![FairMormon Logo](https://www.fairlatterdaysaints.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/2021_fair_logo_primary.png)
FAIR is a non-profit organization dedicated to providing well-documented answers to criticisms of the doctrine, practice, and history of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
(Created page with "{{FME-Source |title=Question: What effect did the 90% death rate in the New World after European contact have on genetics and its relationship to the Book of Mormon? |category...") |
(→Question: What effect did the 90% death rate in the New World after European contact have on genetics and its relationship to the Book of Mormon?=) |
||
Line 4: | Line 4: | ||
}} | }} | ||
<onlyinclude> | <onlyinclude> | ||
− | ==Question: What effect did the 90% death rate in the New World after European contact have on genetics and its relationship to the Book of Mormon? | + | ==Question: What effect did the 90% death rate in the New World after European contact have on genetics and its relationship to the Book of Mormon?== |
===Approximately ninety percent of the Amerindian population died out following contact with the Europeans=== | ===Approximately ninety percent of the Amerindian population died out following contact with the Europeans=== | ||
Approximately ninety percent of the Amerindian population died out following contact with the Europeans; most of this was due to infectious disease against which they had no defense. <ref>Suzanne Austin Alchon, 'A Pest in the Land: New World Epidemics in a Global Perspective,' Albuquerque : University of New Mexico Press, c2003. | Approximately ninety percent of the Amerindian population died out following contact with the Europeans; most of this was due to infectious disease against which they had no defense. <ref>Suzanne Austin Alchon, 'A Pest in the Land: New World Epidemics in a Global Perspective,' Albuquerque : University of New Mexico Press, c2003. |
Approximately ninety percent of the Amerindian population died out following contact with the Europeans; most of this was due to infectious disease against which they had no defense. [1]
Since different genes likely provide different resistances to infectious disease, it may be that eliminating 90% of the pre-contact gene pool has significantly distorted the true genetic picture of Lehi's descendants. Studies of pre-Columbian human remains have not shown any extinct haplotypes—as one would expect given the small contribution made by a Lehite colony. Gene frequency, however, could well have been altered by such a dramatic die-off, suggesting that caution should be used in assuming that modern Amerindian populations are an identical match for pre-Columbian gene frequencies.
Notes
FAIR is a non-profit organization dedicated to providing well-documented answers to criticisms of the doctrine, practice, and history of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
We are a volunteer organization. We invite you to give back.
Donate Now