Comment on LSU Responds to Issues Regarding Dr. Diaz and WASC by Professor Kent.
David Read: Jeff, your refusal to deal with reality in this situation is exceedingly strange. You’ve admitted there was a problem at La Sierra, but bizarrely insist that it was magically solved as of 2009, when in fact AAA saw problems after that time, the Board of Trustees formed a creation-evolution study group to solve the problem after that time, a survey was conducted after that time and even La Sierra admitted it had a problem as of February 2011, and Lee Greer got himself fired for trying to solve the problem in 2011.
I have addressed these remarks from you at Spectrum in much greater detail, but can summarize my response here. The AAA/student survey/creation-evolution study group documents provide no evidence nor even one conclusion to indicate that evolutionism has been taught as fact at LSU since the fall 2009 biology seminar in which a non-LSU individual suggested that Genesis 1 and 2 may not be literal. That was the last evidence anyone has put forth despite several years of repeated requests for it. If you find something in the documents that contradicts my conclusion, then please share. Lee Greer’s firing constitutes no proof whatsoever that evolutionism was being taught as fact.
You, Sean, and others need to stop belittling me for asking repeatedly for evidence to back your claims. You folks insist that LSU needs to disclose evidence of supportive teaching. You insist that GOD’S WORD cannot be believed without evidence. And then you treat me with exceeding rudeness when I am reluctant to believe YOUR WORD without evidence. Why I should prioritize your word ahead of God’s–and then be roundly criticized for refusing to do so–is utterly beyond me.
Professor Kent Also Commented
LSU Responds to Issues Regarding Dr. Diaz and WASC
Bill Sorensen: You constantly “muddy” the waters by a lot of inane arguments when if you are “objective” you already know that LSU teaches evolution as a fact. Why don’t you simply [edit] admit it?
Bill, I seem to have gotten under your skin. I know for 100% fact that last school year LSU Biology gave a vigorous and supportive presentation of the SDA position of creation. If Sean Pitman knows as much as he claims he does, he is fully aware of this. Of course, he only wants you people to know one side of the story.
LSU Responds to Issues Regarding Dr. Diaz and WASC
Sean Pitman: Why don’t you tell us? After all, I’ve spoken there a couple times myself. Again, this is irrelevant to the fact that LSU hires and maintains professors who believe and promote neo-Darwinism as the most plausible story of origins.
I’m reluctant to tell you because:
1) Your readers might think Professor Kent has a better grasp on the situation than you do. Moreover, they would be very disappointed in, or refuse to believe, any report that LSU upholds SDA beliefs.
2) You and your readers would mount an all-out campaign to discredit another fellow Christian.
And it’s disengenuous to say it is “irrelevant to the fact that LSU hires and maintains professors who believe and promote neo-Darwinism as the most plausible story of origins” if, in fact, LSU was teaching that neo-Darwinism has limitations and cannot be regarded as the most plausible story of origins.
Sorry, but I don’t believe you’re as well informed as you want your readers to believe, and I don’t think that truth really matters to you.
LSU Responds to Issues Regarding Dr. Diaz and WASC
Sean Pitman: As far as someone else having a better grasp on what’s happening at LSU, that’s certainly possible since I’m not there. I live in N. Cal. after all and have to depend on what people who are there are telling me.
I appreciate your frank admission.
Do you believe that two people who see the same event, such as an automobile accident, often describe it in different terms? Have you ever heard a sermon in which two people thought the speaker was saying very different things?
In all seriousness, do you suppose those most likely to communicate things to you are those who are most likely to interpret statements by others the way you do? Or do you suppose the information you get is bias-free?
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.
