Posts

Where did we come from?

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One of the perennially annoying things about the "historical Adam" discussion is theologians' obsession with Homo sapiens .  I've tried to explain on more than one occasion that looking for Adam at the base of the sapiens family tree is basically looking in the wrong place.  Other than William Lane Craig, I can't think of a single theistic evolutionist actively placing Adam deeper in the human family tree. For myself, I follow creationist research that extends back thirty years and indicates that Homo erectus is also human (probably some others too, but they have less evidence so I'll stick to erectus ).  There are lots of different reasons that creationists see things this way, including the sophisticated stone handaxes associated with erectus , the postcranial skeleton of Nariokotome boy, and the remarkable global mobility of these ancient people.  Homo erectus is the first hominin in the fossil record that's found in Europe, Asia, and Africa. If you ...
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Does Lucy Prove Evolution?

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 Last year was the fiftieth anniversary of the discovery of the Lucy skeleton, and Paul Garner and I recorded a two-part episode of Let's Talk Creation discussing the skeleton and its interpretation ( part 1 and part 2 ).  In the second part, I tried to address the question of whether the Lucy skeleton constituted good evidence for human evolution, and even while I explained it to Paul, I thought, "This is not clear.  I'm going to get flak for this."  And sure enough, there were a few comments on the YouTube video that basically said my response was rubbish.  Fair enough.  Let's see if I can clarify my thoughts. My intention with that section of the video was first to notice that it's a massively loaded question.  As a scientist, I think about evidence and models in ways that aren't like the average person.  An average person hears "X is good evidence for a theory" as "X proves that theory is true."  Evidence, in common conception, is...
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Persuasion, Pluralism, Perseverance

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Let's Talk Creation debuted its 100th episode recently with a recording of the Creation Together event from last summer.  The episode presents a public meeting with me and Darrel Falk describing our relationship and differences and where things currently stand.  You might have read about this in our book The Fool and the Heretic .  Whenever we have an event like this or advertise what we've been doing, I always feel like the complexity and challenges of what we've done get reduced by the listeners to easy categories they're familiar with.  With those reductions come reactions that sort of cluster around one of two extremes: excitement or condemnation.  I'm always left feeling like people don't quite get it.  So let me see if I can put my thoughts into words, which will undoubtedly be misunderstood yet again, but I'll give it my best try. As usual, let me preface this by reminding readers that this is my own perspective, not Darrel's nor anyone else in...
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Jumbo human origins roundup

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There's been a lot of interesting stories regarding human origins this year (and last year), small bits and pieces that are worth chatting about but maybe not in a full blog post.  I've been busy with a lot of other things, but rather than let all these interesting stories go to waste, I'm doing a giant story dump right here, right now.  As always, my focus is physical anthro and archaeology.  Not much genetics here.  Merry Christmas! Homo naledi?   The biggest story in my view is the continued absence of further research on the claims from Rising Star.  We're now on the second anniversary of Berger's announcement of fire evidence in the cave where remains of Homo naledi were found.  Still no paper.  That was followed by additional announcements of burials, engravings, and putative tools , this time with papers.  Those claims were met with skepticism and some (evidently) powerful rebuttals , which have to date not been answered.  The p...
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Creation Together and the future!

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 Today, we've got a scheduled premiere of the 100th episode of Let's Talk Creation at 3pm Eastern time, so you might want to check that out.  This episode is the recording of the Creation Together event from this past summer.  As many of you know, Darrel Falk and I have been meeting together for more than a decade now trying to sort out our differences, and they are big differences.  Darrel thinks God used evolution to create the world, and I think not.  But we're both Christians, and when we're together, I do believe God blesses our efforts.  You can read about part of our journey in our book The Fool and the Heretic .  I've been interested in rekindling our efforts for a long time, and 2024 seemed like a good time to do it.  I recruited some new faces to join our conversation, some of whom you might even recognize. We spent two days privately talking and praying and reading scripture together, and then we held a time of public testimony at Trini...
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BIG finish to 2024!

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We've had a big year here at Core Academy!  We served big crowds at two creation retreats this year.  We welcomed lots of kids to our free fossil booth at the Scopes Trial Play and Festivities.  We sold out our Creation Together event, with me and Darrel Falk.  We made great progress with our student researchers studying insects and human hip bones.  I presented our ministry and research at churches and universities around the southeast.  We hosted Paul Garner for another round of "live" podcast recordings, and our podcast Let's Talk Creation reached tens of thousands of viewers and listeners.  To top it all off, we've moved into great new offices (above)! We thank God for all this great progress and all the people we've ministered to this year!  With all this excitement, we haven't said much about our financial needs, but they have been significant.  Especially with the cost of moving into our new offices, we've had an expensive year. ...
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Hurricane survival and other matters

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Here's a (very) brief update on everything happening at Core Academy.  By some great, undeserved mercy, Core Academy was spared from the devastation of Helene.  You've no doubt seen the many reports of destruction to the east of here in the mountains, and we all here have many friends and family in the region.  Please pray earnestly with us that God would bring recovery and comfort to the people impacted by this terrible storm. Here at the office, thanks to our move in the spring, everything is high and dry.  We had a massively busy summer season, and we're looking forward to a slightly slower fall.  Here are a few highlights: In June we sponsored another round of Dino Camp here in Dayton, working in conjunction with Rhea County Academy.  We had a great time teaching kids about dinosaurs and working on cleaning real dinosaur bones.  Thanks especially to our regular volunteer Nikki E. who helped us from start to finish! My podcast host Paul Garner visit...
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