Comment on A big reason why so many people are leaving the church by Professor Kent.
David Read: That’s the assumption that sociobiology is based upon: that your social behavior is determined by your biology. That why it is called sociobiology.
Wrong, wrong, wrong. Sociobiology is called sociobiology because it seeks to learn the biological basis of behavior; it does not seek to demonstrate genetic determinism. You need to get over this. The biological bases of behavior encompass both genetics (nature) and environment (nurture). Sociobiologists have always acknowledged this, and much of their evidence shows that your false dichotomy–it’s all one or the other–is completely bogus.
David Read: In every sexually reproducing species, a parent donates half of the DNA to each of its offspring…
Wrong again. David, you simply don’t know what you are talking about. Period. This is a problem when a lawyer–a “controversialist,” as you have described yourself–claims to be ideally suited to teach biology and origins because a lawyer is better trained than a scientist to sort out the evidence. The problem is that a lawyer lacks depth of knowledge in science to understand the evidence to begin with. There’s a world of variation in the sexual reproduction of plants and animals that you are clueless about, and that’s why you simply can’t make appropriate inferences about sociobiology. If you were familiar, for example, with the term “ploidy,” you would understand that insects with a haplo-diploid genetic system don’t meet your supposed “fact” of paternal contribution to offspring. And…sorry to inform…this is just the tip of the iceberg for exceptions to your supposed “fact.”
David Read: But many people make extraordinary sacrifices for children that they KNOW are not theirs, so their altruistic behavior is not driven by genes or by cultural expectations, but by their own higher standards of altruism, which are most often the result of a strong religious commitment. Free will is a repeatedly observed phenomenon of the human condition.
No kidding. Most sociobiologists would agree with you 100%. They’ve actually written MUCH on this very topic (you have admitted that you refuse to read sociobiological literature, so you unfamiliarity is to be expecterd). Again, I don’t know how to say this nicely, but your objections to sociobiology are based more on prejudicial bias and ignorance of the discipline than anything else.
David Read: Maybe someday we will be able to determine what behaviors are genetically driven, if any.
Apparently, you acknowledge the legitimacy of a major thrust of sociobiology: studying the genetic basis of behavior. But you should not overlook the fact that sociobiologists consider equally important the environmental (including cultural) influences on behavior, and study them just as fervently.
BTW, I’m glad you didn’t tell us Ellen White was not a woman of Adventist faith because she acknowledged the hereditary influences on human behavior.
Professor Kent Also Commented
A big reason why so many people are leaving the church
@Sean Pitman:
Amen here, too!
A big reason why so many people are leaving the church
@Sean Pitman:
Ummm…where’s the sarcasm?
A big reason why so many people are leaving the church
Ellen White on the heredity of human behavior
As Pastor Kevin Paulson, an ardent Educate Truth supporter, described eloquently (http://bit.ly/lGXi22):
We see this same principle further illustrated in the more than 200 statements where Ellen White speaks of hereditary and cultivated tendencies to evil (23). These are Ellen White’s terms for what we hear today regarding the difference between nature and nurture in human development. Ellen White is clear that Jesus took our fallen hereditary tendencies, since she writes that “He came with such a heredity to share our sorrows and temptations, and to give us the example of a sinless life” (24). In other words, His heredity would be a source of temptation to Himself, as it is to us. But very clearly, Jesus didn’t take our fallen cultivated tendencies to evil, since to do this would have required Him to sin.
Indeed, Ellen White assures us:
“Those who put their trust in Christ are not to be enslaved by any hereditary or cultivated habit or tendency. Instead of being held in bondage to the lower nature, they are to rule every appetite and passion. God has not left us to battle with evil in our own finite strength. Whatever may be our inherited or cultivated tendencies to wrong, we can overcome through the power that He is ready to impart.” (Amazing Grace, p. 246)
Let there be no mistake about it: Ellen White acknowledged the genetic basis of our tendencies toward sinful behavior.
Recent Comments by Professor Kent
Gary Gilbert, Spectrum, and Pseudogenes
Nic Samojluk: No wonder most creationist writers do not even try to submit their papers to such organizations.
Who wants to waste his/her time trying to enter through a door that is closed to him/her a priori?
You have no idea what you’re writing about, Nic. As it turns out, there are in fact many of us Adventists who “waste” our time publishing articles through doors that open to us a priori. Even Leonard Brand at Loma Linda, a widely recognized creationist, has published in the top geology journals. I mean the top journals in the discipline.
The myth that creationists cannot publish in mainstream science is perpetuated by people who simply do not understand the culture of science–and will remain clueless that they do not understand it even when confronted with their misunderstandings. Such is human nature.
Southern Adventist University opens Origins Exhibit
Pauluc,
Your questions about conservation genetics are very insightful. I don’t understand how all these life forms were able to greatly increase in genetic diversity while simultaneously winding down and losing genetic information to mutations. Sean seems to insist that both processes happen simultaneously. I had the impression he has insisted all along that the former cannot overcome the latter. But I think you must be right: God had to intervene to alter the course of nature. However, we can probably test this empirically because there must be a signature of evidence available in the DNA. I’ll bet Sean can find the evidence for this.
I’m also glad the predators (just 2 of most such species) in the ark had enough clean animals (14 of each such species) to eat during the deluge and in the months and years after they emerged from the ark that they didn’t wipe out the vast majority of animal species through predation. Maybe they all consumed manna while in the ark and during the first few months or years afterward. Perhaps Sean can find in the literature a gene for a single digestive enzyme that is common to all predatory animals, from the lowest invertebrate to the highest vertebrate. Now that would be amazing.
Wait a minute–I remember once being told that SDA biologists like Art Chadwick believe that some animals survived on floating vegetation outside the ark. Now that would solve some of these very real problems! I wonder whether readers here would allow for this possibility. Multiple arks without walls, roof, and human caretakers.
Southern Adventist University opens Origins Exhibit
Ellen White said, “In the days of Noah, men…many times larger than now exist, were buried, and thus preserved as an evidence to later generations that the antediluvians [presumably referring to humans] perished by a flood. God designed that the discovery of these things should establish faith in inspired history…”
Sean Pitman said, “All human fossils discovered so far are Tertiary or post-Flood fossils. There are no known antediluvian human fossils.”
Ellen White tells us that humans and dinosaurs (presumably referred to in the statement, “a class of very large animals which perished at the flood… mammoth animals”) lived together before the flood. Evolutionary biologists tell us that dinosaurs and humans never lived together. You’re telling us, Sean, that the fossil record supports the conclusion of evolutionists rather than that of Ellen White and the SDA Church. Many of the “very large animals which perished at the flood” are found only in fossil deposits prior to or attributed to the flood, whereas hunans occur in fossil deposits only after the flood (when their numbers were most scarce).
Should the SDA biologists, who are supposed to teach “creation science,” be fired if they teach what you have just conceded?
La Sierra Univeristy Fires Dr. Lee Greer; Signs anti-Creation Bond
For those aghast about the LSU situation and wondering what other SDA institutions have taken out bonds, hold on to your britches. You’ll be stunned when you learn (soon) how many of our other schools, and which ones in particular, have taken out these bonds. You will be amazed to learn just how many other administrators have deliberately secularized their institutions besides Randal Wisbey, presumably because they too hate the SDA Church (as David Read has put it so tactfully).
Be sure to protest equally loudly.
Gary Gilbert, Spectrum, and Pseudogenes
@Sean Pitman:
So clearly you believe that science can explain supernatural events. Congratulations on that.
