Simon G. Southerton, is a plant biologist, which means he does not specialize in animals, yet he takes other people's data and applies his interpretation to it. Interestingly, he has no name, no books, he is a nobody and a Mormon, but when he leaves the church and publishes a book "Proving the book of Mormon wrong with Genetics" he becomes a popular guy who sells books and can make a living.Let's compare that to his essentially opposite:
Keith Crandall, Keith is a population geneticist which means this is his speciality, and he already had books, job offers and was a star in the Genetics world. Keith is asked to look into the Book of Mormon DNA claims specifically because Simon is citing Keith's work as precedent, but not following Keith's methodologies. The first thing Keith does is read the Book of Mormon to note all the places where genetic claims are made. Then he analyzes it and determines that it would be impossible to prove the Book of Mormon wrong by it's own genetic claims, he then reviews the claims by those opposed to the church, finds them to be violating the rules of good genetics and because there was a grant performs a study. Surprisingly, he finds a match and while not claiming absolute confirmation (that would be amazing) he claims supporting DNA was found. Not only does Keith write this paper before joining the church, he leaves a good job, and angers an apparent group of highly motivated people by joining the church and becoming faculty at BYU.
You have guy #1 who leaves the church, then publishes a book outside his specialty, which starts earning his living. You have guy #2 who is a pioneer in his field widely recognized and respected who risks all of that to join the very church he has been investigating scientifically.
Either Keith Crandall is the biggest fool in the church, or there is no disproving DNA evidence. I believe the latter, you are free to believe ehat you wish... until Mr. Obama makes us both Muslim by executive order that is.
Then you go into the balderdash of throwing up a smokescreen of claims (mostly specious, and already disproven) which is an obvious tactic. IMHO the only reason you would do this is because your position on DNA is backed by a losing hand and you know it, so you try to change the subject precisely because the DNA evidence favors us and not you.
Perhaps you need to read statements from real scientists
I have been, and from scientists with credentials in the field in question too.
You waived that dullard beneath my nose a while back. There is absolutely no documentation to his talk. Show me the peer review articles that state that the claims he is making are recognized by the wider archaeological community. (crickets).
If you actually went to the links I gave for Keith Crandall, you would see a list of peer reviewed papers as long as your arm, maybe longer (it depends on the length of your arms...) You didn't look, so you didn't see, which is exactly my point about anti's they don't see only because they won't look.
But since he is in the employment of BYU, he has to speak the party line of face excommunication - isn't that how Mormonism has dealt with scientists who've not toed the line on the myth?
You seem to have missed the fact that he wrote his papers before he joined the church... They cannot be coerced on point of execution... Oops.
Godzilla, and I mean this with all my heart, don't give up your day job, God bless.
Must be a REALLY big bead!
Unlike you, I do not post anything that I cannot back up. The scandal surrounding Hibben – the official ‘discover’ of the LLS, was revealed in "The Mystery of Sandia Cave". New Yorker Magazine (New York) 71 (16): 66–83. I know you will whine about it Du but tough. You can go to your local library and review it. Bottom line is that because of shoddy work and questionable handling of other’s work in the cave, the clovis point he claimed was 25K years old was only in the neighborhood of 10-12K years. The New Yorker story is summarized here.. Within the same article, was another instance of questionable work In 1946, Hibben described an expedition to Chinitna Bay on the west side of Cook Inlet in Alaska, where he claimed that he found lithic points that match those of the Folsom people living in New Mexico 10,000 years ago.
Archaeologist James Dixon of the University of Colorado in Boulder and others went to the isolated location and found Hibben's claim to be false in 1978. "It is clear that the site never existed" - Dixon. It goes without saying, Hibben’s clovis claims are no longer accepted and his reputation thoroughly clouded.
I also found a most amazing statement by the grand poobah of mormon apologetics - Hugh Nibley, who stated for the record - Much study and care went into the preparation of this "ancient Hebrew inscription" near Los Lunas, New Mexico, yet a cursory glance was enough to reveal the crisp freshness of the newly-cut letters. Numerous other flaws appeared upon closer inspection. To anyone not determined to accept this inscription as genuine, it furnishes an interesting illustration of the pains to which people will go to produce a convincing-looking antique, and the impossibility of doing so without immense and laborious preparation. (New Approaches To Book of Mormon Study, by Hugh Nibley, Improvement Era, January, 1954.)
Ol Nib himself calls the rock a fraud. When is an artifact not an artifact - when it is a fraud. Yet you still want to lend credence to this.
I like the one I gave because it talks about how they did a rubbing of the stone and stored it at the Smithsonian, and later, they found it was really closely matched to the Tel Dan stone found in 1993 in Israel. I especially like the fact that no-one knew how to read the writing (much less write it) when the rubbing was taken, but later it turns out to be the ten commandments, written in proto-Hebrew. Cool stuff, thanks for reminding me, oh yeah, in your private universe where this is a forgery, how exactly did Mormons carve the stone with a language no-one had yet learned to read or write, and when did they do it since the stone was known about since the mid 1800's (This should be good)
The Tel Dan interpretation is highly disputed and can hardly be considered final since the Tel Dan inscription was on a prepared piece of stone – while this is not. Good ‘ol proto Hebrew again huh Du? From another page on your link the author states: The important point to learn here is that the letters used in Los Lunas are not homogeneous! The scripts on this stone tell of many scripts from many ports of call. Lets take it from the easiest to the more difficult. The letter Tet (T) is Greek Script. Iberic script; both northern and southern, display an X. Phoenician script displays the circle X; as does Aramaic and specifically the Estrangela script is no match even close to Los Lunas. Did the Nephites have use of Greek when they left Jerusalem – NO. The fact that there are mixed characters not only denies a Nephi/Lamanite connection, but a Hebrew one as well. Well, so much for ‘proto Hebrew’
GZ: Rejected by archaeologists (Tennessee Anthropologist Vol. XVI, No. 1, Spring 1991) as a fraud.
You bet it was, even thought he dig was financed by the Smithsonian and they found it in controlled environment, they rejected it initially because they thought there was no way their could be a stone in America that age with the ten commandments carved in it in Hebrew. Then again, that's your logic now (It can't be true, therefore all evidence is a forgery which sounds like: The earth is flat so all evidence that it is round is a lie, kill the scientists!)
No, more like head in the sand TBMs. From the article you dismissed out of hand, Mainfort and Kwas consulted Paleo-Hebrew expert Frank Moore Cross of Harvard University, who contradicted Gordon's assertion that the inscription was Paleo-Hebrew. Cross stated that only two letters of the entire inscription could conceivably be considered Paleo-Hebrew of the period in question (1st century B.C. or 1st century A.D.). Cross also said Gordon's reading of the inscription ("for the Jews") was based on the Aramaic alphabet rather than Paleo-Hebrew. Also the zinc composition of the brass bracelets found in the same stratum as the stone, was similar to that used in the 1st-century Mediterranean region, but showed that this particular zinc composition was used in the manufacture of brass bracelets in England in the 17th and 18th centuries. Now put on your thinking cap Du, I know, its kinda dusty for lack of use. Metallurgical tests of bracelets found with the stone, along with further expert examination of the lettering all indicate that the stone is only 17-18th century –not bom period. That is unless Nephi was time warped forward to get the metallurgical mix to produce 17th century bracelets in 600 BC. Oh and another tiny tid bit you continue to overlook with your out of date artifact analysis - In 2004, Mainfort and Kwas published an article in American Antiquity showing an inscription in an 1870 Masonic reference book that bore striking similarities to the Bat Creek inscription. The Masonic inscription was an artist's impression of how "Holy to Yahweh" might have appeared in Paleo-Hebrew. Wow, a copy was available for an individual to use prior to the discovery of the stone – imagine that.
Yep, that's two for two, two pieces of evidence that will make a thinking man think, and you dismiss them out of hand.
The lurkers here will see that the only one who dismisses anything out of hand is you DU. You have been confronted with the fact that FARMS/Maxwell Inst. do not consider the artifact to be authentic enough to support. Numerous other linguists examining the writings indicate that the writing is not in as ancient of lettering as you claim – still have your thinking cap on? – and in fact contain modern features. In short as ‘ol Nibley himself sums up – it is a fraud.
Lessee, oh yeh, you had some linked to a website that also had ufo and bigfoot reports too.
Yep, I gave the good with the bad, I have nothing to hide, so?
If you are willing to believe that as well as post it as evidence for your faith, your evidences are pretty shallow and contaminated. Why would any one want to believe your other “proofs”.
First, they are hardly "dashed upon the ground" just because you refuse to admit the evidence into the court of your mind.
As stated above, the so called artifacts have not been dismissed a priori. In both cases they are not even cited by the quasi-official FARMS/Maxwell folks as such. That should have been your first clue DU. Secondly, I have presented further data and analysis that provide more objective evaluation of the items. In the court of my mind, the evidence you throw out just doesn’t hold water to these more numerous other sources of data and interpretation and are more credible.
As a matter of fact, yes, there is plenty more evidence, most is in the Book of Mormon itself.
Pinkie and the Brain come to mind. Yes, evidence of the bom being a fraud is also found within its pages, starting with 1 Nephi 1:1.
How about some of these: Hebraisms and The Book of Mormon How did Joseph know and better yet incorporate without Hebraisms in the Book of Mormon if he was a bumpkin?
No, but he did have a KJV of the Bible which he read frequently. If one of my main reading sources is the KJV of the Bible and then I turn around and write a book that sounds like and quotes from the KJV of the Bible what does Occam's Razor tell us? Furthermore, the bom is claimed to not to have been written in Hebrew to begin with, but reformed Egyptian. Perhaps they should more properly be referred to as Reformed Egyptianisms and the bom.
Nahom in The Book of Mormon How in the Heck Did Joseph know about this place in Arabia if he was a back wood bumpkin?
Mormon apologetics relies heavily on subjective validation and reverse engineering to make their data come true. This is a prime example of this - a rock is found with the letters NHM inscribed on it and they use it as a proof of the bom Nahom. This could also be Naham, Noham, or any other combination of vowels. They subjectively validate their hypothesis with this type of information. However, you are unable to find the river that flowed into the Red Sea that Lehi’s party stayed at for at least one year. Hebrew doesn't have vowels, so the Hebrew name NHM (nun-chet-men) could be transliterated to Nahom. But since we don't know what vowels were supposed to be used, any other vowel permutation is equally likely: Nahum, Niham, Noham, Nuhim, Nuham and so on (25 different combinations are possible in fact, 30 if the second vowel is left out completely). So to appeal to the inscripton "NHM" as proving the location "Nahom" is really unfounded. In any case, this is not the first time LDS explorers have tried to match a location with the place Nahom. If it is so easy to locate, why the continued list of contenders? After all, in Biblical geography, we know there is one Jericho (located), one Babylon (located), one Nazareth (located), and so on. Lehi and his family had been commanded by God not to light fires. Why would this commandment be given? There would have to be a good reason, as they could not cook their meat, and would thereby violate the Torah. Was it supposed to be a secretive trek? If so, why would they go to the populated location of NHM? This doesn't make sense (Occams razor time again). Now, here's the problem: if the "NHM" carving truly was "BOM evidence"---and if the BOM storyline is true---then scholars should be able to find A MILLION TIMES MORE ITEMS OF PHYSICAL EVIDENCE FOR THE BOM CULTURE SOMEWHERE IN THE AMERICAS THAN THE SINGLE STONE CARVING IN YEMEN. Hello (knock, knock), anyone home DU?
Nephi's Bountiful in Arabia: The Book of Mormon The Book of Mormon in defiance of the knowledge of the day of Arabia describes a lush area, he called bountiful. Due east of Nahom, it exists and can be seen on satellite photos today. Only some one who was uneducated would have made this mistake and been correct.
Exodus 15:22-27 indicates the existence of oases in the desert. Smith would have known this. Bountiful is the oasis mentioned in 1 Nephi 17:5. The fact that Smith mentions an oasis in the Book of Mormon therefore proves nothing. Fact is the tribes in that region were highly protective and possessive of their water sources (Lawrence of Arabia), there is no way Nephi would have been allowed to sit there unchallenged for the year or more required for him to get his iron and make his boats. That also goes without saying whether the site would provide adequate iron ore or that the trees would be satisfactory to construct an ocean worthy boat.
Horses and the Book of Mormon
Joseph talked about horses in the Book of Mormon, in his day this was preposterous, now we have found bones that date to the right age, what an idiot, but he was right.
So where is your source other than a youtube source? Certainly a more recent scientific article would provide a better source than this talk. Sorenson considers the most solid evidence that the Maya had horses is in a brief note published on page 278 of the Journal of Mammalogy, vol. 38 (1957). Written by Clayton E. Ray of the Harvard Museum of Comparative Zoology, the note tells of "horse remains of probable preColumbian age from a new locality in Yucatan. This material consists of one complete upper molar and three fragmentary lower molars ... obtained by archaeologists ... during excavation at the Mayan ruins of Mayapan ... The teeth were collected in the cenote Ch'en Mul ... from the bottom stratum in a sequence of unconsolidated earth almost two meters in thickness ... The horse teeth are not specifically identifiable. They are considered to be preColumbian on the basis of depth of burial and degree of mineralization ...
"It is by no means implied that preColumbian horses were known to the Mayans, but it seems likely that horses were present on the Yucatan Peninsula in preMayan times. The tooth fragments reported here could have been transported in fossil condition as curios by the Mayans . . ."
So on the basis of some teeth, we have unimpeachable evidence of horses in bom times? Were the use of horses as stated in the bom true, then many more examples of horses would have been found – the chariots and associated stables, equipment, pictographs, etc. If this were such an open and shut case, why have mormon apologists tried to link horses to deer? Post Colombian horses that escaped thrived in America and still do today. So if they thrived then, why didn’t they thrive throughout the bom period – what great catastrophe caused their loss and wouldn’t it have affected similar animals? Occams razor time DU. A horse is a horse of course of course, except in the bom when it is a deer. I live in the real world, lets compare the anti's leading proponent of DNA disproving the Book of Mormon:
Simon G. Southerton, is a plant biologist,
Here DU drifts off into the classical mormon polemtic attack on the person’s character rather than the facts. Hypocritically, DU draws support for the Bat Creek stone from an archaeologist – no an economics professor. How accurate is this attack? Contrary to his attack, Southerton is a PhD and a molecular biologist with primary specialty in plant genetics. He began is his human DNA related research in an effort to prove the bom to be true (fancy that DUh), he communicated with BYU and FARMS to get more accurate data to support the BOM. And of course DU cannot be bothered to even get the title of the book correct its Losing a Lost Tribe Native Americans, DNA, and the Mormon Church, but then why present facts when a good smear will do. He found as many other mormons, the science and facts of history do not support the bom and accordingly, Smith was a fraud. He is also well published in journals and other professional papers in addition to his book.
Let's compare that to his essentially opposite:
Keith Crandall,
Yes, Mr. Crandall is a well established genetic scientist in his own right. But here is an interesting portion of his bio you provided –
Surprisingly, he finds a match and while not claiming absolute confirmation (that would be amazing) he claims supporting DNA was found.
That is a contradiction in terms if there ever was one. And for someone who claims others violate good science, he performs bad science. Yes DU, he touts the 2005 paper by Noah Rosenberg at least 3 times saying recent DNA studies show Middle Eastern haplotype at greatest frequencies in the Mayan (and you say I never follow your links). He makes this statement on the basis of a single North American population, the Pima, and three South American populations, an alarming conclusion for a population geneticist to make given the small number of populations studied. As I posted before is this a reasonable conclusion?
The recent publication of a much more comprehensive study of American Indian populations by Sijia Wang in 2007 has revealed just how wide of the mark Crandall’s conclusion was. Wang’s study included Siberians among the populations they examined. DNA that was identified by Rosenberg to be potentially related to Hebrew was found too be more closely related to chromosomes found among Siberian populations than Hebrews. So Crandall’s match actually turns out to be false because he was looking at the data through the rose colored glasses of mormonism, and not as a scientist would. How is that so? From the DVD “ The Book of Mormon and New World DNA” he says “ But it’s pretty patently obvious when you look at their data in this one figure in particular. You know. If that’s what you’re looking for, it’s there.
Your BYU professor ‘superstar’ is tarnished by misrepresenting Rosenberg in order to make his religious point. That he became a mormon just goes to confirm that there is a fool born every minute.
Either Keith Crandall is the biggest fool in the church, or there is no disproving DNA evidence.
I think I made it evident above and mis-representing DNA data is not disproving DNA data.
IMHO the only reason you would do this is because your position on DNA is backed by a losing hand and you know it, so you try to change the subject precisely because the DNA evidence favors us and not you.
Oh, so you have mormon’s able to explain the gastrobacterlogical DNA studies that show an asian origin for the native Americans? Or perhaps there is recent mormon data that shows that the DNA of dogs came from the middle east. And if the DNA evidenced is so strong for the bom, why hasn’t a scientist of Crandall’s stature published such in any respectable journal? Lots of crawdad studies – zero, nada, zilch professional articles supporting the claim by mormons that the native Americans are descendants from a group of Hebrews who arrived here in 600 BC. When I see that start to happen, then you will have the right to sit on your high horse (or is it a tapir?) and make your pronouncement.
If you actually went to the links I gave for Keith Crandall,
Like I said, you waived that dullard beneath my nose a long time ago.
. . . . . you would see a list of peer reviewed papers as long as your arm, maybe longer (it depends on the length of your arms...) You didn't look, so you didn't see, which is exactly my point about anti's they don't see only because they won't look.
As I said, lots of crawdad articles, but none, nada, zero, zilch has been published in those same (or similar) journals making the claim that DNA evidence/data supports mormon theory that the Americas were populated by a small group of Hebrews – even in the most remote manner. When he publishes in one of these journals, they you can crow. You seem to have missed the fact that he wrote his papers before he joined the church... They cannot be coerced on point of execution... Oops.
No, but since he was a mormon at the time of the video, he had to toe the line now didn’t he. Now he has too much invested to cross the line. Sad for him. bless.