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James Tour gets to debate origin-of-life chemist!

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  • #31
    Originally posted by Seeker View Post
    Sarcasm and name-calling aren't ad hominems, Lee. I took me a while to learn that but it is true.
    Well, Merriam-Webster defines it as follows (definition 2): "ad hominem: marked by or being an attack on an opponent's character rather than by an answer to the contentions made."

    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


    • #32
      Originally posted by lee_merrill View Post
      Tour is not saying abiogenesis cannot happen, he does say the problem is hard, which I think is generally acknowledged. But he has published articles discussing these issues with biologists.

      Blessings,
      Lee
      An open letter proposing problems in the negative is not a dialogue with biologists. There has not been any proposals for a positive hypothesis nor published research to support his negative proposals, which cannot be considered a falsifiable hypothesis.

      For the ID crowd you need falsifiable hypothesis supporting their claims

      None, absolutely none have been presented,
      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


      • #33
        Originally posted by lee_merrill View Post
        Well, Merriam-Webster defines it as follows (definition 2): "ad hominem: marked by or being an attack on an opponent's character rather than by an answer to the contentions made."

        Blessings,
        Lee
        I prefer to demand science, which is lacking.
        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


        • #34
          Originally posted by lee_merrill View Post
          Well, take me back to that other thread and correct my misunderstandings, then. Let's discuss Tour's debate in this thread, though.
          It's not my job to correct your misunderstandings. It's your job to make sure what you post is accurate.

          I'm posting this here because you decided to let someone else know his style of posting displeased you, and you wanted it to change. I found that somewhat ironic that you expect in others what you're not willing to deliver yourself.
          "Any sufficiently advanced stupidity is indistinguishable from trolling."

          Comment


          • #35
            Originally posted by lee_merrill View Post
            What points have you made, though?
            That Tour and Behe are both willful liars and are doing it to support their religious anti-science position. That's what the evidence presented shows. Ignoring the evidence like a good little Creationist won't make the evidence go away.

            Comment


            • #36
              Originally posted by Seeker View Post
              Sarcasm and name-calling aren't ad hominems, Lee. I took me a while to learn that but it is true.
              Falsely crying ad hom! is a standard Creationist defense to deflect criticism of the liars and charlatans who run the ID-Creationist movement.

              Comment


              • #37
                Originally posted by Seeker View Post
                Sarcasm and name-calling aren't ad hominems, Lee. I took me a while to learn that but it is true.
                Sorry, I should have said ''it'' and not ''I'', i.e., ''[...]it took me a while[...]

                Comment


                • #38
                  Originally posted by Seeker View Post
                  When will creationists (and with that I also mean the ID community) understand that abiogenesis and evolution are separate fields, and the second doesn't depend on the first? Seriously, it's like saying the same thing 100.000 times over.
                  Whenever they have an audience that doesn't see through their falsehoods about increases in information and complexity being impossible during evolution, so that they have no need to retreat to asking where the original information came from.
                  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


                  • #39
                    Originally posted by Roy View Post
                    Whenever they have an audience that doesn't see through their falsehoods about increases in information and complexity being impossible during evolution, so that they have no need to retreat to asking where the original information came from.
                    You mean like when they don't explain where ''God'' comes from or when they refuse to identify the ''Designer'' as the Christian God?

                    Comment


                    • #40
                      Originally posted by HMS_Beagle View Post
                      Falsely crying ad hom! is a standard Creationist defense to deflect criticism of the liars and charlatans who run the ID-Creationist movement.
                      Well if we go back to the original post that seems to be under discussion (which required going back quite a bit), it does seem like it was ad hominem in the sense of being an attack on the person, as the attack was quite directly on James Tour, asserting he wasn't reliable because he had repeatedly made false statements.

                      However... while it may have been ad hominem in the aforementioned sense, it's hard to say this is an ad hominem fallacy, as the ad hominem fallacy refers to making an attack on the person making the argument rather than the argument itself. But as far as I can tell, no arguments from James Tour have actually been posted in this topic, so one can't exactly complain about attacking James Tour instead of his argument when his arguments haven't been advanced. So the attacks on James Tour in this topic really can't be ad hominem fallacy because it's just an attack on James Tour, not an attack on him in lieu of attacking his arguments.

                      It should be noted there is debate as to whether an ad hominem attack, even when doing so in lieu of answering an argument itself, is inherently an ad hominem fallacy if the attack on the person actually relates in some way to the argument. For example, if someone has a known history of making really poor arguments, that doesn't mean the current argument they're making is bad, but increases the odds so markedly that it isn't unreasonable to dismiss it on that basis.

                      Comment


                      • #41
                        Originally posted by Terraceth View Post
                        It should be noted there is debate as to whether an ad hominem attack, even when doing so in lieu of answering an argument itself, is inherently an ad hominem fallacy if the attack on the person actually relates in some way to the argument. For example, if someone has a known history of making really poor arguments, that doesn't mean the current argument they're making is bad, but increases the odds so markedly that it isn't unreasonable to dismiss it on that basis.
                        I think this is often overlooked. Assessing the credibility of a person making an argument is often just as important as assessing the argument itself when the evidence isn't decisive. And, if the person is making what appears to be a really bad argument, then it's often worth examining why that might be the case.
                        "Any sufficiently advanced stupidity is indistinguishable from trolling."

                        Comment


                        • #42
                          Originally posted by Terraceth View Post
                          ... as far as I can tell, no arguments from James Tour have actually been posted in this topic...
                          But I posted his argument in the opening post:

                          Originally posted by lee_merrill
                          "There’s things that look like they’re living, but there’s no life there."

                          "I’m fine with naturalistic explanations."

                          In short he'd be happy if origin-of-life researchers came up with a demonstration, he's just insisting that we have a very long way to go, and the target (life in a cell) keeps moving farther away, the problem is demonstrably more and more difficult.
                          Originally posted by Terraceth
                          It should be noted there is debate as to whether an ad hominem attack, even when doing so in lieu of answering an argument itself, is inherently an ad hominem fallacy if the attack on the person actually relates in some way to the argument. For example, if someone has a known history of making really poor arguments, that doesn't mean the current argument they're making is bad, but increases the odds so markedly that it isn't unreasonable to dismiss it on that basis.
                          Well, I think Tour's arguments are historically good, I even posted a defense from an attack that no one has responded to:

                          Source: James Tour

                          But all of the above is minor compared to Szostak’s showing that in a single step, heat and light can make a compound that resembles a dehydrated nucleotide (though it is not a nucleotide since it is devoid of any stereochemistry) from “simple sugars” and “cyanide derivatives.” … To present that heat and UV light can act on these compounds (even if we are to use these 2 and 3 carbon simple sugars rather than glycerol and ethylene glycol, and to use any simple cyanide derivative) to afford anything like the listed “RNA nucleotide” (albeit not a nucleotide since it shows no stereochemistry) is incorrect and misleading. There are so many steps involved in such a transformation.

                          Source

                          © Copyright Original Source



                          Blessings,
                          Lee
                          Last edited by lee_merrill; 04-02-2020, 02:56 PM.
                          "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


                          • #43
                            Originally posted by lee_merrill View Post
                            Well, I think Tour's arguments are historically good, I even posted a defense from an attack that no one has responded to:

                            Source: James Tour

                            But all of the above is minor compared to Szostak’s showing that in a single step, heat and light can make a compound that resembles a dehydrated nucleotide (though it is not a nucleotide since it is devoid of any stereochemistry) from “simple sugars” and “cyanide derivatives.” … To present that heat and UV light can act on these compounds (even if we are to use these 2 and 3 carbon simple sugars rather than glycerol and ethylene glycol, and to use any simple cyanide derivative) to afford anything like the listed “RNA nucleotide” (albeit not a nucleotide since it shows no stereochemistry) is incorrect and misleading. There are so many steps involved in such a transformation.

                            © Copyright Original Source

                            Given your past history, i'd like to see you explain what that quote means, and how it's relevant to the issue here.
                            "Any sufficiently advanced stupidity is indistinguishable from trolling."

                            Comment


                            • #44
                              Originally posted by TheLurch View Post
                              Given your past history, i'd like to see you explain what that quote means, and how it's relevant to the issue here.
                              Surely the meaning is evident, that Szostak left out steps in his explanation of how he synthesized that molecule, and calling it an RNA nucleotide is incorrect. His description is misleading, origin-of-life researchers claim too much.

                              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


                              • #45
                                Originally posted by lee_merrill View Post
                                Surely the meaning is evident, that Szostak left out steps in his explanation of how he synthesized that molecule, and calling it an RNA nucleotide is incorrect. His description is misleading, origin-of-life researchers claim too much.
                                No, i mean the technical details. Show you know enough to understand the basis of his criticism, and can judge whether it's accurate.
                                "Any sufficiently advanced stupidity is indistinguishable from trolling."

                                Comment

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