“The decision reached by the First Presidency, and announced to this morning’s assembly, was in answer to a specific question that obviously the doctrine of the existence of races of human beings upon the earth prior to the Fall of Adam was not a doctrine of the Church; and, further, that the conception embodied in the belief of many to the effect that there were no such Pre-Adamite races, and that there was no death upon the Earth prior to Adam’s fall is likewise declared to be no doctrine of the Church.”

James E. Talmage (who worked with the First Presidency on the 1909 official doctrine statement opposing evolution), 7 April 1930; as quoted in Duane E. Jeffrey “Seers, Savants and Evolution: The Uncomfortable Interface” Dialogue, A Journal of Mormon Thought, Vol. 8, No. 3-4 (Salt Lake City, UT: Dialogue Magazine, 1973), 64.