Todd's Blog

It's hard to believe that Core Academy is celebrating its third Thanksgiving as an independent organization!  Back in 2013, when Roger Sanders, Stephanie Wood, and I decided to launch out on our own, I wasn't really sure what would happen.  Looking at my back account, I thought maybe we could last 18 months before the money ran out, but here we are two and a half years later, still going.  It has not been easy, and it still isn't.  But God is faithful, and for that we are grateful. This year, we have grown our ministry in two significant ways.  First, we formed a partnership with Schoolhouseteachers.com , where all our high school and middle school courses will now be hosted.  We now have hundreds of new families working through our courses and learning solid science from a Christian perspective.  Second, we are working with Rhea County Academy to pilot a new "Introduction to Science" course that will help students understand what science is, how it works,

On Saturday, November 21, I had the privilege of hearing Zach Throckmorton of Lincoln Memorial University speak on Homo naledi  at the Gray Fossil Site just outside of Johnson City, TN.  Dr. Throckmorton is an expert on feet, and he was part of the research team that studied the fossils of Homo naledi  after they were excavated from the Rising Star Cave.  My regular readers know how excited I've been about the discovery of H. naledi  in the Rising Star Cave in South Africa, and so it was an easy decision to go hear Dr. Throckmorton at one of Tennessee's most intriguing fossil museums ( seriously, you should check it out ). His talk was a pretty straightforward recounting of the discovery and description of the Rising Star fossils.  If you've been following the news at all, then you probably know all the details, so I won't recount them here.  He confirmed that the shoulder, arm, and hands all appear to be adapted to tree-climbing, and he indicated that the foot

I just finished (sort of) the first draft of my paper on Homo naledi , and it's a whopper.  I sort of just stopped working on it for now, because it's already too long.  Like most research, new data led in new directions and caused me to reconsider some things I had thought before.  The results of my analysis are really provocative (even to me), and I'm really stoked to get this paper published. Next, it goes out for private review from colleagues, then it will undergo peer review at the Journal of Creation Theology and Science .  God willing, it will be published in a special issue on human origins early next spring along with a few other papers on human origins.  I hope you're looking forward to it.  I know I am! I really want to say more about this discovery, especially since several other creationists have already chimed in.  But... I think it's better if I wait for the paper to come out. Feedback? Email me at toddcharleswood [at] gmail [dot] com. If