Apt Analogies and Misleading Metaphors: “Co-Evolution” and Other Biological Terms in Scientific Theories of Religious Evolution

ABSTRACT The paper discusses the definitions of “co-evolution” in biology and in scientific theories of religious evolution as an example for their use of biological terms. Sometimes this use is motivated by the vision of a general theory of macro-level evolution. There is a valid analogy between the co-evolution of biological species and “gene-culture co-evolution” in religious evolution. But the analogy does not refer to identical processes, and it might turn into a mere metaphor. This conclusion pertains to other terms describing religious evolution in correspondence to evolutionary biology.

• Publication year

  2021

• Venue

  Theology and Science

• Publication date

  2021-07-03

• Fields of study

  Not labeled

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.1080/14746700.2021.1944501
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

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