Elder Nelson on Evolution "incomprehensible"?

[_Runtu]

BCSpace actually spoke the truth here. Every animal ever born was the same species as its parents. Only after sufficient genetic divergence in the lineage, as compared from one point in a given lineage to some other point later on down the lineage, do we impose the arbitrary definition of a species.

That's the key: speciation, like "race," is a human construct. And speciation comes from genetic divergence over time. The "dogs have puppies" argument is misplaced at best.

[_EAllusion]

One of Gould's books, "Rocks of Ages", deals eloquently with this separation, and I support his ideas of "non-overlapping magisterium", and "punctuated equilibrium." I don't expect the G.A.'s to be knowledgeable on these issues any more than I expect them to be gourmet cooks or wizards of baseball statistics. I just expect them to have enough background in priesthood administration and the gospel to keep this church headed in the right direction of preparing the world for the second coming of Jesus Christ. If they come up short on evolution, the big bang, or any other current scientific theory, so what?

Gould thinks that the magisterium of religion is like poetry - touching symbolism to describe the world - often our internal world - but not really real in of itself. It reduces religious mythology into a particular kind of metaphor and nothing else. Of note, most people who are religious don't think that about their religion. Do you think the idea of an everlasting soul is just an especially interesting metaphor for your own hopes and dreams?

(He also seemed to give religion the realm of ethics, but that's not the domain of religion. It's the domain of ethics. Gould was weak on philosophy, unfortunately.)

[_bcspace]

Yes, but at no time, according to evolution does one species give birth to a different species. See the above primer starting at about 5:32 for a good illustration of this.

I suggest you quit poorly interpreting things you watch on you tube, or disingenuously representing them. Whichever may be the case. I mean, this may be the result of poor comprehension of what the video is saying, but I doubt it.

If you think the primer is wrong, feel free to point out where.

Yes, but at no time, according to evolution does one species give birth to a different species.

Speciation is not quite as simple nor reductionist as this.

Yet it is obvious in evolution that one species does not give birth to another.

[_bcspace]

No death before the Fall precludes evolution.

Since there is room for death prior to the garden state, the Fall does not preclude evolution.

No death before the Fall precludes a creative period that involved death as part of the creative process.

A problem for LDS if that were the doctrine. Fortunately, it is not as I have shown over and over again. The only viable interpretation of "world" or "earth" when one sees a "death into the world" statement is the already created earth or world. And that because of things like the 1931 statement which allows for the possibility of pre Adamite races of man.

The human race originating with Adam and Eve circa 6,000 B.C.E. precludes all current understanding of human evolution.

Yet since there was an undefined creative period as is allowed and even implied by LDS doctrine as well as the aforementioned preAdamites, then Adam and Eve can still be the parents of us all and yet we are genetically related to homo sapiens who lived before them and possibly with those to whom Adam and Eve had no physical relation.

A global flood that killed every person and animal on Earth except the survivors on Noah's ark, and all animals currently alive being the offspring of mating pairs from Noah's ark less than 6,000 years ago, precludes evolution.

The logical conclusion that the human race is finished as is and will not evolve in the future (since we are in God's image) precludes evolution.

African Negroes being the descendants of Ham from Noah's ark, rather than Africa being the place where humans originated, precludes evolution.

Already addressed elsewhere.

Humans being created in a perfect, immortal state rather than changing over eons of time to adapt to their environment precludes evolution.

That is not doctrine because there is no doctrine on how the physical body was created and "man" in the gospel sense is a spirit and a body in combination.

[_bcspace]

BCSpace actually spoke the truth here. Every animal ever born was the same species as its parents. Only after sufficient genetic divergence in the lineage, as compared from one point in a given lineage to some other point later on down the lineage, do we impose the arbitrary definition of a species.

Thank you but I don't think the definition of species is arbitrary at all. One of the boundaries between species is breeding and a species is a group of organisms that are capable of breeding with each other. The primer I gave did illustrate this.

[_Buffalo]

Since there is room for death prior to the garden state, the Fall does not preclude evolution.

A problem for LDS if that were the doctrine. Fortunately, it is not as I have shown over and over again. The only viable interpretation of "world" or "earth" when one sees a "death into the world" statement is the already created earth or world. And that because of things like the 1931 statement which allows for the possibility of pre Adamite races of man.


Yet since there was an undefined creative period as is allowed and even implied by LDS doctrine as well as the aforementioned preAdamites, then Adam and Eve can still be the parents of us all and yet we are genetically related to homo sapiens who lived before them and possibly with those to whom Adam and Eve had no physical relation.

Already addressed elsewhere.

That is not doctrine because there is no doctrine on how the physical body was created and "man" in the gospel sense is a spirit and a body in combination.

I find it hard to believe that you actually believe any of this. It doesn't harmonize at all.

[_brade]

Humans being created in a perfect, immortal state rather than changing over eons of time to adapt to their environment precludes evolution.

That is not doctrine because there is no doctrine on how the physical body was created and "man" in the gospel sense is a spirit and a body in combination.

From the Ensign:

Adam, our first progenitor, “the first man,” was, like Christ, a preexistent spirit, and like Christ he took upon him an appropriate body, the body of a man, and so became a “living soul.” The doctrine of the preexistence—revealed so plainly, particularly in latter days—pours a wonderful flood of light upon the otherwise mysterious problem of man’s origin. It shows that man, as a spirit, was begotten and born of heavenly parents and reared to maturity in the eternal mansions of the Father, prior to coming upon the earth in a temporal body to undergo an experience in mortality. It teaches that all men existed in the spirit before any man existed in the flesh and that all who have inhabited the earth since Adam have taken bodies and become souls in like manner.

bcspace, what is the manner, the likes of which all who have inhabited the earth since Adam have taken bodies and become souls? How did you get your physical body?

[_Drifting]

Macro allows for one species to eventually become another.

So each after his own kind, until they eventually become another kind.

Yes, but at no time, according to evolution does one species give birth to a different species. See the above primer starting at about 5:32 for a good illustration of this.

Hmmm...didn't I read somewhere the genetically fish and birds are somewhat closer than you'd think?

[_bcspace]

I find it hard to believe that you actually believe any of this. It doesn't harmonize at all.

Some have said this, but none have shown it.

Hmmm...didn't I read somewhere the genetically fish and birds are somewhat closer than you'd think?

Yes. but did you also read about fish being able to breed with birds?

From the Ensign:

I agree completely and incorporated it into my hypothesis long ago by hypothesizing that pre Adamite homo sapiens did not have the same kind of spirits as Adam and Eve, and hence their low state of and slow progress towards advancement; a quarter of a million years at least before civilizations appeared. After all, this was still the undefined creative period in which evolution was advancing towards an overall state of the world when all would be ready for Adam and Eve and the garden state.

No conflict whatsoever.

[_brade]

bcspace, you said there is no doctrine on how the physical body was created. That Ensign article purports to tell us how the physical body of man was created.