Origin of Life: James Tour and Dave Farina Debate Friday (5/19) 7PM

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DD88
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4:42p, 5/18/23
AG
Origin of Life: James Tour and Dave Farina Will Debate at Rice University on Friday

Quote:
Everyone's favorite fake professor, Dave Farina, has devoted many hours on his YouTube channel, "Professor Dave Explains," to spewing venom at skeptics of materialist doctrine on biological origins. Perhaps you thought, "Gee, wouldn't it be interesting if Dave agreed to an in-person debate with, let's say, Rice University chemist James Tour on the origin of life?"

Dr. Tour is highly skeptical that theorists have got it all figured out about how life arose from non-life on a barren early Earth through known material processes alone. Farina attacked him and his "idiot followers" repeatedly for that. Yeah, Farina is a real mensch, as you may know. Tour, considering that Farina has a YouTube subscriber base of 2.48 million, and thus is reaching a lot of vulnerable people who have no idea how uniformed he is, responded accordingly. In videos of his own, Dr. Tour even offered to fly Farina out to Rice to debate him put him up at his Tour's home, give him dinner, etc.


Debate Website:
Debate: Are We Clueless about the Origin of Life?


This should be the link for the Live Debate Friday 7PM (if not, click the article link above)


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DD88
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10:29a, 5/19/23
AG
Background:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Tour
Quote:
James Mitchell Tour (born 1959) is an American chemist and nanotechnologist. He is a Professor of Chemistry, Professor of Materials Science and Nanoengineering, and Professor of Computer Science at Rice University in Houston, Texas. Tour is a top researcher in his field, having an h-index of 165 with total citations index over 125,000 and was listed as an ISI highly cited researcher.

https://en.everybodywiki.com/Professor_Dave_Explains
Quote:
Dave Farina (born 1983) is an American educator and science communicator who is best known for his YouTube channel Professor Dave Explains.

Farina was born in New York to Italian parents and moved to West Hartford, Connecticut in 1987.
Farina moved in 2001 to attend Carleton College, a private liberal arts college in Northfield, Minnesota, from which he earned a BA in Chemistry in 2005. He later attended University of California, Santa Cruz for a masters program in synthetic organic chemistry, which he did not complete. Farina moved in 2006 to San Francisco and again in 2008 to Los Angeles to pursue his interest in music. He lectured organic chemistry at the Southern California University of Health Sciences (SCUHS), a private university in Whittier, California, while attending California State University Northridge for a masters degree. Farina later withdrew from his masters program when he lost his lecturing job at SCUHS.

Farina recorded his organic chemistry lectures, which would later become the first videos on his YouTube channel.


Youtube Channels:
https://www.youtube.com/drjamestour
https://www.youtube.com/@ProfessorDaveExplains



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ramblin_ag02
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11:29a, 5/19/23
AG
Last time I checked the arguments went something like this:

Theists: we don't know how life arose but God did it
Atheists: we don't know how life arose but God didn't do it

Anything new that I missed in the field?
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DD88
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In reply to ramblin_ag02 • 11:44a, 5/19/23
AG
This debate will likely revolve around "Is abiogenesis even scientifically possible?" given its complexity even with 10s of billions of years and 10^90 or so molecules in the universe.

Farina will likely ridicule and gloss over broader topics while Tour will dig into the complexity of the chemistry needed to form even the simplest living cell and its building blocks.
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TAM85
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1:03p, 5/19/23
"Before I formed you in the womb I knew you."- God (Jer. Ch. 1)
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Rocag
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In reply to DD88 • 1:21p, 5/19/23
AG
If he's spending his time talking about "the simplest living cell" he's already missed the point. That's not the starting point for the topic of abiogenesis. The first replicating structure that is capable of evolving pretty assuredly wouldn't be recognized as alive. Sort of like how we don't consider viruses to be alive and the things we are talking about here would be much simpler than that.

I personally don't like the debate format for discussing such a complicated subject. But hope you enjoy it anyway.
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DD88
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In reply to Rocag • 6:23p, 5/19/23
AG
Tour will likely cover the building blocks which will address even the difficulty of forming a simple virus. The odds of forming even a protein by random chance are statistically improbably.

The debate will probably be posted later for viewing if you miss it now.
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TAM85
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10:46p, 5/19/23
# lost in the weeds.
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ramblin_ag02
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9:17a, 5/20/23
AG
https://aeon.co/essays/time-is-not-an-illusion-its-an-object-with-physical-size

I ran across a randomly topical argument about time. Very long read, but it's all about assembly theory. That seems to be an attempt to describe complexity scientifically. The basic premise is that complexity is measurable, and you don't get high complexity objects from low complexity systems. So you can't get a functional human protein by putting a lot of amino acids in a jar and mixing them together. You need the complex system of a cell or virus to turn one into the other. So each level of complexity is built on a slight lower level.

Interestingly, they seem to hit a wall in experiments at "level 13-15" complexity, where unguided or "random" systems don't get any more complex. Just thought it was interesting
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ramblin_ag02
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In reply to DD88 • 9:22a, 5/20/23
AG
DD88 said:
Tour will likely cover the building blocks which will address even the difficulty of forming a simple virus. The odds of forming even a protein by random chance are statistically improbably.

The debate will probably be posted later for viewing if you miss it now.


I hope not. Any appeal to probability means he has already lost the debate, because he ceded the most important philosophical ground. Probability is dependent on randomness, and randomness is inherently undirected and unguided. Therefore randomness is incompatible with the Abrahamic God, who directs all things (except maybe allowing us to direct a small amount). By allowing the discussion to take place in the paradigm of probability, God is already excluded.
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Sapper Redux
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In reply to ramblin_ag02 • 12:19p, 5/20/23
It's all a "God of the gaps" argument. If the current limits in science are overcome, the gap will just move to a new line that requires a creator.
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dermdoc
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In reply to Sapper Redux • 12:21p, 5/20/23
AG
Sapper Redux said:
It's all a "God of the gaps" argument. If the current limits in science are overcome, the gap will just move to a new line that requires a creator.
Disagree.

Science is the explanation of how God does things. All things.

Never understood why science and God had to be mutually exclusive.
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Sapper Redux
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In reply to dermdoc • 12:42p, 5/20/23
I'm not saying you can't reasonably hold that position. I'm saying that claiming a specific moment in physical history requires a deity is a "God of the gaps" argument.
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Win At Life
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10:44p, 5/20/23
AG
Science cannot prove God by the very definition of the scientific method. If God does anything consistently, such as holding the charge between an electron and a proton constant throughout the universe, science measures that and defines the results as science and not God. If God interrupts those laws to create a "miracle" that is not repeatable, that evidence is discarded as not scientific and not God. God can't win with science either way.
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Sapper Redux
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In reply to Win At Life • 3:37p, 5/21/23
Win At Life said:
Science cannot prove God by the very definition of the scientific method. If God does anything consistently, such as holding the charge between an electron and a proton constant throughout the universe, science measures that and defines the results as science and not God. If God interrupts those laws to create a "miracle" that is not repeatable, that evidence is discarded as not scientific and not God. God can't win with science either way.


If God is actively holding the universe together then you're arguing for Spinoza's pantheism. In which case science is more worship than anything done in a church.
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Zobel
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In reply to Sapper Redux • 8:50p, 5/21/23
AG
God holding everything together is not the same as everything being God. What am I missing?
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Sapper Redux
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In reply to Zobel • 9:51p, 5/21/23
Zobel said:
God holding everything together is not the same as everything being God. What am I missing?
How is God holding the bond of an ion together functionally different from God being present and part of the universe?
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Zobel
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In reply to Sapper Redux • 9:59p, 5/21/23
AG
The same way you doing something is different than you being something?
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Sapper Redux
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In reply to Zobel • 10:56p, 5/21/23
Zobel said:
The same way you doing something is different than you being something?
Except this action is physically quantifiable and can be manipulated. And the action breaks down the separation between the divine and the material such that there is no functional difference. You're essentially making God a physical aspect of the universe that we can measure and test. It's Spinoza.
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Zobel
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In reply to Sapper Redux • 7:49a, 5/22/23
AG
Yeah, that's just like, your opinion man.

God sustaining all things is not pantheism. It does not make the created the uncreated, or the material the divine.
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DD88
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In reply to ramblin_ag02 • 10:05a, 5/22/23
AG
ramblin_ag02 said:
DD88 said:
Tour will likely cover the building blocks which will address even the difficulty of forming a simple virus. The odds of forming even a protein by random chance are statistically improbably.

The debate will probably be posted later for viewing if you miss it now.


I hope not. Any appeal to probability means he has already lost the debate, because he ceded the most important philosophical ground. Probability is dependent on randomness, and randomness is inherently undirected and unguided. Therefore randomness is incompatible with the Abrahamic God, who directs all things (except maybe allowing us to direct a small amount). By allowing the discussion to take place in the paradigm of probability, God is already excluded.

Tour will stick with scientific explanations when addressing the difficulties and statistical impossibilities of naturalistic abiogenesis in those settings. He does have other videos where he talks about his faith.




Assuming you could magically arrange the estimated 10^90 molecules in the universe in groups of the 20 amino acids needed for life in the right chirality reacting every millisecond for 3 billion years (~10^20ms), that would give you less than a 1 in 10^22 chance to form a specific 100 amino acid protein with 20^100 (~10^130) combinations.
And that would just be one of the first of many steps to abiogenesis by random chance.
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kurt vonnegut
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11:12a, 5/22/23
AG

Quote:
Science cannot prove God by the very definition of the scientific method. If God does anything consistently, such as holding the charge between an electron and a proton constant throughout the universe, science measures that and defines the results as science and not God. If God interrupts those laws to create a "miracle" that is not repeatable, that evidence is discarded as not scientific and not God. God can't win with science either way.


What would it mean for God to 'win with science'? If God interrupts a natural law to create a miracle that is not repeatable, how should science react? Should every test result which results in an unexpected and non-repeatable result be viewed as a miracle? How does the acceptance of non-repeatable phenomenon as miracle further our understanding of the natural world and allow us to make better materialistic predictions?

I've never fully understood the religious person's need to rectify science with God. If your God uses miracles and can manipulate the laws of nature, then what is it you expect from science? What do you think science can say on those topics? Science is a tool for exploring the material. You've defined God as being immaterial.

If God created life, then this is not something science can confirm. How do we observe the past interruption of natural laws by a supreme being to create life? And then how to we measure and quantify it? And use the data to set up and run experiments to test patterns and models. . . . If God created life, science is the wrong tool. Using science to interrogate the miracle of God creating life is like using a tape measurer to interrogate a 2x4 on questions of arborilogical metaphysics. Its simply the wrong tool.

Science requires an assumption of a material or natural solution. Once you start using science to confirm the immaterial, you've stopped using science.

Christians all believe that there is more to life than the material and that science is ill equipped to describe the immaterial. . . so why is there this demand for recognition in consistency between God and science? If God uses miracles, then we should expect inconsistency, right?
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Sapper Redux
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In reply to Zobel • 11:26a, 5/22/23
Zobel said:
Yeah, that's just like, your opinion man.

God sustaining all things is not pantheism. It does not make the created the uncreated, or the material the divine.


If God is directly interacting with the ion to sustain it, then what exactly is being measured when you measure a charge?
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Sapper Redux
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In reply to DD88 • 11:27a, 5/22/23
DD88 said:
ramblin_ag02 said:
DD88 said:
Tour will likely cover the building blocks which will address even the difficulty of forming a simple virus. The odds of forming even a protein by random chance are statistically improbably.

The debate will probably be posted later for viewing if you miss it now.


I hope not. Any appeal to probability means he has already lost the debate, because he ceded the most important philosophical ground. Probability is dependent on randomness, and randomness is inherently undirected and unguided. Therefore randomness is incompatible with the Abrahamic God, who directs all things (except maybe allowing us to direct a small amount). By allowing the discussion to take place in the paradigm of probability, God is already excluded.

Tour will stick with scientific explanations when addressing the difficulties and statistical impossibilities of naturalistic abiogenesis in those settings. He does have other videos where he talks about his faith.




Assuming you could magically arrange the estimated 10^90 molecules in the universe in groups of the 20 amino acids needed for life in the right chirality reacting every millisecond for 3 billion years (~10^20ms), that would give you less than a 1 in 10^22 chance to form a specific 100 amino acid protein with 20^100 (~10^130) combinations.
And that would just be one of the first of many steps to abiogenesis by random chance.


These claims always ignore how attractions work. This is not a purely random situation.
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Zobel
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In reply to Sapper Redux • 11:51a, 5/22/23
AG
You're confusing activity with being.
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Sapper Redux
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In reply to Zobel • 12:09p, 5/22/23
Zobel said:
You're confusing activity with being.


You're trying to separate that which can't be separated. You can't separate the charge of an ion or it's attractive properties from the ion itself.
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Zobel
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In reply to Sapper Redux • 12:12p, 5/22/23
AG
of course you can. you can even make an ion change charge or stop being an ion altogether.

this is a really bad argument.
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Aggrad08
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In reply to dermdoc • 12:41p, 5/22/23
AG
dermdoc said:
Sapper Redux said:
It's all a "God of the gaps" argument. If the current limits in science are overcome, the gap will just move to a new line that requires a creator.
Disagree.

Science is the explanation of how God does things. All things.

Never understood why science and God had to be mutually exclusive.
Because theists often insist on denying science on theological grounds. Don't you yourself reject human evolution on such grounds while accepting evolution overall for other species? Or am I remembering wrong. The exclusion only exists so far as people make theological claims not backed by science.
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dermdoc
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In reply to Aggrad08 • 12:46p, 5/22/23
AG
Aggrad08 said:
dermdoc said:
Sapper Redux said:
It's all a "God of the gaps" argument. If the current limits in science are overcome, the gap will just move to a new line that requires a creator.
Disagree.

Science is the explanation of how God does things. All things.

Never understood why science and God had to be mutually exclusive.
Because theists often insist on denying science on theological grounds. Don't you yourself reject human evolution on such grounds while accepting evolution overall for other species? Or am I remembering wrong. The exclusion only exists so far as people make theological claims not backed by science.


Not sure on human evolution but if it does occur, I believe it is the work of God.
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Sapper Redux
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In reply to Zobel • 12:46p, 5/22/23
Zobel said:
of course you can. you can even make an ion change charge or stop being an ion altogether.

this is a really bad argument.


You're claiming that God is directly involved in the physics of holding together matter while also claiming God is not part of the matter being held together. From a physical perspective that makes no sense. If God is part of the force or charge or gravity or whatever else is acting upon matter, then God is part of the composition of that item and is much more Spinoza's god than what you claim to worship.
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Zobel
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In reply to Sapper Redux • 1:01p, 5/22/23
AG
materialist atheist believes in atheist materialism. story at 10.
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ramblin_ag02
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In reply to DD88 • 1:04p, 5/22/23
AG
Quote:
Assuming you could magically arrange the estimated 10^90 molecules in the universe in groups of the 20 amino acids needed for life in the right chirality reacting every millisecond for 3 billion years (~10^20ms), that would give you less than a 1 in 10^22 chance to form a specific 100 amino acid protein with 20^100 (~10^130) combinations.

And that would just be one of the first of many steps to abiogenesis by random chance.
My whole point is that there is no such thing as random chance. The very concept is atheistic. So when you debate against an atheist using atheistic concepts are your core argument, then you've already lost. Instead of attacking the improbability of any number of permuations, he should be attacking the philosophical foundations of probability itself.
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Aggrad08
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In reply to dermdoc • 12:25p, 5/23/23
AG
dermdoc said:
Aggrad08 said:
dermdoc said:
Sapper Redux said:
It's all a "God of the gaps" argument. If the current limits in science are overcome, the gap will just move to a new line that requires a creator.
Disagree.

Science is the explanation of how God does things. All things.

Never understood why science and God had to be mutually exclusive.
Because theists often insist on denying science on theological grounds. Don't you yourself reject human evolution on such grounds while accepting evolution overall for other species? Or am I remembering wrong. The exclusion only exists so far as people make theological claims not backed by science.


Not sure on human evolution but if it does occur, I believe it is the work of God.
There is never a conflict in saying something is the work of god, it's kind of implicit in the whole idea of a monotheistic god.

The conflict comes from differential treatment of scientific ideas that are problmatic for faith. I mean even here, you say you are not sure on human evolution-is that a statement driven by science or the potential hiccups that causes for your faith? What scientific reason would you have for being, let's call it agnostic, on human evolution but not on every other creature?

I guess my point is, it's faith, not science, that's primarily responsible for this divide.
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BluHorseShu
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In reply to dermdoc • 1:47p, 5/23/23
AG
dermdoc said:
Sapper Redux said:
It's all a "God of the gaps" argument. If the current limits in science are overcome, the gap will just move to a new line that requires a creator.
Disagree.

Science is the explanation of how God does things. All things.

Never understood why science and God had to be mutually exclusive.
You are correct. Faith and reason can and do work together. The Kalam argument (the prime mover) argument for the creation of the universe is a good example for both the proof of God (prime mover) as well as the scientific idea of the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Not saying there aren't counter arguments but faith and reason can be accepted together.
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Sapper Redux
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In reply to Zobel • 2:51p, 5/23/23
Zobel said:
materialist atheist believes in atheist materialism. story at 10.


Huh? I'm questioning where you are positioning God in the creation. You're placing whatever God is in the creation as an active part and participant of the universe. If the physical universe can be understood scientifically, this would suggest God is understandable scientifically. It's a close variant of what Spinoza argued.
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