Apologists have suggested that the genetic markers of the surviving Lamanites could simply have changed (with no reason given for why their DNA was changed to mirror Asian DNA). This being the reason that we have no Jewish genetic markers in north/Meso America.

I came across the following:

http://www.foxnews.com/science/2013/04/23/ancient-europeans-mysteriously-vanished-4500-years-ago-660620043/?intcmp=features

From the link:

"What is intriguing is that the genetic markers of this first pan-European culture, which was clearly very successful, were then suddenly replaced around 4,500 years ago, and we don't know why,"

This is the first suggestion, that I have come across, that suggests that the DNA of a particular group of people changed. Thoughts?

They're referencing population turnover, not the actual DNA changing. As in, the civilization that was originally there (ref'd in the article as Anatolian) got wiped out in such a fashion that their DNA was no longer present in the population at the time.

This is atypical; usually when one civilization conquers another, the conquered civilization's DNA continues to be passed down. Apparently the initial civilization either was slaughtered wholesale, wiped out completely and utterly by a pathogen/plague, or made a complete migration.

Right, so even if the Lamanites got completely wiped out, this still means that all the Book of Mormon and modern day prophecies about them are wrong, which means the church and Book of Mormon are wrong. At that point it becomes simply easier to realize that the Lamanite Jewish DNA was never there, and the whole church is garbage.

Second, we also know that the Asian originated DNA among Native American people goes back tens of thousands of years, if not more. So again, the Book of Mormon is wrong, and its apologist are wrong two times over with one false statement.

Some TBMs argue that God had to change the Lamanite's DNA when He changed their skin color, thus no Hebrew remnants to be found. But the remain question is why would God would have changed it to perfectly match ASIAN DNA.

Okay, God can do anything by definition.

However, your DNA cannot change. It can mutate or mix as you breed with others. It can die out, but you cannot change your own DNA or that of a closed population.

If the DNA changes in an area, it is because you introduce a new population who bred with or wiped out the indigenous people.

New research indicates that Neanderthals did not die out, but were bred into Homosapiens and are the ancestors of many humans today. Before it was thought that we killed them out. Instead we bred them into our lines.

The same thing happened to the Huron Tribe in Quebec. They vanished, mostly because they married into the French settlers and now are part of the Quebecois people. You can see that Quebecois are a bit darker, have thicker black hair, and have heavier features than people in France.

However, flipping DNA from Semetic to Asiatic is impossible, unless God magically broke his own natural laws.

When I first started doubting, I tried to think of every possible situation, and this one occurred to me. I mean, like axeldc said, by definition God can do anything, so why couldn't he change the DNA.

But when I read Simon Southerton's exit story, I came across this line:

"I accepted that God had power to do many things, but covering, creating or distorting evidence to test His children was not a characteristic of the God I worshipped."

That's a brilliant line. Can I get it on a t-shirt on bumper sticker?

Honestly, that is the perfect response to any apologist, rather they be Mormon or a creationist.

A Mormon friend of mine told me a long time ago that when he was adopted, his DNA miraculously changed so that he would be more like his adoptive family than his birth family. (scratches head)

Obviously he's never actually had his DNA tested to see if his hypothesis is true.

In science when there are two answers to a question, it's always best to choose the most simple explanation as the most likely solution. Other explanations can be then explored and considered, but the more complicated and convoluted they become, the less likely they are correct.

Someone with no knowledge of what genes encode and how single base changes can have huge effects on biology might suggest that "god changed the DNA" but then you have to look into what coding sequences were changed and whether they match of pattern of being suddenly changed or slowly evolving as populations migrated. The latter is true and not the former. Church apologists have little understanding of DNA, coding sequences, and what small changes in genes can tell us about our history, susceptability to disease, and personal genealogy. The apologists are like the Pharasees who Jesus said would "strain at a gnat but swallow a camel" The church wants you to swallow about twenty camels.

If you don't know about this scientist's work's, it might intrigue you. He's a Mormon specializing in DNA who set out to prove if Smith had descendants or not...
http://www.josephsmithdna.com/index.html

I can't find it; the only one I come up with is Martin Tanner, a disbarred lawyer who's an apologist and colleague of Van Hale's...

Okay, I see Hugo Perego's name, and a couple of us "non-scientific sorts" on RFM have reviewed his claims about the distribution of mtDNA haplogroups d4H3 and X2a and found them distorted.

For example, there was an in situ pre-Columbian skeleton from Illinois that was identifed as having d4h3, and Perego claimed that haplogroup was evidence of a "two migration" hypothesis where ancient ancestors of Native Americans followed a "coastal route" to South America. Bit of a geography problem (nearly 2,000 miles, in fact0. See Brian Kemp's work as well as others).

I understand that Perego has been "assimilated" into the Church Educational System...



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/21/2013 03:49PM by SL Cabbie.

I tire of the apologetic we-don't-know-what-Lehite-DNA-is.
If it's incognito, whatever it is, WHERE is it?
The point they always miss is that Native American DNA is WELL-inventoried. There's no mystery DNA that geneticists can't account for as being Siberian. All the DNA found leads back to Siberia.

So God changed the DNA to Siberian? Sure. He changes whites to blacks and back again, so why not.
Nevermind god is supposed to be a "god of truth" and "canst not lie".

I'm thinking some actual instruction in DNA science is called for if anyone believes this shinola.

This involves European populations, and what the evidence appears to show is that one group of people "replaced" another, right at the beginnings of European civilizatons, with the earlier group apparently showing few traces of having left descendants.

Mitochondrial DNA issues are contentious, and giving rise to lively debate, but what we know is that the mtDNA of Native Americans closely resembles Asians in the Central Siberia/Mongolia region, and National Geographic has done a remarkable special "connecting the dots" of people who likely migrated here via a northern route (see Chukchi people). This occurred on the order of ~15,000 years ago...

You guys are going to love this link...lol...

http://www.dnaindia.com/world/1695866/report-israeli-researchers-find-american-indians-with-jewish-genetic-markers-report

Home > World > Report
Israeli researchers find American Indians with Jewish genetic markers: report
Wednesday, May 30, 2012, 17:04 IST | Place: JERUSALEM | Agency: ANI
Geneticists at an Israeli hospital said they have found a unique Jewish genetic mutation among an American Indian tribe, indicating that they are descendants of Jews expelled from Spain 600 years ago, local Haaretz daily reported on Wednesday.

Geneticists at an Israeli hospital said they have found a unique Jewish genetic mutation among an American Indian tribe, indicating that they are descendants of Jews expelled from Spain 600 years ago, local Haaretz daily reported on Wednesday.

The findings of the study, conducted at the Sheba Medical Center near Tel Aviv, show that a group of Indians from the State of Colorado bear the so-called "Ashkenazi mutation," on the BRCA1 gene - a marker unique to European Jews.

While such so-called "secret Jews," or "Anusim" in Hebrew, whose families assimilated into various north and south American cultures hundreds of years ago after journeying to the New World are more and more known, this is the first time an Indian tribe has shown the gene.

Those Jews were believed to be descendants of a Jewish man who left Europe and settled in south America about 600 years ago - likely among the hundreds of thousands of Jews expelled by Spain in 1492, and possibly among those who sailed with Christopher Columbus, according to the report, which appears in the European Journal of Human Genetics.

600 Years ago being long after the time the BoM purports to recount

Very true. But always being full of questions, how did these Jewish DNA scientists, no-mos to boot, find this 600 year genetic connection when all other DNA geneticists for the last decade or more have been stating (when asked) they found no Jewish DNA connection of any type in any American native group study they have done?
This BRCA1 gene has been out there in the Americas for 600 years and for the most part geneticists have claimed it didn't exist because they never found it or one similar to it to tie any Jewish heritage to any American Indian.
I find that rather odd and disturbing. Especially for the geneticists that people have referenced that have stated no Jewish DNA gene existed, they found none in their study groups and they claimed at times to have taken blood from all North American tribes.
If they missed this one gene what else may they have missed or maybe haven't discovered that exists? African DNA maybe to explain the Olmecs? Egyptian DNA to explain Cocoa from America being in mummies of royalty status?

I have no study to cite, but IIRC, Hebrew DNA has been found in NA population samples. Pretty sure this has been stated in the lit before.

It's just that such Hebrew DNA is always post-Columbian.

Contaminated sample? Bad pipetting. Paid for by Bill Hamblin?

Ashkenazi mutation occurs in other ethnic groups too. I doubt Lehi was a Polish jew.

Since the Ashkenazim mutation is unique, and occurred in Europe among Caucasian/Khazarian, non-Hebraic Jews, and not in Palestinian Sephardic populations, then it cannot derive from a set of Hebrews originating in 600BC Jerusalem who migrated at that time to the new world.

Lehi and party could and can not be affiliated with the more modern Ashkenazim in any way.

As soon as this study appeared. I'm e-mailing an RFM regular who looked into the matter, and off the top of my head, it was easy to account for this one as being a product of post-Columbian contact... I just Googled a bit, and my memory is correct that it was identified in conjunction with cancer research; its presence increases the risk factors in breast and ovarian cancers.

Steve Benson brought the story up, and an RFM regular who has good reason to remain below-the-radar (I'll vouch for him with Jesus Smith as my witness that I do keep confidences and am reliable) posted this extensive rebuttal, noting that the individuals identified with Hebrew "markers" are not Native Americans...

http://exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,785586,785605#msg-785605

>Again, headlines such as "Colorado Indians" with Jewish roots are wrong. The people are descendants of Spanish settlers.

>This is the study that the news media announced as Colorado Indians. Note in the abstract there is no mention of American Indians, only Hispanic.

http://www.nature.com/ejhg/journal/vaop/ncurrent/abs/ejhg2012124a.html

Thanks for that. Well that clears things up a lot. Just saw that now.

I'm not a geneticist but I am interested in BRCA2 and LRRK2 mutations for drug discovery. It's hard to know exactly what the researcher in Israel found from the junk online reference. As stated above he probably was doing genetic research on family clusters of a certain tumor type. We don't know how many examples of the mutation that was found and what sample size of the tribe and if it was a single mutation or multiple mutations that appear in inbred AJ families. Myriad genetics did a comprehensive study of these mutations and I don't remember the details but they were much more common than thought ( I seem to remember 12% in a general population) 2% might be more believable based on numbers of people who get cancer from the mutations. The bottom line is it's not surprising to find the mutation in ethnic groups where there may be a cluster of BRCA2 tumors or LRRK2 mutant associated Parkinson's disease. Having multiple markers across the entire genome for ethnic origins is a lot different than a possible mutation for one protein.