FIRM: The Misleading of Latter-day Saints by Latter-day Saints

Last week, while on vacation, my attention was called to an article in the Salt Lake Tribune: BYU and UVU scientists question research offered at a conference on the Book of Mormon. The article described the reaction of BYU and UVU scientists, as published in the BYU student newspaper, The Daily Universe, to a then-upcoming conference called the Firm Foundation Expo. In a word, they were horrified.

I've mentioned FIRM before. Although the organization, led by Rod Meldrum, is primarily interested in Book of Mormon geography, it pursues the subject through a young-earth creationist lens (which is required in order to make their ideas work). This kind of science-bending thinking often leads to the proliferation of nonsense, which is what the BYU and UVU scientists were reacting to. Specifically, they responded to Dean Sesson's "Universal Model" that posits that Earth is filled with water. I grumbled a little to myself and thought it might make for an interesting blog post, and then mostly forgot about it.

I'm late to the party, but last night I saw that Ardis Parshall covered the Firm Expo at her blog, Keepapitchinin. She went so that we wouldn't have to, although she ultimately gave up because she couldn't stomach any more.

Her comments are here: Parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6. Don't be intimidated; most of the posts are pretty short. However, if you don't read anything else, read the last part and her comments below it! But since I know you probably won't, I'll reproduce a few salient quotes after I share a few thoughts.

I try not to get too worked up over this stuff. After all, there is seemingly no end to the the kinds of nonsense people will push (and it sure seems like nonsense is the order of the day!), and my impression is that while many people may entertain wrong or crazy ideas, most of them don't take them too seriously [1]. Based on the program, it is clear that the FIRM Expo is fine example of crank magnetism -- which is the tendency of people with crank ideas to accumulate more crank ideas. Alternative science, alternative medicine, doomsday predictions, alternative economics, government nuttery, conspiracy theories...they're all represented. Hopefully the collective craziness is enough to warn most people that the Firm Expo is not a good source of information.

I'm sure that seeing that many crank-adherents concentrated in one place is depressing, but I think they are generally diluted to low-harm in the general population. That this kind of stuff takes place under the banner of more-faithful-than-you Mormonism is also depressing, but my general attitude toward people who think their purity of religion is better than mine (especially based on science) is to ignore them. Nevertheless, I salute Ardis for her effort and highlight some of her writing below.

My few hours at the FIRM Foundation Expo were a distressing mix of intellectual dismay at the continuous denial of the scientific method, and profound depression at the misuse of scripture – the misleading of Latter-day Saints by Latter-day Saints – that I could not bear any more of it.

To claim that you will always side with revelation against science when the two are in conflict implies that your understanding of both science and revelation is adequate – that you sufficiently understand the claims of science, and that you truly understand what revelation teaches. What I heard at this conference did not meet those criteria.

The conspiracist mindset somehow grasps the “truth” first, and then searches for data points to support the conclusion (whereas a scientist, who may well have a hunch to guide his initial research, reserves his conclusions until his observations are made and analyzed, and contraindications are addressed). That conspiracist mindset was on full display in the session about the origin of the Earth and its life: We were told first that the Earth is a sack of water, then were treated to a torrent of “data” supporting that conclusion – no coherence, no attempts to test the notion, but merely a flood of mishmash of sources: scripture taken out of context, somebody’s lawsuit about something, pictures and bits of text from sources that might have been reliable and might have been reported accurately but sometimes sounded as if they came from the Weekly World News for all the credibility they carried, rhetorical questions presented as evidence (“What if I told you that …” and “Have you ever thought about …”), and always – always – the scoffing at mainstream scientists for being wrong about this and that and not even looking for proof of this other thing.

Then there’s the bone-deep skepticism of “the world” as a place and a philosophy of deception and wickedness, and a confidence — exaggerated, in my view — that as the people of God we have all the answers to all of the great questions, and those answers do and must stand in opposition to the vain philosophies of men. That is, we simply know better … even, apparently about matters which God has not revealed. I think that generally unexamined belief runs very deep through Mormonism, although it is a byproduct, a misapplication, of Mormonism rather than anything intrinsic to it.

To declare that you will “stand with the Church” in a supposed science/revelation dispute, especially while failing to recognize that the Church has taken no stand, or that you will “stand by revelation” when you rely solely on a knee-jerk fundamentalism that doesn’t bear scrutiny, is no credit to the Church or to revelation.

Notes:
1. Lest someone accuse me, a Mormon, of writing that sentence without any sense of irony, I do see the irony. But that's a discussion for another day.

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Book of Mormon Genetics: Good News and Bad News

As scientists have uncovered the genetic heritage of Native Americans, they've consistently found that heritage is rooted in ancient East Asia. Since this conflicts with expectations based on traditional interpretation of the Book of Mormon, a number of arguments have been put forward to explain why a Middle-Eastern genetic signal has not been found [1]. These arguments are summarized in the Church's Gospel Topics essay that treats this issue.

One of those arguments is that a genetic bottleneck may have removed the genetic markers of Book of Mormon peoples so that they cannot be found among living descendants. As the essay puts it:

In addition to the catastrophic war at the end of the Book of Mormon, the European conquest of the Americas in the 15th and 16th centuries touched off just such a cataclysmic chain of events. As a result of war and the spread of disease, many Native American groups experienced devastating population losses. One molecular anthropologist observed that the conquest “squeezed the entire Amerindian population through a genetic bottleneck.” He concluded, “This population reduction has forever altered the genetics of the surviving groups, thus complicating any attempts at reconstructing the pre-Columbian genetic structure of most New World groups.”

A recent study [2] adds support to this argument. The scientists sequenced the whole mitochondrial genome obtained from 92 pre-Columbian South American skeletons that range in age from 500 years ago to 8.6 thousand years ago. As the abstract puts it:

All of the ancient mitochondrial lineages detected in this study were absent from modern data sets, suggesting a high extinction rate.

This result directly supports the argument that many genetic lineages have been lost. That's the good news.

The bad news is that all of those lost lineages fall within the standard family of mtDNA haplogroups one would expect to find based on the ancient East Asian origin of Native Americans. In other words, although those lineages apparently went extinct, they are still within the family of lineages that were brought by the original Asian colonizers of the Americas.

If you look at the map from the supplementary materials, you'll see that the samples came from areas not generally considered Book of Mormon lands. Further, only two of the samples are dated from within the time frame of the main Book of Mormon narrative [3]. The rest of the samples are either prior to 600 BC, or after 400 AD (though still pre-Columbian). So it's not like this is some kind of slam dunk against the Book of Mormon. However, it does help to establish the perimeter of genetic plausibility.

It will be interesting to see what data emerges as the spaciotemporal resolution of such studies increases.




Notes:
1. X2a doesn't appear to fit the bill because even if it originated in the Middle East, it entered the Americas at least 8-9,000 years ago--too early for accepted Book of Mormon chronology.

2. Llamas B, Fehren-Schmitz L, Valverde G, et al. Ancient mitochondrial DNA provides high-resolution time scale of the peopling of the Americas. Sci Adv. 2016 Apr 1;2(4):e1501385. doi:10.1126/sciadv.1501385

3. Maybe. The range of uncertainty in dating those two samples (325-440 AD; 100-650 AD) is such that they might fall just outside of Moroni's lifetime.

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Book of Mormon DNA Apologetic Arguments Have a Shelf-life

There have been a couple of scientific advances on Native American origins this summer. First, DNA was finally isolated from the 9,000 year-old Kennewick man (KM) and it is clear that he is closely related to several current Native American tribes. Some had argued based on skull morphology that KM was more closely related to Australians and that his ancestry was outside of the East Asian/Siberian mainstream. However, the genetic evidence now puts him firmly within the Native American mainstream.

The second finding, reported by two separate groups a couple of weeks ago, is that some Amazonian tribes have a small DNA contribution from a common ancestor of indigenous Australians and Melanesians. This Boston Globe article is one of the better ones I have seen (and it has a nice accompanying graphic). It is very easy to get confused by the differing interpretations of the data. From what I have read, it boils down to this: Does the Australian DNA come from migrants who came into the New World around the same time as the East Asians/Siberians (>15,000 years ago), or later through the Aleutian Islands around 9,000 years ago? Some news articles use the terms ancient and recent without being clear about the associated dates, which can lead people to imagine evidence of trans-Pacific voyages. That is NOT what is proposed here.

At first glance this has nothing to do with the Book of Mormon. The Asian ancestry of Native Americans is nothing new, and the timing of the migrations inferred from the above studies occurred long before the Book of Mormon chronology. Defenders might even point out that the added complexity that has been discovered shows that we must remain open-minded about Native American genetics because surprises do happen. However, there may be subtle implications for the future of Book of Mormon apologetics, which rely heavily on the population genetics principles of founder effect, genetic bottlenecks, and genetic drift.

To make things easy, I'll break my point up into several bite-sized propositions:

1. Although the exact genetic signatures that the Jaredites/Lehites would have carried are unknown, each advance in characterizing the ancient origins of Native American genetics helps to establish the background from which Jaredite/Lehite markers would stand out. We may not know exactly what we are looking for, but we have an increasing ability to recognize markers that are unusual.

2. Mitochondrial DNA and Y chromosome types are particularly sensitive to genetic drift, etc.--a point made in the two papers describing the Australian connection. Originally most ancient genetic research focused on mtDNA and Y chromosomes because they were easier to deal with. However, the technological advances in recovering and sequencing autosomes (i.e. most of the genome) have greatly improved in the last decade.

3. Autosomal markers are more resistant to disappearing from populations. It's one thing for mtDNA or Y chromosomes (which are inherited by daughters and sons, respectively, as a block) to go missing; it's another for all traces of autosomes (which mix by recombination each generation) to disappear. As an example, scientists initially ruled out interbreeding between modern humans and Neanderthals based on mtDNA differences. However, once the Neanderthal genome was sequenced, it became clear that modern humans of ancient European decent got about 4% of their DNA from Neanderthals (which went extinct ~30-40,000 years ago).

4. The increased ability to recover and sequence DNA from ancient remains means it is probably only a matter of time before a variety of genomes dating from Book of Mormon times--and in the favored locations--are recovered. It is one thing to explain why modern Native Americans do not show any genetic relationship to the Middle East; it is another to explain why two thousand year-old Mesoamerican remains do not show any genetic relationship.

I am not suggesting that genetic studies are going to definitively disprove the Book of Mormon as an ancient American record. What I am suggesting is that, as the science around Native American origins progresses and the realm of plausibility contracts, the current arguments that Book of Mormon defenders advance with respect to Native American DNA will begin to wear thin. That is, unless a pre-Columbian Middle-Eastern genetic signal is discovered. But if that happens, we won't need the current arguments any more. So either way, we are marching toward their expiration date.

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Let's Be Frank About the Book of Mormon Introduction

Daniel Peterson spoke at the annual FAIR conference last month, and the transcript of his talk has been posted online. Peterson's talk was titled, "Some Reflections On That Letter To a CES Director," a reference to a document that has been circulating for a year or two that compiles together a lot of criticisms of the Church. Not surprisingly, the issue of DNA and the Book of Mormon was raised. After dismissing the relevance of genetics under the theory that the Book of Mormon peoples were a very small group mixing with a large established population, Peterson turned to the introduction of the Book of Mormon.

[Letter to a CES Director] “Why did the Church change the following section of the introduction page of the 2006 edition of the Book of Mormon shortly after the DNA results were released?” Quote: “The Lamanites were the principal ancestors of the American Indians” is changed to, “The Lamanites, and they are among the ancestors of the American Indians.”

Well, the implication is “because the DNA evidence undercut the Church’s position.” That’s not true. I happen to know the backstory, which has never been published. The backstory is, there were people who objected to that heading when it was done in the late 1970s/early 1980s. They were overruled by someone who was in a position of authority. But, they said the Book of Mormon never actually makes that claim. Don’t make the Book of Mormon claim things it doesn’t actually claim. We set ourselves up sometimes for problems when we claim things for the book, but that the book, when carefully read, does not claim for itself.

This is the kind of thing that drives believers-turned-critics crazy, and I can sympathize. I have a specific memory [1] of reading the introduction to the Book of Mormon as a missionary and coming across the passage in question. This was before DNA had become an issue, but it was still the case that virtually everyone outside the Church thought that American Indians came from Asia. I remember reading that line about the Lamanites being the "principal ancestors of the American Indians" and thinking that if the prophets and apostles were certain enough to put that in the introduction, then it must be the case.

I've obviously had to rethink that position and the assumptions behind it in subsequent years [2], but I have to admit that it irks me a little to see the wording simply attributed to someone in authority. It is hard to believe that the wording of the introduction was not read closely by the First Presidency and Twelve Apostles, and it is also hard to believe that the wording would have stood if any of them had reservations about it. I don't dispute Peterson's backstory, but it doesn't really solve the problem anyway. All it shows is that those who objected to the wording were not the ones in authority. That kind of makes the critique stronger.

It might be the case that former believers can be faulted for various failings, but taking seriously the Church's own introduction to the book that is the 'keystone of our religion' is not one of them. I think a better approach is simply to acknowledge that when the introduction was written (1981), Church leaders held the traditional LDS belief and assumption that the Lamanites were the main ancestors of the American Indians. However, it wasn't a crucial issue and so when strong evidence showed it to be in error, the wording was changed. What's the harm in a straightforward answer like that? (It's actually not that different from the Church's own explanation.)

Notes:

1. It is a memory I don't think I ever wrote down. As such, the standard disclaimers apply.

2. On a related note, I also remember one of my MTC teachers driving home the importance of using materials approved by the Church in teaching. Whether intended or not, one of the messages that came through to me was that you can have full confidence in materials published by the Church. Unfortunately, I have had to rethink that as well.

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The Church Teaches Evolution via the Book of Mormon

In what may be the most scientifically detailed explanation on LDS.org, the Church recently added a page that explains some of the basic principles of population genetics, and a few of the processes that result in changes in gene frequencies in a population (i.e. evolution). Book of Mormon and DNA Studies is another new addition to the Gospel Topics section that is meant to give a more detailed (and, ahem, accurate) answer on a controversial topic. (See also Race and the Priesthood, First Vision Accounts, and Book of Mormon Translation.)

Of course, the focus of this article is on the controversy over what lack of DNA support means for the Book of Mormon. Those familiar with the work of Michael Whiting and Ugo Perego (to which the LDS.org page provides links) will see their fingerprints in the new article. Personally, I'm pretty pleased with the result, especially coming from the Church website. As to the substance of the argument, I'm undecided whether the caveats in interpreting the state of the DNA evidence can really do the work required to make the Nephites/Lamanites genetically disappear. (I lean toward skepticism there unless it's paired with extensive intermixing from the beginning. But then we leave science and move into textual interpretation.) For now I think it's the only legitimate scientific way to argue for Book of Mormon historicity, or rather that historicity cannot be dis-proven.

But if we set the Book of Mormon aside for a moment, this article is essentially a primer on how evolution works: the creation of new alleles and their spread, as well as the loss of alleles from a population. Selection was left out of the discussion, (which is unfortunate because it might be relevant--a sensitive issue perhaps? [1]), but in a way it's just as well because natural selection usually gets all of the attention. Genetic drift, founder effect, etc, are random processes that can also play an important role.

So go study Book of Mormon and DNA Studies. As you begin to comprehend its message, you'll begin to understand how Neanderthal DNA is hanging around in many of us, and you'll begin to understand how two separate populations can begin to genetically diverge. And you'll be able to imagine how enough time and change can result in reproductive isolation, with gradual differences in form and behavior. You'll be on your way to understanding how evolution works. Thanks, LDS.org!

Notes:

1. Here's another subtle tip-toe: "Scientists theorize that in an era that predated Book of Mormon accounts, a relatively small group of people migrated from northeast Asia to the Americas by way of a land bridge that connected Siberia to Alaska." Yes, predating the Book of Mormon by about 10-15 thousand years. Some people might have difficulty squaring that with the Bible Chronology.

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Mormonism's Conflicted View of Scientific Evidence

[A draft of this post has been hanging around for a couple of years, waiting to see the light of day. I finally decided to dust it off and set it free. My plan is to use it as a springboard for some further discussion.]

In his 1991 book, The Lord's Way, Elder Dallin H. Oaks devoted a chapter to "signs and science." After surveying the scriptures he concluded that although the Bible is ambivalent on whether signs should be used in conversion, modern revelation--especially the Doctrine and Covenants--forbids it.

In our day, God does not use miracles or signs as a way of teaching or convincing the unbeliever. As a result, we should not ask for signs for this purpose, and we should be deeply suspicious of the so-called spiritual evidences of those who do. [p. 86]

But for Elder Oaks, 'signs' are not limited to miracles. He went on to assert that scientific evidences are a type of sign, and a discussion of the inadequacies of science to deal with gospel truths followed. One problem is that scientific evidence must be open and shared, but individual communication with the Spirit cannot (and sometimes should not) be. More importantly for the purposes of this post, he wrote,

This helps us understand why the methods of science are not applicable to establishing the truthfulness of the gospel, the fact of the Restoration, or the origin and truth of the Book of Mormon. President Ezra Taft Benson has declared: "It never has been the case, nor is it so now, that the studies of the learned will prove the Book of Mormon true or false. The origin, preparation, translation, and verification of the truth of the Book of Mormon have all been retained in the hands of the Lord." [p. 91]

Yet as Terryl Givens detailed in By the Hand of Mormon, the early Saints--including Joseph Smith--very much viewed discoveries in American archaeology and antiquities as vindicating the Book of Mormon.

For the time being [mid-late nineteenth century], it appears, Mormons valued the Book of Mormon as faithful history of their own continent, secure in the belief that its historical validity was amply confirmed by the abundant ruins so general throughout the lands of Mesoamerica. [p. 106]

However, caution emerged as New World studies progressed and began to challenge the Book of Mormon. Although some leaders remained optimistic that further research would support the Book of Mormon, the sentiment expressed more recently by President Benson and Elder Oaks grew. But such caution has been difficult to wholeheartedly embrace. Givens again:

Still, even as Mormon scholars affirm on the one hand that no amount of scientific evidence can prove the Book of Mormon true, it is hard to shake the heritage of Joseph Smith's famous claim that "the Lord has a hand in bringing to pass his strange act, and proving the Book of Mormon true in the eyes of all the people. . . . Surely 'facts are stubborn things.' It will be and ever has been, the world will prove Joseph Smith a true prophet by circumstantial evidence, in experimentis, as they did Moses and Elijah. (p.118)

Indeed. Hugh Nibley, for example, in his preface to Since Cumorah stated that the Book of Mormon is "asking for a fight" and is "delightfully falsifiable."

And so we are left with competing expectations about how the Book of Mormon and other religious claims are tied to reality--whether they are scientifically verifiable or falsifiable, even in principle.

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FARMS Review on the Book of Mormon, DNA, and Creationism

FARMS Review Vol. 22 No. 1 is up on the FARMS website. Two reviews are of particular interest here.

First is The Book of Mormon and the Origin of Native Americans from a Maternally Inherited DNA Standpoint by Ugo A. Perego, who is a geneticist at the Sorenson Molecular Genealogy Foundation. This article does not review a particular publication; rather, it is more of a topical review. Actually it has been available at FAIR for a few months now, and I have been remiss in not pointing it out. In fact, I recommend that you look at the FAIR version because it has some figures not contained in the FARMS version. (The FARMS PDF version has the figures, but the resolution is better at FAIR.)

This article ranks high on my list of authoritative articles about DNA and the Book of Mormon. It's written for lay people, but I'm afraid many will still find it too technical. (If anyone need help translating the jargon, I'm happy to help.) One of the things I love about the article is that from what I can tell it is straightforward and true to the science. For example, let's look at Figure 1.

Click to enlarge.

This figure shows how mitochondrial DNA lineages are related to one another. Not only does the Y axis show the appropriate timescale (200,000 years), but it also helps to show how we know that all of humanity originates in Africa. See that cluster of lineages on the left? Those are African lineages. The extended group of lineages on the right are the rest of the world. You can see that they are basically a subset of the African lineages. (See also Figure 4.) Anyway, kudos to Perego.

Next there is an extended, withering criticism of Rod Meldrum's book, Rediscovering the Book of Mormon Remnant through DNA, in Often in Error, Seldom in Doubt: Rod Meldrum and Book of Mormon DNA, by Gregory L. Smith.

Meldrum quit his day job to become a full-time for-profit (but still amateur) Book of Mormon geography researcher. He has formed his own organization, The Foundation for Indigenous Research and Mormonism (FIRM) Foundation--OK, really. FIRM? And yes, the redundancy of FIRM Foundation is of his own making--that has three emeritus Seventies on its board. Meldrum places the Book of Mormon in the Great Lakes area (dubbed the "Heartland model.") and FIRM sells a variety of books and videos pushing their view (along with right-wing politics). This model has previously been highly criticized by FAIR, and others.

Smith's criticism extends beyond issues of geography to the young earth creationism (YEC) pushed by Meldrum, and the sanctimony it is all wrapped in. The connection between evolution, creationism, and Book of Mormon geography may seem strange at first glance, but it ultimately makes sense. In order to make his theory work, Meldrum has to savage multiple fields of science because they are interconnected. He can cherry-pick certain scientific findings to support him and justify it by asserting that scientists have been interpreting the facts all wrong because they labor under an atheist conspiracy. I should also note that evolution often serves as the whipping boy for all of the natural sciences. Got a problem with the Big Bang, or radiometric dating? Blame evolution.

I find this sort of fundamentalist thinking and distortion extraordinarily troubling, and it is one reason why I consider Meldrum's theories worthy of review. He distorts the status of this teaching for the Latter-day Saints, refrains from quoting any authorities who differ with his views, portrays his sources as more authoritative than they are, and insists that the scriptures require it, making any other reading or view "impossible." Therefore, anyone who disagrees is ignoring the "clear" teachings of scripture. And anyone who differs is automatically less zealous in upholding the scriptures than Meldrum. "There are faithful members of the Church that have a deep belief in evolution and have been able to reconcile their beliefs. . . . Please know that your beliefs are respected," we are assured (p. 149). Yet if my beliefs differed from Meldrum's absolutism, I wouldn't find much respect in his caricatured treatment.

It seems clear that Smith does not share Meldrum's (YEC) views. With that in mind, I think Smith hits the nail squarely on the head with this passage.

At the same time, we cannot always allow misrepresentation of a point of view to proceed unchallenged, lest some be misled. Those given false information often learn later that their trust was misplaced. They then complain that "the church" (rather than "a member of the church") taught them falsehoods because misinformation was presented in a church context draped in the trappings of the gospel. Even if evolutionary theory is false in every particular, we do the cause of truth no service by creating strawmen, misrepresenting it, or minimizing the evidence offered in its behalf. We must deal with its most robust case if we are not to lead others to assume we were either ignorant or disingenuous—neither state being a good apologetic. And if we are right to oppose evolution, any efforts that do not fully address the depth and breadth of the best evidence are doomed to failure.

I have not read the whole review yet, but what I have has been excellent, and I already know that I will have more to say, either about it or based on it.

Also, check out the Editor's Introduction where the "Heartland model" is compared to a weed that needs to be pulled from the garden of Mormon scholarship.

Finally, I offer my praise to FARMS and FAIR for providing a platform for the criticism that this kind of stuff deserves, and for joining the atheist conspiracy taking a general stance that is largely consonant with science.

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In Praise of FAIR

I've been meaning to do this for a while, but I just want to praise FAIR for their handling of DNA evidence in the dust-up over Rodney Meldrum's alternate geography of the Book of Mormon. Specifically, it warmed my heart to see a forthright defense of molecular clock. (I also appreciated their treatment of haplogroup X).

The idea of a molecular clock is simple enough: If you can determine how often mutations occur on average, then given differing sequences you should be able to estimate how long ago those sequences diverged from one another. Unfortunately it is more tricky than that in practice. About 10 years ago one study using mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) turned up a problem with dating the most recent common ancestor (MRCA), sometimes called 'mitochondrial Eve,' when it came up with a date of 6,500 years ago.

However, there were a number of problems with this estimate and the method behind it, and using better methods mitochondrial Eve is currently estimated at about 150,000 to 200,000 years ago. But as you might expect, creationists seized upon the finding as evidence supporting the Ussher chronology of the Bible. Never mind the fact that it didn't hold with all groups of people and disagrees with radiometric and other forms of dating, as well as molecular clock dating of the X and Y chromosomes, creationists have accused scientists of rejecting the six thousand-year figure simply out of bias against the Bible--an accusation that Rodney Meldrum apparently agrees with.

So thank you, FAIR, for explaining and defending the science.

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Pre-Columbian Chickens: More to the Story

In case you missed it...

Last year Proceedings of the National Academies of Sciences (PNAS) published a paper that claimed radiocarbon and DNA evidence for pre-Columbian chickens that were introduced from Polynesia. Here is the abstract [1]:

Two issues long debated among Pacific and American prehistorians are (i) whether there was a pre-Columbian introduction of chicken (Gallus gallus) to the Americas and (ii) whether Polynesian contact with South America might be identified archaeologically, through the recovery of remains of unquestionable Polynesian origin. We present a radiocarbon date and an ancient DNA sequence from a single chicken bone recovered from the archaeological site of El Arenal-1, on the Arauco Peninsula, Chile. These results not only provide firm evidence for the pre-Columbian introduction of chickens to the Americas, but strongly suggest that it was a Polynesian introduction.

Last July another paper in PNAS cast doubt on that. The abstract [2]:

European chickens were introduced into the American continents by the Spanish after their arrival in the 15th century. However, there is ongoing debate as to the presence of pre-Columbian chickens among Amerindians in South America, particularly in relation to Chilean breeds such as the Araucana and Passion Fowl. To understand the origin of these populations, we have generated partial mitochondrial DNA control region sequences from 41 native Chilean specimens and compared them with a previously generated database of ≈1,000 domestic chicken sequences from across the world as well as published Chilean and Polynesian ancient DNA sequences. The modern Chilean sequences cluster closely with haplotypes predominantly distributed among European, Indian subcontinental, and Southeast Asian chickens, consistent with a European genetic origin. A published, apparently pre-Columbian, Chilean specimen and six pre-European Polynesian specimens also cluster with the same European/Indian subcontinental/Southeast Asian sequences, providing no support for a Polynesian introduction of chickens to South America. In contrast, sequences from two archaeological sites on Easter Island group with an uncommon haplogroup from Indonesia, Japan, and China and may represent a genetic signature of an early Polynesian dispersal. Modeling of the potential marine carbon contribution to the Chilean archaeological specimen casts further doubt on claims for pre-Columbian chickens, and definitive proof will require further analyses of ancient DNA sequences and radiocarbon and stable isotope data from archaeological excavations within both Chile and Polynesia.

So we have a scientific dispute. There will be more to come, I'm sure.

References:

1. Storey AA, Ramírez JM, Quiroz D, Burley DV, Addison DJ, Walter R, Anderson AJ, Hunt TL, Athens JS, Huynen L, Matisoo-Smith EA. Radiocarbon and DNA evidence for a pre-Columbian introduction of Polynesian chickens to Chile. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2007 Jun 19;104(25):10335-9.

2. Gongora J, Rawlence NJ, Mobegi VA, Jianlin H, Alcalde JA, Matus JT, Hanotte O, Moran C, Austin JJ, Ulm S, Anderson AJ, Larson G, Cooper A. Indo-European and Asian origins for Chilean and Pacific chickens revealed by mtDNA. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2008 Jul 29;105(30):10308-13.

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Y Chromosomes and The Book of Mormon: Let's Get Something Straight

There has been a flare-up over DNA and the Book of Mormon--this time among believing members. I've had a hard time figuring out exactly what Rod Meldrum's scientific claims are. The best I've found so far is apparently the latest essay by Simon Southerton, "How DNA Divides LDS Apologists." Meldrum appears to be making claims about mtDNA haplogroup X. However, I want to discuss the Y chromosome for a moment.

I freely admit that I am not a geneticist, and I'll be happy to be schooled if I'm getting something wrong. Also, my specific criticism should not be construed as general criticism of those making the claims I criticize below. Now let's get down to business.

Some apologists seem to be making the basic following claim: Certain Y chromosome groups are found among Native Americans, people around Siberia, and among some Jewish groups. Although this chromosome grouping may come from Siberia (which is congruent with mtDNA and archaeology), it could come from the Jewish groups instead, and uncertainty in dating increases the plausibility of this interpretation.

I will try to explain why I think this is wrongheaded. Of course it should be obvious that if scientists thought there were good grounds to connect Native Americans with Jewish groups, we would not be having this discussion. And multiple lines of evidence point to Asia over 10,000 years ago, so why should we try to interpret the Y chromosome data in a way that runs counter to the other lines of evidence? But aside from these more philosophical objections, I think that the progressing science is casting additional doubt on the above claim.

The nomenclature of the Y chromosome groupings is quite a hurdle in itself, which is not helped by the fact that it has undergone several revisions. Originally, several researchers were using their own designations and things became a mess. In 2002 the Y Chromsome Consortium established a nomenclature for everyone to use. (It has recently been updated, but I'll get to that in a minute.)

Jeff Lindsay pointed out that haplogroup 1C is found in both Native Americans and some Jews. However, as of 2002 the designation 1C does not exist anymore. This figure shows the Y chromosome haplogroups and how they relate to each other. On the right are colored columns that show the different designations used by different researchers. If you look at the pink column toward the bottom, you will find two labels of 1C. By comparing that to what is on the left, it looks to me that in retrospect, 1C was not very well defined and even included groups not actually closely related. In other words, as additional details and groupings were filled in, it became apparent that the 1C designation was not helpful any more. So much for 1C.

Others make the same claims for M242 or P-36 (which is roughly equivalent to 1C), however similar issues are at play. Below are the latest haplogroup Q designations and relationships (click for bigger image) [1]. You can compare it with the Wikipedia Haplogroup Q page, which is helpful.




Everything to the right of M3 is known exclusively in Native Americans. If you work your way left to P36.2 (formerly P36) and then M242, you will see that the M3 grouping constitutes only a part of what is now included under P36.2 and M242. So to say that P36.2 is also found in Jews is not very informative. If I read this correctly, the closest relative to the M3 group is Q1a3*, which is found in Pakistan and India. If you look at the Wikipedia page, you'll see that if you move up another level you'll find that Yemeni Jews are related, but so are people of Asia and Siberia. The relationship to Jews is at best ambiguous here.

But it looks like we can go a step further. Some apologists point out the uncertainty in dating distinguishing mutations and hint that if we simply adjust time frames, then it all makes sense. Unfortunately for that argument, human remains from On Your Knees cave in Alaska, that radiocarbon dated to 10,300 years ago, yielded Y chromosome DNA falling in the M3 group. This independent dating puts a minimum time on the entrance (or origination) of M3 into North America.

Your head, like mine, is probably spinning by now. In summary, I think apologists should stop trying to link Native American Y chromosomes with that of Jews. Haplogroups represent somewhat arbitrary groupings. The question is not whether Native American genes are related to Jews (of course they are), but how close is the relationship and what time frames are we dealing with? So far it looks like the answers to those questions continue to be that most Native American DNA originated in Asia over 10,000 years ago.

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Notes:
1. Tatiana M. Karafet, Fernando L. Mendez, Monica B. Meilerman, Peter A. Underhill, Stephen L. Zegura, and Michael F. Hammer. New binary polymorphisms reshape and increase resolution of the human Y chromosomal haplogroup tree. Genome Res., May 2008; 18: 830 - 838.

Unfortunately I cannot access this paper, but it will become freely available in November. However, the haplogroup chart from which I made the image above is available for download (28MB pdf).

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Book Review: By the Hand of Mormon

A couple of weeks ago I finished reading By the Hand of Mormon by Terryl Givens. I'm only six years late, but better late than never. In my opinion portions of the book should be required reading, especially the first chapter which gives a frank and thorough overview of how the Book of Mormon came to be. Beyond that, the book serves as a nice review of intellectual issues surrounding the Book of Mormon.

Rather than review the book myself, I will refer you to two useful reviews: one from the FARMS Review, and one from Dialogue. I have just a few observations to add.

1. The DNA issue is not discussed, however the treatment of geography is such that it should not be difficult to see how the issue fits in.

2. Perhaps no supporting evidences are uncontested, but some are more contested than others. For example, whereas Givens highlights 2 Nephi 12:16 (cf. Isaiah 2:16), even LDS scholars have urged caution regarding its use. Givens's score-keeping on evidences for or against the Book of Mormon should be used as a guide for getting up to speed on the arguments rather than as a definitive judgment.

3. Don't ignore the endnotes. There are interesting comments and references (some of which can be read online) to be found.

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Intelligent Design: Context Matters

[This post is part of a series: (Super) Naturalism, ID, and the Book of Mormon.]

If an intelligent designer was involved in the creation of life, how might we know of their involvement? Certainly one way would be for the designer to publicly announce their involvement. But what if we only consider the world around us, how could we tell? Natural theology and its descendant, Intelligent Design, posit that complicated features of life that appear to have purpose bear the hallmark of thoughtful design. Darwin upset the applecart by coming up with a convincing way for apparent design to arise naturally, without recourse to intelligent intervention.

And here we come to a problem: science, which employs methodological naturalism, takes nature as its guide to reveal what nature is capable of. Leading ID proponents have sought to put a cap on the abilities of nature by asserting that certain features are 'irreducibly complex' or contain 'specified complexity.' They have sought to plant these conceptual flags on various biological features, not because any designer has specified direct involvement in the creation of those features, but precisely because such a designation is lacking. Only if the designer does things that cannot be done in the ordinary course of nature can his works be identified. ID proponents assert that nature as we know it cannot produce some of the things that are found--in nature. They justify their position by appealing to archaeology, forensics, and SETI, each of which are accepted scientific disciplines or ventures that seek to uncover the works of intelligent beings. At the same time, they deny that any knowledge about the designer, his methods, or intentions are needed to justify judging something found in nature as intelligently designed.

The problem is that archaeology, forensics, and SETI each operate with a large background knowledge, not only of what kind of things intelligent beings do, but of what kind of things nature does in the absence of organisms with intelligence levels approaching human. They look for the artificial, which is judged against the background of nature [1]. In my opinion, ID proponents have not yet produced sufficient justification for distrusting nature, and without a more thorough knowledge of the universe with which to make comparisons, science can only employ methodological naturalism to probe life's mysteries. Unless the designer decides to speak up in a clear and open manner, nature is all we have.

ID stands in contrast to the Book of Mormon, for which supernatural claims were made from the beginning, and for which scholarly apologetic arguments depend on knowledge of the circumstances of its production.

Notes:
1. For purposes of simplicity, I am not taking up the argument over whether human intelligence is itself a product of nature.

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The Book of Mormon and the Supernatural: Context Matters

[This post is part of a series: (Super) Naturalism, ID, and the Book of Mormon.]

Suppose that the Book of Mormon came to light as a single copy discovered in a stack of old books. The book states that it was published in 1830 (assume that you know this to be correct), but there is no information as to who published it--it is an orphaned book. Nevertheless, it attracts the attention of a group of sincere Christians who wonder if it is actually a divine and historical (i.e. miraculous) text. What kind of evidence might they point to?

I don't think there is any. Off the top of my head, I can't think of any semi-scientific/scholarly argument for the historicity of the Book of Mormon that is not fundamentally rooted in the history of Joseph Smith--his claims about the book, what he knew, who his associates were, his timeline, etc [1]. (I would be happy to consider counter-examples if anyone thinks of one.) Remove all knowledge about him, and the miraculous origin and historicity of the Book of Mormon become less plausible by orders of magnitude.

This is implied in the argument by Terryl Givens (among others) that the circumstances surrounding the production of the Book of Mormon eliminate any middle ground regarding its historicity and value as scripture. It is made more explicit in a passage in By the Hand of Mormon (pg. 87).

What distinguishes the Book of Mormon as a religious document...has little to do with its internal claims. In this regard, the Book of Mormon well exemplifies the principle laid down by Wilfred Cantwell Smith and William A. Graham, and endorsed by Shlomo Biderman: 'the element of content is not the major factor in establishing scripture.... Because of the enormous diversity of what is said in scripture, it cannot be defined or characterized by its content.'

Philosopher David Hume wrote that "no testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the testimony be of such a kind, that its falsehood would be more miraculous than the fact which it endeavors to establish." Hugh Nibley sought to meet such a challenge, and his argument is captured in his parable of the diamond (and it is not hard to find General Authorities that echo it):

A young man once long ago claimed he had found a large diamond in his field as he was ploughing. He put the stone on display to the public free of charge, and everyone took sides. A psychologist showed, by citing some famous case studies, that the young man was suffering from a well-known form of delusion. An historian showed that other men have also claimed to have found diamonds in fields and been deceived. A geologist proved that there were no diamonds in the area but only quartz: the young man had been fooled by a quartz. When asked to inspect the stone itself, the geologist declined with a weary, tolerant smile and a kindly shake of the head. An English professor showed that the young man in describing his stone used the very same language that others had used in describing uncut diamonds: he was, therefore, simply speaking the common language of his time. A sociologist showed that only three out of 177 florists' assistants in four major cities believed the stone was genuine. A clergyman wrote a book to show that it was not the young man but someone else who had found the stone.

Finally an indigent jeweler named Snite pointed out that since the stone was still available for examination the answer to the question of whether it was a diamond or not had absolutely nothing to do with who found it, or whether the finder was honest or sane, or who believed him, or whether he would know a diamond from a brick, or whether diamonds had ever been found in fields, or whether people had even been fooled by quartz or glass, but was to be answered simply and solely by putting the stone to certain well-known tests for diamonds. Experts on diamonds were called in. Some of them declared it genuine. The others made nervous jokes about it and declared that they could not very well jeopardize their dignity and reputations by appearing to take the thing too seriously. To hide the bad impression thus made, someone came out with the theory that the stone was really a synthetic diamond, very skilfully made, but a fake just the same. The objection to this is that the production of a good synthetic diamond 120 years ago would have been an even more remarkable feat than the finding of a real one.

The judgment of whether the making of a synthetic diamond is a remarkable feat depends on knowledge of the context (technology available, etc). Despite Nibley's call for "well-known tests for diamonds," I am not aware of any for the Book of Mormon that can be employed without reference to Joseph and his circumstances.

Notes:
1. Of course, multiple specific references to people and places yet undiscovered at the time of publication would count, although judgment would revolve around how specific, and therefore unlikely, the references were. In the case of the Book of Mormon--taken on its own--Nahom and Alma are suggestive, but not overwhelmingly convincing, in my opinion.

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(Super) Naturalism, ID, and the Book of Mormon

One component of the controversy over ID has to do with the scientific method itself. ID proponents would like to change science to allow supernatural explanations. As one who has followed, published on, and testified in court regarding the ID movement, Barbara Forrest has written,

Science requires testable hypotheses. Because conjectures about the actions of “designers” or other supernatural agents are not testable (at least, no one has yet developed a way to test such conjectures) the methodology of science, sometimes called “methodological naturalism,” limits scientists to the search for natural explanations of natural phenomena. Despite the historical fact that, several centuries ago, scientists abandoned as unworkable the attempt to explain natural phenomena by appeals to the supernatural, ID proponents argue, like earlier creationists, that modern science’s exclusion of the supernatural as a scientific explanation is arbitrary. In Darwin on Trial, Phillip Johnson argues that evolution is accepted by the scientific community only because scientists have made a dogmatic, a priori commitment to naturalism (Johnson, 1991).

It seems obvious to me that invoking acts of God to explain phenomena that we don't understand prevents obtaining deeper scientific understanding. Furthermore, such invocations have failed time and again.

Now a flashback: I remember, as a missionary, reading the preface to Hugh Nibley's Since Cumorah. Regarding the Book of Mormon, he asked,

How could anyone "grounded in naturalism, rejecting the supernatural" be anything but prejudiced in favor of naturalism and against the supernatural?

It seemed obvious to me that if you discount the supernatural from the beginning you will necessarily miss it. If the test is rigged from the beginning, how can it constitute a search for truth?

Given this contradiction, some might argue that either one must accept Intelligent Design along with the Book of Mormon, or reject them both. I disagree and in forthcoming posts I will present some of my thoughts on this issue.

Addendum: In response to comments below, I should clarify that for the purposes of this series, I am using the term 'supernatural' in a straightforward way--i.e. things unknown to science such as God, angels, etc.

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Other posts in this series:
1. The Book of Mormon and the Supernatural: Context Matters
2. Intelligent Design: Context Matters

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Joseph and the Third Option

Over at the FAIR Blog, in a post titled Seer or Pious Fraud,
Keller discusses the issue of how we should view Joseph Smith's pre-plates treasure seeking. I am not going to pass judgment here, but I want to round out his discussion a little bit.

I think the title and the post presents a false dichotomy: that either Joseph genuinely could see treasures, or he was lying. Anybody who spends some time reading or listening to material from the skeptical community (i.e. the community of people who promote science and fight pseudoscience and the paranormal) knows that there is at least one additional option: that people genuinely believe that they have powers, even though they do not.

It is not as simple as someone lying to themselves until they believe it, or even being crazy. Of course, nobody knows what is in a person's heart. However, there are still people who use methods of divination (such as dowsing) to find water or other objects. There are probably some mediums who genuinely think that they can communicate with the dead. There are probably some people that genuinely think Ouija boards can give them messages. And, to use a non-paranormal example, there are people who believe that facilitated communication works.

None of this requires a person to consciously generate falsehoods; they need only fall prey to ordinary human psychology. A few successes--or apparent successes--can go a long way to convince people that some genuine power is at work, even in the face of many failures, which can be explained away. Even if the person does not initially believe that they actually have any powers, others might convince them otherwise. For example, a mentalist who demonstrates the apparent ability to communicate with the dead, and explains that it is a trick based on psychological techniques, may have audience members convinced that there really was something supernatural involved and that the performer does not appreciate their true power. (You don't have to dig too deep into the skeptical literature to find such stories.) Such a performer could become a victim of their own success.

I recently saw a book at my local library that explains how to find things using a pendulum. It is entirely conceivable that an honest and open-minded person might read the book, try it out, and become convinced that it works. Although such methods fail in the face of repeated tests under controlled conditions, those tested usually do not lose belief in their ability--and most practitioners would never be tested under such conditions anyway. As an exercise, consider the video below that I found by doing a simple search. Must I either accept that the man has true powers or decide that he is a liar?

As I said, I am not going to pass judgment on Joseph here, and in my opinion the production of the Book of Mormon does move things into another level of debate with higher stakes, but one need not attribute deceit to Joseph in order to reject the authenticity of his pre-plates (and maybe even some post-plates) activities.

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Lamanite Claims Scaled-back

As has been covered by other blogs already, an article in the Salt Lake Tribune revealed that the Church is updating the Introduction of the Book of Mormon in a way that scales back claims for Lamanite ancestry.

After thousands of years, all were destroyed except the Lamanites, and they are the principal among the ancestors of the American Indians.

In a comment at Times and Seasons, Kevin Barney points out that there are probably more changes coming based on Royal Skousen's work examining the original and printer's manuscripts.

The new Juvenile Instructor blog also notes another modest change in the Introduction.

I think it is great that the Church is making a change that is more in harmony with compelling scientific findings. I applaud the decision and hope it is a trend that will continue. "That which is demonstrated, we accept with joy."

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Elder Oaks: Science Quotes

Edited transcripts for the interviews with President Boyd K. Packer and Elder Dallin H. Oaks for the PBS documentary The Mormons have been posted by the Church.

Elder Oaks made several comments that touched on science. Although most of them appear to have been made in the context of the Book of Mormon, they have broader applicability and are reproduced below. I may discuss some of these points further in later posts, but I thought I would post them all together first. Except for the footnote and separating dashes, all indications of editing (brackets, etc.) are in the original.

HW: What would you say to faithful, liberal (in the absence of a better word) Mormons who are searching for “the middle way” to look at the Book of Mormon as an inspired text with profound spiritual meaning?

DHO: To people who have a hard time with the literal claims of scripture, I would say: “Keep your life in balance between reliance on history, so-called, or geology or science, so-called, and reliance on spiritual witnesses and the testimony of the Holy Ghost. There are two ways to truth: science and revelation. If you find things that trouble you, don’t dismiss the spiritual explanation and hold with the scientific one. Keep your life in balance by continuing to do the things necessary to keep open the channels of communication to heaven as well as to scholarly journals.”

HW: Describe what that middle way or middle ground is.

DHO: It’s hard for me to define a middle ground because I don’t believe in a middle ground when it comes to morality. I don’t believe in situational ethics. I believe that truth is a knowledge of things as they are. I think we’re dealing with religious truth, and I don’t think that religious truth can be understood by scientific methods.

Whenever science dilutes a religious truth or the revelation of God, it demeans it. While I understand the sincerity of those who are looking for a middle way, I think that God has the final answer on the purpose of life. He has the final answer on what is right and wrong. I don’t think there’s a middle way. I think that science and scholarship can lead us toward truth, but I think that people in the end must be willing to surrender their best judgment to revelation from God.

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HW: Possibly the “problem” the Book of Mormon has to a modern person is that there are no precedents [to the plates].

DHO: A book that has no origin, of course that’s a problem! Of course a book, translated from plates that you can’t examine to authenticate it is a terrible problem to anyone who approaches this in a scientific way. There have been other visionaries, but I don’t know of any who have written a book. So Joseph is unique in saying, “I had a vision, and it led to this book, and here’s the book! Read it, put it to the spiritual test.” Well, it can be put to the spiritual test. Millions have done that and have joined the Church. But it can’t be put to scientific test — that really bothers a scientific age! If I wanted science to draw on, it would bother me too.

I suppose that we’re in a scientific age, but surely in human history there have been times when people would have said, “Visions in the age in iron? Visions in the age of sailboats?” [Slight laughter.] Any age could take its own marvels and use them to reject the simpler revelatory experiences of an earlier time.

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Now intellectualism is also perceived as a danger. I suppose it has been for at least a century. I read some history of some of the early confrontations with science — creation of the earth and so forth. In fact at Brigham Young University in some of its earliest years, [there] was [such a] manifestation [1]. There’ll be other manifestations at different times. The life of the mind, which is a great, defining object of universities in our day, of which I’ve been the beneficiary in my own life, can be seen or practiced to be in flat-out opposition to the spiritual characteristics of one’s faith. Revelation stands in opposition to science in some aspects according to some understandings. So I think in any day the watchmen on the tower are going to say intellectualism is a danger to the Church. And it is at extreme points, and if people leave their faith behind and follow strictly where science leads them, that can be a pretty crooked path. ([The] science of today is different than the science of yesterday.) We encourage the life of the mind. We establish and support universities that encourage education. But we say to our young people: “Keep your faith. Do the things necessary to hear the promptings of the Spirit. If you’re getting too far off the line in the latest scientific theory or whatever, you will get a spiritual warning.” And I believe that.

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1. This is almost certainly a reference to the 1911 evolution controversy. To read more about it, as well as Elder Oaks's interaction with the sciences while president of BYU, see here.

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FARMS Reviews "Voices from the Dust"

Another installment of FARMS Review is available online. The one that caught my eye was Brant Gardner's review of Voices from the Dust: New Insights into Ancient America by David G. Calderwood. You may remember that I attended a presentation by Calderwood last fall and reported on it here. (I'd like to claim that I was prescient in my looking forward to the FARMS review, but alas, no genius was needed to call that one.)

Gardner has two chief methodological criticisms:

1. By including material from all over the Americas, Calderwood is implicitly endorsing a hemispheric model--something that is contradicted by what many would consider much stronger evidence (either from within or without the Book of Mormon). Conversely, rejecting a hemispheric model calls into question his methods.

Either Calderwood defends the hemispheric geography of the Book of Mormon by default, or he forfeits the ability to pull information from texts so far distant as those from Peru and Central Mexico.

2. Calderwood accepts the Spanish accounts uncritically and dismisses the argument that the writers were projecting their own religious background onto the natives. You'll have to read Gardner's review for more on that.

As a side note, in response to a passage in the introduction, Gardner writes, "I confess that I am nervous when the introduction of any book on history blithely dismisses years of scholarship." There was a taste of that in the presentation I attended as well. From my report:

Early in the talk he said that researchers are tied to "make-believe histories." The first is evolution and that there was no creation. The second is that Native Americans migrated from Asia 15,000 years ago and that there were no significant outside contacts until Columbus. (He did not specify whether he objected to the early migration, or just the isolation.)

Gardner concludes:

Calderwood sees only the parallels. He neglects to consider any other reason for the apparent similarities in his sources. In the historical materials from Mesoamerica, with which I am most familiar, I find much stronger evidence that it really was the common perceptual layer imposed by the Spaniards that created the parallels in the chroniclers' accounts.

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DNA and BofM: Signature Response to Stewart's Article

Signature Books posted a response (Nov 16, 2006) to David Stewart's article published at FAIR and FARMS. I previously commented on the article here and here.

Most of the writing is unattributed, but it does contain a response from Simon Southerton on the specific issue of Y chromosome haplotype Q. Even better, there is a link to this paper on Jewish genetics. I'll have to digest it when I get a chance.

There is a history of bad blood between FARMS and Signature Books, so the somewhat snide tone (of the unattributed writing) is not unexpected, although unfortunate. But I can't say that FARMS doesn't deserve it on this one; the writer picked up on some of the same issues I raised before.

Also, I just ran across this page on the Signature Books website. It looks like a hypothetical migration scenario--like that of the Book of Mormon--was posed to several scientists and their comments have been posted. They are worth reading through; most of the answers boil down to 'it depends.' The answer that Henry Harpending (a National Academy of Sciences member) gave should look pretty good to an apologist's eyes.

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Report: David Calderwood and Voices from the Dust

I recently attended a presentation given by David Calderwood, author of Voices from the Dust. Brother Calderwood served a mission in Uruguay and has subsequently lived in, and traveled to, South and Central America throughout his career. After retiring he returned to graduate school at the University of Texas at Austin to study at the Institute of Latin American Studies where he earned an M.A. Over the years he has collected over 70 chronicles written by Spanish and Portuguese explorers, priests, and soldiers. He was apparently a popular speaker at the recent CES Education Week at BYU.

What follows is my report of his talk, according to my notes.

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The main theme of Bro. Calderwood's talk was that Spanish and Portuguese chronicles, written in the 15-1600's but not published until at least the late 1800's, contain descriptions of native history and folklore that correspond with the Book of Mormon.

Early in the talk he said that researchers are tied to "make-believe histories." The first is evolution and that there was no creation. The second is that Native Americans migrated from Asia 15,000 years ago and that there were no significant outside contacts until Columbus. (He did not specify whether he objected to the early migration, or just the isolation.)

He spent most of the time talking about interesting elements in various chronicles. I will provide names (where I have them) and some of the things they described.

Miguel Cabello Valboa (1586): recorded legends of the earth shaking, the sun being darkened, and the graves being opened.

Felipe Huaman Poma De Ayala (1609): legends of natual disasters including volcanoes, fire from heaven, sand flattening a city, earthquakes and tidal waves.

Diego de Landa: described baptism in the Yucatan. Bro. Calderwood said that the practice was more widespread and that the Maya term "caput sihil" means to be born again or anew.

Martin de Murua: described Incan religious cleansing that involved confession. Bro. Calderwood said that they had rules that correspond well with the Ten Commandments, and that some of the punishments also correspond (eg. adultery punished by stoning). As part of purification, people would say, "I have confessed my sins to my father, the Sun."

Fernando de Montesinos: His reports are ignored by many scholars because they seem outlandish. His writings include a reference to a transition from government by kings to wise men (judges). Describes how ancient records were used to eradicate homosexuality from the civilization [apparently through repentance].

Pedro de Cieza de Leon: wrote that the Chachapoya indians were the whitest he had seen, and that their women were beautiful.

Bro. Calderwood described other documents refering to white indians, and said that there are still white Amerindians in some places. He also showed iconography depicting white and dark figures. In the picture he showed, it appeared that the dark figures were conquering the white figure.

Alonso de Ercilla Y Zuniga: Araucanos used implements of war including bow and arrows, swords, and scimitars. Bro. Calderwood made a point of telling us that Alonso had seen Old World scimitars.

He related a story about a Jewish rabbi in the 1600's named Aaron Levi [I think], who lived in South America. During his prayers he kept having the thought that Native Americans were Jewish. He was introduced to a group who claimed Abraham, Issac, and Jacob as their patriarchs and said that Joseph lives in the middle of the ocean, divided in two parts.

He also discussed metallurgy and the skill with which some ancient American cultures could manipulate gold, silver, and copper. He also mentioned their skill with cloth and their ability to make a fiber derived from animal hair that was likened to silk.

All in all I thought that the presentation was interesting. At first glance it seems remarkable that the various chronicles contain things that really seem to reasonate with the Book of Mormon. Yet without having studied the material myself--and again, having not read his book--I was at times a little skeptical of the connections he was making. For example, he showed some complicated iconography and explained the interpretation of many of the elements. Since they were of a religious nature it was pretty easy to draw connections to the Book of Mormon. But beyond that, he then pointed our attention to a figure whose meaning is unknown, and suggested that the meaning comes from a particular part of the Book of Mormon. There were a couple of other instances of the same type of thing, and I found myself skeptical that it is really that easy.

It seems to me that it is rather easy to fool ourselves on an issue like this, and although the intent of his talk was to build faith, I did not see evidence of skepticism except as applied to mainstream thought. But if there are real connections to be made, there must also be a host of false positives as well. If LDS scholarship is to have a credible voice, it must separate out the wheat from the chaff. I look forward to seeing how his book fares in the FARMS Review.

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