@Homeschool_Forum Lee Meadows gave a very nice presentation at the BioLogos conference in Houston about his experiences working with public school teachers in the South who want to present evolution to students in a way that is sensitive to students of faith. I thought his book might be of interest and use to EC homeschooling parents.
Since many of us have our kids in co-op programs where they are exposed to anti-evolution rhetoric or teach in co-ops where kids come from YEC homes, some of his tips and recommended approaches could be really helpful. He also had a blog where he shared lots of resources for science teachers which I found very helpful and interesting. http://leemeadows.blogspot.com/
I took a look at the blog you mention. In one blog post the author had just visited the Hall of Human Origins at the National Museum of Natural History. He writes, āThe biggest thing Iām pondering as I walk away is how all that we know about early humans is based on 6,000 skulls.ā Any idea of where he got such a strange idea?
Oh, are we playing a discourse analysis game; thatās my favorite.
Without any other context I would assume that sentence you quoted is some kind of āechoicā use of language, where a person appropriates a speech form from someone else in an ironic way, in order to distance themselves that other personās attitude. So if young earth people are famous for saying āHow is it that scientists are extrapolating all this information about human origins from just a couple of skull fragments?ā someone can echo that, but put in a fact about the preponderance of fossils (6,000 individuals) to distance himself/herself from the belief that human evolution science is just a bunch of guesswork and overly imaginative artistās renditions.
I donāt get that impression from what he wrote. Itās the June 12, 2012 entry (Itās a short post, and the blog has very few entries, so itās easy to find.)
[quote]From skeletons to teeth, early human fossils have been found of more than 6,000 individuals. With the rapid pace of new discoveries every year, this impressive sample means that even though some early human species are only represented by one or a few fossils, others are represented by thousands of fossils. From them, we can understand things like:
-how well adapted an early human species was for walking upright
-how well adapted an early human species was for living in hot, tropical habitats or cold, temperate environments
-the difference between male and female body size, which correlates to aspects of social behavior
-how quickly or slowly children of early human species grew up.[/quote]
What your guy wrote was this (emphasis added): āThe biggest thing Iām pondering as I walk away is how all that we know about early humans is based on 6,000 skulls.ā
Skulls can tell you an awful lot about human development, though, including (but not limited to) Brain size, teeth development and so on. One of the cool parts about the development of teeth is that they change when humans begin to cook food in order to gain more calories. Fire is pretty cool and cooking/fermenting food really changed the way that early humans lived.
As for the Book, part of the problem that started the Scopes Trial was the fact that Evolution was being taught and the State of Tennessee didnāt like it. So itās almost as if we lost the technology of teaching evolution in the average classroom upon the rise of Young Earth Creationism instead of getting better at teaching it, as we should have. Therefore, every source for teaching the correct way to think about Evolution, especially in a homeschool environment where students arenāt being pushed to believe that science and faith are incompatible, is a good source.
Okay, maybe Iām reading motivation and tone thatās not there. But sometimes it seems you are just looking for people to say something you can respond to with scorn and derision. Thatās counterproductive on a forum dedicated to dialogue. What is your point in bringing up your dissatisfaction with the word skull? There is no āBen Kirk Memorial Technical Correctness in Phraseology Awardā you need to compete for.
Please donāt be upset with me. Iām merely pointing out that as important as skulls are, we have fossils other than skulls that give us a wealth of information about archaic humans. We have other bones (some extremely important ones at that), tools, art work, beads, hearths, footprints, and the like. From the DNA extracted from just a few isolated finger bone fragments, a genome was sequenced which led to the discover of a new species of archaic humanāthe Denisovans. Some modern humans have Denisovan ancestry.
No worries. Itās totally fine to make the point your making. It just looked like you were trying to do it in a way that cast maximum suspicion on another personās expertise and credentials, which I donāt understand.
āLet your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.ā -Colossians 4:6
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