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The Intelligent Universe: A New View of Creation and Evolution
In this book the authors attack the Earth-centric view that life originated in some virus-like form and simply evolved by natural selection. Arguing from the evidence of virology and epidemiology, they show that it is overwhelmingly likely that life originated outside the solar system, and propose that life-forms from space are constantly arriving to mingle with our own biosphere.
256 pages, Hardcover
First published October 31, 1983
9 people are currently reading
334 people want to read
About the author
Fred Hoyle
117 books175 followersProfessor Sir Fred Hoyle was one of the most distinguished, creative, and controversial scientists of the twentieth century. He was a Fellow of St John’s College (1939-1972, Honorary Fellow 1973-2001), was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1957, held the Plumian Chair of Astronomy and Experimental Philosophy (1958-1972), established the Institute of Theoretical Astronomy in Cambridge (now part of the Institute of Astronomy), and (in 1972) received a knighthood for his services to astronomy.
Hoyle was a keen mountain climber, an avid player of chess, a science fiction writer, a populariser of science, and the man who coined the phrase 'The Big Bang'.
Hoyle was a keen mountain climber, an avid player of chess, a science fiction writer, a populariser of science, and the man who coined the phrase 'The Big Bang'.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
August 1, 2022
Basically,
Evolution from Space
in a glossy coffee-table format with less text and more pictures.
I'm not quite sure why, but where I found Evolution from Space amusing this one depressed the hell out of me. Perhaps it was the way in which Fred Hoyle, once a great astrophysicist and now a delusional clown, was being manipulated by Dorling Kindersley to make a few quick bucks. All the same, the book is not entirely without value. If you're wondering how seriously you should take recently published pop science from elderly academics generally disparaged by their peers, it's possible that it may suggest some answers.
I'm not quite sure why, but where I found Evolution from Space amusing this one depressed the hell out of me. Perhaps it was the way in which Fred Hoyle, once a great astrophysicist and now a delusional clown, was being manipulated by Dorling Kindersley to make a few quick bucks. All the same, the book is not entirely without value. If you're wondering how seriously you should take recently published pop science from elderly academics generally disparaged by their peers, it's possible that it may suggest some answers.
March 6, 2014
13 ratings
dip in dip out
Want some alternative fun, and why not. The panspermia argument.
Dedication: For Geoffrey
Withdrawn from Richmond College Library (UK)
Lots of colour photographs; the pages are glossy; the weight is hard on the wrists.
Opening: A generation or more ago a profound disservice was done to popular thought by the notion that a horde of monkeys thumping away on typewriters could eventually arrive at the plays ff Shakespeare. This idea is wrong, so wrong that one has to wonder how it came to be broadcast so widely. The answer I think is that scientists wanted to believe that anything at all, even the origin of life, could happen by chance, if only chance operated on a big enough scale.
Chapters one and two merely give the state of play historically and biologically. The fun starts with chapter three:
LIFE DID NOT ORIGINATE ON EARTH: In 1927 an expedition under L A Kulik penetrated to the region of the Tunguska river in Siberia, to discover a scene of peculiar devastation.
He cites the lack of an impact site.
I feel the need to hear some Donovan Intergalactic Laxative whilst I ponder upon seed-bearing Cosmic Dust.
p 63 - Pedomicrobium is a ubiquitous bacterium dominant in biofilms of man-made aquatic environments such as water distribution systems and bioreactors.
Wonderful fun for a Monday evening in chilly damp Scandinavian April and tomorrow I shall walk out with my umbrella whether it rains or not; who knows for sure what is in that dust.
I'll finish off with a listen to Cosmic Wheels to accompany cogitation upon the plight of mans' restlessness.
ETA - Now P is reading this because of this: http://youtu.be/6H0E77TdYnY
September 27, 2024
THE COMPLETION OF HOYLE'S EVOLUTION TO BELIEF IN GOD
Fred Hoyle (1915-2001) was an English astronomer noted primarily for his contribution to the theory of stellar nucleosynthesis and cosmology; he also coined the term "Big Bang" (as a sarcastic comment, in contrast to his own "Steady-State" theory). He wrote several books with Chandra Wickramasinghe ('Lifecloud: Origin of Life in the Universe,' 'Diseases from Space,' and 'Evolution from Space,' and this 1983 book is basically a "popularization" of his earlier books.
He wrote in the Foreword, "For what reason do we live our lives at all? Biology, as it is presently taught, answers that the purpose is to produce the next generation... There is nothing but continuity, not purpose except continued existence... Even if we grant for a moment that this proposition if true, so what? There are many things that would assist our survival which we do not possess... it would often have been an advantage in moments of great danger to be able to run like a hare or to soar away from the danger... But we can do neither... the logic is back-to-front... advantage does not automatically generate that which would be an advantage, either in biology or elsewhere..." (Pg. 6)
He adds, "natural selection acts like a sieve. It can distinguish between species presented to it, but it cannot decide what species should be sieved in the first place. The control over what is presented to the sieve has to enter terrestrial biology from outside itself... from far outside the confines of our planet... Once one admits that terrestrial biology has been spurred on through evolution by a force outside the Earth itself, then the purposeless outlook or orthodox opinion becomes threatened... This indeed is just what orthodox scientists are unwilling to admit. Because there might turn out to be---for want of a better world---religious connotations, and because orthodox scientists are more concerned with preventing a return to the religious excesses of the past than in looking forward to the truth, the nihilistic outlook described above has dominated scientific thought throughout the past century. This book is as vigorous a protest against this outlook as I have ever launched."
He famously states, "The popular idea that life could have arisen spontaneously on Earth dates back to the experiments that caught the public imagination earlier this century... But this is far from proving that life could have evolved in this way. No one has shown that the correct arrangements of amino acids... can be produced by this method. No evidence for this huge jump in complexity has ever been found, nor in my opinion will it be. Nevertheless many scientists have made this leap...
"In a popular lecture I once unflatteringly described the thinking of these scientists as a 'junkyard mentality.' Since this reference became wisely and not quite accurately quoted I will repeat it here. A junkyard contains all the bits and pieces of a Boeing 747, dismembered and in disarray. A whirlwind happens to blow through the yard. What is the chance that after its passage a fully assembled 747, ready to fly, will be found standing there? So small as to be negligible, even if a tornado were to blow through enough junkyards to fill the whole Universe." (Pg. 18-19)
He notes, "Since Darwin first put forward his theory of evolution by natural selection, biologists have tried to show how all the characteristics of animals could have evolved gradually through a series of earlier forms, each of which had some survival value for its owner. However, many of today's extraordinary animal structures and behaviour sequences would have been at best useless or at worst dangerous in their early stages. Unless it is arbitrarily assumed that these characteristics had some great but unknown different use during their development, it must be concluded that Darwinian natural selection played little or no part in their origin." (Pg. 40)
He observes, "The concept of microorganisms distributed throughout interstellar space is not entirely new. It was considered already during the nineteenth century... [and] in the present century by the Swedish chemist Svante Arrhenius to support the 'panspermia' theory... The panspermia theory has recently been rediscussed ... by Francis Crick [;Life Itself: Its Origin and Nature;]... If the concept of microorganisms travelling in space is in disfavour it is not because physics or the microbiological facts are unfavourable. Indeed quite the reverse... both physics and microbiology support this idea strongly." (Pg. 158-159)
He says, "The intelligence responsible for the creation of carbon-based life in the cosmic theory is firmly WITHIN the Universe and is subservient to it. Because the creator of carbon-based life was not al-powerful, there is consequently no paradox in the fact that terrestrial life is far from idea. The creation of carbon-based life was motivated by a harsh necessity out of which the present situation may well be the best that could be managed." (Pg. 236)
"He concludes, "'God' is a forbidden word in science, but if we define an intelligence superior to ourselves as a deity... One is impelled... to ask... the question of why the Universe should exist at all... this morass is avoided when it is seen that 'God' exists only by virtue of the support received from the Universe." (Pg. 248-249)
Controversial yet very thought-provoking, Hoyle's book will interest those looking for speculative theories of cosmology (although creationists will probably find that, apart from his Boeing 747 quote, they don't care for much of this book).
Fred Hoyle (1915-2001) was an English astronomer noted primarily for his contribution to the theory of stellar nucleosynthesis and cosmology; he also coined the term "Big Bang" (as a sarcastic comment, in contrast to his own "Steady-State" theory). He wrote several books with Chandra Wickramasinghe ('Lifecloud: Origin of Life in the Universe,' 'Diseases from Space,' and 'Evolution from Space,' and this 1983 book is basically a "popularization" of his earlier books.
He wrote in the Foreword, "For what reason do we live our lives at all? Biology, as it is presently taught, answers that the purpose is to produce the next generation... There is nothing but continuity, not purpose except continued existence... Even if we grant for a moment that this proposition if true, so what? There are many things that would assist our survival which we do not possess... it would often have been an advantage in moments of great danger to be able to run like a hare or to soar away from the danger... But we can do neither... the logic is back-to-front... advantage does not automatically generate that which would be an advantage, either in biology or elsewhere..." (Pg. 6)
He adds, "natural selection acts like a sieve. It can distinguish between species presented to it, but it cannot decide what species should be sieved in the first place. The control over what is presented to the sieve has to enter terrestrial biology from outside itself... from far outside the confines of our planet... Once one admits that terrestrial biology has been spurred on through evolution by a force outside the Earth itself, then the purposeless outlook or orthodox opinion becomes threatened... This indeed is just what orthodox scientists are unwilling to admit. Because there might turn out to be---for want of a better world---religious connotations, and because orthodox scientists are more concerned with preventing a return to the religious excesses of the past than in looking forward to the truth, the nihilistic outlook described above has dominated scientific thought throughout the past century. This book is as vigorous a protest against this outlook as I have ever launched."
He famously states, "The popular idea that life could have arisen spontaneously on Earth dates back to the experiments that caught the public imagination earlier this century... But this is far from proving that life could have evolved in this way. No one has shown that the correct arrangements of amino acids... can be produced by this method. No evidence for this huge jump in complexity has ever been found, nor in my opinion will it be. Nevertheless many scientists have made this leap...
"In a popular lecture I once unflatteringly described the thinking of these scientists as a 'junkyard mentality.' Since this reference became wisely and not quite accurately quoted I will repeat it here. A junkyard contains all the bits and pieces of a Boeing 747, dismembered and in disarray. A whirlwind happens to blow through the yard. What is the chance that after its passage a fully assembled 747, ready to fly, will be found standing there? So small as to be negligible, even if a tornado were to blow through enough junkyards to fill the whole Universe." (Pg. 18-19)
He notes, "Since Darwin first put forward his theory of evolution by natural selection, biologists have tried to show how all the characteristics of animals could have evolved gradually through a series of earlier forms, each of which had some survival value for its owner. However, many of today's extraordinary animal structures and behaviour sequences would have been at best useless or at worst dangerous in their early stages. Unless it is arbitrarily assumed that these characteristics had some great but unknown different use during their development, it must be concluded that Darwinian natural selection played little or no part in their origin." (Pg. 40)
He observes, "The concept of microorganisms distributed throughout interstellar space is not entirely new. It was considered already during the nineteenth century... [and] in the present century by the Swedish chemist Svante Arrhenius to support the 'panspermia' theory... The panspermia theory has recently been rediscussed ... by Francis Crick [;Life Itself: Its Origin and Nature;]... If the concept of microorganisms travelling in space is in disfavour it is not because physics or the microbiological facts are unfavourable. Indeed quite the reverse... both physics and microbiology support this idea strongly." (Pg. 158-159)
He says, "The intelligence responsible for the creation of carbon-based life in the cosmic theory is firmly WITHIN the Universe and is subservient to it. Because the creator of carbon-based life was not al-powerful, there is consequently no paradox in the fact that terrestrial life is far from idea. The creation of carbon-based life was motivated by a harsh necessity out of which the present situation may well be the best that could be managed." (Pg. 236)
"He concludes, "'God' is a forbidden word in science, but if we define an intelligence superior to ourselves as a deity... One is impelled... to ask... the question of why the Universe should exist at all... this morass is avoided when it is seen that 'God' exists only by virtue of the support received from the Universe." (Pg. 248-249)
Controversial yet very thought-provoking, Hoyle's book will interest those looking for speculative theories of cosmology (although creationists will probably find that, apart from his Boeing 747 quote, they don't care for much of this book).
January 14, 2013
And this is NOT a science book! I found it in a basement and read it with great astonishment. I've later found out that Hoyle had misunderstood a good deal of what he was writing about, but it's still quite the entertaining read and a good introduction to creationist thought, masked as scientific and "non-religious". It still fails to answer the big question about how life came to be though. "It's from somewhere else". God = An intelligent universe, well... problem not solved.
January 4, 2020
Interesting insight. Provides a cosmic view on some everyday phenomena. While I disagree with the conclusion, I found the premises behind it interesting.
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