Dr. Geraty has told me personally [Sean Pitman], twice now in public forum, that all LSU professors are “creationists” and believe in God.

I believe his strategy worked for a number of decades.

in Christ,

Bob

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Once again, bear in mind that macroevolution (= speciation by conventional definitions; creationists often resort to other definitions) cannot be expected to happen naturally during a human lifetime, unless there is a dramatic polyploid or parthenogenetic event (or something similar) that results in immediate reproductive isolation and speciation. Note that I use the word “naturally.”

Hint: Punctuated Equillibrium.

Every birth of every individual in every species is “a million years” away (or 10 million if you prefer) from “something” in it’s ancestoral tree according to evolutionists. The problem is not “time” when it comes to the evolutionary “story”. The story does not “lack time” it lacks “evidence”.

With P.E you are supposed to get a hopeful monster saltation (or nearly that) rather than a mature eye or eyelid that slowly forms over 10,000 years.

If on the other hand, you want to argue that we see 1000′s of species with their eyes in various stages of “forming over a 10,000 year window” go ahead and go out on that limb.

in Christ,

Bob

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I have seen him make the claim that he believes in the literal 7 day week of Genesis 1-2:3 several times. He is being consistent in making that claim here.

Geraty then says

It is also slander to say that I “hired professors to teach at LSU that I specifically knew would undermine the Church’s ‘fundamental’ understanding on a literal creation week.” There is no evidence for that and it is contrary to all I did to make sure we had professors who were supportive of the SDA Church and creationism

Ok so either Geraty did not “know” that Erv Taylor was an evolutionist or did not know that Erv Taylor was lecturing at LSU.

Either Geraty did not “know” that Bradley was a diehard evolutionist or did not know that Bradly was a biology professor at LSU.

Either Geraty did not “know” that Grismer and McCloskey were evolutionists or did not know that they were hired to teach biology at LSU while he was president at LSU.

Given Geraty’s following statement

personally presume that Genesis 1 refers to an ordinary week, but since it does not say that explicitly, I am glad to give those interpreters who wish to interpret it differently the freedom to do so. In other words, I support the evangelistic outreach of the church that is inclusive, rather than exclusive. If a believer affirms the doctrine of creation, I’m all for including him or her

It is more “likely” that “he did know” about these evolutionists – but he had ways of imagining to himself a “big tent” concept (not at all out of harmony with the Spectrum Magazine he promotes) that could easily ‘big tent’ these people right into the LSU fold.

It is also “likely” that he had one or two discussions with his own “Fritz Guy” assuring him that the evolutionist option was perfectly compatible with the Bible and the Fritz-Guy-intent of the 27 Fundamental Beliefs.

Therefore his supposed “shock” that when others look at the way this story pans out they see a Geraty that is not at all opposed to hiring and retaining professors and guest lecturers that are “in the tank” for evolutionism – is somewhat mystifying.

in Christ,

Bob

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Professor Kent was asked for an example of macroevolution (speciation) taking place right now.

Once again, bear in mind that macroevolution (= speciation by conventional definitions; creationists often resort to other definitions) cannot be expected to happen naturally during a human lifetime, unless there is a dramatic polyploid or parthenogenetic event (or something similar) that results in immediate reproductive isolation and speciation. Note that I use the word “naturally.”

From the examples I gave in my post at the time (this was quite some ways back), there is some ability to predict the future of speciation, especially for isolated populations. However, speciation as a process takes many, many generations–for most scientists, hundreds of thousands to many millions of years.

From Sean Pitman: The reason for this [read the context above] is that evolution beyond this very low level of functional complexity would require trillions upon trillions of years to achieve – – on average.

This is a conclusion we hear often from Sean that cannot be found in the literature. Until he publishes the basis for his conclusion in a refereed journal, which would subject his reasoning and mathematics to critical evaluation by experts, this conclusion remains conjecture, as much as many of us would love to believe it. If there is a lock-solid argument that could convince the experts, Sean would undoubtedly be nominated for and likely receive the Nobel Prize, hopefully prehumously.

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Sean, it seems to me that if you admit ANY functional change in the DNA the creation/evolution debate is lost in favor of evolution. All the rest, however you define species is just a matter of time and quantity.

Hardly. The vast majority of functional mutations are detrimental – based on a loss of qualitatively unique pre-established functionality. Most of the rare mutations that are functionally beneficial do not produce something that is qualitatively new within the gene pool of options, but produce only an increase or decrease in activity of the same type of functionality that was already there to begin with. And, the very rare beneficial mutations that actually produce something qualitatively unique as well as functionally beneficial never produce anything that requires a minimum of more than 1000 specifically arranged amino acid residues to work – not even close.

The reason for this is that evolution beyond this very low level of functional complexity would require trillions upon trillions of years to achieve – - on average.

This is why the constant demonstration of low-level examples of “evolution in action” do not remotely explain how higher levels of evolution are therefore reasonable – even given a few billion years. The extrapolation is not at all reasonable because of the exponential decline in evolutionary potential with each step up the ladder of functional complexity.

You say, “it’s just a matter of time and quantity”. What you don’t understanding is that the time required is simply not reasonable. The time required to get beyond even the 1000aa level is in the multiple trillions of years. Do you not see that as a problem?

That is why I think it is so dangerous to state that evolution is incompatible with belief in God and creation, because no one, not even you are willing to deny that that the mechanisms for evolution are in place.

The mechanism for evolution is not “in place” beyond extremely low levels of functional complexity. That’s the problem.

It’s similar to saying that because natural processes are known which can produce roughly cube shape granite blocks that obviously such mindless natural mechanisms could explain a highly symmetrical polished granite cube measuring exactly one meter on each side. Such a conclusion does not rationally follow since the higher level illustration requires exponentially more time for the natural mechanism to achieve relative to the lower level demonstration that does not require the same level of constraints…

Except out of wanton ignorance, it is not possible to deny evolution in this day of DNA mapping. If you insist on making evolution and belief in God mutually exclusive you will have to declare every single educated person in the church to be athiests and drive them out of the church. Your stance just isn’t reasonable.

Anyone who wishes to worship in our Church is welcome – even if he/she is an “atheists”. I would not drive anyone who wants to come out of our Church. However, this does not mean that such a one should ever expect to get a paycheck from the SDA Church for promoting his/her atheistic ideas from pulpit or classroom.

You see, attendance is not the same thing as paid representation. A paid representative must be held to a higher standard in any organization.

Sean Pitman
http://www.DetectingDesign.com

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Without the literal six day creation it would be quite odd to believe in a literal sabbath, (or a seven day week for that matter) wouldn’t it?

No, there is no reason at all to grant that supposition. God is free to put into the 10 commandments whatever he wants without regard to however long it took him to create the earth. In fact, He is still creating the earth so how is that related to the seventh day Sabbath? The Sabbath was made for man. God knows that 7 days meets man’s need, and that is reason enough, and there are lots of good reasons to celebrate Christ as the creator that don’t demand a literal 7 day creation.

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Sean, it seems to me that if you admit ANY functional change in the DNA the creation/evolution debate is lost in favor of evolution. All the rest, however you define species is just a matter of time and quantity. That is why I think it is so dangerous to state that evolution is incompatible with belief in God and creation, because no one, not even you are willing to deny that that the mechanisms for evolution are in place. Except out of wanton ignorance, it is not possible to deny evolution in this day of DNA mapping. If you insist on making evolution and belief in God mutually exclusive you will have to declare every single educated person in the church to be athiests and drive them out of the church. Your stance just isn’t reasonable.

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Got some examples? Professor Kent was asked for an example of macroevolution (speciation) taking place right now. If your claim is true, surely you have a number of good examples. Let’s see them.

I heard recently that Tibetins genetically separated from the Huan chinese about 3000 years ago when they evolved a different regulatory gene that allowed them to not thicken their blood so much to high altitude. That allows them to maintain reproductivity at high altitudes where others cannot. There is functional and reproductive isolation that has occured in humans within the last 3000 years. I suppose one could argue that Tibetins represent a new, high altitude species of humans. Certainly they have evolved.

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God will not vindicate any device whereby man shall in the slightest degree rule or oppress his fellow man. As soon as a man begins to make an iron rule for other men, he dishonors God and imperils his own soul and the souls of his brethren

Bill, thank you for that wonderful post. I hope this helps people reading this web site understand better the heart of Adventism and how evil the whole “fundamental belief” thing is.

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