85 years ago today - Apr 20, 1934

It is very likely that the time is ripe for someone to begin right now to prepare a wise, temperate, scientific statement of the doctrine of evolution, not forgetting the relationship of the doctrine to other gospel doctrines. Our own views with respect to the evolution are fairly well know. Evolution, as a law, seems to me to have been demonstrated. Its metes and bounds are gradually being determined.

As for the origin of man, or the origin of animals, or the origin of anything, I do not see that science has given us any satisfactory answer so far. I accept without reservation the doctrine that man was a preexistent being who came to this earth to inhabit a mortal body. How the body was created has not, as far as I know, been revealed to man.

[John A. Widtsoe, Letter to Sterling B. Talmage, as quoted in Minutes of the Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1910-1951, Privately Published, Salt Lake City, Utah 2010]

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