Comment on “Autonomy and Academic Freedom”: WASC’s 2010 Review of LSU by Sean Pitman.
What is interesting to me is WASC’s threat against one of our schools with the use of “academic freedom, institutional autonomy, and the role of the governing board”… independent of the Church’s entire purpose for creating a school in the first place. The Church isn’t asking that theories of evolution be removed from the curriculum of its schools. That’s not remotely true. The Church is arguing that these Darwinian and other mainstream evolutionary theories should be explained in great detail; but that our own professors should be able to go beyond the mere teaching of these theories to explain to their students how and why these theories are actually untenable given the overall weight of evidence in favor of the SDA perspective on origins – evidence which should also be presented in our schools in the most eloquent and attractive manner possible.
Yet, WASC goes on with its threat against our Church Schools with the following statement:
Realizing that this is a challenging denominational matter, the Commission is deeply concerned with this external threat to La Sierra’s institutional autonomy and to academic freedom. In your communications with the Commission, both in writing prior to meeting and at the Commission meeting, you expressed the commitment of the board and the president to resist efforts that would compromise academic freedom and institutional autonomy.
What? Is the Church supposed to support the “freedom” of a teacher to undermine the very purpose of the Church school to begin with? – the very reason why the SDA Church built it and supports it? Turning the tables around, “academic freedom” has not protected those who would think to question mainstream evolutionary thinking within public universities or institutions.
Just look at what happened to Dr. Richard Sternberg, the editor of the peer-reviewed mainstream scientific journal Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington when it published Stephen Meyer’s paper, “The Origin of Biological Information and the Higher Taxonomic Categories” which questioned mainstream evolutionary thinking. Sternberg’s “academic freedom” did not prevent him from loosing his academic rank and his job at the Smithsonian Institute.
http://www.educatetruth.com/featured/angry-scientists-publishing-on-intelligent-design/
What WASC is trying to do is to uphold a state-sponsored religious philosophy of science at the expense of opposing views being presented against the prevailing view. This is not what SDA education should be about. The Church should strongly resist the implications of this WASC review or end up loosing all benefit to the Church’s goals and ideals from owning and operating its own schools of higher learning…
Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com
Sean Pitman Also Commented
“Autonomy and Academic Freedom”: WASC’s 2010 Review of LSU
@Professor Kent:
Note that there is nothing, absolutely NOTHING, in the WASC guidelines that prohibits the teaching of SDA beliefs. And the endorsement of LSU by WASC says nothing, absolutely NOTHING, about whether LSU teaches or does not teach LSU beliefs.
WASC’s emphasis on the academic freedom of professors comes at the expense of the freedom of the institution to remove professors from employment who are no longer representative of the Church’s clearly stated goals and ideals. WASC cites a need for the school to have “appropriate autonomy” or distance from the SDA Church – even though it is the Church that built, owns and operates the school. Where does WASC recognize the responsibility of professors toward their employer? the Church in this case?
This hiding behind the notion of “academic freedom” in order to continue to openly deride and undermine the Church’s most fundamental doctrinal positions in the classroom is sheer nonsense. After all, Catholic schools have recently fired teachers for undermining Catholic doctrine outside of the classroom (and a math teacher no less – see Link). Yet, no accrediting agency threatened the Catholic Church with loss of accreditation of its schools over such infringements of “academic freedom”? Why not?
To quote the reason for the Catholic school’s dismissal of this math teacher:
“When students in a Catholic school are running around the school with this survey and it says, ‘Do you believe in God?’ and it says, ‘No,’ well, that’s in conflict with what we are teaching.”
WASC would have a cow if LSU required its professors to answer “Yes” to questions regarding fundamental SDA beliefs on origins – like, “Do you believe in a literal 6-day creation week where God created all living things on this planet?” Or, “Do you believe in a literal worldwide Noachian Flood that destroyed all land animal life on this planet and formed much of the geologic column and fossil record?”
WASC is in fact threatening LSU, and essentially all of our schools in the western US, with loss of accreditation if the SDA Church insists that teachers actually support the Church’s doctrinal positions in their classrooms – to include their science classrooms. That’s a problem for the Church… a big problem…
Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com
Recent Comments by Sean Pitman
Science and Methodological Naturalism
Very interesting passage. After all, if scientists are honest with themselves, scientific methodologies are well-able to detect the existence of intelligent design behind various artifacts found in nature. It’s just the personal philosophy of scientists that makes them put living things and the origin of the fine-tuned universe “out of bounds” when it comes to the detection of intelligent design. This conclusion simply isn’t dictated by science itself, but by a philosophical position, a type of religion actually, that strives to block the Divine Foot from getting into the door…
Revisiting God, Sky & Land by Fritz Guy and Brian Bull
@Ron:
Why is it that creationists are afraid to acknowledge the validity of Darwinism in these settings? I don’t see that these threaten a belief in God in any way whatsoever.
The threat is when you see no limitations to natural mindless mechanisms – where you attribute everything to the creative power of nature instead of to the God of nature.
God has created natural laws that can do some pretty amazing things. However, these natural laws are not infinite in creative potential. Their abilities are finite while only God is truly infinite.
The detection of these limitations allows us to recognize the need for the input of higher-level intelligence and creative power that goes well beyond what nature alone can achieve. It is here that the Signature of God is detectable.
For those who only hold a naturalistic view of the universe, everything is attributed to the mindless laws of nature… so that the Signature of God is obscured. Nothing is left that tells them, “Only God or some God-like intelligent mind could have done this.”
That’s the problem when you do not recognize any specific limitations to the tools that God has created – when you do not recognize the limits of nature and what natural laws can achieve all by themselves.
Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com
Revisiting God, Sky & Land by Fritz Guy and Brian Bull
@Bill Sorensen:
Since the fall of Adam, Sean, all babies are born in sin and they are sinners. God created them. Even if it was by way of cooperation of natural law as human beings also participated in the creation process.
God did not create the broken condition of any human baby – neither the physical or moral brokenness of any human being. God is responsible for every good thing, to include the spark or breath of life within each one of us. However, He did not and does not create those things within us that are broken or bad.
“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. “The servants asked him, ‘Do you want us to go and pull them up?'” Matthew 13:27-28
Of course, all humans are indeed born broken and are in a natural state of rebellion against God. However, God is not the one who created this condition nor is God responsible for any baby being born with any kind of defect in character, personality, moral tendency, or physical or genetic abnormality. God did not create anyone with such brokenness. Such were the natural result of rebellion against God and heading the temptations of the “enemy”… the natural result of a separation from God with the inevitable decay in physical, mental, and moral strength.
Of course, the ones who are born broken are not responsible for their broken condition either. However, all of us are morally responsible for choosing to reject the gift of Divine Grace once it is appreciated… and for choosing to go against what we all have been given to know, internally, of moral truth. In other words, we are responsible for rebelling against the Royal Law written on the hearts of all mankind.
This is because God has maintained in us the power to be truly free moral agents in that we maintain the Power to choose, as a gift of God (Genesis 3:15). We can choose to accept or reject the call of the Royal Law, as the Holy Spirit speaks to all of our hearts…
Remember the statement by Mrs. White that God is in no wise responsible for sin in anyone at any time. God is working to fix our broken condition. He did not and does not create our broken condition. Just as He does not cause Babies to be born with painful and lethal genetic defects, such as those that result in childhood leukemia, He does not cause Babies to be born with defects of moral character either. God is only directly responsible for the good, never the evil, of this life.
Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com
Revisiting God, Sky & Land by Fritz Guy and Brian Bull
@Ron:
Again, your all-or-nothing approach to the claims of scientists isn’t very scientific. Even the best and most famous of scientists has had numerous hair-brained ideas that were completely off base. This fact does not undermine the good discoveries and inventions that were produced.
Scientific credibility isn’t based on the person making the argument, but upon the merits of the argument itself – the ability of the hypothesis to gain predictive value when tested. That’s it.
Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com
Gary Gilbert, Spectrum, and Pseudogenes
Don’t be so obtuse here. We’re not talking about publishing just anything in mainstream journals. I’ve published several articles myself. We’re talking about publishing the conclusion that intelligent design was clearly involved with the origin of various artifactual features of living things on this planet. Try getting a paper that mentions such a conclusion published…
Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com
