Let’s slow this down, because this response is badly mis-aimed.
I am defending Tour on one point and one point only: that he does not argue “this is impossible.” Full stop.
The quotation was provided solely to document that fact. Not to defend Tour’s broader views, not to adjudicate abiogenesis versus evolution, and certainly not to endorse or critique his reasoning about cellular complexity. None of that is at issue here.
Recasting a clearly contextualized quotation — where Tour anticipates a question and answers it himself — as “confusion” or “Young Earth Creationism” is not engagement; it is deflection. It sidesteps the specific claim being corrected and replaces it with a familiar team-based dismissal.
That move is compounded by a straightforward ad hominem. Branding Tour an “ignorant Young Earth Creationist” is irrelevant to the point under dispute and functions only to poison the well rather than deal with the misattribution that prompted this exchange.
What makes this especially telling is how routine it is. Rather than anyone on @AllenWitmerMiller side simply acknowledging and correcting a plainly false summary, the priority appears to be shielding an ally at all costs — even if that requires ignoring the text being quoted. That is not accidental; it is how partisan discussions operate. A significant divergence from Our Mission and Values
An interactome is literally physically and chemically unavoidable. All organic molecules have some level of interaction with each other and the solute/solvent in which they find themselves. This is you using a word you don’t even know what truly means.
The word is just a human abstraction, not a thing in itself that has to be invented by evolution. When scientists draw diagrams of cellular processes with little lines and arrow between interacting molecules, the interactions don’t have to be somehow “invented”. There are no actual lines or arrows inside the cells. They’re just drawings that highlight interactions scientists think are important for some particular process of interest.
The molecules will interact regardless of whether there was a scientists around to draw a figure with arrows on it or not and call it “an interactome”.
Your non-response to my question is a tacit concession that you, too, think Tour has shown life’s origin of be basically impossible.
Despite him denying it in that particular instance, Tour wrote an article that quite emphatically argued that life should not even exist. This is quite clearly what he genuinely himself believes, and wants people listening to him to come to believe too.
It is clear that Tour thinks the problem is actually unsolvable, and all his fans come away from his presentations thinking Tour has shown it to be unsolvable. His adoring fans are all over youtube on nearly every video where some origin of life researcher is doing a presentation or lecture.
It’s why apologists of all sorts appeal to Tour’s articles and presentations, because if that was not the rather obvious take-home message, deceptively couched in oh so reasonable hedging language, Tour’s presentations and articles would have no apologetic value.
Let’s not kid ourselves or try to pretend this isn’t the reason Tour says the things he does.
Tour is trying to preserve the Christian flock, and has told many stories about Christians who come to him after his presentations/watching his videos telling him how he saved their faith, and that they were about to lose it when they thought scientists had already solved, or were close to solving the origin of life.
We can immediately see the non-sequitur logic that would be at work in the minds of people that hypothetically took Tour’s hedging comments above seriously. If these people found it plausible that the problem would eventually get solved (even if centuries to millenia from now), why would Tour have saved their fath? That obviously doesn’t make sense.
Do yourself and everyone here a favor, and concede (be genuinely honest) that a man can intend to convey a message that is different from the literal words he say. Like the mafia people coming to a shop owner demanding protection money saying “Nice shop you have here, would be a shame if someone were to ruin it?”
I could say more here about how Tour speaks, to borrow a Christian term, “with a forked tongue” and have different messages depending on who his audience is, but this should suffice. Are you a believing man, Sam? Is honesty a virtue in your religion?
I do think the difficulty of abiogenesis has apologetic value, what we want is the best explanation, so as not to take refuge in some remote possibility. Science of the gaps! You know. So I think the best explanation, based on what we know, is that a designer was involved, at the start of life. As John Lennox says, when we see text, words and sentences, we always infer an agent, not natural causes. But when we look at DNA, a word with billions of letters, we are required to say, natural processes! But that’s not an inference to the best explanation…
It is a statement (not a claim) that you were Quote Mining, and you were asked (by @mercer) to give the meaning in the original context, which seems very fair. If you insist on continuing the line of discussion, then it would be helpful to see that you actually understand what you claim.
If DNA is a word then it’s a word that evolved. Of course, we aren’t “required” to say anything. An inference to the best explanation would have to include an explanation for the evidence that DNA evolved from RNA by extending the pathways of de novo RNA synthesis (ribonucleotide reductases), but also why some of the enzymes are not universally shared between bacteria and archaea (Thymidylate synthase, ThyA used by bacteria, and ThyX used by archaea, perform the same reaction, but are non-homologous and use different cofactors and reactionmechanisms.)
You claim design is a superior explanation. Explain it then. Make your inference. Explain their distribution in different clades of life, different reaction mechanisms, and non-homologous sequences and structures.
Why would the designer invent something performing the same exact function, twice independently, but that accomplishes it by two completely different reaction mechanisms?
No. No need for me to explain. You have refuted the entire field by your bare assertion. Clearly.
ATP is an RNA nucleotide. If the protocell has an RNA based genome but cannot synthesize ATP itself, it needs to be able to pick it up from the environment. This will happen spontaneously if the concentration of ATP molecules outside the fatty acid membrane is higher than the concentration inside the fatty acid membrane.
So in this model, possibly based on a set of self-replicating RNA ribozymes, the RNA polymers inside the protocell are replicating, consuming the ATP (and other NTPs) inside the protocell in the polymerization reactions. This produces water and pyrophosphate as a byproduct, while lowering the concentration of ATP inside the cell relative to outside the cell.
But because concentrations will spontaneously equilibrate between the two, new ATP molecules will cross the fatty acid membrane from outside to inside, and the pyrophosphate and excess water will leave.
That’s why the membrane being semipermeable to begin with is actually critical for the functionality of protocells, because they cannot have evolved fancy transport machinery yet. So the cell must rely on basic physical mechanisms like diffusion, osmosis, and a host of related processes. These processes have been empirically demonstrated to work, which is why scientists consider fatty acid membranes attractive candidates for early cells.
Can’t explain it any better than that.
If being a “just so story” is a bad thing then I have bad news for creationism.
And no, since we have not solved the origin of life, I won’t claim to know every step in the process. The initial formation of a replicating genome is an unsolved problem, so there is no reason for me to speculate on it.
No, they wouldn’t. They would understand that by a protocar you meant something before modern cars with all the bells and whistles. I know that because I am among the set of “people” and I understood that.
So fine, let’s just call it interactions, how do you get all that started? That’s the problem. Just dumping all the ingredients inside a membrane won’t work. Saying “the molecules will interact”, well, yes, but specific interactions are needed, not just any old interactions. When interactions aren’t there, you get diseases, as mentioned in the Wikipedia article on interactomes.
I see the same thing in human design, in TDMA cellphones versus CDMA cellphones, in flathead versus phillips screwdrivers. Oddly enough, if the enzymes were shared, that would be evidence for evolution, too! It seems we are hard to please.
I didn’t make a bare assertion, though, I pointed out that real cells are not like that. You have however, made an assertion that needs defense.
But the question was, what good is ATP going to do if it gets inside a protocell?
But they don’t have any notable functions, though! That is the problem.
But Tour’s challenge was just to create a polynucleotide, not one that replicates or self-replicates.
But an engine is not just a bell or whistle, these protocells don’t need energy, they can’t use it. That’s what Tour keeps pointing out, these protocells are missing all kinds of needed stuff.
Huh??? I thought ion channels are “passive” while ion pumps are “active”. (I don’t know if those are the proper technical descriptions—but, hey, this topic was not my academic/professional field.) Ion channels are like water flowing downhill, ya just let 'em do their thing. But ion pumps are like devices which can direct water uphill despite gravity (and prevent backflow through a check-valve.) Did I get that right? I’m sure it is a very primitive comparison.
One could say the same when you quoted John Lennox characterizing DNA as “text, words and sentences” and saying we always infer “an agent” for those (we always infer humans). Total question begging with respect to DNA.
So at least two independent design-teams/companies competing to solve the same problem? Fascinating. Is there any limit to how many designers we are allowed to posit every time we find new components with multiple independent origins?
Phillips screwdrivers are improvements on flatheads, but that isn’t what we see with the independent origins of thymidylate synthases. Now you’re implying one was invented to replace and improve upon the other.
Ahh I see you got confused. (btw couldn’t we also say common design->common designer, different design different designers? How is design then a superior inferred explanation here?)
Anyway, if the two enzyme families had been similar in sequence, structure, and reaction mechanism, that would be evidence for common descent (they would be considered homologous). Since they’re not, they cannot constitute evidence for common descent and nobody claims they are. That is therefore evidence that they have independent origins.
However, as for the actual methods of origins, the data/patterns to be explained doesn’t stop there. Bacterial ThyA appears to derive from the folate-dependent enzyme superfamily (we therefore have evidence it evolved), while archaeal ThyX derives from the flavin monooxygenase–like protein superfamily. It’s not at all clear how or why you’d expect these sorts of branching relationships among enzymes on design.
Then what the hell is this?:
Depends on what’s in there already, doesn’t it? That’s just going to be the answer. If there is something inside that depends on ATP or that is aided by the presence of ATP, that will be good. If there is no, then it seems it would do no good. Whoah!
Another bare assertion.
Well I’m sure you can google like a champion to see what scientists are suggesting. Since this is an unsolved problem and there are many models, I can’t be bothered copy-pasting material here.
And a horse is not a bus, and a lamp is not a cloud.
Another bare assertion.
And we keep explaining that the mere assertions that these things are “needed” are extremely dubious. If you cut off my arms and legs I die. But the worm is a limbless lifeform continuing just fine without them.
The overarching theme of the history of life’s evolution is basically that things used to be different from how they are now.