No definitive LDS stance on evolution, study finds

OREM — Despite characterizations by some Latter-day Saints that their theology eschews the theory of evolution, two LDS scientists say their church has no definitive position on whether humans evolved from earlier life forms.

William Evenson and Duane Jeffery told dozens of people gathered at Utah Valley State College on Tuesday that what definitely has evolved over time is the position taken by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on the issue.

They came to that conclusion after dissecting the history of statements made by past LDS leaders at the request of former Brigham Young University president Rex Lee. In 1991, Lee asked Evenson — then dean of physical and mathematical sciences at BYU — to draft a document that could be given to students who routinely queried him on the church's position.

"There was a committee organized to put together a packet of materials. . . . The idea was to assemble those things that had some authority to represent the position of the LDS Church," Evenson said.

He and Jeffery collaborated, along with deans from other BYU departments, gathering and sifting through statements by church presidents, the LDS First Presidency and members of the church's Quorum of the Twelve.

The documents contained some statements that inferred there was no basis for the scientific theory of evolution, and others that took no position on the science itself but merely emphasized that man was created in the image of God.

In the end, they included four different statements as part of the BYU packet:

• A 1909 First Presidency statement on "The Origin of Man," published the centennial year of Charles Darwin's birth and the 50th anniversary of his publication of "On the Origin of Species."

• A 1910 First Presidency Christmas message that addressed the issue.

• A 1925 statement, released during the highly -publicized Scopes trial regarding the teaching of evolution in public schools, called "Mormon View of Evolution."

• And a 1992 entry from the Encyclopedia of Mormonism, which includes an excerpt of minutes from a 1931 meeting of the First Presidency on the issue.

As Evenson and Jeffery examined the history, it became obvious there was vast disagreement among some former church leaders about whether evolution played a role in the origin of man, Jeffery said.