Tobin wrote: Simon is being less than honest here. He knows that many Native Americans descendants are of mixed heritage with both Native American and European or African ancestry. For example, I'm part Native American but I otherwise appear to be of purely European descent. People like me (and my guess is we represent the vast majority of Native American descendants) have not been tested and don't fall into Simon's consideration because of our mixed heritage. If the Lehite descendants exist, they could very easily exist in this population.
While I and 95 % of the rest of the board are on tobin's ignore list as though we are the problem:), I am wondering why he thinks people who have mixed ancestry of European or African has any relevancy to the issue.
It seems the official response has adopted the idea that Book of Mormon civilizations co-existed with even intermarried with large pre-existing peoples already here.
From the article.
The Book of Mormon provides little direct information about cultural contact between the peoples it describes and others who may have lived nearby. Consequently, most early Latter-day Saints assumed that Near Easterners or West Asians like Jared, Lehi, Mulek, and their companions were the first or the largest or even the only groups to settle the Americas. Building upon this assumption, critics insist that the Book of Mormon does not allow for the presence of other large populations in the Americas and that, therefore, Near Eastern DNA should be easily identifiable among modern native groups.
As has been noted above, there are scriptures that led them to this conclusion, not just bad "assumptions." Congrats to Mike Ash by the way, for getting this assumptions line into the official response. So if the Book of Mormon people met and interacted with these Near Eastern cultures, why didn't they ever mention them? How about whether or not they were Christians? If not, did they try to convert them?
The Book of Mormon itself, however, does not claim that the peoples it describes were either the predominant or the exclusive inhabitants of the lands they occupied.
VS
4th Nephi Chapter 1: 2 And it came to pass in the thirty and sixth year, the people were all converted unto the Lord, upon all the face of the land, both Nephites and Lamanites, and there were no contentions and disputations among them, and every man did deal justly one with another.
...
15 And it came to pass that there was no contention in the land, because of the love of God which did dwell in the hearts of the people.
16 And there were no envyings, nor strifes, nor tumults, nor whoredoms, nor lyings, nor murders, nor any manner of lasciviousness; and surely there could not be a happier people among all the people who had been created by the hand of God.
17 There were no robbers, nor murderers, neither were there Lamanites, nor any manner of -ites; but they were in one, the children of Christ, and heirs to the kingdom of God.
18 And how blessed were they! For the Lord did bless them in all their doings; yea, even they were blessed and prospered until an hundred and ten years had passed away; and the first generation from Christ had passed away, and there was no contention in all the land.
Please reconcile these scriptures with the above statement.
In fact, cultural and demographic clues in its text hint at the presence of other groups.
The "hints" I've seen to date have been utterly unconvincing. More like someone who read the whole Book of Mormon straining at any language that suggests that maybe there was someone else. Just once in a 500 page book you'd expect some clear statement in the Book about these "others" considering how remarkable meeting and interacting with a new culture would have been. But nope, just 'hints.'
At the April 1929 general conference, President Anthony W. Ivins of the First Presidency cautioned: “We must be careful in the conclusions that we reach. The Book of Mormon … does not tell us that there was no one here before them [the peoples it describes]. It does not tell us that people did not come after.”
Joseph Smith appears to have been open to the idea of migrations other than those described in the Book of Mormon,8 and many Latter-day Saint leaders and scholars over the past century have found the Book of Mormon account to be fully consistent with the presence of other established populations.9 The 2006 update to the introduction of the Book of Mormon reflects this understanding by stating that Book of Mormon peoples were “among the ancestors of the American Indians.”10
I think I may have to re-read the Book of Mormon to document all the times it is inconsistent.
Nothing is known about the extent of intermarriage and genetic mixing between Book of Mormon peoples or their descendants and other inhabitants of the Americas, though some mixing appears evident, even during the period covered by the book’s text.
They interacted with and even intermarried with them, and yet they don't mention it. Not even once.
Explain this verse if they interacted and intermarried with Asian DNA.
3 Nephi 2:15 And their curse was taken from them, and their skin became white like unto the Nephites;
So if these people had intermarried and intermixed with Asian DNA, when God made them some of them white did God change their facial structure as well? Or did some of them become white skinned people with Asian features? What about their hair? Did he change that as well? So many weird questions to ask... God would have needed to change their DNA to change their skin color right? I mean so their kids wouldn't revert back to the "cursed" non-white state.
It's too bad the church didn't try to use the curse of dark skin to explain how the DNA might have gotten lost... I guess they knew that would go over like a lead ballon.
A few responses on the essay. Unfortunately I don't have the resources of a PR company and an army of apologists at my disposal so its pretty rough.
LDS Newsroom The conclusions of genetics, like those of any science, are tentative, and much work remains to be done to fully understand the origins of the native populations of the Americas.
SGS The DNA science is not tentative or inconclusive. It is consistent with scientific conclusions about Native American origins from numerous other scientific disciplines.
LDS Newsroom Scientists theorize that in an era that predated Book of Mormon accounts, a relatively small group of people migrated from northeast Asia to the Americas by way of a land bridge that connected Siberia to Alaska. These people, scientists say, spread rapidly to fill North and South America and were likely the primary ancestors of modern American Indians.
SGS The truth is that Native Americans have occupied the New World for at least 13,000 years. This is an indisputable fact that the LDS Newsroom overlooks. They widely colonised North and South America for TEN THOUSAND years before Lehi allegedly arrived. For over a century mainstream archaeologists, geneticists and anthropologists studying Native Americans have believed there ancestors migrated from Asia across dry land (Beringia) exposed during the last ice age. The DNA evidence suggests a slightly earlier arrival date of about 16,000 years ago. It hasn’t changed things much.
LDS Newsroom The Book of Mormon itself, however, does not claim that the peoples it describes were either the predominant or the exclusive inhabitants of the lands they occupied. In fact, cultural and demographic clues in its text hint at the presence of other groups.
SGS The claim of the first sentence is demonstrably false. 2 Nephi 1:8-9 "And behold, it is wisdom that this land should be kept as yet from the knowledge of other nations; for behold, many nations would overrun the land, that there would be no place for an inheritance. Wherefore, I, Lehi, have obtained a promise, that inasmuch as those whom the Lord God shall bring out of the land of Jerusalem shall keep his commandments, they shall prosper upon the face of this land; and they shall be kept from all other nations, that they may possess this land unto themselves. And if it so be that they shall keep his commandments they shall be blessed upon the face of this land, and there shall be none to molest them, nor to take away the land of their inheritance; and they shall dwell safely forever." We are not told what the cultural and demographic clues are. But we are meant to accept the “clues” and overlook the scripture above.
LDS Newsroom At the April 1929 general conference, President Anthony W. Ivins of the First Presidency cautioned: “We must be careful in the conclusions that we reach. The Book of Mormon … does not tell us that there was no one here before them [the peoples it describes]. It does not tell us that people did not come after.”
SGS I find it hard to pay attention to the words of a member of the First Presidency from 85 years ago because the words of many, more recent, prophets are RINGING IN MY EARS.
LDS Newsroom At the present time, scientific consensus holds that the vast majority of Native Americans belong to sub-branches of the Y-chromosome haplogroups C and Q and the mitochondrial DNA haplogroups A, B, C, D, and X, all of which are predominantly East Asian. But the picture is not entirely clear. Continuing studies provide new insights, and some challenge previous conclusions. For example, a 2013 study states that as much as one-third of Native American DNA originated anciently in Europe or West Asia and was likely introduced into the gene pool before the earliest migration to the Americas. This study paints a more complex picture than is suggested by the prevailing opinion that all Native American DNA is essentially East Asian.
SGS The 2013 study in question was on nuclear DNA (not mitochondrial or Y-chromosome) isolated from 24,000-year-old remains recovered in Siberia. It was observed that about one-third of the individuals DNA originated in Europe or West Asia. That is not very surprising for someone living 24,000 years ago in Siberia and it certainly does not challenge any of the conclusions derived from mitochondrial or Y-chromosome DNA.
I hate to be picky but Native American DNA is essentially Siberian, not East Asian.
LDS Newsroom While Near Eastern DNA markers do exist in the DNA of modern native populations, it is difficult to determine whether they are the result of migrations that predated Columbus, such as those described in the Book of Mormon, or whether they stem from genetic mixing that occurred after the European conquest. This is due in part to the fact that the “molecular clock” used by scientists to date the appearance of genetic markers is not always accurate enough to pinpoint the timing of migrations that occurred as recently as a few hundred or even a few thousand years ago.
SGS Clearly, this section of the essay was written (or at least approved) by Rodney Meldrum, who is making a small fortune on the back of misleading molecular clock claims. In the early years of dating using DNA there was considerable debate about which method was the most accurate. The debate has been resolved for 15 years but Rodney Meldrum insists on dragging out a paper from 1998, the peak of the debate, and using it as evidence that dating is unreliable. Meldrum doesn’t understand the science he writes about. He is a snake-oil salesman exploiting elderly Mormons.
The “Near Eastern DNA” being referred to here is the Native American mitochondrial X lineage. LDS scientist Ugo Perego, who has undoubtedly helped in the writing of the essay, has dated Native American X lineages using very robust modern methods, and it arrived in the New World about 15,000 years ago. I wonder how Perego felt about the essay undermining his own research?
LDS Newsroom Scientists do not rule out the possibility of additional, small-scale migrations to the Americas. For example, a 2010 genetic analysis of a well-preserved 4,000-year-old Paleo-Eskimo in Greenland led scientists to hypothesize that a group of people besides those from East Asia had migrated to the Americas. Commenting on this study, population geneticist Marcus Feldman of Stanford University said: “Models that suggest a single one-time migration are generally regarded as idealized systems. … There may have been small amounts of migrations going on for millennia.”
SGS Scientists are well aware that many small-scale migrations have occurred and may even still occur in sub-Arctic populations. The Bering Strait is not a complete barrier to migration (if you have a kayak or two) and Eskimo/Inuit groups have crossed in both directions over recent millenia. This is what the 2010 Paleo-Eskimo paper was about and that is the context of Marcus Feldman’s comments. He wasn’t talking about Amerindian migrations down south.
LDS Newsroom One reason it is difficult to use DNA evidence to draw definite conclusions about Book of Mormon peoples is that nothing is known about the DNA that Lehi, Sariah, Ishmael, and others brought to the Americas.
SGS No. The problem is all that Asian DNA (99.5%) which arrived in the Americas in excess of 15,000 years ago. The only non-Asian DNA (0.5%) is either European or African and derived from post Columbus admixture. We don’t see any orphan DNA lineages which may have come from somewhere else. It is also ridiculous to claim that we know nothing about the likely DNA lineages of the Book of Mormon founders. They came from the Middle East so they would have carried Middle Eastern DNA lineages, which are well characterised.
LDS Newsroom In addition to the catastrophic war at the end of the Book of Mormon, the European conquest of the Americas in the 15th and 16th centuries touched off just such a cataclysmic chain of events. As a result of war and the spread of disease, many Native American groups experienced devastating population losses. One molecular anthropologist observed that the conquest “squeezed the entire Amerindian population through a genetic bottleneck.” He concluded, “This population reduction has forever altered the genetics of the surviving groups, thus complicating any attempts at reconstructing the pre-Columbian genetic structure of most New World groups.”
SGS Yes, the genetic landscape was changed but are we to believe that Lamanites died out at a much higher rate than other Native Americans? Over a thousand DNA lineages have been determined from pre-Columbian ancient remains. All the lineages to date come from Asia.
LDS Newsroom Moreover, the shuffling and recombination of autosomal DNA from generation to generation produces new combinations of markers in which the predominant genetic signal comes from the larger original population. This can make the combinations of markers characteristic of the smaller group so diluted that they cannot be reliably identified.
SGS Twice in the last 3 years scientists have discovered hidden ancestors in our autosomal DNA. They discovered that people in non-African populations have a small percentage (1-4%) of Neanderthal DNA in their genome. Then more recently it was discovered that Melanesians and Australian Aboriginals carry a small proportion of DNA from Denisovans, a related hominid species that lived in Asia. These small proportions of “foreign” DNA entered our lineage 30-40 thousand years ago. If Middle Eastern DNA entered Native American populations in the last 3 thousand years there is no reason to believe that Middle Eastern markers would disappear completely.
LDS Newsroom Genetic profiles may be entirely lost, and combinations that once existed may become so diluted that they are difficult to detect. Thus, portions of a population may in fact be related genealogically to an individual or group but not have DNA that can be identified as belonging to those ancestors. In other words, Native Americans whose ancestors include Book of Mormon peoples may not be able to confirm that relationship using their DNA.
SGS This is complete nonsense. If people are genealogically related they MUST share genetic material, especially autosomal DNA.
LDS Newsroom As Elder Dallin H. Oaks of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles observed, “It is our position that secular evidence can neither prove nor disprove the authenticity of the Book of Mormon.”
SGS Then why the essay?
The Book of Mormon makes scientifically testable claims that science has continuously shown to have no basis in fact. The DNA evidence has exposed the true ancestry of Native Americans with amazing clarity and also, unfortunately for the LDS Church, the dubious history of the Book of Mormon.
LDS apologetics --> "It's not the crime, it's the cover-up, which creates the scandal." "Bigfoot is a crucial part of the ecosystem, if he exists. So let's all help keep Bigfoot possibly alive for future generations to enjoy, unless he doesn't exist." - Futurama
2 Nephi 1:8 wrote:And behold, it is wisdom that this land should be kept as yet from the knowledge of other nations; for behold, many nations would overrun the land, that there would be no place for an inheritance.
From the essay "Book of Mormon And DNA Studies"
The Book of Mormon itself, however, does not claim that the peoples it describes were either the predominant or the exclusive inhabitants of the lands they occupied.
From the Gospel Principles Manual
Lying is intentionally deceiving others. Bearing false witness is one form of lying. The Lord gave this commandment to the children of Israel: “Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour” (Exodus 20:16). Jesus also taught this when He was on earth (see Matthew 19:18). There are many other forms of lying. When we speak untruths, we are guilty of lying. We can also intentionally deceive others by a gesture or a look, by silence, or by telling only part of the truth. Whenever we lead people in any way to believe something that is not true, we are not being honest.
That said, with the Book of Mormon, we are not dealing with a civilization with no written record. What we are dealing with is a written record with no civilization. (Runtu, Feb 2015)
This essay on DNA seems to have been written to obfuscate, dodge and deflect attention from the clear scientific consensus on this issue. This scientific consensus has been formed from a distillation of thousands of data points from early mtDNA studies, later high resolution mtDNA analysis and, even more recently (as described on Simon Southerton's blog), from comprehensive (genome-wide) SNP analysis.
The facts are that A, B, C, D and X haplogroups were all represented in the pre-Columbian Amerindian founding lineages prior to their migrations through Beringia from Siberia to the New World.
Due to the period of reproductive isolation from the sister clades of this group, (an isolation of at least 10,000 years), by the time the New World Amerindians finally arrived in North America and started expanding south and east, they were genetically distinct from their Old World ancestors, regardless of haplogroup.
As has been pointed out, it simply does not matter what Lehite DNA (mtDNA) looked like. Any insertion of Old World mtDNA from trans-oceanic migration into the pre-Columbian New World genome would be detectable. No matter where in the Old World that DNA came from, if it did not enter the New World during the migration via Siberia across Beringia that started some 30,000 years ago (in other words if it did not enter with the founding lineages from Asia that were held up in Beringia) then it would be detectable against the background of these founding lineages that did.
With the exception of a small isolated pre-Columbian population from the Japanese islands found along the west coast of South America, there is no credible evidence that DNA from trans-oceanic migrations entered the pre-Columbian Amerindian genome.
As reported in National Geographic not long ago, even Ugo Peerego of the Sorenson Molecular Genealogy Foundation in Salt Lake City and the University of Pavia in Italy eventually agreed with the mainstream scientific consensus regarding the fact that the lineages described in this thread developed in Beringia during the migration delay or hold-up period.
It is significant that the Perego study was to be the BYU/LDS response to the Southerton devastating DNA book. In the end, results from this study supported Southerton and are also in agreement with the peer reviewed studies that I have cited earlier on this board, which were published since the Perego study appeared.
What is it that Mormon apologists and essay writers cannot understand about these straightforward and elegant results? They are consistent with, or directly supported by, every credible and relevant study done to date, including a large Mormon sponsored study that was initiated with the intent of disproving them. ______________________
ETA: Had not seen Simon's post above when I started writing this (some of which was taken from an earlier cross post with cdowis on MDDB). Apologize for any redundancy.
Last edited by Guest on Sat Feb 01, 2014 2:23 pm, edited 1 time in total.
David Hume: "---Mistakes in philosophy are merely ridiculous, those in religion are dangerous."
DrW: "Mistakes in science are learning opportunities and are eventually corrected."
Simon Southerton wrote:A few responses on the essay. Unfortunately I don't have the resources of a PR company and an army of apologists at my disposal so its pretty rough.
Simon,
Thank you for taking the time to provide an authoritative, well written response.
Assume that you will post it on your blog so that Mormons who are not comfortable (or not allowed) to visit this board might have the opportunity to read the facts and learn the truth.
David Hume: "---Mistakes in philosophy are merely ridiculous, those in religion are dangerous."
DrW: "Mistakes in science are learning opportunities and are eventually corrected."
Since the science of DNA is so inconclusive regarding this subject, the church needs to henceforth cease and desist any and all work in relation to posthumous ordinances and reject any and all genealogical work in which DNA was used to correlate genealogical records.
Likewise the leadership should cease to be moral cowards and denounce all state sanctioned executions since the science of DNA is ultimately unreliable.
There is a blatant and obvious contradiction between what the Book of Mormon claims about the land being uninhabited and what the essay wants people to believe, that there were perhaps other populations. Does that not make this essay anti-mormon literature?
That said, with the Book of Mormon, we are not dealing with a civilization with no written record. What we are dealing with is a written record with no civilization. (Runtu, Feb 2015)
Bazooka wrote:There is a blatant and obvious contradiction between what the Book of Mormon claims about the land being uninhabited and what the essay wants people to believe, that there were perhaps other populations. Does that not make this essay anti-mormon literature?
The Book of Mormon is fiction. And as literature, Mark Twain it called chloroform in print.
The Book of Mormon is not truth, and not good literature. It is a prop for the Brethren to leverage control over the minions, more insidious than any other business corporation is.