Southwestern Adventist University Featured on National Geographic Dino TV Program
By AT News Team, June 7, 2015: Scientists from Southwestern Adventist University will be featured in a National Geographic television program about dinosaurs tonight (Sunday), reported the Keene Star. Southwestern’s Dinosaur Research Project also played a role in Saturday’s program titled “Dino Death Match.”
“Ultimate Dino Survival” can be viewed Sunday night at 8:00pm (National Geographic Channel schedule). The episode centers on Nanotyrannus, a rare dinosaur the Dinosaur Research Project[1] discovered in 2001, only the third found at the time, reported the Star.
To make the program, a film team traveled to Southwestern from England. Art Chadwick, a research biology professor at Southwestern and co-director of the Dinosaur Research Project told the Star, “The visiting videographers were just fabulous. It was a privilege to work with them.”
For nearly two decades, Chadwick and the Southwestern team have been working in collaboration with the Earth History Research Center and the Hanson Research Station, conducting excavations in the Lance Formation of eastern Wyoming. The 2015 dig is currently underway in Wyoming, and it will conclude on July 3. Because it is an educational project, the Star reports that “students are involved with the whole process, everything from finding the bones to cleaning and taking the 3D pictures.”
This work has unearthed more than 17,000 bones, which are recorded in a significant database. “Southwestern has the only dinosaur bone collection in the world with complete 3D images of every specimen,” reported the Star. The Dinosaur Research Project makes the database available to the world-wide scientific community.
[1] Dinosaur Excavation and Taphonomic Research Project, https://dinosaurproject.swau.edu/.
Hi,pliz tell me is sda increasing its menbers or decreasing?Thank you for answering me.
In response to the previous question, Adventism in the Third World (South America, Africa, and, to a somewhat lesser extent, Asia) is rapidly increasing its numbers.
By contrast, the Adventist Church in the First World except for immigrant populations, is declining. The only reason that Adventism is not in a rapid decline in the First World is because a number of Third World peoples are moving to the First World.
Mass evangelistic campaigns are no longer working in the First World as the general educational levels in this area has increased. These same mass evangelism techniques still works in most of the Third World due to economic, cultural and educational factors.
Some projections have it that within, at most, three generations and probably more like two generations, Adventism among it original population–Caucasian, non-immigrant North Americans–will be essentially extinct. (Very much similar to the fate of Buddhism in India and Christianity in the Near East).
The major North American Adventist medical and most university/college-level educational establishments will have effectively broken institutional ties with the Adventist denomination–although there might be retained historic, symbolic connections.
Religious movements, like old soldiers, don’t die, they just fade away. They all tend to start as either a ladder to either escape something or as a pedestal to proclaim something. But eventually the need and the passion ebbs (I know, this is an arguably broad generalization). Ervin, I think you have identified the operational demographic in the first case of the “Third World (South America, Africa, and, to a somewhat lesser extent, Asia),” and as well as its migration accounting for the growth of Adventism in the First World. Catholicism is on much the same growth dynamic to such a degree it is shipping an African surplus of priests to America (experienced firsthand here in Mesa AZ to the chagrin of my hearing impaired Catholic wife who can’t understand their version of English) to fill multiple pastoral vacancies.
The decline of ardor and the dissolution of instructional attachment’s has plenty of examples in Methodist, Lutheran and most other mainline denominations when you analyze the universities (Baylor, the Ivy League, Notre Dame, etc.) and the medical institutions founded by them, many parallel to Adventism, and begun in the same time period which now have little connection, if any, with their religious heritage.
The fading of Adventism has taken longer, I think, because it arose for proclamation, and the “soon” for fulfillment of its prediction, like the cry of “wolf” in that story, has an edge of possibility that engages a mental bogey man easily transmitted to a new generation. However, there is a law, even here, of diminishing returns. New generations, not under duress, our Western one, eventually sees myth for what it is, and the last old soldier finally fades away, barely noticed.
Methodism isn’t now what the Wesley boys founded, nor Lutheranism what Luther started. Religious empires of schools and medical institutions are now secular. Adventism isn’t far behind. Its proclaimers of “soon/wolf,” like screeching preachers on Times Square, have no listeners. Its institutions will continue their movement toward business models of success with little regard to religious underpinnings just as a natural course of things. Will even the name survive two generations?
There are two ways to encounter this. Anger. Or acceptance (both stages of grief). Old soldiers are to be remembered well for doing their job. Perhaps Adventism will be thought of, somehow, in same kindly light.
What you describe above is a secular view of eventual decline and closure of Christianity and the organizations that promote it. Not surprising since that is the current humanist view, and should I say ‘hope?’ The dynamic that you purposefully ignore, is the fact that the Christian movement is not founded or driven by human institutions, structures or traditions, rather, it is fueled by the most powerful force on earth, the Holy Spirit! It can’t be snuffed out, disolved, eroded or destroyed, ever!
Your demographic comments are based on facts but the rest of your comments include some prophecies that are simply an extension of your immagination or personal experience. You are entitled to your opinion but you might want to qualify your predictions with a disclaimer.
Anyone see this … if so, please report … sorry I missed it.
Assuming what Erv wrote is correct (although not accurate) Christianity from its initiation flourished, and survived because the “humble people”, and it will be until the end. So Erv just look around all the protestant churches are not any longer just WASP. There are globally Christian. Sorry pal
I’m not sure which church history books Neo has been reading, but Christianity did not not–repeat not–flourish in terms of numbers of adherents from its initiation. That is wishful thinking as well as not being supported by the historical evidence.
Christianity only began to have a rapid increase in numbers about the time of the Emperor Constantine in the 4th century AD. We won’t get into the reasons for that but it had little to do with “humble people.” Sorry about that.
I’m wondering how many human remains, tools, or other evidences they have found to include in their 3D images.
None, unless you count The Flintstones.
Why can’t SWAU find human fossils with the dinosaur fossil bones? Come on, they should be able to find some co-existNce of humans and the ‘amalgamations’… Does SWAU try to put an approximate age of the bone?
There are Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics.
What constitutes numerical “flourishing” depends on your metric. Neo and Ervin can both claim to be correct. The Apostolic Age was the era of greatest proportional growth (going from 120 to several thousand in a single day was an unsustainable growth rate or the whole world would have been Christian within a few months). On the other hand the Third and Fourth Centuries was an era of far greater numerical growth (it was a lot easier to become a Christian after the persecutions stopped).
i wish to share a bit of old data perhaps unknown by many Americans. Not as old as Dino, however as old as our Founding Fathers. Our country’s Capital Wash. D.C. was not a Christian city and had a rather notorious beginning. The District of Columbia’s first founding name was ROME, Maryland. The Potomac River was called Tiber Creek. It is considered to be the Twin of Vatican City. It was planned and engineered by Freemasons, according to Occult, Greek, and Egyptian designs. The Washington monument, an Obelisk. The alignment of the U.S. Capitol Bldg. the Washington Monument, the White House, the Lincoln Memorial (a cross), with the top of the cross across the Potomac River, in Alexandria, Virginia, a massive stone citadel structure , a Masonic Temple. And another interesting item, the ground for D.C. was donated by a man named Francis Pope, who lived on the land now supporting the U.S. CAPITOL BLDG. (in 1663.) HMMMMMMM, JUST A BIT MORE:
The District of Columbia has seven (7) prominent hills:
1. Capitol Hill 2. Meridian Hill 3.Floral Hill 4.Forest Hill 5.Hillbrook Hill 6.Hillcrest Hill 7.Knox Hill.
With a very prominent LADY standing on an island in New York City, Named “LIBERTY” (liberte)after a goddess. Is there more than one hoare sitting on many waters, and languages????
I see conspiracy themes continue to be alive and well in certain quarters of “big tent” Adventism–as usual, on the right wing. However, this one is certainly original.
Earl,
For years, I have occasionally heard things like this from people on the far right of the political spectrum such as such as members of the John Birch Society, but when pressed for credible documentation that is more than just one right-wing journal or book quoting another, they have been unable to do so. Can you enlighten me with some?
Is just me or do none of these comments relate to the article?
Germane comments? On the Atoday web site?
Sorry but you are looking in the wrong place!
Conversations here are like dormitory bull sessions – they meander all over the place. Sometimes they can be very interesting and sometimes very boring, and sometimes both interesting and boring at the same time 8-).
I was looking to see some comments abut this ancient creature. Oh, well, so much for that.
Maranatha
this is hardly a problem of fading ‘religious movements.’ one only has evaluate daniel 2 which is a dead-end linear function and God has not allowed himself any kind of double jeopardy.
since i have never experienced whatever ‘conversion’ is and have extreme difficulty understanding how any being can speak approximately 100 billion people back into existence at any point in time, it would be convenient for me if the bible was a story book.
nevertheless, i have experienced just enough of the ‘occult’ and my brain is simply unable to dismiss the implications of a book written over several thousand years with its remarkable continuity. just one example, out a number, if i may.
a few years back, while trying to help a friend through some math problems, the entire house suddenly ‘filled’ with both odor and cigar smoke. puzzled, because we were the only to 2 persons in the home, i asked for an explanation. it was simply the dead grandfather, a cigar enthusiast, that occasionally paid them a visit and demonstrated his presence as such. it is my opinion that anyone with enough ‘guts and determination’ can illicit some real communication using the ouija board but not a recommendation.
http://www.the-office.com/seth/
Robert Butts and his wife Jane Roberts lived in an apartment in a Victorian house on Water Street….After a couple unsuccessful sessions with the Ouija board, Jane and Rob started receiving intelligible messages, the planchette drifting from letter to letter, forming words, then sentences. Rob asked the Ouija to identify the personality behind the mysterious communications. “Seth,
faith on the earth and the wolf at the door can only be real for so long.
I will comment on the general theme of the comments (which has little to do with the article). There seem to be those who consider “simple mindedness” a perquisite to be a “true” Christian. While I think it is true that often intellectuals lack humility and are sometimes blind to the plain truth that Jesus taught. It is just as true that the simple minded resist the growth in truth and understanding by refusing to understand their human limitation and the need to grow their intellectual capacity.
God did create us with minds and appeals to them as flawed as they might be by sin.
Jesus called twelve to be his special cohorts in a ministry that they continued as Apostles after his ascension. But, the greatest Apostle was never one of the twelve. He was a confused intellectual who Jesus confronted on the road to Damascus. Jesus used Paul’s (God given) intellectual capacity to establish the thinking and understanding of God’s word and purpose to spread the Gospel. There is something to learn from this for those who care.
Those who have advanced the cause of Christ have never been those willing to accept simplistic half answers to the God’s great mysteries of both the world God created and salvation he has wrought. Intellectual capacities may vary, but those who are satisfied to try to proclaim God’s truth based on ignorance, superstition, and half truth have never served God’s purpose, no matter how much they flatter themselves.
It is true that those with great minds and those of simple minds can follow and serve God. Either can surrender to “learn” truth that God reveals in many ways. But, both are also capable of distorting the truth about God to serve their own human sinful purposes (even if clothed in great piety).
As we question of the relationship between simplicity, smarts, and spirituality, let us remember that there is an emerging admission that “Emotional IQ” is often far more compelling in a person’s effective success than one’s intellectual, or logical, IQ. My family is blessed with a number of engineers, and these gents (all men) in younger years seemed to dismiss those of high social calling as somehow more limited in scope than those whose primary purpose in life related to mathematical and logical skills. Today these same men have come to realize that forming a productive team, or church for that matter, is very difficult drawing primarily on high-yield logical mentalities alone. The better teams consist of men and women who possess strong suits both in logic and in social acumen.
I do believe that Protestantism as we know it today has tended to attract primarily those with high-yield personalities in the social realm; statistics show us, for example, that very, very few individuals on the autistic spectrum remain highly involved in organized Christianity. Those for whom logic and fact are the all-in-all do not seem to excel (in isolation)in the spiritual disciplines—in fact, I have been asked by such individuals to please define spirituality, for it seems to be a very nebulous concept in their minds. By and large I think the Church will continue to appeal most persuasively to those of high social IQ; however, churches seem to do best when there is a strong element of logic, mixed in with high social awareness. Sometimes the two cohorts can get on one another’s nerves, but I think it’s a good thing to recognize that the Church can and does appeal to both groups, and the trick is to try to keep those two groups “speaking often to one another” and enjoying fellowship together in ways that appeal to both the mind and the spirit….