Paleo-mexican Skulls Show Unexpected Diversity

[Sunslight]

Scientists use their standing to promote their opinions and philosophy until it becomes science. What then is science? A religion.

[PacMan]

On 2/9/2020 at 10:07 PM, sunstoned said:

I guess I don't understand your point.  Are you saying that the BoM "evidences" presented by apologist are accepted by the scientific community?

You’re inflicted by some serious intellectual constipation to try to poison a purported conversation about science by passive-aggressively demonizing apologists. Truth is truth, regardless of where it comes from. In any event, look up Maragaret Barker. A well-renowned non-LDS academic...see what she had had to say have Joseph Smith and the BoM. 

Edited February 11, 2020 by PacMan

[sunstoned]

7 hours ago, PacMan said:

You’re inflicted by some serious intellectual constipation to try to poison a purported conversation about science by passive-aggressively demonizing apologists. Truth is truth, regardless of where it comes from. In any event, look up Maragaret Barker. A well-renowned non-LDS academic...see what she had had to say have Joseph Smith and the BoM. 

Let me guess, you are a wantabe apologist.  I can tell by your lack of substance, mean spirited  ad hominem attack.  Didn't you learn anything from the 2012 purge.  Bitter, small minded antics like yours don't work and are just an embarrassment to the church.

[Calm]

2 hours ago, sunstoned said:

  I can tell by your lack of substance, mean spirited  ad hominem attack.  Didn't you learn anything from the 2012 purge.

Ah come on, FM apologist here.

[sunstoned]

3 hours ago, Calm said:

Ah come on, FM apologist here.

did you read what he wrote to me?  my bad for stooping to his level.  I apologize. 

[PacMan]

15 hours ago, PacMan said:

You’re inflicted by some serious intellectual constipation to try to poison a purported conversation about science by passive-aggressively demonizing apologists. Truth is truth, regardless of where it comes from. In any event, look up Maragaret Barker. A well-renowned non-LDS academic...see what she had had to say have Joseph Smith and the BoM. 

 

8 hours ago, sunstoned said:

Let me guess, you are a wantabe apologist.  I can tell by your lack of substance, mean spirited  ad hominem attack.  Didn't you learn anything from the 2012 purge.  Bitter, small minded antics like yours don't work and are just an embarrassment to the church.

Literally nothing you just said made sense. The substance was pointing out your poisoning the well fallacy. The substance was rebutting your passive aggressive attack on apologists rather than their arguments. The substance was noting one well-renowned academic that completely contradicts everything you’re saying. The substance was pointing out your terribly flawed analysis. I have no idea what the 2012 purge has anything to do with anything. You clearly don’t know what an ad hominem attack is.  And to boil it all down to “small-minded antics” does nothing to rebut the fact that you’re dead wrong. 
 

Anyway, back to Margaret Barker. Did you find her 2005 presentation, yet?  Or are you going to continue to blindly cling to the demonstrably unfounded notion that that science doesn’t back the BoM?  If you want to deny the sun shining at noonday, that’s your prerogative. Still, that’s a terrible life MO. Axes to grind, notwithstanding. 

[Calm]

5 hours ago, sunstoned said:

did you read what he wrote to me?  my bad for stooping to his level.  I apologize. 

Personal attack, keep defense personal...just saying don’t bring in a whole group of people who are not involved.  

[Calm]

2 hours ago, PacMan said:

The substance was pointing out your poisoning the well fallacy

I disagree it was poisoning the well. Now Robert Smith’s comment you should be calling out, imo,  and I wonder why you didn’t and instead attacked sunstoned himself.

I think it a valid question to ask if there is any apologetic work that is seen as scientific by scientists since apologetics have a different function and may or may not overlap. 

Edited February 12, 2020 by Calm

[cacheman]

On 2/8/2020 at 12:19 PM, Robert F. Smith said:

See my reply to Katherine below.  New genetic analysis of the sweet potato.

Caroline Roullier, et al., “Historical collections reveal patterns of diffusion of sweet potato in Oceania obscured by modern plant movements and recombination,” PNAS, 110 /6 (Feb 5, 2013): 2205-2210; https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1211049110 .

Abstract

 

You might be interested in more recent research: "Reconciling Conflicting Phylogenies in the Origin of Sweet Potato and Dispersal to Polynesia". Munoz-Rodrıguez et al., 2018, Current Biology. 28: 1246–125.https://reader.elsevier.com/reader/sd/pii/S096098221830321X?token=68508C6595F11E3D3FF4E39D62DE6DAC6C9BDD9D07CAD4AFA97238E61B8DF2055B23AF4D33C5CC0A1D6B743B1B08F14D

They offer genetic evidence of long-distance dispersal over 100,000 years ago, long before humans arrived in Polynesia. 

[Robert F. Smith]

1 hour ago, cacheman said:

You might be interested in more recent research: "Reconciling Conflicting Phylogenies in the Origin of Sweet Potato and Dispersal to Polynesia". Munoz-Rodrıguez et al., 2018, Current Biology. 28: 1246–125.https://reader.elsevier.com/reader/sd/pii/S096098221830321X?token=68508C6595F11E3D3FF4E39D62DE6DAC6C9BDD9D07CAD4AFA97238E61B8DF2055B23AF4D33C5CC0A1D6B743B1B08F14D

They offer genetic evidence of long-distance dispersal over 100,000 years ago, long before humans arrived in Polynesia. 

Extraordinary.  Thanks, cacheman.  Now we know with reasonable certainty that the sweet potato was dispersed throughout Polynesia in pre-Columbian times, but so long ago that it was probably dispersed by water long before human habitation of Oceania.

That doesn't explain the linguistic confluence of terms in both S. America and Polynesia for the sweet potato.  It also does not call into question the powerful evidence of the vast seafaring capabilities of the Polynesians.  Indeed, archeologists have shown that such great Polynesian seafaring began from the Bismarck Archipelago (Lapita, New Guinea) even before the time that Lehi & Company set off in their own seafaring project from South 'Arabia in about 586 B.C. 

That may be a reasonable explanation for the presence of Australo-Melanesian DNA in Amazonia.

Edited February 12, 2020 by Robert F. Smith

[Rajah Manchou]

7 hours ago, cacheman said:

You might be interested in more recent research: "Reconciling Conflicting Phylogenies in the Origin of Sweet Potato and Dispersal to Polynesia". Munoz-Rodrıguez et al., 2018, Current Biology. 28: 1246–125

They offer genetic evidence of long-distance dispersal over 100,000 years ago, long before humans arrived in Polynesia. 

Adding in that some archeobotanists have said that the Munoz-Rodriguez paper is not the final word on the topic. Still much more to be considered.

All by Itself, the Humble Sweet Potato Colonized the World

"Some agricultural experts are skeptical. “This paper does not settle the matter,” said Logan J. Kistler, the curator of archaeogenomics and archaeobotany at the Smithsonian Institution. Alternative explanations remain on the table, because the new study didn’t provide enough evidence for exactly where sweet potatoes were first domesticated and when they arrived in the Pacific. “We still don’t have a smoking gun,” Dr. Kistler said."

[Rajah Manchou]

7 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

Indeed, archeologists have shown that such great Polynesian seafaring began from the Bismarck Archipelago (Lapita, New Guinea) even before the time that Lehi & Company set off in their own seafaring project from South 'Arabia in about 586 B.C. 

I've posted this probably well over a hundred times, but oh well. A few more times won't hurt. : ) 

When you look closer at austronesian and early polynesian history and culture, there are some interesting parallels with the Book of Mormon narrative.

Austronesians were known to the earliest historians as the Camarini and the Kumr. 11th century Arabic texts identify them as a Biblical group that sailed east in ships resembling the ark of Noah, around the time of the Jaredites. According to the texts, the Kumr founded a massive civilization in the east in a place called Rahma and Kamara and then across the Pacific.

The similarities are so strong, I believe that the Book of Mormon could be taken as an account of the earliest Austronesians, the Kumr (Cumr) of Rahma (Ramah) and Kamara (Cumorah). Additional fun fact: the island of Comoro, with the capital of Moroni, was named after these people and their homeland.

The most outstanding parallel is that early Christian texts identified the Kumr with the Rechabites, a Biblical group that was led by God from Jerusalem to an isolated island in the 6th century BC.

If we take seriously the claim that Polynesians are Nephites, and we look closely at the earliest accounts of these people, the Book of Mormon actually does align with history.

Edited February 13, 2020 by Rajah Manchou

[Islander]

On 2/8/2020 at 9:12 PM, katherine the great said:

Possibly.

But the most striking example, Luzia, was found to have no Polynesian DNA whatsoever. 

The linguistics are intriguing. Does this imply that all South Pacific people speak the same language? Are there other names for the sweet potato? Or are we talking about one of many variants? From what I understand, the word of one group (of many languages) is similar to another one (of many languages). Still interesting but far from conclusive.

Again, I'm not saying it is impossible. But it is also possible that sweet potatoes hitched a ride via birds or wind or seaweed or vegetation rafts and crossed the ocean that way. Heck, monkeys somehow found their way from Africa to South America over 20 million years ago. Even though the continents were somewhat closer together then, it was still an extremely long distance.

Cognates are words that have a common etymological origin. Cognates are often inherited from a shared parent language, but they may also involve borrowings from some other language. Either mechanism shows that there is a common element (either genetic or cultural) between these very distant lands. Also, no land or freshwater birds breeding in the southern hemisphere (South America) have been found to migrate between continents. Thus it is a very reasonable hypothesis that the these populations had a common ancestor. The genome mapping will continue to bear fruit. In years to come, we will be able to discern features beyond microsatellite markers. There are other potential markers currently hidden, in a sense, that may not be discarded by genetic drift. So, it is very likely that within one generation, science will catch up with the historical record of the BoM. 

[The Nehor]

On 2/10/2020 at 8:20 AM, Sunslight said:

Scientists use their standing to promote their opinions and philosophy until it becomes science. What then is science? A religion.

No.

[longview]

17 hours ago, The Nehor said:

On 2/10/2020 at 7:20 AM, Sunslight said:

Scientists use their standing to promote their opinions and philosophy until it becomes science. What then is science? A religion.

No.

Priestcraft?   Sometimes YES.  Narrative arbitrarily contrived and extrapolated?  Always YES.

[The Nehor]

2 minutes ago, longview said:

Narrative arbitrarily contrived and extrapolated?  Always YES.

No.

[The Nehor]

3 minutes ago, longview said:

Priestcraft?   Sometimes YES.  

Almost always no.

3 minutes ago, longview said:

Narrative arbitrarily contrived and extrapolated?  Always YES.

No.

[blarsen]

On 2/9/2020 at 3:51 AM, Robert F. Smith said:

The entrance to and exit from Beringia was blocked by ice for around 15,000 years (the height of the last ice age).  At about 13,000 years ago, humans had corridors available to travel, and some even theorize that humans had lived in Beringia for that entire 15,000 years.  Much easier to imagine travel along the coast during all that time, since we know that humans were already in the Americas at least as early as 24,000 years ago.  Pre-Clovis, Katherine.

I was actually part of the scientific crew that collected the vibracores in the Bering Sea that exhibited the peat layers that were indicative of the glacially caused low-stands of the sea.  The cores were split on board ship and you could see the clear demarcation between normal shallow-sea sediments and the peat.  Was also involved in sending samples of the peat out for RC dating.  Three peats gave dates of ~ 11,500 , ~~22,000 and about 32,000 yrs BP (1950), as I recall.  Maybe a fourth dating to the 13,500 bp range.  It''s been a while.

Glaciation on Beringia (taken in this case to mean areas currently under water) would have been confined to surrounding mountains.  I.e., glacial end-morainal material is found offshore from Nome, as are various gold-bearing still-stands.  But no sign of glaciation otherwise, that I'm aware of.  And surveying for human habitation in these submerged environments would be next to impossible.  Very hit or miss and almost entirely dependent on coring/dredging.  SideScan Sonar might show something, but a long shot

I worked w/Dave Hopkins on a few occasions; principle author/editor of The Bering Sea Land Bridge, Stanford Press, 1967.  Interesting guy.  A communist, through and through, for one thing.  C. Hans Nelson was the crew chief, who I worked directly for at the time.

Edited March 17, 2020 by blarsen

[Robert F. Smith]

On 2/10/2020 at 7:20 AM, Sunslight said:

Scientists use their standing to promote their opinions and philosophy until it becomes science. What then is science? A religion.

That turns science on its head, and makes it out to be just another cult, which just doesn't comport with the true nature of science as the experimental method -- which must be reproducible in the lab.

Individual scientists surely do have opinions about a whole range of things, but that is not the same thing as testing opinions in the crucible of scientific reality:  Other scientists inevitably examine the factual and theoretical claims, exposing any faults, and consequently formulating their own theories.  That is a communal effort, supported by peer review in published sources.

Your claim reminds me of the silly assertion that all the scientists on the planet have conspired to argue for global warming, or for radiocarbon dating, etc.  Just because someone doesn't like the results, does not suddenly invalidate the science and math.

[Navidad]

On 2/9/2020 at 10:54 PM, Robert F. Smith said:

Science is not ping pong.

Oh my! Now you've done it. I have played competitive table tennis most of my life. It is an ancient Asiatic sport well-defined and exampled in ancient legends and illustrations. The ping and the pong are similar to the yin and the yang. The dual forces of the two players become one, demonstrating their complementary, yet unified nature. Science and history both prove that table tennis (please let's not use the slang ping pong) was most likely the first sport invented by pre-Cambrian humans. Only the highly skilled table tennis player has a balanced life, understanding the slam and the slice as essential ingredients of true karma! Oh, and the photo I have attached is of the original ping pong ball dating back to 23,931 BCE! 

Ok.....I just made all of that up except for the part about playing competitive table tennis most of my life.  My favorite sport! 😃 

[Robert F. Smith]

4 hours ago, Navidad said:

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

I used to regularly wear this um & yang symbol on my Tang Soo Do uniform.  It represents the Taoist (and Mormon) notion that the universe is composed of opposite forces -- without which the universe cannot exist.  The blue and red in the Korean flag.