Author: Matt Evans

We’re pleased to introduce our latest guest blogger, Dr. Joseph Stanford. Dr. Stanford is a professor at the University of Utah Medical School where his research focuses on fertility care. This year he’s on sabbatical at the National Institutes of Health to do epidemiologic research related to human reproduction. He recently finished a three year…

Imagine that universally-respected researchers had determined that most of the people in your community eat far more sugar and fat than they should, and are at serious risk of developing diabetes, hardened arteries, and other ailments associated with poor diet and inadequate exercise. If you were to live in such a community, how much sugar-filled…

Bryce Inouye has created a bloggernacle Frappr page that shows you where our bloggernacle community lives. If you’re willing to share your zip code, add yourself! (Note that Frappr requires you to leave a short comment in the “shoutout” box. )

Today I heard many prayers and had to decide whose to answer.

Times & Seasons commenter and economist Ed Johnson (“ed”) has performed some sophisticated statistical analysis on general conference scripture citations. We discussed the same data, but with the aid of lesser tools and minds, in earlier posts here and here. The finding that most surprised me is that the surge in Book of Mormon citations…

I’m happy to announce the births of our twin girls, Chloe and Clara.

To seal the testimony of this book and the Book of Mormon, we announce the martyrdom of Joseph Smith the Prophet, and Hyrum Smith the Patriarch. They were shot in Carthage jail, on the 27th of June, 1844, about five o’clock p.m., by an armed mob — painted black — of from 150 to 200…

The church has corrected a newspaper that had written, “Mormons, for example, oppose abortion, but find some embryonic stem cell research morally acceptable,” with the clarification that, “the Church has not taken a position on the issue of embryonic stem cell research.” They also note that the church has no official position on the moment…

We call one of our bedrooms the Noah’s Ark Room because there’s a mural of Noah’s Ark on the wall. It was painted by our house’s previous owner for his son Noah, who lived in this bedroom from his birth until we purchased the townhouse in 2001 and he and his parents moved to a…

I’m hosting a bloggernacle party this Friday night to coincide with the Joseph Smith conference at the Library of Congress. All bloggern are welcome.

We are pleased to announce that Steve Urquhart, the majority whip for the Utah House of Representatives, will blog with us for the next two weeks, including the final days of the 2005 legislative session. Steve grew up in Houston and graduated from Williams College and BYU Law School. After working at Morrison & Foerster…

Monday I joined 200,000 people at the annual ‘March for Life’ to protest the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision. My wife wasn’t feeling well enough to go this year (she’s pregnant — with twins!) and the weather accompanying Roe’s anniversary was typically frigid and miserable (if the Supreme Court was going to make such…

The book that most influenced me when I was a lad was The Road Less Traveled, by M. Scott Peck. I probably read it four times between ages 15 and 22. When the Book of the Month Club surveyed its members for the most influential book they’d ever read, it ranked number 3. (The bible…

When looking through lists of scriptures most of cited in General Conference over the past 60 years, nothing is more remarkable than the rapid change in frequency of references to the Book of Mormon. The move toward the Book of Mormon could hardly be more pronounced. In just a few years, the Book of Mormon…

Thanks to a cool feature on the scriptures.byu.edu website, it’s easy to rank the scriptures by the frequency they’ve been cited in General Conferences since 1942. I guessed number one, but was surprised by several of the top ten. Before checking the answers, make a few guesses: What are the most prominent scriptures in Mormondom?

April 16, 1963 MY DEAR FELLOW CLERGYMEN: While confined here in the Birmingham city jail, I came across your recent statement calling my present activities “unwise and untimely.” Seldom do I pause to answer criticism of my work and ideas. If I sought to answer all the criticisms that cross my desk, my secretaries would…

It’s again time to rotate our guest bloggers. We offer many thanks to Ryan Bell for his thoughtful posts. Given that I graduated in the bottom 10% of my high school class, his provocatively titled post questioning the value of a good education was especially welcome. We are pleased to announce that Clark Goble, Times…

This map, from the New Historical Atlas of Religion in America, shows the largest religious denomination in each US county. This does not mean that the majority of the county belongs to the denomination, only that no other denomination is larger. My guess is that Hancock County, Illinois (Nauvoo) will be the first purple county…

Last night on the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer there was a segment with Tom Frank, the author of What’s the Matter with Kansas?: How Conservatives Won the Heart of America. Frank argues that conservatives have successfully used cultural issues to con the lower and middle classes into voting against what Frank believes to be their…

I will handle this topic as gently as I can. In this post I wonder whether Mormons who choose to leave the church are disproportionately likely to lean left politically. As most of you know, I’m a political conservative, so I’m afraid this topic will make some readers defensive. That is not my intention. It…

The House of Representatives today voted on a Federal Marriage Amendment. A large majority of representatives voted in favor of the amendment, but it did not receive the 2/3 majority necessary to amend the Constitution. In a textbook example of media bias, the AP story on the vote begins, “The House emphatically rejected a constitutional…

Andrew Florence, a friend of mine doing an ER residency, emailed a journal entry to some of his friends. He has given me permission to post it here: This morning I cried for the second time during residency. Neither time has been in the ER.

President Hinckley writes this month’s First Presidency Message, In Opposition to Evil. After lamenting society’s “inordinate emphasis on sex and violence,” he writes: The whole dismal picture indicates a weakening rot seeping into the very fiber of society. Legal restraints against deviant moral behavior are eroding under legislative enactments and court opinions. This is done…

Just a few months ago, defenders of traditional marriage predicted that should government recognize gay marriages, public schools would soon give equal treatment to homosexuality in sex education classes. We were right quicker than I expected. In Massachusetts, a committee is already preparing a ‘gay-friendly’ curriculum for kindergartners and up, a school district is helping…

I just discovered a most productive way to waste time.