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

[Daniel Peterson]

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?

A friend, in an e-mail the other day, had this relevant comment to make:

Moreover, the work of Sorenson & Johannessen (in V. Mair, ed., Contact and Exchange, 238-297) shows conclusively that very early pre-Columbian transoceanic voyages had to have taken place, and that transmission of certain biological items through Siberia is simply impossible. Since he is more of an angry anti-Mormon excommunicant than scientist, you won't find Simon Southerton dealing with that huge obstacle to his simplistic interpretations. However, archeology buttresses the biological and DNA conclusions of Sorenson & Johannessen at numerous (and growing) locations: Pleistocene remains at the Topper Site in South Carolina require the peopling of the Americas at least by 21,000 years Before the Present (BP), followed by the Meadowcroft Rock Shelter in Pennsylvania (17,000 BP), Lake Manix in the Mojave Desert (15,500 BP), La Brea, Calif., Tar Pits butchery marks (15,000 BP), Paisley Cave, Oregon, human fecal DNA (14,300 BP), Monte Verde, Chile, seaweed, algae, llama & gomphothere meat in human food (14,000 BP), Santa Rosa Island Woman, off coast of Calif. (13,000 BP), Valley of Mexico Penon Woman (12,755 BP), etc.

That, taken together with the strong tendency of modern, non-Mormon scholars to argue strenuously for powerful cultural input from Asia -- directly across the Pacific -- has already sounded the death knell of the sole source of transmission being Beringia.

[maklelan]

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

That seems to be the litany, but no one has been able to show this inference to be correct, and the only people making the inference are those who don't understand the science (and that includes Southerton).

[maklelan]

Greg, you raise some interesting points:

In my estimation, no SNP researchers ever will address this question either.

Yes, you clearly have your finger on the pulse of population genetics. No comment on your mistaken assumption about who understands what?

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.

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.

Really? Please name five such attempts (non-DNA related, of course) and the publications wherein they are found.

[pcarthew]

Hmmmm. Too bad. Intellectual exercise is healthy.

You seriously believe that Signature Books PR releases merit responses in the Journal of Genetics? (And why, incidentally, do you think that a journal published in India would be the natural place for such responses?) Has Simon Southerton ever published anything on this subject in a peer-reviewed book or journal?

It doesn't seem to me reasonable to expect that LDS geneticists set aside their normal research and writing every time the publicist at Signature Books feels the itch to issue a press release. But it's not as if they're sitting on their hands, even on this topic. Dr. Ugo Perego published a lengthy discussion of "The Book of Mormon and the Origin of Native Americans from a Maternally Inherited DNA Standpoint" on the FAIR webpage as recently as 10 April of this year:

http://www.fairlds.org/Book_of_Mormon/Book_of_Mormon_and_DNA.html

It will appear in a slightly modified form in the very next issue of the FARMS Review.

Have you read it?

Dear Brother Peterson,

When you understand where Simon Southerton is coming from, one thing he could never be accused of is objectivity. He has been on a relentless pursuit and a promised "bringing down" of the Church since he was excommunicated from the church. It has destroyed his family, split it right down the middle. Every opportunity Simon gets he bares his anti-testimony of the church. Then there is his science; he certainly is no fool, however his burning hate of the church and intellectual arrogance drives his prejudices. He carefully tries to hide his motives and often lies extensively about his departure from the church. His radio appearances always include a good mocking of LDS people in general, often referring to church scholars as intellectual midgets holding ephemeral ideas on the book of Mormon that change faster than the weather in spring time. He is a driven man, he hates the church with his soul....he is one of the most bitter people you could meet. If you really understood this man, it would be quite difficult to trust his scientific work. He like anyone, is able to manipulate information to suit an end. He definitely has an agenda and it is spite and hate towards the church.

All the best.

Phil

PS, I hope all is well.

[Bunk]

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.

Common sense can make us stubborn, but keep in mind that people used to think it was obvious that the sun went around the earth.

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?

After the surveys are more thorough, if their DNA isn't showing up it means they have no living ancestors among the Native Americans. But like I said, I think candidates will show up.

[Bunk]

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.

No, the comparison is valid. You are thinking as if this were about YcDNA and mtDNA.

[mfbukowski]

After the surveys are more thorough, if their DNA isn't showing up it means they have no living ancestors among the Native Americans. But like I said, I think candidates will show up.

I think you meant "descendants"

As well they may. But there is an angle here you are suggesting which may show just how silly this DNA stuff is as a "proof" either way of the BOM

I am no geneticist, but I play one on the internet. After all, all you need is Wikipedia, right?

Founder effects in human populations

Due to various migrations throughout human history, founder effects are somewhat common among humans in different times and places. The effective founder population of Quebec was only 2,600. After twelve to sixteen generations, with an eightyfold growth but minimal gene dilution from intermarriage, Quebec has what geneticists call optimal linkage disequilibrium (genetic sharing).[13] The result: far fewer genetic variations, including those that have been well studied because they are connected with inheritable diseases.

Founder effects can also occur naturally as competing genetic lines die out. This means that an effective founder population consists only of those whose genetic print is identifiable in subsequent populations. Because in sexual reproduction, genetic recombination ensures that with each generation, only half the genetic material of a parent is represented in the offspring, some genetic lines may die out entirely, even though there are numerous progeny. A recent study[14] concluded that of the people migrating across the Bering land bridge at the close of the ice age, only 70 left their genetic print in modern descendants, a minute effective founder population

[Daniel Peterson]

When you understand where Simon Southerton is coming from, one thing he could never be accused of is objectivity. He has been on a relentless pursuit and a promised "bringing down" of the Church since he was excommunicated from the church. It has destroyed his family, split it right down the middle. Every opportunity Simon gets he bares his anti-testimony of the church. Then there is his science; he certainly is no fool, however his burning hate of the church and intellectual arrogance drives his prejudices. He carefully tries to hide his motives and often lies extensively about his departure from the church. His radio appearances always include a good mocking of LDS people in general, often referring to church scholars as intellectual midgets holding ephemeral ideas on the Book of Mormon that change faster than the weather in spring time. He is a driven man, he hates the church with his soul....he is one of the most bitter people you could meet. If you really understood this man, it would be quite difficult to trust his scientific work. He like anyone, is able to manipulate information to suit an end. He definitely has an agenda and it is spite and hate towards the church.

All the best.

Phil

PS, I hope all is well.

All is well. Though I do find myself telling my wife that no seafood that we're likely to encounter in Utah is ever going to rival what I discovered in Melbourne at a certain very fine invitation-only eating establishment located not too far from the temple.

I hope you and your family are well. And the ward, of course.

Your description of Simon Southerton rings completely true to me, and fits what I've observed of him on line like a glove. Moreover, when he so contemptuously dismisses people like Scott Woodward, John Butler, Michael Whiting, David McClellan, Ryan Parr, and Ugo Perego, his bias is painfully apparent. (And, frankly, anybody inclined to credit Southerton's summary dismissals of them ["intellectual midgets"?] should take a few minutes to compare their research careers and bibliographies with his.)

***

Incidentally, a further comment from my non-BYU friend, relevant to the discussion here but, this time, about the PBS television program (that I missed last night) concerning "Who Really Discovered America?" which I'm going to post on that thread, as well:

A remarkable and beautiful effort to take account of legends as well as scientifically justified claims of human arrivals in the Western hemisphere beginning as early as 24,000 BP -- with Dennis Stanford's (Smithsonian) comments on a Solutrean biface from a north American mastodon hunt thousands of years before anyone could cross Beringia -- down to the relatively recent pre-Columbian voyages of Norsemen to Newfoundland (where their settlements have been found from ca. 1000 A.D.) and probably to Maine, where a Norse coin was found in an archeological context.

At about the same time, this program shows that Polynesians must have introduced chickens to South America (C-14 shows the burnt chicken bones pre-Columbian), and have brought back sweet potatoes to Polynesia from Ecuador (the name and DNA of the tuber are identical in each place). Moreover, Chilean archeologist Jose Miguel Ramirez finds Polynesian jaw and skull shapes in Chilean skeletal remains -- which are also similar to those of Chumash off the coast of Calif., where the name & design of their sea-going canoe is the same as for the Polynesians. No mention was made of Kwakiutl and Maori cultural similarities.

However, likewise convincing was the comparison by Betty Meggars (Smithsonian) of Valdivian pottery (Eduador) with that from ancient Jomon culture (Japan) ca. 3,000 B.C., which meshes so well with the finding of HTLV-1 virus in ancient Japan and in mummies from the Atacama desert of Chile (bone marrow compared).

As to the possible 580-day voyage of Hebrews (such as Book of Mormon Lehi) across the open Pacific after the destruction of Jerusalem, Dr. James Delgado suggested the use of Roman ships -- perhaps to account for the 1st cent. A.D. Bat Creek Inscription in Tennessee -- but confused that with an earlier destruction of Jerusalem in the 6th century B.C., for which a more appropriate comparison would have been with Phoenician ships or Arab dhows, and a likelier route along coasts or through straits and island hopping (for resupply of food & water) across much of the Pacific.

[mfbukowski]

Dr. P

Fascinating stuff! Thanks!

It's too bad that none of that is possible because there is no genetic evidence. Unless you count chickens and potatoes and.....

That speaks well for the observance of the law of chastity among those peoples.

[pcarthew]

All is well. Though I do find myself telling my wife that no seafood that we're likely to encounter in Utah is ever going to rival what I discovered in Melbourne at a certain very fine invitation-only eating establishment located not too far from the temple.

I hope you and your family are well. And the ward, of course.

Your description of Simon Southerton rings completely true to me, and fits what I've observed of him on line like a glove. Moreover, when he so contemptuously dismisses people like Scott Woodward, John Butler, Michael Whiting, David McClellan, Ryan Parr, and Ugo Perego, his bias is painfully apparent. (And, frankly, anybody inclined to credit Southerton's summary dismissals of them ["intellectual midgets"?] should take a few minutes to compare their research careers and bibliographies with his.)

***

Incidentally, a further comment from my non-BYU friend, relevant to the discussion here but, this time, about the PBS television program (that I missed last night) concerning "Who Really Discovered America?" which I'm going to post on that thread, as well:

When ever you are in town there is lobster and steak waiting for you and who ever is traveling with you. Our home is always open at anytime for you. The ward is well and keeps me very busy...so busy I even struggle to get here and read.

I had to call out Simon Southerton, he actually is a man to be pitied, he "seeing red at Mormonism" is so strong it stains everything he does, it is really quite sad.

On a happy note Susan is coming over for Education Week which she is very excited about, it will give here a great break from the kids and I am sure she will thoroughly enjoy it.

Bless you Bro Peterson.

All the very best...Phil

[Daniel Peterson]

When ever you are in town there is lobster and steak waiting for you and who ever is traveling with you. Our home is always open at anytime for you.

People on this board should understand that Chez Carthew is the finest place for seafoood in the Melbourne area.

The ward is well and keeps me very busy...so busy I even struggle to get here and read.

LOL. Been there, done that!

I wish you all the best, though. It's a great calling.

I had to call out Simon Southerton, he actually is a man to be pitied, he "seeing red at Mormonism" is so strong it stains everything he does, it is really quite sad.

I read his internet posts every once in a while, and that's pretty evident.

And, to top it off, he's wrong.

http://www.fairlds.org/Book_of_Mormon/Book_of_Mormon_and_DNA.html

Not to mention

http://maxwellinstitute.byu.edu/display/topical.php?cat_id=488

I notice certain critics repeating, as if it were some sort of mantra (chanted with their eyes tightly closed and their fingers in their ears) that believing Latter-day Saints have had no substantive response to Simon Southerton's attacks. I guess it helps, in saying such things, not to read.

On a happy note Susan is coming over for Education Week which she is very excited about, it will give here a great break from the kids and I am sure she will thoroughly enjoy it.

I certainly hope she does. Will this be her first time?

Bless you Bro Peterson.

All the very best...Phil

And to you, as well!

[All-Seeing Eye]

However, archeology buttresses the biological and DNA conclusions of Sorenson & Johannessen at numerous (and growing) locations: Pleistocene remains at the Topper Site in South Carolina require the peopling of the Americas at least by 21,000 years Before the Present (BP), followed by the Meadowcroft Rock Shelter in Pennsylvania (17,000 BP), Lake Manix in the Mojave Desert (15,500 BP), La Brea, Calif., Tar Pits butchery marks (15,000 BP), Paisley Cave, Oregon, human fecal DNA (14,300 BP), Monte Verde, Chile, seaweed, algae, llama & gomphothere meat in human food (14,000 BP), Santa Rosa Island Woman, off coast of Calif. (13,000 BP), Valley of Mexico Penon Woman (12,755 BP), etc.

Was all of this before or after Adam and Eve? Or during?

[Daniel Peterson]

Was all of this before or after Adam and Eve? Or during?

Your guess is as good as mine.

[Ariarates]

Please name five such attempts (non-DNA related, of course) and the publications wherein they are found.

Well, you got me there. I cannot think of five non-LDS attempts at a scientific approach to the BoM. The Jockers article is the only one I can come up with.

I took my cue from Greg

[Daniel Peterson]

I guess I should have said that whenever the BoM is approached from an objective (not faith-based) angle, it becomes glaringly obvious that it cannot be literal history.

Which, being interpreted, means that, whenever the Book of Mormon is approached by those who don't believe in its claims, those who approach it don't believe in its claims.

This is a stunner.

[Mola Ram Suda Ram]

Which, being interpreted, means that, whenever the Book of Mormon is approached by those who don't believe in its claims, those who approach it don't believe in its claims.

This is a stunner.

Hahahaha.

[Ariarates]

Which, being interpreted, means that, whenever the Book of Mormon is approached by those who don't believe in its claims, those who approach it don't believe in its claims.

This is a stunner.

Having a headache again?

[Mola Ram Suda Ram]

Having a headache again?

Must.... resist....... the urge........ to....... reply.

[hagoth7]

I guess I should have said that whenever the BoM is approached from an objective (not faith-based) angle, it becomes glaringly obvious that it cannot be literal history.

It's nice of you to admit it was a guess.

Why/how would the exclusion of faith be the most objective angle?

Doesn't the most objective angle consist of the most comprehensive sampling of possibilities?

If not, please explain why such a sampling approach would be true when testing the Nephite record - but not true when testing any other item?

Why skew the sampling - and thereby skew the results? In what way is that even remotely an objective approach?

I believe I've approached it with a fair degree of objectivity - or at least with a reasonably balanced subjectivity.

And I tested some of its promises against some of its claimed history.

And instead of finding that it cannot be literal history, I found truckloads of evidence which suggests quite the opposite.

Some LDS may believe that the BoM is literal history but there is no generally accepted evidence out there.

Your local library is full of evidence to the contrary.

That accepted evidence is read/watched/discussed regularly by a broad audience that has, as of yet, little appreciation for what it actually implies.

Generally accepted evidence. Whether you're reading/listening/talking/watching about the Vikings. Or the Founding Fathers. Or the Fall of Rome. Or cups and measures. Or the history of Law. Or freemasonry. Or Caesar's writings. Or the English language. Or Cicero's writings. Or almost any aspect of pre-industrial Western Civilization...including an entire genre of fiction based on such history...of which millions of pages are read and "generally accepted" each year....

There are gems right beneath your feet...if you're willing to bend a knee and scoop them up.

Libraries full of evidence. Bulging at the seams.

That's a far cry from your assertion that there is "NO" such evidence.

Does such evidence prove the Nephite record? Perhaps not. Results may vary.

But it certainly dispels the claim that there is no such evidence in its favor.

Or that such evidence is not generally accepted.

Whether people choose to acknowledge that heritage for what it is may be a separate matter.

[Storm Rider]

Why do you go with faith when there is a conflict? Why not withhold judgment? Maybe ambiguity is uncomfortable for you.

Bunk, I would not say I was uncomfortable with ambiguity, but I am certainly comfortable with faith. To deny the presence of faith in one's life is to deny spirituality in this life. In addition, it presupposes that Man has all the answers or will have them given time. I believe that there are few absolute truths, but when I learn something through faith, even when it contradicts with man's "knowledge", I am comfortable maintaining faith.

There remains much ambiguity in this life. The LDS Church does not provide all the answeres and it does not assume it has all truth. God did not provide all the answers. Each of us lives with ambiguity and will continue to do so.

[Daniel Peterson]

I notice that certain critics, in reference to this very thread, are claiming that it's all personal attacks on Simon Southerton, which reveals that believing Latter-day Saints have no relevant counterarguments.

I guess they missed my link to this, which is only the most recent of a now fairly large collection of very substantive articles on the topic by believing Latter-day Saint geneticists.

[mfbukowski]

I notice that certain critics, in reference to this very thread, are claiming that it's all personal attacks on Simon Southerton, which reveals that believing Latter-day Saints have no relevant counterarguments.

I guess they missed my link to this, which is only the most recent of a now fairly large collection of very substantive articles on the topic by believing Latter-day Saint geneticists.

You are presuming they want to know the truth, which is not the case.

[Jeff K.]

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. I would say the DNA more or less solidifies that imbalanced setup as the only viable interpretation, far more than previous archaeology. It sets up quantitative parameters around what interpretations are reasonable. There was more leeway before DNA.

I will not look at "bunk" the same way again.

[cdowis]

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 is a problem with that logic == sampling error. A recent program on the Discover channel looked at possible explorers coming to

America before Columbus. In following the possible path of one specific group, scientists want to confirm their findings of physical evidence of these explorers through DNA research on a specific tribe in the area where they found possible ruins, but the tribe had become extinct, so DNA sampling was impossible.

A large portion of the native american population had been wiped out, leaving no modern descendants.

Ariarates boldly declares

I guess I should have said that whenever the BoM is approached from an objective (not faith-based) angle, it becomes glaringly obvious that it cannot be literal history.

Thank you for your personal opinion. Please be specific. Obviously there are many who are very intelligent that are unable to see what you can see, so teach us, help us, reach out to us.

Please be specific and help us out here.

For example, here is something which has nothing to do with faith, just an issue of fact. Help us out, please.

Some LDS may believe that the BoM is literal history but there is no generally accepted evidence out there.

The evidence is there. It is a matter of correctly interpreting that evidence. For example, let us suppose that we find an authentic Nephite jade necklace. Now tell us how to *identify* that necklace as nephite, or from someone else. We find hundreds of such artifacts in the museums, but they are labled improperly.

So tell us how we would know how to identify such a physical artifact.

[mfbukowski]

A large portion of the native american population had been wiped out, leaving no modern descendants.

Earlier, I raised this possibility with Lehi's descendants and got no replies. Those lines among the Lamanites could have died out, and we know from the BOM that the Nephites were purposefully wiped out by the Lamanites.

I thought it was an interesting solution- was this idea just too far from orthodoxy to fly?

I also quoted Jacob who shows us that even by the time of the death of Nephi there were multiple populations- it appears to be many many groups- of Nephites and Lamanites and various others- so many that he gave up trying to characterize them.

This could not have happened without others being present when the Nephite boat landed- showing that the mixture of bloodlines happened within a few years.

This sounds totally plausible to me- yet I got no replies. What's wrong with the idea?

Edit:

Jacob 1:

12 And it came to pass that Nephi died.

13 Now the people which were not Lamanites were Nephites; nevertheless, they were called Nephites, Jacobites, Josephites, Zoramites, Lamanites, Lemuelites, and Ishmaelites.

14 But I, Jacob, shall not hereafter distinguish them by these names, but I shall call them Lamanites that seek to destroy the people of Nephi, and those who are friendly to Nephi I shall call Nephites, or the people of Nephi, according to the reigns of the kings.

It is not even plausible to me that so many disparate groups could have arisen within Nephi's lifetime without intermarriage having already occurred.