I strongly encourage all readers to spend a few minutes …

Comment on An apology to PUC by Professor Kent.

I strongly encourage all readers to spend a few minutes browsing Kurt Wise’s review of Leonard Brand’s book, “Faith, Reason, and Earth History”, available at this site: http://www.arn.org/docs/odesign/od201/br_youngagecreationism201.htm. Here are a few choice characterizations of Dr. Brand’s perspective that contrast very markedly with the approach of the “heroes” of this website.

Brand also provides valuable suggestions on what a Christian ethic of science might be. “We must be honest with the uncertainties in the data,” he writes, “,and be careful to distinguish between data and interpretation. We must approach the task with humility and open-mindedness, even if the data point to dimensions of reality beyond our current understanding. Above all it is essential that we treat each other with respect.” Brand heeds his own ethic throughout the book, consistently discussing the weaknesses and tentativeness of each of the theories he proposes, with humility and open-mindedness. The phrase “more research is needed on this point” recurs frequently throughout the book. Brand is also honest in evaluating alternative models and noting their strengths. “I suggest that at this time naturalism has better answers for some data,” he writes (p. 74).

Brand also treats evolutionists with respect, noting that “Scientists are portrayed sometimes as being very stupid to believe in evolution. That approach is neither true nor constructive. Evolution is not a theory to laugh at. One who is knowledgeable about the data can make a good case for it”(p. 149). Brand urges creationists to refrain from evolution-bashing and instead “conduct themselves as genuine scientists and get actively involved in research. It is better to develop an alternative paradigm than to merely poke holes in someone else’s theory”(p. 76). He ends by saying, “I see reasons to believe that, if we do trust Him, that belief will help us to be good scientists” (p. 318).

On all sides of the origins debate, the most difficult phrase to say may be I don’t know. “We like to have answers for everything,” Brand notes (pp. 317-8), “but we don’t have answers for all the questions about earth history. We will be much better off to recognize that the limitation in the available evidence and in the amount of time we have for research on these issues makes it unrealistic to expect scientific answers for all of our questions in the future.” Unfortunately, the demand by the Christian public for answers, and the willingness of popularizers to provide those answers, have encouraged shoddy work on the part of creationists. Ideas are sometimes accepted and popularized before they have been adequately reviewed in the scientific literature. We would have a slimmer but better literature on creationism if the public would refuse to be satisfied with anything but well-tested truth.

Kurt Wise, by the way, is a well-recognized and well-published, very legitimate creationist scientist (and non-SDA).

Professor Kent Also Commented

An apology to PUC
OTNT_Believer, Eddie, and others

Give it up. You cannot have a cogent discussion with Dr. Pitman because he does not speak your language. He uses definitions for things like “macroevolution” that you will not find anywhere else in the world. ANYWHERE. You can’t argue against that. It doesn’t matter what your PhD is in–he is sure to know more. Period. And if need be, he will make up facts as he goes along (like erosion is happening faster on the summit of Mt. Everest than on lower slopes or beneath moving glaciers).

The instruction from the Bible and Ellen White are very clear that we are to avoid excessive argument. Dr. Pitman thrives on debate, as he cannot and never will heed this council. But we can and really should end this debate.


An apology to PUC
@ Harold Bear

If ET believes that PUC, LSU, or any of our other SDA institutions are not meeting the standards set by the church, then they should take up their case with the organization that has been assigned the task of overseeing these schools, and not demand that institutions hand over documents and materials to ET, which has no official connection with the church.

Outstanding advice.


An apology to PUC
Historical isolation resulted in the different races of humans via a process very similar to allopatric speciation in animals.

When differentiated populations come into contact and begin to interbreed, two factors are readily used to examine whether these populations have evolved sufficiently to become distinct species: (1) the degree of introgression (non-assortative mating) and (2) whether barriers rapidly evolve to reduce or prevent introgression.

There is no lack of data for humans. In contrast to many differentiated animal populations recognized as distinct species, contemporary Homo sapiens is NOT comprised of multiple species, no matter how staunchly one tries to argue the point. This debate is becoming absurd.


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.