DNA and the Book of Mormon

Can't we lay this question aside once and for all? Reading here and there that "Mormonism has been proven wrong by the DNA of American Indians"  has itself been shown to be not only wrong but just plain silly for so long that I'm tempted to throw a shoe at the computer every time I see it.

But it persists. So once again:

• The Book of Mormon does not say that the American Indians are Jews in disguise. It does say that two men, Lehi and Ishmael took their families and left the Holy Land in 600 B.C. Both these men, though they resided in Judah, were of the House of Joseph, not Judah.
• Mormons do not believe the American Indians are one of the Ten Lost Tribes. As someone has astutely pointed out, if we knew where they were they wouldn't be "lost". As in the case of invaders everywhere, the victorious parties take over the most desirable lands, ports of entry, and other such things. Soldiers, craftsmen or shipbuilders may be taken away, but the butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker is left where he is to continue producing food and durable goods for the conquerors. The Soviet Union collapsed in living memory. Ask yourself: Where did all those people go? 
• DNA has nothing incontrovertible to say about the origins of the American Indian. For one thing, DNA deteriorates over time, especially when introduced into a new group. Lehites intermarried with the existing population. It would be nothing short of amazing to find their DNA here after 2600 years (even if we knew what their DNA looked like, which we don't.)

It's popular, even among some scientists, to say that DNA proves that the American Indian came from Asia. However, as late as 2010, National Geographic reported that:

Nearly all of today's Native Americans in North, Central, and South America can trace part of their ancestry to six women whose descendants immigrated around 20,000 years ago, a DNA study suggests.

Those women left a particular DNA legacy that persists to today in about about 95 percent of Native Americans, researchers said.

The finding does not mean that only these six women gave rise to the migrants who crossed into North America from Asia in the initial populating of the continent, said study co-author Ugo Perego.

The women lived between 18,000 and 21,000 years ago, though not necessarily at exactly the same time, he said. . . . The six "founding mothers" apparently did not live in Asia because the DNA signatures they left behind aren't found there, Perego said. They probably lived in Beringia, the now-submerged land bridge that stretched to North America, he said.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/pf/20897672.html

Evidence for diverse migrations into the New World also comes from Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) research on living American Indian populations. These studies have consistently shown similarities between American Indians and recent populations in Asia and Siberia, but also unique American characteristics, which the very early crania have also shown. Evidence for only four mtDNA lineages, characterizing over 95 percent of all modern American Indian populations, may suggest a limited number of founding groups migrating from Asia into the New World. Recently, however, a fifth mtDNA lineage named "X" has turned up in living American Indians and in prehistoric remains for which there does not appear to be an Asian origin. The first variant of X was found in Europeans and may have originated in Eurasia. Naturally, generations of conflict, intermarriage, disease, and famine would influence the genetic makeup of modern Native Americans. Further work with mtDNA, nuclear DNA (which is more representative of the entire genome), and Y-chromosome data, the male-transmitted complement of mtDNA, will permit better estimates of the genetic similarities between Old and New World groups and help to determine when they would have shared a common ancestor. 

 http://www.si.edu/Encyclopedia_Si/nmnh/origin.htm

Once again -- DNA, archaeology or any other scientific endeavor is so far unable to prove the Book of Mormon either right or wrong. But if you're going to condemn it, have the grace to read it first.

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