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Having come across a follow-up 2-part YouTube vid response by 'Professor Dave' to James Tour's 14 part series, which I have promoted as a go-to reference critiquing unguided abiogenesis in post #1, honesty and fairness compels to present them here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ghJGnMwRHCs
Response to James Tour: 700 Papers and Still Clueless (Part 1 of 2)
646,030 views
May 6, 2021
Professor Dave Explains

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jf72o6HmVNk
Response to James Tour: 700 Papers and Still Clueless (Part 2 of 2)
818,543 views
May 8, 2021
Professor Dave Explains

Setting aside the excessive jibing, what 'Professor Dave' shows imo is that Tour has either misrepresented or simply misunderstood quite a lot.
In regards to plausible mechanisms bypassing at least some his complex synthesis routes, that allows formation of rather complex organic molecules.

OTOH, Professor Dave also selectively glosses over serious misgivings addressed in a number the articles he cites.
Assess the pros and cons for yourself if interested to view it all.
Unaware of any counter attack from Tour to date, but will post it here if and when such is found.

Kudos for posting up the link to Prof. Dave.
IMHO after knowing the conditions to form a self replicating molecule and the food it eats (probably people) it will be something any high school science lab will be able to repeat.

(Jul 12, 2022 11:54 AM)confused2 Wrote: [ -> ]Kudos for posting up the link to Prof. Dave.
IMHO after knowing the conditions to form a self replicating molecule and the food it eats (probably people) it will be something any high school science lab will be able to repeat.

Thanks. However, to be clear. My current position is that notwithstanding 'Professor Dave's' biting critique of Tour's oversights in the latter's 14-part series, unguided abiogenesis is still on very shaky ground. Autocatalysis is the chief underpinning of PD's critique. I strongly suspect Tour at some point will counterattack via a number of avenues.

One being that the autocatalysis demonstrated in lab studies relies on a sufficiently pristine environment so as to avoid otherwise inevitable poisoning via extraneous chemical species that cannot be 'efficiently swept away' in PD's parlance.
I suspect the autocatalytic cycles examined are carefully tweaked to exclude such otherwise inevitable poisoning.
I further suspect such poisoning is delicately susceptible to even one non desired chemical interaction on an increasingly complex organic molecule highly vulnerable to such unwanted side-reactions.

Another expected avenue of counterattack is that notwithstanding the 'cell division' crude analog presented by one prominent OOL researcher - oil droplets that grow to a critical size then automatically fission without requiring any information input, information is in fact central to all actual cellular processes. Including actual cell division. Hence there needs to be a good explanation as to how a massive leap from 'informationless' molecular/protocellular processes to 'information intensive/critically-necessary' actual life biochemistry could have naturally arisen. And successively done so in a step-by-step process.

Reminds of David Attenborough's brilliant but blithe narration of the incredible interlinking intricacies required for a Venus fly-trap to successfully selectively capture and digest insects. Nowhere near as simple or easy as a casual pondering might suggest. Chicken and egg situation.

Anyway, let's see how this all progresses.