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Oceania Dna In Brazilian Native Americans - Good Or Bad News For The Book Of Mormon?


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Posted

Interesting article on BBC.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-33612869

Good news:

...both studies show that there have been multiple pulses of migration into the Americas... the Americas were peopled by a more diverse set of populations than previously accepted.

Bad news:

"... the fanciful ideas that somehow the Americas were populated by people coming from Europe and all kinds of other places are wrong...

By analysing the DNA of modern native Americans and ancient human remains, the group writing in Science concluded that all present-day Native Americans arrived in a single migration no earlier than 23,000 years ago...

report traces of "Australo-Melanesian" ancestry in certain populations, including those of the Aleutian islands (off Alaska) and the Surui people of the Brazilian Amazon.

So is the fact that small traces of Australasian DNA can be found good or bad for the Book of Mormon.

On one hand we could say it's good because it proves that the DNA profile of native Americans is still not resolved and there's more to discover.

On the other is it bad because yet another DNA project has shown no trace of a middle-eastern connection at all and that the DNA of smaller subgroups can show up in tests, contrary to the argument supporting the Book of Mormon that say it's unreasonable to expect to find anything?

Posted

Interesting article on BBC.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-33612869

Good news:

Bad news:

So is the fact that small traces of Australasian DNA can be found good or bad for the Book of Mormon.

On one hand we could say it's good because it proves that the DNA profile of native Americans is still not resolved and there's more to discover.

On the other is it bad because yet another DNA project has shown no trace of a middle-eastern connection at all and that the DNA of smaller subgroups can show up in tests, contrary to the argument supporting the Book of Mormon that say it's unreasonable to expect to find anything?

This has to be the answer. This isn't conclusive. For example, look at this quote...

 

 

By analysing the DNA of modern native Americans and ancient human remains, the group writing in Science concluded that all present-day Native Americans arrived in a single migration no earlier than 23,000 years ago...

 

That simply cannot be true if we only consider the probability of mixing present day native american dna with others since that 23000 year old migration. Others have come and gone and there has been mixing of the seed along the way. Even the BoM allows for the possibility that Jaredites and Lehites were a small portion of the overall population that would have mixed with the indiginous groups. This means that there wouldn't be any pure Jaredite/Lehite DNA but it also means that any other group that has mixed in any way wouldn't be a pure group traceable without interruption to 23000 years ago.

 

It's a weak argument.

Posted

Canard, weren't there two studies that came out at the same time; one supported the hypothesis that it was a single migration and the other conflicted and said it was several migrations over a longer period?

Posted

On the other is it bad because yet another DNA project has shown no trace of a middle-eastern connection at all and that the DNA of smaller subgroups can show up in tests, contrary to the argument supporting the Book of Mormon that say it's unreasonable to expect to find anything?

As you say this in a gleeful manner. Hooray bad news for the BoM.

 

 

As others have said this is no news.

Posted

I'm not convinced that the DNA of a small group of, no more than 20-30 with unknown genetics, people would show up some 3 millennia later.

Despite the fact that traces of Oceania DNA has been from several millennia even further back?

Posted

As you say this in a gleeful manner. Hooray bad news for the BoM.

As others have said this is no news.

You can read it how you like. I tried to point out both sides.

Posted

Despite the fact that traces of Oceania DNA has been from several millennia even further back?

 

We don't have any idea as to the DNA of the Lehites. With all the mixing from intermarriage and religiopolitical upheaval I would be very surprised if any identifiable Lehite DNA could be detected.

Posted

The more DNA studies that come out the more I'm convinced that waves of immigration and settlement have occurred in the "new world" since very ancient times.  The chronicle of the Jaredites, Nephites, Lamanites, and other related tribes is simply a small portion of those movements.  An important one concerning God's covenant people, but a relatively small one concerning the genetic lines of its pioneers (Lehi, Jared and families).

 

The Book of Mormon itself has so many twists, turns, possible conversions, flipping of identities, and the introduction of several different family lines, that trying to accurately guess whose genetics won out would be very unlikely.

 

One of my own family lines (Graham) was recently identified as from the Levant, when everyone expected it to be Northern European.  If we can't accurately predict more recent 10-25 generations, patterns with any success from the historical and archaeological record, how on earth are we supposed to prove or disprove the Book of Mormon that goes back multiple times more generations and geographies than our own European ancestors?

Posted

................................................................................................................

On the other is it bad because yet another DNA project has shown no trace of a middle-eastern connection at all and that the DNA of smaller subgroups can show up in tests, contrary to the argument supporting the Book of Mormon that say it's unreasonable to expect to find anything?

 

We don't have any idea as to the DNA of the Lehites. With all the mixing from intermarriage and religiopolitical upheaval I would be very surprised if any identifiable Lehite DNA could be detected.

You are both wrong:

(1) If the skeletal remains of Lehi & Nephi (or any of their immediate descendants) were found, and DNA could be extracted, they would be readily identifiable as Israelite/Canaanite.  Finding such ancient DNA (aDNA) is quite difficult, and one must look in sites most likely to have been occupied by Nephites & Lamanites.  The genetic bottleneck, genetic drift,  etc., over time, would make detection in modern populations very difficult.  The same applies to a north Mesopotamian group, such as the Jaredites, arriving even earlier.  As Simon Southerton correctly observed:

 

“In 600 BC there were probably several million American Indians living in the Americas.  If a small group of Israelites entered such a massive native population it would be very, very hard to detect their genes 200, 2,000, or even 20,000 years later.”  http://mormanity.blogspot.com/2005/02/ancient-americans-still-mystery-.html , and a link the MDDB administrator does not allow.

 

(2) It is no support for the Book of Mormon to insist that nothing can be known, or that nothing will be found.  Burying one's head in the sand is as dangerous for the anti-Mormons as it is for the Mormons.

Posted

The DNA discussion is filled with ignoramuses who know nothing about genetics mocking the other side as ignoramuses for not seeing that they won.

The whole thing is boring.

Posted

Brazil seems to be a long way from most people's Book of Mormon lands. No news.

 

Because we know where those lands are, right? :unknw:

Posted

Because we know where those lands are, right? :unknw:

 

No, but I'm only aware of one Book of Mormon geography theory that places any of the lands in the Amazon basin.  And if I remember correctly that theory requires a good portion of South America to have been underwater at the time.  Maybe the Amazon basin was what was underwater.  I don't remember and it's not even close to worth looking up.

Posted

Because we know where those lands are, right? :unknw:

 

There is no "knowing" in ksfisher's statement.  You seem to have read that part in on your own.  Ksfisher's comment merely highlights the fact that Brazil is not often linked to the various theories about the location of Book of Mormon lands.  That is an accurate assessment, isn't it?

Posted

There is no "knowing" in ksfisher's statement.  You seem to have read that part in on your own.  Ksfisher's comment merely highlights the fact that Brazil is not often linked to the various theories about the location of Book of Mormon lands.  That is an accurate assessment, isn't it?

 

I took the statement as being made tongue-in-cheek.

Posted

I took the statement as being made tongue-in-cheek.

 

Fair enough.  I thought the emoticon indicated some sort of "exasperation" with you.  My apologies for poor reading comprehension.

Posted

You are both wrong:

(1) If the skeletal remains of Lehi & Nephi (or any of their immediate descendants) were found, and DNA could be extracted, they would be readily identifiable as Israelite/Canaanite.  Finding such ancient DNA (aDNA) is quite difficult, and one must look in sites most likely to have been occupied by Nephites & Lamanites.  The genetic bottleneck, genetic drift,  etc., over time, would make detection in modern populations very difficult.  The same applies to a north Mesopotamian group, such as the Jaredites, arriving even earlier.  As Simon Southerton correctly observed:

 

“In 600 BC there were probably several million American Indians living in the Americas.  If a small group of Israelites entered such a massive native population it would be very, very hard to detect their genes 200, 2,000, or even 20,000 years later.”  http://mormanity.blogspot.com/2005/02/ancient-americans-still-mystery-.html , and a link the MDDB administrator does not allow.

 

(2) It is no support for the Book of Mormon to insist that nothing can be known, or that nothing will be found.  Burying one's head in the sand is as dangerous for the anti-Mormons as it is for the Mormons.

 

Sure just find the identified Lehi's bones, and all the problems disappear. i eagerly await you doing it.

Posted

Sure just find the identified Lehi's bones, and all the problems disappear. i eagerly await you doing it.

 

You know that won't help a bit with the mDNA analysis.  You would have to find Ishmael's daughters for that.

Posted

Interesting article on BBC.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-33612869

Good news:

Bad news:

So is the fact that small traces of Australasian DNA can be found good or bad for the Book of Mormon.

On one hand we could say it's good because it proves that the DNA profile of native Americans is still not resolved and there's more to discover.

On the other is it bad because yet another DNA project has shown no trace of a middle-eastern connection at all and that the DNA of smaller subgroups can show up in tests, contrary to the argument supporting the Book of Mormon that say it's unreasonable to expect to find anything?

 

It is irrelevant.

Posted

Fair enough.  I thought the emoticon indicated some sort of "exasperation" with you.  My apologies for poor reading comprehension.

 

I can never remember what all the emoticons mean.  I did try and make my original statement Book-of-Mormon-Geography-Theory neutral.

Posted

I think one lesson we can take away from the article in the OP is that there are many things still waiting to be discovered.  And some of those things aren't going to be what we are expecting to find.

 

That being said, I do hope that the days of us painting Captain Moroni as a Northern European dressed up in Greco-Roman battle gear are over.

Posted (edited)

Interesting article on BBC.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-33612869

Good news:

Bad news:

So is the fact that small traces of Australasian DNA can be found good or bad for the Book of Mormon.

On one hand we could say it's good because it proves that the DNA profile of native Americans is still not resolved and there's more to discover.

On the other is it bad because yet another DNA project has shown no trace of a middle-eastern connection at all and that the DNA of smaller subgroups can show up in tests, contrary to the argument supporting the Book of Mormon that say it's unreasonable to expect to find anything?

The biggest problem I have with DNA studies of ancient people of the Americas, is that mortals and modern science have no idea of the extent or specifics of the genetic change placed upon the Lamanites by the Lord. Unless a comparison sample is made using Nephite bones, the hole that remains in the science is big enough to hide a Curelom in. Edited by Sevenbak
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