The Chemistry Gap: Why 'Organic Molecules' Don't Equal Life

Added: 2026-05-05

[00:00:00]Well, I think that's what's confusing to the public, too. It's confusing when people hear that like we've found these organic molecules because that word kind of like makes it sound like life. So, what like can you explain why like an organic molecule like how close is that to being life?

[00:00:22]>> Yeah, it's not close at all to being life. I mean, some of these are are relatively simple compounds and and so we have these techniques that have been around since the late60s that allow us to detect down to even fundamentally one molecule. And so molecules you you come in so many different structures and then when they're mixed together they're not useful. You can certainly take very small molecules like ammonia, like carbon dioxide, like like uh D nitrogen and put them under certain conditions, highly explosive conditions and and high heat conditions, and you can get structures that are reminiscent of the molecules that you find in life, but they're not useful. These are very simple amino acids and and uh uh uh they're very simple structures and every one of these is recemic. You can't have recemic. You can't have the right-handed and the left-handed mixtures. So yeah, they they are organic in the sense that they're made out of carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, and oxygen primarily with a little bit of sulfur and and things like that. But but uh uh uh but so the definition of organic chemistry is that yes, they're made out of carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, and oxygen. Whereas an older definition of organic means that it comes from life. But you can get a lot of these simple molecules. So you find water. I mean water is the most abundant molecule in our body. But you don't have to have a living system to have water. You have you have water all over the place. And so so uh uh just because you have molecules doesn't mean that that life was there. What you'd have to have is you'd have to have uh uh stereogenicity. you'd have to to be able to have have uh uh high in antimeric excess and you'd have to have more than you'd have to have lots of copies of certain ones of them that are fairly complex. Now again these amino acids are very simple small molecules. I mean take take something like a sugar or take something more complex like a nucleotide very very hard to find multiples of these with any stereochemical control. I know that what I have just said is hard for the common person to understand and that's why I keep bringing it back to this. If this proved anything anything useful, you would think the experts would come forth and say, "Okay, Jim Tour, let me sit you down and explain this." But they don't. So, so, so e even even uh uh people like Steve Benner, I've offered him $10,000 to sit with me in front of a camera for one hour and explain to me how life could have come from these sorts of things, and he refuses. So, you would think that if this were were really figured out, these guys would just do it. They don't. So, so, uh, I know that what I'm speaking is is is is hard for people to understand who haven't had a an organic chemistry background, but it's telling that that the experts themselves will not defend statements like this. If you do not believe in the physical resurrection of Jesus Christ, send me an email tour at drjamestor.org and we will get together and I will share with you about why I embrace the resurrection of Jesus. Okay, so this is from the section abiotic synthesis of macroolelecules and it says a 2016 study demonstrated that one key step the abiotic synthesis of RNA's two purine bases adinine and guanine can occur spontaneously from simple precursor molecules. The abiotic synthesis of the smaller cytosine and uricil bases was accomplished in 2009.

[00:04:01]Okay. So, so the these these are the bases that that uh uh uh that attach on the uh on the ribos or deoxy ribbo deoxyibbos and that make up the nucleotides. Yes, these bases are relatively simple compounds that can be made by uh um by the interaction of small molecules. I will definitely give them that there's no stereogenic center on those. So you don't have any any uh uh uh kirality problem with any of these small bases. So yes, these bases are are aromatic in structure uh uh and and so the they're ringed structures and they're very simple to get from smaller compounds. So I I'll give them the the bases. Yeah. And uh try hooking these bases now up to ribos or deoxyibbos.

[00:04:56]uh everything begins to change now.

[00:04:58]>> Okay.

[00:05:00]So going on it says in addition by dripping solutions of amino acids or RNA nucleotides on hot sand, clay or rock, researchers have produced polymers of these molecules. These polymers formed spontaneously without the help of enzymes or ribosomes.

[00:05:20]>> Okay. So what what you can do is you can take amino acids and you can heat them up. you heat them up to like 125 degrees uh uh centigrade, which which uh is the is the temperature that you heat things to to destroy any life that would ever be there. Uh and you you dehydrate them and you can get some hookup. But this is a bunch of nonsense. And the reason for that is that that these amino acids, what they'll do is they'll take amino acids that don't have active side chains like glycine and and uh uh uh they they will hook hook these up. So there's there's there's no there's no side chain reactivity, but as soon as you start using the actual amino acids that you're going to need for real chemistry, about half of them have active side chains. So now the active side chains participate in the polymerization sites and it's all bets are off now. Everything it's game over for for you. And so what they do is they take a preloaded amount and then the largest ones they've ever seen are 14mers. Generally they might see tetr heximer octimer but the largest one is a 14 mer. And remember for amino acids to to have any sort of activity you've got to have about a 100 m. And they never see that because the free energy is positive. And the way they do this, they force it by dehydrating it. And in doing that, if there was a stereogenic center, uh uh um then that epimerizzes at these temperatures, a pimerization is faster than polymerization. They never want to discuss that. So when they look at their alygrimemers either they were loaded so that they had no active side change or they never looked at the epimerization that occurred from from the the the alphaarbon the the stereo center. They never looked at that. When it comes to RNA nucleotides on hot sand these things fall apart. RNA is a highly highly unstable molecule. And what you get is you get not just the three prime fivep prime linkage that you were supposed to and and this is this is taking a preloaded RNA nucleotide. So in other words, it's got the nuclease. It's got the the the the ribos molecule on there.

[00:07:36]So you you some so you bought that ribos, you bought the base already hooked together and it had the activated phosphate group on it. So you have to have now just not not just regular RNA but some activated group on there. And then what you do is you throw it onto your hot sand. Yes, of course you get coupling when you start evaporating the water but you get not just the threep prime fivep prime, you get the twop prime fivep prime coupling. Game over.

[00:08:02]And you also get branching from that two prime site. So again game over. And these things will be very short. These things will will be very short, but they're they're also not hooked up the right way. So none of the hookup is the right way. They're not telling you the truth. None of these could be be active in a life friendly scenario because all of them are improperly hooked together.

[00:08:26]Yes, they hook together, but they hook together to make garbage is what they do. Plus the the you have no control of the stereo centers. You you start heating things on the temperatures that they want. They're getting a pimmerization of these centers.

[00:08:40]Okay.