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Mormonism Unearthed: Part 3 of 3

Thursday, November 29th, 2007

Most Mormons participate in a Temple Endowment Ceremony, which they hold to be very sacred. At the time Joseph Smith introduced this endowment ordinance, he was an active Mason. Many scholars have noted the strong resemblance between this ceremony and Masonic ritual.1

In 1990, the Church changed or omitted many parts of the original script of the endowment ceremony, but until that time its resemblance to the Masonic Initiators Ceremony was striking. Some of the similarities include: ritual anointing of body parts, a drama representing a spiritual journey, bestowal of a secret name, special garments worn including temple robes and aprons, secret handshakes and tokens, promises to fulfill moral obligations, sworn penalty oaths, progression through three degrees toward perfection, and the word exalted to signify becoming kings in connection with the Royal Arch degree. Smith also used many Masonic symbols such as the beehive, the all-seeing eye, the clasped hands, two triangles forming a six-pointed star, and the sun, moon, and stars. The Masonic square and compass are cut into the temple garment on the breast and a slash is made across the knee. There is also a slash in the garment across the abdomen, symbolic of the disemboweling that would be the fate of anyone who reveals the sacred oaths.2

In the early days of the Mormon Church, Freemasonry was considered by the public to be an elite institution. Joseph Smith’s father and brother were both prominent Masons, and many of the other early members of the Mormon Church became Masons as well. Smith wrote: “In the evening I received the first degree in Freemasonry in the Nauvoo Lodge.” The next day he stated: “I was with the Masonic Lodge and rose to the sublime degree.”3 The degree he refers to is Master Mason, the highest degree of Freemasonry. Seven weeks after his Masonic initiation, Smith established his own Temple Endowment Ceremony by performing the ritual himself. Early Mormons were quite open about the connection between the endowment ceremony and Masonry.

In 1827, Capt. William Morgan, who had become disillusioned with Freemasonry, published a book entitled Freemasonry Exposed. In it, he gave a detailed description of Masonic ceremonies, complete with illustrations. Three months later, Morgan was murdered, allegedly by members of his own lodge, provoking an anti-Masonic furor among the public. Tensions remained high over time, and as the Mormons began to gain prominence in Masonry, the public began to relate them as two parts of one cultish secret society. When Smith established his Temple Endowment Ceremony, he and other Mormons were expelled from the Masonic order for violating their oaths. Smith believed that the Masons had corrupted the ceremony by removing and changing parts that were originated by God in Solomon’s time. He believed his own version of the ceremony was divinely inspired and a restoration to the original and pure form of Adam’s time.4 Many of the men who later murdered Smith were identified as Masons. Eventually, the Grand Masonic Lodge of Utah publicly announced its anti-Mormon stance, and since that time many attempts have been made both by Mormons and Masons to downplay their relation.5

Capt. Morgan played another interesting role in the correlation between Mormonism and Masonry through his widow, Lucinda Pendleton Morgan. Despite vowing eternal widowhood, she married George W. Harris less than three years after her husband’s death, later converting with him to Mormonism. In 1838, while still married to Harris, Lucinda became one of the first plural wives of the prophet Joseph Smith. Mrs. Sarah Pratt, a great friend of Mrs. Harris, after being propositioned by Joseph Smith in 1842, related the following in an interview with W. Wyl: “When Joseph made his dastardly attempt on me, I went to Mrs. Harris to unbosom my grief to her. To my utter astonishment, she said, laughing heartily: “How foolish you are! Why, I am his mistress since four years.’”6

In Joseph Smith’s time racism was rampant, and when Joseph established his endowment ceremony he included the conditions that anyone with any known trace of black African ancestry, even if they were a worthy member of the Mormon Church, was not permitted to participate in the ceremony, nor even enter a Mormon temple. They also, as well as women, could not hold any position of leadership. (Women still cannot hold positions of any real authority today.) Joseph Smith taught that African Americans are the descendants of Cain.7 Brigham Young said, “Shall I tell you the law of God in regard to the African Race? If the white man who belongs to the chosen seed mixes his blood with the seed of Cain, the penalty, under the law of God, is death on the spot. This will always be so.” He also said “…if the priesthood was ever given to the Blacks, on that very day and hour, if we should do so, the priesthood will be taken from this church.”8 Joseph Fielding Smith said, “They are an inferior race, and their intelligence is stunted.” Apostle Bruce McConkie said, “The Negroes were less valiant in the preexistence, and therefore spiritually restricted.”

It wasn’t until 1978 that then President Kimball claimed to have received revelation overturning the Church’s 148-year-old policy against the ordination of Blacks. The Salt Lake Tribune reported that President Kimball refused to discuss this revelation, saying it was a personal thing. Kimball said, “The revelation came at this time because conditions and people have changed. It’s a different world than it was 20 or 25 years ago. The world is ready for it.”

-Laura

  1. Mormon America: The Power and the Promise, Richard Ostling, Joan K. Ostling. Harper Collins, 1999, p. 188 [<]
  2. Masonry & The Mormon Temple Ceremony Chapter XVIX [<]
  3. History of the Church, vol. 4, p. 552 [<]
  4. Mormon America: The Power and the Promise, Richard Ostling, Joan K. Ostling. Harper Collins, 1999, p. 194-5 [<]
  5. The Mormon Church and Freemasonry by Terry Chateau [<]
  6. No Man Knows My History by Fawn Brodie, p. 460. [<]
  7. Joseph Smith History, vol. 4, p. 501 [<]
  8. Brigham Young Addresses, p. 61 [<]

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Posted in Religion, Unearthed | 2 Comments »

Post Hoc vs The Finicky Chickens

Tuesday, November 27th, 2007

One of my favorite stories from the Roman era is that of the arrogant and quite unlucky (if you’re not superstitious) Publius Claudius Pulcher, a Roman consul who fought in the First Punic War. Pulcher set out with a fleet of ships to try to surprise the Carthaginian admiral and his fleet at Drepranum. Although Pulcher did gain the advantage of surprise, his inadequate leadership left the fleet trapped in the harbor, and it suffered the worst naval defeat in that war, losing at least 93 ships. The surviving ships ended up shipwrecked, and Pulcher was later tried for incompetence and heavily fined.1

Historians and naval battle experts could toil for years over what went wrong with what should have been an easy Roman victory. However, there’s no need. We already have all the answers, and, of course, they’re the same answers to all our questions. Which then prompts the question, why do we even bother?

The “real” reason Pulcher was defeated so severely was that prior to the battle, Pulcher consulted with the sacred chickens, and he didn’t like the response. According to Roman tradition, caged sacred chickens were to be examined prior to a battle to determine the will of the gods. If the chickens ate offered feed, the gods favored battle. If they didn’t eat, going into battle would be a pretty bad idea. Pulcher’s chickens did not eat. Pulcher, angered by the sacred chickens, hurled their cages, chickens and all, into the sea, yelling, “If they won’t eat, let them drink!” Pulcher was fined specifically because of his disrespect toward the will of the gods, and the idea that if he had only listened to the chickens, he would not have suffered the loss.

This superstitious attitude did not die out with the Romans. Today, we are constantly bombarded with accusations that certain events would not have occurred were it not for our alleged disobedience of divine command. This is done with varying degree, ranging from allegations that allowing homosexuality to flourish in the United States was the cause of the death and destruction of 9/11,2

to cubicle-mates becoming irate over a co-worker not desiring to say “Bless you” after someone sneezed, lest God punish the sneezer with a cold. Regardless of where the behavior falls upon the scale, it is irrational and illogical to attribute an incident to an alleged cause without linking the alleged cause and effect with more evidence than the mere observation that one happened before the other. That unsupported attribution is the post hoc, ergo propter hoc logical fallacy, often abbreviated as “post hoc.”3

The post hoc fallacy exists when a causal conclusion is based solely on the supposed cause preceding the effect.

Post hoc, in the Pulcher case, is manifest as a superstitious bias toward jumping to a conclusion based on a coincidence. All of this is examined after the fact, with a seemingly righteous 20/20 hindsight perspective. Ah, it’s obvious that Pulcher would have lost the battle because the chickens predicted as much! Or, more succinctly, as a result of the will of the gods being made clearly against battle, Pulcher lost the battle. One caused the other. Of course, even if the gods had favored the battle (or, more specifically, if the chickens ate), Pulcher would probably still have lost (if the conditions otherwise had not changed).

Some common examples of the way this fallacy is used and abused in our media and society:

  • Sex education causes promiscuity
  • Video games cause children to be violent
  • Prayer causes anything (lottery winning, healing, not getting caught running the red light… anything)
  • Going to church causes anything good to happen in one’s life
  • Missing church causes anything bad to happen in one’s life
  • Having a homosexual parent causes a child to become homosexual (even if it’s not a biological child)
  • Cursing causes the cursers and the listeners to be violent

There are many such examples. But there are also plenty of examples in which the effect has not yet happened, but, instead, is used as a threat. It certainly seems possible that reinforcement of existing alleged causal connections somehow strengthens the idea that a threatened effect is likely, at least to those who are easily swayed by such an abuse of logic. Examples of these threats are everywhere:

  • If you don’t do/believe X, you will burn in hell
  • If you don’t pray, you’ll make God sad. You’ll also make believers angry, and you’ll go to hell and burn.
  • If you do something I don’t like (somehow supported by my favorite ancient text), God will hate you, I’ll hate you on behalf of God, and you’ll burn in hell
  • The list goes on

Even if it’s not all fire and brimstone, any causal connection between an action or belief and a divine being’s judicial effect is unsupported by evidence. It is not only illogical to continue to make that false causal connection, but it is also what many would consider delusional. There is no more reason for someone to say, “I must not eat meat on Friday because it would offend God, as it is written,” than for someone else to say, “I must not step on a sidewalk crack lest it break my mother’s back.” If you did happen as a child to step on a sidewalk crack and then came home to find your mother had indeed fallen from the stairs and broken her back, you would probably have made a post hoc logical fallacy causal connection. It might take you years to grow out of the idea that you caused your mother to break her back by stepping on that crack, and perhaps you would never quite get over it. But it is that very childish superstition that is retained in believers ranging from the most mild to the most extreme — that there’s some supernatural greater being out there who accounts for every thought in every person’s head as it accounts for every grain of sand on every planet in every solar system in every galaxy in every universe in existence. It’s not a question of “Why would God break my mother’s back just because I stepped on a crack?” It’s rather a question of “Why would I, by default, attribute anything coincidental or anything I cannot otherwise quickly and easily explain to a supernatural, divine, or otherwise unnatural origin?”

What’s missing from the equation and from the general attitude of believers is a logical analysis of cause and effect. What needs to be distinguished is necessary versus sufficient condition. It’s logical to state that it is necessary that a cause precedes an effect. However, it’s not logical to state that merely because an event occurred prior to an effect that the event is the cause of the effect. That is because for the event to be a sufficient condition, it must be something that, if true, will result in the effect. If event P is true, then Q effect is true. If P then Q. So, what’s one of the most common logical fallacies used to justify religious faith? The formal logical fallacy called affirming the consequent,4 often abbreviated “miracle.” Spelled out in logic terms, looks like this:

If P then Q.
Q.
Therefore, P.

So, for example:

If prayer works (meaning prayer plus the existence of God), then Healing will occur.
Healing occurs.
Therefore, prayer works (and therefore God exists).

Although affirming the consequent is a fallacy, it’s one of the trickier in logic because if the consequent (Q) is actually true, that doesn’t necessarily mean P is not true. Quite often there’s a correlation (such as a coincidental proximity in time, or a consistency in occurrence) which makes it seem logical to assume that if the effect occurs, then it must be because of the purported cause.

Some examples of affirming the consequent:

  • If I were a vampire, I would have long nails. I have long nails. Therefore, I am a vampire.
  • If prayer works, then a prayed-for affliction would heal. A prayed-for affliction heals. Therefore, prayer works.
  • If I mowed the lawn, then the grass will be short. The grass is short. Therefore, I mowed the lawn.
  • If God exists, then Jesus could walk on water. Jesus walked on water. Therefore, God exists.
  • If God exists, God will represent images of Jesus or Mary on toast. Images of Jesus and Mary have been represented on toast. Therefore, God exists.

These might at first either sound trivial or quite convincing, especially when a concept supported by this invalid type of argument has been infused into culture for thousands of years. However, just because it sounds good, and just because it has tradition backing it does not mean that it is logical. It is important to note that assertions of this invalid argument are rarely made as straightforwardly as noted. Generally, the representation shifts the language. For example, the latter example would likely be stated: “I saw the image of Jesus on a piece of toast! It’s proof that God exists!” It’s the same argument as above, but presented in a way that attempts to be more convincing. “I prayed all night for my child’s fever to dissipate. This morning, the fever dissipated. That’s proof that prayer works.” Same argument, different (potentially intentionally misleading) presentation.

One might argue, correctly, that merely because it’s a fallacy does not negate the truth of the cause being the cause of the effect. Indeed, if a child’s fever dissipates after prayer, the healing could very well have occurred as a result of the praying. However, the argument doesn’t actually prove that. The reason this is a logical fallacy is that one may not use affirming the consequent as a means by which to prove that the purported cause is true merely because the effect is true. The way to prove P is to prove that Q could not have occurred but for P. In other words, one would have to rewrite the equation to read:

If Q, then P.
Q.
Therefore, P.

If there is prayer, there will be healing.
There is prayer.
Therefore, there will be healing.

If I have long nails, then I am a vampire.
I have long nails.
Therefore, I am a vampire.

Although these may look very similar to the logical fallacies above, they are not logical fallacies. This is because they are valid. If the premises are true, then the conclusion must be true. That’s what makes a valid argument.

Compare:

If I were a vampire, I would have long nails.
I have long nails.
to
If I have long nails, I would be a vampire.
I have long nails.

In the first instance, it is easy just to say, so what? According to that premise, plenty of non-vampires could still have long nails, and that wouldn’t make them vampires. However, in the second example, having long nails is a sufficient condition for being a vampire (at least according to the premise). So, if that premise were true, and I have long nails, then, indeed, I would be a vampire. If the first example’s premise were true, and I had long nails, I might or I might not be a vampire. The argument certainly would not confirm. What can be said about the latter argument — If I have long nails, then I am a vampire, I have long nails, therefore, I am a vampire — is that it is unsound. The reason it is unsound is that at least one premise is not true. I have long nails, but I am not a vampire, despite the fact that the premise says that if I have long nails, then I would be a vampire. It’s obviously wrong. Therefore, despite the validity of the argument, it’s not a good argument. A good argument exists when it is valid and the premises are true.

When someone states that healing having occurred after prayer was a result of prayer (and therefore implicitly or explicitly a result of a diving being granting the prayer), that person is manifesting the logical fallacies of post hoc and affirming the consequent, and is also using an unsound argument, because nothing in the argument confirms the veracity of the premise that prayer works or that God exists. We can determine the unsoundness of the valid prayer argument by praying for healing and not having healing occur. It’s unsound because the premise “if there is prayer, there will be healing” means exactly what it says: prayer manifests healing. If it doesn’t, then it’s false.

What generally happens at that stage of discussion is that a believer will state something to the effect of, “Prayer doesn’t work like that.” Or, “You’re not doing it right.” If that’s the case, then the premise must be properly adjusted to reflect how it works or how to do it right. Ultimately, purported miracles are not a good way to try to prove the existence of a very specific deity, for the believer will undoubtedly fall into a post hoc/affirming the consequent trap.

Whenever I encounter someone who leans so heavily on these false arguments as to live life by edicts that would perhaps be validated if the arguments were true, I generally respond, “Prove it.” If the discussion survives the cause/effect analysis above, I’m often given the imperative that I must disprove something — mostly, “Prove that this isn’t a miracle of God!” Then the discussion usually devolves into an argument regarding burden of proof — worthy of its own article on another day. In the meantime, remember Claudius Pulcher and his chickens that were probably just overfed by a disgruntled Roman soldier — don’t fall for the post hoc + affirming the consequent logical fallacy, regardless of which side you choose to represent.

-Procrustes

  1. Some greater details of the Pulcher story:
    http://www.barca.fsnet.co.uk/drepana-249bd.htm%5D [<]
  2. Falwell on 9/11:
    “I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People For the American Way, all of them who have tried to secularize America. I point the finger in their face and say ‘you helped this happen.’”, Falwell apologizes to gays, feminists, lesbians, September 14, 2001, CNN.com,
    http://archives.cnn.com/2001/US/09/14/Falwell.apology/

    Called 9/11 “God’s punishment”, Reverend Jerry Falwell Dead at 73, November 26, 2007, NY1 News,
    http://www.ny1.com/ny1/content/index.jsp?stid=1&aid=69715 [<]

  3. More about the post hoc fallacy:
    http://www.fallacyfiles.org/posthocf.html [<]
  4. More about the affirming the consequent fallacy:
    http://www.fallacyfiles.org/afthecon.html [<]

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Posted in Atheism, Logic, Morality, Religion | 3 Comments »

The Sacred Cow- Total Bull! Three Big Bright Books of the New Rational Activism

Monday, November 26th, 2007

We live in a post 9/11 world. Pre-9/11, public criticism of another person’s religious beliefs was strictly in the realm of the socially outrageous: provocateurs like George Carlin, Madonna, Sinead O’Connor, and self-proclaimed contrarians like Christopher Hitchens (who deserves his own book review). While the attacks on the US perpetrated by a relatively small group of Islamic fundamentalists were seen by many as a call to defend the US, many prominent thinkers saw it as a continuation of a disturbing pattern. Religious fundamentalists both in the United States and abroad, according to these thinkers, are waging a war on science and rational thought. Not only are they blowing up buildings, but they are also doing less obvious damage, by getting elected to school boards in order to prevent children from learning modern science and history. We cannot afford to stand idly by while those who cling to ancient superstition spread the gospel of willful ignorance and revisionist history, unchecked. Here are three big books in what promises to be a very long-term war of ideas and ideals:

Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon ISBN 0-670-03472 Penguin Group 2006

One of the best arguments against rational activism seems to be the abundance of the irrational around us. How do they thrive in society, when most of them are either too stubborn or clearly incapable of making sense of the universe? What makes people cling to superstition when there are better explanations at hand? Why do people turn to superstition in times of fear, anxiety, or when faced with danger? Why do some religious people spend so much time and energy, and indeed commit acts against their own moral codes in order to protect these beliefs? And why should secular folk not question the so-called moral authority of these ancient traditions?

Daniel Dennett, American Philosopher and Scholar at Tufts University, takes on the notion that religion is “off-limits” for scientific and philosophical scrutiny. Dennett discusses the natural, and yes, evolutionary reasons why human beings invent religions in nearly every culture in existence. The same inquisitive nature that allows man to understand nature also allows us to become overwhelmed with fear. The same essence in mankind that drives us to invent amazing technologies also allows us to invent supernatural explanations for natural phenomena long before we had the tools to discover better understanding. The same emotions that lead us to create sophisticated social networks also give us abundant reason to hope for connection with our loved ones after death.

From this revolutionary bit of poking at the sacred cow, Richard Dawkins goes one stepgod delusion further, to cow-tipping. Not satisfied with questioning the public ban on questioning the religious, he goes further, and calls them, well… nuts.

The God Delusion (2006) ISBN 0-618-68000-4

Richard Dawkins is an Evolutionary Biologist, Ethologist and the Chair for the Public Understanding of Science at the University of Oxford. He is also really tired of creationists inventing and repeating bad science like one of those inane chain e-mails you get from your well-intentioned neighbor about how Bill Gates is going to give you lots of money for forwarding an email to your friends and family. You know, the ones you disprove in three seconds of Google searching? Well, for rational activists who are not also evolutionary biologists, Richard Dawkins is Snopes.com, a one-man army, willing to dismiss the so-called arguments of creationists wherever he goes (and he goes just about everywhere) spreading the good news of science. Not only does he say we should question the superstitious, but that we all have a duty to point out the naked state of the Emperor.

Religion, he says, will destroy your mind and shrink your brain. Calling an argument with a creationist a debate is an insult to actual rational debate. Dawkins, as a quick trip to Youtube will show, is not afraid to exchange one-line demolitions of twisted creationist logic. That is all the oxygen that he is generally willing to spend in exchange with such people (with exceptions). However, the subject of this type of person is an entirely different story. In The God Delusion, Dawkins takes on the stereotype of the pessimistic, suicidal atheist. In fact, he argues, happiness in atheism is superior to happiness under a cloud of delusion, because those who reject superstition have independent thought and healthy attitudes. Dawkins also questions the common idea that it’s a good thing to give children religious training for the sake of ethics and morals. What’s so moral about lying to children? He points out. Religious education is indoctrination into a cult, and should be regarded as child abuse.

end of faithFrom cow-tipping to planning the barbecue, we come once again to Sam Harris, this time for the book that sparked the controversy that lead to one of the last books reviewed here, Letter to a Christian Nation. This book, of course, is The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason (2004) ISBN 0-393-03515-8. This book predates the other two in this series by a couple of years, but it is arguably the boldest of the three. Dennett invites people to question where they used to demure or defer. Dawkins, himself a brilliant scientist, is clearly annoyed at having to defend some of the most brilliant work of modern science from those who benefit from the fruits of and yet denounce it at every turn, as one can see from witnessing creationist youtube vloggers. Harris pulls no punches at all. He opens his call for the end of religion with a day in the life of a suicide bomber. He holds up this mirror to all religious fundamentalists, announcing- this is the natural extension of your beliefs. The Spanish Inquisition, Nazis, Suicide bombers and flying planes into buildings, these are the natural extensions of those who have the courage of their conventions.

Not only does Harris criticize the religious, but also anyone (including non-religious intellectuals such as Noam Chomsky) who fails to identify religion as a major factor in the world’s biggest problems. It is the indoctrination into illogic, into superstition and even allowing freedom of belief that “allows otherwise normal human beings to reap the fruits of madness and consider them holy.”

Harris advocates a societal abandonment (the kind that Christians are always accusing society of anyway) of religion, and demanding that within the realm of freedom of expression there is room for question, speculation and imagination, there is no room for tolerating dangerous superstitions that are, he says, on par with any other mental illness that leads people to commit atrocities. He constructs a rational ethical system, and also allows for the non-supernatural spirituality of enlightened eastern philosophies which advocate meditation and do not require god-belief. He makes a distinction between non-supernatural mysticism as within the realm of rationalism, but supernatural religious beliefs as being firmly outside of that realm, and not worthy of respect.

Any one of these books would be worthy of activist gift-giving. I myself will consider wrapping them in gold paper, as a poetic nod to the alchemy of turning Christmas back into the Yule from which it came.

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Mormonism Unearthed: Part 2 of 3

Thursday, November 22nd, 2007

Mormons view the Old and New Testaments as divinely inspired and also have additional books in their scriptural canon, i.e., the Book of Mormon (where the term Mormon is derived), the Doctrine and Covenants, and the Pearl of Great Price. The vast majority of the content found in these additional books was dictated by Joseph Smith, Jr., and nearly all his teachings had some root in the King James Version of the Bible, or his interpretation of it.1

The historicity of the Book of Mormon has been widely disputed. The consensus among geneticists is that the Native American people descended primarily from north-east Asian stock. However, the Book of Mormon says that the Native American people descended from groups of Semitic people, including Israelites, who emigrated from the Old World by ship. The book also refers to things such as steel, horses, and elephants that are not known to have existed in the New World at the relevant time.

Another point of contention is Smith’s method of translation. Among other artifacts found with the plates, Smith wrote of interpreting devices called the Urim and Thummim. He described them as a pair of stones, fastened to a breastplate joined in a form similar to that of a large pair of spectacles. The Urim and Thummim, or “seer stones,” are what Joseph claims to have used to interpret the writings on the plates.2 Joseph’s first wife, Emma, was the first person to act as his scribe. She later recounted the following to her son Joseph Smith III: “In writing for your father I frequently wrote day after day, often sitting at the table close by him, he sitting with his face buried in his hat, with the stone in it, and dictating hour after hour with nothing between us.”3 David Whitmer, one of the Three Witnesses of the Book of Mormon, gave an address in 1887 in which he stated, “I will now give you a description of the manner in which the Book of Mormon was translated. Joseph Smith would put the seer stone into a hat, and put his face in the hat, drawing it closely around his face to exclude the light; and in the darkness the spiritual light would shine. A piece of something resembling parchment would appear, and on that appeared the writing. One character at a time would appear, and under it was the interpretation in English. Brother Joseph would read off the English to Oliver Cowdery, who was his principal scribe, and when it was written down and repeated to Brother Joseph to see if it was correct, then it would disappear, and another character with the interpretation would appear. Thus the Book of Mormon was translated by the gift and power of God, and not by any power of man.”4

Given these and other descriptions, it is easy to draw a correlation with Joseph’s early career as a “Glass Looker” who would be hired to locate buried treasure in exchange for fees in various areas of Western New York during the 1820s. To do this, he would place his “peep stone” into a hat and look into it to have the location of the treasure revealed to him. In 1826, he was arrested for this, under the charges of being “a disorderly person and an imposter.”5

In 1835, Smith purchased some Egyptian papyri containing hieroglyphics and four mummies from a traveling exhibition.6 He later translated the papyri in the same method he used with the Book of Mormon. He called it the Book of Abraham and in it recounted the story of Abraham’s early life and of a vision in which God revealed to Abraham much about astronomy, the creation of the world, and the creation of man. It was originally published in 1842 and is now an official book of the Pearl of Great Price.

Although the Rosetta Stone was discovered in 1799, it had not yet been completely deciphered. Translations of the Egyptian language were not widely available until the 1850s, and by this time the original papyri were considered lost. However, in 1966, twenty-two fragments of it were discovered in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Both Mormon and non-Mormon Egyptologists confirmed their authenticity and that these documents were in Smith’s possession. This discovery raised some major issues. First, the papyri can reliably be dated to around A.D. 60, which is much too late for Abraham to have written it. Of course, it could be a copy, or a copy of a copy, but that brings us to the second issue. When the text of the book of Abraham is compared with the translations of the original papyri, they are clearly not the same. In fact, they were discovered to be funerary texts containing passages from the Egyptian Book of the Dead, which were commonly buried with mummies.7

The LDS Church has given two possible explanations for these contradictions, neither of which are very satisfactory. One explanation given is that Smith might have been translating a different portion of the papyrus rolls, a portion that remains lost. The other explanation given is that we must take into consideration what Joseph meant by the word translation. Receiving revelation through the Urim and Thummin is a much different process than translating a text using the tools of scholarly research.8 I can only concur.

-Laura

  1. Joseph Smith’s Wentworth Letter, 1842 [<]
  2. Joseph Smith-History, Pearl of Great Price [<]
  3. History of the RLDS Church, 8 vols., Independence, Missouri, 1951, “Last Testimony of Sister Emma” [<]
  4. David Whitmer, An Address to All Believers in Christ, Richmond, Missouri, 1887 [<]
  5. D. Michael Quinn, Early Mormonism and the Magic World View (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1987) [<]
  6. History of the Church, Vol. 2, Ch. 17, p. 236 [<]
  7. Jay M. Todd, “Egyptian Papyri Rediscovered,” Improvement Era, January 1968: 12–13 [<]
  8. Michael D. Rhodes, “I Have a Question,” Ensign, July 1988, 51 [<]

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Lucy, You Got Some ‘Splainin’ To Do

Tuesday, November 20th, 2007

This is the conclusion of my interview with Dirk Van Tuerenhout, Ph.D., Curator of Anthropology at the Houston Museum of Natural Science. The first half of the interview is titled I Love Lucy.

Dirk, here’s a question from an associate; he mentions that creationists usually say that none of the other hominin species we know about today have anything to do with humans. According to them, fossils like Lucy are not the remains of a related species, let alone a direct human ancestor, but merely “some ape gone extinct”. So how do scientists arrive at the genealogical trees we all know from biology text books?

This is a question that requires an extensive answer. This question has shades of a favorite creationist line to critique/attack on Darwinian evolution. “Darwin says we all came from monkeys. Can you believe that?!”

Here is what we can say to that:

  • Darwin never said we evolved from monkeys.
  • However, we do share with other apes a common ancestor (ultimately also with monkeys, but much more remotely in time).
  • We are as humans also part of the family of Great Apes.

In order to ascertain what links might exist between us and Lucy, we need to define what constitutes a modern human and then see which traits if any we can find with Lucy. Scientists have identified four traits that define a modern human:

  • Walking upright all the time (a.k.a. habitual bipedalism)
  • Making and using tools (complex tools especially)
  • Having a large brain compared to one’s body size
  • Having the ability to communicate (especially complex communication)

Having these traits make us modern humans human. When, however, do we see these traits appear in the fossil record?

Take Lucy, at 3.18 million years ago. She only had one of these traits: she walked upright all the time. In other words, Lucy, like us, was a habitual bipedal creature. That is a significant trait to have and one that separates her from the other apes (living or extinct), because they did not.

Moreover, and equally important: genetic data help us make that distinction more clear cut as well: based on comparing DNA from modern human beings and that of our closest non-human primate relatives (a complicated way of saying: chimps, gorillas and orangutans) we differ very little with these guys. The genetic difference between us and a chimp is about 1% in our DNA. Scientists have calculated that it may have taken about 7 million years for that 1% difference to accumulate over time.

While this number is certainly subject to revision and further study (nothing is black and white in science, there is a continuous questioning of what we know), based on what we know today we can say this:

  • Lucy is a habitual bipedal creature (we know this because of her hips, hip and knee joints) and so are we.
  • Lucy dates to 3.18 million years ago. This postdates the split between our lineage and that of the other Great Apes by about 3 to 4 million years. So in that regard Lucy also belongs on our side of the tracks.

In other words, both her bones and modern DNA data make Lucy a distant relative of ours and not one of the extinct non-human apes.

So how does one put a family tree together?

Initially the family tree was put together based on observed similarities between organisms. Specifically, this led to the development of a family of Hominoidea, of which we are the only member as this time and the family of the Pongidae in which the chimps, gorillas and orangutans are placed. This classification, or taxonomy, goes back to that devised by Linnaeus. He classified based on what he could see.

Nowadays, we classify also based on genetics. That has resulted in the coning of the term hominin, rather than hominid, in which both humans and chimps are placed together (because they are so closely related genetically), with the gorillas and orangutans left in the remaining niche.

In image form, this is what we are talking about:

The traditional view first, based on observed similarities:

traditional

 

 

 

Here chimp, gorilla and orangutans are categorized together, because they look a lot more like each other and not that much like a human.

The more recent classification next, based on genetic relationships:Recent

How do we know that the various hominin species are related and, more importantly, how do we know in what way they are related to each other?

How do we determine the degree of relatedness among extinct hominins? While it is a human trait to want to see everything classified and neatly placed in a pigeon hole, it is not always possible to do this – at least not right away.We always work from the known toward the unknown. At this stage, when a fossil is found, it is compared against known fossils. “Known” here means that we know where they are from, how old they are and where they are placed in the family tree. A new fossil also has a location where it was found and eventually will also have a date assigned to it. What remains (far from simple) is to determine where your fossil fits in. Again you have to work with the known, or in this case: what did you find? If you have a complete skull, it might be much easier to make this determination than if you have found a foot or wrist bone. You compare morphologies and suggest degrees of similarities (and therefore old fashioned taxonomic relationships – see above) to establish a place in the family tree.

Remember, however: science will continue to subject any finding to future insights which might require revisiting and fine-tuning previous conclusions.

When we want to assign a fossil a spot in the genealogical tree, do we have to rely on inferences from bone morphology alone or are there other means of supporting our model?

Given that most fossils (with the exception of H. sapiens and Neanderthalers) do not have extractable DNA in them, we have to rely on morphology, place of discovery and dates to assign a place on the family tree (or family bush as we are calling it today).

What, on the other hand, would we expect to find under the creationists’ hypothesis?

The way in which this is phrased is too kind to creationism: hypothesis belongs in a scientific framework. Creationism or its “scientific” clone, I.D., does not work with hypotheses – no matter how much they would like to disagree with this. In the end, they already have their conclusion: an intelligent creator, or God made everything and here is the evidence for that line of thinking. Creationists/I.D. people are very good at casting doubts on scientist’s interpretations, producing a prodigious amount of materials everywhere to disseminate this perception that scientists do not really know what they are talking about. In reality what they are picking up on is the debate inherent in science on the manner in which evolution has proceeded in the past, not a discussion about the existence of evolution itself. Small detail with important repercussions.

In order to make the point that creationists do not really work with scientific hypotheses but that they prefer to cast aspersions on other people’s thinking to push their agenda, I refer to a point raised earlier: “creationists say Lucy is not an extinct human ancestor but rather an extinct ape.”

By framing the discussion a priori they have – in their mind – already won the battle. They have effectively removed Lucy from our lineage and so more doubt and scorn can be heaped on any arguments to the contrary. One needs to go back to the very crux of the matter and prove that their assertion of where Lucy belongs is wrong in the first place. Having reconstituted a level playing field, then you can proceed by proving that she is indeed an early human ancestor.

As best as I can tell then, a Creationist could not care less about what these fossils might look like and where they belong. In the end, they all see them as evidence of a creation by a Creator to confuse us or to make us marvel at the creation we live in. This is not a form of logic I can follow, but that seems to be their line.

Dirk Van Tuerenhout leverages his time to provide educational opportunities about the Lucy fossil to museum visitors while also teaching at the University of Houston-Clear Lake during the summer. If you are in the Houston area, I encourage you to visit the Houston Museum of Natural Science, and of course, Lucy.

Further Reading

Lucy Exhibition

Australopithecus Afarensis

PBS Humans: Humankind Evolution

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