Proving Evolution With The Dictionary
Specious reasoning and clever crafting of definitions can make
about anything appear to come true. As John Mackay (1852)
observed, "When men wish to construct or support a theory, how
they torture facts into their service!" Mackay, J. (1852).
Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds.
Some words are innocently created to straight forwardly describe
a particular thing but can insidiously take on a life all their
own. Our language is filled with words that have departed from
their original definitions and are now widely misconstrued and
abused. Examples include truth, religion, supernatural,
morality, liberal, capitalism, freedom, love...basically all the
hot button words and subjects people consider to be their little
sacred domains of private belief and interpretation.
Evolution is another example of such a word. In the dictionary,
evolution's first definition is: the process by which something
develops into a different form. The word and this meaning
predated Darwin's concept of biological evolution. Here's how
that fact has proven useful in helping to make his case.
Most certainly, things do evolve in the dictionary's
pre-Darwinian sense of the word. We evolve as individuals,
society evolves, technology evolves, education evolves, the
automobile evolves and agriculture evolves. To the uncritical
eye, evolution, taken as being synonymous with change, seems to
fit well with what all of us experience every day: Homes get
built beginning with simple blocks and 2 X 4s, our bank account
balance grows slowly, our bodies begin small and get bigger,
babies begin with one cell that multiplies into a whole body and
anthills grow one grain of dirt at a time. Since everything
changes, everything can be said to evolve. How convenient for
Darwin's "evolution."
He could not have chosen a better word. The case was closed
before he ever got into court. Since everything evolves it is
not too much of a leap to accept that life evolved. The word
itself is tendentious, creating in and of itself reason to
believe the theory.
If he had chosen the word transmutation instead of evolution,
things might be entirely different. Although transmutation would
be a better description of the theory, the unfamiliarity of the
word would force people to determine meaning and evaluate that
against their own experience. In the larger sense, Darwin's
evolution requires that species transform into one another
(transmutate) all the way up from a single-celled organism.
Since nobody has ever seen one type of organism transmutate into
another, he would have had a much harder sell. On the other
hand, saying that "change" is the same thing as biological
evolution makes anyone who does not accept Darwin's evolution,
someone who rejects change. In other words, stupid.
Please note that evolution normally implies progressive change.
But nothing evolves in that sense without intelligent
manipulation. Corn kernels get bigger, evolve, because of
intelligent horticulture, home architecture evolves because of
intelligent engineering, and mathematics evolves because of
mathematicians. That little fact -- that intelligence is needed
for things to progressively evolve -- just happened to be left
out when Darwin's evolution was attached to dictionary
evolution.
A word was stolen from our vocabulary, a word everyone can
agree to. Cleverly then, a new footnote about a whole new
mechanism was attached to it without really alerting anyone. By
that I mean biological evolution is not mere change. In overview
(cell to human sense) it is gross change, more like a skipping
or gigantic hopping. It is about transmutations in the absence
of any intelligent force to make them happen.
It would be like me coming up with a new theory of commerce. I
scan the dictionary and decide to call my theory, "possession".
Everyone possesses things and possession is nine tenths of the
law. My "possession" theory is a process by which one goes into
a store, loads up bags and carts with whatever they want and
takes it all home. The stuff is possessed. What a cool theory.
Now when the police show up at your door and take you to court,
you just take your dictionary. You say to the judge, "Looky here
judge, the dictionary says possession is to have things and
that's all I did." Do you think the prosecutor might make the
argument that you have left out an important part of the
definition, namely that to possess something legally requires a
mechanism called paying for it?
Possession means having something, according to the dictionary,
but that does not legitimize any form of possession. Evolution
means change, according to the dictionary, but that does not
legitimize any theory of change.