Comments on: Mormons Worse at Believing Evolution?

By: Clark

Clark — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 21:34:59 +0000

Wow. I’d slow down the posts a little. There’s a bit too much here to answer it all. A few comments.

I agree Evolution isn’t taught well in schools. Especially High School. I think while pressure to keep it from being taught hasn’t worked that many teachers are hesitant because of the hassle of dealing with some enraged parent. Plus frankly a lot of science teachers don’t necessarily have a love for science in the regular curriculum. I’d disagree about BYU – at least when I was there. Although I never took Biology 101. I’m surprised you didn’t get the evolution pack as it’s definitely still being given out. I know in Physical Science (which I TAed for a few times) the presentation of evolution was pretty clear and I thought was quite good. And that’s a required class for all students.

While I agree that tokens of community membership can lead to that community embracing or rejecting a position independent of the merits for the position I don’t think that is happening here. (I do think it is happening in the Republican party unfortunately – and also with global warming) I think there’s just too much pro-evolution at BYU and too many people who take it for granted.

The point about rejection and ambivalence is a good one. I don’t recall the exact wording on the survey. If you go to the study I’m sure it gives a more detailed breakdown. From discussing this before I don’t recall that changing things much.

By: John Pack Lambert

John Pack Lambert — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 19:50:38 +0000

I just noticed something. If we are to believe that evolution is not a dogma, but a system to explain how life came about, do people “believe” evolution. Some try to compare it to the law of gravity, but do we ask people if they believe or do not believe in gravity?
This seems a flawed question to began with.

By: John Pack Lambert

John Pack Lambert — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 05:55:59 +0000

To djinn,
The historicity of the Tower of Babel does not by itself prove that everything in Genesis is historic. Anyway, what Clark is trying to get at is that accuracy and historicity are different. This applies even more to INTERPRETATIONS built around scripture than their base means, which may or may not be properly expressed in the English translation.

By: John Pack Lambert

John Pack Lambert — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 00:07:12 +0000

JTJ,
You fail to consider many issues with the flood. The biggest one is, are the accounts translated correctly. I have read many statements that the word in Hebrew for “earth” does not mean the whole world, but can just mean the area where Noah was.
If in fact the flood killed off all the people around Noah (whether these were all the people on earth or not) and covered the whole land he was on, if we bear in mind the limitations of Hebrew vocabulary, and also first person narrative than it is a big issue.
I can write a story about how everyone has lost their job from the economic collapse. I can record all sorts of incidents, tell about all my friends and so on. It can be all true, but it is not neccesarily fully accurate.
There are many issues. My favorite to bring up is Ether and the “Land where never had man before been”. A-This is not the new world. B-We are told there may be mistakes in the Book of Mormon.
There is a double-translation here, but atually it is a translation, then an abridgement and then a re-translation. Especially in the abrigement part Moroni may have used the wrong word, it might have been better to say “Person of that land” or something. The fact that many Native American groups have a name for themselves which means “the people” might ontribute to the possible confusion in the translation or abrigement process.
Thus Ether can be a fully historical work, even if that one word is not an expression accurately of what the land was. Also possible is that what was really meant is that Jared and his brother did not know of anyone having traveled there. It is a long tradition of a “discoverer” going somewhere where there are people. The records only tells us the Lord lead them there, not that he said no one else had been in that land, so maybe Jared just assumed no one had been there before since he did not know of it and he did not encounter anyone.
Jared was not an archeologist, so he did not dig around to find possible remains of the passed.
Just because something is not 100% accurate does not mean it is not a historical record giving an account of real events. I could write “I saw a star fall to earth” and fully believe that is what I saw in the sky, even if it actually was a plane crashing. If I thought that was what happened I would not be writting fiction or allegory, I would just be wrong about that detail.

By: John Pack Lambert

John Pack Lambert — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 23:52:56 +0000

Clark,
I think the reason that those who support evolution are less vocal, at least in the Church, is because they are people who figure “evolution is the best science” while those who oppose it feel they are expounding a view that is central to the gospel. The one exception on the opposition side might be B. H. Roberts.
Still, since dogmatic evolution, that is advocating it is not only the best but the total explanation of human life, at least as most people see it, means God does not exist and we are not his children, dogmatic evolutionists tend to march out of the Church, and the signaturatis have tried their best of late to facilitate this outward migration.

By: John Pack Lambert

John Pack Lambert — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 23:47:44 +0000

Clark,
On BRC and Mormon Doctrine I can actually document official distancing from him. In the 1997 Gospel Principals manual that book was referenced twice in the first 34 chapters. Not much, but still some. Both of those references were removed in the 2009 edition.
There is now also a disclaimer in the front of Mormon Doctrine copies sold at Deseret Book about its time, place and culture restraints. I only know about this because in “Nobody Knows: The Untold Story of Black Mormons” they interview an African-American relief society president who thinks that there should be a bigger disclaimer.
I think though we can not under estimate the effects of Ezra Taft Benson’s call to read the Book of Mormon on LDS theology. Some would say this has allowed an ascension of anti-evolutionism through Lehi’s discourse on the death coming from the fall. Yet the phrase “no death before the fall” does not come from the scripture. Beyound this, Hugh Nibley pointed out that Ether mentions “all the earth”. I think his point on its limits was more meant to question all of the Americas, however I know that was the first time I considered whether the account in Genesis required a global flood.
So the Book of Mormon actually moves us away from the ineratists views. I would say it is even more Cleon Skousen with his literalist 1000 years view than McConkie that has a negative effect on LDS theology.
However this leads to another issue. How much are views on evolution religious at all, and how much might they reflect political views. There have been attempts to link Darwin and Marx by supporters of Marx, and I am pretty sure opponants of Darwin have at least on occasion tried to speak of the same link, so who knows.
Never undeestimate either east and west coast snobbishness in their looking down upon the “unenlightened” masses in Kansas or mid-American rejection of ideas just because they originate on the coast.

By: John Pack Lambert

John Pack Lambert — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 23:34:02 +0000

One more comment, and I promise this one will be short.

The graph itself provides a false diachotomy. If groups those who say “no” with those who say “I really don’t know”. It assumes that this is a yes or no question, like are you male or female, instead of a question as it is like “is there life after death” which you can answer “I do not know”.

Does the lower rate for Latter-day Saints indicate a higher rejection than some other groups, or does it indicate a higher level of ambivalence.

All political polls I have ever seen allow for the undecided. Why does this question force a yes or no answer. It is an act of creating belief on the spot when there may not be any strong view on the issue, people may figure it is something that we do not know, and at least in a religious context not worth making a clear statement on.

Remember, this is whether evolution is best, not whether it is useful, informative or anything else. It does not even say “the best current explanation”, so it does seem to be cornering those who say yes into an almost dogmatic explnation of evolution.

Sorry, this is a bit long, but I have another question. What if I answered the question by asking “what do you mean by evolution”, or “are you refering to evolution as espoused by Darwin, or molecular evolution as taught by current biologists”, or “should I consider Darwinian evolution” or “do you mean survival of the fittest” or even “do you mean the process of natural selection”.

I have read reviews criticizing people for defining evolution as natural selection and that alone. While this may be a result of scientific ignorance, I would say this ignorance is in a part a result of those who speak on evolution too often spending time mocking religious opponants instead of explaining their own position.

By: John Pack Lambert

John Pack Lambert — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 23:25:49 +0000

I did not realize how unique the notion of a pre-earth life was to Latter-day Saints until I served my mission and dealt with many who totally rejected any part of it.

Thus, the “human” part has a value to it to Latter-day Saints that does not occur to those who do not believe in a pre-mortal state.

This means that believing Latter-day Saints who see “Adam formed from the dust” as a short-hand reference to evolution might still answer no to this question, because human life at core is defined by our immortal spirit, even if the genetic origins of our bodies are the rsult of evolution and at some point God put the spirits of his children into bodies that had come about through the process of evolution.

I am not sayint that is what happened, and I am not even saying that I have figured out if that could possibly work or not, but I am saying that I am accepting the Absolute truth of evolution as a physical process and still having to say that it is not the best explantion to human life, or at least that there are clear process it misses.