Fred Hoyle
<p>Jan 27, 2010 2:09 PM
 
from this 
http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Volatile+Stardust:+the+fertile+mind+of+astronomer+Fred+Hoyle-a0142298690
 
Unlike steady-state theory, Hoyle's ideas about <a onmouseover="t_i(15)" onmouseout="t_o(15)" class="tip" href="http://encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com/nucleosynthesis">nucleosynthesis</a> nucleosynthesis or nucleogenesis, in astronomy, production of all the chemical elements from the simplest element, hydrogen, by thermonuclear reactions within stars, supernovas, and in the big bang at the beginning of the universe (see nucleus; , the formation of elements through nuclear reactions in stars, received striking empirical vindication. (When Joni Mitchell penned her classic song "Woodstock," she drew on the ideas pioneered by Hoyle: "We are <a onmouseover="t_i(16)" onmouseout="t_o(16)" class="tip" href="http://www.thefreedictionary.com/stardust">stardust</a>star·dust  
In particular, in the early 1950s he predicted that carbon has a certain resonance, or energy level, one not indicated by the nuclear physics of the time. Hoyle's reasoning was unconventional: Such a resonance was needed if the stars were to produce enough carbon for human and other carbon-based life to exist. A skeptical Caltech physicist named William Fowler ran experiments seeking the specified resonance and promptly found it.
This result would feed, over time, into arguments about a supposed "fine tuning" of the universe. Some physicists use "anthropic" reasoning to narrow unknown quantities in cosmic parameters; if they were outside some range, we would not be here ("we" being carbon-based life, and "here" being the observable universe). Few, however, make the further leap that the parameters were deliberately set for the benefit of life. Hoyle, by his later decades, was in the latter camp. <b>"A common sense interpretation of the facts," he wrote, "suggests that a super-intellect has monkeyed</b>
<b>with physics, as well as with chemistry and biology, and that there are no blind forces worth speaking</b> about in nature."
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