Quote about the chances of a tornado creating a Boeing 747 out of dismembered parts: Question?

Question

Who made the quote and what is his religion?

The full quote refers to chances of s single yeast cell arising by chance.
__________

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?

Who made the quote and what is his religion?

Mullah, considering you didn't answer either question, what basis do you have to deride others?

Answer 1

It is Hoyle and it doesn't matter what his religion is (I don't think he believed in god), the quote reveals a complete lack of understanding of what the mechanisms of evolution are.

It also shows just how careful we have to be when people have 'pet' theories, even when they are distinguished scientists. As Dawkins has said he only pushes the problem back a stage as to how and where life originated.

And its also the primary reason why he is not taken seriously any more....

Answer 2

God only knows , but since that person believed that this inane quote was a reasonable argument against evolution, it's clear that he was an utter ignoramus.

The puzzle box example (above) is interesting, but still misses an important point: evolutionary processes are not a matter of pure chance. Selection plays an important - in fact a vital - role.

If abiogenesis and evolution claimed that these things happened purely by chance over long periods of time, then in fact they would be wrong, and for many of the reasons that the creationist propaganda sites tout. But neither abiogenesis nor evolution relies on pure chance: there are also selection mechanisms. That makes all the difference in the world.

Answer 3

rofl. You see, the problem with that idea is that a tornado will probably only last for a few minutes. But, over the course of billions of years, a tornado could actually put the parts in the right place.

Ever shaken a box with puzzle pieces inside? Sometimes the pieces really do fall in the right place and you'll see it when you open the box. And very occasionally, you'll find those pieces stuck together after you do it.

How do I know this? I've done it. So if I can do that in just a few minutes, who's to say that the puzzle couldn't come together properly in billions of years?

Answer 4

Claim CF002.1:
Order does not spontaneously form from disorder. A tornado passing through a junkyard would never assemble a 747.

Claim Source:
Hoyle, Fred, 1983. The Intelligent Universe. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, pp. 18-19.

Evolution Response:
This claim is irrelevant to the theory of evolution itself, since evolution does not occur via assembly from individual parts, but rather via selective gradual modifications to existing structures. Order can and does result from such evolutionary processes.

Hoyle applied his analogy to abiogenesis, where it is more applicable. However, the general principle behind it is wrong. Order arises spontaneously from disorder all the time. The tornado itself is an example of order arising spontaneously. Something as complicated as people would not arise spontaneously from raw chemicals, but there is no reason to believe that something as simple as a self-replicating molecule could not form thus. From there, evolution can produce more and more complexity.

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Answer 5

The quote is attributed to a Fred Hoyle by a close collegue, Chandra Wickramasinghe. Problem is, no one knows if he REALLY said it.

And, it is hysterically INACCURATE. It is an arguement that could only be made by someone with little to no understanding of how natural selection works - it is not by CHANCE. It is the opposite of chance.

Who in the scientific community take Hoyle seriously anymore - besides you Chrisitians??

Answer 6

Bill Bryson in "A Short History of Nearly Everything." An excellent book, by the way.

As to Mr. Bryson's religion, I do not know.

Answer 7

The PROBABILITY is greater for the 747 to occur then to have the order of things we know have happened by themselves..

Talking about evolution as valid is denying the probabilty, the certainty, that it did not happen.
How can you live day to day and take so much for granted? not just in the created world, but our relationships, capacity to reason with love and have creativity, and on and on.
The Evolutionist must indeed be turned into self...

Answer 8

Dr Kent Hovind
Baptist

Answer 9

not sufficient warmth/temperature to create all of the aspects needed, until all of the aspects have been in the past made and have been given caught up in a twister, then prevalent physics does not enable one to form simply by twister not aptly using sufficient rigidity to screw issues jointly etc.

Answer 10

I think it was Fred Hoyle. Probably Christian. He was wrong, of course. Evolution doesn't work that way - random parts assembling themselves. Thing thing about evolution is, once you get something right, you get to keep it.