James Tour and his 60-day challenge

[lee_merrill]

@Mercer

@lee_merrill

@Mercer

@lee_merrill

What is silly is the claim that hydrothermal vents are a good place for life to emerge! “Alkaline hydrothermal vents are among the most plausible environments for the emergence of life”. Not so.

How much have you looked into the evidence?

Well, I listened to an expert talk about this..

Which expert, and how did you measure his expertise? Name both.

Why are you afraid of looking into the evidence for yourself? No faith?

Ed Peltzer, a retired chemist, whose field was oceanography, and he did research on hydrothermal vents. He was a student of Jeffrey Bada and Stanley Miller. Here is the video of his discussion with James Tour, which includes some discussion of Peltzer’s work on hydrothermal vents. And this would be one example of looking into the evidence myself, since I want to examine my beliefs and conclusions. Blind faith is not actually a Biblical concept, sorry, Dawkins and Kierkegaard.

@Mercer

@lee_merrill

…and I understood what he was saying fairly well.

I’m certain you didn’t.

Maybe you could watch the video, and point out the parts that only experts could understand. I don’t recall any.

@Mercer

@lee_merrill

One basic problem is that complex molecules go to pieces in the kind of temperatures found in hydrothermal vents.

Then how do the organisms that live there possibly survive?

They are indeed amazing creatures! You have no doubt heard of extremophiles, life exists in some very astonishing ways, in some very astonishing places. But this does not disprove the point, that complex molecules in isolation do not hold up in hydrothermal vents, that is the point you need to disprove, if you maintain that life originated, or even started to develop, in these places.

@Mercer

Did Tour mention them?

I would have to rewatch the video to be sure, I don’t recall that he did, likely because the discussion was about origin of life, not extremophiles.

@Mercer

@lee_merrill

Because their points are fairly accessible,

Simplistic, false claims typically are. You just falsely claimed that the organisms that live in hydrothermal vents either can’t exist or can’t have complex molecules.

Well, you need to show their claims are false, whether they are simple or not. And I did not claim that the organisms that live in hydrothermal vents either can’t exist or can’t have complex molecules. Again, I’m well aware of extremophiles, and I again point out that origin of life does not involve organisms, or the molecules they have.

@Mercer

Axe’s extrapolation is the one that is repeatedly regurgitated by IDcreationists, usually spicing it up by falsely describing it as an “estimate” or a “finding.”

You tell me what you think of it, but you still haven’t told me what it is!

@Mercer

It’s perfectly clear if you understand undergraduate-level biochemistry. Or even basic principles of measurement. Your replying by merely quoting Axe was an act of bad faith if you didn’t understand.

So the reviewers of Axe’s paper apparently didn’t understand undergraduate-level biochemistry. Or even basic principles of measurement. I consider that unlikely. And again, the claim is made that a more complex approach was better for some reason, without giving the reason.

@Mercer

Please stop this dishonesty. Your ONLY criterion for viewing someone as an expert is that they say something you wish to be true. The ONLY one. Then you hypocritically tout mostly irrelevant expertise that they have while ignoring all expertise of others.

But I’m not being dishonest, I’m in this forum, listening and evaluating what you and others say, as well as what ID people say. And you people are not making a good case for your view, I must say. Even a rube like me can find problems with your statements, none of your points even in this post have proven to be cogent and unanswerable. And then science itself is not some sort of area where we expect complete and unanimous agreement, and no discussion.

@Mercer

@lee_merrill

The reviewers obviously thought Axe’s simpler approach was adequate.

Another violation of the Ninth Commandment. You have no idea what the reviewers thought or didn’t think. There are known weaknesses of peer review.

Certainly I don’t claim knowledge of the reviewers’ actual thoughts! By “they thought” I meant “they concluded”. Another non-point, which is easily answered. My point is that it’s more likely that the reviewers did a good job, Axe even mentions that they were experts in their field. People don’t get to be reviewers for a scientific journal without some substantial qualifications.

[lee_merrill]

@Faizal_Ali

@lee_merrill

No, Tour’s claim was the OOL scientists predicted at conferences, several times that in a few years they would have made life in the lab. The claim, naming names, was in this video.

Did you lie, or just forget?

You gave two challenges, per the exchange I quoted, and the exchange you quoted! I answered both of them.

@Faizal_Ali

The issue is whether Axe has ever responded to the later article Art wrote in 2018. The facts are clear. He did not, and has not. Why do you feel the need to deny plain, obvious facts like this?

I agree, I don’t deny this.

@Faizal_Ali

Moreover, Art has also made clear that Axe has not actually responded substantively to his claims in the initial article. Axe wrote a bunch of words, sure. But that, by itself, does not make for a substantive response.

But I went through each point Axe made, showed Art Hunt how they were relevant, and he did object, but he didn’t refute the points I made. And then withdrew. And I have repeatedly challenged people here to show how Axe’s response is incorrect, and only Rumraket has actually set out to do this, and this discussion with him has tailed off, where he didn’t respond to my latest post.

Please defend your claim! And show where Axe’s response was insubstantial, or wrong.

@Faizal_Ali

So how is my response irrelevant and ineffective? Especially in view of this quote of Axe: “Here I summarize what appear to be the four most common objections to using my 2004 paper in support of ID, three of which trace back to Hunt’s blog entry, the fourth perhaps originating with Steve Matheson, who joined Art Hunt last summer for critical dialog…”

Your response was irrelevant and ineffective because it did not address, nor even indicate a basic understanding, of the issues under discussion. Much like your quote from Axe above is completely irrelevant to what you are responding here.

You really don’t know how to think properly, not at all.

Eh? How do Axe’s responses to four common objections not address the issues, and do not indicate a basic understanding of them? Or maybe you meant that I did not address the issues, or understand them? But if so, this is irrelevant, I was quoting Axe, not presenting my view.

I’m tempted to say to you that “You really don’t know how to think properly, not at all”.

@Faizal_Ali

That is not what defines a delusion. And, once again, it is completely irrelevant to what you are supposed to be discussing, which is whether psychiatrists conclude things to be wrong on the basis that they come from something called “unreasoning sources.”

Actually, I didn’t propose a definition of a delusion, and I meant what people usually mean by the term: “a false idea or belief” (Merriam-Webster). Exactly. And that includes what psychiatrists mean by this, which admittedly is more technical: “a persistent false psychotic belief regarding the self or persons or objects outside the self that is maintained despite indisputable evidence to the contrary” (Merriam-Webster, again)

And this thread is actually about “James Tour and his 60-day challenge”, we can continue discussing whether psychiatrists do in fact look for unreasoning causes when they listen to their client’s complaints, in the other thread where this came up.

[lee_merrill]

@Faizal_Ali

@lee_merrill

But Tour’s point is different, that what they do is not what they claim! They are claiming results outside of their papers, to the press and the public, that don’t match what they are actually accomplishing, which is very little.

Yes, that is Tour’s claim. And he is full of shit as usual. Certainly, you have failed to produce any quotations in which scientists actually do this.

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.

@Faizal_Ali

This is reminiscent of how Tour first emerged as a figure in the culture wars over evolution. He made the audacious claim that evolutionary scientists routinely admitted to him, in secret behind closed doors, that no one actually understands how evolution works.

To this day, not a single person has confirmed that they told him this. I conclude he was lying.

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.

[Faizal_Ali]

@lee_merrill

You gave two challenges, per the exchange I quoted, and the exchange you quoted! I answered both of them.

Stop lying. I only issued one challenge, and you did not answer it. You "answered: some other “challenge” that you just made up yourself.

@lee_merrill

I agree, I don’t deny this.

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.

@lee_merrill

But I went through each point Axe made, showed Art Hunt how they were relevant, and he did object, but he didn’t refute the points I made. And then withdrew.

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?

Art Hunt to Doug Axe: Invitation to Discuss

11 years ago (give or take), I posted an essay on The Panda’s Thumb that discussed what I believed to me some serious flaws in Doug Axe’s 2004 paper in the Journal of Molecular Biology, or rather, flaws in the ways that the ID community have used the conclusions from that study. Over the years, there have supposedly been some responses from Axe to my essay, but in all reality, to my knowledge, Axe has never addressed the central criticisms I discussed. Joshua has been kind enough to give me a place to revisit this, and maybe elicit a relevant response from the ID community – perhaps Axe, perhaps Anne Gauger, perhaps Brian Miller (the latter two of whom have both avoided my essay with what amount to ad hominem remarks.) What I will do here is: to as briefly as possible, recapitulate my central criticisms so that readers here may understand some of the issues; and raise some new concerns that arose (in my mind) a few years ago, after reading another of Axe’s papers. For starters, let…

[Faizal_Ali]

@lee_merrill

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!

Sure, let’s look at that.

https://www.science.org/content/article/breakthrough-could-explain-why-life-molecules-are-left-or-right-handed

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.

[RonSewell (RonS)]

@lee_merrill

But this does not disprove the point, that complex molecules in isolation do not hold up in hydrothermal vents, that is the point you need to disprove, if you maintain that life originated, or even started to develop, in these places.

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.

[lee_merrill]

@Faizal_Ali

@lee_merrill

You gave two challenges, per the exchange I quoted, and the exchange you quoted! I answered both of them.

Stop lying. I only issued one challenge, and you did not answer it. You "answered: some other “challenge” that you just made up yourself.

No sir, I quoted one exchange, and you quoted the other, I did not make anything up.

@Faizal_Ali

@lee_merrill

I agree, I don’t deny this.

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.

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”?

@Faizal_Ali

@lee_merrill

But I went through each point Axe made, showed Art Hunt how they were relevant, and he did object, but he didn’t refute the points I made. And then withdrew.

More lies. I have already linked to where he responded to your comments. I won’t do it again.

And I said we had an exchange, this does not imply that he addressed my points, nor does it show he did not withdraw.

@Faizal_Ali

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?

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.

[lee_merrill]

@Faizal_Ali

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.

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:

@Faizal_Ali

@lee_merrill

I will mention though the problem of Chirality-induced spin selectivity. Tour has spoken of the previous OOL view, that we could do without strictly homochiral molecules, and evolution could sort it out, along the way.

As usual, Tour is full of shit.

‘Breakthrough’ could explain why life molecules are left- or right-handed | Science | AAAS

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.

[lee_merrill]

@RonSewell

@lee_merrill

But this does not disprove the point, that complex molecules in isolation do not hold up in hydrothermal vents, that is the point you need to disprove, if you maintain that life originated, or even started to develop, in these places.

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.

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.

@RonSewell

Besides, the existence of extremophiles is empirical demonstration that complex molecules can hold up just fine in hydrothermal vents.

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…

[Faizal_Ali]

@lee_merrill

No sir, I quoted one exchange, and you quoted the other, I did not make anything up.

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.

@lee_merrill

No, I have been claiming all along that Axe responded to an email from Hunt, and the subsequent article on Panda’s Thumb.

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.

@lee_merrill

And who is “her”?

It’s a typo. It should have been “here.” Seriously, you couldn’t figure that out?

@lee_merrill

And I said we had an exchange, this does not imply that he addressed my points

Of course not. It would be foolish to expect you to actually admit that your points had been addressed.

@lee_merrill

I agree that Axe didn’t respond to this latest challenge from Hun

Finally! Really, was that so difficult?

@lee_merrill

I don’t know if Axe in the past has responded to things written by Hunt on this forum.

I will admit I made an error here. The previous article Axe had responded to was in Panda’s Thumb.

@lee_merrill

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?

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.

[Rumraket (Mikkel R.)]

@lee_merrill

@Rumraket

@lee_merrill

Um, where does Tour invoke Levinthal’s paradox in any of his challenges?

He has done so several times before. In that video at 41:19 he starts blathering about the protein folding problem.

But you changed the question! I was asking about his challenges, which is the point of this thread, where is Levinthal’s paradox in them?

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.

@lee_merrill

@Rumraket

Similarly, the number of potential interactions is a meaningless number. They never occur and don’t have to occur, and it isn’t a physically real quantity that has to be designed, evolved, searched, or otherwise. It’s a useless number.

But I was being told that if you reassemble a cell, you’ll get interactions.

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.

@lee_merrill

Presumably, one of this set of possible interactions. Some interaction certainly will occur, you’re denying the obvious.

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.

@lee_merrill

And who said this number is some sort of physically real quantity?

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.

@lee_merrill

It’s a total, you can’t pick it up and examine it like it was a toaster or something. And not all interactions are healthy, was my argument, and if you tell me that most any old interaction will do, well, that’s going to take some defending to be convincing, in the face of this huge number.

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.

[Rumraket (Mikkel R.)]

@lee_merrill

@Rumraket

Tour is so monumentally confused he seems to think Levinthat’s paradox shows proteins actually can’t fold at all and that God is required to fold them up, otherwise it would take more than the lifetime of the universe for a protein to search through the total conformational space before it found it’s local minima.

I’m sure you are misunderstanding Tour’s view, since Tour says he doesn’t think OOL problems will never be solved.

Okay, then I suppose this entire discussion is moot. Tour thinks these problems will be solved eventually. So why are you here, again?

[Mercer (John Mercer)]

@lee_merrill

@Mercer

Why are you afraid of looking into the evidence for yourself? No faith?

Ed Peltzer, a retired chemist, whose field was oceanography, and he did research on hydrothermal vents. He was a student of Jeffrey Bada and Stanley Miller. Here is the video…

That doesn’t answer my question. Why are you afraid of looking into the evidence for yourself? No faith?

@lee_merrill

And this would be one example of looking into the evidence myself,

Stop lying. It’s yet another example of avoiding the evidence for yourself. What people say about the evidence is not the evidence.

@lee_merrill

@Mercer

@lee_merrill

…and I understood what he was saying fairly well.

I’m absolutely certain you didn’t, given your lack of understanding of virtually everything related to biochemistry and molecular biology here.

Maybe you could watch the video, and point out the parts that only experts could understand.

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:

@lee_merrill

@Mercer

@lee_merrill

But that’s not the same as including it into a larger molecule, making like a nucleotide. That would be incorporating the ATP, not using it.

It’s precisely the same. The hydrolysis provides energy.

I’m not sure what you mean, ATP provides energy, and I need to know where hydrolysis enters the picture.

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.

@lee_merrill

But this does not disprove the point, that complex molecules in isolation do not hold up in hydrothermal vents, that is the point you need to disprove

Why? You merely asserted it without evidence.

@lee_merrill

And what happened to such molecules needing to move to more hospitable environments,

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?

@lee_merrill

Eh? How do Axe’s responses to four common objections not address the issues, and do not indicate a basic understanding of them?

This has been explained to you in detail. Did you forget, or are you pretending to forget?

@lee_merrill

@Mercer

@lee_merrill

The reviewers obviously thought Axe’s simpler approach was adequate.

Another violation of the Ninth Commandment. You have no idea what the reviewers thought or didn’t think. There are known weaknesses of peer review.

Certainly I don’t claim knowledge of the reviewers’ actual thoughts!

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?

@lee_merrill

By “they thought” I meant “they concluded”.

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,

@Mercer

There are known weaknesses of peer review.

@lee_merrill

My point is that it’s more likely that the reviewers did a good job, Axe even mentions that they were experts in their field.

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.

@lee_merrill

People don’t get to be reviewers for a scientific journal without some substantial qualifications.

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.

[Mercer (John Mercer)]

@Rumraket

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.

I don’t think he does AFTER participating here.

[Faizal_Ali]

@lee_merrill

Yes, so how does the paper possibly explain “why life molecules are left- or right-handed”, if it is only about two RNA nucleotides?

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.

@lee_merrill

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!

Yes, it overturns his ridiculous claim that “no progress” is being made in efforts to address questions about OoL, including the homochirality problem.

This is not complicated.

[RonSewell (RonS)]

@lee_merrill

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.

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.

@lee_merrill

You seem to have contradicted yourself…

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.

[Rumraket (Mikkel R.)]

@lee_merrill

@Rumraket

@lee_merrill

But I was being told that if you reassemble a cell, you’ll get interactions. Presumably, one of this set of possible interactions.

Who told you what, specifically?

Why does it matter?

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?

@lee_merrill

Why don’t you answer it?

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.

@lee_merrill

@Rumraket

Since the number of potential (not actual, not real) interactions that could occur never actually do occur and are in fact thermodynamically unfavored, they’re not real interactions that have to be sampled, searched for, designed, or whatever.

Wait, you’re saying that if you assemble all the components of a cell, no thermodynamically unfavored interaction sets will occur? Why is that?

Is that what I am saying? Hint: my question is rhetorical.

@lee_merrill

@Rumraket

I actually recommend you watch Dave Farina’s entire series debunking Tour. It’s quite instructive.

Ah, Professor Dave! But he’s not a professor, he’s a YouTube voice.

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.

@lee_merrill

And here is a summary from an ID perspective of their “debate”.

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.

@lee_merrill

Dave resorted mainly to insults, and did not respond specifically to Tour’s challenges.

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.

@lee_merrill

Like the OOL scientists have not responded to Tour’s challenges

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.

@lee_merrill

And I recommend Tour’s 14-part series debunking Professor Dave!

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.

[lee_merrill]

@Faizal_Ali

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.

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.

@Faizal_Ali

“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.

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.

@Faizal_Ali

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.

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.

@Faizal_Ali

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.

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.

[Rumraket (Mikkel R.)]

@lee_merrill

@Rumraket

@lee_merrill

But you were saying the ATP was being incorporated like a nucleotide, with other molecules. Nucleotides don’t change to some other molecule when they are incorporated.

In conclusion: I was right and you didn’t understand any of it and this is just you trying to distract from this fact.

Oops! You didn’t address what I said, you just claim victory.

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

[Faizal_Ali]

@lee_merrill

But you admitted that Axe responded to Hunt!

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.

@lee_merrill

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.

Right. And then you flew off on your pink unicorn to slay dragons.

@lee_merrill

So pointing out that OOL scientists have not responded at all, within the 60 days of Tour’s challenge, or afterwards, is not unreasonable.

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.

@lee_merrill

This paper is a challenge to the OOL view: “Thermodynamic Limitations on the Natural Emergence of Long Chain Molecules: Implications for Origin of Life.

Whoopie. Shit journal publishes shit paper. Film at 11.

@lee_merrill

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.

Are you for real?

@lee_merrill

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.

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.

Art Hunt to Doug Axe: Invitation to Discuss