The subtle lie of definition

Let's pretend, for a moment, that we have no ideas how mountains were formed so I put on my thinking cap and begin making observations. On beaches, I notice how the waves sometimes make ripples in the sand. In the desert, I notice how sand dunes are formed by wind. These observations lead me to hypothesize that mountain formation is the cumulative effect of millions of years of wind and water moving dirt around. Sounds plausible, right?

Working on this theory, I look around to find examples of mountains being made taller by the wind and rain – but I can't find any. All I find, instead, are mountains being worn by erosion caused by wind and rain. In other words, they're becoming shorter, not taller. Not willing to abandon my theory, I define “mountain forming” to mean “any change in the elevation of a point of land.” Now, even examples of erosion can be used to support my theory.

Instances of erosion may fit my definition but they do nothing to support my claim that these processes can form mountains if they just continue long enough. Ideally, I should abandon my theory. At the very least, I should change my definition to include, “a rise in the elevation of land....” But I do neither. Instead, I double down on my definition and begin arguing that even a lowering of land elevation is mountain formation because it creates valleys!

Clever, huh? Employing such an ambiguous definition actually thwarts criticism of my theory. It may make my theory somewhat unassailable, but it doesn't make my theory true. Vague definitions like this probably hinder science more than help it. Using this definition, I could continue citing new instances of erosion, call them examples of “mountain formation,” and never once find an example of a mountain truly forming!

So where am I going with this? I've often written about the word games evolutionists play. They constantly want to define terms in their favor. And it's not just scientific terms, they also want to redefine words like “faith.” The word they equivocate over the most is evolution. 

The Oxford Dictionary defines evolution as, “the process by which different kinds of living organisms are thought to have developed and diversified from earlier forms during the history of the earth. ” When we talk about “evolution,” most people think of things like fish becoming frogs, dinosaurs becoming birds, and apes becoming men. Am I right? Yet, when we look around, we never seen examples of things like this happening. Oh sure, we see animal populations change, but they don't change into other kinds of animals.

Enter the ambiguous definition.

Talk Origins, a rabidly pro-evolution website, prefers this definition:

[E]volution can be precisely defined as any change in the frequency of alleles within a gene pool from one generation to the next.

Wow, that sounds fancy. This is THE definition used by most, militant evolutionists. Notice, though, that it doesn't do anything to qualify the kind of change. There's no condition that the change has to add any new characteristics to the population, for example. If a population of gray and black mice were to go from 50% gray to 45% gray over successive generations, then they've evolved according to this definition. Yet it doesn't explain how something like a mouse could turn into something like a bat over “millions of years.”

For evolution to be possible, biological populations have to acquire new characteristics. To turn a dinosaur into a bird, you would have to add feathers. To turn a reptile into a mammal, you would have to add hair. The supposed first common ancestor didn't have feathers or hair. Neither did it have skin or scales or bones or blood or organs of any sort. How many new traits would you have to add to make turn molecule into a man? So just to say a population has “changed” doesn't mean the population is on its way to becoming something else unless the change adds something. Removing the gray mice from a population, for example, can't add new colors to the population.

The definition of evolution most favored and championed by evolutionists, the one cited above, is very much like my ridiculous definition of mountain formation. Any change in a population is called evolution, even though it doesn't add anything new to the population. Indeed, no new traits ever need to be found and evolution could still be said to be happening. In fact, I believe that's precisely why zealous evolutionists prefer it. Consider this except from the Talk Origins article I cited:

Unfortunately the common definitions of evolution outside of the scientific community are different. For example, in the Oxford Concise Science Dictionary we find the following definition:

"evolution: The gradual process by which the present diversity of plant and animal life arose from the earliest and most primitive organisms, which is believed to have been continuing for the past 3000 million years."

This is inexcusable for a dictionary of science. Not only does this definition exclude prokaryotes, protozoa, and fungi, but it specifically includes a term "gradual process" which should not be part of the definition. More importantly the definition seems to refer more to the history of evolution than to evolution itself. Using this definition it is possible to debate whether evolution is still occurring....”

I have to shake my head. They're right, it's hard to debate whether evolution is occurring if they are allowed to call any kind of change, “evolution.” Just like no one could question my theory of mountain formation as long as I'm able to include mountains being eroded as examples of mountain forming.

This is why evolutionists spend so much time haggling over terms. They want to bolster their arguments by defining words in their favor. It may be clever but it's still a gimmick. It's subtle. It's lying by definition.

Related articles

“Kinds” versus “species”

A Monopoly on Words

Why must “faith” mean “blind faith”?

Evo Speak

Breaking News: Charles Darwin was an evolutionist!

Evidence for “Creationism”