@Bravus: Bravus, I have taught at the university level for 16 …

Comment on LSU Board news release and actions by Jonathan Smith.

@Bravus: Bravus,

I have taught at the university level for 16 years and I do not fully agree with you.

1) A university must have a mission and objectives
2) A university must have a target population (even if anybody and everybody)
3) A university must have a governance structure
4) A university is not a free-for-all

Academic freedom only operates when it falls within the parameters of those points above. The moment any person in the university goes astray, it is the responsibility of the head (Principal, President, Chancellor, Vice Chancellor, etc) to see that that straying is corrected.

In this modern technological age, it is easy to monitor.

For example, where I am all courses have an electronic base and the dean has access to all the course content. Thus it is his right to review if he feels that what is being taught is an anomaly.

Now a head will not scrutinise every course outline and lecture material, but once a complaint is aired about a course it is incumbent on those in authority to investigate and see that the issues are resolved.

Thus if any SDA complains that evolution is taught, IT MUST BE RESOLVED!

It is not necessary either for the head to be a content expert. There is a process of peer review. In this case he can call on professors of related courses in different SDA universities to review the material.

Jonathan Smith Also Commented

LSU Board news release and actions

BobRyan: @Bravus:Honesty demands that we admit that nobody is arguing that devoted atheist evolutionist Colin Patterson was ever a creationist.Honesty demands that we admit that the point of quoting Patterson was neveer to claim “atheiist evolutionists like Patterson really believe creationism” – but rather that Patterson was pointing to the junk-science storytelling so often used to prop up evolutionism — and lamenting it.However as a devoted atheist himself – Patterson clearly felt he had “nowhere else to go”. How can that not-so-subtle point be missed??in Christ,Bob  

You have the right response Bob. I might add that I was not claiming Patterson did not make a rebuttal, but the essence of Patterson’s discourse shows the faith-based absurdities of evolutionary conclusions which Bravus, Carl and others call science.

History and ultimately God will judge just who was honest.

If someone claims to believe in God, it behooves that person to believe God’s word OVER what “scientists” claim. Secondly, if such a person has “scientific training” then before spouting evolutionary garbage, one should evaluate the conclusions drawn to find the weaknesses and loopholes that should weaken its arguments.

I find the evolutionists posting here are not interested in showing up the weaknesses of evolution, but are desperately trying to find some evidence evolution MAY be true. Patterson could not find ONE TRUTH in evolution.

Who is dishonest? Could it be that the so-called God worshippers are taking His name in vain? Claiming to believing in God but secretly and openly undermining faith in Him, that is the ultimate form of dishonesty, torpedoing the faith of many.


LSU Board news release and actions
http://www.arn.org/arnproducts/audios/c010.htm

Can You Tell Me Anything About Evolution?
November 1981 Presentation at the American Museum of Natural History
By Colin Patterson

Audio CD and Annotated Transcript

What would happen if you awoke one morning and suddenly realized that you no longer accepted the scientific theory on which, thus far, you had based your life’s work? This is precisely the experience paleontologist Colin Patterson conveyed to the Systematics Discussion Group nearly twenty years ago in his now famous presentation.

On November 5, 1981, at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, Colin Patterson gave a presentation entitled “Evolutionism and Creationism” to the Systematics Discussion Group. The presentation was taped, and an unauthorized (bootleg) transcript was made. Now, 19 years later, Access Research Network has obtained the original audio tape of Patterson’s historical presentation. After several months of careful work, in consultation with a witness to the 1981 presentation, ARN is releasing to the public the original audio tape, and an edited transcription of the tape. The transcript includes a large amount of previously unreleased material, notably the 40 minute question-and-answer period, where Patterson interacts with evolutionary biologists such as Niles Eldredge, Keith Stewart Thomson, Stanley Salthe, and James Farris. The transcript also includes an historical introduction by Paul Nelson, biographical footnotes and literature citations.

Here are a few of Patterson’s famous comments that you can now listen to and read in their full context:

“But it’s true that for the last eighteen months or so, I’ve been kicking around non-evolutionary or even anti-evolutionary ideas.”

“Now, one of the reasons I started taking this anti-evolutionary view, well, let’s call it non-evolutionary, was last year I had a sudden realization. For over twenty years I had thought that I was working on evolution in some way. One morning I woke up, and something had happened in the night, and it struck me that I had been working on this stuff for twenty years, and there was not one thing I knew about it. That was quite a shock, to learn that one can be so misled for so long.”

“So either there is something wrong with me, or there was something wrong with evolutionary theory. Naturally I know there’s nothing wrong with me. So for the last few weeks, I’ve tried putting a simple question to various people and groups of people. The question is this: Can you tell me anything you know about evolution, any one thing, any one thing that you think is true?”

“Well, I’m not interested in the controversy over teaching in high school, and if any militant creationists have come here looking for political ammunition, I hope they’ll be disappointed.”

“I shall take the text of my sermon from this book, Gillespie’s Charles Darwin and the Problem of Creation….He takes it for granted that a rationalist view of nature has replaced an irrational one, and of course, I myself took that view, up until about eighteen months ago. And then I woke up and I realized that all my life I had been duped into taking evolutionism as revealed truth in some way.”

“Well, we’re back to the question I’ve been putting to people, ‘Is there one thing you can tell me about evolution?’ And the absence of an answer seems to suggest that it is true, evolution does not convey any knowledge, or if so, I haven’t yet heard it.”

“Now I think many people in this room would acknowledge that during the last few years, if you had thought about it at all, you’ve experienced a shift from evolution as knowledge to evolution as faith. I know that’s true of me, and I think it’s true of a good many of you in here.”

“So that’s my first theme. That evolution and creationism seem to be showing remarkable parallels. They are increasingly hard to tell apart. And the second theme is that evolution not only conveys no knowledge, but seems somehow to convey anti-knowledge, apparent knowledge which is actually harmful to systematics.”

No longer do you have to depend on incomplete transcripts or bootleg tapes. Now you can experience the full impact of listening to the complete original recording of this amazing talk with the assistance of a well-annotated transcript that required hundreds of hours to compile and transcribe. And this entire product has been carefully reviewed by one of the original witnesses of the event who assisted us in identifying the speakers during the lively discussion session that followed the talk, material which has never before been available and reveals the full impact of Patterson’s presentation on his peers.

Can You Tell Me Anything About Evolution?
November 1981 Presentation at the American Museum of Natural History
By Colin Patterson


LSU Board news release and actions
What we should see in the fossil record if Darwinian evolution is true.

http://www.bibleprobe.org/objection.html

Classic evolution theory says that species gradually developed from previous species. In fact, the process was so slow, it would be impossible to pinpoint exactly when a new species emerged. Each generation would possess infinitesimal differences from the previous generation. Only after several thousands, or even millions of generations, would one be able to recognize species differences. This is much like looking at a motion picture. Each frame captures a split second of time. If you look at each frame one at a time, it would be hard to recognize movement. There isn’t much change between frames. Only if you look at the frames in rapid succession do you see motion. This is what classical evolution says we should see in the fossil record. Fossils represent individual frames in the movie-of-life. As we discover more and more fossils, the frames in evolution’s progress, we should be able to piece them together into a film that shows how life evolved. Like the images on the individual frames in a film, the difference from one frame to the next ought to be too small to distinguish. Fossils should show such gradual changes that eventually we ought to have a fossil record with no exact boundaries between species.

Yet …

Is this what the fossil record has shown… over the last one hundred and fifty years? The answer is no! The fossil record shows no transitional forms. It didn’t when Darwin proposed his theory, and it has gotten worse for the evolutionist ever since.

In his book, Darwin’s Enigma, Luther Sunderland reveals much about the truth of the fossil record.(2*)

“The geological record is extremely imperfect and this fact will to a large extent explain why we do not find intermediate varieties, connecting together all the extinct and existing forms of life by the finest graduated steps.” (3*)

“Back in 1940, Dr. Richard B. Goldschmidt had faced the horns of this dilemma-of-the-gaps with his hopeful monster theory, the idea that every once in awhile an offspring was produced that was a monster grossly different from its parents.” (4*)

“Dr. Niles Eldredge, curator of Invertebrate Paleontology at the American Museum, was collaborating with Dr. Stephen Jay Gould of Harvard and calling their new theory, aimed at explaining the gaps, ‘punctuated equilibria.” (5*)

“Dr. David Raup, curator of geology at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago,published an article in the January 1979 issue (vol. 50, no. 1) of the museum’s journal entitled ‘Conflicts Between Darwinism and Paleontology’ in which he stated that the 250,000 species of plants and animal recorded and deposited in museums throughout the world did not support the gradual unfolding hoped for by Darwin.” (6*)


Recent Comments by Jonathan Smith

LSU statement regarding resignations and Bradley’s email
Eccl 12:13-14


Private Recorded Conversation Prompts La Sierra Resignations
Eccl 12:13-14
Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man. For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil.

There are some who object to privately recorded conversations being used in this manner (like the Spectrum blog) but could it be that God is causing judgment on unacceptable behaviour?


[6/17/11 UPDATE] Two administrators, one biology professor, and one board member resign

Marilyn Bauer:
I stand in support of Educate Truth and its efforts to maintain integrity on an SDA campus of higher education. “Once to every man and nation (university) comes the moment to decide, in the strife of truth and falsehood, for the good or evil side.”Our church history shows that we have had to watch church institutions (Battle Creek San and Hospital) leave the sisterhood of institutions due to false teachings by its leadership. We should not be surprised if the cost of fidelity to truth has a price. Politically, we know that freedom has a price. Spiritually, fidelity to truth has a price.

I regret that Shane is coming under attack for having the courage to keep the light burning for doctrinal truth in Adventist education. We have long purported the idea of integration of faith and learning. Why would we want to excuse a science department who moves away from the “faith” aspect of its discipline?

All those who decide to live a Biblically faithful life shall suffer persecution.


[6/17/11 UPDATE] Two administrators, one biology professor, and one board member resign
Casey,
You ought to grow up. I don’t see how Educate Truth can cause anybody to be fired. After all, it does not pay salaries and it is not a decision maker at all. Educate Truth has only been a commentator.

If the university Chair said the issues with the bio dept are not the factors, then you should take up your beef with the chair and indeed ask him for the explanations. It is rather small of you to attack Hilde and his blog at a time like this.

If at anytime in the future there is evidence (not speculation) to support your claim, THEN you may rant and rail. Yet, you apparently have no idea what it means to be faithful to the Bible and you either accept evolution as fact or saw no conflict with what the professors taught.

If at all you consider yourself a Christian, I hope you recognise that faithfulness to Bible truths is more important than worldly honour and all will have to give an account for their actions later. I think Educate Truth has tried to be faithful to the Bible contrary to some professed Christians.


Former LSU student letter reveals professor’s agenda
Where men refused to deal with the apostates, those in charge will be accounted as guilty.

In the great reckoning to come they will pay.

I am glad this lady had the courage to speak and write. The evidence is plain for all to see.