@Jan Long: Sean, you state that, “in my own research …

Comment on Adventist Education–at the crossroads? by Sean Pitman.

@Jan Long:

Sean, you state that,

“in my own research into this topic, I’ve found a great deal of what seems to me to be very solid evidence in favor of a recent arrival of life on this planet as well as a recent universal catastrophe, or very shortly-spaced series of watery catastrophes, that produced the fossil record and geologic column. Of course I’m in the minority here….”

My query to you is, how does this universal recent watery catastrophe square with the 100,000 or so confirmed annual layerings of the Greenland ice sheet? How about the several hundred thousand years of the Antartic ice sheet?

You assume that the “annual” nature of the layers has actually been confirmed beyond any real reasonable doubt. Consider that as one considers deeper and deeper ice within these ice sheets the layers can no longer be counted visually, only chemically. At this point, the resolution of an “annual” layer counting falls off significantly to the point of “decadal averages”. That means that a hundred thousand layers could be accounted for in less than 10,000 years. Consider also that even when the layers can be counted visually that it is very difficult to distinguish an “annual” layer from sub-seasonal layering (i.e., storms, etc).

“Fundamentally, in counting any annual marker, we must ask whether it is absolutely unequivocal, or whether non-annual events could mimic or obscure a year. For the visible strata (and, we believe, for any other annual indicator at accumulation rates representative of central Greenland), it is almost certain that variability exists at the subseasonal or storm level, at the annual level, and for various longer periodicities (2-year, sunspot, etc.). We certainly must entertain the possibility of misidentifying the deposit of a large storm or a snow dune as an entire year or missing a weak indication of a summer and thus picking a 2-year interval as 1 year.”

Alley, R.B. et al., Visual-stratigraphic dating of the GISP2 ice core: Basis, reproducibility, and application.
Journal of Geophysical Research 102(C12):26,367–26,381, 1997.

Contributing to these problems in determining annual layers in ice is the fact that chemicals in ice are not fixed, but move around – quite easily. There are microscopic channels of water between the ice crystals that allow for the movement of various chemicals used to try to analyze for annual layers.

There is also the problem if the warm “hypsithermal” period which was warmer than it is today – supposedly for some 5,000 years. The Greenland ice sheet is currently melting much faster than it is being formed, resulting in an overall loss of ice of around 250 cubic kilometers per year. Some scientists are now suggesting that Greenland’s ice may be complete gone within one or two hundred years. So, how did Greenland’s ice avoid a complete meltdown during the Hypsithermal? – when it was warm all around the globe on all sides in recent history?

For more information on this topic see:

http://www.detectingdesign.com/ancientice.html

As to your discussion of the philosophy of science I am well aware of the fact that conclusions can be influenced by presuppositions, yet I don’t find a boogyman in scientific materialism. If not for scientific materialism, we would still assign a role to the gods for all manner of natural phenomenon. I would simply say that scientific materialism has its limits, as does revelation. Wisdom is demonstrated in understanding the limits of each.

I agree. Where we seem to disagree is over where these limits are or should be placed.

You seem uncomfortable with the SDA Church’s clearly stated position on origins. This is in spite of the fact that the SDA Church takes its stand on a clear reading of the Bible – of what the Biblical authors clearly intended to convey to their readers. It is quite clear that the author(s) of the Genesis narrative intended to convey to their readers, to us, a literal historical account of God’s creative act in the formation of life on this planet. I don’t think even liberal secular scholars of Hebrew would deny this. Take, for example, the comments of well-known Oxford Hebrew scholar James Barr:

“Probably, so far as I know, there is no professor of Hebrew or Old Testament at any world-class university who does not believe that the writer(s) of Genesis 1–11 intended to convey to their readers the ideas that: (a) creation took place in a series of six days which were the same as the days of 24 hours we now experience. (b) the figures contained in the Genesis genealogies provided by simple addition a chronology from the beginning of the world up to later stages in the biblical story (c) Noah’s flood was understood to be world-wide and extinguish all human and animal life except for those in the ark. Or, to put it negatively, the apologetic arguments which suppose the “days” of creation to be long eras of time, the figures of years not to be chronological, and the flood to be a merely local Mesopotamian flood, are not taken seriously by any such professors, as far as I know.”

Letter from Professor James Barr to David C.C. Watson of the UK, dated 23 April 1984.

Consider that Prof. Barr made this statement while personally considering the Genesis narrative to be false. He did not believe that God created life on this planet in just six literal days. He believed that life existed and evolved on this planet over billions of years just like most mainstream scientists do today. Yet, he still was quite clear that the author(s) of the Genesis narrative intended to say something about real historical events. They did not intend to be figurative in their language.

Now, it is quite a different thing to say that the Biblical authors where simply mistaken compared to the argument that suggests that they were intending to write symbolically or figuratively. The SDA Church takes the Bible at its word, as the revealed Word of God. So, in suggesting that the SDA Church not put so much stock in a literal reading of the Genesis narrative, you are suggesting that the Church back off of its position that the Bible was in fact inspired by God to give us privileged information about Himself and about the world in which we live. If the SDA Church were to do this, it would basically undermine the entire purpose for their being a unique Seventh-day Adventist Church. After all, if one can pick and choose what is and what is not correct in the Bible, what’s the point?

Of course you might argue, and have argued, that prophets can make mistakes. And, I agree. However, if a prophet specifically says that God showed him or her a specific vision of historical reality, and that prophet simply recorded what he/she saw, you’d have to conclude one of two things with regard to the Genesis account. Either God was lying to the prophet about true historical reality, or the prophet was very dull witted in order to get something wrong that is as obvious as “evenings and mornings” marking off the boundaries of the “days” of creation. I mean, even a small child can get that much right. This isn’t rocket science here… if you know what I mean.

You mention the Cornell geneticist John C. Sandford, and I am familiar with his book on genetic entropy. He proposes some interesting ideas and since I am not a geneticist, I must rely upon the scientific community to assess his argument. To date I have not seen any movement in his direction and that could be telling. That having been said, however, there is currently a clear demarcation between the evolutionary process and the question of origins. Perhaps we can find common ground on this. Since we are so far afield from the thrust of my article, I won’t detail it here, but DNA is an information rich system as you know, and information theory cannot explain, on the basis of random probability, how DNA got its start is the odds appear to be too staggering. The resolution of most of these issue—including evolution—likely resides in a better understanding of DNA. We can anticipate that surprises await science on this front, but it may also hold a few surprises for literalists. In the meantime the Church would be much better served by allowing science to finish its work before it leaps into a place that it quite likely will one day regret.

The origin of very high levels of information/functional complexity within DNA is indeed very very hard for mainstream science to explain using mindless naturalistic mechanisms alone. However, I can assure you that the origin of novel information within living systems, with the full use of the mechanism of random mutation and natural selection, is equally hard to explain beyond very very low levels of functional complexity. Popular scientists usually get hung up over explaining the similarities between living things when the similarities aren’t the real problem for the theory of evolution. Similarities are fairly easy to explain using naturalistic mechanisms. The insurmountable problem for the modern theory of evolution is in explaining the qualitatively novel functional differences beyond very very low levels of functional complexity. That’s where the rubber really meets the road.

It is for such reasons that I think it very unwise of the SDA Church to give up its stance on taking the Bible as it reads, as the Biblical authors originally intended it to be read and interpreted. The SDA Church maintains its whole reason for existence on being fairly unique in this regard. If you remove the unique SDA take on the Bible, you remove its very reason for existence. There’s really no point in having a SDA Church at all if you remove the literal 6-day creation week as being a literal creation week. Again, this is the basis for the very name Seventh-day Adventist.

Thanks again for your thoughts and questions,

Sincerely,

Sean

Sean Pitman Also Commented

Adventist Education–at the crossroads?
@pauluc:

My point in quoting Davies’ review of Polkinghorne was to show that they base their ideas on God’s existence on evidence, on certain features within the universe, which they think can only be explained by deliberate intelligent design on the level of God-like intelligence. That is an intelligent design hypothesis on at least some level.

Just because those who appeal to intelligent design theories on at least some level may also believe in various aspects of the modern theory of evolution doesn’t mean that an ID theory hasn’t been invoked on at least some level. It has.

After all, even I believe in evolution via RM/NS as being responsible for many features of living things. Many features of living things are very well explained by neutral evolution or by low-level functional evolution. This doesn’t mean that all features of living things can be therefore be explained by RM/NS. It is this leap of logic or extrapolation of low-level evolution to much higher levels of evolution, within mainstream science, which isn’t scientific. Many features of living things go well beyond the creative potential of any known mindless mechanism while being well within the realm of ID. This is the very same argument used by Davies to support his belief in a God as the designer behind certain features of the anthropic universe.

By the way, I do know Norman McNulty. I’m just not familiar with his views on perfectionism – which is, in any case, irrelevant to this purposes of this particular website. Also, my transitional internship was completed at Eisenhower Army Medical Center (not an SDA institution) and my hemepath fellowship was completed at the City of Hope under the world-renown Lawrence Weiss (not SDA either).

I remain as perplexed as ever how you can hold views on the the nature of intelligent design as a natural phenomena and the requirement for faith to be subservient to reason and evidence but deny anyone in church employ any leeway to explore or articulate anything beyond what you consider truth.

It isn’t what I consider truth. It is what the Church as an organization considers to be fundamental “present truth”. All are free to join or to leave the Church at will. This is a free civil society in which we live – thank God. However, the Church, as with any viable organization, must maintain a certain degree of order and discipline within its own organizational structure if it is to survive. The Church simply cannot afford to hire those who are ardently opposed to the basic fundamental goals and ideals of the Church as an organization and who go around teaching and preaching against the fundamental positions of the organized Church.

You may not consider the organization of the Church to be all that important. I think that without organization, and the order and control that goes along with maintaining any organization, that the Church would quickly fragment into a meaningless hodgepodge of isolated groups with widely divergent ideas. The organizational aspect of the Church is what gives it its power to spread a unified Gospel message more effectively.

I appreciate your responses to my questions and the glimpses I have gained into the mind of a person who seems to discern truth and sees the justice in imposing it on others.

What employer doesn’t impose various rules and restrictions on its paid employees? – rules that are known upfront before the employee agrees to take the job? You very well know that you can’t have your cake and eat it too. You can’t be paid by an organization for doing whatever you want. You are paid to do what the organization wants you to do. If you don’t like what the organization wants you to do, you don’t have to take the job. Again, it’s as simple as that. This isn’t some deep philosophical mystery here.

It is self-evident, is it not, that when one takes on employment in an organization of one’s own free will, one is obliged to take on the restriction, the rules, of that organization. Is it wrong of Reebok to require its own employees to only promote and even wear Reebok shoes? Would it be wrong of Reebok to fire and employee for publicly promoting Nike as making a superior product?

Come now. If you really believe that Nike makes the better shoe, and you are bound and determined to be honest to yourself and tell everyone about the superiority of Nike, why on Earth would you expect to be paid by Reebok to promote Nike? You’re simply making no sense here. You’re basically an anarchist who thinks you deserve to be paid simply for your honesty. I’m sorry, but no viable organization works that way. An honest Catholic should work for the Catholic organization. An honest Baptist should work for the Baptist organization. And an honest evolutionary scientist should work for those numerous organizations who would be more than glad to pay such an individual for their efforts. Why should the SDA Church pay anyone who doesn’t actually want to promote what the SDA Church, as an organization, wishes to promote?

God bless and give you as much insight into his Grace.

Likewise. God is a God of order and disciplined government – not anarchy. All are free to come and enjoy the gifts of God as given through the inspired organization of the SDA Church. However, not all are free to expect payment from the SDA Church for their services since not all are well suited to be official representatives of the Church as an organization.

Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com


Adventist Education–at the crossroads?
@Eddie:

I’m a partner in an independent pathology practice. We do some contract work for a Catholic hospital, but I have not been hired by the Catholic Church to be a representative of the Catholic Church or to promote Catholic doctrinal positions.

Teachers in our SDA schools, on the other hand, are specifically hired by the SDA Church to actively promote SDA goals and ideals within the classroom – specifically with regard to the topic of origins. This has been made very clear, in no uncertain terms, by the General Conference Executive Committee:

We call on all boards and educators at Seventh-day Adventist institutions at all levels to continue upholding and advocating the church’s position on origins. We, along with Seventh-day Adventist parents, expect students to receive a thorough, balanced, and scientifically rigorous exposure to and affirmation of our historic belief in a literal, recent six-day creation, even as they are educated to understand and assess competing philosophies of origins that dominate scientific discussion in the contemporary world.

http://adventist.org/beliefs/statements/main-stat55.html

Science teachers, in particular, are not hired to actively undermine the SDA position on origins in our classrooms. Clearly, such activity is counterproductive to the stated goals and ideals of the Church. Why would the Church wish to hire anyone to go around and tell people that the Church’s position is irrational and part of the “lunatic fringe”? – as so eloquently put by LSU science professor Gary Bradley? – in an interview with a secular journal?

Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com


Adventist Education–at the crossroads?
@pauluc:

J H Kellogg’s ideas were pantheistic – i.e., God actually within everything. This is not quite like suggesting that various features of the universe in which we live can only be rationally explained by invoking intelligent design on at least the human level of intelligence or beyond. Quite a number of old world and even modern physicists have come to this same conclusion as well. My position is more along the lines of Sir Isaac Newton or of the well-known Australian astrophysicist, Paul Davies, who writes:

The temptation to believe that the Universe is the product of some sort of design, a manifestation of subtle aesthetic and mathematical judgment, is overwhelming. The belief that there is “something behind it all” is one that I personally share with, I suspect, a majority of physicists…

The equations of physics have in them incredible simplicity, elegance and beauty. That in itself is sufficient to prove to me that there must be a God who is responsible for these laws and responsible for the universe.

* Davies, Paul C.W. [Physicist and Professor of Natural Philosophy, University of Adelaide],”The Christian perspective of a scientist,” Review of “The way the world is,” by John Polkinghorne, New Scientist, Vol. 98, No. 1354, pp.638-639, 2 June 1983, p.638

* http://www.abc.net.au/rn/scienceshow/stories/2006/1572643.htm

You don’t seem to grasp my argument that the term “natural” is a relative term. What seems “natural” to you may seem supernatural to someone else with less knowledge than you have. If God does in fact exist, his own intelligence and power would seem perfectly “natural” to him.

In short, the term “natural” is meaningless without a much more specific definition as to what you’re talking about when you use this word. Simply saying that science is restricted to examining “natural” phenomena does not mean that science cannot therefore detect an intelligent origin behind certain types of phenomena… even if that intelligent origin just so happens to be God. While a God could certainly hide himself from us quite easily. It is most certainly within God’s power to reveal himself to us in a manner that we can in fact detect as requiring a very high level of deliberate intelligence. Certainly you can recognize this as at least a possibility given the hypothesis of God’s actual existence – can you not?

You seem to be able to do this, on at least some level, for you write:

I do agree with you that nature is not enough and is an insufficient explanation of the universe. There is an intelligibility to the Universe and that things like Love, suffering and beauty call out for higher level explanations. But in this I agree with theologians such as Haught, McGrath and Polkinghorne who see the intelligibility of the universe and the anthropic principle as well as those higher functions as supporting a notion of the divine but do not simplistically restrict the divine to [plugs] for the holes in our knowledge or immediate explanations for origins.

Scientific theories are the plugs for the holes in our knowledge. We have limited knowledge. If we had perfect or absolute knowledge, science would no longer be needed. It is because we have limited knowledge that scientific methodologies become helpful to bridge the gaps or “holes” in our knowledge. The ID hypothesis is often a valid scientific bridge for certain types of holes in our knowledge. The notion that intelligent design cannot be invoked by science is simply mistaken.

Did you leave the armed forces when the government became Democrat rather than Republican? (I am of course assuming you are republican in political persuasion but given the statistics I have a high probability of being right). Do you agree in every point with your current employer? Will you resign when they express for example a view on abortion with which you disagree? Like the pharisees of old you are placing on church employees a burden much more than I suspect you would be prepared to bear.

If I felt I had to publicly counter my employer on some issue considered “fundamental” by my employer, and I was originally hired to promote this particular position of my employer, I would most certainly resign. If an employer hires me to do a particular job, and that job is made quite clear when I am hired, it would be morally wrong of me to undermine the clearly stated fundamental purpose of the job for which I was hired. That would be, in effect, stealing money and time from my employer. I would have misrepresented myself to my employer to get paid for something I never intended to deliver to my employer. Such activity is very deceptive and underhanded. It is a lie calculated to rob the employer of what the employer hired me to do – no bones about it. And that, I’m afraid, is a moral problem in anyone’s book.

If you think the SDA Church was somehow unclear about what it expects from its science professors regarding the topic of origins, think again. The following statement of the SDA General Conference Executive Committee is very clear in this regard:

We call on all boards and educators at Seventh-day Adventist institutions at all levels to continue upholding and advocating the church’s position on origins. We, along with Seventh-day Adventist parents, expect students to receive a thorough, balanced, and scientifically rigorous exposure to and affirmation of our historic belief in a literal, recent six-day creation, even as they are educated to understand and assess competing philosophies of origins that dominate scientific discussion in the contemporary world.

http://adventist.org/beliefs/statements/main-stat55.html

Regarding Brinsmead’s teachings, and their dramatic evolution over time, I’m sure I’m not aware of all of the subtleties of his numerous theological positions as they changed over time, but I think I’m well enough informed.

Also, Des Ford (since you brought him up) was not simply let go from Church employment for some minor issue. He was attacking clearly stated fundamental pillars of the SDA Church – to include the Church’s position on origins. Ford believes in and strongly supports theistic evolutionary ideas where life has existed and evolved on this planet over hundreds of millions of years of time. Ford does believe in the Divine inspiration of Genesis, but not based on the straight forward reading of the text so much as on a hidden mathematical code similar to the “Bible Code” of Michael Drosnin – on the same level as astrology if you ask me.

It is for such reasons that the likes of Ford and Brinsmead cannot represent the SDA Church in any sort of official capacity.

Really though, I do not want to get off on a debate on perfectionism. I do not agree with Brinsmead, and am not familiar with the views of Normal McNulty on this issue, but that isn’t the purpose of this particular website.

The purpose of this website is to inform members of the SDA Church as to what is really being taught in some of our schools on the issue of origins… a fundamental issue for the SDA Church.

Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com


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