Okay Gary, but it has to be said that you’re using the word fraud here, as opposed to inaccuracy, mistake, or error.
It would make total sense for Szostak to reject that he has “admitted to fraud”, while he might easily have agreed that the illustration contains an unintended mistake done by the artist.
Fraud implies deliberate intent to mislead, while inaccuracy, mistake, or error can all be completely sincere.
I quoted first John West who wrote;
According to Hurd, Tour was lying when he criticized as scientifically inaccurate two figures in Jack Szostak’s article labeled “Simple sugars.” When I asked Tour about this criticism, he responded that Szostak himself conceded to him that these figures were inaccurate! Tour wrote me:
As listed, the sugars do not look like sugars. One needs to have the double bond shown to one of the oxygen atoms or they are not sugars. Shown are a diol and a triol. Even Jack, when he and I spoke on the phone, conceded that point. And he blamed the error on a staff artist from Scientific American, and the mistake was transcribed when the article was used by Nature."
James Tour posted in his public reply;
“Here is the first point regarding Szostak’s article, albeit the lesser issue. As listed, the sugars do not look like sugars. One needs to have the double bond shown to one of the oxygen atoms or they are not sugars. Shown are a diol and a triol. Even Jack, when he and I spoke on the phone, conceded that point. And he blamed the error on a staff artist from Scientific American, and the mistake was transcribed when the article was used by Nature. I have written several times for the News and Views section of Nature and Nature series journals. It is an honor to be so asked. But we are asked as authors to show care to ensure accuracy. And the galley proofs are returned to us for our careful check and documented approval.”
Then Tour goes on to accuse Szostak of purposely misleading people.
Szostak had more to say than the two little items above.
Yes, and then you write Szostak to ask him if he has admitted to fraud and blamed the illustrators for fraud?
And he says no, of course.
But you could have asked him if he has admitted that his illustration contains a mistake/error/inaccuracy, and that it was done by the illustrator? And then the question is if he would still say No(no there was no error)?
I’m afraid your use of the word fraud in place of inaccuracy sort of poisons the well against the outcome of the answer to the question.
A) Did you concede that your illustration contain an inaccuracy? Is it the illustrator’s fault?
B) Did you admit that the illustration was a fraud? Did you blame the fraud on the illustrators?
Those are two very different sets of questions. It is entirely conceivable Szostak would have answered yes to both questions in A and no to both questions in B.
That was a clever rhetorical device-- stating your real views as if you were only making a sarcastic comment. 
So do philosophers, which is how atheist Michael Ruse can speak about the theological axe the New Atheists have to grind.
That isn’t obvious to me. Can you show me any places where he says or implies this?
I don’t understand how you know that this is his motivation.
Further, even if it were his motivation, wouldn’t it be more effective for him just to come out and say that natural causes can’t create life, and that supernatural intervention is needed? Why would he pussyfoot around? He has tenure, so he can’t be fired for talking about God. What motive would he have for being slippery, if he thinks what you say he thinks?
Before you get too excited, there is more than just the bald question. Szostak explained his version of the conversation very clearly. And, between John West, and James Tour they do basically claim that this illustration was faked, and that Szostak blamed others.
For the same reason that you and the Discovery Institute uses the same misleading tactic; the motivation is to make it sound like the objections raised are based on science, when they’re actually based on theology. DI’s entire strategy is predicated on presenting themselves as conducting genuine scientific inquiry, so they can be taken seriously as doing actual science (not theology).
It’s hilarious how you and DI attempt to present yourselves as objective and unbiased observers, making scientifically based criticism, when in reality you’re just religious apologists for a form of creationism. What’s even more hilarious is the fact that you think you’re fooling people successfully.
Okay then I’m looking forward to seeing if there’s any notable differences in the accounts.
Then it’s not science.
To me that’s a bit concerning. It seems like it would be possible that someone who has a sufficient knowledge of the topic to grasp the general contents of an article, but not enough to discern inaccuracies, to take inaccurate depictions in whatever article and understand them to be accurate statements because they are in a very prestigious scientific journal, and authored by very prestigious scientists, regardless of the fact that it’s pop-sci, and then go propagating those inaccuracies as if they were true? To me that seems unprofessional at best and misleading at worst. And regarding Tour, I would say he is simply focusing on what is in line with his own field. That seems perfectly reasonable to me.
I think I see your line of reasoning. Let me just throw out one of the issues that stands out to me and see how you respond.
Setting aside all of the problems that could arise just to get to amino acids, if we start with amino acids, how from random processes do they hook together to form proteins? From what I can gather the mechanisms in life today employ enzymes and DNA synthesizers which themselves are proteins.
I want to address the specific issue of the representation of molecules within the Szostak Nature “supplement”. In particular, in Tour’s apology he states:
As listed, the sugars do not look like sugars. One needs to have the double bond shown to one of the
oxygen atoms or they are not sugars. Shown are a diol and a triol.If one argues that the hydrogens can be left out and the multiple bonds need not be shown, that is simply incorrect. Without the addition of a double bond to the oxygen, then all remaining valance sites are presumed saturated with hydrogens. Likewise, under a standard where one is free to disregard both hydrogen atoms and the pi bonds, the “Cyanide derivatives” would be diaminomethane and 1-aminopropane. But if one argues that he/she could add as many hydrogen atoms as they like without showing the pi bonds, then the latter of the two “Cyanide derivatives” could be cyanoethene
(acrylonitrile) or cyanoethyne. The former could be H2N-C=NH or HN=C=NH or H2NCN (all hydrogen atoms shown immediately tell us that the last of these three listed here is cyanonitrene). Therefore, we cannot have it both ways. Either we fill in the hydrogen atoms or we show the pi bonds. But we cannot omit both. Moreover, the convention is that all heteroatoms should bear the hydrogen atoms. Only carbon can be devoid of hydrogen in the convention. But that is only to fill the valance states. So one needs to see the pi bonds if we are omitting the hydrogen atoms. Therefore, as drawn, the organic starting materials are glycerol (1,2,3-propanetriol or glycerin), ethylene glycol (1,2-ethanediol), diaminomethane (methanediamine), and 1-aminopropane. The latter two are troubling in light of the text which mentions iron cyanide. Iron(III) cyanide complexes are extremely stable; there is little free cyanide expected to be in the solution, so maybe Szostak is speaking of something else.
Tour’s not wrong, but is totally missing the point. He’s using a cartoon to argue about the science, and that’s just odd. Szostak wasn’t trying to give a detailed reaction scheme. Yes, the cartoon violated some common rules for drawing chemical structures, but why use a cartoon to argue over the science? It’s like trying to do literary scholarship on Toliken by picking at the animated Hobbit film.
Regarding:
Welcome to science communication! 
The problem is, of course, that it’s just not that straight forward or easy. Take this particular issue of “showing the double bond”. The problem is, bonds don’t really exist that way. A bond is an approximation to describe localized electron density. Here are some of the levels of describing molecular structure/bonds in acetonitrile (which has a triple bond):
Which one is the right one? Each one is useful in its own context. All of them are true, but none of them are 100% “accurate”. Notice that neither the simplest one (1) nor the most accurate one (5) show the triple bond. Which one is the the best for the novice?
I would agree except in this case he made a mistake and went after a strawman rather than directly addressing the science. It’s unfortunate because he is an excellent scientist and he voice is valued within his community. Instead of fighting and apologizing over a silly cartoon, we should be talking about the actual chemistry.
Part of the problem is that in his video, Tour explicitly stated that the cartoon (and the rest of the article) were part of the “primary literature”. Thus, he led the audience to believe that the cartoon did not represent a simplified diagram aimed at non scientists but instead was a representation of how sloppy OOL researchers are when communicating with each other.
I’m not sure if he’s apologized for this error (which I don’t understand how he could possibly have been unaware of). If he hasn’t apologized, he really should IMO.
I’m not sure I completely follow you here. In his video talk Tour focused for half an hour on what I think you’re referring to as the actual chemistry. Then he spent about 7 min talking about the inaccuracies of the literature of which the incident in question was about a couple of minutes. So how he went after a strawman rather than addressing the science I’m not quite clear on?
I do agree with you that the actual chemistry should be addressed, which is why I brought it up with @Rumraket and made a comment directed towards it at the end of my last post.
Tour:
As for the suggestion that Szostak’s article in Nature was primary literature: that was
incorrect. Though it was published in the best of journals and therefore garners
enormous influence in the scientific community, it was secondary. I concede with
apology. The primary literature on the racemic dehydrated RNA nucleotide synthesis is
addressed here. I hope this helps to clarify things.
Well, that’s good. I still don’t see how he could possibly have confused the two. The only thing I can think of is that he didn’t actually read the article.
And yet, how much ink and time have we spent on that one figure? It was probably a hurried, silly mistake by Tour to have gone after that figure, but the bottom line is he attacked something that wasn’t there. Szostak was not showing bad chemistry in that figure, just overly-simplified (and given the context of being for a lay-audience, not inappropriate) graphics. I just wish he would have left that bit out, as it’s caused so much grief for nothing.
Which is something I don’t understand. I think Tour was wrong to use the language he did. But I can understand his concern for accurate portrayal of information in an article by a leading OOL researcher in a top scientific journal. Not an unreasonable thing to do I don’t think. However, for those who disagree with him to spend do much time on the minor issue and not address the main issues that Tour brought up at all, at least to my knowledge, seems a bit suspicious to me.
Except it wasn’t an “article” in the sense of a research article. It was just a popular-level review of the field. Here are some elements that distinguish the “article” from primary literature:
It just doesn’t look at all like primary literature. Tour attacked it as if it was and that was a mistake (not a huge one). It’s caused a lot of grief and a loss of credibility for him, which is a real shame.
Well, yes, Tour’s “he’s lying to you” about something that obviously wasn’t a lie to other scientists was an easy shot to take by those who don’t like Tour. He left himself open to it, but yes, obviously they’re looking for something to go after.
WRONG.
Jim, you’re not doing much gathering before forming opinions.
Do you not realize that catalysts only speed up chemical reactions, that they can’t possibly change the directions of said reactions?
But on to your greatest of your multiple misrepresentations of easily-known facts in your short time here: the enzyme that catalyzes amino acids “hooking together to form proteins” is called peptidyl transferase. Your hypothesis of design led you to predict that it is itself a protein, a prediction that you falsely presented as fact.
How about if you complete the following sentence?
The enzyme peptidyl transferase is a ___________. (hint: look it up on Wikipedia)
So, in a way, you are doing science without realizing it. You have a design hypothesis that made a prediction that is false. What does that do to your hypothesis?
Exactly. There is simply no excuse for Tour’s false claim about that article, Jim. That’s why Tour straight-up apologized for that false claim. If Tour realizes there’s no excuse, why are you trying to manufacture one?
