Dr. James Tour (organic chemist) burst onto the scene in 2020 when he publicly announced that “Scientists are ‘clueless’ about origins of life.” That article sparked much debate among the scientific community and prompted high publicity events. Yet Tour was already well known for his talks and writings about abiogenesis from 2016-2019. This post will highlight some of his most recent work posted on his websites and YouTube channel.

1: What Scientists Admit Behind Closed Doors: During an interview on 7/31/26, Dr. Tour discussed conversations with secular scientists who believe that life can and did arise from natural processes. When pressed on how this could happen, they admit that they “don’t know”. He says nobody understands how it could have happened. One scientist said, “Jim I agree with you but don’t use my name.”  to put this quote in context, Dr. Tour is already in the National Academy of Engineering, but he was told he would never be allowed in the National Academy of Science because of his views, and nobody else wants to go through what he’s gone through, so they don’t want their personal views to be publicly known, or else they could also lose grants as he did.

Tour has even offered up to $10,000.00 to any scientist who could answer his questions on the origin of life, but nobody is willing to accept his challenge. (To watch this part of the interview, click the link above and scroll to 35:00 into the program)

2: Here Tour discusses why scientists are clueless on the origin of life. Scientists propose hydrothermal vents as a possible place where life first arose, but Tour says that’s “nonsense… We’ve looked at the data… and whenever these origin of life chemists have to defend the things that they’ve written, they don’t want to meet with me to defend it. Their own writings, their own papers, they won’t defend because a lot of what they put forward is not real. It is not really prebiotically relevant- meaning that something could have happened on an early Earth.” Tour goes on to discuss the idea of building life in a laboratory, even if all the ingredients were there. A cell is an integral unit like a factory, and there are many levels of communication. (Watch this part of the video at 8:50 into the program)

3: There was a debate between Lee Cronin (chemist) and James Tour on November 28, 2023. Later, after the debate, Cronin accused Tour of not understanding information or mathematics. Therefore, Tour interviewed information expert Hector Zenil, a self-professed atheist who said, “I’m the opposite of a creationist.”

During the interview, Zenil refutes Cronin’s criticisms of Tour and exposes the deception in Cronin’s Assembly Theory. Zenil states that Assembly Theory has become deceptive- new ideas are limited and it’s a weaker version of older algorithms developed in the 1960s and 70s. (This content starts at 13:08 into the interview)

At the debate, Tour stated that Cronin’s Assembly Theory was related to a compression algorithm, but Cronin said that “it’s not compression.” However, Zenil said, “Definitely, it is a compression algorithm.” He went on to explain why Cronin and others won’t recognize his work as a compression algorithm- it’s because “everything else would collapse” and “it is in their interest that this is not a compression algorithm.” So it has nothing to do with following the science. It’s about forcing their worldview onto the science. (This exchange begins at 17:11 into the interview)

4: In the next video, Tour is part of a discussion group, and Dr. Onsi Fakhour elaborates on the distinction between digital and analog coding in living organisms, which he refers to as a “profound blending” that “seems to leverage all the available physics” in extremely complex organisms.

Not only are there digital elements in living things, but analog elements, which Fakhour refers to as an “abstraction” that requires infrastructure made up of complex protein machinery that interact with one another. He says, “there are computers hiding in here, but there’s so much more.” (find at 49:35 into the program)

Evolutionists like to downplay the digital aspect and complexity of life, but it is plain to see.

5: Here’s another group conversation on the origin of life. Dr. Rob Stradler discusses hydrothermal vents as a possible source for the origin of life and explains the unlikelihood of this occurring without a more complicated designer designing it. He brings up ATP Synthase, which is a molecule required for life. It’s essentially an electric motor, and he points out the remarkable engineering needed to produce such a molecule. It really looks designed, and many evolutionists agree. For instance, biochemist Nick Lane said, “This is precision nanoengineering of the highest order, a magical device, and the more we learn about it, the more marvelous it becomes. Some see it as proof for the existence of God. I don’t. I see it s a wonder of natural selection.” (12:35 into the program)

Thus, even those who don’t believe in God can see the evidence for God’s existence. They just can’t bring themselves around to admit it. Instead, they attribute God’s design to a “wonder”. In this sense, it sure sounds like atheists believe in miracles and magic after all. However, if there is no God, then we shouldn’t be able to observe such marvels in nature. Everything we see should involve simple, routine, easy to explain processes rather than extremely complex processes that we never observe happening in nature today.