Comment on Report on LSU constituency meeting by Eddie.
As Geanna correctly pointed out, there is a huge distinction between an abstract and a peer-reviewed article in a scientific journal. An abstract is merely a paragraph, usually less than 500 words, summarizing the introduction, methods, results and conclusions of a research project in maybe 5-15 sentences. Abstracts are submitted and published for presentations (either oral or poster) given at scientific meetings. They are not subjected to the rigorous peer review of full length manuscripts in which full details are reported. Abstracts are often listed among the publications of a scientist, which tends to make the list of publications appear more impressive than it actually is.
I have met Dr. Chadwick before but don’t know him well. Nevertheless, I have heard many good things about him and I appreciate his research on origins. I hope that he can be more successful in the future in publishing research articles based on his projects. However, he teaches in an undergraduate program in which research is a low priority and few (if any) incentives are given for scholarship, which is typical of most SDA colleges and universities. He has a heavier teaching load than professors in SDA universities with a graduate program in biology and he lacks graduate students who can assist him with his research. It is also very difficult to obtain grants to fund research projects when you have a teaching load and no graduate students to help out. It would be nice if some of you who are blessed with the means could generously provide financial assistance to SDA biologists like Dr. Chadwick who are striving to find evidence to support the SDA interpretations of the Biblical account of origins.
And, as Geanna hinted, there are a growing number of relatively conservative SDA biologists, including some in undergraduate SDA institutions, who are prolific at publishing research papers in peer-reviewed scientific journals. However, the research of most of these biologists usually focuses on aspects of biology unrelated to the origin and (if I may) microevolution of life. The notion that the brightest and best of SDA biologists have abandoned traditional interpretations of origins is simply untrue.
Table of Contents
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.
