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Friday, January 27, 2012

DNA and the Book of Mormon

For the sake of diplomacy, I try not to disparage the beliefs of other denominations, but it's always a little confusing to me when fundamental Christians attack the Book of Mormon on the grounds that, so far, no DNA evidence has been traced back to Lehi's party.

The reason it confuses me is that these are the same people who deny genetic evidence of evolution.

As long as the discussion is on the LDS church, genetics is rock hard science which cannot be denied or ignored, but when the topic turns to evolution, genetics suddenly becomes this mystical, devilish pseudo-science which is not to be trusted.

I don't mean to make any generalizations about any particular denomination, but there are simply some individuals who need to make up their minds.

Is genetic science reliable, in which case, evidence against the Book of Mormon is inconclusive, but evolution is true and their belief is deeply mistaken?

Or is genetic science unreliable, in which case evidence against the Book of Mormon is inconclusive and their argument falls apart anyway?
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2 comments:

  1. ChingachgookFebruary 2, 2012 at 10:09 AM

    just an fyi, more recent dna findings show some interesting new things with regaurd to Native American origins (they didn't check all the tribes before claiming there was no haplotype X in North America)... This info is particularly interesting to someone like me who believes that the BofM geography mirrors the North American "Hopewell culture.

    "Subclade X2 is more widely distributed throughout Mediterranean Europe, the Caucasus, the Near East and North America. Haplogroup X2 is divided into further subgroups. X2a is found in a few geographically diverse Native American populations, such as Navajo, Yakima and Ojibwa. It is characterized by a HVR mutations at 200 and 16213. Recent work has identified 2 sub branches of X2a. X2a1 in the Great Lakes area, and X2a2 in the west. Another Native American subgroup X2g has been identified as separate from X2a. X2b is the most geographically diverse, covering Europe and the Near East. I

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  2. Cristofer UrlaubFebruary 2, 2012 at 10:23 AM

    Chingachgook, I think you've made more significant contributions to this site than I have! Thank you very much for the information. I will be following up on it.

    "(they didn't check all the tribes before claiming there was no haplotype X in North America)"

    It makes sense. There are still tribes, especially in South America, which we haven't even contacted yet. I think we'd be unwise to try to draw conclusions about their heritage based on the few we've checked.

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