Well, let’s start with the paper you pointed to! “‘Breakthrough’ could explain why life molecules are left- or right-handed”, this was the opinion of the article in “Science”. Great! But that’s not what they did, they only have an explanation for two of RNA’s four nucleotides. But the title said “why life molecules are left- or right-handed”, Which would include all of RNA’s nucleotides, and even all life molecules, if it was true! But alas, it’s not.
So Tour’s point is correct, what they do is not what they claim.
Nor have they denied that he challenged them, specifically! I also note here that our Joshua Swamidass and Sy Garte, not long ago, set out to explain how evolution works to James Tour. Tour sat down with them, and as a result of his talk with Swamidass, modified his web site’s comment on evolution. But Swamidass it seems didn’t answer all of Tour’s questions, per this video with Rob Stadler 10 days ago, titled “The Incompetence of Evolution”. But Garte, when challenged, said basically, “Welcome to biology, Jim”! And Tour just eventually let the response pass after a while, and stopped pressing him on his unanswered challenge. I conclude, therefore, that Tour was not lying.
Stop lying. I only issued one challenge, and you did not answer it. You "answered: some other “challenge” that you just made up yourself.
Another lie. You have been consistently insisting that Axe had responded to Art’s 2018 article. True, you have been insisting that this was done thru what you wrote her, and what Axe had written in 2011. That just demonstrates how perpetually confused you are.
More lies. I have already linked to where he responded to your comments. I won’t do it again.
But, it would be nice to get a clear statement from you on this subject: Douglas Axe has never responded to this article by Art Hunt, despite the fact that he was explicitly invited to do so and had responded to previous things written by Art on this forum. Do you admit this is true?
First of all, that is a news article written by a staff writer at Science it is not a statement from scientists themselves. I will readily admit that news writers and publicists will commonly exaggerate or misinterpret the details of a study when writing for the public. This is unfortunately the case.
However, in this instance there is no such exaggeration. Let’s look at the title, for starts: “‘Breakthrough’ could explain why life molecules are left- or right-handed.” Note the word I bolded: “Could”. Do you know what it means? Hint: it does not mean that anyone is claiming they have answered the question once and for all.
The rest of the article continues in this vein (all emphases mine):
In three new papers, researchers suggest magnetic minerals common on early Earth could have caused key biomolecules to accumulate on their surface in just one mirror image form, setting off a positive feedback that continued to favor the same form. “It’s a real breakthrough,” says Jack Szostak, an origin of life chemist at the University of Chicago who was not involved with the new work. “Homochirality is essential to get biology started, and this is a possible——and I would say very likely—solution.”…
The quest that began with Pasteur isn’t quite over, though. One loose end, Sasselov acknowledges, is that RAO has only been shown to lead to the synthesis of two of RNA’s four nucleotides, cytosine and uracil. It isn’t known to produce the other two, adenine and guanine, although Sasselov says there’s a “big push” to search for RAO reactions that could do it. If they can, the mystery of biological handedness might be another step closer to being solved.
So no bold heuristic proclamations there. Just cautiously optimistic explanations of the works possible significance, along with clear acknowledgements of the work’s limitations and the need for further research to be done.
Seriously, is that the best you can come up with? If so, you might as well give up right now and admit what is already obvious: James Tour is full of shit, and so are you.
Hydrothermal vents are hot. The surrounding local deep sea water is cold. Between those regimes there is a temperature gradient where exchange and mixing of any produced substances would take place, and complex molecules could find zones of stability. I do not subscribe to any particular OoL scenario, but the objection that hydrothermic conditions would be too extreme is witless given the full range available.
Besides, the existence of extremophiles is empirical demonstration that complex molecules can hold up just fine in hydrothermal vents. ID persists in lecturing nature on what it can and cannot do, and nature laughs back.
No sir, I quoted one exchange, and you quoted the other, I did not make anything up.
No, I have been claiming all along that Axe responded to an email from Hunt, and the subsequent article on Panda’s Thumb. I quote Axe saying this. And who is “her”?
And I said we had an exchange, this does not imply that he addressed my points, nor does it show he did not withdraw.
I agree that Axe didn’t respond to this latest challenge from Hunt, I have mentioned repeatedly that I attempted to address what Hunt listed as his main concerns, and he wasn’t addressing my points, and again, withdrew. I don’t know if Axe in the past has responded to things written by Hunt on this forum.
And I don’t know why this seems to be so important to you, you admitted that Axe did respond to Hunt in the past, but why does he have to respond to everything Hunt posts somewhere? Let Hunt publish his objections in a journal, that would be a good way to ring Axe’s bell.
Yes, so how does the paper possibly explain “why life molecules are left- or right-handed”, if it is only about two RNA nucleotides? This title is certainly still misleading, even if it’s only about a possibility. And here is what you said, while linking to this paper:
So you do seem to be claiming that Tour is in fact, wrong in his statement, in emphatic terms, I might add. It seems you believed the paper definitely overturned Tour’s statement! It makes no sense to post a possibility like this, as some sort of solid refutation.
Maybe you should inform Ed Peltzer! This was his field. But the paper referenced does not make this part of their scenario, “Alkaline hydrothermal vents are among the most plausible environments for the emergence of life” was the statement, there is nothing here about moving around to more hospitable environments.
But I have mentioned repeatedly that OOL is not, is emphatically not about organisms, and molecules in them. It’s about isolated molecules developing, and hydrothermal vents are not a good place to do this.
And what happened to such molecules needing to move to more hospitable environments, if extremophiles and the molecules in them don’t need this? You seem to have contradicted yourself…
You are still lying. If you deny this, then quote where I challenged you to provide an example of scientists claiming to have hit a “home run”, and defined a home run as solving the homochirality problem.
It get tiresome correcting all your lies. Everyone else here probably recalls the discussion and what you actually wrote. If lying about it makes you feel better, be my guest.
It’s a typo. It should have been “here.” Seriously, you couldn’t figure that out?
Of course not. It would be foolish to expect you to actually admit that your points had been addressed.
Finally! Really, was that so difficult?
I will admit I made an error here. The previous article Axe had responded to was in Panda’s Thumb.
I don’t know which is more tiresome: Your ceaseless lies, or your shameless hypocrisy.
What is this entire thread, which you started, about in the first place? It’s about how some religious fanatic issued a specious “challenge”, based on his personal ignorance, to prominent scientists in the field of origin of life research, and that is was some humiliating embarrassment for them that they had not dropped everything, put their research on hold, and rushed to immediately answer his challenge.
Oh, but when the shoe’s on the other foot? “Why does (Axe) have to respond to everything Hunt posts somewhere? Let Hunt publish his objections in a journal.” Sorry, but in exactly which journal did Tour publish his “challenge”? Enlighten us.
Moreover, this would not still be an issue if Axe and the rest of the DI and its supporters simply accepted that Axe’s paper was hopelessly, fatally flawed and that it explained exactly nothing about how proteins evolved. But the DI continues to cite this paper as if it was some huge breakthrough that buried evolution once and for all.
If you can also admit the obvious truth, that Axe’s paper was an incompetent piece of hack work that failed to substantiate the grandiose claims ID proponents keep making about it (i.e. exactly the thing you accuse OoL researchers of doing, LOL), then we might then be making some more progress.
I don’t care that you haven’t included Tour’s invocation of Levinthal’s paradox in the list of things he does in fact think are issues for the origin of life. The fact is that he does think it is an issue, and that this proves the man has a very poor understanding of the question.
It’s right there in the video. He invokes it as an issue.
No what you was told is that in so far as you have more than one molecule, they will have interactions. This is simply unavoidable.
I’m not denying anything at all, and your understanding of the issue is so abysmal what you consider obvious should cause no-one any trouble at all.
A few cases in point: You had no idea what ATP was before you came to this forum, didn’t know how cells used it, had no idea it could diffuse across fatty acid membranes without complex transport machinery, and didn’t know scientists had demonstrated it could be used by encapsulated enzymes in models of primitive cells.
When Tour invokes the total number of potential interactions as something that somehow in his mind widens the gap between non-life and life, he implies it is something real that has to be somehow built, searched, or constructed.
He seems to suggest that if you can’t somehow get the whole thing (the entire potential interactome of a yeast cell), or at least a very large portion of it, you can’t have a functional lifeform. He obviously relies on the fact that “this number is big” as some sort of argument against the origin of life. He invokes the big number to “widen the gap” so to speak.
If you don’t think that is what he says, then it’s not clear why we have to think this is even an issue for the origin of life.
No one is claiming any interaction will do. What we’re saying is simply that you can’t avoid getting interactions as you add more components to a molecular system like a cell, so it’s no surprise that if you’ve added genes over evolutionary history you end up with a huge potential.
If you add just one more gene to an organism you’ve already unfathomably increased the number of potential interactions. But since the vast, vast majority won’t occur (they’re potential, not real), only those that do occur actually matter. This is really nothing but an argument for natural selection. That natural selection must be acting to favor and preserve good interactions, ignore neutral interactions, and suppress deleterious interactions.
That doesn’t answer my question. Why are you afraid of looking into the evidence for yourself? No faith?
Stop lying. It’s yet another example of avoiding the evidence for yourself. What people say about the evidence is not the evidence.
Maybe YOU could examine some of the evidence for yourself! Why does everything you write here indicate that you are unwilling and/or incapable, of doing so?
You miss things about biology and chemistry that high-school students understand, so your opinion in this matter is worthless.
Such as:
You would know where if you were capable of judging anything else about biology that’s been raised in this forum. Virtually, literally anything here. Few things are more basic, yet you remain obviously clueless.
Why? You merely asserted it without evidence.
They evolve so that their activity maxima match the ambient temperature.
How does PCR work, Lee? Why do we use Thermus aquaticus DNA polymerase instead of the E. coli ortholog that was used originally?
This has been explained to you in detail. Did you forget, or are you pretending to forget?
Certainly that’s literally the knowledge you claimed to possess, so you were certainly bearing false witness. Have you considered thinking more before writing? Maybe examining some relevant evidence, not hearsay?
That’s insane. Words have meanings. Moreover, it’s still a violation of the Ninth Commandment because you don’t know what they concluded, either. As I pointed out and you ignored,
My point is that Axe was lying, because JMB used anonymous review.
All an honest person can say is that ideally, they were experts, and ideally, they did a good job. I know of many, many deviations from that ideal from personal experience. You don’t, so stop pretending to know things you’ve never even thought about. Doing so violates the Ninth Commandment.
Stop lying. Stop pretending to know things you have no clue about. Have you ever been a reviewer? I’ve reviewed at least a hundred manuscripts.
Example of an editor choosing a completely unqualified reviewer: there’s a scientist with the same first/last name and middle initial as me. I’ve been asked to review papers in his field, not mine, by lazy editors using my personal email address. That single case alone falsifies your blatantly dishonest claim.
Yeah, well, the people writing headlines for Science probably assume their readers are not as stupid as you are.
Again, this is really the best example you can come up with? A single headline that might be misinterpreted by someone whose reading comprehension is not up to snuff? Do better, or give up.
Yes, it overturns his ridiculous claim that “no progress” is being made in efforts to address questions about OoL, including the homochirality problem.
Fail. The hot vents are literally bathed in cold seawater. There are temperature gradients at the vents themselves, so there is no need to move far.
No contradiction at all, I am saying it may work either way, in place or mixing in various zones.
Know one of the basic problems with guys like Tour and his followers? They are boring, devoid of curiosity. They are disinterested in solving problems in science, because it is the gaps that they treasure and form the core of their belief. There is no excitement at the prospect of discovery, because that just compounds the headaches. It is just a constant grey day drip of tedious rejection of the progress of science.
Because what people actually say (and actually what they really mean) is what truly matters if we are going to both defend or criticize it. If you attack a position nobody has actually advanced what have you really achieved?
I actually already did. We’re just re-hashing the exchange now. I already answered your challenge, it does in fact answer the challenge, your answers all proved you didn’t understand it. This is all repetition.
Yes, I’m going to do it again, right here: We won. We answered the challenge. I declare victory.
You coming back persisting in confusion, repeating already answered questions does not demonstrate otherwise.
Is that what I am saying? Hint: my question is rhetorical.
Either the things he says are wrong or they are right, regardless of his qualifications. But Dave Farina has a degree in chemistry and has in fact worked as an organic chemist. The fact that he makes a living now making youtube videos is irrelevant.
He has demonstrated time and again his understanding of biology, biochemistry, molecular biology, and the origin of life field is vastly superior to that of James Tour’s.
And you have demonstrated already that your own understanding of this topic is so abysmal you cannot possibly be the judge of that.
I don’t need a review of a debate I have seen myself multiple times. Including all the responses to it both Dave and James Tour have done.
This just isn’t true at all, and Dave specifically responded to Tour’s challenges (though certainly packaged in lots of insults). It’s just he did it mainly by referencing papers that answer those challenges.
Tour made a spectacle of screaming at Dave like an unhinged lunatic to try to goad him into drawing structures of reactions on a chalkboard, which would be a waste of time since the structures are in the papers Dave referenced.
Since all of Tour’s challenges have in fact been addressed in the literature (just not addressed to Tour personally, he’s an irrelevant nobody in a field he doesn’t work in and doesn’t understand) and Dave Farina has correctly explained where and how in numerous videos, that claim is of no value or consequence.
If you want to be lied to in 14 parts, I would recommend that too. It’s thick with misunderstanding and misinformation. And in fact you could get that explained to you by watching Dave Farina’s response in turn.
But you admitted that Axe responded to Hunt! My point was that Axe doesn’t need to respond to Hunt’s every challenge, especially if Axe’s response to Hunt has gone unresponded to, claiming Axe didn’t address what Hunt said. I pointed out to Hunt, that Axe did address what Hunt said, I went through each point Axe made, demonstrating their relevance. Hunt did not address what I was saying.
So pointing out that OOL scientists have not responded at all, within the 60 days of Tour’s challenge, or afterwards, is not unreasonable. Especially since people here have been pointing to papers that supposedly do answer one of Tour’s challenges, and I do keep pointing out how they do not. But that’s all the OOL researchers need to do! No need to put their research on hold, if they can just point to a paper or two that shows they have actually met one or more of the challenges.
This paper is a challenge to the OOL view: “Thermodynamic Limitations on the Natural Emergence of Long Chain Molecules: Implications for Origin of Life.” So Tour has publicly challenged OOL in a journal. Hunt should do the same, if he has a clear refutation of Axe’s paper. Certainly not every challenge needs to be a journal article. But Tour is doing this, in a paper, and directly communicating with OOL researchers, I think that’s reasonable. But Hunt is only posting on Panda’s Thumb and other such places such as here, he hasn’t sent another email to Axe, it appears, nor has he published his challenge to Axe in a journal, as Tour has done with the OOL research effort.
So why don’t you publish this refutation in a journal? In fact, why don’t you all refute Axe? There has been this long discussion of Axe’s paper, show me please one point that has gone unaddressed that you all have made, that has proven to be unanswerable. Just one.
Well, I have reasons to believe OOL research is not making progress! Tour keeps pointing out problems with their claims, and in their papers. And no one has addressed his challenges, no researcher, and no one here. But then no one seems to be able to show how Axe’s paper is refuted, not here, not at Panda’s Thumb, and certainly not in a note or an article in a journal. This is very odd, if the refutation is so conclusive, and so clear.
So you all are the ones not admitting obvious truth here, is my conclusion.
That’s because I won and you didn’t understand how. Given our lengthy exchange already, it has made me doubt in my ability to help you gain that understanding and I strongly suspect the problem is you have motivations that prevent you from thinking openly about the subject.
Since I don’t feel obliged to keep trying to convince a person that appears to me, to be quite frank, genuinely crazy, I just have to trust that fair and open minded readers of this thread can make up their own mind as to whether my claims of victory are justified or premature. I will leave with that.
“Thank you for your attention to this matter” - DJT
Axe has never responded to the article Art wrote in 2018 at all, never even acknowledged its existence. And, no, he did not adequately address the main concerns Art had raised from the outset, not to this day.
You disagree? Then you’re lying, stupid, or both.
Right. And then you flew off on your pink unicorn to slay dragons.
So let me get this straight. It is “not unreasonable” to expect busy researchers to put their lives on hold and respond to some fabricated “challenge” concocted by some ignorant, fanatical crackpot which does not even pertain to the present state of OoL research, within a completely arbirary 60 day deadline.
But for Doug Axe to ignore for seven years and counting criticisms addressed directly to him by an expert in the relevant field and which raises severe, specific and legitimate concerns regarding Axe’s methodology? Oh, totally fine and reasonable according to you.
Such hypocrisy.
Whoopie. Shit journal publishes shit paper. Film at 11.
Are you for real?
Again, are you fucking for real? Then what is this, then? Show me where you, Axe or anyone else has shown how the concerns raised by Art Hunt are not valid. Go ahead.
The journal was started by a bunch of creationists and is so abysmally bad they get basic, high-school level molecular biology wrong. Like, it’s comically stupid and bad. Literally comically bad.
