DNA, the Book of Mormon, Marines, Women, Names, and Smart Phones

The Book of Mormon, we’re told, is demonstrably false because the (unknown) genetic signatures of Sariah and others of Lehi’s company (in particular, the unnamed daughters of Ishmael) haven’t been located among the Amerindians of the New World — where wars and mass extinctions and genetic bottlenecks have undeniably occurred on a large scale.

Now consider this, from Sarah Zhang:

“Past migrations and invasions aren’t always evident in the DNA of modern people. In fact, the modern British population shows little genetic evidence of Roman, Viking, and Norman invasions—but this one data point is hardly enough to overturn the preponderance of historical evidence that shows these invasions did happen.”

See:

“A Kerfuffle About Diversity in the Roman Empire:  How a children’s cartoon ignited a debate about skin color in Roman Britain, and what it has to do with genetics.”

See also:

“Ancient invaders transformed Britain, but not its DNA”

And then consider this:

“Near Eastern languages in ancient America?”

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The results of science and empirical research can sometimes surprise, or even offend against seeming common sense.  That is, after all, one of the reasons why such research is worth doing in the first place.  If common sense were enough on its own, we could save a whole lot of R&D expense.  Consider this little item, for example:

“The US Marines tested all-male squads against mixed-gender ones, and the results were pretty bleak”

Oh well.  What are the lives of a few Marines, or perhaps even a few thousand Marines, when compared to the importance of being Sensitive, Non-Patriarchal, and Politically Correct?

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One of the writers I admire most is the great Thomas Sowell.  He wrote an article in August 2016, back during the Clinton/Trump presidential election, that I think I failed to share at the time.  But it will serve as an additional example of how empirical data can sometimes upend the conventional wisdom:

“The Pay Gap Myth and Other Lies That Won’t Die”

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Here’s a little article about an extraordinarily interesting study out of France:

“New Evidence Suggests Your Name May Change Your Physical Appearance”

I often ask myself, Can anything good come out of France?  Well, here too the empirical data confounds expectations, because it seems that the answer is Yes.

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Here’s a fairly longish article.  But it’s a really important one.  I strongly urge you to note it and to block out a time to read it if you can’t read it right now.  And if you have any ideas about how to cope with the problem that it outlines, please do share them:

“Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation?”