Comment on Catholic School Fires Math Teacher for Expressing Atheistic Views by Eddie.
It would be nice if SDA colleges and universities hired only committed SDA professors, but some of you seem unaware that it is often very, very difficult to find a suitable SDA candidate with a PhD degree for an open teaching position, which is why non-SDAs or marginal SDAs are often hired on a contractual or salary basis. The same thing happens in SDA health care institutions–why would you expect SDA institutions of higher learning to be any different? Especially when the remuneration is lower than what most SDA academies and primary schools pay their teachers, and much, much lower than what SDA health care workers, including nurses, get paid. Why bother to get a PhD degree?
That is why we need more SDAs who are willing to teach in SDA institutions of higher education–and why we need to foster an educational environment more attractive to SDAs who are dedicated to the mission of the SDA church. We have not done enough–not nearly enough–to encourage young, dedicated SDA intellectuals to become professors in our colleges and universities. I’m quite certain that much less than 1% of science majors in SDA institutions aspire to become a professor in a SDA institution of higher education. If we could get it to more than 1% there would be a much larger pool of potential candidates, but that would require a major change in the church’s culture.
If you’re genuinely concerned about what is happening at LSU, have you ever encouraged a young, talented, inquisitive and dedicated SDA student to become a professor in an SDA institution? If not, please do so–and please do not withdraw your support for SDA education!
Table of Contents
Eddie Also Commented
Catholic School Fires Math Teacher for Expressing Atheistic Views
Geanna, naturally I recommend Loma Linda University. But good luck finding a job in a SDA institution, because there may not be any science programs left in SDA institutions by the time you finish (I can almost hear the applause).
Catholic School Fires Math Teacher for Expressing Atheistic Views
Maybe it’s time some of you get a PhD degree in biology and EDUCATE TRUTH once and for all! Maybe God is calling YOU?
Catholic School Fires Math Teacher for Expressing Atheistic Views
So Ron, good buddy, isn’t your mantra of criticizing SDA leadership and California SDAs merely a “smokescreen”? How is criticism ever going to resolve the crisis? What exactly do you think is the “real issue” here and how it should be resolved?
Judging from the tone of your posts, I would guess you favor one of the following options: (1) goad the General Conference (through a steady stream of criticism) to fire the leaders and hire new ones who are willing to fire the liberal professors; (2) goad the current leaders (through a steady stream of criticism) into firing the liberal professors; (3) shut down LSU’s biology program; or (4) shut down LSU. If you favor the first or second options, who would you replace the professors with? How many qualified candidates do you know who are qualified to teach biology, support traditional SDA views of origins, and are actually looking for a job? Do you believe that any of the above options, if taken, will actually resolve the crisis within the church’s educational system? If you don’t believe that any of the above options will resolve the crisis, what alternative do you suggest?
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.
