Sean&#032Pitman: Seeing the weight of evidence in support of the …

Comment on Faith & Science Sabbath School examines LSU’s apology by Professor Kent.

Sean&#032Pitman: Seeing the weight of evidence in support of the Bible increases one’s faith in the notion that the Bible really is the Word of God.

Sean, we see this claim from you almost daily. But what do you really know about the evidence?

According to Web of Science, in the last decade alone there have been the following number of papers dealing with the topics of

FOSSIL: 24,522 papers
DNA: 88,020 papers
EVOLUTION: >100,000 papers

I would bet my gall bladder, my pancreas, and my left kidney that you have not read so much as the title of 0.1% of these papers, much less the abstract or any other content of those papers. You have failed to examine more than 99.9% of the evidence! Yet you continue to boast that you know the “evidence” well enough to determine the “weight” of it, and you insist that any SDA employee who has failed to reach the same conclusion as you is unfit to teach in the Church.

As you are fond of saying yourself, you don’t know what you are talking about.

Professor Kent Also Commented

Faith & Science Sabbath School examines LSU’s apology

Sean&#032Pitman: Lots of people disagree with the Church’s position on origins – to include the vast majority of mainstream scientists. No one expects these scientists to “lie for Jesus” as employees of the SDA Church. However, if you don’t agree with the Church’s position on origins, why should the SDA Church hire you to tell people that the Church’s position is scientifically untenable and ludicrously irrational – even if you’re doing so honestly? Again, honesty alone is not enough to be an effective representative of the goals and ideals of the SDA Church as an organization.

Dr. Clausen does not fit your scenario. He has never said the SDA position is scientfically untenable and ludicrously irrational. He just doesn’t believe we have a model that adequately addresses the evidence. Dr. Brand and other SDA biologists concede the same. You’re the only SDA singing the tune that overwhelming evidence supports our position.

The SDA Church simply cannot afford to hire science teacher who don’t honestly believe that the Church’s position is in fact empirically rational – that there’s more to go on than blind faith.

You’re disingenious to continue insisting that I and other scientists in the Church dismiss all evidence. Your ploy to paint us people is patently dishonest. I’ve asked you stop and I’ll do so once again.

Our issue is simply that in the absence of overwhelming evidence, we still choose to believe on faith. Sorry it outrages you so, but those who accept this position ARE qualified to teach in the Church. Frankly, the Church cannot afford to fire hundreds of faculty who take a stance on faith. You haven’t figured it out yet, but you’re virtually alone with an advanced degree insisting that overwhelming evidence supports our position.

Obviously the current Church leadership agrees with me or they wouldn’t be so upset about what is going on at LSU.

Ironically, the problem at LSU has been faculty who take YOUR position: that evidence trumps faith. Obviously, the Church disagrees with your position on overwhelming evidence because they are not in the process of firing hundreds or thousands of employees who accept Genesis on faith. And…sorry to bruise your ego…THE CHURCH NEVER WILL.


Faith & Science Sabbath School examines LSU’s apology

Ken: I have gained a great appreciation for Adventism over the last four years, which has had a salutary effect on my life. Why? Because I have found an earnest group of friends that passionately care about the essence of life: why we are here? Design? Accident? Mystery?

Ken, just a note to express my utmost admiration and appreciation for your unfailingly congenial communications. You amaze me!

Professor Kent
Professing Christ until the whole world hears


Faith & Science Sabbath School examines LSU’s apology

Sean&#032Pitman: There is also no tenable scientific explanation for the lack of other markers of the passage of time, like erosion or bioturbation

There is plenty of bioturbation, with an abundance of ongoing studies documenting it.

Sean&#032Pitman: Sure, a few like you and Prof. Kent may stay in the Church in spite of the perceived weight of evidence or because of empirically blind faith alone.

You have been told repeatedly that we and others like us do not take an empirically blind stance. You need to learn how to treat others with more respect, Sean, and stop the flagrant lying. I suggest you spend more time contemplating the life of Christ and how he treated others. He did not resort to continuous mischaracterization and sneers.


Recent Comments by Professor Kent

Gary Gilbert, Spectrum, and Pseudogenes
Nic&#032Samojluk: No wonder most creationist writers do not even try to submit their papers to such organizations.
Who wants to waste his/her time trying to enter through a door that is closed to him/her a priori?

You have no idea what you’re writing about, Nic. As it turns out, there are in fact many of us Adventists who “waste” our time publishing articles through doors that open to us a priori. Even Leonard Brand at Loma Linda, a widely recognized creationist, has published in the top geology journals. I mean the top journals in the discipline.

The myth that creationists cannot publish in mainstream science is perpetuated by people who simply do not understand the culture of science–and will remain clueless that they do not understand it even when confronted with their misunderstandings. Such is human nature.


Southern Adventist University opens Origins Exhibit
Pauluc,

Your questions about conservation genetics are very insightful. I don’t understand how all these life forms were able to greatly increase in genetic diversity while simultaneously winding down and losing genetic information to mutations. Sean seems to insist that both processes happen simultaneously. I had the impression he has insisted all along that the former cannot overcome the latter. But I think you must be right: God had to intervene to alter the course of nature. However, we can probably test this empirically because there must be a signature of evidence available in the DNA. I’ll bet Sean can find the evidence for this.

I’m also glad the predators (just 2 of most such species) in the ark had enough clean animals (14 of each such species) to eat during the deluge and in the months and years after they emerged from the ark that they didn’t wipe out the vast majority of animal species through predation. Maybe they all consumed manna while in the ark and during the first few months or years afterward. Perhaps Sean can find in the literature a gene for a single digestive enzyme that is common to all predatory animals, from the lowest invertebrate to the highest vertebrate. Now that would be amazing.

Wait a minute–I remember once being told that SDA biologists like Art Chadwick believe that some animals survived on floating vegetation outside the ark. Now that would solve some of these very real problems! I wonder whether readers here would allow for this possibility. Multiple arks without walls, roof, and human caretakers.


Southern Adventist University opens Origins Exhibit

Ellen White said, “In the days of Noah, men…many times larger than now exist, were buried, and thus preserved as an evidence to later generations that the antediluvians [presumably referring to humans] perished by a flood. God designed that the discovery of these things should establish faith in inspired history…”

Sean Pitman said, “All human fossils discovered so far are Tertiary or post-Flood fossils. There are no known antediluvian human fossils.”

Ellen White tells us that humans and dinosaurs (presumably referred to in the statement, “a class of very large animals which perished at the flood… mammoth animals”) lived together before the flood. Evolutionary biologists tell us that dinosaurs and humans never lived together. You’re telling us, Sean, that the fossil record supports the conclusion of evolutionists rather than that of Ellen White and the SDA Church. Many of the “very large animals which perished at the flood” are found only in fossil deposits prior to or attributed to the flood, whereas hunans occur in fossil deposits only after the flood (when their numbers were most scarce).

Should the SDA biologists, who are supposed to teach “creation science,” be fired if they teach what you have just conceded?


La Sierra Univeristy Fires Dr. Lee Greer; Signs anti-Creation Bond
For those aghast about the LSU situation and wondering what other SDA institutions have taken out bonds, hold on to your britches. You’ll be stunned when you learn (soon) how many of our other schools, and which ones in particular, have taken out these bonds. You will be amazed to learn just how many other administrators have deliberately secularized their institutions besides Randal Wisbey, presumably because they too hate the SDA Church (as David Read has put it so tactfully).

Be sure to protest equally loudly.


Gary Gilbert, Spectrum, and Pseudogenes
@Sean Pitman:

So clearly you believe that science can explain supernatural events. Congratulations on that.