Evolution

Hello and welcome to the latest episode of Inside Out. My name is Jim Bennett and I'm here as always with the wonderful Ian Wilkes. Ian, how are you, sir?

I am feeling wonderful today and really excited about this podcast conversation.

As am I. I didn't come up with some wild and dangerous adjective because I want to focus most on the topic here that we're going to talk about because I'm really excited about it as well. I want to talk about the idea of evolution, and I want to begin I brought out— I have a copy of a book. It's called Answers: Straightforward Answers to Tough Gospel Questions, and it's written by Joseph Fielding McConkie, who was my mission president after you had left the Scotland Edinburgh Mission. He replaced Ben B. Banks. I was only there with him for, I think, 4 months, but they were 4 very memorable months., and they persuaded me to read a lot of his work after I came home, including this. And one of the questions— I'm just going to dive into it here. Question: Is the theory of evolution compatible with the doctrine of the fall? Answer: No. And then it goes on. We can tug, twist, contort, and sell our birthright, But we cannot overcome the irreconcilable differences between the theory of organic evolution and the doctrine of the Fall. Some have argued for a form of theistic evolution—that is, a God-inspired evolution—in which lower forms of life progressed over great periods of time to the point that God could take the spirit of the man Adam and place it in an animal and declare it to be the first man. The argument is at odds both with scripture and with an official declaration of the First Presidency On the Origin of Man. I mean, it goes on and on, uh, but absolutely, he was absolutely convinced that there is no possible way to reconcile evolution with our understanding of gospel principles. Now, he comes at that position with a, um, well-respected pedigree. You just have to listen to his name. He is the son of Bruce R. McConkie, who held a similar position, which he adopted from his father-in-law, Bruce R. McConkie's father-in-law, Joseph Fielding Smith. And of course, Joseph Fielding McConkie is named for both men. And Joseph Fielding Smith wrote a book called Man: His Origin and Destiny, in which he went on at length about how impossible it is not only to reconcile the theory of evolution with the gospel, but also to reconcile the idea of an earth that is more than 6,000 years old with the gospel, and insists that the scriptures, particularly the book of Genesis, should be read essentially as scientific treatises that outline a world that was created in 6 24-hour periods by about 6,000 years ago, was completely flooded about 4,000 years ago, and humanity started over, and that's where we are today. And it's become almost— it's not almost, it's become entirely impossible to deny the scientific evidence of none of that being possible. None of that being true. And when Joseph Fielding McConkie was asked about that, he came up with something that I thought was kind of interesting because he said, look, the problem is you're measuring terrestrial events with celestial tools. And prior to the fall, the Earth was in a terrestrial state. And so we just don't understand, and science doesn't have the capacity to measure that. And when he said that, when I was a missionary, I thought, oh, okay. And the more I thought about it, the more I thought, that's just like waving a magic wand. That, that isn't an explanation. It's a thought-stopping mechanism to keep you from recognizing that all of the evidence demonstrates that this earth is billions of years old and humanity is hundreds of thousands of years old and not 6,000 years old. So the— so as we go through this, and I'm very interested in hearing your experience with this because you said that this was something that was important to you, particularly as a kid. But the one tidbit I'm going to offer here, and I'm not going to expand on it maybe as much as some people would want me to, but my mother was assigned by her family to be the curator of David O. McKay's private papers. And I think, like, I know Greg Prince wrote his book David O. McKay and the Rise of Mormonism based on papers that the church had, uh, notes that Claire Middlemas, his secretary, had taken. And those, I think, are still in church archives. But all of David O. McKay's personal papers were owned by the family, and my mother was given the responsibility to be the curator of them and ended up donating all of them to the University of Utah Special Collections. If you want to read anything that David O. McKay had in his personal papers, you can actually read the physical copies if you show up at the University of Utah Library in their special collections. However, she withheld one item from those papers, and that was David O. McKay's copy of Man: His Origin and Destiny. And the reason she withheld that copy is that she didn't want people to be able to recognize that there was a great deal of difference of opinion between David O. McKay and Joseph Fielding Smith on the subject of evolution. And in this copy, which I have seen, there are notes in the margins where David O. McKay— they're not like scathing, he doesn't call Joseph Fielding Smith bad names, but there are like question marks There are parts that are underlined where he says that these are misapplied scriptures, and he goes through it and just wrote his comments in the margins that made it very clear that he did not agree with Joseph Fielding Smith's conclusions on the subject of evolution, and subsequently did not agree with Bruce R. McConkie's conclusions, nor Joseph Fielding McConkie's conclusions, although Joseph Fielding McConkie didn't publish his conclusions until long after President McKay was gone. But David O. McKay spoke publicly about evolution, at one point referred to Darwin's beautiful theory of evolution, and later on when that was published, the word beautiful was taken out. But David O. McKay was a firm believer in evolution. As Joseph Fielding McConkie says, it's impossible to reconcile the two. And yet David O. McKay, president of the church and a prophet of God, somehow found a way to do it, at least for his own satisfaction. He was also a firm believer in geological time. He did not believe that the earth was only 6,000 years old. And if you go back through the records of the early apostles, particularly James E. Talmage, who professionally was a geologist by trade, He absolutely believed in the reality of geological time, did not believe the earth was only 6,000 years old, and engaged in a great deal of debate on the subject with his fellow apostles, including Joseph Fielding Smith. And the reason why Joseph Fielding Smith, I think, essentially carried the day, it was because he outlived everybody. Joseph Fielding Smith lived to be 95 years old, became president of the church after David O. McKay died. He was only president of the church for a year and a half, but he essentially— it wasn't necessarily that his arguments were more persuasive, it was just that he outlasted everybody, and as a result, his work outlasted everybody. And I think even today you will talk to people about evolution, and when they try to argue against scientific reality in that regard, they will almost always, whether they know it or not, they will almost always be paraphrasing or directly quoting Joseph Fielding Smith on the subject. So, uh, as we've gone through this, uh, we're seeing, I think, a renaissance in terms of embracing reality and embracing science within the church. If you go to BYU and take any class where this is an issue, every, every professor, at least every science professor that deals with issues where evolution is something that is appropriately discussed, they discuss it appropriately. They discuss it assuming the scientific reality that evolution is a true principle and that it's actually happened. And I think I've heard reports of some religion professors that deny that still. But if you actually go into the hard sciences at church universities, evolution is very much taught and is not— is in no way discouraged. And certainly there is no condemnation of anybody who accepts evolution as a reality. So this is, this is actually starkly different I think, from the Church in the latter half of the 20th century, when Joseph Fielding Smith and Bruce R. McConkie had— were sort of at the zenith of their influence. But as both of those men have gone and faded into history and the Church has moved forward, we now— if you go to the Church's website, the Church insists that they don't take a position. On evolution, and they leave that to science. And that is really a marked departure from a lot of what the church taught over time. Now, there are people who will tell you, well, the church has always been there, and really that's not the case. The reality is the overwhelming, uh, conventional wisdom, if you will, was that evolution and the gospel are irreconcilable. That the Earth is only 6,000 years old, that the, the, the Noah's Ark was a literal event where the entire Earth was flooded and on and on and on and on. And we no longer actively teach that. And where it counts in hard science classes, we actively repudiate it. So that's kind of where we are. And I'm very interested to hear your take on this because I mean, growing up prior to being a member of the church, I would assume that you would not have had any kind of opposition to evolution or any reason to be opposed to evolution. Would that be correct? That is correct.

I love your introduction and your suggestion that we discuss this topic of evolution today is genius because I've wanted to talk about this for a long time. In the UK, we pronounce it You pronounce it evolution, we pronounce it evolution. And as one of the missionaries quipped that was teaching me, or one of the missionaries that I met back then when I asked questions about evolution and dinosaurs, he quipped back and say, well, it's, you pronounce evolution because it's evil. We don't believe in that. I, I remember, I remember that quip, that comment. Um, In front of me, I'm holding a very special book, which you, our listeners, can't see cuz we're an audio podcast. And in this book, at the beginning of this book, there's a very personal message or a, from my mom to myself. The book is titled Life Before Man: The Big Picture of a Dinosaur. It was produced in '73 and it was a book that I received as a birthday gift in 1976. That's how old I am. And my mom says here, you know, to Ian, good reading. Uh, she's put the date on, she always does. Love from Mommy. And I, this is a book has been in my possession since 1976, and I've read it. I've not read it for many years, but it's a book I pored over for a long time when I was a kid, and I'd go to science classes, and at school, of course, we'd talk about evolution or revolution and the dinosaurs. And he had this, I had this fascination with dinosaurs and I could remember, uh, many of the big long names like the Brachiosaurus and I mean the Tyrannosaurus rex is more, um, more commonly known, but Brontosaurus and Diplodocus and I could, I can't remember all the names now, but I just prided myself on remembering all these amazing names and it was fascinating. And I remember going on, uh, Jim, as a kid we had a, we had a field, um, project where we went to look at some, uh, dinosaur, uh, tracks. I think it was in the south of England. Oh, cool. And, uh, some old, uh, we had, you know, those, you know, UK's, uh, got a lot of history to it and there was some dinosaurs that must have traversed the UK at some point, you know, over the millions of years ago. And it was amazing to see these, um, you know, these tracks., was it in Northern France or the UK? It was a special field assignment and I was fascinated by dinosaurs. And in this book, by the way, uh, which is just a genius book, it says here in terms of evolution, um, you know, in terms of where it came from, he said gradually the primitive, the primitive Earth's energy and raw materials must have generated the stuff of which life is now made, notably the organic compounds called Amino acids, which are the building blocks of proteins and also of DNA, the carrier of hereditary patterns for all living things. And this is a science book, it's not a religious book. But I had this, this passion for dinosaurs. I had a poster of a big dinosaur on my wall growing up. It was just a thing that I just absolutely loved. And I remember asking the missionaries questions about dinosaurs and where that fit in, and also asking my father-in-law. And I got a very interesting answer, and I've had this answer at different times from different people over the years. And the answer was that, um, the earth is, you know, if you look at, you know, scouts, I wanna talk about scouts in, uh, for a moment, but the missionaries and, and the members of the church at that time, and I think my father-in-law who sadly passed away, uh, recently, said that the, um, humanity is 6,000 years old. Well, the Earth is 6,000 years old. And then I said, well, where does the dinosaur fossils come from? And he said, well, they came from other planets. I've heard that. And those planets and, and, and, um, stars, et cetera, were created by Jesus Christ under the direction of God, that there are other people actually that populate those planets. Not far from Kolob, the, the, the, the answer was kind of interesting. And God had access to a vast amount of material in the universe, just a huge amount of material that he then used to create the Earth. And he took material, other planets, other material from the universe, and that material was used to create the Earth. And that material that was used to create Earth had in that material the fossilized material of dinosaurs that existed on other planets. And that material was used to create the Earth, and that's why we have evidence of dinosaur fossils and that type of material from, uh, other parts of the universe. That's why they exist on the earth. I thought that was kind of strange and a bit weird at the time, but I thought, well, hey, you know, I'm completely, totally devoted to the church. And that was the consistent response I get from those questions. So I kind of ran with it. And of course, I don't, I don't think that's an official position of the church. Now, I just want to go back to you on this because You've just indicated that you've heard that before. Yeah. Where, where did you hear that? And is that come from an official church source or not?

I don't know of an official church source that says that, but it's— I, my wife calls it the dinosaurs fell from the sky theory. See, because when I got married, I was— my wife was a biology major. She's now a physical therapist. And she's been a woman who has been focused on science for her entire career and really for her entire life. And I remember on our honeymoon, we were on a train in Europe and I started talking. I don't know how it came up or the context of it, but we were talking about Noah and the flood. And it became very clear that I believed that the flood was a global flood that happened 4,000 years ago. And she laughed at me. And just was like, how can you possibly believe that? And starts talking science with me. And in my brain I'm going, I've married an apostate. What have you done? And, you know, and as I— as time has gone on and she's really convinced me of her— I'm now in agreement with her on this. And she still makes fun of me for believing that dinosaurs fell from the sky. Right. I, I, I, it's, it's, it's really hard to explain this because I don't really— now that I don't think this way, it's very hard to remember or understand how I did think this way. People talk about the idea of cognitive dissonance, the idea of, okay, you believe two contradictory things and it and it causes so much stress and pain and difficulty that you just don't know how to reconcile it and it makes you uncomfortable. I somehow believed in the reality of geological time and evolution and the reality of a 6,000-year-old Earth and a global flood. I believed both of those things simultaneously somehow. And didn't really struggle with it. It didn't cause me any, I, cause I would just say, well, you know, eventually we'll know and eventually we'll figure out. And, you know, I just kind of punted and I didn't worry about it. And I still don't really worry about it because I don't think there's anything about it that, that impinges on anyone's faith. I don't think there's any reason that you have to hold on to bad science in order to have good religion. I just don't think that that's the case. But I can't remember where that idea sort of came from. I mean, I was as obsessed with dinosaurs as anybody. I look back at my first grade report card and the teacher's notes at the very bottom of them. Of it, she said, Jimmy has a tremendous knowledge of dinosaurs because I was just obsessed with dinosaurs. And it never occurred to me that that was irreconcilable with the idea of a young Earth. Even when I learned what a young Earth was, it never— I never went, ooh, I have to give up dinosaurs, or ooh, I have to come up with this idea that they're pieces of other planets. But so I don't know if there's an official church sort of, of statement on that. I'm not aware of any. But like anything, there are so many kind of folkloric makeshift explanations for difficult problems that start to circulate in ways where it becomes just sort of common accepted knowledge. But you can't point to where it came from. And I think that's one of them. I mean, are you— have you ever heard anybody in an official setting sort of make that explanation? Kind of, yeah.

And I've got a note on that right now, and I'll come to that in a second. So that's a great question. And going back to your earlier question, I've nothing written down official, but it was from a meeting which I think you attended in Scotland, and I'll come to it in a second., we were missionaries. It was President Morrison, and I've got some notes here from that conversation. Um, I just want to go back and kind of contextualize some of the key points here and just take us on a very quick, uh, over a few minutes whistle-stop tour of some of the notes that I've made. Because when I was being taught by the missionaries and brought these questions up, they said that evolution, evolution didn't doesn't exist. It's manmade. The science is not there. This is going back, you know, over 30 years, well, 30, 40 years now. And the gospel is true. The theory of evolution is false. Darwin was an atheist, not a man of faith. You can't rely on him. And I, being in a very vulnerable emotional position, was prepared to believe anything that the mush has taught me. And I, there's definitely a connection there, which we won't get into, but I kind of bought the church's position. Uh, Josie Phil McConkie, who I met briefly, had a bit of a, uh, not an argument, bit of a debate on certain things. Can't remember the topic. Topic was, it was in Aberfoyle, young single adult convention that was immediately after I came home. He was in Aberfoyle talking to the young single adults and there was I don't think him and I would've got along, um, as much in prison. And so I, you know, you've said, you said at the very beginning of this conversation that, um, it's not, you know, the church's position is not consistent from his response. And I would agree with him. I think it's not consistent or compatible whatsoever. You, you either have to believe it's quite black and white. I think mostly you might have these nuances coming through now, but typically historically the church has held a very different position. Adam and Eve, Eve was created from the, God put Adam and Eve. It's the story in the temple. It's the, this is man found on the earth, et cetera. No, he's not found. Let's create man. Then Eve is created from the rib of man. And then lo and behold, you've got Adam and Eve. We know the story from the temple. And, uh, the evolution is not consistent with that whatsoever, in my opinion. Uh, going to the conversation I had, uh, uh, I asked, I asked two questions of Alexander B. Morrison, who was a general authority. He lived from 1930 to 2018. He was a general authority and served as the first and second quorum of the Seventy and was a counselor in the British Isles. Presence, and you met him with me in Livingston.

Oh, I'm thinking it's Spencer Osborne.

No. Oh no. Alexander B. Morrison came to Livingston. Okay. In, is it, we have a photograph with you on it actually. Okay. It was in Livingston. I think you were serving in Livingston at the time. That was my greeny area. I met Michael. Does that ring a bell? Mm-hmm. Did you serve with the Bill Livingston? I did. Right. Okay. Well, I've got a photograph with me and you're on it. And Elder Morrison is there on the photograph. And I asked him a question openly in front of the missionaries. And I can't remember what it was. It was some proselyting thing. And he kind of gave me a very blunt answer. And then I spoke to him privately with a group of missionaries after about a question we'd received. From an investigator about evolution, evolution. And he was very clear that the church was, uh, completely in opposition to that. It wasn't compatible, completely contrary to all the teachings, and reminded me of the, uh, covenants that were taken at the temple and that the Adam and Eve theory was the theory and that scientists, the, the comment that the scientists really are not don't know the mind and will of God, and script, the scripture sources is the authority that the church uses. So that was the conversation. I remember it very clearly. Uh, it was, I wrote it down in my journal somewhere. It's on one of the pages in the journal. So it wasn't an official, official statement or comment, but it did come from that conversation I had with him. He also mentioned, made mention of, um, Skousen and Skousen, who was a prominent conservative author and he was a popular speaker amongst the members.

Cleon Skousen, you're talking about Cleon Skousen.

Uh, he passed away in 2006, a pretty, a prominent figure. And he suggested, or his theory was that he was a, I think he was a creationist. He had a creationist view. And his interpretation of scripture suggests, suggests that the Earth is only 2,000 years old. And he basically took a literal interpretation of the creation from the Book of Genesis, believed that the days of creation, that each day of creation was, was comparable with 24-hour Earth periods. And, uh, he talk— he uses the genealogies of the Bible. Uh, talked about the reaction of scientific data, which he doubted. He was very skeptical of scientific data methods like radiometric dating indicating the Earth was billions of years old, which we now know that it is. And he often questioned the assumptions and interpretations of those methods. So he didn't believe in the scientific, um, methodology. And by the way, for our benefit, our listeners, uh, you know this, Jim, I'm an environmental engineer, uh, by trade, and we get a lot involved in a lot of the archaeological work here, a whole range of projects, historical, First Nation, Indigenous community, ecological assessments. And so I get involved in, in quite a bit of that. Environmental, historical scientific research for the regulations for these projects. So I have an interest, a very deep interest in this, and of course a personal interest in dinosaurs in particular and evolution. And so I, I, I've always found these subjects of, of real interest. And then the emphasis on scriptural authority. Schauwesen said that the scriptures are the ultimate authority on the matter of the Earth's age and believe that scientific findings which align with his literal interpretation of the Bible. And as we, uh, receive further light and knowledge, all these things will be made known to us and the scientists essentially will be, uh, who believe in evolution will be proven wrong. Um, there's a few of the notes I've got here, but it's worth noting that, uh, you know, Scowson believed the Earth to be, you know, quite, quite relatively new. And then if you look at, uh, to some of your points, the church's position on this, my understanding from my research is that the church has a neutral stance. It doesn't have an official or formal position on the age of the earth or on evolution or on the dinosaurs. And I think it has difficulty in answering those kind of questions. Uh, the, the, the church has a range of beliefs, but nothing formal on the age of the earth or creationism. And it, it seems to be unwilling and able to talk about Skousen's young earth views as they relate to geology, astronomy, and similar environmental fields and the age of the earth and the story of Adam and Eve. And so the church which again has no position on the theory of evolution. Although to your point, many of the professors, and per that screenshot I sent earlier where there's a new book, uh, being published, a new evolution book, um, that has been announced and it's been sold by BYU. It's free from BYU. And they announced the anthology, this book anthology that they've been working on for many years. Is now published by BYU and it talks about, um, you know, evolution. And, uh, and I've not read the book, but it was announced or it was, uh, mentioned by Rebecca Bibliotec on Mormonish who posted this screenshot on her, uh, page, her Facebook page. And I sent you a copy of that, so it'll be interesting to see what that book, the details of that book, and any other comments and thoughts that people have on that book. So that's just come out. I, maybe while I'm talking, you could probably research the title of that book, but, uh, cause I think that's quite an important, uh, development.

That's Ben Spagman's, uh, I think doctoral thesis. So Ben Spagman, I've had some exchanges with him. Uh, he is a scholar who's just gotten his doctorate. And he's actually, uh, a good chunk of what I've talked about with Joseph Fielding Smith and Bruce R. McConkie comes from things that I've read from him. And I think this is his doctoral dissertation.

Yeah, I only saw it like an hour ago before you and I had this conversation. And so the key points on the church's position, it doesn't have an official position. The First Presidency has not issued any comprehensive statement defining the church's stance on evolution, it, it leaves room for individual members to hold, you know, different beliefs. Its focus, the church's focus is on human origin. So the church teachings are clear on the divine origin of humanity. The church believes that humans, we are spirit children of Heavenly Father. God created Adam and Eve as the first parents of the human race. And that story is, uh, taught in the temple as part of the covenants. Covenant path. Uh, the church, uh, position on scientific inquiry generally, my notes here, encourages the pursuit of knowledge and accepts real science. That was a statement from the First Presidency in 1910. I think you kind of alluded to that earlier. And the church is trying to walk this line between, you know, scientific data and as that data unfolds and more information is revealed, how does it reconcile that with the church teachings? You mentioned The Origins of Man, which is a, a book I think we should have on our, our bookshelf. I've mentioned, uh, my conversation with Alex B. Morrison. And then I just, a couple of more key points here, and one of them is a bit of a wrench or a spanner I wanna throw into the works here, cuz I think this is a real problem for the Adam and Eve theory. But if you look at the hard science on evolution, the overwhelming scientific consensus We're talking 95 to 99% of scientists accept evolution as the dominant scientific theory for, uh, human biology. And it's not difficult to find reliable, uh, sources and, and scientists that believe that. Yeah. To support that, you've got significant evidence of fossil records, comparative anatomy, molecular biology, which is hard to argue against. The biogeography, that's the distribution of species across the globe, et cetera, mobility of mammals and other species. Direct observations where you're looking at animals. And I love this, by the way, the, I've subscribed to a number of natural history channels and I love the examples where animals have evolved or there is an element of evolution. Uh, there's one, um, insect that, uh, there's a fungus that, uh, infiltrates an insect and it freezes the insect and then spores grow from the dead insect. And then the insect, by the way, loses its mind halfway through the virus that it catches, these spores, and then it travels. To a place that the spores wanted to go to. Then the spores take over the body of the ant, of the, of the insects, and in this case, and then, uh, the spores grow out of the body, the nutrients of the ant, and then the spores travel to other places. There is, there is hundreds and hundreds of examples like that where, uh, animals and, and, uh, insects have evolved or have some evolutionary mechanism which you can see right now in order for them to be successful in their habitats. Other scientific methods are testability and falsibility, falsifiability, let me pronounce that correctly, predictive power, which is the evolution theory that allows scientists to make predictions on characteristics of organisms, of behavior of animals, et cetera, and how they change behavior in different environments. And there's a whole list of fact-based data to support the evidence of evolution, both in animals and in people. But the one that I find absolutely amazing and have some very interesting insights, I think, in regards to this, my own insights. A few years ago we went as a family to the San Diego Zoo. I don't know if you've been to the San Diego Zoo. Many times. Many times. It's an amazing experience. There's an outdoor, uh, like a Jurassic Park kind of place, right? Not quite like that, but there's an outdoor for, you know, for the animals to, to roam. Um, and of course there's an indoor, uh, component. And we found San Diego, is it Safari Park or Zoo? I can't remember. It was the most amazing experience. And there was a, uh, a gorilla in a compound and a glass shield, you know, uh, separating obviously people from the gorilla and very busy, a lot of kids there. And for a moment, uh, there was a gap between crowds coming in and out and I was there, just me, and there was a gorilla on the other side of the glass. And I, our eyes connected. I connected with the gorilla and it was extraordinary. It was like looking into the eyes of a human and the gorilla expression on its face changed somewhat. Like it, it, it was almost like a smile. I don't know if it was a smile or a grin or maybe the gorilla was laughing at me. I don't know, but it was very human experience for me. And I felt kind of sad that this beautiful animal was entrapped behind this glass, uh, uh, barrier. And I saw some humanity, strangely enough, in the eyes of this gorilla. And it was just a moment, you know, a few, maybe 30, 40 seconds before the other, you know, people showed up and kids showed up. And it looked kind of sad as well. The gorilla looked kind of sad. Like it was, um, you know, it was in, it, it was entrapped, it was imprisoned and wasn't free yet. You know, this is my interpretation from that momentary, uh, connection with the gorilla. And then just going to my main point of the, uh, very difficult to argue against data regarding the DNA match between apes and humans, which is incredibly high. And you probably know this already, but there is absolutely unquestionable, compelling scientific data which shows the relationship between chimpanzees and gorillas and orangutans and other, um, uh, apes and the DNA of humans. So humans share the highest degree of DNA similarity with chimpanzees and bonobos. Do I pronounce that right? Bonobos. Bonobos. Bonobo. I don't know. I may have completely messed up that, that into that pronunciation, but certainly chimpanzees. These are our closest living relatives. And this is an interesting question for the church. I don't know how the church gets around this, cuz it's just unbelievable. Depending on how the comparison is made, the similarity is estimated to be around, have a guess.

99.5%. You are super close.

I mean, I, I thought it was 96%, right? Or 92%. Uh, it's 98.5 to 99%. We share the DNA with, uh, chimpanzees. And considering the single, uh, you know, the differences shared in, uh, in differences in shared genes. And so when accounting for other um, uh, insertions, deletions, and duplications across the entire genome similarity, it says here, is 9 overall, minimum, highest average, 95 to 96%. Gorilla similarity with DNA is actually high, around 98%. Orangutans around 97%. So why is that? And I'm, I'm gonna kind of, uh, finish this point here and give and hand some time back to you. But why, why do we share 95 to 98% DNA with apes and chimp, you know, and different types of apes? Why is that? It, it, it, how do you, uh, reconcile that with the teaching of Adam and Eve? And so my answer to that question, another question is that you can't. It's Josephine McConkie. You, They're not reconcilable. You have to pick one. You have to choose. Well, I used to believe the Adam and Eve theory, which I do not believe, uh, anymore. I think that's made up. I don't believe for one second the Earth is only 6,000 years old. I think it's, well, we know science tells us it's billions of years old. And the very beginning of my point, by the way, that I was gonna say starting off in my comments here, uh, was time. We have seemingly endless amount of time behind us. We're talking not just hundreds of millions of years, but billions of years. I think the Earth is what, 3.8 billion years or 3.5 billion years. The moon is very old at 3 billion years plus. We've got hundreds of millions of years behind human evolution. Jim Bennett, that's a long time. We are here for just a tiny, tiny fraction. But we see evolution, um, in the animal kingdom. Uh, we probably be seeing it in the human DNA as we, uh, our bodies change. And in a very micro level, we're changing to, um, with all the chemicals and all the lifestyle that we've got, we're seeing, I think, certain responses, very micro responses to the way humans live. We certainly see it in the animal kingdom. And so I, I don't know how it's possible. I agree with Joseph Philip McCaughey. It's impossible in my opinion to reconcile what are essential fundamental teachings and principles of the gospel in particular, the, you know, the age of the earth, where the heck did dinosaurs come from? And the story, which I believe, I believe is fabricated for different reasons. The story of Adam and Eve, which I used to believe wholeheartedly. Which I now think is, uh, completely made up. The science simply didn't support the idea of Adam and Eve unless you can think of some connection. So, you know, why do we share that DNA with chimpanzees? If the, you know, uh, God, what was God's thinking behind that? We create humans, he, he creates the animals. We know in the, in the, um, the account of the creation of the earth in the temple that he created animals, birds, and fishes and variety of every kind and, and mammals, et cetera. But why do we share such close DNA and why do we look very similar? And why did I get an almost human experience with that gorilla that I— was fascinating for me. So some interesting points there. I'd love to get your response and I'd be fascinated if anyone's out there, listeners, could, could— I'm really keen to get feedback on this from the listeners and any other leader of the church up there can give us a, a response as to why, you know, how, how you reconcile those, uh, traditional entrenched teachings of the church like Adam and Eve and the theory of evolution, the dinosaurs and the DNA, this what the science say. So anyway, great, wonderful to get your thoughts on this.

Back to you. Yeah. So what I'm going to give you is essentially warmed over Ben Spackman. Because he's really sort of focused my thinking on these kinds of questions. Because the way you are framing the issue is, I think, very similar, even though you're on the opposite side of the answer. The framing is very similar to the way the church is framing it, which is, well, either the science is true or the Adam and Eve story is true. And I think that the thing that Ben Spackman opened my eyes to is that we are not reading Genesis correctly. We are, we are overlooking questions of genre, that we are reading Genesis, or at least the church historically has read Genesis as if it is journalism, as if it is sort of a journalistic account of something specific that happened in a— in the same way you would read an article on the internet or an article in a newspaper, and that some ancient author was describing events in a journalistic fashion in a way that is supposed to be read and accepted the same way we read and accept news stories today. And he says that is misunderstanding the genre with which ancient writers were writing. And the way he illustrated this is he said, look, someone were to ask you if Much Ado About Nothing by William Shakespeare is literal or figurative, You would look at them and just sort of cross your eyes and say, what do you mean? Is it literal or figurative? It's fiction. It's a play. And then you'd say, exactly. You're applying— you can't apply the standards of journalism to a work of fiction because they're different genres. And my understanding of genre in the way that he describes it is that ancient writers would be baffled if you were to go to them and say, okay, so did the flood cover the whole earth? Did it cover Australia? Did it cover the kangaroos? As one of our guests talked about, did it cover these certain kinds of plants that were only on the tops of mountains? They would just look at you like, what are you talking about? That's not why I wrote the story. That has nothing to do with anything. It has to do with what I'm doing is making a point about God and God's mercy, and I'm using this story to do it. Now, how much of that story is rooted in sort of historical fact is almost irrelevant, if not entirely irrelevant, to a lot of these early authors. So, you know, when you start talking, for instance, about Adam and Eve and is this literal or figurative, even Joseph Fielding McConkie insisted that this is a figurative thing. He used to talk about the fall and he said, look, the eating of the forbidden fruit, if that were a literal thing and that Adam and Eve ate some kind of something growing on a tree and that turned their bodies mortal, then every other animal on earth would've had to eat that same fruit. That was just some kind of symbolic representation of something that happened. So, so, I mean, the way you reconcile them is you accept the difference in genre and the difference in what both stories are trying to tell us. The story of the fall is not trying to give us scientific data. It's trying to tell us— I believe that the— well, I'm skipping ahead here, so I'm going to, I'm going to back up a little bit. When you go through the temple, the idea of applying anything sort of journalistic to what happens in the temple falls apart very quickly, particularly when Peter, James, and John show up? Are we supposed to believe that apostles from the early church 2,000 years ago somehow wandered into Adam-on-Diamon after Adam and Eve fell and taught them the gospel? I don't think— I'd never, ever believe that. And I've never thought that the church wanted me to believe that. I, I've always assumed that sort of a symbolic representation and that Peter, James, and John represent priesthood authority, represent authorized representatives of the Lord. And so that we're supposed to receive the gospel from those who are authorized to preach it. And it's being taught in a symbolic manner, in a way where the idea of trying to somehow Force that into being a literal historical event is just bonkers. There's just absolutely no way to do that. So I have now, since I used to have a very hard time with the Adam and Eve story, not because of historicity or science, but because I could not reconcile the idea that God gave conflicting commandments. I got in trouble when I was a seminary teacher because I refused to teach that God would give a commandment that he demanded would be broken. You know, the only way that we could multiply and replenish the earth was to eat of the forbidden fruit, but eating of the forbidden fruit was forbidden, so we had to choose which commandment we were going to obey. I mean, I've heard that over and over and over and over again. And I went, and that doesn't work for me. You look at the Book of Mormon and Nephi says, you know, surely the Lord always provides a way for, for us to obey his commandments. And so anyway, I went down that rabbit hole for years, if not decades, until I finally realized that the symbolism of the temple is we're supposed to liken ourselves to Adam and Eve. And we are each Adam and Eve. And so each of us was in the presence of God for eternity, for, you know, with no beginning, that we are co-eternal with God. In the, in the premortal life, we were, we were present in the presence of God, and we were sinless, we were innocent. And yet we made a decision to separate ourselves from God and come down to a fallen, imperfect world. And when I suddenly realized that that's me, that's not some guy that lived 6,000 years ago. And I, I absolutely actually still believe that there was an Adam and there was an Eve. How scientifically they arrived whether there were beings, whatever was there before them, I don't know. I mean, I absolutely believe that many of these stories, even though they're not journalism, there is sort of a kernel of historical truth in there that is embellished with symbolism in order to make a larger point. So, and I've since stopped trying to figure out what that is, you know, how much of that, how much of a kernel of historical truth is in any of these stories, because I don't think it matters. But the power of the Adam and Eve story resonates with me when I recognize it's my story, it's my decision. I chose to separate myself from God in order to be able to gain a mortal body and learn from my mistakes. And go through mortality so that I could become more like God. And the reason God is not going to force anybody to do that— everybody has to make that choice to do that. But we're making a choice to sin. We're making a choice to come down to a world where we sin, where we make mistakes. So the point being, when you, when you start framing science versus religion as to which one is better science, You're just making a huge mistake. Of course, science is better science than religion because science is science and religion isn't science. Religion is principles. Religion is, is moral teachings that allow us to better understand our relationship with God. And when we try to say, oh, and they're also the gold standard for how we should understand science, I think we are completely missing the point of why these stories exist, why these stories have been told to us. And we're, we're looking beyond the mark. We're just making a big mistake. So the way you reconcile them is you don't even try. You don't even— they're in totally different genres. They're totally different beasts trying to do totally different things. Things. And once you accept that, then you realize that you don't have to be afraid of science. Religion gets into trouble when it tries to take over science, and vice versa when science— I mean, there are a lot of guys, you know, what's his name, what, what, what, the big famous atheists that write all the books, The God Delusion, who, who was the guy that wrote that? Or Christopher Hitchens has written books, God Is Not Great. But these guys all write, insist that science proves there is no God. And it's just, guys, you're out of your genre. You— it's not possible to prove that there isn't a God. We don't know. It's just not— you can't do that. You're out of your bailiwick. Stay with things— science is about verifiable facts, uh, reproducible experiments that demonstrate reality. And there are no such experiments, are no such facts that can conclusively prove that there isn't a God. Religion is all about faith in that God, in creating a relationship with with that God. And that faith requires us to be able to look essentially beyond science and try to believe things where we don't have the conclusive evidence that science provides.

I just, I think that's wonderful and very rich. I, my comments earlier are not intended to question the reality of God. On the contrary, I believe God exists. I have experiences where I know there is a supreme being, an energy, a force, real, very real to me. And I just don't believe in the Mormon God. I don't, the God I believe in is not the Mormon God, mostly not the Mormon God. There's lots of things that the Mormon God has done, which I can't accept or agree or or believe in, uh, but I, I believe evolution or evolution is from God. Uh, I think it's part of the plan of salvation, not the Mormon God plan of salvation, but the God, the, the, the individual or individuals who is behind the power of the universe. You know, nature, nature spans way beyond the human earth and the solar system. It, nature's force is spreads across the entire universe. The universe is nature and all of the chemistry and the science and the, um, organisms, the microorganisms, et cetera, are all influenced and driven by this power. You know, I, I believe our heartbeat and, and the, the life essence of a mammal or an insect or the life essence of a, an organism, there is a power behind that. And the evolutionary changes that those organisms experience and, and go through, you're like a, um, a, a child being born, going from a, the different stages, you know, from a cell through to, you know, the fetus through to becoming a living, you know, a human being rather. That is evolution and it's very much in my view, embedded into the plan of salvation by a kind, loving, um, I think, uh, hope and believe that this power is a good force. We won't get into that too much right now, the agency. But what I want to throw into the mix, which is not a theory of the church, Jim Bennett, actually taught fact, and that is And this is probably where this conversation mixes up a little bit for the next few minutes at least, is the teaching that Jesus Christ in the Book of Mormon and elsewhere and throughout the teachings in the church spoke of many worlds. In fact, the church teaches officially that we believe that in extraterrestrial beings, extraterrestrial beings. In that Christ spoke of many worlds who are on other planets. And whilst not explicitly stating the existence of people on other planets, the concept is rooted in the idea of worlds without end. And that's other, that in the temple we teach that the Lord has created other worlds, other planets where humans, presumably in our shape and form, God and Christ has been involved. Involved in creating, that there are numerous gods, multiple gods, and multiple Christs, which is what I was taught on my mission and before the mission, and that there were other saviors on other worlds. However, this world, the Earth, was the most evil and the one which crucified its savior. And you can comment that in, in, in a few minutes if you're thinking into that. And I don't want to get off track too much, but, you know, in the Book of Mormon, you know, Jesus speaks about other sheep who are not of the Nephites, and he talks neither of, uh, the scattered remnants of Israel and the Gentiles, and he talks about other sheep who are not of the Nephites or the Gentiles, you know, in 3 Nephi 15:16. But as the church has spoken about that or referenced that, and my understanding is that the other sheep is not just referring to different groups of people on the planet, but that there are other people that existed on other planets. In fact, uh, that's my understanding, is that that's the fundamental teachings of the church. And so within the Book of Mormon, which focuses on the inhabitants of the ancient Americas and their relationship with God, there's a, there's a message in there which talks about the concept of a loving Father in Heaven who has a plan for his children here, but also has a plan for worlds without number, other worlds. And it's, you know, Joseph Smith translated that, uh, text and that he had this knowledge or understanding or this claim knowledge and understanding of people on other worlds. Um, you know, other gods, other beings, the King Follett discussed. Cosmos. So there are other individuals, beings, gods, Christ that exist elsewhere. And those, those have been created as a similitude or a pattern after the Earth. And so the church teaches that there is existence of life on other planets and, you know, makes, uh, reference to that. And so where, where am I going with this? So if you look at the origin of man, You know, where did man come from? Which is kind of the thread throughout this conversation. The, the scientific community say, well, you know, man evolved from, uh, biological organisms through into fish and amphibians. This is in my book that I mentioned earlier that I've had for, you know, 40 years or so as a, as a kid. And that's consistent. A lot of that's consistent with the modern scientific theories of, you know, where man came from. But the church goes beyond Adam and Eve, goes beyond the temple teaching of God installed Adam and Eve on the earth. I don't know what, 6,000, 7,000 years ago or wherever that time was, but that those spirits from Adam and Eve are internal spirits. We teach that and life on this planet, on Earth, including all of the creatures and the fowls of the air and the fish of the sea, are not new to the Earth. That these creations, including man and woman, uh, creation have been around for since the beginning of time, since the formation of spirits before the world was. And that other planets and, uh, places in the universe are also populated by exact replicas as we are humans, extraterrestrials, if that means the same as, you know, other humans being on other planets. So the idea of, you know, the teaching, the concept of the church that, you know, man, you know, man and women came to this earth through Adam and Eve, which is the, the, the main teaching and the position of the church. It goes beyond that where that story, that pattern has been replicated on other planets. And God has got all this material. He can create these amazing planets, et cetera. And by the way, when we die, according to the church, and if we are living righteously and we go to the temple and pay our tithing, so this is completely out for me. I've not made, you know, I'm kind of lost here, but I'm relying on you, Jim Bennett, that when you become a god, and you've got your planet, you'll invite me to your planet. Anytime. Anytime. Okay. But yeah, I, I, you know, wherever I am, uh, as the, as the joke goes, uh, come down and see me. So, uh, at some point, if you are living righteously and you are singing amazingly and doing all everything right in the church, that when you die as a, you know, uh, faithful servant, that you will be resurrected and reunited with your body. And, uh, you will achieve godhead and at some point you will get your own planet like Earth and you will create it, the Jim Bennett planet. And I can imagine that's gonna be a fun planet. Lots of, uh, Rolling Stones concerts, you know, or, uh, um, everything that Jim likes to do and wants to do will be the Jim, uh, Jim Bennett God planet. So you will create, you'll become a god. And the church, by the way, has kind of stepped away from this, but we was taught, I know you were taught it, and I know I certainly was taught it, that you will, you know, we could become gods. And when we become gods, we create our own planet. And we might have our own savior. I don't know. So we become a god and we create our own. We have all these wives, more than one wife, by the way. And we need more than one wife to create all these spirits. And that pattern is repeated time and time again. It's been around for a long, long time. You know, billions of years. You know, these spirits have been created that way. Pattern's the same, won't change. And Jim Bennett will become a god. You'll have all these wives and you'll create the Jim Bennett god planet and do whatever you want to do. And you will create spirits and those spirits will be sent down into new bodies just like it planet, and they will populate those bodies, and you'll have your plan of salvation, which presumably will be the same plan as that we're involved in, and you will create a planet with all these materials, just like God has done for us. And that pattern repeats itself over and over again, and we come down here and we learn, et cetera. So the, the history of evolution, or evolution in the church's context, spans way, way, way beyond this tiny fraction of time that our beloved scientists believe in is just a mere, you know, if you look at the, um, reliable scientific, uh, information here, he said modern humans or Homo sapiens originated in Africa approximately 200,000 to 300,000 years ago. And support for that is the, you know, theories behind that is the African origin, out of Africa migration, the evolutionary process, the fossil, Evidence, genetic evidence, mo— movement and mobility of people. There's a whole series of specialized, um, uh, subject areas that these scientists have come together and, and done all this, um, research. So, you know, if humans are 300,000 years old, according to science, which is very, uh, very new, very young, that's a tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny speck of the church's view. Our view. Spans way back, uh, beyond Adam and Eve, way, way back, billions of years. And looking forward, you know, going back to the Jim Bennett God Planet, you'll be in the eternities creating these Earths and these planets far, far into the future, billions of years from now. It, it's mind-blowing, frankly. And it's, for me, it's, I just can't get my head around it. So it's not just this Adam and Eve story, the next 6,000 years, the church has got a whole different position. I don't know how it can be. I, I'd wanna highlight the point that you said earlier. I think the scientists are some, you know, I just don't accept that the science state, you know, proves that there's no God. I just, on the contrary, I think science proves there is a, a God or a power or an influence. That is the power behind the creation of life. You know, if it's an organism or a mammal or an insect or a human or a virus, you know, there is the power behind that. And I don't think that's accidental. I think it's deliberate. I think it's planned. There's a God, maybe God's not the right word, but a being or a force that's quite extraordinary. And I believe that force to be good. I don't accept that, there's, you know, scientists that just say this is all, you know, accidental and chaos. I believed in a, a benevolent, kind, loving, uh, supreme being. Uh, I don't know what he or she looks like, but I know that he or she is there. I've had my own personal experience in that. This is not an accident. We're not here by accident. I have some idea of why we're here, of course. I, I know just a fraction of, I thought I, you know, in the church we have this, this, um, when you're so believed and you're so bought into the church's teachings, and this is what I'll say about any other religion that people are devoted to. If you're like me, you just accept it often on blind faith and it becomes like a level of certainty. And in that certainty, you have this, this element of security. You know, we have all the answers. This is the plan of salvation. This is the origin of man. That's it. Scientists don't know what God thinks. You know, our laws are higher than man's laws. We know we have the authority. Scientists don't have that. This is the teachings. This is the position. And I bought into that hook, line, and sinker and didn't for many years, didn't really question that at all and had found security actually, Jim, and safety in in that so-called knowledge. Now with my more critical thinking, critical mind, I feel freer and more open-minded and realize that the time that we have now is now, and then we have to make the best of what we've got right now. And yeah, you can plan for the future. Who knows what's going to happen after we die? I have no idea what's going to happen after we die. I don't know what happened to us, you know, where we were before we were born. I just don't. I know far less now than what I, you know, than what I thought I did. You know, when I was in the church. But that's been a very freeing experience, very liberating for me, and reminding me that all we have pretty much is, is what we've got right now, and to make the best of what we've got right now. Now, if we become a God or whatever happens in the future, it just blows my mind what that is or what that looks like. Um, what do you think to what I'm saying then, that last piece I've kind of bolted onto our conversation, where the, the teaching and the position of the church spans way beyond Adam and Eve, like 6,000 years ago. Oh, sure.

Into billions of, I don't know how long, and into the future.

Uh, in that bigger context, what are your thoughts and feelings on, on that in terms of your insights?

Well, I remember listening to the same Truman Madsen tapes that you listened to where he talked about Joseph Smith revealing a religion not just for the world, but for the entire galaxy. And there are elements of that that have always bothered me because you talk about we're the only world evil, we're the most evil world. Truman Madsen and a bunch of other people insisted, well, Jesus died not just for our sins, but for the sins of unlimited worlds, infinite worlds. And I'm just going, really? I have a hard time wrapping my brain around the fact that there are people on some world several galaxies over who are being told about our world. The odds of our world being that most evil world, it just, it just doesn't, I, I doesn't work for me. I just can't get there, but I can get to the place where The, the restored gospel is so expansive in terms of its ability to, you know, Gladys Knight, in terms of its ability to Gladys Knight. That's not what I meant. Gladys Knight joined the church because one of the things that frustrated her about her experience in Christian churches before was she would ask, what happens after we die? And they would say, oh, you go to heaven and you live in bliss and peace and, and everything's just lovely. And she says, yes, but what will we do? What are we going to do for all that time? And she said, and none of these other churches could answer it. Whereas our church, I mean, we don't have specifically the answer to it. But we certainly have this expansive vision of an eternity where we are, we are growing and we are learning and we are creating and we are doing so infinitely. People forget that eternity is a very, very, very long time. So I, I really think that it's, it's that our church and the restored gospel has a more expansive scientific framework, or allows for a more expansive scientific framework, because again, science and religion are, I think, two different things. But it allows for this, for an infinite universe of infinite possibilities in a way that I think more traditional at least Christian sects and, and, and doctrines and teachings don't really have the same kind of framework. So anyway, so I really enjoyed— I really enjoyed this discussion because I really think that this is an area where the church has improved And I think everybody can kind of see that it's improved. And we don't really live in the shadow of, of, okay, you know, you're, you're kind of a closet heretic if you don't believe the church is 6,000 years old. I really think that stigma has been completely removed and that the church is moving forward in a, with, with a bright future where we're embracing truth As the church says, all truth can be circumscribed into one great whole. And the truth that we find in science, the truth that we find in religion, I think it's all coming together in a way that I find very beautiful and satisfying. Do you have any, any final thoughts here?

I do. And I appreciate that last comment. I've got two quick thoughts. I put a lot of weight and, uh, hope on the prophet being the prophet of the world, uh, to teach us what God knows about evolution, about chemistry, about the sciences, uh, about math, about all the different subjects. Tell us the deep knowledge that the prophet has acquired on all these subjects. You know, how to solve cancer. You know, I've got this belief based on, or this hope based on the church's position on teaching on the significance of a prophet who knows stuff that we don't know far, far more and knows the mind and will of God. And I'm trying not to be facetious here or sarcastic, but if you know that and he, and if he knows that, great, tell us. Teach us, you know, we talk about further light and knowledge. What's God know about this? What can you tell us about this that we don't know? You know, what's the relationship between— we talk about relationship between church and politics. What's the relationship between church and science? So that's, that's one thought. The second thought, and by the way, I think this is interesting because the scientific community Probably because they were waiting for this Inside Out podcast to be posted today.

I'm sure they are.

I've held the global scientific community have waited for at least 3 years until this latest Inside Out podcast that we're doing right now before they announced early today that scientists have detected, they announced it today. The same day of this podcast, the strongest evidence yet of life on a planet outside of a solar system. Right. I saw that. K2-18b, located a mere 124 light years away, which is 700 trillion miles away. So quite not that far away. The James Webb Telescope, which is incredibly powerful, has found chemical signatures on this planet, at this planet's atmosphere, uh, which is, uh, consistent with molecules produced by life on Earth. And it's, it's got a chemical signature which they've detected. It's the strongest evidence yet, potential habitable, uh, zone, and they need further research. When I heard a, uh, a BBC News comment on this earlier on the news, they're saying that this planet, which is about 2.5 times bigger than Earth, contains a vast ocean. And, and an atmosphere which is giving off, um, um, you know, uh, hydrogen. And they believe, the theory is at least, that there is living organisms in this ocean on this planet 2.5 times bigger than Earth, which is, um, 124, just a, just a hop, skip, and a jump, 124 light years away. So that is timing, eh? So our podcast is influencing the global scientific community, and I wanna thank them for waiting for our podcast to come out here. I'm having fun, of course. I'm having a little bit of fun. So I, I, I just love this conversation. I've enjoyed it so much. I would love to get any comments or feedback from our listeners and what they think, you know, why do we share DNA with apes? Where the heck does dinosaurs come from? What were you taught? Um, it'd be interesting to get that, um, you know, that, that feedback. And of course, if there's people out there that want to come onto the podcast and talk about these things and other things, then, then of course we're, um, we're open to that. Jim Bennett, thank you for suggesting this topic today. I've absolutely enjoyed every second. We could talk, you know, for hours on this, but, um, and I've enjoyed, I've learned a lot from our conversations, certainly from from you. Well, thank you, Ian.

I, I can say likewise. I very much appreciate your insights here. I think this has been a very productive conversation, and I very much want to thank everybody out there who is listening to this conversation. And we, we hope you will join us for future conversations. We very much greatly appreciate, more than you know, uh, the feedback that we get and the, the conversations that we have And we look forward to visiting with you again in next week's episode of Inside Out.

So thank you again, Ian. Thank you, Jim Bennett.