Word Gems: Evolution: Dr. James Tour

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Word Gems

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Dr. James Tour

one of the world's top chemists

before one might credibly address the biology of evolution, one must begin with chemistry

Editor’s note: On the “evolution” page, I have offered 100+ articles discussing various errors of Darwinism and the merits of Intelligent Design. There are many excellent teachers and researchers from whom we can learn much. However, if pressed to choose a favorite, I might have to vote for Dr. James Tour.

Dr. James Tour is considered to be one of the top ten chemists in the world, and one of the top fifty scientists. The level of knowledge and insight he brings to the discussion of evolution is astonishing. He informs us that organic chemistry serves as basis of biology, and, therefore, before one might credibly address the biology of evolution, one must begin with chemistry.

It is a popular myth supporting Darwinism that "simple" cell life is nothing more than a glob of protoplasm. For a long time, however, we’ve known that there is no such thing as “simple” life, but this error continues to be repeated and promoted in textbooks.

The intricate processes of even the “simplest” cell – as there is no such thing as simple life – because even the simplest consists not just of mind-numbing complexity, plus a vast array of functions that must all work in concert, immediately, or not at all. This bewildering byzantine complexity grows yearly with new discoveries.

'more time' does not help Darwinism at the level of chemistry

Further, Darwinists’ salvation, that of “more time” eventually making pigs fly, will not offer benefit, for, as Dr. Tour points out, the processes of the cell, many of them, on the level of chemistry, are so fragile, and so short-lived, that the component chemicals quickly degrade and break down into different chemicals. More time actually works against evolution on the level of chemistry.

Interviewer: “What do you think about with your colleagues, do you often find that you’re conflicting over ideologies, or how is that in your daily life?”

James: “Well, not so much with my colleagues, not so much with chemists, the conflict comes with people who aren’t chemists, who really don’t see what I see, they don’t even understand the complexity of this thing and they think all of this could have just happened by itself.”

It is the biologists, typically, not understanding the inner-world details of organic chemistry, who make grand and unwarranted pronouncements concerning “life created in a test-tube” and similar. This is nonsense, says Professor Tour.

The media then takes these sensational statements and aggrandizes the error even more as fake-news. And now we have many millions of people who believe in the myths of an artificial synthesizing of life.

We today are actually much farther away from discovering the constituents of life than we were in 1952 with the Miller-Urey experiments. This is so because we are continually learning of greater and greater complexities within the cell, all of which pushes back any final understanding of origins in this area.

But, if all you knew were the brash statements from the popular press, you’d think that everything is already mapped out and all done. We are nowhere near that, and our horizon of ignorance ever recedes.

Dr. Tour's website

These videos are highly recommended:

See the video of Dr. Tour, 7 minutes

See the video of Dr. Tour, 23 minutes

Dr. Tour's credentials:

James M. Tour, a synthetic organic chemist, received his Bachelor of Science degree in chemistry from Syracuse University, his Ph.D. in synthetic organic and organometallic chemistry from Purdue University, and postdoctoral training in synthetic organic chemistry at the University of Wisconsin and Stanford University. After spending 11 years on the faculty of the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of South Carolina, he joined the Center for Nanoscale Science and Technology at Rice University in 1999 where he is presently the T. T. and W. F. Chao Professor of Chemistry, Professor of Computer Science, and Professor of Materials Science and NanoEngineering. Tour’s scientific research areas include nanoelectronics, graphene electronics, silicon oxide electronics, carbon nanovectors for medical applications, green carbon research for enhanced oil recovery and environmentally friendly oil and gas extraction, graphene photovoltaics, carbon supercapacitors, lithium ion batteries, CO2 capture, water splitting to H2 and O2, water purification, carbon nanotube and graphene synthetic modifications, graphene oxide, carbon composites, hydrogen storage on nanoengineered carbon scaffolds, and synthesis of single-molecule nanomachines which includes molecular motors and nanocars. He has also developed strategies for retarding chemical terrorist attacks. For pre-college education, Tour developed the NanoKids concept for K-12 education in nanoscale science, and also Dance Dance Revolution and Guitar Hero science packages for elementary and middle school education: SciRave that later expanded to a Stemscopes-based SciRave. The SciRave program has risen to be the #1 most widely adopted program in Texas to complement science instruction, and it is currently used by over 450 school districts and 40,000 teachers with over 1 million student downloads.

Professor Tour has over 800 research publications, over 130 granted patents and over 100 pending patents. He has an h-index = 175 with total citations about 140,000. In 2024, he was elected to the National Academy of Engineering, and he won the Rice University, School of Natural Science, Research Award for the discovery and development of flash graphene. In 2021, he won the Oesper Award from the American Chemical Society which is awarded to “outstanding chemists for lifetime significant accomplishments in the field of chemistry with long-lasting impact on the chemical sciences.” In 2020, he became a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry and in the same year was awarded the Royal Society of Chemistry’s Centenary Prize for innovations in materials chemistry with applications in medicine and nanotechnology. Based on the impact of his published work, in 2019 Tour was ranked in the top 0.004% of the 7 million scientists who have published at least 5 papers in their careers. He was inducted into the National Academy of Inventors in 2015. Tour was named among “The 50 Most Influential Scientists in the World Today” by TheBestSchools.org in 2019; listed in “The World’s Most Influential Scientific Minds” by Thomson Reuters ScienceWatch.com in 2014; and recipient of the Trotter Prize in “Information, Complexity and Inference” in 2014; and was the Lady Davis Visiting Professor, Hebrew University, June, 2014. Tour was named “Scientist of the Year” by R&D Magazine, 2013. He was awarded the George R. Brown Award for Superior Teaching, 2012, Rice University; won the ACS Nano Lectureship Award from the American Chemical Society, 2012; was the Lady Davis Visiting Professor, Hebrew University, June, 2011 and was elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), 2009. Tour was ranked one of the Top 10 chemists in the world over the past decade, by a Thomson Reuters citations per publication index survey, 2009; won the Distinguished Alumni Award, Purdue University, 2009 and the Houston Technology Center’s Nanotechnology Award in 2009. He won the Feynman Prize in Experimental Nanotechnology in 2008, the NASA Space Act Award in 2008 for his development of carbon nanotube reinforced elastomers and the Arthur C. Cope Scholar Award from the American Chemical Society for his achievements in organic chemistry in 2007. Tour was the recipient of the George R. Brown Award for Superior Teaching in 2007. He also won the Small Times magazine’s Innovator of the Year Award in 2006, the Nanotech Briefs Nano 50 Innovator Award in 2006, the Alan Berman Research Publication Award, Department of the Navy in 2006, the Southern Chemist of the Year Award from the American Chemical Society in 2005 and The Honda Innovation Award for Nanocars in 2005. Tour’s paper on Nanocars was the most highly accessed journal article of all American Chemical Society articles in 2005, and it was listed by LiveScience as the second most influential paper in all of science in 2005. Tour has won several other national awards including the National Science Foundation Presidential Young Investigator Award in Polymer Chemistry and the Office of Naval Research Young Investigator Award in Polymer Chemistry.

Professor Tour is the founder and principal of NanoJtech Consultants, LLC, performing technology assessments for the prospective investor. Tour’s intellectual property has been the seed for the formation of several other companies including Weebit (silicon oxide electronic memory), Dotz (graphene quantum), Zeta Energy (batteries), NeuroCords (spinal cord repair), Xerient (treatment of pancreas cancer), LIGC Application Ltd. (laser-induced graphene), Nanorobotics (molecular nanomachines in medicine) Universal Matter Ltd. (US) and Universal Matter Inc. (Canada) (flash graphene synthesis), Roswell Biotechnologies (molecular electronic DNA sequencing) and Rust Patrol (corrosion inhibitors).

Professor Tour has served as a visiting scholar at Harvard University, on the Chemical Reviews Editorial Advisory Board, the Governor’s Mathematics and Science Advisory Board for South Carolina, the Defense Science Study Group through the Institute for Defense Analyses, the Defense Science Board Chem/Nano Study Section, the Department of Commerce Emerging Technology and Research Advisory Committee and the MD Anderson Cancer Research Center’s Competitive Grant Renewal Board. He has been active in consulting on several national defense-related topics, in addition to numerous other professional committees and panels.

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