When I was a student at Minneota High School in the 1960's, I wrote a paper for my sophomore English class entitled "Zinzanthropus."  I was 14 years old.
We had not been limited to a particular field, but were invited to pick a subject that interested us.  Our grade would be determined by our correct use of the English language, specifically our gram-mar, sentence structure, and vocabulary.
At that very time of my youth, parts of a prehistoric skeleton were discovered in Africa -- Tanzania, I believe -- by Richard and Mary Leakey, famous paleontologists, and they named the newfound creature Zinzanthropus Australopithecus.  You just don't forget a name that rolls off your tongue like that.
The subject interested me because there was talk that Zin could be the "miss-ing link."  I've always been interested in where we come from and where we're going.  The "missing link," if discovered, would link one species to another.  It would give irrefutable evidence that monkeys became men.
I wasn't sure if that missing evidence might consist of a larger brain cavity, or shorter arms and longer legs, or a particular mouth and tongue structure that could form vowels and consonants and therefore human language.  Maybe the missing link would be a thumb joint that would help maneuver chalkstone to write and draw on cave walls. 
In any case, I delved into my English paper and even pencil-sketched and color-crayoned a large drawing of Zinzanthro-pus from extrapolated renderings of his physical attributes.
I was fascinated with Zin's undeniable resemblance to mankind, including specimens I knew.  One of my great uncles, for example, also had a small fore-head and low hairline.  And one of the burly men who sat in front of our family at church had a  huge amount of hair on his arms and neck. 
The crowning confirmation of the theory of evolution, however, was a teacher at MHS who had occasional eye contact with me but was in fact not looking anywhere in particular, and he had arms long enough to erase the entire blackboard without moving his short legs.   Other aspects of evolution also caught my fancy, especially how fish turned into tadpoles and toads, and lizards turned into ducks and dinosaurs.  It be-came clear to me that God had designed the evolution of His creation in an ordered and orderly manner -- one age, one epoch, one generation at a time.  I loved it.  It was luring and logical, not to mention linguistic.
Over these past 30-plus years since my high school days,  I've paid some attention as other archeological discoveries have been elaborately named such as Australopithecus Afarensis.  That one doesn't roll so easily off the tongue.  She's also called Lucy from Ethiopia.
Also in these past 30 years, I've read that not one of the prehistoric fossil discoveries has ever been identified as the missing link.  Scientists don't seem to need anymore evidence.  The evolving of monkeys into men remains pretty much the standard for them, but not for me.
"When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became a man, I gave up childish ways ..."
I've learned that evolution is a theory, all right, but it's not scientific.  I've learned to look at the facts.  Science deals with facts and truth.  It leads to right reason.
As a chemistry major in college and graduate school, I was taught that in order to find an answer to a question, I had to gather factual data, formulate a theory based on that data, and then test the theory through experiment.  I was not allowed to come up with an answer first and then work backwards.  Anybody can do that to suit his purpose, but it's not a scientific method.  It's playing games.
In life's continuing education, I've learned that there is no factual data to support the theory of evolution.  No one has observed a monkey turn into a man, nor a fish into a frog, nor a bird into a dinosaur.  No one has discovered a "missing link" between any species.  No one has legitimately tested the theory of evolution.  There is no scientific way to conclude that it occurred or that it continues to occur.
I think evolution should be relegated to discussion in an Art class.  As my friend G.K. Chesterton points out in The Everlasting Man, the most primitive man drew a picture of a monkey, but the most intelligent monkey has never drawn a picture of a man.
Maybe the topic should be broached in a Math class.  Michelangelo got the mathematical proportions of a human body just right.  Rubens made us a bit fat.  Van Gogh made us fuzzy.  Picasso turned us into blockheads.  And Albert Schweitzer lived with the monkeys.
The discussion of evolution could even be right for a Language class.  We have Germans speaking English and Belgians speaking French and Ethiopians speaking Swahili, and yet no one speaks Monkey.  Is it possible that scientists and teachers are barking up the wrong tree?
Common sense helps me run from lions and tigers and bears.  It helps me escape from forest fires and torrential rains.  And it also helps me question those who try to tie the ancestry of my children to monkeys.  If that heritage doesn't bother you, you can have it.
                                             ~Sue