“From a practical point of view, that is the biggest problem with today’s genetic genealogy tests. In many cases, they can’t tell you what you don’t already know. And unlike DNA fingerprinting tests with error rates of one in a billion or less, the chance of misidentifying ancestral groups in these genealogy tests may be 5 percent or higher. With this chance of error, the test won’t be wrong about a full Native-American grandparent, but it might be wrong about a great-great grandparent. ”

If these tests have accuracy problems going back three generations, I imagine there are going to be serious problems going back two and a half thousand years.

Where does Nephi assert that his seed would not be utterly destroyed?

“but the complete replacement of Book of Mormon peoples, at least in terms of DNA”

Actually we’re just talking about how easy it is to find _evidence_ linking the DNA. Since our tests are imperfect, and we haven’t sampled the whole population, that is why the size of the direct male line becomes relevant. Lehite DNA is still there, we just don’t have tests for it ecept direct male/female line ones.

Nephi and Lehi asserted that their seed would not utterly be destroyed, according to the flesh, but would be preserved. I don’t understand the purpose of such a promise if their descendants were indistinguishable from any other inhabitant of the land.

RT’s comment about the preservation of direct-male and direct-female line descendants seems much more consistent with the promises of “seed” being preserved.

Yeah, basic …

Whatever man.

I love how people just throw out unbacked assertions and then label it as “obvious to anyone with half a brain,” and then expect us all to simply take their word for it.

Why should I believe you when you say it’s all “basic?”

Furthermore, what on earth does LDS leadership have to do with how much land is owned by native Americans in Utah? That’s purely a federal issue. You want to know why the “indians” don’t have more Utah land, go ask the feds. Brigham Young was actually fairer in dealing with the indians than just about any other community leader in the “wild West.”

By the way, the Mormons got driven out of Missouri largely because they were abolitionists.

If you’d actually read the Book of Mormon, you also would have come across parts where the Lamanites actually end up more righteous than the Nephites and have one of their own sent by God to the Nephites to call them to repentence.

It seems plain to me that Joseph Smith, and his book were actually more progressive on race relations than the rest of the US was at the time, and most of Europe, and Asia, and Africa (Asians and Africans at the time, quite frankly practiced and even encouraged slavery around Joseph’s time).

I mean, it’s all basic man. Right?