New Science Impacts Book of Mormon DNA Studies - Southerton is at it again!

[DonBradley]

Apparently his thinking is this: if we can detect a few instances of Neanderthal DNA entering the European gene pool 30,000 years ago, then we should also see evidence for the Book of Mormon no matter how "limited" you set your interpretations. If Lehi has direct descendants still living, unique markers from his autosomal DNA are still in the population and could be found. The new SNP technology is powerful enough to find minor influxes such as this; it's not like YcDNA and mtDNA which can truly disappear even from direct descendants.

The difference is that we know what Neanderthal DNA looks like. We don't know what to look for in regards to the colonies described in the BoM. It's a matter of finding candidates (or not finding them) that could never be confirmed anyway.

If the BoM colonies ever existed there ought to at least be candidate SNP markers from those people. I wouldn't be surprised to eventually see apologists with good science credentials (like Perego) trumpeting such candidates. I'd bet there were minor migrations from Eurasia even though I think the BoM is not historical.

"Bunk,"

A thoughtful and thought-provoking post.

I also would be surprised if there were no minor migrations from Eurasia, even quite apart from the Book of Mormon.

Take care,

Don

[DonBradley]

Hey,

So here's an idea I find reasonable in its essence, if ungainly and (to me) strange in its full application.

In a letter to Sunstone during the big DNA debates there a few years, Roger Terry pointed out that if the Book of Mormon narrative is understood, at face value, to say that Laman and Lemuel, et al. literally had their skin color, and that of their offspring, changed, then the narrative is saying the change was heritable and thus, in modern language, that their DNA was changed. If one takes the literal reading of the narrative, then I think Terry's point is beyond dispute.

What is odd is the idea that not only would God change a few alleles for melanin-production, but that He would trade out the genes of Lehi's ancestors and replace them with those of the Asian immigrants to the New World. This would seem inexplicable on God's part, and rather ad hoc on the part of the one appealing to such an explanation.

Another problem I see is that Nephites did intermix with the Lamanites, and so at least some of their DNA would have to be passed on as well through the surviving Natives.

Thus, I'm not sure how well the idea works as an apologetic. However, it is interesting to note that the Book of Mormon narrative itself would, at least at face value, imply that Lehi's "Old World genes" were somewhat changed among his Lamanite descendants.

Don

[mfbukowski]

If the BoM colonies ever existed there ought to at least be candidate SNP markers from those people. I wouldn't be surprised to eventually see apologists with good science credentials (like Perego) trumpeting such candidates. I'd bet there were minor migrations from Eurasia even though I think the BoM is not historical.

I know nothing about the science here, but it just seems reasonable that if you have scientific tests showing that an entire continent has perfectly homogeneous DNA, there would be a problem with the science which showed that.

It is totally unreasonable, I think, to suppose such a large population could exist anywhere for such a long time without any DNA from an outside population at all.

[Tramper]

I know nothing about the science here, but it just seems reasonable that if you have scientific tests showing that an entire continent has perfectly homogeneous DNA, there would be a problem with the science which showed that.

It is totally unreasonable, I think, to suppose such a large population could exist anywhere for such a long time without any DNA from an outside population at all.

This is Simon's opinion: "To date, about 250 American Indians have been examined in admixture studies looking at thousands of SNPs. Not one of those people had any European or African admixture that looked like it may have occurred prior to Columbus. It all looked recent. I think that in the next 2-3 years enough American Indians will have been tested to be pretty much certain that there was no pre-Columbian admixture with Europeans or Israelites.

The technology is so sensitive it could easily detect even 0.00001% of European DNA, so a totally negative result for 250 American Indians is already compelling evidence that any early European admixture was vanishingly small at most and most likely zero. When a few thousand individuals have been examined then I think the case is closed.

The apologists will have to resort to the old pathetic lie that "God changed the DNA". "

There will be very interesting years ahead of us. I wonder how the Church will get out of this. In the near future they will run out of responses ... I feel a little sad about this. The faith of my youth is finally to be beaten up.

I miss my childhood Mormon faith. In a way I will stick to it. Perhaps the final argument will be "God can do anything". That is the last and most propable escape route even for Farms.

[Mola Ram Suda Ram]

The apologists will have to resort to the old pathetic lie that "God changed the DNA". "

Nothing like a straw man. I hope that this is not your agument. I also hpe this is not Southerton's argument. I have never heard anyone claim this seriously.

There will be very interesting years ahead of us. I wonder how the Church will get out of this. In the near future they will run out of responses ... I feel a little sad about this. The faith of my youth is finally to be beaten up.

I miss my childhood Mormon faith. In a way I will stick to it. Perhaps the final argument will be "God can do anything". That is the last and most propable escape route even for Farms.

Get out of what? What did Lehi's DNA look like? Until you know this this whole excersise is a red herring.

[Tramper]

Nothing like a straw man. I hope that this is not your agument. I also hpe this is not Southerton's argument. I have never heard anyone claim this seriously.

Get out of what? What did Lehi's DNA look like? Until you know this this whole excersise is a red herring.

Well, if Lehi entered the new world 600 BC it should be detectable.

[ttribe]

Well, if Lehi entered the new world 600 BC it should be detectable.

Please, let us all know when you come up with that 2,500 year old baseline DNA against which to compare the sample.

[Mola Ram Suda Ram]

Well, if Lehi entered the new world 600 BC it should be detectable.

Yeah, because you know what it looks like. This is funny. Continue on.

Tell me if Lehi entered the new world in 600 BC what sould be detectable? And tell me how you know with absolute certainty that that is what we should expect to find.

If you don't know what X looks like how one earth can you claim to find X if you have no way of knowing what it looks like.

[Bunk]

Nothing like a straw man. I hope that this is not your agument. I also hpe this is not Southerton's argument. I have never heard anyone claim this seriously.

See DonBradley's post #27 for reference to a serious claim of this. I have heard it myself. What's wrong with it, anyway?

[Mola Ram Suda Ram]

See DonBradley's post #27 for reference to a serious claim of this. I have heard it myself. What's wrong with it, anyway?

Interesting. I just sounded rediculous. I guess after reading it, from a certain perspective it might hold water. I just hate arguing things from silence. The truth is that we have no idea one way or another if their DNA would have changed. For that reason I could not take it seriously. If it helps other members of the church out then so be it.

[Bunk]

Yeah, because you know what it looks like. This is funny. Continue on.

Tell me if Lehi entered the new world in 600 BC what sould be detectable? And tell me how you know with absolute certainty that that is what we should expect to find.

If you don't know what X looks like how one earth can you claim to find X if you have no way of knowing what it looks like.

If Lehi has any living descendants, then some of his DNA is still with us.

So his DNA was just a drop in the sea of Asians.... We have the power to detect this if it still exists, just like we detect Neanderthal DNA from 30,000 years ago still floating in the sea of Homo Sapiens. No, we wouldn't know for sure that it was Lehi, but we would know it was somebody who wasn't the usual Asian profile. There would be candidates at least. If there aren't even any candidates, then you've got a real problem. Either a) Lehi never existed or b) Lehi has no living descendants.

As I said in an earlier post, I think there will be candidates eventually so you shouldn't worry too much yet.

With SNP technology it is a slightly different argument than what you are used to. I don't think it's a knock-out punch the way Simon does, but you shouldn't just scoff the way you are used to (and, IMO, neither should DCP's featured experts).

[Mola Ram Suda Ram]

If Lehi has any living descendants, then some of his DNA is still with us.

So his DNA was just a drop in the sea of Asians.... We have the power to detect this if it still exists, just like we detect Neanderthal DNA from 30,000 years ago still floating in the sea of Homo Sapiens. No, we wouldn't know for sure that it was Lehi, but we would know it was somebody who wasn't the usual Asian profile. There would be candidates at least. If there aren't even any candidates, then you've got a real problem. Either a) Lehi never existed or b) Lehi has no living descendants.

As I said in an earlier post, I think there will be candidates eventually so you shouldn't worry too much yet.

With SNP technology it is a slightly different argument than what you are used to. I don't think it's a knock-out punch the way Simon does, but you shouldn't just scoff the way you are used to (and, IMO, neither should DCP's featured experts).

I just have a hard time that anyone with any certanty could claim that they found X or didn't find X if they did not know what X looked like.

BTW I am not worried one bit.

[DonBradley]

Tramper,

I'd be curious what you know about the technology--I know nothing. Where did you get the information that it can discern down to a 1 in 10,000,000 admixture, and where might I read about this?

Don

[DonBradley]

Hey Bunk,

I don't believe DCP, et al. were scoffing at the technology one bit, but, rather, at Simon's claim that the existing studies are essentially dispositive of the whole issue.

Like you, I would be quite surprised if there were no pre-Columbian Old World migrations to the New World (even quite apart from migrations described in the Book of Mormon) aside from those over the Bering Strait ca. 12,000 BC or BP. I believe, for instance, that there is promising evidence of Australian aboriginal contact with the lower tip of South America. And I would be very surprised if no stray ships from Europe or western Asia ever ended up in the New World and contributed some DNA.

Don

[Ariarates]

Greg, you raise some interesting points:

Indeed, they perhaps could be found. But, to what degree has anyone looked? I warrant that no SNP researchers have yet addressed this question. So it would seem to be a bit premature to be crowing about it. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, especially if no systematic approach has been taken to look for it.

In my estimation, no SNP researchers ever will address this question either. The BoM is just not taken seriously as a historical text outside LDS circles for any such researcher to care one way or another. You couldn't even pay them enough to try. Unless an LDS SNP researcher comes up with an interesting find (published in a peer reviewed scientific journal, not some LDS magazine or FARMS publication), nothing of scientific substance will ever come of this.

DNA is only a problem for an "empty hemisphere" model of the Book of Mormon--which model was already amply disproved by the text's discussion of demographics, blood group studies, and the archaeology of the New World. Thus, DNA has thus far brought nothing new to the party but what we already knew for decades before.

This is a good point, although I may be interpreting it differently than you intended. Every attempt at a scientific approach of the BoM since Joseph Smith - from whatever angle - has confirmed that it cannot be literal history. DNA fits this longstanding tradition.

[Ariarates]

Like you, I would be quite surprised if there were no pre-Columbian Old World migrations to the New World (even quite apart from migrations described in the Book of Mormon) aside from those over the Bering Strait ca. 12,000 BC or BP. I believe, for instance, that there is promising evidence of Australian aboriginal contact with the lower tip of South America. And I would be very surprised if no stray ships from Europe or western Asia ever ended up in the New World and contributed some DNA.

There's this book by Gavin Menzies, "1421" - he seems to see Chinese all over the place...

I don't agree on the likelihood of "stray ships" ending up in the America's. It's quite a lot of ocean to cross. Even if somebody did end up somewhere on the coast of the America's, the odds of actually meeting a native (and interbreeding) would also be very slim in my completely uninformed opinion.

[ERayR]

There's this book by Gavin Menzien, "1421" - he seems to see Chinese all over the place...

I don't agree on the likelihood of "stray ships" ending up in the America's. It's quite a lot of ocean to cross. Even if somebody did end up somewhere on the coast of the America's, the odds of actually meeting a native (and interbreeding) would also be very slim in my completely uninformed opinion.

Thanks for qualifying your response.

IMNSHO it wouldn't have to be a stray ship as I can see evidence of deliberate interaction involved.

[tonyloaf]

[Greg Smith]

This is a good point, although I may be interpreting it differently than you intended. Every attempt at a scientific approach of the BoM since Joseph Smith - from whatever angle - has confirmed that it cannot be literal history. DNA fits this longstanding tradition.

"Cannot be literal history"?

That's a little too absolutist, I think. Just to pick one example, no New World barley was known in Joseph's day. Now, New World pre-contact barley is known. That strikes me as one "scientific" data point that is consistent with the Book of Mormon being a literal history. One certainly can't point to barley and say, "See, this just proves the Book of Mormon cannot be literal history."

I think the evidence at present--and, if I were to play Simon's game and fortune tell, the future--will be honestly amenable to more than one interpretation.

Which I expect is exactly as God intended it.

GLS

[Greg Smith]

[Greg Smith]

For the most part I agree with your post but I think you are going too far here. DNA is only NOT a problem for relatively limited interpretations of the BoM colony vs. rather expansive interpretations of what "others" existed. You assume such an imbalanced setup is the only thing one can gather from the text and that is not quite the case.

Actually, I said the text, blood group studies, and archaeology. DNA didn't change the equation--or, it didn't for me. Maybe I misunderstood the blood group and archaeology data, but I don't think so.

(Though arguably the demographics of the text alone make a substantial populations of others a virtual necessity.)

GLS

[mfbukowski]

If Lehi has any living descendants, then some of his DNA is still with us.

So his DNA was just a drop in the sea of Asians.... We have the power to detect this if it still exists, just like we detect Neanderthal DNA from 30,000 years ago still floating in the sea of Homo Sapiens. No, we wouldn't know for sure that it was Lehi, but we would know it was somebody who wasn't the usual Asian profile. There would be candidates at least. If there aren't even any candidates, then you've got a real problem. Either a) Lehi never existed or b) Lehi has no living descendants.

As I said in an earlier post, I think there will be candidates eventually so you shouldn't worry too much yet.

With SNP technology it is a slightly different argument than what you are used to. I don't think it's a knock-out punch the way Simon does, but you shouldn't just scoff the way you are used to (and, IMO, neither should DCP's featured experts).

Gosh, I didn't know there were only about 30 Neanderthals in all of Europe.

That is what would have to be true to have the comparison be valid.

[mfbukowski]

This is Simon's opinion: "To date, about 250 American Indians have been examined in admixture studies looking at thousands of SNPs. Not one of those people had any European or African admixture that looked like it may have occurred prior to Columbus. It all looked recent. I think that in the next 2-3 years enough American Indians will have been tested to be pretty much certain that there was no pre-Columbian admixture with Europeans or Israelites.

The technology is so sensitive it could easily detect even 0.00001% of European DNA, so a totally negative result for 250 American Indians is already compelling evidence that any early European admixture was vanishingly small at most and most likely zero. When a few thousand individuals have been examined then I think the case is closed.

The apologists will have to resort to the old pathetic lie that "God changed the DNA". "

There will be very interesting years ahead of us. I wonder how the Church will get out of this. In the near future they will run out of responses ... I feel a little sad about this. The faith of my youth is finally to be beaten up.

I miss my childhood Mormon faith. In a way I will stick to it. Perhaps the final argument will be "God can do anything". That is the last and most propable escape route even for Farms.

You are telling me that in several thousand years, while the Polynesians were sailing thousands of miles in canoes and colonizing the Pacific, and all the Vikings trips, and the Phoenicians and the Greeks and the Minoans and Egyptians, and with Iceland and Greenland being just a hop-skip and a jump from Newfoundland, that no Europeans, not one, and no one from the Mediterranean or no one from Africa, not one human being at all, made it to the Americans and spread his DNA into the population?

Is that what you are telling me?

Dang I knew those Polynesians were pretty smart, but I never knew how dumb everyone else was in comparison.

And this is what you want me to believe to supposedly prove the Book of Mormon wrong, right?

Golly, this is starting to make angels and gold plates sound downright plausible.

Edit: On a serious note, I am sure at least 30 non-Nephite human beings made it across the Atlantic in all of prehistory. If their DNA is not showing up, why would Lehi's?

[hagoth7]

You are telling me that in several thousand years, while the Polynesians were sailing thousands of miles in canoes and colonizing the Pacific, and all the Vikings trips, and the Phoenicians and the Greeks and the Minoans and Egyptians, and with Iceland and Greenland being just a hop-skip and a jump from Newfoundland, that no Europeans, not one, and no one from the Mediterranean or no one from Africa, not one human being at all, made it to the Americans and spread his DNA into the population?

Is that what you are telling me?

Dang I knew those Polynesians were pretty smart, but I never knew how dumb everyone else was in comparison.

And this is what you want me to believe to supposedly prove the Book of Mormon wrong, right?

Golly, this is starting to make angels and gold plates sound downright plausible.

Good stuff. Made my day.

[hagoth7]

...I feel a little sad about this. The faith of my youth is finally to be beaten up...

...no...weapon...forged...