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Four steps for surviving evolution classes at high school
First published: 4 July 2015 (GMT+10)
Re-featured on homepage: 11 November 2020 (GMT+10)
Today’s feedback comes from RL of Australia, asking about how to deal with their classes on evolution at High School.

We are learning evolution in school (year 10 science), and I would like some handy get-to-the-point questions I can ask my science teacher to make him/her think. We are currently learning about adaptations, genes and DNA. Perhaps some questions about the animals that have structural and functional body parts which help them survive in their environment. My teacher has also mentioned ‘natural selection’ and I’m not quite sure how to answer that. He also believes that all animals evolved from sea animals. He asked us why we thought they decided to come on to the land. He is also mentioning the shape of all the animals and how this helps them survive.
CMI’s Dr Tas Walker responds.
Dear RL,
One of my granddaughters also had to learn about evolution in year 10 science. Actually, evolutionary ideas are taught from a much younger age, and they are not always obvious. When young people first encounter these new ideas, it can come as a shock and be quite upsetting. I gave my granddaughter four points to help her survive and thrive in her studies. I’ll mention these to you, too.
1. Remind yourself that they are just telling you a story
When your teacher is saying things like, “All animals evolved from sea animals” you just have to remind yourself that he/she is telling you a story. Don’t let it upset you. Remember that science is based on observation, and these stories were not observed. This is something to tell yourself; so you don’t get upset, stressed, or confused.
Remember that there are two basic stories to explain how this world and everything else came into being.
The first is in the historical record of the Bible. An outline of the events is:
- Creation in six days about 6,000 years ago,
- the Fall,
- the Flood about 4,500 years ago,
- the Tower of Babel about 200 years after the Flood,
- the call of Abraham and the history of Israel,
- the coming of Christ,
- the birth and growth of the church, leading up to where we are now.

A key point is that the events recorded in the Bible are historical, which means they are based on eyewitness accounts of people who were present and saw them happen.
The second story, which is taught at your high school, is evolution. An outline of the main events is:
- Big bang followed by cosmic evolution beginning ~14 billion years ago
- Formation of the earth about 4,500 million years ago and its subsequent geological evolution
- Origin of life some 3,500+ million years ago
- Biological evolution: fish to amphibians to reptiles to mammals to apes to humans.
- Human evolution: apes to humans
- Cultural evolution: humans as hunters, farmers, builders, artists, invention of religion, civilization

The key point about this story is that these events were not observed. No one saw these things happen. Every part of this story was invented by people who were not there. And the purpose of the story is to explain things by natural processes. God and the Bible are banned from the story.
So when your teacher or the textbook tells you that all land animals came from marine animals, etc., just remind yourself that they are telling you a story. And the reason they are telling the story in this way is because they have to explain the animals without God. That means the land animals had to evolve with very small changes from other animals over millions of years. And since, according to their thinking, the first living cell could not have arisen on the land, it had to originate in the ocean. So they conclude that life must have evolved in the ocean and eventually come out on to the land.
It’s all just a story fitted together by human logic, assuming the Bible is not true and there is no God.
2. Don’t feel that you have to prove that creation is true
Another way of saying this is, “Don’t take on yourself the burden of proof”. This will take all the stress out of your life. You don’t have to feel responsible to do something that you don’t feel you are equipped to do.
You don’t have to prove them wrong. You don’t have to prove you are right.
Put the burden of proof on to them, and make them try to prove it to you, which they won’t be able to do.
Consider the situation when your teacher says, “All animals evolved from marine animals.” It’s not a good idea to say, “I don’t believe that because I believe the Bible.” He/she will dismiss you as being religious. Then, he/she will humiliate you by saying that evolution is based on facts and evidence, but your religion is based on faith. So, don’t say you don’t accept evolution because you believe the Bible.1
Instead, focus on the evidence. Just keep saying things like: “Can you give me any evidence for that?” or “I don’t want to accept these claims on faith”, or “That does not make sense to me”, or “I don’t find that convincing”.
And when they do try to give you evidence, think about what they have said and ask them more questions about the evidence, as discussed under Point 3 in the next section.
These are the sorts of questions that you asked about in your email—handy get-to-the-point questions you can ask your science teacher to make him/her think. You see, when you engage the subject like this, your teacher will be impressed that you are thinking about and understand the subject, and this may be the first time he/she has been asked to present evidence.
So, develop the practice of asking questions about the evidence and about the interpretations presented to you by your teacher and the textbooks. This will put you in the driver’s seat.
3. Ask yourself, “What did they actually see?”
You need to think about what is being presented in class, and be careful not to dismiss automatically everything your teacher and textbooks say. Although they will present you a lot of evolutionary nonsense, they will also present plenty of good information. You need to learn how to sort out fact from belief.
You sort out fact from speculation by asking, “What did they actually see?” Another way of putting that question is, “What is the actual evidence for that?” Science is all about observation, and so you are just asking for the scientific evidence. In a science class, who can criticize you for that? You can ask the question of yourself as you read your textbook, or when the teacher presents some information. This will clarify the issue in your mind. Or you can ask it of your teacher or your fellow students. This question will empower you to sort out the confusing information you are presented with.
The teacher might show you a picture of a fossil fish with long fins and say it lived 300 million years ago and evolved into land animals because it walked on its long fins.
You ask yourself, “What did they actually see?”
- They saw the fish. They can tell you where they found it. They observed what the fish looked like, and the shape of its fins.
- But the fish did not have a label on it saying “300 million years old”. So you can know that the date they quote is not based on observation but on their beliefs.
- Neither did they see the fish walking on its fins, so that is also speculation.
- Nor did they see it come out on to the land, so that is an invention too.
This question is powerful and will help you understand what is factual and what is guesswork. It’s a question that you can use in your discussions with your teacher and your friends.
4. Keep learning and keep getting informed
When you first encounter evolution in your class you will probably know very little about it. Your teacher will be much more knowledgeable and experienced than you. However, by using the above strategies you will be able to survive and be confident. But you need to grow and develop. There will always be new issues and questions that you will encounter, which means you will need to keep learning. You will find creation.com very helpful. It has a great search engine where you can investigate the claims from your teacher and your textbooks.
You can easily find articles by searching for keywords, which in your case would be: adaptations, genes, DNA, natural selection, animal similarities, etc. In a discussion, if you do not know the answer, you can always say, “I’ll do some research about that and get back to you.” Then you will almost certainly find the issue answered on creation.com, which you can print out and later give to the person to whom you are talking.
A helpful book is Refuting Evolution by Jonathan Sarfati, which can be bought from the online store. It is aimed exactly at what they are teaching you at high school. It’s also available free online.
If you are not already subscribed you will find the email newsletter useful in helping you become informed. You can connect from the front page of the website. Also, if you do not receive Creation magazine, that is a great resource for ongoing learning.
As far as your year 10 course is concerned, the articles “They are teaching lies to our kids” and “They’re teaching racism to our kids” deal with some of the specific material in your textbooks. The articles deal with many topics and provide links to other articles for more in-depth information.
Concerning your comment on animal shape, the article “Are look-alikes related?” answers that question. Especially check out the similarities between placental and marsupial animals listed in the table in this article because they provide a powerful argument for design and against evolution.
Thanks for your email. I wish you all the best with your studies.
by Tas Walker Scientist, writer, speaker
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References and notes
- It’s true that we don’t believe in evolution because it contradicts the Bible. However, it is also true that evolution is contradicted by the scientific evidence. By not mentioning the Bible you are not being sneaky because their belief in evolution is also driven by their beliefs about the Bible. That is, they believe in evolution because they do not believe the Bible. It will be easier for you to avoid the philosophical issues involved here. First, they probably will not understand them, and second, they may latch on to any chance to dismiss you. Return to text.
Readers’ comments
Every time I look at nature I become more convinced that god doesnt exist and that evolution is true. So you prefer to teach children that dead people can come back to life or some other nonsense from the bible that defies everything we know about laws of nature rather than evolution which is backed up by rock solid evidence like radiometric dating, fossil record and which has made enormous contributions to society like medicine, neuroscience and other branches of science.
If children dont learn evolution nothing they learn in science will make sense to them and they will turn to superstitions to make sense of the world. They wont have the capacity to think for themselves and make their own decisions thats what you want. But go ahead if you want to live in the dark ages and not in the age of reason thats tough
Doesn't evolution teach that dead chemicals suddenly came to life? Now, that is something that defies the laws of nature. How did that happen? And the amazing software code on the DNA. How was that software written? As for radioactive dating, we all know that we can measure the isotopes in a sample in the present. Very accurately too. But how do they measure the isotopes in the sample millions of years ago so that they can calculate a date? You might be able to explain that.
In the meantime, we are happy to provide material that makes you laugh and helps pass the time.
So it depends upon which MENTAL FILTER you apply to any remaining visible evidence - faith in evolution or faith in our almighty creator God and His word.
However, from the evolutionary worldview there was no intelligent being that could observe, remember, or speak for 99.99% of the supposed evolutionary 'history'. In other words, there is no logical, plausible, believable reason for thinking the invented history is correct. It's a self-refuting worldview.
I'd like to give my experience. I was in High School over 30 years ago in a Government School. I'd hate to be sending my child to a government school today. When I was in Grade 11 and 12, my Biology teacher was an evolutionist and when we got to the evolution section, she knew my church's position (because others before me had been outspoken in class), so she warned me it was coming up and she didn't want me to argue. That was not my nature at the time, so it surprised me. I had grown up with Creation magazine (Ex Nihilo as it was called) and other literature from CMI and I had spoken out during a science class in Grade 8 challenging dating methods and pointing out a living animal had been dated to over a thousand years old. The teacher shut me down. Maybe that's why I was more passive later.
Back to Grade 11 and 12, at one stage we were looking at symbiotic species and the challenge that was for evolution and the teacher actually acknowledged the strength of my position.
It helps to have a teacher that is sympathetic. I believe she was a Christian as well, so that helps.
But it did harm my faith for years due to the lies still in the textbooks, which were not as clear to creationists then as now, and even less so to me. Embryonic recapitulation and peppered moths are the two I most clearly remember. I could easily answer those today but was damaged from them then.
It is very, very important that Christian parents have a very close eye on what's happening in their children's education. It is not hard for the devil to get in. I know this is not directly related to the article but I hope it helps someone.
* Can life start by itself? (No evidence.)
* Can nothing become matter (universe), by itself? (No evidence.)
* Do complex informational codes (e.g. DNA), create themselves? (No evidence.)
* Does the fossil record show gradualism? (No - even Dawkins and Gould admit that.)
Just be aware that the school system is a poisonous environment.
Even SRE teachers are removed from school for dismantling evolution. I should know - I was removed (as SRE teacher with 20 years SRE experience) from Mosman primary school (year 5) for answering their questions on evolution, by discussing the real world science (above) during the SRE classes. I have BSc and BE degrees. The class teacher (a staunch evolutionist) was given several opportunities to look at the evidence afterwards (she refused) and she was given the book "Darwin's Black Box - Michael Behe" but she refused to read it. She interrupted my SRE lesson several times, by shouting from the back of the classroom that evolution was true. Then she had me removed from the school. The evolution battle has nothing to do with evidence - people simply don't want to acknowledge that God is the Boss. Hence, there is a Judgement Day.
In keeping with this last point, it is with great trepidation that I wish to gently add that an important element that was missed in this otherwise excellent article! We really need to remember that we wrestle not against flesh and blood (Ephesians 6:12). The evolution model is a well established stronghold, masterminded by the enemy of souls. We cannot battle against Satan with apologetics and robust scientific argument alone. It is only through earnest prayer and firm faith that we can hope to pull down the powerful stronghold that evolution has over the western education system. 2 Corinthians 10:4 and Ephesians 6:11&13 sit together wonderfully. Establishing the "whole armour of God" is Base One. We need to prepare our hearts with these weapons first and foremost, and to pray for those who are teaching evolution. Once this is established, then we can proceed to apologetics.
If we as parents wait until year 10 science, we are likely too late to counter the indoctrination.
"Train up a child in the way he should go."
That should remove the problem that parents might face regarding how to deal with evolution taught in state schools.
Some hints. Even if evolution and its no God basis were true, it offers me nothing, especially after death. Therefore don't waste much time examining evolution's side. Settle it with yourself whether the Bible is true. Study it thoroughly. "Pray without ceasing." 1 Thess 5:17. Stress (and enjoy the fact) that the Bible has been the world's best seller and that until a person can equal the Bible they have no authority or weight with you. (Stick to your idea even if they say 'The Bible sells well because it says what people want to hear.' To write the best would require them to be able to change 85,000 selfish people every day as the Bible does, and they must be able to tell the future with 100% success as the Bible has done.
My hobby in 60 years of church-planting in Japan is the agreement of the Bible and true science. I love CMI's science! Staggering! But it's only a hobby! I already have assurance because Jesus made me happy( and drastically improved) ever since I received Him at 17. People accept evolution because it allows them to live selfishly not because it's true. It's Satan's big lie! The positive influence of godly parents (not well-educated ones!!) shut out evolution's no hope. And if the Bible is the true one then evolution and its bedfellows are leading us to eternal doom.
When they are going to University I tell them never to accept at face value what they are told; always ask yourself, 'How do we know that', and then apply the research tools you are being taught.
(As a mum of 6, though, I often tell people that if evolution was real then women would have evolved a zipper in their lower abdomen & uterus for easy birthing, an extra two arms, and eyes in the back of the head.)
I ran into this when I was in college. I had already been respectfully asking clarifying questions during the course up to that point, so I'd laid a foundation of mutual respect, not confrontation. I was the only one, out of 150 in the class, that he knew by name. When we got to the test, I went to his office and asked him how he wanted me to handle it. "What do you mean?" I gave an example of a question for which I doubted that the correct answer would be one of the multiple choices. I was clear that I was under his authority in this class and was willing to take any approach he wanted.
His novel solution was for me to answer the ones I could and leave the others blank. Then to hand it in separately, not in the stack with all the others. I marked in the margin the textbook answers to the other questions, to show I had been paying attention. He gave me an A even though I only answered half the questions.
The point of difference that makes the point for me is the question of the number of common ancestors - ie one or many.
Thus the conversation turns to the relevant evidences and processes or lack thereof.
It also invokes the philosophical problem of the beginning - was it God, or did nothing miraculously become something - either way, a "super-natural" process.
I asked them when man or an animal evolved , what came first. Was it an arm? A head? Maybe a gall bladder. How about a heart.
My point was, the brain,heart ,lungs,veins,and all organs and bacteria etc must be there at the same time to be able to live. Did animals hop on one leg first? Or maybe in a million years we will have a 3rd arm which will be helpful. The evolutionist is not even worth debating. Makes more sense to debate a flat earth ideology!!!
Further, the so-called 'proofs' of the big bang, such as the background radiation, turn out not to be proofs at all. Search 'big bang' in creation.com searchbox and you will find many articles, such as Exploding the big bang and Did God use the big bang?
'Ask yourself, “What did they actually see?”' is very important, because they will take observed facts and then tack on arbitrary assertions to praise evolution. Two creatures have some resemblance, here are some actual facts, therefore, EvolutionDidIt. Wrong.
The final point is one I've made as well, and people are surprised. But people do need to know the prevailing viewpoint even though it is false, so they can learn the truth and remain undeceived through critical thinking as well as Scripture.
With exams it's easy for essay type exams. The student just prefaces their answer with words like, "According to the concpept of natural selection ...", or "Modern evolutionary theory holds that ...". The student is demonstrating that they know the material taught, but they are not saying that they believe it.
For multi-choice questions there will usually not be a suitable option. In this case I think the student just selects the answer that the lecturers want.
Take, for example, the first 26 verses of Genesis and ask yourself the question 'What did they actually see?'
God bless your faithful persistence in this crucial area of education!
Let there be light in education & science, freedom to grow & learn about God's wonderful creation & powerful redemption.
God has certainly blessed your work.
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