Parr on Southerton on Parr on Southerton

In the Editor's Introduction of the most recent FARMS Review (17/2, 2005), Daniel Peterson included a response by Ryan Parr to Simon Southerton's reponse to Parr's review of Southerton's book in the last issue of FARMS review.

Parr's response is longer than I want to quote here, but Peterson follows up with a more succinct response that effectively summarizes Parr.

With Dr. Parr, I too am struck by Simon Southerton's effective concession of the fundamental point made by writers for FARMS on the subject of Amerindian DNA and the Book of Mormon over the past few years, and I think it bears repeating: "In 600 BC there were probably several million American Indians living in the Americas. If a small group of Israelites, say less than thirty, entered such a massive native population, it would be very hard to detect their genes today." Thus, the so-called issue of Amerindian DNA and the Book of Mormon proves not to really be about genetics at all. It actually comes down to how the Book of Mormon is to be interpreted and to how its history is pictured. Are we to be ruled by the Mormon "urban legends" to which, even after he himself has repudiated his faith, Simon Southerton insists we are bound, or should we favor what the text of the Book of Mormon itself says (and does not say)? The answer seems rather obvious.

I think this is where the issue will stay for a while. Simon Southerton can claim to have pushed apologists into a corner while apologists can claim that it was a corner that they had already chosen to stand in. Either way, they are in a corner. With more research, the pre-Columbian picture will gradually become clearer, and will either push the Book of Mormon into an ever-shrinking space or ultimately vindicate it.

Continue reading...

Joseph Fielding Smith in the Context of the Quorum

President Hinckley's talk last General Conference got me thinking about the turnover of Apostles in the Twentieth Century. Specifically, I thought about Joseph Fielding Smith--he was certainly around for a long time, so I decided to graph up some relationships.

Continue Reading

The figure below shows the tenure of all of the members of the Quorum of the Twelve from Reed Smoot to Marvin J. Ashton, in order of seniority. All Apostles listed below Joseph Fielding Smith (red bar) were called after him, and while he was alive. Presidents of the Church are indicated in green (except JFS). The shaded portion represents the timespan of Joseph Fielding Smith's call as an Apostle until his death. There were a couple of unique situations where someone was an Apostle or in the First Presidency, but not in the Quorum of the Twelve. If I remember right, I only included beginning dates relevant to membership in the Quorum of the Twelve. In most cases the end dates represent death; an exception is Richard Lyman, who was excommunicated and not restored to the Apostleship after re-baptism. I was primarily interested in seniority and succession in the Quorum of the Twelve, so service in the First Presidency is not indicated (eg. J. Reuben Clark).





Here are some of my observations:

- Almost a whole Quorum of the Twelve came and went between Joseph Fielding Smith and Harold B. Lee. (A similar gap existed between Ezra Taft Benson and Howard W. Hunter.)

- Joseph Fielding Smith was senior to 30 men in the Quorum of the Twelve (although some of those men served in the First Presidency.) Of those, only 14 were alive when he died.

- I had not realized how long David O. McKay served; he and Joseph Fielding Smith served together for a long time. Who knows how the Church would have been different if the two were switched in seniority.

- The person called as an Apostle to fill the vacancy in the Quorum of the Twelve created by the death of Joseph Fielding Smith was none other than Bruce R. McConkie (his son-in-law).

- Joseph Fielding Smith was ordained an Apostle two-and-a-half months before the birth of Gordon B. Hinckley. (April 7 and June 23, 1910, respectively.)

Continue reading...

Creationism: Wasting My Time on Lysozyme

I've mentioned before that I get daily articles put out by Answers in Genesis. They've been serializing some books, and the latest is Creation: Facts of Life by Gary Parker. It has been around since at least 1980, but the most recent version is from 1994.

As I read the first chapter my baloney meter was going off. The chapter attacks the whole concept of homology with the old argument of: 'features are similar because of common design, not common descent.' As I read some of the specific examples I began to be very suspicious. First of all, I'm always suspicious when a creationist quotes mainstream scientists in support of a creationist argument. I'm even more suspicious when a creationist asserts a fact that is so obviously counter to evolution that it would seem that scientists must be either fools or agents of evil to go on in the face of it.

Continue Reading

I won't get into all of the chapter--I've wasted enough time on it already. I will limit my discussion to this claim:

Lysozyme is the enzyme in tears that “bites holes” in the cell walls of bacteria so that they explode. (Listen for the “pop” on a quiet evening!) Egg whites are rich in the same enzyme, and that’s what keeps eyes and egg whites from getting easily infected.

By comparing lysozyme and lactalbumin, Dickerson was hoping to “pin down with great precision” where human beings branched off the mammal line. The results are surprising. In this test, it turned out that humans are more closely related to the chicken than to any living mammal tested! Every evolutionist knows that can’t be true, but how can he get around the objective evidence? In his concluding diagram, Dickerson slips in a wiggly line for rapid evolution, and that brings the whole thing back in accord with his evolutionary assumptions. But notice that his protein data, the facts that he observed, did not help him at all with his evolutionary idea.

Objective evidence shows that human lysozyme is more closely related to that of chicken than any other mammal? Well, let's look into that one.

First of all, the quote from Dickerson comes from a 1969 book--not really accessible. But from what I can find, Parker is apparently mangling a discussion about rates of evolution. (I'll explain in the comments if anybody really wants me to.)

The lysozyme claim has been around since at least 1980, and keeps popping up even though it has been repeatedly refuted. (See here, here, and here for background.)

A more recent book by a different author (2000) that claims to have up-to-date information apparently also repeats the claim, since it is contained in the free accompanying study guide (pdf).

So for fun, I poked around on a publicly accessible database to see what I could find. Below, I show the first third (approximately) of the amino acid sequence of lysozyme from human, chimpanzee, mouse, and chicken. I don't have software at home to do it for me, so I went through the sequences and highlighted any differences from the human sequence by hand.



Lo and behold, human and chimpanzee are the same, mouse is somewhat different, and chicken is the most different. Now this is only a portion of the sequence, but it is pretty obvious that the claim that chicken is closer to human than any mammal is false.

So there you have it. I've spent more time than I should have on this claim. I hope you've enjoyed it.

Continue reading...

Contradicting Bruce R. McConkie

When I was a missionary I discovered an instance where someone directly and publically contradicted Elder Bruce R. McConkie. Probably the main reason the person did not get into hot water was that the person was Bruce R. McConkie. (Note: this is not about the priesthood policy.)

Continue Reading

In 1976 Elder McConkie wrote the following in the Ensign concerning prayer:

It is true that when we pray to the Father, the answer comes from the Son, because “there is … one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.” (1 Tim. 2:5.) Joseph Smith, for instance, asked the Father, in the name of the Son, for answers to questions, and the answering voice was not that of the Father but of the Son, because Christ is our advocate, our intercessor, the God (under the Father) who rules and regulates this earth.

He later (1978) published the book, The Promised Messiah, in which he wrote the following two passages:

There is nothing clearer or plainer than this. We pray to the Father, not the Son; but according to the laws of intercession, advocacy, and mediation, our answers come from the Son. Reference to nearly every section in the Doctrine and Covenants bears this out. (p. 335)

...[L]et us now set forth with some particularity the true form of prayer and show how and in what manner both the Father and the Son are involved.

Proper prayers are made to the Father, in the name of the Son, by the power of the Holy Ghost. The Father answers prayers, but he does it through the Son, into whose hands he has committed all things. (p. 557)

In 1982 Elder McConkie gave a speech at BYU wherein he attacked the published views of BYU religion professor George Pace concerning our having a personal relationship with Jesus.

...[A] current and unwise book, which advocates gaining a special relationship with Jesus, contains this sentence: "Because the Savior is our mediator, our prayers go through Christ to the Father, and the Father answers our prayers through his Son."

This is plain sectarian nonsense. Our prayers are addressed to the Father, and to him only. They do not go through Christ, or the Blessed Virgin, or St. Genevieve or along the beads of a rosary. We are entitled to "come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need" (Hebrews 4:16).

And I rather suppose that he who sitteth upon the throne will choose his own ways to answer his children, and that they are numerous. Perfect prayer is addressed to the Father, in the name of the Son; and it is uttered by the power of the Holy Ghost; and it is answered in whatever way seems proper by him whose ear is attuned to the needs of his children.

I don't know whether Elder McConkie actually changed his mind or had just forgotten what he had written before, and I guess it doesn't really matter; Elder McConkie probably forgot more than I've ever known about the scriptures. But apparently the line between "true form" and "sectarian nonsense" could be a little thin and fuzzy, and Elder McConkie could confidently disagree with his own confident assertions.

Continue reading...

Da Vinci's Code: DNA

I have not read the book or seen the movie, but The Da Vinci Code is sure getting a lot of press. My wife read the book and has pretty much shrugged her shoulders about the hype. Her attitude is basically: It's just a book.

Well anyway, in the wake of the controversy, here's a bit of fluff from the Philadelphia Inquirer about Jesus's DNA.

I wrote about genetics and the virgin birth last fall and found two surprising conclusions. First, most Catholic and Protestant theologians do not get angry or insulted by this question. Second, they don't agree.

They do concur that Jesus was not a supernatural being. The doctrine of incarnation says he's fully human, wrote Georgetown University professor of theology John Haught in an e-mail. "To imply that Jesus is somehow exempt from ordinary natural laws and biological patterns (including having DNA and male chromosomes) would, in my view, be a failure to take the incarnation seriously."

This is hard to square with the virgin birth in light of modern biology. It's true that asexual reproduction, called parthenogenesis, happens in some fish, insects, and even a lizard species, and artificially in a few mammals, through cloning.

But if cloning or parthenogenesis were involved, Jesus would look a lot more like Mary. He'd be a woman, for one thing, since females always beget females.

In humans, females package some of their DNA in two matched X chromosomes, males in a single X and Y. So if you're a male, there's only one way you could have gotten your Y chromosome, and that's from your biological father.

Where would Jesus have gotten his Y?

Some, such as Protestant theologian Wesley Wildman of Boston University, say Jesus got his Y chromosome and half his DNA from a human father, most likely Joseph. What he got from God was something more spiritual.

Others, however, say that God must have fashioned at least part of Jesus' DNA himself, through a miracle. "It's not God's sperm... but God creates something like a sperm and caused it to fertilize Mary's egg," said Ron Cole-Turner, a professor and ordained minister at the Presbyterian Pittsburgh Theological Seminary. That was also the majority view expressed by those who wrote in after my initial virgin birth column.

I know that some LDS folks think they've got the answer to this all wrapped up. However that answer raises all kinds of biological/theological questions. Perhaps we should just stick with "we don't know".

Continue reading...

Church Policies: Infertility Issues

This is part of a series of posts containing information on Church policies on medical and scientific issues.

Artificial Insemination

Artificial insemination with semen from anyone but the husband is discouraged....Artificial insemination of single sisters is not approved.

Donation of Sperm

The donation of sperm is discouraged.

In Vitro Fertilization

In vitro fertilization using semen other than that of the husband or an egg [from anyone] other than the wife is discouraged. However, this is a personal matter that ultimately must be left to the judgment of the husband and wife.

Surrogate Motherhood

The Church discourages surrogate motherhood.

Source: Church Handbook of Instructions, 1989, as quoted in "Policies, Practices, and Procedures" in the Encyclopedia of Mormonism.

Continue reading...

Various and Sundry Items

Here are some items I've collected that others might be interested in.

Elder Packer gave a talk about children and motherhood recently and hit his version of evolution along the way, causing Gary to do a victory dance. More here.

Mormon Wasp picked up on the talk and its discussion of birth rates and pointed out some other recent comments by Apostles. I thought it was a good time to point out my breakdown of General Authority family size.

There has been discussion in the news (here or here) about some purported massive pyramids in Bosnia. Professional scientists say they are just hills formed by techtonic forces, but Bosnians appear to have their national pride wrapped up in the issue. Red State Rabble makes a connection to Intelligent Design.

A hunter from Idaho shot an killed a polar bear--except it was actually an polar-grizzly bear hybrid. Such things have happened in captivity, but this seems to be the first found in the wild. Apparently bear mating is a somewhat involved process, so this was not the result of a quick and casual contact. Of course the important lesson here is that Noah didn't have to have both grizzly and polar bears aboard the ark, just a representative of the bear "kind." (I'm joking.)

The Nebraska's Ashfall Fossil Beds have been designated a national natural landmark. They are remarkable for their fossil preservation. The animals include "rhinos, camels, three-toed horses, and other vertebrates that were killed and buried by ash from a huge volcanic eruption some 12 million years ago." More information here.

Millenial Star records Dan Peterson's somewhat humorous experience with correlation.

Continue reading...

Alternate Voices: Return of Elder Oaks

Discussion of "alternate voices," a term derived from Elder Oaks' 1989 talk, has been revived recently in the bloggernacle by the reproduction of this essay by Armand Mauss.

Elder Oaks had a little more to say on the topic, so I thought I would post it. Here is the meat of it:

Continue Reading

Over the years, persons of scholarly inclination have published journals and organized lectures and symposia to study the history of the Church, reason about the principles of the gospel, and share insights in the application of gospel principles to contemporary problems. I have sometimes been asked, "What is wrong with such efforts?" In my personal opinion, so long as they are private and personal and do not imply Church sponsorship or approval, there is nothing wrong with such efforts, provided those who participate understand and observe the limits of study and reason in such an undertaking. Unfortunately many do not.

The problem I have observed in such activities is that for some participants, these efforts are not a prelude to or supplementary of faith and revelation, but are (or come to be) substitutes for them. That is not the Lord's Way. (The Lord's Way, p. 57)

On a personal note, I first read the original talk while on my mission. I was only vaguely aware of such publications as Sunstone and Dialogue at that time, but I thought I knew exactly what Elder Oaks was talking about. Earlier in my mission I had seen a video of an epidsode of the John Ankerberg Show featuring Ed Decker, Sandra Tanner, and (if I remember right) Walter Martin. Ed Decker went through the endowment--quickly but in detail. The counter-balance was a recorded interview with some stake president that was inserted at various points in the program.

I think Elder Oaks' talk takes on a whole different flavor in this light. I guess my point is that even if the LDS "intellectual community" was his primary target, he also hit some other targets dead on.

Continue reading...