Subject: DNA evidence about the origin of Native Americans
Date: Jan 24 07:57
Author: hector
Mail Address:

Does DNA evidence about the origin of Native Americans refute the Book of Mormon ?

I found these links while looking for information on that subject.

http://www.lds-mormon.com/indians_lamanites.shtml

http://www.ur.ku.edu/News/98N/JulyNews/July16/debate.html

also added: Story #125 - Molecular Biologist


Subject: Re: DNA evidence about the origin of Native Americans
Date: Jan 24 11:33
Author: Moablo
Mail Address:

Lack of DNA evidence definately refutes the BoM. If native Americans are not of Jewish descent, then the BoM cannot be true. It's interesting to note that many Mormons are now admitting that MOST native Americans are of Asian or Mongolian descent. They admit that there were others here before Lehi. But if that's so, where and who ARE the Lamanites? They have found none. And the BoM is full of prophesies concerning the Lamanites in these latter days. If Lamanites don't exist, prophesies cannot be fulfilled which further shows the BoM to be a work of fiction.

Nothing disgusts me more than for people like Hinkley and missionaries that sell the church or try to convert native Americans and Polynesians under the lie that the BoM is a story about their ancestors. They first need to find a native American or Polynesian that actually has Jewish DNA. This tactic is dishonest, an out and out lie, and lacks integrity. They should be ashamed of themselves.


Subject: Some other factors to consider:
Date: Jan 25 02:21
Author: Casio
Mail Address:

(1) When I was a kid in Utah, I had Navajo friends who were participating in the "Lamanite Placement Program." The Church referred to them as "Lamanites" all the time. Even before DNA testing, however, the Navajo were one of the tribes that was most obviously of Asian-Mongolian origins. In fact most of the children are born with the "Mongolian birthmark," a bluish birthmark near the small of the back that typically disappears by the time they are 4 or 5 years of age. If the Navajo are Lamanites then Claudia Schiffer is a Nephite. This shows how uninspired and undiscerning the "Brethren" really are.

(2) For decades, BYU had a famous dance troupe that toured the world under the name "Lamanite Generation." It's purpose was ostensibly to give good PR to the Morg by showcasing the various cultures of the Lamanites and to show how Lamanites in the Church were truly blossoming like roses (even if they weren't exactly becoming "white" as predicted, they were certainly "delightsome.") BYU students eligible for benefits as "Lamanites" included Navajo, Eskimos, Apaches, Latin Americans, Polynesians and many other brownish and delightsome people, whose connections to the fictional Book of Mormon tribe were nothing more than a Mormon hallucination.

I understand that in recent years, they've quietly dropped the "Lamanite Generation" name and probably there is no longer any BYU group that goes around singing the Lamanite Generation theme songs about "blossoming like a rose" and other BOM tripe.

Again, the Brethren were totally wrong and have been lying or at least perpetuating errors in word and deed for more than a century and a half. Where's the inspiration? Where's the discernment?

Heck, if Mongolian descendants could join the Lamanite Generation, why not Albanians? And if Mongolian descendants could participate in the Lamanite Placement program, why not include Vietnamese children or Romanians?


Subject: Basically, yes.
Date: Jan 24 12:37
Author: mravel
Mail Address:

When looking at the Mormon question (the religion's claims and whether it is fundamentally a true religion), you have to look at the totality of the evidence, the "big picture," if you will. Certain bits of evidence are more important than others, but I maintain that for a believing, fully indoctrinated Mormon, no one single piece of problematic evidence will destroy their faith. Looking at it this way, if all of the claims of Mormonism were supported by all of the evidence except one bit of evidence which contradicts the claims of Mormonism (which in actuality is an impossibility due to the self-contradicting and changing claims), then no one piece of the puzzle, like "the Lamanite DNA problem," would shatter the believer's world-view. But having said that, the Lamanite DNA problem is one of the more important bits of evidence that contradicts Mormonism.

In a nutshell, the problem is this:
A. Prophets from Joseph Smith forward (and especially him) have stated that the American Indians of North America, and later the indigenous peoples of Central and South America, are Lamanites (or some basically equivalent thing like "the children of Father Lehi", descendants of the tribe of Manassah, of the House of Israel, etc.)
B. The state of the science of genetics has advanced to the point that it is possible to isolate DNA from mitochondria and from the Y chromosome and to identify markers or reference points in the DNA.
C. Mitochondrial DNA ("mtDNA") is passed down from a mother to her children in the mitochondrion, which is the little power plant in each cell. The mtDNA passes to the next generation in the mitochondrion of the ovum. It is then passed on down the line only by the females. The mtDNA passes down the subsequent generations in an exclusively matrilineal path. The Y chromosome is the male sex chromosome, and is passed down from father to son, or exclusively patrilineally. NOW HERE'S THE IMPORTANT PART: The mtDNA does not do undergo meiosis (no mixing at the bar with other DNA in sexual reproduction that the nuclear DNA does), and passes from one generation to the next intact, except for genetic mutations. In other words, if one were to trace back on the mother's side, going from mother to mother, the mtDNA in you would look indentical or nearly so to the mtDNA of your great-great-great-great-great grandmother. For males, the y-chromosome DNA is passed down mostly without changes, but there are more frequent changes in the y-ch DNA than the mtDNA because a little bit of it sometimes gets mixed with the X chromosome (it is nuclear DNA).
D. Big drum roll ! . . . . . Over 99% of the mitochondrial DNA in indigenous Americans is central Asian/Siberian in origin, or at least it matches up well with mtDNA of poeples who by all appearances have been living in central Asia for thousands of years. It's pretty much the same for the y-chromosome DNA, but there is some contamination from those adventurous conquistadores and other Europeans since Columbus.
E. The mtDNA and y-ch DNA of semitic peoples is markedly different from the mtDNA and y-ch DNA of central Asians, and does not look like the DNA of indigenous Americans (Indians, etc.)
E. So, AT THE VERY LEAST, any migration of a party Israelites circa 600 BC (yeah, right!) to the Americas would have had to have very, very minimal impact on the gene pool -- there is zero, nada, zilch, zip semitic mtDNA in the indigenous Americans whose DNA has been tested, and only traces of y-chromosome DNA that might be Israelite/Jewish, and studies show it was very, very likely introduced by Eurpoeans post-Columbus. IN OTHER WORDS, NO EVIDENCE (zero, nada, zilch, zip) of the alleged Lehite migration has been discovered in the DNA of indigenous Americans. NONE.
F. Which only reinforces the FARMS "small, isolated unknown population theory" for the Lehites. In other words, where once all of the Indians and Central and South Americans were pretty much Israelites, now FARMS and their ilk have taken it upon themselves to enlighten the Mormon world with the news that (a) the Lehites lived in a very small area, probably in Central America (MAJOR problems with the rest of the evidence here, though), (b) there was an existing population in the Americas with which the Lehites (at least those lustful Lamanites) quickly interbred, wiping out all traces, apparently, of the mtDNA of the daughters of Ishmael and all of old bloke Lehi's Y chromosome DNA, (c) making the Indians "Lamanites" only in some "sociopolitical" sense, not a real, genetic sense (so what happened to the "literal descendants" teaching?).

So, basically the answer to your question is "YES."


Subject: So how does the FARMS gang explain
Date: Jan 25 02:47
Author: HB
Mail Address:

how that relatively small group of inbred Lamanites managed to slaughter the several hundred thousand Nephites who were wiped out at the Hill Cumorah battle?


Subject: Re: So how does the FARMS gang explain
Date: Jan 25 11:03
Author: mravel
Mail Address:

From what I have gathered, it would be the Nephites that tended to be more inbred (as they would tend to follow the strict Israelite rules on only marrying within the group, as since those Nephites remained "white and delightsome" and didn't mix their seed with those lowly brown people (I'm only echoing the racism of the BoM here)). The Lamanites are the ones that interbred with the pre-Lehite population. Also, to explain the rapid growth in the Lamanite population -- which with a "close reading" of the BoM "text" is clearly more rapid than would be possible through reproductive population growth (here the mopologists admit the BoM doesn't make sense and find a convenient explanation in the science which absolutely clearly shows there were lots of people in the Americas before 600 BC) -- they theorize that the Lamanites brought lots of the indigenous people into their group. So, they claim, the Lamanites as they were constituted at the end of the BoM were already mostly of pre-Lehite origins in terms of their DNA. The say "Lamanite" is more a sociopolitical identity than a group actually descended from Laman and Lemuel and other Lehites.


Subject: Re: DNA evidence about the origin of Native Americans
Date: Jan 24 12:46
Author: Frank
Mail Address:

I especially liked the second Web-link you provided. Now we need a scholar of the calibre of Hugh Nibley to trace the linguistic migration of "Reformed Egyptian" through Siberia and Asia to the "New World" of North, Central, and South America.

Perhaps FARMS will release this information along with the overwhelming other anthropological evidence they have uncovered proving the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon.

Not too many weeks ago we had a returned missionary in Sacrament Meeting testify that he knew the Book of Abraham to be true, the Book of Mormon to be true, and that the leaders of the church receive daily revelation straight from the Lord. It is just fortunate for us that these men are insightful enough not to give the whole show away by, for instance, revealing that they knew Mark Hoffman and the Salamander documents were a total fraud all along. Otherwise, how on earth could simple folk like myself learn to live by faith. And by sacrificing to the Church all our "time, talents, and wealth" qualify for exaltation in the world to come. Even Steve Martin in the movie "Leap of Faith" could only promise current temporal blessings, but the Church, while not protecting us from the personal "challanges" a loving God may use to help his babies to learn to walk, they can prommise us a "great store," yea, even "blessings beyond measure" await those who refuse to question the doctrines and teachings of the "One true church".

And, please, don't question. Otherwise you may want your donation money back, and we have a very strict policy on that :-) which was given to us by the Lord, Brigham Young!
(That doctrine probably goes back to Joseph Smith, although I don't think that he ever received credit for that inspired admonition, "Never give a sucker an even break!")


Subject: Re: DNA evidence about the origin of Native Americans
Date: Jan 24 14:19
Author: Insomniac
Mail Address:

You morons,

Of course they have asian DNA. When god cursed tham with a skin of darkness, he changed their DNA! You see, Noah had three sons, Ham, Curly, and Shemp. God gave them shemp's DNA (Asians). If he gave them Ham's DNA, they would of course have dark skin, but could never, ever hold the priesthood.

Duh!


Subject: Ahh... that also explains the relative lack of Native American comedians!
Date: Jan 24 14:58
Author: Nick

After all, Shemp was definitely the least funny of Noah's three stoo... err, sons.


Subject: Sophistry at its finest
Date: Jan 24 18:40
Author: mravel
Mail Address:

The mopologists say we don't know what to look for to make a comparison -- we don't know what the mtDNA and y-ch DNA of the folks in Lehi's boat looked like. I have heard mopologists say, gee, the mtDNA of Ishmael's wife might have been central Asian/Siberian. GIVE ME A FRICKIN' BREAK!


Subject: Rest Assured There Will ALWAYS be an Explanation . . .
Date: Jan 24 15:00
Author: Beagle7618
Mail Address:

for everything that cast doubt on the church. I once sought out pro-Mormon sights because I thought I was being unbalanced in my search for information about Mormonism. The sight I came across basically said that there is always an explanation for any objection to the church; and that any member who is concerned about his membership should always keep this in mind. The site went on to explain why the church has opposition and basically said that anyone who complains about Mormonism is of the devil and it included JS and BY quotes.

So don't be concerned about whether an explanation will come regarding DNA evidence -- it will. Jeff Lindsey has an article on his web site that says American Indians DO have Hebrew DNA markers. I didn't read the whole article but enough to see that he has no problem [in his own mind] refuting the sites you marked. Until the church has any credible evidence to support their position, they will ignore it just as they do all the other embarrassing aspects of true Mormon history and culture. The church MUST be true for TBM's and nothing but nothing can make it otherwise -- the cost appears too great.

What a cynic I am . . .


Subject: Melungeons?
Date: Jan 24 15:46
Author: J. (not logged)
Mail Address:

i wonder if farms has delved into the possibility of
claiming the Melungeons are lamanites and the true
decendants?
because they would try everything they could, wouldn't
they? to PROVE the BoM was true.
from what i gather no one can actually pinpoint their
roots (Melungeons), so it would be a golden
opportunity, wouldn't it?


Subject: Re: Rest Assured There Will ALWAYS be an Explanation . . .
Date: Jan 24 16:07
Author: Winslow
Mail Address:

Beagle7618 wrote:
> ... Jeff Lindsey has an article on his web site that says American Indians DO have Hebrew DNA markers. I didn't read the whole article but enough to see that he has no problem refuting the sites you marked.

Until, that is, someone who actually understands the Mitochondiral & Y-Chromosome DNA studies exposes Lindsey's rationalizations for what they are. Lindsey only ATTEMPTS to refute. Apologists (one in particular) on the alt.religion.mormon USENET group uses the same arguments as Lindsey. Fortunately, that forum is visited by several people who are well-versed in genetics and can expose the flaws in the apologist's arguments.

-W


Subject: And Lindsay...
Date: Jan 24 16:12
Author: Duh
Mail Address:

Has been told over and over again that his conclusion is flawed and precisely why. He refuses to take down the misleading information...which makes him a crook and a liar and a sneak and a cheat and a bad bad man.


Subject: It's that darn marker...
Date: Jan 24 16:13
Author: Duh
Mail Address:

X that he calls "mysterious". IT HAS BEEN IDENTIFIED AS SIBERIAN.


Subject: Still, the article is there for anyone to read, and since . . .
Date: Jan 25 00:51
Author: Beagle7618
Mail Address:

it supports a particular point of view, it will be believed. The Smithsonian letter has supposedly been refuted point by point by the apologists and apparently the Smithsonian has issued a modified letter softening their statement. But I feel certain that what the Smithsonian ment was contained in their first one.

The war of words and beliefs rage on . . .


Subject: The answer is plain and precious and like a two-edged sword...
Date: Jan 25 02:40
Author: Bobo Smith
Mail Address:

capable of splitting asunder a ball park frank.

The Lamanites fell upon hard times after killing several hundred thousand Nephites in upstate New York. Eventually after years of drought and hunger, they gathered in the area now known as San Francisco where they built a huge fleet of barges (each tight like unto a dish) out of Redwood trees and sailed of to Asia, every last jack one of 'em. After parking their barges somewhere near Vladivostok, the Lord gave their leaders peep stones to guide them back to palestine, where their descendants now live.

Meanwhile several Korean and Mongolian families stumbled upon the barges and sailed to America, where they repopulated the empty continent with a vengeance. Shortly before the arrival of Columbus, Laman and Lemuel appeared in the form of nasty Lamanitish angels and conferred upon the Asian-American inhabitants honorary Lamanite status.

When you know the truth it all fits together tight like unto a dish.

Isn't it possible that other people could have come over after the flood to intermarry with Book of Mormon people?

I responded:

Glen, I see that you're still thinking like a Mormon.  You're using circular
reasoning---you're using one unproven premise (the literalness of the global
flood) to support another unproven premise (the authenticity of the BOM). 
For us to even entertain your theory, you must first prove that the global
flood which killed every human on earth even happened.

But for the sake of discussion, let's assume that the flood did happen
exactly as Mormon doctrine mandates.  The problems here as they concern the
BOM's claims are ones of chronology and archaelogical evidence.

To explain:  One popular pro-Mormon work which some apologists use as a
reference is Joseph Allen's "Exploring the Lands of the Book of Mormon" (BYU
Print Services, 1989.)
In his book, Allen uses dates from the Mayan calendar and other material to
attempt to give a beginning date for civilization in Mesoamerica.  On page
14, Allen states on a timeline:

"3114 BC---Calendar base date/Proposed flood date

2700 BC---Arrival of first settlers to Mesoamerica/Arrival of Jaredites to
Promised land/Tower of Babel--Iraq"

Allen then states on page 16:  "the Maya used a base system that, when
correlated with our calendar, dates to August 13, 3114  BC.  We do not know
to what event, if any, the 3114 BC date is attached.  However, the date
apparently is associated with some great event, such as the great flood or
the arrival of the first settlers in Mesoamerica."

It's obvious that Allen is trying to suggest that the "Jaredites" were the
first settlers of America, just as passages in the BOM and statements of LDS
leaders including Joseph Smith also do.  To quote Smith:

"In this important and interesting book, the history of America is unfolded,
from its first settlement by a colony that came from the Tower of Babel, at
the confusion of languages to the beginning of the fifth century of the
Christian era.  We are informed by these records that America in ancient
times has been inhabited by two distinct races of people.  The first were
called Jaredites and came directly from the Tower of Babel.  The second race
came directly from the city of Jerusalem, about six hundred years before
Christ.  They were principally Israelites, of the descendants of Joseph. The
Jaredites were destroyed about the time that the Israelites came from
Jerusalem, who succeeded them in the inheritance of the country.  The
principal nation of the second race fell in battle towards the close of the
fourth century.  The remnent are the Indians that now inhabit this country."
(Joseph Smith Jr., published in Times and Seasons March 1, 1842 and in
History of the Church, Vol 4).

Note that Smith did not mention any Asians nor anyone else inhabiting the
Americas before the "Jaredites."  In keeping with LDS belief in the
"young-earth" theory, which holds that humans have only existed for about
5000 or so years, LDS apologists like Allen above date the flood at circa
3000 BC.  The problem with that is that the archaelogical and DNA evidence
demonstrate that human civilization in the Americas is thousands of years
older than that, and there has never been a break in the chain of continuous
human habitation in the Americas such as a catastrophic flood which killed
everyone.  For example, In his 1954 "The Rise and Fall of Maya Civilization,"
noted archaelogist Eric Thompson wrote:

"Considerable evidence of early hunters has been found recently in a district
a few miles north of Mexico City, once the swampy fringe of Lake Texcoco.  At
Itzapan the remains of a young mammoth were found in 1952 with a flint point
lodged between two of the ribs and with other implements of flint and
obsidian mixed with the bones.  The beast had been butchered after apparently
being driven into the sticky soil of the so-called Upper Becerra formation,
dated about *nine to ten thousand years ago.*  Bones of another mammoth found
two years later under similar conditions had clearly been moved around by
human agency, and again points were associated with them.  Some of the bones
showed deep cuts made by the hunters as they chopped up the beast.  At
Tepexpan, only one and one-half miles away, and in a similar formation were
the remains of a woman of about thirty, the only human so far associable with
those early hunters.  *Her bones did not differ noticeably from those of the
general run of present-day Indians of Mexico;* there was nothing primitive
about her, although she was buried when mammoth still roamed the land."

Note that Thompson dated human remains at circa 9,000-10,000 years ago (many
centuries before the alleged global flood), and yet the remains were similar
to modern-day Mesoamericans which inhabited the same region---the point
being, that modern-day Amerinds are descended from those 10,000-year-old
mammoth hunters---and that means that no global flood interrupted human
culture or activity in Mesoamerica during or after the time in which it
allegedly occurred.  The alleged global flood did not interrupt human
civilization in other areas around the world either.  Archaelogical and DNA
Evidence of unbroken human culture abounds in Egypt, Israel, Malaysia, and
Australia, to name a few.  Study the info at
http://dsc.discovery.com/convergence/realeve/realeve.html

Thus, the ancient inhabitants of America did not arrive after the time of the
alleged flood to intermarry with the "BOM people," as you hypothesize.   They
were already in America centuries before the alleged flood, and they never
ceased to exist at any time.  But that is only half of the BOM's problem in
this area.  The other half is the DNA evidence which does not support the
idea of ANY ancient Americans being descended from Semite stock beginning
circa 2500 BC (the alleged "Jaredites") or 600 BC (the alleged "Lehites.")  
Also, the population figures of the "Jaredites" as stated in the BOM---which
alleges that at least two million of them were killed in battles circa 600
BC---mandate that the Jaredites and their enemies would have necessarily been
the dominant culture in the region, rather than just a small minority which
intermarried with, and were swallowed up, by a larger population of alleged
Asian-descended peoples.  That being the case, then we should be able to find
"Jaredite" (Semite) DNA relationships in spades among modern Amerinds, if the
"Jaredites" existed as recently as 2600 years ago.  But we don't.

The final nail in the coffin of your premise is that IF any "non-BOM people"
settled in the Americas sometime between the flood of circa 3000 BC and the
"Jaredite" crossing circa 2500 BC, those people would have necessarily been
closely related to Noah---a Semite.  Since, according to LDS doctrine, only
eight humans survived the flood circa 3000 BC, then all humans who migrated
to the Americas after the flood should show a close relationship with a
common, small group of ancestors beginning some 5000 years ago.  But they
don't.  So your premise is destroyed from four directions: 

*The lack of evidence for the global flood

*The archaelogical evidence which shows the Americas to have been
continuously inhabited for at least 10,000 years

*The DNA evidence which shows a close relationship between Amerinds and
Asians

*The DNA evidence which does not support the Semite origins of Amerinds in
the timeline necessary for us to accept the BOM's claims.

Conclusion:  The Book of Mormon has no basis in historical or scientific
fact.  It is soundly refuted by everything we know about ancient American
history, anthropology, archaelogy, and by DNA research.

Randy J.


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