The Mormon Myth of Evil Evolution

The Mormon Myth of
Evil Evolution
Michael R. Ash
SEVERAL YEARS AGO while teaching the priests’ quorum, part of my lesson
focused on the deceptive methods used by Satan. I asked my class for
suggestions as to what tools, techniques, and deceptive teachings Satan
employs. Some of their responses included the immorality in movies,
television, and music, or the notion that there is no God. Then the
bishop, as president of the priests’ quorum and a regular attendee of the
class, said, “Evolution.” In the years since this event, I’ve found that
there are a number of members who believe that evolution is a doctrine
of the devil. It is apparent that many members are not familiar with the
official position of the church on the topic of evolution, nor of the past
history associated with this issue. The purpose of this paper is not to take
a position on whether evolution is correct or is in error, but rather to
demonstrate that the church’s official stand on the subject is neutral and
that many faithful Latter-day Saints, including LDS scientists, accept
evolution as a currently valid scientific theory.
The controversy among members of the church regarding evolution
has been around since shortly after Darwin published his On the Origin of
Species by Means of Natural Selection. Some of this controversy took place
among the faculty at BYU as well as between members of the church
leadership. Whereas some prominent Latter-day Saints viewed the
teachings of evolution as the theories of men or the wiles of Satan, others
have viewed evolution as the method by which God created tabernacles
for spirits. In 1909, after decades of controversy, the First Presidency is-
sued an official statement regarding this matter entitled, “The Origin of
Man”:
Adam, our great progenitor, “the first man,” was, like Christ, a pre-exis-
tent spirit, and like Christ he took upon him an appropriate body, the body
of a man, and so became a “living soul.” The doctrine of the pre-existence,—
revealed so plainly, particularly in latter days, pours a wonderful flood of

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Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought
light upon the otherwise mysterious problem of man’s origin. It shows that
man, as a spirit, was begotten and born of heavenly parents, and reared to
maturity in the eternal mansions of the Father, prior to coming upon the
earth in a temporal body to undergo an experience in mortality. It teaches
that all men existed in the spirit before any man existed in the flesh, and that
all who have inhabited the earth since Adam have taken bodies and become
souls in like manner.
It is held by some that Adam was not the first man upon this earth, and
that the original human being was a development from lower orders of the
animal creation. These, however, are the theories of men. The word of the
Lord declares that Adam was “the first man of all men” (Moses 1:34), and we
are therefore in duty bound to regard him as the primal parent of our race. It
was shown to the brother of Jared that all men were created in the beginning
after the image of God; and whether we take this to mean the spirit or the
body, or both, it commits us to the same conclusion: Man began life as a
human being, in the likeness of our heavenly Father.
True it is that the body of man enters upon its career as a tiny germ or
embryo, which becomes an infant, quickened at a certain stage by the spirit
whose tabernacle it is, and the child after being born, develops into a man.
There is nothing in this, however, to indicate that the original man, the first
of our race, began life as anything less than a man, or less than the human
germ or embryo that becomes a man.1
Some have suggested this statement takes an anti-evolution stance.
However, the First Presidency’s statement doesn’t address the mutability
of species. Some have also claimed that since Adam is to be regarded “as
the primal parent of our race,” this rules out the possibility of evolution.
Race, however, is not a biological distinction. James C. King, of the New
York University School of Medicine, notes:
What constitutes race is a matter of social definition. Whatever a group
accepts as part of itself is within the pale; what it rejects is outside. Accep-
tance and rejection are not absolute but can exist in various degrees. . . .
. . .[T]he fact [is] that what constitutes a race and how one recognizes a
racial difference is culturally determined. Whether two individuals regard
themselves as of the same or of different races depends not on the degree of
similarity or their genetic material but on whether history, tradition, and
personal training and experience have brought them to regard themselves as
belonging to the same groups or to different groups. . . .[G]roup differentia-
tion [is]. . .based on cultural behavior and not on genetic difference.2
1. Improvement Era, November 1909, 75-81.
2. James C. King, The Biology of Race (N.Y.: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc., 1971), 160,
163. See also
http://www.standard.net/standard/news/news_story.html?sid=20010628232006.6C
A90+cat=news+template=news1.html

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Ash: The Mormon Myth of Evil Evolution
21
Therefore, Adam can be the “primal parent of our race”–or cultural
group—without discarding the evolutionary model. When it was recog-
nized that the First Presidency’s statement didn’t address the origin of
man’s physical body, questions among members persisted. Less than six
months after the official “statement,” the following information was
printed in the April 1910 Improvement Era:
Whether the mortal bodies of man evolved in natural processes to present
perfection, thru the direction and power of God; whether the first parents of
our generations, Adam and Eve, were transplanted from another sphere,
with immortal tabernacles, which became corrupted thru sin and the partak-
ing of natural foods, in the process of time; whether they were born here in
mortality, as other mortals have been, are questions not fully answered in
the revealed word of God.3
Thus, three possibilities were suggested for the creation of man’s
physical body: 1) evolution via a natural process as directed by the
power of God; 2) transplantation from another sphere; 3) birth in mortal-
ity by other mortals. None of these three fits the typical “creationist”
model.
Because the official “statement” didn’t resolve the issues of evolu-
tion or the mutability of species, the controversy among members, and
even BYU faculty members, continued. Evolution was being taught by
faithful LDS professors at BYU, while other BYU professors (and at
times, students or parents of students) opposed such teaching.4 In 1911
the controversy grew more intense, and several BYU faculty members
became embroiled in this issue, resulting in bitter feelings and even some
changes of employment.5
The 1911 BYU controversy prompted President Joseph F. Smith to
conclude that “evolution would be best left out of discussions in our
Church schools.”6 The matter was pushed to a back burner. While Presi-
dent Smith personally believed that the theory of evolution was an “hy-
pothesis” and “more or less a fallacy,” he also stated that the church was
3. Improvement Era, April 1910, 570. Although there was no author’s name attached to
this statement, a number of scholars have suggested that Joseph F. Smith was responsible
for the material since he and Edward H. Anderson were the editors (see Duane E. Jeffery,
“Seers, Savants and Evolution: The Uncomfortable Interface,” Dialogue 8 (Autumn/Winter
1973): 60; David John Buerger, “The Adam-God Doctrine,” Dialogue 15 (Spring 1982): 41;
Erich Robert Paul, Science, Religion, and Mormon Cosmology [Urbana and Chicago: Univer-
sity of Illinois Press, 1992], 175).
4. Gary James Bergera and Ronald Priddis, Brigham Young University: A House of Faith
(Salt Lake City: Signature, 1985), 150.
5. Ibid., 134-48.
6. The Juvenile Instructor 46 (April 1911): 208.

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Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought
“not undertaking to say how much of evolution is true, or how much is
false” and that “the Church itself has no philosophy about the modus
operandi employed by the Lord in His creation of the world.”7 Then in
1913, in a conference address in Arizona, President Smith added another
interesting comment to the issue:
Man was born of woman; Christ, the Savior, was born of woman and God,
the Father, was born of woman. Adam, our earthly parent, was also born of
woman into this world, the same as Jesus and you and I.8
Six years later Heber J. Grant became president of the church. After
six years of serving in office, President Grant saw a need to reiterate the
1909 official statement on “The Origin of Man” with a few modifications.
The First Presidency’s “ ‘Mormon’ View of Evolution” reaffirmed the di-
vinity and role of Jesus Christ, that Adam was “our great progenitor, ‘the
first man,’ ” and that “the doctrine of pre-existence pours a wonderful
flood of light upon the otherwise mysterious problem of man’s origin.”
The statement also reaffirmed that man is a “child of God, formed in the
divine image and endowed with divine attributes.”9
Sixteen years earlier, the original 1909 statement had concluded: “It
is held by some that Adam was not the first man upon this earth, and
that the original human being was a development from lower orders of
the animal creation. These, however, are the theories of men.” As already
noted, some people incorrectly interpreted this as an anti-evolution
comment. This ambiguous comment was no longer found in the 1925
statement.
Some of the Apostles had taken an interest in this controversial sub-
ject, and they were not always in agreement with one another. Joseph
Fielding Smith was opposed to evolution, whereas B. H. Roberts was
more open to the possibility. During the mid 1920s, Elder B. H. Roberts
began compiling notes for a book on church history and doctrine. In 1927
he began developing his notes into what he hoped would be a study
course for the seventies throughout the church.10 Roberts believed that
“Adam represented the beginning of the Adamic Dispensation, but be-
fore him, a whole race of human beings had lived and died on earth.
These ‘pre-adamites’ were simply destroyed in a great cataclysm that
7. Ibid., 208-9.
8. Deseret News, December 27, 1913, sec. 111, p. 7; reprinted in the Church News sec-
tion of Deseret News, September 19, 1936, pp. 2, 8; quoted in Jeffery, “Seers, Savants and
Evolution,” 62.
9. Editors’ Table, Improvement Era 28 (September 1925): 1090-91
10. Richard E. Sherlock and Jeffrey E. Keller, “ ‘We Can See No Advantage to a Contin-
uation of the Discussion’: The Roberts /Smith/Talmage Affair,” Dialogue 13 (Fall 1980): 63.

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Ash: The Mormon Myth of Evil Evolution
23
‘cleansed’ the earth before Adam, leaving only fossilized remains as the
meager evidence of their presence.”11 To Roberts, the evidence for pre-
Adamites was overwhelming. In 1928 he finished his magnus opus and
sometime later submitted it to the publication committee, consisting of
five apostles, who rejected his work primarily because of his reference to
pre-Adamites. Roberts was told it might be possible to print his book,
with modifications, but he refused the suggestion.
In April 1930, speaking to a genealogical conference, the young
Apostle Joseph Fielding Smith—while admitting that the Lord had not
revealed the method of creation—denounced the belief in death or mor-
tal existence before the fall: “The doctrine of ‘pre-Adamites’ is not a doc-
trine of the Church, and is not advocated nor countenanced in the
Church.” Smith’s talk was reprinted in the October 1930 Utah Genealogi-
cal and Historical Magazine.12 When Smith’s comments came out in print,
B. H. Roberts complained to the brethren, challenging the validity of
Joseph Fielding’s claims. Smith’s views were now on public record,
whereas Roberts’s views were still confined to his unpublished manu-
script. Three months later, the Quorum of the Twelve reviewed both
Smith’s and Roberts’s arguments. During this time, Apostle James Tal-
mage, a trained biologist, took interest in the topic and apparently was
“sympathetic to much of the spirit of Roberts’s efforts.”13 After some de-
nunciation of Smith’s geological sources, Talmage “made it clear to his
assembled brethren that all reputable geologists recognized the existence
both of death and ‘pre-Adamites’ prior to 6,000 years ago, the presumed
date of the fall of Adam.”14 Smith of course disagreed, but the First
Presidency took a position of neutrality by stating:
The statement made by Elder Smith that the existence of pre-Adamites
is not a doctrine of the Church is true. It is just as true that the statement:
‘There were not pre-Adamites upon the earth’ is not a doctrine of the
Church. Neither side of the controversy has been accepted as a doctrine
at all.
Both parties make the scripture and the statements of men who have
been prominent in the affairs of the Church the basis of their contention; nei-
ther has produced definite proof in support of his views. . . .
Upon the fundamental doctrines of the Church we are all agreed. Our
mission is to bear the message of the restored gospel to the people of the
11. Ibid., 65.
12. Joseph Fielding Smith, “Faith Leads to a Fulness of Truth and Righteousness,”
Utah Genealogical and Historical Magazine 21 (Oct. 1930): 145-58; quoted in Jeffery, “Seers,
Savants and Evolution,” 63.
13. Sherlock and Keller, “We Can See No Advantage,” 98.
14. Ibid., 99.

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Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought
world. Leave Geology, Biology, Archaeology and Anthropology, no one of
which has to do with the salvation of the souls of mankind, to scientific re-
search, while we magnify our calling in the realm of the Church. . . . 15
The brethren thus suggested that Smith and Roberts drop the issue.
Talmage, who had not been part of the publication committee which had
reviewed and rejected Roberts’s book, was now drawn into the discussion
because the issue was brought before the entire Quorum of the Twelve.16
Talmage had devoted much of his adult life to harmonizing science
and religion. In 1884, while attending John Hopkins University, Talmage
listened to a Methodist preacher denounce the “evils of Darwinism.” Fol-
lowing the lecture, Talmage wrote in his journal: “ ‘[B]elief in a loving
God perfectly accords with my reverence for science, and I can see no
reason why the evolution of animal bodies cannot be true—as indeed the
facts of observation make it difficult to deny—and still the soul of man is
of divine origin.’ ”17 Following his college years, Talmage seems to have
eventually rejected the evolution of man for lack of evidence, but not for
any scriptural reasons. He did, however, believe in pre-Adamites.
Taking a position of neutrality, the First Presidency requested that
the issue be dropped from public discourse. James Talmage, who was at
the meeting in which the presidency discussed their decision, wrote in
his diary: “This is one of the many things upon which we cannot speak
with assurance and dogmatic assertions on either side are likely to do
harm rather than good.”18 Unfortunately, Smith’s talk—and position—
had already been published, and Talmage, as well as others, found that
many students “ ‘inferred from Elder Smith’s address that the Church re-
fuses to recognize the findings of science if there be a word in scriptural
record in our interpretation of which we find even a seeming conflict
with scientific discoveries or deduction, and that therefore the “policy”
of the Church is in effect opposed to scientific research.’ ”19 In fact, Tal-
mage recorded in his journal that an unnamed member of the First Pres-
idency felt that “ ‘sometime, somewhere, something should be said by
one or more of us to make plain that the Church does not refuse to recog-
nize the discoveries and demonstrations of science, especially in relation
to the subject at issue.’ ”20
15. Quoted in Jeffery, “Seers, Savants and Evolution,” 64.
16. Jeffrey E. Keller, “Discussion Continued: The Sequel to the Roberts/Smith/Tal-
mage Affair,” Dialogue 15 (Spring 1982): 81.
17. Ibid., 81.
18. April 7, 1931, reprinted in The Essential James E. Talmage, ed. James P. Harris (Salt
Lake City: Signature, 1997), 237.
19. Talmage Journals, Nov. 21, 1931, quoted in Keller, “Discussion Continued,” 84.
20. Keller, “Discussion Continued,” 84.

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Ash: The Mormon Myth of Evil Evolution
25
In August 1931, that “something” came from James Talmage. The ge-
ologist-trained apostle delivered a talk in the tabernacle entitled “The
Earth and Man,” wherein he discussed “fossil remains of plants and ani-
mals” which, according to scientists, point to “a very definite order in the
sequence of life embodiment.” “These primitive species,” explained Tal-
mage, “were aquatic; land forms were of later development. Some of
these simpler forms of life have persisted until the present time, though
with great variation as the result of changing environment.” Talmage
also referred to the studies of geologists which demonstrated that “very
simple forms of plant and animal bodies were succeeded by others more
complicated; and in the indestructible record of the rocks they read the
story of advancing life from the simple to the more complex, from the
single-celled protozoan to the highest animals.” While never directly
mentioning evolution, Talmage’s choice of words suggests he was open
to the possibility. As for the beginning of mankind, Talmage wrote: “In
due course came the crowning work of this creative sequence, the advent
of man!”
While Talmage did believe in pre-Adamites, he wasn’t as sure re-
garding the connection between these beings and “man.” He said he did
not regard “Adam as related to—certainly not as descended from—the
Neanderthal, the PG Cro-Magnon, the Peking or the Piltdown man.” Tal-
mage also recognized that we did not, as yet, have all the information.
“Discrepancies that trouble us now will diminish as our knowledge of
pertinent facts is extended. The creator has made record in the rocks for
man to decipher; but He has also spoken directly regarding the main
stages of progress by which the earth has been brought to be what it is.
The accounts can not be fundamentally opposed; one can not contradict
the other; though man’s interpretation of either may be seriously at
fault.”21
After much discussion among the brethren (during which Talmage
sent a letter to John A. Widtsoe, who replied with words of encourage-
ment), and following a few minor modifications, Talmage’s talk was
printed in the November 1931 Deseret News, as well as in a separate
church pamphlet at about the same time (the “pamphlet” was referred to
in the original Deseret News article). It was reprinted again in the Decem-
ber Millennial Star. Then, in December 1965 and January 1966, it was
printed as a two-part article in the Instructor.
Accounts vary as to what directive, if any, Talmage had been given
concerning the topic, content, and publication of his talk. Historian
21. James A. Talmage, “The Earth and Man,” address delivered in the Tabernacle, Salt
Lake City, Utah, Sunday, August 9, 1931; also available on-line at
http://www.fri.com/~allsop/eyring-l/faq/evolution/Talmage/1931.html

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Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought
James B. Allen believes that Talmage gave his talk “at the request of the
First Presidency.”22 According to Talmage’s diary, President Anthony W.
Ivins (first counselor in the First Presidency) as well as three other mem-
bers of the Council of the Twelve—including Joseph Fielding Smith—
were present during his talk. And while the brethren recognized that
Talmage’s remarks were contrary to Smith’s earlier address, the other
brethren (excepting Smith) expressed their “tentative approval” of what
Talmage said in the address.23
However, in 1935 President Heber J. Grant and his two councilors
sent a reply to Sterling Talmage, son of (now deceased) James Talmage,
claiming that it was President Ivins (also now deceased) who disagreed
with the view of Joseph Fielding Smith and who had arranged for Tal-
mage to deliver his talk in a meeting over which Ivins presided. Accord-
ing to this letter, Grant claimed that all but one of the Quorum of the
Twelve were against publishing Talmage’s talk. Finally, however, Ivins
saw to the printing of the address without the consent of President
Grant. Grant was quick to point out in his letter that he was not con-
demning the material in Talmage’s lecture, but rather that the address
was not officially sanctioned by the church. “This does not mean that his
[Talmage’s] views are not orthodox,” wrote the First Presidency, “they
may or may not be; it only means that whether or not, they are not the of-
ficial utterances of the Church and are not binding upon the Church and
stand only as the well-considered views of a scholar and an apostle of
the Church.”24
This letter to Sterling Talmage suggests that the publication of Tal-
mage’s talk was not only opposed by most of the brethren, but had been
published without the consent of the First Presidency. However, this con-
tradicts James Talmage’s diary entry on November 21, wherein he
recorded that his address had “come under consideration. . .investiga-
tion. . .[and] discussion” by the “First Presidency and the Council of the
Twelve.” Talmage wrote in his diary that “the majority of the Twelve have
been in favor of the publication of the address from the time they first
took it under consideration.”25 Reed Smoot’s journal likewise mentioned
that a “majority” of the brethren favored printing the lecture with some
minor changes.26 Even Rudger Clawson’s official report recorded that
22. James B. Allen, “The Story of The Truth, The Way, The Life,” BYU Studies 33 (1993):
727.
23. April 5, 1930; reprinted in Harris, The Essential Talmage, 239.
24. Reprinted in Sterling B. Talmage, Can Science Be Faith-Promoting?, ed. Stan Larson
(Salt Lake City: Blue Ribbon Books, 2001), 245.
25. April 5, 1930; in Harris, The Essential Talmage, 239; emphasis added.
26. Keller, “Discussion Continued,” 39.

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Ash: The Mormon Myth of Evil Evolution
27
after Talmage agreed to make some modifications, the brethren adopted
a motion to publish the address.27 Finally, President Grant’s own diary
entry of November 17, 1931, contradicts his 1935 letter by noting that
“ ‘we. . .authorized its [Talmage’s address] publication and also gave au-
thorization for it to be printed in the same form as the radio addresses,
for distribution.’ ”28
There are various theories as to why the accounts differ, but in the
end we just don’t know why there appear to be conflicting stories. When
President Grant sent this letter to Sterling Talmage in 1935 (four years
after his father’s tabernacle address), James Talmage and the two origi-
nal First Presidency councilors—Ivins and Charles Nibley—had all since
passed away. Perhaps the accounts conflict due to failing recollection
over the passage of time. Regardless, Talmage’s presentation and publi-
cation of “The Earth and Man” was the only exposition of a Quorum
member to have been reviewed and approved by at least some, if not all,
of the First Presidency, and then published officially by the church.
Meanwhile John Widtsoe had also taken interest in the topic of evo-
lution. In 1927, Widtsoe gave a lecture at an outdoor institute for church
school educators. One participant recorded:
Brother John A. Widtsoe had courses, trying to provide these seminary men
with a rational perspective on the relation of science and religion. . . .[Widt-
soe] converted me to the biological theory of evolution. . . .I thought. . .that
the theory of evolution was cut and dried. But Brother Widtsoe in his very
tentative and very cautious way didn’t openly advocate it, but presented the
theory so basically and so logically that, in part, it lead to my accepting [it].29
In 1934, three years after Talmage’s tabernacle address, Widtsoe
wrote a letter to Sterling Talmage:
It is very likely that the time is ripe for someone to begin right now to
prepare a wise, temperate, scientific statement on the doctrine of evolution,
not forgetting the relationship of the doctrine to other good gospel doctrines.
Our own views [Widtsoe and Sterling Talmage] with respect to evolution are
fairly well known. Evolution as a law seems to me to have been demon-
strated. Its metes [measures] and bounds are gradually being determined.
As for the origin of man, or the origin of animals, or the origin of
27. Ibid., 86-87.
28. Heber J. Grant Diary, 16 and 17 November 1931, according to typescript in Strack
Collection; quoted by Stan Larson, ed., in Talmage, Can Science Be Faith Promoting?, lviii
(emphasis added).
29. “The Twentieth Annual Convention of Teachers in the Schools and Seminaries of
the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints,” 21-22 Oct. 1925, Brimhall Papers, quoted
in Bergera and Priddis, BYU: A House of Faith, 150.

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Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought
anything else, I do not see that science has given us any satisfactory answer
so far. I accept without reservation the doctrine that man was a preexistent
being who came to earth to inhabit a mortal body. How the body was created
has not, as far as I know, been revealed to man.30
In another letter to Sterling three months later, Widtsoe added that
he was cautious about the evolution of species, and he would “hold [his]
judgement with respect to the origin of man in suspense” because “exist-
ing facts” did not satisfy his mind. Nevertheless, “[i]t would not hurt my
feelings at all if in the wisdom of the Almighty the body of man was pre-
pared in just the way you [Sterling] outline in your article [“Is Evolution
a Faith-Promoting Principal?”], and then that the spirit of man, the eter-
nal ego, was placed within the body so prepared.”31
The church’s decision to remain neutral on the topic of evolution
prevented all of the brethren from getting church approval to publish
anything official on the issue. Related topics, however, including the
controversy over the age of the Earth, continued to appear in the official
LDS magazine, the Improvement Era. By at least 1939, some of the maga-
zine’s articles began to discuss, once again, pre-Adamites and evolution.
In 1943, Widtsoe published his Evidences and Reconciliations, wherein he
wrote:
The law of evolution or change may be accepted fully. . . .It is nothing more
or less than the gospel law of progress or its opposite. . . .The theory of
evolution which may contain practical truth, should be looked upon as one
of the changing hypotheses of science, man’s explanation of a multitude
of observed facts. It would be folly to make it the foundation of a life’s
philosophy.32
Widtsoe was also involved in writing several such articles for the
Era. One such article, printed in 1948, was titled “Were There Pre-
Adamites?” In this article, Widtsoe continued to remain cautious as to
the creation of man, but wrote, “[I]t must also be admitted that no one
can safely deny that such manlike beings did at one time roam over the
earth. . . .How all this was accomplished is not known. The mystery of
the ‘creation’ of Adam and Eve has not yet been revealed.”33
By 1952 the LDS scientist-leaders who were open to the possibility of
evolution had all passed away, including James Talmage (died 1933),
30. April 20, 1934, reprinted in Talmage, Can Science Be Faith-Promoting?, 222-23.
31. July 17, 1934, reprinted in ibid., 228-29.
32. John A. Widtsoe, Evidences and Reconciliations, 156.
33. John A. Widtsoe, “Evidences and Reconciliations,” Improvement Era, May 1948,
205.

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