Commentary: Discussion on Mormonism

Men fantasize about sex with more than one woman at a time? Who'd thunk that! I have it on good authority from a porn movie that men fantasize about sneaking off into the woods and getting all sweaty together!

Seriously though, there's a big jump between fantasizing about three (or four or five...) ways and even having one and actually being married to two women. I know some pagans who did it for a while, but it was oddly unstable--the groups kept moving around, yet always seemed to be one man and one or more women. It's not really a Mormon fantasy.

Polygamy seems to mostly flourish in societies that are centered around killing other men and taking their stuff. Men from that other tribe, that's far enough away so that we don't have to deal with the angry relatives every day.
 
RandFan & articulett - I have sent your issues via email to Professor Whiting and I'll post his response when it arrives.

RandFan - Mr. Whiting had a more detailed explanation of the global and local colonization hypotheses than the simplified version you gave:

Global Colonization Hypothesis said:
The global colonization hypothesis is the simplest view of the Lamanite history and the one most readily testable through DNA evidence. This is the view that when the three colonizing groups (Jaredites, Mulekites, and Nephties + Lamanites) came to the New World, the land they occupied was entirely void of humans. It presumes that these colonizers were able to form a pure and isolated genetic unit of Middle Eastern origin living on the American continent and that this genetic heritage was never "contaminated" by the genetic input from any other non-Middle Eastern sources or peoples during the time recorded in the Book of Mormon. It also assumes that the colonizers accurately carried the genetic signature of the Middle Eastern source population and that such a signature indeed existed both within the source population and the migrants. It further requires that genetic input from the time when the Book of Mormon record ends to the present day was negligible or absent and that the direct genetic descendants of these colonizers exist today and can be identified prior to any genetic analysis. This hypothesis also incorporates the notions that these groups expanded to fill all of North and South America, that there was a tremendous population explosion from these single colonization events, and that any subsequent genetic input, if it occurred, would be swamped out by the strength of the Middle Eastern genetic signal present in the majority of the population. This hypothesis requires that introgression (i.e., gene flow from an external population to the one under study) of genetic signal from other sources be negligible or absent and that the genetics of the individuals compared in an analysis have remained largely pure since the time of colonization. This interpretation of the lineage history of the Book of Mormon is the most easily tested hypothesis by way of DNA analysis.
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Local Colonization Hypothesis said:
The local colonization hypothesis is more limited in scope, includes many more complicating factors from a genetic perspective, is much more difficult to investigate by way of DNA evidence, and, in my view and that of Book of Mormon scholars, is a more accurate interpretation of the Lamanite lineage history. This hypothesis suggests that when the three colonizing parties came to the New World, the land was already occupied in whole or in part by people of an unknown genetic heritage. Thus the colonizers were not entirely isolated from genetic input from other individuals who were living there or who would arrive during or after the colonization period. The hypothesis presumes that there was gene flow between the colonizers and the prior inhabitants of the land, mixing the genetic signal that may have been originally present in the colonizers. It recognizes that by the time the Book of Mormon account ends, there had been such a mixing of genetic information that there was likely no clear genetic distinction between Nephites, Lamanites, and other inhabitants of the continent. This distinction was further blurred by the time period from when the Book of Mormon ends until now, during which there was an influx of genes from multiple genetic sources. Moreover, the hypothesis suggests that the Nephite-Lamanite lineage occupied a limited geographic range. This would make the unique Middle Eastern genetic signature, if it existed in the colonizers at all, more susceptible to being swamped out with genetic information from other sources.
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With the Local Colonization Hypothesis comes a host of complicating factors: "Was there a unique, Middle Eastern genetic signature in the source population? Were genetic variants present in the colonizers? How do you know that small founder size does not confound your results? What are the effects of genetic drift? What were the effects of the colonizers' arriving to a locality that was not a complete genetic island (i.e., other humans were present and could contribute to the gene pool)? What were the effects of gene flow after the Book of Mormon ends?How do you account for the difficulties associated with a small population range? Who are the extant genetic descendants of the Lamanite lineage? How do you identify unambiguously the Middle Eastern population that contains the ancestral genetic signature that you will use for comparison? Has natural selection changed the genetic signature? How has mutation obfuscated the identification of the original genetic signature (a process called multiple hits)? How does the shuffling of genetic markers affect your results (a process called recombination)? How do you account for the effects of groups of genes being inherited in a pattern that is not concordant with lineage history (a process called lineage sorting)? How do you deal with the well-established observation that genetic markers almost never give a single, unambiguous signal about an organism's ancestry, but are rather a deluge of signals of varying strengths (a concept called homoplasy)? How do you know that your gene genealogy reflects organismal genealogies (a concept called gene tree versus species tree)?"

The conclusion: "Critics of the Book of Mormon have argued that DNA evidence has demonstrated once and for all that the book was contrived by Joseph Smith and is hence a fraud. They appeal to the precision of DNA evidence and tout their conclusions as being objective, verifiable, assumption free, and decisive. However, these critics have not given us anything that would pass the muster of peer review by scientists in this field, because they have ignored the real complexity of the issues involved. Further, they have overlooked the entire concept of hypothesis testing in science and believe that just because they label their results as "based on DNA," they have somehow proved that the results are accurate or that they have designed the experiment correctly. At best, they have demonstrated that the global colonization hypothesis is an oversimplified interpretation of the Book of Mormon. At worst, they have misrepresented themselves and the evidence in the pursuit of other agendas."

I trust Mr. Whiting's ideas here more than I trust either of yours, not just because of his credentials and experience, but because of the specific detail he expresses. They make sense to me. I think they sound objective too. We can wait to see if he'll answer (if he doesn't I'll drop by BYU on my way home from work and hand him a printed copy of the email I sent), but I think for now, we should move on to item 3 unless you have more to say about it. I wonder if we should summarize this in the moderated thread.
 
rcronk said:
I trust Mr. Whiting's ideas here more than I trust either of yours, not just because of his credentials and experience, but because of the specific detail he expresses.
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That's all well and good but there is a fatal flaw to Mr. Whiting's thesis that you are ignoring. If you choose to ignore the flaw then that is your prerogative. I can assure you that it is very, very unlikely that an outsider will ignore this flaw.
  • The Church is ostensibly led by a living prophet who talks with god.
  • The Church says Lamanites are "principal ancestors of the American Indians." This is in direct conflict with Mr. Whiting's thesis.
  • The Church claims that the dark skin of Native Americans is due to the mark of skin color of Laman and Lemuel.
Now, I understand why you don't want to face up to this but it can't be ignored by any intellectually honest and reasonable person. If you are here to convince yourself that there is no contradiction then you can do that. The human mind is quite capable of cognitive dissonance. If you think you can convince others that there is no fatal flaw to Mr. Whiting's ideas based on an appeal to his authority then that's just not likely to fly.
 
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ChristineR said:
Seriously though, there's a big jump between fantasizing about three (or four or five...) ways and even having one and actually being married to two women. I know some pagans who did it for a while, but it was oddly unstable--the groups kept moving around, yet always seemed to be one man and one or more women. It's not really a Mormon fantasy.

Polygamy seems to mostly flourish in societies that are centered around killing other men and taking their stuff. Men from that other tribe, that's far enough away so that we don't have to deal with the angry relatives every day.
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You seem to be trying to debunk a point that was never made. Regarding your second paragraph, you are making a claim with no basis in fact. Even if it were found to casually true can you demonstrate causality?
 
RandFan - Mr. Whiting does address that issue. He states:

Mr. Whiting said:
The introduction to the Book of Mormon states that the Lamanites were the "principal ancestors of the American Indians," but this, again, is commentary not present in the original text and was based on the best knowledge of the time.
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Who exactly wrote the introduction page (I've searched around and not been able to find the author(s) of it.)? Is the statement that the lamanites are the "principal ancestors of the American Indians" supposed to be a statement based on the human knowledge of that time (1981) to help people get a general idea of where the Lamanites lived and where they are now or is it asserted as divine revelation?

I'll leave the dark skinned discussion to one of your future "racial" items you suggested will be coming up soon. I'm also going to add a post in the moderated thread that points to this thread for discussion since we've included others in the conversation.
 
rcronk said:
Who exactly wrote the introduction page (I've searched around and not been able to find the author(s) of it.)? Is the statement that the lamanites are the "principal ancestors of the American Indians" supposed to be a statement based on the human knowledge of that time (1981) to help people get a general idea of where the Lamanites lived and where they are now or is it asserted as divine revelation?
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Again, you have a problem.

Ostensibly:
  • The BOM is the word of god.
  • God wanted the BOM brought forth to enlighten.
  • God speaks to the leaders of the Mormon Church.
  • The Mormon Church was behind the introduction page.
  • As an aside, the Mormon Church does not take decision making lightly. I find it silly to suggest that some anonymous person typed up something and sent it off to the publishers without any vetting of the Church leadership.
How do you reconcile those premises? Was god not paying attention? Did god not care? Did god allow this to happen to test people's faith?

I'll leave the dark skinned discussion to one of your future "racial" items you suggested will be coming up soon. I'm also going to add a post in the moderated thread that points to this thread for discussion since we've included others in the conversation.
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That's fine however I don't think we can simply skip over the fact that a prophet of god told a known falsehood (known to God). It brings up the same questions. What value is a living prophet of God if God won't clue him into such important questions?

Mormons know that Coke is bad but they don't know that Native Americans are not the descendants of Lamanites? Has the Church moved to educate Mormons? I've asked my family and none of them know this. Was an announcement made in the Ensign or General conference that these held views are wrong?
 
First of all, Mr. Whiting is asserting that it can't be proven or disproved through DNA evidence for the reasons he has given in his paper. Therefore, we don't know for sure whether the statement is true or false by means of DNA testing. Again, if you have a problem with his assertion, let me know and I'll forward it to him and he can reply to you directly. Let's continue the discussion on the moderated thread, where I've posted a reply just now.
 
RandFan said:
You seem to be trying to debunk a point that was never made. Regarding your second paragraph, you are making a claim with no basis in fact. Even if it were found to casually true can you demonstrate causality?
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There's no known mechanism which causes a surplus of females in a population other unequal emigration or immigration or killing the males. To have a polygamous society that lasts for any number of years you have to have an isolated population that is somehow importing females or removing males.

The polygamist colonies in Utah are socially isolated and essentially tribal, even though they aren't that far removed from the general population. Large percentages of young males are forced leave the colonies for the larger population.

Most of the remaining societies where polygamy is still practiced are in fact tribal.

There are always cases of rich and powerful men who have more than their share of women, but there are also cases of rich and powerful women who have more than their share of men. In order for polygamy to be the norm you have to have some sort of isolation combined with men leaving or women entering.
 
rcronk said:
First of all, Mr. Whiting is asserting that it can't be proven or disproved through DNA evidence for the reasons he has given in his paper. Therefore, we don't know for sure whether the statement is true or false by means of DNA testing. Again, if you have a problem with his assertion, let me know and I'll forward it to him and he can reply to you directly. Let's continue the discussion on the moderated thread, where I've posted a reply just now.
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Agreed. See my response to this post there.
 
ChristineR said:
There's no known mechanism which causes a surplus of females in a population other unequal emigration or immigration or killing the males. To have a polygamous society that lasts for any number of years you have to have an isolated population that is somehow importing females or removing males.
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Yes, agreed. What does this have to do with killing males and taking their stuff?

The polygamist colonies in Utah are socially isolated and essentially tribal, even though they aren't that far removed from the general population. Large percentages of young males are forced leave the colonies for the larger population.
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?

Now you have shifted from killing males to forcing them to leave.

You said:

Polygamy seems to mostly flourish in societies that are centered around killing other men and taking their stuff.
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I don't think this is true and I think you now agree with me, right?
 
diogenes - I just posted on the moderated thread so it should be coming up soon. I think that might answer your question.
 
Now the Mormon church is saying that the genes of prior native Americans that we know were there from at least 9000 years ago-- who were from Aisa-- must have swamped the genes of the Lamanites or something to that effect-- it's an apologetic argument for why we don't see genes known to have originated in Middle Eastern populations of the given time period in any of the Native Americans-- the only possible genetic signatures from the area (and/or from Europe) come from later known mutations.

But the Mormons, like many, confuse "race" and ancestry. Race is a human construct based primarily on skin color-- but it's not very reflective of ancestry. For example, you can look at Barack Obama and not have the slightest clue as to where any of his 4 grandparents were born or 8 great grand parents, etc. ... we can look very similar to people who are not closely related to us at all (just as unrelated people with Down Syndrome look similar) and we can look very different from our own parents or siblings--even different "races". My mother was a dark Italian; my dad was very white aryan looking-- I look all Italian (though lighter than my mother)--but my brother looks very white-- like from a different "litter".

The Mormons used to teach and have revelations (from god) about "races"-- but we know now that races are not an accurate reflection of ancestry at all.
Thomas Jefferson has descendants that would be considered "African American" though they have as much European ancestry as many "non-African Americans". (And, technically, all Americans have ancestry from Africa--because all humans do.) The Mormon church has long associated lighter skin with "goodness" and darker skin with "badness"-- We now know that skin color is a genetic legacy of having ancestors in climates where one shade gave a survival advantage to those who had it and depend on how many copies of melanin making genes you get.

Neanderthals, who are our genetic cousins... and whom some Northern Europeans may have in their direct lineage were probably light skinned--because they lived in colder climates and could use the vitamin D absorption advantage-- they are the people associated with "cave men" and "savages"-- Genetics has served to illuminate just how related humans are and how much "race" is an illusion of being very visual "us vs. them" entities. Much injustice has been done with the notion of "preferred races", and it seems like the Mormons are trying to rewrite what their "prophets" (who are supposed to be talking directly with God) are saying. Like the Pope, the Mormon prophet is said to be infallible.

So many infallible guys-- you'd have thunk the almighty would have given the job to a woman-- (or just come down here himself with his "message".)
 
Just to clarify, I don't speak for the Mormon church. The First Presidency (which consists of a president and two counselors) and the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles (um, there's twelve of them :)) speak for the church. So if I say something, don't say "the mormon church says" say "rcronk says".As for the age of the earth, I don't know if there's an official stance on evolution or the age of the earth but I've heard some people look at the "6 days" as more of "6 creative periods" of an unknown length. That's just an unofficial guess though. As for evolution, I don't know - obviously parts of evoluton happen and are beneficial to living things like natural selection, etc. I've never seen any official stance though.
 
I'm kind of lurkin now that this has become a more personal experience exchange, but I'm still interested, so if I may ask of the above post, what does it actually mean "to speak for the church"? Do all these 15 have to agree on everything, and if not why not, since my understanding is that they all speak to God (I'm not talking of entertainment budgets here)?
 
If there is a churchwide statement to be made, they generally do it unanimously as all 15 or sometimes as 3. Every 6 months, there is a worldwide meeting called General Conference and they can each give talks on whatever topic they want and so in that forum, they're not delivering a unanimous message.
 
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