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The chance that higher life forms might have emerged through evolutionary processes is comparable with the chance that a tornado sweeping through a junk yard might assemble a Boeing 747 from the material therein.
Fred Hoyle
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Fred Hoyle
Age: 86 †
Born: 1915
Born: June 24
Died: 2001
Died: August 20
Astronomer
Astrophysicist
Mathematician
Non-Fiction Writer
Physicist
Science Fiction Writer
Screenwriter
University Teacher
Writer
Bingley
West Yorkshire
Materials
Sweeping
Boeing
Higher
Evolutionary
Tornado
Chance
Junk
Tornadoes
Process
Yards
Assemble
Form
Processes
Comparable
Might
Forms
Therein
Life
Material
Emerged
Evolution
Yard
More quotes by Fred Hoyle
Hoyle's enduring insights into stars, nucleosynthesis, and the large-scale universe rank among the greatest achievements of 20th-century astrophysics. Moreover, his theories were unfailingly stimulating, even when they proved transient.
Fred Hoyle
The notion that not only the biopolymer but the operating program of a living cell could be arrived at by chance in a primordial organic soup here on the Earth is evidently nonsense of a high order.
Fred Hoyle
Once I had learnt my twelve times table (at the age of three) it was downhill all the way.
Fred Hoyle
Once a photograph of the Earth, taken from outside, is available, once the sheer isolation of the Earth becomes known, a new idea as powerful as any in history will be let loose.
Fred Hoyle
The man who voyages strange seas must of necessity be a little unsure of himself. It is the man with the flashy air of knowing everything, who is always with it, that we should beware of.
Fred Hoyle
Some super-calculating intellect must have designed the properties of the carbon atom, otherwise the chance of my finding such an atom through the blind forces of nature would be utterly minuscule.
Fred Hoyle
It is a mistake to imagine that potentially great men are rare. It is the conditions that permit the promise of greatness to be fulfilled that are rare. What is so difficult to achieve is the cultural background that permits potential greatness to be converted into actual greatness.
Fred Hoyle
A common sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a superintellect has monkeyed with physics.
Fred Hoyle
A commonsense interpretation of the facts suggests that a superintellect has monkeyed with physics, as well as with chemistry and biology, and that there are no blind forces worth speaking about in nature. The numbers one calculates from the facts seem to me so overwhelming as to put this conclusion almost beyond question.
Fred Hoyle
Perhaps the most majestic feature of our whole existence is that while our intelligences are powerful enough to penetrate deeply into the evolution of this quite incredible Universe, we still have not the smallest clue to our own fate.
Fred Hoyle
Here we are in this wholly fantastic universe with scarcely a clue as to whether our existence has any real significance.
Fred Hoyle
It is no more likely that our world has evolved out of chaos than that a hurricane, blowing through a junk yard, should create a Boeing.
Fred Hoyle
I have little hesitation in saying that as a result a sickly pall now hangs over the big bang theory. As I have mentioned earlier, when a pattern of facts becomes set against a theory, experience shows that it rarely recovers.
Fred Hoyle
One [idea] was that the Universe started its life a finite time ago in a single huge explosion, and that the present expansion is a relic of the violence of this explosion. This big bang idea seemed to me to be unsatisfactory even before detailed examination showed that it leads to serious difficulties.
Fred Hoyle
He who lives among dogs must learn to pant.
Fred Hoyle
A superintellect has monkeyed with physics.
Fred Hoyle
There are many ways of knocking electrons out of atoms. The simplest is to rub two surfaces together.
Fred Hoyle
The suggestion that petroleum might have arisen from some transformation of squashed fish or biological detritus is surely the silliest notion to have been entertained by substantial numbers of persons over an extended period of time.
Fred Hoyle
It is in the world of ideas and in the relation of his brain to the universe itself that the superiority of Man lies. The rise of Man may justly be described as an adventure in ideas.
Fred Hoyle
Space isn't remote at all. It's only an hour's drive away if your car could go straight upwards.
Fred Hoyle
