Professors in general–including SDA professors–tend to be tolerant of a …

Comment on For real education reform, take a cue from the Adventists by Eddie.

Professors in general–including SDA professors–tend to be tolerant of a diversity of views, including those that contradict their personal views. They have to be that way. Classrooms are filled with students of diverse backgrounds and beliefs. Many students in SDA institutions are non-SDA and non-Christian. Professors must be respect their views and not impose their personal views on students. This website exists mainly because certain professors did not respect the views of students who believe in the traditional SDA interpretations of origins.

Of course there are devout SDA professors who would like to have colleagues who share their views, but very few care to rock the boat–and not at all because they fear losing their jobs. As I have mentioned before, one of the major challenges of SDA educational institutions is hiring professors who fully support the SDA mission. Any time there is a vacancy for a teaching position there are very few candidates, not all of whom are supportive of the SDA church. What is a college or university administration to do? That is why some non-SDAs and fringe SDAs are hired. I could mention names, but what good would it do? Once somebody is hired full time and has been working for a certain number of years, it is extremely difficult to fire that individual. The lack of supportive SDA candidates is not the fault of administrators, nor the fault of professors who recognize the limitations of what can be done. What we need are more dedicated SDA members who aspire to become professors so that our institutions can be more selective in who is hired.

Eddie Also Commented

For real education reform, take a cue from the Adventists
@ Brother Johnny,

Are you prepared to meet Him with excuses for knowing the “rules” of order yet doing nothing?

I strongly believe that public criticism of individuals is a violation of the sixth commandment. I also believe it is wrong for a professor in a SDA university to undermine SDA beliefs, including the promotion of megaevolution over billions of years. I have personally written e-mails and verbally expressed my concern to several church leaders about the situation at LSU, and I have also expressed my concern at this website. However, I do not believe God wants me to endorse the public criticism here at Educate Truth of four biology professors at LSU, one at PUC, one at WWU, a geology professor at LLU, a scientist and the director of GRI, the former president of PUC, the president of SAU, and the director of SDA education, and a vice-president of the GC.

Regretably I have broken the 6th commandment and many others on many occasions. I am a sinner and I daily ask God to forgive me. Yes, I am prepared to meet Him. However, if you feel obligated to rebuke me publicly for my open rebellion against God, I am always willing to listen to the counsel of a brother in Christ. Have a blessed Sabbath!


For real education reform, take a cue from the Adventists
@ Johnny Vance:

The Lord sent a prophet to publicly rebuke him and cause enough cognitive dissonance in the minds of all the Israelites present to avoid the apostasy.

Remember when He [Jesus] cast out the priests and money-changers from the temple and called them out publicly?

Good points: God sent prophets and His son to rebuke! Is somebody here at Educate Truth claiming to be a prophet sent by God?


For real education reform, take a cue from the Adventists
In my experience “the progressive ultra-liberal professors at our colleges and universities” are the minority (and a small minority, I think) rather than the majority. They shouldn’t be hired in the first place but unfortunately they are. And what can be done? If you fire a tenured professor (most institutions give short-term contracts for several years before giving tenure) you’re looking at a potential lawsuit against an institution that can barely meet its payroll obligations with borrowed money. And then the institution must scrounge up further money to fly candidates to the institution for interviews and pay for the moving expenses of a selected candidate–who may be no more supportive of SDA beliefs than the professor who is fired. And even if a qualified candidate can be found who strongly supports SDA beliefs, there is no guarantee that the candidate has the personality traits conducive to becoming an effective teacher. I think most of you have had at least one professor who never should have been a professor.

Consider for a moment the issue of LSU biologists. If you fire one or a few or all of them, who are you going to replace them with? As I recall (my numbers could be mistaken), this past year SAU advertised for three biologists and interviewed four, but hired only one deemed to be “safe.” UC advertised for a biologist and SWAU advertised for two. LLU produces a very small number of PhD graduates in its Department of Earth and Biological Sciences–a department which happens to be very conservative in its interpretations of origins (contrary to the mistaken views of some who assume it to be a bastion of liberalism). And as it turns out many of the strongest supporters of SDA beliefs among our science faculty are alumni of the graduate program at LLU, where they were mentored by staunch SDA supporters such as Drs. Brand, Buccheim and Hayes. Yet only a few years ago the administration of LLU announced it was going to shut down the program. As a consequence the department has diverted a considerable amount of its time and resources from research and supervision of students–which should be its priorities–to fund-raising, simply to keep the sinking ship of science graduate education afloat.

So it saddens me to read the disparaging comments of others here clamoring to fire professors, shutter science programs and even disenfranchise institutions. If you guys really want to change the status quo you must find ways to increase the support for SDA science programs, otherwise you’ll simply get what you pay for.


Recent Comments by Eddie

Changing the Wording of Adventist Fundamental Belief #6 on Creation

SDA Bio Prof: The Bible makes multiple falsifiable prophecies about Nebuchadnezzar conquering Egypt, yet history never records it happening. Does this mean the Bible is effectively falsified?

Sean Pitman: Egyptians had a strong tendency not to record their losses… only their victories.

Sean, does that mean YOU personally believe Babylon conquered Egypt, just as predicted by two prophets? In the absence of any empirical evidence? If the Egyptians didn’t record their losses, why wouldn’t the Babylonians have recorded such a stunning victory?


Southern Adventist University opens Origins Exhibit

Holly Pham: One of the things that has always concerned me is that, according to what I’ve read, birds and reptiles have completely different forms of respiratory systems (flow-through vs. bellows) How is this explained by evolutionists?

Evidence from the vertebrae of non-avian theropod dinosaurs suggests that they, too, possessed unidirectional flow-through ventilation of the lungs. So, according to evolutionary theory, it evolved first in “primitive” non-avian theropods rather than in birds, and comprises one of many shared derived characters supposedly linking birds with more “advanced” theropods. However, I don’t think there is any evidence or even a hypothesis for a step-by-step process of HOW it evolved. Here is a reference:

http://www.ohio.edu/people/ridgely/OconnorClaessensairsacs.pdf


Southern Adventist University opens Origins Exhibit
@Bob Helm: Bob, if you send me an e-mail at sdabioprof2@gmail.com I will send you a pdf file of a 1991 article published by Chatterjee in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B 332:277-342, titled “Cranial anatomy and relationships of a new Triassic bird from Texas.”

Curiously his description is based only on cranial anatomy. I don’t think he ever published an analysis of its postcranial anatomy.


Southern Adventist University opens Origins Exhibit

David Read: Eddie, ecological zonation will yield the same basic order that you’re pointing to: invertebrates appear before vertebrates; fish appear before amphibians; amphibians appear before reptiles; reptiles appear before mammals; reptiles appear before birds, etc.

It could, and it’s the best creationist explanation, but it doesn’t explain why flowering plants were absent from lowland forests. Or why so many land plants appeared before mangroves, which today occur strictly in the intertidal zone. Or why no pre-flood humans have been found. Or, if Sean is correct that the flood ended at the K-T boundary, why many modern groups of birds and mammals (including marine mammals) which first appear during the Tertiary were not buried by the flood.

David Read: The fact that something appears before something else in the fossil record is not proof than anything evolved into anything else.

True.

David Read: You seem to be complaining that God has not made the fossil evidence compulsory, i.e., so clear that no reasonable person can possibly doubt it. And if God hasn’t made the evidence skeptic-proof, then the skeptic is God’s fault, God is responsible for the skeptic.

I’m not complaining. I’m merely pointing out that the evidence can be interpreted in different ways by honest people. And I’m relieved to see that even you don’t think the evidence is crystal clear.

David Read: Only people of faith can be saved, that is, only people who are willing to trust God and put away doubts can be saved.

I agree.


Southern Adventist University opens Origins Exhibit

David Read: Those tracks are so obviously bird tracks that the fact that some scientists want to assign them to “birdlike theropods” is itself a very useful teaching tool as to how the model creates the data.

David Read: That the model actually creates the data is one of the hardest concepts to get across, not only to lay people but even to the scientists themselves.

How does the model affect the data? Data don’t change and they shouldn’t change. It’s the interpretation, not the data, that is affected by the model.