Spinoff Debate with Justin Roe

HGL's F.B. writings: Challenge not met · Correspondence of Hans Georg Lundahl: Spinoff Debate with Justin Roe

March 31st, 2026

Tuesday of Holy Week

Hans Georg Lundahl

Good day!

Is it OK if I keep your name as it is on the post, or you prefer to have it shortened?

HGL's F.B. writings: Challenge not met
https://hglsfbwritings.blogspot.com/2026/03/challenge-not-met.html

Justin Roe

What post, and why am I mentioned?

April 1st, 2026

Wednesday of Holy Week

Hans Georg Lundahl

1) The blog post I linked to.
2) Because you are in the debate with me which I posted.

Justin Roe

Interesting, what purpose does that serve?

Make sure to update your blog when people reply to you.

Hans Georg Lundahl

To document the debate.

I try to. Sometimes I make a new post instead.

Btw, in case you feel like referring to big fish like Tomasello, he made this an April Fools for you:

Correspondence of Hans Georg Lundahl: Tomasello Not Answering
Thursday, 28 September 2023
https://correspondentia-ioannis-georgii.blogspot.com/2023/09/tomasello-not-answering.html

Justin Roe

I'm still a little baffled at what you said about being skeptical that Hominidae forms a clade. Your initial question seems to be framed as some sort of "problem" for the evolution of humans from non-human great apes. As humans just ARE great apes if "great apes" is a real category, that doesn't make sense. What else would we have evolved from? The fact that a particular behavioral transition is still a bit of a mystery doesn't call the genetics into question.

Hans Georg Lundahl

Your initial question seems to be framed as some sort of "problem" for the evolution of humans from non-human great apes.

No.

It is the problem for the evolution of human speech from non-human ape vocal communications.

The one problem is not the other problem.

"What else would we have evolved from?"

Different question, but presumes, very definitely, we evolved. Which is between us, still to be proven.

Justin Roe

As there is not currently any one conclusively demonstrated hypothesis, I suppose one could call the development of human speech a "miracle" for now.

What exactly is your alternative hypothesis for the origin of the nested heirarchy of genetic similarity between all organisms, and especially between us and the other great apes? We and panins are one anothers' closest living relatives, followed by the gorillas, then orangutans. Additionally, we are more similar genetically to chimps and bonobos than rats are to mice or lions are to tigers. If we didn't evolve, every piece of evidence really looks like we did.

Hans Georg Lundahl

"As there is not currently any one conclusively demonstrated hypothesis"

Understatement of the year.

There isn't a hypothesis with sufficient detail to be understandable on this point.

"What exactly is your alternative hypothesis for the origin of the nested heirarchy of genetic similarity between all organisms"

There is some kind of common origin.

In the forum one of the common origins was supposed to be Evolution, what was the other one, again?

Justin Roe

You'll have to enlighten me. I'm unaware of any other potential mechanism that could result in such a heirarchy of similarity besides evolution.

Hans Georg Lundahl

I wasn't talking of another "mechanism" but of another origin ...

Justin Roe

If this is just going to turn into vague verbal volleyball, I'm out. Just make your point man.

Hans Georg Lundahl

Creation is a good explanation of why there would exist nested hierarchies, even if it's not a mechanical one.

Justin Roe

How so?

Hans Georg Lundahl

God, on this hypothesis has free will.

Free will implies some kind of logic.

Logic could produce nested hierarchies freely, rather than by a mechanism.

Justin Roe

Is the alternative hypothesis something like "God did it that way" then?

Hans Georg Lundahl

Yes.

Justin Roe

Is there any pattern that we could theoretically see that would be incompatible with that hypothesis?

Hans Georg Lundahl

I would say that a total difference of genomes and proteins across all creatures, no hierarchical similarities would be incompatible.

Because it would be random.

Justin Roe

But any degree of similarity, in any pattern, is compatible with "God did it that way"?

I should say "non-zero degree".

Hans Georg Lundahl

I would say so.

Apart from such similarity that a common ancestor seems obvious to common sense quite apart from the theory of evolution.

Like hedgehogs evolved from a common hedgehog ancestor (a couple on the Ark) into 5 genera and 17 species.

Justin Roe

I guess I'm asking whether "God did it that way" makes any specific predictions of what we should find when we sequence the genomes of organisms, which evolution does not? Is there some sort of "genetic signature" that lets us distinguish between organisms that do share common ancestry from those that don't, in your view?

Hans Georg Lundahl

"makes any specific predictions of what we should find when we sequence the genomes of organisms, which evolution does not?"

No, I don't think so.

This makes nested hierarchies a common prediction for Creationists and Evolutionists, so it cannot really be used as distinctive evidence between the theories.

The thing to look out for is not a specific signature in genome sequences, but an obvious one in the function. Between man and what most would call apes, there is speech and lack of it.

Justin Roe

No, it doesn't. If any pattern of similarity is compatible with creationism, then a nested heirarchy is not a prediction of creationism. Evolution explicitly predicts that we should find that pattern and no other. Accommodation and retrodiction are not prediction.

Hans Georg Lundahl

"If any pattern of similarity is compatible with creationism, then a nested heirarchy is not a prediction of creationism."

We do not have a fully nested hierarchy.

On CMI you can find exceptions.

You should by the way say that they are not a specific prediction of creationism only.

"Evolution explicitly predicts that we should find that pattern and no other."

I think CMI has examples refuting it.

Your methodology seems very fuzzy in the outline, it's only precise in observation ... but not in analysis.

"Accommodation and retrodiction are not prediction."

Can they be confirmation?

Justin Roe

"Can they be confirmation?"

Not really, but they aren't disconfirmation either.

[My main point]

Care to share a link to any examples of that?

"Your methodology ... [is] only precise in observation ... but not in analysis"

Where exactly could my analysis improve?

Hans Georg Lundahl

I actually looked up "nested hierarchies" on CMI, and this is the article I found, not exactly what I was "promising" (or kind of), here:

CMI: Cladistics, evolution and the fossils
By Shaun Doyle | Published 20 Aug, 2012 | Updated 12 Oct, 2012
https://creation.com/en/articles/cladistics

Point 1 to note, "nested hierarchies" are in evolution, on the analysis of Shaun Doyle, to a high degree treated as dealing with independent traits.

He considers, the actually dependent traits are giving a mirage of lineage.

Point 2 is, nested hierarchies were not predicted by evolutionists and then discovered, but discovered before, by Creationists (Linnaeus) and then accomodated by Evolutionists.

So, point 3, even supposing nested hierarchies were pretty exceptionless, you'd need to work on ... reading up things I wasn't a challenge on in CMI who answers them better than I do.

Justin Roe

That article doesn't seem to touch on genetic phylogenies, which are actually the thing typically used with extant lineages today. Like the article correctly points out, morphology, especially between relatively close relatives, is not always the best gauge of relatedness. Genetics, however, is. DNA similarity IS relatedness, as DNA is the physical "thing" that is passed from parent to child.

Hans Georg Lundahl

"DNA similarity IS relatedness, as DNA is the physical "thing" that is passed from parent to child."

Again presuming Evolution instead of proving it.

What you observed is that relatedness will (within some limits) lead to DNA similarity, what you wanted to prove is DNA similarity proves relatedness. Not same thing and not true.

Justin Roe

No, that's just literally how reproduction works. Whether it's mitotic or meiotic, the thing that the parent or parents pass to the child is their DNA. Evolution or not. There could be a perfectly flat fitness landscape and zero mutations (i.e. zero evolution occurring) and DNA similarity could be used to track ancestry with exactness.

Hans Georg Lundahl

"the thing that the parent or parents pass to the child is their DNA."

Granted on both sides.

When do you come to distinctive evidence?

Or is this your idea of April 1st?

Justin Roe

Good, now that we agree that DNA similarity is what determines relatedness, the nested heirarchy of genetic similarity among great apes mean that our ancestry lies within that group. See this paper:

Complete sequencing of ape genomes | Nature https://share.google/6Is7kkYiPRK27HpYD

Hans Georg Lundahl

"Good, now that we agree that DNA similarity is what determines relatedness"

Degree of relatedness in case of such.

We did not agree that DNA similarity proves relatedness.

Justin Roe

If we're going to do genetic last-thursdayism here then this isn't going to go much further.

Hans Georg Lundahl

The problem of last thursdayism isn't about miraculous origin.

It's about deceptive origin.

If I had no memories previous to being created as an adult, I could have no absurdity to see or find in everything being created before that.

But I have memories, i e cognitive acts, pointing back to a childhood.

DNA similarities aren't cognitive acts. They do not equal remembering being the same Tiktaalik that the Oliphaunt in the Room was a million plus years ago.

"in everything being created before that."

As in just or days before that.

Adam on the first friday was presumably a Last Sundayist.

Justin Roe

You're right, genetics are not the same thing as memories. They're something far more reliable. If two men, let's call them Dave and John, both claim to be my biological father, how would I go about investigating whether one of them is right? I'd make them take a paternity test, and whoever's genome I share half of is my father. Dave and John can't "misremember" their own genomes. A deity planting fake genetic similarity is even more deceptive than one planting fake memories.

April 2nd, 2026

Maundy Thursday

Hans Georg Lundahl

A genetic similarity isn't fake because it doesn't depend on common ancestry.

You can and even need to have a father.

But mankind (including Neanderthals and Denisovans, Soloans, Heidelbergians and Antecessors, at least) need not, and probably, bc of the linguistic problem, even cannot have an ancestral species or genus that's not human.

You don't get to say "just because we have chosen this methodology, God's duty to us is to refute any of our false conclusions according to this methodology, otherwise He's deceptive."

The similarity is totally genuine, but your conclusions don't follow.

Hans Georg Lundahl

[also shared link here]

Justin Roe

And yet, the same methods for analyzing genomes used for paternity tests also place us squarely within Hominidae, alongside the other great apes. Again, see this paper.

Complete sequencing of ape genomes
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-08816-3

Hans Georg Lundahl

"the same methods for analyzing genomes"

Has it occurred to you that you can be overdoing the scope of a method?

Justin Roe

If I'm "overdoing the scope", where exactly is the "line" you are proposing that genetics breaks down? Is it a certain number of generations? A certain degree of dissimilarity?

Hans Georg Lundahl

A very clear difference of what kind of creature it is.

In paternity tests a man is compared to a man.

In your misuse, a man is compared to sth which cannot ever learn to actually talk.