Bacterial motors carefully studied (Introduction)

by David Turell , Tuesday, April 12, 2016, 19:00 (3146 days ago) @ dhw


> dhw: You need to be an organic chemist to understand the complexity of organic chemistry. I'm not a physicist, cosmologist, botanist, chemist, or quantum theorist either. So what are you saying? 
> 
> I waited in vain for him to shout at me that God “guided” every molecule throughout every step of evolution, from bacteria to humans, or even that cells are automatons - though I admit that I switched him off after half an hour of his ranting. However, we are informed by the blurb that “most scientists do not understand how evolution could explain the existence of life”, and the heading tells us that this is an attack on origin of life hypocrisy.... I too regard the complexity of evolutionary advancement as mind-boggling, and I don't know how it happened. Nor does he and nor do you. And if we ever do find out how, the answer may be as mind-boggling as your hypothesis or mine.-I am not communicating properly, I think, for I find your remarks about Dr. Tour entirely off the mark. I asked for 15 minutes to get a flavor of his point of view. God was never at issue. First of all his lecture is not to organic chemistry students. It is a philosophic address about his difficulties in making organic molecules as compared to how easily the living cell does it. And secondly, how he has been persecuted for his honest view. You do not need any knowledge of organic chemistry to follow his discussion. What he points out is that as he proceeds step by step he has to clean up a mess each stepwise reaction causes, while the cell does it automatically. -In the Miller-Urey lightning-in-a-bottle experiment all they got in the bottom of the jar was a tarry goo which then had to be laboriously separated to see what they had gotten. This is typical in organic chemistry, and you don't need to be a student of OC to understand this. I mentioned it in my first book.-Whether you like it or not these OC problems affect how research is done with both origin of life and evolution of life, because the presence of life is a continuum of the same organic chemistry process from its origin to the complex organisms seen now. The fact that Darwin skipped the origin problem is of no consequence in the thinking about how OC plays a role in all of this. You have always tried to separate out origin, but in matter of fact you can't. Dr. Tour is telling you that what he finds as a professional manufacturer of organic molecules is that it is damned complicated arduous work that living cells, as built, do easily. -Now I'm sure you understand that Dr. Tour is a confirmed Christian believer, which explains his unbridled passion in his lecture. But that cannot honestly reduce the import of his discussion. Don't hide behind the fact that you do not know organic chemistry. You don't need to know it. Tour's objection to the glib approach to OOL is right on, and all of us who do know organic chemistry are fully aware of it, as he points out. But grantesmanship (in which I have had a role years ago) requires that superficiality if any money is to appear, although I don't think my grant request was superficial. One does not admit to the theoretical problems with any hope of success if you want the money.-Don't hide behind your ignorance. The folks at the lecture were just like you.