Adventist&#032kid: Go through and look at the staff of the …

Comment on God, Sky & Land – by Brian Bull and Fritz Guy by Professor Kent.

Adventist&#032kid: Go through and look at the staff of the center, more specifically, click through to their “Full C.V.s”. It will quickly become apparent that only a very small number of them are actually staff of SWAU.

Why is a Loma Linda emergency room physician listed as an authority on physics, and the familiar pathologist who is the single most knowledgable authority on origins omitted altogether?

Yes, mostly retired people. Apparently, the Church needs some fresh young blood in its science ranks. No one really wants to address this issue.

Professor Kent Also Commented

God, Sky & Land – by Brian Bull and Fritz Guy

Inge&#032Anderson: Their Earth History Research Center features research papers

I was a bit disappointed with all the copyright 2009 papers that failed to cite anything in the most recent decade or two. If you want somewhat more updated material at an SDA website, you have no better online recourse than Sean Pitman’s DetectingDesign.com. But if you really want solid science and a mature, responsible discussion of it, you’re going to have to get Leonard Brand’s book. By the way, why was he excluded from Southwestern’s Center?


God, Sky & Land – by Brian Bull and Fritz Guy
I know you folks do not want to hear this, but the Church ACTUALLY HAS BEEN and right now IS VERY BUSY doing something about the La Sierra situation–so I think you folks should stop the incessant bashing.

At this point, the GC has apparently hired the best available law firm–and non-SDA at that–to defend both LSU and Church defendents in the law suit. They will not allow LSU and its own lawyer to defend itself. According to the latest press release on the Church’s position:

•La Sierra University is not a separate institution, and is, instead, part of a single unified church entity.

•La Sierra University is not a true University, but rather a “church operated college (emphasis added)”

•That the spiritual leaders of the Seventh-day Adventist Church know what is best for this Seventh-day Adventist university, implying that Church leaders should be making academic and curriculum decisions.

•That this controversy is a theological one. This position is in direct conflict with the previous express statement of La Sierra University administration to the faculty, WASC, and the community, claiming that the forced resignations had nothing to do with the “origins controversy.”

More details here:

http://www.atoday.org/article.php?id=846

So, this should make you all very pleased to know that the Church will do whatever it takes to keep WASC and other evildoers from controlling the curriculum at LSU. If it’s a choice between accreditation and Church control, too bad for the students–it’ll be Church control.

As many EducateTruthers have pointed out, the Church should have never sought accreditation and worldly acclaim for its educational institutions to begin with. As the song goes, “Don’t worry; be happy!” Hurrah for Educate Truth and its attempt to reform LSU!!!


God, Sky & Land – by Brian Bull and Fritz Guy
Oh dear…wait a minute. I overlooked the fact that many EducateTruthers wanted LSU to leave the Church rather than remain within it, or be destroyed altogether. I suppose this latest development could be a dreadful thing for those with this view. What a shame it is to see the Church with all its “spineless” leaders (a term not rarely used here) fighting to protect LSU. What can be done now to reverse this?


Recent Comments by Professor Kent

Gary Gilbert, Spectrum, and Pseudogenes
Nic&#032Samojluk: 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.