Arguments that DNA "proves" the Book of Mormon false are based on knowingly deceptive interpretations of science and upon the absurd straw-man argument that the Book of Mormon teaches that Lehi, Sariah, Zoram, Ishmael, and the wife of Ishmael, plus Mulek and the unknown number of his party, are the sole ancestors of Native Americans. The Book of Mormon does not teach this, any more than the Bible teaches that Abraham and Sarah are the sole ancestors of all Jews. (It does teach that Ruth, the Moabitess, was an ancestor of David.) Nor does the Book of Mormon teach that the Nephites and Lamanites were ever the sole inhabitants of the American continent.
DNA studies of the origins of peoples are in their infancy. Scientists so far are mostly harvesting the low-hanging fruit of Y- and mitochondrial DNA, which represent only the purely paternal and maternal lines at the outside edge of our family tree. Because our pedigree doubles in size with each previous generation (until the probability of intermarriage of distant cousins trims its size and even shrinks it), we each have thousands of ancestors. So our purely paternal and maternal line ancestors contributed only a tiny fraction of one percent of our total genetic makeup.
It is almost a mathematical certainty that the founders of the Nephite and Lamanite civilizations have no purely paternal or no pure maternal descendants alive today, so Y- and m- DNA studies can't say whether Lehi et. al. or Mulek et. al. are ancestors among thousands of other possible lines. In like manner, it is almost a mathematical certainty that sooner or later my son's son's son's . . . son will fail to have a son. Only one of my 14 grandchildren (so far) carries my Y- chromosome. But I hope that many generations from now I will nevertheless have many descendants among thousands of possible random combinations of son to daughter to daughter to son, etc.
So DNA science, in its present state, can not "prove" that the founders named in the Book of Mormon could not be among the ancestors of many or perhaps even most Native Americans.
Moreover, there is no possible control group for what "typical DNA" for an "Israelite" living around 600 BCE would even look like. Even if there was a uniform genetic pool in the kingdom of Judah at the time, it has long since been thoroughly stirred by migration and intermarriage. The only known "characteristically Jewish DNA" is the male (Y) Cohen modal haplotype -- the purely paternal line of the small priestly caste, which has been maintained far above gentile probability by strict observance of Jewish law. On the female side, Scholars agree that another aspect of Jewish law, that allows for the conversion of gentile wives, has completely muddled the maternal lines of modern Jews, who typically have taken on the dominant genetic characteristics of the nations among whom their ancestors were dispersed. There are even black Lemba in South Africa who have the Cohen modal haplotype.
There were no Levites or Cohens in Lehi's group: they observed the Law of Moses under the Melchizedek, rather than under the Levitical Priesthood.
As for DNA evidence "for" the Book of Mormon, at least one common gene does, in fact, exist between present-day Native Americans and present-day Jews: the "X" haplotype.
<link>
For those who really want to understand the science, read this article by the Latter-day Saint scientist who "wrote the book" on forensic DNA typing:
<link>
Tracy Hall Jr
hthalljr'gmail'com
