Comment on WASC Reviews LSU’s Accreditation by Professor Kent.
Sean Pitman: Plant protein does not have the negative effects that certain animal proteins have on the human system. Laboratory studies have shown that plant protein, even if provided at the same level in the diet of lab animals, does not have the cancer-promoting properties of certain animal proteins.
I’ve searched the published literature on “animal protein” and “cancer” using the best search engine available and am not particularly inspired by what I found. I trust peer-reviewed literature more so than claims unearthed from Google searches. I’m pasting below some snippets from the most recent study I could locate that summarized what we know about the contributions of different protein types to disease. I think it’s premature to conclude with any confidence that animal protein is necessarily more deleterious than plant protein when consumed in similar quantities. Part of the problem is going to be the other dietary factors associated with the types of protein consumed that cannot be readily controlled in studies. I believe we need to learn more before making definitive claims.
Halkjae et al. 2009. Intake of total, animal and plant proteins, and their food sources in 10 countries in the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition. European Journal of Clinical Nutrition 63:S16-S36.
[INTRODUCTION] Another issue that is still unclear is whether all sources of protein have the same impact on disease outcomes. As an example, one study indicated that plant proteins had a protective effect against coronary heart disease mortality compared with animal proteins, whereas no clear association with cancer incidence and mortality was observed for any subtype of protein (Kelemen et al., 2005).
The association between protein and cancer risk has often been assessed on the basis of the food sources of protein rather than on the nutrient itself. Two of the main contributors to animal protein, red and processed meat, have been found to be consistently positively associated with risk of colorectal cancer (WCRF/AICR, 2007). The main explanation behind this association may, however, not be directly related to animal proteins, but to haem iron and endogenous N-nitroso components present in high concentrations in red and processed meat (Kuhnle and Bingham, 2007). In contrast, some researchers have suggested that other important sources of animal proteins, such as fish, may reduce the risk of colorectal cancer (Geelen et al., 2007) without being able to disentangle any specific beneficial effect of proteins.
[DISCUSSION] Processed meat has recently been judged as one of the most cancer-promoting food items (WCRF/AICR, 2007), whereas fish is considered to have beneficial effects in heart disease (He et al., 2004; Whelton et al., 2004) and also potentially in some cancer sites (Norat et al., 2005; Geelen et al., 2007), although possibly because of factors other than protein. Studies of the association between (animal or plant) protein and disease incidence may consequently be less reliable if the contributing protein sources are not evaluated in addition to total protein intakes.
Professor Kent Also Commented
WASC Reviews LSU’s Accreditation
WHAT DOES SEAN PITMAN TRULY BELIEVE?
Science has irrefutably shown the Bible’s claim that a human body decomposing several days cannot come back to life. Thus, science and scripture depart on this claim. There is no middle ground.
Who do YOU believe: God, because you take Him at his word, or the empirical evidence that drives human reason and science?
WASC Reviews LSU’s Accreditation
Sean Pitman: Epistatic interactions (the effects of a given mutation modified by other mutations) are irrelevant to the problem at hand – as are your arguments as to the nature of the environment and the presence of other mutations.
If you don’t think the environment or epistatic interactions are relevant, then you’ll have much difficulty deciding whether a given mutation is deleterious, neutral, or beneficial, and you won’t have a clue how strong selection is on it. I suggest you read the April 2010 issue of the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B. Don’t bother if your mind is already made up.
Sean Pitman: “This problem is explained rather neatly by the Biblical model of origins.”
Where does the Bible tell us that animals accumulate deleterious mutations faster than selection, recombination, and other mechanisms can overcome them? Where does the Bible tell us that lineages have a finite lifetime limited by their genes?
Sean Pitman: The data is clear and the implications are straightforward. The standard arguments of evolutionists fall flat in that they don’t actually solve this particular problem by a long shot – a problem that is fundamental to the entire modern theory of evolution.
There’s no point in arguing further with established fact, so I’ll desist. Congratulations, Sean, on elucidating and solving yet one more riddle that 99.5% of the world’s scientists have completely overlooked or denied. I’m gaining a clearer understanding why you are unwilling to take God at his word and prefer to rely, instead, on your own extraordinary reason and intellect. Clearly, God needs you to save the world from disbelief.
WASC Reviews LSU’s Accreditation
Sean Pitman’s doctrine of salvation merits a double-take:
“Salvation is about doing to others as you would have done to you.”
“Salvation is based on love – love toward our fellow man. The law of love is the Royal Law mentioned in James (James 2:8 NIV). Because the Royal Law is written on the hearts of all, all can be saved by living according to this law.”
Seventh-day Adventists do not teach or believe in salvation by works. Salvation is a free gift and is NOT procured by our actions toward fellow man (which is fortunate for Sean’s sake). So why does Sean undermine SDA fundamental belief #10? I am astonished by his heterodox theology. Wait a minute…I hear his supporters clamoring to claim he is (as always) correct.
Recent Comments by Professor Kent
Gary Gilbert, Spectrum, and Pseudogenes
Nic Samojluk: No wonder most creationist writers do not even try to submit their papers to such organizations.
Who wants to waste his/her time trying to enter through a door that is closed to him/her a priori?
You have no idea what you’re writing about, Nic. As it turns out, there are in fact many of us Adventists who “waste” our time publishing articles through doors that open to us a priori. Even Leonard Brand at Loma Linda, a widely recognized creationist, has published in the top geology journals. I mean the top journals in the discipline.
The myth that creationists cannot publish in mainstream science is perpetuated by people who simply do not understand the culture of science–and will remain clueless that they do not understand it even when confronted with their misunderstandings. Such is human nature.
Southern Adventist University opens Origins Exhibit
Pauluc,
Your questions about conservation genetics are very insightful. I don’t understand how all these life forms were able to greatly increase in genetic diversity while simultaneously winding down and losing genetic information to mutations. Sean seems to insist that both processes happen simultaneously. I had the impression he has insisted all along that the former cannot overcome the latter. But I think you must be right: God had to intervene to alter the course of nature. However, we can probably test this empirically because there must be a signature of evidence available in the DNA. I’ll bet Sean can find the evidence for this.
I’m also glad the predators (just 2 of most such species) in the ark had enough clean animals (14 of each such species) to eat during the deluge and in the months and years after they emerged from the ark that they didn’t wipe out the vast majority of animal species through predation. Maybe they all consumed manna while in the ark and during the first few months or years afterward. Perhaps Sean can find in the literature a gene for a single digestive enzyme that is common to all predatory animals, from the lowest invertebrate to the highest vertebrate. Now that would be amazing.
Wait a minute–I remember once being told that SDA biologists like Art Chadwick believe that some animals survived on floating vegetation outside the ark. Now that would solve some of these very real problems! I wonder whether readers here would allow for this possibility. Multiple arks without walls, roof, and human caretakers.
Southern Adventist University opens Origins Exhibit
Ellen White said, “In the days of Noah, men…many times larger than now exist, were buried, and thus preserved as an evidence to later generations that the antediluvians [presumably referring to humans] perished by a flood. God designed that the discovery of these things should establish faith in inspired history…”
Sean Pitman said, “All human fossils discovered so far are Tertiary or post-Flood fossils. There are no known antediluvian human fossils.”
Ellen White tells us that humans and dinosaurs (presumably referred to in the statement, “a class of very large animals which perished at the flood… mammoth animals”) lived together before the flood. Evolutionary biologists tell us that dinosaurs and humans never lived together. You’re telling us, Sean, that the fossil record supports the conclusion of evolutionists rather than that of Ellen White and the SDA Church. Many of the “very large animals which perished at the flood” are found only in fossil deposits prior to or attributed to the flood, whereas hunans occur in fossil deposits only after the flood (when their numbers were most scarce).
Should the SDA biologists, who are supposed to teach “creation science,” be fired if they teach what you have just conceded?
La Sierra Univeristy Fires Dr. Lee Greer; Signs anti-Creation Bond
For those aghast about the LSU situation and wondering what other SDA institutions have taken out bonds, hold on to your britches. You’ll be stunned when you learn (soon) how many of our other schools, and which ones in particular, have taken out these bonds. You will be amazed to learn just how many other administrators have deliberately secularized their institutions besides Randal Wisbey, presumably because they too hate the SDA Church (as David Read has put it so tactfully).
Be sure to protest equally loudly.
Gary Gilbert, Spectrum, and Pseudogenes
@Sean Pitman:
So clearly you believe that science can explain supernatural events. Congratulations on that.
