For decades Larry McCloskey actively promoted Darwinian evolution occurring over billions of years to his students to the active exclusion of any substantive discussion or presentation of the unique SDA view on origins in his classroom.
Lee Grismer has done and is doing the same thing. His own publications as sole author overwhelmingly clarify his position for anyone who wishes to consider what he is actually teaching his LSU students. Grismer is an expert on the vertebrate life of Baja California, which he argues, in his papers, has been affected by the “dynamic environmental history . . . over the last 4-5 million years†and that this history “has had a profound effect on the evolution, distribution, and genetic structuring of Baja California’s terrestrial vertebrates.†– L. Lee Grismer, Evolutionary biogeography on Mexico’s Baja California peninsula: A synthesis of molecules and historical geology, Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2000 December 19; 97(26): 14017–14018.
Lee Greer, who actually refers to himself as an “evolutionary biologist†(See Link) is fairly new to LSU’s faculty, but is already very active in promoting the gospel of Darwinian evolution to his students – as I know by conversations with students and personal discussions with Greer and a review of Greer’s published position on origins. Even in his bimonthly “chapels†at LSU he has actively promoted the idea that the various accounts of creation in Genesis are contradictory and allegorical – i.e., that there was no literal creation week or worldwide Noachian flood just a few thousand years ago. He has been recorded on a panel discussion of this issue at the Loma Linda University Church for a creation/science weekend explaining his views on this issue. It is no secret, which is a shame because I personally think a lot of Greer in particular and think he is an honest, sincere, very concerned teacher who really does care about his students and wants with all his heart to lead them in what he considers to be the right direction.
But again, this isn’t about sincerity or nobility of purpose or all of the other wonderful things that LSU has done and is doing. This is about the willingness of LSU, as an institution, to support one of the most fundamental of all SDA doctrinal positions – beyond mere lip service to their employer. So far, such support is not only lacking, but is actively scorned in a very public and open manner. The Church’s position on origins is actually belittled and ridiculed in the science and even religion classrooms at LSU. It is not only disrespected, it is undermined in a most active and most open way possible by LSU professors – and not without effect. Many of LSU’s students have lost their faith in the Gospel story as stated by the SDA Church and have either left the Church or become what I like to call “Country Club Adventists†– who only stick around because they appreciate the society, not the fundamental doctrines, of Adventism. Many of my own family have left the Church over this issue as well. So, it is actually quite personal for me.
(Excerpt from Sean Pitman’s reply to the open letter from Randal Wisbey, President of La Sierra University (LSU), in regard to the fact that science professors at LSU are not only teaching, but promoting as truth the Darwinian-style evolution in their classrooms.)
