Faith & Evolution: Mormonism teaches why God created the world, not how, scientist says
Daniel Fairbanks knows the exact day and place he was converted to Darwin’s theory of evolution: Jan. 30, 1979, in Clayton White’s vertebrate zoology class at Brigham Young University.
White convinced Fairbanks by laying out a compelling case for evolution as a powerful idea that best explains biological observations.
The moment transformed the recently returned LDS missionary, who had spent his childhood believing evolution was wrong even as he sketched bugs and other creatures that crawled out of a pond near his home.
“I went to talk with Professor White, who answered all my questions,” says Fairbanks, associate dean of science and health at Utah Valley University in Orem. “He became an important example to me of a first-rate scientist and a faithful member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.”
PHOTO: Daniel Fairbanks, a biologist at UVU, a devout Mormon and a sculptor, gives a lecture on evolution and the legacy of Charles Darwin while sculpting a bust of Darwin. (Trent Nelson/The Salt Lake Tribune)
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