Todd's Blog

A quick Tuesday update:  I have a new article over at Human Genesis on the piece of Neandertal twine: A cord of three strands And the latest "Ask a Creationist" is up on the Core Academy YouTube channel. I am officially tired of talking about viruses, so next week's "Ask a Creationist" will be anything other than viruses.  Feel free to send in a question for me! Feedback? Email me at toddcharleswood [at] gmail [dot] com. If you enjoyed this article, please consider a contribution to Core Academy of Science. Thank you. Have you read my book?  You should check that out too!

What's this?  Another article just one day after the last one?  Shocking, ain't it?  I thought you might like to see the latest Ask a Creationist, just in case you're not following our other social media or website. Here's the latest video: And in case you missed it, here's the first video: Feedback? Email me at toddcharleswood [at] gmail [dot] com. If you enjoyed this article, please consider a contribution to Core Academy of Science. Thank you. Have you read my book?  You should check that out too!

Wow.  I didn't realize it had been so long since I was here.  I guess I have the usual excuses: I've been busy, I've been quarantined, I've been social media distancing, and so forth.  So what's new? Well, since the last time I posted here was just before Christmas, let me give you a quick rundown on the last few months of my life: We met our fundraising goal for 2019!  Well, we raised 99% of the goal, which in my book is close enough.  Read more here . I posted another Fossil Focus video in December: The Taung Child .  I have big plans for another one, but it's all about that free time thing, which I don't have much of right now. I spent a lot of time traveling.  First up was my visit to Calvin College with Darrel Falk, where we appeared on the January Series.  If you've ever wondered what it was like to hear us in person, here's your chance.  Our presentation is on YouTube . Next, I did some ministry trips, first to Texas ...

Dear friends, Merry Christmas everyone!  I hope your holidays are off to a great start.  You know I hate writing these letters asking for money, but we need $1,605 today .  Two generous donors have offered to double all gifts up to $4,000, and we've only raised $2,395 so far.  I would very much like you to pray for us today and tomorrow.  For me, $1,605 seems like a big amount, but God knows our needs and has even more in store for us.  Please pray that God will provide these final funds and that God would continue to bless us through the last week of the year (since we will still be $8,000 away from our $25,000 goal for this year).  If you've been thinking about a gift, today's the day, since your gift will be automatically doubled!  Remember that ministries receive a big portion of their annual support in December.  Core Academy typically receives 35% of our annual support between Thanksgiving and New Year's Eve.  If you appreciat...

What a year!   The Core Academy mission is to nurture the next generation of faithful, Christ-like creation researchers to explore the hardest problems in creation.  We accomplish this through workshops and retreats, outreach events, and the Sanders Scholarship program.  At this time of year, I'm already busily planning out next year's ministry work, but it's also important to stop and look back at our accomplishments in 2019.  There are three big ones that I am very thankful for. First, in February, my book The Fool and the Heretic , written with Darrel Falk and Rob Barrett, was released from Zondervan.  This book was born out of years of discussion with Darrel.  It was a difficult book to write, and a difficult book to read.  Reviews have ranged from unqualified praise to skepticism to outright condemnation.  From both creationists and evolutionists, I've heard the same refrain: "Of course, being kind and loving is important, but the truth ...

There's a new fossil paper in Nature that's grabbing some headlines, and frankly, it's an odd one.  I'm going to give a few semi-technical thoughts here, and I might write a more general post for Human Genesis some other time (or I might not. Always in motion is the future.).  This post is mostly my gut reaction after reading the paper. In the paper, the authors Böhme et al. describe a group of fossils found in Bavaria, about an hour's drive west of Munich.  Paleomagnetic dating indicate a conventional date of about 11.6 million years ago, making this a Miocene deposit.  The fossils are similar to a group we already knew about: the dryopithecin apes.  What these new fossils do for us is give us a bit more information about the skeletons of these apes.  They call this new fossil ape Danuvius . Based on the fragmentary remains, we make some really interesting observations about the anatomy of  Danuvius .  These apes had strongly opposed big ...

I've started making short videos explaining some of the fossil replicas and models in the Core Academy collection.  Here are the first batch: Kabwe, Nariokotome, and La Chapelle.  I'll probably shoot at least one more over Thanksgiving break.  Let me know if you have a favorite hominin fossil or topic you'd like me to talk about.  Don't look at me like that.  Everyone has a favorite hominin fossil.  (Radiometric dating of the fossils has already been requested.) Feedback? Email me at toddcharleswood [at] gmail [dot] com. If you enjoyed this article, please consider a contribution to Core Academy of Science. Thank you. Have you read my book?  You should check that out too!