Polynesia Populated from S.E. Asia NOT the America's in Direct Conflict with LDS Tradition

[CV75]

6 hours ago, Fair Dinkum said:

It's long been known that the Islands of the Pacific were populated by a seafaring people migrating out of South East Asia not the America's.  Further studies have only doubled down on this reality.  All scientific specialties including DNA, Archeology, Palaeobotany, Paleolinguistics to name just a few, all support this SE Asian migration.  Other then some South American DNA that was introduced after the Book of Mormon timeline, in approximately 1200 AD and the sweet potato and gord, see here there is little to no reason we should refer to Pacific Islanders as Laminates.

A new study just released in Nature seen here adds further support for this migration from south east Asia and not from the Americas.

The evidence seems overwhelming that Pacific Islanders are not descendants of Lehi, in direct conflict with LDS tradition.  The church seems to have supplanted the actual culture of the Pacific Islanders with one found in the Book of Mormon of which this island population had no connection to.

What if any evidence is there, other than that which I've shared, that would support our LDS tradition? If it exists, I would like to see it.  Otherwise is it time for the church to just admit they were wrong and give these people back their true identity and culture?

More Here

Dumb question: If the founders arrived centuries after Hagoth (for example), and their genetic profile masked his descendants' (who may well have included the cummulative profiles of yet other groups during those centuries), how/why would this render their common descendants not at all Hagoth’s?

[Fair Dinkum]

37 minutes ago, webbles said:

What exactly is the "LDS tradition"?  If it is that Pacific Islanders are descendants of Lehi, then I don't see how the new study disproves that.  Your last article links to the news about possible mingling of Polynesians and South Americans about 800 years ago.  European visits weren't until the late 1700s (~250 years ago) so South Americans genetics had over 500 years to spread to more of the Polynesian population.  I believe I've read somewhere that if someone 600 years ago has one descendant, then almost everyone is also that person's descendant.  So, if Lehi has one descendant amongst the Polynesians, then it is highly likely that almost all of the Polynesians are his descendants.

But if the "LDS tradition" is that Polynesia was founded by Lehi's descendants, then yeah, that tradition should be set aside since it doesn't seem to be supported by anything (including the Book of Mormon).

Question:  If one of my distant ancestors out of the 1,048,576 likely forefathers and mothers I most likely have in the past 20 generations were of native American linage and the remaining 1,048,575 ancestors were of Northern European Caucasian decent am I Native American or Caucasian? 

Edited September 23, 2021 by Fair Dinkum

[Fair Dinkum]

13 minutes ago, CV75 said:

Dumb question: If the founders arrived centuries after Hagoth (for example), and their genetic profile masked his descendants' (who may well have included the cummulative profiles of yet other groups during those centuries), how/why would this render their common descendants not at all Hagoth’s?

If a drop of iodine were dropped into the Pacific Ocean could it be detected after 1000 years?  No.  But we can detect people migrations through DNA.  Polynesia descended from Asia not the America's. That ship has sailed, no pun intended.  But again my OP addressed the prevalent capture and replacement of an entire culture, replaced with one derived from the BoM and imposed on an entire population.  Surely replacing the culture of an entire people should only be done with overwhelming supporting evidence.  In the case of the Pacific Island populations that is clearly not the case.

Edited September 23, 2021 by Fair Dinkum

[webbles]

3 minutes ago, Fair Dinkum said:

Question:  If one of my distant ancestors out of the 1,048,576 likely forefathers and mothers I most like have in the past 20 generations were of native American linage and the remaining 1,048,575 ancestors were of Northern European Caucasian decent am I Native American or Caucasian? 

I would assume that you get to pick   I have one ancestor who is almost definitely Native American, but I don't consider myself Native American just because it is many generations back and I have no Native American heritage/culture.

Per FamilySearch, within 20 generations, I have ancestors that were born in Mexico, all most all of Europe, Ottoman Empire, Turkey, South Africa, and Zimbabwe.  How would you classify me?

[Fair Dinkum]

1 minute ago, webbles said:

I would assume that you get to pick   I have one ancestor who is almost definitely Native American, but I don't consider myself Native American just because it is many generations back and I have no Native American heritage/culture.

Per FamilySearch, within 20 generations, I have ancestors that were born in Mexico, all most all of Europe, Ottoman Empire, Turkey, South Africa, and Zimbabwe.  How would you classify me?

Heinz 57 might apply

[webbles]

7 minutes ago, Fair Dinkum said:

But we can detect people migrations through DNA.

That's not entirely true.  It is possible for an ancestors' genetic code to completely disappear but still be a literal ancestor.  So, if you had a group of people that were all asiatic except for one person, it is possible that that one person is an ancestor of everyone but doesn't show up in the descendants DNA.

[bOObOO]

6 minutes ago, webbles said:

I would assume that you get to pick   I have one ancestor who is almost definitely Native American, but I don't consider myself Native American just because it is many generations back and I have no Native American heritage/culture.

Per FamilySearch, within 20 generations, I have ancestors that were born in Mexico, all most all of Europe, Ottoman Empire, Turkey, South Africa, and Zimbabwe.  How would you classify me?

We're all whatever Adam and Eve were, don't cha know.  What would you call them?  Earthlings?  Even though they lived somewhere else before they came to this planet? I like the idea behind wherever we go, there we are, but where are we now, exactly?

In a universe that has no beginning and no end and no boundaries around the universe I'd say one spot is about as relevant as any other.  We're all just here, wherever we are.

[Fair Dinkum]

6 minutes ago, webbles said:

That's not entirely true.  It is possible for an ancestors' genetic code to completely disappear but still be a literal ancestor.  So, if you had a group of people that were all asiatic except for one person, it is possible that that one person is an ancestor of everyone but doesn't show up in the descendants DNA.

This is true.  However, I am descended from Neanderthals.  Their DNA markers comprise of <2% of my DNA and the last Neanderthal died over 40,000 years ago. So while it would be nearly impossible to tie my ancestry to a specific individual, the markers they left behind would be evident.  But again if I had descended from a long mature line of seafaring Jews then that evidence would be overwhelming and yes quite apparent.

[Fair Dinkum]

8 minutes ago, bOObOO said:

We're all whatever Adam and Eve were, don't cha know.  What would you call them?  Earthlings?  Even though they lived somewhere else before they came to this planet? I like the idea behind wherever we go, there we are, but where are we now, exactly?

In a universe that has no beginning and no end and no boundaries around the universe I'd say one spot is about as relevant as any other.  We're all just here, wherever we are.

**Forehead Slap**

[bOObOO]

3 minutes ago, Fair Dinkum said:

**Forehead Slap**

I'd like to be able to say that someday you will see that I am and was right about a lot of things, but I'm really not so sure that you will ever see that.  EVER.  But oh well.  At least I know I am right and whoever else finds out, if they do, then good for them too.

[webbles]

6 minutes ago, Fair Dinkum said:

This is true.  However, I am descended from Neanderthals.  Their DNA markers comprise of <2% of my DNA and the last Neanderthal died over 40,000 years ago. So while it would be nearly impossible to tie my ancestry to a specific individual, the markers they left behind would be evident.  But again if I had descended from a long mature line of seafaring Jews then that evidence would be overwhelming and yes quite apparent.

The only reason we know that we are descended from Neanderthals, though, is that we actually got the DNA of Neanderthals.  Without that DNA, we wouldn't know if we have any DNA or how much DNA.  Neanderthals and Homo Sapiens also intermixed for generations so it allows more of the DNA to be in our system, plus it appears that some of that DNA has been useful for our survival so it has kept around.  But being a descendant from a few people that are vastly outnumbered is a completely different problem.

[JustAnAustralian]

4 hours ago, rchorse said:

The Book of Mormon itself does not identify Polynesians as Book of Mormon people. That some or even many prominent leaders have held that opinion doesn't obligate me to agree.

This is what I was thinking too.

It's also been tradition that deacons all dress the same or hold their arm behind their back. Not in scripture anywhere and the handbook has been trying to stamp it out for a while.

[The Nehor]

Same answer I give for why the Americas are not filled with Middle East DNA. Small group subsumed into larger one. You can be descendants of Lehi and Hagoth or whoever and not have a ton of DNA markers for it.

[CV75]

46 minutes ago, Fair Dinkum said:

If a drop of iodine were dropped into the Pacific Ocean could it be detected after 1000 years?  No.  But we can detect people migrations through DNA.  Polynesia descended from Asia not the America's. That ship has sailed, no pun intended.  But again my OP addressed the prevalent capture and replacement of an entire culture, replaced with one derived from the BoM and imposed on an entire population.  Surely replacing the culture of an entire people should only be done with overwhelming supporting evidence.  In the case of the Pacific Island populations that is clearly not the case.

But descendants are not determined by DNA alone. Comparing some trace component of DNA to a drop of iodine, homeopathically speaking, successive diluted drops off successive shores along one current merge with other currents along other shores lead to the latest drop by virtue of being part of the same ocean. Homeopathically, the last drop is descended from the first even if all iodine has been diluted away. Some would say further that “something else’ innate to the original iodine is still retained along the way, but this extends the metaphor further than necessary to make the point.

[The Nehor]

24 minutes ago, Fair Dinkum said:

This is true.  However, I am descended from Neanderthals.  Their DNA markers comprise of <2% of my DNA and the last Neanderthal died over 40,000 years ago. So while it would be nearly impossible to tie my ancestry to a specific individual, the markers they left behind would be evident.  But again if I had descended from a long mature line of seafaring Jews then that evidence would be overwhelming and yes quite apparent.

No, it wouldn’t. You most likely have thousands of Neanderthals in your ancestry. If you drop a couple dozen people from the Middle East into ancient America the same does not happen. It is possible (though not probable) that you could find markers if that DNA became dominant. It just wouldn’t be likely. If Mormon’s little boast about being a pure descendant of Nephi is true than maybe we could have found something like that in him but he died a long time ago and the fact that he thought it was significant suggests it was not common. Most likely his Y chromosome might have been very rare amongst the populations of the Americas since that is the chromosome easiest to track as (absent mutation and a few other exceptions) every son gets a copy of his dad’s Y chromosome. The thing is that if you have a population that exists long enough and comes from a wide variety of ethnic sources with different Y chromosomes the number of Y chromosome variants tends to fall as some become dominant and others become extinct.

Yes, if we had a complete repository of Lehi and company’s DNA and a complete repository of all Native American DNA there would probably be some markers we could find that are there now that weren’t there before but we don’t have the data to find those. DNA tracing is great on the macro level for large-scale populations but is unlikely to find anomalies. If you teleported me 3,000 years into the past and put me in Australia and I had children I could very well be an ancestor for every aborigine in Australia but you likely wouldn’t find an obvious mix of German and Scotch-Irish DNA from me in the population.

[smac97]

1 hour ago, Fair Dinkum said:

It was asked with sincerity

Then I'm sort of confused why you are complaing when I provided you with the information you requested.

1 hour ago, Fair Dinkum said:

I will gladly reward any poster on this board $100 who will honestly declare that they have read every word you ahve posted and read every word of every link you have ever provided in every post that you have made in MD&D.  So yes I am guilty of your charge.  But I am also fully transparent

Yo have misunderstood.  I have read through your post but I am guilty of not reading every reference nor read through every link you've provided in your kind but hearty reply.

I am not requesting or expecting that.  But I am hoping to see something more than what you have said here, which does not include any meaningful interaction with the materials.  No critique.  No evaluation of evidence and arguments.  Just a conclusory putdown.

1 hour ago, Fair Dinkum said:

Not exactly true.  As I stated earlier I am very aware of the arguments made by Sorenson, what I don't see is the scientific community clamoring over themselves to line up in support of his assertions. 

What I don't see if you demonstrating one lick of familiarity with any of "the arguments made by Sorenson."  No effort to interact with or address the evidence and arguments he presents.

None.

1 hour ago, Fair Dinkum said:

In fact just the opposite.  Where his claims compelling, the scientific community would be massing in his support but instead he remains a lone wolf in the wilderness.

Again, I'm not impressed with your approach.  It's lazy.  You make no effort to address the evidence and arguments at hand.  You expect us to go look for it and present it to you.  And even then you preemptively reject it by pointing to a nebulous "scientific community" and your expectations about what it "would" do.

Out of curiosity, what "scentific community" are you referencing here?

1 hour ago, Fair Dinkum said:

That's fair, but again you minimize my assimilation of the material you provided links to and assume I've taken no effort read read any of it, which is not true.

Well, you've said and done nothing to demonstrate that.  You are repeatedly refusing to explain anything.  You are not offering a lick of analysis, evidence, reasoning or anything else.  Just a conclusory statement.

1 hour ago, Fair Dinkum said:

My compliments

I wasn't aggrandizing myself.  I was rebutting your implication that I am operating out of confirmation bias.  

1 hour ago, Fair Dinkum said:

I try to do the same exact thing, which is one of my motivations for participating on this board.

Okay.  Your participation is . . . not much.  Again, you present no argument.  No analysis.  No reasoning.  No evidence.  Just a series of "what about..." threads that come pre-packaged with unexplained conclusions that the Church is bad, is corrupt, is dishonest, is stupid, is falsified, etc.

I just don't see any evidence that you are doing any meaningful work or exerting any particular effort in addressing these topics.  

1 hour ago, Fair Dinkum said:

You're suggesting that there to wide spread support of Sorenson's assertions? Pray do share. I am obviously unaware of this wide spread support and acceptance , outside of Mormonism, of his theories.

I'm suggesting that you aren't interacting with any of the materials I provided.  You aren't addressing the points made, the evidence submitted.  You are resorting to the argumentum ad populum fallacy.  Sorenson said X.  Some nebulous "community" has not publicly come out to support Sorenson's arguments, ergo Sorenson is wrong.

Whether something is true or not is seldom a popularity contest.  

1 hour ago, Fair Dinkum said:

I sincerely thank you for engaging with me. 

Mr Smac, I am not trying to go toe to toe or do a *** for tat with you.  I sincerely appreciate you sharing what you've shared and I will do my darnedest to read through what I can.  Thank you for your engagement.

I hope you have a change of heart.  I hope you give these things a fair hearing.

Thanks,

-Smac

[smac97]

11 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

If Mormon’s little boast about being a pure descendant of Nephi is true than maybe we could have found something like that in him but he died a long time ago and the fact that he thought it was significant suggests it was not common. Most likely his Y chromosome might have been very rare amongst the populations of the Americas since that is the chromosome easiest to track as (absent mutation and a few other exceptions) every son gets a copy of his dad’s Y chromosome.

I'm curious as to your thoughts about whether Mormon's claim (assuming it to be true) would be based on . . . what?  Patrilineal descent?  Matrilineal?  All of his ancestors going back 1,000 being descended from Nephi?

Thanks,

-Smac

[Fair Dinkum]

38 minutes ago, webbles said:

The only reason we know that we are descended from Neanderthals, though, is that we actually got the DNA of Neanderthals.  Without that DNA, we wouldn't know if we have any DNA or how much DNA.  Neanderthals and Homo Sapiens also intermixed for generations so it allows more of the DNA to be in our system, plus it appears that some of that DNA has been useful for our survival so it has kept around.  But being a descendant from a few people that are vastly outnumbered is a completely different problem.

Isn’t it wonderful that the Book of Mormon teaches us that both the nephites and Lamanites were fruitful and multiplied and filled the land both north and south over multiple generations.  Oh wait we don’t believe any of those scriptural references do we. Drat

[Fair Dinkum]

44 minutes ago, JustAnAustralian said:

This is what I was thinking too.

It's also been tradition that deacons all dress the same or hold their arm behind their back. Not in scripture anywhere and the handbook has been trying to stamp it out for a while.

While I agree with you isn’t it tragic that the church has stolen the foundational identity and culture of an entire people?

[Fair Dinkum]

45 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

Same answer I give for why the Americas are not filled with Middle East DNA. Small group subsumed into larger one. You can be descendants of Lehi and Hagoth or whoever and not have a ton of DNA markers for it.

Yup.  The iodine drop in the ocean apologetic theory is always a safe harbor to maintain belief. Non detectable but counter to LDS traditional claims. But hey it wouldn’t be the first and won’t be the last prophetic claim thrown under the bus to protect belief. 

Edited September 23, 2021 by Fair Dinkum

[webbles]

6 minutes ago, Fair Dinkum said:

Isn’t it wonderful that the Book of Mormon teaches us that both the nephites and Lamanites were fruitful and multiplied and filled the land both north and south over multiple generations.  Oh wait we don’t believe any of those scriptural references do we. Drat

Yeah, by intermarrying with the existing groups.  Also, the "north and the south" isn't the north america continent or the south america continent.  It is mostly like an area that is smaller than most states in the US.

Also, I forgot to mention that we do have evidence that South Americans did intermingle with Polynesians (your article references that), so we do have proof that some (and probably most) are descendant from South Americans.  And if those South Americans are descendant from Lehi (which is likely considering he lived over 1000 years before the Polynesian/South American intermingling), then the Polynesians would also be descendants of Lehi.

[let’s roll]

8 minutes ago, Fair Dinkum said:

While I agree with you isn’t it tragic that the church has stolen the foundational identity and culture of an entire people?

Doubling down on your condescension.  Sad.

Perhaps you should allow our Pacific Islander brothers and sister to describe their identities and cultures, including the source of those identities and cultures rather than dictating that they were forced upon, or stolen from, them. 

Edited September 24, 2021 by let’s roll

[JustAnAustralian]

10 minutes ago, Fair Dinkum said:

nephites and Lamanites were fruitful and multiplied and filled the land both north and south over multiple generations.

As early as Jacob (i.e. within the arrival generation) they has changed to using those terms to be social/religious/political terms not genetic/family terms*. The population numbers make it pretty obvious that other groups were already there, so there is no reason to require that the entire population was the direct offspring of the children of Lehi.

 

*Jacob 1:14 "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."

Edited September 23, 2021 by JustAnAustralian

[webbles]

3 minutes ago, Fair Dinkum said:

While I agree with you isn’t it tragic that the church has stolen the foundational identity and culture of an entire people?

I'm curious where that idea is coming from?  Does the Polynesian culture center (owned by the Church) talk about how they are descended from Lehi?  Where has the church "stolen the foundational identity and culture of an entire people"?

[Fair Dinkum]

30 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

No, it wouldn’t. You most likely have thousands of Neanderthals in your ancestry. If you drop a couple dozen people from the Middle East into ancient America the same does not happen. It is possible (though not probable) that you could find markers if that DNA became dominant. It just wouldn’t be likely. If Mormon’s little boast about being a pure descendant of Nephi is true than maybe we could have found something like that in him but he died a long time ago and the fact that he thought it was significant suggests it was not common. Most likely his Y chromosome might have been very rare amongst the populations of the Americas since that is the chromosome easiest to track as (absent mutation and a few other exceptions) every son gets a copy of his dad’s Y chromosome. The thing is that if you have a population that exists long enough and comes from a wide variety of ethnic sources with different Y chromosomes the number of Y chromosome variants tends to fall as some become dominant and others become extinct.

Yes, if we had a complete repository of Lehi and company’s DNA and a complete repository of all Native American DNA there would probably be some markers we could find that are there now that weren’t there before but we don’t have the data to find those. DNA tracing is great on the macro level for large-scale populations but is unlikely to find anomalies. If you teleported me 3,000 years into the past and put me in Australia and I had children I could very well be an ancestor for every aborigine in Australia but you likely wouldn’t find an obvious mix of German and Scotch-Irish DNA from me in the population.

I just got a phone call from 1985.  They want Spencer Kimball’s BoM worldview back. The caller said it got lost