Fred Hoyle
Fred Hoyle
Sir Fred Hoyle FRS was an English astronomer noted primarily for the theory of stellar nucleosynthesis, but also for his often controversial stances on other scientific matters—in particular his rejection of the "Big Bang" theory, a term coined by him on BBC radio, and his promotion of panspermia as the origin of life on Earth. While Hoyle was well-regarded for his works on nucleosynthesis and science popularisation, his career was also noted for the controversial positions he held on a...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionScientist
Date of Birth24 June 1915
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.
It is the true nature of mankind to learn from mistakes, not from example.
A common sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a superintellect has monkeyed with physics.
There is a coherent plan to the universe, though I don't know what it's a plan for.
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.
A superintellect has monkeyed with physics.
It seems to be a characteristic of all great work that it creators wear a cloak of imprecision.
Earlier theories ... were based on the hypothesis that all the matter in the universe was created in one big bang at a particular time in the remote past. [Coining the "big bang" expression.]
Once a photograph of the Earth, taken from outside, is available, we shall, in an emotional sense, acquire an additional dimension...
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.
... the establishment defends itself by complicating everything to the point of incomprehensibility.
The big bang theory requires a recent origin of the Universe that openly invites the concept of creation.
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.
It is emphatically the case that life could not arise spontaneously in a primeval soup of any kind.... Furthermore, no geological evidence indicates an organic soup ever existed on this planet. We may therefore with fairness call this scenario the myth of the pre-biotic soup.