Abiogenesis | James Tour vs. Prof Dave

[Twega]

So, I watched the series on abiogenesis by James Tour, which Leo also shared on his blog. After watching it, I watched Prof Dave's response and their live debate.

Let me clarify: I don't like Prof Dave, and his video on quantum mechanics (in which he criticized Leo) wasn't good, in my opinion. I don't like the guy nor think he's right on everything; he's also biased.

 

But his response to James Tour's video is rock solid. It's clear to me now that James Tour is not a reliable source on evolution/abiogenesis, and even though he claims his religious beliefs don't factor into his opinions, they do.

 

1. Prof Dave responds to James Tour Series

2. Response to James Tour Response

3. Live Debate

Also, I watched this video of James Tour being invited to Harvard to speak with scientists on abiogenesis; look and observe: Are the ivory tower Harvard scientists the ones who are close-minded? Are they the ones who are so shackled and tied to their dogma? Are they the ones refusing to accept a new paradigm? Or is it James Tour? Watch and decide for yourself.. for me the answer is clear. Science needs to evolve, science needs someone to challenge its dogma and assumptions, but James Tour is no the man for the job.

 

 

Again: Prof Dave is annoying. I don't like his style nor do I think he's right on everything. But in this case he is.

[undeather]

I have neither watched the recent Professor Dave video, nor the exchange with Cronin at Harvard. But I did watch the initial debate and the videos that led up to it in the first place. It remains a highly frustrating topic. On the one hand you have "Professor" Dave, a guy clearly trapped by a stage orange/oversecularized paradigm and who lacks the epistemological framework/self-reflectory modalities to see beyond it. He is obviously smart and well educated, but his videos on the origin of conciousness, religion and most of his philosophy takes are cringeworthingly bad. He is basically the secret love child of Christopher Hichens and Patricia Churchland. On the other hand - James Tour. A boomer-christian chemistry professor who asserts that  his bis believe in god does not influence his scientifc heuristic - despite the obvious fact that this happens all the time. 

The debate was a shitshow. Dave being really aggressive and going for ad hominens all the time. Tour putting up difficult to understand arguments that require deeper understanding of chemistry to validate the signficance. Personally, despite having a background in medicine which makes me familiar with the scientific concepts at hand, I have not taken out the time to look at the evidence myself.

From what I understand is that we make strong progress in the field of biogenesis, but we still lack the certain puzzle piece that makes it all click together. I think Dave's argument boils down to that we kind of do have a trail of evidence worth following because it looks promising - and Tour's argument is that since we haven't found that piece yet, it's all a big scam. 

I think this was a fair analysis of the debate:

 

Edited December 18, 2023 by undeather

[Rafael Thundercat]

Universe Spawn itself into Existence and Now is Trying to Unravell the Puzzle it had put itself Into Using one of its Toys (Humans) to remember how it did it. Pretty Loopy.

[Cosmin Visan]

There are many fine tunings that were required for life that somehow magically just happened, including things like the water expanding when it freezes such as to allow life in oceans to continue underneath. You don't explain them by "chemistry".

[Twega]

18 hours ago, Cosmin Visan said:

There are many fine tunings that were required for life that somehow magically just happened, including things like the water expanding when it freezes such as to allow life in oceans to continue underneath. You don't explain them by "chemistry".

I am not a materialist, but the examples you gave are literally explainable by chemistry. If you don't see the magic in chemistry, keep looking!

[Cosmin Visan]

12 minutes ago, Twega said:

I am not a materialist, but the examples you gave are literally explainable by chemistry. If you don't see the magic in chemistry, keep looking!

Explain it!

[Leo Gura]

Prof Dave is a jackass.

Edited December 28, 2023 by Leo Gura

[Brandon L]

Professor Dave is a smart dude, but I don't like his criticisms about Leo and quantum mysticism, he's highly wrong and ignorant in that field. If this dude had a spontaneous awakening and was more opened minded it would shatter his whole scientific world view.

 

[Cosmin Visan]

Dave is a very rude manchild. I don't know how any civilized person can watch him for more than 5 seconds.

[Extreme Z7]

James Tour seems smart and educated.
Prof. Dave is only educated.

Tour shouldn't be wasting his time debating arrogant twats like him. Tour himself admitted that it's next to impossible to prepare to debate something as complicated as Biogenesis.