Comment on Catholic School Fires Math Teacher for Expressing Atheistic Views by Eddie.
David answered the question better than I could have. From what I understand, a decade or so ago the SDA colleges and universities separated their wages from the denominational wage scale, ostensibly so that they could pay higher wages to attract better quality professors. As a consequence, wages are set by each institution’s board of trustees but, because of financial constraints, pay raises tend to fall behind those doled out by the denomination. To give an example, Pacific Union College currently pays its professors something like 20-25% LESS than the primary and secondary school teachers on the same campus. So why would anybody in their right mind want to teach there? Can you imagine the impact on the morale of faculty? What kind of a message does that send to students?
At the very least, PUC professors should be paid the SAME as primary and secondary school teachers, and it’s a shame they aren’t. PUC is probably the most extreme example, but remuneration varies greatly among SDA institutions. La Sierra University pays more than PUC because it has generated huge profits from real estate deals. Loma Linda University pays the most because it is a health sciences university. The other SDA institutions pay less than the California institutions but the cost of living is lower–often much lower–than in California.
David wrote “If you look at the faculties of all of our North American universities, you will see that almost none of the professors’ terminal degrees are from Adventist institutions.” That may well be true, but not for biology professors, which are often recruited from the graduate program in earth and biological sciences at LLU. Although I read the occasional critique of LLU’s graduate programs in this forum, the program historically has been very conservative and tended to attract relatively conservative graduate students who were a fearful of attending graduate school in a secular university. For many years the graduate program was chaired by Ariel Roth and later by Leonard Brand, both staunch defenders of traditional SDA interpretations of origins. Both were very careful not to hire professors with “progressive” views of origins–even now the program is staffed with relatively conservative SDA professors. One SDA non-biology professor once suggested to me that SDA biology professors might be more conservative in their views of origins than SDA professors of any other discipline, including non-science disciplines–and I suspect he just might be right.
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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.
