Richard L. Thompson Biography

American mathematician and religious figureFor other people named Richard Thompson, see Richard Thompson (disambiguation).

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Richard Leslie Thompson, also known as Sadaputa Dasa (IAST: Sadāpūta Dāsa; February 4, 1947 – September 18, 2008), was an American mathematician, author and Gaudiya Vaishnava religious figure. Historian Meera Nanda described him as a driving intellectual force of 'Vedic creationism' as co-author (with Michael Cremo) of Forbidden Archeology: The Hidden History of the Human Race (1993), a work that has attracted significant criticism from the scientific community. Thompson also published several books and articles on the relationship between religion and science, Hindu cosmology and astronomy. He was a member of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (popularly known as the Hare Krishna movement or ISKCON) and a founding member of the Bhaktivedanta Ins*ute, the branch of ISKCON dedicated to examining the relationship of modern scientific theories to the Vaishnava worldview. In the 'science and religion' community he was known for his articulation of ISKCON's view of science. Danish historian of religion Mikael Rothstein described Thompson as "the single dominating writer on science" in ISKCON whom ISKCON has chosen to "cover the field of science more or less on his own". C. Mackenzie Brown, professor of religion at Trinity University, San Antonio, Texas, described him as "the leading figure" in ISKCON's critique of modern science.

Biography

Richard L. Thompson was born in Binghamton, New York, in 1947. In 1974 he received a Ph.D. in mathematics from Cornell University. In the same year he formally became a member of ISKCON, receiving spiritual initiation from ISKCON's founder, A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, and adopting the spiritual name Sadaputa Dasa. Thompson carried out research in the fields of statistical mechanics, probability theory, and mathematical biology. He published scholarly articles in refereed journals and series, such as Journal of the International *ociation for Mathematical Geology, Remote Sensing of Environment, Biosystems, and International Review of Cytology. In 1976 he became a founding member of the Bhaktivedanta Ins*ute, the scientific branch of ISKCON dedicated to examining the relationship of modern scientific theories to Swami Prabhupada’s Vaishnava worldview. Soon after joining ISKCON, Thompson became "ISKCON's dominating figure in science" and "established himself as the leading figure in the movement's critique of modern science in the light of Vedic spiritual (or 'higher-dimensional') science." He formulated ISKCON's view on the concept of "higher-dimensional science" and wrote extensively on scientific subjects from this perspective. In support of ISKCON's theology, he made research and *ysis of the relation between the Vaishnava theological worldview and modern science.

Thompson died of a heart attack on September 18, 2008.

Forbidden Archeology

Main article: Forbidden Archeology

The coauthor Michael Cremo writes in the Preface to the first edition that the work's central claim, that anomalous paleontological evidence dating in many hundreds of thousands of years, with examples such as the Laetoli footprints (generally considered by paleontologists to have been made by bipedal hominins) potentially stretching possibilities toward the low millions, suggests that modern human beings "perhaps ... coexisted with more apelike creatures." It also contends that the scientific establishment, influenced by confirmation bias, has suppressed fossil evidence of extreme human antiquity. These arguments has been criticized by mainstream scholars from a variety of disciplines.

Selected bibliography

Books

Thompson, Richard L. (1974). Equilibrium States of Thin Energy Shells. Providence, RI: American Mathematical Society. ISBN:978-0-8218-1850-3.
Thompson, Richard L. (1981). Mechanistic and Nonmechanistic Science: An Investigation Into the Nature of Consciousness and Form. Lynbrook, NY: Bala Books. ISBN:978-0-89647-014-9.
Goel, Narendra S.; Thompson, Richard L. (1988). Computer Simulations of Self-Organizations in Biological Systems. London: Croom Helm. ISBN:978-0-02-947922-3.
Thompson, Richard L. (1989). Vedic Cosmography and Astronomy. Los Angeles: Bhaktivedanta Book Trust. ISBN:978-0892132690.
Cremo, Michael A.; Thompson, Richard L. (1993). Forbidden Archeology: The Hidden History of the Human Race. San Diego: Bhaktivedanta Ins*ute. ISBN:978-0-9635309-8-1.
Thompson, Richard L. (1995). Alien Iden*ies: Ancient Insights into Modern UFO Phenomena, 2nd Edition. Alachua, FL: Govardhan Hill Publishing. ISBN:978-0-9635309-4-3.
Thompson, Richard L. (2003). Maya: The World as Virtual Reality. Alachua, FL: Govardhan Hill Publishing. ISBN:978-0-9635309-0-5.
Thompson, Richard L. (2006). The Cosmology of the Bhagavata Purana: Mysteries of the Sacred Universe. Delhi: Motilal Banarsid*. ISBN:978-8120819191.
Thompson, Richard L. (2007). God and Science: Divine Causation and the Laws of Nature. Delhi: Motilal Banarsid*. ISBN:978-81-208-3254-1.

Papers and other professional works

Thompson, Richard (1980). "A Measure of Shared Information in Cl*es of Patterns". Pattern Recognition. 12 (6): 369–379. Bibcode:1980PatRe..12..369T. doi:10.1016/0031-3203(80)90013-8.
Thompson, Richard (1984). "A Stochastic Model of Sedimentation". Journal of the International *ociation for Mathematical Geology. 16 (8): 753–778. doi:10.1007/bf01036703. S2CID:122598216.
Thompson, Richard L.; Narendra S. Goel (1985). "A Simulation of T4 Bacteriophage *embly and Operation". Biosystems. 18 (1): 23–45. Bibcode:1985BiSys..18...23T. doi:10.1016/0303-2647(85)90058-9. PMID:3840704.
Thompson, Richard L.; Narendra S. Goel (1988). "Movable Finite Automata (MFA) Models for Biological Systems I: Bacteriophage *embly and Operation". Journal of Theoretical Biology. 131 (3): 351–385. Bibcode:1988JThBi.131..351T. doi:10.1016/s0022-5193(88)80230-3. PMID:3193776.
Goel, Narendra S.; Richard Thompson (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, Edited by Christopher Langton: 317–340. ISBN:978-0-201-09346-9.
Thompson, Richard; Narendra S. Goel (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: 33–48. ISBN:978-0-7190-2670-6.
Thompson, Richard L.; Narendra S. Goel (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 Reviews. 16 (3): 157–207. doi:10.1080/02757259809532351.

Notes

Wodak, J.; Oldroyd, D. (1996). "'Vedic Creationism': A Further Twist to the Evolution Debate". Social Studies of Science. 26 (1): 192–213. doi:10.1177/030631296026001012. ISSN:0306-3127. S2CID:170662013.
Wodak, J. and Oldroyd, D. (1996) ‘Vedic creationism’: a further twist to the evolution debate. Social Studies of Science, 26: 192–213 (quoted p*ages, p. 196, 206-207)
Morrow, Tom. Review of Forbidden Archeology's Impact by Michael A Cremo. RNCSE 19 (3): 14–17

References

Brown, C. Mackenzie (2009), "Hindu Responses to Darwinism: *imilation and Rejection in a Colonial and Post-Colonial Context", Science & Education, 19 (6–8): 705–738, doi:10.1007/s11191-009-9197-3, S2CID:195229923
Henry, Granville C. (1984), "Review: Mechanistic and Nonmechanistic Science: An Investigation Into the Nature of Consciousness and Form by Richard L. Thompson", Zygon: Journal of Religion & Science, 19 (3): 377–380, doi:10.1111/j.1467-9744.1984.tb00936.x
Rothstein, Mikael (1996), Belief Transformations: Some Aspects of the Relation Between Science and Religion in Transcendental Meditation (TM) and the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON), Aarhus: Aarhus University Press, ISBN:978-87-7288-421-9
Wodak, Jo; Oldroyd, David (1996), "Review: 'Vedic Creationism': A Further Twist to the Evolution Debate", Social Studies of Science, 26 (1): 192–213, doi:10.1177/030631296026001012, JSTOR:285746, S2CID:170662013
Raman, Varadaraja V. (April 25, 2005), "Hinduism and Physics Merge in 'God & Science'", Science & Theology News, vol.:6, p.:42

External links

Biography from a website *ociated with the Bhaktivedanta Ins*ute
Richard L.Thompson Archives

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