The discussion in this thread exemplifies what I dislike about …

Comment on Four new LSU board members by Professor Kent.

The discussion in this thread exemplifies what I dislike about EducateTruth. A number of individuals were quick to vilify four individuals newly elected to the LSU board before we knew much of anything about them. Anyone who reads this discussion will recognize the lack of Christian charity.

In addition to this, we have the following statement at a related thread (http://tinyurl.com/4bvugks) from one of the more applauded creationists within our Church, a paleobiologist at Southwestern Adventist University:

Art&#032Chadwick: Having just reviewed the changes made in the LSU Board, it is apparent to me that the Board is being stacked with people who are in sympathy with the errant faculty at La Sierra. I am therefore less hopeful that the resolution of the problem can come from the Board at least until the errant administrators and faculty are no longer able to influence the choice of Board members.

When my friend, Geanna Dane, objected to Art Chadwick’s accusation, we had this response from another Educate Truth supporter:

Ron&#032Stone&#032M&#046D&#046: Well, Geanna, Dr. Chadwick’s words may seem “unkind, prejudicial, and completely uncalled for” to you. However, they are also completely TRUE, which trumps your predudicial analysis!

And yet, we recently learned that the LSU board clearly sided against the LSU biologists, and actually manipulated the survey results to make LSU work worse. As T. J. Willey described at Spectrummagazine.com (http://tinyurl.com/3dgfwzd), the Board did what no honest investigator would dare to try: the Board added the “Neutral” option selections with the “Agree” ones, and at other times with the “Disagree,” with the express purpose of augmenting the case against the LSU science teachers.

This act of dishonesty on the part of the LSU Board should please every supporter of Educate Truth, and confirms that the board members, who were actually attacked by Educate Truth supporters, are actually on their side!

Are you folks now able to offer any praise for the much-vilified LSU Board which has clearly sided with Educate Truth?

Professor Kent Also Commented

Four new LSU board members
Susie wrote:

Keeping board meetings (not just executive session items) so very secretive and not disseminating minutes of the meetings, as if everything that happens is equivalent to CIA strategic planning, verifies MLB’s statement about Graham, Wisbey and the attorney Kent Hansen’s determination to maintain a shroud of secrecy.

I’ve taught at more than a handful of non-SDA colleges and universities and have never seen board minutes posted online or handed out to employees, much less the general public. For that matter, there are thousands of “boards” for various entities (corporations, public utilities, churches, etc.) scattered all across the big ol’ USA, and I’m pretty confident the majority of them maintain minutes internally. Is our country bursting at the seams with CIA-type strategists? Or is it just our dreaded, secrecy-shrouded university that we all love to hate?


Four new LSU board members
Bill Sorenson wrote

Bob, let’s not forget that LSU still wants to get those government grants. With this in mind, we can guess that at least some board members are more secular in their mind set and less spiritual.

Government grants? These are not an issue. Parochial schools of many flavors get these all the time, and there is no requirement whatsoever to teach evolutionism.


Four new LSU board members

Professor&#032Kent: Are you folks now able to offer any praise for the much-vilified LSU Board which has clearly sided with Educate Truth?

Hello?!


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.