              HOW TO TALK TO YOUR KIDS ABOUT CREATION AND EVOLUTION
                                 Ray and Sue Bohlin
          
          
          In this pamphlet, Ray and Sue Bohlin discuss how to talk to your
          kids about creation and evolution. Sue's questions and comments are
          bracketed with <<>>, followed by Ray's answers.
          
          Problems with Evolutionary Theory  
          
          <<Why is there a problem with evolution in the first place? Someone
          once asked you, "What should I believe?" Remember what you told
          them?>>
          
          Basically I said you should only believe what there is evidence
          for. After spending years studying evolution in bachelor's,
          master's, and doctoral programs, I can tell you that, first of all,
          there IS evidence for small changes in organisms as they adapt to
          small environmental fluctuations. 
          
          Second, there IS evidence that new species do arise. We see new
          species of fruit flies, rodents, and even birds. But when the
          original species is a fruit fly, the new species is still a fruit
          fly. These processes do not tell us how we get horses and wasps and
          woodpeckers.
          
          Third, in the fossil record, there are only a few transitions
          between major groups of organisms, like between reptiles and birds,
          and these are controversial, even among evolutionists. If
          evolutionary theory is correct, the fossil record should be full of
          them.
          
          Fourth, there are no real evolutionary answers for the origin of
          complex adaptations like the tongue of the woodpecker; or flight in
          birds, mammals, insects, and reptiles; or the swimming adaptations
          in fish, mammals, reptiles, and the marine invertebrates. These
          adaptations appear in the fossil record with no transitions.
          And fifth, there is no genetic mechanism for these large-scale
          evolutionary changes. The theory of evolution from amoeba to man is
          an extrapolation from very meager data.
          
          <<So the problem with evolution is that it is a mechanistic theory
          without a mechanism, and there is no evidence for the big changes
          from amoeba to man.>>
          
          The evolution of the horse
          
          <<I have our son's eighth-grade biology textbook here. Every
          textbook, including this one, has a story about the evolution of
          the horse. It is always offered as proof of evolution. What do you
          say?>>
          
          It does not prove much about evolution at all. David Raup, with the
          Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, says:
          
             We are now about 120 years after Darwin, and knowledge of the  
             fossil record has been greatly expanded. Ironically, we have   
             even fewer examples of evolutionary transition than we had in  
             Darwin's time. By this I mean that some of the classic cases of 
             Darwinian change in the fossil record, such as the evolution of 
             the horse in North America, have had to be discarded or modified 
             as a result of more detailed information.(1)
          
          There is no chronological sequence of horse-like fossils. The story
          of the gradual reduction from the four-toed horse of 60 million
          years ago to the one-toed horse of today has been called pure
          fiction. All that can be shown is the transition from a little
          horse to a big one. This is not significant evolutionary change,
          and it still took some 60 million years. It does not say anything
          about how the horse evolved from a shrew-like mammal.
          
          Homologous and Vestigial Organs
          
          <<Homologous organs: What are they?>>
          
          Homologous organs are organs or structures from different organisms
          that have the same or similar function. Evolutionists say this
          similarity is due to common ancestry. The important question is, Do
          these organs look and function the same because of common ancestry
          or because of a simple common design. In other words, do they look
          this way because they are related to one another, or were they
          designed to perform a similar function? Homology is not a problem
          for creationists; we have a different but reasonable explanation.
          It is the result of common design, not common ancestry.
          
          <<What about vestigial organs, the ones that are supposedly left
          over from the evolutionary past? I remember being taught that the
          coccyx, the tailbone, is left over from when we were monkeys. And
          the appendix, same thing_we needed it when we were evolving, but we
          do not need it now. Vestigial organs are unused leftovers from our
          evolutionary past. Since we do not use them, they have diminished;
          they have become vestiges of their past functions.>>
          
          According to evolutionary theory
          
          Yes, according to evolution. But we have discovered that these
          structures do have a function. The prime example is the one you
          mentioned, the tailbone. The coccyx serves as a point of attachment
          for several pelvic muscles. You would not be able to sit very well
          or comfortably without a tailbone.
          
          The appendix was also long thought to be a vestigial organ, having
          absolutely no function within our bodies, but now we find it is
          involved in the immune system. It does have a function. It is true
          that you can live without it. However, as we learn more about the
          appendix, we realize that if it remains uninfected, it may be
          serving a very useful purpose.
          
          <<So in other words, "vestigial organs" are not necessarily
          useless; we just may not have discovered what their role is.>>
          
          Yes, very often we have called these things "vestigial" because we
          never bothered to investigate their function because of their
          reduced stature. Now we find that things like the coccyx and the
          appendix really do have a function. And if they have a function,
          then we cannot call them vestigial; they are not leftovers from our
          evolutionary past.
          
          <<I am looking at pictures of embryos in this textbook that are
          very similar. The explanation given in the book is that they are
          similar because they have a common evolutionary ancestor.
          Obviously, this is being advanced as evidence of evolution. Is that
          what it is?>>
          
          Definitely not. Embryological development does not follow the
          history of our evolutionary past. That idea was proven wrong 50 or
          60 years ago. It is unfortunate that this error is still in the
          textbooks. Obviously, there are some similarities among species
          very early in embryological development; for instance, among
          mammals, reptiles, amphibians, and birds. That is because they all
          start from a single cell. As development progresses, they become 
          less similar. That is exactly what you would expect from an
          evolutionist OR creationist perspective.
          
          The Early Atmosphere of the Earth
          
          <<You know, I was pretty happy with how this particular textbook
          treated evolution. It does not even use the word evolution,and it
          treats it strictly as a matter of theory, not fact. But you came
          across another, newer high-school textbook that is stridently
          pro-evolution. I am concerned about some things I see in this
          chapter on the origin of life. It is talking about the earth's
          early atmosphere, and this statement is in bold print (so the
          students know it's going to be on the test, don't you know!): 
          
             "The earth's first atmosphere most likely contained water vapor, 
             carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide, nitrogen, hydrogen sulfide, 
             and hydrogen cyanide."
          
          Then in the very next section it talks about Stanley Miller's
          famous experiments in 1953. It says the atmosphere he was trying to
          recreate was made of ammonia, water, hydrogen, and methane. What is
          going on here?>>
          
          This particular section is confusing at best and misleading at
          worst. Clearly they have described Miller's classic experiment, but
          researchers today agree that the atmosphere used for that
          simulation did not exist. But yet Miller's experiment produced
          results. If you use the atmosphere that the textbook describes as
          the real one, the results are much less significant. The textbook
          gives the impression that chemical evolution is easy to simulate.
          But this is far from the truth. One experimenter says:
          
             At present, all discussions on principles and theories in the  
             field [meaning the origin of life] either end in stalemate or in 
             a confession of ignorance.(2)
          
          But you would definitely not get that impression from reading this
          section of the book.
          
          
          Phylogenetic Trees
          
          <<I have another question. Here is this beautiful, tidy chart that
          shows how neatly different animals evolved from one common
          ancestor. This evolutionary tree has a crocodile-like animal at the
          bottom, and all these branches coming out from him, and we end up
          with turtles and snakes and reptiles and birds and mammals all
          descended from this one animal. Are we talking science fantasy
          here, or is there a problem with this evolutionary tree?>>
          
          Evolutionary trees, or phylogenetic trees, are regularly
          misrepresented in high-school textbooks. The nice solid lines give
          the impression that there is plenty of evidence, plenty of fossils
          to document these transitions_but the transitions are not there. If
          we were to look at this same type of diagram in a college textbook,
          all those connecting lines_the transitions_would be dotted lines,
          indicating that we do not have the evidence to prove that these
          organisms are related. The transition is an assumption. They assume
          these organisms are related to each other, but the evidence is
          lacking. Stephen Gould, a paleontologist and evolutionist from
          Harvard, says,
          
             The extreme rarity of transitional forms in the fossil record  
             persists as the trade secret of paleontology. The evolutionary 
             trees that adorn our textbooks have data only at the tips and  
             nodes of their branches. The rest is inference, however 
             reasonable: not the evidence of fossils.(3)
          
          <<In other words, these charts make pretty pictures, but they're
          not pictures of reality.>>
          
          That's correct.
          
          Natural Selection and Speciation
          
          <<In this same high-school biology text, I am looking at the
          chapter on evolution called "How Change Occurs." The big heading
          for this section is "Evolution by Natural Selection." Natural
          selection always seems to be linked inseparably to evolution. What
          is it?>>
          
          Natural selection is a process where, the organisms that are fit to
          survive and reproduce, do so at a greater rate than those that are
          less fit. It sounds circular, but it is a simple process, something
          you can easily observe in nature.
          
          <<There are some pictures here of England's famous peppered moths.
          Why do they keep showing up in science textbooks?>>
          
          They keep showing up because the peppered moth was the first
          documented example of Darwin's natural selection at work. There
          were two different color varieties of the same moth: a peppered
          variety and a dark black variety. The peppered variety was
          camouflaged on the bark of trees, but the black variety was
          conspicuous. As a result, the birds ate a lot of black moths. The
          most common variety, therefore, was the peppered variety. But then
          the bark of the trees turned dark or black because of pollution.
          Now the dark form was hidden, but the peppered variety stood out,
          so the birds ate up the peppered variety. The proportion of
          peppered moths to black moths shifted in response to the change in
          the environment.
          
          So here was a change of frequency. At one time we had more peppered
          moths, and now we have more dark ones. A clear example of natural
          selection taking place. But the question is, Is this really
          evolution? I don't think so. It just shows variety within a form.
          This does not tell me anything as a biologist and a geneticist
          about how we have come to have horses and wasps and woodpeckers.
          
          <<When we are looking at peppered moths, we are dealing with
          natural selection within the same species. What about a whole new
          species; for example, Darwin's Galapagos finches off the coast of
          Ecuador. Isn't that an evidence of evolution?>>
          
          Here is another area where we need to be careful. Speciation is
          indeed a real process, but speciation only means that two
          populations of a particular species can no longer interbreed. The
          two populations get separated by a geographical barrier such as a
          mountain range, and after a time they are no longer able to
          interbreed or to reproduce between themselves.
          
          But all we have really done is split up the gene pool into two
          different, separate populations; if you want to call them different
          species, that's fine. But even Darwin's finches, although there are
          some changes in the shape and size of the bill, are clearly related
          to one another. Drosophila fruit flies on the Hawaiian
          Islands_there are over 300 species_probably originated from one
          initial species. But they look very much the same. The primary way
          to distinguish them is by their mating behavior.
          
          There is a lot of variety within the organisms God created, and
          species can adapt to small changes in the environment. But there is
          a limit to how far that change can go. And the examples we have,
          like peppered moths and Darwin's finches, show that very clearly.
          
          Responding to Evolutionary Theory
          
          <<You have given a creationist's response to evolution in
          textbooks, but apart from the books there is a personal issue to
          deal with. How do you think Christian students ought to react when
          they get to evolution in a science curriculum in school?>>
          
          First, don't panic. This should not be a surprise_ you knew it was
          going to come eventually. Second, understand that evolution is a
          very important idea in society today. It is important to know about
          it and to understand it. Try to explain it to your kids in that
          way. You do not have to believe it or accept it, but you need to
          understand it, know what people mean when they talk about
          evolution.
          
          <<What about answering a question on a test?>>
          
          Here it can get a little sticky. You may feel that you have to lie
          in order to give the answer the teacher wants. But I do not think
          that is the case at all. What you are doing is simply addressing
          the issue of evolution; you are showing that you understand it. You
          do not have to phrase your answer in such a way that says, "I
          believe this is the way it is." It may come down to how you state
          your answer. But you are simply demonstrating your knowledge about
          evolution, not your acceptance of it.
          
          <<It seems to me that when you show you understand the concept of
          evolution, you are demonstrating respect for the teacher
          and<R>really for the theory too, as the prevalent theory of our
          day, without having to make a statement of, "Yes, I believe
          this!">>
          
          Sure. The concept of respect, I think, is extremely important,
          because you have to realize that as a middle-school or high-school
          student, you are dealing with teachers who have studied or taught
          evolutionary theory for many years. Their level of understanding is
          much deeper than yours. You cannot simply go in there and try to
          convince the class that the teacher is wrong, or that evolution is
          wrong; you need to play the role of a student. And the role of a
          student is to learn, to try to understand and comprehend the ideas
          being discussed. But you do not have to communicate in such a way
          that you appear to believe evolutionary theory.
          
          <<I found this page in the textbook we have been looking at, right
          after the chapters on evolution. It is a message from the authors
          to the students. It says,
          
             Evolutionary theory unites all living things into one enormous 
             family_from the tallest redwoods to the tiniest bacteria to each
             and every human on Earth. And, most importantly, the           
             evolutionary history of life makes it clear that all living    
             things_all of us_share a common destiny on this planet. If you 
             remember nothing else from this course ten years from now,     
             remember this, and your year will have been well spent.(4)
          
          I have never seen a message like this before, from the authors to
          the student. This textbook obviously has a very strong evolution
          bias.>>
          
          Here we have to realize that what is being taught is not science
          anymore; this is a world view. This is a statement of naturalism.
          Obviously, evolution is extremely important to the naturalistic
          world view, and the authors are trying to communicate its
          significance. We are going to see more and more of this bias in
          textbooks.
          
          <<Before Christian parents can talk to our kids about evolution, we
          first must have an understanding of evolution itself, as well as an
          understanding of the problems with it. We don't need to be afraid
          of this powerful theory; we do, however, need discernment, in
          sifting through the rhetoric and distinguishing it from the truth
          about God's world.>>
          
          Genesis 1
          
          <<Typically, if a child spends any time at all in Sunday school, he
          gets to the point where he realizes, "Hey, this doesn't relate at
          all to what I'm learning in school!" Our hope is that we can help
          parents integrate the truth of Scripture with what is known about
          origins in the world. As Christians, our starting point for
          thinking about origins is Genesis 1: "In the beginning God created
          the heavens and the earth." From that point on, though, there are
          a lot of different perspectives explaining the rest of the
          chapter.>>
          
          That is true, and unfortunately it not only gets confusing for many
          of us, but it gets very confusing for many of the academics and the
          scholars as well. There are a number of different ways to interpret
          Genesis 1. Let me just run through three of the most prominent
          views among evangelicals today.
          
          The first is the LITERAL or the VERY RECENT creation account. Some
          people would call the proponents of this view "young earth
          creationists." They believe that each of the six days of creation
          was a twenty-four hour period similar to our days today. These days
          were consecutive and in the recent past, probably ten to thirty
          thousand years ago. They hold that the flood was a world-wide and
          catastrophic event and that all the sedimentary layers were a
          result of Noah's flood. All the fossils, therefore, are a result of
          the flood of Noah.
          
          The second way of looking at Genesis 1 is the DAY AGE THEORY,
          sometimes called PROGRESSIVE CREATION. Here, each of the six days
          of creation is a very long period of time, perhaps hundreds of
          millions of years. God would have created progressively through
          time, not all at once. The flood is a local event in Mesopotamia or
          perhaps even a world-wide, but tranquil flood. Therefore, the flood
          did not leave any great scars or sediments across the earth.
          
          The third view understands Genesis 1 as a LITERARY FRAMEWORK. This
          view suggests that Genesis 1 was not meant to communicate history.
          Peoples of the Ancient Near East used a similar literary device to
          describe a complete or perfect work; in this case, a perfect
          creation. God could have created using evolution or progressive
          creation; the point is that there is really no concordance between
          earth history and the days of Genesis 1.
          
          We need to explain to our children the view that makes the most
          sense to us, but at the same time let them know that there is some
          disagreement between evangelicals. You may even be confused
          yourself, and it is okay to communicate to your children that you
          do not know, either, and that not knowing is all right. We need to
          give direction but leave the doors open for other options.
          
          <<Can we know which one is the correct interpretation?>>
          
          Creation is a mystery. We need to show respect, not only for the
          mystery, but also for those people holding different views.
          Evangelicals with backgrounds in Hebrew and Greek differ on their
          understanding of Genesis 1. So how can we expect a ten-year-old to
          grasp the problem and make an actual decision?
          
          <<When we explain the creation account in Genesis 1, we need to
          communicate to our children that different scholars, all committed
          to the Bible as God's Word, interpret Scripture differently. The
          important thing is that we stress that God created the earth, the
          universe, and every living thing, especially humans.>>
          
          Early Human History
          
          <<Now we are going to look at some specific issues that arise from
          Genesis in terms of early human history. Let's start with Adam and
          Eve. Were they real people?>>
          
          This is a very important question, and I think it is one that most
          evangelical scholars can agree on. Adam and Eve were real people,
          and almost all evangelical scholars agree that they were created by
          God. The reason is that this is the one creation event where God
          gives us details as to how He went about it. When He created the
          other mammals and the sea creatures and the birds, He MADE them or
          He CREATED them or He FORMED them, but we are given details about
          Adam and Eve's creation. We are told how God did it. Adam was
          formed from dust, and Eve was created from a rib taken out of
          Adam's side. It is clear that humans do not have an evolutionary
          origin.
          
          <<What about australopithecines, those supposed ape-like human
          ancestors?>>
          
          Australopithecines most likely are simply extinct apes. Some
          quibble as to whether they walked upright and therefore may have
          been on their way to developing into human beings, but even if they
          did walk upright, that is not a real problem. They are still
          extinct apes, and they really had no human qualities whatsoever.
          There is a very good book that you may want to look at called
          "Bones of Contention." There are a couple of books called "Bones of
          Contention," but this is a recent one by Marvin Lubenow. Lubenow
          goes into great detail about the actual fossil finds_what they
          mean, where they fit_all from a creationist's perspective, and he
          does a very good job. He talks about the fact that human remains
          seem to span the whole era of supposed human evolution from four
          million years ago to the present, and that even the one particular
          type of fossil called "homo erectus" covers a very broad range.
          Homo erectus does not really fit where he is supposed to, and the
          fossils seem to contradict evolutionary theory rather than support
          it.
          
          <<There is one more question that keeps coming up again and again.
          Where did Cain's wife come from?>>
          
          In some ways it is surprising that this question seems to be so
          perplexing to people, but in another way I really understand it.
          Clearly, Cain married a sister. We react against that idea today
          because of the many laws we have today concerning incestuous
          relationships. We have laws against incest because the children
          that result from that type of relationship are often afflicted with
          a genetic disease. This is because all of us carry detrimental
          recessive genes within our chromosomes. Closely related family
          members may carry similar if not the same set of recessive genes.
          When we marry within the family, those recessives can pair up and
          result in a child who is genetically handicapped. But in the
          original creation, there was no such problem. These were the
          originally created beings, there were no genetic mutations to worry
          about.
          
          <<When it comes to human origins, the Bible gives no room for
          anything other than God's personal fashioning of Adam and Eve. It
          is the fact that God personally created mankind that gives us such
          intrinsic value.>>
          
          Noah's Flood
          
          <<The flood of Noah is extremely important because several New
          Testament teachings depend on it. The Lord Jesus told us that the
          time right before He returns will be just like it was in the days
          before the flood. Peter reminds us that God's judgment fell once on
          the earth and He has promised to do it again. If the first judgment
          was not real, what are we to think of the second one?
          
          <<But all too often what comes to mind when we think of Noah's
          flood is the image of a cute little round boat with the heads of
          fluffy sheep and tall giraffes and friendly elephants sticking out
          of it. We think of it as a harmless bedtime story like Cinderella
          or Scuffy the Tugboat, a remnant of childhood Bible lessons and
          storybook times. Did the flood of Noah really happen?>>
          
          We are talking about aN historical event and one that is very
          serious. It is spoken of in Genesis in a historical narrative.<%0>
          But evangelicals do disagree as to just how it happened. There are
          basically three different views.
           
          One is the universal catastrophic flood account, where the flood
          was a world-wide event. It did indeed cover all the high mountains
          at that time, and it was catastrophic_lots of tidal waves and
          breaking up of the fountains of the great deep.
          
          The other view is that the flood was universal_it covered the whole
          earth_but it was a tranquil event and probably did not leave any
          scars or sediments on the earth.
          
          And the third view is that the flood was just in the Mesopotamian
          area. Since its intent was to destroy mankind, and mankind had not
          spread very far, the flood only had to cover the Mesopotamian area.
          Again, as with the creation account, we need to tell our kids what
          our conviction is. What do WE think about it? And again, if you are
          not certain, if you are not sure about your view, go ahead and
          communicate your uncertainty as well. It is okay to be uncertain
          about some of these things_scholars do not really know everything
          about them, either. And we have to be ready to realize that the
          kids might not even like our particular interpretation, or they may
          have heard things in school, Sunday school, or church that may
          differ with our view. But it is okay to give our kids a little bit
          of room on these kinds of issues.
          
          <<With all of these different interpretations of the flood, what
          can we feel safe telling our children? What is the point of the
          flood? What is the bottom line of this event?>>
          
          The purpose of the flood of Noah was to destroy mankind as it
          existed at that time. Where scholars differ is just how far mankind
          had spread. Some suggest that the human population may only have
          been a couple hundred thousand, so they may have been contained in
          the Mesopotamian area. But if humans had been around for four or
          five thousand years, and they had a chance to multiply and grow,
          there may have been several millions or tens of millions of people
          spread across the earth. That may be why some suggest that, in
          order to destroy mankind, the flood had to be universal. But we
          still do not know whether the flood was a catastrophic or a
          tranquil event, and so there is some room for discussion. I think
          all these different theories are helpful because they allow us to
          investigate God's Word to the best of our ability and try to
          determine what it really means.
          
          <<There is one view of the flood_ the universal catastrophic flood
          model_that has really captured the attention of much of the
          Christian community. Several organizations propose this model. In
          fact, you spent a couple of weeks in the Grand Canyon with one of
          these organizations investigating the flood model for the formation
          of the canyon. We want to address a few specifics about this
          catastrophic model of the flood of Noah. Could you give just a
          brief outline of this model?>>
          
          This catastrophic model definitely suggests a very ifferent
          scenario than the cute animals or the little round boat. We are
          talking about the breaking up of the fountains of the great deep
          and huge amounts of water rocking back and forth across the earth.
          The young earth creationists suggest that most of the sedimentary
          layers were formed during the flood. Most of the fossils that we
          find in those sedimentary layers, therefore, would have been laid
          down as a result of the flood of Noah. There should also be
          evidence around the earth of the catastrophic formation of all
          these sedimentary layers.
          
          <<How close to the truth is this model? Does it explain
          everything?>>
          
          There are a lot of things that it does explain. There is evidence
          for catastrophic origin for most, if not all, sedimentary layers.
          Organisms seem to require a very rapid burial in order for them to
          be formed as fossils. But there are problems with this model as
          well, and I think it is important that we recognize what those are.
          For instance, all the different types of sediment would have to be
          the result of just one event, a catastrophic flood. When we look at
          these sedimentary layers, we have sandstone, limestone, mudstone,
          shale_all different types of rocks_but they all would have had to
          come from the same event, and that is a bit of a problem. The
          majority of Christian geologists believe that the strata are due to
          other events like river floods, deposits from big storms or
          hurricanes that occurred periodically or, in some cases regarding
          the sandstones, even desert sand dunes. While the catastrophic
          model is a captivating idea, I do not see a need to force ourselves
          to accept it or reject it at this time.
          
          There is a lot of work to be done concerning this model. If you
          have a curious, science-oriented child, why not encourage him or
          her to pursue a career in science and become a part of the group
          that tries to investigate it?
          
          Cavemen
          
          <<Another question the kids are often curious about is, where do
          cavemen fit into the Bible?>>
          
          Most creationists believe cavemen were the early survivors of the
          flood. Remember, if the purpose of the flood was to destroy
          mankind, then most of these fossils would be individuals who
          survived the flood or lived soon afterwards. Cro-Magnon man and
          Neanderthal man, and probably even fossils described as homo
          erectus, are all post-flood humans, descendants of Noah's three
          sons. The so-called primitive characteristics could be due to
          genetic in-breeding, faulty diets, and life in a harsh environment.
          
          Racial Differences
          
          <<Where do the different races come from? If we are all descended
          from one couple, Adam and Eve, why are there different colors of
          skin?>>
          
          Races would have originated with Noah's three sons and their wives.
          Several sets of genes produce the wide variety of skin color
          present in the current population. It is not difficult at all to
          envision genetically-similar populations becoming isolated after
          the flood and being the progenitors of the different races. Much of
          this genetic variability may have been contained in Noah's sons'
          wives, arising from genetic segregation that took place since the
          creation of Adam and Eve. Adam and Eve were probably people of
          intermediate skin color with most, if not all, of the genetic
          variability present in their genes.
          
          Dinosaurs
          
          <<We cannot talk about explaining creation to our kids without
          addressing the inevitable question of the dinosaurs. Where do
          dinosaurs fit into the Bible?>>
          
          There is no question that kids today, particularly boys, are really
          enamored of dinosaurs. The answer depends on what your approach is.
          
          If you are approaching creation from an old earth perspective, then
          the dinosaurs have been extinct for seventy or so million years and
          there is no reason to expect them to be mentioned in the Bible at
          all. Men and dinosaurs never existed together.
          
          If, however, you are approaching creation from a young earth model,
          where everything was created in the fairly recent past, then
          dinosaurs must have existed at the same time as man because they
          were created on the same day, only ten to thirty thousand years
          ago. And that raises the question as to whether Noah took dinosaurs
          on the ark.
          
          It is difficult to imagine a brontosaurus getting on the ark, and
          most creationists answer that by suggesting he probably did not
          take adult dinosaurs on the ark, just juveniles or small babies.
          The extinction of the dinosaurs then was probably due to the flood.
          Even if Noah did take some on the ark, apparently the climate and
          ecology of the earth had changed dramatically as the result of the
          flood and they were not able to survive following the flood.
          
          But it also raises the very distinct possibility that some
          dinosaurs may still exist in small, isolated pockets around the
          world. I do not want to add too much credence to this, but there
          are very intriguing stories_and I just want to call them stories
          for right now, not fact_from the Congo of different kinds of
          dinosaurs being reported by villagers and even some missionaries
          seeing very large reptile-like creatures out in the swamps. We have
          cave paintings from South America of dinosaur-like creatures. We
          have legends from all over the world about dragons, in China and
          the East and in Europe during the Middle Ages. We seem to have it
          in our heads that big reptiles are out there somewhere. It is a lot
          easier to think of them as being left-overs from the flood rather
          than having existed in small pockets for sixty or so million years
          since they became extinct in an evolutionary perspective. It is
          also feasible that dinosaurs could be mentioned in the Bible.
          
          
          <<You mean under a different name?>>
          
          Yes. For instance, Job 40 talks of a creature called "behemoth" in
          verses 15 to 24. He feeds on grass, he has strength in his loins,
          he has power in his belly, he has a tail like a cedar, and he ranks
          first among the works of God. Some think this may be a hippo-
          potamus, but a hippopotamus does not have a tail like a cedar. And
          you do not think of him as ranking first among the works of God. It
          could be a mythical creature, but it could also be very real.
          
          <<What we have tried to do in this discussion is help parents
          understand the biblical accounts of creation in the early earth so
          that they can explain it to their children. Although we have
          presented a few options instead of absolutes, we can still tell our
          kids that God is the Creator and Sustainer of all things, and that
          the flood was a real event, although some of the details of how
          these things happened may escape us at this time. This approach
          allows us to communicate clear biblical truth while at the same
          time encouraging a child's curiosity and desire to investigate
          God's world. This is our Father's world, and it delights Him when
          His children want to discover it and search out the mysteries of
          the past, of history, of His story.>>
          
          Notes
          1. David Raup, "Conflicts Between Darwin and Palentology," _Field
          Museum of Natural History Bulletin_, vol. 30, no. 1 (1979): 25. 
          2. Kraus Dose, "The Origin of Life: More Questions Than Answers,"
          _Interdisciplinary Science Review_ 13 (1988): 348-56.
          3. Stephen J. Gould, _The Panda's Thumb_ (New York: Norton, 1980),
          181.
          4. Kenneth Miller and Joseph Levine, _Biology_ (Englewood Cliffs,
          N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1991), 335.
          
          Copyright 1993 Ray and Sue Bohlin
          
                                  Probe Ministries
                           1900 Firman Drive Suite 100
                               Richardson, TX  75081
                                  (800) 899-PROBE
                                  (214) 480-0240
          
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