New Jeanson Book: Traced Human DNA's Big Surprise

Featured by AiG this day:

So far the Amazon reviews have been glowing. with advance praise as ground breaking from seminarians and AiG staffers.

Looking through the Amazon preview selection of the opening pages of the book, I could not find much to really respond to, which I do not mean as a criticism. If anyone has any better familiarity or awareness of the content, I would be interested. @Joel_Duff, is this on your week in creationism radar?

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A couple of comments on Aig’s review:

  • Historians need to add new events in history. For example, Traced reveals that today’s Native Americans descend from Central Asians who arrived in the early A.D. era.

Is Jeanson attempting to support the Mormon colonisation scenario?

Also, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob of the Old Testament still have clearly identifiable descendants living today, as do the ancient Persians.

I can’t help wondering how Jeanson obtained samples of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob’s DNA.

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Paging @Puck_Mendelssohn.

Lordy, lordy. I have a great deal on my plate right now at work but this might require reading. On the other hand, there are things which are too self-evidently ridiculous to benefit from ridicule.

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I recently finished the book as it’s been available as an e-book for a couple of months. I definitely wouldn’t recommend purchasing it that way. Half the book is maps etc in color plates in the middle of the book. I’ll probably also buy the hard cover soon.

I was going to post a review sometime in the next few days or week. I may do that here or in a separate thread. Or I may end up writing everything I wanted to say here if I end up responding to people’s questions about it. :joy:

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Which evidence did you find most convincing? No cutting and pasting, please.

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Well, I realized at some point months ago that I didn’t understand his argument correctly about population size and branches in the Y-chromosome tree. I read a few sentences in the book that explained it very simply and convincingly. I looked back and the thread I started two years ago and no one else here did either. Now that I saw what he is doing and how he used it, that’s the most convincing underlying method described in the book. But I wanted to write a review so I can explain that. :slightly_smiling_face:

But I would say the R1b haplogroup migration from Central Asia into Europe and into England in the most recent millennium is very convincing. I think his process to narrow down T as the Abrahamic line was convincing. I think where he put 3 sons of Noah on the tree is correct - it matches the Bible and Josephus.

I am by no means an expert in this field. I would however be interested to know what data Jeanson is citing for this claim, as Wikipedia is presenting a whole heap of information on the gene’s origin and dispersal dating back to between 12,500 and 25,700 years ago, citing a whole heap of sources (New binary polymorphisms reshape and increase resolution of the human Y chromosomal haplogroup tree for that dating, for example – full version available at https://genome.cshlp.org/content/18/5/830.full.pdf ).

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In what sense did you find it “convincing”? Did you compare his claims and evidence to that which already exists in the published literature? Please explain why you believe his claims are correct rather than any of the other ones.

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R1b was not represented in Europe before Charlemagne? I’m not sure I am following what you are saying correctly, or the significance with regard to Noah et al.

That the R1b haplogroup goes back to the vicinity of Central Asia is already the prevailing idea.

2015 - The phylogenetic and geographic structure of Y-chromosome haplogroup R1a

Based on spatial distributions and diversity patterns within the R1a-M420 clade, particularly rare basal branches detected primarily within Iran and eastern Turkey, we conclude that the initial episodes of haplogroup R1a diversification likely occurred in the vicinity of present-day Iran.

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Did it arrive in 1066? There hasn’t really been any large scale immigration event since then, until recently.

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I have done some searching here and there but there isn’t going to be a lot of differences in the geography of the haplogroups, especially their origin. The difference is in the “when.”

But I wasn’t correct earlier when I said the R1b’s migration from Asia into Europe was in the last millennium. It was in the last two. But this group fleeing Islam’s push into Europe, and the rest timing made sense. Cultural changes like the Renaissance or Reformation aren’t random but the result of major migrations - either new people, new ideas or invaders imposing their culture - and population growth.

That last sentence is my inference (not in the book). European history is well known, so if a 4500 year timeline is not correct, the compression of the mainstream timeline of the y chromosome haplogroups should fall apart especially toward the ends of the branches I would think. But I thought it works well.

@RonSewell @Roy

See my previous post while yours were probably waiting for approval. I should have been more careful with my words - yes it’s connected to Central Asia and to R1a through there, that’s agreed upon.

Anyway, read the book or watch the upcoming video series because I’m just going to mess up little details that are important. I could take a picture of the maps or quote the text but then you’ll just have more questions. :slightly_smiling_face: Jeanson is doing another 5 videos promoting the book and this wasn’t part of the last series, so I assume they’ll cover this because they’re addressing all the new stuff in the book since they finished that almost two years ago. However, I had seen a video on this that he did for AIG -UK sometime last year.

Again I ask:

I don’t have access to the book, and videos tend to be a very poor way for citing evidence for specific claims.

I did a bit more scratching around on the citations for the Wikipedia article and was surprised (though perhaps I shouldn’t have been) at just how massive the amount of research and data on this topic was. I was particularly staggered by this enormous study (to which somewhere in the order of one hundred scientists contributed):

(Unfortunately, the information that it had on R1b were apparently contained in the ‘Supplementary Tables’, which were not attached to the full(ish) version of the article I could access.)

Given this level of data supporting a history of R1b that goes back more than ten thousand years, I would suggest that for any credible effort to replace this with a two millennia timeline would require a massive amount of supporting evidence.

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Thanks for trying, but arguments are not evidence.

Explanations aren’t evidence either. Do you not see how you are avoiding the evidence?

Methods aren’t evidence.

Finally, maybe evidence! What is the evidence that convinced you that it occurred in the last millenium or two and not >>10 millenia ago?

Processes aren’t evidence.

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Would that “push into Europe” be the Ottoman expansion in the 13th century (which was in the last millennium), or the conquest of Iberia circa 700AD (which didn’t come from Asia).

As you say, European history is known well, and if the spread of the haplogroups happened during the last two millennia, it should tie in with known historical events and migrations.

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Math. From page 190 of the book:

Recall that the world population has recently spiked. Europe was no exception to this rule. Since a.d. 1400, the number of Europeans has jumped 12-fold. In a.d. 1400, it was 60 million; now it’s 740 million. Or, to turn the equation around, the 740 million Europeans alive today arose from just 60 million ancestors. The branches on the European family tree reflect this math. Today, 740 million branches exist. In a.d. 1400, only 60 million existed. To reduce 740 million to 60 million, you have to connect a whole bunch of branches.
In terms of percentages, 60 million is just 8% of 740 million. Consequently, by a.d. 1400, you have to connect 92% of today’s branches. Prior to a.d. 1400 is when the remaining 8% of the branches connect.

In Color Plate 222, this is why existing haplogroups “explain” so much of each population’s males. The vast majority of the branches on the European — and global — family tree have arisen within the last 600 years. The most recent branches alone tell over 90% of their sto-
ries. Less than 10% is all that’s available to tell the story of the earlier millennia of human history.

@John_Harshman said it best:

You understand that Jeanson’s force-fitting of the Y-chromosome tree to his model means that many human populations diverged from each other after 1500, right?

I was going to bring this up separately in my review, but it would be interesting to discuss now, since it’s somewhat related. These are the sentences I thought explained well why the tree has any relevance to population sizes.

From page 218:

Living people are the survivors of the rises and falls in human population sizes over the millennia. Their DNA-based family tree reflects the minimum human population size over the years. The branches from those people who died out or left no descendants won’t be reflected in the Y chromosome DNA of living people. [Emphases his]

From page 96:

Recall that family trees record changes in population size. When populations grow, the number of branches on the tree grows. When populations decline, the number of branches on the family tree declines. This same principle applies to the Y chromosome tree but with a slight modification. The Y chromosome tree that we’re using is based on DNA from the survivors of history. Trees of survivors don’t have branches that lead to peoples who went extinct. They also don’t reveal every instance of population growth. Periods of growth that were wiped out by declines are invisible in these trees. In other words, these trees record effective population sizes. If their ancestors underwent population growth, this shows up in their family trees only if the growth was not cancelled by later population declines. [Emphases his]

This uses ancient DNA, which they date using radiometric dating. My understanding of it (after reading Reich’s book) is they look for genetic fragments that are similar to show admixture has occured. The TLDR version I’d give is that ancient Central Asian people migrated into Europe and all mixed with each other but they were not related to ancient Greeks. I just saw a mention of R1 (along with I and C, IIRC) not R1b.

Concur. The paper you linked in your earlier post, New binary polymorphisms reshape and increase resolution of the human Y chromosomal haplogroup tree has a generous 236 citations.

Another major paper anchored by David Reich is The genetic history of Ice Age Europe

It appears that Jeanson will seize on any legitimate dispersal pattern originating from Mesopotamia or Turkey, and fenagle the age according to his jiggered genetic clock. @Joel_Duff just posted a relevant video on Jeanson’s evolutionary time vs Biblical time, which pretty much runs to an infinite asymptote as you approach Noah’s flood. It is of course a magicians’ distraction - fasten your eye on my genetic clock and do not look at varves, carbon dating, archeology, dendrochronology, sequence of events, or history.

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You understand that the three sons would all have the same Y chromosome, right? If, of course, they even existed, and the evidence is that they didn’t.

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Do you understand what “force-fitting” means? What you may think I said best is not at all what I said. Many human populations didn’t diverge from each other after 1500. That’s a problem with Jeanson’s model, not a sensible conclusion.

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