Yet Gardner said that response can be attributed to what he called "the 'CSI' effect," referring to the popular TV series that depicts forensic scientists solving complicated questions about crime scenes using DNA evidence. Based on those fictional depictions, "One of the things we all know is that DNA proves pretty much everything," when in reality, there are major limitations on what it can define about family lineage.

Because most genetic mapping is done through mitochondrial DNA, which tracks only the female line, Gardner said the category of people excluded from being linked to a living person by genetic testing going back several generations is huge. "Most tests trace only a few of a person's ancestors and a small portion of their DNA."

He also referred to what is known to researchers as a "genetic bottleneck," where "only a few people survive" some major cataclysmic event "and we end up with only the DNA of the survivors and not the rest of the population. It's entirely possible other people were here that had different DNA, and we can't find it because they never made it through the 'bottleneck event."'

DNA tests also may report false positives or false negatives, he said, and there are many historical scenarios where physical evidence of things that are known to have occurred doesn't match what researchers expected to find using DNA evidence.

Latter-day Saint scientists never have disputed the movement of large groups of people from Asia to the Americas, he said, though many LDS members have grown up believing that the only people who ever migrated to the Americas descended from Lehi's family in the Book of Mormon.

"We're often trying to compare our traditions versus science, but what does the Book of Mormon actually say? ... No matter how many opinions someone might have about the Book of Mormon, if the opinion is wrong, it's the opinion that's wrong and not the book," Gardner said.

"What we know today about the Book of Mormon is more right than what we knew 10 years ago, and what we knew 10 years ago had some misconceptions. Our opinions will continue to change in the future, but that doesn't change the truthfulness of the book."

The daylong conference explored a variety of topics, including Chiasmus and other aspects related to in-depth study of the Book of Mormon. The annual event is sponsored by the Book of Mormon Archaeological Forum. For information, go to www.bmaf.org.

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E-mail: carrie@desnews.com