Evolution—It’s child’s play!

God could have communicated evolution easily.

iStockphoto/Zurijeta

By Calvin Smith

“Genesis should not be read as real history. It is just a poetic account of the creation of the universe given to the simple and unscientific Hebrew culture who would not have understood the sophisticated theory of evolution”.

Such statements are commonly used among theistic evolutionists (those believing God used evolution to create) to convince others that Biblical creationism is untenable in our modern scientific world. A Canadian book designed to teach evolution to children (ages 8–13) may come as a surprise to them.

Evolution: How We and All Living Things Came to Be (by author Daniel Loxton) won the 2010 Lane Anderson Award in the young reader science category and was a finalist for the prestigious Silver Birch Award. It’s receiving rave reviews from skeptic and pro-evolution groups.

An excellent resource for both students and teachers … and fills a gap in books about evolution for this age group.
—National Science Teachers Association

Loxton hits the key concepts perfectly, and without being stuffy about it.
—Eugenie Scott (Executive Director, National Center for Science Education)

Explains the facts simply without distorting the science for the young reader.
—Skeptic’s Dictionary¹

The book review on the overtly atheistic Skeptic.com states; “Can something as complex and wondrous as the natural world be explained by a simple theory? The answer is yes … ”²

Similarly, if evolution was the way God created why couldn’t Moses have written something like; “In the beginning the Lord created the first living thing, and this creature’s offspring changed slowly over time, eventually becoming every living thing across the entire earth”. There were also many Hebrew words that God could have used to communicate vast eons of time—if that’s what He had intended. Surely adults comprehending complex laws like those in Deuteronomy could have understood such straightforward concepts?

Such ideas are now taught to kindergarten age children all over the western world, such as Loxton’s own son.

“I’ve got a five-year-old son and when I tell him that he’s actually part of the same family as everything else on Earth that has ever existed, that understanding kind of shines out of his eyes … ”³

What’s his key to communicating with young people?

‘The trick to writing for kids, he said, is not to dumb it down. “They just need the best information available,” he said. “Keep it simple, but make it true.”’⁴

We agree: that’s why we produce Creation magazine, with accurate material for all ages!

Perhaps doubters in a plain reading of Genesis should understand we do not need to look to sources outside of the Bible to interpret it. God kept it simple, and true!