“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? So small as to be negligible, even if a tornado were to blow through enough junkyards to fill the whole Universe.”

Arguing that living organisms could not have arisen by chance alone.
The Intelligent Universe (1983), p. 19

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "A junkyard contains all the bits and pieces of a Boeing 747, dismembered and in disarray. A whirlwind happens to blow t…" by Fred Hoyle?

Fred Hoyle19

British astronomer 1915–2001

Related quotes

“Evolutionism is to think that a hurricane blowing through a junkyard could somehow assemble a fully equipped and flight-ready 747.”

Ben Carson (1951) 17th and current United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development; American neurosurgeon

Source: Take The Risk (2008), p. 128

“The chance that higher life forms might have emerged in this way is comparable with the chance that a tornado sweeping through a junk-yard might assemble a Boeing 747 from the materials therein.”

Fred Hoyle (1915–2001) British astronomer

Hoyle on evolution, Nature, Vol. 294, No. 5837 (November 12, 1981), p. 105

“So, a talking parrot, three hundred people flying through the sky in a big tin can called a 747, a human being growing inside another person, and men walking on the moon don't contradict logic?”

Ray Comfort (1949) New Zealand-born Christian minister and evangelist

You Can Lead an Atheist to Evidence, But You Can't Make Him Think (2009)

“The world is ready to give up its secrets if we only know how to knock, how to give it the necessary blow. The strength and force of the blow come through concentration.”

Swami Vivekananda (1863–1902) Indian Hindu monk and phylosopher

Pearls of Wisdom

“I felt a terrible sadness open inside me, a void through which the winds from the end of the universe were blowing.”

Alastair Reynolds book House of Suns

Source: House of Suns (2008), Chapter 19 (p. 307)

“The wind of change is blowing through this continent”

Harold Macmillan (1894–1986) British politician

"Mr Macmillan's appeal to South Africans", The Times, 4 February 1960, p. 15.
Speech to the South African Parliament, 3 February 1960.
1960s
Context: The most striking of all the impressions I have formed since I left London a month ago is of the strength of this African national consciousness. In different places it may take different forms but it is happening everywhere. The wind of change is blowing through this continent. Whether we like it or not, this growth of national consciousness is a political fact. We must all accept it as a fact.