Pokemon + BYU + hominid evolution

[oliblish]

This sort of thing was an impossibility at BYU when I was there for several different reasons:



There is a new evolution display at the BYU Life Science Museum. They had to wait at least 30 years after Bruce R. McConkie died before doing something like this. I guess that is the shelf life of a deadly heresy.

https://news.byu.edu/news/new-bean-muse ... -evolution

[RubinHighlander]

Excellent! That there is some progress toward more educated TBMs. That could lead to more critical thinking young people escaping the happy valley.

[Corsair]

This is pretty amazing. I know several LDS believers who are distinctly skeptical of evolution. Most of them also are not fans of Pokemon, so I may have to point out what their Alma Mater is hosting.

[deacon blues]

I noticed from my Grandson's Pokemon card collection that evolution is an element of the Pokemon fad. Have the fundamentalists and creationists come up with a Bible prophets card series to combat this humanist plot? This is really interesting. I might drive down to see it.

[Hagoth]

This is great news.

It's fascinating that they had to employ Pokemon and cookies to help ease kids into this scary topic, like it's some kind of fun FHE activity. Normal institutions of higher learning would not have to resort to a 3rd grade level approach.

Question: does something like this have to be church approved? Pres. Nelson is famous for disparaging evolution as an impossible printing press explosions result. I can't imagine this would make him all thumbs-up smiley faced.

[Linked]

Wow! Thanks for sharing Oliblish. I may have to take my kids down to BYU tomorrow.

I'm surprised BYU is hosting an exhibit highlighting hominid evolution. I would expect an exhibit with less direct evidence that humans evolved from a common ancestor with great apes, as that makes you think hard about the origin of humanity, which the mormon church provides a nice, clean answer for. The exhibit webpage does some serious hedging about evolution and how it fits into mormon doctrine.

On the exhibit webpage, http://mlbean.byu.edu/Exhibits/Understa ... -Evolution, it states:

What is evolution? How do we observe it in the natural world? Understanding the Principles of Evolution is an exhibit which delves into the theory of evolution, the evidence for evolution, and how scientists use evolution to better understand life on Earth. Often misunderstood, evolution is a fascinating theory used by scientists to explain how life changes and adapts.

Regarding evolution, leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have stated, “The Church has no official position on the theory of evolution. Organic evolution, or changes to species’ inherited traits over time, is a matter for scientific study. Nothing has been revealed concerning evolution. Though the details of what happened on earth before Adam and Eve, including how their bodies were created, have not been revealed, our teachings regarding man’s origin are clear and come from revelation.” (New Era Oct 2016)   

The exhibit Understanding the Principles of Evolution is an exploration of how scientists interpret the theory of evolution and does not establish the doctrine of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Visitors are encouraged to consider how natural selection plays a part in nature to help animals, plants, and other life forms adapt.  We at the Bean Life Science Museum hope this exhibit will help to spark conversations among our guests as they ask, “What is evolution?”  

Click Below for more information about how BYU's Faculty are working to build bridges between religion and science.

If you "Click Below" it takes you to a Reconciling Evolution page on byu.edu. This is fascinating! A group is built trying to help people accept both the evidence-based conclusions of evolution. There's a 40 minute video covering how mormon's reject evoltion and why evolution is the bedrock of biology. 18% of mormons aged 26+ think evolution is the best explanation for life on earth, and 40% of mormons age 18-25 think evolution is the best explanation for life on earth. The times, they are a changing.

[Linked]

Sorry, more on this. An interesting graph showing attitudes of non-biology major BYU students towards evolution from 1987-1996, then 2014-2016.



Link to the article: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/artic ... ne.0205798

[oliblish]

Evolution of views on evolution...

Heresy number two. There are those who say that revealed religion and organic evolution can be harmonized. This is both false and devilish. Yes, all truth is in agreement and true religion and true science bear the same witness.
...
Do not be deceived and be lead to believe that the famous document of the First Presidency, issued in the day of President Joseph F. Smith and entitled The Origin of Man, means anything except exactly what it says.
...
Try as you may, you cannot harmonize these things with the evolutionary postulate that death has always existed and that the various forms of life have evolved from preceding forms over astronomically long periods of time.

Heresy two concerns itself with the relationship between organic evolution and revealed religion and asks the question whether they can be harmonized. There are those who believe that the theory of organic evolution runs counter to the plain and explicit principles set forth in the holy scriptures as these have been interpreted and taught by Joseph Smith and his associates. There are others who think that evolution is the system used by the Lord to form plant and animal life and to place man on earth.
...
Should we accept the famous document of the First Presidency issued in the days of President Joseph F. Smith and entitled “The Origin of Man” as meaning exactly what it says?
...
Can you harmonize these things with the evolutionary postulate that death has always existed and that the various forms of life have evolved from preceding forms over astronomically long periods of time?

Come and see our cool new evolution exhibit where we show how humans evolved from early primates over hundreds of thousands of years.

[oliblish]

Wow! Thanks for sharing Oliblish. I may have to take my kids down to BYU tomorrow.

I might have to check this out myself. There is really no excuse for me as I am about 10 minutes away.

[Mad Jax]

This sort of thing was an impossibility at BYU when I was there for several different reasons:

Life must have been very different in Utah than in Minnesota or Oregon when I was an active member, because I just never saw the adamant creationist culture that apparently existed there. I heard members always dogging Utah, I suppose this may have been part of the reason why (although having met a number of people from Utah - and no offense is meant to anyone here - it never surprised me to hear anyone poke fun).

[Hagoth]

Come and see our cool new evolution exhibit where we show how humans evolved from early primates over hundreds of thousands of years.

Yet some people erroneously think that these marvelous physical attributes happened by chance or resulted from a big bang somewhere. Ask yourself, “Could an explosion in a printing shop produce a dictionary?” The likelihood is most remote. But if so, it could never heal its own torn pages or reproduce its own newer editions!

[moksha]

Question: does something like this have to be church approved? Pres. Nelson is famous for disparaging evolution as an impossible printing press explosions result. I can't imagine this would make him all thumbs-up smiley faced.

If asked, I doubt President Nelson would have let an exhibit on hominid evolution be put on display at a BYU Science museum.

Hopefully, this exhibit will not cause other exhibits to require Correlation Committee approval in the future. I remember when talk of showing the movie Bless the Beasts and the Children lead to administrative scrutiny over all future movies shown at BYU.

[deacon blues]

I went down and saw the exhibit. It was inspiring. In fact the whole museum is cool. There's an exhibit that has Boyd K. Packer drawings from the age of 9 up to his mature years. I'm thinking of taking my 9 year old grandson. He likes to draw.