Whiting argues that a small Book of Mormon colony entering an already populated continent would have a complex genetic history that present-day DNA could not straightforwardly reconstruct. Unknown founding lineages, intermarriage, genetic drift, and limited geography make both genetic confirmation and genetic rejection of that history difficult.
- Michael F. Whiting, “DNA and the Book of Mormon: A Phylogenetic Perspective,” Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 12, no. 1 (2003): 24-35, 115-116.
the Nephite-Lamanite lineage history is an example of a class of problems for which DNA evidence provides—at best—ambiguous solutions.