Talk:Frank J. Tipler/Archive 1

Tipler

Is the huge physics text book written (edited/published) by him?

I only remeber it as "The Tipler". --129.13.186.1 09:43, 14 Jan 2004 (UTC)

No, that's another Tipler. Simon A. 14:25, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

I dont think this warrants a special mention as the second paragraph of this article. I propose a disambig page to Tipler (name) with a list of ppl with a name of Tipler. Jayvdb 13:21, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

I think more appropriate would be to have a disambig at Tipler, since both are approximately equally notable. Staecker 18:35, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Omega Point

"... according to Ellis, Tipler's book on the Omega Point is "a masterpiece of pseudoscience ... the product of a fertile and creative imagination unhampered by the normal constraints of scientific and philosophical discipline."

This is an ad hominem attack, and doesn't even begin to address any specific fallacies in the logic. A more rigorous definition of the weaknesseses in Tipler's mathematical reasoning should be included in this wiki entry. (by 82.172.82.100 10:32, 14 October 2005)

Worsened article

I'm going to revert this article to the one of 17:03, 29 January 2008 Irishguy, which is essentially the content and format the article had since 06:00, 24 December 2007 206.148.136.18. The changes made to the article since 17:03, 29 January 2008 Irishguy have worsened the article for the following reasons:

• The edits made by 23:06, 26 March 2008 Palnot (1) introduced inaccurate phrasings whereas the original phrasings thereby changed were accurate, (2) introduced ambiguous phrasings whereas the original phrasings thereby changed were unambiguous, (3) removed standard biographical information which the article thereby changed had contained, (4) rearranged the article and thereby introduced improper placement of some elements, and (5) introduced non-Wikipedia (i.e., non-standard) tags.

For examples of No. 1 which 23:06, 26 March 2008 Palnot introduced: (a) This edit changed "The line of argument is that the evolution of intelligent species will enable scientific progress to grow exponentially, eventually enabling control over the universe even on the largest possible scale" to "He claimed that the evolution of a single intelligent species anywhere in the universe gives rise to scientific progress to grow exponentially, so that the species will eventually control the universe on the largest possible scale." The edited sentence is less grammatical and coherent, i.e., "gives rise to scientific progress to grow exponentially," whereas the original was perfectly grammatical and coherent, as what is to "grow exponentially" is the "scientific progress" previously mentioned. (b) This edit changed "Tipler went on to be hired as a postdoctoral researcher by physicists John A. Wheeler, Abraham Taub, Rainer Sachs and Dennis Sciama" to "After doing postdoctoral researcher under John Wheeler, Abraham Taub, Rainer Sachs, and Dennis Sciama." The sentence "After doing postdoctoral researcher under ..." is ungrammatical.

For examples of No. 2 which 23:06, 26 March 2008 Palnot introduced: (a) This edit changed "Tipler became Professor of Mathematical Physics in 1981 at Tulane University, where he has taught since" to "Tipler joined Tulane University in 1981 and has taught Mathematical Physics there ever since." (b) This edit changed "But, according to Tipler, because these physicists were looking for equations with a finite number of terms (i.e., derivatives no higher than second order), they abandoned this qualitatively unique quantum gravity theory since in order for it to be consistent it requires an arbitrarily higher number of terms" to "According to Tipler, Feynman et al failed to appreciate the value of their discovery because they were looking for equations with a finite number of terms (i.e., derivatives no higher than second order). They abandoned the quantum gravity theory they had discovered, because its consistency requires an arbitrarily high number of terms." The former phrasing is more coherent, as it makes the logical connection explicit with "since," as well as being stylistically formatted better.

For examples of No. 3 which 23:06, 26 March 2008 Palnot introduced: (a) This edit left in the detail that Prof. Tipler's father is a lawyer, but removed the detail that Prof. Tipler's mother is a homemaker. Both details come from the same biographical source, that of Rooney (editor), Contemporary Authors, Vol. 157 (Farmington Hills, Michigan: Thomson Gale, 1997), ISBN 0787611832, pg. 407. (b) This edit removed the attendance years of Prof. Tipler's matriculation. (c) This edit changed "Tipler went on to be hired as a postdoctoral researcher by physicists John A. Wheeler, Abraham Taub, Rainer Sachs and Dennis Sciama" to "After doing postdoctoral researcher under John Wheeler, Abraham Taub, Rainer Sachs, and Dennis Sciama." (d) This edit changed "Tipler became Professor of Mathematical Physics in 1981 at Tulane University, where he has taught since" to "Tipler joined Tulane University in 1981 and has taught Mathematical Physics there ever since."

For an example of Nos. 4 and 5 which 23:06, 26 March 2008 Palnot introduced: (4) This edit moved the paragraph "Tipler's writings on scientific peer review have been cited by William A. Dembski ..." to the very top of the "Academic work" section, which is an improper placement since one ether ought to order such a section sequentially in time or by career importance, neither of which apply to this paragraph. And (5) this edit introduced a non-Wikipedia tag, i.e., "<source?>."

Additionally, the edits which came after 23:06, 26 March 2008 Palnot did nothing to improve the above, while some introduced new problems, such as 00:29, 27 March 2008 132.181.160.42 inroducing inconsistent and less logical footnote formatting with, e.g., "2005a" and "2005b": such being inconsistent because it doesn't match the rest of the footnote formatting (which was previously formatted in a consistent manner), and less logical because such formatting is unneeded due to the intra-page hyperlinked citation numbers already pointing to the specific references.

Since no new information was added with these edits, nothing pertinent is being lost by reverting to the version 17:03, 29 January 2008 Irishguy, of which doesn't suffer from these problems.--67.232.59.169 (talk) 23:04, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Christian?

The article has the category "American Christians". Is he really a Christian? I don't think most Christians would think so from what the article says about his beliefs. Northwestgnome (talk) 13:30, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

No, he is not, he is an atheist. Some joker must have tagged that on along with the intelligent design rubbish. I'll watch this page to make sure their vandalism is reverted if they return.--EchetusXe (talk) 15:18, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Since when has he been an atheist? He's repeatedly used his (very strange) math to "prove" core principles of christianity, as well as to "prove" creationism. He has been quoted as "no longer" espousing atheism. He's been a 'theist' (obviously a christian, as he is attempting only to prove events used in christian theology) for at least ten years now. Reversion of any edits to this point are vandalism, not vice versa. 66.167.51.231 (talk) 04:28, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

He has, at best, showed that his cosmological world view is consistent with Christian theology. This is a long way from actually demonstrating that mainstream Christian theology is true in any objective sense. He has never (to my knowledge) made any statements about Jesus Christ, since his arguments are purely cosmological and could never say anything about a single human being. There's no sense in calling him Christian unless he has some sort of belief about a special role of Christ in the history of the universe. The theological principals that he tries to demonstrate are things like the omniscience and omnipotence and eternality of God (or some God-like thing), and that God will "resurrect" people some day in some kind of afterlife. These are core beliefs of many religions. Staecker (talk) 13:58, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

Yes, Tipler is indeed a self professed Christian. http://www.geocities.com/theophysics/tipler-omega-point-and-christianity.html End of debate. 68.38.147.199 (talk) 06:14, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Agreed- I wasn't aware of his more recent writings. Staecker (talk) 14:13, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Ummm...was this actually debated on here? When someone spends years working on, and actually publishing, treatises and books in which they attempt to prove tenets of Christian belief and tradition, that person is pretty obviously a Christian. Jsc1973 (talk) 18:14, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Barrow and Tipler showed an obvious bias in their chapter 'proving' that there was no other intelligent life in the galaxy we live in. The critical assumption was that if a super-advanced organism had been around and explored the Milky Way already, then it would not have been possible for it to control a faction that wanted to communicate with us (Even that such a faction must exist is not supported). It's a grave mistake to give Barrow and Tipler the credit that Brandon Carter himself deserves, though their book has a lot to commend it. I know this is not a forum, but my two cents.Julzes (talk) 02:51, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

(bump) The geocities link above is obviously broken as Yahoo have 404'd geocities and as he is clearly on record in "The Physics of Immortality..." as saying that he was an atheist and on page 309 where he has a section that is "Why I am Not a Christian" so I tagged the infobox as "citation needed" as it should be pretty easy to see where he has said that he is a "Christian". I got reverted as someone said that it was in a book "physics of christianity is 2007, physics of immortality is 1994) " but they never provided the page number. I thus added back in the citation needed with a comment that "I do not have this book can you give us the page please ? Then we can add that as a reference.". This was again reverted that the _entire_ book is Tipler arguing that Christianity is true. E.g. see page 261 (http://books.google.com/books?id=WzYwWJyrFyQC&dq=isbn:0385514247&cd=1 limited preview on the right) "We physicist have discovered the multiverse by experiment...". That is not a good enough answer (Can someone deeplink to page 261 ?. I can't access that.) Has he or has he not said that he is a "Christian" ?. The only reason I'm asking here is that someone raised the issue here that he is a former atheist. I don't think that I should have to read some book to then work out that in the end this person is an 'x'. That's clearly WP:OR. Ttiotsw (talk) 15:08, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

The Physics of Christianity is a book solely dedicated to arguing that physics justify Christianity. I gave you a link, pick any page in the book and its a long winded nonsensical argument for God's existence and Christianity's validity. See http://books.google.com/books?id=ZcoW519KLMcC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_navlinks_s#v=onepage&q=&f=false, page 268 in particular:

The biblical passages at the beginning of this chapter are Jesus' command to spread the word of the truth of Christianity to all nations: the Great Commision. This book is my contribution to spreading the Word.

Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 21:45, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

No you have not provided me a link as I can't see any text that I can read - maybe Google filters by region and only displays the text to certain countries ? That said then it would appear from this little bit of text that he has not said that he is a Christian in so many words but we must interpret this from texts. This is a WP:BLP and if he doesn't want to claim to be a "Christian" in so many words then why should we interpret what he says to put words into his mouth ?. For all we know his books could just be what passes as trolling in academia. If he really wanted to spread the word then he'd publish the paper under a suitable creative common license and make sure his contract with the distributors would make the text available to all. Ttiotsw (talk) 03:48, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

I just quoted a pretty clear statement by Tipler himself that he was a Christian. Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 03:53, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

That is just us having to interpret what he has written. We need other sources that say it much clearer than that. I've found one reference that calls him "conservative, orthodox Catholic", [1] which is in a review by Martin Gardner of the The Physics of Christianity. Gardner wonders if "the book could be a subtle, hilarious hoax. Sadly, it is not.". Gardner is a pretty good reference. Ttiotsw (talk) 10:18, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Edits by Headbomb

Hello, Headbomb. The explanation in the edit summary for why your edits were undone was "Reverted to version of 00:18, 27 November 2008, as a number of relevant citations and pertinent information was deleted in interim edits." In a recent edit by you redoing your previous edits, your response was "I removed irrelevant, biased, or duplicate things and improved flow and structure. If you feel something I removed was pertinent, then add that particular thing rather than undoing hard work".

Yet hard work in itself is no virtue, and it is presicely the efficacious hard work of others whom you have undone. You have gotten rid of a number of relevant citations, as well as quite a bit of useful information for no good reason. For some examples, you deleted links to full chapters--or in one important case, large portions of a relevant chapter--available for free of the main books referenced in the article. Back in January 5, 2008, another person (170.171.1.5) made an edit getting rid of aforesaid links to the chapters, and his edit was quickly reverted by the Wikipedia administrator Irishguy.

Bizarrely, you even added a "[citation needed]" tag within a paragraph section pertaining to a claim that was already documented by one of the informational resources that you deleted in your edits, in this case the extracts from the relevant portions of Prof. David Deutsch's book.

Obviously the foregoing free informational resources are precisely the type of material that someone who is desirous of more information regarding the subject would want to investigate, so your claim regarding "irrelevan[cy]" is untenable.

Since none of your edits add any information, or correct an actual error, I'm reverting them, as no information is thereby lost by said reversion, yet on the contrary relevant citations and useful informational resources that had been referenced in the article will be restored. Regarding whatever effort you may have expended, that cannot stand as a coherent reason for keeping your ill-conceived edits.--74.4.214.199 (talk) 05:21, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

What I removed was either irrelevant, biased, superflous, duplicate or otherwise unnecessary. I've also improved flow, style, uniformity, etc... It's called copy-editing and it was much needed for this article. If you feel I removed something that should be in the article, then re-add that particular thing manually rather than undo constructive work. Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 00:33, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

To clarify, the citation I removed pertained to this piece of text
"... pioneered the field of quantum computers by being the first person to formulate an algorithm specific to quantum computation in 1985)"
The citation needed tag is for Deutsch "confirm[ing] that Tipler's basic concept of the physics of an Omega Point is correct". This in not found in Deutsch's article, and is thus unsupported.Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 00:45, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

Hi, Headbomb. Your above response commits the fallacy of bare assertion. My above text (i.e., by 74.4.214.199 on 05:21, 29 November 2008 [UTC]) is very specific in listing just some of the serious faults with your edits, and your latest edits of 11 March 2009 restore these faults.

Regarding what you call "copy-editing," your edits display illiteracy regarding scholarly formatting of citations: e.g., you delete air dates and episode numbers for the Closer to Truth shows; you delete the publication data for the video of a lecture for the Terasem Movement; you delete the publication data of the interview by Jason Rennie; etc. Wikipedia--and any publication which aspires to scholarly standards--can definitely do without such illiterate so-called "copy-editing."

As well, you're violating your own stated position: to quote you, "If you feel I removed something that should be in the article, then re-add that particular thing manually rather than undo constructive work." Although, as demonstrated in the previous paragraph in this post and in my previous post above on 29 November 2008 (UTC), your edits were destructive and not constructive, nevertheless, that is exactly what was done. The edits which occured after your 13 December 2008 edits were not a reversion but merely corrected the faults and illiteracies you introduced, per your own stated position on this matter.

Since your latest edits of 11 March 2009 restore the problems and illiteracies which you introduced, I am reverting the article to the version of 18:52, 9 February 2009, again, per your own stated position on this matter. Do not again undo these edits which correct the serious faults you introduced.--74.4.222.208 (talk) 08:43, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

I did not introduce faults in the article, you are restoring them. There are severe problems of tone, neutrality, relevance, uniformity, citation style, etc... in the other version. Now if there are specific problems with what I did, then fix those specific problems by editing over this version rather than reverting. I removed some references because these references did not support the sentence they were associated with. If I removed a pertinent url from a {{cite book}} template, then re-add that url instead of reverting edits whose scope covered much more than the url. Use a scalpel, not a hatchet. Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 10:37, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Hi, Headbomb. Your above response commits the fallacy of bare assertion. My above posts (i.e., by 74.4.214.199 on 05:21, 29 November 2008 [UTC]; and by 74.4.222.208 on 08:43, 12 March 2009 [UTC]) are very specific in listing just some of the serious faults with your edits.

Your edits are illiterate and incompetent. As well, you're violating your own stated position: to quote you, "If you feel I removed something that should be in the article, then re-add that particular thing manually rather than undo constructive work." Although, even though your edits were destructive and not constructive, nevertheless, that is exactly what was done.

Since your latest edits of 11 March 2009 restore the problems and illiteracies which you introduced, I am reverting the article to the version of 18:52, 9 February 2009, again, per your own stated position on this matter. Do not again undo these edits which correct the serious faults you introduced.--74.4.222.208 (talk) 19:11, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Read WP:NPA and WP:CIVIL­. As for my edits, if there is something SPECIFIC that needs to be changed then change it, don't revert ~100 edits then claim "problem solved". My edits covered style, relevancy, formatting, etc... You're reverting then claim your version is superior. It's you who'se commiting the fallacy of bare assertin, not I. Now if there's a link missing, then by all means, add the link. But don't revert copy-editing. Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 03:34, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Hell I'll even help you be satisfied with this article. Why don't you build a list of SPECIFIC things you object to? Or how about asking for outside opinion? Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 03:39, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

There's nothing uncivil about pointing out the fact that your edits are illiterate and incompetent. What is uncivil is your continual reversions to your illiterate and incompetent edits: you're deleting other people's improvements to the article; of which improvements were necessary due to your illiterate and incompetent edits. You're effectively taking the position that you own the article due to your (to quote you) "hard work." Yet your edits add nothing: they merely introduce illiteracy into the article and delete relevant information (see my above posts in this section for the details on that), of which you call "copy-editing." As I stated above, Wikipedia--and any publication which aspires to scholarly standards--can definitely do without such illiterate so-called "copy-editing."

You're also being uncivil by violating your own stated position on this matter: to quote you, "If you feel I removed something that should be in the article, then re-add that particular thing manually rather than undo constructive work." Although, as demonstrated in my posts above, your edits were destructive and not constructive, nevertheless, that is exactly what was done. The edits which occured after your 13 December 2008 edits were not a reversion but merely corrected the faults and illiteracies you introduced, per your own stated position on this matter.

Since your reversions restore the problems and illiteracies which you introduced, I am reverting the article to the version of 18:52, 9 February 2009, again, per your own stated position on this matter. Do not again undo these edits which correct the serious faults you introduced.

As well, I already put in a request for a third opinion, which apparently is necessary due to your effective position of ownership over this article.--74.4.222.208 (talk) 05:54, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

How about you point out specific things instead of whatever "illiteracies" mean? If you have a link to be included, then include it. If there's a sentence I butchered, change it. But don't undo stuff in bulk; my edits covered many things. You're undoing typo fixing, stylistic improvements, reference formating, removing of weasel words, removal of references that didn't support the claims made, and many more. Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 09:40, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Request for third opinion

I have come here as a result of a request made at WP:3O over the recent edit warring on this article. I have immediately requested this page is protected because in my view the nature of the warring will make it difficult for us to consider a single, stable version of this page without it. CrispMuncher (talk) 15:58, 13 March 2009 (UTC).

I can follow the dispute above but it is difficult without cross-referencing everything against each revision to the page. I also notice that this has descended into personal attacks which are also not helping to clarify the issue. Since this dispute has been going on for quite some time can you both briefly explain your positions and the point in dispute? CrispMuncher (talk) 16:52, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for intervening. My point is the following. I've significantly copy-edited this article (removal of titles, improved citation style, made the refs more complete, fix prose, general copy-editing, remove references which didn't support the claims, and many other things) and improved its visual appearance and readability. I'm not claiming it's the best job in the world, and it's possible that some relevant material was lost. It's hard to gauge what exactly it is that this user wants, as he/she doesn't seem to care to state what is the specific things he objects to. I've tried to incorporate the improvements made by this user (compare [2] and [3] for example). So basically what I'm asking of this user is that he/she builds over this version rather than to revert it to the previous mess and clutter it was, or that he/she at least builds a list of specific things that I "broke". I think this is a reasonable request.Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 23:26, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Just a quick acknowledgement that I've seen this. Obviously we need to wait for 74.4.222.208 to respond now. CrispMuncher (talk) 19:39, 14 March 2009 (UTC).

Hi, CrispMuncher. Be aware that Headbomb is showing examples of problems which Headbomb himself introduced. Many of the "improvements" he lists in his examples are simply reversions to how the article was before Headbomb's illiterate "copy-editing." Talk about chutzpah.--74.4.222.208 (talk) 02:25, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

For the difference in versions, see the 18:52, 9 February 2009 74.4.222.208 version as opposed to the 10:18, 13 March 2009 Headbomb version.

For some of the problems which Headbomb introduced, said person removed a number of relevant citations, as well as quite a bit of useful information for no good reason. For some examples, Headbomb deleted links to full chapters--or in one important case, large portions of a relevant chapter--available for free of the main books referenced in the article. Back in January 5, 2008, another person (170.171.1.5) made an edit getting rid of aforesaid links to the chapters, and his edit was quickly reverted by the Wikipedia administrator Irishguy.

Headbomb also introduced illiteracies pertaining to scholarly citation formatting: e.g., Headbomb deleted air dates and episode numbers for the Closer to Truth shows; Headbomb deleted the publication data for the video of a lecture for the Terasem Movement; Headbomb deleted the publication data of the interview by Jason Rennie; etc.

The above are just a few examples of the many problems with Headbomb's edits.

Headbomb is also violating Headbomb's own stated position regarding this matter: to quote Headbomb, "If you feel I removed something that should be in the article, then re-add that particular thing manually rather than undo constructive work." Although, even though Headbomb's edits were destructive and not constructive, nevertheless, that is exactly what was done. The edits which occured after Headbomb's 13 December 2008 edits were not a reversion but merely corrected the problems and illiteracies Headbomb introduced, per Headbomb's own stated position on this matter.

None of Headbomb's edits add any information, or correct an actual error. They are purely destructive, and introduce illiteracies which weren't there before. This Headbomb calls "copy-editing."--74.4.222.208 (talk) 02:12, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

I'll let CrispMuncher revert that one. However, you've just violated WP:3RR. If you re-revert this article again, you'll be blocked. Proper etiquette dictates that you'll revert yourself; whether or not you'll do so will be interesting to see. As for the external link section, these are neither citations nor references, and thus do not require dates. And stop claiming their is agreement. If we agreed, we wouldn't be reverting each other.Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 03:30, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Headbomb, you're the repeated violator of Wikipedia policy. You've repeatedly made destructive and illiterate edits and reverted other people's competent edits. And in your above post at 23:26, 13 March 2009 (UTC) you have the gall to show CrispMuncher examples of problems which you yourself introduced, the "improvements" to which are simply reversions to how the article was before your illiterate so-called "copy-editing." Talk about chutzpah.

As well, you're violating your own stated position on this matter: to quote you, "If you feel I removed something that should be in the article, then re-add that particular thing manually rather than undo constructive work." Although, as demonstrated in my posts above, your edits were destructive and not constructive, nevertheless, that is exactly what was done. The edits which occured after your 13 December 2008 edits were not a reversion but merely corrected the faults and illiteracies you introduced, per your own stated position on this matter.

Regarding said agreement, those were your stated terms and you're the one who has repeatedly violated your own agreement.

Pertaining to the external links section, they aren't endnotes, but that's no excuse for deleting important information and using illiterate reference practices. Apparently you've never read a scholarly book that had a recommended reading list at the end of a chapter. Concerning the deletion of information: you deleted the "Program for 1st Annual Workshop on Geoethical Nanotechnology" page and merely left links to the videos, hence no one would even know the circumstances of how the video came about or when it was made; with Jason Rennie's interview you deleted everything except a link to an archived Archive.org page which doesn't even have a working link to the audio (talk about incompetence); and so on it goes.

And that doesn't even cover your deletion of the links to full chapters--or in one important case, large portions of a relevant chapter--available for free of the main books referenced in the article. Back in January 5, 2008, another person (170.171.1.5) made an edit getting rid of aforesaid links to the chapters, and his edit was quickly reverted by the Wikipedia administrator Irishguy.

Your edits show a cavalier disregard for the coherency, literacy and usefulness of the content. The effect of your edits is that of one who doesn't have a clue--or perhaps care--for what in the world they are doing.--74.4.222.208 (talk) 06:59, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Well, there is a lot to go through here. A lot of it seems to be arguing over inconsequential tweaking. I haven't gone over the entire article - there is too much to take in at once. So we'll start with the infobox. Infoboxes shouldn't be controversial. The fact you are having edit wars over that shows something is wrong. I have gone through it and made a few adjustments which should not be controversial but I suspect you have both lost a certain amount of perspective now. You need to consider the infobox documentation at Template:Infobox Person. The Nationality and Citizenship fields are either/or for most subjects including this one. I have trimmed Nationality since it avoids the American/United States controversy. Similar, we don't need to list his parents since they are not themselves notable. The documentation advises this and it avoids clutter. The fact that he had parents does not need stating explicitly and their names do not assist with our understanding of the subject.

The troublesome entry is of course the Known for: box. The purported physical proof... line is not good. It is POV right from the start. The infobox should be factual and simple. We can discredit the theory in the main article if need be where we have space for thorough, balanced article. The name of the book is factual and uncontroversial, so that is the obvious thing to put here.

One other thing strikes me straight away. One recurring theme if the Prof. Tipler/Tipler dispute. WP:CREDENTIAL recommends the latter style. It avoids cluttering up the article for one thing.

I'll leave it here for now since I have to be going now. I think we are going to have to go through this dispute in small steps anyway since as shown above even stating your positions civilly is impossible. Happy for any comments, but please don't blind revert without at least clearly explaining your reasoning. CrispMuncher (talk) 17:31, 17 March 2009 (UTC).

The dispute between Headbomb and me didn't concern the infobox, and at any rate I think your efforts at this time are unneeded, as my previous post utterly demolished Headbomb's bizarre claims regarding contributing anything of use to the article. Headbomb has not the slightest clue as to what in the world he is doing. He's a proverbial bull in a china shop. His edits are illiterate, incoherent, and incompetent.

Even so, I find this edit of yours mostly useful, except for one particular field, and that's the "Known for" field. Previously it stated "purported physical proof of the existence of God and the quantum gravity Theory of Everything (TOE)," which is quite helpful even for those who have never heard of Tipler and his books. Whereas listing one of his books within this field, "The Physics of Immortality," doesn't actually state what he's known for, since for one, he was known for writings before that book and his work has progressed since that time, and second, because one would already have to know that he wrote that book and what it's about before such a listing would even make sense, hence listing that book in this field is either purely redundant or unhelpful. Because of that, I'll change this field back to its previous content.

The other fields that were deleted are fine with me, except that I find it strange that those fields even exist, since that implies that they were intended to be filled out if the information in which to do so existed. (Nor was I the one who added the deleted fields; that was done by Headbomb.)--74.4.222.208 (talk) 19:34, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

You did no such thing as "utterly demolish [my] bizarre claims" and would you please stop your personal attacks (read WP:NPA again). Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 21:36, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

And Tipler is not known for either the "purported physical proof of God" nor any recognized quantum theory of gravity/TOE.Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 21:46, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

That's what Prof. Tipler is known for claiming, hence "purported." In his 2005 Reports on Progress in Physics article, Tipler claims to have presented the quantum gravity Theory of Everything (TOE). And in his writings since that time, that's what he continues to maintain. It's not our job to say whether he's correct or not, or as you are doing, become indignant over his claims and attempt to rewrite history.--74.4.222.208 (talk) 09:25, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

(unindent) Since we're going through things line-by-line, I've restored the copy-edited version of things. It'll be easier to work things through this way. All the non-controversial edits are kept (whatever those may be), so it saves us the tediousness of debating typo fixing etc... and the IP user can then list specific things he objects to. Specific as in "this sentence reads X, but it should read Y instead". Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 21:43, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

CrispMuncher, Headbomb is again doing his "own thing," so to speak: i.e., destoying the article in a myriad of ways. His edits are so destructive and inept that I'll let you take a look at them. But Headbomb's edit history is such a catastrophe that Headbomb ought to recuse himself from ever touching this article again. His incompetency is so pure that it's astounding.--74.4.222.208 (talk) 01:29, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Alright at this point you're just being disruptive. I've requested semiprotection/full protection until you become willing to engage in productive discussion.Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 07:43, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Your recent edits have all the same problems I pointed out above. You've repeatedly made destructive and illiterate edits and reverted other people's competent edits. And in your above post at 23:26, 13 March 2009 (UTC) you have the gall to show CrispMuncher examples of problems which you yourself introduced, the "improvements" to which are simply reversions to how the article was before your illiterate so-called "copy-editing." Talk about chutzpah.

As well, you're violating your own stated position on this matter: to quote you, "If you feel I removed something that should be in the article, then re-add that particular thing manually rather than undo constructive work." Although, as demonstrated in my posts above, your edits were destructive and not constructive, nevertheless, that is exactly what was done. The edits which occured after your 13 December 2008 edits were not a reversion but merely corrected the faults and illiteracies you introduced, per your own stated position on this matter.

Regarding said agreement, those were your stated terms and you're the one who has repeatedly violated your own agreement.

Pertaining to the external links section, they aren't endnotes, but that's no excuse for deleting important information and using illiterate reference practices. Apparently you've never read a scholarly book that had a recommended reading list at the end of a chapter. Concerning the deletion of information: you deleted the "Program for 1st Annual Workshop on Geoethical Nanotechnology" page and merely left links to the videos, hence no one would even know the circumstances of how the video came about or when it was made; with Jason Rennie's interview you deleted everything except a link to an archived Archive.org page which doesn't even have a working link to the audio (talk about incompetence); and so on it goes.

And that doesn't even cover your deletion of the links to full chapters--or in one important case, large portions of a relevant chapter--available for free of the main books referenced in the article. Back in January 5, 2008, another person (170.171.1.5) made an edit getting rid of aforesaid links to the chapters, and his edit was quickly reverted by the Wikipedia administrator Irishguy.

Your edits show a cavalier disregard for the coherency, literacy and usefulness of the content. The effect of your edits is that of one who doesn't have a clue--or perhaps care--for what in the world they are doing--74.4.222.208 (talk) 09:13, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Alright I've updated the archive links and placed the videos in context and gave the audio file. These are the only specific things you mentioned. And for the last time, read WP:NPA or you will most probably get blocked.Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 09:49, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

It's good to see you admit that your edits are illiterate and incompetent. But you are still restoring your destructive edits, while making false claims regarding them.

You deleted the links to full chapters--or in one important case, large portions of a relevant chapter--available for free of the main books referenced in the article. Back in January 5, 2008, another person (170.171.1.5) made an edit getting rid of aforesaid links to the chapters, and his edit was quickly reverted by the Wikipedia administrator Irishguy.

Your other edits still involve illiterate reference practices.

Regarding your false claim that "Tipler is not known for either the 'purported physical proof of God' nor any recognized quantum theory of gravity/TOE": that's what Prof. Tipler is known for claiming, hence "purported." In his 2005 Reports on Progress in Physics article, Tipler claims to have presented the quantum gravity Theory of Everything (TOE). And in his writings since that time, that's what he continues to maintain. It's not our job to say whether he's correct or not, or as you are doing, become indignant over his claims and attempt to rewrite history.

You obviously have no shame.--74.4.222.208 (talk) 10:01, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Between I, who is willing to work with you, and you, who can't refrain from unleashing a torrent of insults, it is clear that between the two of us, it is you who possesses no shame. Now if you can list SPECIFIC THINGS as in "This sentence reads X, I believe it should read Y instead", then we can work. I remain unphased by petty insults however.Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 10:07, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

You're the one who admitted that your edits were incompetent and flawed by correcting merely some of their mistakes. But such corrections to your illiteracies are totally unneeded if you would stop repeatedly introducing them.

And your edits still have all the other problems that I listed in my previous post (and more that went unlisted).

You don't have the slightest clue as to what in the world you're doing.--74.4.222.208 (talk) 10:19, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Lead/Life

Alright, let's cover the lead and life section. Anything in there that you find objectionable? Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 21:56, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

It seems a moot point now. I was willing to give the IP editor the benefit of the doubt at first even though he did not seem able to form a coherent argument. This is why I suggested consdering a section at a time. The recent activity seems to indicate that he was merely trolling and not interested in a resolution. He's blocked now so you are free to edit the article unimpeded.

Note to the IP editor for when your block expires: if you want to alter this article you must provide clear details of what you consider wrong with this article and why: attacking Headbomb is not an argument and in itself is in breach of Wikipedia's guidelines. If you blindly edit war after your block expires I will join Headbomb in reverting you. Additionally now you have been blocked once admins are usually far quicker to block again and for longer periods. You might want to consider that when your block expires. CrispMuncher (talk) 17:21, 18 March 2009 (UTC).