The translation of modern science is often expected by scientists and lay readers alike to be transparent due to assumptions related to science as a universal and neutral endeavour. The current research challenges these assumptions in the context of biological evolution epistemically translated into contemporary Arabic. Applying a context-rich corpus framework that incorporates multiple methods, this study couples a bibliographic analysis with a corpus analysis in order to explore both broad trends and finer nuances characterising contemporary representations of biological evolution in translated and originally written Arabic texts. The bibliographic analysis applies macro-level, distant reading techniques to discern quantitative patterns in book-length publications on biological evolution that appeared between 2010 and 2022 in the Arabic book market. The corpus analysis, on the other hand, utilises micro-level data derived from an English-Arabic parallel corpus and a monolingual Arabic corpus of texts collected from science communication outlets spanning the period from 2016 to 2020. These levels of analysis are pursued by means of four studies. The first study is a survey of biological evolution in the Arabic book market. Emerging from the first study, the second tackles the phenomenon of translating and publishing American creationist texts disguised as scientific works by analysing the paratexts of relevant publications. The third study explores the monolingual corpus through a keyness analysis, to discern the themes discussed in the context of biological evolution in Arabic outlets of science communication. Finally, the fourth study investigates the conceptual scope of biological evolution in the corpora, guided by the historical trajectory of the concept’s development in English and Arabic. The results emerging from the four studies undermine assumptions related to the universality and transparency of scientific discourse, thereby illustrating the importance of accounting for historical, sociocultural, and epistemic factors in the study of scientific translation.