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.
Interpretation
The complexity of life arising through evolution is extremely unlikely, akin to a random event creating a sophisticated aircraft.
Fred Hoyle's quote emphasizes the improbability of complex life forms emerging solely through natural evolutionary processes. By comparing this phenomenon to a tornado assembling a Boeing 747 from a junkyard, he suggests that such an event is highly unlikely, thereby casting doubt on the sufficiency of evolutionary mechanisms to account for the complexity seen in living organisms.
In practice
In a discussion about the origins of life, this quote could illustrate skepticism towards purely naturalistic explanations.
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.
Once we see, however, that the probability of life originating at random is so utterly minuscule as to make it absurd, it becomes sensible to think that the favorable properties of physics, on which life depends, are in every respect deliberate.... It is, therefore, almost inevitable that our own measure of intelligence must reflect higher intelligence -even to the limit of God.
Evolution could so easily be disproved if just a single fossil turned up in the wrong date order. Evolution has passed this test with flying colours.
Please join me in applauding the ESA - European Space Agency’s historic efforts with the Rosetta Mission and landing a spacecraft on rotating comet. It may seem like a work of fiction, but it is very real, very impressive, and will help us to further uncover the mysteries surrounding the formation of the solar system. They made a beautiful short film using an imaginary landscape to illustrate today’s historic feat.
I was always interested in figuring things out. I'd do experiments, like combining things I found around the house to see what would happen if I put them together.
There must be enormous numbers of planets around the stars in the many galaxies in our observable universe. We may be sure that wonderful things are happening on these planets that the human race never will observe.
Clouds are not spheres, mountains are not cones, coastlines are not circles, and bark is not smooth, nor does lightning travel in a straight line.
We consider it vital that the community of nations be drawn together in an orderly, disciplined, rational way to review the history of our global environment, to assess the potential for future climate change, and to develop effective programs.
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