A brief history of the lies of Ugo Perego: the author of the Church’s Book of Mormon and DNA Studies essay.

[The Before]

...Those conclusions may ultimately be defensible from circumstantial evidence, but they still have to be argued. The existence of citations doesn’t by itself establish every inference Southerton draws from them.

Lol, please tell that to the Interpreter editors!!

Southerton didn't use the existence of citations to make his argument, he made his argument with quotes from specific sources, which he cited.

...So the citations establish things we can examine, which is good. My question is whether...

Setting up hypotheticals is interesting but please, just go ahead and make your arguments, using citations so people can see the context of your argument.

Let’s take Southerton’s #7, which strikes me as one of his strongest examples.

Southerton contrasts Perego’s 2025 comments about mtDNA being useful for “deep” ancestry with a 2017 paper Perego himself coauthored in which genome-wide autosomal data provided substantially greater resolution of population history.

That’s a legitimate comparison and potentially evidence that Perego knows his apologetic characterization is misleading. But I still don’t see the contradiction as self-evident. “mtDNA can be useful for tracing deep maternal ancestry” and “autosomal data can provide greater resolution for particular population-history questions” can both be true.

So here’s my specific disagreement: Southerton has documented two statements and interprets them as evidence of knowing deception. I think he still needs to show why those statements are technically incompatible, rather than simply emphasizing different strengths of two genetic methods in different contexts.

If they really are incompatible in a way someone with Perego’s expertise could not plausibly miss, then yes, that would be meaningful circumstantial evidence of deception.

I don’t think we need mind-reading or absolute certainty to conclude that someone lied. Knowledge and intent are routinely inferred from circumstantial evidence, just as we infer other mental states.

Suppose someone writes privately, “I know X is true, but tomorrow I’m going to tell TB that X is false because I need him to believe it,” and the next day we have a recording of him telling me, “X is false.” That seems like exceptionally strong evidence of a lie. We could invent alternative possibilities forever: perhaps he forgot overnight, perhaps the diary was itself deceptive, perhaps he was under duress, etc. But the mere logical possibility of those explanations doesn’t make them reasonable explanations of the evidence.

Your example is loose, however, my point stands as you failed to provide an example where anybody in the world in all of history has ever lied.

So perhaps I stated my standard too strongly if I gave the impression that Southerton needs direct evidence of Perego’s thoughts. He doesn’t. Circumstantial evidence can establish knowledge and intent.

Simon has made a reasonable case. I might not personally go so far to say it's a lie without further review of the material and I have no such plans in the works. Oh, with the exception of the accusation that Simon intentionally tried to get that professor in trouble by editing his emails and forwarding to SLC.

What I’m asking is what evidence gets us from “Perego made contradictory statements” to “Perego knowingly represented something he believed to be false.” His expertise, the nature of the contradiction, how unambiguous it is, its timing, whether the issue had been brought to his attention, and his subsequent behavior could all contribute to that inference.

I can't tell you exactly where the cutoff line is but I can give you examples of BYU professors doing similar things. A math teacher, in discussing a spanning set, invoked a Book of Mormon verse that says the Lords hand spanned the heavens. He must have known this is sort of ridiculous, but I grant full poetic license to make abstract and nutty observations in an attempt at spirituality.

In another example, in a Chemistry class, we were getting into radio-carbon dating. This brought concerns about the age of the earth. The professor waved it off saying that radio carbon dating isn't perfect. Was this a lie? Absolutely. Was it a big deal? I'm not going to say yes or no, perhaps he just wanted to wave away the problem so he could continue with his lecture. But yeah, that was a lie.

I think your chemistry professor example actually establishes the point I was making.

You say, “Was this a lie? Absolutely.” But you can’t read the professor’s mind either. You’re inferring from his expertise, the context, and what he was trying to accomplish that he knew “radiocarbon dating isn’t perfect” was being used misleadingly to wave away a problem.

That’s exactly the kind of circumstantial inference I’m saying we can make about Perego. We don’t need Cartesian certainty or an admission. We need enough evidence that knowing deception is the best explanation.

Interestingly, “radiocarbon dating isn’t perfect” is also literally true. So your example shows that contradiction isn’t even necessary. A technically true statement can be deceptive if someone knowingly uses it to create a materially false impression.

That’s why I’m asking whether Southerton’s evidence gets us there with Perego. In some of his examples, perhaps it does. But that’s an evidentiary question, not something made impossible because we can’t read minds.

[drumdude]

Sometimes it’s not necessary to spent a lot of time debunking someone when they make so many outlandish claims. It forms its own natural cumulative self refuting argument.

L Ron Hubbard is a good proxy to Smith. Most people don’t lay awake at night wondering if he really got the Xenu part right.

Simon doesn’t need a ton of systematic rigor to show some basic facts cast a lot of doubt on the Mormon truth claims.

[The Before]

Sometimes it’s not necessary to spent a lot of time debunking someone when they make so many outlandish claims. It forms its own natural cumulative self refuting argument.

L Ron Hubbard is a good proxy to Smith. Most people don’t lay awake at night wondering if he really got the Xenu part right.

Simon doesn’t need a ton of systematic rigor to show some basic facts cast a lot of doubt on the Mormon truth claims.

That’s fine, for Simon. I require a higher standard of evidence before I believe something to be true.

And no, I’m not Mormon.

[drumdude]

Sometimes it’s not necessary to spent a lot of time debunking someone when they make so many outlandish claims. It forms its own natural cumulative self refuting argument.

L Ron Hubbard is a good proxy to Smith. Most people don’t lay awake at night wondering if he really got the Xenu part right.

Simon doesn’t need a ton of systematic rigor to show some basic facts cast a lot of doubt on the Mormon truth claims.

That’s fine, for Simon. I require a higher standard of evidence before I believe something to be true.

And no, I’m not Mormon.

I’m of the opinion that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Those who are affirming the null hypothesis (Joseph was wrong) don’t have the burden of proof. There’s not a mountain to climb to prove their point. But it’s always interesting to see more evidence even in a casual setting.

[Marcus]

Lol, please tell that to the Interpreter editors!!

Southerton didn't use the existence of citations to make his argument, he made his argument with quotes from specific sources, which he cited.

Setting up hypotheticals is interesting but please, just go ahead and make your arguments, using citations so people can see the context of your argument.

Let’s take Southerton’s #7, which strikes me as one of his strongest examples.

Southerton contrasts Perego’s 2025 comments about mtDNA being useful for “deep” ancestry with a 2017 paper Perego himself coauthored in which genome-wide autosomal data provided substantially greater resolution of population history.

No, that was not the argument I read from Southerton.

He didn't say Perego’s 2025 comments were about "mtDNA being useful for 'deep' ancestry,"

He said

In 2025 Perego claimed mitochondrial DNA is better suited for “making ‘long-distance’ associations into the deep levels of generational inheritance” because recombination “complicates attempts to trace genetic signals back through the generations because one parent’s signal gets merged with the other parent’s”.[9] No modern geneticists would agree with these assessments...

He didn't contrast "Perego’s 2025 comments about mtDNA being useful for “deep” ancestry with a 2017 paper Perego himself coauthored in which genome-wide autosomal data provided substantially greater resolution of population history," he said

In a paper he coauthored with John Lindo in 2017 he has acknowledged the superiority of autosomal DNA in population genomic studies.[11]

So, what i see from southerton is that he is arguing that, to one audience, Perego "claimed mitochondrial DNA is better suited" to population studies, which Southerton states is a position taken by no other geneticists, while to his other audience, in direct contrast, he states "the superiority of autosomal DNA" in population studies.

That’s a legitimate comparison and potentially evidence that Perego knows his apologetic characterization is misleading. But I still don’t see the contradiction as self-evident. “mtDNA can be useful for tracing deep maternal ancestry” and “autosomal data can provide greater resolution for particular population-history questions” can both be true.

Except that's not what Perego said and that's not the issue Southerton is pointing out, as i showed above. You changed Southerton's statements of Perego's contradiction into two different statements.

So here’s my specific disagreement: Southerton has documented two statements and interprets them as evidence of knowing deception. I think he still needs to show why those statements are technically incompatible, rather than simply emphasizing different strengths of two genetic methods in different contexts.

As i read it, Southerton did show they were technically incompatible. You then (in my opinion incorrectly) interpreted Perego as "simply emphasizing different strengths of two genetic methods in different contexts."

If they really are incompatible in a way someone with Perego’s expertise could not plausibly miss, then yes, that would be meaningful circumstantial evidence of deception.

Reading what Southerton wrote, I am satisfied he did that.

[Doctor Scratch]

I hope folks will forgive me from hopping from thread to thread, but I wanted to cut and paste this from the Star Wars thread:

So what’s the Perego equivalent? If the evidence shows that Perego knew X, then deliberately told an LDS audience Y in order to lead them toward a conclusion he knew wasn’t supported by X, I’m perfectly comfortable calling that deceptive.

But the Obi-Wan analogy can’t supply that missing premise for us. Star Wars explicitly establishes Obi-Wan’s knowledge and his deliberate withholding. With Perego, that’s precisely the thing we’re trying to establish from the evidence.

And saying “Mopologists would never admit anything was covered up” doesn’t establish what Perego knew or intended in any particular example.

Let me just say at the outset that I am a layperson when it comes to the topic of genetics. But my take on Simon’s post is that there are aspects of the science that show quite clearly that the claims of the Book of Mormon are false, and that any expert in the field—including Perego—would be familiar with the data/science/etc. that explains *why* those Book of Mormon claims are false.

That said, I guess I can see your point. I mean, suppose we have a doctor or a surgeon who has been required to (e.g.) take courses in biology and physiology but who still holds out hope that the old ideas about the “four humors” is true, and when talking to the faithful, he omits what he’s been taught in his training and encourages his fellow religionists to go on believing in the four humors.

Is that “lying”? It definitely involves leaving out certain things that the doctor/surgeon knows. But what if he genuinely believes that the four humors are true, or will be proven true one day, or are crucial to faith? Is that still “lying”?

But like I said: in this case I would have to defer to Simon, since I don’t know what the fundamental knowledge would be, though Simon certainly makes it sound like this is very basic information that a well-trained researcher in that field would know.

Meanwhile, we have over half a century of Mopologists doing deceptive things. I don’t know if that counts as “circumstantial” evidence in your book, but to me it’s certainly a strike against Perego.

[Gadianton]

I think your chemistry professor example actually establishes the point I was making.

You say, “Was this a lie? Absolutely.” But you can’t read the professor’s mind either. You’re inferring from his expertise, the context, and what he was trying to accomplish that he knew “radiocarbon dating isn’t perfect” was being used misleadingly to wave away a problem.

No, it's proving the point I was making...

That’s exactly the kind of circumstantial inference I’m saying we can make about Perego. We don’t need Cartesian certainty or an admission. We need enough evidence that knowing deception is the best explanation.

That's exactly the kind of situation we have, my hesitation is that while I trust Simon well enough, I know next to nothing about DNA evidence and I haven't dug into the report myself.

However, you are definitely on track to become a sound apologist. Turning the entire thread into a debate about whether "lying" is too strong of a word is a skillful Mopologist's play.

[canpakes]

I interpreted this first point similarly. I don’t see the statement as a lie.

That said - and as others have pointed out - if there’s a question of either ‘A’ or ‘B’ being the hypothesis for something, where ‘A’ tends to support the Book of Mormon’s claims and ‘B’ does not, Perego seems invested in presenting only the ‘A’ argument to faithful audiences. The lie may not be in the use of any individual scientific analysis, rather it is in the weighting, suggested implication and subsequent presentation of them as an ongoing dialog with specific groups.

And Southerton, B. So where does that leave us, at an impasse? Moving closely to Agrippa’s trilema?

Myself, or Perego? : )

As for Southerton - in a practical sense, if Southerton’s position had only as much support amongst his scientific peers as Perego’s, then AT might apply to him, but it seems that he has escaped that limitation.

[The Before]

I hope folks will forgive me from hopping from thread to thread, but I wanted to cut and paste this from the Star Wars thread:

So what’s the Perego equivalent? If the evidence shows that Perego knew X, then deliberately told an LDS audience Y in order to lead them toward a conclusion he knew wasn’t supported by X, I’m perfectly comfortable calling that deceptive.

But the Obi-Wan analogy can’t supply that missing premise for us. Star Wars explicitly establishes Obi-Wan’s knowledge and his deliberate withholding. With Perego, that’s precisely the thing we’re trying to establish from the evidence.

And saying “Mopologists would never admit anything was covered up” doesn’t establish what Perego knew or intended in any particular example.

Let me just say at the outset that I am a layperson when it comes to the topic of genetics. But my take on Simon’s post is that there are aspects of the science that show quite clearly that the claims of the Book of Mormon are false, and that any expert in the field—including Perego—would be familiar with the data/science/etc. that explains *why* those Book of Mormon claims are false.

That said, I guess I can see your point. I mean, suppose we have a doctor or a surgeon who has been required to (e.g.) take courses in biology and physiology but who still holds out hope that the old ideas about the “four humors” is true, and when talking to the faithful, he omits what he’s been taught in his training and encourages his fellow religionists to go on believing in the four humors.

Is that “lying”? It definitely involves leaving out certain things that the doctor/surgeon knows. But what if he genuinely believes that the four humors are true, or will be proven true one day, or are crucial to faith? Is that still “lying”?

But like I said: in this case I would have to defer to Simon, since I don’t know what the fundamental knowledge would be, though Simon certainly makes it sound like this is very basic information that a well-trained researcher in that field would know.

Meanwhile, we have over half a century of Mopologists doing deceptive things. I don’t know if that counts as “circumstantial” evidence in your book, but to me it’s certainly a strike against Perego.

Yes, point taken. I’m a lay person too. It just bothered me that one scientist was calling another scientist a liar without actually knowing that to be true. Simon’s post seemed, to me at least, to be an outright angriff towards Perego, and then Simon disappears and doesn’t engage further.

But I suppose it really doesn’t matter.

That's exactly the kind of situation we have, my hesitation is that while I trust Simon well enough, I know next to nothing about DNA evidence and I haven't dug into the report myself.

However, you are definitely on track to become a sound apologist. Turning the entire thread into a debate about whether "lying" is too strong of a word is a skillful Mopologist's play.

I gather that’s your area of interest/research, but I assure you that I am only an apologist for not calling people liars without knowing that they are actually liars. I’m guilty of that.

…

You’re right about one thing in particular: I softened Perego’s wording when I paraphrased “better suited” as merely “useful.” That’s a fair correction.

I don’t think that quite settles the contradiction, though. The remaining question is whether the two statements are actually about the same genetic task. Saying mtDNA is better suited for tracing a particular maternal signal over many generations is not necessarily incompatible with autosomal data being superior for reconstructing broader population history.

So I think the next place to look is the 2017 paper itself. If Perego there acknowledges that autosomal data are superior for the same kind of “long-distance” ancestry inference he later says mtDNA is better suited for, then I agree Southerton has a much stronger contradiction than I initially gave him credit for.

But I concede that my previous paraphrase made Southerton’s example weaker than he actually presented it.

But notice how he posts once, then never engages again? Does he not allow criticism?

[Marcus]

Yes, point taken. I’m a lay person too. It just bothered me that one scientist was calling another scientist a liar without actually knowing that to be true...

You mean in your opinion "without actually knowing that to be true."

Simon’s post seemed, to me at least, to be an outright angriff towards Perego, and then Simon disappears and doesn’t engage further...

Hmm. Try reading back a little into Simon's posts, here and on reddit. In fact, he started several threads here last month, about topics related to Perego's use of DNA. They provide additional context you might appreciate.

He does participate only mildly here, but mostly he is kind enough to share his latest research and thoughts with us directly through the threads he starts. I, for one, am very appreciative that he keeps us in the loop and hope he continues to be so generous.

You’re right about one thing in particular: I softened Perego’s wording when I paraphrased “better suited” as merely “useful.” That’s a fair correction...

That's not the "correction" that was made, obviously, but your tactics are becoming quite clear.

...I don’t think that quite settles the contradiction, though. The remaining question is whether the two statements are actually about the same genetic task. Saying mtDNA is better suited for tracing a particular maternal signal over many generations is not necessarily incompatible with autosomal data being superior for reconstructing broader population history.

As I pointed out, that wasn't Southerton's argument. Why repeat again something that's not true?

So I think the next place to look is the 2017 paper itself. If Perego there acknowledges that autosomal data are superior for the same kind of “long-distance” ancestry inference he later says mtDNA is better suited for, then I agree Southerton has a much stronger contradiction than I initially gave him credit for.

Are you saying you didn't do that yet? Why not? I did, and I agree with Southerton's assessment.

...But notice how he posts once, then never engages again? Does he not allow criticism?

It's not really relevant to the discussion, but try reading through his comments here and on reddit. in my opinion your assessment is incorrect and reviewing his posts may give you another perspective.

Eta: I'll have to agree with Gad, you're well on your way to being a very adequate Mopologist!