Frederick J. Pack

Frederick James Pack (February 2, 1875 – December 2, 1938) was a professor of geology at the University of Utah and Brigham Young College and a writer on the deleterious effects of tobacco on human health. Pack was also a leader in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church), serving as the chairman of the Gospel Doctrine Committee of the church.

Pack was born at Bountiful, Utah Territory, to John Pack (who had first come to Utah in 1847 in Brigham Young's advance company) and Mary Jane Walker. Early on he attended LDS College in Salt Lake City.

Pack attended the University of Utah, where he obtained a degree in mining engineering in 1904. By 1906, he had completed masters and Ph.D. degrees in geology at Columbia University in New York City. In 1906 and 1907, he was a professor of geology and mineralogy at Brigham Young College in Logan. In 1907, he became the Deseret Professor of Geology at the University of Utah, a position he held until his death.

In 1918, Pack published Tobacco and Human Efficiency, which has been described as the most "comprehensive or conscientious summation of the case to discourage cigarette use" that had been produced by that date. However, Pack's work on tobacco has been criticized as being tainted with "suppositions" and "moral bias" arising from his status as a Latter-day Saint who believed that avoiding tobacco was a commandment from God.

In his later professional life, Pack created a travel company called Utah Intelligence Tours, which specialized in tours of areas in Utah and the Western United States that are of particular geological or paleontological interest.

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