We should thank True Skeptic

[Zeuzzz]

Except for one thing - Einstein wasn't a whacko, and Hoyle was.

Relativity was a crackpot idea, thus making einstein a crackpot whacko cranky thingy (whatever ad homs you choose, take your pick). He certainly ended up as a crackpot in his latter years. Dont make me quote you on this statement. Oh to hell with it:

GR was a crackpot idea, by my definition - but it was also right, because Einstein was a genius. That's the way it goes.

The guy clung desperately to an increasingly discredited (and fundamentally flawed from the start) "alternative" to the big bang, apparently because of some bizarre philosophical prejudice.

Bizare to you because it conflicts with your deeply entrenched belief system. You dislike him because he brought the main paradox of the Big Bang right up into the present day by proposing a continual creation theory, as opposed to the one off magic event of creation you adhere to. With this, the main erroneous facet of BBT could no longer hide behind the veil of distant time, and the issue of creation out of nothing had to be addressed head on, for a while at least. Until people realised how untenable this notion is in the first place, so they retracted the enigma back to the distant epoch of time where it is far easier to accept as true and continue from this point than to actually vigorously prove beyond reasonable doubt.

Hoyle was wrong about continuos creation, just like the Big Bang is wrong about sudden instantaneous creation, but he did the scientific community a massive favor by bringing this issue to the forefront of peoples minds.

He denied the possibility of abiogenesis for naive and totally wrong reasons. He rejected evolution by natural selection in favor of some totally ridiculous idea

Here it is again. Not wrong reasons, its an alternative theory. You act is if you have the *truth* behind everything. Science does not give you truth, Sol, all science gives you is internal self consistency. You can start by examining the metaphysical, epistemic and semantic aspects of science, use these attributes as a starting point and build a completely different viable scientific framework, based on assumptions and axioms completely different to the assumptions of the former system. If anything his theories in the area of abiogenesis start from a more common sense philisophical perspective than the theories you adhere to, the theories you put your faith in were developed a very long time before we knew anything about space and the universe that Hoyle studied his entire life. He did not reject abiogenesis, he thought that restricting it to Earth was foolish when compared to the age and vastness of the universe, which is where the other related theories come in.

He made some flippant comments about intelligent design, and how evolution and darwinism is too complex (which he did actually retract from slightly in his later years), and at the time he went as far as rejecting it outright. Who cares? This wasn't even his field. I wouldn't give a damn if Francis Crick said he thought the Earth was actually flat, he's not a geologist. He had a bash at biology and failed, miserably, but his ideas of applying biology to space still hold strong to this day. Hoyles student and collaborator Chandra Wickramasinghe is now a highly respected scientist, and has continued with Hoyles ideas about abiogenisis, exogenesis and astrobiology, all of which have the pioneering ideas of Hoyle contributing to their foundations. And all of which are now respected scientific frontiers in their own right.

Hoyle, and many others, preferred exogenesis; you prefer the theories based on that word but without the 'exo' part in it.

He had the gaul to think outside the box, which annoys some people. Common sense will prevail over dogma

He may once have been a good scientist, but as he got older he wandered further and further into nutjob cranky cloud-crackpot fruitloop quackulent whacko-land.

Tis a marvelous place, you should visit it some time. Maybe you will when you get older, most people seem to.

 

[Zeuzzz]

^Sorry, shoulda come with a hijack warning. God damn, this was the wrong thread to hijack, kinda puts me in with the wrong crowd...

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

PZ Meyers is on top of this one as well.

Organismal size over evolutionary time is a constrained stochastic property

The intelligent design creationists are jubilant — a paper has been published that shows that organisms were front-loaded with genes for future function! It describes "'latent' or 'preexistent' evolutionary potential" in our history, they say.

One small problem. The paper says nothing of the kind. It does mention latent potential, but it means something entirely different from something that is 'front-loaded', which is a sneaky little elision on the part of the creationists. There isn't even the faintest whiff of a teleological proposal in the paper at all, which makes me wonder if they even read it, or if, as seems more likely, they're simply incapable of comprehending the scientific literature.

So let's take a look at what the paper is actually about, and you'll see that it in no way supports the self-serving cheering of the creationists....

 

[MattusMaximus]

^Sorry, shoulda come with a hijack warning. God damn, this was the wrong thread to hijack, kinda puts me in with the wrong crowd...

Thanks for cluing in on this before I said something, Zeuzzz - folks, please go to another thread if you want to hash out the "Hoyle was/wasn't a whacko" argument.

Now, let's get back to the whackos spreading this FLE nonsense

 

[Wowbagger]

I see Front-Loaded whatever as a small victory for Evolution.

See, it is (loosely) based on discoveries made by evolutionary biologists, not ID proponents! It was the evo-devo folks who kept coming up with all the various details about how the genome, and ultimately life-forms themselves, could change, all the time.

So, in a way, this means they (ID proponents) are admitting to the true power of natural selection!

The only problem is that they still refuse to recognize that it could happen, all naturally. They insist: "Well, if the genome can change in so many different ways, why that must mean it was front-loaded to do so, the whole time! Man, that Designer was a genious!!" (ETA: It's all post-hoc reasoning.)

It seems that Evoltionary Biology is powerful enough to change the face of Intelligent Design, but Intelligent Design is not powerful enough to change anything in Evoltionary Biology.

 

[MattusMaximus]

Well said, Wowbagger

 

[UnrepentantSinner]

They've already legitimized the use of the word "evolution" with the micro/macro gambit. Note that the principal ideological villian in this play is "Darwinism" or some variation thereof.

There are a number of prominent IDers who accept an old Earth and evolution but have a real beef with atheism, materialism or naturalism (philsophical or methodological). You can even see strains of this amongst YECs who accept hyper evolution "within kinds" or define kinds at untennably high taxons and claim mico explains all the diversity. They seem to be willing to bend and warp their defintions to accept all sorts of scientific findings as long as God is included in the process.

 

[Dave Rogers]

I know nothing about Hoyle and panspermism, however calling him a "wacko" is a bit unfair. He made major contributions to astronomy, physics and cosmology -- but, obviously went astray somewhat with his solid state theory.

That's steady state theory. Solid state physicists are definitely not whackos. Honestly.

Dave

 

[sol invictus]

Mattus, Hoyle is actually directly relevant, because he originated many of the concepts behind ID. For example, that old canard about how abiogenesis is as probable as a 747 assembling itself during a tornado in a junkyard - Hoyle's. Lots of other completely wrong probability of life calculations they like to use - Hoyle's. Still, it's your thread - you could get a mod to split it if you think it's OT.

Relativity was a crackpot idea, thus making einstein a crackpot whacko cranky thingy (whatever ad homs you choose, take your pick).

"Take my pick"? Take your pick, you mean. I know it's news to you, but different words have different meanings (particularly in context). Now, where did I say Einstein was a whacko? What's that? Nowhere?

Bizare to you because it conflicts with your deeply entrenched belief system.

Bizarre to me because it conflicts with all the masses of scientific evidence over the last century. Not unlike creationism. Newsflash: this debate was carried out and lost 40 years ago. The data have gotten much better since.

If anything his theories in the area of abiogenesis start from a more common sense philisophical perspective than the theories you adhere to, the theories you put your faith in were developed a very long time before we knew anything about space and the universe that Hoyle studied his entire life. He did not reject abiogenesis, he thought that restricting it to Earth was foolish when compared to the age and vastness of the universe, which is where the other related theories come in.

OK, now we're getting into the really wingnut stuff. Hoyle evidently believed not only that life was intelligently designed, but that evolution proceeded not by mutation and natural selection but by earth being continuously bombarded by a flux of alien viruses from space. The guy was a total loon.

He made some flippant comments about intelligent design, and how evolution and darwinism is too complex

Flippant "comments"?? He wrote books on it (http://www.amazon.com/Evolution-Space-Theory-Cosmic-Creationism/dp/0671492632 for example).

 

[MattusMaximus]

Mattus, Hoyle is actually directly relevant, because he originated many of the concepts behind ID. For example, that old canard about how abiogenesis is as probable as a 747 assembling itself during a tornado in a junkyard - Hoyle's. Lots of other completely wrong probability of life calculations they like to use - Hoyle's. Still, it's your thread - you could get a mod to split it if you think it's OT.

Thanks for the clarification, Sol. Please proceed

OK, now we're getting into the really wingnut stuff. Hoyle evidently believed not only that life was intelligently designed, but that evolution proceeded not by mutation and natural selection but by earth being continuously bombarded by a flux of alien viruses from space. The guy was a total loon.

Well, Hoyle's idea - I believe it's called "panspermia" - would actually have some merit to it if we... oh, I don't know... first had hard evidence for the existence of alien viruses?

Now, if we do find ET life (such as on Mars), then we might be able to revisit Hoyle's ideas. Until then

 

[Perpetual Student]

Now that I've gotten up to speed on Hoyle's views about panspermia, ID, and evolution, etc, I see that he did have a "wacko" side. Nevertheless, his contributions to cosmology (e.g. stellar nucleosynthesis) and his innovative use of the anthropic principal are significant. Anyway, many (perhaps most) scientists had/have a wacko side.

 

[Dr Adequate]

Now that I've gotten up to speed on Hoyle's views about panspermia, ID, and evolution, etc, I see that he did have a "wacko" side. Nevertheless, his contributions to cosmology (e.g. stellar nucleosynthesis) and his innovative use of the anthropic principal are significant.

His attempt to tie stellar nucleosynthesis to the anthropic principle was also a bit strange.

See the SW article on the [swiki]Triple Alpha Process[/swiki].

---

What happened to "True Skeptic", anyway? Fed up with all teh pwnage?

 

[BenBurch]

i thought fle stands for flying lasagna entity...

apostate!

 

[Tubbythin]

His attempt to tie stellar nucleosynthesis to the anthropic principle was also a bit strange.

See the SW article on the [swiki]Triple Alpha Process[/swiki].

---

What happened to "True Skeptic", anyway? Fed up with all teh pwnage?

Hoyle's interpretation of the existence of the state may be open to questioning, but I think his deduction that the state must exist was pretty damn good science.

 

[Dr Adequate]

Hoyle's interpretation of the existence of the state may be open to questioning, but I think his deduction that the state must exist was pretty damn good science.

Granted.

 

[stilicho]

FLE is a great example of why religion ought to keep to matters of faith and to leave science to the scientists.

 

[stilicho]

Well, Hoyle's idea - I believe it's called "panspermia" - would actually have some merit to it if we... oh, I don't know... first had hard evidence for the existence of alien viruses?

Didn't Hoyle serve a very important purpose in setting forth his theories? There were serious scientists (a lot of them in the USA) who strenuously opposed Wegener and helped transform continental drift into plate tectonics. I think that process took a couple of decades. The debate over continental drift helped to create geology as a reputable scientific profession instead of a mere interest in finding iron or coal deposits.

FLE and ID are important in spurring research to refute them. They aren't nearly as serious as what Hoyle did IMHO. But Kant wasn't a scientist at all yet he helped cosmology too.

 

[Dr Adequate]

FLE and ID are important in spurring research to refute them.

Has that happened often?

I rather had the impression that the research just refutes them anyway.

Just as the automobile industry is not "spurred on" by a desire to create more and flatter roadkill ...

 

[stilicho]

Has that happened often?

I rather had the impression that the research just refutes them anyway.

Just as the automobile industry is not "spurred on" by a desire to create more and flatter roadkill ...

You're right regarding the FLE people. I am a bit of an antiquarian. Amateurs did propel geology about nine decades ago and that was probably the last time it happened.