After reading every word of the report, I have a …

Comment on LSU Board committee reports on allegations by Eddie.

After reading every word of the report, I have a few observations:

1. I believe the readers of this website are much more interested in seeing progress on SDA beliefs supported in the classroom at LSU than reading Sean’s tireless crusade against blind faith. Can we please stay more focused on the subject?

2. I commend the steps taken by LSU’s board to understand the scope of the problem and to rectify it. I think we need to be more patient with the process rather than demanding immediate action (e.g., firing professors and administrators), publicly condemning individual professors and administrators, etc., without a fair and balanced inquiry into the nature of the problem, which cannot be resolved overnight. I believe our church leaders deserve our support and respect. There is a proper procedure for personnel changes within the church; the last time I checked it did not include cyberbullying.

3. I liked the survey, which served its purpose by identifying deficiencies in the teaching and support of SDA beliefs among biology faculty, so I am saddened that some have literally and disrespectfully dismissed as a “joke.” I see merit in repeating the survey in other SDA institutions to document the extent of the problem.

4. I think it would be beneficial if ALL of our biology professors, not just a few here and there, could gather together to discuss how they address the issue of origins in the classroom.

5. I’m wondering why this document was posted here. After all, it explicitly states “This memorandum is intended for internal campus distribution only.” Maybe I’m just old-fashioned when it comes to decorum in the new “information age,” but if a document is intended to be confidential, isn’t it unethical to publicly post it without the express written consent of its authors (committee members)?

Eddie Also Commented

LSU Board committee reports on allegations

Ron Stone M.D.: Taking student “surveys” on what they thought they were taught is “ridiculous” as the major means to find out “what” was actually taught, when the actual people involved are available to interview and speak with.

If so, why should a jury ever listen to the testimonies of witnesses to a crime when they could simply ask the alleged perpetrator?

And how certain are you that the committee didn’t interview the professors? Perhaps the committee members attempted to interview the biology professors but they were unwilling to cooperate or to be candid about they taught. I wasn’t there so I don’t know what happened, which is why I’m not going to pass judgement on them.

I’m puzzled by why you are so upset at the survey when in fact it demonstrated exactly what Educate Truth had been alleging all along: that some biology professors were promoting theistic evolution in the classroom. The purpose of the committee was to investigate three specific allegations, all of which were confirmed to be true.

As far as I can tell the committee was not asked to identify and fire any professors who were found guilty of the allegations, or to close the university, which I suspect are the only solutions that will ever satisfy you that they are doing their job.


LSU Board committee reports on allegations

Ron Stone M.D.: the belief that some “survey” of students to see what they “thought” they heard is an idiotic, moronic way to find the truth!

I think you’re disrespecting the intelligence of both the commitee members and students.

Ron Stone M.D.: Trying to shift the blame to the students is totally pathetic

Nobody is shifting the blame to the students. Committee members knew all along that this controversy would never have blown up in the first place if there hadn’t been one or more professors who had promoted theistic evolution. Slander them if you wish, but I think they deserve your respect.


LSU Board committee reports on allegations
Why would it be necessary? I suspect some if not all committee members saw what was posted here. Even if they didn’t, they obviously found sufficient evidence that some professors endorsed theistic evolution in the classroom. Furthermore, a PowerPoint presentation of a lecture can be misleading. For example, if the theory of evolution is being presented in the classroom, a slide (e.g., of geological strata listing conventional time periods) may be taken out of context and miscontrued as an endorsement of evolution even though a professor verbally states in the classroom that he or she does not endorse the theory. An individual must both see and hear what is presented in the classroom to completely understand the context.


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.