Rapid evolution does occur, and it is not just a matter of semantics.
Evolution is a pervasive concept. Once you start thinking in evolutionary
terms, it explains so many obscure patterns that you wonder how you ever
did without it before.

To give just one example of rapid evolution, HIV has been demonstrated to
evolve within the lifetime of individual patients. Unlike most organisms,
it has no safeguards against mutation, and its mutation rate is extremely
high. Also, the virus reproduces at an extraordinarily high rate (i.e.,
many generations in a short time), and its population within a single human
body can very high. Taking these facts together, HIV should be an excellent
test case for rapid evolution. And in fact, HIV has been shown to mutate
from one strain into many during the course of a single infection, much to
the benefit of the virus, as it tends to become resistant to treatment over
time.

Incidentally, Ross, I have high respect for the Seventh-Day Adventists,
whose seminary in Collegedale, Tennessee was within the study area of my
Master's thesis. Their views may be peculiar to outsiders (strict
vegetarianism, for instance), but as a group they do not reject logic, and
they have the courage to change their views in the face of contrary
evidence. Your own statement shows this openness to reason and observation.
To give an example of that, when creationists thought they had found human
and dinosaur footprints together in Cretaceous strata on the Paluxy River
in Texas, a team of Seventh-Day Adventists came to investigate. When they
found that some of the "human" footprints were very indistinct, and others
had been faked (carved into the rock), they withdrew. But other groups
continue to cite the Paluxy case as evidence that humans and dinosaurs
lived at the same time. There is more than one kind of creationist!

Andrew K. Rindsberg
Geological Survey of Alabama