In January, Professor James Tour of Rice University delivered a terrific lecture on “The Mystery of the Origin of Life” at a Dallas conference organized by Discovery Institute. The lecture hit a nerve, already attracting 74,000+ views on YouTube. It also provoked a firestorm, with various people claiming that Tour got his facts wrong or was even “lying” to the audience. I invited Tour to respond to his critics, and he has now posted his letter to me on his website. The letter is well worth a read for anyone interested in the continuing scientific debate over the origin of the first life. I will be publishing a more detailed article about this controversy later today, but I wanted to highlight Tour’s response to critics as soon as it became available.

Photo: James Tour speaking at the 2019 Dallas Conference on Science and Faith, via Discovery Institute.