I recently had a dialogue with an evolutionist about the validity of evolution. She did her best to convince me that evolution is real, and that it’s okay to be a Christian and believe in evolution. Sadly, she demonstrated real animosity towards biblical creation.

So I spent the first part of the conversation discussing biblical theology and how the Bible is not compatible with evolution, or sin and death. While some Christians do believe in evolution and an old earth, evolution, by and large, leads most people towards atheism because they recognize the inconsistency. Of course, she disagreed, but couldn’t offer a reasonable explanation as to how evolution could be consistent with the Bible.

But the most interesting part of the dialogue came near the end of our conversation, where I challenged her to make her case for evolution. I asked for ONE piece of evidence that could be substantiated by observational evidence- and not by faith. Something that can be verified by the scientific method. So she referred me to an article titled, “What is the evidence for evolution?” She went on to claim that allele frequency changes in populations over time is evidence for evolution, and that it has been observed both in nature and in the lab, and is empirically testable. She then directed me to the section on “Speciation” and said there were several present-day examples. So I checked them out.

And lo and behold, there was a list of examples ranging from Darwin’s finches, salamanders, flies, malaria-bearing mosquitos and stickleback fish. The author claimed, “Creationists and others have also claimed that the splitting of a species into two or more species has never been observed in nature. But biologists can cite numerous examples of present-day species that appear to be in the process of splitting and species that have split very recently in geologic history”

The funny thing is, none of the examples are examples of evolution. Not one. They’re all examples of natural selection and speciation. None require any sort of belief in evolution. In fact, I’ve written about many of these from a creationist perspective and explain how these are better evidence for biblical creation than evolution. So, either the author is ignorant about what creationists believe, or he is lying.

To be fair, some creationists in the past believed in the fixity of species, but most did not. Humans have been breeding all kinds of animals for thousands of years. Even Carl Linnaeus (1707- 1778), the Father of modern taxonomy, taught that many varieties could be produced from the same species. I know of no creationist who presently believes in the fixity of species. Not one. So, it’s dishonest or irresponsible to characterize creationists in this way. Nonetheless, this evolutionist’s best evidence for evolution turns out to be bogus and is easily refutable.

For instance, one example touted as evidence for evolution is the stickleback fish in Alaska. After an earthquake in 1964, marine fish were stranded in freshwater lakes, and decades later scientists discovered that these fish differed from their marine cousins in many ways. They incorrectly refer to this as evolution, and I refuted this in my previous article.

Make no mistake, to an evolutionist, this is evolution. Period. The changes observed in stickleback fish are empirical. Therefore, to them, these are scientific examples of evolution. But it’s not, and here’s why.

First, they’re using a bait-and-switch tactic. When most people hear the term “evolution”, they’re thinking of fish evolving into amphibians, amphibians evolving into mammals, and ape-like creatures evolving into humans. Right?

For instance, here’s the definition of Darwinian or biological evolution from Wikipedia: it states “that all species of organisms arise and develop through the natural selection of small, inherited variations that increase the individual’s ability to compete, survive, and reproduce.”

Therefore, if we accept any traditional definition of evolution, then the example of stickleback fish is actually an example of natural selection or speciation, not evolution. Consider, evolutionists tell us the mechanisms of evolution are: mutation, non-random mating, gene flow, finite population size (genetic drift), and natural selection. And according to Dictionary.com, speciation is: “the formation of new species as a result of geographic, physiological, anatomical, or behavioral factors that prevent previously interbreeding populations from breeding with each other.”

Therefore, natural selection (supposedly) is a mechanism for evolution, and speciation is a process for biological species formation. If that is true, then neither natural selection nor speciation can be the same thing as evolution. If those processes are supposed to result in evolution- according to evolutionary theory- then they cannot be evolution. The terms cannot be intermixed, otherwise confusion occurs.

Nonetheless, evolutionists constantly refer to natural selection, speciation, or any change as evolution. They’re intermixing their terms, causing confusion to those who don’t understand how evolution works; this is how and why so many people go on to believe in evolution. They’re falling for a bait-and-switch, and that’s exactly what happened to the evolutionist I was dialoguing with, and she’s using that same tactic in an attempt to convert new evolutionists.

Notice how this works. The author of the article quoted biologist Michael Bell, who says, “it has become clear that populations can evolve substantially on contemporary time scales and that the magnitude of evolutionary divergence between ancestral and descendant populations can be comparable to differences among related species”

As you can see, he’s not referring to traditional evolution, where it’s theorized fish evolved into amphibians. No, he’s referring to the change in certain traits as evolution. More specifically, according to the author, he’s referring to the fact that the “lake fish population has changed from mostly 30 or more armor plates per side to mostly between five and eight plates per side”.

Can you spot the bait-and-switch? It’s not that these fish are sprouting legs, fur and a new type of respiratory system. No, they’re losing armored plates… traits which aren’t as necessary for survival as they are in an ocean environment. If evolution were true, then the fact that these fish are losing armored plates doesn’t explain how the armored plates evolved in the first place, or if they could evolve at all. So, where is the evolution? Not in sticklebacks, despite the evolutionary dogma.

So, if it’s not evolution, then what is it? What’s happening? Simply put, this is natural selection, and it results in a new species. Genes from the parent fish are passed along to their offspring, and based on environmental and other factors, a new species will emerge as long as they survive. In the stickleback example, since there’s less need for armor, the organism’s energy is directed to other areas needed for survival and reproduction. But notice that the organism hasn’t evolved into a different kind of organism.

Consider what happens when we breed animals. Dogs can be bred to get a different thickness or length in fur, shorter legs, longer bodies, pugged faces, floppy ears, fast runners, etc. But, no matter how they’re bred, they’re still dogs. Despite thousands of years of breeding, they’re not evolving into a different kind of organism. Due to their unique genetic information, dogs can only get so big or so fast. Their fur will never evolve into feathers, nor will they evolve gills like a fish.

What evolutionists would like to convince you to believe, however, is that these small changes could accumulate over millions of years, and a new kind of organism will evolve… scales will evolve into feathers, and dinosaurs would evolve into birds. But there’s no empirical evidence that such a scenario could happen. Just unsubstantiated conjecture. Since the beginning of recorded history, no one has ever observed this kind of evolutionary change. Instead, what we actually observe is variation within one kind of organism. That’s it. That’s what we see in stickleback fish, Darwin’s finches, malaria-bearing mosquitos, salamanders and flies.

Amazingly, our observation of the stickleback fish matches the Bible, which states that God created fish to reproduce after their kind (Genesis 1:20-25).

Sadly, after I presented this refutation to the evolutionist, our dialogue came to an abrupt end.