Darwin's Birthday

A new Gallup Poll dated February 11, 2009, on the eve of the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin's birth, shows that only 39% of Americans say they "believe in the theory of evolution", while a quarter say they do not believe in the theory, and another 36% don't have an opinion either way. These attitudes are strongly related to education and, to an even greater degree, religiosity. Even to this day, highly religious individuals claim that the theory of evolution contradicts the story of creation as outlined in the book of Genesis in the Bible.

What is the official position of the LDS Church on evolution? I would hazard a guess that most of the members don't really know and just assume that the church's position would be one of opposition. However, that is not the case.

If you want to look at the official Church position, read the statement in the Encyclopedia of Mormonism. Part of that position reads as follows:

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, basing its belief on divine revelation, ancient and modern, declares man to be the direct and lineal offspring of Deity.... Man is the child of God, formed in the divine image and endowed with divine attributes.

I'm not someone who necessarily believes that one of my ancestors is a chimpanzee but the Church could have said evolution was not true, and it did not. The position statement leaves a lot of room for evolution to take place.

For those of you who are interested enough to read further, there is a very interesting article in on a website entitled Fairlds.org. The website is operated by the Foundation for Apologetic Information & Research (FAIR) which is a non-profit organization dedicated to providing well-documented answers to criticisms of LDS doctrine, belief and practice.

The article is entitled "Evolution and Latter-day Saint Theology: The Tree of Life and DNA".
The conclusion of the article is this:

"the data support the scientific interpretation of an evolutionary process for human origins. The scriptures state that God created humans in His image, we believe these two apparently contradictory paradigms can be reconciled if God created the natural laws by which humans were created. We refer to those natural laws as evolution in a package. Conflicts between the scientific data and the scriptural accounts result from our interpretation of the scriptures and our interpretation of the scientific data. They're not in the data or in the scriptures inherently."

For more information on how eminent LDS scientists reconcile their religious beliefs with their scientific knowledge, read my previous blog, Science vs. Religion.

The Black Lab with the Cold Water Tail

This is a hard time of year for our dogs, especially Boomer. With the wet weather we've had and the warm days, there is a lot of mud in the yard. When we leave the dogs out all day, we come home to some very muddy dogs. In order to make them presentable, I've had to take them out back and wash them off with the hose. Sadie handles this quite well, sitting and watching; waiting her turn while I wrestle Boomer around to clean him up. And then it happened, all of a sudden we noticed Boomer's tail which was always sticking straight out, and which wags in a circle, was limp as a wet noodle. Hanging between his legs like a sign of perpetual depression. We were in a quandry, what had happened to Boomers tail. Then a couple of days ago, JoAnn and Senta were searching the internet for clues and found the answer in an article entitled "Cold Tail, Dead Tail, Limber Tail". This syndrome is thought to be associated with the dog getting wet and not getting dry soon enough. It's funny that when JoAnn mentioned this to one of her teacher friends at school, the friend gasped and said "it happened to our dog last week after we gave him a bath. Other folks have blogged about this happening to their dogs. So, a word of warning to Lab owners, don't bath your dog in the winter.



Boomer's tail normally looks like this; sticking straight out!

The Red Head is Dead?

The other day, I read an article in the Smithsonian Magazine about the impending extinction of red heads in the world. To quote the article:

"If predictions by the Oxford Hair Foundation come to pass, the number of natural redheads everywhere will continue to dwindle until there are none left by the year 2100."

This upset me a little because some of my favorite people in the world are red heads. In fact, I have been called a red head myself. I remember when we lived in Orem decades ago, I used to go home teaching to a family where one of the little girls called me "the man with the orange hair". Now I don't think I have orange hair, just some auburn highlights.

I guess the reason we have four red-headed children is because both JoAnn and I have have auburn hair. I remember going to the store when they were all small and getting dirty looks and even accusations of evil doing since the accuser had red hair but had been unable to have red-headed children.

Regardless of the article, I'm optimistic that there will always be red heads. I've read articles by other people who think the prediction is hogwash. And as you can see, I've done my part to ensure the long-term survival of the red head. Photo credit: Brian Wilcox.

PJ is Three

On January 22, 2009, Parker turned three. This just happened to be on a Thursday which is when we get to have him over for the evening. The night before, his other grandma and grandpa took him to Chucky Cheese. He must have had fun because when I asked him what he did, he jabbered at me for about 5 minutes. Typically I can understand him fairly well, but he was going so fast, I couldn't understand a word he said. To celebrate his birthday, we had a little party and Senta made a cake with a "Cars" theme featuring Lighting McQueen (click on the photos to get a better view). Parker loves Lighting McQueen. He has a Lighting McQueen bicycle, pajamas, coloring book, etc. etc. We were kind of worried about the cake because Senta called and said she was cleaning up after she had a "cake accident" on the way to the car. But not to worry, it turned out great. To see all the photos, click on my picasa album.

Richie and Greg at the Obama Inauguration

Soon after the election, Richie called and asked if I would try and get him some tickets to the inauguration. He had evidently discovered that getting tickets from his Virginia congressmen would be impossible. Interestingly, that very day there was an article in the paper about how to get tickets. I immediately contacted the Jason Chaffetz at the indicated email address. Congressman Chaffetz emailed me back saying he didn't know how many tickets he would get, if any, but would let me know. I also called Senator Hatch's local office, they told me to forget it, and Senator Bennett's office, they put me on a list. On December 17th, I got an email from the office of Congressman Chaffetz letting me know they had two tickets for me. Soon after I got a phone call from Senator Bennett's office letting me know they also had two tickets for me. Believing, and rightly so, that Richie probably had some friends that could use the tickets, I confirmed that I would pick up these tickets.

In order to prevent scalping, I guess, the only way to get the tickets was to appear personally at the congressman's office with ID about three or four days prior to the event. When Richie and Greg went to the office of Rep. Chaffetz, they realized that security was so tight and the line so long, that by the time they got the tickets, Senator Bennett's office would be closed. Greg called Senta and asked her to get them a number for the office. When they called the number and explained the situation, Rep. Chaffetz came out personally and gave them the tickets.

On the morning of the big day, they got on the Metro at about 7 AM and headed for town. As everyone has heard, the crowds were massive. After they had been waiting in line for an hour, they noticed up at the front of the line, that security was turning people away. Greg told me that he had enough experience with concerts to know that there was usually a way around security. This next photo shows the line (I use that word loosely as it was really a street full of people) with a row of buses on the right side. Richie and Greg made their way to the other side of the row of buses and walked around security (it's kind of scary when you think about it, two college kids from Utah busting through inauguration security) and eventually got to their spot about 10:45. There were a lot of people not so lucky, or maybe not so devious. There have been many articles about the people who didn't get in. Click on the link to read one.


These next two photos are of the very patriotic Wilcox Boys at the Obama Inaguration.

Tickets to the inauguration were divided up using colors. The tickets Richie and Greg had were silver. A map showing the various locations can be seen by clicking on the link. As one newspaper article stated:

"There are five types of tickets, each color-coded depending on the entrance and how close guests can be to the stage: blue, yellow, orange, purple and silver. Most of the tickets are rectangular, just a couple inches high and about six inches across. But ironically, the biggest tickets (silver) are for spots the furthest away from the Capitol and are designated as standing room only. Those tickets are three-times the size of the others.

"I guess they have to do something for the people in the back to make them feel special," one aide said.

And, by the way, for those who have heard that this was the most expensive inauguration ever, it is completely untrue. Check out the link.

As some of you may know, Greg works on the school paper at UVU. He tried to get them to pay for his ticket, but with the state budget the way it is this year, there was no way. However, he did get to bring a camera owned by the paper. So even though they weren't all that close, they still got a photo in which you can see the President and his wife (you'll have to double click on the photo to enlarge it).

If you click on the photo and look down from the right edge of the window to the right of the red-draped entrance, you can see Pres. and Mrs. Obama (look for a yellow-colored coat).

Pres. Uchtdorf and Elder Ballard represented the Church at the inauguration. They both seem to have a hope and respect for Pres. Obama which seems to be lacking in the general membership.

Both left the prayer service with a sense the people of America are going to unite behind the new president and his administration and that we need to pray for him. Elder Ballard said, "We need to exercise our prayers and help him accomplish the great objectives that he has set."

Both President Uchtdorf and Elder Ballard used adjectives like "marvelous," "wonderful" and "overwhelming" in describing their experiences.

"This new administration is sending a message of hope and change to the world," President Uchtdorf said. "We know there is no greater message to all the world than the message of the Church and the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. I only hope this historic moment will open doors and hearts to the gospel message of hope and change."

To read the full article in the Church News, click on the link.

To see all of their photos, click on my picassa album.

Christmas 2008

Christmas 2008 has come and gone, thank goodness.We all had a nice time and it was good to be able to visit with the parents, brothers, sisters-in-law, nieces, nephews etc. etc. For a few more pictures, check out this picasa album. I wish you a prosperous and happy new year everyone!

P.J. The Pizza Maker

I swear that JoAnn made at least 300 rolls over the holidays. She even got a new Bosch bread mixer to keep up the pace. Our old Kitchenettics was about 30 years old and some of the plastic parts finally gave up. Anyway, one night she was making rolls for the next day, and P.J. had to get in the action (You'll notice I call him P.J. now instead of Parker since that is what he prefers; sometimes he won't even answer to Parker). Of course he has to be in the middle of the action, and since his Daddy works in a pizza store, he decided to make pizza. As you can see, he worked at it pretty hard.