A Very Limited Geography

[_stemelbow]

I would say that the evidence to date does not support the Book of Mormon and it seems even LDS experts have said their mtDNA a-d and x are not from any groups arriving 2500 years ago but from the migrations over 10,000 years ago.

Bu tthere is no concesus on it all. And as has already been shown the date you mention is filled with assumptions that are very much questioned, and as time continues and studies increase the questioning of these assumptions only comes stronger.

[_stemelbow]

Actually, the Linzi study shows that we should definitely find modern native Americans with Semitic DNA, if the Book of Mormon is true.

Not even a little bit close. In part because we don't even know what to find in ancient simitic DNA. And on top of that we can't even know if there is not a common place from which mongolian/siberian and NA genetics sprang.

[_Buffalo]

I hate to characterize it as dogmatism but I can't see it in any other way, since the statements denouncing the Book of Mormon in terms of genetic are bald and unsupported.

Do native Americans exhibit any pre columbian Semitic DNA or not?

[_Buffalo]

Not even a little bit close. In part because we don't even know what to find in ancient simitic DNA.

Yes we do.

And on top of that we can't even know if there is not a common place from which mongolian/siberian and NA genetics sprang.

Yes we do.

I understand the apologetic desire to make all your church's claims unfalsifiable, but you're barking up the wrong tree.

[_Buffalo]

I would say that the evidence to date does not support the Book of Mormon and it seems even LDS experts have said their mtDNA a-d and x are not from any groups arriving 2500 years ago but from the migrations over 10,000 years ago.

Bu tthere is no concesus on it all. And as has already been shown the date you mention is filled with assumptions that are very much questioned, and as time continues and studies increase the questioning of these assumptions only comes stronger.

I understand that this is the impression that the spin-meisters at FARMS have tried very hard to give you, but the scientific consensus is just as Themis said.

Try cracking open a science textbook. FAIR/FARMS aren't any more credible than those websites that give "evidence" for why the earth is only 6000 years old or how evolution is a hoax.

[_Themis]

What you say is to be reasonably expected does not square. That’s what I’m terming as dogmatic—your statements that somehow vehemently denounce Book of Mormon claims based on the theories which continue to be argued, about NA origins. Here is some more from that article I’ve linked long ago:
Many scientists date the genetic divergence of modern Native Americans as having arisen from migrations between 10,000 and 15,000 B.C, rather than shortly after 600 B.C. as stated in the Book of Mormon account. Mitochondrial studies of New World DNA have led to vastly discrepant estimates of time of divergence. Ann Gibbons reports: "All this disagreement prompts [Stanford University linguist Dr. Joseph] Greenberg to simply ignore the new mtDNA data. He says: 'Every time, it seems to come to a different conclusion. I've just tended to set aside the mtDNA evidence. I'll wait until they get their act together.'"47
Martin Tanner explains:
"The idea [that] haplogroup X has been in the Americas for 10 to 35 thousand years is based solely upon the assumptions of the Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium, which include: (1) completely neutral variants, (2) no mutation, (3) no migration, (4) constant near infinite population size, and (5) completely random mate choice. In the Book of Mormon account, most of the Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium assumptions are inapplicable. The wilderness journey, the ocean voyage, and the colonization of the New World, result in patterns of genetic selection and DNA migration different from that found in Lehi's home environment. Closely related individuals married and we are dealing with [initially] a very small group, not a nearly infinite population which would dramatically alter DNA marker distribution and inheritance over time. If we take these assumptions about haplogroup X instead of the Hardy-Weinberg assumptions, haplogroup X could have been introduced into the Americas as recently as one to two thousand years ago, far less than the ten to thirty-five thousand years under the Hardy-Weinberg assumptions."48

As you can see, there is plenty of reason to question the assumptions. Instead of seeing the questioning of the assumptions you state the assumptions as 100% fact in your efforts to denounce the Book of Mormon. Its silliness if you ask me. I mean no offense, but such dogmatism is not a progress in discussion so much as an effort to unequivocally state you are right because you say so…sadly.

Sorry but so far nothing about the haplogroup X suggests a migration of 2500 years ago. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haplogroup_X_%28mtDNA%29

So far I am not seeing anything to suggest this except from Fair and farms people. It should not be surprising that their is debate about these issue as more research goes on, but as I have pointed out repeatably and not dogmatically that so far evidence to support the Book of Mormon from DNA is absent.

Your assumptions here have been brought up and questioned. The Linzi example is a good one to follow.

Others are right that the Linzi examples hurt the Book of Mormon claims. You are doing what the apologists do here to muddy the water by showing an example of population movement, which is ok. I agree that this is going on and can be complex, but I believe the Linzi example also shows their DNA showing up in the modern populations as well.

There is also a very good example in the Icelandic people, that you might have heard about (and would have if you had read the links I’ve offered).

And yet they are still able to figure it out.

On top of all of this, you have yet to show that we can confidently say we know the Genetic make-up of Lehi and co.

Considering where he lived, when and who he says he is related to, yes we do have pretty good idea of the kind of DNA he would have. Not exactly but more then good enough to see it show up in NA. The problem is that so far we have not seen DNA show up in NA anciently from these areas. What you want to propose may not be impossible, but very unlikely, which is the bread and butter of apologetics. It a whole mountain of unlikely scenarios.

More:

The Bible reports some 600,000 able-bodied footmen among the Israelites at the time of the Exodus, in addition to women and children (Exodus 12:37, Numbers. 11:21), suggesting a likely population of at least 2 million. Throughout history, the Jewish population was reconstituted from only a fraction of its former people on at least several occasions, often with considerable influx of non-Jewish genes. Hebrew scholars estimate that the Jewish population had fallen to approximately 300,000 a century after the Babylonian Captivity, increasing to between 2 and 5 million by the time of Christ and falling to less than a million following the Roman-Jewish wars.41 Only a fraction of the Jews returned from Babylon, only a portion of the Palestinian Jews survived the Roman counterattacks leading to the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD, and many Jews perished in European pogroms. The asymmetric nature of all of these events would have resulted in the loss of many "Israelite" genes from the Jewish gene pool. Dr. Robert Pollack observed that Ashkenazi Jews, who constitute 80% of the world Jewish population,42 "descend from a rather small number of families who survived the pogroms of the mid-1600s."43 Geneticist Doron Behar reports that "from an estimated number of ~25,000 in 1300 AD, the Ashkenazi population had grown to more than 8.5 million by the beginning of the 19th century." 44 Daniel Elazar of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs wrote that at the end of the eleventh century, 97% of the world's Jews were Sephardic and only 3% were Ashkenazi.45 He reports that in "the mid-seventeenth century, Sephardim still outnumbered Ashkenazim three to two...The Ashkenazic high point came in 1931 when they constituted nearly 92 percent of world Jewry." Ethnohistory repeatedly documents the amplification of a small subset of precursor DNA in modern Jewish populations, the inevitable loss of many Israelite haplotypes altogether, and the introduction of large amounts of non-Israelite DNA. Such ethnohistoric data resoundingly repudiate critics' assumptions that modern Jewish groups represent a comprehensive and valid control of the genetics of ancient Israel. Dr. Pollack further noted: "Though there are many deleterious versions of genes shared within the Ashkenazic community, there are no DNA sequences common to all Jews and absent from all non-Jews. There is nothing in the human genome that makes or diagnoses a person as a Jew." Historical and genetic evidence suggest that modern Jewish populations cannot possibly contain all of the genetic material present in pre-dispersion Israel, and that few modern Jewish haplotypes are even plausible candidates for ancient Israelite origin.

I wouldn't take to much from the Bible, but scientists have been looking at this area of the world for a long time now. It's interesting that all the studies about Jewish or Semitic DNA has given them lots of information about who they are and where they may have come from. The problem is that what we find in NA so far does not fit with the Book of Mormon narrative.

Bu tthere is no concesus on it all. And as has already been shown the date you mention is filled with assumptions that are very much questioned, and as time continues and studies increase the questioning of these assumptions only comes stronger.

I would say that the evidence to date does not support the Book of Mormon and it seems even LDS experts have said their mtDNA a-d and x are not from any groups arriving 2500 years ago but from the migrations over 10,000 years ago.

Bu tthere is no concesus on it all. And as has already been shown the date you mention is filled with assumptions that are very much questioned, and as time continues and studies increase the questioning of these assumptions only comes stronger.

Read the article. Like I said there is no evidence to support the x haplogroup arriving 2500 years ago even if there is other disputes about it and it's origins and date of arrival. None of it would put it into the time frame you want.

[_Runtu]

As for your question, that's my point. Its not relevant. This thread was started to discuss mtDNA, and the Lemba doesn't lend to that discussion, it seems. For the second question, that's been discussed the link I gave. The CMH group is prevalent among the Levite simitic peoples.

I was unaware that you were making the point that the Lemba are irrelevant to discussions of mtDNA. I must have misunderstood your point.

Perhaps of their time.

Precisely, but you are insisting that we don't know what Middle Easter DNA from that time might look like.

One thing seems evident concerning this bullet point—the people of Mongolia don’t have a defined origin themselves. If your assumption is correct, “it would be reasonable to expect some Middle Eastern markers in the NA mt DNA” then we ought to at least be able to find what would be expected among the women of the ancient group.

Yup. Again, you seem to believe that we don't know anything about the genetic makeup of ancient peoples. I don't know why you think this.

What? The CMH is present in approximately 45-55% of Ashkenazic and Sephardic Cohens, compared to 2-3% of non-Cohen Jews. It is also found in the Buba clan of the Lemba tribe of Zimbabwe, the Bnei Menashe of India, and in several non-Jewish populations, including Armenians, Kurds, Hungarians, and central and southern Italians.

In other words, it is present in all diaspora groups. Thank you for confirming my point.

And
Jewish DNA researcher Dr. Ken Jacobs states: "The only Jewish subgroup that does show some homogeneity--descendants of the Cohanim, or priestly class--makes up only about 2 percent of the Jewish population. Even within the Cohanim, and certainly within the rest of the Jewish people, there's a vast amount of genetic variation."13

The reason it is called the diaspora is that Jews migrated and mixed with non-Jewish groups. Not sure what this has to do with the presence of CMH. Unless you can tell me of some Jewish group that is entirely free of CMH, my point stands.

I’d say that’s at least a bit overstated.
Following the discovery of the first, more common, Native American mtDNA haplogroups in the early 1990s (originally termed A, B, C, and D and later renamed A2, B2, C1, and D1 to distinguish them from their Asian "cousins"), a fifth haplogroup was identified in 1996 by Forster and colleagues and named haplogroup X (not to be confused with the X chromosome).35 Contrary to nearly all the world haplogroups, it is not geographically confined, but it is found at low frequency among several populations: Europeans, Africans, Asians, Middle Easterners, and Native Americans.

Do you know where the X group originated and when it spread? It originated in Siberia (you know, the place where that land bridge was that you don't believe in. There are two theories of how the X haplogroup ended up in the Americas: either Siberians brought it over the land bridge, or Solutreans brought it from Europe. Either way, the migration occurred during the Ice Age, some 16,000 years BC. Not exactly a support for the Book of Mormon.

The only pronouncement I have stuck to, and its argued int eh link, is the CMH marker. The point regarding Middle Eastern mtDNA is up in the air as I see it. There are plenty of reasons to question what one would expect from Lehi and co DNA and mt DNA.

Again, you seem to rest on the assumption that we don't know what ancient Middle Eastern DNA should look like. Here's a good place to start educating yourself: Archeogenetics of the Near East.

I offer you the link. I don’t kow if I can put it any better myself:
http://www.fairlds.org/FAIR_Conferences ... ormon.html

As is often the case, when I actually check the sources for a FAIR the evidence is either not as conclusive as the article claims or is a distortion. I am going to write up what I've found from source-checking the FAIR article you linked to. Let's just say I am not impressed.

[_stemelbow]

Sorry but so far nothing about the haplogroup X suggests a migration of 2500 years ago. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haplogroup_X_%28mtDNA%29

So? That’s not really my point.

So far I am not seeing anything to suggest this except from Fair and farms people. It should not be surprising that their is debate about these issue as more research goes on, but as I have pointed out repeatably and not dogmatically that so far evidence to support the Book of Mormon from DNA is absent.

Again so? that’s not really the issue.

Others are right that the Linzi examples hurt the Book of Mormon claims. You are doing what the apologists do here to muddy the water by showing an example of population movement, which is ok. I agree that this is going on and can be complex, but I believe the Linzi example also shows their DNA showing up in the modern populations as well.

Hebrew University geneticist Howard Cedar stated: "Researchers still don't know what the history is behind the variations. As a result, it is difficult to draw conclusions about genetic affinity."30 Not one of the modern Near Eastern "regional affiliation" haplotypes has been demonstrated to have been prevalent in Israelite populations before the Babylonian captivity.

If there was a possibility to do some pre-captivity studies on the Israelite population then you may have a point. That there is such distinction between the Linzi peoples of different eras says a lot about what is attempted to be concluded by critics of the Book of Mormon. Its not near as easy, clear cut, or demonstrable as critics have attempted to make it.

Considering where he lived, when and who he says he is related to, yes we do have pretty good idea of the kind of DNA he would have. Not exactly but more then good enough to see it show up in NA. The problem is that so far we have not seen DNA show up in NA anciently from these areas. What you want to propose may not be impossible, but very unlikely, which is the bread and butter of apologetics. It a whole mountain of unlikely scenarios.

Sorry, experts have stated otherwise, and I’ve quoted them. They say that the genetic make up of pre-captivity Israelites is not confirmed at all. You say it is. I don’t know why you suggest as much. But you keep saying it.

I wouldn't take to much from the Bible, but scientists have been looking at this area of the world for a long time now. It's interesting that all the studies about Jewish or Semitic DNA has given them lots of information about who they are and where they may have come from. The problem is that what we find in NA so far does not fit with the Book of Mormon narrative.

I simply disagree with your dogmatic statement here. Not that what we have so far does fit, but its that we simply can’t conclude that it doesn’t fit as yet. I hope I’ve been clear on that.

Read the article. Like I said there is no evidence to support the x haplogroup arriving 2500 years ago even if there is other disputes about it and it's origins and date of arrival. None of it would put it into the time frame you want.

But this has been addressed. To rely so heavily, so dogmatically, on the dates is to rely heavily on assumptions that may or may not be reliable at all. In some cases these assumptions are being brought into question. While you make a point in regards to the 2500 years ago thing, there also is a great deal of ambiguity and questioning regarding it all.

The critics position must be “disprove”, but sadly disproving is far more complicated than it seems to be assumed.

[Guest]

If there was a possibility to do some pre-captivity studies on the Israelite population then you may have a point. That there is such distinction between the Linzi peoples of different eras says a lot about what is attempted to be concluded by critics of the Book of Mormon. Its not near as easy, clear cut, or demonstrable as critics have attempted to make it.

I believe Runtu link deals a little with this.

Sorry, experts have stated otherwise, and I’ve quoted them. They say that the genetic make up of pre-captivity Israelites is not confirmed at all. You say it is. I don’t know why you suggest as much. But you keep saying it.

Actually I said we have enough of an idea of it. Again Runtu's link deal a little with this. I guess they know more then apologists want to admit. Not a surprise.

I simply disagree with your dogmatic statement here.

Yes everyone is dogmatic but you lol

Not that what we have so far does fit, but its that we simply can’t conclude that it doesn’t fit as yet. I hope I’ve been clear on that.

Sure we can simply like you said what we have so far does not fit. If new information changes that then fine. The big problem again is that we do know enough about NA DNA to exclude seeing any that comes from the near east or any other areas around 2500 years ago. The DNA found is fairly agreed upon that it's arrival is long before that.

But this has been addressed. To rely so heavily, so dogmatically, on the dates is to rely heavily on assumptions that may or may not be reliable at all. In some cases these assumptions are being brought into question. While you make a point in regards to the 2500 years ago thing, there also is a great deal of ambiguity and questioning regarding it all.

There all assumptions now. lol Like I said no one is proposing dates that would fit. The disagreement or debate is still far to early. Again it may not be impossible but I don;t think it's a good idea to go there. apologetics does these time and time again becuase that is all they have, not bexause the evidence leads them there.

The critics position must be “disprove”, but sadly disproving is far more complicated than it seems to be assumed.

Actually Kish is right that the ones proposing the Book of Mormon as real history have the responsibility to prove their proposition, but nothing wrong for people to provide evidence against it so people will have more information to make choices.

[_stemelbow]

Precisely, but you are insisting that we don't know what Middle Easter DNA from that time might look like.

I’m not insisting so much as parroting the ideas of experts that I’ve quoted. They are the ones who say we don’t know what their genetic makeup was. Not just I. I wouldn’t conclude that on my own. I barely know what they’re even talking about half the time.

Yup. Again, you seem to believe that we don't know anything about the genetic makeup of ancient peoples. I don't know why you think this.

I can’t help ya too much. I have not said anything at all what you have tried to summarize as my thinking here. I’m merely bringing in the notion, as attested to by experts who do know wha tot conclude, that suggests there are plenty of questions unanswered, there are plenty of ambiguities. There are tons more to learn about it all. I am not saying that means we can’t know anything at all about the genetic makeup of ancient peoples. Only that we simply don’t know a whole lot. I think I’ve made my case.

The reason it is called the diaspora is that Jews migrated and mixed with non-Jewish groups. Not sure what this has to do with the presence of CMH. Unless you can tell me of some Jewish group that is entirely free of CMH, my point stands.

What point is that again? Perhaps I’ve got it all confused, because I simply can’t see how there is a point regarding CMH.

Do you know where the X group originated and when it spread? It originated in Siberia (you know, the place where that land bridge was that you don't believe in. There are two theories of how the X haplogroup ended up in the Americas: either Siberians brought it over the land bridge, or Solutreans brought it from Europe. Either way, the migration occurred during the Ice Age, some 16,000 years BC. Not exactly a support for the Book of Mormon.

Again I believe you are overstating it again. No one knows where it originated. There are plenty of theories about it, but no one really knows, definitively. There very well could be a common geographical origin for both Siberian X group Haplotypes and NA X group Haplotypes. The timing of the migration is in question. I admit the resultant theories about when it all happened, when it all occurred, and what people have concluded and continue to conclude is not a good fit for the Book of Mormon narrative. But since there is tons of questions regarding that dating, including many of the assumptions underlying it, I simply leave it to the experts to hash out. For now, there’s a slight mark resting in the critics score board.

Again, you seem to rest on the assumption that we don't know what ancient Middle Eastern DNA should look like. Here's a good place to start educating yourself: Archeogenetics of the Near East.

Its not so much me resting on that “assumption” . It others that I’ve thought brought up some pretty good ideas and questions regarding any assumptions made to try and define ancient Israel’s DNA. As it is, there is no way of knowing it.

Simplistic claims that an Israelite origin for non-Jewish groups can be ruled in or out based on so-called "regional affiliation haplotypes" fail to account for known ethnohistoric dynamics. The questions of what these haplotypes represent in the ethnohistory of modern peoples, when they were introduced, and where they came from, have not even begun to be answered. Hebrew University geneticist Howard Cedar stated: "Researchers still don't know what the history is behind the variations. As a result, it is difficult to draw conclusions about genetic affinity."30 Not one of the modern Near Eastern "regional affiliation" haplotypes has been demonstrated to have been prevalent in Israelite populations before the Babylonian captivity.

And

Michael Hammer reports that Jewish and non-Jewish Near Eastern populations share similar prevalences of certain Y-chromosome haplotypes. However, he cautions: "Many of the same haplotypes present in Jewish and Middle Eastern populations were also present in samples from Europe, although at varying frequencies."28 Most so-called "regional affiliation" markers are present only in a fraction of modern Near East peoples. These markers are neither inclusive--that is, not all modern Near Easterners share these haplotypes--nor exclusive, in that their absence does not preclude an origin in ancient Israel or elsewhere in the Near East. Studies of modern Near Eastern groups like Armenians reveal in many cases a "strong regional structure" as the result of a relatively high degree of genetic isolation even within "single ethno-national groups."29 The vast regional differences seen within the Near East today defy the assumption that a few generic haplotypes can definitively rule in or out a historic origin anywhere in an ethnically heterogeneous region that has been home to many diverse cultures.

As is often the case, when I actually check the sources for a FAIR the evidence is either not as conclusive as the article claims or is a distortion. I am going to write up what I've found from source-checking the FAIR article you linked to. Let's just say I am not impressed.

I look forward to it.