Oh look who’s back …
First, I notice that you continue to avoid even acknowledging the existence of @Sheldon’s questions, let alone post something remotely resembling an attempt at an answer thereto. Indeed, once again, we see you operate in familiar creationist mode - hide for a time in the hope that we forget your output, then come back with a reboot as if none of your canards have ever been subject to scrutiny. A process made all the more fatuous by the fact that the forum provides us with a searchable permanent record of your output.
Second, this latest distraction of yours, to try and pretend that your evasion on a grand scale hasn’t already been noted by the regulars here, fails dismally not only on that ground, but on the ground that Tour is a well-known professional liar for creationism, one who has been a part of the equally mendacious Duplicity Institute for some time. His repeated farcical assertions to the effect that chemists are “clueless” about the origin of life, is rendered utterly null and void by the 100,000 plus peer reviewed scientific papers published in the prebiotic chemistry literature.
Worse still, he duplicitously misrepresents prebiotic chemistry, via the device of trying to conflate it with synthetic chemistry, a discipline that involves research into entirely different classes of chemical reaction.
Indeed, one of the facts I learned from studying actual peer reviewed scientific papers from the prebiotic chemistry literature, is that the researchers in that field have alighted upon novel chemical reactions, of a sort that a synthetic chemist would never suspect existed, and would therefore never look for. The work of John D. Sutherland is particularly apposite here, as is the work of various researchers who have alighted upon photochemical methods of synthesising key molecules in simulated interstellar conditions.
Oh, and before you post some duplicitous ex recto apologetic fabrication consisting of a quote mine of the use of the word “simulated” above, scientists know what conditions exist in interstellar gas clouds, and can replicate those conditions in a laboratory apparatus. You have heard of such tools as vacuum pumps, haven’t you? Or refrigeration?
Furthermore, scientists have a vast and detailed catalogue of spectroscopic data, informing us which molecules are present in those clouds, and the cometary ices esident therein, and can therefore replicate those cometary ices for their experiments. Not only have experiments in this vein yielded glycine and tryptophan, but a more recent paper I was introduced to also documents successful synthesis via ultraviolet photolysis of pyrimidine and purine nucleobases.
Don’t even think of playing duplicitous apologetics with my post, it will not end well for you.
Moving on …
Given his documented track record of lying on several key topics, including lying about the work of other scientists, I suspect more of the same will be found lurking in his assertions on the subject.
Well whoop de doo, you expect the American National Academy of Sciences, to accept as a member an individual who openly and publicly rejects scientific findings enjoying vast quantities of evidential support? An individual who peddles manifest lies about the research of other sicentists, and who embraces both pseudoscientific nonsense and the peddling of mendacious apologetic fabrications?
Do you really think an organisation with a reputation for rigour to protect, would damage that reputation by admitting a known quack and charlatan into their ranks? You really must live in a delusional fantasy world if you think this is going to happen.
Meanwhile, referencing this article covering a “debate” Tour took part in, he asserted the following:
That one made me laugh, given that I’m aware of scientific papers documenting the very syntheses he asserted do not exist, some of those papers dating back as far as the 1960s.
In addition, scientists have now moved on to experiments with synthetic model protocells, some of whose papers I’ve covered here in the past. Indeed, it’s been known for decades that phospholipids will self-assemble spontaneously into micelles, bilayer sheets and liposomes, simply by shaking the container. That knowledge has been used to develop synthetic model protocells, and furthermore, it has been demonstrated experimentally in the laboratory, that liposomes formed in this manner can encapsulate RNA molecules, and facilitate the beginnings of selective nutrient filtering to the internal contents. Among the papers relevant to this topic are the paper by Chen et al in 2005, and, wait for it, a paper paper by Montal & Mueller dating back to 1972, along with a paper by Yanagawa and Egami dating back to 1977. More recently, Jack Szostak was a co-author of papers on this topic in 2004, 2005 and 2009. Even my incomplete survey of the literature alighted upon over a dozen papers on this topic, detonating a nuclear depth charge under Tour’s assertions.
From that article, we also learn this:
Again, a blatant and manifest falsehood. I’ve been aware of papers documenting yet again, the reactions Tour blithely asserted did not exist, including the manner in which carbonyl sulphide catalyses the formation of peptides with yields of up to 80% after just a few hours of experimental run time.
We also learn this:
Heh, I’ve been aware of peer reviewed scientific papers documenting ribozymes and aptazymes in action for over a decade. I’ve even cited those papers in my exposition on prebiotic chemistry here, one of which covers montmorillonite catalysis of RNA formation (including ribozymes and aptazymes) dating back to 1993. Gerald F. Joyce published a paper covering this topic in some detail back in 1996.
So, already I have a large body of evidence, in the form of those peer reviewed scientific papers, that Tour is lying about prebiotic chemistry. As a corollary, I would not trust him to tell me that two plus two equals four, without double checking with a properly accredited mathematician.
Oh, and finally, with respect to your evasion of Sheldon’s questions … are you going to admit once and for all, that your distractions and non sequiturs merely demonstrate that you have no genuine answers thereto, and that your assertions on the subject of a cartoon magic man being purportedly “necessary” for the world we see around us, are precisely that - blind assertions with zero evidential support?