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Warner Brethren

The Joseph Smith Tsunami Rescue Brigade of 2005 by Professor Warner Woodworth -- Read Article Here

Congratulations to professor Woodworth and all those involved in the Wave of Hope project. More projects of this nature are needed throughout the world, and I hope they receive church financial backing as saints volunteer to go and serve the poor and less fortunate — especially those whose lives and livings have been devastated by hurricanes, tsunamis and the like. I hope the word gets out to LDS young people to join in, in large numbers.

What a great Christmas story: Love one another as I have loved you!!

Frank McLeskey
Fairfax Station, Virginia

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Saints and Science

Does God have a place in science? How should science and religion interact? By John P. Pratt -- Read Article Here

I am an LDS scientist who has spent a lifetime in the research laboratory.  With a Ph. D. in organic chemistry, I lived in the world of synthetic chemistry making new compounds to enhance our lives.  I think Dr. Pratt has a good feel for the controversy of Science vs. Religion, but I feel he is trying to make simple a complex subject.   As a former bishop, stake president and mission president, I have experienced first hand that God's laws are the same in both religion and science.  I can tell you with certainty that many scientific laws exist and they are God's laws and are NOT theories.  Water boils and freezes at the same temperature, if other conditions are the same, for God and man. That is not a theory.  Keeping God's commandments, brings blessings of health and happiness! That is not a theory.  Commandments are laws.  Scientific laws are also like commandments. If we only knew all the laws of God, we would know the laws of science.    

First, evolution is not just a theory. I know that for scientific fact. There are natural and spiritual laws governing how evolution takes place.  I have observed first hand in the laboratory, evolution taking place in living organisms.  It is not just a theory.  It happens. I have seen it with my eyes. Second, the earth was not created in 6,000 years.  I have been involved in Carbon 14 dating and have traced the radioactive decay of the carbon 14 atom.  That is a law of science and a law of God.  Third, time is a dimension of our mortal life and is certainly a dimension of science of which we have no knowledge beyond our earthly reason. 

Yet, I do not doubt that God organized the earth.  I will not be surprised that when I pass through the veil that I will find that many of us who are scientists also assisted in the earth's creation.  But whether we did or did not, many of the scientific discoveries I have made, and they are not few, are only things that I feel were "brought to my remembrance" by the Holy Ghost. "All truth is circumscribed in one whole."

I do not presume to tell the Creator what methods he used to create the earth, or people it.  I only know that He was and is in charge. If we only step back and have faith, the Spirit will bring us new understanding that there is no conflict between true religion and true science. It is all one truth.  As a scientist, Sec. 93 of the Doctrine and Covenants has brought me greater understanding of this great principle.

Dr. N. Lee Allphin
Stark City, Missouri

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You ask, "Does God have a place with science?"  To me, the question should be:  "Does science have a place with God?"

Thank you f or all your thought-provoking articles.  There are so many of us out here in cyberland who really appreciate them.

Ruth di Francesco
Kooskia, Idaho

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There is Science, and there is Revealed Religion. They are distinct, and I think John Pratt has described them pretty well. There is very little overlap between them because (a) most revelations among scientists are not recognized as such, but are arrogantly and ignorantly attributed to the genius of men, (b) in practical matters there doesn't need to be much overlap, since science deals mostly with things man, with effort, and with the facilitation of the Light of Christ, can do for himself, (c) traditional science loathes the questions, and even more the answers, that arise from revelation, and traditional religionists these days neglect to claim the provinces of science, so they mostly respect each other's "turf", (d) the only real way that science and religion can overlap is to do so in the same person.

There are very few willing to pay the price to become scientists, even fewer willing to pay the price to become prophets. Individuals willing and able to pay the price to become both at the same time is extremely rare indeed. And (e) those few who do achieve success in both ways of acquiring Truth are usually taken out of the picture one way or another, so they cannot perturb the Lord's timetable.

Everyone else, the non-scientists and the non-seers, are left to form their own opinions of things, which they usually do by taking a little of this, a little of that, a little science, a little religion, and mushing it together in a concoction of belief (which is held in the mind the same way any other superstition would be held) that relieves the owner of the pain of not knowing, the guilt of not caring, and the embarrassment of not doing anything about it.

Of this alloy are those who believe God created the world, but used the mechanisms and timescales of the theory of organic evolution to do it. It matters not how many bishops trained in the public schools emerge from the endowment ceremony still believing in evolution: it remains a lousy theory, being deficient in most of the characteristics of a good scientific theory, and they remain unenlightened by the creation revelations that have fallen to the floor before the veil uncomprehended in their presence. Science says the world condensed, self-assembled, and evolved. Revealed Religion says it was ordered and planted. Hybrid concepts, regardless of their appeal, do not partake of the virtues of both, but are neither Science nor Gospel, being disowned by the first, and unable to save.

So I will tell you what I think — my own hybrid, if you will. I think it is all an act; a play; a dramatization. Life is a field trip for 80 billion students. The War in Heaven may or may not have been staged, but its continuation here is staged, down to the last detail; the rise and fall of kingdoms, the waxing and waning of plagues, both ideological and microbial, the tectonic creaks and volcanic groans, and whether you slip and break your leg — it is all orchestrated, to achieve a constellation of purposes.

Somewhere transcendently far away, and transcendently long ago, life emerged as the outworking of an elemental intelligence and consciousness. When the uppermost organism had acquired the characteristics of homo sapiens there was a breakthrough. Somehow someone punched through to the infinite, got above time, gained access to the other dimensions — whatever it consisted of. When that happened lives of eternal duration began, all knowledge was acquired as if in a unified theory and exercised in the ultimate quantum mind, and physical evolution of the body ceased. It was not morphologically perfect, but it was perfect enough, and would serve all future generations for ever.

Life for that civilization turned a corner, and thereafter their time and progress was occupied with populating the universe with their own children — who would come to live on that plane, but would need an appreciation of all that had gone before. Hence, this world; this highly structured, hidden classroom of the primordial struggle. This built, synchronized, engineered, optimized, obedient, planted, watched-over paradise at the living room window of the universe, where we can participate in the re-enactment of all the great ordeals that the first ancestors ascended, a million or an unknown number of generations ago, while practicing love, forgiveness, faith, and holiness. Here we experience, here we are trained, here we are culled out as being unsuited to the purposes of the First Generation.

It is scientifically in vogue to attribute consciousness to computational complexity. To me that is nonsense. Either the experience of consciousness is a property of matter, or it doesn't matter how much matter you lump together, or how you arrange it, you will not have created consciousness. The Turing test is not helpful. Behavior, no matter how sophisticated, is not consciousness. The self-awareness of a Cray is not minuscule, it is zero. Consciousness the experience is the mystery. Scientists are now grappling with it, but they have not touched it; and I believe they will not touch it until a new element (for which we already have a name) is introduced which is not now to be found on the landscape of science.

There is a darker question. Why are we here learning patience? Why are we learning endurance, and courage, and war? It is not an answer to say that Lucifer causes war. Lucifer is a pawn. War is on the agenda. Courage is on every exam. Suffering and fear and heartbreak and struggle and bondage and loss — occupy a central place in the curriculum of every student, and have for six thousand screaming orbits of our little blue stage. Why? Can it be that it is more than an exercise in appreciation for the maturation of God's pampered children? Can it be that when we awaken from this sheltered incubation of mortality, we will need the inner steel of the warrior's spirit for some blindingly terrifying ongoing siege that occupies the Celestial realm?

Eric M. Palmer

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Your assertion that "science far outweighs philosophy" is interesting to me.

If you narrowly define science to only include immediately verifiable postulated outcomes, then it's clear that the scientific method, as a tool, is superior to mere logic.  Heaven forbid that man should have had to invent the television strictly through rational thinking, without ever being able to test assumptions.

The problem is that the world understands "science" to exist within a much broader sphere.  So-called science is invoked to explain and justify things which are inherently immeasurable and untestable, such as how old certain things are, how distant other things are, and what exactly caused certain things to happen (when we weren't there to observe).  Spontaneous generation and organic evolution certainly top this list, but there are many other things on it as well, such as the distances and composition of stars, the age of the earth, the causes of the earth's supposed greenhouse effect, and so on.

None of these is considered a topic of philosophy; all fall under the realm of science, yet that part of the scientific method which calls for a strictly-constructed model to be validly used only to make future, testable predictions, ends up taking on a life of its own, asserting all manner of claims, none of which could ever really be tested, to try to explain the results of the model.  These claims are based solely on man's faulty logic, yet they're treated by many scientists as absolutes, to be questioned or challenged only by idiots.

On the other hand, philosophy has proven invaluable in seeking truths in areas where science proves useless, such as defining morality, the meaning of life, the nature of faith, and the rights and duties of man.  It's true that without science we'd be lost as a society; without philosophy, we'd be equally lost.  There would be no constitution, no democracy, no free market system (and admittedly, no Marxism or communist manifesto, either).

My point is that philosophy and science are different tools that should be used for different purposes; it's useless (and misleading) to claim that one is superior to the other.  Of course, revealed religion is the end-all and trumps them both; but, as you suggest, God's probably not interested in revealing exactly how to create an iPod, nor does he plan to indicate exactly which political candidates we should vote for next November.  We'll need to rely on science and philosophy, respectively, to make these determinations for ourselves.

You stipulate that "the difference between science and religion is not the subject matter they discuss."  Again I beg to differ.  While as you said the Lord may freely discuss any topic, including astronomy, that he wishes to discuss, I think it's foolish for science to seek to answer questions on topics for which the scientific method cannot be used.  When scientists venture beyond saying, for example, "we've found some pre-hominid remains and predict that we'll find some more," they're staying within the bounds of their discipline, just as when they say "we think these improvements will make this microprocessor measurably faster and smaller."  But to then delve into lengthy theoretical explanations of random mutations between species, the spontaneity of the generation of life, and the circumstantial happenstance of making order from chaos, not to mention tactics such as using half-lives to justify calling the earth billions of years old, or claiming that observed telescopic light proves how many light years apart the galaxies are, is, in my mind, akin to using science to explain love or art or honor.  One must use the proper tool for the job at hand.

If there's one thing that's been consistent throughout the ages with respect to science, it's that scientists always eventually prove themselves wrong.  As more data become available, old theories and "facts" are discarded along the wayside, and man shifts into a new mindset, certain that this one is absolute and irrefutable and will never be challenged or changed.  Irrespective of the age, man always thinks that all previous generations were naive, and that contemporary thought is the be-all and the end-all, as good as it's going to get.  Quite a shaky foundation upon which to stake one's beliefs regarding eternity, if you stop and think about it.

Perry Shumway
Soda Springs, Idaho

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End of an Era

Pulitzer Prize Winner, Jack Anderson: Celebrating America’s Premier Muckraker, by Mark Feldstein -- Read Article Here

I am an advertising/communications graduate (`89) from BYU and have been in the newspaper business for 16 years.  The most memorable talk I heard at the Y was when Jack Anderson addressed the college.

He was a great, passionate speaker.

He spoke about the Book of Mormon prophesies of and told us the Gadianton robbers would again be a force in the last days.  However, when he told us that the Gadiantons would not be the mafia or some other underworld organized crime; it would be the U.S. Government, the audience’s eyes were as big as saucers.

Ron Lee

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Thank you for the article regarding a valiant American and friend.  I noticed the obituary in the Provo Daily Herald that was a complete disservice to one who did so much to keep politics "clean."  It was only mentioned under the heading of national deaths in an obscure corner of the obituary page, I am sure missed by most all.  I guess this happens when the newspaper staff gets younger as we get older and then they only follow certain pre-determined agendas.

Jeffrey Bleyl
Spring City, Utah

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Sick Humor

Yours, Mine and Ours — A Pleasant Family Diversion, by Orson Scott Card -- Read Article Here

A good, useful review.  I agree that Dennis Quaid has never been treated as the major talent that he is [did the powers-that-be never watch Undercover Blues, where he bickered and bantered so delightfully with Kathleen Turner?].

I also tired rapidly of the slime factor.  Once was more than enough; barf is only funny to those who have never had to clean up a spectacularly ill child at 2:00 a.m. (i.e., most adolescent males and the scriptwriters who write for them).

Still, I enjoyed the movie.

Lynn Elliott Cary
Arlington, Texas

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Payne-ful Kick

Read Article Here

The Gift Book, by Marvin Payne

Thanks!  What a kick. 

Karen Buker
Anacortes, Washington

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Kathy Green teaches writing and editing classes for the North Idaho College workforce training center, and "The Lives of the Prophets" to her twelve-year-olds in Sunday school. She has six kids, all keepers, and is currently knitting a blanket for her 11th grandchild, who is due in August. Like most of the Meridian staff, she is a published author; but she is struggling to put together her journal and family history, and stands in awe of those of our readers who are way ahead of her there.