Their answers were, for the most part, woefully (and unashamedly) ignorant. (You can watch every contestant’s answer here.) Several contestants, perhaps wanting to avoid a Carrie Prejean-like controversy, answered that both religion and evolution should be taught in schools. Both should be taught in schools, but not in a science class where students may confuse creationism for an alternative scientific theory to evolution. Religious ideas about the origin and evolution of life should be discussed in philosophy or religious studies courses.

Worse still, of the 51 contestants, only two “unequivocally support[ed]” evolution. Thankfully one of those two was crowned Miss USA: California’s Alyssa Campanella. Here was her response:

I was taught evolution in high school. I do believe in it. I’m a huge science geek. [...] I like to believe in the big bang theory and, you know, the evolution of humans throughout time.

Despite this widespread anti-evolution sentiment within the LDS Church, some Mormons claim that their faith and evolution can be reconciled. BYU biologists uniformly accept evolution as a fact, for instance. And several Mormon bloggers, too, have expressed and explained their belief in evolution. So obviously Mormons can believe in evolution. But given LDS teachings, should they?

The LDS Church claims to have no official stance on evolution. This neutrality stems from the bitter disputes among church leaders over evolution in the early 20th century. James E. Talmage, who was an apostle and geologist, and B. H. Roberts defended evolution, while Joseph Fielding Smith, George Albert Smith, and others vehemently rejected it. In 1931, President Heber J. Grant essentially called for a ceasefire:

Upon the fundamental doctrines of the Church we are all agreed. Our mission is to bear the message of the restored gospel to the people of the world. Leave Geology, Biology, Archaeology and Anthropology, no one of which has to do with the salvation of the souls of mankind, to scientific research, while we magnify our calling in the realm of the Church.

This and other professions of neutrality, however, did not deter some church leaders from wading into the evolution debate. Bruce R. McConkie and Ezra Taft Benson were among evolution’s most vocal Mormon detractors in the last half of the 20th century.

(The history of the evolution debate in Mormonism is fascinating, but I won’t recount it all here. Refer instead to this link.)

Anti-evolution sentiments are still present in church literature even today. In the March 2008 Ensign, President Boyd K. Packer wrote:

We are taught in Genesis, in Moses, in Abraham, in the Book of Mormon, and in the endowment that man’s mortal body was made in the image of God in a separate creation. Had the Creation come in a different way, there could have been no Fall.

If men were merely animals, then logic favors freedom without accountability. How well I know that among learned men are those who look down at animals and stones to find the origin of man. They do not look inside themselves to find the spirit there. They train themselves to measure things by time, by thousands and by millions, and say these animals called men all came by chance.

The 2009 Old Testament manual for seminary and institute teachers also denies evolution, quoting a few of the aforementioned anti-evolution church leaders.

Because it’s difficult to define what are authoritative LDS teachings, those Mormons who want to believe in evolution have largely dismissed  church leaders’ anti-evolution statements as mere opinion. But, oddly enough, I think the conservatives like McConkie and Packer are on the winning side of a theological argument. Mormonism cannot be comfortably reconciled with evolution. I think the LDS understanding of the Fall precludes evolution. (Actually, any traditional/literal understanding of the Fall makes evolution impossible).

Mormons recognize the Fall to be an actual, historical event. From the Encyclopedia of Mormonism:

Latter-day Saints recognize the Fall of Adam and Eve as an actual event that occurred in the Garden of Eden and has affected the entire earth and everyone in the human family. … The creation of the earth was a multistep process in which the Fall of Adam and Eve and their expulsion from the Garden of Eden were the final necessary steps in bringing about the mortal condition. Without the Fall, Adam and Eve would have had no children (2 Ne. 2:23); hence, the human family would not have come into existence upon this earth under the conditions and circumstances in the garden. The prophet Lehi explained, “Adam fell that men might be” (2 Ne. 2:25), and Enoch declared, “Because that Adam fell, we are” (Moses 6:48). … The Fall brought two kinds of death upon Adam, Eve, and their posterity: the separation of the spirit and the physical body, which the scriptures call the “temporal death” (Alma 11:42-43); and being shut out of God’s presence, which is called spiritual death (2 Ne. 9:6; D&C 29:41).

One relevant scripture the Encyclopedia of Mormonism omitted is 2 Nephi 2:22:

And now, behold, if Adam had not transgressed he would not have fallen, but he would have remained in the garden of Eden. And all things which were created must have remained in the same state [emphasis mine] in which they were after they were created; and they must have remained forever, and had no end.

It is clear the Fall not only allowed reproduction, but also introduced physical death in the world. It follows, then, that there was no reproduction or death before the Fall. Evolution, however, is driven by those two things—without reproduction or death, evolution cannot happen. So Adam and Eve and all other living things present in the Garden of Eden could not have been the product of evolution.

The conflict between Mormonism and evolution is magnified when you consider that D & C 77: 6 revealed the “temporal existence” of the earth to be only seven thousand years old.

Q. What are we to understand by the book which John saw, which was ^asealed on the back with seven seals?

A. We are to understand that it contains the revealed will, ^bmysteries, and the works of God; the hidden things of his economy concerning this ^cearth during the seven thousand years of its continuance, or its temporal existence.

In Doctrines of Salvation, Joseph Fielding Smith explains the significance of these verses.

Here is a definite statement by revelation to us that this earth will go through 7,000 years of temporal existence.  Temporal, by all interpretations, means passing, temporary, or mortal. This, then, has reference to the earth in its fallen state, for the earth was cursed when Adam, who was given dominion over it, transgressed the law.

This interpretation jives with early church leaders’ statements about the temporal age of the earth as well.

The Lord Almighty never created a world like this and peopled it for six thousand years, as He has done, without having some motive in view. (The Discourses of Wilford Woodruff, p. 8, January 6, 1884)

After passing over the ages and generations of the children of men for about six thousand years, we will come to the present congregation and say the right of heirship is the same now that it was in the beginning. (Journal of Discourses, Vol.6, p.307, Brigham Young, April 8, 1853)

The world has had a fair trial for six thousand years; the Lord will try the seventh thousand Himself;(Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, Section Five, p. 252, 1842-43)

So at best, Mormons should only believe that evolution has occurred in the past six or seven thousand years (which is itself untenable, given the fossil record and extent of biodiversity). Mormons are welcome to take another view, of course. Talmage maintained that there was evolution, even human evolution, before the Fall. It just seems, though, that this view requires a blatant disregard for what the LDS scriptures plainly say.

Unfortunately, for the replication to occur, scientists had to assist the splitting of the RNA pairs by adding enzymes to their environment. Now scientists have been able to achieve synthetic life that self replicates. They did this through several complex procedures, and they used an already existing cell structure. While not creating life completely from scratch, we are so close we can taste it, and we are doing it without magic or god.

To deal with these challenges and issues I turned towards evolution. The reason I did so is because if any state of mind exist it first (as shown by a plethora of evidence) must have evolved that way.

Darwin himself tried to tackle this issue by explaining it in two stages. The first stage is derived from the evolutionary benefit of caring for young and community as displayed by birds. Baby birds are defenseless for the early part of their lives and the mothers have evolved over time to care for their young. I assume that the reader understands evolution and understands how that process occurs and how a mother would evolve to care for her offspring. If you have any questions regarding this process please contact any SHAFT council member or myself. This care of infants as explained by Darwin developed an us and them mentality.  With the onset of mammalian life even more complex communities formed. In these communities creatures evolved in some cases to put the good of the group in front of the good of the individual such as in the example of meerkats.

Darwin then argues the second phase after the development of community is the development of the conscience. Here is where the debate becomes sticky and please rather than focus on semantics of how the idea is conveyed, try and see the general direction of the argument. The development of the conscience wasn’t an event that happened all at once. Rather it evolved over time. When creatures of the Homo genius began living in groups, a form of social Darwinism took place.

Now I know that the term Social Darwinism throws up big red flags screaming Nazi and robber barren. This is not what I am referring to, what I am referring to is that groups who had tendencies, through random mutations that were then spread throughout the communities which were beneficial, allowed said communities to thrive in their environment.

Early communities were relatively isolated and so tendencies (not ideas) spread throughout the community. These thriving communities then started competing with other communities and those communities that had tendencies to build a stronger and safer community out-competed those who did not have those abilities (whether in war or just out breeding). As the cognitive power of human ancestors increased so did their capacity to develop complex ideas based on and around already present tendencies. Once again these things are going on simultaneously and over millions and millions of years.

To put the whole idea into a nutshell, tribes or familial groups that had certain stronger traits such as don’t murder family members, flourished in comparison to familial groups that weren’t nearly as strong. Some scientist has even argued this as one of the basic advantages the homo sapiens had against homo erectus.

Notice that the evolutionary views of morality existed only towards members of the family or community. Even the Israelite rules of moral law only applied to conduct towards other Israelites. I contend that as time moves and as we become more connected with the rest of the world then the scope of what humans choose to include in their families grows.

This is evident throughout history and even religious text. So where before in early society it was only bad to kill people in their immediate family it later became bad to kill others in the same nation and now it has developed over much of the world (excluding the middle east who are behind) to include the entire human race. This view also helps explain why there exist war. This explains also why humans for a long time in the worlds history justified slavery. Some are further along in this viewing transition than others, but I contend the evolutionary morals were only directed towards “family.”

This brings us to the realm of debatable moral rights and problems. Moral issues such as abortion and assisted suicide, have no obvious evolutionary background and/or benefits. I call these issues useful evolutionary byproducts, as compared to the non-useful byproducts such as the human tailbone. I use the example of murder because it is most easily identified as wrong.

Now that people in the civilized world have come to the point where we see all humans as family, we have conflicting interest invested in both sides of the assisted suicide and abortion debate. On one side our now well developed trait of not killing other members of family says, “No we mustn’t kill any other human because they are all a part of our families.” On the other side of the coin people have also developed the trait of not wanting family members to suffer and or go through an avoidable ordeal. Thus these two communal beneficiary traits come into conflict with one another causing an indirect evolutionary byproduct.

In conclusion, I admit that science doesn’t know everything, but as in Zeno’s paradox it does get closer and closer without ever reaching the absolute (this is what I love about science, it’s open to the new). I contend that for every question in the universe if we but look there is a scientific and logical process through which it comes about. So instead of filling every gap of knowledge with theos, take that gap as an opportunity to find out the why.

For the first time, scientists have synthesized RNA enzymes – ribonucleic acid enzymes also known as ribozymes – that can replicate themselves without the help of any proteins or other cellular components.

What’s more, these simple nucleic acids can act as catalysts and continue the process indefinitely.

To test a hypothesis known as ‘The RNA World’, Gerald Joyce at the Scripps Research Institute in San Diego began with naturally occurring RNA-like enzymes known as ribozymes, and allowed them to self-replicate on a limited chemical substrate. They then took a random subset of the resulting ribozymes and moved them to different substrates. The effect was to create a non-biological chemical system that underwent Darwinian evolution. This may represent a possible form of pre-cellular chemical life before the evolution of DNA, cell walls, and all these other ‘modern’ developments.

Many scientists believe that early life was based on RNA and predated the arrival of life based on deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) and proteins. RNA, which can both store information like DNA as well as act as an enzyme like proteins, [may] have supported pre-cellular life.

A [leading] proponent of the so-called ‘RNA world’ hypothesis, Joyce believes that RNA-based catalysis and information storage may have been the first step in the evolution of cellular life.

This kind of stuff is just so cool.

I think the article is worth reading in full, but here are some representative excerpts:

It is time to take stock: What has the intelligent design movement achieved? As science, nothing. The goal of science is to increase our understanding of the natural world, and there is not a single phenomenon that we understand better today or are likely to understand better in the future through the efforts of ID theorists. If we are to look for ID achievements, then, it must be in the realm of natural theology. And there, I think, the movement must be judged not only a failure, but a debacle.

The emphasis in early Christian writings was not on complexity, irreducible or otherwise, but on the beauty, order, lawfulness, and harmony found in the world that God had made. As science advances, it brings this beautiful order ever more clearly into view.

But whereas the advance of science continually strengthens the broader and more traditional version of the design argument, the ID movement’s version is hostage to every advance in biological science. Science must fail for ID to succeed. In the famous “explanatory filter” of William A. Dembski, one finds “design” by eliminating “law” and “chance” as explanations. This, in effect, makes it a zero-sum game between God and nature. What nature does and science can explain is crossed off the list, and what remains is the evidence for God. This conception of design plays right into the hands of atheists, whose caricature of religion has always been that it is a substitute for the scientific understanding of nature.

Amen.

This sums up my thoughts perfectly.

Ok I’m not a Darwinist first of I have to say that. I take bio because I think I might be interested in it. Ill admit macro evolution is an interesting theory, but I do not find much sound fact in it. #1 your evidence mostly is DNA similarity, fossils, the life experiment with the RNA assembling together out of used to be believed atmospherics conditions, the micro evolution factor, and I think that sums it up, and if it does it’s not very much. So ye why do you believe in it. With the law of enthalpy, and the very complexity of are body’s. Lets not go the cell level they are at least as complex as us. Just the odds of it happening I mean 10 to the 300,000 power just for plant life. That’s not including the earth being created or something coming form nothing. So ye for those of you out there that don’t know I think the odds of scientific improbability are 10 to the 40,000. Mostly I just think the fact evolution is around is because of peoples reluctance to admit god. As for the saying what did the bible do for us. Well it taught us about see currents no serous the person that found see currents I heard found them because he said the bible said there are path ways in the sea I shall find them. Told the Israelite common practices that we would not discover till the 1800′s like washing you hands. Isolation circumcision, and even on the day when the baby’s blood clots best allowing so the best time to do it to. Ever read 100 scientific facts of the bible it’s a short book very interesting. Just remember also everything in old testament can be dated back to the dead sea scrolls some possibly even further to be what it is today. Also the bible has never been disproved archeologically. All the evolutionary gems you have to the best of my knowledge are micro evolution something you really don’t hear specified in class. Micro evolution is stuff like the peppered moth’s change in color and the gardener snakes gradual immunity to the newts poison. So ye we don’t even know half of how the brain works I mean seriously that thing in it’s self is immensely complex the way are blood clots and even are eyes are immensely complex. Every thing is extermaly complex. If evlotion is true then why do things like fish go together and form a more complex orginisem? Just a question. I mean sure you can create a nuclues, but can you go and give it life. There arn’t even enough transitional fossils in the ground to support your theory. Then what about fossil lake how that layers could have been piled up like that from just one volcano explosion in a few hours? I don’t know to me evolutions evidence seems to dicey and I find it a lot easier to believe that an all powerfully benevolent being created us then the fact that we evolved. Besides the bible hasn’t been disproved yet. Did you know some of the lord of the rings music is actually Celtic. Sorry just listing to Celtic Myst top 100 on the mp3 player and hearing the main theme of lord of the rings. I like this saying sunset god’s way of reminding us he’s there. I guess when I lay my chips down it ultimately comes to this which theory is the most sound and looks the best. Although we can not prove god and probably will never be able to on or own it’s the one that the stuff it tells hasn’t been disproved, and sounds sound to me.

If you can read it, feel free to comment on it.

That is such a thoughtful chimpanzee.

A few weeks back, after having seen this, I thought “Hey, this will be funny. I’ll order one of these funny little booklets and have a funny laugh and everything will be funny.”  So I order the damn thing.

Maybe two weeks later, after I’ve already forgotten about it, a huge fat envelope is sitting in my mailbox, labeled United Church of God. An uneasy weight settles in my stomach. Who is this and how did they get my address? Why is it stuffed so full? I open it.

As it slides out, a friendly chimpanzee thoughtfully considers me from his cover. “OHAI,” he seems to say. “Iz your frndely cretinist chimp, thottfully con’siderin’ the eveedence for evolootun.”

I’m not too good at lolcat speak.

Oh yeah, my fun pamphlet! This will be fun, and hilarious, and I will be entertained. Everything will be funny.

No. No the hell it will not.

When I opened this and read the table of contents, I simply vomited. Right there on my couch. As for the actual content, directly opposite the table of contents is some blather surrounding a picture of a cute little baby, with this for a caption: “If we are the pinnacle of an evolutionary process, why is a human infant so helpless, and for so long, compared to the newborn of other species?”

I couldn’t help it. I had no muscular control over it. But the next thing I knew, I had thrown the book across the room. It was pretty much an involuntary defensive reaction, much like the way one would jerk back after touching a hot pan. My  highly evolved body continues to protect me.

But oh no, now I have a blog. With people who read it and everything, demanding entertainment. So, reluctantly, I went and fished it out of the corner of the living room. I am taking this bullet. Over the next *mumble* weeks, I’m going to be dissecting every nuance of this thing. Remember, this is for you.