As the evidence mounts, the Book of Mormon fades further and further into obscurity. Here is a link to an article in Discovery Magazine about earwax, of all things, that suggests East Asians and Native Americans have a similar genetic makeup regarding earwax.

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/gnxp/2010/10/east-asians-dry-earwax-and-adaptation/

Of course, the Mopologists will have some convoluted way of rationalizing this away. And we don't need any further evidence to convince us the BoM is a fraud. I just found it all very intriguing. Another nail in the coffin.

Native Americans share the same subtype as Asians, not Europeans.

The Mops will handle this by dilution arguments. If the original DNA is swamped by existing populations, so are the earwax and parasites.

Their biggest hope lies in the Limited Lamanite Loophole where the existing population was so large that it completely drown outs (dilutes) the DNA from Mulek, Nephi, Laman, etc.

The problem is, Mo geneticist Ugo Perego has published results that imply the Mops position is not tenable.

Ugo Perego says that there is a "novel X2 branch...named X2g, and its presence in Native Americans most probably indicates an additional and very rare Native American founder..."

( See http://www.genetree.com/documents/achilli_perego_distinctive_perego_et_al_paleo_indian_migrations_2009_current_biology.pdf)

The halpogroup X2g, as I understand, is theorized to have entered the lineage through this rare individual founder much more than 10,000 years ago.

As for DNA matching hebrew lineage, the FAIR Mormon apologists have argued blue-faced that until we find Lehi's DNA to match against, it's pointless to worry. Of course, many have pointed out that Mulek would have discernible, royalty Davidic descent (as his father Zedekiah is a direct descendant of Josiah and hence David). And we're told that dilution is the problem there. (The lost African Jewish Lemba DNA, we're told, is not a good example because it is based on the Cohen modality, and Levites are persnickety about preserving family lines. Like Mulek's royal family wasn't?)

Okay, if 10+kya X2g can be found today, I'm sure there's a detectable haplotype from the Davidic line that can be seen from entry into a population 2,600 ya.

Likewise, a 2006 study reports DNA-based research linking DNA retrieved from a single 10,000-year-old fossilized tooth from an Alaskan island, with existing, specific coastal tribes in Tierra del Fuego, Ecuador, Mexico, and California. Unique DNA markers found in the fossilized tooth were found only in these limited and specific coastal tribes, and were not comparable to markers found in any other indigenous peoples in the Americas. (Ref: “Genetic analysis of early Holocene skeletal remains from Alaska and its implications for the settlement of the Americas”, American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 132(4), 605-621 (2007).)


Here, the DNA testing done in this 2006 study is so sensitive that it linked a singe person (DNA from a fossilized tooth) to specific, living people across two contintents, 10,000 years later.

It's argued that this tooth was a specific DNA to match against, and that Lehi's DNA is unkown, and 2500 years old.

Yet, an actual migrating group from Jerusalem about 600 BC went to S. Africa, assimilated into the African continent (with the original 100kyear existing human population), diluted and now speak another local language. And their DNA has been matched back to specific polymorphisms of the Cohen modal haplotype (Jewish) markers. The Lemba are the actual group that left Jerusalem and intermingled in a continent. changing their appearance (black), language and other elements of life. And they are still found today to be Semetic, based on DNA.
( See "Y Chromosomes Traveling South: The Cohen Modal Haplotype and the Origins of the Lemba—the “Black Jews of Southern Africa”", American Journal of Human Genetics 66 (2): 674, February 1, 2000.)

Mulek's DNA would be extremely similar to that of the Lemba, and would be noticeable in Amerindians today. In the BoM storyline, Mulek was of royal jewish lineage. His city was the largest among the Nephites (Bountiful) and was the primary one preserved after MoJesus destroyed over a dozen cities and performed genocide on the inhabitants.

Nephi even saw that his lineage would not be completely destroyed by the Lamanites or Gentiles (1 Ne 13) “the Lord God will not suffer that the Gentiles will utterly destroy the mixture of thy seed, which are among thy brethren.”

If there were a surviving DNA lineage, Mulek's Nephite lineage would be the most likely candidate. Royal Jewish mtDNA and YDNA are both used currently to find all kinds of ancestry among modern Jews.

So we have real scientists publishing real data, that shows DNA can indeed match very tedious mixing that probably happened in a single DNA introduction 2,000 years prior.

And the mops have the stones to claim Lehites' DNA is diluted in 300 years (or even 2500 years) when it is found specifically in other groups 10,000 or 2,000 years ago?

There's no excuse for them to raise dilution as an issue.

Thanks, Jesus Smith, for the informative reply. I love getting stuff like this! If only the TBMs could be persuaded by it all. *sigh*

Anthropologists had long ago identified Native Americans as descendants of Mongols, based on the fact that both races have the epicanthal fold in the eyelid, and their infants display a purplish spot on their lower back (called the "mongoloid spot"), which disappears in early childhood.

The DNA is just the icing on the cake.

When someone believes in magical cures and remedies, they can come to believe anything. One explanation for the no genetic similarities to Hebrew DNA among Native Americans is that God changed their DNA. If someone is able to believe this to be true, why couldn't God simply change their DNA to resemble East Asians?

My answer? When pigs fly! But of course, if God can change Lamanite DNA to resemble East Asian DNA, then God could certainly change swine DNA so that they sprout wings and feathers. That lovely chirping we hear out there in the distance? It is really a pig flying all over everywhere! ;^))

Gosh! I wonder why God would want the very elect to lose confidence in the mormon church?

And what of the critics- should they be vindicated if the church is true?

The ONLY reason it would make sense to change the DNA would be to protect any further generations from believing in Mormonism.

Puli Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> One explanation for the no genetic similarities to
> Hebrew DNA among Native Americans is that God
> changed their DNA.

That means god is a deceiver and a trickster. The whole Limited Lamanite Loophole is forcing the mormons to redefine their god as Loki.

I ask them, when they bring this up (on any issue where they claim god can change the evidence to look like what science finds):
Wouldn't it just be easier to believe Joe lied, than God lied?

Good points! There may be rebuttals like 'God didn't lie, He just changed DNA to put the mark on the Lamanites thus destroying the genetic markers of (and the links to) their ancestors.'

I don't buy the argument, and many religious apologetic explanations - including those from Christianity not exclusive to Mormonism - require God to be deceptive. Anything that must be taken on faith against scientific evidence that stands the test of time requires God to be deceptive. This would include the radio isotope dating of the earth's age and of fossils which fundamentalists routinely try to discredit.

When I was a kid I started noticing little details that seemed off. I was really into dinosaurs and rock collecting. I used to find geodes in the streams around my house. I found out that they were several million years old. Wait a minute, wasn't the Earth created just a few thousand years back? I asked my parents, neighbor and bish that question. I got "God works in mysterious ways." So God is trying to confuse little kids? What a jerk.