DNA and the
Book of Mormon: Rebuttal to Signature Books
Signature Books’ Disinformation Campaign
Signature
Books, the publisher of anti-LDS critic Simon Southerton’s
“Losing a Lost Tribe: Native Americans, DNA, and the Mormon Church,” recently
posted an anonymous news item attempting to rebut my article on DNA and the
Book of Mormon as published in FARMS Review
and also presented in a slightly
different version at the 2006 conference of the Foundation for Apologetics Information and Research.
Signature’s
Claims
The Signature posting
states:
The
most recent FARMS Review
(18:1) contains a screed by
In
response, Southerton has just posted the following
response:
The
Q (Y-chromosome) haplotype is prominent among the Kets
(93.7 %) and Selkups (66.4 %) of
The
Native American Q lineage is a unique form known as Q3, a lineage which is
absent in European and Jewish populations. Y lineages most closely related to
Q3 occur in
In Stewart's
scenario, modern Asians are Israelites—the Lost Ten Tribes of Israel. His
evidence for this comes from patriarchal blessings rumored to have stated as
much. In order to defend his speculation, Stewart glosses over the accepted
range of dates for the settlement of various regions of the world, rejecting
the consensus view of scientists and ironically complaining about the
"profound intellectual poverty" of "self-proclaimed
experts." He quotes a letter to the American Journal of Human Genetics in
which several scientists argue for "a fairly recent settling of the
Inaccuracies
in Signature’s “News”
I
have never suggested that “scientists have concealed the data from the public about
Jews and Native Americans sharing a common lineage through the Q
haplotype.” The genetic affinities I point out have not previously been
picked up on or discussed in scholarly articles dealing with DNA and Book of
Mormon peoples and thus present new avenues for investigation. However,
the reader of my article will find no intimation whatever that I suggested that
the data has been intentionally concealed.
Signature states that I have claimed that this data “confirms that Native
Americans are not of Asian origin but came from the
Rebuttal to
Simon Southerton
Dr. Southerton raises the possibility that haplogroup
Q may have entered modern Jewish populations by way of the Khazars. While
this is an interesting idea, it is unproven. Nothing in Dr. Southerton’s reply constitutes definitive fact that would
contradict the possibilities I have presented. Indeed, haplogroup Q is
merely a sidelight in my paper. Few modern Jewish haplotypes are even
plausible candidates for ancient Israelite origin, and so there is little
evidence that groups descended from ancient Israelites would need to
demonstrate any genetic homology with modern Jews. The haplotype Q data does
demonstrate that critics who claimed that no Y-chromosome homologies existed
between Native Americans and modern Jews are in error. Critics like Mr. Southerton are certainly welcome to speculate that the Q
lineage may have entered the modern Askhenazi
population through Khazar proselytes, but they cannot
honestly claim that Y-chromosome homologies between Native Americans and modern
Jews do not exist. Nor does Southerton’s theory
address the presence of the Q lineage in Iranian, Iraqi, and Yemenite Jews.
Q-M3
Lineage
Southerton claims that the “unique Q-[M]3 lineage” in
Native Americans confirms “the antiquity of the Native American migration from
Siberia into the
The Ten
Tribes
After quoting from Southerton, the Signature editor
further notes: “In Stewart's scenario, modern Asians are Israelites—the Lost Ten
Tribes of Israel. His evidence for this comes from patriarchal blessings
rumored to have stated as much.” Nowhere do I state that “modern Asians are
Israelites.” Rather, the specific ethnicities in question are Mongolians
and
Mathematical models have presented evidence that the most recent common
ancestor of Europeans lived as recently as one thousand years ago. [see
Rohde DLT, Olson S, Chang JT (2004), "Modeling the recent common ancestry
of all living humans," Nature 431: 562-566.] Rhode [2005] estimated
that all living humans are descended from an ancestor living as recently as the
first to second millennium B.C.
It is estimated that there were 3-5 million Hebrews before the captivity of the
Northern Kingdom of Israel in the 8th century BC. The world population in
1000 BC is estimated by some historians at only 50 million. Although the
precise figures are elusive, there is no question that Hebrew society at the
time of the dispersion of the tribes represented a demographically and
genetically very significant group, constituting a far greater proportion of
the world's people than today’s 14 million Jews among 6.3 billion people
(0.2%).
Such data highlight the fallacy of the untenable assumption of many DNA authors
that modern Siberians have no relevant genetic link to ancient
Israelites. If one accepts the Biblical history of the captivity of the
Ten Tribes as a historical event – one attested to in contemporary Assyrian
records – and the scriptural history of the ten tribes being dispersed to the
“lands of the north,” it is virtually inevitable that almost every individual
in Asia is a descendant of the “lost ten tribes” of
Patriarchal
Blessings
The lineage declarations from patriarchal blessings I cite are construed by the
Signature editor as “rumored.” Any individual who interviews returned
missionaries and members from the areas cited can corroborate as much.
Lineages from all 13 Israelite tribes (Joseph is a double tribe) were
identified among 57 patriarchal blessings given to Siberian Latter-day Saints
in 2005 and 2006. I also specifically stated in the article that I do not
represent this information as proof of lineage, but merely as a data point to
consider in the overall context.
Dating the
Migrations
The anonymous Signature writer further claims that “Stewart scandalously leaves
readers with the impression that [Seielstad’s] letter
must be confirming a Book of Mormon time frame.” To the contrary, I have
explicitly acknowledged – twice – that “consensus science still dates the
peopling of the Americas well before the Lehites.” My purpose in citing Seielstad’s letter was to demonstrate that genetic dates
have been revised drastically towards the present only relatively recently, and
that genetic dating is still very much an emerging science.
Genetic dating is a vast topic that cannot be discussed comprehensively in two
or three short paragraphs. However, I stand my statements without
modification. A more complete discussion of dating issues can be found in
my debate with a Ph.D. cancer researcher and ex-Mormon critic, on the FAIR
boards here: http://www.mormonapologetics.org/index.php?showtopic=18398.
The site requires free registration to view the discussion. Readers can
consider the arguments and data and make their own decisions about how solid
genetic dates are. Most readers I have heard from have expressed that I
have demonstrated that the dates have far more uncertainty and margin of error
than critics would like them to believe.
The Signature author does not adequately represent the scientific data that he
cites. More careful reading of Seielstad’s
charts (including the confidence intervals, or 2 standard deviations)
demonstrate that Seielstad considers dates as recent as 5400 years ago for the
settling of the Americas, even before taking error margins into consideration,
or new data suggesting more rapid mutation rates. In my debate cited
above, I have demonstrated how genetic dating does overlap the time of Lehite
entry into the Americas when a range of possibilities for unknown variables are
taken into consideration. Nor in fact does the Book of Mormon suggest
that the Lehites were the first group in the Americas. Critics
conveniently neglect the Book of Mormon account of the entry of the Jaredites
into the continent in the earliest antiquity.
New Data on
Genetic Dating
Evidence
for my dating arguments has only increased since the article was published.
Recent studies suggest that the much higher Y-chromosome mutation rates
actually observed in living populations (2.1 per 1000 – Weber and Wong and 2.8
per 1000 – Kayser) – three to five times the
contrived “effective mutation rates” (0.7 per 1000) used to produce very
ancient date estimates – are more consistent with known historical and
linguistic data in Yakut populations.[2]
The higher observed mutation rates suggest that a significantly more recent
human entry into the
Central
Issues Unaddressed
Dr. Southerton’s
response and the anonymous Signature editor’s diatribe are more interesting for
the many issues that they do not address rather than the few objections raised,
as both fail to engage the central arguments of my article at all. My article
exposes numerous fatal flaws in critics’ attacks on LDS teachings about Native
American origins. The few objections to my writing that Signature Books and Dr.
Southerton can muster at all are deeply flawed, and
not a single one can be substantiated. I am confident that individuals who read
my article will inevitably come to very different conclusions from those
implied in Signature’s rebuttal.
Conclusion
I
stand by my article as written. Latter-day Saints have no need to
apologize for their beliefs, nor should any credence be given to the
irresponsible claims of critics. Genetic data do not contradict Book of
Mormon teachings of Native American origins. I appreciate Signature Books
and Dr. Southerton once again unwittingly
demonstrating the unsupportable nature of their claims, their continued
unscholarly denial of genetic possibilities consistent with the Book of Mormon
story, and their inability to refute criticisms of their work by competent
scholarship.
Addendum
2/1/08
In
a page entitled “David G Stewart Jr. and the misrepresentation of science,”
Signature Books has added to their prior summary a few notes. While failing to respond to any of the issues
I raise, they attempt to generate further “contradictions” in the mind of
readers by selective quoting and commentary.
They cite my statements with their commentary as follows:
The
Ten Tribes:
Nowhere do I state that “modern Asians are Israelites.” ... (three paragraphs
later Stewart states) If one accepts the Biblical history of the captivity of
the Ten Tribes as a historical event – one attested to in contemporary Assyrian
records – and the scriptural history of the ten tribes being dispersed to the
“lands of the north,” it is virtually inevitable that almost every individual
in Asia is a descendant of the “lost ten tribes” of Israel.
The
key intervening statements are have been selectively
omitted: “Rather, the specific ethnicities in question are Mongolians and
Taking my statement, “Nor in fact does the Book of Mormon
suggest that the Lehites were the first group in the
The root of the Signature editor’s contrived objections
about my “misrepresentation of science” is really his own inability to
distinguish important qualifiers in my writing.
He does not understand my statements, as demonstrated by his persistent
inability to represent them without introducing serious distortion. A grade-level reading comprehension course
would be a good place for the Signature editor to start in order to avoid
future difficulties. Additional
distortion is introduced by misconstruing statements out of context, suggesting
that the lack of comprehension arises from agenda as much as ignorance.
David Stewart
[1] Wells RS,
[2] Pakendorf
B, IN Novgorodov, VL Osakovskiy,
et al., “Investigating the effects of prehistoric migrations in