In my view, it is very much worth the class’ time. Tens of thousands of people all over the world are viewing and discussing it and it will benefit RBLSS participants to do so as well. In addition, many others will benefit from the RBLSS discussion when it is posted on the Internet.
To my non-medical eyes and ears, the presentation includes much information that can help us live healthier and happier lives. I leave it to those who are medical specialists to confirm or disconfirm my impressions. Meanwhile, Doctor Seheult’s presentation has prompted us to make some positive changes in how we do things. Great!
Having said that, I will also say that the title of Doctor Seheult's presentation is not one that I what I have chosen. It is “Ellen White Vindicated by Medical Science." It leaves me and perhaps others the impression that everything Ellen White said along these lines has been vindicated by medical science or eventually will be. This is not the case.
I like McKinley Addy's title for Doctor Seheult's presentation. It is "Nutritional and Health Implications of Melatonin and the Optics of the Human Body". This accurately portrays the content of the presentation and its practical value.
As far as I know, the most ambitious endeavor so far to demonstrate that Ellen White was scientifically ahead of her time is the book Acquired or Inspired: Exploring the Origins of the Adventist Lifestyle by medical doctor Don S. McMahon (Pacific Press Publishing Association). It contends that she was virtually always right about “the what” of her claims but significantly less so about “the why.”
This distinction between “the what” of her claims and “the why” perplexes me. It is my impression is that scientists believe that they do not fully understand “what” is happening until they know “why” it is. Also, it seems to me that, if God can guarantee that Ellen White gets “the what” correctly virtually all of the time, God can also guarantee that she correctly gets “the why” virtually all the time.
Doctor Sehuelt reports this book’s findings and recommends that we all read the whole of it. If I understand him correctly, he believes that medical science is continuing to catch up with what Ellen White said and that it will eventually vindicate all of her views on these subjects.
No matter how much time has transpired, we will always be able to say that medical science will eventually vindicate everything she said. Although we cannot prove or disprove this possibility, to my way of thinking its probability decreases with every passing year.
I believe that both the title of Doctor Seheult’s lecture and what he says in it exaggerates Ellen White’s originality. The Ellen White Estate explicitly states that she used the writings of others in everything she wrote from her personal letters to books like Ministry of Healing and Desire of Ages. Although many weren’t, some in Ellen White’s time were saying many of the same things about medical matters that she did and there is indisputable evidence that she was well acquainted with their views. That she always used the writings of others only to express what God had already told her does not match the historical evidence as I understand it.
Knowing what I do about how people used the writings of others in past centuries discredits for me the accusation of plagiarism. I believe that she did not adopt the writings of others. She adapted them for her own purposes. They were like different colors of paint on an artist’s palate that she used to create her own work of art.
That she used the writings of others is certain. Why she never told the whole truth about this isn’t. Although our minds abhor unanswered questions and unanswerable ones even more, it is better to live with this uncertainty instead of vainly trying to fill in the blanks with purely speculative answers. Only God knows why Ellen White did what she did and God isn’t telling us.
We are not responsible for what Ellen White did but we are responsible for what we do with what she did. This requires us to avoid two extremes. One of them is to proceed as though she never used the writings of others or that she did but it doesn’t matter. The other is not to believe anything she said because we cannot believe everything she did.
Scripture, itself, tells us how to move forward in the earliest document in the New Testament: “Quench not the Spirit. Despise not prophesyings. Prove all things; hold fast that which is good. Abstain from all appearance of evil.” I Thessalonians 5: 19-22. KJV
This is my paraphrase: “Don’t be close-minded. Don’t be gullible either. Examine every questionable claim from every possible angle. Keep what passes these tests and don’t keep what doesn’t. Don’t give the impression that you know more than you do.”