Richard L. Thompson

Richard L. Thompson
Richard L. Thompson
Born	1947 Binghamton, New York
Died
Nationality	American
Education
Alma mater
Occupation	Author

Richard Leslie Thompson also known as Sadaputa Dasa (February 4, 1947 - September 18, 2008) was an American author, mathematician and a Gaudiya Vaishnava religious figure. Thompson was a member of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (popularly known as the Hare Krishna movement or ISKCON) and a disciple of ISKCON's founder A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada. Thompson was a founding member of the Bhaktivedanta Institute, an ISKCON academic think tank. He has been described as "ISKCON's dominating figure in science" and as "the single dominating writer on science" in ISKCON. In case with Thompson "ISKCON has chosen to let a single person cover the field of science more or less on his own". Thompson introduced the concept of 'higher dimensional science' and wrote extensively on scientific subjects from this perspective. He's been described as a "leading figure in ISKCON's work in this respect".

Thompson published several books and articles, including Forbidden Archeology: The Hidden History of the Human Race (1993), co-authored with Michael Cremo. In particular, this work has been widely-criticised for pseudoanthropological claims that have been described as "Vedic Creationism". He also wrote extensively on religion and science with reference to the Vaisnava tradition, as well as on ancient cosmology, astronomy, and worldview.

Biography

Richard L. Thompson was born in Binghamton, New York, in 1947. In 1974, Thompson received his Ph.D. in mathematics at Cornell University. He specialized in probability theory and statistical mechanics. Thompson was a founding member of the Bhaktivedanta Institute, an ISKCON academic think tank. He died on September 18, 2008.

Mechanistic and Nonmechanistic Science

The book Mechanistic and Nonmechanistic Science: An Investigation Into the Nature of Consciousness and Form (1981) was described by Granville C. Henry in Zygon: Journal of Religion and Science review as "a clear apology for the religious philosophy of the Hare Krishna movement from the perspective of a scientist and mathematician". Henry called the book "a very valuable addition to the current literature in science and religion".

Thompson tried to show in the book "that the common mechanistic and reductionistic paradigms of science contain serious instabilities and internal contradictions" and therefore cannot explain what we know about human consciousness and the external world. Henry notes that according to Thompson, it is "through the nonmechanistic though verifiable process of bhakti-yoga we can make sense of ourselves and our place in the world in strict compatibility with modern science". According to Henry, one of the attractive qualities of this book is that "Thompson writes as a scientist about science with a clarity, accuracy, and objectivity that should engender respect both from scientists and from those whose religious persuasions are other than his own". Henry is of the opinion that in Mechanistic and Nonmechanistic Science Thompson presented "the philosophical instabilities of contemporary scientific theory in a clear scientific language without a recourse to ad hoc religious explanations". Henry also writes that Thompson shows throughout the book love and respect for good science. Because of his love for science, "he is pained by its contradictions and seeks its intelligibility in a larger context".

Forbidden Archeology

In 1993 Thompson and Michael Cremo co-wrote Forbidden Archeology. The book attracted vehement criticism as a pseudoanthropological proposing antievolutionism from a a Hindu perspective. The work sought to debunk the existing palaeoanthropological consensus that anatomically modern hominids emerged of the order of a hundred thousand years ago, through a nine hundred page catalog of historical findings over the last two centuries which would appear to support a Vedic creationist hypothesis that human beings in a modern form could have existed on Earth far deeper into antiquity. The book argues that the scientific establishment either ignores or suppresses anomalous evidence too far outside its contemporary paradigm. Meera Nanda in the Indian magazine Frontline called Cremo and Thompson "the intellectual force driving Vedic creationism".

In 1996 Thompson and Cremo appeared on the NBC special The Mysterious Origins of Man, similarly criticized by the scientific community.

Bibliography

Books

• Thompson, Richard L. (1981). Mechanistic and Nonmechanistic Science. Lynbrook, NY: Bala Books. ISBN 0896470148.
• Thompson, Richard L. (1989). Vedic Cosmography and Astronomy. Los Angeles: Bhaktivedanta Book Trust. ISBN 00892132698. {{cite book}}: Check |isbn= value: length (help)
• Goel, Narendra S.; Thompson, Richard L. (1988). Computer Simulations of Self-Organizations in Biological Systems. London: Croom Helm. ISBN 0029479223.
• Thompson, Richard L. (1995). Alien Identities: Ancient insights into modern UFO phenomena. Alachua, FL: Govardhan Hill Publishing. ISBN 0963530941.
• Thompson, Richard L.; Amici, Giulia (1995). Le civiltà degli alieni: Rivelazioni dall'antichità sul fenomeno degli UFO. Milano: Jackson Libri, Gruppo Futura. ISBN 08825607695. {{cite book}}: Check |isbn= value: length (help)
• Cremo, Michael A.; Thompson, Richard L. (1998). Forbidden Archeology: Hidden History of the Human Race. Los Angeles: Bhaktivedanta Book Publishing. ISBN 0892132949.
• Thompson, Richard L.; Rogowski, Krzysztof; Strieber, Whitley (1998). Tożsamość obcych : starożytna wiedza o współczesnych zjawiskach UFO. Wroclaw: Wydaw. Arche. ISBN 09788390957012. {{cite book}}: Check |isbn= value: length (help)
• Thompson, Richard L. (2000). Mysteries of the Sacred Universe: The cosmology of the Bhagavata Purana. Alachua, FL: Govardhan Hill Publishing. ISBN 0963530933.
• Thompson, Richard L. (2003). Maya: The world as a virtual reality. Alachua, FL: Govardhan Hill Publishing. ISBN 0963530909.}
• Thompson, Richard L. (2004). Vedic Cosmology and Astronomy 1st Indian Edition. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass. ISBN 8120819217.
• Thompson, Richard L. (2004). God & Science. Alachua, FL: Govardhan Hill Publishing. ISBN 0963530992.
• Thompson, Richard L. (2007, c1981). An Investigation into the nature of consciousness and form. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass. ISBN 8120819209. {{cite book}}: Check date values in: |year= (help)

Selected papers and other professional works

• Thompson, R. L. (1970). "Open Mappings and the Fundamental Theorem of Algebra". Mathematical Magazine. 43 (1): 39–40.
• Thompson, Richard L. (1974). Equilibrium States of Thin Energy Shells. Providence, RI: American Mathematical Society. ISBN 0821818503.
• Thompson, Richard (1980). "A Measure of Shared Information in Classes of Patterns". Pattern Recognition. 12: 369–379.
• Goel, N. S. (1983). "Estimation of Agronomic Variables using Spectral Signatures". Proceedings 2nd International Colloquium on Spectral Signatures of Objects in Remote Sensing, Les Colloquies de l'INRA. 23: 45–53. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
• Goel, Narendra S. (1984). "Inversion of Vegetation Canopy Reflectance Models for Estimating Agronomic Variables. IV. Total Inversion of the SAIL Model". Remote Sensing of Environment. 15: 237–253. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
• Thompson, Richard (1984). "A Stochastic Model of Sedimentation". Journal of Mathematical Geology. 16: 753–778.
• Thompson, Richard L. (1985). "A Simulation of T4 Bacteriophage Assembly and Operation". Biosystems. 18: 23–45. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
• Goel, Narendra S. (1986). "Organization of Biological Systems: Some Principles and Models". International Review of Cytology. 103: 1–88. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
• Thompson, Richard L. (1988). "Movable Finite Automata (MFA) Models for Biological Systems I: Bacteriophage Assembly and Operation". Journal of Theoretical Biology. 131: 351–385. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
• Goel, Narendra S. (1989). "Movable Finite Automata (MFA): A New Tool for Computer Modeling of Living Systems". Artificial Life: the proceedings of an Interdisciplinary Workshop on the Synthesis and Simulation of Living Systems, held September, 1987, in Los Alamos, New Mexico: 317–340. ISBN 0201093464. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
• Thompson, Richard (1990). "Biological Automata Models and Evolution II: The evolution of macromolecular machinery". Organizational Constraints on the Dynamics of Evolution, edited by John Maynard Smith and G. Vida: 409–413. ISBN 0719026709. {{cite journal}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |journal= (help); Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
• Thompson, Richard L. (1998). "Two Models for Rapidly Calculation Bi-direction Reflectance of Complex Vegetation Scenes: Photon Spread (PS) Model and Statistical Photon Spread (SPS) Model". Remote Sensing Review. 16: 157–207. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)

See also

• Hindu views on evolution
• Quantum mysticism

Further reading

• Henry, Granville C. (September 1984). "Mechanistic and Nonmechanistic Science by Richard L. Thompson". Zygon: Journal of Religion and Science. 19 (3): 377–380. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9744.1984.tb00936.x.

External links

• Biography from an official website of the Bhaktivedanta Institute
• Lectures