Evolution And Mormonism

[BCSpace]

You can use gospel concepts to determine the fallacy of some scientific conclusions.

Impossible. There is no conflict between science and LDS doctrine on any subject.

There was no death before the Fall. If one argues otherwise, then one has to undermine with that argument other gospel truths.

The Creation, The Fall, The Atonement and The Resurrection are not mutually exclusive of each other.

I accept the doctrine of no death before the Fall. But as per the 1931 statement, the Church does not agree that "there were no pre Adamite races of people before Adam" is doctrine. In addition, the scripture and doctrine show a creative state prior to the garden state in which it is not stated that the property of "no death" applies. Thus you can have in order....

evolution/death => finished creation and the garden state of no death => The Fall => evolution/death

....and truthfully state there was no death before the Fall simply because of the order.

Edited August 28, 2012 by BCSpace

[shalamabobbi]

Yet by some miracle they remain fruit flies.

http://evolution.ber.../article/evo_45

Lions and Tigers and Ligers, oh my..

ERayR,

Sorry for reacting in anger to your post the other day. One of my closest friends believes as you do and he is the person I personally have the most respect for of anybody I have ever met in this life.

If God changed the data to hide what He did I'll let Him correct the false implications of the given data at a later date. In the interim I don't see any benefit to laboring through life with the burden of cognitive dissonance.

[BCSpace]

There were no bananas in the Garden. That's because they evolved much later through human and natural selection.

Btw. One of the great misconceptions about evolution and doctrine is about reproducing "after their own kind". Not only is this scriptural LDS doctrine, but it is part of Evolution as well. Evolution does NOT say that one species begets another. Rather, the differentiation in species is seen only over many generations. See the primer in my siggy at about 5:30.

Edited August 28, 2012 by BCSpace

[Tarski]

My answer is simple.

1. Evolution by natural selection is as real as it gets.

2. The etiology of the human form itself (in the concrete and in the abstract) is found in natural selection (no caveats).

3. To posit the prior independent existence of a "spirit" of that very same human animal form undercuts the whole point of evolution and robs it of its main explanitory success. (no evolution, no noses or thumbs--ever, anywhere)

4. The Garden of Eden story is one of dozens of creation myths with no more connection to reality than all the rest.

5. Number 4 above is painfully obvious.

I might add that anyone who thinks that neodarwinian natural selection is best descibed as a "random" process probably doesn't understand the theory. Evolution is an naturally occuring algorithm that takes random mutations and sifts them in a highly nonrandom way. It is not a matter sheer randomness which body plans are fit for survival and reproduction and which ones ane not. It is however a highly contingient matter.

Guided evolution is an untenable, gratuitious, and ultimately humorous conceptual Frankenstein.

Edited August 28, 2012 by Tarski

[mfbukowski]

3. To posit the prior independent existence of a "spirit" of that very same human animal form undercuts the whole point of evolution and robs it of its main explanitory success. (no evolution, no noses or thumbs--ever, anywhere)

I think that you hit at the source of the argument here, but I don't think you have solved it, just reiterated it. In fact I would think that those who posit the independent existence of a spirit indeed ARE seeking to undercut the utility of the usual explanation that natural selection provides.

I guess we could drag out Popper again and his belief that natural selection is ultimately a tautology- "what lives, lives" - which of course he was later pressured into retracting by the science community, but I think clearly he was on to something very basic when he said that.

One could say that everything in the universe goes through "natural selection" - stars, companies and corporations, products, political parties, house designs and air conditioners and memes. A design or idea or creature lasts until a better one comes along- one which is a superior product, or embodies a better idea, or does whatever it is supposed to do "better" than the last model.

This doesn't take a lot of genius to figure out. What lives, lives. What dies, dies. What doesn't work, fails. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that if a jungle becomes a desert, animals which cannot adapt will die and ones which can adapt will live.

If you build a better mousetrap you will sell more mousetraps until your competitor comes out with a better model.

Environmental change drives what survives and what doesn't- that seems pretty obvious. I have no problem with all the evidence for Darwinian evolution- indeed as I am suggesting I think it is nearly self-evident.

On the other hand, we have the anthropic principle. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropic_principle

igation, search

In astrophysics and cosmology, the anthropic principle is the philosophical consideration that observations of the physical Universe must be compatible with the conscious life that observes it. Some proponents of the anthropic principle reason that it explains why the Universe has the age and the fundamental physical constants necessary to accommodate conscious life. As a result, they believe it is unremarkable the universe's fundamental constants happen to fall within the narrow range thought to be compatible with life. ^[1]

The strong anthropic principle (SAP) as explained by Barrow and Tipler (see variants) states that this is all the case because the Universe is compelled, in some sense, for conscious life to eventually emerge. English writer Douglas Adams, who wrote The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, used the metaphor of a living puddle examining its own shape, since, to those living creatures, the universe may appear to fit them perfectly (while in fact, they simply fit the universe perfectly). Critics of the SAP argue in favor of a weak anthropic principle (WAP) similar to the one defined by Brandon Carter, which states that the universe's ostensible fine tuning is the result of selection bias: i.e., only in a universe capable of eventually supporting life will there be living beings capable of observing any such fine tuning, while a universe less compatible with life will go unbeheld.

That makes the discussion a little more interesting, I think.

[Alvino]

What does it matter? At some level intentional activity occurred even if it only involved taking advantage of a fortuitous opportunity proffered by nature.

It matters because if God interfered in some ways, then Mormons don't really believe in Evolution. If God creating a bunch of changes to the environment so humans could evolve is the religious explanation, then explanations of how and why the environment changed - a part needed to understand how evolution occurs - through totally natural processes we can arrive at through science are in conflict with religion. You can't say humans have certain traits because God killed some preys and predators so we could evolve to have that trait, and not expect a conflict with science if science shows that a natural explanation killed those preys and predators. You would have to push the "God" explanation a step back... again.

Certainly if we accept the idea that evolution is the mechanism by which physical tabernacles are prepared that would account for the process by which previous beings obtained physical tabernacles as well.

You are missing the point. What aspects of these tabernacles were prepared by a mind(s)? The design obviously isn't. Evolution through NATURAL selection doesn't prepare our bodies, does it? God designed them (forgetting he didn't design his own body which is like ours, making "God designed our bodies" something false) but evolution didn't decide how our bodies were going to turn up, it was God killing preys or predators or doing something else. Therefore, explanations that involve natural processes are excluded by your religious view when scientists say certain natural processes account for those preys or predators dying. Here's the idea:

1. Humans exist in their present form.

2. Religious person says we have arms because God designed them and created them directly.

3. Purely natural explanations are found that account for how we evolved to have two arms in their present form and explain their physiology.

4. Religious person then, pressed by the evidence, says God created those factors that allow for the natural processes that influenced human evolution.

5. We then find explanations that account for why those natural processes that account for our arms' physiology were there in the first place (that is, we find natural explanations for other natural explanations).

6. Guess what the religious person is going to say next?

This is the God of the gaps.

Line upon line, precept upon precept. He died to bring about the resurrection and to provide means to be forgiven of our sins. Our choice to arrive in this mortal tabernacle may be symbolized by the "fall of Adam" and apply to each of us individually. Or one may adopt tighter views such as those of BCSpace.

Why the need to press the dichotomy? What then?

This is a totally untenable position given current LDS doctrine. For example, in this you can read that, "Before the fall, Adam and Eve had physical bodies but no blood." Are you trying to say that each of us had a physical body before we came to Earth? Also, "Adam became the “first flesh” upon the earth, meaning that he and Eve were the first to become mortal." (Same source) How can you accept evolution and say WE were the first to become mortal? You can't say "Adam and Eve were the first to become human mortals" since you say Adam and Eve are NOT two single people but symbols for mankind.

Edited August 28, 2012 by Alvino

[ERayR]

http://evolution.ber.../article/evo_45

Lions and Tigers and Ligers, oh my..

ERayR,

Sorry for reacting in anger to your post the other day. One of my closest friends believes as you do and he is the person I personally have the most respect for of anybody I have ever met in this life.

If God changed the data to hide what He did I'll let Him correct the false implications of the given data at a later date. In the interim I don't see any benefit to laboring through life with the burden of cognitive dissonance.

But I have plainly stated more than once that I do NOT believe that God changed any data. My personal beliefs based on all the data I have available from all source do not require any such manipulation nor does it require any cognitive dissonance. Please quit intimating that I do.

[shalamabobbi]

Alvino,

I am not suggesting that religion and science are one and the same enterprise. If that is your point it is well taken. Religion doesn't claim to be science and science cannot incorporate faith into it's process. They aren't the same activity.

AGREED!

What I think of when I say religion and science do or do not conflict is something different than the God of the Gaps example.

It matters because if God interfered in some ways, then Mormons don't really believe in Evolution.

So what? Neither do scientists at this level of scrutiny. If they did they would stop studying the ToE since to do so is to invalidate their acceptance of the existing theory!?

Without quoting the next section through item 6 you are arguing against a straw man. Mormons for the most part don't accept ID nor YECism. There are some exceptions of course. It isn't deemed significant enough to affect one's membership in the church what they believe about the details of creation. Those who do not accept evolution believe for the most part that man's physical body is the result of God's physical body in the same sense that you are the result of your father's body.

With respect to the last paragraph the official stance of the church is that there is no official stance upon the matter.

We are free to accept or reject science on an individual basis as far as the church is concerned.

What is important is the reason behind the doctrines whether literal or symbolic. What they teach us with respect to how to conduct our lives and how to treat each other, etc. There is precious little in science that has to do with arriving at a condition of a clear conscience after making some moral mistake for example. Yet such matters may be of the utmost importance in life for some of us.

[shalamabobbi]

But I have plainly stated more than once that I do NOT believe that God changed any data. My personal beliefs based on all the data I have available from all source do not require any such manipulation nor does it require any cognitive dissonance. Please quit intimating that I do.

Ok, then either you are not aware of all the data, or you do not understand the data, or we are talking past each other when the idea of God manipulating the data is mentioned.

For example with respect to Laman and Lemuel. If we posit that they were born with one set of DNA and died with a different set of DNA that in my view would be manipulating the data. Do you agree or disagree?

[ERayR]

Ok, then either you are not aware of all the data, or you do not understand the data, or we are talking past each other when the idea of God manipulating the data is mentioned.

For example with respect to Laman and Lemuel. If we posit that they were born with one set of DNA and died with a different set of DNA that in my view would be manipulating the data. Do you agree or disagree?

You are probably assuming I am a young earth proponent. I am not. I reiterate that my views do not require God to manipulate or hide any evidence. I am not going to post my views because: 1) it would be a lengthy post. 2) it would be a possible derailment of this thread. 3) I just don't feel like getting into a lengthy discussion at this time. Suffice it to say I am a sane, rational person and I have solid reasons, evidence and reasoning behind what I believe. On top of that I have no desire to convert anyone to my point of view. Enough said for this thread and maybe someday if I get interested enough to post.

Edited August 28, 2012 by ERayR

[shalamabobbi]

You are probably assuming I am a young earth proponent. I am not. I reiterate that my views do not require God to manipulate or hide any evidence. I am not going to post my views because: 1) it would be a lengthy post. 2) it would be a possible derailment of this thread. 3) I just don't feel like getting into a lengthy discussion at this time. Suffice it to say I am a sane, rational person and I have solid reasons, evidence and reasoning behind what I believe. On top of that I have no desire to convert anyone to my point of view. Enough said for this thread and maybe someday if I get interested enough to post.

Ok..

I knew you weren't a young earther. The only thing I assumed is that you didn't accept evolution at the "macro" scale.

[ERayR]

Ok..

I knew you weren't a young earther. The only thing I assumed is that you didn't accept evolution at the "macro" scale.

I don'y but you needent assume it is me who is unaware of all the facts. That seems a bit presumptions to me.

[shalamabobbi]

I don'y but you needent assume it is me who is unaware of all the facts. That seems a bit presumptions to me.

Alright I'll bite.. which facts are you privy to that discount macro evolution?

[Alvino]

Alvino,

I am not suggesting that religion and science are one and the same enterprise. If that is your point it is well taken. Religion doesn't claim to be science and science cannot incorporate faith into it's process. They aren't the same activity.

AGREED!

What I think of when I say religion and science do or do not conflict is something different than the God of the Gaps example.

You are not even attempting to respond to my criticisms. I was quite specific and, this is what I get as a response? Come on. I quote you directly for a reason. Offer me the same courtesy.

So what?

What I said (and the reasons which you just ignored) are important because they mean Mormonism isn't compatible with Evolution, at least as MANY Mormons goes. So what is that this is the whole issue here and you don't dare to respond to it directly.

Neither do scientists at this level of scrutiny. If they did they would stop studying the ToE since to do so is to invalidate their acceptance of the existing theory!?

At what level? At the internet discussion level of scrutiny? Come on.

Without quoting the next section through item 6 you are arguing against a straw man. Mormons for the most part don't accept ID nor YECism. There are some exceptions of course. It isn't deemed significant enough to affect one's membership in the church what they believe about the details of creation. Those who do not accept evolution believe for the most part that man's physical body is the result of God's physical body in the same sense that you are the result of your father's body.

Really? Any stats on this? CFR. You said Mormons, btw, so I'd expect either an inter or a multinational survey. My experience has been the exact opposite but you are going beyond the anecdotal here so show the evidence.

With respect to the last paragraph the official stance of the church is that there is no official stance upon the matter.

(I don't know what 'stance' you are talking about but I'll assume it's the one on Adam and Even having physical bodies)

LDS.org is not official enough for you? Plus, whether it's official or not is irrelevant since I've shown (through reasons which you have simply turned a blind eye to) that a certain position is incompatible with the main doctrines as published by the Church's official website. Official or not, you still have the problem.

We are free to accept or reject science on an individual basis as far as the church is concerned.

ok.

What is important is the reason behind the doctrines whether literal or symbolic. What they teach us with respect to how to conduct our lives and how to treat each other, etc. There is precious little in science that has to do with arriving at a condition of a clear conscience after making some moral mistake for example. Yet such matters may be of the utmost importance in life for some of us.

We are not talking about morals here. Will you address what I said or not?

[shalamabobbi]

Alvino,

Are you LDS? Have you ever been LDS?

[mfbukowski]

What I said (and the reasons which you just ignored) are important because they mean Mormonism isn't compatible with Evolution, at least as MANY Mormons goes.

Oh come on.

Surely you can do better than this. If it is "compatible" for one it is compatible for all. The question is- IS there A way to both believe in evolution and Mormonism simultaneously and consistently?

There is.

Just because not everyone is consistent in every detail of the intellectual model they have created for themselves to accomplish their purpose doesn't mean it cannot be done.

The simplest way is to take Mormonism symbolically and not literally. Incidentally, that is not my position- but that position would work fine. That is only one of a zillion possible ways of putting it all together.

Saying one complex position or belief is necessarily "incompatible" with another is just silly. You yourself cited compatibilists who believe that free will and determinism are compatible. Similarly to say that Mormonism is incompatible with evolution is just, well, incorrect.

So what's the point here?

[mfbukowski]

I am sure the response to my previous post will entail something like "Yeah, but that's not Mormonism", or "Yeah but those positions would not be the truth".

Of course such assertions would need to involve an exact definition of what "Mormonism" is and what "truth" is to be believable. Good luck on those.

I am of course for now bracketing the concept of what "evolution" is and whether or not it is exclusive to Darwinian Evolution.

That is for another whole discussion. Can you see why I usually avoid these threads except to say that it's silly to worry about this question?

Edited August 29, 2012 by mfbukowski

[BCSpace]

Guided evolution is an untenable, gratuitious, and ultimately humorous conceptual Frankenstein.

Humans guide evolution all the time, particularly in the cases of our food and pets. Hence it is not unreasonable at all to consider Divinely guided evolution.

[thesometimesaint]

BCSpace:

Agreed.

[mfbukowski]

Humans guide evolution all the time, particularly in the cases of our food and pets. Hence it is not unreasonable at all to consider Divinely guided evolution.

Corn in 54 seconds.

[bcuzbcuz]

Corn in 54 seconds.

[media=]

Interesting video. Thanks for the post.

[Lament]

The questionnaire is grossly inadequate in both wording and alternatives. It seems to rely on simplified stereotypes of possibiities. Hardly a way to promote thoughtful analysis and understanding.

Allen Lambert

[Rivers]

Humans guide evolution all the time, particularly in the cases of our food and pets. Hence it is not unreasonable at all to consider Divinely guided evolution.

There's artificial selection, natural selection, and perhaps there is also divine selection.

[BCSpace]

There's artificial selection, natural selection, and perhaps there is also divine selection.

Indeed. And the movement of a single atom somewhere in time can influence millions of years of evolution just as much as say God's direct hand making major modifications to a single individual of a single species. In either case, science would have to essentially be able to account for the movements and properties of every atom and sub atomic particle in the universe for all time in order to preclude God's hand in evolution. Not very likely any time soon.

[thesometimesaint]

We just need a Heisenberg Compensator.