Monday, Jun 16, 2014, at 01:31 PM
MDDB Brain Trust Takes On Simon Southerton Re: Book Of Mormon DNA
Original Author(s):
Drw
Filed Under:
DNA
MDDB, affectionately known by many as the MADBoard, is a place that seldom fails to deliver when it comes to off the wall craziness, willful ignorance, and crackpot pseudo scientific apologetic responses to any scientific findings deemed to be anti-Mormon.
Recently the scientific brain trust over there has decided to take on Simon Southerton on a thread entitled Simon Southerton Latest trying to respond in a faithful manner to his recent blog post regarding the "Lamanite DNA" issue (which post was discussed here on MDB).
Please recall that, in at least two separate blog posts on the subject, Dr. Southerton has referred to the Hellenthal et al., 2014 paper and Globetrotter Method data, as some of the best DNA evidence yet against the Book of Mormon narrative.
Here is a sampling of the kind of responses that come from folks over at MDDB when confronted with scientific evidence that contradicts their unfounded but closely held beliefs.
I will only comment on the last of these examples. The rest of them speak for themselves (and I wouldn't know where to start with rational responses to most of these, anyway). (Spelling and grammar are as found on MDDB.)
As to argument, no argument needed. If many groups of people inhabited the entire American continent, which they did, then clearly Lehi's DNA whatever it was (we don't even know that, which is another flaw in anti-mormon arguments) being a small group of people that DNA would be diffused into the native peoples and thus almost non-detectable. Further, because of Genetic Drift and Migration, Lehi's DNA would in fact be in nearly every single native of the America's given the time that has past now, but it not be detectable be cause it's not the dominant DNA.
Here is an exchange between "Alan" and our own Runtu:
Alan wrote:
Of course DNA can dissolve into a much larger population. It is known as a historical fact, for example, that 500 years ago up to an estimated 20% of the population of Lisbon, Portugal was African negro. No trace of their DNA can be found.
Runtu wrote:
Do you have a source for this? If you look at the following graphic, concentrations of people of Macro-Haplogroup L are shown in red. Note that most concentrations are in sub-Saharan Africa. There's a nice roundish red bit that corresponds to Lisbon, Portugal. If what you say is true, we shouldn't see that at all.
Then there is (attributed to FAIR Mormon):
Quote:
If Lehi had any descendants among Amerindians, then after 2600 years all Amerindians would share Lehi as an ancestor. Even if (as is probable) the Lehite group was a small drop in a larger population 'ocean' of pre-Columbian inhabitants, Lehi would have been an ancestor of virtually all the modern-day Amerindians if he has any ancestors at all.
Ah, but here is the very best of all:
Seeking Understanding wrote:
The apologetic argument is actually that Lehi would be an ancestor to almost every single native American, while his DNA has disappeared. Each human has only 23 pairs of chromosomes, so we have DNA from at most 46 different ancestors which means that we have many non-DNA contributing ancestors (leaving of mitochondrial DNA which one inherits from their mother).
Finally, Robert F. Smith, who fancies himself as a "real" intellectual, came up with this surprising recommendation: Robert F. Smith wrote:
On the other hand, I particularly recommend a look at "Mixed genes: Interactive world map of human genetic history reveals likely genetic impacts of historical events," ScienceDaily.com, February 13, 2014, online at
http://www.scienceda...40213142305.htm
.
Here is only one of the many provocative conclusions using the so-called "Globetrotter" method of DNA analysis:
"Each population has a particular genetic 'palette'," said Daniel Falush of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, co-senior author of the study. "If you were to paint the genomes of people in modern-day Maya, for example, you would use a mixed palette with colours from Spanish-like, West African and Native American DNA. This mix dates back to around 1670 AD, consistent with historical accounts describing Spanish and West African people entering the Americas around that time. Though we can't directly sample DNA from the groups that mixed in the past, we can capture much of the DNA of these original groups as persisting, within a mixed palette of modern-day groups."
Largely based on the work of the Max-Planck-Gesellschaft, and article by Garrett Hellenthal, George B.J. Busby, Gavin Band, James F. Wilson, Cristian Capelli, Daniel Falush, Simon Myers. "A Genetic Atlas of Human Admixture History," Science, 14 February 2014 DOI: 10.1126/science.1243518.
That's right, folks. Bro. Smith is apparently citing the Hellenthal, et al., 2014 paper and the Globetrotter Method, in support of the Book of Mormon narrative, with no mention whatsoever of the fact that this paper and method are what Simon Southerton showed to be strong (I would say even more fatal) evidence against the Book of Mormon narrative.
No only that - in doing so, he provides a quotation from one of the paper's authors, which quotation clearly supports Simon Southertson's claims regarding pre-Columbian New World DNA and the Book of Mormon narrative.
I have a hard time knowing what to make of this. Either Bro. Smith is throwing in the towel, or he is just as clueless as the other faithful quoted here as to what the data really mean.