The Faculty Senate of La Sierra University, a Seventh Day Adventist institution in Riverside, Calif., has overwhelmingly approved a resolution supporting the university’s biology department in the face of criticism of its teaching of evolution. The resolution characterizes the department’s teaching as a matter of academic freedom, according to Adventist Today, a church publication. The Board of Trustees of La Sierra, which has come under fire from alumni for contradicting the church’s creationist beliefs, plans to discuss this month how evolution is taught there. It has asked the Association of Adventist Colleges and Universities to establish a panel of Adventist college presidents and science faculty members to develop a curriculum that affirms creationism in a “scientifically rigorous” manner.
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This is not merely a matter of ‘academic freedom.’ It is a matter of scientific rationality. It is not possible to affirm creationism in a scientifically rigorous manner. If you like, I’ll prove it. When Duane Gish and other prominent creationists are told that astronomical evidence points to a universe billions of years old, Gish states that when God created the universe, he created it with the light already here on earth. And how does he know that the apparent age of the earth is only an illusion? He must admit that the Bible told him so. So much for scientific rigor.
“…a curriculum that affirms creationism in a ‘scientifically rigorous’ manner.” I can hardly wait to see that one!
Two sets of words that constitute an oxymoron: “affirms creationism” and “scientifically rigorous”. The good panel could find themselves working on this for an awfully long time.
So what is the big deal? Let them teach creationism in their biology, chemistry, physics or any other subject. It is for sure that my company will not be hiring any of their graduates. I would like to see if any reputable university in the world will be accepting their students in a graduate program in biology.
They would probably be better off by requiring some religion course(s) as part of their general education reqirement. They can deal with creation ideas in a religion class and let scientific ideas to the science courses.
Many religious based schools teach evolutionary biology without demeaning or damaging their beliefs and faith. The Seventh-day Adventist system of education has 14 fine universities in the U.S., such as Loma Linda and Andrews. I am confident that those at La Sierra will find a way to accommodate both scientific inquiry and faith, as other universities do.
If you would like to witness a true rift between opposing camps, click on the “Adventist Today” link in the article, then read the ensuing reader comments,
It’s quite clear from reading the posts in the “Adventist Today” link provided above that there are factions within the Adventist community who are desparately afraid of the implications associated with what they term “theistic evolutionary ideas”. It appears these naysayers would be far more comfortable with a climate of ignorance and some don’t hesitate to say so. They also typically express adament opposition to any attempt to reconcile cherished beliefs with the realities of modern science. One can only wish the less dogmatic and rational elements in the Adventist community well in seeking to move their religion towards a more nuanced theology. Perhaps the definitive stance taken by this particular faculty senate will facilitate movement in that direction.
At the risk of getting into an argument on religion, I only feel it’s fair to point out that evolution is as much religion as creationism. Definition of “religion” from Dictionary.com: “a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe…”. Sounds like both creationism and evolution to me!Definition of “science” from Dictionary.com: 1. a branch of knowledge or study dealing with a body of facts or truths systematically arranged and showing the operation of general laws: the mathematical sciences. 2. systematic knowledge of the physical or material world gained through observation and experimentation. Example: the Bible says animals reproduce “after his (their) kind.” Evolutionists believe this does not happen, but that non-living matter has somewhere along the line produced living matter. Evolutionists: please provide proof that non-living matter can turn to living matter. According to our definitions, we should be able to replicate these processes through “observation and experimentation.” To my knowledge, it’s never happened.Last I checked, dogs still produced dogs, horses produced horses, etc.If you think the Bible requires too much faith, then fine. I just find it interesting that such a crazy hypothesis, such as non-living matter turning living, is presented as truth. It takes as much faith to believe that than it does to believe the creation story.
Snore. Do you actually call that thinking dear? There is no scientific theory better proven than evolution, with more evidence. Yes, I know the territory well, unfortunately from the inside. And yes, that gives me special license to dismiss such silly prattle as yours for the childish nonsense it is. Grow up son. Just because your life span is so short that you cannot comprehend millions and billions of years through your fingers does not mean anything except a failure of thoughtfulness. Just because you have never read Darwin, have never read anything much except your historical myth-book and a bit of popular literature along with a lot of television does not mean anything except you are a deliberate ignoramus. You remain so for one primary reason – social comfort in a system of ideology that makes everything clear to you. The problem is, that it doesn’t really make anything clear at all, and your disturbance at how everyone thinks these “bad things” is a proof of it. The Doonesbury cartoon says it very well on evolution. “Do you want the antibiotic that used to work that doesn’t anymore because bacteria have evolved resistance? Or do you want the antibiotic that works that bacteria haven’t evolved resistance to yet?”
johntoradze – Thank you for your comments. Please do not take my post as inciting, but merely as making the point that our definition of science, as currently stated, cannot be applied to the theory of evolution. Your comments are proof, as you mention that we “cannot comprehend millions and billions of years” rather than noting any observable tests (or examples of non-living matter turning to living matter).Yes, I have read Darwin, although I am not an expert. From my perspective, his amazing and detailed work is clearly a religious belief, as in accordance with the definition of religion (cited above). I’m not knocking him – lots of people (including me) have religious beliefs – it’s just that his work does not marry well to the definition of science. In higher education, I think it’s important to be able to ask these questions. The angry responses lead me to wonder about the validity of such theories.No, I don’t own or watch TV, which may or may not make me a deliberate ignoramus :).
Such usual tactic by simon100 of drawing the equal sign between the scientific theory of evolution and religious believes is the epitome of the lack of understanding (or refusal to understand) the definition of science. Evolution as a theory, is based on sound logic, backed by overwhelming evidence. Religion (and creationism) is entirely faith-based, and do not bother with any evidence or even whether the reasoning is logically sound. If you cannot see the difference between the two I don’t know what else to tell you. And the claim of having read a few excerpts from “The Origin” does not make the arguments more authoritative. I have read the Bible, that should make me an expert critique of the Judeo-Christian religion by that logic.And for the line that “dogs still produced dogs, horses produced horses”, it’s oversimplification of matters and again demonstrates the lack of understanding of nature. Horses (with donkeys) can produce mules; as for dogs, great danes and Chihuahuas might as well be considered different species. If artifical selection could do these in a couple thousands of years, imagine what nature could do in a few billion.
LOL X’IANS!1
Simon100′s definition of religion…. “a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe…” and his insistence that evolution fits that definition….. provides a clear example of his (and most people’s?) misunderstanding of evolution….. in terms of what evolution does and does not do. It is simply a means of providing a scientific framework through which we may examine some parts of our natural world…. the biological parts, specifically.So, what’s the problem with that definition?….. First of all….. Evolution does not address “the universe”…. …. not its “cause” ….. (i.e., The Big Bang has nothing whatsoever to do with biological evolution.)… not its “nature”…. Evolution addresses the changes in life forms, not “the nature of the universe”…. not it “purpose”… Evolution assigns no “purpose” or “goal” or “intentional plan” to the aspects of the living world which it is describing and explaining. Just that they have become as they are through an explainable, mechanistic process…. one that does not entail nor require any supernatural miracles along the way. Religions, by contrast, do, typically, purport to represent a mode of the world/universe which has a purpose or a grand plan “lorded over” by some supreme, supernatural being. (My apologies to the followers of the Great Spaghetti Monster, of course.)So, I see no equivalence to science and religion. Anyone who does, simply reveals his profound ignorance of the nature of human thought…. and the different approaches and philosophies by which one can attempt “know” the world. The means by which biologists “know” the living world. versus the way “mythologists” (Is there such a word?) “know” their perception of the world…. are two entirely different things.
Seventh Day Adventists and creationism have nothing to do with science. Creation science is, simply, an oxymoron.
Dear Simon100,You seem to forget in the your reading of Darwin that nowhere in his ‘Origin of the Species’ does he deal with how life evolved from non-living matter. His book is devoted to showing how all species, living and extinct (mostly extinct), radiated from the primitive first life forms to create a tree of life on which every species developed from an earlier verion. Thus, he concluded, all life is intimately related. Our closest relatives, the chimpanzees, entered the picture far earlier than did mankind. Reptiles appeared far earlier than the mammals they came from. His investigation of the fossil record leads to this insight. He presented all the evidence and argument he had; subsequent research has expanded on his insights, justified them, improved them and found fruitful areas in nature from which his insight have led to practical and valuable results. Scientists today also speculate on the crucial transition from non-living to living matter but here they must be far more cautious and speculative (and they are) but you must not reject evolutionary biology because of what it has not yet done and ignoring all that it has done. Holding the argument to a rigid and partial definition gleaned from your authority (now a dictionary rather than a Bible) is an old freshman comp trick that I’ve had to deal with throughout my teaching career. If you must discuss what science is, you cannot stop with the dictionary, you must continue on through books on the philosophy of science, history of science and actual scientific work in the field to understand how and why scientists accept or reject the work of other scientists. Are you interested in truth, Simon100, or winning the debate? Why do you ignore all work in evolutionary theory and confine yourself to the origin of life? Is it because in it you have found the only significant question left unsolved? If so, you have done what ‘God of the Gaps’ theism has always done–as science progress, theism must give ground and retreat to one of the remaing problems. One day, having been driven from every they-cannot-explain-it-bunker, and having to live in the clear light of day, this kind of theism will evaporate in the heat and light of truth. But as desirable as this might be, I doubt it will ever occur.
“Arnoldas” is right on most counts, but he may wrongly assume (as I probably did in my post) that “Simon100″ or anyone of his ilk really cares much about the mountain of evidence that supports the evolutionary model of the living world…. evidence that clearly contradicts their creationism model from top to bottom. Their obvious “disconnect” from reality…. a psychological phenomenon that crops up in some otherwise sane and apparently bright folks…….. is really one of the most puzzling…. amazingly inexplicable….. aspects of the human mind. And this phenomenon seems to be apparent on many levels and tangents, actually. Has anyone ever tried to explain it? I’d love to read a cogent treatise on it. The admittedly unfinished work on “chemical evolution”….. a completely different pursuit from “biological evolution”…… the former attempting to account for the apparent “fact” that a quasi-living protocell developed from nonliving organic molecules some 4 billion years ago…….. does not, as “arnoldas” points out, negate the work that biological evolutionists have accomplished in the 150+ years since Darwin got the ball rolling. The “anti-folks” love to equate the origin of life with the evolution of life….. which are 2 distinctly different realms of inquiry. Arnoldas did, unfortunately, get one sentence turned around backwards when he wrote…..” Reptiles appeared far earlier than the mammals they came from.”We know he meant…. Reptiles appeared far earlier than the mammals that later evolved from reptiles.However, even that “corrected” version gets it quite wrong….. since the reptilian lineage is not even the vertebrate stem group that led to mammals.Instead, we now know that mammals resulted from a different tetrapod amniote lineage known as synapsids, which were not true “reptiles” in the strict sense of that term. The fact that mammal-like synapsids were evolving mammalian traits at the same time that a number of very early reptilian lineages were first evolving is one of the main reasons why we eventually find small mammals living among the dinosaurs throughout a major portion of the Mesozoic.So, “Arnoldas” expressed a commonly held misconception…. one that I had, prior to having to actually teach the subject of vertebrate zoology. It may seem like a “picky detail”, but not to those vertebrate paleontologists, by golly! :-)It appears “simon100″ and his fellow “believers” have left the field of battle since the appearance of my original post? Hmmmm.
Synapsids, huh? Live and learn. I stand corrected, but I blush more for the faulty pronoun reference that makes it seem I am asserting that mammals arrived on the scene before reptiles. I’m not versed in vertebrate zoology but am (was?) a professional rhetorician. Oh, well, I’ll hang up my Strunk and Fowler, and drown my sorrows in cups of Tikwanyin tea and the occasional Manhattan while gazing at the setting sun.