Mormons and DNA

Jonah Goldberg asks a scientific Mormon question on National Review Online's group blog, the Corner:

While sitting around LAX waiting for my plane, I found this interesting story in the LA Times. DNA testing is causing major problems for Mormon theology since it turns out that Native Americans aren't Jewish (I'll leave it to John Pod to come up with some "funny, but they look Jewish" jokes). It's more complicated than that, and this is probably not a new story to lots of Mormons. But I think it's pretty interesting nonetheless. It could also be the sort of thing that creates headaches for Mitt Romney. How does he answer the question: Do you believe science or the Book of Mormon?

This is what I emailed to him:

You are right; this really isn't a new issue for most of us Mormons. Mitt Romney could easily answer your question: "Do you believe science or the Book of Mormon?" with a simple "Yes." Many things are said (even by church leaders) that are not considered doctrine. We do believe that God speaks to the prophet in matters important to our salvation, but He also reveals truth through other processes--including science. Our knowledge is constantly increased in many ways.

Although there have been statements made in the past about the ancestry of Native American Indians being directly (and at least by inference, completely) descended from Israelites, there is nothing in the official doctrine of the church that requires us to believe that the ONLY (or even major) ancestors of Native Americans are Jewish.

The LATimes article is not too bad, although it really relies on Southerton's interpretation of LDS doctrine, and doesn't give a lot of time to those who have accepted this information without losing faith. The only real "fallout" I can see coming from this particular situation is a reinforcement of the notion that Mormons are anti-science. And we REALLY don't need more of that, but oh well.