tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-63503204555527584422024-03-05T10:59:31.415-08:00Southerton's Hobby HorsesA stable for my thoughtsSimon Southertonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00587195714400525961noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6350320455552758442.post-51311242400548855432021-10-09T21:53:00.001-07:002021-10-24T20:31:15.678-07:00How Kennewick Man has Impaled Rodney Meldrum’s Heartlanders<h2 style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #0b5394;">Introduction</span></h2><p>In July 1996, the skeleton of an ancient Native American washed out of the banks of the Columbia River in Kennewick Washington. Radiocarbon dating of a well preserved finger bone revealed the remains, now known as Kennewick Man or the Ancient One, were well over 8,000 years old. When Kennewick Man’s genome was published in 2015, it was revealed he carried a version of the mitochondrial X2a lineage from which all modern Native American X2a lineages descend. Kennewick Man’s age, possession of X2a and the discovery of a very ancient stone age spearpoint in his pelvis, completely exposed the false claims of Mormon pseudoscientists who claim X2a DNA found in some Native Americans is Semitic.</p><p>Rodney Meldrum is the founder of the Heartlanders, a collection of young earth creationists who argue the events of the Book of Mormon took place in the heartland of North America. For over 16 years Meldrum has been claiming that mtDNA X2a, found in some indigenous tribes of North America, was brought to the New World 2,600 years ago by the Israelite sailor Lehi. Heartland apologists are now bending over backwards to prove that Kennewick Man cannot be 8,000 years old because he was carrying Israelite DNA.</p><p>Critics, LDS apologists and even an LDS scientist who has published research on the X2a lineage (Ugo Perego), have all pointed out Meldrum’s mistakes to him personally. But he has steadfastly refused to respond. He is a perfect example of the dangers of starting out your research with a fixed conclusion. Meldrum views scientific research as a cherry-picking venture and he doesn’t take seriously evidence that challenges his fixed opinion.</p><p>The continual misrepresentation of the X2a science (described below) by Heartland apologists has now escalated further. Digital Legends Press, the major publisher of Heartland books and videos, is now selling a book that grossly distorts the research on Kennewick Man in order to force it to align with Heartland ideas. In Face of a Nephite, patent attorney David Read, misrepresents critical aspects of the scientific research on Kennewick Man in order to defend Meldrum’s X2a lineage claims (Figure 1). He even continued these falsehoods after they were pointed out to him by a scientist intimately involved in the work. In Face of a Nephite, David Read claims the team of 50 highly-trained specialists who studied Kennewick Man made a series of blunders and that he has discovered the real secrets in the bones.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiM9ls-irzYfVCDUw8hIoRgNwr8A-sZ5dDMPIUYQYIPjIcPDfa8mQ6svauil7JXIZ4APk1naTU024ycclfb-aBQYe4ybrowp_GeRUgn5F-CovWJjLlrISWS6SX6cHi9wucrQEpWZhRbb_o8/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="365" data-original-width="281" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiM9ls-irzYfVCDUw8hIoRgNwr8A-sZ5dDMPIUYQYIPjIcPDfa8mQ6svauil7JXIZ4APk1naTU024ycclfb-aBQYe4ybrowp_GeRUgn5F-CovWJjLlrISWS6SX6cHi9wucrQEpWZhRbb_o8/s16000/image.png" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #38761d;">Figure 1. Clay reconstruction of the face of Kennewick Man on the cover of Face of a Nephite (Digital Legends Press). Scientists who created the clay model were unable to prevent its use because of Smithsonian Institute policy.</span></p><p>David Read’s book prompted me to take a closer look at the research on Kennewick Man. His story provides a fascinating insight into the life of a stone age Native American. The implications for Rodney Meldrum’s Heartland movement are more profound than I could have imagined. </p><h2 style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #0b5394;">Scientific analysis of Kennewick Man</span></h2><p>Kennewick Man not only caused trouble for Team Heartland; he sparked a national controversy from day one. Soon after his discovery, considerable tension arose between scientists, eager to learn more about the past by studying his well-preserved skeleton, and indigenous groups who felt his bones should be reburied to show proper respect for their ancestors. After a protracted legal battle, scientists were eventually permitted to study the skeleton and a team of highly skilled scientists was assembled. Led by Douglas Owsley, head of anthropology at the Smithsonian Institution, this team carried out a detailed forensic analysis of the remains[1]. </p><p>Because Kennewick Man’s bones had been washed out of the soil profile, painstaking forensic analysis was required to determine the context of his burial. The study included detailed analysis of carbon, nitrogen and oxygen isotopes in the bones, examination of skeletal morphology, matching the soil attached to the bones with the nearby soil profile, and eventually the sequencing of Kennewick Man’s genome. Most of this research was published in the book Kennewick Man, but recent studies have shed further light. Below is a brief summary of the astonishing details we now know about Kennewick Man’s life and burial.</p><p>Kennewick Man lived about 9,000 years ago. This date is an average of the twelve most reliable radiocarbon dates on bone collagen (the gold standard) purified from his well-preserved bones (Figure 2). Kennewick Man’s age includes a correction to account for the impact of his marine diet on the amount of radiocarbon deposited in his bones while he was living.</p><p>In addition to radiocarbon dating Kennewick Man’s bones, scientists also dated carbonates in the nearby soil and attached to the bones. The carbon in the carbonates was not derived from Kennewick Man; it was derived from carbon dioxide dissolved in rainwater that had washed down through the soil and solidified in the soil layer Kennewick Man was buried in. These carbonates formed roughly 6,000 years after his burial.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbuSD6mFeissSRR3Jj0Y1yFLe0qiYnz2sq7PSZuMV0e-qmmFEkrYic9XQMt4ZoANFyJF-QHw5Cji5rKLk6iuCUVUhouGyxldBf7cK0lVExZhdDnQW6RItGVgrlvQsqED1dS_d3bVjzCaf8/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="390" data-original-width="406" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbuSD6mFeissSRR3Jj0Y1yFLe0qiYnz2sq7PSZuMV0e-qmmFEkrYic9XQMt4ZoANFyJF-QHw5Cji5rKLk6iuCUVUhouGyxldBf7cK0lVExZhdDnQW6RItGVgrlvQsqED1dS_d3bVjzCaf8/s16000/image.png" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #38761d;">Figure 2. Radiocarbon age of collagen and carbonates from Kennewick Man (Figure 3.12 from Owsley and Jantz 2014)</span></p><p>Analysis of stable nitrogen and carbon isotopes in Kennewick Man’s bones revealed that he obtained most of his dietary protein from marine animals. Initially it was thought he was a seal hunter, but closer analysis revealed he ate a diet rich in salmon. However, Kennewick Man’s isotope profile was different to all other more recent Pacific Northwest populations. It suggested he experienced frequent, probably annual, shortages of protein in his diet, most likely caused by the changing seasonal availability of salmon [2]. Its probable Kennewick Man lived before indigenous groups developed techniques for storage of salmon, which accompanied the rise of large human settlements in the Pacific Northwest roughly 5,000 years ago[3]. In other words he was a true hunter-gatherer. </p><p>While superficially Kennewick Man’s skull looked European, it was later found to resemble many of the earliest Native American skulls. He was wide-bodied and strong, taller than average at 5 feet 7 inches tall, and he used his right hand to throw an atlatl. Kennewick Man had two small depression fractures in his skull, most likely self-inflicted by stones that slipped out of a bola he swirled over his head to capture birds. He had fractured his scapula and experienced blunt force trauma to his chest which broke numerous ribs, some of which did not reunite during recovery; however, he had never broken his major limbs.</p><p>Most significantly, when he was a young man, Kennewick Man was struck by a spear, leaving a stone point embedded in his pelvis, where it remained until his death many years later. The stone point is a classic Cascade point, found in coastal Washington before 7,600 years ago[2]. This indicates that Kennewick Man was most likely wounded by someone from west of the Cascade Range early in his life. He was probably aged about 40 when he died and was buried by other people in a shallow grave in the alluvial soil on the banks of the Columbia River. He had been laid on his back with his hands palm down at his side, parallel with the river, and his head most likely downstream[2]. </p><p>About 850 years after his burial, Mt Mazama (now Crater Lake, Oregon) erupted, blanketing eastern Oregon and Washington and parts of Canada with a thick layer of volcanic ash (Figure 3). Several inches of ash settled over the burial site at Kennewick. Over the next 7,700 years wind-blown (aeolian) soil built up over Kennewick Man’s grave to a depth of about a metre. Several thousand years after his burial, rainwater carrying weak carbonic acid, deposited a distinct layer of solid calcium carbonate in the soil at the same depth as the skeleton. Some of these carbonates formed within and on the underside of Kennewick Man’s bones. Carbon-dating of these carbonates suggested they were deposited roughly 2,500 years ago (See Figure 1). As rainwater passed through the Mazama ash layer it also washed fine particles of allophane (clay) from the ash layer and deposited it in the carbonate layer and on Kennewick Man’s bones. </p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyq-KoXjXo4QUK8U6Ccvu4rM3_zHxv7quMPImpHYR0uGXike_xv0WQAkpI71qa99JV90UqZgpHliogPImlaWjr7Hk6DHa9zSqdMXobJeC5hXbgpMHk-qgvoReQ-IejIJBhF9OZQO5OBk0c/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="408" data-original-width="379" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyq-KoXjXo4QUK8U6Ccvu4rM3_zHxv7quMPImpHYR0uGXike_xv0WQAkpI71qa99JV90UqZgpHliogPImlaWjr7Hk6DHa9zSqdMXobJeC5hXbgpMHk-qgvoReQ-IejIJBhF9OZQO5OBk0c/s16000/image.png" /></a></div><p><br /></p><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #38761d;">Figure 3. Distribution of volcanic ash from the Mt Mazama eruption 7,700 years ago.</span></div><br />In 2015 the genome of Kennewick Man was sequenced from DNA isolated from his hand bone. It revealed he was more closely related to Native Americans than any other population on earth. He was most closely related to the local Coleville indigenous tribe. Sequencing also revealed that Kennewick Man carried an X2a mitochondrial DNA lineage which was ancestral to all X2a lineages found in modern Native Americans.<p></p><p>The study of Kennewick Man is the most comprehensive forensic analysis of an ancient skeleton in American history. Inadvertently, this research has provided conclusive evidence that the Book of Mormon Heartland movement is based on falsehoods. Clearly, Kennewick Man lived well over 8,000 years ago. This research provides irrefutable evidence the X2a lineage was not brought to the Americas by Hebrew sailors in 600BC. It was brought into the Americas at the same time as the A, B, C and D lineages arrived, over 16,000 years ago by the original founders. To understand why Rodney Meldrum is still refusing to acknowledge his X2a mistake, we need to go back and look at how it all started.</p><h2 style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #0b5394;">Rodney Meldrum’s Heartland Movement</span></h2><p>In 2007, Rodney Meldrum, a salesman with no scientific training, encountered DNA evidence that revealed Indigenous Americans were largely descended from Asians. This discovery deeply challenged Meldrum’s belief in the historicity of the Book of Mormon. But he was in for a far greater shock. He soon became aware that Mormon scholars at BYU had accepted the DNA findings; that virtually all Native American DNA arrived in the Americas over 15,000 year ago. Meldrum knew this could not be true and he decided to find evidence that supported his beliefs.</p><p>Soon after setting out on his quest, Meldrum received a blessing from Hartman Rector Jr, an Emeritus General Authority of the Church. From that moment on, Rodney Meldrum has been convinced God wants him to save the Book of Mormon from the assault of DNA. With his conclusions already set in stone, Meldrum went on a hunt for DNA evidence that looked like it supported the Book of Mormon. It wasn’t long before he fixated on the mitochondrial X lineage and he has remained firmly wedded to it ever since.</p><p>Mitochondrial DNA is maternally inherited and relatively simple to study. Until about 10 years ago it was the DNA most scientists used to study human ancestry. Human mitochondrial DNAs can be grouped into different lineages that have inherited distinct mutations from their ancestors. Native Americans carry one of five different mitochondrial lineages, known by the letters A, B, C, D and X. The first four lineages have close relatives in Asia, but no direct ancestor has yet been identified in Asia for the X lineage. This is not all that surprising given the X lineage is relatively rare. The most likely explanation for the absence of an ancestral X lineage in Asia is either extinction or insufficient testing in the right population.</p><p>All five Native American mitochondrial DNA lineages emerged in the earliest human settlements in a region encompassing central Asia and the Middle East up to 50,000 years ago. About 30,000 years ago the A, B, C and D lineages became more common in eastern Asia. The X lineage, however, became more common in Europe and the Middle East. Native American X lineages, which belong to the sub-group X2a, are distantly related to all other X lineages from the Middle East, sharing a common ancestor over 20,000 years ago. All scientists, including LDS scientist Ugo Perego, believe the lineage entered the Americas at about the same time as the other four ancestral lineages. </p><p>I corresponded with Rodney Meldrum almost 15 years ago when he was starting out on his X-lineage inspired crusade. I politely pointed out the ancient links to the Middle East, the absence of the X2a lineage outside of North America and the fact that the X2a lineage family is just as old as the other four lineage families. Since then Ugo Perego has repeatedly pointed out to Meldrum the errors in his claims. If anything, this criticism has only hardened his resolve. That’s probably because Meldrum now makes a living from his false X-lineage claims. Meldrum is now surrounded by other Mormon snake oil salesmen including Wayne May, Dean Sessions, Jonathan Neville and now David Read, who are all convinced the Native American X lineage is derived from the Middle East and was brought to the Americas by Lehi.</p><h2 style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #0b5394;">Pretending Kennewick Man is a Nephite</span></h2><p>The discovery of Kennewick Man has provided the latest and most compelling evidence that Rodney Meldrum’s claims cannot be trusted. You would think, faced with such comprehensive evidence, the Heartland team would withdraw its claims, but alas, the blizzard of falsehoods has escalated. In Face of a Nephite, David Read takes Heartland pseudoscience to the next level. With his conclusions locked in, Read attempts to undermine the research on Kennewick Man based on two key falsehoods.</p><p>In Face of a Nephite, David Read claims:</p><p>1. Mazama ash was attached to Kennewick Man’s bones and this proves he was buried after the Mazama eruption</p><p>and</p><p>2. The carbonate dates (@ 2000 years ago) are the more reliable estimates of Kennewick Man’s age.</p><p>To understand how David Read could misrepresent the Kennewick Man research so badly, I contacted the scientists who did the original work. I was disturbed to discover that Jim Chatters, the forensic scientist who collected Kennewick Man’s remains, had already pointed out these exact same mistakes to David Read. Chatters was intimately involved in the soil analysis and collection of samples for radiocarbon analysis; however, Read chose to completely ignore Chatters’ criticism. I will respond in detail to both of Read’s claims with reference to quotes from Jim Chatters’ emails to David Read (used with permission).</p><p><i><b>False claim 1: Mazama ash attached to bones</b></i></p><p>“No Mazama ash was found in sediment around the skeleton, and believe me it is ubiquitous in younger sediments. Therefore, the skeleton if buried, went into a pit dug before the ash fell.” — Jim Chatters, June 10, 2020 </p><p>Read is confusing Mazama ash with allophane, the weathered products of the ash which had washed down the soil profile (See Figure 4). Chatters’ clearly told Read Mazama ash was not attached to the bones. Allophane, a clay breakdown product derived from the weathering of Mazama ash, had washed down the soil profile from the Mazama layer and was found in the carbonate soil layer and some was still attached to the bones. However, this type of weathering happens wherever Mazama ash is found. It is a normal weathering process that occurs during soil formation the world over. It’s the reason why the clay content in soil goes up the deeper you dig. The presence of allophane attached to the skeleton, but not Mazama ash, confirms, yet again, the skeleton was buried before the Mazama eruption 7,700 years ago.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoT2gWM5KyFKAmv5t9OlIOgtP3a4LItAMTMPwR0Y_uXbKEDHiqQajUd8m-fY8bkkrzZYZg-D0HfIIPqGanybOrgqH1RP8yL6ICwLxc_wDvgzubmYFCwarFIPxRZcezE2pGL7I0g-PX6eO2/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="320" data-original-width="348" height="368" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoT2gWM5KyFKAmv5t9OlIOgtP3a4LItAMTMPwR0Y_uXbKEDHiqQajUd8m-fY8bkkrzZYZg-D0HfIIPqGanybOrgqH1RP8yL6ICwLxc_wDvgzubmYFCwarFIPxRZcezE2pGL7I0g-PX6eO2/w400-h368/image.png" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #38761d;">Figure 4. Profile of the soil at the site of the discovery of Kennewick Man as drawn by James Chaffey (Adapted from Figure 2.4 in Owsley and Jantz, 2014)</span></div><p></p><p>David Read almost certainly makes this mistake because he had already concluded Kennewick Man was a Nephite. It was therefore essential to prove Kennewick Man and his X2a lineage were young enough to fit within the Book of Mormon time period, and that meant he could not have been buried before the Mazama eruption.</p><p>The date of the Mazama eruption has been as firmly established as the year Columbus set foot in the New World. It has been confirmed in hundreds of locations using many different techniques, including dendrochronology, radioisotopes and thermoluminescence. It has even been observed in the annual rings of the Greenland ice core. Read likely knows the date of the Mazama eruption is a firmly established fact. But Read was building a case to support his prior conclusion that Kennewick Man was buried after the Mazama eruption. He also needed to find a way to eliminate the twelve devastating collagen radiocarbon dates which are tightly clustered around 8,500 years ago.</p><p>Read also fails to deal with the obvious consequences of his Mazama ash claim. Why would the people who dug Kennewick Man’s grave dig a hole almost a metre deep? This would have been extremely difficult given they only had stone tools. All the evidence suggests he was buried in a shallow pit and covered by about 10cm of alluvial soil and Mount Mazama erupted about 850 years after his burial.</p><p><i><b>False claim 2: The carbonate dates are reliable estimates of Kennewick Man’s age.</b></i></p><p>“The ca. 2000 year dates you cling to are actually dates on soil carbonate, which deposits continuously from water percolating down from the surface. They are not dates on the skeleton at all.” — Jim Chatters, June 10, 2020 </p><p>In a follow-up email Jim Chatters again stressed the unreliability of Kennewick Man’s carbonate dates. </p><p>“Bottom line: The carbonate dates from K-man’s bone are not reliable. There was really no research reason to do them… The reliable radiocarbon age of K-man, based on both the projectile point in his pelvis and the protein in his bones is around 8400 BP. Again, the embedded point is not of the western stemmed tradition or any exotic form. It is a classic Cascade point of the Olcott form, which dates older than 7600 years in western Washington.” — Jim Chatters, June 12, 2020</p><p>You can appreciate why the carbonate dates would be less reliable by examining this image from Owsley and Jantz’s book (Figure 5). They are all measurements from regions of the bone most exposed to deposition of calcium carbonate from water percolating through the soil. The collagen, however, was extracted from the interior of the most well-preserved portions of the bones.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzLuYRQvbjJFzgu0dpc3RYPL05y-OlekT8o5Y6BNmQmwzl-C7VegpD5h89UoYSGTTGkbFDAzBJCtT1Kdyq4gJB3Z4xIxWICNb8RpeUejwTY_CnXLcnPPrqLxVObsnazVioOh7c-NBRF7X_/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="277" data-original-width="378" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzLuYRQvbjJFzgu0dpc3RYPL05y-OlekT8o5Y6BNmQmwzl-C7VegpD5h89UoYSGTTGkbFDAzBJCtT1Kdyq4gJB3Z4xIxWICNb8RpeUejwTY_CnXLcnPPrqLxVObsnazVioOh7c-NBRF7X_/s16000/image.png" /></a></div><p></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #38761d;">Figure 5. Locations and radiocarbon ages of collagen (bottom left) and carbonate samples in bones of Kennewick Man. (drawn from Figure 3.8 in Owsley and Jantz, 2014)</span></p><p>In Face of a Nephite David Read also makes further outrageous claims about the mitochondrial X2a lineage. On page 29 Read claims:</p><p>“… as few as four DNA mutations have occurred for mitochondrial DNA haplogroup X between some of the occurrences in the New World and the Old World,”</p><p>By the time of the most recent Heartland conference in September 2020, the number of mutations had dropped even further:</p><p>“Indeed, one recent study found a variety of haplogroup X in Egypt that is just one mutation away from the type found in Native Americans, which undermines the critics’ previous claims that Native American haplotype X2a has “too many mutations” from the haplogroup X haplotypes found in the Middle East to fit a Book of Mormon timeframe for a migration from the Middle East to the Americas.”</p><p>Read does not understand the science he is writing about. The lowest number of DNA mutation differences between an Old World X lineage (X2j) and modern New World X2a lineages, is 15 and the average is about 19. Figure 6 uses data taken from the Rasmussen paper on Kennewick Man’s genome. The Egyptian haplogroup X David Read is referring to is the X2j lineage found in Arabs from the el-Hayez oasis in western Egypt.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfVYbABwboq9r4Qn-rGef1i8xcUuqMFN0m8hQDu4oKSs4UtWADHM2qKKx_0uqXsLuDULRIjQ8kk_PI_13R9XtfkhPgNhXUxWUvTeusFKdiBdpqltfHNZCzcADPrUkihHNIo2joHochYg9n/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="441" data-original-width="600" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfVYbABwboq9r4Qn-rGef1i8xcUuqMFN0m8hQDu4oKSs4UtWADHM2qKKx_0uqXsLuDULRIjQ8kk_PI_13R9XtfkhPgNhXUxWUvTeusFKdiBdpqltfHNZCzcADPrUkihHNIo2joHochYg9n/s16000/image.png" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #38761d;">Figure 5. Family tree of Native American mitochondrial X2a lineages, including their closest relative in the Middle East, the X2j lineage. Modern X2a lineages in Native Americans are all descended from the X2a lineage possessed by Kennewick Man. Redrawn from Rasmussen et al. (2017) The ancestry and affiliations of Kennewick Man. Nature doi:10.1038/nature14625</span></div><p></p><h2 style="text-align: left;">Conclusion</h2><p>Kennewick Man’s geological, archaeological and molecular timestamps are impeccable. There can be no doubt Kennewick Man lived about 6,000 years before the Book of Mormon claims Nephites existed. The following evidences, both independently and collectively, prove this is the case.</p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Twelve highly accurate radiocarbon dates on Kennewick Man’s well-preserved bone collagen revealed he lived almost 9,000 years ago.</li><li>Kennewick Man does not carry any recent Middle Eastern DNA in his genome. He is closely related to nearby indigenous tribes.</li><li>All Native American mitochondrial X2a lineages (ancient and contemporary) are descended from the ancestral X2a lineage possessed by Kennewick Man.</li><li>The Cascade spearpoint in Kennewick Man’s pelvis is over 7,600 years old.</li><li>The absence of Mazama ash and presence of allophane (weathered Mazama ash) attached to his bones, proves Kennewick Man was buried before the well documented Mazama eruption 7,700 years ago.</li><li>Stable N and C isotope analysis revealed Kennewick Man was a hunter-gatherer and lived before Pacific Northwest cultures developed techniques for long term storage of salmon about 5,000 years ago.</li></ul><p></p><p>Scientific truth is most compelling when evidence from diverse fields, using different technologies, tell a coherent story. This is the case with Kennewick Man. David Read’s Face of a Nephite is a textbook example of cherry-picking. Read is so focussed on looking for evidence that supports his views he misinterprets and distorts the facts discovered science. He also ignores facts that challenge his fixed beliefs. He is building a case to defend a fixed position, rather than weighing the evidence to find the truth. Face of a Nephite is desperate pseudoscience, rather than genuine scholarship.</p><p><b>Further reading</b><br />The Sacred Curse (2020) contains a comprehensive summary of the latest mitochondrial and whole genome DNA research on Native Americans and Polynesians and discusses how DNA research has helped expose the nineteenth century origin of Book of Mormon racism.</p><p>[1] In 2017, Kennewick Man’s bones were returned to local indigenous groups and buried in a secret location.</p><p>[2] Chatters, James C. (2017) Making Archaeological Sense of Kennewick Man. Quaternary International 444:83-97.</p><p>[3] Campbell, Sarah K., and Virginia L. Butler. “Archaeological Evidence for Resilience of Pacific Northwest Salmon Populations and the Socioecological System over the Last ~7,500 Years.” Ecology and Society 15, no. 1 (2010). Accessed October 21, 2020. http://www.jstor.org/stable/26268107.</p><p>[4] Rasmussen et al. 2017. The ancestry and affiliations of Kennewick Man. Nature doi:10.1038/nature14625).</p>Simon Southertonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00587195714400525961noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6350320455552758442.post-85870605503896516692021-08-14T23:06:00.000-07:002021-08-14T23:06:00.246-07:00𝗟𝘂𝗰𝗸𝗹𝗲𝘀𝘀 𝗡𝗲𝗽𝗵𝗶𝘁𝗲 𝗗𝗡𝗔 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗠𝗮𝘆𝗮 <span style="font-size: medium;">For decades, Mormon scholars at Brigham Young University have believed the Semitic Nephite civilisation and the Maya civilisation were one and the same. According to these apologists, archaeological ruins throughout Mesoamerica bear witness to this claim. Preeminent LDS apologist, John Sorenson, has found hundreds of weak parallels between the Maya and the Nephites, and prominent Mormon apologists Daniel Peterson, Terryl Givens and Richard Bushman have praised Sorenson's Maya research from the rooftops. Meanwhile, Michael Coe, a leading scientific expert on the Maya, has said these claims are wishful thinking.<br /></span><div><blockquote><span style="font-size: medium;">𝙏𝙝𝙚 𝙗𝙖𝙧𝙚 𝙛𝙖𝙘𝙩𝙨 𝙤𝙛 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙢𝙖𝙩𝙩𝙚𝙧 𝙖𝙧𝙚 𝙩𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙣𝙤𝙩𝙝𝙞𝙣𝙜, 𝙖𝙗𝙨𝙤𝙡𝙪𝙩𝙚𝙡𝙮 𝙣𝙤𝙩𝙝𝙞𝙣𝙜, 𝙝𝙖𝙨 𝙚𝙫𝙚𝙣 𝙨𝙝𝙤𝙬𝙣 𝙪𝙥 𝙞𝙣 𝙖𝙣𝙮 𝙉𝙚𝙬 𝙒𝙤𝙧𝙡𝙙 𝙚𝙭𝙘𝙖𝙫𝙖𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣 𝙬𝙝𝙞𝙘𝙝 𝙬𝙤𝙪𝙡𝙙 𝙨𝙪𝙜𝙜𝙚𝙨𝙩 𝙩𝙤 𝙖 𝙙𝙞𝙨𝙥𝙖𝙨𝙨𝙞𝙤𝙣𝙖𝙩𝙚 𝙤𝙗𝙨𝙚𝙧𝙫𝙚𝙧 𝙩𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝘽𝙤𝙤𝙠 𝙤𝙛 𝙈𝙤𝙧𝙢𝙤𝙣, 𝙖𝙨 𝙘𝙡𝙖𝙞𝙢𝙚𝙙 𝙗𝙮 𝙅𝙤𝙨𝙚𝙥𝙝 𝙎𝙢𝙞𝙩𝙝, 𝙞𝙨 𝙖 𝙝𝙞𝙨𝙩𝙤𝙧𝙞𝙘𝙖𝙡 𝙙𝙤𝙘𝙪𝙢𝙚𝙣𝙩 𝙧𝙚𝙡𝙖𝙩𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙩𝙤 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙝𝙞𝙨𝙩𝙤𝙧𝙮 𝙤𝙛 𝙚𝙖𝙧𝙡𝙮 𝙢𝙞𝙜𝙧𝙖𝙣𝙩𝙨 𝙩𝙤 𝙤𝙪𝙧 𝙝𝙚𝙢𝙞𝙨𝙥𝙝𝙚𝙧𝙚.</span></blockquote><span style="font-size: medium;">During the 1990s, molecular genetic research began to reveal, in remarkable clarity, the true ancestry of Indigenous Americans. Research on mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA), a small portion of our genes which is passed from mothers to their offspring down the generations, showed that essentially all Native Americans today are descended from Asian ancestors. No Semitic DNA was detected.<br /> <br />When <a href="https://www.facebook.com/thomaswmurphy?__cft__[0]=AZXJEzwWtpNWZDajMTslznFFECNusoeeSSjfHudCvhblLoGOgHPLD1ROTW58_eHvs74gkdCbYCLWP8bMv8C6cVgjN7Mdb7I_IBkMtsNbyWiBZMxZmtw1WmOYR7tahGgg3Ok&__tn__=-]K-R">Thomas Murphy</a>, <a href="https://www.facebook.com/brent.metcalfe.56?__cft__[0]=AZXJEzwWtpNWZDajMTslznFFECNusoeeSSjfHudCvhblLoGOgHPLD1ROTW58_eHvs74gkdCbYCLWP8bMv8C6cVgjN7Mdb7I_IBkMtsNbyWiBZMxZmtw1WmOYR7tahGgg3Ok&__tn__=-]K-R">Brent Metcalfe</a> and myself pointed out this glaring problem 20 years ago, we were subjected to intense criticism and character assassination by BYU apologists. They said we were attacking a straw man; the widely held false belief (according to them) that Book of Mormon events occurred across the New World. Half a century of 'serious' and 'careful' BYU research had revealed the Book of Mormon story was limited to Mesoamerica. If you had been fooled into believing the Book of Mormon story was hemispheric in scope, like all the prophets and ordinary members were, you were a lazy reader. If this apologetics makes you feel a bit nauseous, it is because you have just been gaslighted.<br /><br />When I first looked at genetic research on Native Americans in 1998, only a handful of Maya had been studied. I decided to take a closer look at what mtDNA research has revealed in the last 20 years.<br /><br />Today, 1,108 Maya have had their mtDNA tested, including 138 individuals who died before Columbus arrived (Figure). Over 99.6% of Maya mtDNAs (lineages A -D) originated in Asia, entering the Americas over 15,000 years ago. Four lineages originated in Africa (lineage L) and one came from Europe (lineage H5). All five non-indigenous mtDNAs almost certainly arrived on a Spanish galleon. Not a single Maya mtDNA lineage was derived from Semitic populations in the Middle East. In other words, 100% of pre-Columbian Maya DNA is derived from Asia.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEina2j_39iCjuGI_cv-G9q42NHTyjt1SesAnP68yQT-M1ldayO3fNVNF1y6xRvHpbESVp8N1_u21CVvXsvCY2hOT2b9hWk1s0tE4SRQAYxHcmFMQw0vurBbeMSq71-8oklP9PyEvb_tWCJB/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><img alt="" data-original-height="510" data-original-width="435" height="726" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEina2j_39iCjuGI_cv-G9q42NHTyjt1SesAnP68yQT-M1ldayO3fNVNF1y6xRvHpbESVp8N1_u21CVvXsvCY2hOT2b9hWk1s0tE4SRQAYxHcmFMQw0vurBbeMSq71-8oklP9PyEvb_tWCJB/w620-h726/image.png" width="620" /></span></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Rather than challenging the science, BYU apologists have retreated to positions that require radical reinterpretations of LDS scripture. They now claim the descendants of Lehi were a small ruling class of elites, but they had luckless DNA. In spite of ruling for 1000 years, due to processes such as genetic drift, and bottlenecks caused by disease and wars, Lehi's Israelite DNA kept losing the genetic lottery. Today it has essentially become extinct, a bit like all the Old World technology the Nephites allegedly brought to the New World (steel, the wheel, horses, cattle, wheat etc), which has also never been found. 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗴𝗼𝗹𝗱 𝗽𝗹𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝗿𝗲𝗰𝗼𝗿𝗱 𝘄𝗮𝘀 𝘄𝗿𝗶𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗻 𝗯𝘆 𝗮 𝗽𝗲𝗼𝗽𝗹𝗲, 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘁𝗼 𝗮 𝗽𝗲𝗼𝗽𝗹𝗲, 𝘄𝗵𝗼 𝗵𝗮𝘃𝗲 𝘃𝗮𝗻𝗶𝘀𝗵𝗲𝗱.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br />If I have learned anything from the events of the last year, it is that beliefs based on emotion are virtually impervious to facts. Mormon apologists will carry their fossilized and racist views to their graves. Progress will occur, funeral by funeral. Our best hope is that the rising generation of Mormons shun the false history contained within the Book of Mormon and the 19th century white supremacy it perpetuates.<br /><br />Selected references with links.<br />* good; ** better; ***best<br />*Elwess, N. L. et al. 2015. Analysis of ancient mitochondrial DNA within the Tipu Maya Collection. Internet J. Biol. Anthropol. 8(1). <a href="https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fispub.com%2FIJBA%2F8%2F1%2F30723%3Ffbclid%3DIwAR2EeFteFqVSrhCLRZGBY-YO6uKt4lJuOcYM6yz2-qDehz3bX1sYUjdkwLU&h=AT35NIegbR1QUh4PIXaP5b2KsM81B7uxfbH2gfN8mHie_r_ILB7gqmOYnAWqHLtUfY1B5vzcIVZFJRGNNb23Ydkts5siC0FFBlqnEvAKC-zc86eoovvktDuH_aaYs7Do57akbBvOSuddS1pzauniKOA&__tn__=-UK-R&c[0]=AT1UJDWQ0umEOANoQUURdTXnmzGXFtObDiU58DM8xRDDb3O9FcDB2T6iHY2suOkNoEeSrgsFQRsOO6cVibayz9RoDBnei9tlkXy8wg2Dr5rmIeDSBgAqtV135jRI3VpMPFRYoFEZToVnyBjzYyMoJsLI2Yc">http://ispub.com/IJBA/8/1/30723</a>.<br />***Gonzalez-Oliver, A. et al. 2019. Genetic Overview of the Maya Populations: Mitochondrial DNA Haplogroups. <a href="https://digitalcommons.wayne.edu/humbiol_preprints/147?fbclid=IwAR2ZggiZwt69uCX3Jo1DW9l5-P2j3Quq_CDrWknmms6vnQgzG_D3DnfTa44">https://digitalcommons.wayne.edu/humbiol_preprints/147</a><br />**Sochtig, J. et al. 2015 Genomic insights on the ethno-history of the Maya and the ‘Ladinos’ from Guatemala <a href="https://bmcgenomics.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12864-015-1339-1?fbclid=IwAR2KtgYvI1gEQ-p4gBOVcL9wM-6lCHgZWx3fVRk89nayGJMoBnEXDH8ipAQ">https://bmcgenomics.biomedcentral.com/.../s12864-015-1339-1</a></span></div>Simon Southertonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00587195714400525961noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6350320455552758442.post-19743606328383771802021-08-12T23:02:00.003-07:002021-10-11T22:16:03.829-07:00 𝗠𝘆 “𝗟𝗗𝗦 𝗰𝗵𝘂𝗿𝗰𝗵 𝗴𝗿𝗼𝘄𝘁𝗵” 𝗵𝗼𝗯𝗯𝘆 𝗵𝗼𝗿𝘀𝗲 <p><span color="var(--primary-text)"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span color="var(--primary-text)"><span style="font-size: 18.75px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i><b><span style="color: #274e13;">“If you get on a hobby horse it will ride you right out of the Church.”</span></b></i></span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span color="var(--primary-text)"><span style="font-size: 18.75px; white-space: pre-wrap;">President Heber J. Grant </span><span style="font-size: 18.75px; white-space: pre-wrap;">
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: 0.9375rem; white-space: pre-wrap;">I rode a DNA hobby horse out of the Mormon Church in 1998, after I discovered Native Americans and Polynesians have no ancient Jewish ancestry. Zilch. I soon realised the Book of Mormon was fiction, so I saddled up. Another hobby horse I have enjoyed riding since my epiphany, is studying church membership data. I enjoy tracking the decline of the LDS Church. The church does enormous damage to many mixed faith families (over 85% of the church) so the smaller the church, the fewer families are damaged, and I feel good about that. This post is for those of you who would like a ride on my new hobby horse. </span></span></span><p></p><p><span color="var(--primary-text)" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 0.9375rem; white-space: pre-wrap;">First up, it’s important to remember, just as it has hidden unsavoury parts of its history, the Mormon Church hides unfavourable membership data. The leaders have known since around 1998 that the church was struggling, and right now they know the church is effectively shrinking globally. The leaders know precisely, week to week, how many people are attending. They have an army of volunteers who feed them that data. But like any corporation obsessed with its PR image, church leaders are wary of sharing bad news with the workers. </span></p><p><span color="var(--primary-text)" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 0.9375rem; white-space: pre-wrap;">Once upon a time a mountain of statistical data was presented at general conference. We used to hear about the numbers of deacons, teachers, priests, elders and high priests and seminary and institute students. The church seemed to be blossoming as a rose. But gradually, trends started heading south, and less and less information was given out. </span></p><p><span color="var(--primary-text)" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 0.9375rem; white-space: pre-wrap;">People interested in tracking the true growth of the church have known for years that the impressive increase in total membership reported each year at conference is not a true reflection of the health of the church. A very large proportion of people who are baptised soon stop attending. For example, the church claims 62% of Tongans are Mormons, yet on the latest Tongan census only 18% of Tongans declared allegiance to the church. The LDS Church is counting 44% of Tongans as members when they attend another church! The church has their names, but their hearts and bodies are elsewhere.</span></p><p><span color="var(--primary-text)" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 0.9375rem; white-space: pre-wrap;">A much more useful measure of the true growth of the church is the increase in the number of new wards and branches, which reflects bums on seats. This metric tells a very different story to the total membership numbers. The graph below shows the annual increase in wards and branches (units) since 1995 (the data for 2021 is an estimate based on the first 6 months of this year). In the 1990s the church was adding around 900 new units every year, an annual increase of about 3%. Since the turn of the century the annual increase has averaged about 250 units, or just over 0.8%. That’s less than the global population growth rate (1.1%). This means the church is declining as a proportion of the world’s population. </span><br /><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://scontent.fsyd3-1.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t1.6435-9/s720x720/218298559_10223782422541865_1513619942965074773_n.jpg?_nc_cat=105&ccb=1-5&_nc_sid=730e14&_nc_ohc=MKRNj1r5BYMAX-fi22r&_nc_ht=scontent.fsyd3-1.fna&oh=3554aefd75d66ae2690b24e6673f2ab0&oe=618B02A3" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="535" data-original-width="720" height="297" src="https://scontent.fsyd3-1.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t1.6435-9/s720x720/218298559_10223782422541865_1513619942965074773_n.jpg?_nc_cat=105&ccb=1-5&_nc_sid=730e14&_nc_ohc=MKRNj1r5BYMAX-fi22r&_nc_ht=scontent.fsyd3-1.fna&oh=3554aefd75d66ae2690b24e6673f2ab0&oe=618B02A3" width="400" /></a></div><p><span color="var(--primary-text)" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 0.9375rem; white-space: pre-wrap;">I am convinced the rapid uptake of the internet globally during the 90s, giving members unprecedented access to true church history, was the major cause of the dramatic slowdown. This has essentially been confirmed by church leaders—who admitted in 2011 that the church was experiencing a period of apostasy—by the publishing of a series of essays, from 2014 onwards, that attempt to be more honest about the church’s past. </span></p><p><span color="var(--primary-text)" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 0.9375rem; white-space: pre-wrap;">However, by 2017 the leaders knew they were dangerously close to reporting a decline in the number of church units for the first time in living memory. Something drastic had to be done, and it happened in 2018, but hardly a soul is aware of what went on.
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First up the leaders dropped the statistical report from the 2018 April general conference onwards. Curious members were forced to hunt around on the church’s convoluted website to find the data. This change was made because the leaders didn’t want the members to pay attention to it anymore. The data wasn’t faith-promoting enough for a membership convinced they belonged to one of the fastest growing churches on the earth, a claim that has not been true for about two decades.</span></p><p><span color="var(--primary-text)" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 0.9375rem; white-space: pre-wrap;">While the church no longer wanted to publicise the number of wards and branches created each year, a few zealous Mormon stats nerds were regularly publishing unit growth data on their own websites. In 2018 the church’s lawyers, Kirton and McConkie, wrote stern letters to the webmasters of these sites, requesting they cease and desist publishing this data. Most bowed their heads and said yes. But thankfully one brave soul began to report the creation and closure of missions, stakes, wards and branches around the world on a daily basis! Initially he was doing this by tedious daily comparisons of the maps at the LDS Meetinghouse locator website to identify any changes. I believe he has a mole these days. </span><a class="oajrlxb2 g5ia77u1 qu0x051f esr5mh6w e9989ue4 r7d6kgcz rq0escxv nhd2j8a9 nc684nl6 p7hjln8o kvgmc6g5 cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x jb3vyjys rz4wbd8a qt6c0cv9 a8nywdso i1ao9s8h esuyzwwr f1sip0of lzcic4wl py34i1dx gpro0wi8" href="https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.fullerconsideration.com%2Funits.php%3Ffbclid%3DIwAR1HOy3PLR9K9vsrY_dvenQ0EYb3IR2KxL2PDDY6ficXhj-E9SlFTZLThWM&h=AT1L1uvDV8Iz6Vk_YCiQFYQcnr2wgGpRYApTdtUpixbNY-rctoDzn3lUCQ6arqeMd4_DTb4Nb627Gu8LqngSJYcK2M63_L0Hohj8DwlipWdFw9ltL3G7rcSZoLddAkxHdCQ7k3omHjjA7Hcplb_BZQo&__tn__=-UK-R&c[0]=AT3ImVZ57AdmfweO6H6bfkVezBZyqMKchn3h7QU_Be0izUfbkHlkZi7l5LrBNw1NyW6xgtP_JKkJhGjFfutkZfv4dJa-kb4sYwRMW2Bu37Ji6td5nmVgm-v0CnJo6MLaOs94Y2ZzY9NlDceviOg9X9SeAUU" rel="nofollow noopener" role="link" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; border-color: initial; border-style: initial; border-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; cursor: pointer; display: inline; font-family: inherit; font-size: 0.9375rem; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-align: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; touch-action: manipulation; white-space: pre-wrap;" tabindex="0" target="_blank">http://www.fullerconsideration.com/units.php</a></p><p><span color="var(--primary-text)" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 0.9375rem; white-space: pre-wrap;">The most dramatic change the leaders made in 2018, however, was to make it easier for smaller church units to survive. The average unit has an attendance of roughly 125 people. Once you get below about 70 or 80 active members you run into serious problems filling leadership positions and members get burned out and leave. In 2018 the church shaved an hour off church and axed several youth and priesthood leadership positions. The result was that wards and branches could be smaller and survive. This meant fewer unit closures and it made it easier to create new units. Not surprisingly, unit growth bounced back, topping 400 in 2019, but it soon dropped back (see graph). </span></p><p><span color="var(--primary-text)" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 0.9375rem; white-space: pre-wrap;">The 2018 changes only buy time. You cannot keep hiding the fact that fewer people are turning up to church each week. Once average unit attendance drops to the new cut off, closures are inevitable. I believe we are on the cusp of seeing a decline in the number of wards and branches globally. Or, perhaps—maybe—the church will come up with another way to hide the problem. Giving the other half of the church the priesthood springs to mind. </span></p><p><span color="var(--primary-text)" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 0.9375rem; white-space: pre-wrap;">There are, however, few signs of the decline halting. The church now regularly closes wards and stakes in California, just closed three stakes in Japan and over 50% of its units in Armenia vanished this year. The closure of units in South Korea (40% since 2000) and Japan (20%) shows no sign of abating and Europe has been in decline for decades. There is also almost no growth in South America, traditionally a solid growth area for the church. In fact, the closure of a large number of units in South America at the turn of the century was a major contributor to the dramatic slow down in unit growth after 1998 (see graph below, kindly provided by Brady Russon).
</span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjwAFcD22O4xGHcOtoRjpTy6jC_ZoaqK4FZWhclIqpwfrtB59PKBUGZKtjVZ068yVvZXa4l_1o2B8oS6Axo8nAoHOt1HXJXHhGBXVOCZgYUOrT56_JnxzTZfOMrcXRzyTVvckluKl8ogye/s918/Screen+Shot+2021-08-13+at+11.55.56+am.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="427" data-original-width="918" height="313" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjwAFcD22O4xGHcOtoRjpTy6jC_ZoaqK4FZWhclIqpwfrtB59PKBUGZKtjVZ068yVvZXa4l_1o2B8oS6Axo8nAoHOt1HXJXHhGBXVOCZgYUOrT56_JnxzTZfOMrcXRzyTVvckluKl8ogye/w680-h313/Screen+Shot+2021-08-13+at+11.55.56+am.png" width="680" /></a></p><p><span color="var(--primary-text)" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 0.9375rem; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p><span color="var(--primary-text)" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 0.9375rem; white-space: pre-wrap;">Recently, most of the growth of the church can be attributed to West Africa (above graph), particularly Nigeria, which added a staggering 149 units in 2018 and 73 in 2019. For the last few decades, the church in Nigeria has grown at a rate of about 8% annually. This is unlikely to be sustainable as internet access is skyrocketing in Nigeria and they speak English. </span></p><p><span color="var(--primary-text)" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 0.9375rem; white-space: pre-wrap;">I have watched the data a bit more closely in Australia. In the 1990s the church was adding about 25 new units per year. Everything ground to a halt at the end of the century. It has taken another 20 years for the church to add another 25 units, and the vast majority of those new units are Samoan or Tongan units, due to their higher birth rate and immigration. The LDS Church is clearly in significant decline in the broader Australian population. Meanwhile, our Australian Post-Mormon community is flourishing. </span><span color="var(--primary-text)" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 0.9375rem; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a class="oajrlxb2 g5ia77u1 qu0x051f esr5mh6w e9989ue4 r7d6kgcz rq0escxv nhd2j8a9 nc684nl6 p7hjln8o kvgmc6g5 cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x jb3vyjys rz4wbd8a qt6c0cv9 a8nywdso i1ao9s8h esuyzwwr f1sip0of lzcic4wl q66pz984 gpro0wi8 b1v8xokw" href="https://www.facebook.com/groups/australianpostmormons/?__cft__[0]=AZXdCuneCTqTx7l2YF9SQ2shlRYFoPmy8Uz8gU9eMWVA5HBFhsUijbb6qVvkSiSXB29Ek4vgawVNjgOjPtE05xmTIu5v64BAcHRYNM2y4t-cWFZ9U5ZHpdCBihLhqmL_Bek&__tn__=-UK-R" role="link" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; border-color: initial; border-style: initial; border-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; cursor: pointer; display: inline; font-family: inherit; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-align: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; touch-action: manipulation;" tabindex="0"><span class="nc684nl6" style="display: inline; font-family: inherit;">https://www.facebook.com/groups/australianpostmormons</span></a></span></p><p><span color="var(--primary-text)" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 0.9375rem; white-space: pre-wrap;">Thankfully, the Australian government publishes more useful data on LDS church growth than the church does. The Australian census collects data on religious affiliation and the data backs up the conclusions drawn from the church unit trends. Since the turn of the century the number of Australians willing to confess they are LDS on the census has grown at about the same rate as the Australian population. Between the 2011 and 2016 census, however, the percentage of Australians who said they were LDS declined for the first time. I expect that trend to continue in this year’s census. </span></p><p><span color="var(--primary-text)" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 0.9375rem; white-space: pre-wrap;">The last 18 months will have been particularly unsettling for many Australian Mormons. Having just recovered from the revelation that the church was hoarding over $100 billion in its tax-avoiding Ensign Peak slush fund, the pandemic arrived. Australia followed the science and has recorded just over 900 deaths since the pandemic began. This was not because we are more spread out here. We are even more urbanised than the US. It was because our scientists and our state and national governments were far more united. Watching US Mormons overwhelmingly jump on the anti-science Trump bandwagon, whine about social distancing and masks, erosion of individual rights and religious freedom, and now oppose vaccination in large numbers, reflects very poorly on the church. If I was still a member, I would be embarrassed to tick the LDS box on the census. </span></p><p><span color="var(--primary-text)" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 0.9375rem; white-space: pre-wrap;">It is staggering to see how effectively an obscenely rich US corporation can conceal truth from its members. But thankfully the truth has a habit of getting out. We are past peak Mormonism and its warms my cold apostate heart. </span></p><p><span color="var(--primary-text)" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 0.9375rem; white-space: pre-wrap;">I hope you enjoyed the ride.</span></p><div style="font-family: inherit;"><div class="l9j0dhe7" id="jsc_c_6b" style="font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><div class="l9j0dhe7" style="font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><div style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></div></div></div></div><div style="font-family: inherit;"><div class="stjgntxs ni8dbmo4 l82x9zwi uo3d90p7 h905i5nu monazrh9" data-visualcompletion="ignore-dynamic" style="border-radius: 0px 0px 8px 8px; font-family: inherit; overflow: hidden;"><div style="font-family: inherit;"><div style="background-color: white; color: #1c1e21; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, system-ui, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 12px;"><div style="font-family: inherit;"><div class="tvfksri0 ozuftl9m" style="font-family: inherit; margin-left: 12px; margin-right: 12px;"><div class="rq0escxv l9j0dhe7 du4w35lb j83agx80 pfnyh3mw i1fnvgqd gs1a9yip owycx6da btwxx1t3 ph5uu5jm b3onmgus e5nlhep0 ecm0bbzt nkwizq5d roh60bw9 mysgfdmx hddg9phg" style="align-items: stretch; box-sizing: border-box; display: flex; flex-flow: row nowrap; flex-shrink: 0; font-family: inherit; justify-content: space-between; margin: -6px -2px; padding: 4px; position: relative; z-index: 0;"><div class="rq0escxv l9j0dhe7 du4w35lb j83agx80 cbu4d94t g5gj957u d2edcug0 hpfvmrgz rj1gh0hx buofh1pr n8tt0mok hyh9befq iuny7tx3 ipjc6fyt" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: flex; flex-direction: column; flex: 1 1 0px; font-family: inherit; max-width: 100%; min-width: 0px; padding: 6px 2px; position: relative; z-index: 0;"><div aria-label="Send this to friends or post it on your Timeline." class="oajrlxb2 gs1a9yip g5ia77u1 mtkw9kbi tlpljxtp qensuy8j ppp5ayq2 goun2846 ccm00jje s44p3ltw mk2mc5f4 rt8b4zig n8ej3o3l agehan2d sk4xxmp2 rq0escxv nhd2j8a9 pq6dq46d mg4g778l btwxx1t3 pfnyh3mw p7hjln8o kvgmc6g5 cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x tgvbjcpo hpfvmrgz jb3vyjys rz4wbd8a qt6c0cv9 a8nywdso l9j0dhe7 i1ao9s8h esuyzwwr f1sip0of du4w35lb lzcic4wl abiwlrkh p8dawk7l" role="button" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; align-items: stretch; background-color: transparent; border-bottom-color: var(--always-dark-overlay); border-left-color: var(--always-dark-overlay); border-right-color: var(--always-dark-overlay); border-style: solid; border-top-color: var(--always-dark-overlay); border-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; cursor: pointer; display: inline-flex; flex-basis: auto; flex-direction: row; flex-shrink: 0; font-family: inherit; list-style: none; margin: 0px; min-height: 0px; min-width: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; position: relative; text-align: inherit; touch-action: manipulation; user-select: none; z-index: 0;" tabindex="0"><div class="n00je7tq arfg74bv qs9ysxi8 k77z8yql i09qtzwb n7fi1qx3 b5wmifdl hzruof5a pmk7jnqg j9ispegn kr520xx4 c5ndavph art1omkt ot9fgl3s rnr61an3" data-visualcompletion="ignore" style="background-color: var(--hover-overlay); border-radius: 4px; font-family: inherit; inset: 0px; opacity: 0; pointer-events: none; position: absolute; transition-duration: var(--fds-duration-extra-extra-short-out); transition-property: opacity; transition-timing-function: var(--fds-animation-fade-out);"></div></div></div></div></div></div></div><div class="cwj9ozl2 tvmbv18p" style="color: #1c1e21; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, system-ui, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 4px;"></div></div></div></div>Simon Southertonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00587195714400525961noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6350320455552758442.post-53036012186452342402011-12-28T06:25:00.004-08:002021-08-12T22:42:36.909-07:00Native American DNA reveals they are descended from Asian ancestors<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
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<span style="font-family: Nunito; font-size: medium;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif">The Americas were the last continents colonized by humans and the nature and timing of this colonization has been the subject of intense scientific research for over a century. <span lang="EN-US">The Mormon Church claims special knowledge within this field of scientific research. Most Mormons believe that native people in the Americas and Polynesia are largely (or at least partly) descended from Israelites. These views are largely based on the sacred writings Mormons possess, in particular the Book of Mormon, and numerous statements by church leaders, including all of its prophets, over many decades. As recently as</span><span lang="EN-US"> March 2013 native Central American Mormons from <a href="https://www.lds.org/church/news/dedicatory-prayer-expresses-gratitude-for-christ-gospel?lang=eng" target="_blank">Honduras</a> were reassured by an apostle that they are the descendants of father Lehi, an Israelite who the Book of Mormon claims sailed to the Americas in 600BC. </span><o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmByGIHp5yWS6mQhDme1xeoRuy3damdGCWnxT7cPyR3ugPD95wFp4hQ59zFj1eduled_o0cEgLpdX4o4K-M7a2SoruTzylPAEDxIn-mNixJTQwEFBxx1LbzRtVpk4TjLqt0KMcRHCbep6Y/s400/ArtBook__071_071__LehiAndHisPeopleArriveInPromisedLand____.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Nunito; font-size: medium;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmByGIHp5yWS6mQhDme1xeoRuy3damdGCWnxT7cPyR3ugPD95wFp4hQ59zFj1eduled_o0cEgLpdX4o4K-M7a2SoruTzylPAEDxIn-mNixJTQwEFBxx1LbzRtVpk4TjLqt0KMcRHCbep6Y/s320/ArtBook__071_071__LehiAndHisPeopleArriveInPromisedLand____.jpg" width="229" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Nunito; font-size: medium;">Scientists studying Native American populations see no cultural or genetic connection between Old and New World populations. There is a broad consensus view among archaeologists, geologists and biologists, based on more than a century of excavating thousands of archaeological sites, that the New World was first populated at least fifteen thousand years ago, and possibly as early as twenty thousand years ago, by migrants from Asia. These people entered the Americas via a wide expanse of land—called Beringia—which connected northeastern Asia with northwestern North America during ice ages when sea levels were lower. These small groups of migrants soon exploited the richness of the “new world,” and their populations grew quickly and expanded across the North and South American continents over a few thousand years. There is widespread agreement among archaeologists that there is no evidence that the cultural developments unveiled in the archaeological record in the New World were in any way inspired by visitors or migrants from Africa, Europe, or Asia. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Nunito; font-size: medium;">The Asian origin of essentially all Native Americans was firmly established by the middle of the 20th century, using classical genetic markers such as blood groups and variation in other proteins (enzymes). During the last two decades, much higher resolution molecular studies have confirmed the Asian origin of Native Americans, the timing of migrations into the Americas and the routes these people took as they entered North and South America. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Nunito; font-size: medium;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif">Scientists carrying out molecular studies have focused on two portions of human DNA that have simple patterns of inheritance. The majority of our DNA (carried on our chromosomes) is passed from generation to generation as complex rearrangements of parental DNA. In contrast mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) is passed along maternal lines from mothers to their offspring, while Y chromosome DNA (YDNA) is passed from father to son (Figure 1.1). These uni-parentally inherited DNAs have been used extensively to build maternal or paternal links between related populations and to study the movement of human populations throughout the world.</span><span face="Verdana, sans-serif"><br />
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<span style="font-family: Nunito; font-size: medium;"><span>Figure 1.1</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXnQewmj6EBkmkwm0MjqsNQ5DAJ-PI1vMcyEfwMLg6A4YP_y8c3lTxceAlNCfkRk6s1gBWf62lUoqfVVt2-UGDG7xthSWcl4M5S5Ns001LMwP6C6P-FL-_JjdES82ncVlcLzUgqB5rXhSD/s1600/Slide07.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Nunito; font-size: medium;"><img border="0" height="314" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXnQewmj6EBkmkwm0MjqsNQ5DAJ-PI1vMcyEfwMLg6A4YP_y8c3lTxceAlNCfkRk6s1gBWf62lUoqfVVt2-UGDG7xthSWcl4M5S5Ns001LMwP6C6P-FL-_JjdES82ncVlcLzUgqB5rXhSD/w418-h314/Slide07.jpg" width="418" /></span></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Nunito; font-size: medium;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif">The earliest immigrants to the Americas brought with them a subset of the maternal and paternal DNA lineages present in their Asian source populations. An excellent summary of the distribution of global mtDNA and YDNA lineages can be found <a href="http://www.scs.illinois.edu/~mcdonald/WorldHaplogroupsMaps.pdf">here</a>.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Nunito; font-size: medium;">Mitochondrial and Y-chromosome DNA variation in the Americas indicates unambiguously that the ancestors of Native Americans originated in Asia. Virtually all modern Native Americans possess an mtDNA lineage that belongs to one of five founding lineage families (haplogroups), which are all present among native populations of Siberia. These maternal lineages have now been designated A, B, C, D and X (Figure 1.2; Brown et al. 1998; Schurr et al. 1990). Of these haplogroups, only X is present in both central Asian and European populations; however, the X haplogroup is large and diverse, and the particular X lineage (X2a) found in Native American populations represents a distinct branch on the Eurasian X lineage tree (Reidla et al. 2003). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Nunito; font-size: medium;"><span>Figure 1.2</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgg6HlKaGmltKFExQF_yrg6PaTQ9zezeo5l4TmAiXVCdXeASNjwTl4KOz37SPQo3PsUsboicUE0FWRlPBivqmNxzBdj3QFbm5MAz8aVjul3k9n0obQUdZT07USADckVRMnqG93gBtBjzbQQ/s1600/Slide13.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Nunito; font-size: medium;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgg6HlKaGmltKFExQF_yrg6PaTQ9zezeo5l4TmAiXVCdXeASNjwTl4KOz37SPQo3PsUsboicUE0FWRlPBivqmNxzBdj3QFbm5MAz8aVjul3k9n0obQUdZT07USADckVRMnqG93gBtBjzbQQ/s400/Slide13.jpg" width="640" /></span></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Nunito; font-size: medium;"><span><span face="Verdana, sans-serif">The four major Native American founding lineages have been renamed A2, B2, C1, and D1 to distinguish them from closely related lineages in Asia.</span><span face="Verdana, sans-serif"><br />
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<span face="Verdana, sans-serif">A small proportion of mtDNA lineages found in indigenous peoples (<1%) are derived from recent non-native (European or African) admixture (Gonzales et al. 2003; Richards et al. 1996). The majority of these mtDNAs belong to lineage H, the most common mtDNA lineage family in European populations such as Spain and the United Kingdom (Figure 1.3.). The most common mtDNA lineage among Ashkenazi Jews is lineage K (Behar et al. 2004). Lineage L is the most common lineage in African populations.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Nunito; font-size: medium;"><span>Figure 1.3</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Nunito; font-size: medium;"><b>References</b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Nunito; font-size: medium;">Behar, D. M., Hammer, M. F. Garrigan, D., et al. (2004) MtDNA evidence for a genetic bottleneck in the early history of the Ashkenazi Jewish population. <i>European Journal of Human Genetics. </i>12, 355-364.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Nunito; font-size: medium;">Brown, M. D., Hosseini, S. H., Torroni, A. et al. (1998) MtDNA haplogroup X: An ancient link between Europe western Asia and North America? <i>American Journal of Human Genetics</i> 63, 1852–1861.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Nunito; font-size: medium;">Gonzales, A. M., Brehm, A., Perez, J. A., et al. (2003) Mitochondrial DNA affinities at the Atlantic fringe of Europe. <i>American Journal of Physical Anthropology. </i>120, 391-404.<i> <o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Nunito; font-size: medium;">Reidla, M., Kivisild, T. Metspalu, E. et al. (2003) Origin and diffusion of mtDNA haplogroup X. <i>American Journal of Human Genetics</i> 73, 1178–1190.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Nunito; font-size: medium;">Richards, M., Côrte-Real, M. Forster, P. et al. (1996). "Paleolithic and Neolithic lineages in the European mitochondrial gene pool," <i>American Journal of Human Genetics</i> 59, 185-203.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Nunito; font-size: medium;">Schurr, T. G., Ballinger, S. W. Gan, Y. Y. et al. (1990) Amerindian mitochondrial DNAs have rare Asian mutations at high frequencies, suggesting they are derived from 4 primary maternal lineages. <i>American Journal of Human Genetics</i> 46, 613–623.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Nunito; font-size: medium;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif">Southerton, S. G. (2004) <a href="http://signaturebooks.com/2010/02/losing-a-lost-tribe-native-americans-dna-and-the-mormon-church/"><i>Losing a Lost Tribe: Native Americans, DNA and the Mormon Church</i>. </a>Salt Lake City, Signature Books.<i><o:p></o:p></i></span><br />
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Simon Southertonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00587195714400525961noreply@blogger.com70