John McWhorter takes issue with politicians using it to describe their views on marriage equality:
“Evolution” carries an overtone of disconnection, as if the matter were being driven by abstract forces beyond. Natural selection, after all, is a faceless process, under which creatures transform over time as minor probablistic variations between individuals of a species lead some individuals to reproduce infinitesimally more than others, such that certain variations gradually become the default trait. … While a society may well, like a body of individuals comprising a species, “evolve,” we assume that a Homo sapiens has a certain control over his or her opinions. To put it that one’s views have “evolved” implies, instead, a lack of agency, as if one were taken over by some outside force, “breathed into” along the lines that Mr. Darwin described.
