New Church History Essay on Evolution

[Emily]

On 6/19/2022 at 12:46 PM, MikeFoxtrot said:

How do you reconcile this problem?

I reconcile these "problems" in the same way I reconcile things like... Talking donkeys, 900 year old men, men being swallowed by giant fish (Nibley has a fascinating theory on this one, that Jonah was actually picked up by a boat similar to the Jaredite barges) and insects creeping around on four legs (a matter of interpretation as to what is a 'leg' really, but some people consider it a problem), or the "whole earth" being flooded.

That is, I tend to think that when I'm bumping up against a logical inconsistency in scriptural text -- then most likely that text doesn't mean what my culturally Protestant poisoned perception is telling me it should mean.

I might be dealing with transmission error, translation error, confusion arising from editing/combining manuscripts and/or perception/perspective differences.

With perspective differences, I wouldn't even say you are dealing with errors on the part of the writer/translator/copyist. If water covers everything as far as the eye can see or travel to, that's functionally all the "earth" you know about until such time as you can fly a plane or shoot a rocket into space. The errors only arise when readers start reading their modern perspectives into ancient texts.

As far as "first man" goes. There are countless "first man" stories out there, arising from pretty much every human tribe that ever developed a cultural identity. Pretty much every ancient tribe claimed to be the "first people" to crawl out of a hole, descend from the skies, cross the great waters, metamorph from trees/corn/rivers/papyrus plants, or rise from the dust and spittle of God (in one myth, God creates pottery from the dust and spittle and the pottery becomes the man)  or the 'seed' he spilled on the ground.

Ancient groups created these myths, generally as part of a religious teaching tradition, even though every one of them was totally aware there were actually other human beings out there in the world. But those people were "others." They were not "my people" "chosen people" "THE people."  

When ancient cultures gathered around to sing, "We are the world
We are the children" -- they weren't following it up with sentimental suggestions that we are all part of God's great big family. From the perspective of these ancient cultures they were the only  men and flesh that needed to be mentioned because the story they are telling is THEIR story.

The funny thing is, there are open indications in Genesis itself that other people outside Adam's group existed during Adam's time -- but it's either ignored or explained away by more modern readers -- like, "Adam had a LOT of children and most of them went bad." Even though the text doesn't ever actually say all those "other" people are Adam's descendents. So you end up with a conundrum in the scriptures themselves if you take a modern perspective on how to interpret, "First man" and "First flesh."

I'm not sure at what point readers decided to make Adam and Eve the only two people roaming the Earth but the transition must have happened at some point after the manuscripts for several apocryphal and pseudepigraphal literature were written. I say this because works like, the "Conflict of Adam and Eve with Satan" have no problem at all with the idea that there were groups of people who were not descended from Adam and Eve coming into direct contact/conflict with Adam's children. Nor does commentary and stories found in the Jewish Talmud or Koran seem to have trouble with the idea that Adam and his descendents bumped into other groups of people. So from a perception point, the idea that "first man/first flesh" should be interpreted as "only human being on the global planet" seems to be a more modern interpretation. 

 

 

 

[Emily]

On 6/21/2022 at 6:23 AM, rongo said:

Maybe if organic evolution did a much better job of explaining how complex things like flight, the eye, the brain, etc. developed through gradual, incremental changes over extremely long periods of time because random mutations made survival and likelihood of passing on genes more likely.

You should probably read up on punctuated equilibrium, catastrophic evolution (catastrophic speciation) and research on viruses and their role in evolution and gene studies that revolve around evolution. A great deal of new research has come out in the last couple of decades that has really given fascinating insight into the process behind evolution. And it does indeed appear more guided and less accidental than was originally imagined.

I had similar questions to yours until I read some of Stephen Jay Gould's theories in the early eighties, followed by a more desultory interest in the subject over the years, mostly driven by a higher level of interest in genetics as a whole. There's some fascinating work being done right now that suggests we never actually lose "old code" in our DNA. Scientists have, for instance, been able to "turn on" the genes for chicken teeth in embryo chickens. (Search on "chicken teeth" to find some popular articles on that one.)

[Emily]

My husband says I need to add an addendum to my post because I shared something with him he thought was funny. 

Punctuated Equilibrium is "the hypothesis that evolutionary development is marked by isolated episodes of rapid speciation between long periods of little or no change." Basically the idea is that catastrophic events trigger rapid evolution. 

Traditional Evolution or the theory of evolution by natural selection (only) is the usual "gradual change over long periods of time" theory we all learned in high school.

When punctuated evolution was first proposed, critics began calling it, "Evolution by jerks"

In response, proponents began calling traditional evolution "Evolution by creeps"

😁

 

[Teancum]

On 6/21/2022 at 8:17 PM, Hamba Tuhan said:

As I have shared on this forum before, I was completing my master's degree at one of America's Big Ten universities when one of its emeritus professors of biological anthropology (and the discoverer and namer of a certain human 'ancestor' in the fossil record) gave a newspaper interview in which he stated that he could no longer accept the dominant narrative of human origins. There was just too little evidence, he argued, and too many gaps. When asked by the reporter what the alternative was, he admitted that he didn't have one but asserted that a desire to avoid religious explanations had pushed scientists to endorse conclusions they otherwise wouldn't have found sufficient. He also said that, despite a growing unease with the narrative, he had felt compelled not to say anything until securely into retirement because there was as much dogmatism in the academy as there ever had been in the monastery.

The chair of my advisers was a socio-linguist whose office was in the Anthropology Department, and en route to a meeting with her the next day, I overheard a cluster of researchers discussing how tragic it was that the once-great Prof X had lost his mind.

Anecdotal stories don't really matter here. The question is what seems to be the consensus among scientists about organic evolution? Based on what I have read it seem that by far most accept it as a theory that has become pretty much factual and that the evidence is overwhelming in support of it.  Here are a couple of good books on the topic.

Why Evolution is True by Jerry Coyne and Your Inner Fish by Neil Shubin.

 

 

[CA Steve]

There seems to be a correlation between religious beliefs and which scientific theories are in question. I notice there is no church essay trying to explain its stance on the theory of gravity.

[pogi]

On 7/10/2022 at 9:52 PM, Emily said:

A great deal of new research has come out in the last couple of decades that has really given fascinating insight into the process behind evolution. And it does indeed appear more guided and less accidental than was originally imagined.

I don't know that I am up-to-date with all the latest research, but I am assuming the bold part is your interpretation and not the conclusion of the research, right?  I am guessing any scientist would shy away from any indication of "guided" evolution because that would lead to the inevitable question - "guided by whom?" 

I also think there is good evidence for guided evolution in the case of genetic convergent evolution.  I think phenotypical convergence can be explained given random mutations and environmental pressures, but the genetic convergence of thousands of genes with identical genetic expression (bioluminescence, for example) with independent origins of distant unrelated species is not really able to be explainable given traditional understanding of evolution.  

[Emily]

10 hours ago, pogi said:

I am assuming the bold part is your interpretation and not the conclusion of the research, right?  I

Not exactly, though I may have worded it badly. Perhaps I should have said evolution does not appear as haphazard as it's often presented. It seems to be guided by environmental changes, conservative genetic properties, genetic borrowing and a lot of other factors that makes evolution happen faster than the formula of "good and bad mutations occur then natural selection decides which traits survive" would suggest 

For example, simple organisms borrow DNA code from each other and the code can be hanging around in the genome, completely inactive, until an environmental pressure makes it a useful trait to have switched on. Or simple organisms can actively borrow code to deal with an immediate environmental pressure.

Or existing code can be surpressed, but still remain stored in the genome. 

There's some suggestion that the code borrowing (horizontal gene transfer) occurs in higher organisms as well. Code hoarding definitely occurs in higher organisms.

At any rate, what I meant by "guided" is that current research suggests that gene coding is "smarter" than was previously imagined. If what's been found in simple organisms translates to more complex organisms than our genes could be actively creating, borrowing and saving code for some proverbial "rainy day" when the code becomes useful.

As far as my personal opinion goes, it seems to me that if bacteria can transfer DNA between themselves to build a colony of antibiotic resistant organisms, and scientists can make a chick embryo grow teeth, then God can certainly tweak genetic code to get whatever results He pleases from the code. He can get birds from a lizard, or mortal bodies for His spiritual children from a lemur. And I don't have a problem with Him doing it that way. We would still all come from the "dust" of this Earth, albeit taking a bit more time than immediately stirring the dust up into a man.

----------------------

Just a few popular articles on the various subjects mentioned. 

https://www.livescience.com/48103-evolution-not-random.html

https://www.science.org/content/article/humans-may-harbor-more-100-genes-other-organisms

Chicken teeth research:

2006: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/mutant-chicken-grows-alli/

2015: https://www.cbc.ca/news/science/dinosaur-like-snouts-grown-on-chicken-embryos-1.3071434

 

 

 

 

 

[Emily]

11 hours ago, CA Steve said:

There seems to be a correlation between religious beliefs and which scientific theories are in question. I notice there is no church essay trying to explain its stance on the theory of gravity.

You know, there are people who still believe the Sun revolves around the Earth based on Joshua making the sun stand still. It was a HUGE argument in Christian circles at one time, but we seemed to have managed to settle the question in our church 

At least, I haven't heard anyone in the church arguing that we need to believe the Sun revolves around the Earth and there are no essays explaining the church position on the subject, so I have to assume the majority of members believe the Earth revolves around the Sun.

But this evolution thing pops up, and the "young Earth" theories, and global "baptism" during Noah's flood and I have to wonder, why are members picking and choosing which long-established and well- supported scientific theories to accept and which to reject?

It seems to me if you can reconcile the "sun standing still" vs "the earth revolves around the sun" --- you could also find a way to reconcile other problematic passages in scripture with science and there shouldn't be so much fashing on the subjects. 🤔

 

 

[Emily]

On 6/22/2022 at 5:26 AM, rongo said:

My model is Brigham Young's explained throughout Journal of Discourses (passim). The world was created in creative periods of indeterminate length. Adam and Eve were born on another world and brought here, as were plant and animal life.

Something I admire about  Brigham Young is that his mind was open to truth and he studied hard to find it. He studied the gospel for years before accepting it. He listened to current scientific theories. When he noticed a conflict between his understanding of scientific theories and his understanding of the scriptures, he was willing to consider alternatives that would allow belief in both the scriptures and science.

But he was still speculating only as far as his current knowledge, understanding and comfort level would allow him to go. He wasn't offering prophecy or revelation. And he didn't have access to the research we've got now.

If he did have access to current research, I think he would have realized that it's highly unlikely that Adam and Eve came from another planet. We share 40-50 percent of our DNA with earth plants, 60 percent with earth bugs, 85 percent with dogs, cats and mice and 99 percent with chimpanzees.

Given those percentages, unless you propose some scenario where Adam's children bred with Earth hominids often enough to do away with all but 1 percent of their unique, alien DNA, or have the theory that all DNA on every planet in the universe is exactly like that on Earth (improbable when we are currently able to tell if two humans, or dogs, or bugs come from different countries, much less different planets) -- it's most likely that we are formed from the dust of this Earth, and not another.

I'm fairly sure with that information, Brigham Young would have developed a different theory.

 

 

 

Edited July 13, 2022 by Emily

[Hamba Tuhan]

12 hours ago, Teancum said:

The question is what seems to be the consensus among scientists about organic evolution? Based on what I have read it seem that by far most accept it as a theory that has become pretty much factual and that the evidence is overwhelming in support of it.

I agree that embracing the consensus opinion is a rational choice. At the same time, serious, successful, credentialed academics who raise questions about the consensus and/or who find the evidence less than 'overwhelming' remind us that we are dealing with a matter that is not as settled as some would like, and therefore perhaps we should be tolerant of dissenting views amongst our more immediate neighbours as well?

[Teancum]

10 hours ago, Hamba Tuhan said:

I agree that embracing the consensus opinion is a rational choice. At the same time, serious, successful, credentialed academics who raise questions about the consensus and/or who find the evidence less than 'overwhelming' remind us that we are dealing with a matter that is not as settled as some would like, and therefore perhaps we should be tolerant of dissenting views amongst our more immediate neighbours as well?

Well I am not a scientist so I don't know what weight to give to outlier. But it seems what happens is those who like what the outlier says tend to use it for their own confirmation bias.  It seems if the majority of the experts disagree their view should prevail. In my profession, tax law, when there is a grey area I am going to look at case law and other rulings outside the code and regulations as well as other experts and rely on the majority. For example I work with a lot of Aussies living in the US.  Their Super Annuation Funds cause lots of tax issues and its not clear on how to treat then for US tax purposes.  So my team spent a lot of time looking at various approaches and picked one that we believe has substantial authority ( the tax code, regs and US/AU Tax treaty is silent on the super).  However there is a tax attorney that take the position that these funds are like social security and should be treated as such.  I really like his opinion.  I think he makes a good argument. But he is an outlier and while I want to rely on it the majority consensus is his approach does not work.   So no matter how much I like it I am not relying on it.  INterestingly since I first ran across this position the IRS has challenged it and now the case is working its way through tax court. If the attorney and his client prevail that will change things.

Edited July 13, 2022 by Teancum

[Emily]

9 hours ago, Teancum said:

But it seems what happens is those who like what the outlier says tend to use it for their own confirmation bias.  It seems if the majority of the experts disagree their view should prevail.

Yes... And no. Established scientists often disagree with new ideas, and are also often proven wrong. Scientists are not, sadly,  immune to confirmation bias. Where they might differ, however, is they have the capacity to change their opinion when the evidence swings against them. Some can be intrigued, then convinced by an outlier opinion -- others have to be smacked in the face with irrefutable evidence, but they do eventually come around. The bottom line though is the necessity for a preponderance of evidence. Until there is significant data to support a theory, it's just speculation.

The problems occur when a preponderance of evidence exists, but a population refuses to alter their view -- instead, they try to make the "data" fit their view. If the typical scientist followed the methods of the typical "Young Earth Creationist" - scientific research simply wouldn't work.

A case in point on the power of the outlier. The theory that there were warm-blooded, feathered dinosaurs who were more closely related to modern birds than to reptiles got pretty short-shrift from the established paleontologist community until some researchers published photos of a feathered dinosaur fossil.

I had Christian friends who hailed the finding of a feathered dinosaur as a prime example of "why science can't be trusted." They considered it justification for continuing to reject evolution, old earth theories, etc. because surely someday, some enterprising scientist would figure out a way to overcome the current preponderance of evidence that supports those theories and will prove that the Bible (or at least their interpretation of the Bible) was right all along.

My perspective is of course different. "Dinosaur Feathers" to me is a phrase I associate with the belief that the scientific method works. When new evidence is found, it is tested and retested and revised and tested again until truth is discovered and then that new truth is accepted. Scientists don't muck around hoping all the data is wrong.* 

If anomalies do occur in the future or data is collected that current theories can't explain, then we've got a method to figure out where more revisions are needed. Again, no tightly closed eyes or hands over the ears hoping it all goes away or the "pursuit of truth" simply becomes the pursuit of "what makes me comfortable." 

The process of testing and revising continues in regards to the evolutionary theory btw. Science didn't stop with Darwin. We still have a lot to learn in regards to evolution. But will we someday learn that we should throw out the entire theory? Unlikely.

--------

*I still like to nudge my husband about "dinosaur feathers" because he really hates the idea of T-Rex "chickens". He continues to hope that most dinosaurs tromped around in proper brown reptile skins, not colorful duck down. 😁

Edited July 14, 2022 by Emily

[Tweed1944]

"

While the genetic difference between individual humans today is minuscule – about 0.1%, on average – study of the same aspects of the chimpanzee genome indicates a difference of about 1.2%. The bonobo (Pan paniscus), which is the close cousin of chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes), differs from humans to the same degree. The DNA difference with gorillas, another of the African apes, is about 1.6%. Most importantly, chimpanzees, bonobos, and humans all show this same amount of difference from gorillas. A difference of 3.1% distinguishes us and the African apes from the Asian great ape, the orangutan. How do the monkeys stack up?  All of the great apes and humans differ from rhesus monkeys, for example, by about 7% in their DNA.

Geneticists have come up with a variety of ways of calculating the percentages, which give different impressions about how similar chimpanzees and humans are. The 1.2% chimp-human distinction, for example, involves a measurement of only substitutions in the base building blocks of those genes that chimpanzees and humans share. A comparison of the entire genome, however, indicates that segments of DNA have also been deleted, duplicated over and over, or inserted from one part of the genome into another. When these differences are counted, there is an additional 4 to 5% distinction between the human and chimpanzee genomes.

No matter how the calculation is done, the big point still holds: humans, chimpanzees, and bonobos are more closely related to one another than either is to gorillas or any other primate. From the perspective of this powerful test of biological kinship, humans are not only related to the great apes – we are one. The DNA evidence leaves us with one of the greatest surprises in biology: the wall between human, on the one hand, and ape or animal, on the other, has been breached. The human evolutionary tree is embedded within the great apes.  https://humanorigins.si.edu/evidence/genetics

[Durangout]

 

[RevTestament]

On 6/15/2022 at 5:51 PM, filovirus said:

The biggest clash that evolution has with church doctrine is the "no death before the fall" teaching. This is where people get hung up.

The BoM makes it clear that there was no spiritual death until the fall. That is because God did not talk to humans before Adam, who was the first "man" or companion in the word. Without law or direction from God, humans were innocent - essentially in the same category as the animals - or still in the process of being created.

[cinepro]

On 6/21/2022 at 6:46 AM, pogi said:

If only!  There will still remain the debate between more fundamentalist believers who think old prophets are more authoritative than modern ones and will simply dismiss this as a further unfortunate greying of absolute truths taught by old prophets.  

What has our new prophet said that would contradict anything said by the "old" prophets? President Nelson has been pretty clear about his thoughts, and I'm not seeing a lot of disagreement. The guy really doesn't believe in any sort of creation by evolution.

 

Quote

Nelson: We believe that God is our creator and that he has created other forms of life. It’s interesting to me, drawing on my 40 years experience as a medical doctor, how similar those species are. We developed open-heart surgery, for example, experimenting on lower animals simply because the same creator made the human being. We owe a lot to those lower species. But to think that man evolved from one species to another is, to me, incomprehensible.

Forum: Why is that?

Nelson: Man has always been man. Dogs have always been dogs. Monkeys have always been monkeys. It’s just the way genetics works.

https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2007/05/16/in-focus-mormonism-in-modern-america/

 

 

Quote

Through the ages, some without scriptural understanding have tried to explain our existence by pretentious words such as ex nihilo (out of nothing). Others have deduced that, because of certain similarities between different forms of life, there has been a natural selection of the species, or organic evolution from one form to another. Many of these people have concluded that the universe began as a “big bang” that eventually resulted in the creation of our planet and life upon it.

To me, such theories are unbelievable! Could an explosion in a printing shop produce a dictionary? It is unthinkable! Even if it could be argued to be within a remote realm of possibility, such a dictionary could certainly not heal its own torn pages or renew its own worn corners or reproduce its own subsequent editions!
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

I believe all of those scriptures that pertain to the creation of man. But the decision to believe is a spiritual one, not made solely by an understanding of things physical, for we read that “the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.” (1 Cor. 2:14.)

It is incumbent upon each informed and spiritually attuned person to help overcome such foolishness of men who would deny divine creation or think that man simply evolved. By the Spirit, we perceive the truer and more believable wisdom of God.

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/ensign/1988/01/the-magnificence-of-man?lang=eng

Nelson also believes that the Eve "rib" story is literal (in contradiction to President Kimball )

 

Quote

From the rib of Adam, Eve was formed (see Gen. 2:22; Moses 3:22; Abr. 5:16). Interesting to me is the fact that animals fashioned by our Creator, such as dogs and cats, have thirteen pairs of ribs, but the human being has one less with only twelve. I presume another bone could have been used, but the rib, coming as it does from the side, seems to denote partnership. The rib signifies neither dominion nor subservience, but a lateral relationship as partners, to work and to live, side by side.

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/ensign/1987/11/lessons-from-eve?lang=eng

Nelson also believes in a physical state for Adam and Eve that negates the possibility of a creation by evolution:

 

Quote

Scripture teaches that “Adam fell that men might be; and men are, that they might have joy.”⁷ The Fall of Adam (and Eve) constituted the mortal creation and brought about the required changes in their bodies, including the circulation of blood and other modifications as well.⁸ They were now able to have children. They and their posterity also became subject to injury, disease, and death.

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/ensign/1996/11/the-atonement?lang=eng

 

Edited July 25, 2022 by cinepro

[JustAnAustralian]

53 minutes ago, cinepro said:

he guy really doesn't believe in any sort of creation by evolution.

He follows your first comment though by saying we don't know how it happened, and the second looks more about the creation of life than anything else.

56 minutes ago, cinepro said:

Nelson also believes that the Eve "rib" story is literal

Your quote doesn't say that. Numbers of pairs of ribs are irrelevant to a single rib action.

57 minutes ago, cinepro said:

Nelson also believes in a physical state for Adam and Eve that negates the possibility of a creation by evolution:

Your quote negates the possibility of evolution for Adam and Eve. Doesn't say anything about anything or anyone apart from Adam and Eve.

[pogi]

16 hours ago, cinepro said:

What has our new prophet said that would contradict anything said by the "old" prophets? President Nelson has been pretty clear about his thoughts, and I'm not seeing a lot of disagreement. The guy really doesn't believe in any sort of creation by evolution.

 

 

 

Nelson also believes that the Eve "rib" story is literal (in contradiction to President Kimball )

 

Nelson also believes in a physical state for Adam and Eve that negates the possibility of a creation by evolution:
 

He very well may believe that way, but the church itself as directed by the prophet does give room for the possibility of evolution.  In almost every quote above he is careful to say "to me...".   I think that is one big difference between President Nelson who gives room for others to believe in evolution and previous prophets who simply taught it as absolute and indisputable false doctrine.  I was responding to the following post which wasn't about President Nelson's personal beliefs:

On 6/19/2022 at 10:27 AM, Emily said:

My father is a geneticist and a faithful member, so I grew up in an environment where science and faith were not in conflict. It wasn't until High School that I started hearing anti-science sentiments from Seminary teachers and other youth. Up to that point I hadn't questioned the age of the earth and evolution as taught in science classes because I didn't know there were questions. About that same time, I read the multi-volume "Thousand Year" series by Skousen and gave serious thought to chucking the church. I am simply not capable of ignoring physical evidence to the extent that Skousen and others would require for belief in their theories. Nor could I just ignore entire fields of study on the subjects since my main interest in school was biology.

I was fortunate to find a book by Henry Eyring (I think it was called, "Faith of a Scientist") and an article titled "Before Adam" by Hugh Nibley that convinced me there was room for science in the church. 

To my relief, I haven't heard much anti-evolution rhetoric in the last couple of decades, but that may just be where I lived, or maybe people just don't talk about it around me. 

I am glad there's an article up to suppress any lingering doubts on the subject. The church is not anti-evolution. All done. No need to ever debate the subject again.

 

Edited July 25, 2022 by pogi

[cinepro]

13 hours ago, pogi said:

I think that is one big difference between President Nelson who gives room for others to believe in evolution and previous prophets who simply taught it as absolute and indisputable false doctrine.  I was responding to the following post which wasn't about President Nelson's personal beliefs:

 

You used the word "debate" when describing the "old" prophets and the "new" ones. Nelson being the Prophet, where are you seeing any "debate" with what was said by JFS or other anti-evolution prophets?

I'm also curious about your classification of a belief as being a "personal one". What other kind of belief is there? Aren't all of President Nelson's (and everyone else's beliefs) "personal"? Describe what President Nelson would say about evolution if it wasn't "personal" but was some other kind of belief.

Edited July 26, 2022 by cinepro

[cinepro]

On 7/24/2022 at 6:26 PM, JustAnAustralian said:

Your quote negates the possibility of evolution for Adam and Eve. Doesn't say anything about anything or anyone apart from Adam and Eve.

Uh, okay. Here's another quote. Does this one allow for evolution on the planet outside of Adam and Eve?
 

Quote

The plan required the Creation, and that in turn required both the Fall and the Atonement. These are the three fundamental components of the plan. The creation of a paradisiacal planet came from God.¹² Mortality and death came into the world through the Fall of Adam.¹³ Immortality and the possibility of eternal life were provided by the Atonement of Jesus Christ.¹⁴ The Creation, the Fall, and the Atonement were planned long before the actual work of the Creation began.

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/ensign/2000/05/the-creation?lang=eng

 

Edited July 26, 2022 by cinepro

[JustAnAustralian]

19 minutes ago, cinepro said:

Uh, okay. Here's another quote. Does this one allow for evolution on the planet outside of Adam and Eve?

I'm not sure what that quote has to do with evolution.

[InCognitus]

1 hour ago, cinepro said:

Uh, okay. Here's another quote. Does this one allow for evolution on the planet outside of Adam and Eve?
 

Quote

The plan required the Creation, and that in turn required both the Fall and the Atonement. These are the three fundamental components of the plan. The creation of a paradisiacal planet came from God.¹² Mortality and death came into the world through the Fall of Adam.¹³ Immortality and the possibility of eternal life were provided by the Atonement of Jesus Christ.¹⁴ The Creation, the Fall, and the Atonement were planned long before the actual work of the Creation began.

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/ensign/2000/05/the-creation?lang=eng

 

I think you need to read some of the earlier posts in this thread related to some of the questions posed by evolution in relation to what is said in the scriptures.  There's nothing in the quote you provided from President Nelson that would exclude the possibility of evolution.

[cinepro]

4 minutes ago, InCognitus said:

I think you need to read some of the earlier posts in this thread related to some of the questions posed by evolution in relation to what is said in the scriptures.  There's nothing in the quote you provided from President Nelson that would exclude the possibility of evolution.

Nelson says this:

Quote

The creation of a paradisiacal planet came from God

 

Explain to me how evolution is possible on a planet that is created in a "paradisiacal" state. Maybe share your understanding of what "paradisiacal" means first.

[cinepro]

For those wondering what the Church has published recently on the subject:

The Fall and Renewal of Humankind—and the Earth (Liahona, August 2019)

Quote

“This first temporal creation of all things … was paradisiacal in nature.”² Immediately after the Creation, nothing was mortal or subject to death.³

Quote

“The earth itself fell under the curse incident to the fall of [Adam and Eve], and … even as man shall be redeemed so shall the earth be regenerated.”⁴

 

[cinepro]

1 hour ago, JustAnAustralian said:

I'm not sure what that quote has to do with evolution.

Same question as above.
 

Quote

The creation of a paradisiacal planet came from God.¹² Mortality and death came into the world through the Fall of Adam.

Can you explain your theory of creation (and understanding of the word "paradisiacal") in a way that evolution would be possible on a "paradisiacal" planet that had no mortality or death on it?