Can you name some of these origin of life researchers? And how big is this “good number”?
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It’s clear that when Tour wandered into the whole protein folding, peptide-function, and information-theory field he was completely out of his depth and appears to have gotten most of his knowledge from his DI colleagues. He has been thoroughly misinformed on those topics.
He was bringing up LEVINTHAL’S PARADOX as some sort of obstacle to the emergence of functional peptides at the origin of life, for crying out loud. That betrays a misunderstanding of the problem so severe one barely knows where to even start. Abysmal. His grasp of that topic is absolutely abysmal. I can’t overstate it. Catastrophic!
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Has Tour done any work in the field of proteins/peptides/etc? It would seem a mistake to assume that expertise in one area of chemistry (e.g. fullerines, graphenes, and other carbon-derived materials) would lead to expertise in all areas.
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Dave should have asked Tour to show how the first woman was made from a rib because that is what Tour actually believes.
Hi everyone,
Having watched the Tour-Farina debate, I feel that it generated more heat than light on the subject. So I’d like to go back to the five issues raised by Tour: polypeptides, polynucleotides, polysaccharides, specified information, and a functional cell. I’d like biologists to weigh in on the subject, using a Richter scale rating (recall that the Richter scale is logarithmic to base 10, and that its theoretical upper limit is about 10). How would you rate each of the five issues raised by Tour, in terms of degree of difficulty?
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Maybe @Eddie can help. With regards to Tour’s grasp of proteins and information, he is “a blusterer, a faker, a dilettante, and a Neanderthal”, with a “completely derivative, fanboy, science-groupie, Bill Nye the Science Guy level of scientific understanding”.
With apologies to Bill Nye, who may well understand more about this than does Tour.
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And we know this claim is bullshit, because there do not exist “scores of ID scientists”. There is at most about a half dozen scientists affiliated with the DI, and even these individuals have yet to produce a single peer-reviewed article supporting ID. What do these alleged “scores of ID insider scientists” do all day, since they are not publishing articles or book?
Well, to the extent that any synthetic chemist has a wide reputation outside of the limited confines of his peer group. How much attention do you think his is ignorant bleatings about protein folds and dinosaur blood cells would receive if he wasn’t actively promoting himself to scientifically naive religious extremists as some sort of gadfly to the atheistic scientific establishment?
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Let’s cut to the chase, rather than bicker. Name me several origin of life researchers (could be Robert Shapiro or anyone else you like) that in your view have as much experience making complex molecules from very simple molecules as Tour, and give me links to their c.v.s online so I can read their article titles and abstracts. If I can see that they have done as much molecule-making as Tour (not just speculating about ancient reactions that mighta, coulda, woulda, shoulda happened, but actually showing how those reactions can happen today under certain conditions), I will immediately concede this. I suspect that the ratio of speculation about hypothetical reactions to the production of actual reactions would be higher for most origin of life guys than for Tour, but I’m willing to change my mind.
Re your second post: Given the self-confidence with which you pronounce on the understanding of a world-class chemist, I would like to see your c.v., to find out whether your own scientific accomplishments warrant that self-confidence. I’m not interested in the degrees or other “credentials”, but in the list of research articles you have published or co-published, so that I can ascertain the precise areas of science in which you have proved your competence to the satisfaction of your peers. Where may we look at it?
Let’s actually cut to the chase. @Eddie can’t name even one such origin of life researcher.
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And, after you’ve done that, give Eddie the name of a good general surgeon to repair the hernia he must have given himself by moving those goal posts so rapidly.
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That’s quite a desperate goalpost move, Eddie.
YOU set the goalpost quite firmly at:
So, name three of this allegedly “good number of origin of life researchers” and how YOU have sufficient expertise to judge the extent of “knowledge of what actually happens in chemical reactions” of everyone in the comparison.
You still haven’t explained why synthetic chemistry is more important than biochemistry. I’m pretty sure that you haven’t done so because you have no idea why.
No, Eddie, YOUR ORIGINAL criterion is far simpler:
So, name three of this “good number of origin of life researchers” and how YOU have acquired sufficient expertise to judge the extent of knowledge of everyone in the comparison.
I doubt that your suspicions have any evidentiary basis whatsoever, as you have recommended a critique of OoL research that lies about the strongest evidence for the RNA World hypothesis and IIRC completely ignores metabolism-first OoL hypotheses, a major focus of modern research. Did you forget?
How much reading did YOU do to justify recommending such a dishonest, deceptive summary?
I’m pretty sure that Mikkel’s accomplishments are sufficient, given the rank falsehood of Tour’s claims. But, hey, I’m quite well-trained and have scientific accomplishments in biochemistry, so my confidence is warranted.
Why the switch from training to accomplishments, btw? Do you just choose the one that you think will work better for your current polemic goals?
A functioning (proto)cell is probably the biggest difficulty, but I suspect not for the reasons Tour suggests.
Polynucleotides aren’t really an issue, getting the base on the sugar in the first place is more difficult than linking them. But some degree of problem, at least.
I’d say polypeptides are mostly a non-issue, and the other two are non-issues.
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Okay.
Can you name some of these origin of life researchers? And how big is this “good number”?
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I would be severely challenged to muster less of a care of what you would like to know about my CV. You are a nobody who’s understanding of the subject is so abysmal you are incapable of judging where mine lies regardless of the number of publications I have. And it’s way above yours.
And on the topic on which I’m speaking(the relationship between peptide function, protein length and folding and function, and levinthal’s paradox to the origin of life), above Tours. Way above Tours.
And I challenge you and Tour to tag-team me in a debate on the functionality and foldability of proteins, and the relevance of Levinthal’s paradox in the origin of life. You and Tour against me alone, in a debate on proteins, their functions and foldability in relation to length, and the relevance of Levinthal’s paradox in relation to the origins of life.
You’d have to get on cam though. What’s the name of that popular Christian broadcast thing with that Justin fellow? Let’s go on his show and debate this exact topic:
Only 1 in 1090 protein sequences 100 amino acids long can fold.
Only folding proteins are functional.
Levinthal’s paradox is an obstacle to the origin of life.
Tour said those things, I want to debate him on them. And I want you to be his wing-man so you’re 2 against 1. little ole me. Deal?
Set it up. I’ll buy a webcam just so I can smile and laugh when you both look flustered and stupid because you’re caught as complete ignoramuses by some internet nobody with no publishing history.
Edit: @Eddie even though you know nothing of the subject, you can maybe get 2 minutes after each time Tour has spoken to talk about the length of his CV and his accomplishments in comparison to mine. It would look really good for you I’m sure.
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None. Zero. He has no idea. From what I saw him claim in the debate it is clear he truly has zero knowledge of the field. None.
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It’s why he changed the subject from “Tour knows more about chemistry than a lot of the origin of life researchers” to “How many origin of life researches have as many publications detailing the sort of chemistry Tour does, as Tour has?”
Do you think anyone actually fell for this bait-and-switch? Is there some yokel out there that read Eddies response to me and didn’t catch how he ran from his claim?
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There certainly do. “ID scientists” are not limited to the list of names you find on the Discovery website. Over the years, I’ve corresponded with 100-200 PhDs in biology, biochemistry, physics, computer science, engineering, mathematics, geology, paleontology, etc., plus many others familiar with biological matters (e.g. physicians, surgeons, government wildlife experts) who endorse ID. Most of them have never written a column for Discovery or a book, so you would not have heard of them.
They have jobs. Many of them have heavy teaching loads at a variety of colleges and universities around the world. Others are physicians or surgeons. Some run IT businesses. Some are in the aerospace industry. But whatever they do for a living, they are very well educated people in various science fields. (I talk with very well educated ID supporters in other fields, too – lawyers, PhDs in linguistics, philosophers, theologians and so on – but since you asked only about the scientists, I focused on them.)
ID supporters form a very large network, extending well beyond the USA and onto other continents. And I would estimate that of the people I converse with in that network, through a variety of channels, the fraction that have PhDs in some science is higher than the fraction among the regular posters here; put another way, in the ID community as I know it, the ratio of science PhDs to science groupies is higher than it is here. (Of course, if you take lower-level ID supporters, the reverse would be the case, but I tend to hang around with the more educated ones.)
I’m sure you know a great deal more about biology and biochemistry than I do. I was just trying to understand where you got the confidence that you knew so much more than Tour. If I could look at your c.v., I might be able to see that basis of the confidence. But you’re under no obligation.
Anyhow, I’m quite willing to believe that Tour could have made errors in wading into the subject of the origin of life. I wasn’t objecting to your disagreeing with him about particular points, but to your general attitude and tone in the remarks you made.
I would not be so vain as to pretend that I could be a useful partner to Tour in a debate over the chemistry of life. I’d only embarrass him. But if you can locate some big-time origin of life researcher would who enjoy debating Tour (not over the silly question whether OOL researchers are “clueless” but over some substantive question), let me know, and I’ll see that Tour hears about it, and the two of them can take it from there.
Oh, I see. So many of these “ID scientists” you were talking about aren’t actually scientists at all! And exactly none of them are ID scientists, in the sense of being scientists who practice science pertaining to ID (which is how any reasonable person would understand the term).
Well, glad that’s cleared up.
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You don’t even know what branch of science abiogenesis is. Prebiotic chemists, biogeochemists, astrobiologists, atmospheric scientists, geologists, geophysicists, astronomers, and planetary scientists are the scientists who study the origins of life or abiogenesis. Do you see evolutionary biologists is that list?
Eddie claimed he is a Bible scholar and could read the biblical languages. That turned out to be false.