Definitional retreat

Biological Parallel

Claim: 'Wolves are apex predators.' Counter: 'Bears kill wolves.' Retreat: 'By apex predator, I mean dominant in their typical context.' This is definitional retreat—narrowing definitions when challenged. Ecologists do this with 'keystone species': first defined as disproportionate impact, then hedged with context-dependencies when counterexamples arise. The fallacy: definitions that morph to avoid falsification explain nothing. If every organism is 'keystone in some context,' the category loses meaning. Precision requires falsifiability.