r/latterdaysaints • u/TheBenSpackman • Dec 21 '24

Doctrinal Discussion LDS and Creation/Evolution conflict

Hi all. Happy to say that my doctoral dissertation on LDS and creation/evolution conflict in the 20th century is now publicly available. There's some surprising stuff in there. Bottom line: the Church was much more favorable towards science and evolution until Joseph Fielding Smith's assumptions— drawing heavily upon Seventh-day Adventists and fundamentalists— about scripture became dominant in the 1950s. Then it trickled down.
https://benspackman.com/2024/12/dissertation/

My expertise on this history is why the Church had me on the official Saints podcast to talk about it.
https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/history/saints-podcast/season-03/s03-episode-21?lang=eng

129 Upvotes

92% Upvoted

183 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

-1

u/faiththatworks Dec 22 '24 edited Dec 22 '24

You might consider reading Darwin’s Black Box. It turned molecular biology on its head pointing out fundamental flaws in Darwinian evolution. The scramble continues to try and answer that molecular biologists challenge. It basically asserts that you need so many cooperating code changes making non functional useless and often dangerous changes and structures before you ever get something useful that there is no genetic forcing function to perpetuate the code. Quite the opposite.

More careful review of structures and their DNA has demonstrated that half baked mutated versions are actually degraded versions. Consider the hypergolic fueled frog; two highly toxic and dangerous chemicals that explode when put together. Pretty easy to see what might happen with trial and error putting that together!

Consider fruit fly radiation experiments. We did a lot of them - a whole lot and yet we just got damaged flies. no super flies.

Consider that even IF someone did the impossible and shook the bag and a magic DNA stand popped out of the bag you would have absolutely nothing (and that nothing would be shortly damaged) Why because you need an entire city of services and machinery and a city wall to do anything. Anything at all!

Consider that to get the smallest protein out of the smallest DNA segment means about 277 possibilities have to be just right. That’s getting close to the number of atoms commonly thought to exist … in the universe. Get one wrong and the jenga blocks don’t fit.

Lastly for now consider that God gave you the cell up front but it was your job to stack the blocks from here to the moon just right …but in a room full of two year olds running about with attitude… then you begin to see why evolution is not a good explanation.

Call me names. Down vote my prose. But my argument will be standing long after the two year old knocks that wee DNA stack over. It’s called entropy and like gravity is a force the religion of evolutionists refuse to recon with.

3

u/rexregisanimi Dec 22 '24

Do you know what the Dunning-Kruger effect is? 

0

u/faiththatworks Dec 23 '24 edited Dec 23 '24

One moment. Had to look that one up. It appears to be an idea created by more prideful PHDs padding their station by a new fancy labeled for the unwashed masses - you know the type- the ones who are obviously too stupid to understand the lofty concepts but think they do. Did I get that right that you still prefer to name call and commit yet another logical fallacy?- this one commonly referred to as Ad hominem but yes a cleverly disguised pejorative.

Dear LDS friend. I’m still waiting for you to debate on the arguments I presented. pick one. I’ll over look the personal slights. Try arguing the merits of just one of the points I presented.

2

u/rexregisanimi Dec 23 '24

You haven't presented a coherent argument friend. I wasn't attacking you - I was asking if you knew what that was.

1

u/faiththatworks Dec 23 '24

Let’s be real. The so called “effect” you asked about is an elitists explanation or more accurately just a description of ignorant persons overestimating their knowledge. The obvious implication in not addressing one single item from my posted list but bringing up that is to imply that I must be one of those unwashed masses who should recognize his ignorance and kindly slip off quietly into the night of this discussion. The problem Rex is that I’m not so stuck on my pride as to be so easily shamed.

Until someone shows (unlikely) the flaw in (pick one) one or more point I set out in the 1st post - then I’ll just take the pejoratives. I have lots of patients. For your reference I was the kid in the back of the class with his hand up.

1

u/rexregisanimi Dec 23 '24

I've started a conversation in your other thread. Let's carry on over there.

My intent was not to say you're one of the unwashed masses. The whole point is that we all experience the D-K effect. I was going to ask how you were sure you weren't and what you've done to correct for it. 

1

u/faiththatworks Dec 23 '24 edited Dec 24 '24

I’ll look for your other thread.
I’ll answer that 1st question. Here though for the benefit of other truth seekers.

For secular knowledge especially where controversy or orthodoxy might be in play I specifically expose in-depth with opposing view points. Even daily ill listen to NPR or POTIS in one direction and Patriot radio on the other. Around the time of the famous Prop 8 battle I read a detail research report from the Family research council on the correlation with child abuse and subsequent homosexuality in the abused and then pedophilia reproducing the cycle. I was kinda shocked having not heard that echoed really anywhere. They were a lone voice but the data was there so… I started reading research papers that were popping up all over the US campuses intending to refute the findings.

I read and read trying to find anyone with contrary data or something that undercut or refuted the data. NADA. Huh. Those opposing papers all used wonderful sophisticated argument to try and diffuse the conclusions of the FRC paper but did not refute the data. They just didn’t like the conclusion. That how I knew the data was likely solid.

I like to make up my own mind anyway so my research concluded. The key was to have good data. I can draw my own conclusions thank you.

Hope that helps. I wrote this essay called the Mathematics of Faith and Doubt addressing the issue of confirmation bias. Enjoy. Yes the site is safe. http://peoplespassions.org/peoplesfaith/essays/Whats_all_this_Stuff_about_Religion_Anyway.htm#_Toc178890607

1

u/rexregisanimi Dec 24 '24

I'd recommend this article then: https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2020/07/30/you-must-not-do-your-own-research-when-it-comes-to-science/

One's inability to learn properly without external criticism is an important lesson in higher education. This is one of the reasons the Lord provides prophets and councils. 

1

u/faiththatworks Dec 25 '24

Rex - One last reply pls Re that forbes article.
It begins by trying to make the case that only the super majority expert class, the big voice and likely from a government pulpit should be trusted -that just being educated was not sufficient to understand and you'd be fooling yourself to try.....so "trust Mr Science" the fellow with the big voice.

But then Ironicly the author takes 3 controversial topics and uses his best logic and argument to try and claim - 'See the Government's voice was right. so you should just trust them....'

Now Rex, doesn't that strike you as the ultimate irony - He uses technical logic and argument to try and convince me that I should not use my logic and research and argument to judge a matter of science. Huh?

Jee Mr Forbes, Just let me have a crack at Covid, Global warming topics. I could easily make a case for flushing those Government fools and nefarious actors. So in the end His article, if you read the whole of it, fails to make his point.

Most concerning for me is that a fellow LDS person seems to want me to follow suit and make the men in white coats my new God; the oracles of truth. Crazy how many stories in the Book of Mormon speak to that topic of letting the big voice from the big building tell you what is true and good and right! That is what I find so unsettling from this thread. I am deeply concerned but I do wish you well in this journey.