Fred Hoyle, former atheist (Introduction)
by David Turell 
, Monday, May 06, 2013, 15:43 (4220 days ago)
Sir Fred Hoyle, Astronomer Royal on Design in nature:- Engineering and Science, November 1981, p. 12:-"Now imagine yourself as a superintellect working through possibilities in polymer chemistry. Would you not be astonished that polymers based on the carbon atom turned out in your calculations to have the remarkable properties of the enzymes and other biomolecules? Would you not be bowled over in surprise to find that a living cell was a feasible construct? Would you not say to yourself, in whatever language supercalculating intellects use: Some supercalculating 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. Of course you would, and if you were a sensible superintellect you would conclude that the carbon atom is a fix.From 1953 onward, Fowler and I have been intrigued by the remarkable relation of the 7.65 Me V energy level in the nucleus of 12C to the 7 .12 MeV level in 160. If you wanted to produce carbon and oxygen in roughly equal quantities by stellar nucleosyhthesis, these are just the two levels you would have to fix, and your fixing would have to be just about where these levels are actually found to be. Is that another put-Lip, artificial job? Following the above argument, I am inclined to think so. A common sense 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." (my bolds)
Fred Hoyle, former atheist
DAVID: Sir Fred Hoyle, Astronomer Royal on Design in nature:-Engineering and Science, November 1981, p. 12: -A common sense 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." (my bolds)-Why, then, do you think Hoyle became an agnostic instead of a believer?
Fred Hoyle, former atheist
by David Turell , Tuesday, May 07, 2013, 21:58 (4218 days ago) @ dhw
> dhw: Why, then, do you think Hoyle became an agnostic instead of a believer?-Hoyle's beliefs about the universe:-" The Intelligent Universe "Genes from outside the Earth are needed to drive the evolutionary process". "Even after widening the stage for the origin of life from our tiny Earth to the Universe at large, we must still return to the same problem that opened this book - the vast unlikelihood that life, even on a cosmic scale, arose from non-living matter". It is apparent that the origin of life is overwhelmingly a matter of arrangement by intelligent control. Unintelligent natural selection is only too likely to produce an unintelligent result [34]. "If on occasions my opposition to the Darwinian theory has seemed fierce, it is because of my feeling that a society oriented by that theory is very likely set upon a self-destruct course". "Darwinism with its philosophy that opportunism is all" ... "leading with mounting inevitability to two World Wars. "I am not a Christian."-http://home.planet.nl/~gkorthof/kortho47.htm-Very close to my thinking, but all the way to a God. Sort of a Spinoza-like panpsychist, but with wnough residual doubt to stop there.
Fred Hoyle, former atheist
dhw: Why, then, do you think Hoyle became an agnostic instead of a believer?-DAVID: Hoyle's beliefs about the universe: " The Intelligent Universe "Genes from outside the Earth are needed to drive the evolutionary process". "Even after widening the stage for the origin of life from our tiny Earth to the Universe at large, we must still return to the same problem that opened this book - the vast unlikelihood that life, even on a cosmic scale, arose from non-living matter". It is apparent that the origin of life is overwhelmingly a matter of arrangement by intelligent control. Unintelligent natural selection is only too likely to produce an unintelligent result [34]. "If on occasions my opposition to the Darwinian theory has seemed fierce, it is because of my feeling that a society oriented by that theory is very likely set upon a self-destruct course". "Darwinism with its philosophy that opportunism is all" ... "leading with mounting inevitability to two World Wars. "I am not a Christian."-http://home.planet.nl/~gkorthof/kortho47.htm-DAVID: Very close to my thinking, but all the way to a God. Sort of a Spinoza-like panpsychist, but with enough residual doubt to stop there.-I presume you mean NOT all the way to a God. Hoyle's opposition to the "opportunistic" philosophy derived from evolution has nothing to do with the existence or non-existence of a designer, and should therefore not be placed in that context. The "panpsychist" element can but need not eliminate the God hypothesis (see Whitehead). However, if Hoyle stops short, as do so many of the scientists you quote in your support, perhaps the doubt is more fundamental than residual!
Fred Hoyle, former atheist
by David Turell , Wednesday, May 08, 2013, 22:44 (4217 days ago) @ dhw
> DAVID: Hoyle's beliefs about the universe: > " The Intelligent Universe "the vast unlikelihood that life, even on a cosmic scale, arose from non-living matter". It is apparent that the origin of life is overwhelmingly a matter of arrangement by intelligent control. Unintelligent natural selection is only too likely to produce an unintelligent result (my bolding) "I am not a Christian."-Nor am I.-> > dhw:I presume you mean NOT all the way to a God.....However, if Hoyle stops short, as do so many of the scientists you quote in your support, perhaps the doubt is more fundamental than residual!-We can only guess as to why he stopped just short. Perhaps from incredulity, which appears to be your problem.
Fred Hoyle, former atheist
DAVID: Hoyle's beliefs about the universe: " The Intelligent Universe "the vast unlikelihood that life, even on a cosmic scale, arose from non-living matter". It is apparent that the origin of life is overwhelmingly a matter of arrangement by intelligent control. Unintelligent natural selection is only too likely to produce an unintelligent result (my bolding) "I am not a Christian."[/i]-DAVID: Nor am I.-I wish he'd said what he was, but all the websites say he was an agnostic. The passage you have put in bold fits in with theism and with the form of panpsychism I have been tinkering with. As I keep reiterating, some versions of panpsychism are perfectly compatible with religion, and especially process theology. The version I have been exploring, though, dispenses with God, and it may well be this form that Hoyle was also contemplating: a kind of intelligence which is NOT central and not all-encompassing, but has evolved within the materials formed by non-conscious energy, and from there has exercised intelligent control over those materials.-dhw:I presume you mean NOT all the way to a God.....However, if Hoyle stops short, as do so many of the scientists you quote in your support, perhaps the doubt is more fundamental than residual!-DAVID: We can only guess as to why he stopped just short. Perhaps from incredulity, which appears to be your problem.-You reject both chance and the above panpsychist hypothesis out of incredulity. This is nothing but a tautology. It simply means you don't believe in something because you do not find it believable. Why is that a problem?
Fred Hoyle, former atheist
by David Turell , Thursday, May 09, 2013, 20:00 (4217 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: Hoyle's beliefs about the universe: > " The Intelligent Universe > "the vast unlikelihood that life, even on a cosmic scale, arose from non-living matter". It is apparent that the origin of life is overwhelmingly a matter of arrangement by intelligent control. Unintelligent natural selection is only too likely to produce an unintelligent result (my bolding) " > > dhw: You reject both chance and the above panpsychist hypothesis out of incredulity. This is nothing but a tautology. It simply means you don't believe in something because you do not find it believable. Why is that a problem?-I believe in Hoyle's statement, and I would add to it that since the universe appears to have had a start there is one source for both the universe and life. Hoyle's big Bang is still alive.
Fred Hoyle, former atheist
by David Turell , Tuesday, December 06, 2016, 04:44 (2910 days ago) @ David Turell
More on Fred Hoyle. He described how Carbon was made in the stars, believed in panspermia, and wasn't really an atheist:
http://www.evolutionnews.org/2016/11/fred_hoyle_inte103324.html
"But it is important to recognize that panspermia need not be tantamount to an end-run around theism to a negation of God.
"Hoyle is often regarded as a panspermia atheist, and his book The Intelligent Universe (1983) is cited as evidence for this alleged "fact." Nevertheless, a careful reading of that fascinating book suggests otherwise. While Hoyle did argue for a version of panspermia, he insisted that "The origin of the Universe...requires an intelligence," and he devoted an entire chapter to this topic.
"He further stated, "Even after widening the stage for the origin of life from our tiny Earth to the Universe at large, we must still return to the same problem that opened this book -- the vast unlikelihood that life, even on a cosmic scale, arose from non-living matter." I would argue that far from being an atheist, Hoyle was in his own way an ID advocate who believed in a form of classical panentheism."
Comment: Panspermia only moves the problem of origin of life from Earth to elsewhere.