How long have you been doing this? It depends on the individual, of course, but I got bored with it decades ago. I give the opportunity for discussion. Brief discussion. To the point. If the forum would like to spend a great deal more time on the subject - great. But not me. It's a warning not to get too involved and just state your case simply.
You asked for evidence. Literal, observable macroevolution. No jargon. No long threads. No links. You warned us that most of what we’d show you would be “bullshit,” and then said all you needed was someone to show you the goods.
So I did exactly that. I gave you multiple examples of directly observed speciation. I showed the evolution of new functions like nylon digestion. I pointed to transitional fossils like Tiktaalik and Lucy found exactly where evolutionary theory predicted. I brought up hardcoded genetic evidence like shared ERVs and broken pseudogenes. I also explained how Genesis contradicts observable science — and even itself — with two conflicting creation accounts. All of this, clearly laid out, in the exact simple terms you asked for.
And now, your response is: you’re bored of this. You’ve been through it “decades ago.” This wasn’t a debate — just “brief discussion.” You’re “just warning us not to get too involved.”
Let’s be honest: that’s not a warning. That’s a retreat.
You challenged others. You set the terms. You made demands. You framed yourself as someone who was fair and open, ready to be shown the truth — but who just hadn’t seen it yet. Now that it’s been put right in front of you, plainly and literally, you’re backing out and calling it wisdom.
If you’ve really been doing this for decades, then you should already know the strength of the evidence. You should also know the Bible’s creation account does not align with science — not in timeline, not in order, not in content. If after all that time you still haven’t found a way to honestly respond to these facts, then maybe it’s not the evidence that’s lacking.
It’s your willingness to deal with it.
You don’t have to keep going. But you don’t get to pretend the case wasn’t made — and you don’t get to claim the high ground by walking away from the discussion you started.
This wasn’t just “getting too involved.” This was the moment where the evidence finally showed up.
And you blinked.
Irrelevant. Seems like an appeal to probability to me. Though, I'm not even sure there is a contradiction there.
That’s not an argument — it’s hand-waving. First, there’s no “appeal to probability” happening. I laid out direct contradictions between Genesis and the scientific order of events: Earth before sun, plants before sunlight, birds before land animals, humans created separately and last. These aren’t statistical guesses — they’re factual sequences confirmed by astronomy, geology, and evolutionary biology. Saying “I’m not sure there’s a contradiction” doesn’t make the contradiction vanish. It just signals unwillingness to deal with it.
If you have someone of faith vs. someone of science arguing the order of creation you can't, in all fairness assume that their order must be correct.
This isn’t a matter of assuming. Science doesn’t ask for belief — it asks for testable, repeatable, falsifiable evidence. Faith, by definition, requires none of those things. You can’t put “faith vs. science” on equal footing when one is grounded in centuries of converging evidence and the other is belief unsupported by observation. If a person of faith wants to disagree with what science shows, they’re free to — but they’re not entitled to call that disagreement “equally valid.” The order given by Genesis is demonstrably wrong. That’s not an assumption. It’s a conclusion drawn from the evidence.
A person of faith doesn't put faith in science, they put faith in God. The best source for this specific God is the Bible. Who are they going to trust? Science? No.
And that right there is the problem. You’ve admitted that, regardless of what the evidence says, you’re going to side with a book — a book written by Bronze Age humans, with demonstrable contradictions, internal inconsistencies, and zero predictive power — over data, experimentation, and physical evidence. That’s not faith. That’s intellectual surrender. You’ve just told me, plainly, that no matter what’s shown to you, you won’t consider it. That’s not a defense of God. It’s a confession that your position can’t stand up to scrutiny — so you won’t let it be scrutinized.
Maybe the discrepancy could be addressed, but I don't see the relevance in establishing first, as I'm suggesting is necessary, just the basic concept itself.
You’re deflecting. The “basic concept” is meaningless if its foundational claims are factually wrong. You don’t get to skip past the contradictions and say they’re irrelevant while arguing that the Bible should be taken seriously in matters of origins. If it gets the order of creation wrong, how do you trust it on the “concept” of creation? You can’t just focus on the vague idea of “a Creator” and ignore all the specific claims your text makes about what He supposedly did. That’s cherry-picking.
Are you saying that the order is relevant? Let's say my interpretation of the Bible was different than traditional "creationists" or the current science corrected itself and changed the order. Would that settle the debate?
Yes — the order is absolutely relevant. If your account of creation claims to describe how life came to be, and it contradicts the actual history of the cosmos and life on Earth, that matters. And no — science doesn’t just “change the order” on a whim. Scientific corrections happen through better evidence and tighter predictions — not because someone feels like shifting a verse around. If the scientific record drastically changed, we’d change our understanding accordingly. The Bible, on the other hand, doesn’t evolve — even when it’s wrong. That’s why the debate stays stuck: science moves forward, theology clings to outdated claims and then calls it “interpretation.”
Nothing will settle the debate, by the way. I only make a point.
Exactly — nothing will settle the debate for you, because you’ve already decided that no evidence could. You admitted it earlier when you said a person of faith won’t trust science. That’s not a neutral stance. That’s a wall. And if all you’re doing is “making a point,” then let’s be clear about what the point actually is: you’ve acknowledged that no amount of observable, measurable, predictive evidence will change your mind.
That’s not a strength. That’s a refusal to engage with reality. And it proves exactly why this conversation keeps going: not because the evidence isn’t there, but because belief is shielded from it at all costs.
That is wrong. I hadn't posted it yet, but - oh - as I compose this response, I see you've addressed that just recently. I'll get to it then. And again, making it science vs. creation doesn't resolve anything. I could respond simply with, well, God says evolution is tripe, so there. That's pretty much what you're doing with your circular reasoning. Evolution is true because science says it is - is like saying creation is true because God says it is. Not much of an argument.
Actually, there’s a massive difference between saying “evolution is true because science says it is” and saying “creation is true because God says it is.” And that difference is evidence.
Science doesn’t just “say” something and expect you to believe it on faith. It provides independent, testable, and falsifiable evidence from multiple fields — genetics, paleontology, geology, embryology, molecular biology, biogeography — all converging on the same conclusion: evolution happened.
We can observe speciation. We can trace shared genetic markers like endogenous retroviruses. We can predict where transitional fossils like Tiktaalik should be found — and then find them there. None of that is circular reasoning. That’s reasoning built on physical, repeatable data.
Creation, by contrast, offers no mechanism, no testable model, no predictions, and no evidence that stands up to scrutiny. It begins with the conclusion — “God did it” — and then rewrites interpretation around that belief. That’s the definition of circular reasoning.
Saying “God says evolution is tripe, so there” is not an argument. It’s a declaration of belief. And that’s fine if all you’re doing is stating your personal conviction. But don’t pretend it belongs in the same category as science, which doesn’t rely on any holy book or authority figure. It relies on what we can see, test, and repeat.
So let’s be honest here: you’re not responding to the evidence. You’re dodging it by falsely equating belief and science as if they operate the same way. They don’t.
One starts with observation and builds toward conclusions.
The other starts with conclusions and resists observation.
That’s not a debate. That’s one side refusing to play by the rules of reality.
If you want to respond to the actual evidence — the speciation, the fossils, the genetics — go for it. But dismissing it all with “well God says otherwise” doesn’t move the discussion forward. It just reinforces what’s already obvious: your belief isn’t grounded in evidence, and it isn’t open to challenge.
They aren't contradictory accounts; they are only from two different perspectives. The first chronological and the second topical.
That’s a well-worn explanation, but it doesn’t hold up under even basic scrutiny. The idea that Genesis 1 is “chronological” and Genesis 2 is just “topical” falls apart the moment you actually read what the text says — and compare the sequence of events.
In Genesis 1, the order is clear and linear:
• Light → sky → land → plants → sun/moon/stars → sea life → birds → land animals → man and woman created together (Genesis 1:27).
In Genesis 2, the order is entirely different:
• The earth is already formed, but no shrubs or plants have grown yet (Genesis 2:5).
• Then God forms man from the dust (Genesis 2:7).
• Then God plants the garden and makes trees grow (Genesis 2:8-9).
• Then God realizes the man is alone and creates the animals (Genesis 2:18-19).
• After the animals fail to be a suitable companion, God finally creates woman from man’s rib (Genesis 2:21-22).
That is not the same order. It’s not even close. And it’s not just a difference in emphasis or “topic” — it’s a flat contradiction in sequence and structure:
• Genesis 1: animals before man, man and woman created together.
• Genesis 2: man before animals, woman created later, after failed animal companionship.
If Genesis 2 were simply a “topical” or theological retelling, it wouldn’t contradict the core timeline. But it does — explicitly. And no amount of wordplay about “perspectives” changes the fact that one says A before B, and the other says B before A.
So let’s be clear: if these two accounts were found in any other book, believers would immediately call them contradictions. But because they’re in the Bible, you’re forced to bend over backwards to make them “fit.” That’s not good interpretation. That’s special pleading.
And more importantly: if the Bible can’t keep its own foundational story internally consistent, how can it possibly be trusted as a reliable account of cosmic or biological origins?
This isn’t just about Genesis 1 vs. 2. It’s about credibility. And this is where the Bible loses it.
I may not be terribly enthusiastic about going toe to toe with you in the depth your posts normally would require as I once would long ago, but I do appreciate that you actually seem to be paying attention to what I'm saying without assuming I'm just another "Creationist."
I appreciate that. And to be clear, I’m not lumping you in with young-earth creationists or the “dinosaurs lived with humans” crowd. You’ve made it clear that you’re a Jehovah’s Witness, that you accept an old Earth, and that your position on Genesis is more nuanced than typical fundamentalism. That said — and I think you know this — the core tension still remains.
You said you wanted literal examples of macroevolution, and I gave you exactly that. Not theories. Not links. Not “trust the scientists.” Just real-world cases:
• Ring species demonstrating speciation,
• Nylon-eating bacteria showing new function from mutation,
• Fossils like Tiktaalik and Lucy that physically document transitional forms,
• Genetic evidence like shared ERVs and pseudogenes — not just similarities, but shared mistakes, inherited from common ancestors.
And I know you’re not “terribly enthusiastic” about diving into all of it in depth. That’s fair. But it’s also telling.
Because if the evidence is now too much to respond to directly — if we’ve passed the point where belief can absorb it without retreating to “well, I just trust God over science” — then that’s not a debate about the data anymore. That’s about insulation. And you’re not the only person reading this exchange.
So I’ll just say this: you asked for literal macroevolution. You got it. You asked for contradictions between evolution and Genesis. You got those too. You even got the internal contradictions within the Bible’s own creation accounts. All clearly laid out, no assumptions made, and nothing brushed aside.
What you do with it now is up to you. But the conversation didn’t go in circles. It went in a straight line — from challenge to evidence to silence.
That’s not nothing. That’s the weight of the evidence doing what it always does when it’s actually looked at head-on.
Ass. An ass and a donkey are terms often used interchangeably to refer to the same animal, while a mule is a hybrid offspring produced by crossing a male donkey (jack) with a female horse (mare). Mules, generally speaking, can't reproduce. Your warblers interbreed with neighbors that aren't warblers and produce offspring that mate with what?
You’re confusing two completely different biological concepts — hybridization between distant species (like horse and donkey) and gradual speciation within a single evolving population, like the greenish warbler.
Let’s clarify.
A mule is a sterile hybrid between two separate species — a horse and a donkey — which diverged from a common ancestor millions of years ago. Their offspring are usually infertile because their chromosome numbers and structures are mismatched. That’s not speciation in progress — that’s an evolutionary dead end.
Greenish warblers, on the other hand, are all part of the same species complex. They didn’t start out separate — they started as one population, which expanded geographically around the Himalayas. Along that ring, adjacent populations remained genetically similar enough to interbreed, but accumulated gradual genetic changes as they spread and adapted to different environments.
By the time the two ends of the ring meet in Siberia, they can no longer interbreed — even though there’s a continuous chain of populations linking them. This is a textbook example of speciation via geographic and genetic divergence, and it’s not theoretical. It’s been documented in the field and in genetic studies.
So no — these aren’t “not warblers.” They’re all warblers. But the two end populations have diverged far enough that they behave like separate species — the very definition of speciation. No sterile hybrids. No distant species. Just slow, observable evolution splitting one population into two.
That’s macroevolution. Exactly what you asked for.
And once again: exactly what was provided.
You're suggesting that nylon was invented in the 20th century is an example of macroevolution? That's quick. The nylon-eating bacteria wasn't bacteria prior to that? You see?
You’ve misunderstood the example. No one said the bacteria themselves weren’t bacteria before nylon was invented. Of course they were. The point isn’t that a new organism suddenly popped into existence — the point is that a new metabolic function evolved that had never existed in those bacteria before.
Here’s what actually happened:
Nylon is a synthetic compound, first created in the 1930s. It’s not found in nature, so no living organism before that had ever encountered it. But by the 1970s, scientists discovered certain bacteria had developed the ability to digest nylon byproducts. This ability wasn’t there before. It arose due to a mutation — specifically a frame-shift mutation in a gene — which led to the creation of a completely new enzyme called nylonase.
This wasn’t a reshuffling of existing traits. This was the evolution of a new functional protein, enabling the bacteria to use a synthetic compound as a food source — something they couldn’t do before. And it happened fast, which is exactly what evolutionary theory allows for, especially in organisms with short generation times like bacteria.
So yes, it’s an example of macroevolution in the sense that it shows the emergence of entirely new functions, not just small tweaks to existing traits. It’s also repeatable and has been studied in detail in the lab.
You asked for literal, observable evolutionary change. This is it — new capability, new enzyme, new metabolic pathway — all arising through mutation and natural selection.
And no, saying “but they were already bacteria” misses the point entirely. Evolution doesn’t require one creature to become a totally different creature overnight. It works by accumulating functional changes, and this is one of the clearest examples we have of that happening.
Are you suggesting my beliefs have to be dishonest in order to coincide with yours?
No — I’m saying it’s dishonest to ask for evidence, get exactly what you asked for, then refuse to engage with it.
You asked for literal examples of macroevolution. I gave you real-time speciation, new genetic functions, transitional fossils, and hardcoded genetic evidence of shared ancestry. You specifically said, “don’t give me links, don’t give me bone fragments, don’t give me similarities between apes and humans — show me macroevolution.” That’s what I did.
So when I said “all I need from you now is some honesty,” I wasn’t attacking your beliefs. I was pointing out that it’s not honest to move the goalposts, dismiss the evidence as “irrelevant,” or claim it’s just “science vs. faith” after asking for something specific and receiving it.
If you want to hold onto your beliefs — fine. You’re free to do that. But don’t pretend this was ever about testing the evidence on equal ground if, once it’s laid out plainly, you won’t even engage with it.
Honesty doesn’t mean abandoning your faith. It just means acknowledging when the evidence contradicts it — and owning that tension, rather than pretending it’s not there.
It’s telling that you had something to say about the warblers, something to say about nylon-eating bacteria, something to say about creation vs. science, and even something to say about tone — but nothing at all in response to the fossil and genetic evidence.
Nothing on Tiktaalik, a transitional fossil predicted in advance and found in the exact rock layer it was expected.
Nothing on Lucy, a species with a mix of ape-like and human-like features, showing upright walking long before Homo sapiens.
Nothing on endogenous retroviruses — ancient viral insertions found in the same spots in human and chimp DNA.
Nothing on pseudogenes — shared broken genes passed down from a common ancestor.
This wasn’t just one piece of evidence. It was a convergence of anatomy, geology, and molecular biology — all pointing to the same conclusion. If that doesn’t at least merit a response, then I think it’s fair to ask: why not?
Is it that the evidence is weak — or that it’s too strong to be dismissed easily?
Because if the only parts of the argument that get replies are the ones that feel easy to pick at, and the parts that go straight to the heart of the issue are quietly avoided… that says more than a rebuttal ever could.
So I’ll ask plainly: Are you willing to engage with the genetic and fossil evidence — or does the silence speak for itself?
NHC
