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It goes without saying that biological evolution is different from other types of evolution.  That having been said, when it comes time to articulate this difference, what seems to end up happening is that in the act of explaining the difference, more similarities seem to emerge between the two than differences.  This perplexes me: How is possible to talk oneself out of such a strong intuition?

 I think that Evan makes a really interesting distinction between literary trends and biological evolution.  As he says, trends come and go, whereas biological traits evolve on an irreversible continuum.  Is there such a thing as literary evolution?  Or is it really just about trends?

I think that Katie's idea fits in well here too.  As Katie says, humans have the power to invent literature; every piece of literature we read is a human creation, and every concept in literature has emerged as a result of writers' decisions to deal with those concepts.  I think this is a key difference between biological evolution and literary evolution: the process of biological evolution is something that is completely beyond human control. 

Which brings me to ekorn's point--that in the process of evolution, it is the original evolutionary source that provides the most insight into every adaptation of that source that comes after it.  Is this the case with the two terms: biological and let's say, linguistic evolution?  The idea of biological evolution (I think) came first before other types of evolution were considered, and therefore it is biological evolution that provides the discourse for other types of evolution.  If we didn't have an understanding of and a vocabulary for discussing biological evolution, we would not have an understanding of or a vocabulary for discussing any other type of evolution.

So then, is the reason why it's hard to articulate the difference between biological and other types  of evolution because there is only one discourse for evolution--the original, which is biological evolution?  It is the case that whenever we attempt to distinguish between biological and other types of evolution it is difficult because there is no vocabulary by which we can effectively do so?