Exposing the Corporation’s ‘Backdoor’ Approach to Science
Posted: Thu Dec 05, 2019 3:07 am
The LDS Church is in the business of telling ordinary members one thing while quietly paying the salaries of scholars who say something completely opposite. The Brethren know there are many fundamentalist members who are pretty touchy about science, so rather than step on their toes they have used a backdoor approach to science for decades. Publicly they say nothing to challenge young earth creationist views. Privately they fund departments of geology, anthropology and science where belief in evolution and a 4.5 billion-year-old earth is rampant and the universal Flood is ignored. Publicly they support a hemispheric view of the Book of Mormon. Privately they pay the salaries of academics who ridicule hemispheric beliefs and invent twisted limited geography theories.
The trouble with lying in this manner is you run the risk of getting caught out. Heartland crackpots have noticed these backdoor shenanigans and they aren’t afraid to point it out publicly. Thousands of ordinary Mormons are now being told that BYU has been deceived by evil mainstream scientists and is teaching evolution and rejecting the flood and young earth ideas.
It’s been fascinating to watch the rise of the Heartland movement over the last 15 years. Rodney Meldrum has always exuded a friendly confidence that he is a chosen person on a divinely appointed mission to save the church from apostasy. And his popularity, at least among older members (and the money he is making) only adds to his certainty. While Meldrum is mostly known for his relatively harmless Book of Mormon quackery, lurking in the background and providing the scientific bedrock for his Heartland model, is an individual who takes crackpottery to another level.
For many years Meldrum told folks he was involved in writing a university-level science textbook but didn’t give many details away. It’s only in the last couple of years that Meldrum has finally revealed his ties with Dean Sessions. Session’s is the author of the Universal (Junk Science) Model, a new scientific paradigm that proves all modern science is fundamentally flawed. Before a recent prepper fest (Prepare a People) conference in Arizona, Sessions gave a revealing interview where he described his partnership with Meldrum and how he came up with the model.
https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/preparation ... 4_23-08_00
For an excellent review of Session’s model, and his refusal to acknowledge his errors, check out the first customer review on his UM Amazon site. It’s by Barry Bickmore, an embarrassed Mormon geology professor at BYU who has corresponded with Sessions in person.
https://www.amazon.com/Universal-Model- ... merReviews
https://bbickmore.wordpress.com/2017/06 ... sh-gallop/
It turns out Sessions and Meldrum attended the same ward in Tucson back in the late 80s when they were in their early twenties and newly married. Sessions recalls Meldrum introducing himself to the priesthood and instantly knowing (based on feelings) they had been buddies in the pre-existence. They immediately became very close earth friends, well before they got really interested in science and started getting all that revelation.
Meldrum moved away in the early nineties and Sessions then started to develop his Universal Model. Sessions believes that we have six senses, not five, for discovering truth about the world around us. In addition to sight, hearing, taste, touch and smell, he thinks we can learn truth using a sixth sense, intuition, or what Sessions believes is the Holy Ghost.
The first piece of science Sessions focussed his finely attuned sixth sense on was the pesky theory of evolution. In spite of not knowing enough basic biology to even understand evolution properly he scoured the literature and found what he claims is the weakness in all of the research. He thinks scientists have never been able to capture the moment of speciation (whatever that “moment” is). He’s probably expecting to see evidence of a catdog; the frozen moment in time when a cat turned into a dog. There is abundant evidence of gradual changes in species over time, which is actually how evolution works, but that’s not good enough for Sessions so he mocks the science he doesn't understand. Its abundantly clear from listening to Sessions that he works, just like Daniel Peterson, John Sorenson and other apologists, from his fixed conclusions back into the science. He sees only what he wants to see.
Sessions is a strident young earth creationist and claims to know exactly when the Flood occurred (4,362 years ago) and that the Garden of Eden is exactly where Joseph Smith said it was, Adam-ondi-Ahmen, Missouri. He claims that since the earliest stone points found in the Americas, the Clovis culture, are more advanced than later points, they must have been made by Adam’s close descendants before the Flood. This makes perfect sense to Sessions because God had more recently revealed the superior lithic technology. He then claims the technology degenerated after the Flood because only nine people survived the Flood to pass on the technology. (If Clovis points are more advanced, it’s likely the technology declined after all the large game were killed off!) He also believes all fossils were created during the Flood by a process involving very high water pressure and that about a third of the earth’s core is water. Presumably that’s where all the water went after the Flood.
In about 2000, Meldrum ditched his salesman job and moved back to Arizona to work alongside Sessions. His job was basically to visit university libraries and photocopy articles, and he did this until 2007. Sessions acknowledges in his interview that they have received financial support from benefactors. It must be very significant money because it supported Sessions, Meldrum and other technical folk for several years. From 2007 onwards Meldrum has been living off the small fortune he is making from selling his Heartland model.
Meldrum’s Heartland model is built on Session’s dodgy creationist foundation. In fact Sessions even admitted to feeling envious of Meldrum’s success (I'm sure he's only envious of Meldrum's fame, not the money he's making). I got the impression he'd be out there selling Meldrum's Heartland theory if he hadn't been so busy discovering how all the world’s scientists are deluded. But with his first volume of the Universal Model published in 2017, his second volume just released and a third on the way, Sessions is about to become a lot more well-known in Mormon circles. And that can only be bad news for the church because he’s totally convinced BYU has been deceived, he’s not afraid to say that in public and he's a complete crackpot.
At a recent FairMormon conference the church called for “independent voices” to step up to defend the church. They ought to be more careful what they wish for.
The trouble with lying in this manner is you run the risk of getting caught out. Heartland crackpots have noticed these backdoor shenanigans and they aren’t afraid to point it out publicly. Thousands of ordinary Mormons are now being told that BYU has been deceived by evil mainstream scientists and is teaching evolution and rejecting the flood and young earth ideas.
It’s been fascinating to watch the rise of the Heartland movement over the last 15 years. Rodney Meldrum has always exuded a friendly confidence that he is a chosen person on a divinely appointed mission to save the church from apostasy. And his popularity, at least among older members (and the money he is making) only adds to his certainty. While Meldrum is mostly known for his relatively harmless Book of Mormon quackery, lurking in the background and providing the scientific bedrock for his Heartland model, is an individual who takes crackpottery to another level.
For many years Meldrum told folks he was involved in writing a university-level science textbook but didn’t give many details away. It’s only in the last couple of years that Meldrum has finally revealed his ties with Dean Sessions. Session’s is the author of the Universal (Junk Science) Model, a new scientific paradigm that proves all modern science is fundamentally flawed. Before a recent prepper fest (Prepare a People) conference in Arizona, Sessions gave a revealing interview where he described his partnership with Meldrum and how he came up with the model.
https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/preparation ... 4_23-08_00
For an excellent review of Session’s model, and his refusal to acknowledge his errors, check out the first customer review on his UM Amazon site. It’s by Barry Bickmore, an embarrassed Mormon geology professor at BYU who has corresponded with Sessions in person.
https://www.amazon.com/Universal-Model- ... merReviews
https://bbickmore.wordpress.com/2017/06 ... sh-gallop/
It turns out Sessions and Meldrum attended the same ward in Tucson back in the late 80s when they were in their early twenties and newly married. Sessions recalls Meldrum introducing himself to the priesthood and instantly knowing (based on feelings) they had been buddies in the pre-existence. They immediately became very close earth friends, well before they got really interested in science and started getting all that revelation.
Meldrum moved away in the early nineties and Sessions then started to develop his Universal Model. Sessions believes that we have six senses, not five, for discovering truth about the world around us. In addition to sight, hearing, taste, touch and smell, he thinks we can learn truth using a sixth sense, intuition, or what Sessions believes is the Holy Ghost.
The first piece of science Sessions focussed his finely attuned sixth sense on was the pesky theory of evolution. In spite of not knowing enough basic biology to even understand evolution properly he scoured the literature and found what he claims is the weakness in all of the research. He thinks scientists have never been able to capture the moment of speciation (whatever that “moment” is). He’s probably expecting to see evidence of a catdog; the frozen moment in time when a cat turned into a dog. There is abundant evidence of gradual changes in species over time, which is actually how evolution works, but that’s not good enough for Sessions so he mocks the science he doesn't understand. Its abundantly clear from listening to Sessions that he works, just like Daniel Peterson, John Sorenson and other apologists, from his fixed conclusions back into the science. He sees only what he wants to see.
Sessions is a strident young earth creationist and claims to know exactly when the Flood occurred (4,362 years ago) and that the Garden of Eden is exactly where Joseph Smith said it was, Adam-ondi-Ahmen, Missouri. He claims that since the earliest stone points found in the Americas, the Clovis culture, are more advanced than later points, they must have been made by Adam’s close descendants before the Flood. This makes perfect sense to Sessions because God had more recently revealed the superior lithic technology. He then claims the technology degenerated after the Flood because only nine people survived the Flood to pass on the technology. (If Clovis points are more advanced, it’s likely the technology declined after all the large game were killed off!) He also believes all fossils were created during the Flood by a process involving very high water pressure and that about a third of the earth’s core is water. Presumably that’s where all the water went after the Flood.
In about 2000, Meldrum ditched his salesman job and moved back to Arizona to work alongside Sessions. His job was basically to visit university libraries and photocopy articles, and he did this until 2007. Sessions acknowledges in his interview that they have received financial support from benefactors. It must be very significant money because it supported Sessions, Meldrum and other technical folk for several years. From 2007 onwards Meldrum has been living off the small fortune he is making from selling his Heartland model.
Meldrum’s Heartland model is built on Session’s dodgy creationist foundation. In fact Sessions even admitted to feeling envious of Meldrum’s success (I'm sure he's only envious of Meldrum's fame, not the money he's making). I got the impression he'd be out there selling Meldrum's Heartland theory if he hadn't been so busy discovering how all the world’s scientists are deluded. But with his first volume of the Universal Model published in 2017, his second volume just released and a third on the way, Sessions is about to become a lot more well-known in Mormon circles. And that can only be bad news for the church because he’s totally convinced BYU has been deceived, he’s not afraid to say that in public and he's a complete crackpot.
At a recent FairMormon conference the church called for “independent voices” to step up to defend the church. They ought to be more careful what they wish for.