Prof. James Tour and the Disco’Tutes: Still Lying, Part 3.

This is the closing section of my reply to John West of the intelligent design creationist "Discovery Institute." I recommend starting with Part 1 if you really want the total range of new lies told by the creationist Disco'tute. There will be more technical reviews to follow about James Tour's failed objections to origin of life research.

Or, see Part II here.

Journalism degree winner John West claims that his 3 remaining lies are directly from James Tour. And James Tour claims these next set of lies are from his telephone call with Jack Szostak. The one where Tour apologized for lying that Nobel winner Jack Szostak was a liar. Tour doubles down implying Szostak too stupid to recognize simple chemistry.*1

 
“Those are not sugars!”

Here is what John West wrote as his point #1;

1. According to Hurd, Tour was lying when he criticized as scientifically inaccurate two figures in Jack Szostak’s article labeled “Simple sugars.” When I asked Tour about this criticism, he responded that Szostak himself conceded to him that these figures were inaccurate! Tour wrote me:

    “As listed, the sugars do not look like sugars. One needs to have the double bond shown to one of the oxygen atoms or they are not sugars. Shown are a diol and a triol. Even Jack, when he and I spoke on the phone, conceded that point. And he blamed the error on a staff artist from Scientific American, and the mistake was transcribed when the article was used by Nature.

So much for this supposed lie by Tour.”

I want to look a little closer at this lie by James Tour. The science lie is that these “stick figure” illustrations were not representative of simple sugars, and that these simple presentations of complex molecules are unusual, or inaccurate. Here is the illustration Tour insisted is a lie. I showed that these were simple sugars. Mostly Tour rants that this is a “lie,” and Jack Szostak is a liar. When he had to apologize, Tour still doubled down that it was still a lie he now called; “mistake,” “an error,” and  “simply incorrect.”

Here is the famous Krebs Cycle in two illustrations. The first is for a popular audience without any professional chemistry background. Note well that the atoms are colored dots, hydrogen atoms are not shown, and the chemical electron bonds are represented by simple lines.

Here is a still simplified, but more detailed example intended as a teaching aid for undergraduates. The different audience and the different details are obvious, and appropriate.

But, the bigger lie is that James Tour didn’t honestly report his conversation with Jack Szostak. I asked Prof. Szostak by email if he “admitted” to James Tour that the illustration was an error? And, if he had “blamed” illustrators for Scientific American, and Nature magazines? His reply was

Szostak to Hurd (May 17, 2019), “What I did was to explain the use of the simplified diagrams as a means of communicating the chemistry to a general audience (and note, even chemists by convention draw molecular structures without showing most hydrogen atoms).  At the time he appeared to have no problem accepting this explanation, but I guess it did not stick.”

I know that James Tour lied already about Jack Szostak, and that John West has lied about me. I’ll believe Prof. Jack Szostak over both of them.

To paraphrase John West, “So much for telling the truth by Tour.”

“Is this HCN?”

John West again journalizes,

“2. According to Hurd, Tour was lying when he questioned the scientific accuracy of two figures in Szostak’s article labeled “Cyanide derivatives.” Not so, says Tour, who responded to me:

    Either we fill in the hydrogen atoms or we show the pi bonds. But we cannot omit both. Moreover, the convention is that all heteroatoms should bear the hydrogen atoms. Only carbon can be devoid of hydrogen in the convention. But that is only to fill the valance states. (…blah blah, ... repeat … gh).

Once again, the charge that Tour was lying or incompetent disintegrates.”

What James Tour did say (and he and the Disco’tutes are still repeating to tens of thousands of people on their YouTube) is that the illustrated molecules labeled “cyanide derivatives” were not cyanide. He almost shouts, “That is not HCN! I don’t know that that is!”

The chemical formula for cyanide is HCN. The chemical formula for “cyanide derivatives” is not HCN. I wrote months ago that the simplified molecule sketches are CN2, or cyanonitrene on the left, and C3N, or cyanoethynyl on the right. James Tour failed to even correctly read the illustration title he is attacking. So, is he lying, or incompetent?

In favor of incompetence, Tour wrote in his self-justification about that illustration of cyanonitrene, and cyanoethynyl, "… then the latter of the two “Cyanide derivatives” could be cyanoethene (acrylonitrile) or cyanoethyne. The former could be H2N-C=NH or HN=C=NH or H2N-CN (all hydrogen atoms shown immediately tell us that the last of these three listed here is cyanonitrene)."

Gosh, I had said they were cyanonitrene, and cyanoethynyl. I guess that undergraduate organic chemistry class 48 years ago stuck better than I thought.

We just saw Jack Szostak’s comment about this style of illustration, and I know who I can believe. But, maybe it is incompetence.

“he could have at least used the right structure”

John West’s last try to salvage his "expert witness" is that the simplified illustration of a nucleotide is utterly mistaken.

“ 3. According to Hurd, Tour was lying as well when he claimed that the diagram labeled “RNA nucleotide” in Szostak’s article was inaccurate. Tour’s response to me: “it is not a nucleotide since it is devoid of any stereochemistry.” Again, the charge that Tour doesn’t understand basic chemistry seems to evaporate.”

As I wrote, and illustrated, “At 46:10 Tour starts to yap that the right most stick drawing is "not a nucleotide." From 46:10 to 46:20 Tour shouts "It is not the right structure, he could have at least used the right structure …" In fact it is cytosine bound to ribose and the phosphate to the ribose. This is RNA's nucleoside cytidine. It is directly and spontaneously formed in nature from the starting chemistry.  It is the “right structure.”

Compare the two side by side. 

I have not anymore to say about John West’s failed attempts to salvage James Tour. But, Jack Szostak does deserve a last word,

As I said in my original email to Jim, I was sad that such an excellent organic chemist was not willing to think about the problems of how life began on the early Earth.  If he would only approach the really interesting problems we are trying to solve with the same energy and creativity with which he approached the synthesis of his molecular race cars, he could actually make real contributions to a scientific understanding of the origin of life.  However, it looks like we will have to solve those interesting chemical problems without his help! 

*1 James Tour wrote in his self defense, "How disingenuous for Szostak to write “in the presence of UV light and phosphate, RNA nucleotides were formed.” Does Szostak himself appreciate the exactness required to conduct these syntheses? Likely not. Most biologists don’t. And they transmit their blissfulness to others."

 

James Tour makes some new lies in his self-aggrandizement and excuse froth, "Letter to John West" dated May 11, 2019. I took some time to expose them in; James Tour Lies Again, 3'