Conventional science teaches that mammals evolved into existence about 100 million years ago, remaining for the next 40 million years little chaps no bigger than possums.

The big boys in those days were the dinosaurs.

But about 65 million years ago, something happened, and the dinosaurs disappeared.

The mammals then grew a lot bigger having more food now available to them. Hence the big mammals now seen.

This rather humdrum theory hit the headlines the other day — when a new study of dinosaur fossils by Canadian professor, Jessica Theodor, appeared in the research journal Science.

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These days, to be taken seriously, any new ideas must fit in with evolutionary theory of the Charles Darwin kind.

Some people mistrust Darwinism on religious grounds.

Others are critical on straight scientific grounds — but if they say so out loud, they risk being howled down and told that their scientific arguments are merely religion in disguise.

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Is there no middle path?

Pope Benedict thinks so: “There is no opposition between faith’s understanding of creation and the evidence of the empirical sciences . . . .

“In order to evolve, the world must first exist, having come from nothing into being. It must be created by the first Being, who is ‘being’ by nature.”

To the Pope, “creation” relates, not only to how things began, but is, “the foundational and continuing relationship that links the creature to the Creator . . . .”

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A few years ago, Dr Brendan Nelson, Australia’s then Minister for Education, wanted children taught, alongside evolution, “intelligent design” — offering children the mental discipline of examining the kinds of arguments mentioned above.

The media pooh-poohed his suggestion, calling intelligent design “a controversial new theory” and contrasting it with “established science”.

New?

Almost every human being since time began has believed in a creator.

It’s the atheist-fundamentalists who are the novelty – with their creed that “if evolution did not exist, it would be necessary to invent it . . . .”

These characters are after your child’s mind, wanting him/her to believe in no absolutes.

Let’s hope they go the way of the dinosaurs.