Mormonism had its origins in the 19th century equivalent of science-fiction fandom — there was a real craze for dressing up religion in the lab coat of science even then — so it’s not surprising that Mormons love to mingle evolution, dinosaurs and faith (it helps to be living on a giant fossil bed, too). That ol’ charlatan Joseph Smith loved to squeeze his self-serving dogma into a package draped with the latest (and entirely erroneous) theories about Indian origins, for instance, to give it an aura of authority.
This article in the Deseret News explains how they teach evolution at BYU…and it’s the usual superficial phenomenological approach that annoys me so much. It’s not just Mormons that do this, but every well-meaning Christian who wants to make the data fit his or her preconceptions.
As Whiting’s lab lets out, the model skulls on every desk are lined up chronologically. Whiting said that although some students have trouble accepting human evolution, the students in his lab typically do not have any problems. He said many of his students come to see evolution not as a theory that threatens their beliefs, but as a tool God uses to "accomplish his design."
"They leave the class thinking, ‘Isn’t this cool? Isn’t the creator so clever?’" he said.
Blech. Whiting leaves out the most important parts of evolutionary biology. Sure, you can line up a bunch of skulls and make up a story about how they came to be, and that can include gods, elves, or aliens, but evolutionary biology is also about the mechanism: the changes in gene frequency brought about by selection, drift, etc.
Nowhere in evolutionary theory is there any mention of a creator. We have no need of that hypothesis. A chronological array of bones is not evidence of magic.
But the Mormons have more. They have Church Authority, so their version must be true.
The controversy died down in 1992, when the university released a packet with comments from the LDS Church’s First Presidency and the Encyclopedia of Mormonism.
"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," William Evenson said in the Encyclopedia of Mormonism, a statement reprinted in the packet for BYU professors and students.
Oh, yes, that old fallback. Science says how, religion says why. The problem with that, though, is that while spokespeople for religion can say any damn fool reason they want, there’s no reason to think they’re right. They also don’t consider the possibility that there is no “why”: we are the product of happenstance and necessity, not planning, and human populations have simply been buffeted by the exigencies of local events that did not occur with people in mind: climate, shifts in game, competition from other species, disasters, warfare, all these sorts of things and many others happened to us, and biology responded, but none of it was with intent of any kind to cause an evolutionary response. There was no “why”.
The LDS church, an organization with no scientific credibility at all, loves to make statements about science. These should be treated with all the respect they deserve.
Whiting said the packet and statements have helped reduce the stigma that evolution is something that contradicts religion. Today, he said, many students view evolution as a logical explanation for biological diversity and that it’s compatible with their faith.
Scott Trotter, spokesman for the LDS Church, offered further clarification:
“Science and religion are not at odds in our faith. We accept truth wherever it is found and take the pragmatic view that where religion and science seem to clash, it is simply because there is insufficient data to reconcile the two.”
You know what really reduces the stigma? Recognizing that religion has no special authority in the first place, so contradicting it is a fine thing to do.
That last statement is so typical, though. Their religion is true by definition, so the default assumption is that science is in error, and further data will support the faith. Their belief is untestable, then: they will cheerfully accept the evidence that supports their preconceptions, and any evidence that falsifies the goofy myths of Mormonism will be ignored as “insufficient data”.
We will probably have a better chance of convincing the faithful that evolution is a real process that needs to be accepted and embraced if I don’t do an obvious frontal assault on religion. Then again do PZ and the rest us really want to get rid of religion? If we didn’t have religion and it fundamentalist extreme we would not be able to go to creation museums and ride the dinosaur.
Alas you omit the funniest part. According to LDS Father and Son are material; only the Holy Spirit is bodiless. Wouldn’t you love to drag the LDS god to your lab?
In whatever sense evolution ought to be “accepted and embraced,” who the hell says that, of all the fucking things we ought to care about, ought to be anywhere near the top of the list?
Wow. I want to say this is the point where condescension jumps the shark, but maybe saying it rides the dinosaur is even better at evoking the absurdity of it all.
If they believe their god created us, shouldn’t they be asking why the Bible Bogey, qua Engineer, made such a cock-up when designing us? Or are we just a work in progress? And if the latter is the case, where does that leave their theology. (I know nothing of their theology, other than that it’s sure, in practical terms, to be unsubstantiated nonsense.)
I Think it was Jerry Coyne who said: “Science does’t know everything; religion doesn’t know anything.”
If my attribution of that quote is wrong, I stand corrected and apologize in advance.
The Mormon Ideology, with it’s many gods and many worlds, could simply say this was Jehova’s (Or is it Yaweh? I forget which one’s the creator and which one’sthe creator’s dad) first go and he has other worlds.
Oh, come on. What would it take for the students to leave the classroom and think “oh, the Creator isn’t that clever?” The only thing they learned was how to make ‘theological virtue out of scientific necessity’ — and prevent themselves from descending into the moral pit of nihilism, despair, and hell that is atheism. They’ve been using that technique their whole lives.
Religious faith is a commitment to spin the evidence so that it either supports the existence of God … or it supports the existence of God even more! Skeptical doubts are called “struggles” and you’re supposed to get major credit for not changing your mind no matter what. Because that is what it is to be humble.
jimmauch #1 wrote:
That “better chance” may be a short-term solution — and it has pitfalls. Religion is grounded in supernatural falsehoods and bad thinking. Accepting and then promoting the idea that faith is good and reflects a person’s deepest values and identity is, as PZ points out, undermining the process of rational, scientific, humanist thinking. The existence of God is a hypothesis; it ought to be treated that way or they’re going to run it into every category but the right one.
Religious accomodationism (“we can reconcile both science and religion!”) is like deciding to get more people to vaccinate by convincing alternative medicine advocates that vaccination is really just a form of homeopathy and completely compatible with a fundamental belief in vitalism, nature as Healer, and other ways of knowing. Or perhaps we can get more people on board with accepting evolution if we tell them it was foretold in the stars. As long as they tick that box.
Don’t feed the monster.
The title of the post also makes me think of the way the Mormon Church has evolved—indeed before I looked further I thought that’s what the article was going to be about. Countless times sacred, unquestionable doctrine has been reversed overnight by a new “revelation.” Interestingly it always seems to come at politically expedient moments.
FFS, PZ, it does nothing of the kind. It provides a reporter’s account of about 5 minutes of a single lab exercise. Yeah, it’s primarily phenomenological, on account of it’s a lab exercise. As it happens, I’ve taught a similar lab elsewhere: students directly examine chimp and human skulls and identify differing phenotypic traits, then score some replica fossil skulls for the same traits, and it’s a perfectly good and effective way to teach about homology, synapomorphy, etc. We used to plug the (entirely student-derived) character matrix into PAUP and compare trees, teaching basic cladistics and parsimony, etc. It’s actualy a damn good lab, or can be.
Jump to conclusions much? You think you can suss out the entire course content from that article that mentions a single lab? Bullshit. I will bet money that Whiting’s lecture course covers all the mechanisms you (& I) would like.
Because the fact is that BYU has a pretty good Biology Dept.–better than, say, UMM, I’d judge–and whatever their private religious views, they are clearly dedicated to modern biological science, evolution and all.
You have merely communicated your own preconceptions here.
I’m always surprised when discussions of Mormonism and science fiction don’t include the points that Brigham Young thought the moon and sun were inhabited (and that planets became less opaque and more luminous as they became “celestialized,” so Earth would eventually be like the sun), or that Joseph Smith apparently taught that the moon was inhabited by tall, thousand-year-old Quakers.
The only thing Mormonism has over Scientology is age.
#9: Do your students leave that lab with an understanding that the Creator is pretty cool? I’m not objecting to comparative anatomy at all — we have a similar lab here at UMM — but that it’s used to promote a nonsensical belief that purpose can be discerned in it.
I know that BYU has a good biology program; I also know that BYU also promotes some weirdness alongside it. I’ve been there several times, and knew quite a few graduates from their program. You can learn quite a bit from them if you’re willing to ignore the Mormon boosterism that’s the center of the article.
I suspect that this is less reporting than assurance to the “faithful.”
Glen Davidson
Tom @ 10 – Really? Don’t forget the magic underwear.
Aren’t these the folks that think that indigenous Americans are all descendants of the “bad” son* of a Israelite guy who came to North America about 2700 years ago, DNA and archaeological evidence be damned?
*And this is why they are not “white and delightsome”?
@Tom Foss
The same is true of Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, the Greek, Roman and Norse pantheons, Shintoism… etc. Season to taste.
tbp1 @8, In response to your comment that the mormon church itself, and its dogma, has evolved over time, here is a link to a discussion David M. and I had recently in another thread where PZ featured mormonism:
http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2013/06/28/how-to-get-to-heaven-mormon-style/comment-page-1/#comment-647320 See comments 140-146
Link to entire thread: http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2013/06/28/how-to-get-to-heaven-mormon-style/
Ex-mormon Steve Benson (Pulitzer Prize winning cartoonist) discusses official LDS doctrine, and his attempts to get the church’s take on evolution.
Excerpts:
Lot’s more at the link.
And now it’s Martha Bie to present your Unnecessary Association of the Day.
The LDS/Christian/religious acceptance of evolution as the mechanism by which God made the world is like my phone’s custom build of Android stuffed to the gills with unremovable Verizon bloatware— it’s certainly functional, but all the extra crap they stuck in is useless under the best of circumstances.
What I was teached about mormon doctrine, after 1992 it is important to add, is that there was no death nor procreation on earth until the fall of Adam about 6000 years ago. I cannot imagine what kind of evolutionary theory they are teaching that doesn’t include death and reproduction. How is it possible that students, atleast in the 90ies, didn’t notice this HUGE contradiction? How are animals supposed to evolve in a paradisical state where everything is immortal and sex is unknown?
@Martha #18:
If I may extend your Association of the Day a little, my phone’s custom build of Android was originally stuffed to the gills with Orange bloatware. Thankfully a number of thoughtful and experienced people had come together to discuss those shortcomings, and publicised a convincing and practical way by which less able people (such as myself) could fairly painlessly remove all that unnecessary crap from their phones.
Slightly OT, but indicative of mormon/religious doublethink:
Daily Mail link.
From the comments below the Daily Mail story:
@19
That’s exactly what Steve Benson pointed out when he quoted Bruce McConkie:
McConkie then went on to unintentionally give a very explanation of why religious dogma, especially mormon dogma, is built on a crumbling foundation:
Yes, apostle McConkie, that is correct.
No, that’s what we should be asking them, and at every opportunity. My favourite is asking the FGM/circumcision crowd what exactly it is that makes them think they have to hack away at god’s creation the clitoris, vulva or male prepuce. Did the old man get it wrong there?
@Lynna
Interesting! McConkie pretty much admits it’s nonsense. I especially liked how he implicated the so called “atonement” in it. Hadn’t thought of that. Atleast he’s logical and honest, you don’t see much of either in mormonism.
A Mormon relative went to BYU because it was cheap. He said that professors there taught things like evolution carefully so as to not offend the kids who really believed. It’s the same as Catholic professors at schools like Notre Dame or Creighton who call themseves Catholics but who reject much of Catholic theology and teach around it discretely. Would it be better for them to be honest? Sure, but I compare it to my fundamentalist relatives who went to schools like Biola or ORU because they believed and their evolution curriculum seems to be little more than the same stupid objections that all creationists make.
Those are the same*, his dad is Elohim. See the 2nd link in comment 16.
* Jehovah = YHWH with the vowels of eloha, meaning “god”. And the final H is just there to indicate that the word ends in a vowel.
So at the top of the article when I looked at it was a nice banner telling me that Allen West is fighting against the Radical Left! I don’t know whether to click a million times and hope he has to pay five cents a hit or ignore it completely. Ideas?
Scientists talk about the “Utah effect.” Scientists in Utah report results that can’t be reproduced elsewhere, such as cold nuclear fusion.
I thought Elohim was just a fancy word for a patron deity, a leftover from when Yahweh was just one of a clutch of polytheistic tribal gods.
sbuh, #29:
According to wikipedia, you are correct. David Marjanovic is confusing Elohim with El.
David is not in any way confused. In LDS theology, (which is what we’re discussing here, last I checked), ‘Elohim’ is God the Father, while ‘Jehova’ is his son, also known as Jesus.
Shouldn’t all evidence directly support the uber sacred morman gold tablets? Jeff Dee put it well concerning the science-religion “choice”:
http://wwjdee.blogspot.com/2013/02/choosy-humans-choose-science.html
@27 That same site has petitions for liberal politicians as well, I’m pretty sure it’s a scam to get your email address and sell it to spammers.
Does anyone know how the anthropology and archaeology courses at BYU deal with the Native American origins? Do they teach the Book of Mormon version, with North America being colonized (twice!) from the middle east, complete with horses, wheels, etc.? And if so, are these departments accredited?
paul@34,
I don’t know, but here’s my guess: they try to avoid the issue, but if forced to adopt a position, they accept that the Americas were first populated from Asia, and the conventional timescale for that, but say there might have been an influx or two from the Middle East later.
I’ll take a look at BYU’s website, to test my guess.
@David Marjanovic
I know, I just thought Mormons distinguished between them. OK, Elohim’s the Dad? Elohim is Hebrew for gods right (Eloha presumably being the singular?)? Sometimes used to referr to the God, but the Torah normally uses his name? So have Mormons just arbitrarily decided that Elohim is a name as well?
Nick Gotts @35, I think you are correct in assuming that mormon professors at BYU would try to ignore issues related to anthropology and archaeology in real life as opposed to the fake stories in the Book of Mormon. DNA is a particular bugaboo.
As ex-mormon “rationalguy” put it:
In short, yes.
Nope, all the E and P parts of the Torah use Elohim as a name (up to different points) and make it go with singular verbs most of the time. See this article for the whole depth of the confusion.
An example of how the mormon squishy approach to evolution sort of works for students in a biology course, (quote from ex-mormon “outofmormonism”):
Oh that’s good, you mormons, use missionaries to spread anti-education in Finland. Being evil in Finland, blah. We see you even in your far-flung “missions”.
David M. @38: Thanks for the link. The connection of El, “Father of all Gods” or “Ancient of Gods,” with a bull prompted an amused connection with an episode of “True Blood.”
http://trueblood.wikia.com/wiki/Maryann%27s_helmet
The character with the bull’s head later mistook a real bull for her husband, and was gored to death. Kinda funny in a very black comedy way.
Further to my #35, BYU appears to teach the scientific consensus on e.g. Mayan prehistory, as far as one can judge from a curriculum outline, but there’s nothing about the first settlement of the Americas visible.
I overheard an individual who’s Mormon recount how he spent his vacation with his family touring Latin America and ancient sites “connected to the Book or Mormon.” Totally sincere.
I just don’t get it.
The mormon you overheard was referring to Limited Geography Theory. LGT was developed after it became clear that the geography and events described in the Book of Mormon did not, for the most part, take place in what is now the USA.
Basically, LGT proponents are claiming that most major events and geographical locations described in the BoM took place in some as yet undiscovered Central American area. Some LGT nutcakes take this further and force some round pegs of real evidence in South and Central American into the square holes of the BoM.
Ex-mormons discuss this particular flavor of Moments of Mormon Madness here:
http://exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,704360,704496
More here: http://exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,710197,793943
You can find more info if you peruse Simon Southerton’s blog:
http://simonsoutherton.blogspot.com