Evolution

[Ian]

there has been a lot of recent news coverage about a scientific discovery dubbed "the eighth wonder of the world":

Scientists Unveil Missing Link In Evolution
12:35am UK, Wednesday May 20, 2009
Alex Watts, Sky News Online

Scientists have unveiled a 47-million-year-old fossilised skeleton of a monkey hailed as the missing link in human evolution.

The search for a direct connection between humans and the rest of the animal kingdom has taken 200 years - but it was presented to the world today at a special news conference in New York.

The discovery of the 95%-complete 'lemur monkey' - dubbed Ida - is described by experts as the "eighth wonder of the world".

They say its impact on the world of palaeontology will be "somewhat like an asteroid falling down to Earth".

Researchers say proof of this transitional species finally confirms Charles Darwin's theory of evolution, and the then radical, outlandish ideas he came up with during his time aboard the Beagle.

Sir David Attenborough said Darwin "would have been thrilled" to have seen the fossil - and says it tells us who we are and where we came from.

"This little creature is going to show us our connection with the rest of the mammals," he said.

"This is the one that connects us directly with them.

"Now people can say 'okay we are primates, show us the link'.

"The link they would have said up to now is missing - well it's no longer missing."

A team of the world's leading fossil experts, led by Professor Jorn Hurum, of Norway's National History Museum, have been secretly researching the 1ft 9in-tall young female monkey for the past two years.

And now it has been transported to New York under high security and unveiled to the world during the bicentenary of Darwin's birth.

Later this month, it will be exhibited for one day only at the Natural History Museum in London before being returned to Oslo.

Scientists say Ida - squashed to the thickness of a beer mat by the immense passage of time - is the most complete primate fossil ever found.

With her human-like nails instead of claws, and opposable big toes, she is placed at the very root of human evolution when early primates first developed features that would eventually develop into our own.

Another important discovery is the shape of the talus bone in her foot, which humans still have in their feet millions of lifetimes later.

Ida was unearthed by an amateur fossil-hunter some 25 years ago in Messel pit, an ancient crater lake near Frankfurt, Germany, famous for its fossils.

She was cleaned and set in polyester resin - and incredibly, was hung on a mystery German collector's wall for 20 years.

Sky News sources say the owner had no idea of the unique fossil's significance and simply admired it like a cherished Van Gogh or Picasso painting.

But in 2006, Ida came into the hands of private dealer Thomas Perner, who presented her to Prof Hurum at the annual Hamburg Fossil and Mineral Fair in Germany - a centre for the murky world of fossil-trading.

Prof Hurum said when he first saw the blueprint for evolution - the "most beautiful fossil worldwide" - he could not sleep for two days.

A home movie records the dramatic moment.

"This is really something that the world has never seen before, this is a unique specimen, totally unique," he says, clearly emotional.

He says he knew she should be saved for science rather than end up hidden from the world in a wealthy private collector's vault.

But the dealer's asking price was more than $1 million (£660,000) - ten times the amount even the rarest of fossils fetch on the black market.

Eventually, after six months of negotiations, he managed to raise the cash in Norway and brought Ida to Oslo.

Prof Hurum - who last summer dug up the fossil remains of a 50ft marine monster called Predator X from the permafrost on Svalbard, a Norwegian island close to the North Pole - then assembled a "dream team" of experts who worked in secret for two years.

They included palaeontologist Dr Jens Franzen, Dr Holly Smith, of the University of Michigan, and Philip Gingerich, president-elect of the US Paleontological Society.

Researchers could prove the fossil was genuine through X-rays, knowing it is impossible to fake the inner structure of a bone.

Through radiometric dating of Messel's volcanic rocks, they discovered Ida lived 47 million years ago in the Eocene period.

This was when tropical forests stretched right to the poles, and South America was still drifting and had yet to make contact with North America.

During that period, the first whales, horses, bats and monkeys emerged, and the early primates branched into two groups - one group lived on mainly as lemurs, and the second developed into monkeys, apes and humans.

The experts concluded Ida was not simply a lemur but a 'lemur monkey', displaying a mixture of both groups, and therefore putting her at the very branch of the human line.

"When Darwin published his On the Origin of Species in 1859, he said a lot about transitional species," said Prof Hurum

"...and he said that will never be found, a transitional species, and his whole theory will be wrong, so he would be really happy to live today when we publish Ida.

"This fossil is really a part of our history; this is part of our evolution, deep, deep back into the aeons of time, 47 million years ago.

"It's part of our evolution that's been hidden so far, it's been hidden because all the other specimens are so incomplete.

"They are so broken there's almost nothing to study and now this wonderful fossil appears and it makes the story so much easier to tell, so it's really a dream come true."

Up until now, the most famous fossil primate in the world has been Lucy, a 3.18-million-year-old hominid found in Ethiopia in 1974.

She was then our earliest known ancestor, and only 40% complete.

But at 95% complete, Ida was so well preserved in the mud at the bottom of the volcanic lake, there is even evidence of her fur shadow and remains of her last meal.

From this they concluded she was a leaf and fruit eater, and probably lived in the trees around the lake.

The absence of a bacculum (penis bone) confirmed she was female, and her milk teeth put her age at about nine-months-old - in maturity, equivalent to a six-year-old human child.

This was the same age as Prof Hurum's daughter Ida, and he named the fossil after her.

The study is being published and put online by the Public Library of Science, a leading academic journal with offices in Britain and the US.

Co-author of the scientific paper, Prof Gingerich, likens its importance to the discovery of the Rosetta Stone, an ancient Egyptian artefact found in 1799, which allowed us to decipher hieroglyphic writing.

One clue to Ida's fate - and her remarkable preservation as our oldest ancestor - was her badly fractured left wrist.

The team believes this stopped her from climbing and she had to emerge from the trees to drink water from the 250-metre-deep lake.

They think she was overcome by carbon dioxide gas from the crater, and sunk to the bottom where she was preserved in the mud as a time capsule - and a snapshot of evolution.

But amazingly this final piece of Darwin's jigsaw was almost lost to science when German authorities tried to turn Messel into a massive landfill rubbish dump.

Eventually, after campaigning by Dr Franzen, the plans were rejected and the fossil-rich lake was designated a World Heritage Site.

But no doubt there would have been one person happy for the missing link to have remained hidden.

When Darwin famously told the Bishop of Worcester's wife about his theory of evolution, she remarked: "Descended from the apes! My dear, let us hope that it is not true, but if it is, let us pray that it will not become generally known."

Now, it certainly is.

:: Ida's discovery has been made into an Atlantic Productions' documentary, presented by Sir David Attenborough. See more at www.revealingthelink.com.

[Ian]

here's what president joseph fielding smith had to say about evolutionary theory (he also wrote an entire book about this, entitled Man, his Origin and Destiny):

Evolutionary Theory False. This idea that everything commenced from a small beginning, from the scum upon the surface of the sea, and has gradually developed until all forms of life, the beasts of the field, the fowls of the air, the fishes of the sea, and the plants upon the face of the earth, have all sprung from that one source, is a falsehood absolutely. There is no truth in it, for God has given us his word by which we may know, and all who are led by the Spirit of God can understand through that Holy Spirit, the truth of these things.

How foolish, how narrow, how contemptible it is for men professing to be men of intelligence and possessing scientific knowledge and wisdom, to declare that all life upon this earth is spontaneous, and to confess that they know nothing of any life upon any other world, and, moreover, to declare that the life here has all developed from the same single, simple source....

Adam Did Not Evolve From Lower Form of Life. Do you think that Adam, this great and important prince, the archangel before the presence of God, was a half-breed monkey? In other words, that he had just developed gradually from the animal kingdom, from some animal form, so that the Lord could put a spirit in him and call him a man? Do you think that? There are people who do believe that. That is why I ask you that question.

Of course, I think those people who hold to the view that man has come up through all these ages from the scum of the sea through billions of years do not believe in Adam. Honestly I do not know how they can, and I am going to show you that they do not. There are some who attempt to do it but they are inconsistent-absolutely inconsistent, because that doctrine is so incompatible, so utterly out of harmony, with the revelations of the Lord that a man just cannot believe in both.

Cannot Believe Both Gospel and Evolution. I say most emphatically, you cannot believe in this theory of the origin of man, and at the same time accept the plan of salvation as set forth by the Lord our God. You must choose the one and reject the other, for they are in direct conflict and there is a gulf separating them which is so great that it cannot be bridged, no matter how much one may try to do so.

If you believe in the doctrine of the evolutionist, then you must accept the view that man has evolved through countless ages from the very lowest forms of life up through various stages of animal life, finally into the human form. The first man, according to this hypothesis known as the "cave man," was a creature absolutely ignorant and devoid of any marked intelligence over the beasts of the field.

Theory of Evolution Denies Christ. Then Adam, and by that I mean the first man, was not capable of sin. He could not transgress, and by doing so bring death into the world; for, according to this theory, death had always been in the world. If, therefore, there was no fall, there was no need of an atonement, hence the coming into the world of the Son of God as the Savior of the world is a contradiction, a thing impossible. Are you prepared to believe such a thing as that? Do you believe that the first man was a savage? That he lacked in the power of intelligence? That he has been on the constant road of progression? These are the teachings of such theorists.

All May Know Origin of Life on Earth. From whence came man? What is his destiny? It is to me exceedingly strange that men will travel so far, following a will-o-the-wisp until they are overcome in the quagmire, and reject the truth at their door. For an answer to these questions, why not accept the statement of the One who knows? This knowledge is within the reach of all. The story is a simple one, but its grandeur is as far above the doctrine of the evolutionist as the heavens are above the depths of hell.

Dilemma of the Theistic Evolutionists. It is true that the school of evolutionists is divided into the two great classes, the Theistic and the Atheistic branches.

But the Theistic evolutionist is a weak-kneed and unbelieving religionist, who is constantly apologizing for the miracles of the scriptures, and who does not believe in the divine mission of Jesus Christ.

Again I repeat, no man can consistently accept the doctrine of the evolutionist and also believe in the divine mission of our Redeemer. The two thoughts are in absolute conflict. You cannot harmonize them and serve both masters.

If Evolution is True, the Church is False. If life began on the earth, as advocated by Darwin, Huxley, Haeckel (who has been caught openhanded perpetrating a fraud), and others of this school, whether by chance or by some designing hand, then the doctrines of the Church are false. Then there was no Garden of Eden, no Adam and Eve, and no fall. If there was no fall; if death did not come into the world as the scriptures declared that it did-and to be consistent, if you are an evolutionist, this view you must assume-then there was no need for a redemption, and Jesus Christ is not the Son of God, and he did not die for the transgression of Adam, nor for the sins of the world. Then there has been no resurrection from the dead! Consistently, logically, there is no other view, no alternative that can be taken. Now, my brethren and sisters, are you prepared to take this view?

Evolutionists Reject Fatherhood of God. The modern world is fulfilling the scriptures which say that in the last days men would be "ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth." Today the world has discarded the great truth concerning the Fatherhood of God and has turned to fables. It has adopted and is promulgating in textbooks and schools the debasing doctrine that man is not the offspring of God, but a natural development through countless ages from the lowest forms of physical life to his present form and intelligence.

Such a doctrine is an insult to our Father in whose Image we were created, and yet in this teaching vast multitudes seem to glory. Paul saw our day and by prophetic vision declared that such conditions would prevail in this dispensation and the Lord should "send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: That they all might be damned who believe not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness."

Joseph Fielding Smith, Doctrines of Salvation, Vol. 1. (Deseret Book Co., 1954), pp. 140-144.

other modern-day prophets have declared that theories of organic evolution are false. i won't quote them all here. simply put, modern evolutionary theory cannot be reconciled with the gospel of jesus christ. in reality, "evolution" occurs only by obedience to eternal principles, whereby men may evolve to become gods. president hinckley stated, "I believe in evolution, not organic evolution, as it is called, but in the evolution of the mind, the heart, and the soul of man." (Teachings of Gordon B. Hinckley, p. 298).

this is from an official statement by the first presidency of the church:

It is held by some that Adam was not the first man upon this earth and that the original human being was a development from lower orders of the animal creation. These, however, are the theories of men. The word of the Lord declared that Adam was “the first man of all men” (Moses 1:34), and we are therefore in duty bound to regard him as the primal parent of our race. It was shown to the brother of Jared that all men were created in the beginning after the image of God; whether we take this to mean the spirit or the body, or both, it commits us to the same conclusion: Man began life as a human being, in the likeness of our Heavenly Father.

True it is that the body of man enters upon its career as a tiny germ embryo, which becomes an infant, quickened at a certain stage by the spirit whose tabernacle it is, and the child, after being born, develops into a man. There is nothing in this, however, to indicate that the original man, the first of our race, began life as anything less than a man, or less than the human germ or embryo that becomes a man....

Man is the child of God, formed in the divine image and endowed with divine attributes, and even as the infant son of an earthly father and mother is capable in due time of becoming a man, so the undeveloped offspring of celestial parentage is capable, by experience through ages and aeons, of evolving into a God.

Joseph F. Smith, John R. Winder, Anthon H. Lund; First Presidency of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, November 1909.

[Tuly]

I appreciate this post, it clarifies a lot of misconception about evolution. I loved this comment by Pres. Hinckley:

"I believe in evolution, not organic evolution, as it is called, but in the evolution of the mind, the heart, and the soul of man." (Teachings of Gordon B. Hinckley, p. 298).

[James]

There is a saying. Catholic doctrine states that the pope is infallible but no catholic reAlly believes it. Lds doctrine does not claim prophetic imfalibility but lds people in practice believe in infalibility. I may write more later on but i will start by disagreeing with smith on his stance on evolution. I believe it is ignorant and unfortunatley a stance that may keep us in the dark and away from light. Evolution and religion need not be opposed. I was frustrated by things like smith's reference to cavemen because there is no such thing. For now i post a deseret news article which treats the subject in a way i an pretty satisfied with. I feel rejuvonation and enlightening sensations when i study evolutidon and enjoy thinking about the unity of science and the restored gospel.

http://m.deseretnews.com/article/865557 ... tml?pg=all

[Ian]

thanks james, suddenly this thread has much potential.

[Steve]

[James]

the most beautiful emotion we can experience is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of all true art and science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead, a snuffed-out candle. To sense that behind anything that can be experienced there is something that our minds cannot grasp, whose beauty and sublimity reaches us only indirectly: this is religiousness. In this sense, and in this sense only, i am a devoutly religious man.

Einstein said that.
One of the problems i have with jf smith's stuff on evolution is that it simplifies the issue by pitting evolution against religiousness. By so doing he risks being a stranger to the mysterious that inspires us to seek for further understanding.
I will now contrast one of his anti-evolution statements with a pro evolution statement given by professor klaus in my biological anth class.

Adam Did Not Evolve From Lower Form of Life. Do you think that Adam, this great and important prince, the archangel before the presence of God, was a half-breed monkey? ...There are people who do believe that.

A Half-breed monkey?
In a planetarium exposing hahshahmy-yeem -hebro for the heavens as you may know- with bright stars and mysterious nebulas dr klaus concluded class with the following.

this means... That there isn't one cell in your body that wasn't once part of a star.

I instantly thought about the mythology and metaphorical meanings of stars.
Has anyone read what talmage said about evolution? I am surprised that his contributions were left out of this post. I will post some things he said tomorrow.

[James]

I found talmage here http://en.fairmormon.org/Primary_source ... th_and_Man

[James]

There was some disagrement between bh roberts and smith which was settled by the magestic 12, i mean the 12 and the first presidency. Talmage's stuff was later published and it veers from jf smith a bit.

[Ian]

i didn't take the time to cite every general authority. we'll add more quotes here. every general authority i have seen quoted on the subject has spoken against evolutionary theory. i have not seen any quote by a general authority (much less a prophet) stating that evolutionary theory is true. this includes elder talmage, who said, "I do not regard Adam as related to--certainly not as descended from--the Neanderthal, the Cro-Magnon, the Peking or the Piltdown man."

i love science, but organic evolutionary theory (as currently taught) is bad science. of course evolutionary processes can occur in organisms. genetic strains of certain plants and animals can be developed and improved. however, these genetic changes can only occur under external direction. these processes cannot occur spontaneously. that is basic chemistry.

president smith was not ignorant. you can decide on your own whether to believe him. but this is a spiritual decision, not based solely on an understanding of science: "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."

elder nelson (a scientist) wrote: "It is incumbent upon each informed and spiritually attuned person to help overcome such foolishness of those who would deny divine creation or think that mankind simply evolved. By the spirit, we perceive the truer and more believable wisdom of God." (russell m. nelson, the power within us, p. 10)

[Steve]

Lds doctrine does not claim prophetic imfalibility but lds people in practice believe in infalibility

That's quite the blanket statement.

i will start by disagreeing with smith on his stance on evolution. I believe it is ignorant and unfortunatley a stance that may keep us in the dark and away from light.

What do you hope to accomplish with the light you received through rejecting President Smith's theories? How does it draw you closer to the Savior?

I was frustrated by things like smith's reference to cavemen because there is no such thing

Caveman is a stock word. It's like getting upset if someone were to discuss "bugs" instead of "insects."

the most beautiful emotion we can experience is the mysterious

Mystery. The most beautiful emotion. Poor Einstein. Is anything a mystery to God, and yet, I don't believe He is at all a "snuffed-out candle." I think truth is more beautiful than mystery.

By so doing he risks being a stranger to the mysterious that inspires us to seek for further understanding.

I don't believe "the mysterious" inspires us to anything good. I believe the Holy Ghost inspires us.

I truthfully don't know where you were going with the Mr. Klaus vs. Joseph Fielding Smith story.

There was some disagrement between bh roberts and smith which was settled by the magestic 12, i mean the 12 and the first presidency.

James, this may just be me, but I'm not loving the "magestic 12" reference to the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. And I don't love your use of "smith" to refer to one of the Lord's prophets, either. I may be overly-sensitive, but I think that kind of flippancy raises questions for me about "mystery's" influence on someone. The prominent question I have in the midst of this discussion, though, is the same question I've had in so many other forum topics: how have these investigations into all of these fields helped you to be a better priesthood holder, a better husband and father, and a more faithful disciple of Jesus Christ?

[Edward]

Einstein, while a good man, was no prophet, and in every case, even if we are too spiritually obstinate to accept it, the word of the Prophet supersedes any of the wise, the learned, or the lauded of men.

Mystery is the most beautiful emotion? I say to you that no, this is a false doctrine, and is used by Satan to lead us into obscure paths. Mystery is not an end; mystery cannot be a superlative because it is temporary. God has no intention of keeping his children in the dark. All the mysteries of God are to be unfolded unto those who love Him. And what are those mysteries? Why, Faith, Repentance, Baptism, the gift of the Holy Ghost by the laying on of hands, enduring to the end. When we place a theory as poorly conceived as evolution on the same pedestal as these eternal truths, when we presume to call it a mystery of the same order or significance, we have left the path of wisdom.

No, Einstein, there is another emotion which mystery cannot perceive, though it is encompassed by an eternity of it. And even the smallest child knows what it is. It is love. Not awe, nor wonder, nor surprise, not any such thing. How can mystery even approach love in depth, in magnitude, in holiness, in might? God is love, not mystery; the Essenes placed mysteries above love and they faded away as do all who cling to the unknown. Mystery in is worst form becomes suspense; Joseph Smith taught that gospel knowledge “does away with darkness, suspense, and doubt” and how “there is no pain so awful as that of suspense." At its best, mystery is but beauty concealed, but even then the beauty of the mysteries of God lie not in their mysterious nature, but in their unfolding to the great and eternal realization that Love is the purest, most powerful and beautiful feeling on Earth, and that it can be had by all men who will simply come unto him. The Atonement was effected, not by a mystery, but by Love. Charity, the greatest of all gifts, is not the gift of mystery, but of Love, the Pure love of Christ for all men.

As I study the idea called evolution, I see two trends, one in those who subscribe to this pseudo-scientific notion, the other in the theory itself. First of all, I notice that too many of those who labor to reconcile this "idea" of evolution are very quick to attack or disregard anything said by past prophets on the matter, especially Joseph F. Smith. Frankly, I am stunned that they can do this. Joseph F. Smith was one of the greatest men of this age, of this world. To disregard his words on this matter simply because one disagrees with it can hardly be better than rebellion against the wisdom of God's servants. Disagree with him if you will, but this man who saw Jesus Himself was a hundred times the man these naysayers could ever be. I am grieved that his words, he, a Holy Seer of God, could be disregarded. They are worth more than those of any scientist. So if you pick and choose which prophets you choose to believe, well, you have your agency. But then do not be surprised if others disregard your thoughts in favor of his, he being a holy Prophet of God, and you, O man, being far less wise nor ever as instructed of God as was he. For how could I trust a man who will not trust the Prophet? We do not believe in any doctrines of infallibility in our Prophets per se, but I can be sure that their knowledge is superior to any other man's, for their knowledge is not of man, but of God.

Now, as for evolution. It is false, in some ways more obviously than others. First of all, I assert with full confidence that any man who would dare claim that mankind descended from apes or any other species than the species of God, denies the faith, for the Church does have an official stance on this issue. In 1909 they published this:

All [men] who have inhabited the earth since Adam have taken bodies and become souls in like manner. It is held by some that Adam was not the first man upon this earth, and that the original human being was a development from lower orders of the animal creation. These, however, are the theories of men. The word of the Lord declares that Adam was 'the first man of all men' (Moses 1:34), and we are therefore in duty bound to regard him as the primal parent of the race...all men were created in the beginning after the image of God; and whether we take this to mean the spirit or the body, or both, it commits us to the same conclusion: Man began life as a human being, in the likeness of our heavenly Father. True it is that the body of man enters upon its career as a tiny germ or embryo, which becomes an infant, quickened at a certain stage by the spirit whose tabernacle it is, and the child, after being born, develops into a man. There is nothing in this, however, to indicate that the original man the first of our race, began life as anything less than a man, or less than the human germ or embryo that becomes a man.

President Benson encouraged attendence at church schools because "It gives the parents the opportunity to stay close to their children, and if they become alerted and informed, these parents can help expose some of the deceptions of men like ... Charles Darwin." President Hinckley all but totally dismissed it. He said "People ask me every now and again if I believe in evolution. I tell them I am not concerned with organic evolution. I do not worry about it. I passed through that argument long ago." And later, "The learning process is an endless process. We must read, we must observe, we must assimilate, and we must ponder that to which we expose our minds. I believe in evolution, not organic evolution, as it is called, but in the evolution of the mind, the heart, and the soul of man. I believe in improvement."

This is the ONLY kind of evolution that matters, and the only real one too. And as somebody who has a great and abiding love for God's other creatures, I am grateful for the confidence I have in knowing that theirs had no need to be a endless process of one species changing into another, but rather one creative period. And the creations of that period receive a commandment of God and it was "to multiply and replenish the Earth, each according to its own kind." Now, we know that the Earth has been faithful to her covenants, and will be renewed and consumed by fire along with all her righteous creatures of every kind. But this cannot be unless they obeyed their commandment, to multiply and replenish the earth, each according to his own kind. Yet the central tenet of Darwin's idea is that, at some point, regardless of all reason and logic, some mother creature gave birth to a species that could no longer be considered "after her own kind." Clearly, this would frustrate God's plan for this world. Yet we rejoice in knowing that this is not so; the Earth has been obedient, her creatures likewise, and they shall continue to perpetuate after their own species, as Man will ever perpetuate his own kind as he evolves in the true sense, from mortal, to Immortal, to God.

[Tuly]

Good points Edward...by the way I trust and don't question James to be a true priesthood holder, father, husband and disciple of Christ.

[Betsy]

In 1954, when he was President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, Smith wrote at length about his views on evolution in his book Man, His Origin and Destiny. In response to an inquiry about the book from the head of the Geology Department at the University of Utah, church president David O. McKay affirmed that "the Church has officially taken no position" on evolution and that Smith's book "is not approved by the Church" and that the book is composed entirely of Smith's "views for which he alone is responsible" (source: Letter from David O. McKay to William Lee Stokes, 1957-02-15, reprinted in William Lee Stokes, "An Official Position", Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 12(4):90–92 at p. 91.)



James (and whoever else),

If you don't talk as most people do, some people talk and laugh at you, but I won't! I won't!

(oh, and who wants to bet that korihor or some other guy is going to make an appearance at some point and laugh about how they convinced a few of us to be anti-christ apostates, etc? That's always the point in the conversation when insecurity reaches it's height...)

[Steve]

Good points Edward...by the way I trust and don't question James to be a true priesthood holder, father, husband and disciple of Christ.

Before I am misquoted and/or James feels attacked (which I hope he does not), let me emphasize that I am not suggesting James isn't a worthy priesthood holder, father, husband, or disciple of Christ. My question was how the aforementioned studies contributed to those things (there is, implicit in the question, the notion that I must believe him to be these things in the first place if I'm asking how these studies make him an even better one). And lest Betsy and others declare my intentions for me, I am not making fun of James, nor am I accusing him of apostasy or any such thing. It's frustrating to me how "witnesses" to a purported crime on this forum jump in, and rather than focusing on the facts of what is actually said, lash out against their own inaccurate extrapolations. Of course, I can only speak for myself, but my comments and questions are to be interpreted at face value. To defend yourselves with swords against a non-existent foe is a waste of energy, and I think it actually gets people worked into a frenzy that is perhaps more dangerous than the threat itself might have been. Let us not yell "Fire!" until a fire is actually ignited, as a good number of people may be needlessly trampled in the ensuing chaos.

My question remains. What does speculation over evolution achieve? Say that I now "understand" exactly how all living organisms came to be, after much study (which, I might add, comes at a tremendous opportunity cost). What then? What's the end game? I can't see a heavenly body waiting to congratulate me that I was able to systematically disprove the words of a prophet. There are no "golden tickets" awarded to someone who can pore over the literature of God's mouthpiece and express frustration over contradictions between his texts and his biology professor's "superior" expertise.

If we spent half as much time being good, strong men of God living and declaring the revealed truths of the Gospel as we do exploring "mysteries," this world would be a much better place.