Talk:A. E. Wilder-Smith

NPOV tag.

Duncharris, the NPOV tag incorporates text that says, "See discussion on the talk page". But there's no discussion. Can you elaborate, please? I don't see anything particularly non-neutral here. I agree that Wilder-Smith's views are controversial. But the article seems quite careful to neither agree nor disagree with those views. In what way is the article biased, in your view?

Perhaps I should have simply removed the NPOV tag, but I'm curious to find out what the problem is. ACW 20:39, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

The NPOV tag stays into the problems are sorted out.

Basically there are two issues, the first of NPOV and the second that the article is a load of drivel.

The article does not try to explain what Wilder-Smith's alternative to the ToE might be, though from a cursory glance around the web, it's just the usual claptrap. The article then fails to mention explicitly that such nonsense it is rejected as pseudoscience.

Instead, the article goes straight into the first appeal to authority based on credentials. It then goes straight into a second appeal to authority based on a quote from a "professor" at a "small private academy in Germany".

Now, if he was a significant player in the anti-evolution movement he would have created controversy. I have not heard of him, (and I lurk at talk.origins and so I've heard of most of them).

We have not established his importance, and it is possible that he is just another Internet kook. So what are his affiliations (AiG? ICR? Discovery Institute?) where is his publicity material, etc. Dunc|☺ 23:38, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

So the article is not neutral because you think he is a kook and that creation science is drivel? It sounds like you are the evolutionist-extremist here who is ultra-biased. The article is fine. Stupid putting the tag on IMHO. Oh well.

The above paragraph was inserted, not by me, a week or so after I responded to Dunc in the following paragraph. It was unattributed, and might be mistakenly read to be part of my response. It was not, and I wish the author of the previous paragraph had made that clearer. I do not think Dunc is an extremist, biased, or stupid. ACW 16:39, 8 October 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the quick response. I just wanted to make sure that the discussion page had some justification for the tag. ACW 13:44, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

Well, Wilder Smith dates back to the fifties, so he is definitely not an "Internet kook". I heard his name from creationists a few times. I actually did once read a book written by him, and it is drivel, but not as bad as the average creationist drivel. I'll try to improve the article soon. --Hob Gadling 12:01, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

I read one of his books about twenty years ago- heard him give a lecture somewhere in Houston, Texas. He was well-spoken, but seemed to me (an evolutionist) to have nothing new to say. Nevertheless, the article seems accurate to me. Whether he was as "famous" as some other creationists is hard to say; though that seems beside the point from what I understand of Wikipedia.--JohnRodgers 04:52, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

The problem is that for many evolutionist there is nothing real new, because in their opinion, everything is already said - evolution is a fact, only the details have to be discussed/discovered. That is a great mistake. By the way, Wilder Smith was not a kind of scientist whose books or lectures had the kind of "nothing new", he killed evolution just at the root - and this is surely one fact why people do not want to know him.--Sebastian Hirsch (alias Seppel) 21:21, 5 February 2006

I'm pretty sure that among this community of people of good will, we can come up with a description of this guy that (a) sticks to facts; (b) is informative; and (c) satisfies both evolution-supporters and evolution-skeptics as to neutrality. Can we give it a try? I remind evolution-supporters that merely describing someone's opinions does not mean that we agree with them; I remind evolution-skeptics that describing those opinions as out of the scientific mainstream does not mean we disagree with them. ACW 21:40, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

NPOV cleanup

Article edited as part of work on the NPOV backlog. Since the article appears non-controversial and the discussion here seems to reflect that, and since there has been no discussion in a long time suggesting further disagreement, the tag is removed. If you disagree with this, please re-tag the article with {{NPOV}} and post to Talk. -- Steve Hart 17:41, 3 August 2006 (UTC) Steve Hart 19:07, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

A little more POV discussion

I'm on the pro-evolution side, but I agree with Steve Hart's action. Having said that, I'd like to point out some things in this article that raise my hackles a little bit. This hackle-raising is not of a sufficient level to make my NPOV-finger itch; it's just slightly annoying, and I wonder if I could get the cooperation of an evolution-skeptic or even a creationist to come up with wordings that would increase our total comfort with this article.

The article itself avoids stating an opinion about Wilder-Smith, because all the opinions that it contains are safely placed in the mouths of others, either explicitly (as in the extensive quote from Professor von Stockhausen), or implicitly ("widely recognized by creationists as ..."). If any of these opinions were espoused by the article itself, that would be clear NPOV; as it stands, neutrality is preserved at least in principle.

Notice that the article gives no disapproving opinions of Wilder-Smith, nor any links to sites critical of his opinions. The closest it comes is to note that Wilder-Smith's team lost a debate on votes. I should go find some countervailing quotes; I think about a hundred words on the other side would do a great deal to relieve the vague (vague, I said!) sense of bias that I still get from this article.

(Also ... that Stockhausen is really windy. Do we need all of it?)

ACW 21:29, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

Well, as I'm sure you know, WP cite sources, she has no opinion on her own. But I agree this article needs work. If you have some ideas, why don't you give it a try? -- Steve Hart 02:13, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

If anyone wants to add a criticism section...

This may be of utility if anyone wants to add some "criticism" section or something like it. A quite disgusting citation from one of his books:

"We know of no intermediate stages between invertebrate octopus and squid types and genuine vertebrates."

Which cannot be said to be a lie, since there are no such intermediates, but is surely dishonest, or at least, being overly optimistic, a signal of hardly believable incompentence from someone with his resumé (just in case someone does not understands why, read the text in the link I gave; shortly, this specific intermediate is not predicted by evolutionary theories, but could be for creationisms, ironically). I think that we may found even creationist criticism against this sort of blatant dishonesty, more or less like AiG's site with "arguments we think creationists should not use". --Extremophile 04:28, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

POV based sentences

I moved the following paragraph to here. It claims that the tracks had been forged by creationists, but the reference for the forgery is only talking about the origin of a tooth, which was found near the footprints. I haven't read the other reference yet, but until this is sorted out and correctly formulated, it shouldn't be in the article. A possible misinterpretation is not a forgery. And just trusting and citing the researchers that might have misinterpreted the evidences is not worthy to be mentioned as a criticism about A. E. Wilder-Smith. If there is something about Wilder-Smith's own research then this is a good base for criticism in this article (e.g. about the pre-evolutionary origin from simple atoms/molecules to molecule systems, which can reproduce itself with variations).

He was criticized by scientists over his claims that dinosaur and human footprints existed at Paluxy River in Dinosaur Valley State Park. These supposed tracks were later discovered to have been forged by creationists who tried to claim humans and dinosaurs lived together.

Also the next sentence is not correct. The NCSE did not examine the work of Wilder-Smith in general, but only a review of one book. This book was primarily focused on the pre-evolution phase (biogenesis, origin of life) as also stated on the referenced site. But the scientific criticism only targets on the evolution criticism and how evolution is represented in this book, which was 17 years old at the time of the NCSE examination.

According to the National Center for Science Education, Wilder-Smith's work contains a variety of falsehoods and errors. --77.132.185.204 (talk) 13:11, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Do not remove citations. Yes, it is a book review so what? Yes, he was criticized for claims he put forth (dinosaur tracks) after visiting the site in 1965. Paper45tee (talk) 02:08, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Dubious

The article contains the statement, sourced to his CV, that he was a "NATO three-star general". However his biography (on the same site as his CV) makes no mention of military service (and how do you get to be a "three-star general" without extensive military service?). I suspect that the claim is hoax. I think this also calls into question the reliability of his CV as a source. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk 09:32, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

Not necessarily. In many armies, specialists are appointed in a military rank, even though they have no military experience or combat duty. This is mainly a matter of salary/payment and seniority. In an actual combat situation, such a specialist officer would be outranked by *any* officer around. Pbech (talk) 17:31, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

The problems with that would be:

1. Appointing specialists at a rank of general would be at least fairly unusual (and quite possibly unheard of).
2. NATO doesn't appoint generals at all, they are appointed by members' national armies and seconded to NATO.
3. The British Army (being the only NATO country that Wilder-Smith is mentioned as having worked in) does not have "three star generals" as their ranks do not use star insignia -- and refer to that rank by its official title, Lieutenant General.
4. There is in fact no mention of Wilder-Smith having served in the army at all. The closest connection is mention of a recently retired general in the British-Indian army who was an influence on Wilder-Smith as a young man.

In summation this appears to be most likely a misreading of Wilder-Smith's account of the influence of this general as him being the general, that has spread as an 'urban myth' over the internet. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk 18:09, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

From Oxford Atheist to Leading Creationist (which is the most comprehensive biography I've come across to date) makes frequent mention of this 'influential retired general' but none of any stint in the army by Wilder-Smith. On the basis of this, I'm removing the "NATO three-star general" claim, and tagging the CV as an unreliable source for making it. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk 18:22, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm not saying it's all particularly likely, but it's not quite impossible. I agree that the rank of "three-star general" is rather high: the Surgeon General of the United States Army is a Lieutenant General, and it seems unlikely that Wilder-Smith was in that kind of position, or that specialists from outside the armed forces would be appointed in that position, indeed. I don't know what would constitute a trustworthy source in this case, and I agree that the claim seems somewhat overblown (although your theory of how it appeared strikes me as somewhat unlikely). Since the Dutch article (my home wiki) claims that he was with NATO in 1970-1977, I'm going to try and find a book or an article by him from that time, to see whether any mention is made of his being in the rank of Lt Gen. If I can't come up with anything, I suppose the claim should be deleted. As you already did. Well, I suppose we can always put it back if it is substantiated. Pbech (talk) 18:30, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

I have something here: [1]. There are four books that mention his being a consultant to American NATO forces in Europe, and two mention his being a "general", one rather vaguely, the other explicitly mentions "(equivalent Lieutenant General)". I'm not sure if it's enough, but we cannot dismiss it out of hand. Pbech (talk) 18:58, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

This makes even less sense. You do not make a foreign civilian consultant a "three star general" -- particularly not for a "Consultant on drug abuse". Are you sure you weren't over-interpreting an isolated snippet? The closest I can find is "Consultant on Drug Abuse, NATO Forces, Europe & Middle East (equivalent Lieutenant General);" which does not seem to imply that he actually had military rank, only seniority equivalent to it. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk 19:21, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

The internet hits I've found are always for "NATO three-star general" (or some reordering thereof), never for "Lieutenant General" or for a specific army -- which is part of what made me suspicious. There is apparently a good biographical source: "For biographical information, see Beate Wilder-Smith, "Lebenslauf von Professor Dr.Dr.Dr. A. E. Wilder-Smith, F.R.I.C.," Factum (January 1986): 22, which appeared in a special issue of the magazine celebrating Wilder-Smith's seventieth birthday." (The Creationists p545n38) However I can't find any information on this periodical online. Hope this helps. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk 19:06, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

It is possible that this book I found with Google Books is a vanity publication (there is one of the same (rather generic) title by the International Biographical Center), which would then make it difficult to assess the credibility of the source. Anyway, the book has no preview on Google Books, but by cunningly using keywords, I can reconstruct the following (ellipses where I didn't manage ;-). This is silly...):

WILDER SMITH, Arthur Ernest, b. 22 Dec. 1915. Reading, England. Professor of Pharmacology; Consultant, m. Beate Gottwaldt, 1950. 3 sons. 1 daughter. Education: PhD, Organic Chemistry, University of Reading 1941 ; FRIC, London 1946; DSc. Geneva, Switzerland 1965; Confed Tech. University Zurich, 1964; [...] Consultant on Drug Abuse, NATO Forces, Europe & Middle East (equivalent Lieutenant General); Consultant on Drug Abuse, Switzerland 1971 Publications include: "Die Erschaffung des Lebens" [...].

I agree it doesn't state his position as a rank, only as equivalent to that rank, and it seems rather unlikely he was actually appointed in that rank. I'm definitely not going to put his "three-star general" rank back into the article based on this, don't worry. I think I'll leave it at this, and remove the claim on the Dutch Wikipedia as well. Pbech (talk) 19:39, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

Policy violations in Fred8888's edits

1. WP:COPYVIO of http://www.creationsafaris.com/wgcs_5.htm
2. Factual inaccuracy -- Wilder-Smith is not a "NATO three-star general" (see #Dubious above)
3. POV: e.g. "He was ... a gifted teacher and popular public speaker."

Hrafn^Talk_Stalk(P) 03:49, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

If Fred8888 wants to wholesale remove the citations he MUST explain them here. BBiiis08 (talk) 16:33, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

I agree. I just don't want to get dragged into an edit war, so after reverting a couple of times, I tend to template/tag + comment on talk. Thereafter either (i) somebody else comes along to revert or (ii) if no justification/response on talk I revert again after a day or so. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk(P) 16:50, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

A.E. Wilder-Smith

people listen!!! you are ripping apart a great guy, why do you care so much about this so much all you doing is hurting people