Specified complexity

More?

If you have not heard of specified complexity or assembly theory, this would be a good one to watch. It is more or less strictly numbers and not necessarily about any one topic.

"A born-again Christian, James Tour has signed the Discovery Institute's "A Scientific Dissent from Darwinism". He has faced criticism from the scientific community regarding his public skepticism of evolution and abiogenesis"

It's always good to have some background!

The challenge of untangling the riddle of abiogenesis is immense and that's taken as fact but is it possible to assert emphatically that no coincidence of natural starting conditions and processes could possibly have brought a self-replicating entity into existence?

I'm not aware that it is and that being so I think research needs to continue until it's broadly agreed that the search for the origin of life either has a conclusion or it doesn't. There's no sense in spending valuable resources on a project if it cannot ever bear fruit but we do not yet know if that's the case here.

If you would focus on the science and leave everyone’s worldviews out of your calculus, you would be looking at this with unbiased eyes, but instead, you always lead with someone’s worldviews, trying to void the importance of what they are saying, which is predictable in your case you do not agree with them on that part so nothing they say matters.

It does no harm to know where a person is coming from I think? Tour feels himself compelled to speak out about this in a way that more 'secular' scientists appear not to be. I think that's a factor to be taken into consideration - why not?

Intelligent design is a religiously grounded (let's not be cute about this) attempt to both discredit mainstream scientific OOL research and offer a "viable alternative". Those who wish to sign up to that are free to do so but conventional research should continue until such time as it's established no natural explanation for life is possible.

It does nothing to know where the person is coming from if the information and or analysis are sound; the only thing that could possibly serve is to introduce bias unrelated to the content.

It's more a case of choosing to be convinced by Tour's argument because many more scientists involved in OOL research clearly are not. And while Tour has never been involved in such research, his detractors may have much more specialised understanding of where he's making mistakes.

In questions such as this it helps to know a person's possible motivation I think.

The soundness of the argument, not the number of people who believe it, you’d accept a flat earth as true back when so many did just because the number of people who believed it could have been larger?

Tour is a world-class scientist and researcher; he has invited anyone to present valid scientific evidence to dispute his claims/challenges. Where are the numbers who oppose him on the science that can respond? If they do respond, shouldn’t it be about science, not his worldview, to be credible?