Chemistry plus Biology = Abiogenesis:

Repeat. Repeat. Repeat...... Relentlessly. Shamelessly. Eventually you're the only one still posting. Victory!

 

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Ok, can we admit that one (consensus) hypothesis is that bio-chemistry are the chemical compounds which are used in the physical structure of living organisms? This is not an extra-ordinary phenomenon and has a high probability of occurring during a few billion years of chemical compound forming, such as subduction of the earth's crust which may produce the bio-chemical compound vinegar. In this case it would be pressure as a forcing causality.

Because we cannot pinpoint the actual point of origin ( according to Hazen there may have been several points of origin, where conditions made it possible) , we have a perfect motive for asking questions about Abiogenesis.

But we can also ask if anyone can come up with a better general evolutionary Abiogenetic process than the generally accepted model.
If not, what is the use of questioning what is eminently reasonable and physically possible.

AFAIK, every other possible chronology would be much more complicated than a simple chemical ability to form bio-chemical compounds, some which were used in the evolution of living organisms. It is a complicated chronology, but the earth had 3.5 billion years to perform some 2 trillion, quadrillion, quadrillion, quadrillion chemical experiments. That's a lot of tries.

And we have convincing evidence of self-assembly into cellular structures. Again, nothing exotic about that, just a dynamic environment, within a range of conditions suitable for chemical reactions.

Seems that with such astronomical figures, probabilities may well turn into certainties and all we need do is to establish a logical model of the chronology from elementary chemicals into bio-chemical compounds, into organic structures. Which we have!

It kinda reminds me of asking how water boils and if you can analyze the process with any kind of precision?
Are there several ways of boiling water? On top of a mountain it takes a lower temperature for water to boil that in the valley. That's why it takes longer to boil an egg in the mountains.
What does all that mean?.....spooky stuff.....

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... unless you like your egg runny....

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Hazen, writing out long-handed that bold font number like that, makes it seem 'inevitable' that life would emerge just by sheer weight of numbers. Those 'huge' numbers are trivially small compared to the stupendous odds against any emergence of even one modestly complex biologically active molecule. Have you bothered to read that excerpted vid linked to in #53? I purposely chose it because at around 15min, it's salient points are not beyond most folks retention span. Start there at ~ 2:35min mark. Link again:

Much more details again in this full length vid:

Do yourself a big favor and spend the time to absorb to your best ability, what is presented there. You may still reject it all, but at least you should have some reasonable feel for what the real difficulties are in naturalistic abiogenesis, and be then able to distinguish to some extent hype from reality in mainstream presentations.

 

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Again you have it all arse up q-reeus. The mainstream science opinion is that Abiogenesis is the only scientific answer to how life emerged. That will be repeated and supported with links and papers, as long as is necessary to combat the so called invincible argument by your crusading and baggage burdened friend Tour.
No victory here, no requirement of any victory here, that is simply your own mind set and the reasons for your crusade here and in many other areas where mainstream science adheres to the evidence and scientific methodology, that just happens to offend your sensibilities.

 

You are avoiding the issue once again.Your religiously fanatical friend is the one spouting hype and tripe....It is he ably supported by you that is arguing against the whole scientific community. Religious agendas and baggage q-reeus are strong motivators and Tour going by his web page is more fanatical in his mythical beliefs then most. There is one fact that exists my friend, and that is life has emerged from non life and we only have one scientific answer for that.

And then we have some trying to install what has become known as "the god of the gaps"

What is eminently reasonable and physically possible, is also the only obvious scientific answer.

Is it really that spooky? I see it as kind of logical, when we consider the whole process from t+10-43 seconds post BB. Spooky to me is some all powerful all knowing magical deity that waves his hands and voila! Chemistry is so much easier to validate and accept.

 

Thanks for the link.

Well I'm not going to write a critique, other than to say this guy has no clue. His analyses are as shallow as he accuses current science of treating the subject. He makes totally unfounded statements of fact, which IMO, immediately makes all statements suspect. He is myopic in even suggesting that what nature does can all be duplicated in a college laboratory, after running to the drugstore to buy chemicals. Please, gimme a break! That's just ridiculous...

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Robert Hazen refutes every argument this guy makes and Robert Hazen made a persuasive argument about the high probability of an evolving chemical world which eventually produced bio-chemicals at extremely small scales which then grew more complex and adapted to the environment over enormous time spans and spaces and availability of raw chemical materials.

THERE IS NO IRREDUCIBLE COMPLEXITY ANYWHERE IN THE UNIVERSE.

a) He cited chiralty as an obstacle to the formation of bio-chemical compounds, but chiralty is essential for biology.
Each "handed" molecule has specific bio-chemical properties. Hazen addresses this in his lecture.
b) he treats nature as this passive condition and completely overlooks that nature is a 14 billion year old dynamic universal condition ranging from near total stasis to extreme dynamics as found in supernovae.
And earth has had 3.5 billion years to perform its own global laboratory experiments on a simultaneous global scale.
c) he has no clue the role bacteria play in the formation of a biome. A human is 90 % bacterial. Did not hear him talk about bacteria. He shows a skin sample and treats all the bacterial population as part of the human cell structure.
I bet he has never even heard of "quorum sensing" (Bonnie Bassler)
d) he throws out numbers as if that somehow affects the probability of complex pattern forming. He does not mention that formation of complex molecules already happens in cosmic clouds. (Lou Almandola, NASA).

He cites staggering numbers of chemical objects in the universe and proposes that they could never self-organize. And he never mentions the numbers associated with natural self-organizing chemistry on earth, such as cell formation, which Hazen demonstrates is one of the easiest things to do, from just the goo of an experiment that produced the wrong desired result, but yielded self-formation of cellular structures as an unexpected benefit.

Hazen makes the persuasive argument that it is precisely the large scales and time spans and number of available conditions, raw elements and compounds, which allows for a near infinite number of chemical reactions to occur, resulting in an ever increasing compexity.

This guy has never heard of the "exponential function", he sounds strong, but he is merely a blow-hard who has only critique but no substitute for the knowledge he is rejecting..

Instead he speaks of running to the drug store to buy chemicals and treats chemistry as this linear chronological event, rather than incredible numbers of simultaneous 3D events which themselves have simultaneous interaction with slight differences (mutations).

He accuses nature (the hubris is astounding) that it cannot do this or that and that without these things it is impossible to form life or even form complex organic compounds capable of making complex patterns. He does not tell HOW IT CAN BE DONE, because he has no clue how it can be done and IMO, is therefore disqualified from critiquing current hypotheses.

He makes sweeping statements of impossibility, yet does not offer a physical answer to any of the areas currently under investigation.

Apparently he is an expert in nanotubes but never heard a peep about the computational abilities of nanotubules. Now that should directly related

This guy is a fraud in mind. He did not offer any new knowledge, but only destruction of established knowledge, based on completely flawed logic.

I see a lot of similarity between Tour's state of knowledge and Michael Behe (irreducible complexity), the guy responsible for the establishement of Young Earth museums where the Man and Dino lived together and the Flintstones are shown as documentaries.

Apparently he studies nanotubules, but never once mentions the computational abilities of nano-tubules in the formation of complex bio-chemical structures and patterns and MITOSIS i.e. LIFE!

Mitochondria is facilitated by nanotubules, why not educate us on what you know about nano-tubules and not on the power and potential of the universe. Enlighten us on intercellular (not interstellar) communication.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5474251/

 

And this explains it......
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Tour#Religion

Tour is a Messianic Jew:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messianic_Judaism
Messianic Judaism[a] is a modern syncretic[1]religious movement that combines Christianity—most importantly, the belief that Jesus is the Hebrew messiah—with elements of Judaism and Jewish tradition.[2][3][4][5] It emerged in the 1960s and 1970s.

 

Here's another critique of this James Tour.....
https://sandwalk.blogspot.com/2014/03/a-chemist-who-doesnt-understand.html
LAURENCE A. MORAN

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Larry Moran is a Professor Emeritus in the Department of Biochemistry at the University of Toronto. You can contact him by looking up his email address on the University of Toronto website.

The article concludes thus.....
"I suppose I'm going to be labeled as one of those evil "Darwinists" who won't tolerate anyone who disagrees with me about evolution.1

I'm actually not. I just don't like stupid people who think they are experts in evolution when they have never bothered to learn about it. Here's my advice to graduate students in organic chemistry: if you want to know about evolution then take a course or read a textbook. And remember, there's nothing wrong with admitting that you don't understand a subject. Just don't assume your own ignorance means that all the experts in the subject are wrong too".

 

Here is another critique, which highlights this bloke's short comings and baggage far better then I ever could. I mean to be honest, I had never heard of this turkey until it was raised here!
https://www.quora.com/Why-does-Dr-James-Tour-say-that-science-refutes-evolution-1

"Dr. James Tour is on the faculty at Rice University. Rice University is a private school, very friendly to business and industry. It has a fairly substantial research science program, and has Tour who is a synthetic organic chemist who specializes in nanotechnology.

But that doesn’t mean Tour knows squat about evolution, evolutionary theory, or other aspects of science outside his field. Like many other people, scientists and nonscientists, he has the ability to compartmentalize knowledge and faith and believe contradictory things, even things that are blatantly incorrect.

So Tour starts his world view with the idea that the Bible is completely reliable, as a literal reading. Personal Statement He believes in miracles. He believes Jesus is the Jewish messiah.

So Tour has a problem. He believes that he must believe in order to be saved. So if he is faced with evidence in the scientific world that might contradict his faith point of view, he will do almost anything to justify his faith point of view.

Humans are wired that way. We have a hard time escaping our past. We are not intrinsically logical creatures. We overlay onto natural phenomena mystical reasons. We talk about “luck,” “karma,” and “God.” A person escaping a car crash gives God praise for not dying and says God was good to him. Of course, the other person who died can’t say a thing. And we wonder, why did he die? Was there some “reason” other than the trauma of the car crash?

Tour may be a fine scientist in his area. But he is a flawed human being like everyone else. And like most people heavily invested in religion, he goes out of his way to not deal with the more devastating indictments against faith in the supernatural.

The fact that Tour believes does not mean that you should believe. Nor does the fact that Stephen Hawking (who did spectacular work in the theory of black holes) does not believe mean you shouldn’t believe.

Ultimately, each person will have to make up his or her own mind on that subject. Because God is a topic without physical evidence. All we have is assertion by people and writings styled as religious “authorities.”

That answer was given by
Raymond Griffith, Mathematician, Science Enthusiast, and Amateur Theologian

 

Religious authorities who know so much more than Scientific authorities.......

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Well well well. A totally wasted effort. At least I now know what (and it seems who) you are thoroughly committed to. Just not as crude and militant and underhanded as paddoboy is about it. Pointless arguing on every misrepresentation or basic misunderstanding you made there. Nearly all your statements/points are manifestly illogical or irrelevant or just plain wrong period. You have profoundly distorted all of Tour's arguments. Profoundly. Amazingly, I think innocently so. Will never deal with you again on this topic.

 

Moran's article focuses exclusively on nuanced disagreements he has with Tour's brief departure from abiogenesis into biological evolution. In particular macroevolution (he has to acknowledge Tour has no argument with microevolution). Moran has nothing to say that touches on Tour's mainstay critique of abiogenesis. Nothing. That should, but won't, be telling you something! Like you, he also chooses to harp on his religious convictions and insinuates, without any evidence, that religion drives (and distorts) his claims against naturalistic abiogenesis and/or biological macroevolution. And the story is repeated with minor variations in your following post. That none of his listed critics attempt to refute him on abiogenesis is what stands out. Very clearly.

 

Unfortunately Tour does not advance a better replacement, in spite of his vehement denial of concensus science on the universal evolutionary processes. I'll stick with the science. I wish he would.

Ask if Tours arguments would stand up in Court or would suffer the same fate as Behe's utter defeat of his argument of "irreducible complexity" in the Kitzmiller Trial?

Note; this was related to the school curriculum and the shaping of young minds.

 

Technically, irreducible complexity in the context of biological evolution is outside my commitment to not engage you again - on abiogenesis. So just to inform you the scene has moved for protagonists on either side, try actually studying this one:
https://evolutionnews.org/2019/02/p...-critics-falsely-claim-he-ignores-exaptation/
I know in advance your general reaction, but it's for the record.

 

Wasted effort??The only wasted effort was your effort to argue the facts according to mainstream science, by submitting some video of an anti Abiogenesis, anti Evolution, religious fanatic as some sort of voice of authority. That failed for obvious reasons.

And as usual, you keep avoiding the fact of the matter that at one time there was no life then there was, and we call that process Abiogenesis, and it is the only scientific answer at this time...fact!

 

Moran's article focuses on the agenda laden ramblings of a religious fanatic, who opposes evolution, and as such despite your take on the rebuttal, is obviously also an example of one who also opposes Abiogenesis.
Abiogenesis is the generally accepted scientific theory/process for life from non life. There is no need for mythical beings in the sky.
The whole process of the evolution of space, time, matter, energy, alludes to and supports the final steps of Abiogenesis and evolution...Plus of course the fact that we are here. Just as outlined in the OP and supported by a number of articles and papers.

Again, I believe this bloke sums up Tour beautifully and accurately.....
https://www.quora.com/Why-does-Dr-James-Tour-say-that-science-refutes-evolution-1

"Dr. James Tour is on the faculty at Rice University. Rice University is a private school, very friendly to business and industry. It has a fairly substantial research science program, and has Tour who is a synthetic organic chemist who specializes in nanotechnology.

But that doesn’t mean Tour knows squat about evolution, evolutionary theory, or other aspects of science outside his field. Like many other people, scientists and nonscientists, he has the ability to compartmentalize knowledge and faith and believe contradictory things, even things that are blatantly incorrect.

So Tour starts his world view with the idea that the Bible is completely reliable, as a literal reading. Personal Statement He believes in miracles. He believes Jesus is the Jewish messiah.

So Tour has a problem. He believes that he must believe in order to be saved. So if he is faced with evidence in the scientific world that might contradict his faith point of view, he will do almost anything to justify his faith point of view.

Humans are wired that way. We have a hard time escaping our past. We are not intrinsically logical creatures. We overlay onto natural phenomena mystical reasons. We talk about “luck,” “karma,” and “God.” A person escaping a car crash gives God praise for not dying and says God was good to him. Of course, the other person who died can’t say a thing. And we wonder, why did he die? Was there some “reason” other than the trauma of the car crash?

Tour may be a fine scientist in his area. But he is a flawed human being like everyone else. And like most people heavily invested in religion, he goes out of his way to not deal with the more devastating indictments against faith in the supernatural.

The fact that Tour believes does not mean that you should believe. Nor does the fact that Stephen Hawking (who did spectacular work in the theory of black holes) does not believe mean you shouldn’t believe.

Ultimately, each person will have to make up his or her own mind on that subject. Because God is a topic without physical evidence. All we have is assertion by people and writings styled as religious “authorities.”
That answer was given by
Raymond Griffith, Mathematician, Science Enthusiast, and Amateur Theologian

 

Really? Are you going to rehash irreducible complexity again? Are you calling Behe as a reliable confirmation of Tour's position?

Tour is advocating for irreducible complexity in case you hadn't noticed.

Too complex to break down in indvidually functional parts and too complex to have self-assembled......Bah...

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I would like to hear what Tour has to say about micro-tubules and their connection to the quasi-intelligent chemical language and information transmission (mytosis, structural integrity) in all eukaryotic organisms, as well as in some older prokaryotic organisms for different purposes.

I'd like to hear what Tour has to say about the astoundingly elegant functional structure of microtubules. If they are "irreducibly complex" or just a naturally evolved chemical transport network. Slime Molds.

Are you reading this?

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4594612/

As far as irreducibly complex, you cannot get much simpler that the slime-mold. And for all its simplicity it has managed to migrate all over the earth and adapt to the prevailing ecology, pretty clever isn't it?
It has no brain. It's got microtubules!

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microtubule

Slime molds,

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slime_mold

Intra-species communication.....

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Irreducibly complex?.....

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Unfortunately you keep confusing issues. Something noted by many others in other threads on various topics. Anyway:
This thread topic is meant to be exclusively on abiogenesis. I linked to Tour on that on-topic topic. You brought in Behe and irreducible complexity in the context of biological evolution i.e. post abiogenesis. Apples are not oranges.

As far as Tour advocating IC in the context of abiogenesis (or even if it's relating to biological evolution), I'm completely fine with that. As you don't want to follow objectively his arguments, just go with whatever you are comfortable with. The Hazen picture.

Bah is not a strong counterargument. Did you perhaps not click on the following link within that article as per #93 and read through Behe's response to critics there?:
https://evolutionnews.org/2019/02/train-wreck-of-a-review-a-response-to-lenski-et-al-in-science/
As for your subsequent post re Tour on microtubules and intelligence - maybe start another thread and engage someone interested. Abiogenesis - it's impossibility via unguided naturalistic processes is the show-stopper to all subsequent biological developments. And I know your entrenched viewpoint there so don't keep engaging me on it.

 

As I have inferred many times, and as Raymond Griffith, Mathematician, Science Enthusiast, and Amateur Theologian, has also inferred here, the problem is deep seated....I mean arguing with Creationists and religious fanatics, is truly banging your head against a wall...submit articles, submit papers, etc etc, talk logic and it is all ignored due to their incredible mind set against anything and everything that attempts to invalidate their supreme Lord and Commander so to speak..The need to dismiss science or claim it is invalid is because science has actually pushed any need for any deity back into near oblivion, and they will stand and fight tooth and nail, rather then admit to the fact that any ID is superfluous and just not needed, due to the scientific explanations that are now available...anyway Raymond sums it up beautifully......

https://www.quora.com/Why-does-Dr-James-Tour-say-that-science-refutes-evolution-1

But that doesn’t mean Tour knows squat about evolution, evolutionary theory, or other aspects of science outside his field. Like many other people, scientists and nonscientists, he has the ability to compartmentalize knowledge and faith and believe contradictory things, even things that are blatantly incorrect.

So Tour starts his world view with the idea that the Bible is completely reliable, as a literal reading. Personal Statement He believes in miracles. He believes Jesus is the Jewish messiah.

So Tour has a problem. He believes that he must believe in order to be saved. So if he is faced with evidence in the scientific world that might contradict his faith point of view, he will do almost anything to justify his faith point of view.
Raymond Griffith, Mathematician, Science Enthusiast, and Amateur Theologian