Panda’s Thumb: ‘SDAs are split over evolution’

By Sean Pitman

On a rather notorious pro-evolution website, “Panda’s Thumb”, there is an interesting blog presented by mainstream professors who were asked to speak at both La Sierra University and Pacific Union College. Here is what they had to say about their experience at our universities:

Seventh-Day Adventists Split Over Evolution?

Regarding La Sierra University:

Last fall I gave several guest lectures on evolution, geology, and magnetic stratigraphy to the LSU campus, and found that the biology faculty were all legitimate biologists who practiced normal science and rejected all vestiges of YEC in their teaching and research. Several were quite successful in getting NSF grants for their research, and had a good track record in legitimate peer-reviewed publications on herpetology, molecular biology, etc.

Dr. Prothero

They would teach classes which were completely in line with conventional evolutionary biology, always forced to introduce their material with nods to Church teaching but demanding that their students understand legitimate evolutionary biology and be able to show their understanding on exams and papers, even if they didn’t agree with it.

It’s scary to see these legitimate scientists now threatened by the Neanderthals in the LSU board who want to drag it back into the Middle Ages–something that none of them thought would happen when I met with them last fall…

Donald Prothero | November 18, 2009 | 9:47 PM

Dr. Prothero is a Professor of Geology at Occidental College and Lecturer in Geobiology at Caltech. He is the author, co-author, editor, or co-editor of 21 books and almost 200 scientific papers, including five leading geology textbooks and three trade books. He has served as an associate or technical editor for Geology, Paleobiology, and Journal of Paleontology. He is a Fellow of the Geological Society of America, the Paleontological Society, and the Linnaean Society of London.

Regarding Pacific Union College:

Nick Matzke

In 2006, Wes Elsberry and I were invited to come to PUC and debate evolution for part of a student-organized speaker series. We were initially hesitant, since we are generally skeptical of debating creationists. However, after some discussion with the organizers, we grudgingly signed up, since it seemed like there was some chance for a reasonable discussion rather than just a Gish-gallop debate. Wes and I drove up to PUC – but, aware of the YECiness of Adventists, we went in as armed to the teeth as academics can be, with huge powerpoint files solely devoted to putting evidence for the age of the earth and common ancestry as bluntly and non-deniably as possible. When I spoke, I popped the slides up one-by-one and used the basic refrain, “Here are the hard facts. If this evidence has been hidden from you before now by your teachers and professors, you should ask yourself why.” It was pretty much a go-in-with-blazing-guns strategy.

Dr. Elsberry

However, as the discussion ensued, the students, and some of the professors, had some news for me. “You’ve got us all wrong,” they said. “We’re not all old-fashioned young-earth creationists and anti-evolutionists here, that’s an old stereotype about Adventists.” (Note: this is not a direct quote, rather it is just the gist of what I remember hearing.) Subsequent discussion indicated that many of the students & profs were reasonably well-informed about evolution and not really skeptical of it. After some interesting chats, Wes and I drove home, shaking our heads and commenting that if Seventh Day Adventists were becoming OK with evolution, we should keep our eyes open for flying pigs and freezing hells.

So, anyway, the point is: watch out Hilde & McPherson! It looks like Pacific Union College isn’t safe, either! Light the torches and sharpen the pitchforks!

Nick Matzke | November 18, 2009 | 2:09 AM

Nickolas Matzke is currently a doctoral student in evolutionary biology at the University of California, Berkeley.  He  is the former Public Information Project Director at the National Center for Science Education (NCSE) and served an instrumental role in NCSE’s preparation for the 2005 Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District trial.

Dr. Wesley Royce Elsberry is a marine biologist with an interdisciplinary background in zoology, computer science, and wildlife and fisheries sciences. He has also become publicly involved in the creation-evolution controversy.

Note: For those who might be interested, I’ve personally debated Nick Matzke regarding his theories on bacterial flagellar evolution (see review).

380 thoughts on “Panda’s Thumb: ‘SDAs are split over evolution’

  1. @ Sean Pitman

    Hiring science professors who teach their students that the SDA position is scientifically untenable is not beneficial to the Church’s primary goals and ideals. Surely it doesn’t take a genius to recognize this as an obvious truism.

    Hiring science professors who teach their students that the SDA position could be believed 2000 years ago, 1000 years ago, AND TODAY without supporting scientific evidence is beneficial to the Church’s primary goals and ideals. In contrast to your science, truth is timeless. Surely it doesn’t take a genius to recognize this as an obvious truism.

    I don’t get it, EducateTruthers! This guy is trying to supplant your faith with science while I continue to defend your faith! And you are still heaping scorn on me!

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  2. Kent said

    I don’t get it, EducateTruthers! This guy is trying to supplant your faith with science while I continue to defend your faith!

    You continue to defend Creationism like our partner Richard Dawkins – by claiming that creationists should not study nature to find just how the facts of the literal 7 day creation week – that happened IN NATURE – are still evidenced today – but rather that creationists should claim that creation did NOT happen “IN nature” and thus that nature does not show any such thing – but that is what religion is all about – believing that which you know not to be true in terms of what actually happened ‘in nature’.

    (When of course you are not arguing that we should not insist on the Bible “as it reads”).

    Where is the incentive then for the objective unbiased reader to join you in that regard?

    in Christ,

    Bob

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  3. @Ervin Taylor:

    Sounds good.

    But “how odd” that LSU and PUC are not so interested in letting their own views on this topic “be viewed”.

    Oh well that makes for a good contrast between a scenario where the people doing the presentations DO want others to know what their POV and scenarios where those doing the presentation do NOT want outsiders to know what they think.

    in Christ,

    Bob

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  4. The question was asked

    Why those who would seek to do so continue to insist on working within the Adventist Church is a mystery. Even if the belief is not supported, etc., it is the belief of the church. So why not go teach somewhere else?

    To which this “they only care about money – not ethics” answer is given

    Why don’t they teach somewhere else? Perhaps it’s not so simple. I’m guessing budget ptoblems? The non-SDA schools in California are largely public schools; and due to state budget problems, it would logically be difficult for them to find a job elsewhere.

    At some point – ethics should be a higher motivator – or a few SDA institutions really are hiring some of the wrong educators.

    in Christ,

    Bob

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  5. Krisssmith said –

    First of all, I reject the term “Evolutionist” since it’s nothing more than a title that Creationists invented.

    The self-conflicted nature of the wording in that statement does not go unnoticed.

    Krisssmith said –

    Second, you want to here a statement of faith, then:

    4. That God created us, whether through natural forces that were created by him in the beginning or even if he were to have created us in our current form.

    Your statement that Adventists “Evolutionists” are really agnostics or atheits is nothing more than a statement of dogmatism. An agnostic is someone who doesn’t have a position on whether or not God exists. An Atheist is someone who doesn’t believe any God exists whatsoever! A Christian who accepts evolution is still a Theist. Not accepting your position is not a disqualifier from being a Theist.

    How do you compare that to the statement in 3SG 90-91 about “infidelity in disquise” and “the worst form of infidelity”??

    Do you view it as the same thing as a “atheist”? “Agnostic”? — what?

    Krisssmith said –

    About it being what God put in the Bible: What makes you so sure that your interpretation is what is correct. The fact is that literal six day creationism is a relatively new movement. 2,000 years ago, opinions of both Jews and Christians about what a “Creation Day” actually was differed greatly from one another.

    IT is the view of the 4th commandment “SIX days you shall labor.. for in SIX days the Lord made” and even modern orthodox rabbis accept this point.

    This is NOT a “newly invented” text of scripture or a newly invented reading of that text.

    But the fact that you think the entire Adventist denomination is wrong in this regard is “noted”.

    Krisssmith said –

    And if you have no reason other than “the position of the church,” or “Ellen White,” then frankly you have no reason other than pre-conceived bias. This is not about what the Bible actually says

    On the contrary the Bible “actually says” that each day of creation week consisted of a single “evening and morning”/

    The “Bible actually says” that the 7 day creation week of Genesis 1:2-2:3 is exactly what they were to observe at the foot of Sinai in Ex 20:8-11.

    Krisssmith said –
    it really gives me an urge to ask a Creationist a question that has been bothering me; That is: “Creationists often ridicule ‘evolutionists’ for believing everything came from nothing. I must ask: God created from nothing, right? If God created from nothing, then science should detect the ‘from nothingness,’ and nothing more; It cannot detect God. How is “everything comming from nothing’ inconsistent with ‘God creating from nothing’? After all, this would still be fiat creation.”

    Actually the question for evolutionists is “how can you believe that the untire universe pops out of nothing then expands faster than the speed of light to get started — WITHOUT an all-powerful all-wise God making such a thing happen?”. If you include the complete question put to them – you would have had your answer.

    IF it were true that “from nothing comes the universe” then evolutionists would be well advised to “stand back from their beakers” because who knows when the next light of the bunsen burner will “pop out another universe”.

    in Christ,

    Bob

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  6. ken says:
    December 5, 2010 Dear Editors
    Has Ted Wilson been invited to comment on the debate on this site. It would seem to be that his leadership and guidance are required.

    How so?

    Given that the entire denomination affirmed Ted Wilson’s motion to increase the literal language for the 7 day creation week less than 10,000 years ago for all of life in planet earth – what “else” is possibly missing? What is left?

    in Christ,

    Bob

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  7. Bob Dunn said –

    I have been reading and not intending to get caught up in the back and forth rants. I have my own questions. Is is true that most of the well known so called scientists are atheists? Have any of you seen Ben Stein’s movie: Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed…? A most revealing documentary put out by a Jewish man who is at least honest in the debate and does point out significant issues with the current debate. Is it not true that evolution turns believers into atheists?

    Very good points Bob.

    From that movie —

    Darwinism leads to atheism
    Expelled: 7 of 10 – Darwinism leads to atheism.
    – Provine interview. I was a Christian
    – PC Meyers joins Provine on this POV
    – Dawkins joins Meyers and Provine
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vuVSIG265b4&feature=related

    if you want to see one example of a short list of a few scientists and educators with the same “Darwinism is wrong” view that Behe takes —

    consider –
    http://www.discovery.org/scripts/viewDB/filesDB-download.php?command=download&id=660

    Bob Dunn said –
    Atheists who refuse to be open to the possiblilty of a Master Designer. That idea is not allowed and once we establish that we can proceed with our intelligent imagination

    Opposition to ID science is a distinctly atheist perspective/argument — see Romans 1 for details.

    And thanks for those comments!

    in Christ,

    Bob

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  8. Belief in creation is a statement of faith. The main problem at LSU is not that they taught about evolution but that they have systematically through their religion and science departments torn away at the fundamental beliefs of the church by minimizing Creationism.

    What we see here from Ervin Taylor, Professor Kent and a few others is essentially the same approach that has been used by professors in the Biology and Religion departments. They mock traditional Adventism and make it genuinely difficult for students who wish to hold to the beliefs of the church based on faith rather than secular science.

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  9. @ Sean:

    I’ve even debated Nick Matzke (one of the evolutionists invited to speak, unchallenged, at PUC).

    Not quite. A few years ago one of the three PUC professors in the panel discussion, Dr. George Hilton, regaled here on Educate Truth his brilliant and heroic defense of creationism during the debate with evolutionists at PUC, which he regarded as the “defining moment” of his life. However, his comments–along with those in many of the early threads–were subsequently deleted. Nick Matzke conveniently ignored this because his obvious goal was to provoke SDA lynch mobbers to “Light the torches and sharpen the pitchforks!” In addition to being a successful scientist, Nick is also a successful social activist.

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  10. @Professor Kent:

    Dr. Pitman has utmost respect for the science which only he insists offers overwhelming support for YEC.

    What I claim is that YLC has the weight of currently available evidence…

    As new developments accrue in molecular biology and information theory, he just might be shocked to learn one day that some of his ironclad ideas on informational complexity are not so ironclad after all. I’m sure he can prophecy where the literature will be 20 years from now, but the remainder of us do not know the extent to which we will learn more about how informational complexity can evolve. Current developments do offer some insight:

    MIKHAIL PROKOPENKO, FABIO BOSCHETTI, AND ALEX J. RYAN. 2008. An information-theoretic primer on complexity, self-organization, and emergence. Complexity 15:11-26. Available here: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/cplx.20249/pdf

    One statement: “complexity and self-organization are ubiquitous and apparently increasing in the biosphere.”

    Did you read the paper? Most of the paper talks about Shannon information and algorithmic complexity – neither of which have anything to do with meaningful or functional information or complexity. The paper does reference the work of Kauffman toward the end, regarding self-organization and the gain of functional system information from the environment. The problem with Kauffman’s theories is that he defers the source of functional informational complexity to the environment, but does not explain its ultimate origin.

    Stephen Meyer, in his new book Signature in the Cell nicely highlights the flaws in Kauffman’s arguments as well as many other efforts to explain the origin of highly complex functional/meaningful biological information.

    If you think you know the answer, perhaps you can list off one example, just one, of any novel system of function being produced by any non-deliberate force of nature which requires more than 1000 specifically arranged amino acid residues.

    Good luck 😉

    LARRY S. YAEGER. 2009. How evolution guides complexity. HFSP Journal. Available here:
    http://www.beanblossom.in.us/larryy/Yaeger2009_HowEvolutionGuidesComplexity_HFSP.pdf

    From the abstract: “Using an evolutionary model—a computational ecosystem subjected to natural selection—we investigate evolutionary trends in an information-theoretic measure of the complexity of the neural dynamics of artificial agents inhabiting the model. Our results suggest that evolution always guides complexity change, just not in a single direction. We also demonstrate that neural complexity correlates well with behavioral adaptation but only when complexity increases are achieved through natural selection, as opposed to increases generated randomly or optimized via a genetic algorithm.”

    Again, I fail to see any example here of evolution in action beyond just-so stories when it comes to observable demonstrations of evolution in action beyond very very low levels of functional complexity. As far as I’m aware, no such examples exist in literature nor are there any relevant statistical calculations regarding the creative potential of RM/NS for the odds that a qualitatively novel system of function will evolve in a given span of time beyond very low levels of functional complexity.

    Sean Pitman
    http://www.DetectingDesign.com

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  11. The owners of Educate Truth want church members to know what is really being taught in the classroom, yet whenever any administrator, professor or student attempts to explain what is being taught, we are disrespectfully treated as infidels of the worst kind. Some of us conceal our identities–for vital reasons, because we fear torches and pitchforks. I have personally spoken with several who have been mistreated here. Multiple times we are told under no uncertain terms that we are mistaken, ignorant, and don’t know much about science. We have been told that we are unfit to teach in an SDA school–even those of us who believe in and support all fundamental SDA beliefs, including a literal six-day creation week and worldwide flood. We have been accused of breaking the 9th commanment by not telling the truth of what is being taught in the classroom and the 8th commandment by stealing money from the church.

    And what is the result of all of this? Nothing good. I have spoken with dozens of colleagues–including devout young earth creationists who have even more conservative views than Sean (who is not a young earth creationist)–and have yet to find one who believes Educate Truth is serving Jesus. One administrator (and I’m certain there are others) told me he has received thousands of hate e-mail messages. One biology professor has apparently received multiple threats and fears for the safety of himself and his family.

    Educate Truth reminds of what we often read about in the Middle East. I’m ashamed by how SDAs treat each other. And the whole wide world gets to read all of this! No wonder why Ken–consistently the most courteous and respectful individual here–is agnostic and has not interest in becoming SDA.

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  12. So what is really being taught in SDA classrooms? The mission statement of my campus declares that it “is a Seventh-day Adventist learning community offering an excellent Christ-centered education that prepares its students for productive lives of useful human service and uncompromising personal integrity.” That’s right! We are SDA. Christ is the center of our education. We emphasize human service. And we encourage uncompromising personal integrity.

    On my campus there are many professors who pray at the beginning of each lecture. Prayers are offered at the beginning of every committee, senate, faculty, campus and board meeting. Professors and students participate daily in worship services in a variety of venues. Professors and students participate in a variety of ministries including feeding the poor in inner cities and in the local community, bringing youth from the community to worship with us on the Sabbath, serving the needy in short-term and year-long missionary trips across the globe. We teach students to follow the advice of Paul in Philippians 4:8-9: “Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things. Those things, which ye have both learned, and received, and heard, and seen in me, do: and the God of peace shall be with you.”

    What we don’t teach students is that their faith is meaningless and no different than Mormons and Muslims unless it is based on overwhelming scientific evidence from geology and biology. We don’t tell students that they’re going to be lost if they don’t believe in a six-day creation week that occurred 6,000 years ago, or that the entire world was covered by a flood, even though many of us encourage students to believe these things. We don’t teach students to patrol the parking lots at night to catch students in cars with steamy windows, or the athletic fields on the Sabbath to catch Sabbath-breakers. We don’t teach students to resolve conflict by posting private e-mails, copyrighted intellectual material and the names of sinners on the World Wide Web so that they can be criticized and humiliated by fellow SDAs.

    But that’s not what you came to learn about at this website, which is why you’re unlikely to hear it again. You’re not here to learn about all the good things that happen in SDA education. Instead, you want to know all about the heresy being taught in our institutions, which teachers are undermining church beliefs, and how they are being held accountable.

    So why should you believe anything I or any other SDA professor writes? If you cannot trust us because we have been judged by the infallible one to be unfit for employment by the SDA church, then simply rely on those here who think know much more than we do about what is being taught in SDA classrooms, including Sean Pitman (a pathologist at a Catholic hospital), Shane Hilde (an English teacher in a public school) and Bob “in Christ” Ryan (whoever the heaven he is). They’re what this website is all about: educating truth.

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  13. @krissmith777:

    Correct me if I’m wrong, but it appears to me that you are saying that not being able to explain how new, novel function from “random mutation” is a problem, and therefore a short coming, of conventional evolutionary theory.

    Yes. The mechanism of RM/NS is very limited when it comes to producing any thing novel at higher levels of functional complexity.

    If that is what you mean, then perhaps you’re right; As far as explaining how it all happens, that is. But even if explaining how the novel function occures is a problem by itself, it doesn’t discount the apparent new function that seems to have been observed. An example of that would be the c-kit gene in gastrointestinal stromal tumors:

    http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9797363

    But we do know the specific mutation(s) involved in the production of GIST tumors. Mutation of the c-kit gene causes the constitutive or unregulated activity of tyrosine kinase. In other words, there is a loss of functionality that results in a tumor. Tyrosine kinase is usually well controled. It can be turned off and on. However, occasional mutations come along that keep the tyronsine kinase activity of the protein turned on all the time. The normal ability to turn off this activity is lost. Because this signaling pathway is always on, a tumor develops.

    This is basically the same basic cause of chronic myloid leukemia (CML). The BCR/ABL mutation destroys the regulatory function for tyrosine kinase. As a result tyrosine kinase activity is always on in the leukemic cells and CML results.

    So, such examples of “evolution in action” aren’t really examples of the evolution of something qualitatively new when it comes to novel functionality. Rather, they are examples of a loss of some pre-existing functionality and the problems that resulted from that loss of regulatory ability.

    But I am pretty sure that one of the usual proposed mechanisms for the origin of SOME novel function is Gene Duplication; A gene getting duplicated, it doesn’t have selectional preasures on it leaving it free to develope on it’s own, yada yada.

    http://www.umich.edu/~zhanglab/publications/2003/Zhang_2003_TIG_18_292.pdf

    Gene duplication does happen, not uncommonly. However, all that results is more of the some thing. Gene duplication, by itself, does not produce anything functionally new. While duplicated genetic sequences may be more able to drift in sequence space, free of the contraints of natural selection, the average time it takes for such sequences to randomly come across higher-level functionality increases, exponentially, with each step up the ladder of functional complexity. What this means is that when it comes to finding novel functional systems in sequence space beyond the level of 1000 specifically arranged amino acid residues, trillions of years wouldn’t be enough time.

    So, in short, explaining how to gain random genetic drift really doesn’t help to explain the problem of producing higher levels of functional complexity…

    But then, I am not a geneticist, so I can hardly speak with authority on the subject. *Shrugs*

    Neither can real geneticists… which is somewhat ironic given the popularity of Darwinian-style evolution in mainstream circles…

    Sean Pitman
    http://www.DetectingDesign.com

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  14. Bob Ryan wrote

    You continue to defend Creationism like our partner Richard Dawkins – by claiming that creationists should not study nature to find just how the facts of the literal 7 day creation week – that happened IN NATURE – are still evidenced today

    Lies, lies, and more lies. Have you never read the 10 commandments?

    Of course I think we should study nature–I’m a biologist! And nature does offer some evidence for a young earth. But creationism was a supernatural event and science cannot prove WHEN or HOW God did His amazing act, and HOW LONG IT TOOK. Creationism has its limits; you imagination is another matter.

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  15. Jonathan wrote:

    What we see here from Ervin Taylor, Professor Kent and a few others is essentially the same approach that has been used by professors in the Biology and Religion departments. They mock traditional Adventism and make it genuinely difficult for students who wish to hold to the beliefs of the church based on faith rather than secular science

    So…I mock traditional Adventism and uphold science ahead of faith? And EducateTruth defends faith ahead of science? I suggest you visit an optician, my friend, because you are reading things completely backward.

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  16. Eddie wrote

    One administrator (and I’m certain there are others) told me he has received thousands of hate e-mail messages. One biology professor has apparently received multiple threats and fears for the safety of himself and his family.

    This is the stunning legacy of Educate Truth. All supporters share the credit in this.

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  17. @Professor Kent:

    One administrator (and I’m certain there are others) told me he has received thousands of hate e-mail messages. One biology professor has apparently received multiple threats and fears for the safety of himself and his family. – Eddie

    This is the stunning legacy of Educate Truth. All supporters share the credit in this.

    Oh please. I get my share of hate mail and phone calls and have even had several personal threats to me and my family over this issue. Yet, I do not accuse all those who oppose me as being responsible for such low behavior.

    This argument is like the time the rulers of Israel accused Jesus of being responsible for the problems of Israel or when Ahab accused Elijah of being responsible for all the problem of the land just because Elijah had pointed out the errors of the nation and the nation’s leaders…

    And by the way, if I had sent my own son to a university claiming to be a Seventh-day Adventist University, and he had been taught the things that the LSU science teachers have been teaching their students for decades, I’d be more than a little ticked! No one likes false advertising you know…

    Sean Pitman
    http://www.DetectingDesign.com

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  18. Miracles are Relative Things

    @Professor Kent:

    Of course I think we should study nature–I’m a biologist! And nature does offer some evidence for a young earth. But creationism was a supernatural event and science cannot prove WHEN or HOW God did His amazing act, and HOW LONG IT TOOK. Creationism has its limits; you imagination is another matter.

    Making a cake is a supernatural event too – from the perspective of mindless processes of nature. Yet, there are reasonable ways to determine, to a useful degree of confidence, when the cake was made… i.e., how “fresh” it is. The same thing is true of Earth. Like a cake, there are ways to determine the age of life, and the structure necessary to support that life.

    Sean Pitman
    http://www.DetectingDesign.com

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  19. @ Jonathan Taylor:

    Are you sure you know which side you are on?

    Belief in creation is a statement of faith.

    Professor Kent and I agree with you. Sean Pitman believes you, Professor Kent and I are mistaken.

    What we see here from Ervin Taylor, Professor Kent and a few others is essentially the same approach that has been used by professors in the Biology and Religion departments.

    Ervin Taylor believes life evolved from simple organisms over billion of years. Professor Kent believes in a relatively recent six-day creation week. Their views are quite different, although both despise this website (and so do I).

    They mock traditional Adventism and make it genuinely difficult for students who wish to hold to the beliefs of the church based on faith rather than secular science.

    Professor Kent has been defending faith all along. It is Sean Pitman–not Professor Kent–who has been telling us that our beliefs must be based on secular science, otherwise our beliefs are no better than those of Mormons or Muslims. And anybody (like you, Professor Kent or me) who disagrees with him should not teach in a SDA college or institution. I sincerely hope you are not a teacher in a SDA institution, because if you are…you may soon be torched and pitchforked. May God protect you.

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  20. @ Shane:

    Oh please. I get my share of hate mail and phone calls and have even had several personal threats to me and my family over this issue.

    But there’s a big difference: you’re the one who started this website, not the professors and administrators who you have dragged through the mud here.

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  21. @ Sean:

    Like a cake, there are ways to determine the age of life, and the structure necessary to support that life.

    But Professor Kent said you cannot “prove” when it happened. He wrote “But creationism was a supernatural event and science cannot prove WHEN or HOW God did His amazing act, and HOW LONG IT TOOK.”

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  22. @Eddie:

    But there’s a big difference: you’re the one who started this website, not the professors and administrators who you have dragged through the mud here.

    Was Elijah responsible for the mistaken actions (or non-actions) of those he warned not to continue down wrong paths?

    All I’ve done is presented what professors are actually teaching our young people in our own schools. People have a right to this information. Professors do not have a right to be secretive about what they are teaching our youth. If people don’t like what these professors are doing, is their reaction my fault? I’m only responsible for my own actions, not the errors of others who may not have responded appropriately to this disturbing information…

    Sean Pitman
    http://www.DetectingDesign.com

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  23. @ Sean:

    Again, science isn’t about ‘proof’, but about predictive value and the potential for effective falsification.

    Which is why the creation week cannot be studied. If, like me, you believe it happened in six days, your belief is based on faith, not any hocus-pocus, abracadabra, empirical scientific evidence in rocks or DNA. Unless, of course, you believe in the polonium halo evidence, which I know you don’t because you don’t believe in a young earth.

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  24. @Eddie:

    Again, science isn’t about ‘proof’, but about predictive value and the potential for effective falsification. – Sean Pitman

    Which is why the creation week cannot be studied. If, like me, you believe it happened in six days, your belief is based on faith, not any hocus-pocus, abracadabra, empirical scientific evidence in rocks or DNA. Unless, of course, you believe in the polonium halo evidence, which I know you don’t because you don’t believe in a young earth.

    My faith in a creation week that was specifically six days long is based on the evidence, the empirical evidence, for the overall credibility of the Biblical authors and the consistency and greater predictive power of the young-life theory of origins (compared to competing theories) when it comes to explaining the physical world in which I find myself.

    As far as polonium halo’s are concerned, I think they are rather weak when it comes to the origin of granite. However, I think Gentry’s argument for “squashed” polonium halos in coalified wood which contain much less than expected amounts of lead (given the mainstream perspective) is a much stronger argument…

    And, as already noted, I think that the weight of all currently available evidence clearly favors the young-life perspective…

    Sean Pitman
    http://www.DetectingDesign.com

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  25. @ Sean:

    Was Elijah responsible for the mistaken actions (or non-actions) of those he warned not to continue down wrong paths?

    Elijah was a prophet. I know who Elijah was and you are no Elijah.

    All I’ve done is presented what professors are actually teaching our young people in our own schools. People have a right to this information.

    You have gone far beyond that. You have insisted that most or all science professors at two SDA institutions are undermining SDA beliefs, but provided evidence for only a few. You have repeatedly issued a fatwah that anybody who believes that creaitionism is not supported by overwhelming scientific evidence should not be teaching in a SDA school, even though they believe in the Genesis account based on faith rather than science. You have publicly rebuked several church and educational administrators and scientists at Geoscience Research Institute, including the director of Geoscience Research Institute, the president of Southern Adventist University and a vice president of the General Conference. You have encouraged others to pass their harsh judgements on your victims. You have demonstrated to the whole wide world that SDAs cannot get along with each other.

    Professors do not have a right to be secretive about what they are teaching our youth.

    There is nothing secretive about what teachers teach. A typical class has at least a dozen–sometimes even more than 100–students in it who scrutinize what teachers teach. If a professor is undermining SDA beliefs, the testimony of students alone should suffice as evidence. Students have justifiably complained about several professors who have been named here. Professors own the intellectual rights to their teaching materials, therefore it is unethical to post private e-mails, lecture notes and videos of lectures without the consent of a professor, which you have done on multiple occasions. Two wrongs do not make a right.

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  26. @ Sean Pitman

    Mutation of the c-kit gene causes the constitutive or unregulated activity of tyrosine kinase. In other words, there is a loss of functionality that results in a tumor. Tyrosine kinase is usually well controled. It can be turned off and on. However, occasional mutations come along that keep the tyronsine kinase activity of the protein turned on all the time. The normal ability to turn off this activity is lost. Because this signaling pathway is always on, a tumor develops.

    Well, true there would be a downside. There always will be a downside, but that just shows that there is no “road to perfection,” but that is fine since evolutionary theory does not make the prediction everything only gets better; just that species evolve to adapt to their enviorments. But then again, loss can be a good thing or even neutral, in which case, natural selection favors it or gives it a pass. But the point was “gain of novel function.” IF there is a function gain in location X, even if there is a loss of function in location Y, it still would be a viable evidence.

    So, such examples of “evolution in action” aren’t really examples of the evolution of something qualitatively new when it comes to novel functionality.

    To my knowledge, yes it sometimes has a lot to do with information that was already there. I think one of the over all points here is that “pre-existing” information has more to do with examining the “evolutionary past” of a species. For example, we know chickens do not have teeth, but we know they have the genes to produce them; hence we know the ancestors of chickens had teeth. Another example is fossil genes in our species, asa I leanred when I took Biology: We apparently have fossil genes that gave our ancestors the ability to see in the dark, but have been determined by natural selection to not affect out survival. –Point being, I think this has more to do with investigating evolutionary past rather than the present, (i.e., evolution in action).

    Rather, they are examples of a loss of some pre-existing functionality and the problems that resulted from that loss of regulatory ability.

    Well, of course some of them have to do with “loss” or even pre-existing information, but sometimes one’s loss is another’s gain.

    There is no rule that says there should be no loss. If, for example,there are five fully functioning genes, and then one of them duplicates itself (now being six genes) and the duplicate eventually does the work much better than it’s predocessor, we may end up with the original gene being lost. As far as the number of genes is concerned, we would be right where we began, BUT since this hypothetical duplicated gene is much more efficient than it’s progenitor, we still would have a net gain despite a loss that had occured.

    Genetic gain is not inherently necessary for evolution to work as there are examples of gene loss leading to succesfull, new species. We are such an example since genetic studies have calculated that we went through plenty of gene loss during our evolution:

    http://www.umich.edu/~zhanglab/publications/2006/Wang_2006_PLoSB_4_e52.pdf

    Gene duplication does happen, not uncommonly. However, all that results is more of the some thing.

    Well, it is common. It has to be, considering that more than 97% of human genes are duplicates. (Source: http://www.pnas.org/content/103/50/19027.full.pdf )

    Gene duplication, by itself, does not produce anything functionally new.

    Not by itself, it doesn’t. But it does provide new raw material to work with. Most duplicates simply disappear, but there are some that have relatively newer function: One example is the Eosinophil Cationic Protein (or the ECP) which is toxic to bacteria by making their cell mambranes porus, though it has some relationship with athsma.

    — In bacteria, duplicate genes (or enzyms) are one of the criteria that are used to determine different species of bacteria. (Source: http://www.biology-direct.com/content/4/1/46 )

    While duplicated genetic sequences may be more able to drift in sequence space, free of the contraints of natural selection, the average time it takes for such sequences to randomly come across higher-level functionality increases, exponentially, with each step up the ladder of functional complexity.

    I’m not certain where “avarage time” comes from. If by “avarage rates,” you mean the mutation rate we may be seeing now, then perhaps. But the problem here is that mutation rates are unpredictable and can really pick up the pace, hence the uncertainty with some molecular clock dating methods. Rates can really pick up, as we know from the Devonian Radiation which seem to have resulted from adaptive radiation. Some wonder if the Cambrian “explosion” is such an event, though I have my doubts about that.

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  27. @Eddie:

    There is nothing secretive about what teachers teach. A typical class has at least a dozen–sometimes even more than 100–students in it who scrutinize what teachers teach. If a professor is undermining SDA beliefs, the testimony of students alone should suffice as evidence. Students have justifiably complained about several professors who have been named here. Professors own the intellectual rights to their teaching materials, therefore it is unethical to post private e-mails, lecture notes and videos of lectures without the consent of a professor, which you have done on multiple occasions. Two wrongs do not make a right.

    I guess that’s why nothing substantive was done at LSU for over 30 years, despite the protests of many many students and parents during this time, until a few of us finally decided to post this information in a public forum?

    And no, professors do not own the right to attack the SDA Church, on the Church’s dime, without the Church membership knowing about it. No one is trying to steal the right of a professor to make money off of his/her own presentation or intellectual property here. All that is going on is a presentation of evidence for informational and discussion purposes. There is nothing ethically wrong with that and everything ethically right about that.

    People have a right to know…

    Sean Pitman
    http://www.DetectingDesign.com

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  28. @ Sean:

    I guess that’s why nothing substantive was done at LSU for over 30 years, despite the protests of many many students and parents during this time, until a few of us finally decided to post this information in a public forum?

    And what has happened at LSU that is substanstive? The two oldest professors retired, although if you are correct maybe an occasional lecture is given by one or both of them. Two other professors who you have named as theistic evolutionists remain on the payroll–but I doubt their interpretations of science and scripture have changed one iota. Hopefully they are now much more tolerant and respectful of the views of students who are creationists, which you could legitimately claim credit for, but instead you appear to believe that the absence of evidence of change is evidence of absence of change. In case you haven’t noticed, there are SIX other full-time biology professors at LSU whose views have never been discussed here. I do not recall reading any complaints of students about any of them, or seeing any incriminating e-mails, lecture notes or videos of lectures posted on line, and yet you continue to smear the integrity of the entire department by insisting that all (or perhaps all but one) are macroevolutionsts. I don’t know what their personal views are or what they teach in the classroom, and I wonder if you really know any more than I do. I’m sorry but I don’t believe everything you say.

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  29. @ Sean:

    And no, professors do not own the right to attack the SDA Church, on the Church’s dime, without the Church membership knowing about it.

    Informing the church membership and inciting the church membership are two very different things. There are discrete ways in which the church can be informed without inciting harsh judgement and condemnation. I’m really glad that the General Conference, Geoscience Research Institute, Amazing Facts, and other respectable church entities have not resorted to exposing heretics at their websites and inviting church members to rebuke them.

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  30. @BobRyan

    IT is the view of the 4th commandment “SIX days you shall labor.. for in SIX days the Lord made” and even modern orthodox rabbis accept this point.

    This is NOT a “newly invented” text of scripture or a newly invented reading of that text.

    First of all, I have already pointed out that not even the earliest Jews and Christians even could agree on what a “day” was. And THEY would have had a better understanding of the matter than youm I, or even “modern rabbis” (for that matter) on the subject.

    I quoted the first century Jewish writter Philo (who would know more than either of us), and I will do it again:

    When, therefore, Moses says, “God completed his works on the sixth day,” we must understand that he is speaking not of a number of days, but that he takes six as a perfect number. Since it is the first number which is equal in its parts, in the half, and the third and sixth parts, and since it is produced by the multiplication of two unequal factors, two and three. (Treatise 1:2)

    Notice the bold: Even if the “modern rabbis” agree with you, the more ancient Jewish scholars obviously did not, which only goes to prove my point: Literal six day creation is a modern concept.

    But the fact that you think the entire Adventist denomination is wrong in this regard is “noted”.

    Fine by me. If the official position of the church is wrong, I am not afraid to say so.

    On the contrary the Bible “actually says” that each day of creation week consisted of a single “evening and morning”/

    But how do you define “Evening and morning?” The definition includes the sun, does it not? Then if that is the case, why is the sun created on the fourth day?! Then with that, how we define the “evening and morning” before the sun existed? A more logical conclusion to draw on is that, at the very least, the first three days cannot possible be litteral days at all. That being the case, “evening and morning” is nothing more than signaling the end of a creative process rather than an actual day.

    “Morning and evening” are used figurtively in the Bible; for example: Psalm 30:5, Psalm 49:14,15, Psalm 90:6.

    Useful link: http://www.answersincreation.org/print/word_study_yom.pdf

    Actually the question for evolutionists is “how can you believe that the untire universe pops out of nothing then expands faster than the speed of light to get started — WITHOUT an all-powerful all-wise God making such a thing happen?”.

    Four things wrong with this comment:

    1. You are confusing Evolution with Cosmology. The “Big Bang” has nothing to do with Darwinian Evolution.

    2. Nobody actually believes that the universe just “popped” out of nothing. The “Big Bang” is not even about the actual beginning of the universe, but rather about the process that lead to the universe as we know it.

    3. Your question seems to assume I reject the idea that God can possibly be involved. I do not! I am a Christian Theist, after all.

    4. You avoided answering my question all together. You didn’t explain how “God Creating from nothing” is at all inconsistent with “creation from nothingness” since no one denies that God could have had anything to do with it.

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  31. @ Sean Pitman

    All I’ve done is presented what professors are actually teaching our young people in our own schools.

    That’s a grossly distorted, shamefully dishonest oversimplification. In some cases, you have been correct in pointing out disrespectful teaching, but you have also declared anyone teaching FAITH instead of EVIDENCE to be liars and thieves, and by doing so you yourself have undermined SDA fundamental beliefs. You’ve also criticized numerous others who are not professors and who do not teach, including GRI scientists and the President of Southern Adventist University. You even humiliated Bob Ryan by pointing out his ignorance of genetics.

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  32. @Professor Kent:

    All I’ve done is presented what professors are actually teaching our young people in our own schools. – Sean Pitman

    That’s a grossly distorted, shamefully dishonest oversimplification. In some cases, you have been correct in pointing out disrespectful teaching, but you have also declared anyone teaching FAITH instead of EVIDENCE to be liars and thieves, and by doing so you yourself have undermined SDA fundamental beliefs.

    You continually misrepresent me – even deliberately on occasion. I never called any of the professors at our schools liars. As I’ve noted for you several times now, I believe that those who oppose our Church, even in our own schools, believe that they are teaching their students the truth. I believe that they are wrong, but I don’t believe that they are liars.

    I do, of course, believe that those who actively undermine the clearly stated goals and ideals of any employer on the employer’s dime are actually stealing money from that employer.

    I also believe that those who teach their students that the SDA position is scientifically untenable, but that they can still believe based on empirically-blind faith anyway, are doing a disservice to the Church. The SDA Church has not asked for a promotion of empirically blind faith. On the contrary, the Church has officially asked for a scientific presentation of evidence that supports the SDA position on origins in all of its own classrooms…

    Here is the request of the SDA Church for all Church representatives in all of our schools:

    We, the members of the General Conference Executive Committee at the 2004 Annual Council, state the following as our response to the document, An Affirmation of Creation, submitted by the International Faith & Science Conferences:

    …

    We call on all boards and educators at Seventh-day Adventist institutions at all levels to continue upholding and advocating the church’s position on origins. We, along with Seventh-day Adventist parents, expect students to receive a thorough, balanced, and scientifically rigorous exposure to and affirmation of our historic belief in a literal, recent six-day creation, even as they are educated to understand and assess competing philosophies of origins that dominate scientific discussion in the contemporary world.

    http://adventist.org/beliefs/statements/main-stat55.html

    Note the call for a “scientifically rigorous exposure to and affirmation of our historical belief in a literal, recient six-day creation.” If the SDA Church expected science teachers to tell our students that the SDA position is scientifically untenable, that the best we have is empirically-blind faith to rely on, that’s what they would have said. But, the Church didn’t say that. They said that they expected a scientifically rigorous defense of the Church’s position on origins to be presented in its own schools…

    You’ve also criticized numerous others who are not professors and who do not teach, including GRI scientists and the President of Southern Adventist University.

    Any representative of the SDA Church who makes comments which undermine the scientific credibility of the SDA position on origins has spoken unadvisedly, harming the credibility of the SDA Church, in my opinion.

    You even humiliated Bob Ryan by pointing out his ignorance of genetics.

    I don’t simply counter those opposed to me. I also counter those on “my side” when they say things in public forum, especially a forum for which I am largely responsible, that I think are factually incorrect and need to be corrected. And, if I say something that is in error, I would appreciate it if those on “my side” of this issue would also be so kind as to correct such errors in a way that I can actually understand. And, I would not mind at all if such correction was done in a public response to my public comments – so that all may potentially benefit from the correction…

    Sean Pitman
    http://www.DetectingDesign.com

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  33. @ Sean:

    If the SDA Church expected science teachers to tell our students that the SDA position is scientifically untenable, that the best we have is empirically-blind faith to rely on, that’s what they would have said. But, the Church didn’t say that. They said that they expected a scientifically rigorous defense of the Church’s position on origins to be presented in its own schools…

    @ Sean:

    I agree that professors should present creationism in the best possible light and to provide as much scientific evidence as possible, but it remains unjustifiable for you–and apparently you alone–to insist those of us who interpret the Bible the same way you do but interpret science differently are not fit to teach in a SDA school. It is unjustifiable for you to imply that we are less faithful to the SDA church and undermining the church simply on the basis of how we interpret science.

    The strongest evidence for long ages in the history of Earth and life on Earth comes from radiometric dating. Numerous techniques have been developed and tens of thousands of studies have been published. Virtually all point toward ages much longer than what the scriptures imply (although the Bible never states when the creation week or flood occurred). All you can do is point out flaws in the assumptions and methodology of the research. The best you can do is toss out the data as unreliable–and I honestly hope that you are right. However, you cannot–I repeat–you cannot argue that the flaws in assumptions and methodology of radiometric dating provide empirical evidence supporting the Biblical account of creation. You cannot expect me to stand in front of students and honestly tell them that the weight of empirical scientific evidence of radiometric dating supports the presence of life on Earth for only 6,000 years. If that’s what you want to believe, I’m happy for you, but I don’t see it that way. I totally agree with you that there are other forms of evidence supporting a short chronology, and like you I want to belive that those forms of evidence are more reliable than radiometric dating. But there is no getting around the fact that the evidence from radiometric dating, which provides the strongest evidence for a long chronology, does not support a short chronology.

    The strongest evidence for megaevolution comes from the fossil record, not similarity in DNA sequences (which could be created by design). If human and whale bones were mixed in with those of dinosaurs and trilobites, I would agree with you that the weight of empirical scientific evidence favors the creation of modern life forms within a short period of time. However, you know just as well as I do that human fossils appear only near the top of the fossil record, and that whales do not appear until after the dinosaurs and trilobites are extinct. And that the fossil record shows an apparent progression of primitive to complex organisms. The best you can do is point out irregularities in the fossil record, such as the Cambrian explosion and unexpected sequence problems in megaevolutionary transitions (e.g., fish-amphibian transition), and attempt to attribute the apparent sequence of primitieve to advanced organisms to ecological zonation. Just like you I see problems with megaevolutionary theory, but those problems do not–I repeat, do not–provide evidence that humans were created within a few days of trilobites. You cannot expect me to stand in front of students and tell them that the weight of empirical scientific evidence from the fossil record favors the creation of humans and other complex organisms within a few days of the most primitive organisms. If you believe it does, I am happy for you. But I am not going to lie on your behalf in the classroom–and the SDA church is not demanding that I do so.

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  34. @Sean

    You continually misrepresent me – even deliberately on occasion. I never called any of the professors at our schools liars. As I’ve noted for you several times now, I believe that those who oppose our Church, even in our own schools, believe that they are teaching their students the truth. I believe that they are wrong, but I don’t believe that they are liars.

    Technically you are correct. You have not used the words “you” or “they” are a liar or liars, but you have said as much in other words. For example, the Biology Department at LSU and the administration at LSU both have made statements saying that they teach in accordance with the church’s beliefs concerning FB#6, and yet you have repeatedly said they do no such thing. That’s not saying they are liars? You have said the same thing about PUC, in spite of their public statement that they support FB#6. I don’t care whether you want to consider such statements you have made as saying professors are liars or not, any reasonable person reading the things you have written would conclude that you are calling them liars.

    Note the call for a “scientifically rigorous exposure to and affirmation of our historical belief in a literal, recient six-day creation.” If the SDA Church expected science teachers to tell our students that the SDA position is scientifically untenable, that the best we have is empirically-blind faith to rely on, that’s what they would have said. But, the Church didn’t say that. They said that they expected a scientifically rigorous defense of the Church’s position on origins to be presented in its own schools…

    Note that the statement you refer to does not say that teachers must present “overwhelming evidence” or the “greater weight of the evidence” in favor of a literal, recent 6-day creation. They didn’t say that because they do not have control of the scientific evidence. The reason it is stated as strongly as it is is because there are administrators who somehow think that supporting creationism by scientific evidence is a slam dunk. But these men and women are reasonable people and know that the best that can be expected is that our professors show what evidence there is. There is some empirical evidence consistent with our beliefs on creation, and those certainly ought to be taught by our professors (and I believe is being taught by them in most cases).

    The problem I have is that you are convinced that the weight of the scientific evidence favors the SDA view, whereas essentially all our SDA professors that I know well (and that is most of them, including Brand) are well aware that our current scientific case is weak at best. Brand himself in his book “Beginnings” even makes the point that we cannot tell lies for Jesus just so we can claim watertight support for SDA creationist beliefs.

    Much of how you build your case using “scientific” evidence is no more than convenient cherry-picking and just-so stories in much the same vein for which you fault evolutionists. If the writers of the document you quote truly expect the kind of defense you present to be the standard for our professors, then they will be sadly disappointed. To be intellectually honest with the evidence SDA scientists simply cannot claim the degree or kind of evidence you advocate, and by continually insisting that all of them see the world as you do, you do a grave disservice to our church and our young people.

    Our young people expect to learn real science, whether or not it challenges their beliefs, and I know many who have been through our schools who remain strong, supportive members of the church. Yes, and some of them are theistic evolutionists, not because their professors told them that that was the only option, but because after they sifted through all the data that was their conclusion. And now you want to demote them to some sort of second-class status in the church, considering them to be less than faithful members of the church, and of course, ineligible to work for the church. I, on the other hand, see these individuals as valuable, committed members of the church who may be in error on the creation point, but are nevertheless bricks and mortar in God’s church. Maybe they will someday, when we find more convincing evidence, embrace a more traditional view of creation, but not if we drive them out due to our bigotry and intolerance for contrary views on a single fundamental belief.

    And don’t think that the text “Mat 18:6 But if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a large millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.” only applies to our professors and teachers. You too are in danger of committing the same sin. Remember, there was nothing wrong with the theology of the Pharisees—they were right in every particular—and yet it was to them that Jesus spoke these words. Why didn’t he say these words to the tax collectors and prostitutes, or even to his disciples, who clearly were heterodox in a number of respects. I suggest you take these words of Jesus very seriously. The spirit I see manifested here at ET by a number of supporters resembles the tactics of the Pharisees so well that I fear for the salvation of you and these other individuals.

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  35. @ Professor Kent

    All you can do is point out flaws in the assumptions and methodology of the research. The best you can do is toss out the data as unreliable–and I honestly hope that you are right.

    I can really relate to this. Personally, I would be really thrilled if Intelligent Design theory were to turn out to be true.
    .

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  36. @OTNT_Believer:

    Technically you are correct. You have not used the words “you” or “they” are a liar or liars, but you have said as much in other words. For example, the Biology Department at LSU and the administration at LSU both have made statements saying that they teach in accordance with the church’s beliefs concerning FB#6, and yet you have repeatedly said they do no such thing. That’s not saying they are liars? You have said the same thing about PUC, in spite of their public statement that they support FB#6. I don’t care whether you want to consider such statements you have made as saying professors are liars or not, any reasonable person reading the things you have written would conclude that you are calling them liars.

    Professor Kent said, “You [Sean] have also declared anyone teaching FAITH instead of EVIDENCE to be liars and thieves”

    This statement simply isn’t true. I believe that those who teach that faith is able to trump all empirical evidence are truly teaching what they believe is right. I think they are in error and are damaging the Church when they present the Church’s position on origins as scientifically untenable, but I don’t think they are deliberately lying to their students or to anyone else.

    Now, there have been those who I believe are doing more than bending the truth in their advertising for LSU. The claim that the science department as LSU is in active support of SDA fundamental doctrine on creation simply isn’t true outside of the deceptive redefinition of the “days” of creation to be equivalent to vast periods of time of Earth’s history.

    So yes, I hate to say it, but it is true that I find it very difficult to imagine how those who make and have made such claims for LSU over the years, to include former LSU presidents Larry Geraty and Fritz Guy, could have said such things without being knowingly deceptive…

    Note, however, that this is far different from what Prof. Kent accused me of saying…

    Sean Pitman
    http://www.DetectingDesign.com

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  37. @OTNT_Believer:

    Our young people expect to learn real science, whether or not it challenges their beliefs, and I know many who have been through our schools who remain strong, supportive members of the church. Yes, and some of them are theistic evolutionists, not because their professors told them that that was the only option, but because after they sifted through all the data that was their conclusion. And now you want to demote them to some sort of second-class status in the church, considering them to be less than faithful members of the church, and of course, ineligible to work for the church. I, on the other hand, see these individuals as valuable, committed members of the church who may be in error on the creation point, but are nevertheless bricks and mortar in God’s church. Maybe they will someday, when we find more convincing evidence, embrace a more traditional view of creation, but not if we drive them out due to our bigotry and intolerance for contrary views on a single fundamental belief.

    Some of my very good friends are agnostics and atheists as well. However, they do not claim to represent the SDA Church either. So, we get along great and have the best of times. However, those who actually take a paycheck to represent the SDA Church on the Church’s dime should be held to a much higher standard than those who simply warm the pews on Sabbath.

    If a science professor, in good conscience, feels that he/she must tell his or her students that the SDA position on origins is scientifically untenable, then that professor is doing a disservice to the SDA Church.

    Oh, and I happen to know that Brand does not consider the scientific evidence favoring the SDA position on origins to be “weak at best”. He considers the weight of evidence, while not “overwhelming” as many misquote me as suggesting, to be in the favor of the Biblical perspective.

    And no, we aren’t talking about one particular type of evidence, like radiometric dating or the sorting of the fossil record. We are talking about the totality of all the available evidence, some of which you and others in this forum, like Eddie and Prof. Kent, never mention. You are constantly bringing up all the real and perceived problems with the Biblical model of origins while doing little if anything to support this model from the scientific perspective. You simply fall back on “faith” that can withstand any and all scientific evidence.

    I’m telling you, those secular scientists who are most opposed to the creationist position on origins find your arguments for empirically-blind faith as music to their ears. As long as you keep science separate from faith, they know they’ve won the field. However, as soon as you start suggesting that your faith actually has the support of real science, you’re rubbing their feathers completely the wrong way and the war is on again…

    Sean Pitman
    http://www.DetectingDesign.com

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  38. @Sean

    I’m telling you, those secular scientists who are most opposed to the creationist position on origins find your arguments for empirically-blind faith as music to their ears. As long as you keep science separate from faith, they know they’ve won the field. However, as soon as you start suggesting that your faith actually has the support of real science, you’re rubbing their feathers completely the wrong way and the war is on again…

    You sure are all or nothing about this stuff. I think I can speak for all of us who have a problem with your approach and say that we all use a combination of faith and science to shape our beliefs. None of us buys into the Gould non-overlapping magisteria concept. And you may say my faith is naive if you like, I am not even trying to say that faith trumps science, just that as things look right now, there is an awful lot of scientific evidence that does not seem to support the traditional SDA beliefs on creation. You seem to have worked out all the scientific problems the rest of us are still puzzled about. More power to you, I guess.

    As for our evolutionary “friends” outside the church, I find your approach an embarassment. None of them that I know see one shred of credible evidence in the stuff you peddle. In fact they love your approach because it makes it that much easier to ridicule creationists in general. They have a tendency to paint all of us just like the loudest, most outlandish of us.

    My biggest problem with the approach that you and others like yourself take is that you take a perfectly good scientific concept like ID and make it look bad because you associate it with much less credible stuff like assertions that radiometric dating and the fossil record is completely consistent with a recent origin for life. Evolutionionists already laugh at us for ID, so when you add these other dubious ideas it makes it all the worse. I have more respect from my outside evolutionary friends because I respect them for being intelligent and they do likewise for me, because I don’t continually attempt to convince them that I am a creationist from a purely scientific perspective. Many of them are Christians too, you know, they are just horribly confused about creation. 🙂

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  39. @ Sean Pitman

    If a science professor, in good conscience, feels that he/she must tell his or her students that the SDA position on origins is scientifically untenable, then that professor is doing a disservice to the SDA Church.

    Certainly he may be seen, by the leadership, as doing a “disservice” the the organization of the church in and of itself, HOWEVER, you need to consider other factors here.

    If the professor/scientist presents Young-Earth Creationism as the only viable explanation for origins just because the church organization says so, and if he doesn’t believe it, then wouldn’t that make him a liar? Then, wouldn’t he, from his point of view, be doing the students a disservice? Not to mention, wouldn’t that also mean that he would be doing God a disservice as well? (Proverbs 6:19, 14:5) I say it is better for them to maintain their honesty, even if it means the church comming down on them since telling a lie for the sake of God is still unjustifiable.

    Besides, I fail to see why the church would want to make these men martyrs. As history often shows, the martyrs are the ones who’s cause becomes stronger.

    I’m telling you, those secular scientists who are most opposed to the creationist position on origins find your arguments for empirically-blind faith as music to their ears.

    Even if it is “music to their ears,” it doesn’t follow that the position of keeping faith and science separate is wrong. You cannot fault someone for discarding a ,ong cherished belief when it turns out that the evidence is completely inconsistent with it. It’s called being intellectually honest.

    As an example: Hindus believe that the universe opperates in cycles. When the occilating universe was proposed, they accepted it because it goes so well with their faith. Now, if the occilating universe hypothesis were to be falsified someday, would you fault a Hindu scientist for discarding it even though it could be classified as a validation of a long, dearly held belief? Absolutely not. Why? Because it is the right, intellectually honest thing to do.

    When Thomas Murphey (a mormon anthropologist) came out with scientific evidence that said that the Book of Mormon was scientifically invalid since the genetic tests show that the American Indians were not related to Isrealites, could any unbiased observer blame him for doing any such thing? Absolutely not! He was honest, despite being a member of the LDS church.

    The same goes for us as christians; we are no exception. If some “secular scientists,” as you call then, like this position, then so be it.

    As long as you keep science separate from faith, they know they’ve won the field.

    You have to define “faith,” since that is an ambiguous term. If you mean something on the lines of “faith that the scientific method works,” then that is one thing. But that is faith based on hard fact since the scientific method has been observed to work. — If you mean “Faith that a pre-conceived notion of God is true,” then that is something else altogether. Notions of God are not remotely related to science. You cannot test God scientifically.

    However, as soon as you start suggesting that your faith actually has the support of real science, you’re rubbing their feathers completely the wrong way and the war is on again.

    I fail to see why we even need to have a “war.” Last time I checked, only the “hard” atheists like Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins were the ones really looking for a fight.

    But onward, recent polling shows that those “secular scientists” are probably not as anti-God as you seem to think. According to a Pew Reaserch Poll done last year, 33% of scientists believe in God, 18% believe in a higher power while 41% disbelieve. Together, those who DO believe either in God or a higher power ACTUALLY make up 51%, that is to say they out-number those that do NOT believe in anything. — The same poll shows that in the field of Biology (the field that Evolution in included in)as well as medicine, 32% believe in God, 19% believe in a higher power while only 41% disbelieve. That still shows a majority (51%) believing either in God or in something above ourselves.

    Link: http://people-press.org/report/?pageid=1549

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  40. Okay, okay, okay. Let’s restate it. Sean Pitman has declared anyone teaching FAITH instead of EVIDENCE, at least in relation to origins, to be a thief, stealing from the Church. I am certainly that most Seventh-day Adventists are offended by this personal opinion of his.

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  41. @ Sean Pitman

    I’m telling you, those secular scientists who are most opposed to the creationist position on origins find your arguments for empirically-blind faith as music to their ears. As long as you keep science separate from faith, they know they’ve won the field. However, as soon as you start suggesting that your faith actually has the support of real science, you’re rubbing their feathers completely the wrong way and the war is on again…

    What kind of argument is this? When we examine the data, we’re supposed to interpret it in whatever manner is most objectional to the “other side?”

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  42. Atheist evolutionists have every incentive for not wanting to allow scientists to “follow the data where it leads EVEN if it leads to a conclusion in favor of intelligence and design”. But why would a Christian need to limit their observations in nature by choosing to be shackled with the atheist evolutionist practice of clicking their heels and repeating “there is no god…there is no god…there is no god” no matter what they find in nature???

    Paul in Romans 1 says that non-Bible aware “barbarians” are “without excuse” when they do such things.

    Even atheist evoutionists like Dawkins and Francis Crick have been brought to the point of “apealing to aliens from outer space” to help them out with their biomolecule problems in DNA. The bottom line is that even diehard atheists admit to a stopping point for their own storytelling.

    Sadly some Christians choose to join them there – instead of allowing themselves the freedom of critical thinking to the point of admitting to evidence for intelligence and design when they find it in nature.

    in Christ,

    Bob

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  43. When Thomas Murphey (a mormon anthropologist) came out with scientific evidence that said that the Book of Mormon was scientifically invalid since the genetic tests show that the American Indians were not related to Isrealites, could any unbiased observer blame him for doing any such thing? Absolutely not! He was honest, despite being a member of the LDS church.
    The same goes for us as christians; we are no exception. If some “secular scientists,” as you call then, like this position, then so be it.

    Richard Dawkins argues that when Christians choose to believe the Bible on the subject of complex genomes seen today and their origins to this point – they are choosing to believe what they KNOW did not “happen in nature”.

    By contrast – most Christians reject Dawkins’ form of Christianity.

    Rather with a little bit of critical thinking and healthy respect of honest science answers and interpretation – Christians find much more evidence that “birds do NOT come from reptiles” and that “eukaryote cells do NOT come from rocks” than that they do.

    Not really too surprising given all the proven blunders, frauds and hoaxes piling into the historic record for evolutionism.

    in Christ,

    Bob

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  44. I can really relate to this. Personally, I would be really thrilled if Intelligent Design theory were to turn out to be true.

    In Romans 1 – Paul claims that athiests and Barbarians (his words) are “without excuse” when they talk themselves into pretending that I.D is not true.

    hmm – I guess God thinks the point is pretty obvious – huh?

    in Christ,

    Bob

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  45. Given the opposition to I.D is a “distinctively atheist” argument – how is it that some Christians get sooo turned around and befuddled that they fall for it?

    Is it possible that they spend all their time just drinking the atheist evolutionist koolaide instead of taking the time to think for themselves – using some critical objective thinking of their own?

    I would hope that at some point – they would consider it.

    in Christ,

    Bob

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  46. @BobRyan

    Richard Dawkins argues that when Christians choose to believe the Bible on the subject of complex genomes seen today and their origins to this point – they are choosing to believe what they KNOW did not “happen in nature”.

    Richard Dawkins can cay whatever he wants to say. It is of no relevance to me.

    The Bible has nothing to say about “complex genomes.”

    Christians find much more evidence that “birds do NOT come from reptiles”

    Birds did not come from modern reptiles. They evolved from class of dinosaurs called “Theropods.” Dinosaurs were not really reptiles, despite being called such in the “popular media.” — There is evidence that many of them were warm blooded, and hence not reptiles.

    ..and that “eukaryote cells do NOT come from rocks” than that they do.

    No they don’t. And nobody has ever said that they did.

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  47. @BobRyan

    In Romans 1 – Paul claims that athiests and Barbarians (his words) are “without excuse” when they talk themselves into pretending that I.D is not true.

    hmm – I guess God thinks the point is pretty obvious – huh?

    I presume you mean Romans 1:20? All that verse says is that God is the creator and that his qualities can be seen in nature. — No one is denying that.

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  48. I would not be an sda {or even a Christian} if I believed the evidence was not in agreement with the Bible. As I have followed these discussions on this site I have been amazed at Sean’s calmness,and ability to answer the unrelenting tirades against him. I learn so much from educatetruth. Thank you guys

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  49. krissmith777 says: December 8, 2010

    I presume you mean Romans 1:20? All that verse says is that God is the creator and that his qualities can be seen in nature. — No one is denying that.

    Romans 1:18-20 identifies a concet for I.D far beyond anything the modern I.D concept claims. And Romans 1:14 states that the group that sees THIS level of I.D, includes non-Bible aware barbarians.

    The Romans 1 level of I.D does not simply see “design” and “intelligence” in the “things that have been MADE”. But it sees “His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse”!! In fact in Romans 1 Paul argues that when they see the Romans 1 level of “Design” they also are convicted regarding the judgment to come!

    By contrast – the incredibly modest I.D science of today merely looks for something that rocks, gas and water (chemistry without application by design) cannot do when exposed to an energy source.

    Thus when misguided SDAs pretend to be sooo befuddled that they cannot even see beyond what the atheist pretends not to see – they are choosing a position far below what Paul describes in Romans 1 as the minimum for all mankind when making those observations “in nature”.

    in Christ,

    Bob

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  50. krissmith777 says:
    December 8, 2010 @BobRyan

    The Bible has nothing to say about “complex genomes.”

    I beg to differ. Read Gen 1:20 and Gen 1:25-26 and see if you do not find some “complex genomes” there.

    To believe in theistic evolutionism – you must agree to “disbelieve” a great many inconvenient details in scripture. Hence Darwin’s objection to that idea.

    in Christ,

    Bob

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  51. I said — Christians find much more evidence that “birds do NOT come from reptiles”

    krissmith777 says:
    December 8, 2010
    Birds did not come from modern reptiles. They evolved from class of dinosaurs called “Theropods.”

    Another example of something not seen in any science lab – but certainly it is a “story easy enough to make up” as even our atheist evolutionist friends will admit.

    It is easy enough to make up stories of how one form gave rise to another, and to find reasons why the stages should be favoured by natural selection. But such stories are not part of science, for there is no way of putting them to the test.

    So, much as I should like to oblige you by jumping to the defense of gradualism, and fleshing out the transitions between the major types of animals and plants, I find myself a bit short of the intellectual justification necessary for the job “

    [Ref: Patterson, personal communication. Documented in Darwin’s Enigma, Luther Sunderland, Master Books, El Cajon, CA, 1988, pp. 88-90.]

    in Christ,

    Bob

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  52. @OTNT_Believer

    As for our evolutionary “friends” outside the church, I find your approach an embarassment. None of them that I know see one shred of credible evidence in the stuff you peddle. In fact they love your approach because it makes it that much easier to ridicule creationists in general. They have a tendency to paint all of us just like the loudest, most outlandish of us.

    H’mm … are you saying that you and your evolutionary friends have read all the material on the http://www.detectingdesign.com web site, as well as Dr Pitman’s book, Turtles All the Way Down? That, at least, would be included “in the stuff” you see Dr Pitman “peddling.” Of course, there’s a bit more on various web sites where he entered into debate with evolutionary scientists over the last ten years or so.

    But if you and your evolutionary friends have thoroughly examined the material on his web site as well as his book and found “not one shred of credible evidence,” I’ll take your word for it.

    As it is, your statement sounds like the use of hyperbole used for effect in attack on the person of Dr Pitman (as opposed to his arguments).

    A more useful post to make your point would be a demonstration that some of the evidence he presented in favor of a short chronology is clearly wrong.

    You do realize, don’t you, that the argument is over a short chronology or a long chronology, because there is little, if any, room for the Creator to do anything even close to what Genesis proposes in a long chronology? So, a “belief in God,” while holding to a long chronology is irrelevant. The Seventh-day Adventist church is founded on a straightforward reading of the Bible — generally literal, unless the context indicates that it must be read metaphorically or as a fable/parable/prophecy.

    I rather suspect that most of the Sadducees found the approach of Jesus and the approach of Paul “an embarrassment.” So that is hardly an indictment of Dr Pitman.

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  53. Hi Alvin,

    I’ll try to address your questions myself if you don’t mind a line-by-line response:

    1. How would scorpions, spiders, sharks, leeches, woodticks, and internal parasites fit in a perfect Garden of Eden?

    The Bible hints at an answer by explaining that lions will one day “eat straw like an ox” – Isaiah 65:25. The Bible also suggests the creative activity on this planet, after the Fall, of intelligent enemies of God. “The owner’s servants came to him and said, ‘Sir, didn’t you sow good seed in your field? Where then did the weeds come from?’ ‘An enemy did this,’ he replied.” – Matthew 13:27

    In short, the way certain creatures are now are not the way they were originally created or intended to be. There have been degenerative changes (devolution) over time that have resulted in creation of parasites which were not originally parasitic. A modern day example of this is the evolution of toxic bacteria that are dependent upon a toxin injector called the “Type III secretory system” or “TTSS”. As it turns out, this toxin injector, which helps these toxic bacteria in their parasitism, is nothing more than a degenerated portion of a flagellar motility system that has lost most of its original parts.

    http://www.detectingdesign.com/flagellum.html

    The same thing is true of many types of carnivores. Most of the time, the changes needed to turn a plant eater into a carnivores are dependent, not upon novel gains in functionality, but upon a loss of pre-existing functionality and Mendelian variation to enhance certain features – like the size and shape of teeth – etc. The ability to eat and process plant material for energy is actually more informationally complex than is the ability be carnivorous.

    Anyway, I go into a few more details on this question in a video presentation recorded here:

    http://www.detectingdesign.com/videoclips.html#Carnivores

    2. Were the venomous fangs of snakes likely a sudden development after sin, would they have had a place in the Garden of Eden, or did the devil likely create this feature in serpents gradually?

    I also discuss the origin of venom and fangs in the above listed video on carnivores…

    3. If we accept the concept that all felines from bobcats to tigers descended from one pair on Noah’s Ark (as some apologists do, to fit everything in), do we have any evidence of intermediate forms between these kinds, especially challenging, in my opinion, in the case of cheetahs? And what about the requisite speed of microevolution in this scenario?

    What most people, to include most mainstream scientists, don’t seem to understand is the very significant potential for phenotypic diversity that is contained within the gene pools of most living things. For example, essentially all the modern breeds of dogs, from the chihuahua to the Grate Dane were isolated within the last 400 years or so. This phenotypic potential was contained within the original wolf-type gene pool. My brother and I, from the very same parents, looks quite different. My brother is dark skinned and has a lot of hair all over his body (like a little fuzz ball), while I’m light skinned and have very little hair on my body. These differences in phenotype are largely the result of Mendelian variation potential starting from the same original gene pool of phenotypic options. There is nothing qualitatively new in these phenotypic variations that was not already present in the ancestral gene pool.

    The same thing is true for cats. A good clue that cats are really part of the same functional gene pool is that most types of cats can interbreed to produce viable offspring – even between different species and even different genera (i.e., puma x leopard = pumapard).

    In short, the rapid diversity of cats and dogs and all other basic “kinds” of gene pools is not a problem given the pre-existence of the front-loaded information needed for such phenotypic diversity within the ancestral gene pools of these different kinds of animals…

    4. Ellen White asserts that God did not initially create “loathsome swamps” or “barren deserts.” In that case, when were the species formed that inhabit these habitats?

    They were formed in the beginning along with everything else during creation week. They simply adapted to new environments as these new environments arose. Again, the potential for dramatic phenotypic differences is pre-programmed into the gene pools of many living things.

    5. Do we have a good hypothesis for the survival during the Flood of semi-aquatic creatures (such as crabs) and creatures that need to live in shallow water (such as crayfish)? Did Noah have a sophisticated aquarium aboard the Ark?

    I see no compelling reason why these creatures could not have survived outside of the Ark. I’ve personally seen crabs and crayfish surviving just fine in pretty deep water – over 70 feet. Also, many types of crabs thrive in even deeper water. Note that deep water crab fishing in the Alaskan waters is a lucrative business.

    6. Do we have good answers for the logistical issues (food, water, waste disposal, etc.) raised by those who challenge the Genesis Flood?

    In his interesting book, Noah’s Ark: A Feasibility Study, John Woodmorappe suggests that far fewer animals than most people realize would have been transported upon the ark. By pointing out that the word “specie” is not equivalent to the “created kinds” of the Genesis account (as already described above), Woodmorappe credibly demonstrates that as few as 2,000 animals may have been required on the ark. To pad this number for error, he continues his study by showing that the ark could easily accommodate 16,000 animals.) That leaves well over two thirds of the Ark’s ~500,000 cubic meters of space for food, water, and living space for Noah and his family. There was probably also a waste disposal system to remove waste from inside to outside the Ark. There is also the possibility that the animals may have gone into a type of dormancy. Many groups of animals have at least a latent ability to hibernate or aestivate. With their bodily functions reduced to a minimum, the burden of their care would have been greatly lightened.

    7. If kangaroos lived temporarily in the land area between Ararat and Australia, and possibly worldwide before the Flood, why do we only find their fossils in or near Australia?

    Fossils of large mammals are very rare to begin with. All the primate fossils known could fit comfortably on the floor in your living room. Also, the known fossils of Kangaroos are all found in post-Flood deposits in Australia. It is possible that very few Kangaroos were able to survive for long elsewhere for any number of reasons and avoided fossilization due to the rarity of fossilization itself combined with their reduced numbers outside of Australia for the relatively short time that they existed outside of Australia before dying off.

    8. How did sloths travel all the way to the Americas from Ararat?

    Right after the Flood, there is evidence that S. America, Africa, and India were likely connected. During the ice age that followed the Flood 500 or so years later, the ocean level would have decreased dramatically; opening up land bridges between continents.

    As far as the slow moving sloths that we know today, giants sloths weighing over two tons also existed after the Flood for while which could move around much faster than today’s much smaller cousins. Beyond this, the Earth isn’t that big of a place (~24,000 miles in circumference). It doesn’t take very long even for seemingly slow moving creatures to get from one side to the other. Just moving 12 miles per year, it would only take 1,000 years to migrate to the other side of the planet. Even a small slow tree sloth can easily migrate that fast…

    9. How were the spawning grounds for salmon established as the Ice Age glaciers retreated, given that these fish faithfully return to their birthplace? Same question for birds that return to the same place every year.

    Good question. Let me know when you find out 😉

    10. What about the establishment of different types of trees in different parts of the world after the Flood?

    Probably affected by climate conditions as to which ones thrived and which ones did not. Seeds can also travel surprising distances quite quickly…

    Hope this helps…

    Sean Pitman
    http://www.DetectingDesign.com

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  54. @Inge

    H’mm … are you saying that you and your evolutionary friends have read all the material on the http://www.detectingdesign.com web site, as well as Dr Pitman’s book, Turtles All the Way Down? That, at least, would be included “in the stuff” you see Dr Pitman “peddling.” Of course, there’s a bit more on various web sites where he entered into debate with evolutionary scientists over the last ten years or so.
    But if you and your evolutionary friends have thoroughly examined the material on his web site as well as his book and found “not one shred of credible evidence,” I’ll take your word for it.

    First of all, no, I have not read ALL Sean has to say on his site, but I have looked at large sample of it. I also read his entire book, minus the Appendix, which I found a bit on the incomprehensible side. As for the book, although this does not necessarily reflect on the validity of his conclusions, I found it very poorly written. I found typos and missing words every few pages, which was more than a little distracting. A good editor might have improved the book considerably. Secondly, most of what is in the book are quotes verbatim from other sources, barely half of the book is actually written by Sean. Lastly, I have no argument with the conclusions book really, it’s just that I have seen it expressed much better by Behe or Myer, so am not sure why Sean felt the need to publish. The book is essentially about ID. There is nothing there about radiometric dating, fossils, sedimentology, erosion, the flood, glaciation, etc., all of which are the areas that are the most questionably defended on Sean’s web page. That’s not saying that my evolutionary friends accept ID either, but I happen to.

    In fact, I am a short term, literal 6-day, SDA creationist. I find the evidence for the worldwide nature of the flood a bit daunting, and I have my questions about scientific support for the whole thing, but I remain an SDA creationist. I just find it embarrassing to see so many things said by Sean that are so laughable to evolutionists, and even to those of us that are thinking, SDA creationists. If we don’t have credible evidence, then don’t pretend we do. All Sean has really done in most cases is to show that the evolutionary interpretations for long ages have problems, but their problems to not provide our solutions. It might boost my faith a little to see that evolutionists are not as solid scientifically as they claim, but it hardly proves them as wrong as Sean implies.

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  55. Re Sean’s Quote

    “Also, the known fossils of Kangaroos are all found in post-Flood deposits in Australia. It is possible that very few Kangaroos were able to survive for long elsewhere for any number of reasons and avoided fossilization due to the rarity of fossilization itself combined with their reduced numbers outside of Australia for the relatively short time that they existed outside of Australia before dying off.”

    Dear Sean

    Well that is interesting speculation but is it empirical science?

    Would you agree that the kangeroo is a kind of macropod? Are macropods only found in Australia and New Guinea?

    Based on their quite distinct nature do you think there was a kind macropod on the ark?

    Were there any land bridges connecting the middle east to the Indo-Australian Plate after the Noachian flood? Lets remember your theory about the rapid breakup of the tectonic plates – long way for a land bridge I’d think.

    Sorry to be ‘jumping’ all over the place
    Ken

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  56. @OTNT_Believer:

    I just find it embarrassing to see so many things said by Sean that are so laughable to evolutionists, and even to those of us that are thinking, SDA creationists.

    Why don’t you actually list some of these things? It certainly would be far more helpful, and potentially interesting, than your otherwise bald pejorative comments…

    If we don’t have credible evidence, then don’t pretend we do. All Sean has really done in most cases is to show that the evolutionary interpretations for long ages have problems, but their problems to not provide our solutions. It might boost my faith a little to see that evolutionists are not as solid scientifically as they claim, but it hardly proves them as wrong as Sean implies.

    Let’s use an example as a case in point to consider your argument here.

    Mainstream evolutionists claim that dinosaurs existed and then died out tens of millions of years ago. They also claim and have claimed for some time that soft tissues decay rather rapidly – using real time demonstrations and predictions based on kinetic chemistry. Kinetic calculations predict that DNA and protein sequences will survive for no more than 10 kyr in temperate regions and for a maximum of 100 kyr at colder latitudes owing to hydrolytic damage (Poinar et al. 1996; Smith et al. 2001). Even under ideal conditions sequencable proteins and DNA are thought to be able to remain intact beyond a million years.

    http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1634942/

    Then, by lucky accident, Mary Schweitzer discovers soft, flexible, soft tissues, blood vessels, and blood cells, with intact sequencable proteins, inside dinosaur bones that are supposed to be 65-80 million years old.

    By everyone’s admission, such a find would have been judged to have been scientifically impossible beforehand.

    In this line, consider a conversation that Jack Horner had with Mary Schweitzer following her amazing discovery:

    When Mary was first working on this material, she called me [Jack Horner] up to say she had found osteocytes. I assumed she meant the spaces where the osteocytes would have been, which is what I suggested.

    “No, Jack, actually we have the cells and they have filipodia and they have nuclei.”

    “Mary, the freaking creationists are just going to love you.”

    “Jack, it’s your dinosaur.”

    When subsequently asked if he would accept a sizable donation to submit the dinosaur soft tissue for radiocarbon analysis, Jack Horner refused noting that the results of such a test may play even further into creationists hands. According to Jack, such a test “wouldn’t help us” and could potentially be used by creationists “against us”.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8T3rEX4zq_4&NR=1

    Also, for a short videoclip of a 60 Minutes program on this discovery, and other clips as well, see:

    http://www.detectingdesign.com/fossilizeddna.html#Fresh

    Now, let me ask you: Does this find, or does it not, cast at least some doubt on the validity of at least certain forms of radiometric dating? Or, does it cast doubt on extrapolations of protein and DNA decay rates based on kinetic calculations and other laws of chemistry and physics that seem to suggest that such a finding is impossible?

    If one comes to the conclusion that such a find at least suggests the possibility that the dinosaur bones really aren’t nearly as old as mainstream scientists suggest, doesn’t this conclusion also favor the idea that such a find is actually far more consistent with the Biblical model of origins? Which theory has greater overall predictive value?

    And, this is only one such feature of the fossil record which seems to significantly challenge strongly held mainstream theories…

    Sean Pitman
    http://www.DetectingDesign.com

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  57. If we don’t have credible evidence, then don’t pretend we do. All Sean has really done in most cases is to show that the evolutionary interpretations for long ages have problems, but their problems to not provide our solutions. It might boost my faith a little to see that evolutionists are not as solid scientifically as they claim, but it hardly proves them as wrong as Sean implies.

    There is an incredible paucity in logic to argue that observations in nature do not support the claims of evolutionism – yet evolutionism could be true “anyway”. That is more of a religious claim for evolutionism than a scientific one.

    in Christ,

    Bob

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  58. BobRyan

    Romans 1:18-20 identifies a concet for I.D far beyond anything the modern I.D concept claims. And Romans 1:14 states that the group that sees THIS level of I.D, includes non-Bible aware barbarians.

    Notice the term “God did it ALL DIRECTLY” is never used. It never says that God Micro-managed the creation, only that God is manifest in nature..Again, you are reading concepts in the Bible that are not there.

    The Romans 1 level of I.D does not simply see “design” and “intelligence” in the “things that have been MADE”.

    If God is behind it, of course there is intelligence behind it as well. But the conclusion that God Mocro-managed it hardly follows. He can still be the ultimate creator if he overlooked the creation, even if he didn’t “poof” it into existence. You are attacking a straw.

    I beg to differ. Read Gen 1:20 and Gen 1:25-26 and see if you do not find some “complex genomes” there.

    You are crossing meanings now. When you said “Complex genomes,” you were talking about the science of Genetics, not about the appearance of animals. You are now crossing from genetics to zoology.

    Another example of something not seen in any science lab – but certainly it is a “story easy enough to make up” as even our atheist evolutionist friends will admit.

    The evolution of birds from Theropod Dinosaurs is not a “made up story.” It is a fact supported by the fossil record. There are SEVERAL examples such as Caudipteryx, Anchiornis, Sinosauropteryx, and Sinornithosaurus. These are feathered.

    I am sure you must have heard about Velociraptor. We know know from new fossil evidence that Velociraptor had feathers… This is because of quill knobs found on new fossil specimens of that partuculat dinosaur species.. Quill knobs are left on the bones of birds from their feathers; Velociraptor fossils have quill knobs, so therefore velociraptor (though clearly a dinosaur) had feathers.

    Link: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/09/070920145402.htm

    Your quote about “making up stories” is fine and dandy, but simply quoting that doesn’t refute the evidence that has been found.

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  59. @Sean

    Mainstream evolutionists claim that dinosaurs existed and then died out tens of millions of years ago. They also claim and have claimed for some time that soft tissues decay rather rapidly – using real time demonstrations and predictions based on kinetic chemistry. Kinetic calculations predict that DNA and protein sequences will survive for no more than 10 kyr in temperate regions and for a maximum of 100 kyr at colder latitudes owing to hydrolytic damage (Poinar et al. 1996; Smith et al. 2001). Even under ideal conditions sequencable proteins and DNA are thought to be able to remain intact beyond a million years.
    http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1634942/
    Then, by lucky accident, Mary Schweitzer discovers soft, flexible, soft tissues, blood vessels, and blood cells, with intact sequencable proteins, inside dinosaur bones that are supposed to be 65-80 million years old.
    By everyone’s admission, such a find would have been judged to have been scientifically impossible beforehand.

    I have never claimed there is no scientific evidence consistent with our SDA beliefs, I was simply saying (apparently poorly) that the evidence is scant. Even this example you bring up about DNA constitutes little more than some tantalizing new data that adds a little bit of doubt to the long ages proposed by evolutionists. The problem is there is scientifically plausible explanations for how DNA, as very small fragments, could last for several 100kyr. Keep in mind too that DNA any older than a few 10kyr are still debatable by evolutionists themselves. There have been problems with contamination and ambiguous results because the DNA is too degraded.

    Don’t get me wrong, I think this evidence is cool, but its hardly definitive, give that we have only retrieved usable DNA from very recent (in geological terms) taxa. If, as you are saying (and I would love to agree with you) that this DNA has survived, you cannot automatically make the conclusion that it is therefore less than 10kyr old. If it is, and all fossils are less than 10kyr old, then we would expect to find usable DNA from fossils several 100myr old. Mary Schweitzer’s discoveries are extremely interesting, and as a creationist I too was glad to see what she found. It is harder to explain such nice tissue from such old fossils, but by the same token, if all fossils are as young as we would like them to be, there should be many more widespread examples of this sort of thing from much older fossils too. And keep in mind that no one has yet extracted usable DNA from her material, even though she predicts it might be possible.

    So, I have no problem with considering the DNA from ancient fossils as suggestive of and compatible with a young age scenario, but when we take such evidence as far as you are willing to do, you are behaving in a very unscientific way (not that scientists don’t do the same as well sometimes). Before evidence is accepted so wholeheartedly, we need to be sure first that we are not leaping beyond where the data lead.

    Why don’t you actually list some of these things? It certainly would be far more helpful, and potentially interesting, than your otherwise bald pejorative comments…

    I don’t do this because I have read a number of parts of your web page, and at the end of many of your papers there are email exchanges related that show me that there is no end to the string of cherry-picking you resort to to defend your views. I don’t have the time for that. I have studied many of the topics you present pretty thoroughly and have even seen many of the arguments you use. You do present a lot of problems that are not well solved by evolutionists, which I appreciate, but then you take those problems and consider them as proof for a short age model. That is where you lose me, and arguing in circles about evidence I already agree with in many cases, but do not see as evidence of the same weight or kind as you do, seems hardly productive.

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  60. Romans 1:18-20 identifies a concet for I.D far beyond anything the modern I.D concept claims. And Romans 1:14 states that the group that sees THIS level of I.D, includes non-Bible aware barbarians.

    The Romans 1 level of I.D does not simply see “design” and “intelligence” in the “things that have been MADE”.

    Notice the term “God did it ALL DIRECTLY” is never used. It never says that God Micro-managed the creation, only that God is manifest in nature..Again, you are reading concepts in the Bible that are not there.

    If God is behind it, of course there is intelligence behind it as well. But the conclusion that God Mocro-managed it hardly follows. He can still be the ultimate creator if he overlooked the creation, even if he didn’t “poof” it into existence. You are attacking a straw.

    You are confusing creationism with I.D. Paul is not claiming that atheists, agnostics, greeks, “barbarians” are all seeing “a 7 day creation week” when they look at “The things that have been made”.

    Rather he is arguing for a concept of I.D that goes FAR BEYOND that which long-ages, long-life ID evolutionists like Behe argues for – because instead of limiting Paul’s I.D concept to “shows design” and “shows intelligence” he has “Shows deity” and “Shows the power of God” and “reveals a judgment to come”. Paul argues the point wayy beyond the I.D concepts that are being rejected by misguided SDA evolutionists today.

    in Christ,

    Bob

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  61. @krissmith777:

    The evolution of birds from Theropod Dinosaurs is not a “made up story.” It is a fact supported by the fossil record. There are SEVERAL examples such as Caudipteryx, Anchiornis, Sinosauropteryx, and Sinornithosaurus. These are feathered.

    I am sure you must have heard about Velociraptor. We know know from new fossil evidence that Velociraptor had feathers… This is because of quill knobs found on new fossil specimens of that partuculat dinosaur species.. Quill knobs are left on the bones of birds from their feathers; Velociraptor fossils have quill knobs, so therefore velociraptor (though clearly a dinosaur) had feathers.

    Link: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/09/070920145402.htm

    The finding of quill knobs is indeed most interesting and quite convincing. I don’t think such knobs are associated with anything other than true feathers… and primary quilled feathers at that.

    What is odd here though is that all the “feathered” dinosaurs show up in the fossil record some 30 million years after the appearance of the first true birds (according to mainstream dating methods). So, what “evolved” first? Could it be that the velociraptors simply lost the ability to fly? – as have flightless birds on windy islands today? – birds whose ancestors could actually fly? or like cavefish who have lost their eyes over time?

    It could also be, like hair on mammals, that several different “kinds” of animals, several distinct gene pools, were originally created with “feathers”… to include various kinds of dinosaurs as well as birds. After all, just because both humans and apes have hair doesn’t necessarily mean that our unique differences are also just as easily explainable via RM/NS from some common ancestor.

    In short, the similarities aren’t the problem for evolutionists. It’s the qualitative functional differences that are difficult to explain using mindless naturalistic mechanisms.

    Your quote about “making up stories” is fine and dandy, but simply quoting that doesn’t refute the evidence that has been found.

    The evidence that’s been found doesn’t explain how the functionally complex differences, qualitative differences at a high level of functional complexity, that exist between different “kinds” of living things, came to be.

    Sean Pitman
    http://www.DetectingDesign.com

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  62. @OTNT_Believer:

    It is harder to explain such nice tissue from such old fossils, but by the same token, if all fossils are as young as we would like them to be, there should be many more widespread examples of this sort of thing from much older fossils too. And keep in mind that no one has yet extracted usable DNA from her material, even though she predicts it might be possible.

    The point here is that sequencable proteins also have a limited lifespan under ambient temperatures of less than 10kyr by calculations based on kinetic chemistry. Even under cold ideal conditions for sequence survival proteins cannot survive, according to these laws of kinetic chemistry, beyond 100 kyr.

    This is in light of the fact that Schweitzer did find protein sequences long enough to elicit specific immune responses to certain types of hemoglobin – implying the existence of intact protein sequences over 75aa in size. Beyond the antigenic hemoglobin sequences she found, the finding of intact blood vessels and other flexible, even elastic, soft tissues suggests even larger intact proteins. And, this finding is not rare. Such elastic soft tissues are found in all or nearly all dinosaur fossils where appropriate investigation is performed.

    According to Schweitzer herself, this finding is “impossible” according to all the known laws of chemistry and physics.

    Is this evidence “conclusive proof” of the Biblical model? Of course not. Such doesn’t exist in science. However, is this evidence highly suggestive? Yes. At least if you believe the laws of physics and chemistry when it comes to protein and DNA decay over time.

    And, this isn’t the only piece of evidence in favor of the Biblical model of origins. There are many many pieces of evidence like this… to include certain features of even radiometric dating that strongly favor the SDA position on origins…

    Sean Pitman
    http://www.DetectingDesign.com

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  63. Colin Maunder wrote

    As I have followed these discussions on this site I have been amazed at Sean’s calmness,and ability to answer the unrelenting tirades against him.

    This reflects my concern about where the glory is being given.

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  64. @OTNT_Believer

    Thanks for your response. 🙂 I wonder if you’re objecting more to style than content? Along those lines, you seem to be able to give it as well as Sean does. 😉

    However, I want to address specifically your comment:

    In fact, I am a short term, literal 6-day, SDA creationist. I find the evidence for the worldwide nature of the flood a bit daunting, and I have my questions about scientific support for the whole thing, but I remain an SDA creationist. … It might boost my faith a little to see that evolutionists are not as solid scientifically as they claim, but it hardly proves them as wrong as Sean implies.

    I just read an interesting short book by Mike Oard: Flood by Design. It is based on Tas Walker’s flood model and demonstrates how such a flood model solves many of the problems of standard geomorphology (topigraphical features for us hikers).

    Oard claims he had enough material for a 1,000 page book but condensed it down to 130 pages. (Thanks, Mike!) The result, with lots of photos and diagrams, is quite readable.

    Geomorphology (or land forms/ topography) has intrigued me for half of forever. I’m always wondering, how did this mountain come about? Why are all these hills pretty much flat-topped? Why did that big rock not erode when all the area around it eroded? etc. etc. Oard provdides more answers (and certainly more believable ones) than standard geological theory.

    Treat yourself to this book for Christmas. 🙂 (I think Amazon still has a free-shipping offer.)

    In the meantime, though, you can visit Tas Walker’s site, http://biblicalgeology.net/. Walker had a doctorate in mechanical engineering but went back to university to get a B.S. majoring in Earth Sciences, due to his interest in geology. Since then he has formulated a biblical geology model, and you can find the introductory page here: http://biblicalgeology.net/Model/Biblical-Geology.html Following the links from there, one by one, will give you a fairly good understanding of the model.

    Mike Oard took this model and focused on the retreating flood waters phase as explaining many of the land forms that are puzzling and unexplainable by standard geological science.

    I think you’ll find it easier to believe in the world-wide nature of the flood after reading the book. 🙂 (I’ve read the book, but am just now starting to investigate Tas Walker’s site.)

    On the other hand, have you ever considered what you need to believe in order to correlate the biblical story with a local flood? (Common sense alone would seem to indicate that, either the Flood was world-wide, or the biblical record is pure fantasy. Considering it metaphorical doesn’t help much at all. Metaphorical of what??)

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  65. @OTNT_Believer

    I have never claimed there is no scientific evidence consistent with our SDA beliefs, I was simply saying (apparently poorly) that the evidence is scant.

    Could it be that what you have seen is “scant”?

    Could it be that if you keep looking, you will find more and more?

    Could it be that your education has pre-conditioned you to have a bias favoring the evolutionary model? (After all, it has been taught as “scientific fact” for a very long time now.)

    It might be worth pondering the consequences of Thomas Kuhn’s concept of scientific paradigms. If we have been caught up in a passing paradigm, might it not be worthwhile to examine our foundational assumptions — assumptions that put us at odds with the most natural reading of the biblical text? (I don’t think God preserved the Bible in a way that only scholars can make sense of it.)

    Just something to “stir your pure mind,” as Peter would say. 😉

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  66. RE Inge’s Comment

    “Could it be that your education has pre-conditioned you to have a bias favoring the evolutionary model? (After all, it has been taught as “scientific fact” for a very long time now.)”

    Dear Inge

    I went to the Tas Walker site and found the following comment:

    “Furthermore, I advocate viewing the rocks and fossils through Flood glasses—through the actual mechanism that produced the rocks and fossils, the Genesis Flood.”

    Do you think Mr. Walker by interpreting fossils with Genesis Flood glasses might have a wee creationist bias? Are you being pre conditioned?

    Regards
    Ken

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  67. @Sean Pitman

    The finding of quill knobs is indeed most interesting and quite convincing. I don’t think such knobs are associated with anything other than true feathers… and primary quilled feathers at that.

    It was one of the things that got me. I was an (old-earth) creationist when I heard about this, and it really made me think.

    What is odd here though is that all the “feathered” dinosaurs show up in the fossil record some 30 million years after the appearance of the first true birds (according to mainstream dating methods). So, what “evolved” first?

    Good question. When you say “First Bird,” I’m assuming you mean Archaeopteryx which is considered by many as the first true bird, and you are right to say that the famous examples of “feathered dinosaurs” appear in the fossil record several millions of years after Archeaopteryx… BUT there is a NEW piece of evidence that I think you would find interesting: In 2008, a new fossil dinosaur was discovered that is now called Anchiornis, and it was announced in September, 2009. What makes this fossil speciman valid for asking your question is that is has been dated to have lived between 160 to 155 Million years ago. That is to say, Anchiornis lived between 10 to 15 million years before Archeaopteryx!!

    http://www.dinosaurjungle.com/dinosaur_species_anchiornis.php

    http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v461/n7264/full/nature08322.html

    http://www.springerlink.com/content/p5k5310462451jq3/fulltext.pdf

    To answer your question, what this would mean is that the “feathered dinosaurs” would have evolved first, BUT that MOST of the fossil examples are not ancestral to modern birds, but rather are retaining ancestral traits.

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  68. @BobRyan

    You are confusing creationism with I.D. Paul is not claiming that atheists, agnostics, greeks, “barbarians” are all seeing “a 7 day creation week” when they look at “The things that have been made”

    I know that ID is not inherently Young Earth Creationism, if that’s what you mean, and I know that some of the big names in the ID movement accept common decent (I.e., Joonathan Wells and Michael Behe). However, there are certain reasons for associating ID with Creationism. It has to do with the way one of the first Intelligent Design text books (Called “Of Pandas and People”) was originally drafted. During the Dover trial, they issued subpoenas for every draft of “Of Pandas and People,” and they looked through them to confirm or deny that the ID book was originally a Creationist book. In one draft, they found a revision typo that showed: “Cdesign Proponentsists,” which is an obvious, let us say, “missing link” between the terms “creationists” and “Design Proponents.”

    Link:
    http://ncse.com/creationism/legal/cdesign-proponentsists

    It should also be mentioned that the older editions of “Of Pandas and People” had a different title. They were caled “Creation Biology.” — Even though I would agree that ID may have developed by it’s own (evolved, if I may say?), they are linked really strongly.

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  69. @krissmith777:

    What is odd here though is that all the “feathered” dinosaurs show up in the fossil record some 30 million years after the appearance of the first true birds (according to mainstream dating methods). So, what “evolved” first? – Sean Pitman

    Good question. When you say “First Bird,” I’m assuming you mean Archaeopteryx which is considered by many as the first true bird, and you are right to say that the famous examples of “feathered dinosaurs” appear in the fossil record several millions of years after Archeaopteryx… BUT there is a NEW piece of evidence that I think you would find interesting: In 2008, a new fossil dinosaur was discovered that is now called Anchiornis, and it was announced in September, 2009. What makes this fossil speciman valid for asking your question is that is has been dated to have lived between 160 to 155 Million years ago. That is to say, Anchiornis lived between 10 to 15 million years before Archeaopteryx!!

    To answer your question, what this would mean is that the “feathered dinosaurs” would have evolved first, BUT that MOST of the fossil examples are not ancestral to modern birds, but rather are retaining ancestral traits.

    What this seems to mean to me is that these fossils are very rare and that the more one looks and finds the occasional rare fossil, the more it appears that all of these creatures lived at about the same time and overlapped each other. The “first example” of many different kinds of living things within the fossil record is continually being pushed farther and farther back in time as new “older” discoveries are made of all kinds of things.

    For example, it according to mainstream thinking Anchiornis is about 30 Ma older than the next youngest, and more “dino-like”, troodontid. This means mainstream scientists must postulate a much earlier evolutionary history than actually demonstrated in the fossil record.

    Also, this really doesn’t solve the problem of mechanism. It is nice to assume and tell stories about how this evolved into that given an apparent sequence within the fossil record. However, it could also be that the apparent distribution in the fossil record is reflective of other factors besides time. In other words, it is possible that these creatures lived at or very close to the same time, but were buried in the sequence in which they are found for other reasons – such as ecological or various other sorting factors. Even the relative abundance of a species plays into the odds of when it is likely to “first appear” in the fossil record.

    For example, “Generally, species that use a wide range of resources or tolerate a variety of abiotic conditions can establish more populations in more places than comparable species with relatively narrow niches (Brown, 1995; Cook and Quinn, 1995). Differences in the ability of species to distribute themselves across space have distinct consequences for the structure of communities. Sites that encompass a greater area tend to have more species (Rosenzweig, 1995). This is because large areas include a subset of species not found elsewhere. Therefore, the nested subset pattern of species distribution in space is thought to reflect the gradient in abundance among species (Gaston, 1996; Leitner and Rosenzweig, 1997; Maurer, 1999). . . [These features are consistent with the hypothesis of] “isolated habitat ‘islands’.”

    Using this line of reasoning, one might reasonable hypothesize that trilobites appear in the fossil record before crabs and lobsters at least party because of the relative abundance of trilobites compared to crabs and lobsters. This hypothesis is at least plausible given the evidence that, “Species identities and their relative abundances are non-random properties of communities that persist over long periods of ecological time and across geographic space. This is consistent with species abundance contributing heavily to evolutionary patterns.”

    http://www.fw.msu.edu/~maurerb/Documents/jjar1291.pdf

    So, what looks like an evolutionary pattern in the fossil record may simple be reflective of something else – like relative species abundance for example.

    This hypothesis is further strengthened by the evidence of a significant limitation of the mechanism of RM/NS to produce novel functional differences beyond very very low levels of functional complexity in a reasonable period of time (i.e., this side of trillions of years of time). Again, the difficulty for mainstream evolutionary theories is not in explaining similarities, but in explaining high level functional differences.

    This hypothesis is also strengthened by the significant evidence countering mainstream assumptions based on radiometric dating that the fossil record and geologic column were formed rapidly and in much more recent history than mainstream theories suggest… to include the evidence of very common very well preserved elastic soft tissues and proteins in all or nearly all dinosaur bones – as already noted above in this thread.

    Sean Pitman
    http://www.DetectingDesign.com

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  70. I know that some of the big names in the ID movement accept common decent (I.e., Joonathan Wells and Michael Behe). However, there are certain reasons for associating ID with Creationism.

    Indeed from an atheist evolutionist POV anything that threatens the religious conviction “there is no god” might as well be creationist.

    Creationists here though would flatly deny that something that encompasses evolution is in fact “creationist”.

    But what can be seen in I.D is a lowest common denominator science perspective that differentiates from strictly atheist religous convictions in that it allows scientists to “follow the data where it leads EVEN if it leads to a conclusion in favor of design that does not pander to atheist beliefs that there is no designer”.

    in Christ,

    Bob

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  71. Diehard atheist Biologist from British Museum of Natural history – Colin Patterson on the problem of “Story telling” based on the fossil record.

    April 10, 1979 Letter from Colin Patterson to Sunderland

    —————– Patterson said
    “ I fully agree with your comments on the lack of direct illustration of evolutionary transitions in my book. If I knew of any, fossil or living, I would certainly have included them.

    You suggest that an artist should be used to visualise such transformations, but where would he get the information from? I could not, honestly, provide it, and if I were to leave it to artistic license, would that not mislead the reader?

    I wrote the text of my book four years ago. If I were to write it now, I think the book would be rather different. Gradualism is a concept I believe in, not just because of Darwin’s authority, but because my understanding of genetics seems to demand it.

    Yet Gould and the American Museum people are hard to contradict when they say there are no transitional fossils. As a palaeontologist myself, I am much occupied with the philosophical problems of identifying ancestral forms in the fossil record.

    You say that I should at least show a photo of the fossil from which each type of organism was derived. I will lay it on the line- there is not one such fossil for which one could make a watertight argument.

    The reason is that statements about ancestry and descent are not applicable in the fossil record. Is Archaeopteryx the ancestor of all birds? Perhaps yes, perhaps no there is no way of answering the question.

    It is easy enough to make up stories of how one form gave rise to another, and to find reasons why the stages should be favoured by natural selection. But such stories are not part of science, for there is no way of putting them to the test.

    Patterson has/had a tough job as an atheist evolutionist because the playbook tactics for making arguments for fossil transitional forms are so loaded with examples of proven fraud – it would be difficult to sort out the real from the fiction in some cases until 50 years AFTER the wild claims were first made.

    WoW!

    Let’s look closely at that “playbook”.

    Playbook tactics of evolutionists when trying to promote “a story”.

    1. “New discovery” smoke screen – Osborne – Nebraska man just before Scopes trial – then hide the real truth from the public for sake of influencing belief – as more details hit the light of day.
    Hesperopithecus (Nebraska man). One tooth

    2. “Fake age” claims – Neanderthal man in Northern Europe—30 year long hoax/fraud/
    http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1196571/posts

    3. “Faking geologic column sequence claims” – Othaniel Marsh – 50 year long “best example of evolution in nature” fraud.

    4. “Staging a presentation for the reader to give the impression of evolution in action” Peppered moth and Haeckel’s embryo display for ontogeny.

    5. “Far-fetched assembly” _ Java Man. 1890

    6. “Claiming descendants as hopeful ancestors and missing links”. Example – Caudipteryx, Anchiornis, Sinosauropteryx, and Sinornithosaurus – arriving AFTER “true birds” (archaeopteryx) with flight feathers.

    7. Ignoring the problem of hybrids (B) between A and C – when both A and C are known to exist as in the case of the horse sequence.

    8. “Fake Fossile Mashup by insiders” – Piltdown man – 40 year long fraud

    —- Just to name a few

    in Christ,

    Bob

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  72. A key point in that post above with the decades of fraud listed by the various examples – is that it would take decades to uncover such fraud. What do you do in the mean time? Throw out the Bible?

    in Christ,

    Bob

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  73. All of you who defend PUC and LSU as not promoting evolution and other heresies, or as Eddie put it, that PUC’s statement is proof positive that it supports the church: Students and former professors have come on here to say that all these things are indeed happening. Others have come in defense of Dr. Ness and have shown exactly the kind of philosophy they are being taught. You have testimonies from students.

    You accept those who defend attacks against the church’s beliefs, and you dismiss those who say that these attacks are taking place. And then when there’s a solid 40 minutes of video released that shows exactly the sort of stuff and philosophy that is being taught, you find excuses to dismiss it as misrepresentative. It seems to me that students who stand for truth are fighting a losing battle with you naysayers. The Lord Himself will have to step in to vindicate His name. Poor students. And shame on you all for excusing this travesty.

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  74. Besides the implications of the finding of elastic soft tissues and sequencable proteins in most dinosaur fossils, there is also the interesting finding of far too much carbon-14 in coal, oil, and organic remains of fossils – suggesting an upper limit on the age of life on Earth of no more than 100k years max.

    The usual counter, of course, is that the samples have been contaminated. However, the “contamination” with C-14 is so extensive and so uniform that it is rather hard to imagine how contamination could actually be responsible for all the C-14 in fossil remains.

    For a much more detailed discussion, see Dr. Paul Giem’s interesting peer reviewed paper on Carbon 14 in Fossils and its implication for the creation/evolution debate:

    http://www.grisda.org/origins/51006.pdf

    Sean Pitman
    http://www.DetectingDesign.com

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  75. @Sean Pitman

    What this seems to mean to me is that these fossils are very rare and that the more one looks and finds the occasional rare fossil, the more it appears that all of these creatures lived at about the same time and overlapped each other. The “first example” of many different kinds of living things within the fossil record is continually being pushed farther and farther back in time as new “older” discoveries are made of all kinds of things.

    The fossil record is sparce. Fossilization is an extremely rare process, and most species do not fossilize at all. There is a lot of things that can keep an animal from not fossilizing: Scavangers eating and even destroying the remains, strata building up and crushing them mutilating them beyond recognition and even destroying them all together. Not to mention, many soecies live in ecologies that do not even permit fossization at all. It’s a wonder that we have the fossil record we do. It is estimated that 99% of all species that ever lived are extinct, and even though we have 200 million fossils, they ONLY represent about 230,000 species, only a miniscule percentage of the percentage of extinct animals.

    For example, it according to mainstream thinking Anchiornis is about 30 Ma older than the next youngest, and more “dino-like”, troodontid. This means mainstream scientists must postulate a much earlier evolutionary history than actually demonstrated in the fossil record.

    But that prediction was already made; in fact, it was a given. They already would have placed the evolution of birds before the appearance of the feathered dinosaurs we already knew about. Evolutionary theory already made the prediction that if Archeopteryx (145 million years ago) was the FIRST bird, and if it’s ancestors were theropod dinosaurs, then the conclusion would have ALREADY been drawn that it’s ancestors WOULD HAVE LIVED BEFORE 145 million years ago. So they are not “postulating” new dates; rather, the new discovery is confirming a prediction already made.

    In other words, it is possible that these creatures lived at or very close to the same time, but were buried in the sequence in which they are found for other reasons – such as ecological or various other sorting factors. Even the relative abundance of a species plays into the odds of when it is likely to “first appear” in the fossil record.

    But ecological factors do not solve the problem. In the fossil record we have many ecologies stacked on top of another. In North Dakota, for example, we have different ecologies on top of eachother. To give an oversimplification, we have the Cambrian strata (mainly a marine ecology) below the Permian (a land ecology). We therefore have land, water, land, more land, and also burrows stacked on top of eachother in North Dakota. They are basically sandwitched in between eachother. That really doesn’t make sence if they all lived relatively at the same time, as we would expect them in strata all dating at the same time, and all mixed with eachother.

    Using this line of reasoning, one might reasonable hypothesize that trilobites appear in the fossil record before crabs and lobsters at least party because of the relative abundance of trilobites compared to crabs and lobsters.

    Even if, they would not have appeared before whales, fish and some of the amphibians. And we also would not expect birds to appear at different points than pterosaurs and bats.

    Besides the implications of the finding of elastic soft tissues and sequencable proteins in most dinosaur fossils,

    I assume you are talking about the T-rex fossil discovered by Dr. Schweitzer. Elastic soft tissues can be preserved depending on the conditions, not necessarily because they are “young.” One of the factors is that they were found in strata dating to the last 5 million years before the Cretaceous (between 70 to 65 million years). If we were to find elastic tissue from dinosaur fossils, it would be from this era, since it is also the last and youngest strata containing donosaurs. — Also, if we are to find elastic tissue in a fossil from this period, it would likely be found in the THICKEST part of the skeleton, and lo and behold! it was found in the femur, the thickest part of the T-rex skeleton!! (I remember Schweitzer saying she had to cut the femur in half to be able to transport it since it was too large.) — If this proved that the earth were young, we should be able to find lots more of the same, but don’t, this is the exception to the rule.

    Link: http://www.answersincreation.org/trex_soft_tissue.htm

    there is also the interesting finding of far too much carbon-14 in coal, oil, and organic remains of fossils – suggesting an upper limit on the age of life on Earth of no more than 100k years max.The usual counter, of course, is that the samples have been contaminated. However, the “contamination” with C-14 is so extensive and so uniform that it is rather hard to imagine how contamination could actually be responsible for all the C-14 in fossil remains.

    Easily answerable. It isn’t always contamination per say. Carbon-14 doesn’t work well on objects that have a greater age than 20,000 years because they have so little carbon-14 and the background radiation takes out the beta radiation.

    Link: http://ncse.com/cej/3/2/answers-to-creationist-attacks-carbon-14-dating

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  76. @krissmith777:

    But ecological factors do not solve the problem. In the fossil record we have many ecologies stacked on top of another. In North Dakota, for example, we have different ecologies on top of eachother. To give an oversimplification, we have the Cambrian strata (mainly a marine ecology) below the Permian (a land ecology). We therefore have land, water, land, more land, and also burrows stacked on top of eachother in North Dakota. They are basically sandwitched in between eachother. That really doesn’t make sence if they all lived relatively at the same time, as we would expect them in strata all dating at the same time, and all mixed with eachother.

    Your “land ecology” is loaded with marine organisms you know – to include Permian layers. All these layer show evidence of deposition by very widespread watery catastrophes that took place in rapid succession.

    Even if, they [trilobites] would not have appeared before whales, fish and some of the amphibians. And we also would not expect birds to appear at different points than pterosaurs and bats.

    Whales are hardly more abundant than trilobites where. Also, ecologic zonation and other factors besides relative abundance could have contributed to the time of the “first appearance” of various types of creatures.

    I assume you are talking about the T-rex fossil discovered by Dr. Schweitzer. Elastic soft tissues can be preserved depending on the conditions, not necessarily because they are “young.”

    Not according to kinetic chemistry studies they can’t – studies which Schweitzer herself admits that she cannot explain. There is no known mechanism by which these soft tissues and sequencable proteins could have been maintained over a few tens of thousands of years at ambient temperatures much less tens of millions of years.

    One of the factors is that they were found in strata dating to the last 5 million years before the Cretaceous (between 70 to 65 million years). If we were to find elastic tissue from dinosaur fossils, it would be from this era, since it is also the last and youngest strata containing donosaurs. — Also, if we are to find elastic tissue in a fossil from this period, it would likely be found in the THICKEST part of the skeleton, and lo and behold! it was found in the femur, the thickest part of the T-rex skeleton!! (I remember Schweitzer saying she had to cut the femur in half to be able to transport it since it was too large.) — If this proved that the earth were young, we should be able to find lots more of the same, but don’t, this is the exception to the rule.

    Again, you are mistaken. The finding of elastic soft tissues and sequencable proteins is the rule, not the exception, whenever such investigations are undertaken. The assumed age of the dinosaur bone has little to do with it as these features have been found “over and over again” in many different dinosaur bones from widely different assumed ages within the fossil record. The only reason thickness may be of any relevance is that the soft tissue is found in those areas of bone that avoided fossilization/mineralization to stone with complete replacement of the organic tissues.

    Easily answerable [re: too much carbon-14]. It isn’t always contamination per say. Carbon-14 doesn’t work well on objects that have a greater age than 20,000 years because they have so little carbon-14 and the background radiation takes out the beta radiation. Your reference is hopelessly out of date my friend. AMS doesn’t work like this. It counts the C-14 atoms one by one without being dependent upon counting decay events. Background radiation has absolutely no part to play. This is why the AMS technique can be so extremely accurate; detecting levels of C-14 that would be dated well beyond the 100,000 year mark. The problem is that oil, coal, and unfossilized remains of supposedly ancient fossils have way too much C-14 in them with ages less than 50,000 years by AMS C-14 analysis. You really do need to actually read Dr. Giem’s much more updated paper before you respond on this topic again (listed again for your convenience): http://www.grisda.org/origins/51006.pdf

    Sean Pitman
    http://www.DetectingDesign.com

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  77. @Sean Pitman,

    When you say that,

    However, the “contamination” with C-14 is so extensive and so uniform that it is rather hard to imagine how contamination could actually be responsible for all the C-14 in fossil remains

    I accidentely misread, and hence the part of the comment I answered you (on this) is partially incorrect.

    But, to answer why the dates seem so uniform: Sulfer bacteria grows in coal, so the carbon dates may often reflect the bacteria rather than the coal itself. Secondary carbonates from groundwater as well can produce the same.

    These factors have been known to give the coal and oil the apparent age of 50,000 years. This is because, even if the coal and oil is old, the maximum that C-14 is good for happens to be a uniform 50,000 years, thus explaining why they seem so uniform.

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  78. @Sean Pitman

    Your “land ecology” is loaded with marine organisms you know – to include Permian layers.

    If you mean there were marine animals during the Permian, then yes there were. But you missed my point, which perhaps I should have worded better. There were NO land animals during the Cambrian, and during the Permian there were. — Ecological hypothesis does not explain why the Permian terrestrial animals themselves are found in strata that are above different strata lower down that are exclusively marine. If you want to argue that they are from the same period, you need to show from dating methods that they DID live at the same time.

    Again, you are mistaken. The finding of elastic soft tissues and sequencable proteins is the rule, not the exception,

    In that case, how many dinosaurs have been found that have been shown to have elastic tissue VERSES those that have been found without them?

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  79. @ sean pitman,

    Feel free to disregaurd my last comment on the carbon dating. Nor because I think it’s wrong, but because I still hadn’t read your part of the last comment you made about the grisda paper you linked.

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  80. You accept those who defend attacks against the church’s beliefs, and you dismiss those who say that these attacks are taking place. And then when there’s a solid 40 minutes of video released that shows exactly the sort of stuff and philosophy that is being taught, you find excuses to dismiss it as misrepresentative. It seems to me that students who stand for truth are fighting a losing battle with you naysayers.

    And interestingly enough – even though Ness provides no science analysis at all in his open discussion with religion students, the reflexive response from PUC is still “how dare you show people what happens in our classroom”.

    How “instructive”.

    Why wouldn’t PUC be so proud of their work that they would view it as “free marketing and promotion”?

    Maybe it is because they “see what we also see” when they watch that video.

    In Christ,

    Bob

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  81. @Sean Pitman,

    Reading the paper, well, trying to. Here are some details that stuck out to me:

    On PDF page 25, it claims that C-14 found in strata usually dated to more than 300,000 would invalidate old-ages. — Considering that a few hundred thousand years is an acceptable margin of error in some radiometric dating methods used to date rocks and NOT living things, DEPENDING ON THE LAB, so the conclusion doesn’t quite follow.

    On PDF page 26, it puts and upper limit to flood burial as 25,000 years, and the lower limit is 19,000 years, though it suggests that 4,300 years is a possibility as well. Earlier, he says that he didn’t include samples that he considered contaminated. — This is probably my cynicism talking, but I have a hard time believing that non-contaminated samples (that would have been so close to the present time) would have a gap of 6,000 years, especially if they are throught to be the same event. And if 4,300 years ago is also a candidate from the c-14 from his results, then that only makes me even more suspicious.

    Even if my above observations are faulty, something else that stands out: He is using C-14 to use as an indication that the earth is younger than 100,000 years old. This begs the question: YECs don’t tend to trust this dating method, so why is he picking THIS time to trust those particular results?

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  82. @BobRyan

    1. “New discovery” smoke screen – Osborne – Nebraska man just before Scopes trial – then hide the real truth from the public for sake of influencing belief – as more details hit the light of day.
    Hesperopithecus (Nebraska man). One tooth

    Nebraska man was an honest mistake, not an intentional fraud. Even the one that discovered the tooth that eventually turned out to belong to an extinct peccary began having doubts about it. It was never widely accepted in the scientific community, and contrary to popular belief, the drawing of “Nebraska Man” was made by a journalist; not as an actual scientific reconstruction.

    Link: http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/wolfmellett.html

    Next:

    2. “Fake age” claims – Neanderthal man in Northern Europe—30 year long hoax/fraud/
    http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1196571/posts

    The link doesn’t indicate that the evidence for Neanderthals being in northern Europe was an actual fraud; just that they had to revise older theories. That doesn’t indicate fraud.

    “Staging a presentation for the reader to give the impression of evolution in action” Peppered moth and Haeckel’s embryo display for ontogeny

    Two separate issues:

    1. The point of the peppered moths was to show natural selection works, that some individuals due to variations, not to say that it proved macro-evolution.

    2. About Heackel’s embryonic drawing: It is true that he forged them, and they should not be in text books. However, that does not disqualify embryologists from using the REAL embryos as evidence.

    Next:

    “Far-fetched assembly” _ Java Man. 1890

    True, the fist specimen could more easily be dismissed since Dubois (the man who discovered it) only had a skull cap, a femur and some teeth. However, later on, more complete skeletons of the same species were discovered. We now have a complete skeleton of the species (Turkana Boy. The species is called Homo Erectus.

    Next:

    “Claiming descendants as hopeful ancestors and missing links”. Example – Caudipteryx, Anchiornis, Sinosauropteryx, and Sinornithosaurus – arriving AFTER “true birds” (archaeopteryx) with flight feathers.

    For the record, one of the feathered dinosaurs in that list DOES appear before true birds such as Archaeoptryx. — Anchiornis appears BEFORE, not after.

    Next:

    Ignoring the problem of hybrids (B) between A and C – when both A and C are known to exist as in the case of the horse sequence.

    I don’t know what you are talking about, but since you are giving letters of the alphabet. It’s really ambiguous. But nothing in evolutionary theory ever says that an ancestral species cannot ever co-exist with a daughter species.

    Next:

    “Fake Fossile Mashup by insiders” – Piltdown man – 40 year long fraud.

    Piltdown Man was a fraud; that much is clear, and nobody cites it as evidence anymore. It’s likely that it was forged to prove English superiority, not so much as to prove Evolution.

    Considering how Piltdown Man was proven to be a fake, I find it ironic that Creationists like to harp on this one…That is because the same dating methods used to prove it was a fake are based on the same principals of other dating methods that Young Earth Creationists are so quick to dismiss.

    It is true that there have been forgeries and mistakes, however they have been discovered and corrected by Scientists; not Creationists. — It was scientists that Discovered Nebraska Man was not a human ancestor; not creationists. It was scientists that discovered Heackel’s drawings were forgeries; not Creationists. And it was Scientists who discvered Piltdown Man was a fraud; not creationists.

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  83. @Colin Maunder:

    I would not be an sda {or even a Christian} if I believed the evidence was not in agreement with the Bible. As I have followed these discussions on this site I have been amazed at Sean’s calmness,and ability to answer the unrelenting tirades against him. I learn so much from educatetruth. Thank you guys

    Yeah, that’s how I felt when I took a class from a guy named Roberto Biaggi in the SDA university in Argentina! He’s a geologist and studied at WWC and LLU and he’s an incredible creationist scientist! I was blown away by how much evidence truly does exist and I was left totally confused when I came back to PUC to find science professors who seemed totally ignorant to the things he knew–astonishing.

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  84. @ Professor Kent, Eddie and others:

    I have attended PUC and know that there are teachers who push evolution because I sat in their classrooms. I also know of a professor that was scolded by a superior for stating that evolution is not compatible with the Bible during a class devotional. I find it utterly ridiculous that people refuse to listen to students or plain evidence that is presented. While Dr. Ness seems to come off as a creationist often, he clearly showed himself to be a theistic evolutionist in this 40 minute, unedited class lecture. I even remember meeting him at college days before I attended PUC and having him tell both my mom and I that theistic evolution was a plausible explanation for how we exist. These beliefs are compatible with what I encountered in the honors program as well. I urge you to listen to the students; we are the ones that know what is going on. And by watching the video, you are able to see and hear what we are taught in classes.

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  85. Lisa, I read from DOZENS OF PUC STUDENTS who posted messages here DENYING that Bryan Ness teaches evolutionary biology as fact. Are you calling them all liars? Why should I believe YOU instead of THEM? Talking about theistic evolution and the problems we face as creationists does not mean that one believes in theistic evolution. Dr. Ness gave a lecture to the entire campus defending young earth creationism. What would you like for him to do. Give the same lecture once again to prove he’s a creationist?

    Why don’t you tell us exactly which classes YOU took in which YOU were taught that theistic evolution is fact.

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  86. @ PUC grad

    Yeah, that’s how I felt when I took a class from a guy named Roberto Biaggi in the SDA university in Argentina! He’s a geologist and studied at WWC and LLU and he’s an incredible creationist scientist! I was blown away by how much evidence truly does exist and I was left totally confused when I came back to PUC to find science professors who seemed totally ignorant to the things he knew–astonishing.

    I Googled Roberto Biaggi. He is apparently a geologist, trained at Loma Linda University. It’s nice to know that LLU is cranking out faithful scientists for the Church. I also checked PUC’s website and found no evidence that the university has a Geology program. So, I say this with due respect and candor: you should not expect PUC’s biologists to be as familiar with geological evidences as Dr. Biaggi.

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  87. @Sean Pitman,

    I just mailed the paper you linked on Carbon-14 dating to various scientists that work on dating methods like C-14 as well as other dating methods. Since it obviously has not been peer reviewed, I’m taking steps to get it peer reviewed.

    But again, I’m going to repeat my question that I made in a previous comment: The writter of the pater is using C-14 to use as an indication that the earth is younger than 100,000 years old. This begs the question: YECs don’t tend to trust this dating method, so why is he picking THIS time to trust those particular results? — This really buggs me since he claims that the samples are not contaminated, but EVEN WHEN contamination is NOT a factor, YECs STILL TEND to dismiss C-14 dating. It looks to me this is a case of nit-picking cases that are “convenient.”

    And to repeat my suspicions about the dates given on PDF page 26: it puts and upper limit to flood burial as 25,000 years, and the lower limit is 19,000 years, though it suggests that 4,300 years is a possibility as well. Earlier, he says that he didn’t include samples that he considered contaminated. — As I said before, my cynicism is probably what is talking, but I have a hard time believing that non-contaminated samples (that would have been so close to the present time) would have a gap of 6,000 years, especially if they are throught to be the same event. And if 4,300 years ago is also a candidate from the c-14 from his results, then that only makes me even more suspicious since it is way too convenient.

    And, sir, I really want you to back up your assertion that,

    Again, you are mistaken. The finding of elastic soft tissues and sequencable proteins is the rule, not the exception,

    I ask again: If finding elastic tissue in fossil dinosaurs is the rule rather than the exception, then how many dinosaurs have been found that have been shown to have elastic tissue VERSES those that have been found without them? The truth is that the sample that Mary Higby Schweitzer was ONLY THE SECOND piece of elastic tissue ever discovered. The first one was ONLY 1 Million years old. And even if she doesn’t understand the mechanisms for how elastic tissue can be preserved for 68 million years, it DOESN’T follow that there ISN’T one, and certainly doesn’t therefore mean the earth is only 6,000 years old.

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  88. @krissmith777:

    I just mailed the paper you linked on Carbon-14 dating to various scientists that work on dating methods like C-14 as well as other dating methods. Since it obviously has not been peer reviewed, I’m taking steps to get it peer reviewed.

    The journal Origins is peer reviewed by people with their Ph.D.s in the relevant field of study.

    The point is, though, that you clearly don’t understanding that modern radiocarbon dating is based on accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) to count individual C-14 atoms. It is not based on the detection of radioactive decay of the C-14 atoms as per your original reference.

    But again, I’m going to repeat my question that I made in a previous comment: The writter of the pater is using C-14 to use as an indication that the earth is younger than 100,000 years old. This begs the question: YECs don’t tend to trust this dating method, so why is he picking THIS time to trust those particular results? — This really buggs me since he claims that the samples are not contaminated, but EVEN WHEN contamination is NOT a factor, YECs STILL TEND to dismiss C-14 dating. It looks to me this is a case of nit-picking cases that are “convenient.”

    Radiocarbon dating is about as reliable as it gets when it comes to radiometric dating methods. What is uncertain is the assumption that the C-12 / C-14 ratio in the biosphere has always been the same as it is today. If there really was a Noachian Flood within recent history (say, less than 5,000 years ago), this would suggest a significantly greater quantity of C-12 present in the biosphere before the Flood than exists today. This difference in ratio would, of course, produce a significant increase in apparent C-14 age of specimens that were alive before vs. after the Flood.

    Regardless, the presence of significant quantities of C-14 within fossils, coal and oil that is essentially uniform regardless of location or depth within the fossil record, is quite problematic for mainstream thinking – as Dr. Giem’s paper points out quite convincingly…

    And to repeat my suspicions about the dates given on PDF page 26: it puts and upper limit to flood burial as 25,000 years, and the lower limit is 19,000 years, though it suggests that 4,300 years is a possibility as well. Earlier, he says that he didn’t include samples that he considered contaminated. — As I said before, my cynicism is probably what is talking, but I have a hard time believing that non-contaminated samples (that would have been so close to the present time) would have a gap of 6,000 years, especially if they are throught to be the same event. And if 4,300 years ago is also a candidate from the c-14 from his results, then that only makes me even more suspicious since it is way too convenient.

    You don’t seem to grasp the concept of a range of error. The range of error in play here is far more consistent with the creationist position than it is with the mainstream position on origins…

    And, sir, I really want you to back up your assertion that,

    Again, you are mistaken. The finding of elastic soft tissues and sequencable proteins is the rule, not the exception,

    Schweitzer makes this claim herself. To quote her, the same results are repeated, “over and over again” in nearly every case where suitable investigations are performed.

    http://www.detectingdesign.com/fossilizeddna.html#Fresh

    I ask again: If finding elastic tissue in fossil dinosaurs is the rule rather than the exception, then how many dinosaurs have been found that have been shown to have elastic tissue VERSES those that have been found without them?

    Pretty much all of them have such soft tissue preserved…

    The truth is that the sample that Mary Higby Schweitzer was ONLY THE SECOND piece of elastic tissue ever discovered. The first one was ONLY 1 Million years old.

    That’s because no one thought to look before Schweitzer’s accidental discovery because no one thought it was possible due to the known physics of relatively rapid protein decay. But, just because nobody looked doesn’t mean it wasn’t there or that it isn’t the rule rather than the exception.

    And even if she doesn’t understand the mechanisms for how elastic tissue can be preserved for 68 million years, it DOESN’T follow that there ISN’T one, and certainly doesn’t therefore mean the earth is only 6,000 years old.

    Before Schweitzer’s discovery many scientists had gone on record saying that it was scientifically impossible for such elastic soft tissues and sequencable proteins to be preserved beyond a few tens of thousands of years under ideal conditions. This conclusion was based on real time experience dealing with the kinetic activity of molecular structures under both ambient and cold (frozen) conditions.

    So, you see, unless you can come up with some spectacular reason that no one else has thought of yet, it does indeed follow that such a find is quite inconsistent with your mainstream assumptions regarding the age of fossils in the fossil record…

    Sean Pitman
    http://www.DetectingDesign.com

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  89. One individual at Adventist Today wrote the following statement (I don’t know whether he’d want me to point out his name here):

    The argument that the Bible, particularly the story of creation, requires bolstering and validation from science is heresy. The endeavor weakens faith and subjects the Church to embarrassment. The entire spectacle of Adventists trying to bolster the story of creation with science and Intelligent Design has embarrassed God’s holy remnant church. And these individuals, who freely admit that a “Thus saith the Lord” is not good enough for them, should be ashamed of themselves.
    Source: http://atoday.com/content/%E2%80%9Ctelling-lies-god%E2%80%9D-cokepepsi-analogy#comment-11106

    Adam himself had very little to go on other than a simple “Thus saith the Lord.” He failed to trust what he was told, and we will meet the very same fate today if we insist that a simple “Thus saith the Lord” is not adequate for us.

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  90. Sean Pitman has declared repeatedly that he would give up his membership in Adventism, indeed his Christian faith, if science failed to support the SDA interpretation of Genesis. What kind of faith is this? God’s word is not good enough to sustain his beliefs?

    I implore all EducateTruthers to recognize the heresy in this position. If God’s word alone is not good enough to be trusted, then who, really, is your God?

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  91. @Professor Kent:

    Adam himself had very little to go on other than a simple “Thus saith the Lord.” He failed to trust what he was told, and we will meet the very same fate today if we insist that a simple “Thus saith the Lord” is not adequate for us.

    What if I told you that I was God? Would you believe me? Of course not! – right? But why not?

    A stranger walking up to you from off the street could actually be God. Yet, if he told you that he was in fact God, without offering any evidence to back up his claim, don’t tell me you wouldn’t be the tiniest bit skeptical at first (as depicted in the comedy, Bruce Almighty with Jim Carrey).

    Rational humans require evidence as a basis of faith outside of the bold claims of complete strangers to be “God” or this or that book to be “God’s Word.” It is circular reasoning to say, “I believe the Bible is God’s Word because the Bible says so.” And… do you have anything else to go on here? – like some evidence so as to get your faith beyond the blind-faith stage?

    Also, to argue that Adam had no other evidence to believe that God was God and to trust him as God beyond God’s word for it is very naive. Adam had abundant evidence of God’s creative power and His personal care and interest for the new world and the people in it that He had just created. He visited Adam and Eve every day and talked to them face to face. Angels also visited and talked to Adam and Eve every day.

    The mistake that Eve fell into was in believing the bald claims of the serpent at face value without requiring nearly the degree of evidence to support his claims that God had already provided to support His claims. The choice of Eve in falling for the serpent’s lies was so evil because of the fact that she rejected the evidence God had given her of His love and power to create her to begin with in favor of her own selfish desires to be superior to equal with or even superior to God.

    Adam, as we know, was not tricked by the serpent. He trusted God’s warning regarding the true nature and identity of the serpent. However, Adam failed to trust God in God’s ability to deal with the problem of what Eve had already done. That was Adam’s sin in the face of a great deal of empirical evidence that God was in fact able to deal with very difficult problems far beyond Adam’s own capability.

    So no, you are quite mistaken to say that God did not provide Adam and Eve with adequate empirical evidence for His power and character, evidence that would, or at least should, appeal to candid intelligent minds, beyond His mere say so. This is why both Adam and Eve were in fact left without any valid excuse when God asked them why they had done what they did. There was no logical reason for their actions given the evidence that they had been given by God. If God had not provided with this empirical evidence, they could have honestly said, “But we honstly didn’t know who to believe…” Yet, they didn’t not present this argument because they knew that it wasn’t true. They did have enough empirical evidence to make a rational decision on who to believe among competing options…

    Sean Pitman
    http://www.DetectingDesign.com

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  92. @Sean Pitman,

    The journal Origins is peer reviewed by people with their Ph.D.s in the relevant field of study.

    Fine, then my question to you is: Is it peer reviewed by just creationists? If so, then it’s reviewed in the same way Answers in Genesis’ “Answers Research Journal” is which only makes the peer review suspicious. –Sorry, but I learned the hard way not to trust YEC scientists, since they have already decided “a priory,” that they are right and everyone else is wrong; a dishonest stance to take. –The scientists I e-mailed the paper to are Christians, so as to make sure that I am not sending it to people with a reverse agenda.

    Radiocarbon dating is about as reliable as it gets when it comes to radiometric dating methods.What is uncertain is the assumption that the C-12 / C-14 ratio in the biosphere has always been the same as it is today. If there really was a Noachian Flood within recent history (say, less than 5,000 years ago), this would suggest a significantly greater quantity of C-12 present in the biosphere before the Flood than exists today. This difference in ratio would, of course, produce a significant increase in apparent C-14 age of specimens that were alive before vs. after the Flood.

    It’s considered reliable, but scientists shouldn’t be using one method to determine an age. Several methods were used to determine the age of the earth; had they only used one method, I wouldn’t blame people for their skepticism: It’s been tested by the Ar/Ar method, the Pb-Pb isochron, tje Rb-Sr isochron, the Sm-Nd Isochron, etcetera, and they all consistently produced ages between 4.38 to 4.57 billion years for the earth. –You don’t just use one method, you need to confirm it with others.

    And even if you were right that Noah’s flood, assuming it was global (I hold the local flood view), and EVEN IF it affected the C-14 results, tests I just mentioned were done on meteors, and therefore would not have been affected by Noah’s Flood since they would have been out into the astroid belt before Noah’s Flood. Their testing would also be valid for the age of the earth too since (assuming the YEC understanding of Genesis is correct), they would have been created either at the same time as earth, or only four days after.

    Also, even if they had already arrived at earth before the Flood, testing them would still be no problem.– In his essay on Radiometric dating methods (entitled “Radiometric Dating: A Christian Perspective” ), Dr. Roger C. Wiens points out:

    While water can affect the ability to date rock surfaces or other weathered areas, there is generally no trouble dating interior portions of most rocks from the bottom of lakes, rivers, and oceans. Additionally, if ages were disturbed by leaching, the leaching would affect different isotopes at vastly different rates. Ages determined by different methods would be in violent disagreement. If the flood were global in scope, why then would we have any rocks for which a number of different methods all agree with each other? In fact, close agreement between methods for most samples is a hallmark of radiometric dating.

    His essay is linked here: http://www.asa3.org/ASA/resources/wiens.html

    Pretty much all of them have such soft tissue preserved…

    Strange, since no one acknowledges this. Sorry, but I don’t believe you.

    Schweitzer makes this claim herself. To quote her, the same results are repeated, “over and over again” in nearly every case where suitable investigations are performed.

    …and the context of the video, it implies that MOST of the testing and re-testing came from the same individual, since it ONLY mentions the other tests Duck-Billed AFTER, in which case, these are only two examples. Notice she never said that she had tested “several invidual” dinosaurs. She only mentions two individuals.

    On a sidenote: Interestingly enough, the bone that She mentions in the video which she deducted that the T-Rex was a female gives good evidence of bird evolution from theropod dinosaurs, since the medullary bone is exclusive to female birds use to store calcium for making eggshells.

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  93. @ Sean Pitman

    Also, to argue that Adam had no other evidence to believe that God was God and to trust him as God beyond God’s word for it is very naive. Adam had abundant evidence of God’s creative power and His personal care and interest for the new world and the people in it that He had just created. He visited Adam and Eve every day and talked to them face to face. Angels also visited and talked to Adam and Eve every day.

    I didn’t argue this, Sean, your failure to recognize the evidence Adam had is precisely where your faith fails you. Like Adam, you could walk with God day after day. But instead of seeking answers directly from him, you seek your answers, and support, from the dirt–as if the fossils say more about God than what he could tell you himself.

    You’ve sold your soul to science, Sean, and your unwitting followers have followed you there. You need to search your soul and recognize who your God really is. You’ve taken on a lot of responsibility by telling other souls to think only as you do, and God will hold YOU accountable for misleading them.

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  94. @krissmith777:

    The journal Origins is peer reviewed by people with their Ph.D.s in the relevant field of study. – Sean Pitman

    Fine, then my question to you is: Is it peer reviewed by just creationists? If so, then it’s reviewed in the same way Answers in Genesis’ “Answers Research Journal” is which only makes the peer review suspicious. –Sorry, but I learned the hard way not to trust YEC scientists, since they have already decided “a priory,” that they are right and everyone else is wrong; a dishonest stance to take. –The scientists I e-mailed the paper to are Christians, so as to make sure that I am not sending it to people with a reverse agenda.

    Everyone has an agenda and everyone is biased to one degree or another – even your mainstream “Christian scientists” are biased in that they believe, “a priori” in mainstream evolutionary theories and life evolving on this planet over a billion years of time.

    Perhaps this very same kind of bias is what caused you to believe an anti-creationist argument for radiocarbon dating that was published more than 25 years ago? – proving that you really have no idea about the AMS technology that is used today?

    I’m afraid your own bias is showing quite strongly here when it comes to what “evidence” you are willing to choose and present as a basis for belief…

    It’s considered reliable, but scientists shouldn’t be using one method to determine an age. Several methods were used to determine the age of the earth; had they only used one method, I wouldn’t blame people for their skepticism: It’s been tested by the Ar/Ar method, the Pb-Pb isochron, tje Rb-Sr isochron, the Sm-Nd Isochron, etcetera, and they all consistently produced ages between 4.38 to 4.57 billion years for the earth. –You don’t just use one method, you need to confirm it with others.

    You do realize that many of these methods are calibrated against each other? For example, Ar/Ar dating is not an independent dating technique. It must first be calibrated against K/Ar before it can be used. The same thing is true of many other radiometric dating techniques. And, if they are calibrated against each other, they will agree by definition.

    Beyond this, I have no trouble with the age of the material of the Earth itself being far older than the age of life on Earth…

    And even if you were right that Noah’s flood, assuming it was global (I hold the local flood view), and EVEN IF it affected the C-14 results, tests I just mentioned were done on meteors, and therefore would not have been affected by Noah’s Flood since they would have been out into the astroid belt before Noah’s Flood. Their testing would also be valid for the age of the earth too since (assuming the YEC understanding of Genesis is correct), they would have been created either at the same time as earth, or only four days after.

    I think you’re confusing various radiometric dating methods with each other. C-14 isn’t used to date meteors for obvious reasons. The arguments for Noah’s Flood messing up the C12/C14 ratio only pertain to radiocarbon dating.

    Pretty much all of them have such soft tissue preserved… – Sean Pitman

    Strange, since no one acknowledges this. Sorry, but I don’t believe you.

    Well, you’d be wrong. Consider the following article from a 2006 issue of National Geographic (one year after Schweitzer’s first discovery of soft tissues in a T. rex bone) entitled, “Many Dino Fossils Could Have Soft Tissue Inside”:

    Until now, Schweitzer said, “the standard wisdom was that if you dissolve away the mineral [in fossils], there would be nothing left.” That has been the case in about half of the specimens she has examined.

    But the other half have yielded remarkably consistent results. The same features have emerged, and they are virtually indistinguishable from tissue samples from modern species…

    Mary Schweitzer, the North Carolina State University paleontologist who announced the finding, said her team has now repeated that feat with more than a dozen other dinosaur specimens.

    http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/02/0221_060221_dino_tissue.html

    And this article was published just one year after Schweitzer’s discover. There have been many finds of soft tissues within larger dinosaur bones since that time. Consider also a few pre-Schweitzer findings:

    In 1991, the Journal of Paleontology reported on one of the largest dinosaurs ever discovered—Seismosaurous. In the description of the Seismosaurousremains, the author admits—although in a veiled manner—that bone and bone protein is present (Gillett, 11:417-433). In 1992, Dr. Margaret Helder reported two cases of “fresh” dinosaur bones that were discovered in Alaska. In her report she asked: “How these bones could have remained in fresh condition for 70 million years is a perplexing question. One thing is certain: they were not preserved by cold. Everyone recognizes that the climate in these regions was much warmer during the time when the dinosaurs lived” (14:16, emp. in orig.). Also in 1992, an article appeared in Geology journal titled: “Preservation of the Bone Protein Osteocalcin in Dinosaurs.” In this report Gerard Muyzer and his colleagues used a procedure known as polymerase chain reaction (PCR) to amplify a bone protein from two Cretaceous dinosaurs (20:871-874).

    In 1994, Scott Woodward and his colleagues wrote an article titled: “DNA sequences from Cretaceous Period Bone Fragments” (266:1229-1232). In their report, the authors remarked: “DNA was extracted from 80-million-year-old bone fragments found in strata of the Upper Cretaceous Blackhawk Formation in the roof of an underground coal mine in eastern Utah (p. 1229). They continued: “On the basis of the circumstantial physical and geologic evidence, it is likely that the bone fragments belong to a Cretaceous period dinosaur or dinosaurs” (p. 1230, emp. added.). In 1997, an article titled “Heme Compounds in Dinosaur Trabecular Bone” was published (see Schweitzer, et al., 94:6291-6296).

    Yet, you write:

    …and the context of the video, it implies that MOST of the testing and re-testing came from the same individual, since it ONLY mentions the other tests Duck-Billed AFTER, in which case, these are only two examples. Notice she never said that she had tested “several invidual” dinosaurs. She only mentions two individuals.

    Well, you’re just unaware of all that has taken place since her first discovery I guess…

    On a sidenote: Interestingly enough, the bone that She mentions in the video which she deducted that the T-Rex was a female gives good evidence of bird evolution from theropod dinosaurs, since the medullary bone is exclusive to female birds use to store calcium for making eggshells.

    As are hair and milk glands to mammals (for the most part). No one is arguing that striking similarities exist between dinosaurs and birds. Again though, it’s not the similarities that are the problem for evolutionary theories; but the differences… the functional differences beyond very low levels of functional complexity (as defined by Hazen et. al.). Similarities, and even a nested hierarchical pattern of the Tree of Life, are predictions of common design as well as common descent. The problem is that the Darwinian mechanism of RM/NS has a very very hard time explaining the functional differences between different gene pools beyond very low levels of functional complexity. And, there is also the problem of the ratio of detrimental vs. beneficial mutations per individual per generation… leading to genetic meltdown, not evolution, in slowly reproducing creatures like apes and humans and mammals in general…

    Sean Pitman
    http://www.DetectingDesign.com

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  95. Lisa, I read from DOZENS OF PUC STUDENTS who posted messages here DENYING that Bryan Ness teaches evolutionary biology as fact. Are you calling them all liars? Why should I believe YOU instead of THEM? Talking about theistic evolution and the problems we face as creationists does not mean that one believes in theistic evolution. Dr. Ness gave a lecture to the entire campus defending young earth creationism. What would you like for him to do. Give the same lecture once again to prove he’s a creationist?Why don’t you tell us exactly which classes YOU took in which YOU were taught that theistic evolution is fact.  (Quote)

    @Professor Kent: Your response is the reason why students feel like they have to release videos, sound recordings and compiled evidence to show that they’re not wrong, just because they are in the minority going against the popular wave.

    Most of the “dozens” of PUC students who defended Dr. Ness actually hurt his cause by proving that their postmodern philosophy and/or their lack spirituality informed their defense of him. The nature of deception is that you don’t know you’re being deceived. Satan works most of his deceptions in very subtle and almost indetectable ways.

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