@Professor Kent: Beyond this, the Earth …

Comment on Why those who hate the Bible love blind-faith Christians by Sean Pitman.

@Professor Kent:

Beyond this, the Earth isn’t that big of a place (~24,000 miles in circumference). It doesn’t take very long even for seemingly slow moving creatures to get from one side to the other. Just moving 12 miles per year, it would only take 1,000 years to migrate to the other side of the planet. Even a small slow tree sloth can easily migrate that fast… – Sean Pitman

So what do we really know about sloth movements?

In a 2004 paper in the journal Biological Conservation, Maned Sloths translocated from an urban area to a forest preserve in Brazil moved the most in their first year as they adjusted to their new environment, and much less in years 2 and 3. The average linear movement was approximately 24 yards per day. That would translate to 8760 yards per year, or 5.0 miles per year. However, the measure of “linear movement” was not in a straight line. It included zig-zag movements back and forth within a home range of less than 30 acres (the majority of sloths occupied home ranges less than half this size). And these numbers were essentially identical to a 2006 study published in Journal of Zoology of non-translocated sloths.

You forget that the gestation period for Maned Sloths is ~6 months (with sexual maturity reached in less than 5 years) and that Maned Sloths do not generally like to share their space with other sloths. This is probably why the initial migration in the first year was substantially greater than in the following years (very little range overlap between individual sloths). Given ideal conditions for survival, the doubling time for a sloth population would be less than five years. This means that the sloth population would double 10 times in 50 years and 40 times in 200 years.

Forty doubling times in just 200 years is equal to over 2 trillion sloths all needing their own home range within 200 years of the Flood (an impossibly large population for even the entire planet to sustain). The total land area of the world is 148,940,000 km^2. The independent range of a Maned Sloth is well over 1 hectare per sloth (equal to over 0.01 square kilometers each; with the notation that your reference to a home range of ~30 acres = ~0.12 km^2 each). Therefore, the entire surface of the Earth, if all of it were available for sloth habitat, could accommodate less than 15 billion maned sloths.

So, it seems at least reasonable to me that sloth migration would quite likely have happened a great deal faster than one might initially imagine given the ideal lush warm subtropical conditions that existed universally on this planet for several hundred years right after the Flood.

One more thing, if your continued attacks on the tenability of creation science is part of your “defense of traditional Adventism”, as you claim (since you consistently attack pretty much everything brought up in defense of the creationist position on origins – to include arguments suggesting significant limitations to the creative powers of random mutations and natural selection), I’d like to know upon what basis you would recommend that someone accept the Genesis account, as interpreted by the SDA Church, as being Divinely inspired? – besides “faith” that is truly blind to the weight of empirical evidence that is…

Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com

Sean Pitman Also Commented

Why those who hate the Bible love blind-faith Christians
@Phillip Brantley:

To be rejected on theological grounds is this website’s claim that teaching mainstream science in an Adventist university science class undermines belief in the Genesis account of creation, because science has no evidentiary basis in determining one’s interpretation of the sacred text or one’s belief in the truthfulness of the sacred text. See Phillip Brantley, “An Open Letter to La Sierra University”, published on http://www.spectrummagazine.org, 10/24/10.

http://www.spectrummagazine.org/blog/2010/10/24/open-letter-la-sierra-university

Thank you for nicely illustrating my point for me.

You, as a lawyer, strongly support the efforts of LSU science professors to not only present, but to actively promote, on the dime of the SDA Church, the modern theory of evolution as the true story of origins from the “scientific” perspective. You argue that this is perfectly fine since the SDA faith does not, or at least should not, have any basis in empirical “natural” evidence or in any form of scientific reasoning, investigation or support.

As far as I understand your position, the Bible must be internally interpreted and understood without reference to external empirical “natural” realities as interpreted by scientific methodologies. You even suggest, and this came as a real surprise to me, that the majority of SDA theologians and other leaders within the SDA Church would agree with you on this… to include your conclusion that most of the leadership of the SDA Church is actually in favor of the idea that LSU should continue on promoting the mainstream perspective on origins, in direct opposition to the SDA view on a literal creation week, in all science classes? that they are supportive of the idea that religion should be left to the theologians and science to the scientists? never the twain to meet?

If this is true, why has there been such a firestorm over this issue? Why has LSU repeatedly tried to cover up the fact that many of its upper division science professors have long been promoting mainstream theories of evolution as the true story of origins? – Why has LSU tried to deny that its professors have been telling students that the SDA position on origins is scientifically untenable? Why try to cover this up? Why not advertise it far and wide and be proud of it if this is truly what the SDA Church, as an organization, expects from its universities?

It is one thing to let the Bible be its own interpreter when it comes to understanding context and trying to grasp what the various authors were trying to say. It is quite another thing to argue that the Bible’s credibility is self-evident without any external points of reference.

You argue that the evidence in support of the Bible’s Divine origin is “supernatural evidence”; not “natural evidence”. Tell me, how can we, as natural subjective human beings, determine the supernatural from the natural? – without using a form of scientific reasoning?

For example, is a chocolate cake natural or supernatural? The creative process that is required to produce a chocolate cake cannot be explained by any scientific appeal to mindless natural laws. Yet, a form of scientific reasoning can be employed to suggest to the observer that at least human-level intelligence was required to produce the chocolate cake. The ultimate origin of this intelligence, or functional information needed to make the cake, cannot be explained by science. There are no experiments or calculations that can describe how to produce this level of informational complexity without appealing to pre-existing intelligence or informational complexity at or beyond the same level that one is trying to explain. So, is the origin of a chocolate cake natural or supernatural?

The same thing is true when it comes to detecting the need for a God or God-like powers to explain various phenomena that we see within the natural world – to include the functional information complexity to produce even the most simple of living things. It’s like explaining a chocolate cake, but on a higher level is all.

Explaining the origin of functionally complex information is a turtles all the way up problem – if you know what I mean…

Therefore, Science, or a form of scientific reasoning based on empirical evidence, is not the enemy of faith. Such reasoning forms the basis of a rational Biblical faith. The Biblical authors are constantly pointing toward empirical evidences as a basis of their own faith and of the faith of the various heroes of faith described in their stories. Faith is also required by science itself. Without the ability to make leaps of faith beyond what can be absolutely known, there would be no science and no scientists. In this sense, science has religious implications and religion can be, and I think should be, based on a form of scientific reasoning and higher cortical function that goes well beyond the mere emotion-based blind-faith religions of today.

Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com


Why those who hate the Bible love blind-faith Christians
@Professor Kent:

Hello out there!!! Are there ANY readers who actually agree with SDA Fundamental Belief #10–besides me?

“This faith which receives salvation COMES THROUGH THE DIVINE POWER OF THE WORD and IS THE GIFT OF GOD’S GRACE”

Everything is a gift of God’s grace – knowledge, intelligence, faith, trust, hope, love. All of it! All good things are gifts of God…

Now, just because faith is a gift of God does not mean that God turns off our brains when He gives us the ability to make leaps of faith. Science itself requires faith. Without faith, there is no science. And, without science, without the “weight of evidence”, there is no real faith that is able to provide a rational solid hope in the future. God has seen fit to make us an active part of our own faith – to base our faith on logical leaps from the weight of empirical evidence as we are given, by God, to properly comprehend and understand that evidence (a miracle in and of itself that is beyond ourselves).

Empirical evidence is not something to be shunned or feared. Empirical evidence and the ability to understand and rightly comprehend that evidence, is also a gift of God to be used to rationally appreciate Him for who He is and trust His Word when He speaks to us.

Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com


Why those who hate the Bible love blind-faith Christians
Professor Kent,

You wrote:

Phil composed several very nice responses that I would have to agree with. In particular, “Given that science limits itself to natural evidence, a subset of all evidence, our science teachers act appropriately in presenting material regarding evolution and according it factual validity to the degree warranted by the natural evidence.”

http://www.atoday.com/content/%E2%80%9Ctelling-lies-god%E2%80%9D-cokepepsi-analogy

In other words, the SDA Church should be fine with scientists teaching modern evolutionary theories as the most likely story of origins to our young people? – “according to it factual validity to the degree warranted by the natural evidence”? – a degree which they strongly believe is very very high indeed…

In short, haven’t you just argued that because faith and science are separate enterprises, the promotion of The Theory of Evolution, in SDA schools, by professors of science, shouldn’t really be a big deal at all? After all, the SDA faith shouldn’t be at all affected by empirical/scientific evidence, modern or otherwise… right? Since rational faith can withstand the weight of empirical evidence, the more contrary empirical evidence the better! – right? Why does the Church even bother with trying to support is position with the use of any kind of empirical evidence whatsoever? If the Bible is its own basis for authority, if it cannot be wrong, even in theory, why subject it to any kind of empirical test at all?

Again, you seem to speak out of both sides of your mouth. You appeal to the modern sciences of archeology and history as a basis for the validity of Biblical prophecy and its Divine origin (i.e., with the use of modern empirical evidence), but then claim that such empirical evidence really isn’t needed as a basis of faith nor is the weight of empirical evidence, as often referenced by Mrs. White, a basis faith in the Divine origin of the Bible?

Why do you also challenge nearly every single empirical basis brought forward in support of the SDA view on creation and the Noachian Flood? – if you’re such a big supporter of the actual historical truth of such positions? You’ve been foremost among those trying to undermine the credibility of all or nearly all arguments for intelligent design in nature and the Biblical model of origins on this website – rivaling some of those ardent evolutionists who most strongly opposed me on TalkOrigins.com and elsewhere. And you think you and those of like mind are doing the Church a service by telling everyone that the great weight of scientific evidence is in clear opposition to the beliefs of the SDA Church? – but that this doesn’t matter to those who have true “faith”? This is what you want our science teachers to teach in our schools?

What does the SDA Church really want for it’s young people? Do you really think that the SDA President, Elder Ted Wilson, supports your view? How about the organized SDA Church at large?

We call on all boards and educators at Seventh-day Adventist institutions at all levels to continue upholding and advocating the church’s position on origins. We, along with Seventh-day Adventist parents, expect students to receive a thorough, balanced, and scientifically rigorous exposure to and affirmation of our historic belief in a literal, recent six-day creation, even as they are educated to understand and assess competing philosophies of origins that dominate scientific discussion in the contemporary world.

As a response to the “An Affirmation of Creation–Report”, this document was accepted and voted by the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventist Church Executive Committee at the Annual Council in Silver Spring, Maryland, October 13, 2004.

These aren’t my words or my opinion. This is the request of the Church as an organized body… a “scientifically rigorous exposure to and affirmation of our historic belief in a literal, recent six-day creation…”

Can you honestly say that you are presenting a “scientifically rigorous affirmation of the SDA position on a literal, recent six-day creation”? Or, are you claiming that there really is no need for a scientifically rigorous support of any SDA fundamental belief since true faith needs no such empirical support?

Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com


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