But that isn’t what I said at all. Can you think of a way to contribute to the conversation?
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Tour is wrong. Embarrassingly so.
That’s an interesting opinion. Why do you hold it?
It is what you did though. Can you think of a way to respond intelligently to the criticisms offered instead of just mindlessly regurgitating Tour’s unsupported claims?
Tour’s comments, as related in this thread and elsewhere, indicate that he doesn’t really grasp the scientific process, and he believes that an entire vibrant, active, and revolutionary field of molecular biology research actually does not exist.
I have to believe that the things we are seeing attributed to Tour must be some sort of misunderstanding, these statements are so bad.
There isn’t any chemistry to discuss. In so far as Tour cites some chemical fact, I have no objections. It’s the reasoning employed from that chemistry that is the problem. Tour doesn’t give any chemical facts that entail, or imply in any significant degree, the conclusion he states.
If you disagree, please point out one of Tour’s chemical facts (not the CLAIM of a fact, but the fact itself) from which it either follows deductively, or is strongly implied that life should not exist.
I think I understand your point here. If life arose through a natural process, then the compound is not designed.
No, that wasn’t my point. Tour is making a general claim about what it takes to make some chemical compound. This is a general point about chemistry, not just the origin of life. He starts by saying the compound must be designed. Really? To make a compound you have to design it first? I’m pretty sure a fair amount of kitchen chemistry takes place every day that no one has spend any time designing. I normally don’t know anything about what goes on in my pots and pans, I just turn on the stove and add salt till I like how it tastes.
the stereochemistry must be controlled.
If you want a homochiral product, yes. Does that require a chemist? How do you know? Is that required for the originating process of life? How do you know?
Tour is simply assuming that the answer is that these things are required, and that they couldn’t be performed by anything but a chemist. But he doesn’t know that. If he does know that, he doesn’t tell us how. He seems to take it for granted. His whole essay suffers from these basic unproven assumptions throughout.
Yield optimization, purification,a nd characterization are needed.
For what is it needed? If you want a particular yield, a pure product, and you want to know what you produced, then yes you want to do those things. Are those required for the origin of life? Can nothing else effectuate those those conditions? We don’t know.
Tour seems to be saying he does know. He doesn’t tell us how he knows this. So as the argument stands, it’s all just one big question-begging fallacy.
Still, he’s right about everything else. Nature cannot skip controlled stereochemistry, yield optimization and purifications at each step.
How do you know any of these things? What was the nature of the first form of life and how do you know that?
These are major issues and your arm waving isn’t helping your cause.
They’re major unknowns, that’s it.
These statements are too vague to evaluate. What is “advanced chemistry”, and how do you know that kind of “advanced chemistry” necessary for the origin of life? What is a “very, very unusual place”? The Earth could have been that very, very unusual place in it’s early history. Do you know that it wasn’t? How?
Your blanket denials of his points here are not helping you.
Pointing out a question begging fallacy isn’t a “blanket denial”.
It would be far better to admit that OOL researchers have no good explanations to explain how nature could perform the very precise purification steps
Bzzzt, who do you know that was even required? To know that you’d have to know what the very first form of life was like.
to get to the desired product or how nature could deliver just the right chemical at just the right time while excluding all of other chemicals in the pre-biotic soup for getting in and fouling up the synthesis.
Supposing for a moment OOL researchers really had no good explanations for any of this, what would follow or be implied? Nothing. From their mere ignorance, nothing follows. So it’s a question begging fallacy.
Acting like there is no problem here only serves to weaken your credibility.
I am not here to claim there are no unknowns, or that it’s easy. The origins of life is a very difficult problem, perhaps one of the hardest ever faced by science. Does that entail, or imply, that chemistry has shown that life should not exist? Nope. And as I have argued, of the facts or arguments advanced by Tour (and you) so far, none of them entail or imply the conclusion that chemistry has shown that life should not exist.
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You don’t know who James Tour is, do you?
LOL! Now we’re going to get the fallacious argument from authority. 
Tour is the guy making these unsupported claims based on his ignorance of conditions 4.5 billion years ago. His credentials don’t matter one iota when his argument is fallacious.
I do. That’s why I stated:
I have to believe that the things we are seeing attributed to Tour must be some sort of misunderstanding, these statements are so bad.
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Sure there is: There is no actual evidence that implies, or entails, that this is a fundamental requirement of life.
You shouldn’t believe things for which there is no evidence.
To claim that these things are necessary for all forms of cellular life is to make the claim that you know what the simplest form of cellular life would look like. But you have admitted you don’t know that, and that Tour doesn’t know that. So now you seem to have progressed to just insisting that no simpler form of life is possible. How do you know?
This is one of Tour’s key points. The little nanocars that he synthesized are the kinds of things required by cells.
How do you know they’re required for cells?
They are very difficult to synthesize and as I mentioned in an earlier comment, one atom too many and the motor didn’t function properly. It’s incredible to think scientists believe these little nanosystems could come together by random natural processes.
But they did. We already know that much. They all evolved, every single one. They’re all made of proteins, which exhibit statistically significantly high levels of tree-like structure in their sequences. This shows they’re the product of evolution.
The amount of faith required to believe something like that in the absence of any evidence shocks me.
The effect of anyone’s beliefs on your emotional state is not a relevant fact that should persuade a rational person in any direction.
No, he’s not explaining that. He’s arguing this is the case based on the fact that more complex membranes are used by extant life.
But since that does not entail, or even imply, that this is a necessary precondition for all possible forms of cellular life, he’s making a non-sequitur fallacy. It doesn’t follow and isn’t even implied.
So even though “lipid composition can change,” it still needs to be a bi-layer membrane - something that does not commonly arise through natural processes.
How do you know that? As just explained Tour doesn’t actually know that, and him pointing to the fact that modern cell membranes have complex compositions of lipids doesn’t entail, or even imply, that there are no other possible forms of cellular membranes.
In addition, these lipid-bilayers don’t just surround the cell as a whole, they are required in many different organelles. This is a big deal!
They very well could be required for extant organelles, though I doubt anyone actually knows this for a fact. Their requirement could be contingent on other already present cellular components and the nature of their constituents. I don’t know, but I don’t need to actually know that to show that Tour’s arguments don’t entail or even imply his conclusions.
Because all of the evidence that we have points in that direction. We know of no homochiral product that happens as a result of a natural process. Ever. Why do you believe nature can do that when there is no evidence to believe it can?
No. Wait. What? The kinds of compounds we are talking about don’t just happen by accident. As you read the description of what the OOL researchers are doing, they are describing their very precise steps in the chemical process, controlling the conditions including temperature and atmospheric pressure. Only in very rare instances do they make a passing comment about how the required conditions might arise in a natural environment, and the statements they make in this regard fly in the face of reality. Nature does not change temperature and atmospheric pressure as much or as violently as is done in their synthesis. Nature cannot provide the required purification steps. Sometimes a researcher will make a passing comment about how a “separation” could happen in a natural environment, but this ignores the required level of purification and the large number of steps with each step requiring its own purification. We are not talking about ignorance here. We are talking about what we know about chemistry.
Tour described the elements everyone agrees to be necessary for life to exist. Those few elements mentioned leave out a great deal of detail about how they are to be delivered. Most likely they will require nanosystems and structures similar to what we find in simple one-celled organisms today.
No, they are not unknowns. These are things we know about chemistry, about the conditions and building blocks required to synthesize complex compounds.
For crying out loud, if pre-biotic chemistry doesn’t qualify as “advanced chemistry” then you don’t know what you are talking about! A very, very unusual place is required to provide a large number of purifications after each step in the synthesis. A science fiction writer would have to envision a shape-shifting environment that could act as an intelligent chemist to know which is the desired product of the synthesis and which is the undesired by-product and move the ground so that the separation could happen at the level of purity required. If you have faith that something like that happened, then you have more faith that I!!!
That isn’t what you are doing. You are latching onto one phrase and attacking it while ignoring Tour’s main points. It’s unbecoming.
Nonsense. The very first life form had to be very complex because life is complex.
Again, not true. I’m not talking about ignorance. I’m talking about what we know about chemistry. Yields are never 100% or pure. All of these reactions must happen quickly to prevent some unwanted chemical from coming in and upsetting the process. Many of these desired chemical products are highly reactive and so the just-in-time delivery of the correct “next” chemical is essential. Don’t you see how highly, highly unlikely this is based on our knowledge of chemistry?
I skimmed over your post Ronald and then this one just made me…
LOL
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I’m not making an “argument from authority.” I’m responding to Art’s comment that James Tour doesn’t understand the scientific method. It’s a ludicrous comment.
Tsk tsk. Still mindlessly repeating Tour’s same argument from ignorance. Just like in 1895 there was no evidence heavier-than-air flight was possible so it must be impossible. There was even an AUTHORITY who said so.
" I can state flatly that heavier than air flying machines are impossible."
— Lord Kelvin, 1895
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Wait. Are you saying the life is NOT complex? Really?
I’m not declaring some future engineering feat is impossible. I’m talking about what we know about nature. My comment stands. Anyone who believes nature can produce homochiral compounds through random processes believes it without evidence.
I have a question. Would like your thoughts. Why would God make his creation incapable of bringing about his desired results?
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Why do you think since extant life is complex the very first biotic self-replicating life of 4.5 BYA had to be just as complex?
I don’t understand your question.
Anyone who claims it’s impossible to come about through natural processes is arguing from ignorance.