Okay, perhaps it's not the "whole truth" as far as what is yet to be "discovered," but she certainly lays waste to the shinola shippers out there. Jennifer Raff is an assistant professor of anthropology at the University of Kansas with a dual PhD in molecular biology and anthropology. Her specialty is the peopling of the Americas, and as an "avocation" her website columns--and blogs on "The Guardian"--lay into a lot of the nonsense passed off as "gospel."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0BuRECUOsx0

Mormons stories about "light-skinned" people are mentioned at the 15:40 mark...

Dr. Melba Ketchum, one of a score of "Bigfoot Experts" who's a veterinarian rather than an actual scientist, as well as a "co-conspirator" with David Paulides--is discussed along with purported genetic claims related to the "Paracas skulls" that are explored and and claims about their origins shown to be nonsensical and unscientific.

Digression: Regular RFM readers are doubtless already aware that another "leading Bigfoot Authority" is LDS; that's Jeffery Meldrum of Idaho State University in Pocatello. Dr. Raff makes no mention of Meldrum (no relation to Rodney Meldrum), but he's another pariah offering dubious claims using dubious media outlets. There's a "feud" taking place, incidentally, between Meldrum and the Ketchum/Paulides crowd...

Nephilim... (hmm, anyone else see the linguistic relationship with "Nephi"? The word is in the Bible, predating the BOM)

"Paracas individuals are not human" is one of the claims one encounters among the pseudo-scientists.

"If you do ancient DNA less than stringently, you are going to get all sorts of spurious results."

The stringent requirements for dealing with contamination in the laboratory are well documented; even with those precautions contamination still occurs. One control factor they employ is using as few technical workers as possible, whose DNA sequences are kept on file.

Summing up her conclusions (with a nice reference to another friend of mine, Brad Lepper, the Ohio State Archaeologist):

Raff: "This research is attempting to de-legitimize the scientific research of the past in order to push a specific agenda."

Lepper: "This casts the American Indian as relatively recent intruders."

Raff: "If you think this does not have political implications, you have not been paying attention to the news lately."

Finally, she has some profound analyses of "genetic testing companies," noting their value but also addressing much of the hype and misinformation out there.

"Ancestry testing cannot tell you who you are."



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/14/2017 10:23PM by SL Cabbie.

Thanks cabbie for the link. Good info.
But....
"Ancestry testing cannot tell you who you are."


Hey, most of the ancestry testing companies started in Utah by LDS folks. Surely they must be 100% accurate. Right....?

Thanks for the info Cabbie.