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Creation Versus Evolution |
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We compare the theory of evolution with the Bibles creation account in easy-to-understand terms, using evidence from the fields of paleontology, geology, biology, and astronomy. We provide links and a bibliography for those who want to study both sides of the issue. We fully explain all the scientific terms on this page. Note: This page is long. It may be easier to read if you print it out on paper. Print one test page first, as some browser/printer combinations make this text very light. How did humans (and everything else) come into existence? The only explanation you will find in public school and university textbooks is the theory of evolution. Yet, no scientific, provable evidence supporting the theory of evolution has emerged since Charles Darwin popularized it in 1859. If there is no support for the theory of evolution, why is no alternative taught? We can only think of two reasons: The Bibles creation account is not politically acceptable.The authors, book publishers, and school boards do not have all the facts. We can not help the first condition. This page does contain all the necessary information needed for everyone else. |
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Questions Someone Always Asks about the Bibles Creation AccountBefore we go on, we would like to answer some questions that always seem to come up. One involves how pairs of all the animals could have been collected by one family. Remember, if God is really God, he could have caused the flood, a supernatural event, to occur. Does it not also make sense that God could cause pairs of animals to migrate to the location of the ark? Notice the phrase in Genesis chapter 6, verse 20: "two of every kind will come to you." Also, Genesis chapter 7, verse 9 states the animals "went into the ark to Noah." The answer is simple, Noah did not go and get the animals, God did. The next question is, how did all those animals fit on the ark? First, you should notice that different kinds of animals were brought onto the ark (Gen 6:20). Unlike the more recently introduced terms genus, species, and so forth [4], the Bibles kinds can be thought of as what the average person would call an animal. For example, there may be many species of doves, but they are all still doves. Therefore, doves would be a kind of animal (bird, actually). Scientists have calculated the average size of the different kinds of animals (except for dinosaurs). It comes out to be about the size of a sheep. Based on this, we believe that all the kinds of animals would have taken up about one-third (1/3) of the room on the ark. That would leave plenty of room for Noahs family and a years supply of food. Now, what about dinosaurs, were they on the ark and could they fit? (If you do not understand that dinosaurs and humans were alive at the same time, you need to read our Dinosaurs Page.) We believe dinosaurs were on the ark. The solution to getting the large ones on the ark is in using young dinosaurs. They take up less room, they eat less, and they have more of their reproductive life left for restarting the population. Although out of context for this page, we offer one explanation regarding why most dinosaurs disappeared (after the flood was over and they left the ark) here in our frequently asked questions section. What makes the flood important to our topic is all the evidence it left around. For one thing, pretty much everything that did not live in water would have been killed in a yearlong flood. This would have left an enormous layer of dead things that would later become coal and oil . . . and leave fossils. It is evident to everyone, as we view our dwindling energy resources, that a lot of material was left in the ground at one time. As this page develops, we will discuss why we believe these resources were left as the aftermath of a flood, rather than the result of accumulation of normal dying animals and plants over millions of years. If you have flown on a plane, you probably noticed how different mountains look from the air than they do from the ground. They look more wrinkled than you would expect, and almost artificial in appearance. The canyons and rivers that flow out of them look different alsosort of like the seashore after the tide runs out and you see little grooves in the sand. This is especially noticeable if you are flying over a part of the world that does not have much vegetation to hide the shape of the land like Arizona, Nevada, and Utah in the United States. The next time you are in a plane and over such an area, look down and see if it makes sense that this appearance could have been caused about 4,000 years ago if everything had been covered with water for a year and then drained off in a short time. We do not claim this as proof, by the waybut this is one of many such observations that make one wonder. The EvidenceAs evidence to support their theory, most books on evolution include a reference list (bibliography) of other books and articles that also support the theory of evolution. We spent a great deal of time examining these sources and saw only a circle of information, with each document pointing to the next source as their proof. In college, we cynically called this procedure the tower of babble. (Yes, babble is the right wordthis phrase is a pun.) To perform this procedure, the graduate student wrote their thesis based on the work and assumptions made by a previous graduate student. Of course that previous student did the same thing using the material of a still earlier student. By adding plenty of scientific terms and classifications, you not only sounded scholarly, but the thesis looked impressive to your family and friends! Unfortunately (and we really do mean unfortunately) we found that the writings on evolution are the same. We could not locate any with testable, scientific, first generation evidence. (We will discuss the scientific facts later.) The bulk of the material was based on the assumption that evolution is the only mechanism though which present day life arose. Ultimately, each document traced its beliefs back to Darwins theoretical writings. If you think we are exaggerating, examine the documentation yourself. By the way, the web contains many online versions of Darwins book. Why is this theoretical book so prominently available (and always recommended reading) if it is not the primary foundation of (and evidence for) the theory of evolution? By the way, we realize that many of the writings that support the Bibles creation account also have flimsy or questionable evidence. We are trying to break out of that behavior pattern. We are not proposing that every science book should throw out the evolution model and stick in the Bibles creation account instead. We propose that the Biblical model should be mentioned and given equal time, with an unbiased treatment showing how it agrees with the facts. If you want to find someone who can compose the biblical side, write us: So, How Do I Get to the Facts?If you like reading books, a good one on this topic is The Collapse of Evolution by Scott M. Huse. Another good book is Darwins Black Box by Michael J. Behe, a Professor of Biochemistry. There is one advantage to a bookyou can carry it around more easily than your computer, and you do not need an Internet connection, either! Both of these books qualify as best sellers. In the following section, we will apply the scientific method to the known, scientific facts relevant to the origins of our world (and the plants and animals on it). For those who are not familiar with the scientific method, it states the proper way to test and answer questions scientifically. It has four steps:
For the purpose of this page, the scientific method applies as follows:
There are some cases where both hypotheses fit the facts. In those cases, we gave both models a red dot. To see the reasoning behind any evaluation, click on the topic or the red dot and it will jump you to the explanation. Use your browsers back button to return to approximately where you were before the jump. ImportantWe believe any unbiased reader will realize that we were fair with our treatment of the two models in the table above. Yet, although the theory of evolution matches the facts in some cases, evolution is still an unproven theory. Further, the scientific evidence matches the Bibles creation account better in most cases. By now, you may believe it should be your first choice also. How Do I Know What I Saw Here Is Correct?Unlike many others that preceded us, we attempted to find a clear defense of evolution for two reasons: To keep from being accused of bias.To keep from making claims that someone could refute later.
Even though there are a great number of claims in books and on the Internet, we could find no scientific, testable facts that support the theory of evolution. The best site we could find was at The University of California at Berkeley. If you are interested, click here to examine the scientific evidence recorded at UC Berkeley yourself. It includes lots of pictures, links to other pages, and scientific names. The site is very interesting and informative. Yet, we could not find a listing of the provable, testable facts supporting evolution anywhere. Take some time and search the Internet yourself. Just search for evolution, phylogeny, geologic column, or any related keyword in any search engine you choose. If you find any hard scientific, testable evidence for evolution, please write us: and let us know (and include the link)! Incidentally, this does not mean that we believe the work at Berkeley (and other places) does not have value. On the contrary, we appreciate paleontologists, geologists, biologists, and all the other related scientists. We differ in that we believe their data fit the Bibles creation model best and the facts should be applied to it, rather than to the unproven theory of evolution model. Still, we are not so naive as to believe that our saying so will change the opinions of anyone. Paraphrasing what we said at the beginning of this page, the reason many people will not change their point of view is because: The Bibles creation account is not politically acceptable in the context of their lifestyle.They do not want to take the time to learn the truth.
Reasoning used for the Comparison of Creation and Evolution to the FactsScientists have ways to measure the universe (and therefore its age).This is an interesting topic and we constructed a separate page to address it. Click here to learn how astronomers measure the universe and its age. Scientists have found a large number of fossils.Yes, there are many fossils lying around. That means a lot of plants and animals died and we can find their fossilized remains. Someone who believes in evolution would have you believe this happened over time. Think logicallyif a rat died in an open field today, or a deer died in the woods, would either become fossilized? Would they stay put and untouched on the ground long enough to be covered by dirt eventually and become fossilized? No. They would be eaten by other animals and blown around by the winds and rains until a complete skeleton was no longer available. The reality is that there is no evidence that fossils were formed continually (or are being formed continually) as the theory of evolution predicts. On the other hand, what would happen if there were a worldwide flood, causing everything to drown, including the rat and the deer? They might float for awhile, but would eventually sink to the bottom of the water. Next, the sediment on the bottom of the water would cover the remains (since it is very mobile compared to dirt on landespecially if there is a flood going on at the time) starting the process of fossilization. There is no question that the large number of fossils testifies to the accuracy of the creation model rather than the theory of evolution model. The earths surface is deposited in layers.The point of discussion here is whether the layers were deposited over vast geological times or over a relatively quick period. Steve Austin investigated the Mount St. Helens eruption, which produced a small scale version of the Grand Canyon. He showed that thousands of layers were deposited over a number of days rather than being laid down gradually over long (4.5 billion years) geologic ages. We are not stating that this proves that the layers of the earths surface were laid down quickly. We are stating that ample evidence exists that the layers of the earth could be produced quickly by a geologic catastrophe like the flood in the Bible. Since neither model can prove itself in this area, we will award a tie to the creation and evolution models. If you are interested, Steve Austins presentation, entitled Mount St. Helens: Explosive Evidence for Catastrophe is available on video cassette through The Institute for Creation Research. It includes spectacular shots taken before, during, and after the eruption of Mount St. Helens. The layers of the Earths surface contain different fossils.What the theory of evolution says We are told that old fossils are found in old rock layers and recent fossils are found in recent rock layers. Yet, some fossils (like clams) are found in all strata, including rock layers at mountain tops. So, learning which clam was millions of years old and which one is only a few thousand years old becomes a little tricky. Most people do not know that most rock layers are dated by the fossils they contain. Scientists will choose a special reference fossil called an index fossil. Then they assume (based on the phylogenetic tree) that the simple index fossils were the oldest. Finding one of these oldest index fossils in a layer identifies that layer as the oldest. They then assign a date to that rock layer (based on the theory of evolution) and record that date on their geologic time scale. They continue this process with the more complex index fossilsassigning each increase in complexity to a younger rock layer until they complete filling out the geologic time scale. (A complete geologic time scale is also referred to as a geologic column.) One special note: Although Darwin popularized evolution, he was not the first person to suggest it. Others before him proposed that layers of the earth were laid down in a sequencesuggesting geologic dates based on their evolutionary model. Remember, the mere fact that someone preceded Darwin does not prove Darwins theories, validate these dating methods, or prove the theory of evolution. Notice that although the layers of the earth were dated using index fossils, the index fossils were dated by guessing their age based on the theory of evolution. This is not science nor a valid application of the scientific method. Suggesting a hypothetical age for a fossil (based on a theory) and then telling everyone it is an established fact is not the way to apply the scientific method. If you quiz paleontologists about this, many will assure you that their techniques are indeed scientific. They will tell you they accurately date the fossil using the date of the rock layer in which they found it. Did you notice what just happened? They assigned a date to the fossil, then dated the layer of earth which contained that fossil. Then they turned around and told you they knew the age of the fossil, because they knew the date of that layer of earth. This is called circular reasoning. You may be wondering about radiometric (radioactive) dating, which we will examine next. However, you should know that scientists established the geologic time scale and assigned the ages of the fossils in those rock layers before radioactive dating was invented. In essence, the discussion of radioactive dating is a sophisticated way to divert peoples attention from the fact that there is no evidence to support the theory of evolution. What about radiometric dating?Radiometric (radioactive) dating does not yield results that are as consistent as many books would have you believe. For example, Potassium-Argon and Argon-Argon dating (tests used for dating volcanic rock) rely on the assumption that no radiogenic Argon exists in the rocks when they forman assumption that is not true. [5] With no consistent starting point or zero age, the rock ages reported by the test can vary dramatically, (depending on the amount of radiogenic Argon they started with). [6] There is another radioactive dating method called fission track dating, so named because the decay of Uranium 238 creates a minor disruption in the material that scientists call a track. Unfortunately, it has results that differ from the other radiometric methods. For example, a rock in Nigeria dated 95 million years old with Potassium-Argon dating, and 750 million years old using Uranium-Helium dating measured only 30 million years old with fission track dating. [7] Do you see how the scientist could control the age reported for the geologic layer by specifying the test method? There is one documented case where a single lump of tuff (a type of porous rock) contained components which individually dated at 1.87 million years, 25 million years, and 500 million years old. [8] Now ask yourself, if you can get such large discrepancies within a single lump, how accurately do you believe that these testing methods define the ages of layers of the earth where fossils are found? Yes, there is a more accurate radioactive dating method available called isochron dating. You can get an overview of isochron dating by clicking on this sentence. This dating technique does have a problem, though. It is designed to measure times on the order of a billion (1,000,000,000) years or more. Therefore everything you measure with this dating technique will seem to have great age. For example, if you wanted to measure the distance between Los Angeles and New York, you could fly a jet airplane at a constant speed and measure the time the flight takes. Knowing the speed and time, you can calculate the distance. Now, what would happen if you used the same technique to measure the length of a house you flew over on the way to New York? It would give you bad results because you could not measure the time it took to fly over the house accurately enough to get a good answer. The same is true if you use isochron dating to measure something that is only a few thousand years old. Another problem arises when you submit a sample for testing. Because of the variations that we just mentioned, the people operating the equipment will ask you for an estimated age of the itembefore they run the test. This is true of both radiometric dating (used for igneous rock) and Carbon 14 dating (used for things that were once living). Did you notice what happened? The scientist biased the results by determining the desired result before starting. Then, they chose a method that will give them the results they expect. This is not correct scientific procedure. How would you like it if the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) evaluated products only after they predicted the results? What the Bible saysThe worldwide flood described in the Bible would also place different fossils in the layers of the Earths surface. A worldwide flood would kill all the animals (except for some that normally live in water) and most of the vegetation. Without land to break up the tides, all water movement would become very turbulent, mixing the different sizes and species together with trees and other vegetation. Whatever happened to sink to the bottom first would be covered first with the earth and silt stirred up during the flood. Those plants and animals that sank later would be buried in the higher layers. To be fair, finding fossils in different layers of earth does not prove the Bibles creation model either. For that reason, we give both models a tie on this issue. Many fossils have been discovered that span many geologic layers.In 1976, the complete fossil skeleton of a baleen whale was uncovered in Lompoc, California, crossing many geological layers (apparently millions of years of strata) [9]. This is an isolated incident, but the fossil discoveries in the next paragraph are very common. Fossil trees are often found in a position where a single fossil occupies many geologic layers at the same time. These are referred to as polystrate fossil trees. (See sketch at right.) Are we supposed to believe these trees died and remained partly buried for thousands or millions of years until they became completely buried and fossilized? We would like someone to prove it to us by showing us a tree that was alive 10,000 or 20,000 years ago and is mostly (but not completely) buried in an upright position today. A flood, which would cause massive amounts of earth movement, is a much better explanation for the unique placement of both of these fossil types. For example, a whale that died or was killed could get temporarily stuck in an upright position and quickly buried. The same thing could happen to a tree. Put simply, trees broken off during a flood would float until they became water-logged. Then, the denser (and larger diameter) root end of some of the trees would sink lower in the water, putting those trees in an upright position. Later, after completely sinking, the now upright trees would be buried in sediment. This happened to many trees when Mount St. Helens erupted. Any scuba diver in Spirit Lake (next to Mount St. Helens) can find many half-buried, upright trees (not stumps) in the bottom of the lake today. If you would like more detail, we recommend viewing the video done by Steve Austin which thoroughly, yet simply explains the mechanism that allows trees to span the geologic layers [10]. These fossils and others that span multiple layers reject and disprove the concept that geologic layers always represent long periods of time. Therefore dating fossils by the layer of earth they are found in (to support the theory of evolution) is not valid. We do not dismiss the fact that layers can be laid down over time. We are saying that the existence of layers in the earth does not prove the passage of any specific time. Further, we do know that fossils found in different layers can be deposited at essentially the same time. Large groups of fossils are often found together. These graveyards contain a wide variety of animal remains.Many different types of fossils are found mixed in with one another. How logical is it that animals would die in heaps, leaving their remains for a long period of time until they are eventually covered up with dust and become fossils? Does this happen anywhere today? Of course not. On the other hand, if there was a worldwide flood, causing everything to drown, you would expect the bodies of all types of unrelated animals to eventually come to rest on the bottom of the body of water, in piles. As we mentioned before, the mobile sediments on the waters floor would easily move around and start covering these piles of animals, forming mass graveyards. Scientists have successfully arranged groups of animals into a tree of life (phylogenetic tree)If you examine a tree of life, you will observe something surprisingno species on one branch changes into a species on another branch. In each case the species is distinct. There are no links where one species changes into another. Yes, you can line up a dog and a cat and a person, but where is the transitional form that split into the two species? You are only shown a gap where the change was to have taken place. It does not take a Ph.D. to realize that no true transitional forms have been found, and the tree is trying to illustrate a principle that does not actually exist. There used to be an interactive phylogenetic tree on the web, which was not only fun to play with, but also demonstrated the concept mentioned in the preceding paragraph very well. Early visitors to this page were able to use a link we provided to check it out. Unfortunately, the Webmaster of that site removed that questionable (but cool) feature and exchanged it with a cladogram. To see a cladogram, click here. Scientists have discovered transitional forms (missing links).This is such an interesting topic, we constructed two separate pages to address it. The first examines a sequence of transitional forms. The second examines a missing link, the Archaeopteryx. Click here to learn more about the transitional forms found. Archaeopteryx: Did Some Dinosaurs Evolve Into Birds? Many animals appeared suddenly at the start of the Cambrian Period, even though only a few multicellular fossils appear in earlier rock layers.At a certain level (rocks corresponding to the Pre Cambrian Era) the geologic layers contain almost no fossils. The few that exist are those from cellular and multicellular creatures such as algae or bacteria. Suddenly, in the next higher layer (corresponding to the Cambrian Period) many sophisticated, fully formed fossils appear. These varied creatures include Trilobites, brachiopods, gastropods, bivalves, crinoids, graptolites, sponges, and segmented worms. This sudden appearance of so many fully developed life forms can not be explained using the theory of evolution and the slow-working microevolution model. Too many different creatures appear fully developed, too suddenly. Note: some of these animals, like the bivalves (clams and so forth) are still with us today. They look pretty much the same as they always did, even though the theory of evolution would have us believe they are very primitive life forms and should have changed a little by now! (We will comment further when discussing living fossils in the next section.) In contrast with the theory of evolution, the Bibles creation account can explain why so many fully developed creatures came into existence so suddenlyGod created them. Further, a world wide flood can easily explain a geologic layer filled with complex fossil remains resting on top of a relatively empty geologic layerthese creatures were killed during the flood. If you do not understand how something that lives under water can be killed by a flood, remember the springs of the great deep that opened up at the beginning of the flood. If these springs resembled todays hydrothermal vents [2], they could easily cook all the marine life in the vicinity, which would then become the first casualties, being buried in the ocean floor sediment before the other plants and animals. This would also explain why the fossils of these life forms are typically found in the lowest strata. Scientists discovered living fossils like the coelacanth that have not changed in form for millions of years.This is a genuine embarrassment for scientists who believe in evolution, who had to scramble for ideas that explained why these animals did not evolve while others did. (They had to find some explanation, or admit that the theory of evolution was wrong.) A popular example of such an explanation uses the concept of stabilizing selection, which would be worded like this: Natural selection prevented change by eliminating all the innovations, sometimes for periods of millions of years. Notice that this statement is the exact opposite of normal evolutionary thought. If that is really the case, we wonder why some renegade species chose to follow stabilizing selection while others chose to evolve. The reality is that the theory of evolution has no valid explanation for living fossils. This is an example of the concept of stasisstanding in one spot. It may help you to know that stasis is not limited to living fossils. Stephen Jay Gould (an evolutionist) stated, Most species exhibit no directional change during their tenure on earth. They appear in the fossil record looking pretty much the same as when they disappear; morphological change is usually limited and directionless. Therefore, both living fossils and the fossil record itself are in conflict with the theory of evolution, which normally teaches that we should see constant change in speciesnot stasis. Actually, the concept of stasis fits the Bibles creation model perfectly. We would expect created plants and animals to remain in stasisthe way God created them. Scientists discovered modern men in Pliocene deposits.Modern human skulls and bones have been discovered in Pliocene layers. These findings include those at Calaveras (1866), Castenedolo (1860, 1880), and Ipswich (1912). [11] Finding modern human remains in layers that are believed to be 7-12 million years old casts serious doubt on the theory of evolution regarding humans (or scientific dating methods), since that is the time Ramapithecus (a supposed ape-man) was proposed to exist. If both Ramapithecus and modern man lived at the same time, we would know that people did not evolve from this ancestor (or any of the later ones). That is, for modern man to evolve from Ramapithecus, Ramapithecus would have had to exist before modern man. The evidence does not support this idea. To explain these threatening discoveries, scientists offered many explanations regarding how all these fossils ended up in a Pliocene layer. The most popular explanation is that these remains were the result of burials, which just happened to end up in a Pliocene layer. There is, however, a real problem with this claim: no scientist wishes to announce a discovery and later have someone make them into a fool by revealing that they only dug up a grave (or was the naive dupe of a hoaxer). As a result, these men documented the geologic terrain to make sure that the remains they found were not the result of an intrusive burial before reporting the findings. A Final CommentSince this writer spent many years in scientific research, I know how painful it is to propose a theory and then discover evidence disproving the theory. Still, the professional thing to do is admit that the proposed theory was wrong and look for a new hypothesis. In this way, you eventually discover the truth. Open-minded scientists will always follow such a procedure. The reader may find it interesting to learn that it was our original intention to explain how God used evolutionary processes to accomplish the creation described in the Bible. We later learned that the evidence does not support the theory of evolution, but supports a literal creation by God in six days. This required a change in our theory, but we were more interested in presenting the truth than in promoting a favorite theory. Unfortunately, it seems that many people are so committed to the theory of evolution that they can not admit that their theory is failing on every front. Therefore, they explain away or ignore the evidence that they do not like and highlight evidence that supports their viewpoint. Selectively choosing the evidence you like and disregarding the evidence you dislike is not the way to discover the truth. For anyone who read this entire page (and who does not have a chip on their shoulder), one conclusion should be clear: the evidence strongly favors the Bible's creation account, and does not support the theory of evolution. ReferencesNote: some of the references below are books or articlesnot links to other web pages. We have copies of all of the web references in case any of them are removed from their web sites. If any of the links are broken, please contact us: and we will either fix the link or make the article available on our server.
[1] Ross, Hugh, The Fingerprint of God, p. 168
[2] Submarine Volcanic Ecosystems (An article on hydrothermal vents.) [3] Introduction to Evolutionary Biology, Version 2, by Chris Colby [4] Linnaeus, Carolus, Systema naturae (1735). [5] "Excess Argon": The "Achilles' Heel" of Potassium-Argon and Argon-Argon "Dating" of Volcanic Rocks [6] Bowden, Malcolm (1991) Science vs. Evolution, Sovereign Publications, Kent, p. 117referring to the article by Funkhouser, J.G. and Naughton, J.J. Radiogenic Helium and Argon in Ultramafic Inclusions from Hawaii Journal of Geophysical Research 15th July 1968 v73 n14 p 4601-7. [7] Bowden, Malcolm (1991) Science vs. Evolution, Sovereign Publications, Kent, p. 116referring to the article by Fisher, D.E. Nature Physical Science 19 July 1971 v232 p60-61. [8] Bowden, Malcolm (1991) Science vs. Evolution, Sovereign Publications, Kent, p. 119referring to the article by Gleadow, A.J.W., Fission track age of the KBS Tuff and associated hominid remains in northern Kenya Nature 20 March 1980 v284 p225-230. [9] Russel, K. M. 1976. Workers Find Whale in Diatomaceous Earth Quarry. Chemical and Engineering News. 54(41):48. (October 4, 1976 issue). [10] Mount St. Helens: Explosive Evidence for Catastrophe, video. Available through The Institute for Creation Research. [11] Bowden, Malcolm (1977) APE-MEN - Fact or Fallacy?, Sovereign Publications, Kent, p. 76-79 Graphics courtesy of Shawnas Background Graphic Sets. |
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Copyright © 1998-2001 by Clarifying Christianity (SM). All information contained in Clarifying Christianity is a resource for questions dealing with Christian issues. It is not to be taken as Christian counseling. Seek a qualified Christian counselor for help with all such issues. If you choose to work with a Christian counselor, it is your responsibility to ask pertinent questions before you begin, to assure yourself of their qualities and abilities. 5606 |