I don't believe in Evolution because No Death before the Fall is in the scriptures

[SamuelTheLamanite]

40 minutes ago, Robert F. Smith said:

The LDS Church is not to be personified.  That is a fallacy.  What happens at Conference time is that various speakers provide us with food for thought.  Their remarks may be inspired or not, and we can only tell that via the testimony to us of the Holy Spirit.  

You don't feel Elder Nelson and Elder McConkie were inspired to teach No Death? There is no reason to doubt their words, the church has never corrected them, or stated the contrary. In fact, after Elder Nelson taught, "The creation of a paradisiacal planet came from God. Mortality and death came into the world through the Fall of Adam" Gordon B Hinckley confirmed, " The speakers have been inspired, every one of them"  

That was literally after Elder Nelson. 

27 minutes ago, Freedom said:

Evolution, like electricity, is not something you can believe in or not, it is scientific fact. It will continue to be true no matter how much quote mining you do or how many verses you take out of context.

What do you say about Exodus 7:8-12?  If God didn't have to use Evolution to create serpents, why would he need Evolution at all? The scientific theory of Evolution doesn't need God, I don't see how God used Evolution. 

Edited August 27, 2017 by SamuelTheLamanite

[katherine the great]

51 minutes ago, Robert F. Smith said:

I just edited to eliminate "entropy."  My mind is reopened and awaiting actual proof from microbiology.  Speciation is not based on additive logic (incremental within species adaptation), and must be based on actual genetic results with real transitional forms.  Not word magic.

As for enough time, environmental change, and isolation, we only need the latter two according to Gould & Eldredge (punctuated equilibria).  According to them, evolution takes place very quickly, which is why there are no transitional fossils.

That is true only in a sense. Puctuated equilibrium is only one type of evolution.  Everything depends on the environment. Looking back at the fossil record, there are some instances of change happening very slowly with transitional fossils along the way so we can easily make inferences about how it came about. But often, especially in areas that undergo radical environmental changes, we will see a species who has remained relatively constant suddenly disappear and a similar but significantly modified species take its place. Likely what occurred was a migration of a small part of that population to a more favorable habitat, the parent population who stayed goes extinct and later, the break off group's descendants return to the area in a modified form. Fossils are so rare that we will never be able to fully explain evolution through the fossil record. That's why genetics are so great, we can look inside at the changes to our DNA to see our evolutionary history.

[katherine the great]

43 minutes ago, Freedom said:

What exactly are you expecting to see in the form of a transitional fossil? It is not like you have a duck, then a dog and then a man. The fossil record is full of transitions over millions of years. The change is very gradual. A thicker fir, then longer limbs, then a change in diet, and eventually an inability to reproduce with another from a common ancestor. And yes, there are examples today even among birds and monkeys. The issue is that species is such a misleading term. People hear species and they think horse versus cow. 

http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/lines_03

https://www.livescience.com/3306-fossils-reveal-truth-darwin-theory.html

"Species" really is a tricky term. Different disciplines define it differently.

[Bob Crockett]

1 hour ago, katherine the great said:

 We have observed speciation in fruit flies. 

What does that mean?  That suddenly a set of flies can breed with each other but not with their ancestors (or collateral descendant lines)?  I am no expert, but isn' t that the acid test of speciation?   Can't breed with one's cousin but can breed with one's sister?

Perhaps the breeding issue can take many generations, but at some point the jump has to be made and Floppy Eared Rabbit can't breed with Straight Eared Rabbit, when a month before they could.  I just don't think that phenomenon has been observed; or perhaps it is not observable when you're dealing with breeding requiring two partners.  Thus far, sterility has been observed, but not a complete new regime from breeding.  Again, I'm not an expert.  More interested in the answer to the question rather than in trying to prove a point.

Edited August 27, 2017 by Bob Crockett

[Calm]

"God made Abraham think that he needed to sacrifice his son, but in the end it was just a test."

What did God make creation appear like in Abraham's day?

[SamuelTheLamanite]

10 minutes ago, Calm said:

"God made Abraham think that he needed to sacrifice his son, but in the end it was just a test."

What did God make creation appear like in Abraham's day?

I don't know,  but many times in the scriptures God does test faith.  

Gordon B. Hinckley  confirmed that Elder Nelson was inspired "The speakers have been inspired, every one of them", I believe modern general conference teachings are inspired by God. Please tell me if you know a General Conference that teaches Evolution for millions of years. 

14 minutes ago, Calm said:

Evolution, if the source of the variety of life on Earth, is God's tool,

In Exodus 7:8-12 God didn't use Evolution to create serpents, I don't understand why God needs Evolution.   

[SamuelTheLamanite]

Here is another General Conference "I understand from a statement in the book of Moses, which was made by Enoch, that there was no death in the world before Adam (Moses 6:48; see also 2 Ne. 2:22)." Marion G. Romney, Conference Report, April 1953, pp. 122-126 

In the mouth of two or three witnesses shall every word be established, I find it hard to believe No Death wasn't inspired by God. 

[CV75]

1 hour ago, SamuelTheLamanite said:

God made Abraham think that he needed to sacrifice his son, but in the end it was just a test.   

That would be a good answer if Abraham conflated his spiritual impressions with his physical observations of the tangible world. In addition, this comparison is like saying God is commanding (or leading and inspiring) us to believe in evolution as much as in the motion of the planets, and I don’t think you really want to say that.

Animal and human sacrifices were very real practices for Abraham, and more importantly part of his revealed religion. Furthermore, Abraham didn’t misinterpret what God told him to do, clouded by his academic prejudices, and God never revealed the actual nature of sacrifice as anything contrary to what he had originally revealed.

[smac97]

On 8/26/2017 at 1:49 PM, SamuelTheLamanite said:

2 Ne 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.

So Adam's non-fallen state was linked to him being "in the garden of Eden."

On 8/26/2017 at 1:49 PM, SamuelTheLamanite said:

And all things which were created must have remained in the same state in which they were after they were created; and they must have remained forever, and had no end."  

In your view, the reference to "all things" here is a reference to what?  Some interpretation is required, right?  

1. "All things" may refer to every particle of matter that has ever existed anywhere.
2. "All things" may refer to every particle of matter that is part of this world at that time.
3. "All things" may refer to every living organism that existed in this world at that time.'
4. "All things" may refer to ever living organism that existed in the garden of Eden at that time.
5. "All things" may refer to Adam and Eve.

I suspect there are other possibilities as well.  I am curious as to what your interpretation is.

On 8/26/2017 at 1:49 PM, SamuelTheLamanite said:

Thank goodness we have modern prophets that interpret our scriptures.

I agree.  I am also grateful for personal revelation.  We have the gift of revelation, and of guidance from living prophets and apostles, and from past prophets and apostles.  And learning from the "best books" referenced repeatedly in scriptures.

We must construe/interpret all of these things as best we can.

On 8/26/2017 at 1:49 PM, SamuelTheLamanite said:

We all know D&C 89:9 needed interpretation,

"And again, hot drinks are not for the body or belly."

Yep.

On 8/26/2017 at 1:49 PM, SamuelTheLamanite said:

we also have interpretation for 2 Ne 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 in which they were after they were created; and they must have remained forever, and had no end."

The Gospel Principles manual touches on this section:

Quote

The Garden of Eden

• Under what conditions did Adam and Eve live in the Garden of Eden?

When Adam and Eve were placed in the Garden of Eden, they were not yet mortal. In this state, “they would have had no children” (2 Nephi 2:23). There was no death. They had physical life because their spirits were housed in physical bodies made from the dust of the earth (see Moses 6:59; Abraham 5:7). They had spiritual life because they were in the presence of God. They had not yet made a choice between good and evil.

FAIR has some thoughts on this as well (underlined/bolded emphasis added):

Quote

Lehi said that "all things which were created must have remained in the same state in which they were after they were created"

The LDS Bible Dictionary states that, "Latter-day revelation teaches that there was no death on this earth before the Fall of Adam. Indeed, death entered the world as a direct result of the Fall (2 Ne. 2:22; Moses 6:48)." 2 Nephi 2:22 describes how Adam and Eve became subject to physical death, when the Book of Mormon prophet Lehi taught that

Quote

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 in which they were after they were created; and they must have remained forever, and had no end. (2 Nephi 2:22)

Because this is the only scripture that indicates this, it is difficult to interpret the meaning of "all things." Does it mean "all things in the garden", or "all things on the entire earth", or something else?

The second scripture referenced, Moses 6:48, describes how "spiritual death" entered the world:

Quote

Behold Satan hath come among the children of men, and tempteth them to worship him; and men have become carnal, sensual, and devilish, and are shut out from the presence of God.

Current Church manuals take a cautionary approach to interpreting 2 Nephi 2:22
Current Church manuals take a cautionary approach to interpreting this verse by considering only how it affected Adam and Eve. For example, from 2010 Gospel Principles manual, page 28:

Quote

When Adam and Eve were placed in the Garden of Eden, they were not yet mortal. In this state, “they would have had no children” (2 Nephi 2:23). There was no death. They had physical life because their spirits were housed in physical bodies made from the dust of the earth (see Moses 6:59; Abraham 5:7). They had spiritual life because they were in the presence of God. They had not yet made a choice between good and evil.

 

Adam and Eve were not yet mortal. In this state, "they would have had no children" (2 Nephi 2:23). The statement "there was no death" applies to the Garden of Eden, which is what the paragraph is describing. There is no statement in the manual that there had been no death anywhere in the entire world. There has been a difference of opinion among Church leaders on the extent to which immortality affected God's creations before the Fall.

Some of the changes to the Gospel Principles manual reinforce this cautionary approach. The 1979 edition stated that Adam and Eve were "the parents of the human race," while the current version states that they are "our first parents." In addition, the statement about Adam and Eve learning to "control the earth" was completely removed.

What are your thoughts on this?

On 8/26/2017 at 1:49 PM, SamuelTheLamanite said:

In General Conference Elder Nelson taught, "The creation of a paradisiacal planet came from God. Mortality and death came into the world through the Fall of Adam"

What is your interpretation of this?  That the entire planet was the Garden of Eden?  That there was no difference between what was within the boundaries of the Garden and what was without?

On 8/26/2017 at 1:49 PM, SamuelTheLamanite said:

and again in General Conference Elder McConkie taught, "True believers know that this earth and man and all forms of life were created in an Edenic, or paradisiacal, state in which there was no mortality, no procreation, no death"

I think the Church does not have an altogether coherent and revelatory stance on the subject of organic evolution.  This article seems to sum things up rather well:

Quote

No definitive LDS stance on evolution, study finds
By Carrie A Moore
Published: March 1, 2006 12:00 a.m.

OREM — Despite characterizations by some Latter-day Saints that their theology eschews the theory of evolution, two LDS scientists say their church has no definitive position on whether humans evolved from earlier life forms.

William Evenson and Duane Jeffery told dozens of people gathered at Utah Valley State College on Tuesday that what definitely has evolved over time is the position taken by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on the issue.

They came to that conclusion after dissecting the history of statements made by past LDS leaders at the request of former Brigham Young University president Rex Lee. In 1991, Lee asked Evenson — then dean of physical and mathematical sciences at BYU — to draft a document that could be given to students who routinely queried him on the church's position.

"There was a committee organized to put together a packet of materials. . . . The idea was to assemble those things that had some authority to represent the position of the LDS Church," Evenson said.

He and Jeffery collaborated, along with deans from other BYU departments, gathering and sifting through statements by church presidents, the LDS First Presidency and members of the church's Quorum of the Twelve.

The documents contained some statements that inferred there was no basis for the scientific theory of evolution, and others that took no position on the science itself but merely emphasized that man was created in the image of God.

In the end, they included four different statements as part of the BYU packet:

• • A 1909 First Presidency statement on "The Origin of Man," published the centennial year of Charles Darwin's birth and the 50th anniversary of his publication of "On the Origin of Species."
• • A 1910 First Presidency Christmas message that addressed the issue.
• • A 1925 statement, released during the highly -publicized Scopes trial regarding the teaching of evolution in public schools, called "Mormon View of Evolution."
• • And a 1992 entry from the Encyclopedia of Mormonism, which includes an excerpt of minutes from a 1931 meeting of the First Presidency on the issue.

As Evenson and Jeffery examined the history, it became obvious there was vast disagreement among some former church leaders about whether evolution played a role in the origin of man, Jeffery said.

"The goal was not to achieve some kind of 'balance' among the views that have been expressed but to give students the full range of officials' views," so they could evaluate the material for themselves when they came upon material from different LDS sources that didn't jibe, Evenson said. The other goal of the "BYU Evolution Packet" — distributed to faculty as well as teachers within the LDS Church Education System — was to provide only materials that could be clearly said to represent the official position of the church, so they could be juxtaposed with a "fair sampling of diverse viewpoints among LDS Church leaders."

In doing so, the two learned that a 1909 statement — signed by President Joseph F. Smith and his counselors — contained a couple of paragraphs that were "quite anti-evolutionary, yet they don't come right out and say it's false, but it doesn't take much to say that's what the intent was," Jeffery said. "It has been published ever since by anti-science writers in the church ever since as the official position."

But what is less well-known "is what has happened since then," Jeffery said. Letters began arriving at the office of the First Presidency after the 1909 statement, and in December 1910 another message was released, saying in part, "Our religion is not hostile to real science. That which is demonstrated, we accept with joy . . . "

Jeffery, a biology professor at BYU for 37 years, said that statement was quoted by members for the ensuing 20 years, "and I would suggest it's still a good idea."

In the following years, LDS apostles, including B.H. Roberts and James E. Talmage, wrote about the issue and presented their findings to the First Presidency with a leaning toward scientific theory, while junior apostle Joseph Fielding Smith vehemently opposed their views in his own writings and presentations to the First Presidency, Jeffery said. Much of their disagreement came over whether "pre-Adamites" walked the Earth before God created Adam, and whether death of any species had occurred prior to Adam. The debate became so heated that on April 7, 1931, the First Presidency called all the general authorities together and distributed a seven-page memo that "said straight out the church has no position on pre-Adamites or death before the fall of Adam, Jeffery said.

"They basically said, 'leave the subject alone.'" But the competition between Talmage and Smith continued, as Talmage gave an address at the Salt Lake Tabernacle in August 1931 which was later published under the direction of the First Presidency over Smith's objections, Jeffery said.

...

The two scientists have recently published their own book, "Mormonism and Evolution: the Authoritative LDS Statements," that includes the "BYU packet" along with a variety of other "authoritative statements."

One is by current LDS Church President Gordon B. Hinckley, quoted in a book by Larry A. Witham, "Where Darwin Meets the Bible: Creationists and Evolutionists in America."

"What the church requires is only belief 'that Adam was the first man of what we would call the human race.'" President Hinckley added that scientists can speculate on the rest, and recalled his own study of anthropology and geology, saying, "Studied all about it. Didn't worry me then. Doesn't worry me now."
 

What are your thoughts?

On 8/26/2017 at 1:49 PM, SamuelTheLamanite said:

I don't believe God is a God of confusion, I do believe General Authorities act as prophets during General Conference, a time when millions of faithful latter day saints are listening. Nothing taught by other General Authorities in General Conference contradicts the teaching that there was no death before the Fall.  

Again, from the article quoted above:

Quote

{O}n April 7, 1931, the First Presidency called all the general authorities together and distributed a seven-page memo that "said straight out the church has no position on pre-Adamites or death before the fall of Adam," Jeffrey said."

And from the Encyclopedia of Mormonism entry on "Evolution":

Quote

The scriptures tell why man was created, but they do not tell how, though the Lord has promised that he will tell that when he comes again (D&C 101:32-33). In 1931, when there was intense discussion on the issue of organic evolution, the First Presidency of the Church, then consisting of Presidents Heber J. Grant, Anthony W. Ivins, and Charles W. Nibley, addressed all of the General Authorities of the Church on the matter, and concluded, Upon the fundamental doctrines of the Church we are all agreed. Our mission is to bear the message of the restored gospel to 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….

Upon one thing we should all be able to agree, namely, that Presidents Joseph F. Smith, John R. Winder, and Anthon H. Lund were right when they said: "Adam is the primal parent of our race" [First Presidency Minutes, Apr. 7, 1931].

What are your thoughts on this?

On 8/26/2017 at 1:49 PM, SamuelTheLamanite said:

Elder Hales taught, "These conferences are always under the direction of the Lord, guided by His Spirit. We are not assigned specific topics. Over weeks and months, often through sleepless nights, we wait upon the Lord. Through fasting, praying, studying, and pondering, we learn the message that He wants us to give" 

I don't think that Elder Hales meant to suggest that every word or idea ever uttered during General Conference is 100% doctrinal / revelatory.  

Elder McConkie taught things that he later retracted.  President Uchtdorf has alluded to "mistakes" which have been made in the Church, including by leaders ("And, to be perfectly frank, there have been times when members or leaders in the Church have simply made mistakes. There may have been things said or done that were not in harmony with our values, principles, or doctrine.").  The Book of Mormon warns against expectations of perfection in the servants of the Lord.

So prooftexting by pointing to a General Conference talk will not, I think, do.  We should instead look for patterns over time.  As Elder Neil L. Andersen put it: 

Quote

A few question their faith when they find a statement made by a Church leader decades ago that seems incongruent with our doctrine. There is an important principle that governs the doctrine of the Church. The doctrine is taught by all 15 members of the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve. It is not hidden in an obscure paragraph of one talk. True principles are taught frequently and by many. Our doctrine is not difficult to find.

The leaders of the Church are honest but imperfect men. Remember the words of Moroni: “Condemn me not because of mine imperfection, neither my father … ; but rather give thanks unto God that he hath made manifest unto you our imperfections, that ye may learn to be more wise than we have been.”

Joseph Smith said, “I never told you I was perfect; but there is no error in the revelations.” The miracle of God’s hand in the history and destiny of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is understood only through the lens of spiritual inquiry. 

So a balanced approach is helpful, together with healthy doses of humility and a willingness to admit that there are some things about which we presently lack sufficient light and knowledge, such that definitive statements about them are premature.  I think the role of evolution in the Plan of Salvation falls within this category.

Thanks,

-Smac

[smac97]

8 hours ago, Bob Crockett said:

I don't believe this is an accurate analysis -- ""No death before the fall refers to the garden."  I base my conclusion on Jack Welch's analysis of B.H. Roberts' TWL manuscript.    I think it has been widely held by LDS general authorities that the phrase "no death before the fall" meant death on this planet, and not some limited geographic area, at least widely held at the time of the Talmage - Smith debates.   Basically silence since then from the Church.  

I was an advocate of biological evolution.  It is taught enthusiastically in BYU courses.   Then, a noted LDS apologist and fellow graduate of my law school asked me to read a book by a microbiologist.  This microbiologist was not LDS, nor writing on Biblical grounds, but pointed out many of the flaws of evolutionary biology and how it ran contrary to standard methodological proofs.   Now I don't know what to think.   It doesn't really concern one way or the other.

However, to say that the phrase "no death before the fall" refers only to the Garden is, indeed, a matter of private interpretation.

Would you provide the title to the book you reference here?

Thanks,

-Smac

[RevTestament]

16 hours ago, cinepro said:

But all those ways require countless cycles of birth, mutation and physical death before the Fall of Adam.

But not spiritual death. The law brought spiritual death - first seal. Read Paul if you aren't familiar.

Without spiritual death, and the fall, all things would have to continue as they were created - without progression - like in heaven.

[SamuelTheLamanite]

 

25 minutes ago, smac97 said:

I don't think that Elder Hales meant to suggest that every word or idea ever uttered during General Conference is 100% doctrinal / revelatory.  

Gordon B Hinckley confirmed that Nelson was inspired during his No Death teaching. I quoted three General Conference talks that teach No Death, I do believe General Authorities are careful during Conference.  So unless there is something wrong with Revelation I see no reason to believe No Death wasn't inspired.  

and Exodus 7:8-12 makes it clear that God doesn't need millions of years of Evolution. The Theory of Evolution teaches millions of years of animals and human death. Do you believe in millions of years of human evolution? 

25 minutes ago, smac97 said:

Elder McConkie taught things that he later retracted.  President Uchtdorf has alluded to "mistakes"

Yes, but he didn't retract any of his General Conference teachings.  Once again, I see no reason to doubt No Death unless there is something seriously wrong with Revelation. I don't think there is something wrong with how revelation works. 

25 minutes ago, smac97 said:

No definitive LDS stance on evolution, study finds

Yes, the church doesn't have an official position on Evolution. I am open to the idea of Fast Evolution happening after the Fall. 

25 minutes ago, smac97 said:

What is your interpretation of this?  That the entire planet was the Garden of Eden?  That there was no difference between what was within the boundaries of the Garden and what was without?

the paradisiacal Earth had a garden. 

26 minutes ago, CV75 said:

That would be a good answer if Abraham conflated his spiritual impressions with his physical observations of the tangible world.

My point is that God made it appear that he wanted Abraham to kill his son. That was the Abraham's first impression. 

Edited August 27, 2017 by SamuelTheLamanite

[SamuelTheLamanite]

41 minutes ago, SamuelTheLamanite said:

Here is another General Conference "I understand from a statement in the book of Moses, which was made by Enoch, that there was no death in the world before Adam (Moses 6:48; see also 2 Ne. 2:22)." Marion G. Romney, Conference Report, April 1953, pp. 122-126 

In case you missed the third one 

[katherine the great]

1 hour ago, Bob Crockett said:

What does that mean?  That suddenly a set of flies can breed with each other but not with their ancestors (or collateral descendant lines)?  I am no expert, but isn' t that the acid test of speciation?   Can't breed with one's cousin but can breed with one's sister?

Fruit flies have a very short life cycle so we can observe many generations of the full life cycle in a very short amount of time. Evolution happens within populations, not individuals. So we start with a parent population and analyze their DNA (or, in the old days, looked at their physical traits). The population is separated into different groups and put into different environments and observed and tested generation after generation. One environmental change has to do with diet and these experiments have resulted in reproductive isolates and breeding incompatibility. These have been show to occur on the genetic level and the behavioral level (they no longer find each other attractive enough to mate).

[Calm]

2 minutes ago, katherine the great said:

Fruit flies have a very short life cycle so we can observe many generations of the full life cycle in a very short amount of time. Evolution happens within populations, not individuals. So we start with a parent population and analyze their DNA (or, in the old days, looked at their physical traits). The population is separated into different groups and put into different environments and observed and tested generation after generation. One environmental change has to do with diet and these experiments have resulted in reproductive isolates and breeding incompatibility. These have been show to occur on the genetic level and the behavioral level (they no longer find each other attractive enough to mate).

But the argument will be they are still fruit flies as in they have changed minor qualities, but not major.  (Not my argument)

[carbon dioxide]

I really don't know what to think about evolution other than to say is if it takes God a billion years to put a human being on the earth, that seems to be a very slow and not an efficient process of creation.  If I become a God, I am going to seek faster ways to do this.  I am not going to wait millions of years for some biological process to get its act together and do what I want it to do.

[ttribe]

[Calm]

58 minutes ago, carbon dioxide said:

I really don't know what to think about evolution other than to say is if it takes God a billion years to put a human being on the earth, that seems to be a very slow and not an efficient process of creation.  If I become a God, I am going to seek faster ways to do this.  I am not going to wait millions of years for some biological process to get its act together and do what I want it to do.

But God just hasn't created Man, but likely almost 9 million species...throw in inorganic creation, not that inefficient in my view.

Edited August 28, 2017 by Calm

[katherine the great]

13 minutes ago, Calm said:

But the argument will be they are still fruit flies as in they have changed minor qualities, but not major.  (Not my argument)

They are still fruit flies on the genus level (Drosphila), but they are now different species of fruit fly. Fruit fly is just the common name.

[katherine the great]

18 minutes ago, carbon dioxide said:

I really don't know what to think about evolution other than to say is if it takes God a billion years to put a human being on the earth, that seems to be a very slow and not an efficient process of creation.  If I become a God, I am going to seek faster ways to do this.  I am not going to wait millions of years for some biological process to get its act together and do what I want it to do.

I agree. It is a very slow process. I wouldn't call it inefficient--its a genius way to be sure that we are fit to our earthly environment. We also are looking at this from the perspective that the only purpose of this planet is for humans to be here. Maybe God has many other purposes that don't include us and haven't been shared with us.

[Robert F. Smith]

4 hours ago, katherine the great said:

That is true only in a sense. Puctuated equilibrium is only one type of evolution.  Everything depends on the environment. Looking back at the fossil record, there are some instances of change happening very slowly with transitional fossils along the way so we can easily make inferences about how it came about. But often, especially in areas that undergo radical environmental changes, we will see a species who has remained relatively constant suddenly disappear and a similar but significantly modified species take its place. Likely what occurred was a migration of a small part of that population to a more favorable habitat, the parent population who stayed goes extinct and later, the break off group's descendants return to the area in a modified form. Fossils are so rare that we will never be able to fully explain evolution through the fossil record. That's why genetics are so great, we can look inside at the changes to our DNA to see our evolutionary history.

Sounds logical and convincing on the face of it, which is why all the museums have an illustration of the simian to man sequence -- first one I saw was at Griffith Park Observatory when I was a kid back in the 50s.  Later, during paleontology class, the books by Louis Leakey and Desmond Morris were quite convincing and reinforced my acceptance of that sequence.  The sequence and terminology have gotten more complicated since my teacher, Ofer Bar-Yosef, taught that class and led us in a major paleolithic excavation in the Great Rift Valley.

We can infer a great deal from DNA and skeletal remains, as you suggest, but I have yet to see the piece de resistance.

Edited August 28, 2017 by Robert F. Smith

[Robert F. Smith]

2 hours ago, SamuelTheLamanite said:

You don't feel Elder Nelson and Elder McConkie were inspired to teach No Death? There is no reason to doubt their words, the church has never corrected them, or stated the contrary. In fact, after Elder Nelson taught, "The creation of a paradisiacal planet came from God. Mortality and death came into the world through the Fall of Adam" Gordon B Hinckley confirmed, " The speakers have been inspired, every one of them"  

...........................................................

I imagine that this has been the general conclusion at every conference since the first  one in 1830.  That is not the same as saying that your separate conclusions about evolution are supported in any way, or that everything said by the Brethren is inspired.

[Robert F. Smith]

3 hours ago, Freedom said:

What exactly are you expecting to see in the form of a transitional fossil? It is not like you have a duck, then a dog and then a man. The fossil record is full of transitions over millions of years. The change is very gradual. A thicker fir, then longer limbs, then a change in diet, and eventually an inability to reproduce with another from a common ancestor. And yes, there are examples today even among birds and monkeys. The issue is that species is such a misleading term. People hear species and they think horse versus cow. 

http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/lines_03

https://www.livescience.com/3306-fossils-reveal-truth-darwin-theory.html

Thanks.  Both of those websites contain powerful and well-argued examples of expected transitional forms.  It would be very difficult at best to doubt evolution in the face of such convincing sequences.  Yes, based on what we can infer, they appear to be very gradual adaptations, even though it only makes sense to me that the changes were probably relatively swift -- if done at all.

[RevTestament]

1 hour ago, carbon dioxide said:

I really don't know what to think about evolution other than to say is if it takes God a billion years to put a human being on the earth, that seems to be a very slow and not an efficient process of creation.  If I become a God, I am going to seek faster ways to do this.  I am not going to wait millions of years for some biological process to get its act together and do what I want it to do.

Who knows how many planets He has in the cooker at one time...as new ones are needed they are just taken off the assembly line so to speak...Yeah, that's it.  God is the Henry Ford of the universe....

[SamuelTheLamanite]

never mind 

Edited August 28, 2017 by SamuelTheLamanite