In science, more than elsewhere, a word is expected to mean what it says, nothing more, nothing less. But scientific discourse is neither different nor separable from ordinary language―meanings are multiple, ambiguities ubiquitous. Keywords in Evolutionary Biology grapples with this problem in a field especially prone to the confusion engendered by semantic imprecision.
Written by historians, philosophers, and biologists―including, among others, Stephen Jay Gould, Diane Paul, John Beatty, Robert Richards, Ri…
