It’s not a “retreat”. Hancock attempted to reframe GE as if it were only about the present and the future (in order to justify changing which version of Ne he would look at). That is manifestly wrong, and as I showed in the debate, you can read it straight from the source, Kondrashov’s own paper, to see that. Of course I do believe all LMEs are on the path to eventual extinction, unless God intervenes first.