Tal Bachman on the folly of “Trust science!”

_{Denyse O'Leary

October 8, 2021

Culture, Intelligent Design, Philosophy, Science}

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Yes, that Tal Bachman, the singer, but he is also a commentator who knows a thing or two:

… it was the Enlightenment which initiated the replacement of parents, community elders, custom, tradition, religious belief, common sense, practical experience, myths, and even plain evidence, as sources of epistemic and normative authority over human life, with a new caste of authorities called scientists.
Two and a half centuries later, millions now reflexively regard whatever the most influential scientists happen to proclaim at any given moment, for any reason at all as The First And Last Word On Everything To Do With Their Lives. And now Wokists have, to a remarkable degree, captured “science” (its funding, its practice, its personnel, its findings, its prescriptions). As a result, they’re now using the unassailable, Enlightenment-engineered authority of science to further impose Wokism wherever possible.
Given that, of course I’m going to wonder about the Enlightenment—at least some parts of it. Everyone should. The scientism the Enlightenment fathered (however inadvertently) was bad enough. Wokist scientism, imposed by force, is a nightmare.
Tal Bachman, “Tal Bachman: We Have Met the Enemy, part XXIII” at Steynonline (October 8, 2021)

“Wokist science” is typified by the war on math and the war on science but just watch lots of people embrace the lunacies they demand.

Bachman adds,

But—getting back to the Enlightenment—if it is all true, it calls into question several important Enlightenment claims. That raises even more questions about what else the Enlightenment—the philosophical progenitor of our world—might have gotten wrong. What problems might there be, that we didn’t notice before?
Tal Bachman, “Tal Bachman: We Have Met the Enemy, part XXIII” at Steynonline (October 8, 2021)

Prediction: As the smarter portion of the population begins to piece together what’s happened in the past few years, “Science!” is going to take a beating in public reputation. That’s too bad. But, under the circumstances, the harm done by continued uncritical belief may be greater than the harm done by disillusionment. Agree or disagree, we will likely find out.

You may also wish to read: Vox on why you can’t trust Big Science. If you “trust” these science honchoes at all after this episode… well, COVID-19 is not as serious a threat as wilful stupidity. But going forward, another question looms: How much of “settled science” that has never been subjected to this type of careful outside scrutiny would likewise collapse? What ELSE don’t we know and what difference would it make in various science arenas?

Comments

AaronS1978 @3, Wow, what an amazing story! Thanks for posting it. TAMMIE LEE HAYNES @6, Great write up! It was so good that all that Seversky could do is resort to an ad hominem attack, which means you won the argument. -QQuerius_{October 11, 2021
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Seversky claims that Darwinists have solved the Homochirality problem? Seversky also has some beach front property in Arizona that he would like to sell you.
Episode 4/13: Homochirality // A Course on Abiogenesis by Dr. James Tour https://youtu.be/tqbpd3CmBgE?t=187 Two Experiments in Abiogenesis - James Tour - Sept. 2016 Excerpt: The work by Carell and his colleagues illustrates another frustrating problem in prebiotic chemistry. One group publishes their results reporting products in low yields and unusable gross mixtures. Another group then uses those products, in their pure and abundant form, as their starting materials. Carell’s group used homochiral ribose, claiming that, “Ribose is generated from glycoaldehyde and formaldehyde, formed from an early atmosphere containing humid CO2.”3 This reaction provides only ribose traces in unusable mixtures. Carell and his coworkers assumed ribose as a given. They also used purified aminopyrimidines, relying on research that generated them from small molecules, such as guanidine and hydrogen cyanide. The published protocols on which they rely report equally troubling mixtures of products. No overall bookkeeping standards are maintained from one published work to another. The shortcomings of past generations are subsumed in current work without ever being acknowledged. “It is assumed,” Carell and his colleagues remark, “that life originated from a simple set of small molecules.”4 His work dispels any such illusions. Reckless general claims are a characteristic of the field.,,, http://inference-review.com/article/two-experiments-in-abiogenesis Episode 11/13: Chiral-induced Spin Selectivity // A Course on Abiogenesis by Dr. James Tour https://youtu.be/VKEZSfuMgL0?t=149
bornagain77_{October 11, 2021
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TAMMIE LEE HAYNES/6
Let me explain: Certain small molecules, such as amino acids, are like gloves. They can be either right or left handed. This property is called chirality. When they originate chemically, as in Miller and Urey’s work in 1952, they are a 50-50 mix, called racemic. But in living things they are all one-handed, called homochiral. So the amino acids Miller and Urey made would never form into simple proteins or other simple organic molecules. Scientists knew about the problem of chirality back in 1952. Certainly Urey did, He was a student of Gilbert Lewis, one of the greats of industrial chemistry. And 70 years later, they still cant how a simple protein could self assemble from a racemic mixture of chemicals. Instead, they sweep the problem under the rug and lie about it
Did they, or are you lying for Jesus about it?
7. Origin of the homochirality of amino acids and sugars

Life almost exclusively synthesizes L-amino acids and D-sugars. A key question related to the origin of life is the emergence of this homochirality (one-handedness). Homochirality is essential for the functioning of proteins as amino acid polymers, and for the structure of DNA and RNA, which requires incorporation of D-sugars. How did this homochirality of amino acids and sugars arise? It is a question that has puzzled origin-of-life researchers for decades, yet a series of recent findings addresses the problem astonishingly well. Enantiomers (L- or D-forms) of amino acids can be strongly enriched by two steps: 1. An initial imbalance of enantiomeric forms of an amino acid How could a greater presence of one enantiomeric form of an amino acid over the other (enantiomeric excess, abbreviated: ee), be it ever so slight, have arisen at all? After all, typical synthesis of an amino acid in the laboratory results in an exact 1:1 ratio of the L and D enantiomer – a racemic mixture. One possible source are meteorites. On the Murchison meteorite, a well-studied example, the L-form of some of the amino acids found has been reported to be present in up to 9 % ee (Cronin and Pizzarello 1997). These ee’s may have been induced by circularly polarized UV light (Bailey et al. 1998). A recent study (Glavin and Dworkin 2009) reports ee’s of L-isovaline of more than 18 % on the Murchison meteorite, and postulates as cause aqueous alteration (a process in which changes to minerals occur influenced by water). Amino acids such as isovaline, which is not common in the terrestial biosphere, may have transferred chirality to biogenic compounds as catalysts in chemical reactions (Pizzarello and Weber 2004). Yet while chemical evolution of early life could very well have built upon meteoritic material, sources of slight or even pronounced enantiomeric excesses of amino acids could have arisen in numerous places on the prebiotic earth. Robert Hazen and colleagues found (Hazen et al. 2001) that crystals of the common rock-forming mineral calcite (CaCO3) can preferably adsorb D- or L-forms of aspartic acid (and in preliminary experiments, D- or L-forms of alanine as well) depending on the chirality of the crystal surface. Average ee was a few percentage points. In a similar manner, adsorption of 3-carboxy adipic acid, a prebiotically relevant molecule, to calcite or feldspar crystals produced ee’s of up to 10 % (Castro-Puyana et al. 2008). Even though such slight local enantiomeric excesses may be enough to trigger events that can strongly amplify them (see below), another study found much larger preferences of adsorption of amino acids to mineral surfaces (Wedyan and Preston 2005). While in their study quartz, kaolin and montmorillonite showed slight preferences for adsorption of enantiomers, ordinary sediments from estuaries exhibited strong selectivity. Typical D/L ratios were hugely different from 1, reaching at their most extreme up to 100 for serine. Sediments were ashed in order to remove organic matter which could introduce chiral bias. The authors are cautious: “The possibility that the ashing process actually etches and activates the mineral surface as it burns off natural (chiral?) organic matter cannot be discounted.” However, they also note that it is remarkable that such strong selectivity should occur at all. An entirely different, attractive mechanism to achieve enantiomeric excess has been reported (Kojo et al. 2004), which involves formation of a solid phase of amino acid crystals. This could well have happened in a prebiotic landscape by cooling down of a warm concentrated aqueous solution of amino acids or simply by slow evaporation of a solution. Most racemic amino acids form crystals that are also racemic. However, when racemic D, L-asparagine forms crystals they are not racemic, but show varying degrees of excess of either the L-enantiomer or the D-enantiomer. When other amino acids are present, either their L- or their D-form preferentially co-crystallizes with the enantiomeric form (L or D) of asparagine that confers an excess during formation of the particular crystal at hand. The behaviour of amino acids in the study showed great consistency. If there was a bias towards L-asparagine in one crystal, practically all the other 12 co-crystallized amino acids showed a bias towards the L-form as well. The degree of bias towards L-asparagine varied between crystals; when the bias was more pronounced, the bias towards the L-form in the other amino acids was also more pronounced. The ee’s observed could be very high. If in yet another crystal there was a bias towards the D-form of asparagine, the other co-crystallized amino acids exhibited a bias towards their D-enantiomer as well. Of course, the overall enantiomeric balance of the entire amino acid mixture (the sum of all crystals and the liquid phase above them) was still racemic. However, if, these kinds of crystals were formed from a solution on the prebiotic earth, and some of the crystals were then physically separated from others – which could have happened by many ordinary processes – and later redissolved, the amino acids in solution would automatically have exhibited an ee. Depending on the particular crystal where the solution derived from, this ee could have been high. Another way to achieve enantiomeric excess within a racemate are special conditions of crystallization far from equilibrium. Normally aspartic and glutamic acids form racemic crystals. Yet when they are subjected to capillary rise through a porous material (such as a brick partially immersed in a solution), which is accompanied by supersaturation due to evaporation of solution through the porous structure, pure L- or D-crystals are formed (Viedma 2001). Similar conditions may have been present on the early Earth in sedimentary environments, like in a playa or sand bar. 2. Enhancement of enantiomeric excess by solid phase-liquid phase equilibria Studies have shown that, once an initial excess of one enantiomer in a mixture of amino acids exists, even if it is just very slight, it can have an enormous effect. This effect can occur when solid and dissolved amino acids from such a mixture coexist in equilibrium, i.e. when crystals form upon, for example, limited evaporation of a solution. A detailed study was performed by the group of Donna Blackmond (Klussmann et al. 2006). When a mixture of L- and D- enantiomers of an amino acid shows an excess of one enantiomer, in most cases an equilibrium of solid and dissolved amino acid will consist of the following two or three components: a) racemic crystals (crystals with a 1:1 ratio of the L- and D-enantiomers, no enantiomeric excess either way) b) pure crystals of the enantiomer in excess (Whether just one of these two solid phases is present, or both coexist, will depend on the overall ee.) c) an amino acid solution in equilibrium with the solid phase(s) which also exhibits a certain ee. Yet as it turns out, for several amino acids this ee in solution is much higher than the overall ee of the total mixture (the solid material, dominated by racemic crystals, thus shows correspondingly less ee). At the most extreme, serine provides an almost enantiopure solution (> 99 % ee) in water from a nearly racemic sample (only about 1 % ee) under solid-liquid equilibrium conditions. A smaller study, independently conducted around the same time, reports similar findings (Breslow, Levine 2006). Slow evaporation of an aqueous solution of phenylalanine at just 1 % ee of the L-enantiomer led to a solution of this amino acid with 40 % ee of the L-enantiomer above solid material. If, in turn, such a solution was allowed to evaporate, the resulting solution in equilibrium with the solid material had a 90 % ee. In a more recent study, the Blackmond group (Klussmann et al. 2007) expanded the concept to mixtures of amino acids with other compounds, which can co-crystallize with the amino acids. They showed that, by influencing solubility, in some cases these compounds strongly influenced the ee in solution under solid-liquid equilibrium conditions. For example, under those conditions the ee of valine was raised from 47 % to up to 99 % in the presence of fumaric acid. Note that prebiotic plausibility is enhanced in this scenario, since it employs compound mixtures rather than pure components. Another way of increasing ee does not employ enrichment of ee in solution but in the solid phase of a solid-liquid equilibrium. A curious mechanism of crystal growth, which involves attrition by grinding, allows for the emergence of a single chiral state in the solid phase from an initial small imbalance in crystal composition as low as 2-3 % ee (Noorduin et al. 2008). It does require racemization of the compound in solution, however, and has been applied to an amino acid derivative that undergoes this racemization upon addition of base. A theoretical explanation that differs from the one given in the study is discussed in a commentary on the findings (McBride and Tully 2008). In a follow-up study the findings were extended to an amino acid proper, aspartic acid (Viedma et al. 2008). Racemization in solution was accomplished with catalytic salicylaldehyde in acidic medium, and up to 99 % ee in crystals was obtained from an initial imbalance of less than 10 % ee. Heating could substitute for mechanical grinding. In the studies by Klussmann et al. 2006 and by Breslow, Levine 2006 the findings are discussed also in terms of amino acid catalysis of aldol reactions, which include sugar synthesis and might result in enantiopure D-sugar, see also the findings by Cordova et al. 2005a and Cordova et al. 2006 reviewed above. Yet when the new pathway of synthesis for activated pyrimidine ribonucleotide monomers (Powner et al. 2009) is considered, which sidesteps base and sugar molecules and their condensation, but instead produces the final molecules via intermediates which contribute atoms to both the sugar and base portions of the ribonucleotides, the relevance of amino acid catalysis of D-sugar production or any other potential involvement of enantiomerically enriched amino acids in nucleotide synthesis is not clear. Since glyceraldehyde is one the starting molecules in the new synthesis (Fig. 1), chirality in RNA could have arisen by an input of homochiral glyceraldehyde, the origin of which might have resulted from processes similar to the ones discussed for amino acids. In any case, it has also been shown that once an enantiomeric excess of amino acids was present, reactions catalyzed by them could have enhanced ee even further. It was shown that in the catalysis of sugar synthesis by amino acids a significant amplification of ee can occur (Cordova et al. 2005b). For example, a reaction mediated by the amino acid proline with an ee as low as 40 % still yielded almost enantiopure hexose sugar. The reaction catalyzed by proline at 10 % ee furnished the sugar with 33 % ee. ***** In summary, a plausible scenario for the emergence of homochirality on the prebiotic earth can be envisioned from all the findings described: 1. Origin of local enantiomeric excesses – slight or pronounced – of amino acids 2. In case these ee’s are just slight, a tremendous amplification by solid phase-liquid phase equilibria; these can also enhance already high ee’s As we have seen in the example of sugar synthesis, catalysis by amino acids could have played a role in the emergence of other chiral products relevant to the origin of life, and chiral amplification could have taken place in the process as well. [If specific enantiomers of small peptides were the catalysts (cf. above), they could have arisen by conjugation of amino acids after enantiomeric enrichment.] ***** Once homochirality arises in some biomolecules, it can aparently force corresponding homochirality onto others. We have seen this with amino acid catalysis, but it could also hold for the relationship between RNA and amino acids. Once D-sugars were present in RNA, the step towards L-amino acids in proteins might have been an automatic one. Protein synthesis requires the aminoacylation of RNA, and it is in this step that L-amino acids could have been selected for, as an elegant study shows (Tamura, Schimmel 2004). In the study, an RNA minihelix was used that recapitulates the domain within transfer RNAs which harbors the amino acid attachment site. Such RNA minihelices are thought to be the progenitors of modern transfer RNAs, which present amino acids bound to them to the ribosomal machinery that makes proteins. The authors showed that the RNA minihelix was aminoacylated by activated amino acids with a clear preference for L- as opposed to D-amino acids. A mirror-image RNA system showed the opposite selectivity. Three amino acids – alanine, leucine and phenylalanine – were tested, and the observed selectivity was 4-fold. The authors point out in a subsequent publication, which studies the mechanism (Tamura, Schimmel 2006), that such a 4-fold effect, repeated under selective pressure many times, can lead to an overwhelming preference for an L-amino acid in a biological system. On the other hand, peptide chains could also have acquired chirality independent of RNA, see for example Saghathelian et al. 2001, see also press release, Hitz and Luisi 2004, Weissbuch et al. 2004, Plankensteiner et al. 2005. Of course, any such mechanisms in peptides could have been aided as well by an enantiomeric excess of amino acids as achieved in the above described scenarios. Whatever the precise sequence of events at the origin of life may have been, the cumulative strength of all of the above data indicates that the ‘mystery’ of the origin of life’s chirality can now well be explained after all. ***** The issue of chirality, among others, has been touted by creationists as a "huge problem" for the concept of an origin of life by natural causes. Allegedly, only a miraculous intervention by God could have solved the problem. Yet the above findings are a typical example for why the ‘God-of-the-gaps’ concept does not work: science rapidly closes the gaps that previously might have been thought to be reserved for miraculous intervention. This is exactly what should be expected if either the material world is all there is, or if the world was created by a God who, as primary cause, chose to create through secondary causes – precisely those natural causes that science studies. In fact, creationists should seriously ask themselves if their concept of God is not a belittling one: the Intelligent Designer as "tinkerer" who is forced to break his own created laws of nature once in a while because they are insufficient to achieve certain stages in the development of the material world. From a theistic philosophical perspective, the actual findings of science suggest a much grander idea of God: the Designer who laid out an elegant and self-sufficient set of laws of nature that accomplish the unfolding of his creation by inducing self-organization of the material world. This idea is easily compatible with the concept of God of many mainstream religions, including most Christian ones.
Seversky_{October 10, 2021
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Speaking of lies by the Science establishment, think of how Scientists lied to billions of people about the Origin of Life. Virtually all Biology textbooks, for almost 70 years, claimed that Miller and Urey made "the building blocks of life". And their editors, top consultants, and leading experts knew the claim was was false. Let me explain: Certain small molecules, such as amino acids, are like gloves. They can be either right or left handed. This property is called chirality. When they originate chemically, as in Miller and Urey's work in 1952, they are a 50-50 mix, called racemic. But in living things they are all one-handed, called homochiral. So the amino acids Miller and Urey made would never form into simple proteins or other simple organic molecules. Scientists knew about the problem of chirality back in 1952. Certainly Urey did, He was a student of Gilbert Lewis, one of the greats of industrial chemistry. And 70 years later, they still cant how a simple protein could self assemble from a racemic mixture of chemicals. Instead, they sweep the problem under the rug and lie about it. You may ask this: Why do these Scientists lie.? I don't know, but here's what I figure. Origin of Life Research has always been an Atheist dominated field. Stalin promoted. it. When the Scientists ran into the chirality problem, they said "Uh oh we're stumped. We cant admit that That would help the Creationists, and we'd look like goofs. Hey, maybe we could lie until somebody solves this problem. .After all, under Atheist doctrine, stuff like honesty, morality, and free will are meaningless myths. So let's lie." That worked for a long time, but now, after 70 years, the check has been in the mail too long. With still no solution of the chirality problem, nothing even in sight, Creationism is back in the catbird seat.,TAMMIE LEE HAYNES_{October 9, 2021
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This Bachman dude GETS IT. Thanks for providing the link to his writing.polistra_{October 9, 2021
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It's obvious that they can't hide anymore that life can't appear by chance and they switched to science is your savior ,be afraid of covid ,we'll save you. :))) They lied too much with evolution fairytales to recover from their lost credibility.Hanks_{October 9, 2021
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Love Your narrative there it implies you’re always right and then anybody who doesn’t trust science will obviously fall ill and then die because they have to depend on prayer which is also implied not to work It’s the same type of tactic used by people of the cult of Covid who get the baptism of the vaccine ignoring the fact that natural immunity is actually more robust and versatile versus having a single spike protein when it comes to this disease I love your fear tactic because that’s been used on me and I have consistently proven it wrong Everybody thought I was going to die or get intubated when I got Covid Here’s why I almost died to valley fever when I was 14 Due to the professionals AND BEST MEDICAL TREATMENT You see they didn’t believe I had valley fever because there’s no way I could live in Arizona for 14 years and actually not have contracted the disease Even more crazy was the fact that I am 2% of the nation that gets it so bad it’ll rot my insides and kill me I spent a month and a half in the hospital with all manner of device as the medical professionals told me I had viral pneumonia I saw 4 doctors, lung specialist, and a disease specialist who said @I have no idea what you have” What’s really funny was at the beginning of my little adventure I had a very bizarre coincidental moment I was getting x-rayed to see how my lungs were doing at the very beginning stages of my disease And a random doctor walk in to the x ray room looking for a specific nurse He took notice of me immediately and said “wow what happened to you?!” I explained my story to him and he replied “well if I were you I would have them test you for valley fever I got it like that once and it hospitalized me because I’m part of a small group of parole that are really allergic to it, it’s like 2%, but gut it check out” So I asked my doctor what the disease was and I chirped this the whole damn time to every doctor I saw The nurses and doctors all told me I didn’t know what I was talking about that they’re gonna follow the lab results and refused to test me because they didn’t believe I could have and well I’m just a kid Long story short when the disease specialist said I don’t know what you had I suggested it to him and he tested me and guess what I had valley fever and it was killing me It took half of my left lung It’s part of the reason why everybody was so afraid that if I got Covid I would die from it And also why I have such a healthy dose of skepticism for medical professionals. What’s funny was everybody kept telling me I’m going to get Covid and it’s just gonna kick my ass I got Covid for 2 1/2 days and was immediately better Turns out I have a real rock ‘n’ roll immune system And I am still producing antibodies for it apparently but you know what the only way to truly get immune to it according to the science is getting a magical vaccine that only vaccinates you for one spike protein and if I don’t get it I’ll kill all of my family and everybody around me even though it will literally do nothing for me nor will it stop me from spreading it in fact I’m more immune to the disease then those who had the vaccine But science officials are affectively implying that the only way to become immune to COVID-19 is to get the vaccine and it’s the only way to stop the spread or you lose your job and kill your family Because natural immunity doesn’t work If anything is a Cult it’s the Cults of Covid and those that have been indoctrinated and baptized with a vaccine I’m not even an anti-VAXXer I just don’t get the flu shot because I know it’s useless and I know getting the shot for Covid is pretty much useless for exactly the same reasons Don’t get me wrong if you’re old get the shot it might be your best chance for someone like push off But yeah if you don’t understand the reasoning behind the skepticism against science all of a sudden then you’re not paying attention to reality around you For example this is bad science Except it’s not it just doesn’t fit the fear mongering professionals https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-01442-9 Ps I prayed for someone to listen to me…..AaronS1978_{October 9, 2021
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I'm pretty sure that Tal Bachman or any other of the paranoid "don't trust science" cult or one of their loved ones were to fall seriously ill, Mog forbid, they'd be straight in to the doctors or hospitals demanding the best treatments medical science can provide. What else do they have? Prayer? Good luck with that.Seversky_{October 9, 2021
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The exact same process happened much faster in France in 1789. The TERRORISTS (they proudly invented the word) used Science to justify their terrorism and genocide. After they were done, France acquired a much more practical and humane attitude toward science and technology, carefully insuring that new inventions would preserve the jobs and skills of existing workers. http://polistrasmill.blogspot.com/2020/07/charge-of-light-breguet.html Will we ever acquire such a healthy IMMUNE RESPONSE to science as terrorism? I doubt it.polistra_{October 8, 2021
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