From My Informant: Has Ugo Perego Been "Exiled" to Rome?

[_Doctor Scratch]

It looks like Ugo has replied, and she has asked him another question.

It's just yet another dodge. We could have charted out his response with both our hands tied behind our back, blindfolded and in the dark with earplugs: refer us to some article floating out there in the ether, along with a rambling explanation that still doesn't really answer what was essentially a very straightforward question. Perego says we "might never know," but he doesn't address what seems to me to be the substance of Linda's question. She might have rephrased to say, "Based on your expertise and research, what is your best possible guess with respect to the question of Sister Lyon?"

Setting all that aside, Perego isn't bothering to deal with what was posed in my OP re: him finding an heir. Even if he doesn't think Lyon was a legitimate child of polygamy, it may be that he found DNA evidence elsewhere. He's acting right now like he's stuck between a rock and a hard place: he wants to maintain his committment to doing honest science, but he also doesn't want to say anything that might make Joseph Smith look bad. And so he dodges. We've seen all this many, many times before, of course.

[_bcspace]

That is, it may be completely true that he's always wanted to do this; it may also be true that his discovery of a Joseph Smith "love child" provided the means for this to happen. If he had stayed in Utah with this knowledge concealed under his hat, the pressure would have continued to mount.

Why is this a problem? I don't think the Church itself has ever made apologetic argument that Joseph Smith never fathered any children from his plural wives. The more valid argument is that the apparent lack (which does not necessarily mean zero) of such children means he wasn't horny ol' Joe after all.

[_bcspace]

Looking at Ugo's blog, I see that he is a true scientist unlike some antiMormons on this board posing as such:

you call the lack of evidence as evidence, while to me lack of evidence is exactly what it is, lack of evidence.

He also says some interesting things here regarding Book of Mormon DNA:

The answer to these questions/criticisms is quite simple and I have addressed multiple times, including in some of my writings. DNA is not evidence only when it is convenient, but it is evidence when it is evidence. In the case of testing Joseph Smith purported children born to polygamous relationships, the genetic method employed was the uniparental marker Y chromosome, which is a section of DNA that is inherited exclusively from father to son, along an unbroken paternal line. Because of lack of recombination, Y chromosome testing can be ascertained to exact people in a person's pedigree chart. If the genealogy is known and the Y chromosome signature (called haplotype) of a number of male descendants of a specific ancestor can be collected and tested, then the Y chromosome profile of that ancestor can be inferred quite accurately, just as if a DNA sample could have been obtained from the ancestor himself. This process can be repeated over and over for any male ancestor (including Joseph Smith and his alleged biological sons) as long as living male descendants can be identified and a DNA sample collected from them. Then the game is quite easy. All you have to do is to line up and compare the inferred (or reconstructed) Y chromosome haplotypes for the two individuals you are trying to establish a connection along the paternal line. If the values match, then you probably have a biological relationship. If they don't, then you can be 100% confident that you are looking at two non-related individuals.

So, how could science be accurate in this instance, but it cannot be used to bring forth similar conclusions when it comes to the historicity of the Book of Mormon? The difference lays within the expectations from the genetic approach. In the case of Joseph Smith and his alleged posterity, the Y chromosome profiles that were reconstructed and used for that analysis were accurate genetic fingerprints that belonged to specific individuals that lived in the past. The known relationships obtained through the genealogical data were key to line up the proper candidates for the genetic testing necessary in the study. With regard to the Book of Mormon, I explained already and in great detail that you cannot exclude the historical presence of an Israelite family arriving in the Americas 2600 years ago based on the genetic sampling of modern-day Native American populations. This is simple and plain population genetics at work. Any population geneticist would agree that when a small group of people become part of a large population, their genetic signature is destined to disappear quite rapidly within a handful of generations. Moreover, we now know with great accuracy the Y chromosome haplotype of Joseph Smith and how it can be used as a standard for comparison against anyone who was claimed to be his biological child; however, we know nothing about the DNA profiles of the people of the Book of Mormon. The "mental gymnastic" I have been accused of is the very piece of truth that those criticizing the historicity of the Book of Mormon from a DNA standpoint are unwilling to accept: WE DON'T KNOW WHAT LEHI'S DNA IS and therefore this is the main reason why it cannot be identified in the Americas. Everything else is pretty much irrelevant. Show me Lehi's DNA and then let's go about looking for it among past and present indigenous populations of the Western Hemisphere. Without it, you are missing the very piece of genetic evidence that anyone interested in a genetic perspective on the Book of Mormon (both in favor or against it) would need.

And here is the conversation between him and Linda Ricks so far:

Linda Ricks
03/17/2012 12:32
Never mind all that... was Josephine Lyon an actual daughter of Joseph Smith?

Ugo Perego
03/17/2012 14:01
Hello Linda. I wrote something about the Josephine case and DNA in an article published in the volume "The Persistence of Polygamy" by Craig Foster and Newell Bringhurst. In a nutshell, the Josephine case might never be resolved in a satisfactory way due to the fact that being a female, Josephine did not receive her father's Y chromosome. The other classic uniparental marker that is often used to established distant relationships (in time and/or degree of relationship) would be the mitochondrial DNA that she would have inherited from her mother. In this case, proving who her mother was is useless. This leaves only one possibility, which is autosomal DNA testing. However, this test is very helpful when an alleged relationship parent/child is fairly recent in time (2-3 generations back), or the two people being tested are still alive. Going back 150 years, the DNA from the autosomes (which is lost at a 1/2 per generation rate) would be too diluted to clearly pick up a genetic signal demonstrating or disproving a biological relationship with a high degree of confidence. Let me know if you have additional questions.

Linda Ricks
03/17/2012 14:17
Would it be possible to obtain a DNA sample for testing directly from the remains of Josephine Lyon?

[_Kishkumen]

Why is this a problem? I don't think the Church itself has ever made apologetic argument that Joseph Smith never fathered any children from his plural wives. The more valid argument is that the apparent lack (which does not necessarily mean zero) of such children means he wasn't horny ol' Joe after all.

Yes, only knucklehead apologists insist that Smith didn't father any children in his polygamous relationships. I would not be surprised if you were one of those who did.

[_bcspace]

Yes, only knucklehead apologists insist that Smith didn't father any children in his polygamous relationships. I would not be surprised if you were one of those who did.

I have been so accused, yes. But feel free to remain surprised.

[_Kishkumen]

I have been so accused, yes. But feel free to remain surprised.

So you don't deny that you have argued Joseph did not father children on his plural wives.

[_Nightlion]

I have been so accused, yes. But feel free to remain surprised.

So you don't deny that you have argued Joseph did not father children on his plural wives.

Kish, I really cannot tell if there is a joke here for sure. I mean there is. I am just not certain that I am the one to say.

[_Kishkumen]

Kish, I really cannot tell if there is a joke here for sure. I mean there is. I am just not certain that I am the one to say.

I am fine with that.

[_bcspace]

So you don't deny that you have argued Joseph did not father children on his plural wives.

I have not argued that in totality, no. I tend to go dynastic for most, especially early. The horny ol' Joe hypothesis is quite tenuous at best. "Have you checked the children" remains a huge thorn in the side of the hypothesis' supporters.

[_Kishkumen]

I have not argued that in totality, no.

So you have at times argued that he did not have children from his polygamous wives.