And responded with "for hundreds of years schools have been teaching things and have changed their thoughts". He gave me an example which I can't remember now.
Schools, that is to say "good schools", aren't the same as church where the students/laity sit silently and absorb the dogma handed down from on high and unchanged since the Bronze Age. Critical thinking means to listen and learn AND question, examine, prove, and improve. In my field of study, the very basics are only a few hundred years old. One of the textbooks we were using in class had a section that was already outdated by improved formulas. All of my professors were clear about the fact that there is much more to discover and we may find things that contradict what was previously understood. Embrace the change. Lead the change. Then when we're rich and/or famous, remember our alma mater!
Isaac Newton is famous for what he got right. But a lot of what he wrote was WRONG! Does that discredit all his work? Of course not. He wasn't writing a sacred bible that was a know-all, end-all. Others examined, corrected, and improved on the foundation he laid. And in the field of research into human evolution, the greatest discoveries are of recent origin with DNA research. SURPRISE! Neanderthals didn't just mysteriously die off. Some of us are carrying about 5% of their DNA in ours.
From a scientific point of view, there is much more to research and discover.
From the religious fundamentalist point of view, there's always just one answer:
I told him that what they teach in school is trustworthy and he can be rest assured that there is evidence to support that the common ancestor was the real link to the evolution of humans.... I don't care if my son believes in God or not. I just want him to know evolution is a fact.
Don't try to force a specific belief on him or make what is taught in school become a religious doctrine that he dare not question. Allow him to think critically. He's already said, correctly...
"for hundreds of years schools have been teaching things and have changed their thoughts".
Time for more critical thinking on this subject of educational evolution. Technically, "public education" has only been available for the last 200 years. Previous to that "schools" were only for the elite. If he is thinking that it's wrong for schools to evolve with the times, does he really want to go back to living the way they did hundreds of years ago? Sure, lots of rich white men were "successful" during those earlier centuries, but they often died young of tuberculosis, smallpox, cholera, typhus, measles, scarlet fever, etc. And if the diseases didn't kill you, the treatment by "medical professionals" of the time would easily kill you in horrible ways.
Maybe I'm wrong, but I think it's a good thing that schools are now teaching doctors, as well as the general public that might get jobs in food service, the importance of hand-washing, for example. If your son prefers the "good old days" when people would bathe only when they fell in the river, well, I just don't know what to tell you. LOL
