New Covenant

Homeschool journals and the reliability of the Gospels

As part of our homeschooling endeavors, my wife and I will have our children keep journals while we are on road trip vacations. Besides being a method to keep them busy, the exercise also helps them learn about the various places we visit, as well as to hone their writing skills. Typically, we'll have them keep a daily journal, encouraging them to be verbose and expressive as they relate the details of our trip.

On a recent trip, however, I asked them to take their journal writing in a slightly different direction. Instead of having them write from a perspective which relied heavily on feelings (i.e., expressing their thoughts and opinions about what we were doing), I instructed them to give an essentially historical and factual account of what transpired on the trip. They didn't have to try and include everything that had happened each day, but only that which they considered most important or most unusual. As an added bonus to this alternative approach, my wife and I also kept trip journals.

After the trip, the journals were polished off and printed. I then had each family member read the entire set of journals. Once that task was completed, we all gathered for a group discussion. As expected, the journals were written in a chronological manner (e.g., Sep. 21, Sep. 22, Sep. 23). And, as expected, while the journals contained many of the same trip events, they were not equally comprehensive in their coverage of the trip. Descriptions varied, numerical values were sometimes rounded, specific events were ignored, etc. Due to the type of experiment I was conducting, I purposely varied the style of my journal from that of chronological to topical. I also crafted my account to include rounding, and exclude extraneous information of events that none of the other family members were a part of.

During our discussion I brought up these various differences in each of the journals. I asked what the differences might indicate (e.g., error, difference of opinion, omission). I asked if any of the differences indicated a direct contradiction or whether the differences were simply paradoxical. Essentially, I took our children through the process of harmonizing the four accounts of our trip. This was possible because the harmonization was being done on events they were eyewitness to, and the analysis was being made on data they had a direct part in producing.

Lastly, I then asked if they were aware of any other examples, of multiple accounts of the same events, having a different appearance in the forms we had just discussed. Our oldest quickly answered with, "Matthew, Mark, Luke and John," and our youngest even piped in with the statement that Mark does not include any mention of Jesus' birth. This, of course, was the point of my exercise: To show our children, brought up in the midst of a 21st century Western culture which prides itself in recording data comprehensively, that historical narratives can (and do) vary, and that such variances are not, in and of themselves, indicative of contradictions or errors.

I think that an exercise, such as this, is important for our children (and for some adults) to understand. During our discussion, I told our children that there are critics of Christianity, and the Bible, who will attempt to convince believers that there are irreconcilable contradictions within the text of the Bible. As this exercise hopefully demonstrated, we have the means to intelligently respond to the critics.

Scary

The annual convention for the Christian Home Educators Association (CHEA) of California just concluded. Check out who one of the keynote speakers was:

Keynote speakers include Ken Ham, Michael Farris, Gregg Harris, and Kevin Swanson.

Very scary.

On the love of reading

Having children that love to read is a joy for many a homeschool parent (although the phenomenon is certainly not limited to homeschooled children).

On a recent trip to California's Central Coast we had a serendipitous, if not ultimately heartbreaking, homeschool moment with our youngest child. One of our favorite places to hang out, while touring the area, used to be Leon's Used Bookstore, in San Luis Obispo. Imagine the look on our child's face, however, as we walked up to the storefront, only to find the premises empty of its rows of bookshelves, with construction work being done inside. Alas, we soon found out that Leon's Used Bookstore is no more, the victim of the costs of doing earthquake retrofitting for older, unreinforced masonry buildings.

Our youngest was on the verge of tears.

Imagine... a 21st century child, upset because her favorite used bookstore had to shut down? While it was a painful lesson in reality for her, my wife and I simply smiled at each other, content in the knowledge that our child has a sincere love of reading.

Homeschool ignorance

Over at Phat Phree, this ignorantly imbecilic attempt at humor,

I cannot believe Harvard rejected my application! What does a home-schooled guy have to do? Show me another application so full of blessings from Jesus and I will show you lucky man. My mom tells me not to let it get me down, but I can't help but feel that this is somehow the fault of the homosexuals.

Dana effortlessly performs a smackdown.

Cool Space Gallery Site

A cool space gallery site from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, CA.

Biblically Correct Science?

Nightline recently spotlighted BC Tours, a Young Earth Creationist outfit which takes schoolchildren on tours of secular museums, presenting the exhibits under what they claim to be as the Biblically correct version of science. From BC Tours website, their mission is stated as,

Communicating Biblical Truth in every area of life through tours of museums, zoos, and historical sites.

However, some of the Biblical Truth they promulgate is nothing more than Biblical interpretation (and, in my opinion, some lousy interpretation at that). From their website,

At a large, colorful panel along a wall, Carter reads aloud from a passage describing the disappearance of dinosaurs from the Earth about 65 million years ago. He and some of the older students exchange knowing smiles at the timeline, which contradicts their interpretation of the Bible suggesting a 6,000-year-old planet.

"Did man and dinosaurs live together?" Carter asks.

A timid yes comes from the students.

"How do we know that to be true?" Carter says.

There's a long pause.

"What day did God create dinosaurs on?" he continues.

"Six," says a chorus of voices.

"What day did God create man on?"

"Six."

"Did man and dinosaurs live together?"

"Yes," the students say.

Mission accomplished for Carter, who has been leading such tours since 1988.

Oh my. Let's ignore the fact that there are multiple creation accounts and descriptions in the Bible - which must all be addressed, and harmonized, if one is really interested in Biblical Truth. Let's ignore the fact that there is no mention of dinosaurs being created on day six, much less any mention of dinosaurs in the Bible. Let's also ignore the data.

From the Nightline episode,

They said the T-Rex was vegetarian because at the time of the Creation, there was no such thing as death, so a T-Rex could not have eaten meat. There was no death until Adam and Eve ate forbidden fruit from the tree of knowledge, they continued, and God's revenge was to curse the world with death.

No death before the Fall? Well, let's now ignore Romans 5 or Psalm 104, not to mention the evidence which shows T-rex having all the designed characteristics of a meat eater.

Again, from Nightline,

Out on the museum floor, Jack and Carter stopped the group in front of a window display that contains samples of sandstone that have ripples created by water and fossils of ancient life. Bill Jack asked his group, "How do they date the fossil? By the layer in which they find it. They date the layer by the fossil and the fossil by the layer," he said. "That's circular reasoning."

In the next moment he stepped past and turned his back to a display on radiometric dating, the method by which scientists determine the age of rocks through the rate of decay of their natural radioactivity.

When later asked why he skipped the display, Jack said simply, "We can't cover everything."

Nice. Let's not only ignore the cross-checking process involved in fossil / layer dating, let's also just walk by one of the most reliable methods (radiometric dating) we use to determine age. Nah... can't cover everything.

Stacia Martin, who brought her 14-year-old son Shawn, said she had learned how to defend her faith in Jesus Christ.

"I learned that when you look at exhibits, don't take them at face value just because they're exciting looking or because they're interesting," she said.

Her son Shawn said he thinks the world is 10,000 years old, "Because the Bible says that."

No. The Bible doesn't really say that.

On the one hand, I applaud BC Tours for their efforts in attempting to promote a Christian Worldview. On the other hand, wouldn't it be nice if they could give tours which present the full Christian point of view, nuanced with a full look at the evidence?

ref:  A Matter of Days - Ross; Creation as Science - Ross; Origins of Life - Rana & Ross; Who Was Adam? - Rana & Ross; The Privileged Planet - Richards & Gonzalez

In California, the homeschool question is not necessarily over

From The Daily Case Report (see the video):

Parents do not have a constitutional right to home school their children. The ruse of "Enrollment" in a private school that functions by allowing children to stay at home and be taught by non-credentialed parents does not constitute instruction in a private full-time day school within the exception to California's compulsory public school education law. (emphasis added)

HT: Principled Discovery

Expect a non-credentialed fight.

Animal predators, as a good thing

From ScienceDaily, Predators Do More Than Kill Prey,

The direct effect predators have on their prey is to kill them. The evolutionary changes that can result from this direct effect include prey that are younger at maturity and that produce more offspring. But killing prey also has indirect effects -- rarely characterized or measured -- such as a decline in the number of surviving prey, resulting, in turn, in more food available to survivors. In a new study characterizing the complex ecological interactions that shape how organisms evolve, biologists present a novel way of quantifying the indirect effects of predators by showing that prey adapt to food availability as well as the presence of predators.

The notion that a predator animal killing and eating its prey is "bad" fails to take into account the complexity of interactions within an ecological system. Seen from a wider point of view, the killing of the prey is but a part of a larger, good system. A system which, by its definition, be fully functional at its inception. A system bearing the trademarks of design.

Consider the implications of another article, from ScienceDaily, titled Are Wolves The Pronghorn's Best Friend?,

As western states debate removing the gray wolf from protection under the Endangered Species Act, a new study by the Wildlife Conservation Society cautions that doing so may result in an unintended decline in another species: the pronghorn, a uniquely North American animal that resembles an African antelope.

...

The study, appearing in the latest issue of the journal Ecology, says that fewer wolves mean more coyotes, which can prey heavily on pronghorn fawns if the delicate balance between predators and their prey is altered. According to the study, healthy wolf packs keep coyote numbers in check, while rarely feeding on pronghorn fawns themselves. As a result, fawns have higher survival rates when wolves are present in an ecosystem.

...

"This study shows just how complex relationships between predators and their prey can be," said Berger. "It's an important reminder that we often don't understand ecosystems nearly as well as we think we do, and that our efforts to manipulate them can have unexpected consequences."

The implications of unintended consequences from misunderstanding complex ecosystems.

Within the Young Earth Creation mindset, it is unfortunate that animal predation is considered "bad" or "evil". Such analysis, when one looks at the evidence within nature alongside that within God's Word, seems inadequate. Consider,

The young lions roar for their prey, seeking their food from God. When the sun rises, they steal away and lie down in their dens. Man goes out to his work and to his labor until the evening.

O Lord, how manifold are your works! In wisdom have you made them all; the earth is full of your creatures. Here is the sea, great and wide, which teems with creatures innumerable, living things both small and great. There go the ships, and Leviathan, which you formed to play in it.

These all look to you, to give them their food in due season. When you give it to them, they gather it up; when you open your hand, they are filled with good things.

- Psalm 104:21-28 ESV (emphasis added)

On the family and independence

From ScienceDaily, Close Families Raise More Independent Adults

You're already 25 and you still live with your parents. You're 26 and you still bring your laundry take home food from your mother. Don't worry; new research at the University of Haifa found that, contrary to common belief, young adults who maintain a close or moderate relationship with their parents exhibit greater independence in their personal lives than those who have a distant relationship.

...

According to the researcher, a close relationship with parents is one in which children talk with their parents often and regularly spend time together (eating meals together, for example), and one in which a child feels comfortable sharing his thoughts and experiences with his parents.

Hmmm. One of the criticisms we've received, with regards to homeschooling our children, is that once they leave home they'll - "go wild". It's my belief that human behavior is too complex to justify such a claim. Rather, as this study seems to suggest, a well balanced family life - as patterned after thousands of years of human existence - builds stable adults.

Kind of... makes sense.

On Reading More

I recently purchased Mortimer Adler's How to Read a Book, based on the many recommendations I've either heard or read on it. Alas, I have yet to actually sitting down and reading it. In the meantime, Greg Koukl, from Stand to Reason, has written a Solid Ground article which briefly outlines some of the principles found in How to Read a Book.

The summary points of How to Read Less More (PDF), would be:

1. Overview
2. Preview
3. Read
4. Post-View Immediately

The point of Overview should be to take no more than 10 - 20 minutes to skim the book, with the intentions of determining the main ideas of the author, the manner with which it is presented and, most importantly, whether or not you want to take the time to actually read the book.

The next step, Preview, is intended to allow you to skim the entire book, at a slower rate this time, in order for you to study the structure, outline, etc. Greg recommends that you write a synopsis of the book on the title page.

Read is more than simply reading the book. Again, you will preview each chapter prior to reading it (mainly by skimming each page). The actual reading is done at as fast a rate as possible, while remaining comfortable. The point is that you don't want to actually stop and ponder sections in the chapter (not yet, anyway). Marking sections is fine, but try to avoid lengthy note-taking. After you've finished, write a 1-4 sentence summary at the beginning of the chapter.

In Post-View Immediately, you will re-read the chapter, focusing on the sections you had marked, this time thinking about the ideas, arguments, etc. Refine your 1-4 sentence summary or, as I've started doing, simply add to it, noting the major points of the chapter.

Many thanks to Greg Koukl for outlining this methodology for reading a book, with the intention of mastering it.

Science Saturday: Progressive design of the internal combustion engine

As a follow-up to my February 9th post, Science Saturday: Declaring the existence of transitional species post, I'd like to give you a lesson plan (of sorts), with the purpose of illustrating the concept of gradual, progressive engineering and design.

Vaccinate, or not

Vaccinate your children? A no-brainer, right? Well, it used to be.

From ScienceDaily, YouTube Breeding Ground For Anti-vaccination Views,

As cold and flu season hits this year amid growing debate over the necessity of vaccinations, University of Toronto researchers have uncovered widespread misinformation in related videos on YouTube.

...

"YouTube is increasingly a resource people consult for health information, including vaccination," says first author Keelan, an assistant professor in U of T's Department of Public Health Sciences. "Our study shows that a significant amount of immunization content on YouTube contradicts the best scientific evidence at large. From a public health perspective, this is very concerning."

From Michael Fumento, Cal. study gets vaccines off hook again for autism,

Grant the anti-childhood vaccine fanatics this; they are dogged. As I write in The American Spectator Online, "Absolutely no amount of data and no number of studies from any array of sources will sway them from their beliefs - or claimed beliefs - that thimerosal, a mercury-containing vaccine preservative once used in many such injections, is causing the so-called "autism epidemic."

...

For the rest of us there are two valuable lessons. First, the lack of a thimerosal connection to the developmental disorder has once again been reaffirmed. And second, those fanatics really and truly are fanatical - as a British Medical Journal book reviewer put it, an "angry and paranoid universe."

And this tidbit from San Diego, 3 Children Contract Measles

Two children at a San Diego charter school and a sibling have contracted measles, prompting county health officials Monday to notify parents and students about possible exposure.

Two of the children attended the San Diego Cooperative Charter School, according to the San Diego County Health and Human Services Agency.

They did not have the measles vaccine, according to the HHSA.

Oh, and a fourth case of the measles has been reported (this is the first cluster of measles to occur in San Diego in 17 years). And it has been spread, via the friendly skies, to Hawaii. And... there may be six more new cases in San Diego. An interesting graphic on the spread is found here.

Science Saturday: Declaring the existence of transitional species

At the Thumb, we have a post titled, The Inner Fish speaks: Neil Shubin makes a guest appearance on Pharyngula, in which we're given a glimpse into how natural process evolution views template fossil forms which appear fully functional for the environment, and time, in which they existed: They're declared as gap-filling transitional forms (the kind OEC types like myself say don't exist).

The human ancestor in question, this time, is the fish Tiktaalik roseae. Yes, that's correct, a fish. How, you may ask, is a fish an ancestor of us humans? Well, you see, it all has to do with the fact that the bone structure of the fish fins is eerily similar to the bone structure for human hands. Over time, it is supposed, such early structures transformed into the variety of similar structures we see today. For the Tiktaalik roseae this, Great Transformation, is but one of the many transformations that obviously occurred  over the millions of years of life's history. Watch this clip from the PBS series, Evolution, particularly noting the quick animation of a fin to hand skeletal structure. Or take a look at the Flash animation, on page 1, from this NOVA site. (note: Evidence for Evolution, a NOVA Vodcast from 11/9/07, provides another glimpse of the thought processes involved here)

But wait, there's more. It's not merely the fact that such a bone structure template is similar to tetrapod structures, it's the case-closing fact that such an early structure appeared in the proper sequence in geologic time - just as predicted! From NOVA's website,

In 2004, a field crew digging in the Canadian Arctic unearthed the fossil remains of a half-fish, half-amphibian that would all but confirm paleontologists' theories about how land-dwelling tetrapods (four-limbed animals, including us) evolved from their fish ancestors. The animal was a so-called lobe-finned fish that lived about 375 million years ago. Named Tiktaalik rosae by its discoverers, it is a classic example of a transitional form, one that bridges the evolutionary gap between two quite different types of animal. In this slide show, see this and four other well-known fossil transitions, which clearly indicate Darwinian evolution in action. (emphasis added)

Let me explain how to think this through:

1. we know that life evolved (the essential prerequisite);
2. we have primitive life forms recovered from the fossil record (presumably because of point #1);
3. we have a sequence of life forms moving from simple to complex, as they move through time in the fossil record (i.e., the fin animal, and the limb animal);
4. we predict that a gap between two disparate forms of complexity will be filled by an intermediate form of complexity (all we need now is a fin-limb animal);
5. Tiktaalik roseae, with its "fimb" (i.e., a fin-limb), is found. (Bingo! You win.)

No, your eyes do not deceive you - you are, in fact, on a merry-go-round.

Never mind the fact that the evidence fits just as easily, if not more so, with the concept of a designer's template, being utilized for successive applications within an equally designed changing set of living parameters (aka ecosystems). Never mind that each of the successive, transitional, intermediate, gap-closing life forms appear fully formed and entirely functional for the environments they happen to be living in. Never mind about other "issues", such as how to transition from breathing underwater to breathing on land. Never mind that there is no indication how a transition is made between a fin and and a fimb. Never mind that intermediate in form is not the same as transitional in nature. Never mind that there are other life forms with disparate time sequences (i.e., temporal paradoxes) which run counter to the theories proposed.

No, never mind all of that.

---

For a wonderful synopsis of the current state of evolutionary affairs, read Dr. Fazale Rana's Evolution Loses Its Direction.

One of the key pieces of evidence cited in support of biological evolution is the fossil record. Evolutionary biologists point out that: 1) the fossil record shows that past life on Earth is different than life today; and 2) simple life preceded complex life-forms. For many scientists these general features indicate that life on Earth must have evolved.

These observations, however, could just as easily be accounted for by evoking the work of a Creator who created in stages, bringing different life-forms into existence at different times in Earth’s history. This pattern accords with the Genesis 1 and Psalm 104 creation accounts.

...

Given a Darwinian mechanism, it’s expected that the fossil record should display gradual transformations replete with corresponding transitional forms. Over the last 30 years or so paleontologists have debated whether or not the fossil record truly displays this pattern. In the early 1970s, Stephen Jay Gould and Niles Eldredge argued that the fossil record fails to show gradual evolutionary transformations. Instead these two paleontologists maintained that evolutionary change happens suddenly and then periods of stasis, or no evolutionary change, follow. They termed this idea punctuated equilibrium.

Science Saturday: will all the knuckle-walkers please stand up?

Remember the iconic image of human evolution? That of a tiny, knuckle-walking primate which gradually enlarges and walks upright, culminating in the human we have today? (image per Icons of Evolution)

From ScienceDaily, Early Apes Walked Upright 15 Million Years Earlier Than Previously Thought, Evolutionary Biologist Argues.

"An extraordinary advance in human origins research reveals evidence of the emergence of the upright human body plan over 15 million years earlier than most experts have believed. More dramatically, the study confirms preliminary evidence that many early hominoid apes were most likely upright bipedal walkers sharing the basic body form of modern humans."

So... what about the find of the century (last), aka Lucy? From the article, "This greatly demotes the importance of the bipedalism of Australopithecus species such as Lucy (Australopithecus afarensis) since we now know of four upright bipedal species that precede her, found from various time periods on out to Morotopithecus in the Early Miocene."

The wonderful, wacky world, of human evolution.

But wait, there's more!

From ScienceDaily, Ape To Human: Walking Upright May Have Protected Heavy Human Babies,

The transition from apes to humans may have been partially triggered by the need to stand on two legs, in order to safely carry heavier babies.

...

The author goes on to suggest that the fall in body hair in primates could have brought on bipedality as a necessary consequence, through the strong selective pressure of safe infant carrying, as infants were no longer able to cling to their mother’s body hairs.  In the author’s opinion, safe carrying of heavy infants justified the emergence of the biped form of movement.  Although an adult gorilla is much heavier than an adult human, its offspring is only half the weight of a human baby.

Science Saturday: reviewing Genesis 1 in church history

From Today's New Reason to Believe (per Reasons to Believe):
Historic Age Debate - Overview, Part 1, and Historic Age Debate - Overview, Part 2, both by John Millam. An excerpt,

Even a fairly simple review shows that the church'€™s view of Genesis 1 is complex and not the simple uniform view that is commonly assumed. Moreover, we can discern that scholars in each major time period wrestled with this issue in their own characteristic manner.    

• The Apostolic Church (30-90 AD) -€“ Completely silent on the issue of the "€œdays€" of creation.
• The Early Church (90-476 AD) -€“ Both the calendar-day and instantaneous creation (or creation not in time) views were held by prominent theologians. Origen and Augustine in particular clearly rejected the idea that the creation days were normal calendar days.
  
• The Middle Ages (476-1492 AD) -€“ The issue of creation receives little attention during this period. Instantaneous creation and figurative interpretations of Genesis 1 predominate, but the calendar-day view is still popular.    
• The Reformation (1492-1675 AD) -€“ Calendar-day view is clearly predominant but other views are still around. Instantaneous creation and other allegorical interpretations are strongly rejected at this time.    
• Golden Age of Science (1675-1781 AD) -€“ Day-age view appears but calendar-day remains prevalent. Day-age emerges in an attempt to understand God'€™s process in creation.

Another reason why we need ID

While anyone who has read my blog should be aware of my disdain for the Young Earth Creation model, I would not for a minute besmirch the Christian conviction of my fellow brothers and sisters.

That said, let me point you to yet another attack on YEC by the natural process evolutionary crowd. John Scalzi has posted a "report" (obscenity warning) of his trip to the new Ken Ham creation museum. He also has a Flickr page devoted to being sacrilegious.

As I've stated before: If the natural process evolutionary scenario is so obviously correct, then why must they continue to attack the creationists? Why not simply let their model, through reason alone, win?

Science Saturday: Our miracle moon - chance or design?

From NASA's JPL website, Astronomers Say Moons Like Ours Are Uncommon,

The next time you take a moonlit stroll, or admire a full, bright-white moon looming in the night sky, you might count yourself lucky. New observations from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope suggest that moons like Earth's - that formed out of tremendous collisions - are uncommon in the universe, arising at most in only 5 to 10 percent of planetary systems.

...

"We don't know that the collision we witnessed around the one star is definitely going to produce a moon, so moon-forming events could be much less frequent than our calculation suggests," said George Rieke of the University of Arizona, Tucson, a co-author of the study.

Besides the low chance of our moon forming out of a collision event, there are additional factors which make our moon extraordinary. From Hugh Ross' 1998 book, The Genesis Question, consider that the collision event:

• delivered Earth from a life-suffocating atmosphere and produced a replacement atmosphere thin enough and of the right chemical composition to permit the passage of light to Earth's surface
• increased the mass and density of Earth enough to retain a large quantity of water but not life-threatening ammonia and methane
• elevated the iron content of the Earth's crust as to permit a huge abundance of ocean life, which in turn permits advanced land life
• played a significant role in salting the Earth's crust with a huge abundance of radioisotopes, permitting high rates of tectonics and vulcanism
• stabilized the tilt of the Earth's rotation axis, protecting the planet from life-extinguishing climatic extremes

Indeed, Neil Comins, in his 1993 book, What if the Moon didn't exist?, explained how advanced life on planet Earth is dependent on the unique characteristics of our moon.

As Hugh Ross has said, those who seek after a miracle need look no further than our own moon.

Adopt-a-platoon, and giving to our troops

Every year, my employer sponsors several families in need for Christmas. It's typically a time when employees can give donations, cash or merchandise, to help brighten up Christmas for a struggling family (especially the children).

Over the past couple of years we've included military families in our outreach program. This year, besides sponsoring needy military families, here at home, we've also linked up with the Adopt-a-Platoon organization. From their mission statement:

The AdoptaPlatoon Soldier Support Effort™ ...is ...managed nationwide by volunteer mothers to ensure that deployed United States Service members in all branches of the military are not forgotten by providing needed mail support and to promote patriotism in our schools and communities.  To provide a better deployment quality of life, lift morale, and assist military families, the AAP created projects that meet the need of military requests, established special projects for holidays, and assigns individual morale lifting mail support to service members of all branches of the U.S. military serving their Nation around the world.

The platoon that we've been assigned is stationed in Iraq. The list of items that would brighten up their Christmas season is diverse, ranging from packs of Top Ramen  to Bibles to hot sauce. Yet, the items that mean the most to our troops, in these locales, are cards and letters from home. Cards and letters, especially from children, let our troops know that we care about them, that we are thinking about them, and that we support them.

So, the day before Thanksgiving, with a list in hand, I took our kids to a local warehouse store and we loaded up on things that they thought our soldiers in Iraq would like for Christmas. After we got home, they sat down and made a few cards and letters to send, along with the goodies they had helped pick out. What a great homeschool opportunity to demonstrate giving, instill patriotism, and learn about current events.

In the hopes of getting additional cards and letters (from children), I posted a request on our homeschool group's GoogleGroups page. Sadly, not one person responded. Nevertheless, I hope our kids remember the small part they played in this worthy endeavor.

NOVA Judgment Day: a quick review

I just finished watching NOVA's Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial. From the website:

In this program, NOVA captures the turmoil that tore apart the community of Dover, Pennsylvania in one of the latest battles over teaching evolution in public schools. Featuring trial reenactments based on court transcripts and interviews with key participants, including expert scientists and Dover parents, teachers, and town officials, "Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial" follows the celebrated federal case of Kitzmiller v. Dover School District.

First off, my stance is that intelligent design (ID) should not be taught in public schools. While it's my opinion that ID cannot escape any correlation to creationism, I think that an allowance for the teaching of ID essentially opens the door for any origins methodology. That said, here are some of my thoughts on the program:

• My wife and I homeschool and, despite the typically ignorant view that all homeschoolers are out to censor evolutionary thought, we had our oldest child sit with us as we watched the program. To spice things up a bit, I even laid out copies of the books that the natural process evolutionists will not permit public schooled children to read within the walls of a science classroom (e.g., Of Pandas & People, Darwin's Black Box, Darwin on Trial).
• I was intrigued by Ken Miller's explanation of the bacterial flagellum and the type 3 secretory system. I especially like the manner in which he describes the two systems as essentially being derived from a design template, not unlike the work an intelligent designer would perform.
• It was also interesting to note how the natural process evolutionists, after going through extensive digging, found a smoking gun that linked creationism with intelligent design (horrors!). The so-called transitional fossil, a typo found in early drafts of the book Of Pandas & People, proceeded along the lines of: creationists  -->  cdesign proponentsists  -->  design proponents. So... the non-functional phrase "cdesign proponentsists" is mockingly referred to as some sort of transitional fossil (albeit intelligently caused).
• Oh, and Ken Miller's non-functional tie clasp (aka a partial mousetrap) was also humorous, if not completely meaningless.

Seriously, if the notion of a science teacher reading a one minute statement advocating the possibility of alternative explanations to the diversity of life, along with the option of reading a book as benign as Of Pandas & People, is so scary to the natural process evolutionists, then how secure is their platform?

Open minded folks (e.g., homeschoolers) should look into Explore Evolution. From the website:

The purpose of Explore Evolution, is to examine the scientific controversy about Darwin's theory, and in particular, the contemporary version of the theory known as neo-Darwinism. Whether you are a teacher, a student, or a parent, this book will help you understand what Darwin's theory of evolution is, why many scientists find it persuasive, and why other scientists question the theory or some key aspects of it.

Homeschooling and University: changing minds and attitudes

From Home-schooled college applicants rely on essays, interviews, in the Ventura County Star:

Like thousands of high school seniors across the country, Madeleine Ary is applying to college this fall.

But unlike most students, Ary is home-schooled, so when she fills out her applications, she won't have all the traditional transcripts or teacher recommendations that most universities require.

Instead, she will rely heavily on essays and interviews to show college admissions officers that she's a bright, highly motivated student who has a passion for music, sailing and animals.

The very fact that colleges are considering home-schooled students should be thought of as an accomplishment. However, stereotypes are difficult to shake. Matt Ward, dean of undergraduate enrollment at California Lutheran University in Thousand Oaks, states,

We want to make sure they [home-schooled applicants] get to a certain level in science, math or English, so getting that description is critical [.] ...They might be No. 1 in their class, class president and captain of the chess team, but they're only playing (against) Dad. ...They might be able to test well and write well, but are they socialized, prepared to make a contribution as a leader, to socialize into a broader community?

Perhaps Ward should reference the Home School Legal Defense Association and a survey which they commissioned in 2003. I find the graph below particularly striking:

Maybe Mr. Ward should be concerned about whether or not the non-homeschooled applicants are "socialized, prepared to make a contribution as a leader, to socialize into a broader community"?