Was astronomer Fred Hoyle a creationist?
Sort of. Depends how you want to define it.
 Science historian Michael Flannery notes,
I think it is a fair assessment to consider Hoyle a creationist in the broadest sense of the term. Yes, he rejected Darwinian evolution, and yes, he held to panspermia, but his book The Intelligent Universe: A New View of Creation and Evolution (1983) and other writings I think substantiate Theodore Walker’s assessment that Hoyle’s views accorded “with the religious idea of a supremely intelligent Creator-Provider-Sustainer of the universe” that was essentially panenthic and at least implicitly pro-theistic (see Walker’s “‘The Relation of Biology to Astronomy’ and Theology: Panspermia and Panentheism: Revolutionary Convergences Advanced by Fred Hoyle and Chandra Wickramasinghe,” J. Cosmology19 [June 2012]). This may not be biblical creationism, but is a form of creationism.
New one on us, because Hoyle is usually billed as an atheist pure and simple.
More on panspermia and panentheism.
Note:
Although Hoyle was most widely known for this cosmological theory, there is little doubt that his most lasting and significant contribution to science concerns the origin of the elements. This theory of nucleogenesis (the build-up of the elements in the hot interiors of stars) was an outstanding scientific landmark of the 1950s. In the development of this theory Hoyle collaborated with WA Fowler of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, and with Geoffrey and Margaret Burbidge.
There’s also an interesting story at the obit link above re speculation as to why Hoyle did not get the Nobel.
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bornagain77 December 8, 2013 at 8:05 pm
The delicate balance at which carbon is synthesized in stars is truly a work of art. Years after Fred Hoyle discovered the stunning precision with which carbon is synthesized in stars he stated:
“From 1953 onward, Willy Fowler and I have always been intrigued by the remarkable relation of the 7.65 MeV energy level in the nucleus of 12 C to the 7.12 MeV level in 16 O. If you wanted to produce carbon and oxygen in roughly equal quantities by stellar nucleosynthesis, these are the two levels you would have to fix, and your fixing would have to be just where these levels are actually found to be. Another put-up job? … I am inclined to think so. A common sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a super intellect has “monkeyed” with the physics as well as the chemistry and biology, and there are no blind forces worth speaking about in nature.” -
Sir Fred Hoyle, Annual Review of Astronomy and Astrophysics, 20 (1982): 16.
And the fine tuning for Carbon synthesis in stars that led Hoyle to make such a provocative remark, has now been shown to be even more finely tuned than Hoyle realized at the time that he made his infamous remark:
The Fine-Tuning of the Universe for Life Just Got Finer – March 15, 2013
Excerpt: In new lattice calculations done at the Juelich Supercomputer Centre [in Germany] the physicists found that just a slight variation in the light quark mass will change the energy of the Hoyle state, and this in turn would affect the production of carbon and oxygen in such a way that life as we know it wouldn’t exist.
“The Hoyle state of carbon is key,” Lee says. “If the Hoyle state energy was at 479 keV [479,000 electron volts] or more above the three alpha particles [helium-4 nuclei], then the amount of carbon produced would be too low for carbon-based life. “The same holds true for oxygen,” he adds. “If the Hoyle state energy were instead within 279 keV of the three alphas, then there would be plenty of carbon. But the stars would burn their helium into carbon much earlier in their life cycle. As a consequence, the stars would not be hot enough to produce sufficient oxygen for life. In our lattice simulations, we find that more than a 2 or 3 percent change in the light quark mass would lead to problems with the abundance of either carbon or oxygen in the universe.”
evolutionnews.org
Hoyle also stated:
“I do not believe that any physicist who examined the evidence could fail to draw the inference that the laws of nuclear physics have been deliberately designed with regard to the consequences they produce within stars.”
Sir Fred Hoyle – “The Universe: Past and Present Reflections.” Engineering and Science, November, 1981. pp. 8–12
In fact, all the element heavier that hydrogen and helium were forged by nucleosynthesis in stars,,,
The Elements: Forged in Stars – video
metacafe.com
Even uranium the last naturally occurring ‘stable’ element on the period table of elements is necessary for life. The heat generated by the decay of uranium is necessary to keep a molten core in the earth for an extended period of time, which is necessary for the magnetic field surrounding the earth, which in turn protects organic life from the harmful charged particles of the sun. As well, uranium decay provides the heat for tectonic activity and the turnover of the earth’s crustal rocks, which is necessary to keep a proper mixture of minerals and nutrients available on the surface of the earth, which is necessary for long term life on earth. (Denton; Nature’s Destiny).
And although every ‘class’ of elements, though not specifically every element, that exists on the periodic table of elements is directly necessary for complex carbon-based life to exist on earth (or in the universe),,,
Periodic Table – Role of elements in life processes – Interactive web page for each element with description of if and how they are necessary for life
mii.org
which is certainly a remarkable ‘coincidence’ in and of itself, it also turns out that the three most abundant elements in the human body, Oxygen, Carbon, Hydrogen, ‘just so happen’ to also be the most abundant elements in the universe, (save for helium which is inert). A truly amazing coincidence that strongly implies ‘the universe had us in mind all along’. Moreover, the finely tuned balance at which these elements react with each other and with other elements to enable life is truly a wonder to behold. Michael Denton speaks a little on that remarkable balance with which the react here
Michael Denton – We Are Stardust – Uncanny Balance Of The Elements – Atheist Fred Hoyle’s conversion to a Deist/Theist – video
metacafe.com
A few more remarkable ‘coincidences’ in the way in which these elements interact with other to allow carbon based life to exist are revealed in this following talk Dr. Denton gave on the subject:
“Dr. Michael Denton on Evidence of Fine-Tuning in the Universe” (Remarkable balance of various key elements for life)- podcast
intelligentdesign.podomatic.com
Here is a fairly recent peer-reviewed paper that Dr. Denton published on the subject in which he further refines the ‘coincidences’ to reveal that the elements interact in a such a way that is “fit specifically for warm-blooded, air-breathing organisms such as ourselves.”:
The Place of Life and Man in Nature: Defending the Anthropocentric Thesis – Michael J. Denton – February 25, 2013
Summary (page 11)
Many of the properties of the key members of Henderson’s vital ensemble —water, oxygen, CO2, HCO3 —are in several instances fit specifically for warm-blooded, air-breathing organisms such as ourselves. These include the thermal properties of water, its low viscosity, the gaseous nature of oxygen and CO2 at ambient temperatures, the inertness of oxygen at ambient temperatures, and the bicarbonate buffer, with its anomalous pKa value and the elegant means of acid-base regulation it provides for air-breathing organisms. Some of their properties are irrelevant to other classes of organisms or even maladaptive.
It is very hard to believe there could be a similar suite of fitness for advanced carbon-based life forms. If carbon-based life is all there is, as seems likely, then the design of any active complex terrestrial being would have to closely resemble our own. Indeed the suite of properties of water, oxygen, and CO2 together impose such severe constraints on the design and functioning of the respiratory and cardiovascular systems that their design, even down to the details of capillary and alveolar structure can be inferred from first principles. For complex beings of high metabolic rate, the designs actualized in complex Terran forms are all that can be. There are no alternative physiological designs in the domain of carbon-based life that can achieve the high metabolic activity manifest in man and other higher organisms.
bio-complexity.org
Verse and Music:
Isaiah 45:18-19
For thus says the Lord, who created the heavens, who is God, who formed the earth and made it, who established it, who did not create it in vain, who formed it to be inhabited: “I am the Lord, and there is no other. I have not spoken in secret, in a dark place of the earth; I did not say to the seed of Jacob, ‘seek me in vain’; I, the Lord speak righteousness, I declare things that are right.”
Coldplay – Yellow (The Stars Shine For you)
youtube.com
uncommondescent.com
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