An article about a study of Americans' attitudes regarding evolution has shown that Mormons are among the most likely to oppose evolution :

"Among the most striking findings, for example, is the statistic that shows that a small group of Christians, composed mostly of Mormons, “have a high predicted probability of saying that humans and other living things have existed in their present form since the beginning (+0.69)"

Link: http://popular-archaeology.com/issue/summer-2015/article/study-shows-u-s-public-views-on-human-evolution

Tom in Paris

I disagree. Many churches believe that dinos and humans co-existed: Lutheran and especially Southern Baptists fill this category to a greater extent than do Mormons.

A few decades ago, the US census included a question on religious affiliation. Unfortunately, this question was dispensed with. Mormonism would not be able to claim as many adherents in the USA if this question was still asked.

Reread the original post and the article.

It says "among" (i.e. doesn't say they're the worst...) and gives a probability value. It's based on the Pew Surveys. It means there is a higher probability of Mormons being anti-evolution than there is among the general population.

It (and I) said nothing about the other groups and didn't compare them.

No point in attacking the study for something it didn't say.

David O. McKay by letter when Prophet clearly stated that the LDS church has no official position on evolution and the statements made by Joseph Fielding Smith were his own.

As far as I am aware, this was the most recent official statement on evolution made by "the prophet". Members that think otherwise are not aware of the facts and blindly lead each other. Frankly, a lot of incorrect information is shared among members regarding the doctrine of their church.

Follow-up: BTW when I took my biology general ed classes in the early sixties at BYU, evolution was clearly taught. It just wasn't called by that name and many students were not even aware of it.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/02/2015 11:20AM by Templar.

When I was at BYU an evolution class was taught by a non-Mormon. (Don't ask me how this happened) I used to hear him complain about teaching the class because the students kept wanting to debate evolution. He clearly stated that he was just teaching the curriculum and had no interest in debating it. It was a requirement that all biology students take the class. The students made his teaching experience miserable by attacking him at every opportunity. He told them he wasn't asking them to believe it but they did have to learn it.

His problem is that he called it evolution. As I stated, in my class it was NEVER presented as "evolution". Since most mormons have never read Darwin's "evil" book, they had no idea what "natural selection" was and when explained, agreed with it.

When it comes to evolution, most mormons are very unknowledgeable and rely on the garbage that came from Joseph Fielding Smith and his puppet SIL Bruce R. McConkie. When it came to science, both of them were very misinformed and proved their ignorance.

That's a hoot. So when BYU students move on to another university for graduate school and are asked if they have been taught and understand evolution they'll have to say that evolution wasn't taught at BYU and they don't know anything about it. Guess they'll just have to take it again.

I took my Bio gen ed class at BYU in the 90's and evolution was not taught. There was a section in the textbook on evolution, and the professors encouraged us to read it, but it was not taught, tested on, etc... They made it clear that the decision to exclude it from the class was not their own. Evolution was taught in higher level bio courses.

Well, it would appear that a lot changed at BYU between the early 60s and the 90's when you attended. I've heard that things got a lot worse and it was bad enough when I attended.

BTW I completed a class at the University of Utah entitled "Evolution 1". Since it was an accredited university BYU had to accept my transfer credits and to this day my official BYU transcript includes this class which is clearly listed as "Evolution 1".

BYU still teaches evolution in its life science curriculum. They never stopped. There was an article about this just last week in the SLTrib, pointing out the discrepancy between LDS science educators and some of the rank and file.

As for transferring a course on evolution to BYU, accreditation has nothing whatsoever to do with it. Courses transfer when there is a substantially equivalent course at the destination university. The destination university doesn't "have" to accept anything. There are enough transfer students between BYU and UofU that I am sure that both schools have lists of what courses from the other school count as what kind of general ed credit.

Templar Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> David O. McKay by letter when Prophet clearly
> stated that the LDS church has no official
> position on evolution and the statements made by
> Joseph Fielding Smith were his own.
>
> As far as I am aware, this was the most recent
> official statement on evolution made by "the
> prophet". Members that think otherwise are not
> aware of the facts and blindly lead each other.

Anti-evolution barbs are thrown from the pulpit by GAs SPs and
Bishops on down and nobody bats an eyelash. It's becoming so
that the fact that the Church has no "official" position on
evolution is a dodge more than a doctrinal point. It's kinda
like when Glenn Beck says something particularly insane and
then his followers say, "well, he's just an entertainer."

"The Theory of Evolution."

I'm a lifelong inhabitant of Planet Utah, and I can tell you that while there are those who do accept evolution and Darwinism among "LDS Intelligentia" (that's only slightly oxymoronic), there are many more who don't have a clue about the general nature of that subject.

Among the "online voices," Rodney Meldrum is certainly a Young Earth Creationist (cherry-picking facts when it suits him), and I would suggest his notions of BOM geography are accepted more among mainstream LDS than the Limited Geography POV. The original author of "Ask Gramps" has hightailed off to Kolob, but he also passed himself off as a scientist (he claimed to be a top gun at a Defense Dept. company, but my dad-the-retired rocket-scientist said he'd never heard of him, and he spent nearly the last 20 years of his career there). There are still online columns of his that decry evolution with some pseudo-sophisticated hornswaggle.

Even Ugo Perego acknowledges there were "Pre-Adamites," but his "behind the Zion Curtain" writings make specious claims about whether those people "had souls."

SLC
Who's never been able to make the distinction between "Anti-Mormon" and "Anti-Stupid."



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/03/2015 08:00AM by SL Cabbie.

I meet quite a few creationists on a Christian site who still believe the world was created in 6,000-7,000 years. I've given up trying to convince them of anything else.

Having faith while still believing in science is the real conundrum, in my experience.

I'm just amazed at existence at all. It's all a miracle IMO. Like Al Einstein would say, some people go through life as though nothing is a miracle, then there are those who see life as though everything is a miracle.

I'm in the latter camp.. :)

"Among the most striking findings, for example, is the statistic that shows that a small group of Christians, composed mostly of Mormons, “have a high predicted probability of saying that humans and other living things have existed in their present form since the beginning (+0.69)"

"Comprised mostly of Mormons". I find this almost unbelievable. There are so many more practicing Baptists in the US than there are Mormons, and I find, on the whole, that the Baptists are far more likely to be outspoken anti-evolutionists that Mormons.

All of the Christian-based universities that I'm am aware of (Liberty, Bob Jones, etc) are staunchly anti-evolution, where as YBU (at least when I was there for my BS and MS in geology) taught evolution as a fact.

In an earlier post, Templar pointed out that David O. McKay stated that the LDS Church has no official stance on evolution. However, we are hard pressed to find an LDS leader of any gravitas, who is willing to stand up and declare himself an evolutionist. Yet one can easily find many of the statements like the ones below from leaders at the highest echelons of Mormonism that mock, denounce, and belittle evolutionary theory. Is it any wonder that Mormons are unlikely to accept evolutionary theory in such an environment? Is it really credible to accept that the LDS Church has no stance, when the only leaders who dare speak up on evolutionary theory are against it?

"This is demonstrated in so many obvious ways, even an ordinary mind should understand it. Surely no one with reverence for God could believe that His children evolved from slime or from reptiles. (Although one can easily imagine that those who accept the theory of evolution don’t show much enthusiasm for genealogical research!) The theory of evolution, and it is a theory, will have an entirely different dimension when the workings of God in creation are fully revealed." Boyd Packer, October 1984
https://www.lds.org/general-conference/1984/10/the-pattern-of-our-parentage?lang=eng

"There is no salvation in a system of religion that rejects the doctrine of the Fall or that assumes man is the end product of evolution and so was not subject to a fall." Bruce R. McConkie, October 1984
https://www.lds.org/general-conference/1984/10/the-caravan-moves-on?lang=eng


"Our families may be corrupted by worldly trends and teachings unless we know how to use the book [of Mormon] to expose and combat the falsehoods in socialism, organic evolution, rationalism, humanism, etc." - Ezra Taft Benson, April 1975

https://www.lds.org/general-conference/1975/04/the-book-of-mormon-is-the-word-of-god?lang=eng

When I was at Ricks ('66-'67) my biology prof. Ririe Godfrey never once mentioned the world is 6000 years old garbage.

RB