Talk:James Tour - Misplaced Pages

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Controversial article

Why is his article on chemical terrorism considered controversial? Is it because some people said it gives away too much information to potential terrorists? The point of controversy should be mentioned in the article. Thanks. Steve Dufour 17:04, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

Most probably the title: "Better Killing Through Chemistry" either led some to believe he was advocating chemical warfare, ot that he was being insensitive. Unfortunately this statement is unsourced, so we can't find out. Hrafn42 17:38, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

The descriptive verb, "sparked" (as in Tour sparked the article...) is not inaccurate but it's imprecise. A more accurate and informative phrasing would be something along these lines, "Tour carried out a simple experiment revealing how easy it is for anyone to procure all the materials necessary to make Sarin nerve gas without triggering any alarm bells in the security establishment. His experiment sparked the editors of Scientific American to run an article ...." Also, kudos to ZayZayEm for yeoman work to reference the illuminating SciAm article and clarify who wrote it and why. Moulton 10:05, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Bravo. I like "credited" because it's both accurate and it avoids casting Tour in a negative light for his part in the story. The controversy arose not because of Tour's discovery, per se, but because the editors of SciAm made the decision to publicize his alarming discovery. I still think the prose can be improved a bit, so that the sentence conveys the essential story in concise, fluid prose that reliably concords with the essential facts. Moulton 12:00, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Micro-Evolution and Macro-Evolution

The article states:

Tour's field of organic chemistry is unrelated to evolutionary biology.

The field of organic chemistry is related to micro-evolution. Darwin's mechanism applies to macro-evolution (descent with modification of living species). The parallel field of micro-evolution applies to processes operating at the molecular level by which organic molecules change. Darwin's mechanism assumes and depends on micro-evolution, but doesn't encompass or subsume it, model it, or explain it. Moulton 22:50, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

Moulton, I think you are making the whole thing too complex. Tour doesn't study evolution does he? On the other hand, everything is related somehow. Steve Dufour 02:54, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

His quote, in the NY Times article, suggests he has enough interest in the subject of micro-evolution to render his professional view on it. In any event, I don't think it's accurate to say, ex nihilo, that organic chemistry is unrelated to evolution, regardless of whether Tour is currently applying his specialty to that application. Moulton 03:08, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Hmm...--Filll 03:01, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

I agree Filll. After all the article is about Dr. Tour and is intended to provide basic information on him to the general public. Steve Dufour 03:03, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

I changed "unrelated" to "not closely related." Does anyone object to that? Steve Dufour 03:04, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

You might be able to get away with saying that his work on nano-technology is weakly related to micro-evolution (and largely unrelated to macro-evolution), but I don't see how any of that is helpful to a reader who wants to learn something about Dr. Tour rather than something about which scientists are qualified to critique the state of scientific models relating to at least some aspect of evolution. Moulton 03:16, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

At least the stuff about him and the petition is now less than half of the article. That's progress. I'm in favor of leaving it in and letting the anti-ID crowd keep the title "Anti-evolution petition". I think most people would see that as a shorthand, headline type way of refering to the nature of the petition, and not put too much importance to it. Steve Dufour 03:20, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

The original "unrelated" would seem to be correct. Organic chemistry is unrelated to evolutionary biology (as would every other field in chemistry proper), biochemistry would be not closely related, and fields such as developmental biology and population genetics would be closely related. Also, Mouton's claims about micro-evolution versus macro-evolution are quite simply wrong. Hrafn42 03:27, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Hrafn is correct. While, obviously, everything is related, there is nothing about the field of organic chemistry that gives an expert in the field any special insight on the field of evolution. While some fields of evolutionary biology are more chemical in their focus, it's a bit like saying that an expert on surgical grade steel is in a field that is "related" to medicine.

I can't make sense of Moulton's distinction between microevolution and macroevolution. Studies at the "microevolutionary" scale may use chemical tools, or they may be measuring beak lengths. Studies at a "macroevolutionary" scale may use chemical tools, or they may be looking at habitat use. There's nothing about the scale at which a study is connected that makes it closer or farther from organic chemistry. Guettarda 04:11, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

A small point of style: When you use an absolute like "unrelated" there will be people who will take it as a challenge and try to find an exception. That's one reason I suggested "not closely related" instead. Steve Dufour 04:30, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

"Unrelated" is more plain English. "Not closely related" is no less troublesome, since it presupposes that there is a degree of relatedness between fields that can be quantified. "Unrelated" on the other hand, makes the point that they depend on non-transferable skill sets. Having experience in organic chemistry does not make it easier for you to transition to evolutionary biology than does experience in any other field that uses the scientific method, or give you in any way greater insight. Guettarda 04:32, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Without Organic Chemistry, an applied mathematician like Stanislaw Ulam would have no way of knowing anything about the structure of Cytochrome-C, and therefore no way of constructing a mathematical metric that compared the difference between any two samples of Cytochrome-C (say from a horse and a whale) to the corresponding metric for how far apart the two species were on Darwin's evolutionary tree. But with the help of organic chemistry he was able to show that the two metrics were tightly correlated. If a horse and a whale are far apart on the evolutionary tree, then the structural details of their Cytochrome-C will also differ to a corresponding degree. Moulton 15:52, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Wrong field: "Biochemistry mainly deals with the chemistry of proteins (and other large biomolecules)." (from Organic chemistry). Hrafn42 16:08, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

"Without Organic Chemistry..."; without surgical steel a great surgeon couldn't do much. Still doesn't make materials science "related" to medicine. Guettarda 04:32, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

<undent>Every field is related to every other. Because there is calculus used in Quantum Mechanics, and Quantum Mechanics is used in some parts of Chemistry, is a Chemist qualified to offer an expert opinion on Category Theory? Topology? Number Theory? Of course, we might find one scientist who has done work in both fields. So what? This proves absolutely nothing.--Filll 11:53, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Note this sentance is no longer in the article. I would recommend that discussion and editing regarding the "unrelated field" argument in any form be suspended pending completion of the RFC at Rosalind Picard.--ZayZayEM 14:07, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

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