Shocking claim to Macro-evolution!

tosca1 said:

Szostak admitted he got carried away by his belief!

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Which is not the same as lying.

A mistake? Scientists cannot afford that kind of mistakes!

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Why not? They are just fallible humans, you know.
At least this guy was honest enough to say so and retract the paper.
How about complementing his honesty instead?

You can't have sloppy science - because when you do, it's not real science anymore!

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Please. You wouldn't recognise "real science" if it came up to you wearing a T-shirt saying "hi, I'm science" and slapping you upside the head with a science bat.

We Never Know said:

What is before evolution being chemicals had to evolve to be life. It's all evolution

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One can certainly presume that evolution by natural selection would begin to operate as soon as there was a system that replicated well enough to pass on characteristics to the replicas.

What happened before the "engine" of evolution by natural selection was up and running is to me the intriguing part.

tosca1 said:

Excerpts from a very long, eye-opener of an article by James Tour.


https://www.jmtour.com/personal-topics/evolution-creation/

That's the claim made by one of the leading chemist in the world - James Tour.

Before we go any further, a little background on James Tour.

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Cool appeal to false authority! I note not a lick of background in any relevant biology.


BORING.


Another creationist with little knowledge of biology and a big ego sputtering gibberish.

Nick Matzke offered to meet with Tour to explain his folly, but he wanted to record it (probably to prevent Tour from misrepresenting the meeting).

Tour said no.

He is a charlatan when it comes to evolution. I do not care at all what he thinks or does not think about evolution.

tosca1 said:

Are you kidding? The following isn't directed at you personally - it's just my over-all comment.

Lol. My sense of humor gets the better of me when I see so many here getting all excited and squawking like chickens running around with their heads cut off.
You folks are all over the place - intelligent design, God's existence, James Tour's alleged lies, my colourful fonts, my inabiity to understand science, etc... - except, dealing with the issue given in the first two posts!

How come no scientists had come and publicly refute James Tour? I've asked that!

If there are any refutations from any scientists that you know of (which I might've missed), I asked you to post them here as refutation! REFUTE WHAT HE'S CLAIMING IN THOSE ARTICLES!



Lol. I didn't ask you folks to put on your scientist hat and start sounding like scientists, spouting off science stuff!

Lol, how can folks be believable with you all spouting scientific stuffs - when a lot of you can't even read and comprehend a simple OP?
If you can't comprehend a simple material - you definitely cannot comprehend a complex one! That's just simple logic!

And, I'd be the bigger fool if I take all your opinion and posturing, seriously!

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The only claim Tour makes, so far as I can see, is one that nobody can refute. This is that he does not understand how life could have arisen naturally.

Since he, one imagines, is in the best position to know what he thinks he understands, a refutation would seem to be impossible [shrug].

nPeace said:

The closest relatives of the brown algae include unicellular and filamentous species, but no unicellular species of brown algae are known. However, most scientists assume that the Phaeophyceae evolved from unicellular ancestors

Prior to the discovery of Entelognathus, scientists assumed that the last common ancestor of jawed vertebrates was a shark-like animal, with no distinct jawbones, and that modern jaws evolved in early bony fishes.

Scientists assumed that patriarchy was only natural. Bonobos proved them wrong

Until the 1980s, scientists assumed that hominins had been restricted to the African continent for the whole of the Early Pleistocene(until about 0.8 mya), migrating out only during a phase named Out of Africa

Scientists can only make a lot of these. Science is limited.


I crawled through the one video you are so focused on.
What I found...
Is Nature a/the primary science journal?
Tour's argument seems to me, was to suggest that the article did not meet the standard to be in the journal. He pointed out a few reasons why he felt that way - one was that sugars do not have the chemical compositions mentioned or shown in the article.

Gary Hurd seemed to me, somewhat dishonest. He first claimed that the article in the journal was not a serious paper, and that Tour alluded to it as a primary literature.
Isn't that a lie? Tour referred to the journal as a primary journal - not the article. If anything, Tour would say, "There is garbage in a top journal! Can you believe it!?"

What appears to be Gary Hurd second lie was where he claimed that Tour shouted, "There is no sugars."
Tour said he does not recognize what was proposed as sugars, to be sugars due to their chemical composition.

I may be wrong, but that's what I got out of the video.
Tour apparently apologized for being uncivil - not about his criticism of the paper.
That's one of the things I found likable about Tour - his humility.


This took me a while - my browser is so slow, it's as though my computer has malware.
I'm going to log off and post after I am finished running this task... just to be sure.

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Ugh... Boring...

Remember when you embarrassed yourself on phylogenetics? I do - which is why I shall not bother pointing out all of your usual errors again. I learned my lesson.

Pity that creationists rely on their hubris rather than actually trying to understand the things they yammer on about.

nPeace said:

We can't do it [create life in a lab], in a million years

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Why do you say that? We'll probably be doing it in 50-100 years.

nPeace said:

we assume it can happen in billions of years.

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We assume that abiogenesis might have occurred spontaneously in earth's early history, not that it did. That's reasonable. On what basis could anybody say that it couldn't have happened? Because they can't imagine how it could have happened?

nPeace said:

we assume it's not impossible

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That's the default position for all that has not been found to be impossible. Whatever is not known to be impossible is possible by default, but in the loosest sense, that is, which includes things that may in fact be shown to be impossible someday, but not yet.

nPeace said:

for one to say it is not possible, they have "an axe to grind"

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To call impossible that which has not been shown to be impossible is to believe by faith. That's the person with the agenda.

nPeace said:

We can't test the supernatural, but one who says there is evidence, and the supernatural is both probable, and possible, is irrational

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We can call the supernatural possible, although you should be clear about what you are referring to. There's a good argument that anything that exists is just another aspect of nature and therefore natural, even if it's a god existing other alternate laws of nature as yet unfamiliar to us.

nPeace said:

one who dogmatically dismisses the supernatural as imaginary, has no axe to grind - they are rational

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It is ration to dismiss that for which no evidence is offered.

nPeace said:

"You don't understand head nor tail how your theory works, nor how it's supposed to work. You can't even explain it without sweeping all the problems under the rug. After you do that, it's even more of a problem explaining it."

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Only creationists express such opinions. Evolutionary science is here to stay. Like the heliocentric theory for the solar system, there is no realistic hope of it ever being overturned.

Consider the implications of a falsifying finding being uncovered, such as a partially digested human being in a dinosaur's belly. The old data that strongly suggested that life on earth - millions of pieces of evidence from multiple fields of science such as comparative anatomy and biochemistry, biogeography, genetics, and paleontology - that old data doesn't disappear.

It would need to be reinterpreted in the light of the new finding, and no other interpretation occurs to me than that an extremely powerful and deceptive agency intended for us to be deceived into believing that life had evolved on earth to the extent that it buried strata of life forms that never lived such that the most primitive appearing would be found deepest and with a combination of radionuclides that made them appear oldest, with progressively more modern forms appearing in shallower strata.

The theory is healthy and in no danger of being overturned.

And yes we know how and why evolution occurs. The mechanism is well understood.

Your task is hopeless. You are trying to persuade rational skeptics well-trained in critical thinking to abandon a system of ideas that unifies mountains of data from a multitude of sources, accurately makes predictions about what can and cannot be found in nature, provides a rational mechanism for evolution consistent with the known actions of nature, accounts for both the commonality of all life as well as biodiversity, and has had practical applications that have improved the human condition in areas like medicine and agriculture - and replace it with a sterile idea that can do none of that, one that can't be used for anything of value?

nPeace said:

The evidence is interpreted in a way that gives support to the presumption of common descent.

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The evidence can be interpreted in no other way apart from the deceptive agent I just alluded to. Either life evolved on earth from a last universal common ancestral population of primitive cells, or somebody went to a lot of bother to make us think so. Both scenarios exclude the possibility of a loving god that wants to be known, understood, believed, and worshiped by man being the source of the tree of life we find today.

ImmortalFlame said:

But he isn't making a refutable claim, he's simply stating that he doesn't know or understand the mechanisms of evolution.

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He is making a claim! I cannot quote the whole article because of length-issue, but here's what he said:

I have written a long article on the origin of life: Animadversions of a Synthetic Chemist – James Tour – Inference. It is clear, chemists and biologists are clueless.

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I wrote, “Those who think scientists understand the issues of prebiotic chemistry are wholly misinformed. Nobody understands them. Maybe one day we will. But that day is far from today. It would be far more helpful (and hopeful) to expose students to the massive gaps in our understanding. They may find a firmer—and possibly a radically different—scientific theory.
The basis upon which we as scientists are relying is so shaky that we must openly state the situation for what it is: it is a mystery.”

Note that since the time of my submission of that commentary cited above, articles continue to be published on prebiotic chemistry, so I will link to my short critiques of a few of those newer articles so that the interested reader can get an ongoing synthetic chemist’s assessment of the proposals:

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Two Experiments in Abiogenesis – James Tour – Inference.


He asks other scientists not because he is dumb about what he's been reading - he's far from that, he actually sees the problem - but more so because he's proving a point!

To say that NOBODY understands them, is a very, very, very big claim!
See the highlighted statements.

PS: will get back to you on the rest of your post. Got to go.

nPeace said:

The closest relatives of the brown algae include unicellular and filamentous species, but no unicellular species of brown algae are known. However, most scientists assume that the Phaeophyceae evolved from unicellular ancestors

Prior to the discovery of Entelognathus, scientists assumed that the last common ancestor of jawed vertebrates was a shark-like animal, with no distinct jawbones, and that modern jaws evolved in early bony fishes.

Scientists assumed that patriarchy was only natural. Bonobos proved them wrong

Until the 1980s, scientists assumed that hominins had been restricted to the African continent for the whole of the Early Pleistocene(until about 0.8 mya), migrating out only during a phase named Out of Africa

Scientists can only make a lot of these. Science is limited.


I crawled through the one video you are so focused on.
What I found...
Is Nature a/the primary science journal?
Tour's argument seems to me, was to suggest that the article did not meet the standard to be in the journal. He pointed out a few reasons why he felt that way - one was that sugars do not have the chemical compositions mentioned or shown in the article.

Gary Hurd seemed to me, somewhat dishonest. He first claimed that the article in the journal was not a serious paper, and that Tour alluded to it as a primary literature.
Isn't that a lie? Tour referred to the journal as a primary journal - not the article. If anything, Tour would say, "There is garbage in a top journal! Can you believe it!?"

What appears to be Gary Hurd second lie was where he claimed that Tour shouted, "There is no sugars."
Tour said he does not recognize what was proposed as sugars, to be sugars due to their chemical composition.

I may be wrong, but that's what I got out of the video.
Tour apparently apologized for being uncivil - not about his criticism of the paper.
That's one of the things I found likable about Tour - his humility.


This took me a while - my browser is so slow, it's as though my computer has malware.
I'm going to log off and post after I am finished running this task... just to be sure.

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The "sugar" in question was glyceraldehyde.

And there is no doubt Tour ridiculed - at considerable length - the quality of the "paper", saying it was in Nature etc., without once pointing out that it was accepted by Nature as a cartoon commentary on the science, for non-specialists, when he knew that perfectly well. That would be a lie.

tosca1 said:

He is making a claim! I cannot quote the whole article because of length-issue, but here's what he said:

Two Experiments in Abiogenesis – James Tour – Inference.


He asks other scientists not because he is dumb about what he's been reading - he's far from that, he actually sees the problem - but more so because he's proving a point!

To say that NOBODY understands them, is a very, very, very big claim!
See the highlighted statements.

PS: will get back to you on the rest of your post. Got to go.

Click to expand...

To say "nobody understands the issues of prebiotic chemistry" is obviously an opinion that cannot be refuted, without first specifying what "issues" he is referring to.

And even then, a claim that "nobody understands" an issue leads to no conclusion or hypothesis. So it's just not a scientific claim.

And, just to make it clear, in case you have failed to take this in by now, none of this has any bearing on the theory of evolution.

ImmortalFlame said:

Here's one response from a fellow biochemist:

Sandwalk: A chemist who doesn't understand evolution

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And here's a critique of his response to Tour.

Calling the wrong guy stupid
January 13, 2019 by John Leonard 2 Comments

Dr. Laurence Moran
Laurence A. “Larry” Moran (and no, it’s not really Moron) is apparently a pretty smart guy. He holds a PhD in biochemistry from Princeton University and served as a college professor for decades at the University of Toronto. He’s probably best known for being one of the lead authors of a textbook called Principles of Biochemistry, although in fairness, his personal blog called Sandwalk also attracts a fair amount of internet traffic, which is how I learned about Dr. Moran–ironically enough, while searching the internet for information on Dr. James Tour.


What has inspired me to write about my limited knowledge of Dr. Moran was the conclusion to his article harshly critical of Dr. Tour:

I suppose I’m going to be labeled as one of those evil “Darwinists” who won’t tolerate anyone who disagrees with me about evolution. I’m actually not. I just don’t like stupid people who think they are experts in evolution when they have never bothered to learn about it. Here’s my advice to graduate students in organic chemistry: if you want to know about evolution then take a course or read a textbook. And remember, there’s nothing wrong with admitting that you don’t understand a subject. Just don’t assume your own ignorance means that all the experts in the subject are wrong too. [emphasis added]

Laurence A. Moran, “A chemist who doesn’t understand evolution”
Wow.


If I’m not mistaken, Dr. Moran just described Dr. Tour as being a stupid person. So I’m wondering, is it possible that a chemistry professor wouldn’t know who Dr. Tour is? How could he not know? Does “Larry” have a couple of brothers named Darryl by any chance?

So from that we learn that Dr. Moran is qualified to teach chemistry, and that he co-wrote a book. Big deal.

Now let’s compare his credentials to only part of Dr. Tour’s CV:


Because Dr. Tour had merely expressed skepticism about Darwinian evolution as the best explanation for the origin of new species, Dr. Moran deliberately chose to insult his intelligence, which sort of makes Dr. Moran look like an immature jerk. Could this be due to professional jealousy? In the speech below, Dr. Tour had this to say about Darwin’s theory:

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Calling the wrong guy stupid

tosca1 said:

Agenda?
Hahahaha - tell that to Szostak! And, Richard Dawkins! Hahahaha

Btw....Szostak seems to be making too many retracting lately!

”Definitely embarrassing:” Nobel Laureate retracts non-reproducible paper in Nature journal

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Don't shift the focus to an unrelated point. Szostak can be the biggest con-artist in the world and it would make not a shred of difference to the point I made or the creationist and/or anti-evolution case.


I repeat: I've never come accross somebody who argues against biological evolution while NOT having some kind of religious agenda to go along with it.

ImmortalFlame said:

Here's one response from a fellow biochemist:

Sandwalk: A chemist who doesn't understand evolution

Click to expand...

Now, here's my take on his response:

Is he daft? Didn't he understand this part of Tour's statement?

I simply can not accept it as unreservedly as many of my scientist colleagues do, although I sincerely respect them as scientists. Some of them seem to have little trouble embracing many of evolution’s proposals based upon (or in spite of) archeological, mathematical, biochemical and astrophysical suggestions and evidence, and yet few are experts in all of those areas, or even just two of them.
Although most scientists leave few stones unturned in their quest to discern mechanisms before wholeheartedly accepting them, when it comes to the often gross extrapolations between observations and conclusions on macroevolution, scientists, it seems to me, permit unhealthy leeway.
When hearing such extrapolations in the academy, when will we cry out, "The emperor has no clothes!"?[/quote]


Furthermore, on that same blog written by Tour - yes, that's an old blog where-in he challenged anyone to explain it to him, lunch is on him - he also mentioned the National Academy of Sciences (which he is a member of)!

An atheist group was willing to foot the bill of any scientist who'd come up to that challenge - that's what I heard (although I'm not sure if that's true).


If there's any scientist who should be outraged enough to come out and rebutt James Tour - it ought to be from NAS members - who by no means are your run-of-the-mill scientists!

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TagliatelliMonster said:

Don't shift the focus to an unrelated point. Szostak can be the biggest con-artist in the world and it would make not a shred of difference to the point I made or the creationist and/or anti-evolution case.


I repeat: I've never come accross somebody who argues against biological evolution while NOT having some kind of religious agenda to go along with it.

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Then, don't shift the focus yourself!
Practice what you preach - you think you've got some kind of entitlement that you can freely derail the topic.......

..........and then.......
..........................you whine when I take you on?


Lol. Where am I? I had to double-check and see if I ended up on a juvenile forum!


This is not a thread on religious belief!
I didn't invoke any religious claim - nor did James Tour!

Creationists don't have to invoke the Bible to make their arguments against
non-believers! We can meet you squarely on your own turf!

I'm just simply bashing the very thing you rely on: pseudo-science! That's all you got!

Stick to the issue.

tosca1 said:

And here's a critique of his response to Tour.


Calling the wrong guy stupid

Click to expand...

I think he is just being polite. What he obviously means is that Tour is dishonest - a far more serious charge to level at a fellow scientist. As to what he says about Tour, that is exactly the conclusion that I, and most other readers of this thread, will now have drawn. He has captured the essence of it nicely!

Thanks for drawing this to our attention. In future we will all know what credibility Tour has, as a critic of evolution and abiogenesis, should his name come up again. And I'll look out for Moran, too.

TagliatelliMonster said:

Don't shift the focus to an unrelated point. Szostak can be the biggest con-artist in the world and it would make not a shred of difference to the point I made or the creationist and/or anti-evolution case.


I repeat: I've never come accross somebody who argues against biological evolution while NOT having some kind of religious agenda to go along with it.

Click to expand...

Actually......wasn't there some idiot at the Disco 'Tute, with a degree in social sciences, who professed to be atheist? I can't remember his name. It struck me as odd at the time I came across this person. I was initially thinking Jonathan Wells, but it's not him, obviously. I've taken a quick look at their current staff and don't see the name I'm looking for.

nPeace said:

The closest relatives of the brown algae include unicellular and filamentous species, but no unicellular species of brown algae are known. However, most scientists assume that the Phaeophyceae evolved from unicellular ancestors

Prior to the discovery of Entelognathus, scientists assumed that the last common ancestor of jawed vertebrates was a shark-like animal, with no distinct jawbones, and that modern jaws evolved in early bony fishes.

Scientists assumed that patriarchy was only natural. Bonobos proved them wrong

Until the 1980s, scientists assumed that hominins had been restricted to the African continent for the whole of the Early Pleistocene(until about 0.8 mya), migrating out only during a phase named Out of Africa

Scientists can only make a lot of these. Science is limited.


I crawled through the one video you are so focused on.
What I found...
Is Nature a/the primary science journal?
Tour's argument seems to me, was to suggest that the article did not meet the standard to be in the journal. He pointed out a few reasons why he felt that way - one was that sugars do not have the chemical compositions mentioned or shown in the article.

Gary Hurd seemed to me, somewhat dishonest. He first claimed that the article in the journal was not a serious paper, and that Tour alluded to it as a primary literature.
Isn't that a lie? Tour referred to the journal as a primary journal - not the article. If anything, Tour would say, "There is garbage in a top journal! Can you believe it!?"

What appears to be Gary Hurd second lie was where he claimed that Tour shouted, "There is no sugars."
Tour said he does not recognize what was proposed as sugars, to be sugars due to their chemical composition.

I may be wrong, but that's what I got out of the video.
Tour apparently apologized for being uncivil - not about his criticism of the paper.
That's one of the things I found likable about Tour - his humility.


This took me a while - my browser is so slow, it's as though my computer has malware.
I'm going to log off and post after I am finished running this task... just to be sure.

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You are not using the word "assume" consistently. When scientists say "assume" they do not use it in the same way that you are. This is an equivocation fallacy. When scientist "assume" something it is based upon prior work that is supported by evidence. You are trying to say that they assume based upon nothing and that is not the case. "Assume" is often used as shorthand for "this idea has been supported by endless writers and I am not going to list them all right now" when scientists use the term.

tosca1 said:

Szostak admitted he got carried away by his belief!

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No, this is a lie. He admitted to an error. You would need to prove your statement and you do not seem to be able to do that.

Nobel Winner Retracts Own Paper in 'Definitely Embarrassing' Fail | Inverse


A mistake? Scientists cannot afford that kind of mistakes! You can't have sloppy science - because when you do, it's not real science anymore!

Just shows you - zealots also exists among evolutionists, hence evolution is like a religion!

There's a great responsibility that comes with science! You can't just say....'oooops. sorry. I got carried away with my belief! I wasn't as careful or rigorous....."

There are repercussions!


Nobel Winner Retracts Own Paper in 'Definitely Embarrassing' Fail | Inverse

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He made a mistake that you would never have spotted. For him it was an embarrassment. The people that peer reviewed his paper, other experts in the field missed his error. You see unlike creationists Szostak is honest and when he makes a mistake he honestly admits it. You relied on a lying source, that gave a mealy mouthed false apology to the person that he lied about but then he never corrected his error.

Tell me, after Tour lied about Szostak why didn't he demand that the Discover A Toot take down his video?

tosca1 said:

He is making a claim! I cannot quote the whole article because of length-issue, but here's what he said:

Two Experiments in Abiogenesis – James Tour – Inference.


He asks other scientists not because he is dumb about what he's been reading - he's far from that, he actually sees the problem - but more so because he's proving a point!

Click to expand...

No, he isn't. He's literally just saying that there are limits to what we currently know.

tosca1 said:

To say that NOBODY understands them, is a very, very, very big claim!
See the highlighted statements.

Click to expand...

Actually, it isn't. We haven't cracked abiogenesis yet. He isn't saying anything more significant than "we don't know how abiogenesis occurred yet".

Again, there is really nothing to refute.

tosca1 said:

And here's a critique of his response to Tour.


Calling the wrong guy stupid

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Is this all we're going to do now? Link to other people's opinions, then link to other people's assessments of those opinions in response?

tosca1 said:

Now, here's my take on his response:

Is he daft? Didn't he understand this part of Tour's statement?

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And specifically which "extrapolations" is he talking about?