What got into Hoyle?

Fred Hoyle was on track to win the Noble prize for his work on stellar evolution when he suddenly began exhibiting questionable scientific judgement. It wasn't the positions he was taking so much as his justifications for supporting them, and I'm talking, of course, about his support for steady state theory in cosmology and his anti-evolution positions in biology.I've read one biography of Hoyle, and it gave short shrift to his reasons and motivations for supporting these positions, other than to say that he was being true to his belief that one should follow the evidence wherever it leads. But whatever he was doing, it certainly couldn't be described as following the evidence. What was going on in his head? Does anyone know?I've wondered this for a long time, and Hoot's raising of the issue of Hoyle's and Wickramasinghe's ideas about abiogenesis in another thread reminded me that I still don't have a satisfactory answer. Anyone come across any good explanations?--Percy

I think [forum=-11] might be best, since it's related to the way he pursued his science.--Percy

So in other words, Hoyle felt the universe should appear the same across all eras of time? I think this is probably where other scientists began to question Hoyle's scientific judgement. As I understand it, Hoyle's proposals reconciling SS with observational evidence for an expanding universe became increasingly fanciful. Incredibly resourceful, he sought and found gaps in knowledge into which to squeeze his SS views, with the result being that while they didn't directly conflict with observation, neither did they have any direct supporting evidence. Do I have this right? And if so, do you know what his proposals were?--Percy

I just checked out the Wikipedia entry for Hoyle, and while it provides no insights into what was going on in Hoyle's mind, it does remind me of some of the details and place things in time context.The Nobel Prize for what was essentially Hoyle's work was awarded to William Alfred Fowler and Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar in 1983, so by this time Hoyle was already making other scientists look at him askance. Part of it was probably due to his persistence with the SS model in the face of increasing amounts of falsifying data beginning in the 1960's, including distribution of quasars and galaxies, and the cosmic background radiation.But persistence with a failed idea is not unusual in science. Einstein was guilty of the same thing when it came to quantum theory. There must have been something else going on that caused the Nobel committee to ignore Hoyle for work for which he was the primary contributor.I have to believe that the cause must be Hoyle's rejection of chemical evolution on earth as a possible explanation for the origin of life on earth. He advocated panspermia, but that alone wasn't sufficient to raise questions about his scientific judgement. What I think raised these doubts was the way he questioned it. This is from Wikipedia: This is pretty damning stuff, and it is why I named this thread What got into Hoyle?. I could also have named it, "What was Hoyle thinking?" Because it almost seems as if Hoyle wasn't thinking at all. Such statements could only be made out of incredible ignorance. They're embarassing.And that's not all. While his public papers only appeared in 1985 after the Nobel award, it was probably well known in scientific circles that Hoyle believed the Archaeopteryx fossils were forged, which is yet another embarassing position.So one can understand why the Nobel committee wanted no part of him. He might use his award speech to talk about such things. But what the heck was going on in the brilliant Hoyle's head to make him suddenly goofy about cosmology, abiogenesis and fossils, to list the specific topic areas, but more generally, to render him incapable of engaging in sound scientific practices of study, investigation and analysis, skills which he possessed in spades early in his career.--Percy

I was saying something a little bit different. It wasn't the ideas he pursued but the way he pursued them, i.e., with questionable scientific judgement. What happened to the mind of the man who figured out where all the elements in the universe beyond lithium came from? Did he experience some mental decline or disease? Or was he perhaps far less responsible for this accomplishment than is generally believed, as perhaps the Nobel committee suspected.--Percy

Did something get chopped off the end?--Percy

So Hoyle published poor science. Anyone have a clue why? How did he come to this?I'm reminded somewhat of something John Nash is rumored to have said. When asked how he could believe such bizarre ideas (the ones that overtook him during his periods of illness), he said it was because they came to him in the same way as his good ideas.There's a neat podcast called The Skeptics Guide to the Universe (see The NESS), and in an August, 2005, show it was mentioned that Hitler was suspected to have been afflicted with early Parkinson's, and that it contributed to the mental state behind his rigid and unswerving approach to the war, even to the point of ignoring his generals and in effect running the war himself.Mental state can be affected by many things. Were Hoyle's later scientific bloopers just the odds eventually catching up with a mediocre mind (albeit of enormous energy)? Or was his a mind of immense grasp and resourcefulness eventually brought down by some malady to which the flesh is heir?--Percy

Hoyle's ideas about steady state theory, abiogenesis and Archaeopteryx have already been described in this thread. The Wikipedia entry on Hoyle offers a pretty good summary. But realize that creationists will tend to interpret his later ideas in a positive light. This is because they'll, for instance, approve of challenging the authenticity of the Archaeopteryx fossils and ignore the shabby scientific grounds upon which Hoyle based his challenge.--Percy

See Archaeopteryx - Wikipedia. Uh, yes. Hoyle's "tornado in a junkyard" quote is repeated by YEC's all the time. And that's my question: How could someone as brilliant as Hoyle come to the point where he could make such ignorant statements? What happened? Because a 13.7 billion year age for the universe is part of BB theory.--Percy