“Life cannot have had a random beginning … The trouble is that there are about two thousand enzymes, and the chance of obtaining them all in a random trial is only one part in 1040,000, an outrageously small probability that could not be faced even if the whole universe consisted of organic soup.”
Fred Hoyle and N. Chandra Wickramasinghe, Evolution from Space (London: J.M. Dent & Sons, 1981)
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Fred Hoyle19
British astronomer 1915–2001Related quotes
Starhawk (1951) American author, activist and Neopagan
The Spiral Dance: A Rebirth of the Ancient Religion of the Goddess (1979)
Context: The Trickster represents the quality of randomness and chance in the universe, without which there could be no freedom. In the Craft the Goddess is not omnipotent. The cosmos is interesting rather than perfect, and everything is not part of some greater plan, nor is all necessarily under control. Understanding this keeps us humble, able to admit that we cannot know or control or define everything. <!-- p. 231
Robert Anton Wilson (1932–2007) American author and polymath
just doesn't cut it….
DragonCon, 2000
This quote is knowingly or otherwise lifted from Bill Hicks' comedy routine, or vice versa.
Gerhard Richter (1932) German visual artist, born 1932
Quote from an interview with Sabine Schütz, 1990; as cited on collected quotes on the website of Gerhard Richter: on 'Abstract paintings' https://www.gerhard-richter.com/en/quotes/subjects-2/abstract-paintings-7 <br class="br">1990's
Nassim Nicholas Taleb book Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder
Source: Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder (2012), p. 102
Douglas Adams book Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency
Source: Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency
Paul A. Samuelson (1915–2009) American economist
New millennium, An Enjoyable Life Puzzling Over Modern Finance Theory, 2009
William Feller (1906–1970) Croatian-American mathematician
Source: An Introduction To Probability Theory And Its Applications (Third Edition), Chapter III, Fluctuations In Coin Tossing And Random Walks, p. 92.
Anatol Rapoport (1911–2007) Russian-born American mathematical psychologist
Anatol Rapoport. "Cycle distributions in random nets." The bulletin of mathematical biophysics 10.3 (1948): 145-157.
1940s