Written by the founder of The Living Bible, Evolution and the High School Student is an attempt to explain the evolution vs. creation debate to high school students in their own language ("Why all the hangup about evolution?) to counter what they will be hearing in their secular public school classrooms.

In answer to his question "Why all the hangup about evolution" in the book's introduction, Taylor highlights two main reasons why evolution is a bad thing:

1. Some evolutionists are atheists.
2. Evolution contradicts the bible's telling of the instant creation of Adam, and if we start questioning one part of the bible, that could lead to questioning the bible itself.

With this admission that his position is almost completely reactionary, Taylor spends the rest of the book debunking evolution with various arguments pointing to either there not being enough evidence to support the theory of evolution, therefore if it is not 100% proven, it can't be true. He supports this argument by describing different aspects of evolution - such as natural selection - then claims that they can't be true because they either don't have 100% proof from fossil records, the odds appear to be to great to be believable, or that it simply doesn't make sense to him.

One great example of Taylor's brand of logic is how he dismisses the idea of evolution by comparing it to building houses: "As all buildings use similar construction units, so also the Creator has used the cell and its fantastically complex components as the basic unit of all living material." Then, later: "That life generated spontaneously is like saying that given enough time, a house could build itself[...]" Even when architects aren't involved, Taylor's rationale is that things like DNA and chromosomes are so unfathomably complicated, they couldn't have possibly happened naturally over time, therefore God created it all instantly.

Taylor also brings up and debunks supposed evolution "evidence" that isn't really. He brings up prehistoric cave paintings and asks "Do these prove evolution? No more than the present-day American Indians do." Of course, cave art doesn't have anything to do with evolution, so the fact that some people still live in caves today proves even less. Also look for interesting tidbits of factual data such as "Different breeds of dogs can be developed from common ancestor, but all are still dogs," and "In 60,000,000 years the horse has changed in size, etc., but is still a horse." Of course, of course.

To Taylor's benefit, he eventually gives voice to the idea that if you don't attribute actual 24-hour days to the bible's seven days of creation, it is possible to justify a belief in both God and Darwin - what I like to call the Inherent the Wind defense - even though he warns that: "To me this seems unwise, unnecessary, and wrong[.]" When taking this admission in context with his repeated references to Adam, this book turns out to be less about God vs. Science than it is The Bible versus History/Anthropology, and focused on preventing modern knowledge from contradicting anything literally described in the bible.

Printed in narrow columns with large pictures every other page, this slim book was designed to be an easy read for young students (and a quick source of exasperation for their future biology teachers) to provide them with tools against learning, so perhaps the simplistic rationalizations and occasional odd phrasing (sex organs become "copulatory organs" to avoid introducing the word "Sex" to high school students), but the fact that his list of six "conclusions" at the end all stating that evolution cannot be proven is a moot point when just a few pages before he admits that his biggest argument against evolution is that he isn't comfortable with it. Ironically, that's also the most logical case against evolution he manages to make. ( )