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A quick check of the search engine on principal journalsdealing with life and evolution yielded thousands of results forthe word “creature.” The widespread use of such a term in thescientificliteraturepromptsabriefsemanticreflection.Theterm“creature” derives from the Latin “creatus” or “anything thatwas created.” Not surprisingly, the authoritative Italian dic-tionary(Zingarelli1991)containsasimilardefinition,character-izing “creatura” as “every living thing that has been created.”Even the first definition of The New Oxford Dictionary ofEnglish(Pearsall1999)isnotencouragingfromacontemporarybiological standpoint: “An animal, as distinct from a humanbeing” (as if Homo sapiens does not fall within the Animalia).It follows that the term “creature” is not a neutral descriptor:etymologically, it underlies a theistic outlook on life and bioticorigins (divine intervention, as opposed to a more moderatedeistic position, wherein the evolutionary process itself may beattributed to divine construction). Taking into account that theevolution paradigm is now accepted simply as a fact, use ofterms such as “creature” alongside other elements of a modernscientific vocabulary (e.g., evolution, phylogeny, cladisticsanalysis)isananachronisticoxymoron.Insomeofthecasesweencountered, the word is as an informal reference to animals orother living organisms, while in others it is used for humans aswell,thusalsocontraveningthedefinitionprovidedbyTheNewOxford Dictionary of English.In a quick overview, we found that Italian authors using“creature”inpapersdealingwithlifesciencesandevolutionarerelativelyfew,suggestingthatnaturalaffinitywiththeLatinrootmay be sufficient to avert use of such a term in a modernbiological context. Interestingly, the word “creatura” seems tohave been avoided by Italian authors through modern history,extending back to pioneering naturalists in the fields of naturalsciences and geology, between the 15th and 18th century, whenevolution was still an unimaginable concept and religiousthinking was pervasive, often leading to a completely theisticinterpretation of nature. Personalities such as Agostino Scilla(Scilla 1679), Paolo Boccone (Boccone 1674), AntonioVallisneri (Vallisneri 1721), Giovanni Giacomo Spada (Spada1737), Anton Lazzaro Moro (Moro 1740), and GiuseppeBaldassarri(Baldassarri1750;seeRomano2013,2014forotherfounding figures of the natural sciences and geology in Italy)employed neutral words such as “animals,”“species,” or“marinebodies”torefertolivingorganisms,withouteverusingthe word “creature.” (It is noteworthy that the use of this wordwaswidespreadamongcontemporarysacredtextsandreligiousdocuments of the Italian Peninsula.) Even in the work ofAntonio Bellenghi (Bellenghi 1824); where all the argumentsand reconstructions appear to be aimed at reconciliation of newgeological discoveries with the revealed truth of the SacredScriptures (see Romano 2014), we find no trace of the theisticword “creature.”It comes as an unfortunate irony, then, that Italy at presentfrequently imports scientific documentaries translated fromEnglish, wherein the word “creatura” is used with generalreference to organisms. Such usage undermines the semanticbasis of an educational system founded on modern concepts inthe life and Earth sciences. So we are witnessing a curiousphenomenon involving secondary onset of the inappropriateterm “creatura,” which threatens to take root not just in popularor pseudo-scientific media, but also (following the tradition inEnglish publications, cited above) in scholarly literaturepublished in leading scientific journals.An open question: must the progress of science, in terms ofKuhnian revolutions and paradigm shifts, be matched byappropriate changes in word choice, necessary to the crystal-lization of the new concepts? If the answer to that question isnegative, words like “phlogiston” or “orthogenesis” should stillenjoy widespread usage in today’s high-visibility scientificliterature. Alternatively, perhaps the mass-marketing of scien-tificresearchtothepublicatlargeshouldinvolvepriorepistemicand semantic reflection.REFERENCES |
