There is a lot of science in the discussion of creation versus evolution; however, what is commonly misunderstood is how much the perspective on that science influences one's position. A primary example of this problem is the fact that evolutionists and even some creationists tend to think of creation in terms of fixity of species. This is the old idea that species never change and are always the same; it is, however, easy to show this idea to be in error, so it is often falsely presented as a creationist position. Meanwhile, the term evolution is often applied to both the observed fact that species do change over time as well as universal common descent, which is really the Darwinian view of evolution and the one that is under dispute, as a way of equating these radically different ideas.
Species can be observed to change over time as they adapt to changes in their environment and as mutations accumulate in their genomes, causing degeneration. This is a concept that is not only observable, but it is well accepted among creationists, making arguments against creation on this basis fallacious. It simply means that, as described in the Bible, God created various kinds of animals that, following the flood, diversified into the species we observe today as they adapted to the post-flood world.
Evolutionists try to equate adaptive change to universal common descent, but the former does not necessarily imply the latter. While it is true that some form of change over time in species is necessary for universal common descent to work, species changing over time to adapt to changes in their environment does not in and of itself imply or even remotely suggest universal common descent. It is possible for a common designer to plan ahead for the need for the original created kinds to have to adapt to changes in environment and thereby include built-in variability.
The reason why evolutionists use the word “evolution” to refer to both universal common descent and adaptive change is not only history, because Darwin mixed the two terms up, but it is much easier to get somebody to accept universal common descent if it is connected to the observation that animals adapt to changes in their environment. The idea behind it is that extending these relatively small changes over hundreds of millions of years can accomplish anything. This ignores the fact that the mutations, being random, tend to scramble genomes rather than produce novel qualities. In fact, even what we do observe in adaptive change tends to be degenerative, even when it has a benefit within a specific environment.
Ultimately, the use of the word evolution for both concepts is a gigantic bait and switch that has been going on for at least 165 years since the publishing of Darwin's Origin of Species. The entire strategy is to connect the two in people's minds so that they see adaptive change and universal common descent as one and the same. The ironic final result of this bait and switch is that you can accept the observed adaptive change but reject universal common descent and still be accused of denying evidence.
