Semantic Games

The title of the tab for this webpage is “Semantics.” It’s also the title of a chapter in my book Natural Technology: The Theory of Everything. Actually, in the book the chapter is called “Semantic Games,” so I really ought to change the title of the tab for this webpage to match.

Semantics is a word for meaning. But meaning can be stretched. Sometimes a word has multiple senses, and sometimes, depending on how it’s used, meaning can be manipulated in such a way that it loses its anchor. It keeps a kind of surface sense, while the real meaning is left up in the air, waiting to be filled in later. That’s where the games begin.

In that chapter I explain how terms like inflationary theory, brief time, epoch, and dark matter (which already assumes matter) are not genuine scientific descriptors. They are part of a semantic game. They sound authoritative, but to anyone who understands what they are supposed to describe (and more importantly, what they don’t describe or lack evidence for) they are deeply misleading.

If you know what to look for, you’ll begin to see semantic games everywhere, especially whenever the standard narrative of evolution, deep time, and materialism is presented. One recent article shows how semantics do most of the work in maintaining the illusion that the narrative still holds together. The Popular Mechanics story announcing the discovery of a larva fossil with a brain, digestive glands, and nerves intact is a perfect example.

The headline called it a “520-million-year-old miracle.” Already the semantics have locked the reader into a framework. The fossil itself does not say “520 million years.” That number is imported from the geological timetable and attached as if it were direct observation. But the key word is miracle. It distracts from the real issue: delicate tissues like brains and guts should not survive across that stretch of time. Miracles are always possible within materialism, though tossed in cheekishly to downplay the implausibilities whenever evidence refuses to cooperate.

The Popular Mechanics article then insists that soft parts “degrade over time,” but explains this away by saying that sometimes “we get lucky.” Luck here is serving as a substitute for chemistry. It is narrative padding to keep the age intact, not an explanation of how fats, proteins, and membranes could remain recognizable after half a billion years.

The writer continues with glowing language: “almost perfect preservation” is said to bridge the gap. That phrase sounds like explanation but functions only as a semantic shield. It hides the fact that such preservation contradicts expectations, rather than confirming them.

Later the fossil is described as an “absolute gold mine for evolutionary biologists.” But what the evidence actually shows is a fully formed larva with intact organ systems. If Darwin’s gradual steps were real, this would not be a gold mine but a problem. In fact, it is the exact opposite of the primitiveness that was expected. The phrase works rhetorically, giving the reader the impression that the discovery confirms evolution, when in reality it highlights intact complexity from the start. The wording is left vague so it can be asserted that “gold mine” means the fossil will inspire more research into new evolutionary pathways — though what it really opens is a contradiction.

Ironically, the article goes on to call the anatomy “primitive” while in the same breath listing a brain, circulatory traces, digestive glands, and innervation of legs and eyes. Primitive and complete cannot be reconciled. The label is semantic wallpaper to reassure the reader that everything is still in its proper place within the story. It’s like an archaeologist finding an iPhone 5 among ancient pottery and saying, “Hmm, this primitive phone is a miracle to be preserved.” That totally ignores what is seen in plain sight.

On one hand, the fossil is said to be 520 million years old and “primitive.” On the other, a brain implies a central nervous system with coordination. Circulatory traces mean a system for distributing nutrients or gases. Digestive glands point to specialized tissues that process food. Innervation of legs and eyes shows that sensory input and motor control were already linked. Calling this “primitive” is a semantic trick. It imposes an interpretaion on the reader. It gives the reader the impression that it is on the path to something modern, when the features listed are exactly the opposite: functional and whole, with no evidence of modification before or after.

Another sleight of hand is the claim that scientists had “dramatically underestimated the complexity of early arthropods.” This makes it sound like a minor calibration error. In truth, it is a contradiction: the evidence once again shows sudden complexity where gradual buildup was supposed to be.

Even the way conclusions are phrased shows the semantic game at work. After identifying a protocerebrum, the text declares that researchers can “see that it evolved into the ‘nub’ of arthropod heads.” They didn’t see it evolve; they imposed an evolutionary narrative on a structure. This is story telling. The language transforms inference into direct sight.

The article promises the fossil offers a chance to understand “evolutionary links,” but no intermediate structures are shown. What is actually presented is a complete organism. The “links” are supplied by vocabulary, not anatomy. This is the familiar verbiage that every new find will somehow help explain what they already assume to be true. It’s like saying, “This tooth I found under the pillow should help us understand the link between the fairy and the money.” Yet this type of circular reasoning goes undetected again and again.

Finally, the strongest moment of honesty is buried in a quotation: the lead researcher admits, “My jaw just dropped — how could these intricate features have avoided decay and still be here to see half a billion years later?” That is the right question. But the article pivots back into awe rather than analysis. Awe takes the place of the needed mechanisms to explain the discovery.

What is missing is just as telling as what is present. Nowhere does the piece explain how the 520-million-year age was established for this specimen. Nowhere does it grapple with the chemical impossibility of long-term preservation of such tissues. No alternative readings of the scans are considered. These omissions are structural, not accidental.

This is what a semantic game looks like in practice. Words like “miracle,” “primitive,” “gold mine,” and “evolutionary link” carry the story forward when the evidence itself does not. The article becomes a case study in how semantics can be used to protect a narrative rather than describe what is actually in front of us.

This kind of circular reasoning isn’t confined to fossils. It runs throughout the dominant scientific narrative, from cosmology to biology. For a broader study of how semantics and assumptions shape the way evidence is presented, see my book, Natural Technology: The Theory of Everything.

For questions for S. A. Cooper, or if there’s a topic you’d like him to cover, you can send a message here.

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