This Is Not a Day Care. It’s a University

Re:This Is Not a Day Care. It’s a University by myth_buster on Tuesday December 01, 2015 @10:37AM (#10656089)

I agree with the jist of what is said by the president, but while reading this I felt the religious intonations were a bit strong and the article not object enough. Reading your comment does provide correlation to the strong religious sentiments.

Also their mission statement:

  As an evangelical Christian university of The Wesleyan Church, Oklahoma 
  Wesleyan University models a way of thought, a way of life, and a way of 
  faith. It is a place of serious study, honest questions, and critical 
  engagement, all in the context of a liberal arts community that honors the 
  Primacy of Jesus Christ, the Priority of Scripture, the Pursuit of Truth, and 
  the Practice of Wisdom.

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Re:This Is Not a Day Care. It’s a University by 6stringmerc on Tuesday December 01, 2015 @10:55AM (#10656254)

Thanks for posting the Mission Statement. Got me thinking a little bit more about their "values" so I was able to quickly dredge up a course catalog. Why? I wondered what their take on Biology would be - you know, that whole Evolution thing.

To wit:

Biology Major — Students will demonstrate the following outcomes, upon completion of the Biology degree offered by the School of Arts and Sciences:

1. A sound basic understanding of the chemistry of life.

2. A sound basic understanding of prokaryotic and eukaryotic cell structure and function.

3. A fundamental knowledge of Classical, Molecular, and Population genetics.

4. A sound basic understanding of the proposed mechanisms of evolution and understanding of Creation.

5. A sound basic understanding of the structure and function in plants and animals.

6. A sound basic understanding of ecology.

7. Integration of the Biblical Principles into life sciences.

Needless to say, I'm not surprised by the "framing" of Evolution and, essentially, equivocating its merit with, um, Biblical Creationism.

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Re:This Is Not a Day Care. It’s a University by joeclark77 on Tuesday December 01, 2015 @11:18AM (#10656501)

It doesn't contain the word "Creationism". The word "Creation" simply means "the universe", i.e. that which is created.

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Re:This Is Not a Day Care. It’s a University by 6stringmerc on Tuesday December 01, 2015 @11:33AM (#10656642)

No, it's not that blatant, as I mention elsewhere. However, from my understanding of Evolution, there is no associated implication with respect to the origin of life. Thus, it's a specious pairing of concepts, further anchored by the last point regarding "Biblical Principles" because taking the good book literally means the 6 day Creation of Genesis doesn't leave any room for Evolution.

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Re:This Is Not a Day Care. It’s a University by semi-extrinsic on Tuesday December 01, 2015 @01:02PM (#10657424)

FWIW it's impossible to take the Creation in Genesis literally, because there are two different Creation stories in Genesis.

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Re:This Is Not a Day Care. It’s a University by splawn on Tuesday December 01, 2015 @11:58AM (#10656893)

The word "Creation" only means "the universe" in the context of Creationism... so ,assuming you are correct about its meaning, the word "Creationism" isn't actually necessary to show that the sentence was created by a creationist.

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Re:This Is Not a Day Care. It’s a University by joeclark77 on Tuesday December 01, 2015 @03:07PM (#10658350)

No, pretty much any Christian of any denomination understands Creation to mean "all that is created by God", i.e. the whole universe and all therein. The Catholic church, by far the largest "denomination", does not teach young-earth creationism, and I doubt that belief is shared by any more than a small minority even of Protestants.

Perhaps they join the concepts because they know that the opponents of their faith often try to falsely imply that theories of evolution are proofs of atheism.

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Re:This Is Not a Day Care. It’s a University by splawn on Tuesday December 01, 2015 @04:37PM (#10658991)

My apologies.. I lumped "god-driven evolution" in with creationism. Where I live most christians don't accept evolution and I forget that in other parts of the world there can be more nuisance. I have never actually heard that evolution is proof of no god, only that god isn't necessary for evolution to work which seems like a different thing to me. In fact wrt "proof", the point I am more familiar with is that god is an unfalsifiable concept which means can't be proved or disproved (which is why faith is required). However, I am sure there is a whole spectrum of quality when it comes to arguments against theology just like there is with anything else.

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Re:This Is Not a Day Care. It’s a University by jccc on Tuesday December 01, 2015 @11:25AM (#10656572)

Fair enough.

What then does "Integration of the Biblical Principles into life sciences" mean?

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Re:This Is Not a Day Care. It’s a University by dsr_ on Tuesday December 01, 2015 @12:05PM (#10656956)

It means that science will be interpreted to support the current religious-political conclusions of the administration.

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Re:This Is Not a Day Care. It’s a University by darkr on Tuesday December 01, 2015 @12:13PM (#10657038)

It means that the correct application of capitalisation is not part of the syllabus.

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Re:This Is Not a Day Care. It’s a University by nightspirit on Tuesday December 01, 2015 @11:23AM (#10656551)

This looks like they are actually jettisoning Biblical Creationism and trying to explain the act of "Creation" in terms of evolutionary processes.

I'm under impression that such is also the official stance of the major "mainstream" churches today.

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Re:This Is Not a Day Care. It’s a University by 6stringmerc on Tuesday December 01, 2015 @11:30AM (#10656617)

Not to me, I think it looks like "proposed" is a side-stepping phrasing that replaces a perfectly reasonable one like "established" because, at the core, Evolution does not cross-pollenate with Creation. It's simply a scientific observation codified into an accepted understanding of nature. To juxtapose the two - Evolution and Creation - is inherently suspect.

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Re:This Is Not a Day Care. It’s a University by jccc on Tuesday December 01, 2015 @11:28AM (#10656596)

The word "proposed" elides quite a bit. It seems clear that they are "teaching the controversy," which is just another way of teaching creationism.

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Re:This Is Not a Day Care. It’s a University by MisterBastahrd on Tuesday December 01, 2015 @12:33PM (#10657222)

Serious study and honest questions are antithetical to fundamentalism.

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