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Origin of life status

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  • Origin of life status

    Here is a video of scientist James Tour talking about the status of the origin of life research.



    He mentions time being an enemy, not a friend of origin of life scenarios (reactants turning into tar, for example), he mentions purifying reagents, reagent order and reaction parameters as hurdles. Then DNA assembly, carbohydrate assembly, and interactome assembly are mentioned as problems.

    Blessings,
    Lee
    "What I pray of you is, to keep your eye upon Him, for that is everything. Do you say, 'How am I to keep my eye on Him?' I reply, keep your eye off everything else, and you will soon see Him. All depends on the eye of faith being kept on Him. How simple it is!" (J.B. Stoney)

  • #2
    Originally posted by lee_merrill View Post
    Here is a video of scientist James Tour talking about the status of the origin of life research.



    He mentions time being an enemy, not a friend of origin of life scenarios (reactants turning into tar, for example), he mentions purifying reagents, reagent order and reaction parameters as hurdles. Then DNA assembly, carbohydrate assembly, and interactome assembly are mentioned as problems.

    Blessings,
    Lee
    Nice way to start a thread with a faith based hostile perspective of the origin of life. There is a super strong emphasis here of an 'argument from ignorance to support a religious agenda, and not an argument from science. I suspect the ENRON use of probability and statistics upfront as before.

    Well,ah . . .at least your religious based argument is upfront.
    Last edited by shunyadragon; 05-18-2019, 04:47 PM.
    Glendower: I can call spirits from the vasty deep.
    Hotspur: Why, so can I, or so can any man;
    But will they come when you do call for them? Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part 1, Act III:

    go with the flow the river knows . . .

    Frank

    I do not know, therefore everything is in pencil.

    Comment


    • #3
      By the way, James Tour is not an intelligent design proponent.

      Blessings,
      Lee
      "What I pray of you is, to keep your eye upon Him, for that is everything. Do you say, 'How am I to keep my eye on Him?' I reply, keep your eye off everything else, and you will soon see Him. All depends on the eye of faith being kept on Him. How simple it is!" (J.B. Stoney)

      Comment


      • #4
        Originally posted by lee_merrill View Post
        By the way, James Tour is not an intelligent design proponent.

        Blessings,
        Lee
        This does not change the weaknesses, arguing from ignorance, and the lack of foundation in science. I will review the reference in more detail.
        Glendower: I can call spirits from the vasty deep.
        Hotspur: Why, so can I, or so can any man;
        But will they come when you do call for them? Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part 1, Act III:

        go with the flow the river knows . . .

        Frank

        I do not know, therefore everything is in pencil.

        Comment


        • #5
          Originally posted by lee_merrill View Post
          Here is a video of scientist James Tour talking about the status of the origin of life research.
          Tour has been widely criticized across the scientific community for his rather blatant dishonesty in that video. In it Tour attacked an article by OOL researcher Dr. Jack Szostak which appeared in Nature. The article was a very simplified layman's overview of OOL research and presented some hypothetical scenarios for abiogenesis. Tour claimed the article was peer-reviewed scientific research and called Szostak a liar for (among other things) the simplified block diagrams the article contained.

          Here is a good overview of the many lies Tour told.

          James Tour's Lies about Szostak

          Since the video came out both Tour and DI have issued apologies to Dr. Szostak but the hypocritical DI kept the video up with its many falsehoods and no apology in the comments.

          Comment


          • #6
            I'm a bit confused. In the other thread, you claim to have posted this in response to my saying that i'd never seen any evidence for a designer. Yet this video is by someone who explicitly says intelligent design can't be evaluated scientifically, and the video seems to be a long list of things one individual considers unsolved hurdles for the origin of life.

            Is this a tacit admission that there is no evidence for intelligent design, or is there something here i'm missing?
            "Any sufficiently advanced stupidity is indistinguishable from trolling."

            Comment


            • #7
              Originally posted by TheLurch View Post
              I'm a bit confused. In the other thread, you claim to have posted this in response to my saying that i'd never seen any evidence for a designer. Yet this video is by someone who explicitly says intelligent design can't be evaluated scientifically, and the video seems to be a long list of things one individual considers unsolved hurdles for the origin of life.

              Is this a tacit admission that there is no evidence for intelligent design, or is there something here i'm missing?
              It's from "Dory" Merrill. Don't expect any logic, reason, or coherence in his arguments.

              Comment


              • #8
                Originally posted by HMS_Beagle View Post
                Here is a good overview of the many lies Tour told.

                James Tour's Lies about Szostak
                And here is a reply to Hurd's attack. But let's not argue by link? Have you watched the video? And do you have comments on it?

                Blessings,
                Lee
                "What I pray of you is, to keep your eye upon Him, for that is everything. Do you say, 'How am I to keep my eye on Him?' I reply, keep your eye off everything else, and you will soon see Him. All depends on the eye of faith being kept on Him. How simple it is!" (J.B. Stoney)

                Comment


                • #9
                  Originally posted by TheLurch View Post
                  I'm a bit confused. In the other thread, you claim to have posted this in response to my saying that i'd never seen any evidence for a designer. Yet this video is by someone who explicitly says intelligent design can't be evaluated scientifically, and the video seems to be a long list of things one individual considers unsolved hurdles for the origin of life.

                  Is this a tacit admission that there is no evidence for intelligent design, or is there something here i'm missing?
                  No, this is a thread on the status of origin-of-life research, and I'll let people draw their own conclusions.

                  Blessings,
                  Lee
                  "What I pray of you is, to keep your eye upon Him, for that is everything. Do you say, 'How am I to keep my eye on Him?' I reply, keep your eye off everything else, and you will soon see Him. All depends on the eye of faith being kept on Him. How simple it is!" (J.B. Stoney)

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    Originally posted by lee_merrill View Post
                    No, this is a thread on the status of origin-of-life research, and I'll let people draw their own conclusions.

                    Blessings,
                    Lee
                    Weren't any of your 1001 previous threads sufficient?
                    "When the Western world accepted Christianity, Caesar conquered; and the received text of Western theology was edited by his lawyers…. The brief Galilean vision of humility flickered throughout the ages, uncertainly…. But the deeper idolatry, of the fashioning of God in the image of the Egyptian, Persian, and Roman imperial rulers, was retained. The Church gave unto God the attributes which belonged exclusively to Caesar."

                    — Alfred North Whitehead

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      Originally posted by lee_merrill View Post
                      And here is a reply to Hurd's attack. But let's not argue by link? Have you watched the video? And do you have comments on it?

                      Blessings,
                      Lee
                      He may not indorse Intelligent Design in that he says this is not falsifiable, on this point I agree, but his arguments against natural abiogenesis and evolution are basically the same. I saw a heavy 'watchmaker' argument. He is as a matter of fact arguing from a Christian creationist perspective.

                      He endorsed this in a survey of scientists.

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


                      Nonetheless, some are disconcerted or even angered that I signed a statement in ~2001 along with many other scientists:

                      We are skeptical of claims for the ability of random mutation and natural selection to account for the complexity of life. Careful examination of the evidence for Darwinian theory should be encouraged.”

                      © Copyright Original Source



                      Actually most of the claimed scientists that sign this were really not scientists in the fields related to evolution. There were an awful lot of engineers, dentists, philosophers, and others not remotely qualified in the basic sciences related to evolution. Also the statement is vague and misleading. The science of evolution is already under 'careful examination of the evidence. Also the science of evolution is not the 'Darwinian Theory.'

                      Despite being a scientist he shows a fundamental lack of understanding of 'randomness' in the cause and effect outcome of natural events, and the classic Creationist misuse of probability and statistics.

                      One of the problems is his talk rambled through a lot of 'stuff' not really related to 'abiogenesis.'
                      Last edited by shunyadragon; 05-19-2019, 09:51 AM.
                      Glendower: I can call spirits from the vasty deep.
                      Hotspur: Why, so can I, or so can any man;
                      But will they come when you do call for them? Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part 1, Act III:

                      go with the flow the river knows . . .

                      Frank

                      I do not know, therefore everything is in pencil.

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        Sorry I put this in the wrong thread.

                        James Tour's view towards abiogenesis and evolution is basically fundamentalist Christian belief, and is a very poor starting point for a scientific discussion on the origins of life.

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



                        Based upon my faith in the biblical text, I do believe (yes, faith and belief go beyond scientific evidence for this scientist) that God created the heavens and the earth and all that dwell therein, including a man named Adam and a woman named Eve. As for many of the details and the time-spans, I personally become less clear. Some may ask, What’s “less clear” about the text that reads, “For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth”? That is a fair question, and I wish I had an answer that would satisfy them. But I do not because I remain less clear. So, in addition to my chemically based scientific resistance to a macroevolutionary proposal, I am also theologically reticent to embrace it. As a lover of the biblical text, I cannot allegorize the Book of Genesis that far, lest, as Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof said, “If I try and bend that far, I’ll break!” God seems to have set nature as a clue, not a solution, to keep us yearning for him. And if some day we do understand the mechanisms for these macroevolutionary changes, and also the processes that led to the origin of first life, it will not lessen God. As with all discoveries, like when the genetic code in the double-stranded DNA was discovered, they will serve to underscore the magnanimity of God.

                        © Copyright Original Source



                        The interesting point for discussion without the ambiguous; 'arguing from ignorance,' Gaps within gaps within gaps, and the misuse of randomness and probability, is given the evidence at hand; Is there an alternate hypothesis that fits the evidence and comes up with a different conclusion concerning the 'origin of life'?
                        Glendower: I can call spirits from the vasty deep.
                        Hotspur: Why, so can I, or so can any man;
                        But will they come when you do call for them? Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part 1, Act III:

                        go with the flow the river knows . . .

                        Frank

                        I do not know, therefore everything is in pencil.

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          Originally posted by lee_merrill View Post
                          By the way, James Tour is not an intelligent design proponent.
                          He is a creationist:

                          "Based upon my faith in the biblical text, I do believe (yes, faith and belief go beyond scientific evidence for this scientist) that God created the heavens and the earth and all that dwell therein, including a man named Adam and a woman named Eve."
                          Jorge: Functional Complex Information is INFORMATION that is complex and functional.

                          MM: First of all, the Bible is a fixed document.
                          MM on covid-19: We're talking about an illness with a better than 99.9% rate of survival.

                          seer: I believe that so called 'compassion' [for starving Palestinian kids] maybe a cover for anti Semitism, ...

                          Comment


                          • #14
                            Originally posted by shunyadragon View Post
                            Despite being a scientist he shows a fundamental lack of understanding of 'randomness' in the cause and effect outcome of natural events, and the classic Creationist misuse of probability and statistics.
                            Well, how so?

                            One of the problems is his talk rambled through a lot of 'stuff' not really related to 'abiogenesis.'
                            What stuff do you mean, though? There was a preface where he established his credentials as a scientist, then the rest of the talk was indeed, abiogenesis.

                            Blessings,
                            Lee
                            "What I pray of you is, to keep your eye upon Him, for that is everything. Do you say, 'How am I to keep my eye on Him?' I reply, keep your eye off everything else, and you will soon see Him. All depends on the eye of faith being kept on Him. How simple it is!" (J.B. Stoney)

                            Comment


                            • #15
                              Originally posted by shunyadragon View Post
                              He may not indorse Intelligent Design in that he says this is not falsifiable, on this point I agree, but his arguments against natural abiogenesis and evolution are basically the same. I saw a heavy 'watchmaker' argument. He is as a matter of fact arguing from a Christian creationist perspective.

                              He endorsed this in a survey of scientists.

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


                              Nonetheless, some are disconcerted or even angered that I signed a statement in ~2001 along with many other scientists:

                              We are skeptical of claims for the ability of random mutation and natural selection to account for the complexity of life. Careful examination of the evidence for Darwinian theory should be encouraged.”

                              © Copyright Original Source



                              Actually most of the claimed scientists that sign this were really not scientists in the fields related to evolution. There were an awful lot of engineers, dentists, philosophers, and others not remotely qualified in the basic sciences related to evolution. Also the statement is vague and misleading. The science of evolution is already under 'careful examination of the evidence. Also the science of evolution is not the 'Darwinian Theory.'

                              Despite being a scientist he shows a fundamental lack of understanding of 'randomness' in the cause and effect outcome of natural events, and the classic Creationist misuse of probability and statistics.

                              One of the problems is his talk rambled through a lot of 'stuff' not really related to 'abiogenesis.'
                              A lot has been made of the Dissent From Darwin list by various evolution deniers but much about it they don't like talking about.

                              For instance, from a post I made on another website a few years ago:

                              Many of those "dissenters" are anything but. Rather, like any good scientist they still have unanswered questions. Some were quite shocked to find their names included on the various lists that have been cobbled together.

                              Many of those "dissenters" were anything but PhD scientists. Some aren't even scientists except under the loosest definition of the word imaginable.

                              Many of those "dissenters" are in fields not even remotely associated with evolution. Many are mathematicians, engineers, philosophers, psychologists, statisticians and the like. One was even a park ranger. It's sort of like asking a sociologist for his opinion about cosmology or physics and then touting it as "expert" dissent.

                              Many of the institutes that the "dissenters" are listed as being affiliated with are deliberately misrepresented. They pick out the most prestigious organization or school that they ever attended or were at one time associated with (often distantly) and present it as if that is who they are currently affiliated with. That is not how it is done and is very dishonest.

                              There are nearly half a million earth and life scientists (scientists whose work involves the Theory of Evolution) just in the U.S. so even if every single one of those listed as "dissenters" were in those relevant fields (and only a fraction of them are) they would represent approximately 0.01% of them. And again, that list includes many not in the U.S. (IIRC less than 50%) so it represents a much smaller percentage than 0.01%

                              It should be noted that with 99.9% of those in the relevant fields supporting evolutionary theory that this represents a higher percentage than of historians who think that there was a Holocaust! Yeah, evolution is facing an imminent demise as all of those scientists are abandoning it. :D

                              More to the point, the list has been deliciously ridiculed by Project Steve which consists of a list of scientists with the given name Steven or a variation thereof (like Stephanie, Stefan, Esteban...) who accept evolutionary theory. The last I checked the list has somewhere around 1400 signers making it considerably larger than any of the lists put together by evolution deniers despite being restricted to just people named Steve. IOW, there are many more scientists named Steve who support evolution than all of the scientists (regardless of their name) who question it.

                              And there are several things to keep in mind here
                              • Only those who have signed on are included unlike some of those "dissenter" lists who also selected folks they think belong on it
                              • Scientists with the name "Steve" (or some variant) only constitute something like 1% of the population so the fact that Project Steve has far more signatories really exposes exactly how few "dissenters" there are.
                              • Project Steve contains a much higher percentage of biologists than any of the so-called "dissenter" lists meaning they consist of scientists who actually deal with evolution
                              • The original goal was to obtain 100 signatories but that was reached in just 10 days including 2 Nobel Prize winners


                              Also, as I noted, there have been a number of scientists who were shocked to find that they were included in the Discovery Institute's list of "dissenters." The only biologist on that list who would have qualified for Project Steve was Prof. C. Steve Murphree (Belmont University) who repudiated his association with it in a letter-to-the-editor published in the "Daily News Journal" of Rutherford County, Tennessee saying that he was a Theistic Evolutionist and signed the Project Steve list in January 2012 becoming the 1184th Steve on it.

                              William Dembski, a Fellow at the Discovery Institute and signer of the "Dissent From Darwinism" list remarked in response to Project Steve that "if Project Steve was meant to show that a considerable majority of the scientific community accepts a naturalistic conception of evolution, then the National Center for Science Education (NCSE) could have saved its energies – that fact was never in question."

                              And Project Steve isn't the only counter-list out there. During a four-day drive while the Kitzmiller v. Dover case was being heard a word-of-mouth campaign garnered the signatures of 7733 verifiable scientists for a "Scientific Support For Darwinism" petition.

                              And let's not forget the Clergy Letter Project (which was recently endorsed by The United Methodist Church) has just over 13,000 signers of a petition consisting of American Christian clergy and over 500 Jewish rabbis who "believe that the timeless truths of the Bible and the discoveries of modern science may comfortably coexist."

                              Further, I think it would be safe to say that even Darwin would have likely agreed with the central premise that random mutation and natural selection alone don't account for the complexity of life. He wrote a book on the importance of sexual selection demonstrating that from the start that nobody was claiming that those were the only mechanisms involved in evolution. And who wouldn't agree with the idea that "careful examination of the evidence for Darwinian theory should be encouraged"? But leave it to the hard-core evolution deniers to twist and distort it and present it as everyone who signed it think that evolution is invalid.


                              I should note that the Clergy Letter Project has expanded to over 15,000 signatories

                              I'm always still in trouble again

                              "You're by far the worst poster on TWeb" and "TWeb's biggest liar" --starlight (the guy who says Stalin was a right-winger)
                              "Overall I would rate the withdrawal from Afghanistan as by far the best thing Biden's done" --Starlight
                              "Of course, human life begins at fertilization that’s not the argument." --Tassman

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