ID the Future Intelligent Design, Evolution, and Science Podcast
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James Tour

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Evolution’s Demigods: Reviewing the Tour/Cronin Debate

Do biologists give too much credit to natural selection and self-organization? What are the limits of a materialist approach to science? On this ID The Future, we bring you the second half of a panel discussion reviewing the recent debate between Rice University chemistry professor Dr. James Tour and University of Glasgow professor of chemistry Dr. Lee Cronin. In November 2023, Dr. Tour and Dr. Cronin participated in a roundtable debate on origin-of-life studies at Harvard University with a live audience of Harvard faculty and guests. Even if you haven’t seen the debate yet, you’ll get valuable insight into the state of origin-of-life research from this panel discussion, featuring three of our own: scientist and attorney Casey Luskin, physicist Brian Miller, and Center for Science and Culture Senior Fellow Dr. Stephen Dilley. It also featured Arizona State University Professor of Philosophy Owen Anderson. The second half of the conversation begins where Part 1 left off: with a critique of the seemingly limitless power attributed to natural selection. In the debate, Dr. Cronin called natural selection “the force that produces our stars.” Dr. Miller explains why natural selection wields so much power for scientists like Cronin: “What a lot of origin-of-life people do is they talk about natural selection as a demigod with creative agency. That’s how they rationalize away the evidence for design.” The panel also discusses how intelligent design is a legitimate threat to materialist science, and how Dr. Tour’s challenge is impacting the origin-of-life research community. They conclude with the reminder that a mind-first view of the natural world can not only help us personally, it can help society create better solutions for living. This discussion was recorded by the Kirkwood Center and hosted by Kirkwood president Anthony Costello and vice-president Lenny Esposito. We thank the Kirkwood Center for permission to share it. This is Part 2 of a two-part discussion. Listen to Part 1 if you missed it. Dig Deeper Listen to Dr. Stephen Meyer interview Dr. James Tour about the origin-of-life debate:

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Debate Review: Jim Tour vs Lee Cronin at Harvard

Are we close to cracking the origin of life problem or not? In 2021, chemist Dr. Lee Cronin declared publicly that "Origin of life research is a scam." Yet, scientists regularly claim to be close to creating simple and complex life from non-life in their labs, and the public is buying it. On this ID The Future, we bring you the first half of a panel discussion reviewing the recent debate on the origin of life between Rice University chemistry professor Dr. James Tour and University of Glasgow professor of chemistry Dr. Lee Cronin. This is Part 1 of 2. Read More ›
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Laboratory, Chemistry, Formula.

Why Hands-On Chemistry Experiments Can’t Simulate A Prebiotic Earth

When scientists claim they have simulated early earth chemistry to create life from non-life, are they being honest? This episode of ID The Future is the fourth and final installment in a series of conversations between philosopher of science Dr. Stephen Meyer, author of Signature in the Cell: DNA and the Evidence for Intelligent Design, and Dr. James Tour, a world-leading synthetic organic chemist at Rice University. Dr. Tour has recently been engaged in a series of back-and-forth responses to attacks on his work from YouTube science communicator Dave Farina. This has given Tour a new opportunity to critique experts in the field of abiogenesis and allows an interested public to better evaluate both sides of the argument. In Part 4, Meyer and Tour evaluate the work of chemist Bruce Lipshutz; specifically his work designing surfactant molecules that enable amide/peptide bonds. By itself, Lipshutz’s work developing synthetic techniques for doing chemistry in water is interesting and has value. But for those tempted to think that his work validates chemical evolutionary theories of the origin of life, Tour has bad news. Peptides don’t form in aqueous environments like water. A realistic prebiotic environment would not be capable of producing the reactions necessary to form proteins. And Lipshutz acknowledges this. In their conversation, Tour and Meyer discuss how Lipshutz applies hands-on chemistry that bears no resemblance to the likely conditions of a prebiotic earth. If anything, the work of Lipshutz and others in origin of life research is actually simulating the need for intelligent agency to move simple chemicals in a life-friendly direction. Says Meyer, "Even the modest movement they get towards life seems to be intelligently designed at each step of the way, and even the vocabulary will sometimes reveal that: ribozyme engineer, designer surfactants. Very curious!" Watch the series on video at Dr. Meyer's YouTube channel: @DrStephenMeyer Read More ›
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classic science experiment, with smoke and bubbling liquid, in black and white, created with generative ai

Smoke & Mirrors: Tour and Meyer Assess Origin of Life Experiments

Have scientists made life in a laboratory? Two-thirds of the public think the answer is yes. What do you think? This episode of ID The Future is the third installment in a series of four conversations between philosopher of science Dr. Stephen Meyer, author of Signature in the Cell: DNA and the Evidence for Intelligent Design, and Dr. James Tour, a world-leading synthetic organic chemist at Rice University. Dr. Tour has recently been engaged in a series of back-and-forth responses to attacks on his work from YouTube science communicator Dave Farina. This has given Tour a new opportunity to critique experts in the field of abiogenesis and allows an interested public to better evaluate both sides of the argument. In Part 3, Meyer and Tour continue their critique of the claims of chemist Lee Cronin, including his experiments on the formose reaction, autocatalysis, his attempts to conjure up lipids in oil, and more. Along the way, Tour explains how he got into the debate in the first place, providing some background on his interactions with Farina and how it led him to call out experts in the field. Tour and Meyer are careful to remind us just what life is and what it takes to build it. And on several occasions, you’ll enjoy Meyer’s insight into the big picture. These simulation experiments, says Meyer “are actually showing the difficulty of making life-relevant molecules…via an undirected process.” In other words, origin of life researchers are doing sophisticated chemistry with multi-million dollar equipment that can only be done in a modern lab! In the process, they’re showing us just how implausible chemical evolutionary theories actually are. This is Part 3 of a 4-part series. Watch the video versions of these conversations at Dr. Meyer's YouTube Channel: @DrStephenMeyer Read More ›
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science laboratory test tubes , lab equipment for research new medical

Extravagant Claims: James Tour & Stephen Meyer Critique Origin of Life Research

On this ID The Future, we continue a four-part conversation series between philosopher of science Dr. Stephen Meyer, author of Signature in the Cell: DNA and the Evidence for Intelligent Design, and Dr. James Tour, a world-leading synthetic organic chemist at Rice University. Dr. Tour has recently been engaged in a series of back-and-forth responses to attacks on his work from YouTube science communicator Dave Farina. This has given Tour a new opportunity to critique experts in the field of abiogenesis and allows an interested public to better evaluate both sides of the argument. In Part 2, Meyer and Tour discuss the work and claims of origin of life researcher Lee Cronin. They begin with a review of the four classes of molecules before critiquing Cronin’s foremose reaction experiments and his claims to have found a process that’s analogous to cell division. Tour also discusses the importance of chirality, as well as how amino acids behave in aqueous solutions. Turns out that “warm little pond” story we’ve been told for many years is chemically implausible. The discussion rounds out with a reminder of the information problem, something Meyer writes about at length in Signature in the Cell. Have prebiotic chemists made any progress on the sequence specificity problem? None whatsoever, says Dr. Tour. This is Part 2 of a four-part series of conversations. Watch the video versions of these at Dr. Meyer’s YouTube channel: @DrStephenMeyer Read More ›
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A close up of a chemical petri dish with organic bacteria on a desk in a scientific lab is used to evaluate a material sample. prepared glass plate containing a bright liquid for biochemical developme

James Tour and Stephen Meyer Bring Clarity to Origin of Life Debate

On this ID The Future, we kick off a series of conversations between Dr. Stephen Meyer and Dr. James Tour on the many challenges faced by origin of life researchers. Dr. Tour, a world-leading synthetic organic chemist at Rice University, has recently been engaged in a series of back-and-forth responses to attacks on his work from YouTube science communicator Dave Farina. This has given Tour a new opportunity to critique experts in the field of abiogenesis and allows an interested public to evaluate both sides of the argument. Philosopher of science Dr. Stephen Meyer hosts these engaging conversations. Meyer is author of the 2009 book Signature in the Cell: DNA and the Evidence for Intelligent Design, which explores theories attempting to explain the origin of the first life. So Meyer is the perfect candidate to unpack Tour's expertise and draw out key insights. In Part 1, Meyer and Tour critique the work of origin of life researcher Steve Benner. Along the way, they discuss the basic definition of life, the RNA world hypothesis, the problem with hands-on chemistry, and why the challenges facing origin of life research increase every year as our understanding of the cell grows. "What is being simulated is the need for intelligent agency to move simple chemicals in a life-friendly direction," says Meyer, and researchers "seem utterly blind to the role of their own hand, their own mind, in achieving the results that they get, such as they are." This is Part 1 of a four-part series of conversations. Watch the video versions of these at Dr. Meyer's YouTube channel: @DrStephenMeyer Learn more about Dr. Tour's work via his YouTube channel: @DrJamesTour Read More ›
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David Berlinski on Chickens, Eggs, Human Exceptionalism, and a Revolution

On today’s ID the Future, Science After Babel author David Berlinski continues discussing his newly released book from Discovery Institute Press. In this conversation with host Andrew McDiarmid, Berlinski explores a chicken-and-egg problem facing origin-of-life research, a blindness afflicting some evolutionists focused on human origins, and the mystery of why science almost flowered in ancient Greece, early Medieval China, and in the Muslim-Arab Medieval Empire, but did not, having to await the scientific revolution that swept through Europe beginning in the sixteenth century. Check out the endorsements and get your copy, paperback or e-book, at scienceafterbabel.com. Read More ›
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James Tour: The Goalposts are Racing Away from the Origin-of-Life Community

On today’s ID the Future distinguished nanoscientist James Tour explains to host Eric Metaxas why the origin-of-life community is further than ever from solving the mystery of life’s origin, and how the public has gotten the false impression that scientists can synthesize life in the lab. Tour explains that origin-of-life scientists aren’t even close to intelligently synthesizing life from non-life in the lab. The problem, Tour says, is that some leading origin-of-life researchers give the impression they are right on the cusp of solving the problem. Not so, Tour says. He offers the analogy of someone claiming, in the year 1500, that he has the know-how to build a ship to travel to the moon, when no one yet knows even how to build an airplane, car, or car engine. Tour says that if he took a cell that had just died a moment before and asked top origin-of-life researchers to engineer it back to life, they couldn’t do it. They’re not even close to being able to do it. And yet all the ingredients, all the building blocks of life are right there, all in one place, in the right proportions. And not only can scientists not engineer those ingredients back to life, they still can’t synthesize even a fraction of the building blocks essential to cellular life, despite decades and millions of dollars poured into the problem. And yet they assume that purely blind material processes turned prebiotic chemicals into all the key building blocks, and then mindlessly engineered those into the first self-reproducing cell on the early Earth. There are no models that would make such a scenario plausible. And the more we learn about cellular complexity, the harder the problem gets. Indeed, as Tour puts it, origin-of-life research is like moving down a football field in nanometer increments while the goalposts are racing away. What’s left is only the dogmatic assumption among origin-of-life researchers that the first life must have appeared on Earth purely through blind material forces. Tour has made it his mission to show the broader scientific community and the public that the emperor has no clothes. Not surprisingly, the origin-of-life community has not responded with heartfelt gratitude. Tune in to hear more of Tour’s argument and to learn what kind of blowback he has experienced. The interview is reposted here with permission of Eric Metaxas and Socrates in the City. Find James Tour’s many videos on the origin-of-life problem here.

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James Tour Talks Nanotech at Socrates in the City

Today’s ID the Future features the first part of a conversation between James Tour and Socrates in the City host Eric Metaxas on Tour’s astonishing work in nanotechnology and on the topic “How Did Life Come into Being?” Tour is the T. T. and W. F. Chao Professor of Chemistry, Professor of Computer Science, and Professor of Materials Science and Nanoengineering at Rice University. He is widely regarded as one of the world’s leading nano-scientists. This event took place at the River Oaks Country Club in Houston, Texas, and is presented here with permission of Eric Metaxas. Here in Part 1, Tour explains some of the inventions coming out of Tour’s Rice University lab, including molecular cars and astonishing graphene technologies, one of which restores full mobility in laboratory rats whose spines have been severed.

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A Physician’s Fantastic Voyage through Your Designed Body

On today’s ID the Future Your Designed Body author and physician Howard Glicksman takes a deep dive with Philosophy for the People podcast host Pat Flynn into Glicksman’s new book, co-authored with systems engineer Steve Laufmann. As Glicksman puts it, he and Laufmann look not just at how the human body looks but at what it actually takes for it to work and not die, and what this implies for evolutionary theory. Begin by piling up the layers of complexity in the human body—the layer upon layer of complex interdependent systems. Then ask hard questions about whether any blind and gradual evolutionary process could have kept our evolutionary ancestors alive at every generational stage as all this was gradually engineered by countless random mutations over millions of generations, beginning with the first single-celled organisms billions of years ago. Once one faces those hard questions without retreating to vague just-so stories about nature needing vision (or hearing or any number of other bodily functions) and therefore magically evolving it, at that point Darwinism’s story of gradual and blind evolution collapses. The explanation that is left standing, according to Glicksman, Laufmann, and Your Designed Body: intelligent design. This episode is posted her with the generous permission of Pat Flynn and the Philosophy for the People podcast.