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... 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?
From what I understand of Hoyle is that while is dissent from mainstream theory is, in many respects, rare, if not inimitable, there are definite reasons why he believed in his theorems.
I think Hoyle and his protege, Wickramasinghe, did a lot of good work. I have quoted them in past discussions concerning their caution to the Darwinian theory of evolution. But at the same time, both of them are indirect panspermists, which, lets be honest, is just about as fanciful as Hoyle deemed Darwinian macroevolution is.
As far as cosmology is concerned, there is scant reason to assume that his Steady State theory is true. Although, during his time and operating with now antiquated technology, one can't discount his reasons for his belief in a static universe. For however many problems people associate with the Big Bang, (
which, as a side note, it was Hoyle that actually coined the phrase "Big Bang") it still has more observational backbone.
"God is like the sun. You can't look at it. But without it you can't look at anything else." -G.K. Chesterton