Abiogenesis and evolution: James Tour

@kellyjay said
It isn't necessary to know where everything came from if your only desire is to make up whatever story you want. What a joke.

Oh, that’s rich. You are the one who believes in made-up stories. You still think the universe is only as old as the Earth itself (give or take a few hours)? About 6,000 years (give or take a few years)? You still think every species of life on the planet today was on board a boat? You still believe in witches and a talking snake?


I want to see evidence. So far, you have presented none.

@kellyjay said
I can say the same thing about you, rejecting out of hand anything that has the possibility of God being there. My point was what we see is not the product of a mindless process, you are welcome to refute that by showing how mindlessness could do the things we see taking place in life.

On the contrary, I reject nothing 'out of hand', my mind is quite open to all possibilities. I have just not read or heard anything which convinces me that any god, of the hundreds of gods available to us, including your particular god, has had anything to do with making the world and universe in which we live. Indeed having read your posts over the past months I am far less convinced than ever.

Your sentence 'My point was what we see is not the product of a mindless process' is missing the words 'that I believe' between the 'was' and the 'what', since you cannot possibly know this for a fact. We have come a long way in a short time toward understanding natures' processes, but we have still a long way to go, and to state that 'we don't know or understand everything so god must have done it' is pure ignorance.

You may reject the science and remain within the straight - jacket of your beliefs, but in the end there is no progress in that, no attempt at understanding, merely a dead end, which began a few thousand years ago and goes nowhere. What a pity for you and all of those who think like you do.

@Indonesia-Phil

KellyJay is still in Christianity's kindergarten. He takes it all literally. You might as well discuss Hänsel-und-Gretl with him as molecular-biology.

There are, however, sensible Christians here who understand the difference between a 'how explanation' of h.sap's biological history, and mankind's 'wherefore' moral advancement beyond that of our amoral hominid precursors. Obviously, there must have been some evolutionary survival advantage in the development of morality, otherwise our amoral hominid precursors would be here now instead of us, having this discussion. The language in which that moral advancement was formulated, 2,000 years ago, sounds quaint, poetic at best, or simply and obviously absurd to many people today (if taken literally).

I myself think the Bible is an absolutely fascinating historical document which chronicles a crucial stage of mankind's moral advancement beyond the cognitive darkness in which our nearest ancestor, bonobos, still live. We are, genetically speaking, only about 2% different from chimps and bonobos, yet what a qualitative difference those 2% make!

It's all in the brain, you know. We have frontal lobes, they don't. We can see the consequences of our actions, they can't. They just do what their physiological causes make them do. We can apply reasons not to do what our amygdalas tell us to do; we can stay at our posts under fire when our lymph-systems are screaming 'get the hell out of here!' It's what keeps the Ukrainians at their posts under heavy bombardment; it's what makes a man run into a burning house to save his children. Bonobos don't do that; they run away.

@kellyjay said
Nothing new, here is an old text that talks about that by one of the chemists who worked on one, and if you take the time you'll be surprised who he worked with while doing it.

https://youtu.be/6xj4UH0RwcM

I have yet to witness you open your mind to a single new idea in nearly 20 years, so I labored under no delusion that today would be the exception.

@soothfast said
I have yet to witness you open your mind to a single new idea in nearly 20 years, so I labored under no delusion that today would be the exception.

And that had what to do with comets?

@moonbus said
Oh, that’s rich. You are the one who believes in made-up stories. You still think the universe is only as old as the Earth itself (give or take a few hours)? About 6,000 years (give or take a few years)? You still think every species of life on the planet today was on board a boat? You still believe in witches and a talking snake?


I want to see evidence. So far, you have presented none.

Made up stories is all you got, they are defined as exactly that, what someone thinks about this or that. The details you say are unimportant seems to be important when you want to reject something you disagree with.

@kellyjay said
And that had what to do with comets?

Counterarguments based on the hypothesizing of a lone scientist in some field, with which the preponderance of experts currently researching in that field disagree or at least do not subscribe to, are hardly convincing. Nor are counterarguments based on some vague proclamation that "obviously" life is not the result of a "mindless process."

You employ classic "God of the gaps arguments." I point out that those gaps continue to get narrower as research goes on.

Advancing the notion that "chemical reactions do not know when/how to stop" as a counterargument against atheistic abiogenesis seems to me to miss a huge point.

The products of two distinct chemical reactions A and B may be the reactants for B and A, respectively. Ergo, two distinct chemical reactions may be pitted against one another and realize a dynamic equilibrium at some intermediate stage of concentrations. Your own metabolism achieves this on a grand scale with millions of distinct chemical reactions, so this is not pie-in-the-sky hypothesizing.

As for whatever you're on about regarding comets, just state your case here, or link to a transcript somewhere. I don't have much patience for YouTube videos in a forum debate.

@kellyjay said
And that had what to do with comets?

Complex organic molecules have been detected on comets, asteroids, and meteorites. This refutes your Prof. Tour's claim that complex organic molecules are improbable and that their occurence can be explained only by assuming divine intervention. The obvious conclusion is that complex organic molecules are generated all over, even in outer space where no life (such as we know it) exists (because environmental conditions do not support life there). This proves that the molecular components of life are easily generated by the repeated operation of natural laws, wherever the chemical ingredients are present. Which is what I've been saying all along: shuffle 100 elements long enough, all possible combinations, including those favorable to life, occur with 100% certainty. Whether these molecules then lead to life depends only on surrounding environmental conditions, not on divine intervention.

@moonbus said
Complex organic molecules have been detected on comets, asteroids, and meteorites. This refutes your Prof. Tour's claim that complex organic molecules are improbable and that their occurence can be explained only by assuming divine intervention. The obvious conclusion is that complex organic molecules are generated all over, even in outer space where no life (such as we know ...[text shortened]... then lead to life depends only on surrounding environmental conditions, not on divine intervention.

Indeed, so the dear old creationist argument that 'statistically it (the beginning of life) can't have happened by natural process.' is proved to be so much wishful thinking. Indeed far from it being a 'miracle' that life began on earth, it would have been a 'miracle' had it not done so. Thank the lord (irony intended) for intelligent conversation....

@soothfast said
Counterarguments based on the hypothesizing of a lone scientist in some field, with which the preponderance of experts currently researching in that field disagree or at least do not subscribe to, are hardly convincing. Nor are counterarguments based on some vague proclamation that "obviously" life is not the result of a "mindless process."

You employ classic "God of th ...[text shortened]... or link to a transcript somewhere. I don't have much patience for YouTube videos in a forum debate.

I asked you to watch a talk by a chemist that worked on a comet, who had during that work contact with Miller because of what they were looking for and found. He isn't some lone scientist in some field but if that makes you feel better thinking that, by all means. You can avoid listening to him with insults instead of having your bubble burst least you hear something else you cannot defend.

I also am not employing God of the gaps, that would imply we don't know God therefore God must have done it, the things we are talking about are things we do know about, there isn't a mystery involved here. What makes written code that directs the processes, even nested processes, mind or mindlessness? Tell me in all of your experiences which ones have you seen do it? You may have a counterargument to show how something as sophisticated as genetic instructions along with error checking just arrived due to long periods of time through random mindlessness, I'll follow your evidence, please show how that happened, or is it all evolution of the gaps?

The only ones deploying a gap argument to overcome mysteries are those claiming that with enough time, it will happen! So you have something other than a 'story' that you can share that highlights the strong argument mindlessness is more than able with time? What could we call this it should have a name, "Evolutionary time of the gaps" just believe, someday someone somewhere will produce an argument that has a ring of truth to it.

@indonesia-phil said
Indeed, so the dear old creationist argument that 'statistically it (the beginning of life) can't have happened by natural process.' is proved to be so much wishful thinking. Indeed far from it being a 'miracle' that life began on earth, it would have been a 'miracle' had it not done so. Thank the lord (irony intended) for intelligent conversation....

You would have an argument if you had something other than only a 'story' it could happen without intervention.

@moonbus said
Complex organic molecules have been detected on comets, asteroids, and meteorites. This refutes your Prof. Tour's claim that complex organic molecules are improbable and that their occurence can be explained only by assuming divine intervention. The obvious conclusion is that complex organic molecules are generated all over, even in outer space where no life (such as we know ...[text shortened]... then lead to life depends only on surrounding environmental conditions, not on divine intervention.

Seeing some small piece of a complex problem doesn't mean mindlessness can place it all together, you are very satisfied with next to nothing.

@kellyjay said
I asked you to watch a talk by a chemist that worked on a comet, who had during that work contact with Miller because of what they were looking for and found. He isn't some lone scientist in some field but if that makes you feel better thinking that, by all means. You can avoid listening to him with insults instead of having your bubble burst least you hear something else y ...[text shortened]... ps" just believe, someday someone somewhere will produce an argument that has a ring of truth to it.

I'm not sure where you perceive an insult, really. It seems your skin has become thinner over the years, and mine thicker. Maybe don't pick these fights in a science forum?

My point is this: many currently active researchers are working on the problem of bridging the gap between chemical evolution and the inception of what we define as life. These researchers, therefore, must not agree with Tour's take on certain matters—otherwise they would not bother with their chosen line of research, yes?

And, not being a professional organic chemist or biochemist myself, I tend to side with the very numerous current researchers working on the problem of natural abiogenesis, and set great store by the fact that they are making steady progress in the direction of bridging the aforementioned gap. Tour may be quite accomplished, but the road to scientific truth is littered with the corpses of distinguished scientists, even Nobel laureates, who claimed a thing to be impossible which turned out to be anything but.

Fact is, life exists. Therefore it had a beginning. Any honest, dispassionate, and unbiased modern scientist must, as a consequence, assume that the beginning of life has a natural explanation, and strive to find that explanation. We cannot surrender our intellectual agency and declare hopelessly that some god must have conjured life merely because the problem is hard, or because we have a gut feeling that life requires a mind to assemble. Compared to the lifespan of human civilization the problem is vast in space, time, and the number of moving parts, but this is all simply a matter of scale. There is an answer, but we just do not know it yet.

Your problem, I suspect, is self-awareness. You really feel you're on the right side because how can matter be self-aware? That I could understand, because I ponder that very question often. However, that is not the subject of the thread.

@moonbus said
@Soothfast

Meteorites, too, eh? Well, that demolishes Prof. Tour's contention that the spontaneous appearance of complex organic molecules is improbable.

I hope I live long enough to learn what data the probe to Enceladus sends back.

Yeah, and Saturn's moon Titan appears to be quite an organic stew also.

This paper seems to cover a lot of ground on the topic of organic compounds in space:

https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/2B9F1BB59591EA71511A1DC951D5CCFF/S1743921308021078a.pdf/organic-matter-in-space-an-overview.pdf

I haven't got the time to read through it entirely, but apparently there are indications of some very complex structures out there. The next generation of observational instruments is expected to turn up much more. Since the paper is 15 years old I would guess much more has been found already.

@Soothfast

I am hopeful that evidence of exolife will be discovered in my lifetime. It could be as revolutionary as mankind’s discovery of fire.