This article is rated C-class on Wikipedia's content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
The contentious topics procedure applies to this page. This page is related to pseudoscience and fringe science, which has been designated as a contentious topic. Editors who repeatedly or seriously fail to adhere to the purpose of Wikipedia, any expected standards of behaviour, or any normal editorial process may be blocked or restricted by an administrator. Editors are advised to familiarise themselves with the contentious topics procedures before editing this page. |
Arbitration Ruling on the Treatment of Pseudoscience In December of 2006 the Arbitration Committee ruled on guidelines for the presentation of topics as pseudoscience in Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Pseudoscience. The final decision was as follows:
|
This article is not helpful How is it a fallacy or misrepresentation? -Justin (koavf)·T·C·M 15:28, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
If you understand the sharpshooter's fallacy, I don't see the difficulty. 190.174.87.182 (talk) 19:31, 14 October 2010 (UTC)
If the odds stated by Hoyle are incorrect, what then are the correct odds of life coming into existence in the way posited by Dawkins? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 222.146.116.99 (talk) 15:23, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
In a broader sense, Hoyle was engaging in a fallacy because he was trying to calculate odds for an event that isn't well-defined. We can calculate the odds of rolling a fair die and getting a "6" perfectly, that is one out of six; for a poorly defined event, any probability calculation does no more than echo the assumptions on which it was made. Hoyle's assumption was effectively saying that a complete cell just somehow self-assembled, which actually resembles creationist thinking, or at least a creationist strawman, much more than it does abiogenetic research. On the basis of other assumptions -- such as envisioning the Earth as a planet-spanning geologically active "bioreactor" with a range of environments operating for at least hundreds of millions of years to produce a primitive self-reproducing chemical system that could lead to "improved" derivatives and ultimately to life as we know it now -- the probability can be assumed to be ONE.
Either way, the calculation represents nothing more than a prejudice, though I would say the second one takes a much more valid view of what we actually know than the first. Hoyle performed his calculation strictly on the basis of the elaboration of the cell without any consideration of processes that might have produced it.
To get an honest appreciation of the probabilities would require that we take a set of Earthlike planets more than, say, a few billion years old and determine the proportion on which life emerged. Since we have a sample size of ONE, there's no way to perform a useful calculation of probabilities. Hoyle's fallacy is an example of "pseudomath", a close relative of pseudoscience, nothing more than a game of presenting a partisan opinion under a false front of mathematical precision. Hoyle's fallacy was more a misuse of probability than of abiogenesis theory. He may have been right, the spontaneous origins of life may be unbelievably improbable, but we have no useful way of calculating such a probability. MrG 168.103.80.164 (talk) 17:48, 18 May 2010 (UTC)
But we do have a useful way of calculating a VERY APPROXIMATE ORDER OF MAGNITUDE for such a probablity. If the answer had been "only" 10^400 it would still be a major problem for molecular biology. (There does seem to be a confrontation between evolutionary biologists, with the extreme confidence in Darwinism generally associated with those who are not biochemists - see e.g. the entrenched opposition of Coyne v Shapiro at Chicago. Hoyle's great strength was he ability to make an engineering style approximation and see where it led. Not a fallacy. Dickballantine (talk) 13:25, 25 April 2013 (UTC)
That's because it's not a fallacy. This article is not NPOV; it has no counter arguments but yet prejudices by stating Hoyle's "fallacy" is a mainstay of critics of evolution. In other words, if you must go against the current scientific consensus to accept Hoyle conclusion; as if consensus equals being correct. Among the anti evolution crowd, according to this article, are intelligent design proponents, many of whom, Michael Behe, for example, accept evolution. Notice too that this article's main source is talk origins, more specifically an article by Musgrave. What makes him such an authority on this issue that he should be paraphrased and quoted at length? Ultimately, Hoye's fallacy is a fallacy because those who have labeled it as such disagree with the conclusion. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 154.20.5.177 (talk) 02:46, 16 November 2010 (UTC)
The assignment of the term of "fallacy" is correct. However, the specific relation to Hoyle is unnecessary. This argument is easily classified into a certain type of common logical fallacies, perhaps essentially the Post hoc fallacy. If one looks at, for instance, a Markov chain, there are many paths to a certain outcome (see concept of degeneracy and entropy.) However, the odds of a PARTICULAR path, the path that was actually taken, are vanishingly small. Outcomes which enter a huge phase space in an equally likely manner, are each hugely unlikely. "Hoyle's fallacy" is one of a broad set of retrospective fallacies of this kind.164.64.164.35 (talk) 17:45, 6 January 2012 (UTC)
Actually, it's proper to link this type of fallacy with the "Texas Sharpshooter's Fallacy," which involves retrospective assertions. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 164.64.164.35 (talk) 18:13, 6 January 2012 (UTC)
Francis Crick was similarly concerned about the combinatorial explosion. "Life Itself" was a partial response. (See also my note next section.) Not a falacy as such. Dickballantine (talk) 13:08, 25 April 2013 (UTC)
There is considerably scholarly criticism of the so-called naming of Hoyle's fallacy; the article simply assumes that there is indeed a fallacy on the strength of claims by atheistic evolutionist Dawkins, et al. In fact, the christening of Hoyle's analogy is somewhat specious. In the first place, a fallacy is a classification of a type of error in a categorical or other argument. As such, fallacies are either material/informal or formal, relating to either ambiguity in content or error in structure. All arguments rely on assumptions that are either true or false. Statements themselves are not fallacies. An error in a math puzzle, for exmaple, is not a fallacy: it is an error. If little Tommy got his sum of 230 + 340 wrong, his wrong answer is not a fallacy, but simply a wrong answer. The debate between Hoyle and others is a debate relating to a specific biological interpretation on a specified problem. One may feel that Hoyle has made an error in his conclusion, or argue that he has committed a fallacy of analogy, but to christen an opponent's argument a fallacy on account of a disagreement with the conclusion as though it were somehow characteristic of a class of informal or formal errors may be seen to be intellectually mendacious. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.151.84.90 (talk) 10:53, 24 October 2008 (UTC)
He not only got his conclusion wrong. He indulged in faulty fallacious reasoning.
Do you know the sharpshooter's fallacy? That's what he did, among other things.
He made a post-hoc analysis of patterns that were specified a priori. 190.174.87.182 (talk) 19:38, 14 October 2010 (UTC)
Thanks for the comment - I've wandered in that direction above with the Sharpshooter's Fallacy. Steve (talk) 02:06, 8 January 2012 (UTC)
The article is not appropriately quantitative, but needs to be. For example, if there are 10^153 possible proteins of a certain type, allowing 2 or 10 or 100 to be functionally acceptable still leaves a major "Mount Improbable" to climb. It is therefore far from clear that Hoyle's reasoning was fallacious. This is equally true of technical sources such as "Taming Combinatorial Explosion" (Peter Schuster). Dickballantine (talk) 12:58, 25 April 2013 (UTC)
There is no such thing as Hoyle's Fallacy. It was a concept invented by Richard Dawkins and has not been accepted by mainstream philosophical discourse. This article cites an unscholarly web article by Ian Musgave as evidence. This article violates Wikipedia's policy of neutrality and was written with the goal in mind of making a point. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kylefoley76 (talk • contribs) 02:03, 21 January 2011 (UTC)
In evolutionary biology, Hoyle's fallacy is a common misrepresentation of Darwinian theory, colloquially named, among evolutionary biologists, after the astrophysicist Sir Fred Hoyle, although it has been current almost since the time of Darwin himself
This does not flow well at all. In fact I'm having a difficult time trying to determine what the original author even meant which is making it impossible to try and improve it. I'll think about it some more and see if I can make it clearer. Angry Christian (talk) 23:04, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
Seems perfectly clear to me. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.68.94.86 (talk) 16:45, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
While I do find the subject of this article notable, I think the title is not appropriate. The article begins with Hoyle's fallacy is a term for the statistical analysis of Sir Fred Hoyle.[1]' The source that is provided does not mention the term 'Hoyle's fallacy' at all. The only person known to have called specifically Hoyle's argument a fallacy is Richard Dawkins, who alone represents neither the scientific community nor the general public. In fact, a google search for 'Hoyle's fallacy' results mostly in mirrors of this Wikipedia page and in forum posts using the term (probably copied from Wikipedia). A google scholar search give zero results. I get the idea that that the term is not commonly used. I propose to change the title of the article to 'Hoyle's Argument' or something with a similar meaning.
I also find the article to have a non-neutral POV. Hoyle's statistical analysis itself is not explained. In fact, the article contains nothing but counter-arguments, omitting Hoyle's original analysis. I will try to improve the article as soon as I have done the required research to do so.Lindert (talk) 12:07, 2 March 2009 (UTC)
Readers are told what to believe by this text. The current contents of it should be relegated to a section called "Criticism" while the body of the article should contain a description of the analysis itself. Furthermore, a more appropriate title might be Hoyle's Conjecture or theory rather than fallacy. 76.75.112.185 (talk) 23:46, 6 June 2009 (UTC)
Do you have a source that proves/asserts the truth of Memes or the Extended Phenotype? I don't see either one of them labeled as "Dawkins' Fallacy" on Wiki.
This isn't about science at all. This is mainly about Richard Dawkins' opinion and some "computer program" he wrote. Not every unproved or debunked claim is a "fallacy".
Where is the actual science? There is one source for this article and it is biased and not a very prominent or respectable site.
Savagedjeff (talk) 07:48, 6 August 2009 (UTC)
ummm source?? Where is the evidence and why is it not presented on this page? You have a single source that is copied word for word. That isn't enough. "Hoyle's fallacy is rejected by all evolutionary biologists." There is no way of knowing that. That is an unsubstantiated claim.
You are selectively "reporting what is reported elsewhere".
Savagedjeff (talk) 20:53, 12 August 2009 (UTC)
Whoa Whoa.. This has nothing to do with natural selection or evolution. Dawkins misrepresented Hoyle's argument. It is about spontanteous origin of life. Both creationists and Dawkins have it wrong.
An evolutionary biologist:
"Few writers about the origin of life fail to mention Hoyle's Boeing-747 analogy. However, Hoyle is absent from university textbooks on evolution. All creationists accept the Boeing-747 argument as a disproof of the natural origin of life, and evolutionists reject it as such. Yockey is the only writer who improves the argument. A definitive answer to the Boeing-747 argument is not yet possible. Just as Maxwell's demon has set a puzzle that is still not fully resolved. A convincing rebut is nothing less than the solution of the problem of the origin of life. As long as science doesn't have a satisfactory and complete theory of the origin of life, science cannot answer Hoyle's Boeing-argument. "
So there goes the "all evolutionary biologists" argument.
The guy goes on:
" Hoyle's Boeing-747 is an anti-spontaneous-origin-of-life-argument. The argument uses logic and probability."
Finally Richard Dawkins (2003) uses the argument again: "Creationists love sir Fred Hoyle's vivid metaphor for his own misunderstanding of natural selection. It is as if a hurricane, blowing through a junkyard, had the good fortune to assemble a Boeing 747. Hoyle's point is about statistical improbability. () My answer is that natural selection is cumulative. () Small improvements are added bit by bit." Indeed, once you have life, it can be improved in a Darwinian fashion. But can Darwinian processes create the first living cell? That's another question. Philosopher Philip Kitcher (2007) in his Living with Darwin writes: "To use an argument much beloved by ealier creationists, Darwinian claims about selection and the organization of life are equivalent to the idea that a hurricane in a junkyard could assemble a functioning airplane". Two deletion mutations occurred in the argument: 'Hoyle' and 'Boeing-747'.
Read the whole thing. It totally smashes the bulk of this article.
Hoyle believed in evolution. Dawkins set up a strawman:
""We are inescapably the result of a long heritage of learning, adaptation, mutation and evolution, the product of a history which predates our birth as a biological species and stretches back over many thousand millennia.... Going further back, we share a common ancestry with our fellow primates; and going still further back, we share a common ancestry with all other living creatures and plants down to the simplest microbe. The further back we go, the greater the difference from external appearances and behavior patterns which we observe today.... Darwin's theory, which is now accepted without dissent, is the cornerstone of modern biology. Our own links with the simplest forms of microbial life are well-nigh proven."
---Fred Hoyle and Chandra Wickramasinghe, Lifecloud: The Origin of Life in the Universe (1978), p.15-16
This article needs drastic changes.
Savagedjeff (talk) 08:18, 3 September 2009 (UTC)
Nice sleight of hand to try to move the goal posts. This article says "rejected by all evolutionary biologists." Clearly, that link shows evolutionary biologists who have not rejected it, who are debating it, and see it as an open question.
Look up Robert Shapiro's work on it. He shows the odds are astronomical.
Savagedjeff (talk) 19:03, 3 September 2009 (UTC)
Saying that all evolutionary biologists reject it is a different statement than naming those who accept it. Or saying that any accept it. You're setting up a false dichotomy on top of a strawman and red herring. To not reject it does not mean that you have to accept it. It means it is an open question in need of more research. A little something called agnosticism. So again, not all evolutionary biologists reject it. Stop setting up a strawman/red herring to dodge this point. The statement that all evolutionary biologists reject it inaccurate and sourced. That link was written by a Dutch evolutionary biologist.
Also, the entire claim, "rejected by all evolutionary biologists" is sourced back to, and only sourced back to, Richard Dawkins. In popular science books no less.
Savagedjeff (talk) 21:10, 3 September 2009 (UTC)
It is not a false dichotomy. The claim is that all evolutionary biologists reject the argument. The implication (which is not spelt out in the article, since that would be my OR) is that those that haven't rejected it, would if it were presented to them. Finding a single counter example requires finding someone who has accepted the argument. Since this claim is sourced and you've twice refused to actually name any evolutionary biologist as a counter-example I think it has the right to stay.
BTW the claim is not sourced back to just Dawkins. It now has John Maynard Smith as well.
I'm not sure what you think the relevance of the link author's profession is, since he gives no indication of accepting Hoyle's argument. Indeed I would say he rejects it, although I don't doubt you have interpreted it differently. --Michael C. Price talk 21:42, 3 September 2009 (UTC)
No, the author clearly states that is scientifically unanswerable at this point. That is why it can't be answered. Not because nobody saw the argument. There is no implication of that or anything else you are claiming. You are throwing assumption on top of assumption. He said a "definitive answer" is "not possible". Stop making up stories.
It is relevant because this article explicitly says ALL evolutionary biologists. And again, stop bringing up the acceptance argument to try and muddy the waters. Here is one that explicitly says it is unanswered. How could you possibly claim that as a rejection? Show me the rejection in that piece. That is not a neutral point of view. It is your point of view. And then you stretch this quote "What is wrong with it? Essentially, it is that no biologist imagines that complex structures arise in a single step." to fit under the umbrella of the Dawkins statement. That statement is not the same as saying all evolutionary biologists reject it. It needs much more context at least. You are playing fast and loose with words and using subjective interpretations. I can only assume you are being dishonest at this point by repeating the same fallacies and if you continue I will appeal to a higher authority.
Savagedjeff (talk) 22:22, 3 September 2009 (UTC)
The author states that the origin of life is mysterious -- NOT that he accepts Hoyle's argument.
And I'm still waiting for your explanation of his statement:
--Michael C. Price talk 22:51, 3 September 2009 (UTC)
This article shows only the POV of Dawkins and his minions. What sourcing is there for it being rejected by the majority of biochemists? This is absolute propaganda. 68.80.183.171 (talk) 07:02, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
The idiotic insult "Dawkins and his minions" tells us all we need to know about where you are coming from, mate. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.68.94.86 (talk) 16:46, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
I have attempted to fix this article several times by giving references and counter arguments while not removing any of the atheist's arguments, but each time my edits have been over-written. Obviously, the article is hopelessly biased and the overwriting of any attempt at balance is agenda driven -- DFP —Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.55.80.176 (talk) 19:47, 12 January 2010 (UTC)
The text that follows "According to Ian Musgrave...", although well sourced, does not seem that helpful. Comments?--Michael C. Price talk 13:52, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
Who is Ian Musgrave? What is his credibility? His calculations in the referred article are plain wrong. He calculates early Earth oceans volume as 1 x 10e24 litres which is wrong. Indeed it could be no more than 1 x 10e20 liters. His calculations are way off by a magnitude of 10,000. 1 x 10e24 is volume of the Earth, not its oceans! I suggest to remove all references to him and his article. Having something published in "talkorigins.com" doesn't make it scientific. SirGalahad (talk) 22:31, 12 January 2010 (UTC)
You had no standing to remove the tag I placed. The whole article is a POV joke. ALL evolutionary biologists disagree with Hoyle? This is an extreme claim to make and is NOT sourced. If you remove the tag again I'm taking this to ArbCom. 68.80.183.171 (talk) 04:11, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
The article presupposes that the "fallacy" is in fact a fallacy. This is a clear bias in violation of Wikipedia's neutrality rules. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Lucidology (talk • contribs) 01:52, 13 August 2009 (UTC)
This article states "Hoyle's fallacy is rejected by all evolutionary biologists." which is flat out a lie. There are a great many biologists who dissent against the idea that random mutation leads to evolution. For instance:
“No matter how numerous they may be, mutations do not produce any kind of Evolution.” Pierre-Paul Grasse, - Evolutionist
“It is good to keep in mind ... that nobody has ever succeeded in producing even one new species by the accumulation of micromutations. Darwin’s theory of natural selection has never had any proof, yet it has been universally accepted.” Prof. R. Goldschmidt, - PhD, DSc Prof. Zoology, University of Calif. In Material Basis of Evolution Yale Univ. Press
"A growing number of respectable scientists are defecting from the evolutionist camp ... moreover, for the most part these 'experts' have abandoned Darwinism, not on the basis of religious faith or biblical persuasions, but on scientific grounds, and in some instances, regretfully." - Wolfgang Smith, Ph.D., physicist and mathematician —Preceding unsigned comment added by Lucidology (talk • contribs) 10:43, 15 August 2009 (UTC)
At WP:NPOV dispute we read "Drive-by tagging is strongly discouraged. The editor who adds the tag must address the issues on the talk page, pointing to specific issues that are actionable within the content policies... Simply being of the opinion that a page is not neutral is not sufficient to justify the addition of the tag."
Accordingly, would anyone who believes the article conflicts with WP:NPOV please point to specific issues in the article, and explain why those issues conflict with content policies. The ((POV)) tag should be removed if no justification for it is provided. Johnuniq (talk) 00:35, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
The sources all seem to call it "Hoyle's Fallacy" not "Hoyle's fallacy". I suggest we rename the article to reflect this. --Michael C. Price talk 08:20, 13 February 2010 (UTC)
If no one objects I'll raise a move request... --Michael C. Price talk 19:47, 13 February 2010 (UTC)
Okay, if anyone, and I mean anyone, thinks that a stylistic change is in order and that sources on this monstrously pedantic note don't matter, then please, let us know. It is my opinion that an upper-case F is too reminiscent of Flibbertigibbets, Obtuseness, Obliquity, Languidness, and Senselessness. Since the other party can come up with no other suitable justification besides "it's in dem der sources", this will take a number of voices to have the lower-case f prevail. I'll be here 'till the end of time, so there's no hurry.—αrgumziΩϝ 01:28, 7 May 2010 (UTC)
To explain biological evolution in terms of a search for a solution is a hideous error. (In fact, it is Hoyle's most egregious error.) This amounts to building teleology into evolution. Engineers first applied programs mimicking biological evolution to search problems about 50 years ago, and referred to "evolutionary search." The term never should have made its way into biological usage. If you say that biological evolution is engaged in search, you might as well give the creationists their invisible engineer of the Universe. ThomHImself (talk) 01:21, 12 November 2010 (UTC)
In reference 3, Gatherer writes,
Hoyle’s Fallacy is a surprisingly easy mistake to make when one has not quite grasped how powerful a force selection can be.
The second sentence of the introductory paragraph presently reads,
Hoyle’s fallacy is a surprisingly easy mistake to make when one has not quite grasped how powerful a force natural selection can be.
Such editorializing does not belong in the introduction, and it's revealing that someone should plagiarize to put it there. ThomHImself (talk) 12:37, 19 December 2010 (UTC)
For goodness sake, do you ever stop to think that this guy wasn't necessarily being quite so literal when he used the rather abstract allusion of the tornado and the aeroplane? --86.153.35.156 (talk) 05:09, 11 July 2011 (UTC)
"Hoyle's fallacy" as the intro says, "predates Hoyle". Indeed, Fred Hoyle is far from the first to have argued that emergence of life out of non-life is a highly improbable event.
A quote from biochemist Norman Horowitz, which I found in Stephen J. Dick's book The Biological Universe:
"It is assumed by some biologists, and in my experience, by most astronomers who consider the matter, that the probability of the origin of life given favorable conditions – ie., conditions resembling those of the primitive Earth – is practically unity. I think that this optimistic estimate may be far from the mark... an objective estimate, based on known chemistry and known biology, would lead to a probability for the origin of life of close to zero." (itals added)
This is from an article written in 1967, with the title "Biological Significance of the Search for Extraterrestrial Life". Horowitz wasn't arguing for panspermia or creationism, but for a low chance of finding life elsewhere in the cosmos. And Horowitz was a biochemist of some eminence. He was involved with the Viking mission to Mars, and saw its results as confirming his view that we Earth organisms have no interplanetary neighbors within light-years.
My point is not that Horowitz was right about all this. Simply that the probability or improbability or life emerging from non-life (abiogenesis) has been a matter of serious scientific discussion through the twentieth century. As mentioned on the WP page Life on Titan, it has recently been suggested that if and when organisms are found on Saturn's moon, that would do a lot to answer the question of whether emergence of life is a high-probability or a low-probability occurrence… Kalidasa 777 (talk) 01:38, 26 July 2011 (UTC)
(UTC)
'We Don't Know'
The two alternatives which seem to be proposed amongst the science community for biogenesis are Earth-based and Space-based. Hoyle is obviously in the second camp, but so are others:
In their 1981 book 'Life Itself' Crick and Orgel expanded on their idea of Panspermia: Coming full circle to his groundbreaking discovery of DNA's structure, Crick wondered, if life began in the great "primeval soup" suggested by the Miller/Urey experiment, why there wouldn't be a multitude of genetic materials among the different life forms. Instead, all life on Earth shares the same basic DNA structure.
Crick and Orgel wrote... "an honest man, armed with all the knowledge available to us now, could only state that in some sense, the origin of life appears at the moment to be almost a miracle, so many are the conditions which would have had to have been satisfied to get it going." ('Life Itself)
Miller and Cairns-Smith are also agnostic: [Stanley] Miller, who after almost four decades is still in hard pursuit of life’s biggest secret, agrees that the field needs a dramatic finding to constrain the rampant speculation. “I come up with a dozen ideas a day, and I usually discard” — he reflects for a moment — “the whole dozen”…Unlike some origin-of-life theorists, Cairns-Smith cheerfully admits the failings of his pet hypothesis: no one has been able to coax clay into something resembling evolution in a laboratory; nor has anyone found anything resembling a clay-based organism in nature. Yet he argues that no theory requiring organic compounds to organize and replicate without assistance is likely to fare any better... There is one other way out of this frustrating theoretical impasse. If neither the atmosphere nor vents provide a likely locale for the synthesis of complex organic compounds, maybe they were imported from somewhere else: outer space Joan Uro of the University of Houston raised this possibility as early as the 1960s... (Horgan, 1991, p 125-126).
...Manfred Schidlowski, of the Otto Hahn Institute in Mainz, West Germany, made the case that the emergence of life on Earth some four billion years ago, scarcely 500 million years after the Solar System formed, can best be explained “if the ancient Earth had been inoculated by extraterrestrial protobionts”. This does not require the guiding hand of intelligence, but suggests that prebiotic molecules arise naturally in space and infect all suitable planets with life... --Vortexengineer (talk) 12:57, 6 May 2012 (UTC)
(New Sci, July 23, 1987)
Richard Dawkins in “The Blind Watchmaker” discusses Cairns-Smith’s clay theory of Abiogenesis: “...This is science fiction, and it probably sounds far-fetched. That doesn’t matter. Of more immediate moment is that Cairns-Smith’s own theory, and indeed all other theories of the origin of Life, may sound far-fetched to you and hard to believe. Do you find both Cairns-Smith’s clay theory, and the more orthodox organic primeval-soup theory, wildly improbable? Does it sound to you as though it would take a miracle to make randomly jostling atoms join together into a self-replicating molecule? Well, at times it does for me too. But let’s look more deeply into this matter of miracles and improbability. By doing so, I shall demonstrate a point which is paradoxical but all the more interesting for that. That is that we should, as scientists, be even a little worried if the origin of Life did not seem miraculous to our own human consciousness...”
I’m very sorry, Mr. Dawkins, but the most charitable assessment which can be allowed of all this is that it would sound suspiciously like an attempt to “make a virtue out of necessity.” It’s been held by those who characterise themselves as the so-called modern Skeptics that “extraordinary claims must be backed by extraordinary evidence.” Well, rightly so, and I can just imagine these Skeptics falling about laughing at Cairns-Smith’s and Dawkins’ thesis. There is not one iota of evidence to support these very extraordinary claims. The Origin of Life is still a profound mystery [And the capitalisation here is intentional]. This is far more the case now, with our increased knowledge of Life’s complexity, than in Darwin’s time, when in his ignorance he could be forgiven to some extent for trivializing it. — comment added by (talk • contribs) 02:59, 6 May 2012 Vortexengineer (talk) 09:01, 6 May 2012 (UTC)
The result of the move request was: Moved to Junkyard tornado Nathan Johnson (talk) 16:37, 27 May 2013 (UTC)
Hoyle's fallacy → Hoyle's argument – I apologize for bringing this up again, but I believe that the title "Hoyle's fallacy" is non-neutral since not everyone agrees that Hoyle's argument was fallacious. Here is my evidence:
For these reasons, it seems to me that some people accept Hoyle's line of reasoning, and so we should choose a more neutral title for this article. For what its worth, I also object to the statement "Who cares what biochemists think" made by User:Michael C Price on this talk page - biochemistry is actually quite relevant to the study of abiogenesis. Cerebellum (talk) 19:57, 13 May 2013 (UTC)
The'Spirit of Evolution'Reconsidered F Visser - integralworld.net "... steps. It has even been honored with the expression "Hoyle's Fallacy" (Wikipedia): Hoyle's fallacy, sometimes called the junkyard tornado, is a term for Fred Hoyle's flawed statistical analysis applied to evolutionary origins."
What was that about citogenesis? Though actually another of the 5 hits shows with small "f" it comes from Richard Dawkins:
F Hoyle - territorioscuola.com ... 5 Some of Hoyle's thoughts in this area have been referred to as "Hoyle's fallacy" by detractors. ... Mainstream evolutionary biology rejects Hoyle's interpretation of statistics, and supporters of modern evolutionary theory, such as Richard Dawkins, refer to this as "Hoyle's fallacy". ...
Obviously anyone who questions evolution should be pilloried, ridiculed and driven from academic employment, but it isn't Wikipedia's job to do that; we aren't here as Richard Dawkin's representatives. "Hoyle's argument" gets 30 results in Google Scholar so per the WP:Five Pillars, support. In ictu oculi (talk) 02:46, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
I propose that the section "analysis" be removed or rewritten, for three reasons:
1) It is unsourced.
2) It is off topic. Hoyle's Boeing 747 argument was about "the chance of life arising on earth" (source - Fred Hoyle's Universe, p. 296). The "analysis" section discusses the chances of the myoglobin protein developing from amino acids, which is a different topic; certainly a myoglobin protein is not life. Hoyle did discuss myoglobin, but his 747 argument has little to do with myoglobin. The whole discussion seems almost spurious since an isolated myoglobin protein, outside of a living organism, would serve little purpose.
3) It contains a questionable statement. The section says that, "Biological mechanisms provide for extension of initially short peptides"; In the context of abiogenesis, which is what this article is about, I am not sure that this has been observed. Our article says that, "The spontaneous formation of complex polymers from abiotically generated monomers under the conditions posited by the "soup" theory is not at all a straightforward process....The Miller experiment, for example, produces many substances that would undergo cross-reactions with the amino acids or terminate the peptide chain." Wächtershäuser's experiment "produced a relatively small yield of dipeptides (0.4% to 12.4%) and a smaller yield of tripeptides (0.10%) but the authors also noted that: 'under these same conditions dipeptides hydrolysed rapidly.'" It is true that some people think polyphosphates could fuel polymerization, but even this is problematic since calcium reacts with phosphate to form calcium phosphate, which is insoluble.
I will remove this section after seven days if no one objects. --Cerebellum (talk) 15:59, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
Done --Cerebellum (talk) 21:48, 21 May 2013 (UTC)
I tagged this article as having undue weight, because there is no mention of specific sources that support Hoyle's statement and their reasons for doing so. Proud Novice (talk) 19:35, 29 September 2013 (UTC)
Dave's argument here is ludicrous. My post is an obvious, purely-logical, self-contained response requiring no external citation. One may as well claim that restating an aggregate set of probabilities as its internal individual probabilities requires citation, or that elaborating on 2+2=4 as implying 4+4=8 requires citation. It is an obvious display of the same egregious bias that the page in general flagged, and which I attempted to address. Given my experience in returning to Wikipedia is one of absurd levels of absence of basic integrity as Dave has displayed, I leave the issue to as Wikipedia sees fit. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Empiric (talk • contribs) 12:42, 20 November 2013 (UTC)
No, Dave is not correct. There is nothing "research" about stating that the probability of a compound event implies probabilities of the events forming that end result. State the directly factually false as you like, it remains directly factually false. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Empiric (talk • contribs) 13:12, 20 November 2013 (UTC)
Okay, my involvement here is going to be brief, as it appears to be the case that either we are speaking a different language, or I'm chasing semantic red-herrings. My posting is not complex in its point, and I suspect it is made in some parallel form in -every single- objection to evolution ever written. Citation would therefore be trivial, though it will be difficult to discern an ideal citation, as it's literally everywhere. It is basically this conversation, which should be seen as absolutely commonplace (rather than "Fringe") in the debate: "I don't believe a complex system such as the eye can come into existence from a mutation." "Well, the reason that it can, is that we can have multiple mutations over time which construct the complex form of the eye, each step of which confers some adaptive advantage and is therefore selected for." Fair enough, and validly plausible. The presumed misunderstanding of the person making the argument against evolution here is that the transition need be made in one "leap", and this is duly corrected by the mainline counterargument. However, and as was the content of my original addition, ultimately those individual steps have their own probabilities, which ideally would be quantified. In many cases, we are not at the point in genetics to specify these probabilities, though this is exactly what the generation of cladistic trees is based upon. This is how Computational Genetics selects the "best fit" descendant given sets of sequenced genomes. The lineages are often probabilistic, not certain, at least at this point in our analysis. Given that, all transitions have a given probability associated with them--and my sole point was that it is insufficient to simply presume sufficiently low improbability of the individual cumulative mutations because you've specified these as distinct from the "compound" (how is this term not clear?) set of genetic modifications over time leading to the biological feature under contention. The probability, or improbability, of those do not go away due to not referencing them. This is, per Dave's objection, -not- to say that it isn't conceivable that a complex structure could form in a single large-scale, one-generation modification, but that will again have an attendant probability or improbability to it. However one addresses the change, it must be either addressed in terms of the probability of the single "large" step or the multiple "small" steps. "Changing the subject" to the other form of possible emergence does not exempt one from this. The original text of the Tornado argument suggested one, in fact, could ignore the probability or improbability merely by referencing an alternate conceptualization of how many steps were involved. This is not the case, and the argument won't be addressed until those probabilities are quantified, something that cladistics will move us toward being able to do directly. Then the broad, intuition-based argument here will move to hard numbers of known quantified probability for particular transitions. At that point, likely, some will say "easily plausible" and some "too improbable" (in terms of the calculated cladistic tree probability outliers)... and the debate will carry on, though more usefully with hard numbers for evaluation of the question. Incidentally, please point out where, in your view, cladistics is equivalent to "astrology". Empiric (talk) 03:33, 21 November 2013 (UTC)
Regarding this second sentence:
It was used originally by Fred Hoyle's statistical analysis applied to evolutionary origins, but similar observations predate Hoyle and have been found all the way back to Darwin's time.[1][4]
The article linked to does not mention (much less provide any examples of) similar observations that date "all the way back to Darwin's time". I have no doubt that similar statements going back to Darwin's time could be found, but the citation do not provide any such examples (though the next citation does provide something similar from Cicero but which, since it was written in 45 B.C.E, addresses Epicureanism rather than Darwinism).
I'm posting this here because I do not know how to flag this on the page with "CITATIONS NEEDED" and so on. Hopefully someone can provide the citations; if not, I think the second half of the sentence should be deleted.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.159.231.221 (talk) 15:29, 8 July 2014 (UTC)
Hasn't any citable authority pointed out that there is something amiss in the energy levels? That it, macroscopic pieces in a junkyard have to overcome a substantial energy level in order to join together. While atoms and molecules do join together quite easily - some times even with a net production of energy. A screw does not fasten pieces together except by energy directed by a screwdriver, while oxygen and hydrogen join to make water in an exothermic reaction. That makes the analogy not apt, quite aside from the probability calculations. Surely this obvious problem has been pointed out. TomS TDotO (talk) 19:31, 30 September 2015 (UTC)
In the anti-evolution movie "The Atheist Delusion" an "atheist" uses the argument that "it is like an explosion creating a 747". It is odd that he used the 747 argument and the movie talks a lot about Richard Dawkins. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ChWiZ3iXWwM&feature=youtu.be&t=6m29s — Preceding unsigned comment added by Legowolf3d (talk • contribs) 08:25, 20 November 2017 (UTC)
Clearly anyone reading this can see it is not balanced. And should be tagged. Where is the counter to the evolutionary argument. Yet the Lead is dedicated to its refutation. I promise you an pro-evolutionist wrote this. Even saying the argument is loved by creationist. Then do the creationist get to answer that? NO. The lead violates NPOV with a one-sided counter yet no mention of people like Meyers who wrote books supporting the Tornado argument. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 169.0.4.24 (talk) 11:49, 1 April 2019 (UTC)
criticisms can be criticisms while also being weak & wrongYour reasoning is bad. The goal is to find the best-fitting wording, not a wording that barely meets the requirements.
I wouldn't over-elevate Dawkins hereYour reasoning is non-existent. Did you even read those books? BTW, the source given does not even mention Dawkins. --Hob Gadling (talk) 05:08, 2 May 2023 (UTC)
I would suggest reading Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Words to watch.I did, long ago. I checked whether it contains "reject", and it does not. (Sadly, neither does it contain "critic". I suggest that it should only be used sparsely; people tend to call everything between "oh yeah?" and total annihilation of the opponent's reasoning "criticism", and that makes it bland and meaningless.) So, I cannot see the relevance of that link here. Neither can I see how the word "reject" is polemic. I suspect that it was an innocent bystander of a blanket revert. --Hob Gadling (talk) 08:16, 2 May 2023 (UTC)
NPOV is a high-level, mandatory policyI know that. I have been here about as long as you. But unlike you, I have been focusing on fringe articles, many of them on evolution, and I do not need you to explain to me how to handle them. Your general platitudes are annoying and make you sound snooty.
There is no false balance hereUntrue. This article, like others of the sort, consists of text written by editors following the WP:FRINGE guideline as well as ones who smuggle their own POV in, making it a colorful but bad-style chimera riddled with inaccuracies:
applied statistical analysis to the origin of lifeThis depicts the JT as a legitimate part of science, but actually it is just a rookie mistake. No, Hoyle did not apply it to the origin of life, he applied it to an ignorant layman's misconception of the origin of life, where all currently existing enzymes spring into life at once. In Hoyle's fantasy, abiogenesis does the job of evolution as well as its own. This is actually explained further down, but this sentence pretends it did not happen.
This argument is rejected by the vast majority of biologistsThis depicts the JT as a legitimate minority opinion, but actually it is only used outside biology by biology's incompetent enemies. Is there even one biologist who accepts it? If yes, that needs to be sourced.
they'd likely recoil and reject the article if the article claims in Wikivoice that it's been "exposed" as a fallacy.If creationists do not recoil from Wikipedia articles like this one, there is something seriously wrong with the articles.
a specific and common misrepresentation of evolutionary theorywas replaced by
a term used by evolutionary scientists for the statistical analysis
The reason why it is a fallacy has been explained at lengthwas replaced by
It has been labeled a fallacy
As Ian Musgrave explainswas replaced by
According to Ian Musgrave
I see there's a disagreement here about the use of the phrases "false assumptions", "contemporary biologists" and "considered part of".
From my understanding an assumption is taking a fact for granted without evidence, this speaks for itself. Contemporary biologists do indeed reject the idea, again I don't see any issue with this. The phrasing, "mainstay", is a little oblique, and bringing further politics into the article by describing creationism and intelligent design as pseudoscience seems unnecessary. AtFirstLight (talk) 20:58, 4 May 2023 (UTC)
From my understanding an assumption is taking a fact for granted without evidenceWrong. There are assumptions like "the friction is negligible" which make computations easier and may be justified or not depending on the situation, and there are assumptions that are clearly false, like Hoyle's assumptions about how evolutionary theory is supposed to work.
Contemporary biologists do indeed reject the idea, again I don't see any issue with this.It is like "Bulgarian biologists reject the idea". That sentence suggests that outside Bulgaria, the idea is accepted. The "contemporary" wording has the same problem: it suggests that biologists were once okay with it, which is clearly false. When Hoyle came up with his idiotic computation, biologists rejected it and have rejected it ever since.
bringing further politics into the article by describing creationism and intelligent design as pseudoscienceBullshit. Both are clearly pseudoscience. Deciding what is pseudoscience is a scientific matter, not a political one.
considered part of creationismis stupid. Creationists do actually use this exact bullshit reasoning. That is a fact. The sentence says that it is just an opinion that they use it. Would you please stop edit-warring those idiotic changes into the article? --Hob Gadling (talk) 07:43, 5 May 2023 (UTC)
reach out for arbitrationis not required for reverting WP:PROFRINGE edits. You can try it yourself if you insist on making the article worse, but there is not much chance. --Hob Gadling (talk) 05:31, 6 May 2023 (UTC)
considered part of creationismis stupid. Since you are refusing to discuss those two items, I restored the correct version. You call that edit-warring, I call it following WP:BRD: Discussion is over, science wins, creationism loses, as usual. Maybe you should reconsider your stance of not discussing? But then you would have to face the fact that you have no leg to stand on, so I can see why you would avoid it. If you request arbitration, you will face the same problem, so that will not help you but only cause more effort on all sides.
There are assumptions like "the friction is negligible" which make computations easier and may be justified or not depending on the situation, and there are assumptions that are clearly false, like Hoyle's assumptions about how evolutionary theory is supposed to work.As the article explains, Hoyle assumes that biologists imagine that complex structures arise in a single step but
no biologist imagines that complex structures arise in a single step. The body of the article explains that his assumptions on what biologists say are false. The lede summarizes the article, and therefore the word "false" is well-justified.
Creationists do actually use this exact bullshit reasoning. That is a fact. The sentence says that it is just an opinion that they use it.The Musgrave source links pages where creationists use that logic. Your wording "considered part of" claims that it is in doubt whether creationists use it.
I've got no interest in arguing. Either you have no answer, or you have one but refuse to share it. In both cases, you lose. -Hob Gadling (talk) 06:53, 6 May 2023 (UTC)
Response to third opinion request (Dispute regarding a few semantics. Kind of childish, however it's the internet. Would appreciate feedback.): |
Declined as more than two editors appear to be involved in this dispute. Please try WP:RfC instead. voorts (talk/contributions) 21:54, 7 May 2023 (UTC) |
this article is written as if we know abiogenesis is a fact, and that Hoyle was a crackpot for being in favor of panspermia. We do not know that. Evolution is a wonderful theory that explains a lot of what we see on earth, but it DOES NOT EXPLAIN THE ORIGIN OF LIFE.
I really take issue with this sentence: "The theory of evolution has been studied and tested extensively by numerous researchers and scientists and is the most scientifically accurate explanation for the origins of complex life."
by definition, all life is complex. Evolution does not explain at all how life came to be, it only describes how life IS.
the very title of this article, 'Hoyle's Fallacy', suggests that he made some sort of mistake in suggesting that abiogenesis is impossibly unlikely; 'fallacy' suggests an erroneous conclusion. We in fact do not know the origin of life, and therefore, this cannot be a fallacy, because nobody has shown the end path of his reasoning to be incorrect. In fact, outside of internet wikis, this term doesn't seem to even exist in an official capacity. This article sucks, the title sucks, and it's full of crappy / nonexistent sources, and as someone said above, it only seems to be a fallacy because certain people disagree with the conclusion, and believe that their own impossible-to-test hypothesis is more correct. Binglederry (talk) 02:28, 29 July 2023 (UTC)
do not know thatbut that is not relevant. Neither is your reasoning in favor of panspermia. What reliable sources say is relevant. If you have better ones that the ones currently used, bring them. If there unsourced sentences outside of the lead, call them. --Hob Gadling (talk) 06:52, 29 July 2023 (UTC)
Borel's Law is actually the universal probability bound, which does not apply to evolution.
Bad wording. It does not apply anywhere because it is false. It is just a piece of nonsense Dembski has invented, and it basically claims that epsilon = 0 for all epsilon which are close to 0. --Hob Gadling (talk) 06:51, 5 August 2023 (UTC)