Shocking claim to Macro-evolution!

[exchemist]

There is some evidence that points to all life possibly arising from a single source roughly around 4 billion or so years ago, but there's not enough evidence to conclude that this is correct or that it was the result of abiogenesis. This is what a "hypothesis" is, namely some evidence, minus convincing evidence to the contrary, but not enough to warrant moving up the ladder.

Oh I see. Well, at that level I should have thought there are quite a number of hypotheses associated with abiogenesis. But I would not call any of them the hypothesis of abiogenesis, I don't think.

It seems to me quite likely that there may have been a number of avenues initially followed, though (from the biochemical commonality we see across all life today) only one may have proved robust enough to have led to all the lifeforms we know now.

 

[tosca1]

Of course. But that has nothing to do with the Theory of Evolution. And even if I could be proven it was "supernatural", that does not change the fact of what we see in nature that the Theory of Evolution has credible, overwhelming evidences of that it happens.

Question for you. If God is the Creator, and Evolution is true, then does it not stand to reason that God creates through evolution? That God created evolution? Why then do you choose to deny that? Isn't that denying God? To me, the evidence of God is found in nature, and that would mean Evolution. Evolution is that Miracle of Creation.

"Even the invisible things of Him through creation are clearly seen and manifest, even His eternal power and Godhead", Romans 1:20 Evolution is nature, and God can, and is, seen through it, as Paul states all can do. Why don't you instead embrace it and celebrate it, instead of denying it for some reason?

This isn't about the existence of God.
It is about false claims being made by some scientists (macro-evolution and origin of life).

 

[metis]

Well, at that level I should have thought there are quite a number of hypotheses associated with abiogenesis. But I would not call any of them the hypothesis of abiogenesis, I don't think.

It depends on where one draws such a line, so I can't say I disagree with you.

 

[exchemist]

This isn't about the existence of God.
It is about false claims being made by some scientists (macro-evolution and origin of life).

Windwalker's post wasn't about the existence of God either. Read more carefully.

It was about evolution being compatible with God as creator.

 

[tosca1]

It was about evolution being compatible with God as creator.

Still irrelevant.
That's not what this topic is all about, is it?

 

[nPeace]

Um, no. The fossil record and DNA literally make absolutely no sense without the explanatory framework of common descent. The facts provide the basis for the model, not the other way around. The fact that the idea was intuited beforehand did not bias the facts - they came up in favour of that particular idea. Without common descent, the fossil record and DNA would be utterly inexplicable.

No. The evidence is interpreted in a way that gives support to the presumption of common descent.

 

[exchemist]

Still irrelevant.
That's not what this topic is all about, is it?

Oh I'm not at all sure about that. For example, why are you posting at all here? You obviously don't know any science and are not very interested in learning any. So it can't be about science, can it? So what is it about?

I think - because I'm psychic - that you want to attack evolution because it conflicts with what you have been taught by your religion about God and creation.

 

[nPeace]

Please, this is not a proper response. It is far from honest since you cannot support any of your claims. You are trying to push a dishonest argument when you move the goalposts. I will continue to remind you that you have already tacitly agreed that evolution is a fact.

Perhaps we can talk about this later.
Right now, I am running a task on my computer, that's using all my resources, so it's difficult navigating my mouse that's acting erratically.
Hence, I'll have to start that thread after a week from now.
Maybe then, you can tell me, what you mean by these words, because I don't understand them.
See you within ten days hopefully.

 

[Subduction Zone]

This isn't about the existence of God.
It is about false claims being made by some scientists (macro-evolution and origin of life).

Macro-evolution is well supported by evidence and there is no evidence to the contrary. Abiogenesis is still in the hypothetical range. There is no one ruling Hypothesis Of Life. There are various independent ones that explain how certain steps may have taken place. There is no serious opposition to that either.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Perhaps we can talk about this later.
Right now, I am running a task on my computer, that's using all my resources, so it's difficult navigating my mouse that's acting erratically.
Hence, I'll have to start that thread after a week from now.
Maybe then, you can tell me, what you mean by these words, because I don't understand them.
See you within ten days hopefully.

No rush.

 

[Subduction Zone]

No. The evidence is interpreted in a way that gives support to the presumption of common descent.

This is incorrect. There is no presumption. The evidence supports only the theory of evolution. We will have to go over the concept of scientific evidence, but that should be clear once we do so.

 

[gnostic]

You're not getting the point. It's not really about abiogenesis and evolution.

It's more about the falsehoods and pseudo-science that's being given to the public that he's challenging!

He's challenging those claims!

Really?

If Tour is truly into debunking pseudoscience, then why is Tour associated with PSEUDOSCIENCE ORGANIZATION like the Discovery Institute?

Discovery Institute isn’t a scientific organisation, an organisation founded and built by lawyers and journalists, and whole bunch of creationists.

Their Wedge Document is their manifesto where they are telling their members to hide their secret agenda, to promote Christian creationism in the guise of “Intelligent Design”.

Why isn’t Tour debunking the falsehood of the Institute’s Intelligent Design, if Tour is truly sincere in challenging falsehoods and pseudoscience?

Did you even know that Tour work with the pseudoscience Discovery Institute?

If you already know that Tour is working with Discovery Institute, then you nothing more than a hypocrite, when you wrote:

“It's more about the falsehoods and pseudo-science that's being given to the public that he's challenging!”​

 

[sayak83]

If that's the case, why don't you write and refute him? Why don't you explain to him how he's wrong?

There's no sense for you to explain to me since I wouldn't really know if what you explain to me scientifically, is accurate or false! I'm not a scientist.

James Tour has a reputation! I don't think he'll put that reputation at risk by making claims that other chemists can easily challenge and refute.

If you think you can answer his challenge - then, by all means - direct it to him.

Whatever a scientist writes outside of scientific journals are irrelevant to other scientists. Since he has never written anything about this in scientific papers, there is nothing to scientifically refute.
I don't know the guy, he is not in this forum. Neither do I care what his personal opinion is on evolution or the Loch Ness Monster for that matter.
You made the OP, if you do not want a discussion on evolutionary sciences with us, what is the point of the OP? Just to inform us about this guy's existence and his personal beliefs?

 

[exchemist]

Just last week a saw a video refuting his claims about Jack Szostak. Tour made mistakes in his video that an undergrad chemistry major would not make. They are well explained in the following video. Reportedly he apologized to Szostak for lying about him in his video:

Just watched part of this and it is quite shocking.

There is no question that Tour was playing to the audience (of Baptist theologians*) by deliberately misrepresenting what Szostak was saying.

- He lied by falsely claiming that Szostak's article in Nature was a research paper when it was a cartoon summary for a bit of light relief and clearly marked as such.

- He lied by falsely telling his audience that glyceraldehyde: Glyceraldehyde - Wikipedia is not a simple sugar

- He lied by claiming ribose linked to a cyclic heterocyclic base was not a potential building block for an early RNA molecule.

He had a lot of fun with the audience, who naturally lapped it up, as it is what they wanted to hear. But an alert undergraduate chemist in the audience would have immediately spotted the misrepresentation.

It seems plain that Tour is, as I suggested in an earlier post, driven by the religious axe he has to grind to connive in spreading falsehoods, exploiting his status as a chemist to fool people who are in no position to challenge him. It is rather a disgusting exhibition.



* I had no idea such beasts existed. Why do you need theologians if you get your faith directly from a literal reading of the bible?

 

[David T]

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.


James Tour - Wikipedia

Evolution is factually a scientific narrative about singular interconnectedness. Since the narrative itself is determined by the topic itself the literal ability to be objective is impossible. A bit like talking about conciousness.

All the above does not in anyway allow for or is it even reasonable to replace science narrative with bigfoot theories of nature which religion tends to do. THEISM is bigfoot in that it has zero articulation in align

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.


James Tour - Wikipedia

Sorry lack of understanding by science is zero excuse to bigfoot the topic. THEISM. as currently articulated is bigfoot theory that we live in a virtual reality and that outside this virtual reality is reality. THEISM is currently over run by half wits playing make believe. But factually that's human history and is extremely normal.

History becomes legend, legend becomes myth. Change would never occur if that wasn't true and it's as true in science as it is in religion. We live in the age of deep myth of "I believe, I don't believe I am agnostic" fantasy!!!!!

 

[Subduction Zone]

Just watched part of this and it is quite shocking.

There is no question that Tour was playing to the audience (of Baptist theologians*) by deliberately misrepresenting what Szostak was saying.

- He lied by falsely claiming that Szostak's article in Nature was a research paper when it was a cartoon summary for a bit of light relief and clearly marked as such.

- He lied by falsely telling his audience that glyceraldehyde: Glyceraldehyde - Wikipedia is not a simple sugar

- He lied by claiming ribose linked to a cyclic heterocyclic base was not a potential building block for an early RNA molecule.

He had a lot of fun with the audience, who naturally lapped it up, as it is what they wanted to hear. But an alert undergraduate chemist in the audience would have immediately spotted the misrepresentation.

It seems plain that Tour is, as I suggested in an earlier post, driven by the religious axe he has to grind to connive in spreading falsehoods, exploiting his status as a chemist to fool people who are in no position to challenge him. It is rather a disgusting exhibition.



* I had no idea such beasts existed. Why do you need theologians if you get your faith directly from a literal reading of the bible?

It is rather amazing. I recently subscribed to that YouTube channel and when this came out last week I knew it would not be very long before some creationist tried to use Tour's video. As a chemist I knew that you would see this immediately. I had at least a l year of majors level P-chem (physical chemistry) at university. Unfortunately organic chem was another subject. In hindsight I do wish that I took at least one course in that. But even I could understand the errors, after they were pointed out to me. I don't know if I would have been able to find them on my own. Now supposedly Tour apologized to Szostak, at least that was what the makers of the video heard. That does not do much good when his lying video is still out there.

Also it is rather amazing that our OP is making such a big thing about a paper that Szostak retracted. That happens sometimes in the sciences. But isn't it much better to make a mistake and acknowledge it than to make an obvious error and defend it to the death?

And it appears that Tour did apologize to Szostak:

https://evolutionnews.org/2019/05/professor-james-tour-a-liar-for-jesus/

That is from an ID or creationist site. Please note how they try to tone down his claims and do not openly admit to lying. Instead Tour tries to defend his claims. So we have Szostak that made an error and acknowledged it and retracted a paper. Errors are forgivable. And then we have Tour lying his donkey off and giving a weak apology over the phone but not demanding that the Discover a Toot take down his lying video.and instead trying to defend his errors and lies. That tells it all.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

I have spoken at length with biologists, philosophers of science, mathematicians and geneticists in order to better understand evolution. Some were gracious in helping me to appreciate their positions based upon the data. Others were less gracious, though they supplied me with voluminous material to read. Here are some of the things that I learned.
James M. Tour quote from the OP

Here is my interpretation of this. Tour has talked to other scientists about evolution. Some of them were receptive to his approach and others were cautious. According to him, talked to him and supplied him with information.

Here is the second quote attributed to Tour from the OP. My interpretation is in red.

Therefore, I do not understand the mechanisms needed to change body plans or the mechanisms along the descent pathway between the australopithecine brain and modern human brains if we were indeed commonly descended as predicted by the theory of universal common descent.

Tour is admitting that he does not understand the evolutionary mechanism that produced different body plans or how our brains evolved from our ancestors.

Nobody else understands the mechanisms either. Nobody. But I am saying it publicly, hence the arousal of some toward my open comments of skepticism.

When he says 'understands' I get the impression he means 'knows'. There is a difference. It is known that there are several mechanism for evolutionary change including natural selection. Under natural selection, not knowing the specific selection that lead to specific changes does not refute the theory of common descent. Nor does it mean that evolution did not occur. The evidence shows the changes over time and the relationship between the fossils that have been examined.

Recall, evolution is both about the mechanism by which change occurs over time, and the theory of universal common descent.

Nothing really to disagree with here.

But the mechanisms are unknown and the theory of universal common descent is confronted by issues of uncommonness through ENCODE and orphan gene research. And each year the evidence for uncommonness is escalating.

Several mechanisms are known. He seems to be implying that not knowing the specific mechanism or perhaps a specific example causes problems for evolutionary explanations. It opens up new doors to direct research, formulate and test hypotheses, but it is not a deal breaker for the theory.

The OP will have to elaborate on what Tour means by 'issues of uncommonness through ENCODE. I do not know of any. Orphan genes are an interesting issue, but they can form in non-coding sequence and appear to all the time. Perhaps the OP will elaborate on this as well.

What these quotes show is that a scientist is asking questions and pointing out what he considers might be areas that are problems for the theory of common descent. He claims to have talked to scientists involved in evolutionary research. Nothing really unusual about this at all. That is what a scientist should do. Even if he is asking questions and raising points about subjects outside the field of his expertise.

What I do not see is anything that is new or would rock the world of evolutionary biology and throw common ancestry out of the window. This seems to be what the OP thinks has been presented, but the OP is mistaken.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

Who sez that? Who made that claim?

Creationists like you sez [sic]. After reading the quotes, watching the videos and visiting the links, the message that not knowing the origin of life somehow rebukes the theory of evolution stands out. It is and old, tired and meaningless attempt to mix the two in order to bring down the theory of evolution primarily.

 

[exchemist]

It is rather amazing. I recently subscribed to that YouTube channel and when this came out last week I knew it would not be very long before some creationist tried to use Tour's video. As a chemist I knew that you would see this immediately. I had at least a l year of majors level P-chem (physical chemistry) at university. Unfortunately organic chem was another subject. In hindsight I do wish that I took at least one course in that. But even I could understand the errors, after they were pointed out to me. I don't know if I would have been able to find them on my own. Now supposedly Tour apologized to Szostak, at least that was what the makers of the video heard. That does not do much good when his lying video is still out there.

Also it is rather amazing that our OP is making such a big thing about a paper that Szostak retracted. That happens sometimes in the sciences. But isn't it much better to make a mistake and acknowledge it than to make an obvious error and defend it to the death?

And it appears that Tour did apologize to Szostak:

https://evolutionnews.org/2019/05/professor-james-tour-a-liar-for-jesus/

That is from an ID or creationist site. Please note how they try to tone down his claims and do not openly admit to lying. Instead Tour tries to defend his claims. So we have Szostak that made an error and acknowledged it and retracted a paper. Errors are forgivable. And then we have Tour lying his donkey off and giving a weak apology over the phone but not demanding that the Discover a Toot take down his lying video.and instead trying to defend his errors and lies. That tells it all.

The OP does not know anything about the science we are discussing, of that I am 100% sure. He's just getting bits and pieces off a creo website and pushing them out to see what effect they have.

But, as so often, I have learned something from all this. I now know who James Tour is and what his credentials are - and are not.

 

[tosca1]

Just watched part of this and it is quite shocking.

There is no question that Tour was playing to the audience (of Baptist theologians*) by deliberately misrepresenting what Szostak was saying.

- He lied by falsely claiming that Szostak's article in Nature was a research paper when it was a cartoon summary for a bit of light relief and clearly marked as such.

- He lied by falsely telling his audience that glyceraldehyde: Glyceraldehyde - Wikipedia is not a simple sugar

Lol. Szostak conceded to James Tour about that.

1. According to Hurd, Tour was lying when he criticized as scientifically inaccurate two figures in Jack Szostak’s article labeled “Simple sugars.” When I asked Tour about this criticism, he responded that Szostak himself conceded to him that these figures were inaccurate! Tour wrote me:


As listed, the sugars do not look like sugars. One needs to have the double bond shown to one of the oxygen atoms or they are not sugars. Shown are a diol and a triol. Even Jack, when he and I spoke on the phone, conceded that point. And he blamed the error on a staff artist from Scientific American, and the mistake was transcribed when the article was used by Nature. I have written several times for the News and Views section of Nature and Nature series journals. It is an honor to be so asked. But we are asked as authors to show care to ensure accuracy. And the galley proofs are returned to us for our careful check and documented approval.

https://evolutionnews.org/2019/05/professor-james-tour-a-liar-for-jesus/

There's more in that source I gave above that detailed Hurd's accusations against Tour.



What we do now know - Szostak had retracted his claims!

Nobel Laureate Retracts Own Paper in 'Definitely Embarrassing' Science Fail

Szostak told Retraction Watch on Tuesday that the errors in the paper are “definitely embarrassing.”

“In retrospect, we were totally blinded by our belief [in our findings]…we were not as careful or rigorous as we should have been (and as Tivoli was) in interpreting these experiments,” he said.

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


Lol. How many more did he mess up because of zealousness towards his belief?
That doesn't look like good science to me.