Episode 13/13: Summary & Projections // A Course on Abiogenesis by Dr. James Tour

In this final episode, Dr. James Tour briefs on each episode in this unparalleled series on the origin of life and shares a few thoughts on the field. After reviewing life's requirements, Dr. Tour talks about what the public perceives on abiogenesis, much of which originates from hyperbole from the press and researchers themselves. Dr. Tour then turns to the problem that plagues biomolecular building blocks—homochirality—before reviewing each episode dedicated to the four classes of life's molecules: carbohydrates, peptides, nucleotides, and lipids. After outlining syntheses and prebiotic relevance problems, Dr. Tour then turns to the amazing efficiencies we find with chiral-induced spin selectivity in cellular life, and he then reviews cellular construction and the assembly problem. He makes clear: scientists remain clueless on the origin of life, as abiogenesis as proposed by naturalistic terms today does not work. Dr. Tour concludes the series by introducing a list of fundamental problems as better targets for origin of life research.

Dr. Tour would like to thank everyone for watching this series. Please share with your friends, family, and scientific colleagues.

Video Index:
00:00 - Introduction
00:38 - Ep 0 - Reasons
01:20 - Ep 1 - Introduction to Abiogenesis
02:51 - Ep 2 - Primordial Soup
03:44 - Ep 3 - Hype
04:14 - Ep 4 - Homochirality
05:15 - Ep 5 - Carbohydrates
07:25 - Ep 6 - Building Blocks of Building Blocks
07:33 - Ep 7 - Peptides
09:08 - Ep 8 - Nucleotides
10:38 - Ep 10 - Lipids
13:14 - Ep 11 - Chiral-induced Spin Selectivity
14:19 - Eps 12.1 & 12.2 - Cell Construction & Assembly Problem
20:40 - Projections
28:24 - Thank You and What's Next

Links in this Series | Addressing Abiogenesis & Common Misconceptions
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Dr. Brian Miller–"Thermodynamics and Origin of Life":

Unbelievable?–"Can chemistry solve the origin of life? Perry Marshall, Denis Noble and Lee Cronin":

If you found this helpful and a blessing to you or learned something new, please share and give this a like or thumbs up. And if you haven't already, please follow/like/subscribe, so you can stayed tuned in.

God bless you.

#Abiogenesis #JamesTour #OriginOfLife

~
WeChat - @drjamestour

[jerubaal]

God bless you, James! I am so happy to have a brother like you on our side. Glory to God in name of Jesus!

[zebra]

I binge watched this series, and all i can say is, Wow, thank you James Tour! It is the most comprehensive treatment on the subject of abiogenesis I've come across and very enjoyable. You're knowledge on the subject is brutallly honest and very deep. I've heard your critics say that you don't know what you're talking about. Seriously? That's like saying Claude Monet doesn't know anything about painting or that Gordon Ramsey is clueless about food. I think they spend their time under that rock you always mentioned. God bless you

[bobblacka]

Thank you so much for taking the time to do this 13 part series. I really learned a lot and look forward to all your videos. Don't be discouraged by negative remarks because the atheists hate people like you. They go onto college campuses and recruit innocent new converts by telling them that Christians are ignorant mindless followers who don't question anything. Then they elevate their own status by saying how they have become free of mysticism by using rational thought and that makes them superior beings.
Then Dr. James Tour comes along and he completely destroys their arguments. He is highly intelligent, questions everything, and has all the credentials and experience to back it up. They don't want people like Dr. Tour around because it weakens their own misstatements. Suddenly, these bright young minds in college who are being manipulated now have a powerful resource to refute the statements that atheists have been telling them for decades. Atheists don't like being challenged and that is why they are going out of their way to discredit you. But in the long haul, truth always prevails over falsehoods so your lectures are not going unnoticed. The good that will eventually come out of this series is beyond measurement and will be a blessing for the many lost souls who are trying to make sense of this confusing and sometimes irrational world.

[bolapromatoqueejogodecampe]

I am very grateful to Dave for making that video. Watching Dr Tour refute every single abiogenesis nonsense he said has been like watching Louis Pasteur conduct his experiments that debunked the theory of spontaneous generation.

[ictte]

Greatest lecture series on this topic I've ever heard! Many kudos professor Tour, you did a splendid job!

[garudasomanna]

I have watched your entire series of 14 videos almost non-stop and have been mightily impressed. I can only share my feelings in the words of the psalmist: Psalm 139: 6, Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high, I cannot attain unto it! And also in these words: Psalm 139: 14, I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvellous are thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well. GBU and wish you greater content videos in this year. Wishing all who come here too: A Happy New year.

[donpeter]

The is by far the best thing I have ever seen on this issue - thorough and scientifically rigorous. Dr. Tour blows the various popular theories out of the water.

[adamgilliland]

"The turning away of the simple shall slay them, and the prosperity of fools shall destroy them"
Proverbs 1:32
There are many of us still on our walk. Keep up the good fight Dr. Tour. I pray for the seeds you plant.

[tearren]

Thank you so much Dr. Tour for your time, teachings, and ministry.

[alexandrepereira]

It took me sometime to finish watching this series of of videos. All I can say is I thank God someone had the courage to speak out the truth … Praised be OLJC…
Tku Prof. JT and everyone else who helped, his family and colleagues…

[chavak]

Thank you Dr Tour for your time and explanations of very complex science. I’m so thankful for someone like yourself, a believer and scientist who can debunk error and defend the faith. God bless.

[Dilly]

Lost touch with my faith for a couple weeks. Surely enough Jehovah God supplied me wisdom through these videos. Amazing series!

[lab]

Thank you for this series. I can listen to other videos and lectures on abiogenesis with more clarity and avoid the disconnects and inaccuracies that may be presented.

[Josdamale]

Here are three questions that I ask today:

1. If there is a natural process that can organise the biochemical building blocks of life into a living cell, why are you not looking for, and why do we never see, this happening on earth today, which has the right conditions for life and has an abundance of these building blocks in its soils and waters? One should expect to observe this to be a common process on such a prolific planet, but we don't see it at all.

2. If there is a natural process that can evolve a living single cell organism into a living two cell organism, why are you not looking for, and why do we never see, single cell organisms that reproduce at an astronomical rate on earth today (and have done so since the distant past) becoming living and sustainable two cell organisms? One should expect on such a prolific earth to observe daily such single cell organisms become two cell organisms, but we don't see it at all.

3. If there are natural processes that can produce a living single cell out of non-living chemicals, and can evolve this cell through reproduction into a two cell organism, why can humans with the entire periodic table of chemicals and the ingenuity of the entire scientific community at their disposal not create such single cell organisms out of non-living chemicals and turn them into two cell living organisms? One should expect that if unguided and unintelligent nature had such natural processes, we should observe intelligent humans discovering these processes and using them with all their creative ingenuity, but we don't see this happening at all.

What do we see, but hand waving, flights of fancy, boasting, threatening, mocking, and unconscious ignorance parading around victoriously like a grinning chimpanzee on a bicycle holding an umbrella and wearing a floppy hat?

Entertaining and distracting, perhaps, but a mockery of human intelligence.

Answer the three serious questions.

[Melkor]

Professor Dave's inaccuracies so far: (The best of...)

1. Use of the word Biochemistry. Whilst biochemists do study OoL and some biochemicals did exist before life, there was no biochemistry occuring in prebiotic reactions, just plain dead chemistry. Hence the field - prebiotic chemistry and the meaning of the word abiogenesis (origin without biology/non-biological origin). It's a contradiction of terms. It was strictly chemistry. (Anyone who disagrees with this, show me the biochemistry occuring before life began.)

2. Entropy/Thermodynamics argument is an ignorant fallacy?? - a great decrease in entropy WITH a great increase in energy, needed for life, has never ever been observed in the universe without HELP (Dr Brian Miller PhD - expert in thermodynamics), it is a physical impossibility if unaided. Therefore, the examples of ice and soap, order arising (entropy decreasing) from a decrease in energy (driven by nature's preference for a lower energy equilibrium state) as a rebuttal for the argument based upon the 2nd law of thermodynamics is a straw man, it is missing half of the argument. (Anyone who dismisses Dr Miller because he believes in God, prove he is scientifically wrong...)

3. Hype is from the media, NOT the scientists?? - Completely false, Tour's whole video addresses this. Hype can be from the scientists themselves and in many cases the media do consult with them prior to publishing their work, hence they are culpable in this too. Dave has never published a peer reviewed paper so he would not know the intricate details of how this works. (See episode 3 for references)

4. Dave's homochirality assessment is riddled with errors - Tour analysed he actual paper and the SLIGHT excess of asparagine was actually greater than 99% asparagine, an important detail. The enantiomeric excess wasn't pure, for Phe it had a max of 22% of the remaining 1%, a terrible efficiency. The supernatant would've been practically racemic. The data for other amino acids reveals a broad spread of ee % for both D and L forms, leading the authors to conclude this is just as likely to produce a racemic aftermath as a result, not a homochiral one (from the conclusion of the actual paper).

5. Carbohydrates - Dave states in his video that polysaccharides are repeating units of the SAME monomer, this is utterly false! Many different monomers can make up polysaccharides. Also, use of the word TRICKY in their synthesis is a gross understatement worth mentioning, which Tour goes on to explain in some detail.

6. Any biomolecule is easy to synthesize?? A grossly ridiculous statement. They are hard to synthesize, especially in homochiral form even using ACTIVATE D building blocks taken from nature, side chain protection and removal.. which is common procedure.

7. Primordial soup belief and Honest Talking points - Dave states "to call [seeing a primordial soup of molecules, some lightening and then all of a sudden a cell is there, then maybe a lizard crawling onto land or something like that] a complete view of abiogenesis and evolution would be absurd, but absolutely no one proposes this." Dave states Tour is making a dishonest talking point here, however, Tour shows a video where Lee Cronin (OoL expert) said that Justin Brierley's GCSE [high school] education on his very thing - i.e. "A few lightening strikes and then 'poof!' a cell forms" - was 'not too bad at all". Dr Tour also showed a survey of 697 people, 80% of whom have college degrees, and of this group, ~73% believed scientists researching OoL have created simple life forms via mixing prebiotic chemicals. Therefore 1) it is indeed an honest talking point and 2) Dave's statement "absolutely no one proposes this" has evidence that highly suggests otherwise. (Courtesy of Bart)

8. Polymer regeneration fallacy. Dave proposed a constant equilibrium reaction to continuously regenerate proteins and RNA from their respective monomers and their even smaller building blocks to overcome Tour's point of molecular degradation over time. This has many catastrophic problems, here's just 3: 1) The equilibrium value would have to be 1 for the required formation/degredation balance. Most reactions do not work like this, it's a thermodynamic fallacy to presume so. The product with the lower energy state is favoured, tipping it's equilibrium one way or the other, not a nice perpetual regeneration. 2) Even ignoring this, many other reactions will occur, not just the desired polymerization. Without side chain protection, racemic, branched JUNK is inevitable. 3) Even ignoring 1 and 2, The polymer needs to be of meaningful sequence to be useful, otherwise it's JUNK! Regeneration of the SAME meaningful sequence is astronomically low - this is before self-replication, therefore anything of potential use would just degrade, likely never to be reproduced.

9. Proteins (could have, may, perhaps) possibly... formed in the ocean from their amino acid monomers. Condensation reactions are mostly ineffective in water, the equilibrium favours the amino acid starting materials. Proteins can be blocked from forming due to the zwitterionic nature of amino acids. Even with an energy source/catalyst, there is little or no control over correct linkage formation. This begs for a rethink and a completely alternate route (see Dr Powner's work).
Homochirality is bereft of an explanation in any route.

10. His misleading, illinformed slide showing ribonucleotides polymerizing over hot clay is torn to shreds by Dr Tour. It all looks so easy according to Dave. However.... 1) There is no known prebiotic route to ribose for the starting materials. 2) The clay and the whole procedure is a prebiotic impossibility - neither would occur. (Eg - a centrifuge running at 3500rpm? Did they have washing machines on a prebiotic earth? 3) the use of necessary HOT clay considering the instability of RNA above minus 80 degrees Celsius?? 4) Catastrophic polymerization problems - wrong linkages causing termination, self-degradation... 5) Even removing the product from the clay is vastly unprebiotic.

11. Cell membranes (Dave "grabbing things out of the air and proclaiming it from the rooftops") Dave's postulated lipid monolayer for protocells is unfounded and is not demonstrated as viable ANYWHERE in the scientific literature and has never been shown to exist. The postulated lipid bilayers devoid of protein gateways or proton gradients would just act as a TOMB for anything inside that may have miraculously formed. Also, the complex non-symmetric bilayers necessary for life do not form spontaneously.

12. Lipids - The spontaneous origin of fatty acids from hydrothermal vents is highly disputed, more likely deriving from oil products of biological origin. Even if we give you the fatty acids.. Salad dressing will not suffice Dave. Lipids made from simple fatty acids are unable to maintain proton gradients essential for life - phospholipids must've been there from the beginning. See episode 10 for their implausible origin.

13. Homochirality1- Given the terrible ee% excess in Dave's example, to stand any chance of leading to homochirality, it would need an exemplary prebiotically relevant autocatalytic reaction inducing enantiomeric amplification. One has never ever been discovered! The only known reaction to do this is the Soai reaction, however, this is - 1) Prebiotically irrelevant 2) Nowhere near efficient enough 3) Nowhere near persistent enough. (Donna Blackmond)
How did proteins become homochiral when there's no prebiotically relevant route ever shown to make the amino acids in homochiral form, or to separate the enantiomers, or to polymerize them?

14. Homochirality2 - Dave claims homochirality could've arrived after life began... Baseless. Implausible. Unscientific. There is no evidence for claimed racemic mixtures (no homochirality) being usable in cells. They have never been shown to function based on the reaction specificities, yields and heat management that would be needed for cellular systems (see CISS in episode 11). Dave suggested this for lipids but VAST numbers of electron transfers take place in lipid bilayer membranes, so it's baseless to dismiss the need for lipid homochirality (see CISS).

15. Dave seemingly gets his abiogenesis information from Wikipedia (at best) but more likely from the Sunday tabloids or his local gazette. When (if) referencing peer reviewed papers, his source material rarely ventures past the abstract of any given paper. If unable to study the entire paper, at least read it's conclusions which usually provide a more balanced assessment of the whole than the abstract. Come on Dave, do your homework.

[lastchance]

Dr. Tour is a brilliant and amazing chemist which no one in science can besmirch on his qualifications. While he should be getting a Nobel prize for his groundbreaking advances in nanomachines and graphene synthesis, the pagans in science will continue to scandalize him because of his faith. But he will receive a greater award in due time. We love you brother Tour!

[tomj]

It’s refreshing to hear a scientist who tells the truth. Thank you Dr. Tour!

[Melkor]

Dr Tour, thank you for this series and all the hard work, time and effort that you’ve put into this. I’m from UK and thoroughly enjoyed the past 3 weeks and watching each new episode, mostly the morning after each release due to time difference. Thanks again!

[hkprovideovault]

“Professor” Dave has yet to complete his masters degree. His only strength is his large number of subscribers who like fiction. He has to resort to insulting his critics. He has the audacity to take on they distinguished doctor of chemistry with a long career of substantive achievement. Dr. Tour has remained professional and didn’t attack PD’s motives, just his “scientific” conclusions. PD promises a “devastating” reply. Just made a popcorn run. Can’t wait. 😆😆 thank you for this series, Dr. Tour. 👊🏽👊🏽

[freightshayker]

Tremendous! ... Standing ovation!

Peace of Lord Jesus upon you and yours