Talk:Fred Alan Wolf

Reliable sources

Gnostic, you suggested the Courtney Brown website as evidence for a claim in the article. Unfortunately this website seems to be registered to Courtney Brown, who seems to himself be involved in promoting the alleged phenomenon of "remote viewing". In general, partisan websites are not reliable sources of information about highly controversial topics.

Please see WP:RS, WP:V, WP:NOR, WP:CITE, WP:VAIN for some useful guidelines. ---CH 23:28, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

Tone

BTW, isn't referring to "Fred" a little too informal for an encyclopedia article? Someone should fix this, and generally tone the thing down a bit.---CH 09:20, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

FWIW, he seems to favour "Fred" himself, at least judging by a group photo of members of the Fundamental Fysiks [sic] Group in New Scientist magazine of 25 June 2011 with the credit line "Fred Alan Wolf", which illustrates a review - of a new book centred on the Group - that also refers to him by that name. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.201.110.171 (talk) 20:50, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

Direct Quotes Improperly Attributed

The following appears on Wolf's website:

Dr. Wolf's fascination with the world of physics began one afternoon as a child at a local matinee, when the newsreel revealed the awesome power and might of the world's first atomic explosion. This fascination continued, leading Wolf to study mathematics and physics. In 1963, he received his Ph.D. in theoretical physics from UCLA and began researching the field of high atmospheric particle behavior following a nuclear explosion.

These statements are attributed in the article, but not identified as direct quotes, and as such the article should be tweaked to quote the website (e.g. 'According to Wolf's website, his "fascination with the world . . ." '). Direct quotes must be enclosed by quotes (" "), otherwise the reader would assume the author of this article was the author of those statements, which isn't true. I'll try a quick fix, but hopefully a more experienced Wikipedian will step in and clean up. -24.91.74.91 03:40, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

Questionable Source(s)

Does anyone else notice that the only "source" cited is F. A. W.'s own website? Is there any quality scientific publication that can verify any of his "research"? I would bet that most of this "research" would never appear any any peer-reviewed article; I am just wondering whether or not we can get some more factual sources for this Wiki document. If not, it feels to me like reading his website -- most of the topics there are on par scientifically with astrology, numerology, etc. 67.53.73.42 02:19, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

I fear that you maybe right. For example one of his discussions appears to equate the well known quantum effect of the observer changing the direction, position or momentum of an quantum particle simply by observing it with the affect of observing things at macro levels. Clearly we have no effect on baseball by observing it. His assertion is that we can change the future outcomes of events by wishing for them to happen is surely unscientific, and does not seem to be based upon scientific research or analysis of data. In my opinion his assertions seem unlikely to be based upon anything but supposition. There are plentiful hits to his books and appearances if a web-search is done, but I see no comments from any of his peers. Plcsys 21:03, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

He's rather obviously a crackpot, and I think I speak for most of the high energy physics community when I say that we would rather not be considered his peers. Unfortunately, I don't know of any reliable source that say this. I might consider proposing the article for deletion due to it not having any reliable sources. --Philosophus ^T 23:47, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Ok, I've added a POV tag here. The article is quite biased in its presentation as it leaves out the fact that his ideas have been rejected by the majority of the mainstream scientific community, that his status as a theoretical physicist is highly controversial, and so on. We need to find reliable, independent sources for this. Of course, this only really matters if the article isn't deleted, which is by no means certain, since it currently has verifiability, reliable source, notability, and neutral point of view problems. --Philosophus ^T 23:51, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Philosophus, he is certainly well-known. The Wolf, Bohm, Capra, etc, writings are often mentioned by theorists as being examples of "mysticism" or "pseudoscience." However Bohm has many published papers and technical books. The irony of this situation is that most results in string theory and string phenomenology are also non-falsifiable. I feel the article should have a controversy section, to make it clear that some academics are highly critical of the quantum mysticism, free will via collapse of the wave function, and so on.172.129.138.132 22:50, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

The sections I've deleted clearly seem to me to be a violation of policies related to biographical articles. They seem to be an attempt to discredit the subject by association, and to judge his ideas rather than simply report on the topics he writes and lectures about. As far as I know, he did not originate the basic theories he has written about (the possibility of parallel universes, the effects on quantum phenomena from the presence of an observer, etc). If you find those ideas controversial, or if you can CITE the controversies about them, this information belongs in articles about those topics. 1. "he is currently not actively involved in peer-reviewed research" - he may not be currently involved in a lot of things, but it's not encyclopedic to list them, nor is there any attempt to cite this negative; 2. "is sometimes criticized for blending verifiable scientific evidence for quantum phenomena with unfalsifiable metaphysical connections, often without differentiating between the two" - an uncited claim to criticism by unknown parties of unknown reliability themselves does not belong here - for now, I've just added a fact tag here; 3. "His appearances in the controversial films What the Bleep Do We Know? and The Secret link him with the modern wave of 'science adherents' like Amit Goswami and Deepak Chopra who use fringe, widely discredited interpretations of quantum mechanics to present their personal New Age philosophies as science" - this is an obvious attempt to smear by association: "link him with"?; 4. "This is an example of Quantum mysticism." - did Wolf use this term? Can you cite it? And so what?

This kind of language would be like adding to every Bible scholar's article the fact that many people in the science community consider the Bible to be non-factual, or including in every environmentalists' article the controversy about global warming. Such data belongs in the articles concerning these subjects. If Fred Alan Wolf HIMSELF is the center of a controversy, cite it. The fact that he is a published author on these subjects, one of the best known and respected in the interest groups related to those subjects, and his books are published by reputable presses, and at least one has won an award, can all be documented. Don't clutter the article up with your personal opinions of his beliefs. Rosencomet 15:44, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

I've deleted the POV tag. This article is composed of facts that are not in dispute, all accompanied by citations, except for the "fact" that "He is sometimes criticized for blending verifiable scientific evidence for quantum phenomena with unfalsifiable metaphysical connections, often without differentiating between the two", which now has a "citation needed" tag. If you have a problem about the theories he discusses, put them on the pages of those theories. You can't require a section discussing their controversy in the absence of a discussion about the theories themselves, all of which doesn't belong here any more than a discussion of the truth of the Bible belongs on every article about a Bible scholar or Judao-Christian clergyman (much less a section on the CONTROVERSY concerning the truth of the Bible). Please find a reliable citation for this "criticism" he "sometimes" gets, one that indicates it comes from a reliable source, or this should also be deleted. There is no dispute that he has the degree he has, wrote the books he wrote, appeared in the shows/films he appeared in, etc, which is all the article now reports.

On the other hand, the first sentence in the bio: "Wolf's interest in physics began as a child when he viewed a newsreel depicting the world's first atomic explosion." may well be considered non-encyclopedic. If someone decides to delete it, I would have no objection. Rosencomet 16:15, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

I am bothered that the only authority cited on the issue of Wolf's credibility is the popular-culture magazine Newsweek. Did the editorialist canvass quantum physicists, or simply make an assumption based on his opinion of Wolf? We don't know. Captqrunch (talk) 17:48, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

What makes you question his credibility? Is there some published controversy about it? How many authorities does a physicist need to have, and where from? Is any other physicist's article dependent on a "canvassing of quantum physicists"? More importantly, can you point to a specific fact in the article that you question, and state why? (You know, other than a possible personal opinion about quantum physicists who write books about such topics?) It seems to me that if a popular physicist with this many books and a career of lecturing and appearances in films, documentaries and interviews has an article simply stating that this is so, it would be you that would have to come up with a reason to question his credibility rather than the article's editors proving it. In fact, even if some people DID question his credibility, what of it? Is their skepticism credible? And wouldn't the controversy simply be another item to add to the article, IF you could support it, and IF it was about HIM, not the field he chooses to write about? Rosencomet (talk) 21:08, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

He certainly has credibility. Most people (usually non-scientists) who know of his work, hve unfortunately only seen the minimal amount of work that he has been attributed to speculations; and been attacked for psuedoscience. It's quite annoying when reading some of these conversations here. One thing is for certain; it is very hard to find scintific sources of his work, other than his website. But this can be tackled very easily; Dr Wolf is not very hard to get a hold of, as i have had a few conversations with him. My knowledge of his work in his past, involved credible scientific research, such as working on his PhD thesis on mathematical complexities of plasmas --- (what NEEDS to be remembered, is that he works independantly, give or take a few scientfic books or papers) - with that said however, he does have a high credibility within the scientific community. He now works on space exploration and intersteller space travel. But his main delight is consciousness, and how consciousness is seen from a quantum mechanical viewpoint. And to end this pointless debate, why are we even posing problems on his credibility? He recieved his PhD in theoretical physics, which is more than some of the majors and minors out there who are publishing work on physics today. I can assure you, he has always elected for keeping to the science, and that should be enough. —14:32, 28 October 2008 Electrino

If he does credible scientific research, shouldn't that be published somewhere other than his website? Isn't "peer review" the primary measure of scientific credibility?129.2.167.219 (talk) 09:48, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Just now I added to the {{infobox person}} Occupation: Physicist, Science writer, in that order because it is alphabetical. I don't know whether there is any policy and I might have listed "Science writer" first, after reading this discussion, but I won't now change it. --P64 (talk) 00:17, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Documentary participation

He also was one of the presenters in the documentary film The Secret. --Ashley Rovira (talk) 05:30, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Jewish?

Is he? 86.176.16.72 (talk) 23:29, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

{{infobox person}} can specify ethnicity if we consider it notable (Why?) and reliable ("Ethnicity should be supported with a citation from a reliable source" --infobox documentation). In my opinion there are about six other fields that would be more valuable to complete. --P64 (talk) 00:17, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Publication dates

I have revised the publication dates for Taking the Quantum Leap from 1989 and 1982 to 1981 —as the 1982 award date implies; Barnes & Noble confirms.

The Books list should be ordered chronologically for first editions. In order to fit that norm, I have moved Quantum Leap up to the top after revising its date, and I have also moved up the 1984 book —without confirming or correcting any first edition publication date except the 1981.

The Biography section should also be chronological, at least roughly, and it should say that Quantum Leap was his first book, if so. I have made no change there --P64 (talk) 00:04, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

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