Excellent takedown of Mopologist DNA misinformation

[malkie]

Sorry, Marcus, for allowing myself to be involved in the derail. I know better.

[Marcus]

Sorry, Marcus, for allowing myself to be involved in the derail. I know better.

No worries! It was an interesting derail but mg will never let it organically get back to the topic, so I rebooted-- Southerton's posts are so interesting and helpful and always worth going back to. His explanation of Perego's shady approach to the Mormon conclusions about his academic field is fascinating.

[I Have Questions]

Getting back to the topic, I found this part of Southerton's review of Perego very helpful in understanding how mopologists don't tell the truth:

Misleading science
In my view the lowest point of the interview is when Perego exploits his position of trust in the LDS community to mislead. The most powerful tools we have today to trace the ancestry of human populations are whole genome studies. This is the type of analysis that all modern DNA genealogy companies use in order to reveal our ancestral origins. When human populations are separated from each other for many thousands of years, each population accumulates tens of thousands of DNA changes that are unique to each population. It is easy, for example, to distinguish the genomic DNA of Middle Eastern populations from Native American populations because they have been separated from each other for at least 30,000 years.

Perego is well aware of this technology and he knows the genomic DNA of thousands of Native Americans has been tested and none have been found to carry pre-Columbian Jewish ancestry. But in order to help believing Mormons deal with this information Perego exaggerates a “weakness” in the technology. While we all have about 1000 ancestors going back 10 generations, each of us are likely to only carry DNA derived from about 100 of those ancestors. It’s a curious quirk of genetics that we don’t carry DNA from many of our ancestors. Perego uses this fact to insinuate that whole genome studies have important limitations for detecting ancestry. But Perego is telling a half truth.

While it is true that particular ancestral DNA can disappear in an individual’s genome, it is extremely unlikely that it will disappear in the genomes of a population of related people in which hundreds or thousands of individuals have been tested. While some ancestral DNA may not be found in a single member of the population, it will almost certainly be found in other individuals in the same populations. Perego portrays himself as a population geneticist so he ought to know this simple principle of population genetics. But he chose to mislead his listeners by confusing the genetics of the individual with the genetics of the population. And I’m meant to be the dumb plant scientist who doesn’t know anything about population genetics (I have in fact published several scientific papers in the field of forest tree population genetics).

Thanks, Simon.

This.

Perego portrays himself as a population geneticist so he ought to know this simple principle of population genetics. But he chose to mislead his listeners by confusing the genetics of the individual with the genetics of the population.

Why do Mormon apologetics always rely on sleight of hand, misdirection, and dishonesty, rather than simple factual and objective truths?

[Rivendale]

Sorry, Marcus, for allowing myself to be involved in the derail. I know better.

No worries! It was an interesting derail but mg will never let it organically get back to the topic, so I rebooted-- Southerton's posts are so interesting and helpful and always worth going back to. His explanation of Perego's shady approach to the Mormon conclusions about his academic field is fascinating.

What is really interesting is the lack of rebuttal to Simon's critique. It is ubiquitous in Mormon apologetics to ignore damning information.

[Marcus]

No worries! It was an interesting derail but mg will never let it organically get back to the topic, so I rebooted-- Southerton's posts are so interesting and helpful and always worth going back to. His explanation of Perego's shady approach to the Mormon conclusions about his academic field is fascinating.

What is really interesting is the lack of rebuttal to Simon's critique. It is ubiquitous in Mormon apologetics to ignore damning information.

Yes, it is. It's an unenviable position to be in. in my opinion, when one decides that certain conclusions MUST hold but they are not supported by facts, the only fall back is to say it becomes a matter of faith. Continuing to argue against facts never ends well. As a result, we get cases like mg who regularly posts with such egregious levels of intellectual dishonesty that it seems impossible he is being sincere. The alternative is he is just trolling, which actually seems far more believable.

[Everybody Wang Chung]

No worries! It was an interesting derail but mg will never let it organically get back to the topic, so I rebooted-- Southerton's posts are so interesting and helpful and always worth going back to. His explanation of Perego's shady approach to the Mormon conclusions about his academic field is fascinating.

What is really interesting is the lack of rebuttal to Simon's critique. It is ubiquitous in Mormon apologetics to ignore damning information.

I smell another Bayesian analysis coming soon from the Interpreter.

You'd think that Perego, a self-proclaimed population geneticist, would actually understand that if a DNA trail is missing from an entire population, it's not because a ghost ancestor is playing hide-and-seek; it's because they were never there to begin with.

[MG 2.0]

There are limits to the analogy when applied to the universe and life (complex systems). It’s kind of a cute analogy though. The universe isn’t a passive, unchanging “hole”. It’s a complex and dynamic system governed by intricate laws. Those laws allow for the evolution of conscious life. The analogy is too simplistic to score enough points to win the day.

I take it you don’t believe in a creator God. A personal God. That seems to be fashionable here.

Regards,
MG

I’d be a little more convinced if 99.999 percent of the observable universe wasn’t so clearly incompatible with this life.

Have you ever tried to do back of the envelope calculations about how long it takes to travel between solar systems? Or to send messages? Even if physical Mormon Gods exist and get their own planets, they’re all on islands separated by the limitations of the cosmos.

The standard Christian God who doesn’t have to obey the laws of the universe (because he made them) makes much more sense.

I think our concern ought to be why and how WE got to be here on planet earth. What else is going on out there is above our pay grade.

Regards,
MG

[drumdude]

I’d be a little more convinced if 99.999 percent of the observable universe wasn’t so clearly incompatible with this life.

Have you ever tried to do back of the envelope calculations about how long it takes to travel between solar systems? Or to send messages? Even if physical Mormon Gods exist and get their own planets, they’re all on islands separated by the limitations of the cosmos.

The standard Christian God who doesn’t have to obey the laws of the universe (because he made them) makes much more sense.

I think our concern ought to be why and how WE got to be here on planet earth. What else is going on out there is above our pay grade.

Regards,
MG

It certainly puts a damper on the idea of Kolob and everyone getting their own planet as we gather more information from telescopes and other scientific instruments.

Joseph Smith’s religious ideas are just a little problematic once we know the speed of light and the distances between planets.

[I Have Questions]

What is really interesting is the lack of rebuttal to Simon's critique. It is ubiquitous in Mormon apologetics to ignore damning information.

I smell another Bayesian analysis coming soon from the Interpreter.

You'd think that Perego, a self-proclaimed population geneticist, would actually understand that if a DNA trail is missing from an entire population, it's not because a ghost ancestor is playing hide-and-seek; it's because they were never there to begin with.

Ugo was in a difficult position. He could either side with his field of study, genetics. Or he could side with the Church. He couldn’t do both. So he sacrificed his genetics career and was rewarded with a Church one. He took the pieces of silver.

[MG 2.0]

No worries! It was an interesting derail but mg will never let it organically get back to the topic, so I rebooted-- Southerton's posts are so interesting and helpful and always worth going back to. His explanation of Perego's shady approach to the Mormon conclusions about his academic field is fascinating.

What is really interesting is the lack of rebuttal to Simon's critique. It is ubiquitous in Mormon apologetics to ignore damning information.

I think that rebuttals have been made. Depending on whether or not one believes that Nephites, Mulekites, and Lamanites existed as one reads the text of the Book of Mormon will influence to some extent where one comes down on DNA research, pro and con. There are other facets/factors that enter into the discussion.

As is par for the course, critics are wont to look at so called ‘issues’ in isolation or in a vacuum without looking at the other moving parts. In this case, what is in between the covers of the Book of Mormon and what it says about itself. Some would say, the spirit of the book and its testimony of Christ and the truths contained therein. That doesn’t matter a whit to secular humanist critics because they’ve already trashed a personal God who could speak through scripture.

The conversation about DNA has been going on quite a while now. I expect that conversation along with others will continue amongst the ‘inteligencia’. While at the same time converts will join the church and believing members will live the covenants they’ve made with a God that they believe in.

Regards,
MG