isn’t a whole lot inthe way of colorful, evocative words reserved to biological evolution, withenough 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.
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