Let God be found true.

 When Was Ancient Jerusalem Destroyed?—Part One

Why It Matters; What the Evidence Shows 

Watchtower 1/10/2011

This is the first of two articles in consecutive issues of The Watchtower that discuss scholarly questions surrounding the date of the destruction of ancient Jerusalem. This two-part series presents thoroughly researched and Bible-based answers to questions that have puzzled some readers.

“According to historians and archaeologists, 586 or 587 B.C.E. is generally accepted as the year of Jerusalem’s destruction.*Why do Jehovah’s Witnesses say that it was 607 B.C.E.? What is your basis for this date?”

SO WROTE one of our readers. But why be interested in the actual date when Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar II razed the city of Jerusalem? First, because the event marked an important turning point in the history of God’s people. One historian said that it led to “a catastrophe, indeed the ultimate catastrophe.” The date marked the end of a temple that had been at the heart of the worship of Almighty God for more than 400 years. “O God,” lamented a Bible psalmist, “they have dishonored your holy temple. They have left Jerusalem in ruins.”—Psalm 79:1, God’s Word Bible.*

Second, because knowing the actual year when this “ultimate catastrophe” began and understanding how the restoration of true worship in Jerusalem fulfilled a precise Bible prophecy will build your confidence in the reliability of God’s Word. So why do Jehovah’s Witnesses hold to a date that differs from widely accepted chronology by 20 years? In short, because of evidence within the Bible itself.

“Seventy Years” for Whom?

Years before the destruction, the Jewish prophet Jeremiah provided an essential clue to the time frame given in the Bible. He warned “all those living in Jerusalem,” saying: “This whole country will become a desolate wasteland, and these nations will serve the king of Babylon seventy years.” (Jeremiah 25:1, 2, 11, New International Version) The prophet later added: “This is what Jehovah has said, ‘In accord with the fulfilling of seventy years at Babylon I shall turn my attention to you people, and I will establish toward you my good word in bringing you back to this place.’” (Jeremiah 29:10) What is the significance of the “seventy years”? And how does this time period help us to determine the date of Jerusalem’s destruction?

Instead of saying 70 years “at Babylon,” many translations read “for Babylon.” (NIV) Some historians therefore claim that this 70-year period applies to the Babylonian Empire. According to secular chronology, the Babylonians dominated the land of ancient Judah and Jerusalem for some 70 years, from about 609 B.C.E. until 539 B.C.E. when the capital city of Babylon was captured.

The Bible, however, shows that the 70 years were to be a period of severe punishment from God—aimed specifically at the people of Judah and Jerusalem, who were in a covenant to obey him. (Exodus 19:3-6) When they refused to turn from their bad ways, God said: “I will summon . . . Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon . . . against this land and its inhabitants and against all the surrounding nations.” (Jeremiah 25:4, 5, 8, 9, NIV) While nearby nations would also suffer Babylon’s wrath, the destruction of Jerusalem and the 70-year exile to follow were called by Jeremiah “the punishment of my people,” for Jerusalem had “sinned greatly.”—Lamentations 1:8; 3:42; 4:6, NIV.

So according to the Bible, the 70 years was a period of bitter punishment for Judah, and God used the Babylonians as the instrument for inflicting this severe chastisement. Yet, God told the Jews: “When seventy years are completed, . . . I will . . . bring you back to this place”—the land of Judah and Jerusalem.—Jeremiah 29:10, NIV.

When Did “the Seventy Years” Start?

The inspired historian Ezra, who lived after the 70 years of Jeremiah’s prophecy were fulfilled, wrote of King Nebuchadnezzar: “He carried into exile to Babylon the remnant, who escaped from the sword, and they became servants to him and his sons until the kingdom of Persia came to power. The land enjoyed its sabbath rests; all the time of its desolation it rested, until the seventy years were completed in fulfillment of the word of the LORD spoken by Jeremiah.”—2 Chronicles 36:20, 21, NIV.

Thus, the 70 years were to be a period when the land of Judah and Jerusalem would enjoy “sabbath rests.” This meant that the land would not be cultivated—there would be no sowing of seed or pruning of vineyards. (Leviticus 25:1-5, NIV) Because of the disobedience of God’s people, whose sins may have included a failure to observe all the Sabbath years, the punishment was that their land would remain unworked and deserted for 70 years.—Leviticus 26:27, 32-35, 42, 43.

When did the land of Judah become desolated and unworked? Actually, the Babylonians under Nebuchadnezzar attacked Jerusalem twice, years apart. When did the 70 years commence? Certainly not following the first time that Nebuchadnezzar laid siege to Jerusalem. Why not? Although at that time Nebuchadnezzar took many captives from Jerusalem to Babylon, he left others behind in the land. He also left the city itself standing. For years after this initial deportation, those left remaining in Judah, “the lowly class of the people,” lived off their land. (2 Kings 24:8-17) But then things drastically changed.

A Jewish revolt brought the Babylonians back to Jerusalem. (2 Kings 24:20; 25:8-10) They razed the city, including its sacred temple, and they took many of its inhabitants captive to Babylon. Within two months, “all the people [who had been left behind in the land] from the least to the greatest, together with the army officers, fled to Egypt for fear of the Babylonians.” (2 Kings 25:25, 26, NIV) Only then, in the seventh Jewish month, Tishri (September/October), of that year could it be said that the land, now desolate and unworked, began to enjoy its Sabbath rest. To the Jewish refugees in Egypt, God said through Jeremiah: “You have seen all the disaster that I brought upon Jerusalem and upon all the cities of Judah. Behold, this day they are a desolation, and no one dwells in them.” (Jeremiah 44:1, 2, English Standard Version) So this event evidently marked the starting point of the 70 years. And what year was that? To answer, we need to see when that period ended.

When Did “the Seventy Years” End?

The prophet Daniel, who lived until “the kingdom of Persia came to power,” was on the scene in Babylon, and he calculated when the 70 years were due to end. He wrote: “I, Daniel, perceived in the books the number of years that, according to the word of the LORD to Jeremiah the prophet, must pass before the end of the desolations of Jerusalem, namely, seventy years.”—Daniel 9:1, 2, ESV.

Ezra reflected on the prophecies of Jeremiah and linked the end of “the seventy years” to the time when “the LORD moved the heart of Cyrus king of Persia to make a proclamation.” (2 Chronicles 36:21, 22, NIV) When were the Jews released? The decree ending their exile was issued in “the first year of Cyrus the king of Persia.” (See the box “A Pivotal Date in History.”) Thus, by the fall of 537 B.C.E., the Jews had returned to Jerusalem to restore true worship.—Ezra 1:1-5; 2:1; 3:1-5.

According to Bible chronology, then, the 70 years was a literal period of time that ended in 537 B.C.E. Counting back 70 years, the start date of the period would be 607 B.C.E.

But if the evidence from the inspired Scriptures clearly points to 607 B.C.E. for Jerusalem’s destruction, why do many authorities hold to the date 587 B.C.E.? They lean on two sources of information—the writings of classical historians and the canon of Ptolemy. Are these sources more reliable than the Scriptures? Let us see.

Classical Historians—How Accurate?

Historians who lived close to the time when Jerusalem was destroyed give mixed information about the Neo-Babylonian kings.* (See the box “Neo-Babylonian Kings.”) The time line based on their chronological information disagrees with that of the Bible. But just how reliable are their writings?

One of the historians who lived closest to the Neo-Babylonian period was Berossus, a Babylonian “priest of Bel.” His original work, the Babyloniaca,written about 281 B.C.E., has been lost, and only fragments are preserved in the works of other historians. Berossus claimed that he used “books which had been preserved with great care at Babylon.”1 Was Berossus really an accurate historian? Consider one example.

Berossus wrote that Assyrian King Sennacherib followed “the reign of [his] brother”; and “after him his son [Esarhaddon ruled for] 8 years; and thereafter Sammuges [Shamash-shuma-ukin] 21 years.” (III, 2.1, 4) However, Babylonian historical documents written long before Berossus’ time say that Sennacherib followed his father, Sargon II, not his brother, to the throne; Esarhaddon ruled for 12 years, not 8; and Shamash-shuma-ukin ruled for 20 years, not 21. Scholar R. J. van der Spek, while acknowledging that Berossus consulted the Babylonian chronicles, wrote: “This did not prevent him from making his own additions and interpretations.”2

How do other scholars view Berossus? “In the past Berossus has usually been viewed as a historian,” states S. M. Burstein, who made a thorough study of Berossus’ works. Yet, he concluded: “Considered as such his performance must be pronounced inadequate. Even in its present fragmentary state the Babyloniaca contains a number of surprising errors of simple fact . . . In a historian such flaws would be damning, but then Berossus’ purpose was not historical.”3

In view of the foregoing, what do you think? Should Berossus’ calculations really be viewed as consistently accurate? And what about the other classical historians who, for the most part, based their chronology on the writings of Berossus? Can their historical conclusions really be called reliable?

The Canon of Ptolemy

The Royal Canon of Claudius Ptolemy, a second-century C.E. astronomer, is also used to support the traditional date 587 B.C.E. Ptolemy’s list of kings is considered the backbone of the chronology of ancient history, including the Neo-Babylonian period.

Ptolemy compiled his list some 600 years after the Neo-Babylonian period ended. So how did he determine the date when the first king on his list began to reign? Ptolemy explained that by using astronomical calculations based in part on eclipses, “we have derived to compute back to the beginning of the reign of Nabonassar,” the first king on his list.4 Thus, Christopher Walker of the British Museum says that Ptolemy’s canon was “an artificial scheme designed to provide astronomers with a consistent chronology” and was “not to provide historians with a precise record of the accession and death of kings.”5

“It has long been known that the Canon is astronomically reliable,” writes Leo Depuydt, one of Ptolemy’s most enthusiastic defenders, “but this does not automatically mean that it is historically dependable.” Regarding this list of kings, Professor Depuydt adds: “As regards the earlier rulers [who included the Neo-Babylonian kings], the Canon would need to be compared with the cuneiform record on a reign by reign basis.”6

What is this “cuneiform record” that enables us to measure the historical accuracy of Ptolemy’s canon? It includes the Babylonian chronicles, lists of kings, and economic tablets—cuneiform documents written by scribes who lived during, or near, Neo-Babylonian times.7

How does Ptolemy’s list compare with that cuneiform record? The box“How Does Ptolemy’s Canon Compare With Ancient Tablets?” (see below) shows a portion of the canon and compares this with an ancient cuneiform document. Notice that Ptolemy lists only four kings between the Babylonian rulers Kandalanu and Nabonidus. However, the Uruk King List—a part of the cuneiform record—reveals that seven kings ruled in between. Were their reigns brief and negligible? One of them, according to cuneiform economic tablets, ruled for seven years.8

There is also strong evidence from cuneiform documents that prior to the reign of Nabopolassar (the first king of the Neo-Babylonian period), another king (Ashur-etel-ilani) ruled for four years in Babylonia. Also, for more than a year, there was no king in the land.9 Yet, all of this is left out of Ptolemy’s canon.

Why did Ptolemy omit some rulers? Evidently, he did not consider them to be legitimate rulers of Babylon.10 For example, he excluded Labashi-Marduk, a Neo-Babylonian king. But according to cuneiform documents, the kings whom Ptolemy omitted actually ruled over Babylonia.

In general, Ptolemy’s canon is regarded as accurate. But in view of its omissions, should it really be used to provide a definite historical chronology?

The Conclusion Based on This Evidence

To sum up: The Bible clearly states that there was an exile of 70 years. There is strong evidence—and most scholars agree—that the Jewish exiles were back in their homeland by 537 B.C.E. Counting back from that year would place Jerusalem’s destruction in 607 B.C.E. Though the classical historians and the canon of Ptolemy disagree with this date, valid questions can be raised about the accuracy of their writings. Really, those two lines of evidence hardly provide enough proof to overturn the Bible’s chronology.

However, further questions remain. Is there really no historical evidence to support the Bible-based date of 607 B.C.E.? What evidence is revealed by datable cuneiform documents, many of which were written by ancient eyewitnesses? We will consider these questions in our next issue.

Footnote 

A PIVOTAL DATE IN HISTORY

The date 539 B.C.E. when Cyrus II conquered Babylon is calculated using the testimony of:

▪ Ancient historical sources and cuneiform tablets: Diodorus of Sicily (c. 80-20 B.C.E.) wrote that Cyrus became king of Persia in “the opening year of the Fifty-fifth Olympiad.” (Historical Library, Book IX, 21) That year was 560 B.C.E. The Greek historian Herodotus (c. 485-425 B.C.E.) stated that Cyrus was killed “after he had reigned twenty-nine years,” which would put his death during his 30th year, in 530 B.C.E. (Histories, Book I, Clio, 214) Cuneiform tablets show that Cyrus ruled Babylon for nine years before his death. Thus, nine years prior to his death in 530 B.C.E. takes us back to 539 B.C.E. as the year Cyrus conquered Babylon.

Confirmation by a cuneiform tablet: A Babylonian astronomical clay tablet (BM 33066) confirms the date of Cyrus’ death in 530 B.C.E. Though this tablet contains some errors regarding the astronomical positions, it contains the descriptions of two lunar eclipses that the tablet says occurred in the seventh year of Cambyses II, the son and successor of Cyrus. These are identified with lunar eclipses visible at Babylon on July 16, 523 B.C.E., and on January 10, 522 B.C.E., thus pointing to the spring of 523 B.C.E. as the beginning of Cambyses’ seventh year. That would make his first regnal year 529 B.C.E. So Cyrus’ last year would have been 530 B.C.E., making 539 B.C.E. his first year of ruling Babylon.

The fossil record vs.the narrative re:the origin of the feather

 Fossil Friday: A Dinosaur Feather and an Overhyped New Study on the Origin of Feathers

Gunter Bechly 

This Fossil Friday features a feather from 100 million-year-old Burmese amber. The age and the strange ribbon-like structure of this fossil feather suggest that it could be a feather of a theropod dinosaur or primitive stem-bird rather than a modern bird (Benton et al. 2019). The fossil was acquired by me some years ago for the amber collection of the Natural History Museum in Stuttgart (Germany), where I worked as scientific curator for amber and fossil insects until 2016. I have already discussed the issue of the origin of birds and feathers in several previous articles on Evolution News (Bechly 2022a, 2022b, 2023). Today, I want to use the occasion to discuss a recent study on the origin of feathers by Cooper & Milinkovitch (2023), which was celebrated as evidence that “tweaking just a few genes transforms scales into feathers” (Starr 2023). The authors boldly claim that their “results indicate that an evolutionary leap — from scales to feathers — does not require large changes in genome composition or expression.“ This is complete hogwash.

And Here Is Why

The scientists injected chicken embryos with molecular triggers that changed the development of reticulate scales on chicken feet into that of ectopic feathers, which means that feathers developed at an abnormal place instead of scales. That‘s all. The mentioned spectacular conclusion from this experiment rests on two hidden assumptions that are both false or at least highly questionable:

Feathers are derived from transformed reptile scales.

The scales on bird feet are primary scales and not reduced feathers.

The first claim was the subject of a long and hot debate in modern biology. Many textbooks still suggest that bird feathers were derived from elongated reptile scales, and this was also promoted by theistic evolutionists Karl Giberson and Francis Collins (2011) in their book The Language of Science and Faith (for a critique see Luskin 2021). However, this still common claim faces several severe problems and no longer represents the consensus view in mainstream science.

One problem is that reptiles are not considered to represent a natural (monophyletic) group and include very diverse and only distantly related taxa such as turtles and tortoises, crocodiles and alligators, and lizards and snakes. These different reptile groups possess very different types of scales (e.g., compare the adjacent scales of a croc with the overlapping scales of a lizard) of dubious and disputed homology. Therefore, the claim that feathers are derived from reptile scales is rather meaningless in the first place. An even more important problem is the ontogeny of feathers, which begin as hollow tubelike filaments, with the feather forming from the disintegration and unfolding of the tube‘s wall, not as elongations of flat scales. Finally, there are significant morphogenetic and molecular differences between the various integumental structures of vertebrates that “for decades, fostered the debate on the homology, or lack thereof, among these skin appendages and led some authors to conclude that homologous skin appendages do not exist beyond amniote classes (reptiles, mammals, and birds); that is, mammalian hair and avian feather would not have evolved from reptilian overlapping scales” (Di-Poï & Milinkovitch 2016).

Common Biological Knowledge

Indeed, the recognition that feathers did not evolve directly from scales has been common biological knowledge for many years and even made it into the prestigious Encyclopedia Britannica, which unequivocally clarifies that “Feathers are complex and novel evolutionary structures. They did not evolve directly from reptilian scales, as once was thought.” An educational site on avian biology by Eastern Kentucky University makes a similarly clear statement: “Feathers, then, are not derived from scales, but, rather, are evolutionary novelties with numerous unique features.” It could hardly be more in your face than that!

                           Nevertheless, new evo-devo research (Di-Poï & Milinkovitch 2016) about the ontogeny of reptile scales, mammal hairs, and bird feathers was misleadingly advertised in popular media reports as “Human hair, bird feathers came from reptile scales” (Panko 2016). However, what this research really showed is a so-called deep homology of these skin structures (Benton et al. 2019), which all ontogenetically derive from thickened patches of skin (called placodes) in embryos. This means that scales, hairs, and feathers share a similar ontogenetic pathway and may share a common origin in an early precursor skin structure, but it does not demonstrate that feathers originated from modified adult reptile scales. Don’t take my word. Here is what the more recent study of Benton et al. (2019) emphasized: “Furthermore, it is inadequate to say that feathers evolved from reptilian scales, as both morphogenesis and CBPs of feathers are basal to those of avian scales, and that the molecular profiles of avian scales are similar to feathers, but different from reptilian scales.”

Concerning the second assumption, there is growing evidence that the scales on bird feet are not primary scales but reduced feathers. Here is a quote from Dhouailly (2009): “Concerning feathers, they may have evolved independently of squamate scales, each originating from the hypothetical roughened beta-keratinized integument of the first sauropsids. The avian overlapping scales, which cover the feet in some bird species, may have developed later in evolution, being secondarily derived from feathers.” Benton et al. (2019) further elaborated: “During theropod evolution, leg feathers became reduced from the foot to thigh, and scales replaced them. Likewise, such scales are present together with hair in a Cretaceous mammal, as well as over the whole body in the pangolin or along the tail in rodents, such as rats and mice. These scales are commonly interpreted as primitive holdovers from reptilian ancestors, but palaeontological and genetic evidence suggests that they are secondarily derived from feathers or hairs.”

Impressive to the Uninformed

We can therefore safely conclude that the new study by Cooper & Milinkovitch (2023) is just the most recent example of overhyped science that only sounds impressive to the uninformed, who neither know that mainstream evolutionary biology no longer supports an evolution of bird feathers from reptile scales, nor know that the scales on bird feet are believed to be reduced feathers. So, it is hardly surprising that a simple mutation can change bird leg scales back into feathers. Misleading research like this is one important reason I have lost faith in the overblown claims of evolutionary biology. It‘s mostly smoke and mirrors.

So, what about the grandiose claim that an “evolutionary leap — from scales to feathers — does not require large changes in genome composition or expression“? This is of course complete rubbish as well. In reality, the creation of feathers, which are the most complex integumental structures known in the animal kingdom, without doubt required coordinated changes in numerous genes.

This is because it involved differences in keratin structure, a sophisticated pattern formation of branches (rami) and subbranches (radii), as well as highly specific programmed cell death that sculpts the feather during ontogeny, and many more biological novelties that required new genetic code. The whole idea that a simple developmental switch could perform this trick is nothing short of ludicrous. What the simple switch does is just reactivate the already existing code for feather formation in a body region with secondarily reduced feathers. This has nothing to do with an evolutionary origin of biological novelty and has zero explanatory power for the origin of feathers. As I said, smoke and mirrors!

References

Bechly G 2022a. Fossil Friday: The Temporal Paradox of Early Birds. Evolution News August 19, 2022. https://evolutionnews.org/2022/08/fossil-friday-the-temporal-paradox-of-early-birds/

Bechly G 2022b. Educating “Professor Dave” on the Fossil Record and Genetics. Evolution News December 8, 2022. https://evolutionnews.org/2022/12/educating-professor-dave-on-the-fossil-record-and-genetics/

Bechly G 2023. Fossil Friday: A Waiting Time Problem for Feathers. Evolution News March 10, 2023. https://evolutionnews.org/2023/03/fossil-friday-a-waiting-time-problem-for-feathers/

Benton MJ, Dhouailly D, Jiang B & McNamara M 2019. The Early Origin of Feathers. Trends in Ecology & Evolution 34(9), 856-869. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tree.2019.04.018

Cooper RL & Milinkovitch MC 2023. Transient agonism of the sonic hedgehog pathway triggers a permanent transition of skin appendage fate in the chicken embryo. Science Advances 9(20), 1-13. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.adg9619

Di-Poï N & Milinkovitch MC 2016. The anatomical placode in reptile scale morphogenesis indicates shared ancestry among skin appendages in amniotes. Science Advances 2(6), 1-8. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.1600708

Dhouailly D 2009. A new scenario for the evolutionary origin of hair, feather, and avian scales. Journal of Anatomy 214(4), 587-606. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1469-7580.2008.01041.x

Luskin C 2021. Listen: Scale-to-Feather Evolution Doesn’t Fly. Evolution News October 17, 2021. https://evolutionnews.org/2021/10/listen-scale-to-feather-evolution-doesnt-fly/

Panko B 2016. Human hair, bird feathers came from reptile scales. Science News June 24, 2016. https://www.science.org/content/article/human-hair-bird-feathers-came-reptile-scales

Starr M 2023. Tweaking Just a Few Genes Transforms Scales Into Feathers. ScienceAlert May 22, 2023. https://www.sciencealert.com/tweaking-just-a-few-genes-transforms-scales-into-feathers

Molecules vs. Darwinism

File under "Well said." XCIII

 "The Wiseman speaks because he has something to say;the fool because he has to say something."

Plato

Rock Bottom?

 Medically assisted deaths could save millions in health care spending: Report

CBC news 

New research suggests medically assisted dying could result in substantial savings across Canada's health-care system.

Doctor-assisted death could reduce annual health-care spending across the country by between $34.7 million and $136.8 million, according to a report published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal on Monday.

The savings exceedingly outweigh the estimated $1.5 to $14.8 million in direct costs associated with implementing medically assisted dying.

"The take-away point is that there may be some upfront costs associated with offering medical assisted dying to Canadians, but there may also be a reduction in spending elsewhere in the system and therefore offering medical assistance in dying to Canadians will not cost the health care system anything extra," said Aaron Trachtenberg, an author of the report and a resident in internal medicine at the University of Calgary.

Cost has to be a part of the discussion

The researchers used numbers from the Netherlands and Belgium, where medically assisted death is legal, combined with Canadian spending data from Ontario. Trachtenberg stressed that means the work is theoretical and needs to be readdressed when Canada starts collecting large scale data at home.

After June 17, 2016 when Bill C-14 became law, provinces began rolling out their plans to deal with requests for doctor-assisted death.

Manitoba has set up a Medical Assistance in Dying team (MAID). More than 100 patients have contacted MAID, with 24 receiving medically assisted deaths as of Jan. 6.

"In a resource-limited health care system, anytime we roll out a large intervention there has to be a certain amount of planning and preparation and cost has to be a part of that discussion," Trachtenberg said, adding the provinces' differing plans could impact the cost structure of implementation.

"It's just the reality of working in a system of finite resources."

The report estimated that about one to four per cent of Canadians will die using physician-assisted death. Of those, 50 per cent will be between the ages of 60 and 80.

The report estimates a 50-50 split between men and women. 

About 80 per cent of patients will have cancer and 60 per cent will have their lives shortened by one month while 40 per cent will have their lives shortened by one week.

End-of-life care has high costs in Canada

Health-care costs increase substantially among patients nearing the end of their life, Trachtenberg said.

"Canadians die in hospitals more often than, say, our counterparts in America or Europe and … we have a lack of palliative care services even though we are trying to improve that. And therefore people end up spending their final days in the hospital," he said.

"Hospital-based care costs the health care system more than a comprehensive palliative care system where we could help people achieve their goal of dying at home."

The report used Manitoba as an example, where 20 per cent of health care costs are attributable to patients within the six months before they die, despite their representing only one per cent of the population. Patients who choose medical assistance in dying may forego this resource-intensive period, the report said.

"Whenever we roll out a large-scale intervention there has to be a discussion around costs. But we do not suggest that costs should ever be considered at an individual level," Trachtenberg said.

"We are not suggesting that patients or providers consider costs when making this very personal and intimate decision to request or provide medical assistance in dying."

The report also emphasized that it is only a cost analysis and doesn't include the clinical effects on patients. Patient-level research will need to be done before true economic evaluation of medical assistance in dying in terms of cost-effectiveness and utility can be done, the report said.

Ps. I think it merits repeating that the kinds of hyper-political,lawfare type responses favoured by many can merely manage the symptoms they can never cure the disease.

"Professor"Dave =most clueless of all Q.E.D?

 Hello, Professor Dave: James Tour’s Criticisms of OOL Research Echo Those of Other Experts

Brian Miller 

In several articles we have already deconstructed the debate between Professor James Tour and “Professor” Dave Farina on the state of research about the origin of life (OOL). For example, see my latest, on Farina’s habit of citation bluffing, here. Today, I will address one of the few honest questions Farina and other critics have asked: If Tour’s critique of the field is accurate, why has he not published his arguments in peer-reviewed literature? The answer is simple: Tour’s criticisms and concerns have already been recognized by experts in origins research and published in technical journals. Tour has simply compiled and explained the challenges to the public to expose the disconnect between what the public has been told and the true state of the field. 

Steven Benner

One of the most comprehensive and insightful critiques of origins research is by Steven Benner (2009), a synthetic chemist praised by Farina. Benner’s article “Paradoxes in the Origin of Life” lists five seemingly insurmountable hurdles facing origin-of-life scenarios. I will explain only two. 

The first is termed the Asphalt Paradox. It refers to the tendency of systems of organic molecules to degrade into mixtures of molecules that are useless for life. Benner states:

An enormous amount of empirical data have established, as a rule, that organic systems, given energy and left to themselves, devolve to give uselessly complex mixtures, “asphalts”… Further, chemical theories, including the second law of thermodynamics, bonding theory that describes the “space” accessible to sets of atoms, and structure theory requiring that replication systems occupy only tiny fractions of that space, suggest that it is impossible for any non-living chemical system to escape devolution to enter into the Darwinian world of the “living.”

Benner goes on to explain why this tendency undermines all potentially viable approaches to explaining even the simplest and earliest steps toward life’s origin:

Such statements of impossibility apply even to macromolecules not assumed to be necessary for RIRI [replication involving replicable imperfections] evolution. Again richly supported by empirical observation, material escapes from known metabolic cycles that might be viewed as models for a “metabolism first” origin of life, making such cycles short-lived. Lipids that provide tidy compartments under the close supervision of a graduate student (supporting a protocell-first model for origins) are quite non-robust with respect to small environmental perturbations, such as a change in the salt concentration, the introduction of organic solvents, or a change in temperature….

Benner labels a second challenge the Information-Need Paradox. It refers to the implausibility of an RNA molecule forming with the information required for it to self-replicate. The central problem is that the probability is miniscule for a random sequence of nucleotides (the building blocks of RNA) to contain the required information for an RNA molecule to perform self-replication or any other complex function required for a minimally complex cell. Benner states:

If a biopolymer is assumed to be necessary for RIRI evolution, we must resolve the paradox arising because implausibly high concentrations of building blocks generate biopolymers having inadequate amounts of information. These propositions from theory and observation also force the conclusion that the emergence of (in this case, biopolymer-based) life is impossible.

At the end of the article, Benner exchanges the hat of an objective scientist for that of a high priest of the secular faith. He encourages his readers not to lose hope that the paradoxes will one day be solved. Yet no discovery since the article’s publication has suggested that the barriers to life’s genesis identified by Benner could ever be overcome.     

Tour’s critique appears far more charitable than Benner’s assessment. Tour simply stated that researchers do not yet have any understanding of how life could have originated. In contrast, Benner stated that the most fundamental theories of science and all experimental evidence point to the origin of life through natural processes being “impossible.”

Elbert Branscomb and Michael Russell

A second key paper is “Frankenstein or a Submarine Alkaline Vent: Who Is Responsible for Abiogenesis?” This two-part article (Part 1, Part 2) was authored by Elbert Branscomb and Michael Russell (2018), who are leaders in the alkaline-vent hypothesis for the origin of life. The article explains why all theories on life’s origin relying solely on natural processes must fail. The authors detail how nearly every reaction in cells requires molecular machines to drive it at the correct rate:

But even those of life’s molecular transformations that do run downhill have to be taken out of chemistry’s hands and “managed” by a dedicated macromolecular machine — in order to impose conditionally manipulable control over reaction rates and to exclude undesirable reactions, both as to reactants and products. On its own, chemistry is far too indiscriminate and uncontrollable.

The authors also state that the operations of a cell must conform to “an elaborate organizational design.” 

Life does not represent an emergent property of matter, but a system of processes directed by advanced nanotechnology to operate in conformity with a blueprint or design architecture. One could no more explain the organization of a cell through the chemistry and physics of its constituent molecules than one could explain the organization of a car through the chemistry and physics of metal, glass, rubber, and gasoline. 

Remarkably, the authors even recognize that the need for molecular machines eliminates any possibility of Life emerging through natural processes:

We claim in particular that it is untenable to hold that life-relevant biochemistry could have emerged in the chemical chaos produced by mass-action chemistry and chemically nonspecific “energy” inputs, and only later have evolved its dauntingly specific mechanisms (as a part of evolving all the rest of life’s features).

They respond to this challenge by appealing to natural selection. Yet nothing is reproducing, so their only hope for explaining life is a delusion. Here again, the authors present a bleak picture of the field by concluding that life’s origin appears “untenable.”

Assembling the Cellular Components

Ironically, explaining the synthesis of life’s building blocks (e.g., proteins, RNA, membranes, sugars) is far easier than explaining how they could assemble into a functional cell. What would happen if aliens deposited millions of tons of randomly sequenced proteins and RNA, cell membranes, molecular machines, and every other cellular component on the early Earth? Everything would simply decompose into “uselessly complex mixtures.” Even if decomposition were somehow prevented, forming a minimally complex cell would still require three steps: 

Selecting the correct proteins, RNA, and other structures out of an unfathomably large pool of molecules. 

Localizing the building blocks in a microscopic environment. 

Properly assembling the molecules and structures into a fantastically rare arrangement.

Tour explained the complete implausibility of these steps through known natural processes in a video, which I summarized in a previous Article. 

Irrelevant Research on Life’s Origin

Examining the assembly problem reveals the irrelevance of current origin-of-life research. Origins experiments and hypotheses represent mere nibbling around the edges of the real challenge, for reasons that can best be understood with an analogy. Imagine a group of scientists claiming that the laws of aerodynamics guarantee that a tornado plowing through an auto parts store will often assemble the parts into a functional car. To prove their point, they attempt to demonstrate that high winds under the right conditions can push nuts and bolts closer together. Even if successful, this one step is inconsequential in relation to the entire task of car assembly. 

Similarly, simply forming a few biologically relevant molecules or linking them together is inconsequential when compared to fabricating a cell, which represents a nanotechnology vessel capable of such feats as energy production, information processing, and error correction. Any honest assessment of the evidence must conclude that life did not originate through natural processes, but instead is the product of a mind.

The ancients weren't as dumb as we were told?

 Film Festival 2023 — “Three Big Myths”

Evolution News 

Proverbs ch.8 Rotherham's Emphasised Bible.

 8 .1 Doth not wisdom cry aloud? And understanding send forth her voice?

2 At the top of the high places above the way, At the place where paths meet she taketh her stand:

3 Beside the gates at the entrance of the city,—At the going in of the openings she shouteth:—

4 Unto you O men I call, And my voice is unto the sons of men;

5 Understand, ye simple ones, shrewdness, And ye dullards understand sense;

6 Hear for princely things will I speak, And the opening of my lips shall be of equity;

7 For faithfulness shall my mouth softly utter, But the abomination of my lips shall be lawlessness;

8 In righteousness shall be all the sayings of my mouth, Nothing therein shall be crafty or perverse;

9 All of them shall be plain to them who would understand, And just to such as would gain knowledge.

10 Receive my correction and not silver, And knowledge rather than choicest gold.

11 For better is wisdom than ornaments of coral, And no delightful things can equal her.

12 I wisdom inhabit shrewdness,—And the knowledge of sagacious things I gain.

13 The reverence of Yahweh is to hate wickedness: Pride, arrogance and the way of wickedness; And a mouth ofRiches and honour are with me, Lordly wealth, and righteousness;

14 Mine are counsel and effective working, I am understanding, mine is valour:

15 By me kings reign, And dignitaries decree righteousness;

16 By me rulers govern, And nobles—all the righteous judges:

17 I love them who love me, And they who diligently seek me find me:

18 Riches and honour are with me, Lordly wealth, and righteousness;

19 Better is my fruit than gold—yea fine gold, And mine increase than choice silver;

20 In the way of righteousness I march along, In the middle of the paths of justice:

21 That I may cause them who love me to inherit substance, And their treasuries I may fill.

22 Yahweh had constituted me the beginning of his way, Before his works At the commencement of that time;

23 At the outset of the ages had I been established, In advance of the antiquities of the earth;

 24When there was no resounding deep I had been brought forth, When there were no fountains abounding with water;

25 Ere yet the mountains had been settled, Before the hills had I been brought forth;

26 Or ever he had made the land and the wastes, Or the top of the dry parts of the world:

27 When he prepared the heavens there was I! When he decreed a vault upon the face of the resounding deep;

28 When he made firm the skies above, When the fountains of the resounding deep waxed strong;

29 When he fixed for the sea its bound That the waters should not go beyond his bidding, When he decreed the foundations of the earth:—

30 Then became I beside him a firm and sure worker, Then became I filled with delight day by day, Exulting before him on every occasion;

31 Exulting in the fruitful land of his earth, Yea my fulness of delight was with the sons of men. perverse things do I hate.

32 Now therefore ye sons hearken to me, For how happy are they who to my ways pay regard!

33 Hear ye correction and be wise, And do not neglect.

34 How happy the man that doth hearken to me,—Keeping guard at my doors day by day, Watching at the posts of my gates;

35 For he that findeth me findeth life, And hath obtained favour from Yahweh;

36 But he that misseth me wrongeth his own soul, All who hate me love death.

You're welcome.

 In the United States, numerous cases involving Jehovah's Witnesses are now landmark decisions of First Amendment law. In all, Jehovah's Witnesses brought 23 separate First Amendment actions before the U.S. Supreme Court between 1938 and 1946. Supreme Court Justice Harlan Fiske Stone once quipped, "I think the Jehovah's Witnesses ought to have an endowment in view of the aid which they give in solving the legal problems of civil liberties."[29] 

Dave Farina: team atheism's LVP? VI

 Professor Dave — Conspiracy Theorist

David Klinghoffer 

 The Tour-Farina Debate on the origin of life has provided more fun than I was expecting. We’ve posted a number of YouTube reviews of the event held at Rice University — not from ID folks but from self-identified atheists and agnostics who were disappointed, even “disgusted,” to see Dave’s lousy performance. Professor Dave, aka Dave Farina, thinks it’s a conspiracy of Discovery Institute “plants” writing these reviews. He told a commenter on his YouTube channel:

Yeah, those are DI plants pretending to be atheists so they can write loser damage control blog posts on Evolution News. Be harder to trick, champ.

I see. In saying “No, of course they’re not,” I don’t expect Farina to believe me. It’s tough to track down the identities of random YouTube commenters. But when I went back and looked at comments on the debate, almost the first one I saw was new to me and it’s from a self-identified “not religious” biochemist who calls Farina an “embarrassment for science.” Another Discovery Institute plant? Hardly. This scientist — Professor Javier Campos-Gomez at the University of Alabama at Birmingham — was easy to find and I emailed him for permission to identify him and to confirm that he is who he says he is. 

Not an ID Proponent

Yep, it’s him, and he added that he’s not a proponent of intelligent design, in case that was in doubt. Dr. Campos-Gomez wrote to me, “what I call nature you call God and what you call intelligent design I call a natural process.” Fair enough. Here’s what he Wrote (unedited) on the YouTube page for the debate. His words are eloquent and speak for themselves:

Dear Dr. Tour, you are not alone in this battle. I am not religious but I am totally with you. I am a biochemist myself very interested and informed about the origin of life and have always thought that the origin of life theories available are all fairy tales. Anyone that understand the complexity of life knows this. The prebiotic synthesis of biological relevant molecules, although a huge problem itself, is the less of the problem. Give Dave every single molecule needed to make life already synthesized in the correct chirality and ask him to make a soup that create life in the lab. Another huge problem you can add to your battle is that of the biological membranes. The available theories always bring the membranes as an act of magic. How can you maintain life required compartmentalization, even if you bring the membrane through magic, if the genetic traits required for the synthesis of the membrane are not present? How this magically added membrane was able to get genetically encoded in the DNA? And this holds true for almost every process in the cell. 

Regarding Dave, as always, ignorants are unable to recognized how ignorant they are, which makes them so sure of themselves as to act as total blatant arrogants. They usually use personal attacks instead of logical arguments. Dave is an embarrassment for science and made me cringe during the whole debate. He was the one that acted religiously and as a dogmatic believer in the “scientific” orthodoxy, while you acted very scientifically. You have all my respect. He seems to me the kind of scientist that will do anything, ANYTHING, to justify the grant money he gets over the scientific truth. Unfortunately, we have many of those.

A Citation-Bluffing Huckster

There you have it. Currently available origin-of-life theories are “fairy tales.” Farina’s performance was “cringe”-worthy. Indeed it was. Even if you spoke no English, you could tell from the body language and the respective manners of speaking on the part of Farina and Tour that, once deprived of his YouTube channel and his precious script, Farina was dominated by his opponent.

One correction might be that Farina isn’t a “scientist,” but a mere citation-bluffing huckster. (See Brian Miller’s Post for confirmation on that.) But Professor Campos-Gomez is a scientist with relevant expertise, qualified to spot a fairy tale when he sees one. Also a gentleman, unlike Dave Farina.

And still yet even more on the business of war.

Dave Farina: team atheism's LVP? V

 “Professor Dave” and the Art of Projection

Robert Schedinger 

We have all heard about the psychological mechanism of projection, whereby someone who harbors insecurities about aspects of their personality or character will often accuse others of exhibiting their own perceived failures. For example, a person insecure about their own intellectual abilities might develop a penchant for accusing others of being stupid or ill-informed. Projection, it turns out, is the perfect lens through which to focus the criticisms of ID leveled by its strongly atheistic opponents.

One of the common accusations made against ID revolves around ID’s perceived religious foundations. Since ID is just pseudoscience, the criticism goes, it must really be an attempt to push a religious agenda under the banner of science. ID opponents are viewed as engaging in a religious crusade to proselytize unsuspecting students in science classrooms. 

Been There, Done That

Anyone with even a passing familiarity with ID literature will recognize how grossly distorted this characterization is. But it is a powerful distortion and one I used to fall prey to myself. I distinctly remember in the late 1990s when a woman in the church I was attending tried to introduce me to Michael Behe’s Darwin’s Black Box. Thinking that this woman was a bit of a religious zealot, I simply dismissed her book recommendation, assuming it would be scientifically worthless. Imagine my shock when more than 15 years later, I decided to actually read the book and discovered just how misinformed I was about ID arguments. ID is a scientifically substantive theory that can stand on its own on the basis of empirical evidence. And it is this scientifically substantive foundation that sends its opponents into a tizzy, leading to the art of projection.

            If there is anyone pushing an ideological agenda in the guise of science it is Richard Dawkins. Knowing that he cannot really dispel ID on the basis of evidence, and insecure about the evidentiary basis of his own beloved atheistic Darwinism, Dawkins is forced to project his own insecurities onto his perceived opponents by accusing them of being the ones with an ideological axe to grind. The more Dawkins rails at the supposed religious zealotry of ID proponents, however, the more he reveals the depths of his own anti-religious zealotry. Similar kinds of projection occur in the work of other high-profile atheistic evolutionists like Sam Harris, Daniel Dennett, and Jerry Coyne.Which brings me to “Professor Dave” Farina. Nowhere has this dynamic of psychological projection been on greater display than in the recent “debate” held at Rice University between Farina and Dr. James Tour about the state of origin-of-life research. Of course, calling this a debate would be like calling a stick-figure drawing the Mona Lisa. Dr. Tour, to be sure, came to debate the issues. Farina most certainly did not. 

Outrageous Personal Attacks 

Even after Tour, the host, treated his guest, Farina, with respect, even presenting him with a gift at the start of the debate, Farina launched into outrageous personal attacks, repeatedly accusing Tour of being a liar, a fraud, and totally ignorant of the basics of organic chemistry. At one point, his ridicule became so profound that he accused the audience of being “f***ing stupid” for taking Tour’s work seriously. While Tour continually tried to focus the debate on the complexities of theories of abiogenesis, Farina remained rude, smug, self-assured, and outrageously condescending to the eminent scientist standing nearby. In short, Farina’s performance was a classic case of projection, a case of projection on steroids.

Tour may be deeply religious, but his criticisms of abiogenesis are fundamentally grounded in empirical science. The difficulties of conceiving how life could have emerged from non-life without some level of intelligent direction are so serious, however, that they obviously threaten Farina’s militantly atheistic worldview. Unwilling to admit this, he instead projects his own insecurities onto Tour. When he makes the outrageous accusation that a scientist of Tour’s stature is ignorant of the basics of organic chemistry, Farina reveals how insecure his own knowledge of organic chemistry really is. And when Farina accuses Tour of being a fraud, all he does is highlight his own status (or lack of it) in trying to pass himself off as an expert on abiogenesis.

Tough to Watch, but Worth It 

The Tour-Farina “debate” was tough to watch, and many times I considered turning it off. But like someone at the scene of an accident, I could not turn away, and so I subjected myself to the entire two hours. But I am glad I did. For if I ever get asked to write a chapter on projection for a psychology textbook, Dave Farina’s outrageously disrespectful performance will be exhibit A. 

Dave Farina: team atheism's LVP? IV

 Professor Dave in his “Debate” with James Tour Showcases the Art of Citation Bluffing

Brian Miller 

YouTube personality Dave Farina (aka Professor Dave) "debated" James Tour last Friday about researchers’ progress in unraveling the mystery of life’s origin. The exchange proceeded as I anticipated. Farina immediately sought to hijack the debate, turning it from an honest discussion about science to something more akin to a World Wrestling exhibition match. 

After spewing insults and other invectives, Farina primarily engaged in a less than honorable debating technique known as citation bluffing — supposedly proving a point by citing technical literature but misrepresenting its content. When Farina addressed the science, he rifled through a long series of technical articles, but he greatly exaggerated the relevance of the studies to what could have occurred on the early earth. 

Amino Acids and Polypeptides

A central topic of the debate was the plausibility of amino acids linking (aka polymerization) in water into long chains (aka polypeptides) that could serve the role of proteins in modern cells. Tour explained the implausibility of such a scenario due to amino acid side chains interfering with the growth of the main polypeptide chain. Farina countered by listing several technical articles that he claimed proved the opposite, but the data in those very papers showed that several of the side-chain versions indeed cannot be accommodated. 

Farina also neglected to disclose that all the studies he cited either used chemically altered amino acids, unnatural environments, or specialized molecules to facilitate the linking. Comparable conditions could never have occurred on the ancient Earth. The titles of the articles appeared to support Farina’s claims, but the actual details of the experiments demonstrated the opposite. Tour in his videos has explained why, as I summarized in previous articles (here, here, here).

Tour is hardly alone in recognizing the challenge of forming polypeptides in water. The journal Nature published an article, “The Water Paradox and the Origins of Life,” that stated the problem as follows:

life’s cornerstone molecules break down in water. This is because proteins, and nucleic acids such as DNA and RNA, are vulnerable at their joints. Proteins are made of chains of amino acids, and nucleic acids are chains of nucleotides. If the chains are placed in water, it attacks the links and eventually breaks them. In carbon chemistry, “water is an enemy to be excluded as rigorously as possible”, wrote the late biochemist Robert Shapiro in his totemic 1986 book Origins, which critiqued the primordial ocean hypothesis.

Proposed solutions to this challenge require physical processes that dehydrate pools of water, allowing amino acids to join, but even then, the side-chain interference remains. Polypeptides with the proper bonds could never have existed in non-trace quantities. Another problem is that the required intensity of heat or other sources of energy destroy biologically relevant molecules such as RNA and sugars, so any progress toward life would be immediately lost. Tour explained these issues in his video that critiqued Lee Cronin’s Research . 

Self-Replicating RNA

A second topic addressed was research into self-replicating RNA, an essential component of the RNA world hypothesis. Tour pointed out that anytime chemical methods are used, the RNA nucleotides, RNA’s building blocks, hook up in the wrong way, and chains also include unnatural branching. Further, he stated that investigators have only been able to create RNA molecules that could copy a small percentage of themselves. Farina again responded by quickly displaying several research papers whose titles suggested that Tour was mistaken, and again Farina’s portrayal of the studies was false. 

The experiments only succeeded in Linking RNA strands together or Copying a small portion of themselves. In all cases of polymerization, the wrong linkages and branching ensued. The true replication was performed by complex molecules borrowed from modern cells under carefully orchestrated experimental conditions. Therefore, none of the studies had any relevance to what could have occurred in nature, as Tour detailed in previous Videos. 

During the discussion about RNA, Farina made his most outlandish accusation. He claimed that Tour did not properly interpret a graph of 13C NMR Spectra of the products from one of Steven Benner’s experiments related to the formation of ribose, a sugar used in nucleotides. Farina’s assertion was the equivalent of claiming that the head of a radiology department could not properly interpret an x-ray. 

The motivation for this desperate attempt to discredit Tour was obvious. Tour exposed how the reaction Benner used to generate ribose also generated many other molecules. The ribose could never have separated from the other molecules to drive the production of nucleotides in non-trace quantities. Consequently, RNA molecules sufficiently long to self-replicate could never have existed. 

The research would have no relevance to life’s origin even in the ideal scenario where only the four nucleotides formed in high concentrations. The smallest RNA that could possibly self-replicate is around 200 amino acids. The challenge is that the number of possible nucleotide sequences that long is over 10120, and the percentage of sequences that could perform self-replication must be miniscule. Benner

acknowledged in his article “Paradoxes in the Origin of Life” that sufficient RNA could never have formed for even one to have the correct information to self-replicate. The RNA world hypothesis is a nonstarter.

Lesson from the Debate

The debate offered an important lesson about the state of origin-of-life research. Tour’s critique of the field is so devastating that the only way to challenge his arguments is to misrepresent the technical literature and to engage in tactics founded on misdirection and disinformation. The post-debate comments on YouTube revealed that some who initially supported Farina recognized that his arguments and monologues were full of sound and fury but contained little substance. 

The primordial soup is past its sell by date?

 James Tour: Primordial Soup Bluffing Goes Right to the Top

Evolution News 

A classic episode of ID the Future features another installment in James Tour’s hard-hitting and evidence-based YouTube Series on abiogenesis. Here, Dr. Tour, a world-leading synthetic organic chemist at Rice University, describes the early Earth primordial soup concept for the origin of first life (OOL) and shows why it’s simplistic, bogus, and doesn’t represent the current science on the issue. He also reviews survey data showing just how misinformed the public is about how far scientists have gotten in creating life in the lab. One critic of Tour protested that the simplistic primordial soup story might be found in highly simplified textbooks for sixth graders but isn’t peddled at higher levels. Tour provides video Evidence to the contrary. Download the podcast or listen to it here.

The ostriches four kneecaps vs. Darwinism

 Kneecaps: “Ultimately, there might not be a simple pattern”

Cornelius G Hunter 

Why do ostriches have four, rather than two, kneecaps? A new Study has found several possible biomechanical advantages. Perhaps they allow the ostrich to straighten its leg more quickly, helping the animal to run quickly. Perhaps the lower kneecap protects the joined tendons crossing the front of the knee. One reason that does not help to explain the ostriches four kneecaps is evolution. That is because this unique design is not predicted, and makes no sense, on the theory. As one Article admits: “Bizarrely, many of the ostrich’s closest relatives don’t have kneecaps at all.” Similarities across the species were a strong argument for evolution, but in fact biology is full of unique designs, particular to one or a few species. Such one-off, “lineage specific,” designs are “bizarre” for evolutionists. So while there are design reasons for the ostriches four kneecaps, on the ordinary view of the evolution of each being, we can only say that so it is.

Not losing sight of the truth in the fog of war.

 A War of Words? How to Tell Who Won the Tour-Farina Debate

Casey Luskin 

A few years ago, just as I was finishing writing my PhD thesis, I received an email from an Internet questioner with the subject “War of Words.” This person expressed concerns that there is so much back and forth between experts in the debate over the origin and evolution of life and intelligent design, that it can sometimes be difficult for a non-expert to determine who is right. I can sympathize with this: Even though I have multiple science degrees, took many undergraduate and graduate courses in evolution, and have closely followed the science for years, it’s still a challenge to keep up with everything. What’s a non-expert to do?

Last Friday we witnessed a debate on the origin of life (OOL) between two widely followed voices on the topic: Rice University chemistry Professor James Tour, and YouTube science educator Dave Farina, aka “Professor Dave.” This debate, which took place on the Rice University campus, was at times turbulent, but it provides an apt example of how to answer my “War of Words” Internet questioner.

“No Viable Model”

The topic of the debate was: “Are We Clueless About the Origin of Life?” Discovery Institute did not organize this debate and I was not a big fan of this framing because it would be much harder to prove a high standard, that OOL researchers are “clueless,” than it would be to prove some lesser — but still entirely reasonable — claim like “There is no viable model for the origin of life.” Nonetheless, Tour faithfully stuck to the debate topic, and he made a strong scientific case against the natural chemical origin of life. 

Dave Farina represented the standard view that unguided natural chemical processes could have produced the first life on earth. Unfortunately, however, Farina decided to focus on a very different debate topic. His topic was essentially — no exaggeration — Is James Tour a liar and a fraud? — and that is precisely what he asserted over and over again throughout the night. Farina’s venom and personal attacks and insults against Tour knew almost no boundaries. It was a spectacle, and I was shocked that the moderator allowed it to proceed. But Farina’s focus on personal attacks and his repeated refusals to answer Tour’s reasonable scientific challenges made it clear to many viewers that Tour had the better argument. 

If you don’t believe me, consider some comments on the YouTube chat posted by viewers who are apparently self-described as atheists, agnostics, and/or former supporters of Farina:

“Am I the only non-religious person that finds Tour much more convincing than Dave? This debate made me further convinced. The problem with Dave is that strangely, as an educator, he in no way tried to educate James Tour, but only attack him and slander him, he has zero class, and from a psychology standpoint, seems like he did nothing but dodge and deflect, which would suggest he doesn’t have a deep understanding of the subject, but merely a surface level one, a true scientist wants people to understand the truth, and would carefully address Tours questions concisely and on a deeper level.”

“I’m an atheist, however, Farina’s smug and snide attacks on Tour throughout this debate, disgusted me. I may disagree with Tour’s mission, however, no one can ignore his considerable contribution to science.”

“I’m agnostic, but hearing Dr. Farina’s statements, grounded on insulting and sarcasm sincerely show more how clueless he or his community are…usually when you use sarcasm it is because you have [little] to say. I say this as an academic myself (other field though) when I see colleagues use sarcasm is because they don’t know how to ground their statements.”

“I’m [an] atheist and this was embarrassing to watch. Dave claiming that James doesn’t know how to read papers, while…citing barely anything beyond the titles of a bunch of papers. I think that disrespecting the audience and claiming to know what they do and don’t know was the worst move of the entire debate. It shows that he’s arguing emotionally.”

“I’ve been floating around this conflict, viewing from the outside. Dave’s videos helped me in middle-high school. Dave poisoned the well, then used insults and rhetoric as the substance of his ‘argument’. This was disappointing, I was hoping he would bring something of value. Dr. Tour won this one.”

You Don’t Need a PhD

So even though my “War of Words” questioner worried that you need to be an expert to sort through these issues, I’m going argue here that you don’t need a PhD in science and unlimited time to read the literature to quickly see who has the better argument.

You may not be an expert in chemistry like James Tour with a lifelong career trying to synthesize molecules in the laboratory. You may not have published hundreds of peer-reviewed chemistry papers like Tour. You may not even have taken any college-level science courses. But you can watch the debate and learn a lot about who has the upper hand on the OOL question. If you want to know who has the better argument, examining the rhetorical styles of different “sides” of a debate can speak volumes.

Over three subsequent posts, I’m going to elaborate on three reasons that we can see that Tour won, based upon a rhetorical analysis of the debate (plus a little science):

Tour focused on science, Farina focused on character assassination.

Tour posed reasonable scientific challenges which Farina refused to answer

Farina relied heavily upon playground tactics, appeals to authority, and citation bluffing.

We’ll tackle the first reason in the next post. But first a viewer’s warning.

Not for the Faint of Heart

As the debate wore on, at times both participants got quite intense; if you don’t like raised voices, don’t watch this debate. Frankly, as Farina spewed more and more venom against Tour, at times he (Tour) became animated, and even took a few shots at Farina’s chemistry knowledge. Tour’s words about Farina weren’t remotely comparable in intensity or number to Farina’s personal attacks on Tour. In my next post you will read a sampling of just some of those personal attacks. So if you are bothered by Tour’s irritation, ask yourself: Could you withstand such hatred and not get a little hot under the collar? James Tour is a great man…but like the rest of us, he is after all just a man. 

Regardless, it’s undeniable that this debate got a bit ugly and it reminded me why sometimes I don’t like debates. I do wonder if it was wise to give a platform to a person like Farina who was so thoroughly and unabashedly dedicated to making the night about assassinating James Tour’s character rather than investigating the science. Perhaps the moderator was given instructions to keep the debate going no matter how much nastiness and personal venom Farina threw at Tour. I really don’t know. But this is the kind of thing, unfortunately, that needlessly turns some people away from otherwise serious scientific conversations and dialogues over important questions about origins and science / faith issues. 

One Other Thing Is Clear

Farina is a skilled at quickly throwing out lots of arguments of varying quality and then using passive-aggressive maneuvers aimed at provocation. If you are the type of person who is susceptible to theatrics, intimidation, mockery, and character assassination, you might think Farina won. But once you climb out of Farina’s world of venom, invectives, mockery, and rapid-fire citation bluffs, you realize there isn’t much there. On substance, James Tour won the debate handily. Despite a few lapses here and there as the night wore on, overall he focused strongly on the science and made loads of good arguments that Farina did not address. That’s simply a fact.

But even if you didn’t know much about the science, you can easily tell who came armed with facts, knowledge, and a passion for seeking out the truth, and who came with a simple goal to destroy his opponent, at all costs. I’ll be back tomorrow.

You win some you lose some ; even Titans

When the body dials 911?

Dave Farina: team atheism's LVP? III

 “Well, Everyone Has to Have a Birthday” — How Professor Dave Botches Probability

William A Dembski 

This past Friday (May 19, 2023), Rice University professor James Tour “debated” (I use that word advisedly) YouTube personality and influencer David Farina (known as “Professor Dave”). The question up for discussion was “Are we clueless about the origin of life?” Tour took the position that the origin of life is a completely unsolved problem. Farina took the position that research in the origin of life is making good progress. Tour focused on the chemistry. Farina focused on discrediting Tour, calling him a liar and even a pathological liar over and over again. He also called Tour and his supporters clueless. (Does it take a pathological liar to falsely call someone a pathological liar? How clueless does one have to be to falsely call someone clueless?)

Farina’s antics got so wearisome that I could not watch the entirety of the debate. Indeed, I would not call it a debate. On the one hand, there was Tour trying to engage in substantive questions about prebiotic chemistry. And there was Farina, attacking him personally, both as someone completely unqualified to address the origin of life and as someone so biased by his religious beliefs as not to be trustworthy on scientific issues (Tour is unreserved in affirming his Christian belief). 

Citing Article Titles

The only science, such as it can be called, that I saw from Farina during the exchange was citing titles of origin-of-life articles that he claimed redressed the problems Tour was raising. But these seemed to be just arguments by irrelevant reference that fittingly complemented his arguments ad hominem. Farina gave no evidence that he understood the articles he was citing. It was as though origin-of-life researchers hostile to Tour had simply provided Farina with ammunition for the exchange.

My opinions are what they are, so form your own conclusions. Here is the exchange (“debate”). If you are able to watch the whole of it, give yourself brownie points for endurance. 

<iframe width="460" height="259" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/pxEWXGSIpAI" title="Dr. James Tour vs Dave Farina | Are we clueless about the origin of life? #abiogenesis" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Farina’s performance in the exchange didn’t surprise me. It was consistent with what you see on his YouTube channel when he is promoting atheism, though I would say that in this case it was especially extreme. Was his scalding behavior intended to score points with his atheist supporters? Was it to boost his number of YouTube followers? I wonder how his performance would be interpreted by the unwashed middle, i.e., those who have no particular stake in the origin-of-life controversy. He was arrogant and cocky. I have to think that this didn’t help him with those outside his circle. But who’s to say in this age of social media where sensibilities get so warped. 

To Command an Audience

Tour admitted at the start of the exchange that this was his first debate. I’ve seen him give talks on not just the origin of life but also his own research, and he is able to command an audience, not only with his knowledge but also with his stature. I myself have debated atheists, such as Michael Shermer and Michael Ruse, but those debates were always respectful. To have your interlocutor, like Farina, hurling insult after insult at you has to be disconcerting. And it shifts the focus from the substance of what should be discussed to the credibility of the participants. Should Tour have attacked Farina for his limited chemistry background, which includes only a bachelor’s in chemistry and a master’s not in chemistry per se but in chemistry and science education? Tour is a Nobel laureate caliber chemist. 

Should Tour really have had to endure the constant jibes of Farina? Farina was at Rice at Tour’s invitation, so Tour’s natural inclination would have been to play the gracious host. He even started the exchange with a gift to Farina. But still, Farina should have been reined in. I suspect Tour was unprepared for the vitriol he encountered. I lay some of the responsibility for Farina’s continued shameless display on the moderator. Early on, the moderator should have told Farina that the audience by now had gotten the point that Farina thought Tour was a “pathological liar,” and that he should confine himself to the question that was the topic of the debate. The moderator should also have put an end to the constant interruptions of Tour by Farina.

Information and Probability

Two years ago I was interviewed by Tour for his YouTube channel about my work on information and probability. What prompted Tour to interview me was some probability arguments by Farina against him. Here’s my interview with Tour:

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At the 31-minute mark, Farina makes a probability argument dismissive of small probabilities in design inferences. When I reject Farina’s discussions of origin-of-life chemistry, it’s as an informed layperson and yet as a non-expert. But when I see how Farina botches his discussion of probability, a field in which I am expert, it suggests to me that either he is confused or he is so committed to his atheist agenda that he will bend any argument to serve that agenda. Farina seems obsessed with Tour, having posted nine YouTube videos against Tour.

At the 31-minute mark, Farina offers the following analogy to argue against inferring design on the basis of small probabilities:

Let’s say 10 people are having a get-together, and they are curious as to what everyone’s birthday is. They go down the line. One person says June 13th, another says November 21st, and so forth. Each of them have a 1 in 365 chance of having that particular birthday. So, what is the probability that those 10 people in that room would have those 10 birthdays? Well, it’s 1 in 365 to the 10th power, or 1 in 4.2 times 10 to the 25, which is 42 trillion trillion. The odds are unthinkable, and yet there they are sitting in that room. So how can this be? Well, everyone has to have a birthday.

But Farina here misses the key second component of design inferences: they do not just require improbability but also specification (namely, conformity to an independently given pattern). Farina’s pattern of birthdays is completely unspecified. Imagine, instead, that each of these ten people had reported that their birthday is January 1. Such a coincidence would be independently given in virtue of its short description, such as “everyone has the same birthday” or “everyone was born New Year’s Day.” It would therefore constitute a specification. By combining small probability and specification, this coincidence would therefore have called for an explanation other than chance. It would not, in that case, be enough to say, as Farina did, “Well, everyone has to have a birthday.”

Farina exudes confidence in the absence of deep knowledge and understanding. In fact, his expertise is quite limited. But he’s a quick study at getting down “industry” talking points. And he can marshal titles, abstracts, and authors associated with research articles to suggest that whatever he wants to assert has in fact been established or is on the verge of being established. But as a YouTube influencer, his main incentive is to play to the gallery. And as an apologist for atheism, his interest is not in advancing science but in using a warped materialistic conception of science as a club to beat religion and religious believers. 

I’ll be interested to see what the aftermath of this exchange will be. As of yesterday it had 11,000+ comments on its YouTube video. So it hit a nerve.