Stop the Mormon Apologist presses! (There's always a catch with unschooled LDS water carriers).

Occasionally this board sees silly arguments snuck onboard by cranially-cramped posters who don't realize just how silly they really are.

One such claim is that certain Native Americans now inhabiting the Western Hemisphere display signs of Jewish genetics--which dyed-hard Mormons suggest supposedly proves (according to their loony LDS Sunday School logic) that these Native Americans are descendants of Book of Mormon Lamanites who allegedly rowed in from the Middle East hundreds of years before Mormonism's white Jesus entered the scene.
_____


Let's examine the science that puts such faithfully-ignorant, last-stand Mormon arguments to rest in a genetically-marked grave.

From a "Jewish Times" article headlined, "Research Unearths Jewish Roots in Colorado Indians":

"A population of Native American Indians from the U.S. state of Colorado has been found to have a genetic mutation typical of Ashkenazi Jews."

*CATCH #1: These "Colorado Indians" got their Jewishness not courtesy of Book of Mormon travelers from the Middle East back before Mormon Jesus-time, but from European Jews during the time of Christopher Columbus).


Continuing from the "Jewish World" article:

"The finding [of a genetic mutation found in Colorado state Native Americans typical of Ashkenazi Jews] suggests the presence of common roots that date back to the days of [drum roll, please] Christopher Columbus.

" . . . [T]he so-called 'Ashkenazi mutation' is a deleterious modification in [the] BRCA1 gene which increases risk of developing breast and ovarian cancer. Researchers from the Sheba (Tel Hashomer) Medical Center in Israel found it in the DNA of descendants of those Indians who moved from Mexico to Colorado some 200 years ago.

"The same mutation was earlier tracked in Hispanic Americans whose ancestors also arrived in the United States from Mexico and South America.

"Computer analysis of genetic data has revealed that the two groups should have a common ancestor--a Jewish person who moved from Europe to the New World as far back as 600 years ago [Note: not 600 years before Jesus]--[a]t around the same time that Christopher Columbus discovered America, and the Jewish population was expelled from Spain."


*CATCH #2: These "Colorado Indians" exhibit no signs of Jewish cultural traditions). Again, from the "Jewish World" article:

"In their publication in the 'European Journal of Human Genetics,' the team, led by Eitan Friedman, notes that Colorado’s Mexican Indians do not seem to have any traditions that would link them to Jews."

("Research Unearths Jewish Roots in Colorado Indians," by "Ynet news," on "Jewish World," 1 June 2012, at: http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4236708,00.html)


Actually, this is not really new news at all. RfM poster-exMormon/molecular biologist-senior research scientist Simon G. Southerton, Ph.D., in his book, "Losing a Lost Tribe; Native Americans, DNA and the Mormon Church," describes the ethnic group of Jews known as the Ashkenazi--and how they don't factually or actually fit the Mormon myth.

"Of the estimated 14 million Jews living today, most are derived from two ethnic groups known as Ashkenazian and Sephardim, distinguished by their most recent place of exile. Ashenazic Jews, by far the most numerous (-80%), have resided in northeastern Europe for centurlies, particularly in the Rhineland. Sephardic Jews number about 700,000 and previously lived around the Mediterranean, predominately in Spain . . . . The two communities are culturally linked . . . even though they have been in relative isolation from each other during the past 500 years . . . . Most Sephardic Jews now share present-day Isreal with a similar number of Ashkenazim."

Southerton further writes that although "Jews are more closely related to other Semitic populations than they are to European people or to the more distant African populations[,] . . . somewhat unexpectedly Ashkenazic and Sephardic Jews share closer genetic ties with each other than they do with groups in neighboring Semitic communities . . . [and] both have maintained a relatively high degree of isolation from surrounding foreign populations."

Southerton then proceeds to map out the Ashkenazic Jews' European DNA:

"Paternal and maternal genealogies display the strong genetic links [Jewish] Middle Eastern groups have with Europe. Virtually all of the individuals in Middle Eastern populations have maternal DNA lineages found frequently among Europeans. Those European lineages have been classified into distinct lineage families on the basis of specific DNA mutations . . . ."

Citing a 2004 study (Gonzalez, et al) of maternal DNA lineages among Middle Eastern and European populations involving 565 Ashkenazi Jews from 15 different populations in Europe, Southerton notes that "[t]he most common female line in Europe is the HV group, which occurs at a frequency of almost 70% in Spain [Note: Spain was the home country of Christopher Columbus]. A characteristic of the Ashenaizim populations is the high frequency of the K lineage (32%), typically occuring at low frequencies in most other European populations."

Southerton adds that "[t]he research [also] shows conclusively that the inception of the Jewish priesthood predated the division of world Jewry into the Ashkenazic and Sephardic ethnic groups over 1,000 years ago."

(Simon G. Southerton, "Losing a Lost Tribe: Native Americans, DNA and the Mormon Church," Chapter 9, "The Outcasts of Israel," under the subheadings, "The House of Israel," "Jewish Molecular Genealogies" and "Sons of Aaron" [Salt Lake City, Utah: Signature Books, 2004], pp. 122-23, 126)


*Finally, CATCH #3: These "Colorado Indians" aren't even Colorado Indians. As one observant critic notes:

"They are descendants of Spanish settlers. The[y] [are] victims of cancer in the community of San Luis, Colorado, [who] are not enrolled tribal members of any U.S. federally recognized tribe. Mormons need to understand that these cancer victims in San Luis, Colorado, are not Indians. The genetic cause of [their] cancer came from Europe after 1492. It is found in people of European descent. [The following] report gives the first BRCA research studies of that Colorado community and also includes the history of San Luis valley, beginning on p. 3:

"Europeans first settled the San Luis Valley in northern New Mexico and southern Colorado when Juan de Onate led an expedition north from Santa Barbara (in what is now Mexico) in January, 1598."

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/cncr.11533/pdf


"See more about Juan de Onate and how sensitive this historical matter is to American Indians:

http://www.nytimes.com/1998/02/09/us/conquistador-statue-stirs-hispanic-pride-and-indian-rage.html


"A good book on the ancestors of the people in San Luis, Colorado, is 'The Hispano Homeland.' Pages 27-31 give valuable information on the first Spanish settlers into the San Luis valley:

http://books.google.com/books?id=zlvElL6-WK4C&pg=PA27&lpg=PA27&dq=false#v=onepage&q&f=false


"It was a poor choice for the media to call the people in San Luis 'Indians,' and an even worse choice for the photo used with the story. Mormons also need to be sensitive to what some missionaries did in that community suffering with BRCA cancers:

http://www.catholic.org/national/national_story.php?id=27141


"The picture of Indians in news articles should have never been used. It is a photo from the Denver Intertribal Pow Wow, an event composed of enrolled tribal members (real Indians). Calling descendants of Spanish settlers "Indians" is an insult to U.S. American Indians, just as people would be offended if Palestinians were called Jews. Again, headlines such as 'Colorado Indians' with Jewish roots are wrong. The people are descendants of Spanish settlers. This is the study, 'Haplotype Analysis of the 185delAG BRCA1 Mutation in Ethnically Diverse Populations,' that was announced as Colorado Indians. Note in the abstract there is no mention of Indians, only Hispanic:

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


"Jewish news media could do better in their headlines and choice of pictures. Jewish people need to realize that Hitler was influenced by the U.S. treatment of Indians.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5X9tEQqCpew&feature=related


"There is more that will probably confuse people. Here is an example of the wrong people in a youtube video of the story. It shows South American Indians in the opening, which has nothing to do with the Spanish settlers of Colorado. There is also a tribe in Ecuador known as the 'Colorado Indians.' They have nothing to do with the people involved in this cancer research in San Luis, Colorado, United States.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pERHCwFU19s

http://www.flacsoandes.org/archivo_lenguas/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=76&Itemid=56&lang=en


"Some people reading the news stories will probably get this mixed up, just like the youtube video did. The people are descendants of Spanish settlers."

("Re: Colorado Indian Tribe Genetically Related to the Jews?," by "anon321," on "Recovery from Mormonism" discussion board, 29 October 2012; and "Re: News the Mormons Abuse: Colorado Indian Tribe Genetically Related to the Jews?," by "anon for this," on "Recovery from Mormonism" discussion board, 5 February 2013; NOTE: Both posts are clearly composed by the same author, based on similar/identical information and links provided in each, along with singular phraseology; both posts have therefore been blended together)

**********


Dealing with Mormon apologists who wouldn't know science from a hole in the ground in the Hill Cumorah is like shooting fish
in a barrel that is "tight like unto a dish."



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 12/11/2014 02:27PM by steve benson.

So if that's the case, would anyone like explain why National Geographic has released an international Press Release stating many Native American ("up to 1/3 ) DNA results comes from the Middle East?

Headline Reads:


"Great Surprise"—Native Americans Have West Eurasian Origins
Oldest human genome reveals less of an East Asian ancestry than thought.


Nearly one-third of Native American genes come from west Eurasian people linked to the Middle East and Europe, rather than entirely from East Asians as previously thought, according to a newly sequenced genome.



Brian Handwerk

National Geographic

Published November 20, 2013

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

24,000 years ago! The very first sentence in the article. Where were the Jews 24,000 years ago? Human migration is interesting. The more we learn, the more absurd the Book of Mormon is.

Or do you mean a quiet horse's a** out of himself.

Three major breakthroughs need to be looked at together. Here are the studies:

1) Upper Palaeolithic Siberian genome reveals dual ancestry of Native Americans
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v505/n7481/full/nature12736.html

2) The genome of a Late Pleistocene human from a Clovis burial site in western Montana
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v506/n7487/full/nature13025.html

3) Late Pleistocene Human Skeleton and mtDNA Link Paleoamericans and Modern Native Americans
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/344/6185/750

The first one is what that National Geographic article was about. But the second one shows a genetic tie of the Clovis child to the person in that first study.

"We sequenced the genome to an average depth of 14.43 and show that the gene flow from the Siberian Upper Palaeolithic Mal’ta population5 into Native American ancestors is also shared by the Anzick-1 individual and thus happened before 12,600 years BP."

So any claims of that National Geographic story supporting the Book of Mormon melt away when a person realizes that not only were those Siberian remains from 24,000 years ago, it is now tied to a person in America more than 12,000 years ago. It was already here before the Jaradites, Lehi, even before Adam and Eve.

The last study really puts the brakes on some of the claims made by LDS members. It involved a skull in Mexico dated to more than 12,000 years ago but what makes it significant is both who did the study and what the findings show.

Dr. Chatters led the study and he is the scientist who argued that Kennewick Man could not be an ancestor of living American Indians because Kennewick's skull shape differed from living indigenous peoples of the Americas. The Mexico skull had the shape that would have led many to think it was not an ancestor of living American Indians. DNA told the truth, causing Dr. Chatters to change his mind, acknowledging that his ideas about Kennewick Man had been wrong.

Mormons, of course, read the Eurasian/Native American "connection" through their own badly warped perceptual filters, and all of the Internet Ballard bullshippers immediately sent links to all of their friends and prospects claiming it proved the BOM was true.

What the author was doubtless intending, though, was not to speak to the small number of faithful Mormons out there, but rather to address an ongoing question about the actual migration route Native Americans took here, whether it was from Eastern Asia near Japan or Kamchatcka or the land bridge following a much more northerly route from Siberia.

As Eric K. noted above, of course, there's no Mormon connection since the individual in question lived 24,000 years ago.

Jon Erlandson and some others proposed the "Kelp Highway Hypothesis" seven years ago, speculating that ancient seafarers followed a coastal route along the Aleutians and down the Pacific coast of North America before venturing inland.

http://archaeology.about.com/od/kterms/qt/kelp_highway.htm

There's nothing particularly outrageous about Erlandson's speculations, if one assumes that eastern Asians had enough nautical technology and the will and wherewithal to pursue such a course of colonization.

As I see it, the arguments against such speculation involve the the terrible weather conditions in the North Pacific; they are among the worst on the planet, and the fact, established by DNA scientists, that there's not a strong connection between eastern Asian and Native American DNA the way there is between Siberians and ancient North Americans.

I'm pretty sure this is what the author felt he was contributing to the debate. As Hirst notes in the link I provided, it's a variation of the "Coastal Migration Hypothesis" and my view is this arose when a couple of geologists (from South America!) described the "geological timetable" for the "Ice Free Corridor" that the Clovis crowd first proposed as the entry route into North America. They claim that it wasn't open prior to 13,000 years ago, and the presence of humans in South America at Monte Verde showed they must've taken another route.

Simon and I have discussed it since he first shared his draft of his article for the peer-reviewed "The Encyclopedia of Human Migration" with me (under a blood of silence until it was published), and he noted that one argument for the coastal areas being able to support human foraging was that it supported bears, and the evidence was it was ice-free before the corridor opened up between the two glaciers.

I countered with the observation that bears hibernated, and humans didn't, and that's where things are right now. Mormon molecular geneticist Ugo Perego published a piece on a "Two near-simultaneous routes" using two different mtDNA haplogroups, D4h3 and X2a, as evidence of an early separation with one group from Beringia taking the coastal route, and the other the Ice-free Corridor. Simon has reviewed that paper here and agreed with Perego's views even though Perego attacked Simon in a FAIR publication, saying that Simon was trying to offer his DNA research as his own findings rather than citing the research of others. That's crap, of course.

Yesterday I sent Simon a hardball question on the mtDNA of the "Anzick Clovis Child," pointing out that it was D4h3 and a long ways from the Pacific Coast. There's another that was found in some pre-Columbian Hopewell remains in Illinois.

The state of the debate on these subjects is very much in flux, and while I'm essentially a layman, I do read scientific journals (as does MichaelM), and while we have our opinions--and doubtless our biases--neither of us is particularly close-minded.

We wouldn't have escaped the church if we had been.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/12/2014 04:27PM by SL Cabbie.

The lamanites invented kosher fry bread.

Okay, I made that up. But isn't that in the spirit of the BoM? Making stuff up matters more than the facts.

You have to point out that fry-bread is more than just a form of
food but also a culturally unifying item that is actually
ritualistic (remember ANYTHING that's done regularly in a
culture can be called "ritualistic").

Then you point out that the cooking of flat, unleavened, bread
is a major component of Hebrew religious ritual.

Bingo! Add a few dozen footnotes (don't worry, they don't have
to actually back up what you're claiming) and you're the next
Hugh Nibley.

Isn't it amazing how Mormons who "believe beyond a shadow of a doubt" (whatever the hell that's supposed to mean) cling on to any little scrap to "prove" the truth of Mormonism?

One would think that anyone possessing that level of assurity would be well beyond the need for external verification. But, of course, it's Mormonism that we are dealing with here.

I am resurrecting this thread because Dr. Daniel C. Peterson brought the topic back up on his blog. It seems this false titled report won't go away. It was already an old story when the news media made the false claim of "Colorado Indians".

Here is an earlier and accurate news report:

The 'Secret Jews' of San Luis Valley
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/the-secret-jews-of-san-luis-valley-11765512/?no-ist=

So it was factually covered seven years ago, then the media erroneously called the people of San Luis Colorado "Indians", sending Mormons into fantasy land, and now it is back in Mormon circles thanks to Dr. Daniel C. Peterson.

(I was the poster "anon321," on "Recovery from Mormonism" discussion board, 29 October 2012; and "Re: News the Mormons Abuse: Colorado Indian Tribe Genetically Related to the Jews?," by "anon for this" that Steve referenced in this post.)

Oh Jesus!!!!! Does it never end?

That horse never ran and now its been dead for years..


It makes my brain clench up with agita.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/25/2015 01:29PM by saucie.

Two data points which have nothing to do with science, but support the posts above:

1) The Latino-descended southern Colorado-northern New Mexico area is largely populated with people who can, using written records, trace their ancestry back to the Spanish conquistadores, more than four hundred years ago. It is [now] well known among most New Mexicans (and, I presume, at least some in Colorado) that those first-generation conquistadores had a much-higher-than-normal number of "Marranos" ("hidden Jews," plus the descendants of "hidden Jews") among them...and even to this twenty-first century day (as I have posted here before), often visibly scared Hispanic people show up on the doorsteps of New Mexico's rabbis or synagogues, saying that they are [descended from] Jews. (They are scared because it is still VERY socially "iffy" to be Hispanic and be "publicly" a descendant of Marranos. Some people's lives could be ruined if this became public knowledge---especially in the northern New Mexico villages and towns.) Some just want to make contact with Jews...some want to learn what being Jewish means...and some actually wind up converting (because an unbroken maternal line, going back four or more centuries, would be highly unusual; legal Jewish conversion solves any Jewish law problems). This scenario is so relatively common now, that rabbis who go to New Mexico from elsewhere are specifically instructed in the history of the Marranos, and told the suggested things to do if (or when) any present themselves on her or his doorstep.

2) In the time of Columbus, when ships were in dock, the time their crews could spend on land was precious and every minute counted. For this reason, most everyone in any crew waited until the last possible moment before they boarded their ship prior to a voyage. The rabbi who taught our Jewish history class told us that, highly irregularly, Columbus ordered his crew to be ON the ships he had under his command a day earlier than they were scheduled to sail to "the Indies" (when what actually happened instead was that the "New World" was unexpectedly discovered)...and once onboard, no one was allowed to leave. There are good historical reasons to believe that the percentage of Jewish sailors on the three ships in that voyage was significantly higher than normal, due to the activities of The Tribunal of the Holy Office of the Inquisition, and a deadline they had promulgated for "Marranos" to leave Spain. (Side issue: Unfortunately---in my opinion, and in the opinion of many Jews---there is evidently historical data which indicates that Columbus himself was at least part-Jewish (which is probably why he was, in effect, offering a literal "out" from the Inquisition to those members of his crew who were similarly Jewish-descended).

The historical indications and/or facts about Columbus's crew, plus the later Spanish conquistadores in the western part of what is now the United States, would prove absolutely where a great deal of the Jewish DNA in various Native American populations came from. Neither Columbus's crew, nor the Spanish conquistadores, were ever noted for celibacy when they were in proximity to females of any race or ethnicity.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 07/25/2015 05:18PM by tevai.

"where a great deal of the Jewish DNA in various Native American populations came from."

Except that the erroneous media story falsely claimed that they are "Colorado Indians". It isn't the Native American population that is suffering the disease. It is found in the community of San Luis, comprised of descendants of the Spanish colonists. They are not "Colorado Indians".

[Note: Italy was the home country of Christopher Columbus]

Occam's Razor. Google it. Native Americans are not Jews. I'd be my life on this.

+100000

My mexican american grandson was born with the mongoloid spot,

a blue marking found on babies until they are around 5 years

old. It is called a mongoloid spot because it is a birth mark

indicative of those whose ancestors came from Siberia thousands

and thousands of years ago. I believe that speaks volumes about

where they came from, and subsequently which DNA they carry .

So people may argue the different theories that are prevalent

at any given time, babies who have native blood keep being

born with the Mongoloid spot. That can't be changed or argued.

It's not the Natives that carry the genes, it's the Spanish that brought the gene over here.

My Spanish and French ancestors married into the various Native tribes in CO and NM, there's even a whole book on my family's history here in the SW. (Hint: my last name means Keys.) If people know anything about modernish American History, it doesn't "begin" in Plymouth Rock, it begins much further west.

My Native ancestors were not Hebrews on a voyage, but I have no doubts my Spanish ancestors might have been...