Talk:Tom Van Flandern

The subject of this article, Tom Van Flandern, has edited Wikipedia as Tomvf (talk · contribs). (This message should only be placed on talk pages.)

Article revision

I am proposing to completely re-do the Tom Van Flandern wiki article, using some of the existing language, but trying to focus more on the items that he believed in and what made him notable.

Thomas C Van Flandern (June 26, 1940[1] – January 9, 2009) was an American astronomer, specializing in celestial mechanics, who was known as an outspoken proponent of unorthodox views on various topics. He graduated from Xavier University in 1962 and then attended Yale University on a scholarship sponsored by the U.S. Naval Observatory (USNO). In 1969, he received a PhD in Astronomy from Yale. Van Flandern worked at the USNO until 1982, having become the Chief of the Celestial Mechanics Branch of the Nautical Almanac Office. Afterwards he worked as a consultant at the Army Research Laboratory in Adelphi, MD, working on improving the accuracy of the Global Positioning System (GPS), organized eclipse viewing tours, and promoted his views through his own company, Meta Research. He died in Sequim, Washington after a brief battle with cancer.

Van Flandern advocated inquiry into astronomy theories which he felt were consistent with the principles of science but were not otherwise supported because they conflicted with mainstream theories. He espoused 10 principles for assessing ideas and dubbed theories in compliance as “Deep Reality Physics". He published papers asserting his advocacy of LeSage gravity and that "the existence of faster-than-light interactions is compatible with causality if special relativity (SR) is replaced with Lorentz's interpretation (LR) of relativity." He believed that the speed of gravity was many times that of light. He later extended the idea of Faster-Than-Light propagation to Electrodynamic and Quantum Field Interactions in a paper coauthored with Jean-Pierre Vigier. Van Flandern was also known for his contention that certain anomalies seen on Mars are not of natural origin. He authored a book, Dark Matter, Missing Planets and New Comets: Paradoxes Resolved, Origins Illuminated,[2] in which he challenged prevailing notions regarding dark matter, the big bang, and solar system formation, and advocated the theory (first proposed by Heinrich Wilhelm Matthäus Olbers in 1802) that the asteroid belt consists of the remains of an exploded planet. He issued newsletters, papers, and maintained a website devoted to his ideas, which have not found acceptance within the scientific community.

In 2009, asteroid 52266 was named in honor of Van Flandern, with the following citation given in Minor Planets Circulars, which regularly publishes names given to asteroids: "(52266) Van Flandern = 1986 AD Tom Van Flandern (1940-2009) predicted and comprehensively analyzed lunar occultations at the U.S. Naval Observatory in the 1970s. In 1979 he published pioneering papers on the dynamics of binary minor planets. He helped improve GPS accuracies and established Meta Research to support alternative cosmological ideas."

Please post comments or your affirmation that the article should be changed. Akuvar (talk) 20:35, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

In an effort to generate some more attention to it, I mentioned your proposal on the fringe theories notice board, here: Wikipedia:Fringe_theories/Noticeboard#Tom_Van_Flandern. Regards, ClovisPt (talk) 21:58, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

I would like to see some references in the article. I'd be tempted to AfD this article as it stands. Simonm223 (talk) 22:23, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, this format doesn't lend itself to doing references like on the main article page. You'll notice however that many of the items still have their reference tags because they currently appear in the main article already. The items that aren't tagged and are new to the article are pulled from the subject's website and resume (posted on the website) and can easily be found there. If there is something that stands out as peculiar, highlight it for me and I'll provide the source. Obviously, if this replaced the article, I would use the reference tools there. **I just read this post by myself and it gives the feel of me trying to avoid citing references, so I'm going to work on that in the next 48 hours and reference all the new quotes and info** Akuvar (talk) 06:11, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

New references for extra material. I am not inserting footnote marks, it is easy enough to see where these references would be inserted.

(1) Sequim Gazette obituary (2) biography and resume of Tom Van Flandern from Meta Research website (3) "Physics has its Principals" http://metaresearch.org/cosmology/PhysicsHasItsPrinciples.asp (4) "The speed of gravity - What the experiments say" Tom Van Flandern, Physics Letters A, Volume 250, Issues 1-3, 21 December 1998, Pages 1-11 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0375-9601(98)00650-1 (5) "Experimental Repeal of the Speed Limit for Gravitational, Electrodynamic, and Quantum Field Interactions" Tom Van Flandern and Jean-Pierre Vigier, Foundatins of Physics, Vol 32, No. 7, July 2002 http://dx.doi.org/10.1023/A:1016530625645 (6) Tom Van Flandern, Dark Matter, Missing Planets and New Comets: Paradoxes Resolved, Origins Illuminated, North Atlantic Books (Berkeley, CA 1993 and 1999) ISBN 978-1556432682 (7) Asteroid naming citation http://www.cfa.harvard.edu/iau/lists/NumberedMPs050001.html scroll to 52266

Akuvar (talk) 20:24, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

With overwhelming support of editors to keep this article in the recent AfD, and many suggestions by the same that the article needed improvement, I have replaced the regular article with the one above. The only comments in the last two weeks by editors was the request for references and the declaration that the article would be nominated for deletion. Note that there were no requests to change, correct, or trash the improvements. Akuvar (talk) 01:04, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

I can't think of any objections to these changes. Some of the contentions over this article in the past have been how explicitly to state that many of Tom Van Flandern's ideas never found acceptance in the wider scientific community, so I can foresee the possibility that the wording might get pushed a little bit more in that direction, but overall that's a minor issue, and the newer version seems like an improvement. Regards, ClovisPt (talk) 05:00, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for making some corrections and for your comments. I believe the problem with the previous article version was that it became a victim in people arguing about the merits of the subject's ideas. Frankly, it doesn't matter if the ideas are bunk or genius, they were what the subject wrote about and should be listed. The article is not a place for arguing about the ideas themselves. Akuvar (talk) 17:20, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Agree. Sometimes some topics or people are controversial. Excellent work. Maybe I would suggest the change on the part "He issued newsletters, papers, and maintained a website devoted to his ideas, which have not found acceptance within the scientific community." to "He issued newsletters, papers, and maintained a website devoted to his ideas, which have not found acceptance within the mainstream scientific community." or maybe "He issued newsletters, papers, and maintained a website devoted to his ideas, which have found little acceptance within the scientific community."

Your "have not found acceptance" would imply that his papers and books are never cited, which is not true. They are sometimes cited by some scientists. For instance:

http://scholar.google.es/scholar?cites=8426379223260991526&hl=es&as_sdt=2000

http://scholar.google.es/scholar?cites=16946126823527200144&hl=es&as_sdt=2000

One of the works in those lists is the next preprint http://arxiv.org/abs/physics/0612019v10, where the author writes "The generally accepted idea of the retarded propagation of gravity is not supported by any experimental data [28, 29]. Recent claims about measurements of the finite speed of gravity [30, 31] were challenged in a number of publications (see section 3.4.3 in [15])." References 28 and 29 are van Flandern papers (references 4 and 5 in this Wikipedia article). JuanR (talk) 13:42, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

Salon article

An editor has been trying to restore the old salon article link. This link had been removed because it did not meet wiki guidelines, as salon is an editorial website. Wiki guidelines allow links to mainstream news websites and salon.com is not a news site. If any editor can show that the opinion piece in question was written with the same standards as a mainstream news outlet, or appeared on any mainstream news outlets, we can reconsider. Akuvar (talk) 15:01, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

Has the acceptability of Salon been raised on Wikipedia before? I would like to see the discussion that lead to a consensus not to allow it as an external link. Regards, ClovisPt (talk) 17:15, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

There is no such consensus. Salon.com is used all over the place here as a source. Tim Shuba (talk) 17:39, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

Okay, here you go, a feature story in a science magazine. In case you also wish to impugn that source to promote the idea that Van Flandern was anything but a major relativity crank, you can start reading about the magazine here. ▻Tim Shuba (talk) 17:20, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

Akuvar, where do you get the idea Salon is just an "editorial website"? The article featured independent reporting on Van Flandern by way of asking various mainstream scientist for their opinions on him. Anyway, if you want to call into question Salon's reliability in this case, I'd invite you to start a section on Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard...if you look at archived questions about salon you'll see it's pretty consistently considered reliable, though. Hypnosifl (talk) 22:09, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

Akuvar is now scraping the bottom of the barrel by adding blatant antisemitic crackpottery. Of course letters to the editor have different status than articles and should not generally considered reliable unless they come from a reliable person and the identity can be resonably identified. Do check google for the record of that antisemite kook if you wish – meanwhile I am reverting the grossly improper addition. Tim Shuba (talk) 01:17, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

I would like you to please check your remarks, we are trying to keep things as civil as possible here. I was against the salon articles in the first place, you cannot pick and choose which articles you like from that source simply because they argue against your point. Akuvar (talk) 01:34, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

I didn't see anything explicitly anti-semitic in the letter, what are you referring to? Anyway the letter doesn't belong in the links because it's a letter to the editor (not a news article from a reporter) consisting of a bunch of unsourced assertions (with no technical details to back them up) from a guy with a fringe view. The guy totally fails to understand the difference between mainstream speculations about a theory of quantum gravity that might replace general relativity (but which is generally be expected to reduce to GR at energies far from the Planck scale, which would include its predictions about gravitational radiation in most situations), and the claims of van Flandern and other anti-relativists about what general relativity itself predicts, like van Flandern's claim that GR says gravitational effects move faster than light (for example, the letter says On the one hand, Farrell tells us through Carlip that, to account for gravity, some scientists believe Einstein's theories need to be adjusted to a "considerable degree," yet, on the other hand, he now tell us through the same Carlip that there are hardly any "adjustable parameters in general relativity." So which is it, Mr. Farrell and Dr. Carlip? It appears that your support of relativity is just as relative as the theory itself.) And of course the letter writer gives no technical grounds for his claims that GR does not give unique and correct predictions about things like the Perihelion of Mercury, he just makes random assertions like Mr. Farrell tries so hard to save Einstein from the accusation of "jiggering" the values of Mercury's perihelion. He quotes again from Steve Carlip: "As far as I can tell, Van Flandern simple doesn't understand the Einstein field equations." This is what you often find in relativity circles -- the constant whining that anti-relativists don't understand them. But believe me, Van Flandern understands Einstein all too well. And truth be told, it is common knowledge among physicists that very few people in Einstein's day understood his tensor calculus. That's because Einstein made it up to suit his theories. "Believe me" pretty much sums up this guy's whole argument! Anyway, the fact remains that random letters to the editor from a news source don't count as reliable sources, even if the news source itself is reliable. Hypnosifl (talk) 01:45, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

BTW, for discussion on why letters to the editor are not generally considered reliable sources (except in some cases where the author is a notable figure), see here Hypnosifl (talk) 01:51, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

As I said, feel free to check google with the name signed to the letter of the editor if you wish to see the apparent motivation of the writer. Sure, you are right that the letter writer is not notable in any case, which I had pointed out before Akuvar continued to edit war to insert this obvious junk. I have warned Akuvar of wp:3RR. ▻Tim Shuba (talk) 02:30, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure what motivation the two of you have to push your agenda, but you are doing it at great expense to my character. I am not in violation of the 3 revert rule, so your "warning" is simply a personal attack on my editing. I asked the two of you to be civil and refrain from personal attacks, and in response I get a comment about antisemitism? Akuvar (talk) 02:37, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

Why are you saying "the two of you"? I haven't said anything about the antisemitism issue besides commenting that the letter didn't look antisemitic to me, in response to Tim Shuba's comment "Akuvar is now scraping the bottom of the barrel by adding blatant antisemitic crackpottery". Tim may be right that the letter-writer has an antisemitic history but you couldn't have been expected to know that from reading the letter itself, so I agree this issue isn't relevant (and if Tim wanted to bring it up to discredit the author he should have been more clear that he wasn't accusing you of knowing about this or of sharing the author's views). If you think I have attacked your character in some other way, please explain. As far as personal attacks, I don't appreciate your use of the phrase "push your agenda" which makes it sound like I have some illegitimate ideological motives, I just want to make sure that wikipedia articles clearly separate mainstream from fringe views on scientific topics, and that includes the idea that when you have articles which center around fringe theories or the creators of these theories, an effort should be made to include information that shows what mainstream scientists think of these theories. Hypnosifl (talk) 03:38, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

My apologies, I was lumping the two of you together and that was unfair, and I misunderstood your comment about antisemitism. Again my apologies. The salon article was here for a long time until I read it, and the scientists quoted in the article just happened to be long standing antagonists to Van Flandern, and I do not consider it a news article. The sources it contains are just quotes from those interviewed who are defending GR and belittling Van Flandern. I felt it was more akin to an editorial than a legitimate article. You seem to feel very strongly that it belongs on the reference part of this article. because I feel strongly against the types of things written on salon, can we settle for quoting the Cosmos article that editor Tim Shuba gave a link to? Akuvar (talk) 04:01, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

Hypnosifl is entirely correct. The antisemitism refers to the motivation of the crackpot who wrote the letter to the editor inserted twice by Akuvar. This was my own observation and Hypnosifl was simply asking why I brought it up. Turns out that I am not alone in this characterization. According to his wikipedia entry, this nutjob is actually a notable antisemite. If Akuvar doesn't want antisemitism brought up here, Akuvar should perform a minimal level of fact-checking so as not to insert the uninformed rantings of antisemetic crackpots as ostensibly reliable sources. Tim Shuba (talk) 04:10, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

I guess I'd be OK with using the Cosmos article, but if you compare it with the Salon article you'll see they're almost identical: written by the same reporter, and with all (or nearly all) the same quotes about Van Flandern by Carlip and others. Maybe the reporter was doing freelance work and decided to make more money by submitting slightly reworded versions of the same article to different organizations. I don't agree, though, that focusing on mainstream scientists makes it "more akin to an editorial than a legitimate article"--reporters don't have an obligation to give the same weight to "both sides" on a scientific issue where there's a clear mainstream consensus, for example it would be legitimate for an article reporting on creationism to include a lot of discussion by mainstream biologists about what's wrong with creationist claims without giving creationists equal time to argue for their own views. See the problem of false balance. Hypnosifl (talk) 04:28, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

It would be best to incorporate the material into the article text, regardless of which source is cited. Of course Akuvar will possibly have a problem with that, preferring instead to turn the article into a hagiography, but that should be rejected. Basically, you will not find a serious, mainstream relativity researcher to give the "pro-Van Flandern" position. His writings about special relativity and what he called "Lorentzian relativity" found on metaresearch are total garbage, not even worth refuting. The top-level historical researcher quoted in the Salon/Cosmos article, Michel Janssen, more or less dismisses Van Flandern as a fraud in a few terse words. The legacy of Van Flandern as far as relativity theory is concerned is some combination of incompetence, fraud, and self-delusion. The views quoted in the Salon/Cosmos article are entirely representative of the prevailing, extreme majority of scientists who can even be bothered to comment on the theoretical babblings of Van Flandern regarding relativity theory. Tim Shuba (talk) 06:31, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

The article in question was written by John Farrell. John is engaged in a long standing war of words with Tom Bethell, another reporter. My father evidently came into Mr. Farrell's sights when Mr. Bethell wrote about my father in the American Spectator article "Rethinking Relativity". Farrell references Bethell's article in his attack piece. Personally I find it somewhat ironic that my father's work is sometimes used to promote religious theories and that he is sometimes lumped in with religious zealots given he was an ardent atheist and scientist. Farrell's article cites several credible sources but also includes sources like Chris Hillman, which is at the very least problematic. Personally I think Farrell's article is an opinion piece that has no place in an encyclopedia article. However, if it is included the Bethell article should be included as well (readers can draw their own conclusions). Thanks Mikevf (talk) 21:39, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

Tim, you comments are extremely derogatory and offensive. I agree that most relativists disagreed with Tom but he had some support among physicists. His papers were published in peer reviewed journals and Vigier, a respected professional himself, coauthoered a paper on this topic with Tom. Certainly their views were in the minority and this is expressed in the article. The personal attacks are both unscientific and unwikipedic (even for a discussion page). I knew Tom personally, and while I'm not impartial, neither is your description on him. Can we please keep this civil? Thanks. Mikevf (talk) 21:49, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

Mike, aside from that paper in Physics Letters A (which I'm not sure would be seen as an entirely respectable publication by mainstream scientists, see the discussion of various questionable papers it's published here) did he have any other papers on relativity and the speed of gravity published in peer-reviewed journals (and if so what journals)?

(i) The article cites the FOP paper also.

(ii) The scientific value of an article is not given by the objective/subjective quality of the journal. There is right papers published in PLA, just as there is completely wrong and even fraud papers published in top journals as Science or Nature. Onsager published his work in an obscure low-quality journal that almost nobody read, however, his work was so good that received a Nobel Prize for it. Of course, I am not saying that TvF papers deserve one! I was just emphasizing that papers are evaluated directly not indirectly appealing to comments posted in physforum.

(iii) Several experts in general relativity and relativistic chaos have confirmed that observations can be perfectly explained using theories where gravity does not travel to the speed of light. I have cited several references in a section which has been now cleared (by archival motives) from this talk. Still above you can read some citations and one Arxiv preprint showing that anomalous perihelion of Mercury, GPS, light bending and all that can be explained without assuming that the speed of gravity is c. JuanR (talk) 11:53, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

Did these papers include the claims about gravity going faster than light in general relativity itself, or claims that general relativity does not uniquely predict things that it's claimed to predict like the perihelion of Mercury, or that it is not used in the GPS clock corrections? These are the kinds of claims attacked in Farrell's article. I don't think Bethell's article belongs in the wikipedia article because the article itself makes clear that it is describing a fringe view, that of so-called "relativity dissidents" (and it doesn't even attempt to get responses to their arguments from proponents of the mainstream view). The article also makes silly claims like the part at the end where they say "Special Relativity will always conflict with logic", without explaining why there is anything illogical about the notion that there need not be any objective truth about the rate a clock is ticking (just like there is no objective truth about other coordinate-dependent notions like an object's velocity, or an object's x-coordinate). Anyway, you are free to believe that one frame's perspectives represent the "truth" in some metaphysical sense, special relativity just says there should be no physical experiment that will pick out a preferred frame--see the Lorentz ether theory article which points out that this is just seen as an "interpretation" of special relativity, not a distinct physical theory in itself. Hypnosifl (talk) 00:09, 12 March 2010 (UTC)