I recently learned about a new card game called Go Extinct! that’s designed to teach evolutionary concepts about biology to kids and adults alike. Similar to the rules of the popular card game Go Fish, this new game has players collecting animals according to their supposed evolutionary relationships. The game even comes with a supposedly accurate evolutionary tree to facilitate teaching the concept of an evolutionary tree of life.
Games and books that teach evolution to kids are growing increasingly popular. This is largely because of the declining scientific literacy here in America. Scientists—evolutionist and creationist alike—are bemoaning the lack of knowledge about and interest in science. Encouraging kids to become interested in the sciences early on is one way of combating this illiteracy.
But, sadly, instead of designing books and games that teach kids good observational science, many of the books and games teach unobserved historical science starting from an evolutionary foundation. This is really nothing but indoctrination in the religion of naturalism (atheism). Of course, these resources don’t teach kids the many problems with evolutionary ideas! They don’t encourage kids to question evolution but to blindly accept it. But evolution has huge problems, and kids need to be taught about these problems.
Here are just a couple of quick examples of some of these huge problems that kids should be taught. Although technically, biological evolution doesn’t deal with the origin of life, there is no known way that life can spontaneously come from non-life (this idea actually breaks the law of biogenesis)—and if you can’t even get life in the first place, how does evolution get started? One can’t discuss biological evolution if it’s impossible for life to form by natural processes!
Even if life somehow breaks the law of biogenesis and comes into being, nothing can happen because information only comes from other information—where does all the brand-new information needed to turn an amoeba into an astronaut come from? There’s no known mechanism that creates truly brand-new information!
The more scientists study the fossil record—the supposed record of evolutionary history—the clearer it becomes that it doesn’t support an evolutionary timeline. Organisms are found fully formed, functioning, and highly complex from the very beginning.
But most young people will never be taught these problems or so many other problems. They are taught evolution in most of our public education system and through much of the media as if it has been proven—even though you can’t test, repeat, or observe the alleged past. But with all the problems mentioned above and many more, there is no issue if you start with God’s Word.
Life didn’t come from non-life—it was created by the Life-Giver, the Creator God of the Bible. Information doesn’t arrive spontaneously—it was created by the Information-Giver who designed organisms to reproduce according to their kinds, so we shouldn’t expect to see new information arising by itself. And the fossil record isn’t the record of life’s slow evolution. Most of it is the result of the global Flood of Noah’s day, so we should expect to see fully formed and complex animals from the very bottom of the record. The evidence confirms God’s Word, not evolutionary ideas about the past.
At AiG we love science and want to encourage kids to explore God’s creation and learn more about what He has made. But we want kids to do it starting with the sure foundation of God’s Word, not the sinking sand of evolution. That’s why we feature science curricula, books, and other resources in our bookstore and online store, why I promote Camp Infinity (an excellent creation-based science camp), why we built the Creation Museum and the coming Ark Encounter (opening July 7), why we employ PhD scientists, and more—we love science! We want to raise up a generation of young people, many of them lovers of science, to love God’s Word and to start their thinking from that foundation.
To learn more about biblical science curricula you can use to encourage scientific literacy and curiosity in the next generation, visit our online store. And I encourage you to take advantage of the “More Kids Free” program here at the Creation Museum (from now until June 30, 2016) to bring even more kids to learn about science and God’s Word.
Thanks for stopping by and thanks for praying,
Ken
This item was written with the assistance of AiG’s research team.
Answers in Genesis is an apologetics ministry, dedicated to helping Christians defend their faith and proclaim the good news of Jesus Christ.