One of my TBM relatives, age 64, recently posted this article on FB which other TBMs have been circulating, in the mistaken notion that it somehow supports the BOM story:

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/11/131120-science-native-american-people-migration-siberia-genetics/

I responded:

I don't see why this is any great surprise. Geneticists have known for decades through DNA research that human life began in Africa, and spread northwards and eastwards to Europe, Asia, and the Pacific islands thousands of years ago. There was undoubtedly a lot of back-and-forth traveling and resultant interbreeding over the centuries. This discovery of a 24,000-year-old human in Siberia, with Eurasian DNA markers, merely shows that some of his ancestors originated somewhere in Eurasia at some earlier point. The Discovery Channel's program "The Real Eve" illustrates how DNA studies trace the spread of humans out of Africa: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6msM0Otc-tQ

A different relative, who is a "social Mormon", chimed in:

Many modern day humans have Neanderthal DNA in them as well. This would have only happened if the Neanderthals and Homo Sapiens interbred. The Neanderthal population was smaller so Homo DNA is more prevalent and Neanderthal died out eventually. The Neanderthal DNA is what most likely enabled the Homo Sapiens to survive in the European area when they first migrated there.

TBM relative responded:

Like I said...read your B of M.

To which I replied:

Are you referring to the Book of Mormon? I don't see what the find in this article has to do with that. The article refers to a human in Siberia who lived about 24,000 years ago, whose DNA included some relation to people who lived somewhere in Eurasia even before that. Since earlier DNA research already shows that modern human life began in Africa some 150,000+- years ago, and that people spread from there northward into Europe and eastward into Asia---and crossed the Bering Straits into the Americas more than 12,000 years ago---I don't see why it's all that remarkable that 24,000-year-old human remains in Siberia have a DNA relation with samples from Eurasia, any more than it would be remarkable that your DNA shows a relationship with someone who lived in Britain 500 years ago, seeing as how that's where our ancestors came from. And I don't see what any of this has to do with the Book of Mormon story.

TBM relative replied:

I was only referring to the "Native" Americans not actually being "native" at all. All of the ancient inhabitants came from somewhere else. The Book of Mormon is just one example of that fact being obvious to millions of people already. Everybody else is just close to 200 years getting that information we've had all our lives. So there!

My reply:

Of course everybody came from somewhere else. That isn't new information. I've been taught since junior high school in the late '60s that native Americans are descended from Asians who crossed over the Bering Straits more than 10,000 years ago. DNA studies of the last 15-20 years have confirmed that fact. But I still don't understand what that has to do with the Book of Mormon story. The Book of Mormon story says that the Americas were a "promised land" that God kept preserved from the knowledge of other nations until after the Noachic flood about 4500 years ago, when God led a group of ancient Mideasterners to emigrate there. This article deals with someone who lived in Siberia 24,000 years ago, obviously in prehistoric times. That person could have relatives or descendants who came from, or emigrated to, any number of places around the world. If that person's DNA makeup shows a relation to ancestors from Africa, the Middle East, Eurasia, or anywhere else in the Eastern hemisphere, I don't understand what that has to do with the Book of Mormon story at all. As I wrote earlier, DNA studies show that human life began in East Africa about 150,000 years ago. So obviously, everybody came from there, and as time passed, human life spread all over Africa, Europe, and Asia, and then into the Americas about 10-25,000 years ago.

End quote. My TBM relative didn't respond to that post, so I sent this:

I took the time to look up a little more info on this. From Wikipedia: "Homo sapiens ventured out of Africa around 125,000 years ago, spread across Asia from 75,000 years ago and arrived on new continents and islands since then. When modern humans reached the Near East 125,000 years ago, evidence suggests they retreated back to Africa, as their settlements were replaced by Neanderthals...East Asia was reached by 30,000 years ago." So we see that when humans left Africa, all of them didn't necessarily travel northward or eastward, never to return. The evidence indicates some traveling back and forth. So it's no great surprise that a 24,000-year-old human in Siberia could possess some DNA markers from an ancestor who lived somewhere in Eurasia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_human_migrations

My TBM relative didn't respond to that post either, but they "liked" it. So hopefully I was able to stir their thinking a little. It's fascinating to see how little TBMs know about modern research, and how they come across an article like this one and jump on it, ignorantly thinking that it somehow supports the BOM story (even though the article clearly states that the Siberian fossil find dates to circa 24,000 years ago---about 20,000 years before the BOM story---and of course, about 17,000 years before LDS doctrine says that humans have even existed.) This TBM relative is a college graduate.

There are two books, one research and the other cuneform translation that will support this post.

First: Michael Tellinger's "The Slave Species Of God" and

second: Zecchariah Sitchin's translation of the Sumerian tablets named "The Lost Book of Enki?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/08/2015 11:42AM by thedesertrat1.

Thanks randyj. As we all know, the average members explanation for the DNA evidence is usually not well researched but offered to them after it has been filtered through the devious minds of apologists.

After close examination their plausible deniability proves to be implausible.

just lol at your TBM relative: "So there!"

but seriously, well done!

"just lol at your TBM relative: "So there!"

Yeah, that relative isn't exactly a world-class genius.

Funny thing is, a coupla months before that relative posted that article on FB, she had posted another one wherein some "researcher" had claimed to find some ruins in Central America which were similar to ancient Hebrew structures and were therefore built by ancient Hebrews. But just below that article was a link to another article which said that the claims of Hebrew structures in Central America was a hoax. I guess my TBM relative didn't bother to read that far. All she saw was something that she ignorantly thought supported the BOM.

Yeah, I just don't get why TBM's love this article (actually I do because they are ignorant). It completely contradicts the BoM story line. These bones are 24,000 years old! The Jaradites came to America 2000 years ago (and Lehi left Jerusalem 600 years)! AND the bones are from SIBERIA. NOT Jersusalem.

Its like someone claiming Africans discovered America in 1492 because Christopher Columbus shares DNA with people living in Africa.

These people totally live in a vacuum of knowledge.

"I just don't get why TBM's love this article (actually I do because they are ignorant). It completely contradicts the BoM story line. These bones are 24,000 years old!"

Yes, TBMs ignorantly believe that these discoveries actually support the BOM because all they see is "ancient Asian-American DNA connection," without studying the timeline to see that the finds don't support the BOM at all. My recent dialogue with my TBM relative was similar to one I had in 2003, with a Mobot named Charles Dowis on alt.religion.mormon. Charles repeatedly, and ignorantly, asserted that the discovery of a DNA relationship between a Greek woman and an American Cree Indian man constituted "Book of Mormon evidence." After Charles repeated that assertion multiple times, I clued another poster in to Charles' flawed thinking with this response:

Last April, "The Discovery Channel" carried an excellent program titled "The
Real Eve," which related the anthropological and DNA evidence which shows that
the modern human race originated in Africa. You can study the data at

http://dsc.discovery.com/convergence/realeve/realeve.html

As you can see, the evidence shows that humans began migrating eastward from
Africa about 80,000 years ago, and all the way into Asia, and then into the
Americas.

Research of DNA lines show that some of those migrants doubled back from Asia,
going westward and northward to settle in Europe.

One of the program's main points was to show just how closely related all
modern humans are to each other on the DNA chain. To illustrate that, the
program noted that a young American woman of Greek descent was closely related
to an elderly Cree Indian man.

I watched this program when it first aired, and I was the first poster to
comment on it on ARM. I provided the URL above where readers can study the
data, and I mentioned the relationship between the Greek/American woman and the
Cree Indian man in my post.

Now, here's what happened next: Charles Dowis read my mention of the DNA
relationship between the Greek/American woman and the Cree Indian man, and
being a brainwashed Mobot, he immediately, though mistakenly, took that fact to
be "evidence" for the BOM. He mistakenly thinks that it means that the
relationship originated in ancient pre-Columbian America, and thus meant that
ancient Greeks must have sailed to America and interbred with Cree Indians,
which theory would lend plausibility to the BOM's claims of ancient Hebrews
sailing to America and allegedly interbreeding with Amerinds.

But what Charles cannot intellectually comprehend is that the DNA relationship
between the Greek/American woman and the Cree Indian man occurred THOUSANDS OF
YEARS BEFORE "Book of Mormon times," IN EUROPE OR ASIA, and thus does not
support the BOM's claims in any way, shape, form, or fashion.

All the data simply means is that the Greek/American woman and the Cree Indian
man shared a common ancestor who lived in the eastern hemisphere, and who had
at least two descendants, one of whose descendants migrated to the Greece area,
and another whose descendants migrated eastward into Asia, and who later had
descendants who crossed the Bering Straits and into the Americas more than
10,000 years ago. PBS recently carried a program which covered similar data.

I have pointed all of this out to Charles Dowis at least four times over the
last nine months. And yet, he obstinately repeats his false assertion that the
Greek/Cree relationship somehow supports the BOM's claims.

Because of the DNA research which shows no evidence that any ancient
Semitic/Hebrew peoples contributed to the Amerind gene pool in the timeframes
claimed in the BOM, Mopologists like Charles Dowis grab ahold of any data which
they think allows them to hold out hope that the BOM is true. Charles does
this with his constant repetition of the "haplogroup X" issue, and now he does
it with the Greek/Cree relationship.

But in his desperate efforts to support the BOM with scientific data, he
misstates and misrepresents the data in order to make appear to support the
BOM. Charles loves to cite scientific research when it says "Greek/Cree DNA
relationship," but he closes his ears when the scientific research says "that
relationship occurred many thousands of years before the BOM times, and on the
other side of the planet."

IOW, Charles only relies on scientific research when he thinks it supports the
BOM, but then he rejects that same scientific research when it does *NOT*. He
dishonestly "cherrypicks" the evidence, citing only that which supports his
beliefs, and rejecting that which does not. And Charles' habit is what we call
"intellectual dishonesty."

Charles' persistence in repeating his false assertions, when he was been
corrected on them numerous times, shows us that he is an incorrigible, deluded
fanatic, for whom scientific fact means absolutely nothing. He will hang onto
his discredited theories just as tightly as the Heaven's Gate cult members hung
onto their leader's assertions that if they committed suicide, they would be
taken aboard a spaceship to live on a faraway planet. Although Charles'
beliefs will not make him commit physical suicide, he commits intellectual
suicide every time he repeats his ignorant, discredited assertions.

Randy J.

In debating the BOM's DNA issues, TBMs often resort to using red herrings such as this one from Charles Dowis. His argument is basically "Since we don't know the DNA of the mothers in the BOM, we don't know that their DNA wouldn't be related to some ancient Amerinds." My response follows his:

>If you insist, then, what was the dna characteristics of Lehi's and
>Ishmael's wife? The Jaredites? Please compare that characteristic to
>the dna of the ancient amerindians, including those whose tribes have
>gone extinct.
>
>I patiently await your response.


For the benefit of new readers:

Charles Dowis constantly interjects red herrings such as this into the
discussion of ancient lineages, in an attempt to explain away why scientists
can find no evidence of Semitic/Hebraic roots in native Americans.

But I have reminded Charles Dowis numerous times of the fact that according to
LDS church doctrine, all humans on earth were drowned in the global flood,
except for the eight aboard Noah's ark, circa 5000 years ago (that date being
affirmed by Charles Dowis in a previous post.)

That obviously means that according to LDS church doctrine, every human on
earth must be descended from those eight people aboard Noah's ark, a mere 5000
years ago. And that means that Charles' repeated dredging up of "Lehi's
lineage" is a red herring, because if the Book of Mormon and LDS doctrine are
to be believed, then Lehi, Ishmael, Zoram, the Jaredites, the Mulekites, and
EVERY OTHER TRIBE OF HUMANS MENTIONED IN THE BOM HAD TO HAVE DESCENDED FROM
THOSE EIGHT PEOPLE ABOARD THE ARK 5,000 YEARS AGO, not to mention the
Egyptians, the Persians, the Hittites, the Babylonians, the Assyrians, and all
other ancient tribes mentioned in the Old Testament.

And that means that if LDS doctrine is trustworthy and reliable, then DNA
research should show that every human on earth today was descended from a small
group of eight ancestors, originating in the Middle East, only about 5,000
years ago.

If DNA research does *NOT* show that every human alive today was descended from
a group of eight people from 5,000 years ago, then that means that the truth
claims of the LDS Church are worthless.

A few months ago, I joked that Charles Dowis' memory capacity must be similar
to that of the average barnyard fowl. Charles took offense at my joke, but I
hope that readers can see that my observation was spot on.

It doesn't matter if you correct Charles Dowis on a point ten times a day for
1000 days in a row----he will ignore you, and continue to repeat his refuted
assertions come hell or high water. The man has absolutely no shame or
dignity.

Randy J.

If LDS doctrine is correct and there was the world-wide flood
5000 years ago, then it is fascinating how Egyptian civilization
was unaffected by that flood. We have Egyptian civilization
before, during and after the flood without interruption.

Furthermore if all humans are descended from Noah and his sons
(notice he had no daughters) then every male on earth got his
Y-chromosome from Noah. Therefore all Y-chromosomes should be
identical (except for what mutations would be expected to occur
within 5000 years).

However there is a wide variety among Y-chromosomes. We
therefore have to question at least one of two things: (1) the
story of the flood, or (2) Noah's wife's fidelity.

Either way it doesn't support the BoM. Especially since they think the earth is only 6000 years old anyway.

Besides, Jeff Holland said that pre-adamites are not humans so Mormons shouldn't be using any DNA from more than 7000 years ago.

TBMs gobble up anything that a fellow TBM says supports the BoM or anything else in Mormon doctrine or theology.

In my experience they seldom understand the issue much less what the "So there!" emails tell them. They just parrot it with a "And that proves the BoM is true!"

Ah yes... That article. Just pass along Simon Southerton's crippling blow to this article:

http://simonsoutherton.blogspot.com/2014/07/the-great-dna-surprise.html?m=1

randyj Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

> TBM relative replied:
>
> I was only referring to the "Native" Americans not
> actually being "native" at all. All of the ancient
> inhabitants came from somewhere else. The Book of
> Mormon is just one example of that fact being
> obvious to millions of people already. Everybody
> else is just close to 200 years getting that
> information we've had all our lives. So there!

The thing that gets me is that this person wouldn't dream of
using such flawed logic in any other area of their life. But
for some reason when the topic is Mormonism they become
brain-dead idiots.

And, yes, the Bering Strait migration has been the
gold-standard among anthropologists for well over 100 years.
Nothing new here at all.

http://exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,1559472,1559472#msg-1559472

Yep. Deeply held beliefs can make us idiots. See the study referenced in this link. More information helps make better decisions, unless the topic is politics, religion or another deeply held belief such as the anti-vaccine idea. Time and again we see smart people turn dumb and dishonest when facts conflict with their beliefs. This numb nut that RandyJ mentioned is an example.

Them: "Look, Science!"

Us: "OK, let's look at what science says."

Them: "Noooo, you can't trust science!"