It’s obvious that you’ve never read any of the numerous posts here dealing with both prebiotic chemistry and James Tour, otherwise you would have learned quickly that his objections are utterly specious, and that he’s a charlatan. I’ll now cover in detail why he’s a charlatan.
First of all, thanks to the fact that I actually studied organic chemistry, I know that there’s a world of difference between synthetic chemistry and prebiotic chemistry. Modern synthetic chemistry frequently deals with chemical reactions that involve elevated temperatures and pressures, the use of exotic catalysts such as those based upon palladium, rhodium or in one or two cases, even iridium, powerful reagents such as strong oxidising or reducing agents, superacids, or exotic intermediate compounds involving such weirdness as 11-membered heterocyclic rings.
On the other hand, prebiotic chemistry deals with reactions that take place at room temperature (or temperatures not varying wildly therefrom), atmospheric pressure, and involving mild reagents that are known to be present in abundance throughout the observable universe - indeed, recent additions to my collection of peer reviewed scientific papers from the prebiotic chemistry literature, include one announcing the discovery of the amino acid tryptophan in interstellar gas clouds.
So on that basis alone, I know Tour is a charlatan, one who never dares to present his specious pseudo-objections to an audience containing tenured prebiotic chemistry researchers such as Jack Szostak or John D. Sutherland, who would rip him a new one in nanoseconds after he had opened his mouth. Indeed, the last time a mythology fanboy tried to exhort me to pay attention to Tour’s nonsense, I replied with this post, covering relevant salient facts about Tour, such as the fact that he’s a member of the Duplicity Institute, a well known creationist organisation devoted to peddling lies about science and vacuous apologetics to dangle before the gullible and uneducated. You might want to ask why he’s decided to become a member thereof, though my view is that he decided that apologetics was more lucrative than hard science.
As for the matter of prebiotic chemistry, over 100,000 peer reviewed scientific papers document in exquisite detail, the laboratory experiments establishing that every chemical reaction implicated in the origin of life works. Which isn’t surprising, because those of us who paid attention in class learned quickly that life IS chemistry writ large - millions of chemical reactions are taking place in your body right now, and if some of those reactions stop, you die.
The existence of poisons, and well-defined chemical mechanisms via which they exert their influence, and the existence of the modern pharmaceutical industry, which treats diseases with chemical molecules successfully, should be telling you something important here, even before I start pointing to any of the aforementioned peer reviewed scientific papers from the prebiotic chemistry literature.
Oh wait, I referenced no less than eighty two of those papers when I launched this thread on the subject of prebiotic chemistry research and its implications for the origin of life. Even that isn’t the sum total of my collection, which, despite being woefully small from the standpoint of professional researchers in the field, still numbers four hundred and sixty two papers that I’ve studied over the past 14 years, all documenting experimental verification of chemical reactions that Tour blithely asserts do not exist.
Indeed, prebiotic chemists have alighted upon chemical reactions that were not suspected to exist just two decades ago, and verified experimentally in the laboratory that they work. John Sutherland has displayed particular ingenuity in this field, but he’s not alone with respect to making contributions of this sort to the literature.
Oh, by the way, in case you never learned this, prebiotic chemists have, in some cases, moved on to experiments with synthetic model protocells, experiments that Tour is woefully ignorant of. I’ve already provided enough citations from the relevant literature to back up my statements, which can be tracked down by anyone exerting a minimal level of diligence with the forum search function, so don’t even think of trying to accuse me of lacking rigour in this respect.
With respect to those experiments with synthetic model protocells, the peer reviewed journal Nature alone has three entire collections thereof, that the diligent can enjoy perusing via these links:
Quite simply, Tour is a liar and a pedlar of repeatedly destroyed creationist propaganda, who wouldn’t dare peddle his wares before an audience containing people such as Sutherland, Szostak, Ferris, Wächtershäuser, Orgel or Joyce. Who would not so much demolish his canards, but reduce them to their constituent quarks.
Now would you like to address the data contained in those papers I’ve cited, which destroy Tour’s duplicitous ex recto assertions wholesale, or are you going to continue pretending that a known creationist liar knows more about chemistry than actual tenured researchers in the field?