New book about Adam and Eve by William Lane Craig

To spare you the trouble, this is the closest he comes to criticizing you, and it pretty much sums up his reaction:

In his last paragraph, “welcoming the book,” Shaffner (sic) ignores the fundamentally nonscientific nature of such an endeavor. And that renders a review of Craig’s book in Science as really weird.

Yep. WLC makes the classic mistake of confusing the first appearance of a behavior for the full-blown thing. For instance, late erectus probably was the first speaker of words, but they likely used a combination of gesture and a few words to communicate. Fully-modern language didn’t just materialize out of thin air. It had to evolve. The same with symbolicity. A single shell bead or eagle talon worn as a necklace is a starting point, but it’s not fully-modern symbol usage, which involves a whole network of symbolic reference. A three-yr-old can understand that a red octagon means “stop,” but they’re far from ready to drive.

I think it’s more likely Craig will take heat from both sides. I won’t claim “well-argued” for myself, but here’s my take on “the man” and “the woman” as an archetypal description of the human journey, both personally and collectively.