Back when their views on the subject really mattered to me--really the only aspect that generally concerns me now is how much fun I can poke at their nonsense--which was when I was a high schooler, Joseph Fielding Smith had just succeeded David O. McKay as LDS president.
McKay probably believed in evolution of sorts; Fielding Smith obviously didn't. His book, "Man, His Origin and Destiny" was in the high school library, and I managed to get through it (better than I did with the Book of Mormon, which I still regard as horribly written). The claim was made that without Adam's fall, which evolution precluded, Christ's atonement was meaningless, as was the LDS plan of salvation.
Smith's tenure as LDS supreme leader was short, and his pronouncements on the subject were never "canonized as scripture." This despite what a very-TBM friend said to me, "When he speaks, it is with the voice of God" or something to that effect...
I'm sure those who've exited the church more recently can offer some reports on the subject of Darwin evolution as expressed in various EQ's and such... I would suspect some roundly dismiss the notion, and others hold to some sort of "guided evolution" (probably what McKay believed). I'm also sure some just keep their mouths shut and go with prevailing winds.
Here's a link to a history of BYU's "Evolution Controversy" that involved the firing of three professors around 1911, which arose out of a conflict with the superintendent of LDS education, Horace Hall Cummings...
http://www.signaturebookslibrary.org/harmony/chapter3.htmBear in mind at this time that Fielding Smith's father, Joseph F. Smith, was LDS President, and the younger Smith was already working in the church history department and was called as an apostle in 1910. He became church historian in 1921. So even though two generations had passed, events in the 1960's still had strong connections to this era...
Some noteworthy extractions from the Signature history...
>Four years after assuming the presidency of Brigham Young University in 1903, George H. Brimhall embarked on an ambitious plan "to include in [his] faculty … the best scholars of the church." LDS leaders had only recently upgraded their Provo, Utah, academy to university status, and the fifty-five-year-old Utah Valley educator was anxious to improve his school's largely home-spun faculty. Brimhall's initial coup was hiring in 1907 BYU's first Ph.D., Joseph Peterson, to oversee the psychology department. Brimhall also succeeded that year in recruiting Peterson's younger brother, Henry, who held a master's degree from Harvard, to supervise the school's College of Education.
>The following year, Brimhall convinced twenty-eight-year-old Ralph V. Chamberlin, chair of the University of Utah's biology department and dean of its medical school, to join the growing faculty. Upon his arrival Chamberlin was made head of the biology department, and in 1909 his brother, William Henry, was also hired. Trained in modern and ancient languages and theology, William taught classes in psychology, philosophy, and languages. In addition to their regular assignments, the Petersons and William Chamberlin, three of the most highly credentialed Utah academics of their day, were appointed to the part-time theology faculty.
The superintendant of church schools, Horace Hall Cummings, was a largely self-educated sort, who "had concluded from his own unsuccessful attempt to study in the east during the 1880s with church support that 'previous faithfulness and good character [are] no assurance against' the loss of one's faith. Cummings's career in church education had been foretold by the widow of a church apostle who had blessed him in tongues that he 'should visit the stakes of Zion, establishing and setting in order educational institutions in them.' Like his mentor and career church educator, Karl G. Maeser, Cummings had remained within the ranks of the church school system, convinced that its value lay in spiritual and moral rather than intellectual development."
Enter dat debul Darwin...
>Reportedly responding to complaints from as far away as Mexico, Cummings visited BYU in late November 1910 to evaluate the situation. He subsequently reported to the LDS board of education that a number of teachers were "applying the evolutionary theory and other philosophical hypotheses to principles of the gospel and to the teachings of the church in such a way as to disturb, if not destroy, the faith of the pupils." The board, allegedly "thunderstruck" at the report, instructed Cummings to "make a thorough investigation of conditions.
I'll leave the rest to readers to delve into the particulars, although here's a bit of a spoiler...
>One week later to the day the three professors were summoned to Salt Lake City. "We suddenly were brought out into a room," wrote Chamberlin, "with six of the top dignitaries of the [p.29] church there to try us. We were, as they say, flabbergasted." Chamberlin was charged with "teaching evolution," which he did not deny. The three men asked for a copy of the charges against them but were refused. They were, however, aware of the substance of Cummings's report and the broad issues under discussion. All "frankly acknowledged" belief in biblical criticism and "absolute certainty as to the truth of evolution."
While I was revisiting the Signature site to retrieve this story (I should probably write something up for Eric to archive), I ran across some modern attempts by "LDS Scholars" to reconcile church teachings and evolution. Here's one...
http://signaturebooks.com/2010/11/excerpt-evolution-and-mormonism/Note that Jeffery's treatise makes no mention of the BYU events described, and on that one I suggest he should be convicted of conduct unbecoming of a scholar and flogged accordingly.
And incredibly, he sings the praises of two contemporary LDS academics...
>Trent Stephens and Jeff Meldrum are both established research scientists. Their undergraduate careers at Brigham Young University exposed them early to the details of Mormonism’s history with science and religion.
RFM readers who've been here for any length of time will recognize that Jeffery Meldrum has indeed gained a great deal of stature and notoriety as a scholar...
He is widely regarded as the world's leading authority on Bigfoot...