[uplifting keyboard notes] >> So, I'd like to talk to
you today about this topic: Does science make faith obsolete? And I'd like to start by telling you a little bit about our science. There's just only one slide, this one, where I've compacted
several different things that we've worked on in the recent past. And I'll just take it through. So this thing, in the upper left, we've learned how to make graphene at room temperature, in the air, using a laser writing machine that's used, normally, for cutting say, aluminum, or something. And we just use this to
write on polyimide film. And now, in a roll to roll fashion, we can do a 2D or 3D. And we've made a number of supercapacitors and batteries out of this material. We've made water purification
systems out of this. So we just stumbled upon a gold mine with this project. We've learned how to split
carbon nanotubes longitudinally. And if you split them longitudinally, what you get are you
get ribbons of graphene. So imagine, graphene is
single layers of graphite that are one atom thick. And how would you make a ribbon? Well, if you take a tube, like a straw, if you slice it down
one end, it will split. And what we do is, we just treat it with sodium potassium metal,
and what it does is it intercalates between the tubes, and it splits longitudinally, because for the same reason that a water
pipe splits longitudinally, because you get relief of
the pressure better that way. And then we get these ribbons, and we've used these ribbons in a number of different applications, from de-icing applications and
in batteries as conductors, but now we've most
recently used these in NA. Here it talks about some
of our medical work, in the healing of spinal cords. That's work that just came out. We work in an area of
making memory for computers. This has been bought by a company, and this is being brought
into a new phase of memory, so rather than the transistor that has the source, the drain, and the gate, this just has two-terminal memory. And its called RRAM, or
Resistive Random Access Memory. And it's also transparent, so, we can built it transparent
on plastic film. We've made a number of
inorganic supercapacitors. This has been licensed
to a auto manufacturer that makes electric vehicles,
using the supercapacitor for the acceleration,
because what auto companies have learned is that people
will pay a lot of money to be able to accelerate
quickly in their car. Most of the time, they just drive it at a normal speed, but the acceleration is what they will pay big money for. So you use supercapacitors
for acceleration, then a much smaller battery for the electrical part of just driving along. So this will be the supercapacitor for the acceleration, and it's flexible. We've built a number of carbon materials where we can absorb 150
weight percent of carbon, 150 weight percent of
CO2 inside these carbons, and we're using it to scrounge
out C02 from natural gas, turns out to work extremely well. This has been licensed by
a company called Apache, which is a large oil
company based in Houston. We've made graphene from a
number of carbon sources, but this is the leg of
an American cockroach. And you can put a cockroach
leg on a piece of copper, heat it up to 1000 degrees
in an atmosphere of hydrogen, and you get very clean graphene. Very clean graphene. And so we showed that any carbon source will convert into graphene
at 1000 degrees on copper. Any carbon source. And that's because carbon is
most thermodynamically stable as the graphene form. And so, we wanted to take something of negative value, and convert it into something of positive value. We took a Girl Scout cookie and did it. One box of Girl Scout cookies is $4. If you take all the carbon in a box of Girl Scout cookies and
convert it into graphene and sell it as 2cm squares, you could sell that graphene for $15 billion. So, it shows you that
the value of a compound is not in the cost of the element, the value of a compound is in the arrangement of the
atoms into molecules and the superstructure
that results from that. If you take a person, they've died, you cremate them, you convert
them to C02 and water. The value of that is less than a penny. What is the value, aside
from the spiritual value, of just the mechanical
portions of a human being? Mechanical and intellectual portions. It's utterly amazing. The value of something comes in the arrangements of the
atoms into molecules. That's where the value comes from. We've made graphene quantum dots. Graphene quantum dots cost
$1 million per kilogram. We learned how to make them from coal, which is $60 per ton, in one step. This has been licensed
to an Israeli company. They certainly saw the value in this. This is $90,000 worth of graphene
quantum dots right there. And so, those are gonna be used in a number of applications, but that'll greatly reduce the price. We've made carbon nanotubes
fused to graphene, and this is gonna be in our
next generation of batteries. Just amazing batteries. This has been licensed to another company and the capacity of these batteries is just absolutely stunning. So, this hopefully will be in next generations of batteries, so your cell phones will last much longer. Generally, you're still
gonna have to charge them at least once a day,
because what they'll do is they'll increase the functionality, they won't allow you to just run longer. We have a number of different treatments. We've had drugs licensed for treatment of traumatic brain injury, and this was developed for many of our soldiers coming back from the Middle East Theater. And then, also, for stroke. Traumatic brain injury is the number one disabler of young adults. Stroke is the number one
disabler of older adults. And it works for both of those by sequestering the superoxide. We've worked, as I told you, on the healing of spinal cords. We have tattoo therapy. This is carbon nanoparticles that alleviate autoimmune disease when they're injected under the skin. It looks like a tattoo, which fades over a period of about a week, but tremendous results we've had, with both rheumatoid
arthritis and MS to date. And then we work, also, on drug delivery on nanoparticles. We developed graphene oxide. The procedure for making graphene oxide, that was licensed to
EMD Merck Corporation. And then another company,
we licensed a process for trapping radioactive
elements from water. Because if you have a
nuclear waste disaster, a nuclear spill, or if you
do oil drilling or mining, and you go deep, you very
often get radioactive material that comes up as a result with the water as it comes up. And this is very good at trapping it. This is a sheet of graphene
oxide plugging a hole. It's like if you take a piece of paper and you were to cover your finger and you push down, the
paper sort of splays out. That's what happens with
a sheet of graphene oxide. That's a one-atom-thick sheet that then curls up in the corners. We use that for plugging
holes in oil drilling, so that you don't get
leakage into the cavities, that as you're drilling and
you're under high pressure, those just naturally plug the holes. Then we have this area of nanomachines. We've been working on
this for several years. And we built these little
cars with these motors that you shine a light,
and the motors spin and push the cars along. The cars are only two
nanometers by three nanometers. So we can park 50,000 of these cars across the diameter of a human hair. That's how small they are. And so now, what we've done is we've built nanosubmarines that
have a peptide pendant. So it has this pendant on
it, that will recognize a particular cell surface
that you want to recognize, and then they have these little motors that spin at 3 MHz. That's 3 million rotations per second. Then you shine a light and they just drill holes through cells. And so that's really fascinating. So that gives you kind
of a composite overview of the research that we do. Here's my current chemistry family, so that's my current research group. And these are the folks who
actually do all the work. And it's really an amazing sort of thing, they're in the lab doing all the work, and then I go out and talk about it, and I get all this glory for
talking about their work. And the more I tell people
that it really wasn't me, it was the students that did the work, the more magnanimous
they think I am. [laughs] And so, it's a very
strange sort of career. I try to give them the credit, and anyway, I end up getting much more than I deserve. But those are the folks that do the work, and I really love these young people. They put in a lot of time, and we spend a lot of time working together. And we form rich relationships together. And I've had the joy of seeing many of them come to the Lord over their times working with me. And I'm thankful for that. Well, how did I become
interested in chemistry? Well, I didn't start out
being interested in chemistry. I enjoyed it in high school, but I really wanted to be
a New York State Trooper. That's what I wanted to be. I wanted to be a New York State Trooper, but I was colorblind, so I could not get into the academy. So, at 17 years old, I realized I wasn't gonna be able
to get into the academy. So, I had gone to look into studying forensic science in
college, so that at least I'd work, say, in a crime
lab or something like that. But my dad said to me, well, why don't you just get a general degree in chemistry? And then you can specialize
in forensics after that. And what amazes me
about my father's advice is I was 17 years old, and
at 17 I took his advice. [audience laughing] And I'm glad I did, because I then took organic chemistry,
and I just loved it. This is the molecule strychnine. It's just amazing, organic chemistry. I really love that topic. I loved it so much that
as an undergraduate, what I used to do is you know, the undergraduate
textbooks are like 1200 pages. They were even 1200 pages back then. And so, we would get assigned
problems in the book to do. I would, of course, do all those problems, but then I would do all the other problems that had not even been assigned. And so I would go, on Friday nights, and just work problems,
find an empty classroom, and work problems. And at Syracuse University, all the rooms were empty on Saturdays,
because all the students were at football games. And I never went to any football games. And I would just study organic chemistry, 'cause I really loved it. I mean, when you get a
subject you really love, I mean, it's just fun to do it. It's just like a job, I
mean, if you have a career that you really love, you just spend a lot of time doing
it, just because you like it. And so I really got
into organic synthesis. For me, that was just a lot of fun to do. And I see molecular
structure in everything. In everything, I see molecular structure. And this is important, because I see hair, I know why your hair has
the features that it has. It's these peptide strands,
and this hydrogen bonding that holds it in these arrangements. You take carpet fiber. You know, you can take a carpet fiber, and if you pull one of those fibers out, just this thin little fiber that's as thin as a hair, or thinner, it'll stand up four or six inches high and not even fall over. That's amazing. Try to stand up a rubber band. It falls over. Why does a carpet fiber
stand up like that? And the reason you make
carpet fibers like that is so that when you walk over it, it doesn't leave footprints
where people walk. And you learn all about why this happens. Why does a tree have the
features that it has? You run your car into the
tree, the car's destroyed, and the tree's just sitting there. It's fine.
[audience laughing] Why is this? And you learn about these
carbohydrate strands that have hydrogen bonding
between them that make it. And you end up seeing molecular
structure in everything. You look at people, and you
just think about molecules, the molecules that construct these people. And this is what happens to me, is I see molecular
structure in everything, and this is gonna become important as I begin to speak about the things I'm gonna speak about today. Because I want you to understand
not just my worldview, I want you to understand what's in my mind when I'm thinking about
these sorts of topics. It's molecular structure in everything. I was 18 years old. I had just turned 18, I went to college. And I was born in a secular
Jewish home in New York City, I grew up just north of the city. And I didn't know much about Jesus Christ. In fact, I knew very little. I didn't even know that there
was a claim on the table that Jesus had died for my sins. How could that be? I am sure that I must have heard it on TV programs, and read things, but I didn't even realize that. Didn't realize that there was
a real claim on the table. And so I was doing laundry
in the laundry room, was August of my freshman year. And there was a young man in there who was on the Syracuse University football team. And we got to talking, and I asked him if he wanted to play
football when he graduated, play pro ball. He says, oh no, I'm not
good enough for that. I said, well, what do you wanna do? And he said, lay ministry. I didn't know what he meant. I said, I don't know what that means. What do you mean, lay ministry? He said, like maybe a missionary. Missionary? [Snaps] It's 1977. We don't need missionaries, we got TV! Just put it on TV, you
don't have to go anyplace. Did you ever think of that? And he said, I'd like to give you an illustration of the Gospel. And I didn't know what
he was talking about. I thought he was gonna draw me a picture. And he did! He drew me this picture! He took a piece of paper, and he drew people on one side of a chasm, and God on the other, and
he drew sin in between. And he had a bible with him. He said, I'd like you
to read from this bible. And he opened it up to the Book of Romans, and he had me read a verse, and it says for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. And I looked at him and
I said, I haven't sinned. He said, we're all sinners. I said, I haven't sinned! I never robbed a bank,
I never killed anyone. How could I be a sinner? In modern secular Judaism,
we don't think about sin. We don't. I mean, I know in Christianity,
it's like every thought. Oh no, I must have sinned again. [audience laughs] Judaism is so much simpler. You go to the Synagogue once a year. Everything's taken care
of, nobody bothers you. You never think about this stuff. And then he opened up to another verse, and why of all verses he
picked this one, I don't know. But he opened up to
another verse in Matthew, and he said, read this verse, and it was the words of Jesus. And Jesus said, if you look upon a woman to lust after her, you have
committed adultery with her already in your heart. That was a very unusual
verse to share with someone when you're sharing the Gospel. [audience laughing] It hit me particularly hard because I was 18 years old and I
was addicted to pornography. There was no internet in those days, but I started working in a gas station that was just outside New York City on the parkway there. And it was on a highway, and I worked both sides of the road, there were two gas stations owned by the same person. And I started working there when I was 14, and I told the guy that I was 16, and nobody checked
paperwork in those days. If he says he's 16, he's 16! How am I supposed to know? And I'd realized that the salesmen would throw away their
pornographic magazines on their way home on Friday nights, and I would just go collect
them from the trash cans. By the time I was 18, I was
deeply into pornography. And I didn't think anybody knew it. I was newly in college. I didn't bring my magazines
with me, I was too ashamed. And of all verses to
read, it really hit me. I remember saying to him, if
that's the definition of sin, I'm a sinner. Then we shared a few more verses about how while I was yet a sinner,
Christ died for me. And he drew this cross,
and he talked about how people can get to
God, through Jesus Christ. And I didn't understand
what he was talking about, but all I knew is from that
day that I was a sinner. And I started meeting Christians. The term 'born-again' was
being used a lot in those days. Because Jimmy Carter had just
finished being president, and this term was being used a lot, of being born again, and
I didn't understand it. And I met all these people
that they were saying that they were born again, and I found that Christian people
were very nice to me. For example, I'd go down to the cafeteria and they'd invite me to
sit in their little group. And they'd be laughing about something, and it was a laughter I had never known. Whenever I was with a group of people and they were laughing,
somebody was in pain because of that laughter. They were laughing at somebody. But not this group. They were just laughing,
and nobody was in pain when they were laughing. So a very unusual group. They invited me to a bible study. So, I remember sitting in on a bible study on the Gospel according to John. November seventh, 1977, I was all alone in my dormitory room. That room, right there, room 1812 of the Lawrinson dormitory.
[audience laughs] And I was all alone, and
I got down on my knees, and I don't know what prompted me to get down on my knees. Christians normally sat when they prayed. That's what I noticed. Jews normally stand when they pray. And I said Lord, forgive
me, because I am a sinner. I am a sinner. Come into my life. And all of a sudden, there was this amazing rush of forgiveness, and I was startled. Somebody was standing in my room. My roommate wasn't there. Someone was standing. And I opened my eyes to
see who's in my room. And I didn't see anybody, but there was a presence
I had never known. And I just started weeping. I wasn't scared, I wasn't afraid, I didn't feel condemned. Just an amazing presence
that just caused me to weep. I didn't want to get up off my knees, this presence was so wonderful. And I remember after that night, I never told anybody. I didn't know what I was gonna do. What's this Jewish kid gonna do? What do I say? And about two weeks later,
the guy who had shared with me saw me walking across the
dormitory floor there. And he said Jim, have
you received the Lord? You invited Jesus in your heart? I said, I don't know, I think I have. Why do you ask? He says, you haven't
stopped smiling for weeks. [audience laughs] Something happened to me that day. And I asked him, I said to him, how can I maintain this? How can I maintain this closeness? I feel, all of a sudden, close to God! He said to me, he said,
I've talked to many people that seem close to God. And every one of them, I've asked them, do you read your bible every day? And they say yes. Then I've talked to other people that never seem very close to God, but they're Christians. I ask them, do you read
your bible every day? They say no. I said, I understand. That's digital. You read your bible every day, you'll stay close to God. You don't, you won't. For almost 40 years, I've
read my bible every day. I start in the Book of Genesis. That happens to be the first book of the Bible.
[audience laughs] I start in Chapter One, first one, and I read right through
to Revelations Chapter 22. When I'm done, I start again. For almost 40 years, I've done this. When I'm done, I start again, and I say, Lord, speak to
me through the scriptures. I was influenced by many
great Christian men. There was Dr. T.E. Koshy, who was the Evangelical chaplain
at Syracuse University. A man named Brother
Bakht Singh, from India. Professor Broersma at Purdue University. And then Professor Buck Hatch, who was at Columbia Bible
College and Seminary, which is now Columbia
International University. When I was teaching at the
University of South Carolina, he used to come and visit my class, and we would just sit and talk. These men poured their lives into me, and I owe them to pour
my life into others. These men poured their lives into me. I started reading the
Scriptures every day, and it started to really impact my life. Let me begin to talk about this. Does science make faith obsolete? Well, science has never,
never shaken my faith. And I'm not the only one. This is Lord Kelvin. He was a physical chemist, a dynamicist. So, we get our Kelvin scale from him. He said, "I have long felt that there
was a general impression that the scientific world believes science has discovered ways of explaining
all the facts of nature without adopting any
definite belief in a Creator. I have never doubted that impression was utterly groundless." Science actually strengthens my faith. Lord Kelvin said something similar. He said: "The more thoroughly I
conduct scientific research, the more I believe
science excludes atheism. If you think strongly enough, you will be forced by
science to the belief in God, which is the foundation of all religion." You know, to be a scientist with faith brings great excitement. Ronald Ross discovered that malaria comes from a parasite in
the stomach of a mosquito. He was the first to discover this. And as you read his
writings, he was a physician working as a scientist in
India to try to understand what was the genesis,
the origin of malaria, which at the time they thought was just the sulfur smell from swamps,
they thought caused malaria. And it talks about how his
last remaining eyepiece was cracked on his
microscope and was rusted because of the sweat that
would fall off of him. He couldn't have the
native Indian servants fanning him because it would blow away the dissected mosquito parts. And on the night that he discovered that there's a parasite in the stomach of malaria-carrying
mosquitoes, he wrote a poem. He penned this poem to his wife. So, here's Ronald Ross. He penned this poem. He said: "This day relenting God has placed within my hand, a wondrous thing, and God be praised. At His command, seeking His secret deeds with tears and toiling breath, I find thy cunning seeds, O million-murdering Death. I know this little thing
a myriad men will save. O Death, where is thy sting? Thy victory, O Grave? You cannot read that poem
without understanding that this was a man who
knew the Scriptures. There's an excitement that comes by being a scientist with faith that you would never know if you didn't have faith. I'll share something
from my own experience. I had the great blessing
of moving up very quickly in my career, because God blessed me. God just blessed me, over and over again, much greater than I deserved. And I got tenure very quickly. I never came up for "tenure". I got it after three years. They just gave it to me. So I never knew what it's like to sweat. I never worried about it. Well, shortly after I'd gotten tenure, I had been invited back
to Purdue University to share about my research. I had just gotten tenure, and I was invited back to share. And it was a little
bit intimidating to me, because my professor, Professor Negishi, who was a Japanese man, and
no matter how hard I worked in his group, and I
brought him good results, he never got beyond this. He would say "pretty good... for your level".
[audience laughs] I never got past the man's waist. And here I was gonna be presenting to him, and I was praying in this building, in the Purdue Memorial Union, the University has a very nice hotel, because they have a program in hotel and restaurant management. And I was reading this verse that morning. Truly I say to you, if you
have faith and do not doubt, you will not only do what
was done to the fig tree, but even if you say to this mountain, 'Be taken up and cast into
the sea,' it will happen. And as I read that, I said, "Lord, you're raising my faith." Because I pray before
every one of my seminars. I pray that God would
pour out and bless people, even my science seminars. And I was praying that morning for the seminar that I was gonna give in the chemistry department. And so when I read this, I said, "Lord, you're raising my faith. I pray it's the best seminar ever in that department. The best ever." And I said, "Lord, how am
I gonna know it's the best? The department's been there 100 years. How am I gonna know?" I said, Lord, if it's the best, I pray that my professor-
there he is, Ei-ichi Negishi, he won the Nobel Prize in 2010. But this was back in 1993. 1993, he was just a regular guy. All of a sudden, 2010, he
becomes this famous guy. But I said, Professor
Negishi will be there. I pray that I get none of
this 'for your level' stuff. I pray that he says, "It
was a super seminar." This is not a word that he normally used. I pray that, if he says it's
a super seminar, I'll know that it was the best seminar
ever in that department. Well, I gave that seminar,
and I knew God had blessed. When I got done, Professor
Negishi was sitting right on the end, right on the front row. He stood up, he raised his hand,
just as soon as I got done. "Super! Super!"
[audience laughs and cheers] Sitting right behind him was this man, H.C. Brown, who had won
the Nobel Prize in 1979. H.C. Brown won it for the
hydroboration reaction. So Negishi had worked for H.C. Brown, so H.C. Brown was, like, my grandfather, in an academic sense. And he was in his eighties at the time, and I came down, and I shook his hand. He was sitting right in
the second row there, right on the end. It was just his normal seat. Nobody took that seat. Brown always sat in that seat. And as I shook his hand, he said to me, "I want you to know something. That was the best seminar
I've ever seen in my life." And I said, "That's very kind
of you, sir, to say that." And in typical Nobel
Prize-winning fashion, he said, "I'm not saying it to be kind! I really mean it!"
[audience laughing] You know, God has a way
of confirming His word, if we will walk with Him
and believe His word. If we will believe His word, He does amazing things to our lives, and He brings excitement. I see this sort of excitement all the time in the work that I do. Well, how does a cell operate, chemically? Well, this is a cell. It's utterly amazing. A cell is a machine. It is a factory. How do you get materials in a factory from point A to point B? You have these overhead
automatic scaffolds that pick stuff up, and deliver it. This is what a cell is. A cell is a factory. We understand certain
things about the cell. Other things, we don't. But if it has to transport material from one end of the cell to the other, you know how it does it? It will build a mictotubule. It will construct a microtubule, and then transfer the
material along the tubule. And then it deconstructs the tubule. I said, well, why doesn't
it just leave it there? Because then, the cell
would become too rigid. You get too many. It just deconstructs it and rebuilds it where it needs to transport. It's amazing. How's it do this? It's amazing. So, I don't understand the vast chemical mechanisms in the cell, but it clearly operates. So, it's not improper to ask the question, by what chemical mechanism
does it function? The very question spawns
further investigation. So, generally, scientists are invited to ask questions. So, the question often
asked of me by students is "what do you think about evolution?" Well, on my website, my
website is jmtour.com, and then if you go to the corner there's a personal topics tab. And one of the bullets
there is evolution-creation. So, I've written about this. So, before we talk about evolution, let's first talk about the origin of life, 'cause you have to have life
before you can have evolution. Well, how did life arise
in the first place? You wanna say, well,
aliens brought it here. That's fine. I'm okay with that. But let's say, origin of first life. Where did the alien life come from? Let's say, what is the
origin of first life? And on earth, life has
to have four compounds. It has to have
carbohydrates, nucleic acids, lipids, and proteins. Those four compounds. That's what life is made out of today. That's what you and me are made out of. We're not made out of silicon, we're not made out of tungsten. We're made out of these molecules: carbohydrates, nucleic
acids, lipids, and proteins. So, I just wrote this article this year, on abiogenisis, or prebiotic chemistry. And yeah, that's supposed to be me. I mean, you write these articles for them, and then they- I don't know
where they get these artists- but they do this to everyone! And you know, I saw it, I was like, whoa. And then my kids saw it. One of my kids, "You
see, there they go again, attacking the Jews."
[audience laughs] I said no, they do this to everyone! Don't worry, just calm down. They do this to everyone
who writes a journal or an article for them. But I just dissected origin of life. So, I asked one of my
very famous colleagues, National Academy member. I said, what's the
origin of carbohydrates? He said, "Oh, it comes from formaldehyde in the formose reaction." I said okay, and he said,
"I'll send you an article." So I read the article, by
a guy named Eschenmoser, a great chemist. I've known of his work for many years. He's in his nineties now. And I just went to the
synthetic protocols, and I dissected it. So if you look at nature's molecules, so nature uses ribose, this is ribose, these five carbon sugars. Why do we wanna focus in on ribose? Because the backbone of
DNA is a carbohydrate. So you have the carbohydrate strand, and then the nucleic
acids are hanging off. So, before you can have DNA, you gotta have the sugars,
and the carbohydrates. And you gotta have the
five carbon carbohydrate. So, in trying to make
this in a prebiotic world, all you can do is mix certain things, but you can't do real
sophisticated chemistry, 'cause you're only supposed
to use the molecules that nature had at the time. Things like formaldehyde,
things like ammonia. And so he had to make
these pentose sugars, but the pentose sugars have
three stereogenic centers, which means that you're gonna end up with a total of eight possible isomers. You get these four pairs of enantiomers, and then between the pairs of enantiomers, there are diastereomers. So, you don't just get
one, you get all of them. So, what happens is you need these five carbon sugars. You need to have the
D-ribose in particular, if it's for DNA, you have to now pull off one of the hydroxyl
groups to be deoxyribose. Unless you wanna start
with RNA, which is fine, and then you'd have ribose. But then, it's a lot less stable. But the prebiotic system never knows that. So, when we wanna make something in a lab, we decide the target we wanna make, and then we go ahead and make it. The prebiotic system doesn't
know what it's gonna make! It doesn't go, I think
I'll build life today. No, it doesn't know that! There's no brain there
in a prebiotic system. So what is the chemistry going toward? It has no target. That's a big problem. Try to make something
without going toward it. You don't know what to go toward. It had to do this with all
those classes of molecules. It never knew what to go toward. It never knew what to select, because it didn't have a selector. It's not biology. Biology has selectors. Living systems have selectors. If it's the right thing, it
notices it by this enzyme. If it's the wrong thing, it notices it, and it sends another enzyme to chew it up. But this is before there's any enzymes, because it's prebiotic! It's pre biology. It's pre life. Before you can have life, you gotta have the molecules. So that was the first thing. There's a number of criteria
that nature has to deal with if you view this totally
as a materialistic world. Nature has chosen a hard route. Most of its molecules can be enantiomeric, and it's chosen them as homochiral. So the system has multiple
stereogenic centers, and has chosen homochiral. These are hard compounds to work with. Just trust me, it's very hard to do homochiral synthesis on something with multiple stereogenic centers. You have solubility problems. Try to do organic chemistry in water. That's what a natural system has to do. And you have to design the system so it splays out the hydrophilic portions, and puts the hydrophobic
portions on the interior. 'Cause organic chemists, we
just use organic solvents. Nature's gotta use just water. When building a molecular nanosystem, like trying to build a functioning cell, you have to do constant redesigns. Because it doesn't work, so
you go back to the beginning. Redesign often makes you go back to step one in the synthesis. I know this because we build nanomachines. Very few people build molecules all the
way up to a nanomachine. Very few people! There's only a handful of us in the world, which will start from molecules, and go right up to a functioning machine. So it bothers people when I say, I probably know more about
this than most people. But let me explain to you why. There's so few people that do it! Even most organic chemists
don't try to build a functioning machine from their system. They make a molecule. "Hey, look at what I made!" But, they don't try to put them together to build a functioning system. That's what we do with
these molecular cars, and these submarines. The cars, by the way, have four independently rotating wheels. They have molecular motors. They have axles, they have loading base, all of these things. But if you wanna change something, you gotta go back to step one. How did this happen in a prebiotic world, when there's no mind there? It doesn't know how to stop. So, say it gets to a carbohydrate. How does it know to stop the synthesis? It doesn't know that a
carbohydrate is the target I want. No. [makes a thunking crash noise] You just ruined what you just took 400 million years to make! [audience laughing] It doesn't know to stop. A prebiotic system doesn't
have just-in-time delivery. I order chemicals, they're
at my door in 18 hours. And I keep the intermediate safe and stored in the freezer
for the next step. What does nature do? Here, in this cave, something formed. The thing it needs to react with is in a cave 80km away,
or on another planet! How does it get there? How did it get there? It has to be in a concentration
where things can react. If it's just one molecule in a puddle, there's not a concentration gradient where things can react, because the two molecules
never find each other. It's easy statistics to figure out. You have to have a certain concentration before things can react. People will often say to me, "Oh, if you wait long enough, it'll form." No, time is your enemy
in organic chemistry! Time is your enemy! You make something, you right away store it in a precious place because if air hits
it, or ammonia hits it, it falls apart! They're kinetic products. Very often, they are the kinetic product, meaning that they form first, but they're not the most stable. The most stable is junk! Reagent addition order is critical. You have to add A, and then B, and then C. You can't just throw it all together! It doesn't work that way! It just doesn't work that way. Try cooking an elaborate French dinner. I bought all this stuff,
I just add it all together and-
[audience laughing] Chemistry's the same
way, you can't do that! How does nature know what to add? How does it add one, and then the other, and then the other? And when these guys do
their prebiotic chemistry, say, look what we got! Yeah, because you added
A, and then B, and then C. And you bought A, and you bought B, and you bought C! The parameters of temperature, pressure, solvent, light or no light, pH, oxygen, no oxygen, moisture, no moisture, has to be carefully controlled to build complex molecular structures. The characterization at
each step is essential, but hard in a prebiotic system. How do you characterize it? Biology characterizes everything. Everything that's made, enzymes check it. And then if it's not
right, another enzyme comes and rips out that wrong base, and fixes it in the DNA. But this is a prebiotic world! You don't have any of this! How do you bring up more
starting material from the rear? Any time you wanna make a complex system, you go along, and then you
run out of starting material, because you were trying many things. And then you go back,
and you make some more, and then you go back. How does nature go back? It just spent a billion
years building something and now uh-oh, I ran out
of starting material. Well, I'll just go back
and make some more. Uh, I would, but I never
kept a laboratory notebook. I forgot what I had done
a billion years ago. You see the problem! How many organic chemists are here? Okay. Do you know what I'm talking about? Isn't this true?
[distant shouts of agreement] It just doesn't work!
[distant cheering] None of this works! And this is what they publish
paper on, after paper, and it gets into nature, into science, I'm like, you're crazy! [audience laughs] And there's no accounting here. There's no accounting. So, one guy makes ribose, in a .1% yield with all the other carbohydrates in there and they identify it by mass spec. And then the next researcher
starts with ribose, say, okay, ribose has been made, so we'll start with that, and now- No, no, start with the junk that he made! You don't buy ribose with all
the chiral centers in place that came from a natural source! None of it works. So, critical for life is
the origin of information. So, this is just making
the basic molecules. Now you got the whole information! It's not just the nucleic acids, it's the order in which they're arranged! The information is primary,
the matter is secondary! Information is primary! You can write information
on a piece of paper, then transfer it to your computer, put it up in the cloud, and
now it's in some server form. The matter can change. The information is primary. This is why we believe that in Christ, when we die, we live forever with Him! Because the information
is stored in the cloud! [audience laughs] It is! It is retained in the cloud. We are very much with Him. The body can be cremated,
the body decomposes, that's just the matter upon which it was stored for that time! And in fact, even the
information that's in my brain is changing all the time, the matter! Your body is replaced every seven years! Every molecule of your body replaces out! So, all the molecules are
replaced out all the time, constantly replaced! So, your matter is changing all the time, but the information is the primary part! You see what I mean. The information, the
code, so even if you had all of these molecules,
you can't do anything! Because you don't have the information. So the origin of life. So, say we assemble a dream team. I'll give that the dream team can't even make the first living cell if given all the chemicals
for the information code. So, in other words, the
mystery of the origin of life does not permit the opening of the door on a biological evolution. It's difficult to discuss
biology without life. You can't start life! So, say I assemble the dream team. Say, we're not in caves anymore. You're in your best labs in the world, and I get the top 100 synthetic chemists, the top 100 biochemists, the top 100 evolutionary biologists, and the top 100 whatever else you want. And I give them limitless funds. And I give them all the carbohydrates, lipids, nucleic acids, and
proteins that they want. And I'll even give it to them in the assembled order! All the DNA, all the RNA,
I'll give you the information. You tell me the code you want. I'll give it all to you. Now, you take those, and
just make me one cell. The simplest of living organisms, a cell. Make it for me. They'll be like, you're crazy. We can't assemble one of those. They can't. They can't. You say well, oh,
what about artificial cells? An artificial cell is, you
take a piece from one cell and you put it in another, and you say "look what I made!" It's like if I take the engine- I used to work on cars a lot, as a kid. You take the engine out of one car, you put it in another car. And it's like "hey, I made that car!" You took the engine out of one car, you put it in another. That's what they call artificial cells. You try to make a cell ab initio. I'll give you all the chemicals, still, you can't even build it! But in some cave, somewhere
[audience laughs] it happened. Clueless. If you just Google my name, James Tour Origin of Life, on Youtube, or just go to Youtube and put James Tour Origin of Life, I gave a talk at the
University of Waterloo for an hour and 15 minutes. It's straight boom, boom, just fire, [audience laughs loudly] upon this group just trying to explain the problems with origin of life. And none of my colleagues will say a word. They all act as if they've never seen it. I sent them the URL. I say, what? They don't even look me in the face, because they don't want
to have to address this, because they know it's
a bunch of nonsense. It's nonsense what they're publishing. All right, now, the frustration of the
evolutionist toward me. So now, all right, I'll give you life. What about evolution? Well, I signed this statement in 2001, it says, "We are skeptical of the claims for the ability of random
mutation and natural selection to account for the complexity of life. Careful examination of the evidence for Darwinian evolution
should be encouraged." That was sent to me in an email. Do you know how fast
you go through emails? Boom, boom, boom. Yes, yes, sure, sure. Can you agree with this? Yes. All of a sudden, I didn't know
that this was gonna become the moral touchstone in court cases. But it's okay, because I do agree with it! But I didn't realize what it
was gonna do to my career! I mean, this statement has become known as "A Scientific Dissent
from Darwinism Statement". It has this amazing name now. My signing this statement has
led to problems in my career. I never knew it. But it's okay, because I
still do agree with it. Okay, so in 2016, just this year, so this is all new to me, I set out on a personal mission to engage biologists,
philosophers of science, mathematicians and geneticists in order to better understand evolution. I wanted to understand, what is it that you really believe? And so, I have a little
more access to them than a typical undergraduate student does. So I can call somebody on the phone and say, look, you're a top geneticist, this is Jim Tour. I'd like to come and visit
you for a day or two. Explain to me genetics,
and how you get this. And they opened the door to me. Some of them were nice,
some of them weren't. Some of them just berated
me, and just called me names. And some of them sat
there, very patiently, and explained these things to me. So, Darwinian theory has
already been debunked by the biologists. Say, how's that? Well, many biologists suggest that "random mutation and natural selection" have long been recognized by
many evolutionists themselves to be insufficient to account
for the complexity of life. Neutral drift is
quantitatively more important than natural selection in understanding genetic differences between organisms. Furthermore, the mechanisms of evolution and their relative importance
are continuously subject to careful scientific
examination and revision, so "careful examination of the evidence" has not been avoided. So what they say to me is, you signed this statement,
but we've already known. Random mutation, natural
selection, are insufficient, and we're always carefully examining. I'm like, well, guys, why don't you sign the statement with me, then? I mean, because you agree with me? Anyway, they didn't know
what I was talking about. This is a quote from a top geneticist. "Evolution is both about the mechanism by which change occurs over time, and the theory of
universal common descent." All right, so, I sat for two days and just learned about common descent. It is an amazing theory,
and I can understand why those fluent in the field of genetics would be convinced by
universal common descent. Common descent does not mean that we evolved from monkeys, from chimpanzees. What it means is that
humans and chimpanzees both come from a common ancestor. That's what common descent means. It is a remarkably well-developed theory, with plenty of evidence
supporting its case, plenty of mathematical evidence. We have to, as believers,
do the scientific justice and be scientifically
credible enough to say, I am looking at your
theory, and I understand why you wholeheartedly
embrace that theory. It is just point upon point upon point pointing towards universal common descent. Let's look further. So, humans have 20,000
protein-coding genes, which is only about 1.5% of the DNA. So, only about 1.5% of our DNA is the DNA that really codes for the construction of our body. And it's within that 1.5%
that common descent studies are primarily, though not exclusively, but primarily focused. Then there was a large-scale project instituted in 2003, not by Christians, this was by the US National
Human Genome Research Institute, called the Encyclopedia of
DNA Elements, or ENCODE. You can just Google ENCODE, it'll come up. It seeks to determine the role of the remaining 98.5% of
the DNA of the genome, that was formerly poorly
called "junk DNA", but now it's better called
"intergenic regions". So 98.5% of the DNA that's within us is not what codes for most of us. It's only 1.5% that does the coding. And they thought this
other 98.5% was just junk. Now, they're learning it's not quite junk. There's ENCODE evidence
that part, or even much, of the intergenic regions
have regulatory elements that can affect gene transcription. That means that that's the
code that builds the RNA, that then builds the
enzymes, that constructs us. So, the uncommonness is noted
in the intergenic regions, not the common 1.5%
protein coding regions. If you look at the 1.5%, it absolutely looks like humans and other hominids come from a common descendant. When you look at the 98.5%,
there's other regions there that are unique, that
speak of uncommonness. Then there's work on
something called orphan genes, which cast new light on the uniqueness of some genetic information. Orphan genes are considered unique to a narrow taxon, or
generally, a species. Therefore, orphan genes are
markers of uncommonness. So, in other words, you can find segments of genes where
there is nothing like it that maps back to a chimpanzee. Those are called orphan genes. There are over 200 that
have been recognized in human beings, that are
not in other hominids. That 200, again, are
markers of uncommonness. When you look at the
1.5% of the vast majority of the protein-coding genes that mark us, it really looks like common descent. But the jury is still
out on the other 98.5%. The uncommon human being: Humans alone have the capacity for art, music, advanced communication,
advanced mathematics, and religious practice, which constitute the broader organization of symbolism. I am here, speaking to
you today, in symbolism. I'm describing DNA. I don't have to put DNA in front of you. Just, I describe it, and in
your mind's eye you get it. This is symbolism, this
is how humans interact, in symbolism, all the time. Other creatures don't do this. Try to explain to a dog, go outside, go 300 ft, and then go up a ladder, go 2 in to the right, to the left, open up a secret gate. You can explain that to a human, every time, they'll get that. Advanced communication. Therefore, if one is intent
upon common descent model, there was a massive and
presently unexplainable infusion, which may have been
intrinsic or extrinsic, along the very short proposed
pathway of descendancy between australiopithecines
and modern humans. That's the thing right next to us. Right next to us. Something happened. If you look at our brains,
and other hominids, they are anatomically
indistinguishable from our brain. You look at them chemically, they are chemically indistinguishable
from our brain. We don't know what it is that makes us so much different than other hominids. Our brains are nearly indistinguishable. And the chemical basis of
the evolutionary mechanism for such changes is both unknown and, presently, immeasurable. We don't even know how it's different. It's clearly different. Humans deal in symbolism. If the infusion were extrinsic, in other words, if
something put that in there, then the materialistic, evolutionist, and the design proponent
share common ground. If it somehow came extrinsically. Body plans: A body plan or ground is 'an assemblage of morphological features shared among common members of
a phylum-level group'. The term is usually applied to animals, and it's the 'blueprint'
encompassing aspects such as symmetry,
segmentation, limp deposition. Body plans. There is no mechanism
for how different species got their body plans, no mechanism. By that I mean, remember what I told you, what the evolutionists themselves said? That evolution consists of two things, mechanisms, and universal common descent. Nobody can fathom the mechanisms for the change of a body plan, in going from one species to another. Nobody has a mechanism. A mechanism means, the process
by which that would occur. You measure things that
tell you mechanisms. Any massive functional
change of a body part would require multiple
concerted lines of variations. Sure, one can suggest multiple
small changes ad infinitum, but a concerted requirement
of multiple changes all happening in the same
place, at the same time, in evolutionary history, is impossible to chemically fathom. One day, the requisite chemical
basis might become apparent, so that the questions can be answered. But present day biology
is far from providing even a chemical proposal
for the functional change, let alone a data-substantiated
chemical mechanism. So I would ask them, tell
me the chemical mechanism. You know, biology is not
like organic chemistry, where you can push every electron. Okay, fine. Tell me, just in your mind, how something like this could proceed. Nothing. They don't even have a
proposal for the change. So, therefore, I don't understand the mechanisms needed
to change body plans, or the mechanisms along
the descent pathway from australopithecine brain
to a modern human brain. If we were, indeed, commonly descended as predicted by the theory
of universal common descent. I don't understand it. And nobody else understands
the mechanisms, either. Nobody. Nobody. They don't understand. And what the difference
is, when I speak to them, I ask them, show me the mechanism. And they can't wiggle out. They're stuck. When you ask them, they will say, this is clearly understood! I will send you some papers. [audience laughs] This is what they will say to you, because they used to say this to me, and I'd say no, no, I want
you to explain it to me. Because I've gotten their papers, and it's a bunch of fish heads. And I'd see nothing, I
see no mechanism there. Nobody understands this. Nobody understands. My problem: I'm saying it publicly. That's my problem, because
I'm saying it publicly, that I just don't understand. I will agree that universal common descent is an amazing theory, amazing, with a lot of backing behind it. But there are regions of
uncommonness that we're seeing. And the mechanisms, we're clueless. And remember, evolution is
about the mechanism of change, and universal common descent. Recall, quoting the biologists: "Evolution is both about the mechanism by which change occurs over time, and the theory of
universal common descent." But the mechanisms are unknown, and the theory of universal
common descent, though robust, is being confronted by evidence that can be interpreted as uncommonness. So, further study is warranted. So, we just do further studies. That's all I'm saying,
further studies are warranted. So, what's the outcome of my skepticism? Was I denied tenure? No, but I got tenured 25 years ago, when this wasn't an issue. None of this stuff was an issue. Loss of funding? Not that I can positively identify. Harassment? Not to any significant degree. Ridicule? On rare occasions, but not often directly at me, they'll
say things behind my back. Confrontations? Yes, but these are often diffused with just a few questions. I just ask them, okay, could you show me the mechanism? I'll give you a system
that clearly evolves. And that's the immune system, the immune system evolves. It evolves and it changes, and this is how we survive. This is a microevolutionary changes. It changes, it changes. You ask them for the
mechanism behind this change that we know occurs, it's
right in front of us! There's no mechanism. I got one guy so upset with me, finally he sent me 70 papers. 70!
[audience laughing] He said, you read them! I mean, when somebody sends you 70 papers, it's just to try to bury you. But I set aside a weekend,
and I read his papers. [audience laughs] And I wrote back to him, I said, I didn't see any molecules in there! Where's the mechanism? You can write box, going to the next box, that's not science! That's box, going to box, going to box! Where's the mechanism? Show me how it occurs! Even on something we know evolves, they don't have a mechanism. And so I just say, show me the mechanism. They move away. Have I not been hired for a position? I suspect so. Have I been excluded from
professional societies? Yes. That I know has happened. And I know that because they told me, you're not getting in here, because of your stance on this. So, here's the hope that I see. Science is self-correcting. If evolutionary theory is correct, the mechanistic description
will become evident and the genetic studies
will become more clear. In my opinion, there are
many remaining questions, so further investigation is warranted. I suppose more than 99% of scientists never think about confronting
anyone on these issues, they're too busy with other things. You know, most scientists
are not against Christians. It's a non-issue to them. I mean, you know how
many emails people get? You're busy, it's busy. People never think about this. The younger generation has a deeper sense of social fairness and justice, and they're less impressed with conformal academic fluff. That's a hope that I see. That, as young people start moving up into the positions of influence, that they're gonna say hey, this is not right to exclude people, based on their understanding of this, and they're not embracing something that you yourself can't explain. This is Richard Smalley, he
won the 1996 Nobel Prize. "My primary mission to which I am called is to reflect the love of Jesus Christ." Rick Smalley, two years before his death, came to know the Lord. We were colleagues there at Rice, and he used to ridicule Christians a lot. But then, his life and
his heart were softened, by the infilling of the Lord Jesus Christ. What we have, the message that we have, is better than anything. The message of the Resurrection. The message of the
Resurrection is the only thing that changes a life. Socialism doesn't do it,
communism doesn't do it. You wanna change a heart? You get it filled with Jesus Christ, and the heart changes. That's what I saw with Rick Smalley. His heart changed. Max Planck said, "A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents
and making them see the light, but rather, because its
opponents eventually die." [audience laughs] I don't think that most
of the opponents here are gonna say, yeah, Tour, you're right. You really nailed us on
this origin of life thing. It was all a bunch of garbage anyway. I don't think that's gonna happen. I think they're just gonna die. [audience laughing] That's what I think. I think that the people
that are embracing this are eventually gonna die, and other people are
gonna come up and say, "Hey, I don't understand that either." "I don't understand it." So, does science make faith obsolete? Not for me. And I'll end there, thank you. [uplifting keyboard notes] >> Narrator: Biola University
prepares Christians to think biblically about everything, from science to business
to education and the arts. Learn more at Biola.edu.
