The Discovery Institute is once again providing us with news that is truly worthy of our attention. At their creationist blog, Klinghoffer just posted James Tour: “Molecules Don’t Care About Life”. Intriguing title, huh?
You undoubtedly know who Klinghoffer is. He’s a Discoveroid “senior fellow” (i.e., flaming, full-blown creationist), who eagerly functions as their journalistic slasher and poo flinger. But what about James Tour? We discovered him because he was being praised at Pat Robertson’s website. Tour is one of the courageous signers of the Discovery Institute’s Scientific Dissent From Darwinism, which we described here. This is his writeup at Wikipedia: James Tour.
A few years ago at the Jack Chick newsletter we found: World-Famous Chemist Says Peers Hide from Explaining Evolution! Yes, that’s right — the Jack Chick organization praised Tour. And that’s not all. Three years ago we wrote Discovery Institute Praises James Tour.
So now you know what we’re dealing with, and Klinghoffer is going to tell us even more about him. Here are some excerpts from the Discoveroid post, with bold font added by us for emphasis, and occasional Curmudgeonly interjections that look [like this]:
Friday here in Seattle we are expecting a huge cloud of wildfire smoke, blowing up from Oregon and California. Thanks, neighbors. Blowing smoke happens also to be what science media and even scientists themselves do a great deal of the time when they talk about the origin of life.
Wow — wasn’t that a clever introduction? Okay, we’re prepared to see the Discoveroids demolish the wretched smoke blowing of the Darwinists. Klinghoffer says:
As synthetic organic chemist James Tour, of Rice University, forcefully reminds us, no one really has a clue how life got started. [Gasp!] The problems are extremely formidable, as he notes in a quick preview:
The “quick preview” is some kind of video that Klinghoffer has embedded in his post. We haven’t looked at it. We don’t need to, because Klinghoffer tells us about it:
That’s an excerpt from a presentation Professor Tour gave to Andrews University on the theme “Scientists Are Clueless on the Origin of Life.” It premieres on Friday, September 11 [That’s today!], at 10 am Pacific time/1 pm Eastern.
Jimmy Tour’s presentation has already premiered. Klinghoffer continues:
Tour is a dynamo [Yes!] and he promises to disperse the smoke of hype and misinformation about life’s origin from nonlife. As he puts it, “Molecules don’t care about life.” They “don’t evolve. They don’t move toward life.”
Molecules don’t care? That’s shocking information. Absolutely shocking! Let’s read on:
This is not a presentation about God, as he warns at the outset [It’s not?], nor about intelligent design. [What?] It’s a rousing reminder that science remains without real information, of any kind, about the ultimate mystery.
Ah yes, scientists are fools! Klinghoffer wraps it up with another video he introduces like this:
You can watch that Friday, right here:
Hey — today is Friday, so you can click over there and watch the video Klinghoffer has provided at the end of his post. Go for it, dear reader. Then rush back here and tell us all about it.
Copyright © 2020. The Sensuous Curmudgeon. All rights reserved.
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The Sensuous Curmudgeon 
I should donate money to the Discovery Institute because they say scientists may never figure out the origin of life? That seems to be what the DI is all about, really. How does that work out? I mean, logically/
No, nothing about God at all. Says the guy lecturing at Christian colleges as an apologist not as a scientist.
https://www.andrews.edu/agenda/56884/
The brief comments from Klinghoffer demonstrates that dear ol’ Jimbo has no clue how selection works – if he spent less time reading Genesis and more time reading scientific papers, he might know what he was talking about. Molecules need to care in order for life to arise, really? How did this guy ever get a PhD and a professorship? Bluff?
Everyone knows that dogs evolved from wolves. Everyone knows that oaks come from acorns. Do acorns care about life? Do wolves try to become
Dogs?
If the issue about evolution has become just about the origins of life, does this means that they have given up on the evolution of birds evolving from
Dinosaurs, whales evolving from
Terrestrial mammals and tetrapods evolving from fish?
You can read Jimmie’s comments about OoL and macroevolutionary skepticism demonstrating his blatant ignorance here:
https://www.jmtour.com/personal-topics/evolution-creation/
He ends by saying:
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.
Faith and belief are better than science? Now we know why he is skeptical and why he can’t bother to even try to understand evolutionary biology; no matter what evidence science had it would never be enough to overcome his faith.
Molecules don’t care about life. Yes, and atoms don’t care about molecules, but they “like” to form molecules. If you exclude the noble gases, they are all keen to form molecules. And quite complex molecules – you can find clouds of amino acids in space.
As a self-professed Messianic Jew, Tour compounds the wrongness by adding the Christian myths — the ‘miracle’ of the Resurrection; salvation, etc — on top of the dodgy foundational Judaic ones. That’s a twofer.
No doubt Krapmeister would bat that criticism away as merely ad hom, but it’s hard to take any scientist seriously who prefers the Genesis stories as some sort of favoured explanation for origins of life, over more natural ones.
Is there anyone who does not choose which science to accept and which Biblical proof texts to take literally?
Is there anyone who does not enlarge upon the plain text of the Bible?
This is politics, and politics is so fundamentally shaped by religion and the superstitions of realities that support it that it creates a disarray of what we unique animals of the world are doing to ourselves in tribal postures of so-called civil discourse.
Grant this as a function no less than a surrendered gathering of strange people in a strange land where absolutes of truth are discredited as chimeras by illegitimate scholars who allow science to be credited as the birthing of false-memory syndromes where public opinion and courts of law abide the allowance of eye-witness accounts of injustices permitted by lies and the frenzy of partisan outrage.
So consider this, that the evaporative conclusion of faith becomes a design of tomorrow’s reality where only absolutes becomes truth, and embraces the futures’s dialectic of an eventual moment where the biological, the psychological, and the environmental combine to an exquisite pass of consummation causing to spring forth the most perfect of humans, with an omniscience of intelligence, wisdom, enchantment, and purpose.
That person will then be condemned to ridicule, hatred, lies, and eventual execution.
For people would rather destroy perfection, preferring martyrs and saints safely dead to explain what life might be capable of, rather than having to live it fully and with understanding, without falsehoods, prevarications, and deceits to succor them.
Such sorry creatures we are in god’s heart for a wholeness that eludes even him, having dared to created us in his own image.
Our dear SC doesn’t honour the merits of James Tour enough:
https://americanloons.blogspot.com/search?q=James+Tour
@TomS: “If the issue about evolution has become just about the origins of life”
then this confirms that creacrappers want to disprove common descent by whining about this totally different issue.
“Is there anyone who …..”
Yes, me. Except when it comes to the history of a small, rather irrelevant segment of the population in the Levant I simply don’t care. Literally? Metaphorically? Shrug. Enlarge? Diminish? Be my guest. I don’t believe anyway.
At this point some apologists and historians (Tom Holland) like to point out that my thinking is influenced by christianity, hence by the Bible. I congratulate them with expertedly kicking in this open door.
It’s not just any “Christian college” that Tour was lecturing at, it was a Seventh Day Adventist college — as in the group that started YEC in the first place, and still rigidly adhere to it.
Friday here in Seattle we are expecting a huge cloud of wildfire smoke, blowing up from Oregon and California. Thanks, neighbors. – As if he was unaware that there have been fires in Washington, as well.
They didn’t teach Martian when I was in school, so I have no idea what the hell @Kae Quante is saying.
Pretty sure we created gods in our image.
Tour is not just wacky, he’s professionally dishonest and wacky. Of course, I stand by my observation that all creationists are intellectually dishonest; it’s a pre-requisite.
Tour, if you recall from last year, had to issue an apology and a retraction for a dishonest talk he gave to a bunch of Baptists in a Dallas church basement in which he slandered a couple of scientists (calling them liars! Oh, irony!) who had written a light, “in the news” review for New Scientist (I think). Fellow curmudgeon and creationist hunter Dr. Gary Hurd took Tour to task in a video.
Tour hasn’t learned his lesson and continues to give talks babbling about what scientists don’t know, then preach a sermon at the end. That’s the dishonesty.
You may also recall that Tour’s bluff was called some years ago after he claimed that “nobody could explain to him how evolution worked at a molecular level.” Right. The Biochemistry department is literally 100 feet from his office. A meeting was arranged at Rice University, where Tour does his seance, but true to form Tour backed out of the deal. Of course Tour backed out! He knows he’s lying.
Tour is trying to rationalize his creationism by appealing to his scientific credentials, but he didn’t use any scientific evidence to arrive at creationism. No amount of scientific evidence can possibly change his belief. His appeal to science is post hoc – a lame attempt to justify a prior conclusion. Then again, he has to reject abiogenesis because he believes his God created life and he has to reject common descent because he believes his God created Adam and Eve. He has no choice, but he tries to act as though he made one based on science.
@Michael Fugate
I don’t understand why “God created life” is in conflct with the natural origin of life (abiogenesis).
Standard theism considers it important that each of us stands in a personal relationship with our Creator and Savior. Yet there are few theists deny the scientific explanation of reproduction. They don’t see any conflict there.
As far as the origin of life, Genesis 1 says that, for example, “the earth brought forth grass”, etc. I don’t see any conflict with a natural process there. Surely, it would not take extrodary effort, by the standards of biblical interpretation, to avoid a conflict.
TomS
I don’t get it either. It seems unimportant for Christianity as a whole and in many ways detrimental to its long-term survival. I don’t understand the focus on sex either – it seems such a small and distorted part of the gospel message. For instance Mark 10 discusses marriage and divorce, but it doesn’t contain the absolutism that many demand. Sure males and females are attracted to each other, marry and have kids, but it doesn’t mean that is the only option. Otherwise everyone including priests and nuns would be married, no? And with divorce, which some say Jesus was trying to protect women, why doesn’t anyone get a second chance? We all make mistakes and Christianity supposedly offers forgiveness, but not if we marry the wrong person? I saw that in several US states girls as young as 12 and 13 are being married off with few rights because they are minors and that is their one chance for a relationship?
On second thought, it must be seen as an attempt to thwart the deep state take over of the US….
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/sep/12/donald-trump-michael-caputo-cdc-covid-reports-politico-deep-state
@TomS: “I don’t understand why “God created life” is in conflct with the natural origin of life (abiogenesis).”
It’s rather “my particular interpretation of my favourite Holy Book is in conflict with the natural origin of life (abiogenesis) and common descent (evolution).
@MichaelF: “I don’t understand the focus on sex either”
Neither do I in the end, but controlling sex for the abrahamist religions (and probably several more) always has been an instrument to guarantee power over individuals (of course especially women).
FrankB, Sure control is important, conservative Protestants were largely ambivalent on abortion until women got control over their own bodies. Many still want that control over daughters and wives – which seem to be the assigned roles. Witness all the US organizations with “family” in their names…
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/child-marriage-us-states-america-minimum-age-bride-girls-a9467121.html
For quite some time a posting on the opinions of “world-renowned” chemist James Tour on OoL was the most read post on Uncommon Descent.
They no longer have this item of the most popular postings on their site because of a new layout of their site.
(I am not sure about ‘chemist’, it could be ‘scientist’.)
Wow, in some American states marriage laws are weaker than those in [bleeping!] Afghanistan.
I took one for the team and scanned through Tour’s presentation at Andrews University. On mute. I just clicked through the slides.
My first observation is that Tour is a terrible, Terrible, TERRIBLE presenter. Slide after slide after slide filled with text, often too small to read and jargon clearly over the heads of the audience. Absolutely, pitifully terrible. I can only conclude that Tour was trying to dazzle his audience with big words and tiny print to show how smart Tour was and how stupid everybody else was (including his audience).
My second observation is that Tour is possibly the most arrogant creationist I have ever seen. He spent the first part of the lecture talking about himself, how great his research is, blah, blah, blah, then spent the rest of the lecture trashing all other scientists. He showed random quotes from the 70’s, pointed out the foolishness of evolutionary scientists concerning “punctuated equilibrium,” and a bunch of hoary old chestnuts. Really pathetic.
On the disgusting scale, Tour deserves his own mark way off the edge. AGAIN he trashes Jack Szostak’s little review in Nature (2018) as if it was a peer-reviewed research article which it clear isn’t, and mocks the simplified drawings ONCE AGAIN! This is the same thing he did in Dallas for which he apologized to Szostak, and here he is doing exactly the same thing again although he doesn’t call Szostak a liar this time. However, he ridiculed the work deliberately misleading the audience, something he later accused scientists of doing. This act alone was intellectually and professionally dishonest. But, he did it over and over again throughout the lecture. His theme was “Every scientist is a liar, except James Tour who stands for the Trvth ™ ”
And, finally, at the 1-hour mark came the sermon. Quotes from the Bible admonishing not to believe in false prophets, etc. Science changes but the Bible doesn’t, yadda, yadda, yadda.
Postscript
I watched the Q/A session on mute with captions and it was just as dishonest and disgusting as the original presentation. Tour described the modern theory of evolution as “storytelling.” He basically argued that we don’t see cats evolving into dogs, therefore, ah ha! evolution can’t be true.** One comment he made was really funny, though. Tour said that he gives his biology colleagues papers to read and they tell him to “go away.” Oh, I bet they do! I’m sure Tour has quite the reputation at little old Rice, sort of like David Coppedge I suspect. That part cracked me up.
** My favorite ancient animal, the miacid, did evolve into both cats and dogs. I want a miacid, don’t you?
@docbill1351
Thanks for taking one for the team. You’re a glutton for punishment.
As so many creationists are poor writers (and thinkers), so too are they often poor presenters and speakers.
Nice find on the miacid, also.
I figure he is oh so busy and hasn’t had time to make new slides – yeah sure if it works as apologetics why change?
I love that he tries to get biologists at Rice to read creationist tracts – hubris on stilts. That and the primitivism of his cats changing into dogs argument – one might expect a bit more sophistication. Then I don’t think he bothers as nothing would change his mind.
From his personal statement of what he believes
“ The Bible is the inspired word of God. Faithful Jewish scholars have preserved the Old Testament through the ages and it is an accurate account of God’s dealing with mankind, and more specifically, with the Jewish people.
The New Testament, particularly the record in the four Gospels, is based upon eye-witnessed historical accounts that are accurate beyond compare to any historical documents of their time.”
He keeps harping on “accuracy” as if his claim will make it so. So what if the Gospels were the best historical document of it time (it’s nonsense, I know), they are still mostly fabricated – the birth legend in Matthew, the tacked on resurrection fable originally missing from Mark? And how were the exact words of conversations preserved before compilation? Does the man have a clue about eye-witness memories?
Is this how he convinces people his science is correct?
Oh, I agree that the NT is one of the most accurate documents of his time – of what the authors believed that happened. To which they all added their theological agendas.