Educate Truth shares the following article from the Adventist Review as a service to readers:

BY MARK A. FINLEY

One of the great theological problems with theistic evolution is that it limits God’s power. It exalts natural law above the Creator of natural law. Theistic evolution doesn’t allow for an all-powerful God to miraculously shape our world. It reduces God to the scale of human imagination, and exalts reason above revelation. This was precisely why humanity fell in the beginning. Eve listened to the voice of the serpent in the garden and trusted what her eyes could see rather than what God said. Her mind became the final arbiter of truth.

Educate Truth shares the following advertisement for a new book, Understanding Creation, as a service to readers.

Understanding Creation:
Answers to questions on faith and science

From the Publishers:

Understanding origins is vitally important to Seventh-day Adventists.  This is not just an issue relegated to the science departments at institutions of higher learning.  Every Seventh-day Adventist needs a clear and uncompromising understanding of where we came from.

With the help of some of our church’s leading scientists, Dr.s L. James Gibson and Humberto Rasi present the latest information on the subject of creation in words anyone can grasp.  Understanding creation: Answers to questions on faith and science is a must read for Seventh-day Adventists – especially Seventh-day Adventist leaders.

This authoritative and faith-affirming book includes such chapters as:

• Are the Bible and Science in Conflict?
• What is the Evidence for a Creator?
• When Did Creation Occur?
• Can I Believe in a Worldwide Flood?

_______________________________________

This book provides answers, from a biblical-Christian worldview perspective, to 20 of the most commonly asked inquiries regarding Creation, evolution, the first chapters of Genesis, the Flood, dinosaurs, fossils, radiometric dating, and related subjects. Although carefully researched, the contributors use a language accessible to the common reader. It can be used by teachers and college students as well as by anyone interested in the relationship between the Bible and science.

Read More…

Educate Truth shares the following article from The Adventist Review as a service to readers.

Cliff Goldstein

As I have said numerous times: Adventism and evolution are mutually exclusive. If one is true, the other is false. Ergo, you can be an Adventist or an evolutionist, but not both. Our name, Seventh-day Adventist, implies a rejection of any creation story that’s premised not on the six days before the seventh but on eons of evolutionary hell. Honesty demands that those who call themselves Seventh-day Adventist ought to at least believe in what the name they claim stands for. 

Because I’ve taken this unyielding position on what’s an unyieldable position, I’ve been accused—both in the flesh and in the fleshly androgyny of cyberspace—of advocating that anyone who believes in evolution ought to be thrown out of the church.

That’s false. What I’ve said is that it’s hard to see how anyone who believes in evolution would want to be in this church. Nothing Adventist makes sense with the neo-Darwinian synthesis as backdrop. To paraphrase a fundamentalist atheist, evolution is an acid that erodes everything it touches. That would include the three angels’ messages of Revelation 14, which have the central theme of creation and redemption, two truths nullified by evolution, even a “theistic” kind. (Who’d want to worship a theos who created like that, anyway?)

To reiterate: be a Seventh-day Adventist or be an evolutionist, but let’s end the charade of thinking one can be both.  (Read more)

In a surprising turn of events, LSU Board’s appointed Creation-Evolution Study Group issued a detailed memorandum to the board, outlining their report and recommendations regarding the allegations against LSU.

In addition to the memorandum, Randal Wisbey and Ricardo Graham issued an open letter, summarizing much of the memorandum. There are some noteworthy revelations in the letter, such as an apology and a concession to what Educate Truth and others have been claiming was occurring in the biology department:

[1] “We found that only 50 percent of the students surveyed agreed or strongly agreed that our Adventist view of creation was presented, and only 40 per- cent agreed or strongly agreed that our Adventist view was supported. This is not acceptable, and we apologize.”

[2] “Instruction at the university, while being strong in many areas, has not adequately presented the denomination’s position on the subject of creation.”

[3] “There is some evidence that students have not always been respected for their belief in the Biblical creation position.”

The letter ends with this final thought:

“La Sierra University is committed to being an institution that does not just present the Church’s view of creation, but fully supports it. We pledge our commitment to work prayerfully and diligently to ensure that our mission to provide a rigorous and faith-affirming Seventh- day Adventist education is carried out on behalf of our students and our Church.”

OpenLetterReCreationLSU

Source: “Dinosaurs – An Adventist View” David C. Read (reposted with permission)

Radiometric dating, sometimes called isotopic dating, is an attempt to determine when igneous rocks were formed based upon the rocks’ content of certain chemical elements. The technique is based on the principle that an unstable, radioactive parent element “decays” into a stable daughter element at a known average rate. For example, potassium-40 changes into the gas argon-40 at the rate of one half, every 1,280 million years.1 This means that after 1,280 m.y., half of the potassium-40 has changed into argon-40, and after 2,560 m.y., half of the remainder, or three-quarters of the original, has changed into argon, and so on.2

Proponents of radiometric dating argue that by measuring the ratio of parent element to daughter element and then applying the rate of decay, one can calculate how long the parent has been decaying into the daughter. For example, if one can determine the relative amounts of potassium-40 and Argon-40 and then apply the 1,280 m.y. half-life figure, one should be able to calculate how long the radioactive potassium has been decaying into argon, which, in turn, is supposed to indicate how much time has passed since the rock was formed. It’s a beautiful theory but, like so many beautiful theories, it does not work in reality.

Radiometric dating is based upon several assumptions, all of which must be true for the method to work. First, the average rate of decay must be known and must have remained constant since the rock was formed. Second, the proportion of daughter product in the rocks at the time the rocks were formed must be known. If there was unaccounted-for daughter product in the rock to begin with, the rocks will have a built-in appearance of age.

Third, the rock must be a “closed system.” An hourglass provides a useful example of a closed system. No sand gets into or out of an hourglass; the sand merely falls from the top to the bottom. The same must be true of the parent and daughter elements in tested rocks, if they are to keep time like an hourglass. None of the parent or daughter elements must have been migrating into or out of the rock sample tested. The isotopic system must have been as sealed off as an hourglass.

It is easy to appreciate why, if the method is to work, these assumptions must reflect reality. If sand has been escaping from the bottom of an hourglass, an observer noticing the small amount of sand in the bottom will conclude that the sand has not been running as long as it really has been. By contrast, if sand has been added to the bottom of an hourglass from some source other than the top, an observer would be fooled into believing that the sand had been running much longer than it actually had. If the isotopic system is an open system, radiometric dating will not work.

Astonishingly, dating scientists freely admit that the rocks are open systems. In fact, the openness of the rocks is one of the most frequently employed explanations for the many “wrong” dates yielded by the isotopes. It is claimed that the rocks lose or retained daughter product for any number of reasons, including recrystallization, leaching, heating, permeability, depth of burial, grain morphology, weathering, secondary alteration, and metamorphism.3

Bad dates are very common, but there is no way to know how common, because most bad dates are never published in scientific journals. They are just tossed into the laboratory wastebasket without any explanation. “If all the rejected dates were retrieved from the waste basket and added to the published dates,” argues Richard Milton, “the combined results would show that the dates produced are the scatter that one would expect by chance alone.”4

Since many radiometric dates are wrong—possibly most of them, who knows?—and it is acknowledged that most rocks are open systems and therefore unsuitable for radiometric dating, it is vital that there be some way to tell, prior to initial radiometric testing, whether a given rock sample has become “open.” Otherwise, dates can be accepted or rejected on a post hoc basis depending upon whether they fit with preexisting expectations. Those dates that seemed right based upon preexisting expectations would be accepted, and those that seemed wrong would be rejected. In other words, unless there is some way to tell, prior to initial testing, whether a rock sample is suitable for testing, the entire “science” of radiometric dating could be based on circular reasoning.

There are numerous admissions in the literature, however, that it is not possible to determine, prior to preliminary dating, whether a given rock sample has become an open system. If the date derived is within the expected range of results, the rock is assumed to have been a closed system. If the date is “wrong,” it is assumed that the rock was not a closed system, and one of the standard post hoc rationalizations—such as “cooling age,” reheating, leaching, inherited argon, argon loss (or other daughter product loss), metamorphism, etc.—is employed to explained the “bad” results.

There is a fascinating story that illustrates many of the problems with radiometric dating. It concerns attempts to date a layer of rock in Kenya. Known as the “KBS tuff controversy,” this episode involved several of the leading authorities on radiometric dating.5 The scientists involved became antagonistic toward each other, and almost everyone in anthropology during the 1970s took one side or the other. It is, as one Darwinist commentator wrote, “a story that demonstrates how very unscientific the process of scientific inquiry sometimes can be.”6

Anthropologists have long combed through the Lake Turkana (formerly known as Lake Rudolf) area in Kenya, searching for the putative missing links between apes and humans. In 1969, Richard Leakey, son of Louis and Mary Leakey and a leading anthropologist in his own right, had set up camp on the shore of the lake. Kay Behrensmeyer, then a graduate student in paleontology at Harvard and a member of Leakey’s team, found several primitive stone tools embedded in a layer of “tuff,” which is rock formed from volcanic ash. This particular rock layer became known as the KBS (Kay Behrensmeyer Site) tuff.

Leakey supplied samples from the KBS tuff to Jack Miller, a geophysicist at Cambridge University, to determine the feasibility of radiometrically dating it. Jack Miller and his partner Frank Fitch preliminarily dated the rocks at 212 to 230 million years old.7 In conventional geochronology, those dates correspond to the Triassic (the lower dinosaur strata), but Leakey was working near the boundary of the Tertiary and the Quaternary, which is thought to be only around two million years old. “From these results,” wrote Fitch and Miller, “it was clear that an extraneous argon age discrepancy was present.”8

Fitch and Miller believed that the tuff, instead of being deposited when ash settled out of the air, had been formed when rivers or streams had washed the ash down from highlands into a floodplain. They hypothesized that during this process the ash had picked up minerals from older deposits. But they did not identify any exposed Triassic rock that could have contributed material to the KBS tuff, which suggests that this was a post hoc rationalization concocted after the initial results missed the anticipated “ballpark” by two orders of magnitude.

Fitch and Miller sent back for more samples from the KBS tuff. They tested these and reported a preliminary age of 2.4 million years. They told Leakey that there were two techniques available to give a more exact radiometric age: 1) the traditional potassium argon technique and 2) a newer, more sophisticated technique called argon-40 argon-39. This latter technique involves converting the radiogenic potassium to the gas argon-39, then simultaneously measuring both types of argon in a machine called a mass spectrometer. This method was about twice as expensive as the older method, but it could work with smaller samples and would yield a much more exact measurement. The newer technique, they told Leakey, “would result in the tuff being incontrovertibly dated and with greater accuracy than any other site in Africa or elsewhere.”9 Leakey chose the technique that promised the “incontrovertible” date. Fitch and Miller ran the tests and reported that the tuff was 2.61 million years old, plus or minus 0.26 million years.

That result was within the “ballpark,” and thus not very controversial.10 A few years later, however, it was to become extremely controversial. In 1972, one of Leakey’s African associates, Bernard Ngeneo, found a hominid skull below the KBS tuff. This was skull KNM-ER 1470. As we discussed in Chapter 17, Darwinists can point to relatively few fossils as possible transitional forms between apes and humans. As a result, individual fossils can loom large in attempts to construct an evolutionary lineage or “family tree.” Individual hominid fossils can, and often do, change the whole evolutionary picture.11

Such was the case with skull 1470. Although it had a very small cranial capacity, in general morphology (at least as dubiously reconstructed by Leakey12) it resembled a modern human skull much more closely than did the Australopithecines (“southern apes”). If the KBS tuff was 2.6 million years old, then skull 1470, which was found below the tuff, must be even older than that—probably almost three million years old. But the Australopithecines had been dated at about 1.9 million years old—one million years younger than the much more human looking skull 1470.

The relative ages gave the impression that, over the course of a million years, a more human looking primate had evolved into a more ape-like primate. Evolution was going in the wrong direction! Dated as it was, skull 1470 exploded the then-current theory about how and when humans had evolved. “Either we toss out this skull,” said Leakey, “or we toss out our theories of early man.”13 Anthropologists were not about to toss out their theories of early man. Something had to give.


Figure 1: KNM-ER 1470. KNM-ER stands for Kenya National Museum—East Rudolph

It did. Garniss Curtis, of the University of California at Berkeley, was called upon to re-date the (already incontrovertibly dated) KBS tuff. He dated samples at 1.6 million years old and 1.8 million years old, about a million years younger than Fitch and Miller’s date. Curtis’ result was much more in line with the Darwinian assumption that fossil hominid crania should be moving from a more ape-like to a more human-like condition, not the other way around. Had Curtis been diplomatic toward Fitch and Miller, the controversy might have ended there, but, adding insult to injury, Curtis criticized Fitch and Miller’s samples, their methodology, and their laboratory techniques. The gauntlet had been thrown down.

Taking up the gauntlet, Fitch and Miller redid their tests, using a new and supposedly more accurate rate of decay, and found that the KBS tuff was 2.42 m.y. old. Most tellingly, Fitch published the fact that Curtis had gotten a “scatter” of results ranging from 1.5 to 6.9 million years. How had Curtis settled on 1.6 million years when he could have selected 6.9 million years? Obviously, 1.6 million coincided with previous expectations, and 6.9 million did not.
Fitch reported that his scatter of results had only ranged from 0.5 to 2.64 million years, implying that his technique was better because his scatter wasn’t as large. In understated but deliciously snide language, Fitch wrote of Curtis:

. . . K-Ar apparent ages in the range 1.6-1.8 Myr obtained from the KBS Tuff by other workers are regarded as discrepant, and may have been obtained from samples affected by argon loss.14

Fitch’s suggestion that Curtis’ samples were affected by argon loss illustrates the ease with which the open system excuse is invoked after the fact to explain away unwanted results.

In 1980, Ian McDougall of Australian National University weighed in on the KBS tuff controversy, reporting a date of 1.88 million years. Again, much more interestingly, McDougall revealed that Fitch and Miller had achieved a scatter of 0.52 to 2.64 million years on one set of samples, but on another set, they had gotten a scatter of 8.43 to 17.5 million years! Thus, the total scatter was from half a million years to 17.5 million years, a range of 17 million years (not including the preliminary finding of 230 million years) on a layer of rock supposedly around two million years old. Said Garniss Curtis, of Fitch and Miller’s work: “Their choice of 2.6+ for the age of the KBS Tuff seemed to be by their reaching into a hat filled with all the numbers they had obtained and coming out with 2.6 m.y.”15

The enormous range of results recorded by the competing groups of dating scientists illustrates Richard Milton’s point that if all results were published, not just those in the expected ballpark, the combined results would show the scatter that could be expected from random chance.

Meanwhile, Ian McDougall’s group had some scatter of its own to deal with, as one of their samples gave an age of 4.11 million years and another sample gave an age of 7.46 million years. These dates were of course rejected:

We attribute these poorly reproducible ages to the presence of variable but small amounts of old detrital K-feldspar in the aliquants used in the argon extractions. Careful petrographic examination of the mineral concentrate, however, did not lead to positive identification of detrital K-feldspar. Nevertheless, there is no doubt that old detrital material was being brought into the East Turkana Basin during deposition of the sediments.16

In other words, McDougall believed that his bad dates were a result of older material being included in the tuff when it was deposited, or re-deposited (which, recall, was the same story Fitch and Miller came up with to explain their 230-million-year date).

McDougall’s group could find no trace of this putative older mineral material, even after very carefully examining the rock, but they know it was there because . . . well, because the samples gave bad dates. This illustrates that there is no way to tell, by examining a sample, whether it is suitable for radiometric dating. If the result is in the expected ballpark, everything is assumed to be okay. If not, then the sample must have been unsuitable, even though a careful examination revealed no problems.

The controversy was ultimately settled at around 1.8 million years, not on the basis of radiometric dating—any date between 500,000 and 17.5 million years could have been selected with equal justification based purely on the isotopes—but on the basis of pig fossils.17 Here, as in every other case where the radiometric dates have conflicted with fossil evidence, fossil evidence prevailed, and conflicting radiometric dates were ignored or explained away.18 But the faunal remains were not clear, either. Correlation of elephant fossils seemed to support Fitch and Miller’s date; some researchers claimed that the pig fossils supported a younger date, while others claimed that the pig fossils supported Fitch and Miller’s date.19

But neither the faunal remains nor the isotopic results were really driving the KBS Tuff debate. Rather, it was the mess that skull 1470 made of the human evolution story that created the pressure to re-date the Tuff. Before the problems created by skull 1470 became too urgent, everything seemed to support Fitch and Miller’s date. Faunal correlation, paleomagnetism, and fission-track dating all impressively and concertedly supported their date.20 After it became clear what mischief the initial dating of the KBS tuff would do to the human evolution story, everything changed. It turned out that everything was negotiable, except the need to come up with a plausible presentation of the putative apes-to-humans transition.

Because this controversy was fought in print, the public learned how many different dates were tossed into the wastebasket. Several factors came together, including: 1) the discovery of a fossil that looked like it might fit into the evolutionary story of human origins; 2) the relevant layer of rock had already been dated before the fossil was found; 3) the dating of this fossil was crucial because, in terms of evolutionary theory, the fossil seemed to be out of sequence; 4) three different groups of dating scientists worked on the problem; and 5) these groups were not diplomatic in commenting on each other’s work.

Were it not for this combination of circumstances, we would never have known how many, and how widely varying, were the discarded dates, not to mention the facile post hoc explanations for them. Regarding this episode, Roger Lewin wrote, “[T]here is a degree of uncertainly in science that is not often made public, because it is contrary to the mythology of what science is supposed to be like.”21 The KBS tuff controversy shows that the reality of science resembles politics—maybe even theology!—more closely than it resembles its own carefully nurtured public image of detachment and objectivity.22

By now it should be obvious that radiometric dating is not what we have been led to believe. It is nothing like an exact science. Even after taking pains to test only samples that will yield a preconceived result, there is typically a large scatter of results for the dating scientist to choose from.23 Based upon prior expectations, which, in turn, are based upon geology, stratigraphy, index fossils, professional consensus, and what seems reasonable—none of which have anything to do with the isotopes per se—one of the dates is selected as “accurate.” After the winning candidate is chosen, the other dates are ignored or explained away by appealing to one (or more) of a staggering array of excuses. The post-hoc rationalization chosen depends only by the dating scientist’s imagination. The entire process is an exercise in prejudice confirmation. As a method of getting at truth, it is utterly worthless.

1. Roth, Ariel A. Origins: Linking Science and Scripture (Hagerstown, MD: Review and Herald, 1998) p. 251.
2. Actually, most of the K-40, about 89 percent of it, degrades into Ca-40; only 11 percent degrades into Ar-40.
3. Woodmorappe, Studies in Flood Geology, pp. 158-160.
4. Milton, at p. 51.
5. See, generally, Lubenow, Marvin L., Bones of Contention (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1992), pp. 247-266, appendix entitled, “The Dating Game.” See also Roger Lewin, Bones of Contention (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1987), pp. 189-252; Richard Milton, supra, at pp. 53-56; Michael A. Cremo, Richard L. Thompson, Forbidden Archeology: The Hidden History of the Human Race (Los Angeles: Bhaktivedanta Book Publishing, Inc., 1993), pp. 693-702. F.J. Fitch and J.A. Miller, “Radioisotopic Age Determinations of Lake Rudolf Artifact Site,” Nature, 226:226-228 (April 18, 1970).
6. Lewin, Roger, Bones of Contention (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1987), p. 190.
7. Lewin, at pp. 192, 194, 195; Lubenow, at p. 249.
8. F.J. Fitch and J.A. Miller, “Radioisotopic Age Determinations of Lake Rudolf Artifact Site,” Nature, 226:226-228 (April 18, 1970).
9. Lewin, at p. 192 (emphasis added).
10. There was one note of doubt, however. During the late Pliocene/early Pleistocene, pig molars were increasing in length and height. Basil Cooke, an expert on fossil pig teeth, noted that the pig teeth found in the area of the KBS tuff seemed to indicate that the tuff should be dated younger than 2.6 million years. Lewin, at pp. 195-197.
11. In Ever Since Darwin, Gould wrote that each year when the topic of human evolution “comes up in my courses, I simply open my old folder and dump the contents into the nearest circular file. And here we go again.” In his next book, The Panda’s Thumb, he writes, “I’m mighty glad I wrote [those words] because I now want to invoke that passage to recant an argument made later in the same article.” See Gould, Ever Since Darwin (New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 1977), p. 56; The Panda’s Thumb (New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 1980), p. 125. Another example concerns Neanderthal Man. In the Flamingo’s Smile (New York: W.W. Norton, 1985), p. 41, Gould wrote that Neanderthal was “a race of our own species, not an ancestor or any form of ‘missing link’.” But in Leonardo’s Mountain of Clams and the Diet of Worms (New York: Harmony Books, 1998), p. 210, Gould wrote that the Earth of 40,000 years ago contained three coexisting human species Homo neanderthalensis, Homo erectus, and Homo sapiens. Evidently he had come to believe, in the meantime, that Neanderthal Man was a separate species. Clearly, human evolution is not a subject where there is a lot of stability or continuity of concepts.
12. In 2007, Dr. Timothy Bromage announced a reconstruction of KNM-ER 1470 that was considerably more apelike that Leakey’s reconstruction. “Dr. Bromage”s findings call into question the extent to which H. rudolfensis differed from earlier, more apelike hominid species. . . . “Dr. Leakey produced a biased reconstruction based on erroneous preconceived expectations of early human appearance that violated principles of craniofacial development,” said Dr. Bromage, whose reconstruction, by contrast, shows a sharply protruding jaw and a brain less than half the size of a modern human”s.
13. Lubenow, at p. 253, quoting Richard Leakey, “Skull 1470” National Geographic, June 1973: 819.
14. Fitch, Hooker, and Miller, “Argon 40/Argon 39 dating of the KBS Tuff in Koobi Fora Formation, East Rudolf, Kenya,” Nature 263:741 (October 28, 1976, italics added) as quoted in Lubenow, p. 256. Later, Fitch also suggested “overprinting” as an explanation for the younger dates. Lewin, at p. 203.
15. Lewin, at p. 233, quoting Garniss Curtiss.
16. McDougall, Maier, Sutherland-Hawkes, and Gleadow, “K-Ar age estimate for the KBS tuff, East Turkana, Kenya,” Nature 284:230-31 (March 20, 1980) as quoted in Lubenow, p. 263 (emphasis added).
17. Lubenow, at pp. 255-266 (“The pigs won. . . . The pigs won over the elephants. The pigs won over K-Ar dating. The pigs won over Ar-40 Ar-39 dating. The pigs won over fission-track dating. They won over paleomagnetism. The pigs took it all.”); Lewin, pp. 195-252. Regarding scatter, Lewin writes that “at a conference in Nairobi held in September 1973 [Fitch and Miller] presented 41 separate age determinations on the KBS tuff, which varied between 223 million and 0.91 million years.” Lewin, at pp. 194, 195
18. Differences between radiometric data and fossil data “are a usual phenomenon that surprises nobody” and are always resolved in favor of the fossil data. Skobelin, Sharapov, and Bugayov, “Deliberations of state and ways of Perestroika in geology,” in Barto-Kyriadkidis, Critical Aspects of Plate Tectonics Theory (Athens: Theophrastas Publications, 1990), p. 25 (italics added), as quoted in Woodmorappe, The Mythology of Modern Dating Methods, p. 27.
19. Lewin, at p. 235. (“When Harris and White first examined the pig fossils, in 1974, their initial impression was that a 2.61 million-year date was correct for the KBS Tuff.”); Lubenow, at p. 262. 20. Lubenow, at p. 265. The fission-track dating of the KBS tuff at first confirmed Fitch and Miller, then later, remarkably, confirmed the younger date. Every time an atom of radioactive U-238 atom explodes, its nucleus is torn in half and the two halves are propelled through the crystal in opposite directions at great speed, boring a tiny tunnel through the crystal lattice. The idea behind fission track dating is to count the number of these fission tracks in the zircon crystal. When researchers Tony Hurford and Andy Gleadow did this on KBS tuff crystals, they independently reached a result of 2.62 m.y. plus or minus .40, a stunning confirmation of Fitch and Millers number of 2.61 m.y. plus or minus .26. (Lewin, at p. 231.) Later, after the tide of opinion had turned against Fitch and Miller, Hurford and Gleadow re-counted the fission tracks and came up with 1.8 m.y., a stunning confirmation of Garniss Curtis’ results. After they changed their tune, they claimed that Fitch had subtly pressured them to reach a number that confirmed his radiometric results, but it is hard to avoid the conclusion that, later on, the subtle pressure to support Curtis and McDougall became just as great. (Lewin, at 243-247.) Hurford stated, “[Y]ou can bias your results 10 percent either way, easily. You go crystal by crystal, and you begin to see where the rolling average is going. If you need the count to be higher with the crystal you’re working on, so that it will fit in, you might include something that is a doubtful track. If you want the count to be lower, you don’t include it.” (Lewin, at p. 246.) But, of course, Hurford and Gleadow changed their results not by ten percent, but by more than 30%.
21. Lewin, p. 235.
22. As a sadder and wiser Richard Leakey pointed out, “One realizes that even in the most pure of sciences, which geophysics should be, there is a potential to identify careers, status, and results—and there’s a strong political element, too.” Lewin, at p. 251.
23. The problem of “scatter” has not been ameliorated by more sophisticated equipment. “Improved laboratory techniques and improved constants have not reduced the scatter in recent years.” Waterhouse, J. B. “Chronostratigraphy for the World Permian,” Contributions to the Geologic Time Scale (American Association of Petroleum Geologists Studies in Geology no. 6, 1978), p. 316, as quoted by Woodmorappe, Studies in Flood Geology, p. 147.

By Clifford Goldstein

Source: Adventist Review

Let’s get hypothetical and pretend that the Genesis Creation account was never meant to be taken literally. Although God was communicating with us about the work of creation, suppose the texts themselves were to be understood metaphorically, symbolically, nothing more.

Given that premise, what, then, was the Creator seeking to reveal about our origins?

Two points, even in a broad and liberal reading of Genesis 1, come through.

First, look at these verses: “And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. . . . And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so. . . . And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so. . . . And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. . . . So God created man in his own image” (Gen. 1:3, 9, 11, 26, 27, KJV). (Full Article)

By Educate Truth Staff

September 1, 2009, an article titled “Creating Controversy” by Jack Stripling surfaced at InsideHigherEd.com, covering the controversy surrounding La Sierra University. As a result of this article, EducateTruth.com received a spike in unique hits Sept. 1 — over 7,000 — five times the daily average for August.

Widespread interest in this issue is the natural result of a defiant Biology department and the institutional hand that protects it from reproof or consequences. LSU continues to sympathize with these professors who are openly undermining church doctrine and Biblical creation. These professors are allowed employment at Seventh-day Adventist institutions. It would have been better for LSU to responsibly take action and address the issue, as opposed to denying the existence of the problem and attempting to sweep it under the rug.

Stripling’s interview with LSU biology professor of 38 years Gary Bradley was the most convincing piece of evidence supporting the allegations evolution was being taught as the preferred scientific worldview at LSU. Bradley unabashedly admitted it, saying when evolution debates have emerged before, his response was to “dive under the desk and wait for them to blow over.” In other words, this controversy isn’t new to LSU. It has come and gone, while evolution-promoting professors have stayed to continue turning out faithless or confused graduates. This matches the testimony of many impacted students and parents who have been ignored after attempting to have this issue addressed by LSU.

Bradley said he is backed by President Wisbey, and has felt no pressure to change anything about his course, according to Stripling’s article. If Bradley is telling the truth, President Wisbey is supporting a professor who does not believe in a six-day creation, but teaches to the contrary, refusing to “dismantle” evolution in his class, and considers those who believe in creation the “lunatic fringe.” He said, “They do not represent the majority position in the Church, and yes I’m skeptical of that.”

Stripling wrote: “Bradley says he won’t undercut decades of peer reviewed scientific research in the interest of religious consistency.”

This contradicts LSU’s claim that students “will be introduced to Seventh-day Adventist understandings of Creation, centered in the Genesis account, which reveals the Creator as a personal and loving God.” According to Stripling’s article, LSU will be adding a seminar for biology students “in which theologians and scientists will discuss the intersections of faith and science.” No word yet on this becoming part of the core curriculum for biology students, or whether it will be headed by creationists or more defiant evolutionists. While this is a nice step on LSU’s part, it still does not address the problem.

The same day Stripling’s article was posted, Executive Director of University Relations for LSU Larry Becker issued a diplomatic statement, attempting to soften what Bradley had boldly stated:

Some of Dr. Bradley’s statements as reported in the article posted September 1 do not reflect the views of the university. They are his views alone …. The university is saddened that some of his statements, as reported in this interview do not reflect the university’s commitment to help our students navigate the important issues of faith and science in the context of Seventh-day Adventist higher education.

This no doubt includes Bradley’s use of an expletive during the interview.

The Seventh-day Adventist Church manual says on page 190:

Therefore, although all members have equal rights within the church, no individual member or group of members should start a movement or form an organization or seek to encourage a following for the attainment of any objective or for the teaching of any doctrine or message not in harmony with the fundamental religious objectives and teachings of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. Such a course would result in the fostering of a factional and divisive spirit, in the fragmenting of the effort and witness of the church, and thus in hindering it in the discharge of its obligations to its Head and to the world.

The first reason listed in the church manual which would subject a member to discipline is “Denial of faith in the fundamentals of the gospel and in the cardinal doctrines of the church or teaching doctrines contrary to the same” (p. 195).

There is no question LSU is at odds with the Seventh-day Adventist Church’s position on creation by supporting professors who believe and teach contrary to church doctrine. Making claims of conformity to the church’s position is of no effect if LSU continues to allow professors to promote evolution as the preferred scientific worldview over Biblical creation.

Some have criticized the manner in which EducateTruth.com is handling the situation. They quote Matthew 18, but fail to realize for decades there have been many private attempts by parents and students to address the issue, but to no avail. EducateTruth.com is a direct response to LSU’s lack of response.

The church manual also says:

When differences arise in or between organizations and institutions, appeal to the next higher organization is proper until it reaches the General Conference in session, or the Executive Committee at the Annual Council.

A Seventh-day Adventist university promoting evolution is no private matter. It is publicly contrary to the Bible, church doctrine and Spirit of Prophecy. This issue has been kept hushed for decades, and thus evolution has been the fall of many vulnerable minds to worldly doctrine.

In a letter dated August 27 and addressed to me, Dr. Wisbey said:

The Board will set aside a portion of the November 12, 2009 Board meeting for an evaluation of the matter in executive session. The participants will be limited to Board members and such individuals as the Board chooses to invite to provide background information to educate the Board on Biology curricular matters. Written comments including your petition will be received from members of the campus community. Such materials will be provided to the Board as part of their consideration. These materials will be reviewed for their balance and objectivity.

Pray for La Sierra University that the Lord will guide administration into making decisions in accordance with Biblical principles and Spirit of Prophecy enlightenment.

Statement on Recent Article Regarding
La Sierra University Biology Department

Dr. Gary Bradley, semi-retired biology professor in the Department of Biology of La Sierra University, gave an interview to an internet-based higher education news service on August 31, in which he shared his perspectives on the discussion of how creation and evolution are taught in La Sierra University classrooms. Dr. Bradley does not speak on behalf of the university or the biology department. Some of Dr. Bradley’s statements as reported in the article posted September 1 do not reflect the views of the university. They are his views alone.

La Sierra University is fully mindful of its responsibilities and commitments as a Seventh-day Adventist institution of higher education. This includes a whole-hearted support for the doctrines, teachings and tenets of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, which certainly include, but are broader than, the 28 Statements of Fundamental Beliefs. The university is also committed to a spirit of inquiry in its classrooms and laboratories that reflects the exhortation of 1 Thessalonians 5:21 to “Prove all things; hold fast to what is good.”

Dr. Bradley has served with distinction for 38 years as a biology professor at La Sierra University. During this time, he helped to academically prepare numerous biology researchers and health care professionals who continue to serve the world and the Church with a strong sense of devotion to God and a high level of competence. Nevertheless, the university is saddened that some of his statements, as reported in this interview do not reflect the university’s commitment to help our students navigate the important issues of faith and science in the context of Seventh-day Adventist higher education.

For more information:
Larry Becker
Executive Director, University Relations
La Sierra University
4500 Riverwalk Parkway
Riverside, CA 92515
951-785-2460
lbecker@lasierra.edu

According to Jennifer Birney, an AU employee and student, Jan Paulsen immediately responded, “Yes.” This follows Paulsen’s June appeal “to all engaged by our church in the ministries of administration, preaching, teaching, and writing to articulate and reflect our stand as a community on Creation.”

The Q&A was called “Let’s Talk About Adventist Education” and was part of a three-day event called Fall Fellowship, which occurs annually at Andrews.

The following are quotations taken from “Creating Controversy” by Jack Stripling. Emphsis added.

“Bradley says he’s felt no pressure to change anything about his course, and says bluntly that he doesn’t plan to turn his class into a theological seminar, or to present evolutionary theory only to then dismantle it for students. While he’s fine with helping students work through struggles of faith, Bradley says he won’t undercut decades of peer reviewed scientific research in the interest of religious consistency.”

“‘I am not OK with getting up in a science course and saying most science is bullshit,’ he said.”

“‘It’s very, very clear that what I’m skeptical of is the absolute necessity of believing that the only way a creator God could do things is by speaking them into existence a few thousand years ago,’ Bradley added. ‘That’s where my skepticism lies. That’s the religious philosophical basis for what I call the lunatic fringe. They do not represent the majority position in the Church, and yes I’m skeptical of that. But I want to say to kids it’s OK for you to believe that, but it’s not OK for you to be ignorant of the scientific data that’s out there.’”

Source: Inside Higher Ed
By Jack Stripling

Ever a thorny issue, the teaching of evolutionary biology at a small Christian university in California has sparked debate on the campus and within the Seventh-day Adventist church.

Now-public e-mails between a recent La Sierra University graduate and his biology professors provide a firsthand glimpse of a debate no doubt playing out at many colleges, where students of faith struggle to reconcile their beliefs with scientific theories on the origins of humanity. Unlike so many such academic discussions, however, the private interchange between Carlos Cerna and his professors has moved beyond the campus walls — thanks to the Internet — and generated a review within the church about the appropriateness of evolutionary studies for Seventh-day Adventists, a Christian denomination that embraces the six-day creation story outlined in the Book of Genesis. (Full Article)