Talk:Junkyard tornado

Terminology

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 evidence Wrong. 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 pseudoscience Bullshit. Both are clearly pseudoscience. Deciding what is pseudoscience is a scientific matter, not a political one.

If you disagree with any of those, find a reliable source that supports your opinion. (You won't.)

This is not a "disagreement", it is just a WP:CIR problem you have. You have the false impression that certain pseudosciences have valid reasoning. You should check out the talk.origins archive of creationist claims . It is a collection of many stupid claims and false rumors creationists use to denigrate evolution. Hoyle's one is here. See also WP:YWAB and WP:CHARLATANS for how Wikipedia handles such things. --Hob Gadling (talk) 07:28, 5 May 2023 (UTC)

Another thing: considered part of creationism is 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)

I've got no interest in arguing with strangers on the internet, and you are being quite hostile so I'm not going to engage with you on this. Feel free to reach out for arbitration if it's terribly important to you. AtFirstLight (talk) 15:29, 5 May 2023 (UTC)

To reach out for arbitration is 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)

I'm on the cusp of requesting arbitration. Kindly requesting you stop edit warring. AtFirstLight (talk) 06:02, 6 May 2023 (UTC)

My reasoning stands: Hoyle's assumptions are clearly false, and considered part of creationism is 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.

I am waiting for your reasoning. --Hob Gadling (talk) 06:13, 6 May 2023 (UTC)

I am awaiting your reasoning too. WP:JERK AtFirstLight (talk) 06:22, 6 May 2023 (UTC)

OK, then I will repeat it, with additional explanations for those who have difficulties understanding it:

• 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.

You ignored that. Instead you wrote 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 sucks

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)

The article reflects the scientific consensus. I am sorry that you (you say "we") do not know that but 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)

The fact the we don't exactly know how life originated doesn't negate the fallacious nature of this argument. Partofthemachine (talk) 16:43, 8 August 2023 (UTC)

______

This article is obviously biased and does not reflect all of the philosophical reasoning (not just the scientific community) in the scholarly community. ~2026-24127-63 (talk) 23:32, 19 April 2026 (UTC)

"Borel's Law"

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)

It doesn't explain why it's a fallacy.

The belief that inorganic matter randomly turned into functioning DNA, protein, etc. is comparable to the belief that a tornado flew through a junk yard and randomly formed a Boeing 747. 73.80.69.172 (talk) 05:17, 28 June 2025 (UTC)

Yup, it wasn't randomly, but according to the laws of physics and chemistry. And according to the real conditions on Earth at that time. tgeorgescu (talk) 12:30, 28 June 2025 (UTC)

You can't even intentionally do this in a lab today, the belief that it happened _naturally_ whether you can consider that "random" or not is absurd. Also the fact you think you're scientific and talking about "the real conditions on Earth at the time", as if you know, it's not observable, verifiable, or repeatable. It's not science, your belief is the very "pseudoscience" you accuse your opponents of constantly. 73.199.80.59 (talk) 15:34, 5 July 2025 (UTC)

Argument from incredulity is a fallacy. And this page is not for arguing about the subject but for improving the article (see WP:NOTFORUM). Since you cannot improve the article based on your own thinking or lack thereof but only based on reliable sources (see WP:RS), what you write does not belong here. Please use the non-Wikipedia part of the internet for that. --Hob Gadling (talk) 19:17, 5 July 2025 (UTC)