PROVO — There is no way to prove or disprove theories of people who criticize the Book of Mormon's authenticity based on DNA testing, but genetics sometimes can be helpful in current family-history research, according to a forensic DNA scientist.

John Butler told hundreds of people during a series of lectures at Brigham Young University's annual Campus Education Week that there is no known reference sample from which to draw any genetic data about people chronicled in the Book of Mormon. Butler said he has worked with the U.S. government for the past 15 years to improve forensic DNA testing worldwide.

The Book of Mormon is "not descriptive enough (regarding ancestral origin) to provide definitive calibration points with which to make confident scientific conclusions," he said, labeling the claims of critics as "pseudo science."

Read the full story at MormonTimes.com