Inadequate definition in the first lines   Set aside the gradual issue for a second I find the first sentence Evolution is the change in the inherited characteristics of biological populations over successive generations inadequate a pretty feeble attempt to define a momentous concept that has irreversibly altered the way mankind thinks about itself and its place in the world That first sentence utterly fails to indicate anything at all about the nature of the change its direction its rate or the mechanism which brought it about or the mechanism that perpetuated it or of its consequences   Then while we are still floundering in a miasma of doubt before we are even introduced to the possibility that evolution is actually a process rather than just an event we are subjected to  Evolutionary processes give rise to diversity at every level of biological organization     This introduction is vague confusing unencyclopedic assumes too much of the readers background knowledge We must be able to do better than this  We need to come up with a new form of words that nails the essential features of the concept in as few words as possible