Laurence A. “Larry” Moran (and no, it’s not really Moron) is apparently a pretty smart guy. He holds a PhD in biochemistry from Princeton University and served as a college professor for decades at the University of Toronto. He’s probably best known for being one of the lead authors of a textbook called Principles of Biochemistry, although in fairness, his personal blog called Sandwalk also attracts a fair amount of internet traffic, which is how I learned about Dr. Moran–ironically enough, while searching the internet for information on Dr. James Tour.
What has inspired me to write about my limited knowledge of Dr. Moran was the conclusion to his article harshly critical of Dr. Tour:
I suppose I’m going to be labeled as one of those evil “Darwinists” who won’t tolerate anyone who disagrees with me about evolution. I’m actually not. I just don’t like stupid people who think they are experts in evolution when they have never bothered to learn about it. Here’s my advice to graduate students in organic chemistry: if you want to know about evolution then take a course or read a textbook. And remember, there’s nothing wrong with admitting that you don’t understand a subject. Just don’t assume your own ignorance means that all the experts in the subject are wrong too. [emphasis added]
Laurence A. Moran, “A chemist who doesn’t understand evolution”
Wow.
If I’m not mistaken, Dr. Moran just described Dr. Tour as being a stupid person. So I’m wondering, is it possible that a chemistry professor wouldn’t know who Dr. Tour is? How could he not know? Does “Larry” have a couple of brothers named Darryl by any chance?
And what exactly qualifies Dr. Moran to speculate about the intelligence of Dr. Tour? His blog simply says, “Larry Moran is a Professor Emeritus in the Department of Biochemistry at the University of Toronto. You can contact him by looking up his email address on the University of Toronto website.”
Not exactly the description of an over-achiever, is it? His biography for the textbook he co-authored simply reads:
After earning his Ph.D from Princeton University in 1974, Professor Moran spent four years at the Université dè Geneve in Switzerland. He has been a member of the Department of Biochemistry at the University of Toronto since 1978, specializing in molecular biology and molecular evolution. His research findings on heat-shock genes have been published in many scholarly journals.
Principles of Biochemistry (5th edition), Abebooks.com
So from that we learn that Dr. Moran is qualified to teach chemistry, and that he co-wrote a book. Big deal. Now let’s compare his credentials to only part of Dr. Tour’s CV:
(Dr.) Tour has over 650 research publications and over 120 patents, with an H-index = 136 (107 by ISI Web of Science) and i10 index = 605 with total citations over 87,000 (Google Scholar). He was inducted into the National Academy of Inventors in 2015. Tour was named among “The 50 Most Influential Scientists in the World Today” by TheBestSchools.org in 2014; listed in “The World’s Most Influential Scientific Minds” by Thomson Reuters ScienceWatch.com in 2014; and recipient of the Trotter Prize in “Information, Complexity and Inference” in 2014; and was the Lady Davis Visiting Professor, Hebrew University, June, 2014. Tour was named “Scientist of the Year” by R&D Magazine, 2013. He was awarded the George R. Brown Award for Superior Teaching, 2012, Rice University; won the ACS Nano Lectureship Award from the American Chemical Society, 2012; was the Lady Davis Visiting Professor, Hebrew University, June, 2011 and was elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), 2009. Tour was ranked one of the Top 10 chemists in the world over the past decade, by a Thomson Reuters citations per publication index survey, 2009; won the Distinguished Alumni Award, Purdue University, 2009 and the Houston Technology Center’s Nanotechnology Award in 2009. He won the Feynman Prize in Experimental Nanotechnology in 2008, the NASA Space Act Award in 2008 for his development of carbon nanotube reinforced elastomers and the Arthur C. Cope Scholar Award from the American Chemical Society for his achievements in organic chemistry in 2007. Tour was the recipient of the George R. Brown Award for Superior Teaching in 2007. He also won the Small Times magazine’s Innovator of the Year Award in 2006, the Nanotech Briefs Nano 50 Innovator Award in 2006, the Alan Berman Research Publication Award, Department of the Navy in 2006, the Southern Chemist of the Year Award from the American Chemical Society in 2005 and The Honda Innovation Award for Nanocars in 2005. Tour’s paper on Nanocars was the most highly accessed journal article of all American Chemical Society articles in 2005, and it was listed by LiveScience as the second most influential paper in all of science in 2005. Tour has won several other national awards including the National Science Foundation Presidential Young Investigator Award in Polymer Chemistry and the Office of Naval Research Young Investigator Award in Polymer Chemistry.
www.jmtour.com
Not exactly a fair comparison, is it? This is the same scientist Dr. Moran had the unmitigated gall to suggest was stupid? Dr. Tour has probably forgotten more about prebiotic chemistry than Dr. Moran will ever know because he insulted the best person to explain it to him.
Dr. Tour doesn’t just teach chemistry in the classroom; he uses his knowledge in laboratories to create nano-machines from synthetic molecules that he made himself. He’s one of select few chemists in the world who work in the field. Perhaps a better question would be: how could Dr. Moran not have known of Dr. Tour’s highly respected reputation in his own field of expertise?
Because Dr. Tour had merely expressed skepticism about Darwinian evolution as the best explanation for the origin of new species, Dr. Moran deliberately chose to insult his intelligence, which sort of makes Dr. Moran look like an immature jerk. Could this be due to professional jealousy? In the speech below, Dr. Tour had this to say about Darwin’s theory:
Many biologists suggest that “random mutation and natural selection” have long-been recognized by many evolutionists themselves to be insufficient to account for the complexity of life.
Quite frankly, it’s very disappointing that a college professor would resort to childishly insulting someone or expressing skepticism, but understandable that one chemistry professor might not be able to explain to his infinitely more knowledgable peer how the mechanisms of descent with modification work on the molecular level. He doesn’t know, either.
Before the next time Dr. Moran is tempted to call someone else stupid, he should remember to check his reflection in the mirror.
I think Moran’s choice of words was rather childish as well, and part of the reason is that its easy to misinterpret what he’s saying. He’s not saying that Tour is stupid – he knows thats not the case. What he is saying that its ‘stupid’ to say that all the experts in the field of evolutionary biology are wrong when you know nothing about it. I think thats reasonable but ‘foolish’ would have been a better choice of words than ‘stupid’ The thing is Tour wasn’t actually criticizing evolutionary biology ( he might have done this in the past?) but origin of life research. Tour’s background IS relevant for OOL but he doesnt seem to know any of the current work. It seems to me that Tour should have spent some time getting up to speed on that and then his criticisms would have had more meaning.