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I think this article needs some serious attention, the way it was before I edited it, it read like it was a piece of advertisement for Wolfram's book. Also there have been some very critical reviews of this book. See this two links for more info: http://shell.cas.usf.edu/~wclark/ANKOS_reviews.html and https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups#!msg/talk.origins/_W390LdIY88/p5I-X7jxzdUJ. Also the article did not mention that Wolfram tried to sue Cook who proved the Rule 110 in his book.
{ Anonedit: It's worth noting that Cook was employed to prove Rule 110, as mentioned by a user on ycombinator who seems to have a consistent history - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5930542 }
Although I am not an expert in this field by any means, I was already familiar with many of the ideas mentioned in the book before I read it. Sepiraph ( talk) —Preceding undated comment added 04:38, 10 August 2012 (UTC)
Hello all. I've recently been making changes to the page. (For those of you who worry about all the links, I will be progressively re-adding them)
I know a lot about NKS and like it quite a bit. But I want the criticism section to be as good and fair as possible. While reorganizing it I've actually added a bunch of criticisms that were not there before. So before flaiming me keep in mind that I want critical viewpoints to be expressed as well (and as reasonbly) as possible.
One thing that troubles me about how I've done things is that the criticism section is all "Critics say X", whereas the response to criticism is written in the first person. My reason for this is because the criticism comes from many different sources, and some of it is self-contradictory. I am just worried that the assymmetry will be percieved as a sign of bias. I am not sure what the proper way to do it is; there are probably precedents elsewhere in wikipedia on how to handle this.
I would also like to have a section with extensive quotes from many different reviews. Perhaps it would be better to break this page up into several pages. For instance, a separate controversy page, and a separate page about the field of NKS rather than just the NKS book proper. -- Kovasb
Last year I saw that someone had developed a CA which was capable of adding two numbers together. (which is a von neuman computer). I wish I had taken more notice: but, I was burning up the cpu with CA and could be bothered to look at it's static structure. There were 2000+ parts and like I say it was static. And I'm all about the visuals.
This, in my eyes, lends support to his thesis
Most important thing I learned was that western science since Newton and differiential calculus, has had a bias towards equations. -- Two16 18:42 Jan 15, 2003 (UTC)
I have removed this:
The book is already heavily attacked, and to call it pseudoscience is not correct. It might be called incorrect or flawed but it doesn't fall under the usual concept of pseudoscience. Wolfram has a Phd in Physics and he has written peer reviewed articles on cellular automata. If you want to put anything like this back in the article please post solid reason here.
Why is "reputable" in quotes and italics?? The AMS Notices (I believe this journal published a critical review) is a reputable journal, not a "reputable" journal. Regardless of whether you agree with the review. And they weren't the only ones. The quotes and italics obviously are meant to imply that the only journals that would publish a negative review would be journals that aren't reputable. -- Revolver 03:53, 29 Feb 2004 (UTC)
Lumidek replaced "The second type of criticism comes from people who cannot even accept the book's basic premise", with ""The second type of criticism comes from people - for example those who understand quantum physics - who do not accept the book's basic premise," citing "arrogant formulation "cannot even accept" changed to "do not accept". Surely, Lumidek realizes that his/her phrasing is itself arrogant since it implies that people who (accurately) "understand" quantum physics cannot accept Wolfram's premise. -- Gyan 07:41, 3 Jun 2004 (UTC)-
The number of citations is not a measure of the correctness of the claims made in the paper. It isn't even a measure of how interesting the paper is. To cite 't Hooft's paper you must write a paper on a deterministic model underlying Quantum Mechanics (and also use 't Hooft ideas). Since his theory is so completely different from the theories most physicists are working on, it requires a major effort for an interested physicist to produce a paper citing his work.
As far as I know no papers have appeared proving 't Hooft's theory wrong. In fact, as 't Hooft correctly argues, there are several loopholes in Bells theorem. 't Hooft favors pre-determinism. Bell's theorem isn't applicable in a completely deterministic setting (Bell himself made that point too). What the observer decides to measure is already fixed in a deterministic model. So, one cannot say that the observer could have decided to measure something different.
Pre-determinism is a rather awkward concept, and I have to admit that I don't like it. It is however, trivial to give an existence proof of a deterministic theory underlying Quantum Mechanics. Consider a large classical computer simulating our quantum world to some reasonable degree of accuracy. Then the true laws of physics describe how the computer works and these are deterministic laws. They are local at this level (i.e. the switches of the computer interact with each other in a local way).
'T Hooft's first paper on deterministic theories has 81 citations!
I just did some copyediting on the first half of the article, specifically removing 'NKS' abbrev, and minor rewriting where needed. More needs to be done.
May I say the article was clearly written by a proponent. I think it could stand some shortening — why does wikipedia need such a long treatment of this book?
Criticism should be beefed up more, and the responses to criticism I think should be interleaved with the criticism itself.
Let me propose a criticism: why does science need a new branch to study these problems? They seem to fit quite well into cybernetics (systems theory).
--
I agree it is too long. Some of the material should be exported to other areas.
It was written by a proponent (me).
Concerning this new potential criticism, it would fall under the category "Originality and Self-Image". There are many such fields.. why couldn't it be math, why can't it be physics, why can't it be computer science, etc.
--
I also think the article is too long and doesn't seem balanced in the detail it contains. The treatment of the core ideas from the book does not need to be exhaustive - that's what the book is for, not wikipedia. The "response to criticism" section seems unnecessary for a balanced overview of the book. I suggest it be removed and really important bits can be incorporated into the criticisms section (but let the criticisms stand!). Once the article starts to read like a debate, something must be wrong...
Hello. I'm going to cut the "Response" stuff from the criticism section. WP articles on controversial subjects aren't generally structured like that; it's not WP's business to defend Stephen Wolfram, or anyone else, from his critics. 64.48.158.87 04:09, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
The introduction should be clearer. What does Wolfram want to tell us with his book, what is his message, his main idea, what does he wants to show? The article is supposed to be read not only by those who are familiar with the subject, but by everybody who is interested to see what it is all about. If I undersand it correct, he claims that the universe is digital and based on information, and scientists should not try to describe the nature through mathematical formulas and equations, as they have done so far, but through simple cellular automata (probably best described as/compared with computer programs). This goes not only for physics, but also for chemistry and biology; all forms of science who describes nature should have this single common platform to branch out from. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 193.217.193.228 ( talk • contribs) 21:37, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
Amidst the fog of stimulating but uniformative "Wolfram is a genius!" "Wolfram is a nut!" debate, it's a pleasure to see an article that states, concisely but clearly, what Wolfram is actually saying. -- Writtenonsand 18:48, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
What Wolfram means is that the universe and everything in it is digital in its nature, and can (and should) be described as programs rathers than mathematical tables and formulas? If so, it should be explained clearer in the introduction since it really is a revolutionary way of observing the reality, correct or not. 217.68.114.116 ( talk) 17:35, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
The whole thing is predicated on the assumption that if you invent and run a program that gives you some result that looks like a phenomena encountered in reality, you have discovered some computational relationship between the program and reality. This is fallacious reasoning. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.126.32.34 ( talk) 03:15, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
For those as understand these things, the links provided at this /. discussion might be of use. .. dave souza, talk 16:30, 1 January 2008 (UTC)
Image:Newsciendfsdfs.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.
Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Wikipedia:Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to insure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.
If there is other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images lacking such an explanation can be deleted one week after being tagged, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.
BetacommandBot ( talk) 22:48, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
How does Wolfram's "Principle of computational equivalence" relate to the Church-Turing Thesis? They sound similar to me, but this is not mentioned until the criticism. How do supporters consider the connection between these two principles? This ought to be talked about in the A New Kind of Science#Principle of computational equivalence section. Thanks Sligocki ( talk) 23:00, 17 January 2009 (UTC)
Wikipedia is supposed to tread lightly on promoting books. I've received a warning from a senior Wikipedian before (see my talk page) for writing about just a concept from a popular commercial (non-academic) book -- not even writing about the book itself.
I'm not saying that an article on NKS is not noteworthy. But has the issue of its commerciality been discussed? I don't see that here on the talk page. Crasshopper ( talk) 08:17, 9 June 2011 (UTC)
Surely one does not begin an article with the sentence "A New Kind of Science is a best-selling, award-winning book by Stephen Wolfram, published in 2002", give no indication anywhere in the article of by what standards the book was "best-selling" or of what awards it received, round out the lead with some rather vague comments about what exactly the book is about, and leave it at that. Surely one does not begin any article like that, let alone an article about a book that has received as mixed a reception as ANKS has. Many of the reviews seem fairly critical. (Given the lead, I was surprised to see that the article mentioned criticism of the book at all. But I see the "reception" section is mostly criticism. Shouldn't that be reflected in the lead?) I don't know too much about the book and don't have the time right now to examine things more carefully, but I hope someone will clean this article up. Leonxlin ( talk) 03:54, 12 August 2012 (UTC)
Under the Reception heading, in the Principle of Computational Equivalence section, it is stated that "The PCE has been criticized for being vague, unmathematical, and for not making directly verifiable predictions. However, Wolfram's group has described the principle as such, not a law, theorem or formula. " This statement contradicts the text. On page 720 of the book, PCE is presented as a new law of nature:"In essence, therefore, The Principle of Computational Equivalence introduces a new law of nature to the effect that no system can..."
I contend this should be noted in the article.
Epicdave ( talk) 20:22, 13 February 2013 (UTC)
Perhaps this doesn't belong here, but it is precisely Wolfram's self-aggrandizement which put me off his book for good. The same goes for Mandelbrot's "Fractal Geometry". I hadn't finished the preface (both books) before I started loathing book and author. Not that Wolfram and Mandelbrot weren't geniuses, far from it, but at least in Mandelbrot's case he carefully avoided mentioning any living mathematician except scornfully but heaped praise on the dead ones. Geniuses or not, some modesty does become you! All the best — Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.220.22.139 ( talk) 19:30, 29 July 2013 (UTC)
The schools opening at top universities for the sole reason of studying computational science more than vindicates Wolfram. The 3rd branch of science has basically been established. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.6.85.234 ( talk) 05:10, 21 August 2013 (UTC)
I happened by the page, and threw a few edits in as I worked down it... but was absolutely appalled when the page took a direct path away from "this is what the book purports to cover" to...
...basically an assassination, rather than an encyclopedic-format reference to a book. The appropriate information for the visitor to a page that makes record of a written work is not the input of the critics, or if the information is new, or if it is not in a format a scientific journal editor would prefer: the important thing is if the man is right or not. As that most definitely remains up in the air, the vast majority of the content of this page is no more than wasted space for the poor soul who attempts to slog through it. This is exactly the kind of thing that contributes to Wikipedia's bad name. You simply can't read the pages here with any level of trust. The environment encourages "I disagree" to become "This is how it is" and further, promotes "I disagree" as valid content, which it most certainly is not.
Note that I am in no way saying Wolfram is right, or wrong, for that matter. And yes, I've read the book and understand most of the ground he covered. I am simply saying that the appropriate information for an encyclopedic entry on a book is a precis of what it is about, information on publication and availability, and cross-links to other works by the author, works expressing other and/or contrary views, web pages, etc.
Trying to create "one-stop-shopping" with a focus on book review is not only inappropriate, it is absurd. The editors should be ashamed.
--Ben (Wikipedia ID fyngyrz - not signed in presently, terminally tired of sites/pages that forget who I am. If Wikipedia doesn't care enough to keep me signed in, I don't care enough to sign in. Pbbbbt.) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.171.17.158 ( talk) 23:48, 14 November 2015 (UTC)
Cellular automata seem to attract Wolfram and others because they are easy to program on a computer. Whether they will ever have any importance in maths, I don't know. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.26.7.22 ( talk) 14:45, 30 September 2015 (UTC)
I couldn't be bothered to read the whole book, but in a passage with which I do have some experience, it produced a competent review of old theorems. No new theorem was produced. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.26.7.22 ( talk) 14:50, 30 September 2015 (UTC)
"simple systems such as cellular automata are not complex enough to describe the degree of complexity present in evolved systems"
I don't really get this argument. Cellular automata are turing complete, therefore can implement stochastic algorithms, such as neural networks, which sample evolved system's space and can predict/mimic its behavior. In particular, Pascals's Triangle related automations (including these Rule systems) are explicitly based of probabilities of some events happening. So these automations obviously can describe some if not all properties of evolved systems. In other words, Wolfram expressed his excitement and proposed new interesting problems in a "check this out" way, and some old grandpas in academia got annoyed, throwing up some ramblings, instead of proving or disproving. Do we even need to mention that noise?
NikitaSadkov ( talk) 13:27, 1 October 2018 (UTC)
The reception section seems to consist of nothing but criticism. There have been lots of reviews of the book that included sentiments other than criticism. As it is written right now, the article reads like a very biased take-down of Wolfram and the book, with nothing positive to say about either. Kaldari ( talk) 17:26, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
Hello. I have just tagged this article {{ undisclosed paid}}, because it was very heavily edited by a (highly likely paid) sockfarm that is focused almost exclusively on promoting Stephen Wolfram and his work. Please see this COIN thread ( perma) and the related SPI for more information. The article will need a thorough review before the tag is removed. Thanks and best, Blablubbs| talk 15:18, 13 March 2021 (UTC)
![]() | This article is rated B-class on Wikipedia's
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![]() | This article links to one or more target anchors that no longer exist.
Please help fix the broken anchors. You can remove this template after fixing the problems. |
Reporting errors |
I think this article needs some serious attention, the way it was before I edited it, it read like it was a piece of advertisement for Wolfram's book. Also there have been some very critical reviews of this book. See this two links for more info: http://shell.cas.usf.edu/~wclark/ANKOS_reviews.html and https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups#!msg/talk.origins/_W390LdIY88/p5I-X7jxzdUJ. Also the article did not mention that Wolfram tried to sue Cook who proved the Rule 110 in his book.
{ Anonedit: It's worth noting that Cook was employed to prove Rule 110, as mentioned by a user on ycombinator who seems to have a consistent history - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5930542 }
Although I am not an expert in this field by any means, I was already familiar with many of the ideas mentioned in the book before I read it. Sepiraph ( talk) —Preceding undated comment added 04:38, 10 August 2012 (UTC)
Hello all. I've recently been making changes to the page. (For those of you who worry about all the links, I will be progressively re-adding them)
I know a lot about NKS and like it quite a bit. But I want the criticism section to be as good and fair as possible. While reorganizing it I've actually added a bunch of criticisms that were not there before. So before flaiming me keep in mind that I want critical viewpoints to be expressed as well (and as reasonbly) as possible.
One thing that troubles me about how I've done things is that the criticism section is all "Critics say X", whereas the response to criticism is written in the first person. My reason for this is because the criticism comes from many different sources, and some of it is self-contradictory. I am just worried that the assymmetry will be percieved as a sign of bias. I am not sure what the proper way to do it is; there are probably precedents elsewhere in wikipedia on how to handle this.
I would also like to have a section with extensive quotes from many different reviews. Perhaps it would be better to break this page up into several pages. For instance, a separate controversy page, and a separate page about the field of NKS rather than just the NKS book proper. -- Kovasb
Last year I saw that someone had developed a CA which was capable of adding two numbers together. (which is a von neuman computer). I wish I had taken more notice: but, I was burning up the cpu with CA and could be bothered to look at it's static structure. There were 2000+ parts and like I say it was static. And I'm all about the visuals.
This, in my eyes, lends support to his thesis
Most important thing I learned was that western science since Newton and differiential calculus, has had a bias towards equations. -- Two16 18:42 Jan 15, 2003 (UTC)
I have removed this:
The book is already heavily attacked, and to call it pseudoscience is not correct. It might be called incorrect or flawed but it doesn't fall under the usual concept of pseudoscience. Wolfram has a Phd in Physics and he has written peer reviewed articles on cellular automata. If you want to put anything like this back in the article please post solid reason here.
Why is "reputable" in quotes and italics?? The AMS Notices (I believe this journal published a critical review) is a reputable journal, not a "reputable" journal. Regardless of whether you agree with the review. And they weren't the only ones. The quotes and italics obviously are meant to imply that the only journals that would publish a negative review would be journals that aren't reputable. -- Revolver 03:53, 29 Feb 2004 (UTC)
Lumidek replaced "The second type of criticism comes from people who cannot even accept the book's basic premise", with ""The second type of criticism comes from people - for example those who understand quantum physics - who do not accept the book's basic premise," citing "arrogant formulation "cannot even accept" changed to "do not accept". Surely, Lumidek realizes that his/her phrasing is itself arrogant since it implies that people who (accurately) "understand" quantum physics cannot accept Wolfram's premise. -- Gyan 07:41, 3 Jun 2004 (UTC)-
The number of citations is not a measure of the correctness of the claims made in the paper. It isn't even a measure of how interesting the paper is. To cite 't Hooft's paper you must write a paper on a deterministic model underlying Quantum Mechanics (and also use 't Hooft ideas). Since his theory is so completely different from the theories most physicists are working on, it requires a major effort for an interested physicist to produce a paper citing his work.
As far as I know no papers have appeared proving 't Hooft's theory wrong. In fact, as 't Hooft correctly argues, there are several loopholes in Bells theorem. 't Hooft favors pre-determinism. Bell's theorem isn't applicable in a completely deterministic setting (Bell himself made that point too). What the observer decides to measure is already fixed in a deterministic model. So, one cannot say that the observer could have decided to measure something different.
Pre-determinism is a rather awkward concept, and I have to admit that I don't like it. It is however, trivial to give an existence proof of a deterministic theory underlying Quantum Mechanics. Consider a large classical computer simulating our quantum world to some reasonable degree of accuracy. Then the true laws of physics describe how the computer works and these are deterministic laws. They are local at this level (i.e. the switches of the computer interact with each other in a local way).
'T Hooft's first paper on deterministic theories has 81 citations!
I just did some copyediting on the first half of the article, specifically removing 'NKS' abbrev, and minor rewriting where needed. More needs to be done.
May I say the article was clearly written by a proponent. I think it could stand some shortening — why does wikipedia need such a long treatment of this book?
Criticism should be beefed up more, and the responses to criticism I think should be interleaved with the criticism itself.
Let me propose a criticism: why does science need a new branch to study these problems? They seem to fit quite well into cybernetics (systems theory).
--
I agree it is too long. Some of the material should be exported to other areas.
It was written by a proponent (me).
Concerning this new potential criticism, it would fall under the category "Originality and Self-Image". There are many such fields.. why couldn't it be math, why can't it be physics, why can't it be computer science, etc.
--
I also think the article is too long and doesn't seem balanced in the detail it contains. The treatment of the core ideas from the book does not need to be exhaustive - that's what the book is for, not wikipedia. The "response to criticism" section seems unnecessary for a balanced overview of the book. I suggest it be removed and really important bits can be incorporated into the criticisms section (but let the criticisms stand!). Once the article starts to read like a debate, something must be wrong...
Hello. I'm going to cut the "Response" stuff from the criticism section. WP articles on controversial subjects aren't generally structured like that; it's not WP's business to defend Stephen Wolfram, or anyone else, from his critics. 64.48.158.87 04:09, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
The introduction should be clearer. What does Wolfram want to tell us with his book, what is his message, his main idea, what does he wants to show? The article is supposed to be read not only by those who are familiar with the subject, but by everybody who is interested to see what it is all about. If I undersand it correct, he claims that the universe is digital and based on information, and scientists should not try to describe the nature through mathematical formulas and equations, as they have done so far, but through simple cellular automata (probably best described as/compared with computer programs). This goes not only for physics, but also for chemistry and biology; all forms of science who describes nature should have this single common platform to branch out from. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 193.217.193.228 ( talk • contribs) 21:37, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
Amidst the fog of stimulating but uniformative "Wolfram is a genius!" "Wolfram is a nut!" debate, it's a pleasure to see an article that states, concisely but clearly, what Wolfram is actually saying. -- Writtenonsand 18:48, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
What Wolfram means is that the universe and everything in it is digital in its nature, and can (and should) be described as programs rathers than mathematical tables and formulas? If so, it should be explained clearer in the introduction since it really is a revolutionary way of observing the reality, correct or not. 217.68.114.116 ( talk) 17:35, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
The whole thing is predicated on the assumption that if you invent and run a program that gives you some result that looks like a phenomena encountered in reality, you have discovered some computational relationship between the program and reality. This is fallacious reasoning. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.126.32.34 ( talk) 03:15, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
For those as understand these things, the links provided at this /. discussion might be of use. .. dave souza, talk 16:30, 1 January 2008 (UTC)
Image:Newsciendfsdfs.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.
Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Wikipedia:Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to insure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.
If there is other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images lacking such an explanation can be deleted one week after being tagged, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.
BetacommandBot ( talk) 22:48, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
How does Wolfram's "Principle of computational equivalence" relate to the Church-Turing Thesis? They sound similar to me, but this is not mentioned until the criticism. How do supporters consider the connection between these two principles? This ought to be talked about in the A New Kind of Science#Principle of computational equivalence section. Thanks Sligocki ( talk) 23:00, 17 January 2009 (UTC)
Wikipedia is supposed to tread lightly on promoting books. I've received a warning from a senior Wikipedian before (see my talk page) for writing about just a concept from a popular commercial (non-academic) book -- not even writing about the book itself.
I'm not saying that an article on NKS is not noteworthy. But has the issue of its commerciality been discussed? I don't see that here on the talk page. Crasshopper ( talk) 08:17, 9 June 2011 (UTC)
Surely one does not begin an article with the sentence "A New Kind of Science is a best-selling, award-winning book by Stephen Wolfram, published in 2002", give no indication anywhere in the article of by what standards the book was "best-selling" or of what awards it received, round out the lead with some rather vague comments about what exactly the book is about, and leave it at that. Surely one does not begin any article like that, let alone an article about a book that has received as mixed a reception as ANKS has. Many of the reviews seem fairly critical. (Given the lead, I was surprised to see that the article mentioned criticism of the book at all. But I see the "reception" section is mostly criticism. Shouldn't that be reflected in the lead?) I don't know too much about the book and don't have the time right now to examine things more carefully, but I hope someone will clean this article up. Leonxlin ( talk) 03:54, 12 August 2012 (UTC)
Under the Reception heading, in the Principle of Computational Equivalence section, it is stated that "The PCE has been criticized for being vague, unmathematical, and for not making directly verifiable predictions. However, Wolfram's group has described the principle as such, not a law, theorem or formula. " This statement contradicts the text. On page 720 of the book, PCE is presented as a new law of nature:"In essence, therefore, The Principle of Computational Equivalence introduces a new law of nature to the effect that no system can..."
I contend this should be noted in the article.
Epicdave ( talk) 20:22, 13 February 2013 (UTC)
Perhaps this doesn't belong here, but it is precisely Wolfram's self-aggrandizement which put me off his book for good. The same goes for Mandelbrot's "Fractal Geometry". I hadn't finished the preface (both books) before I started loathing book and author. Not that Wolfram and Mandelbrot weren't geniuses, far from it, but at least in Mandelbrot's case he carefully avoided mentioning any living mathematician except scornfully but heaped praise on the dead ones. Geniuses or not, some modesty does become you! All the best — Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.220.22.139 ( talk) 19:30, 29 July 2013 (UTC)
The schools opening at top universities for the sole reason of studying computational science more than vindicates Wolfram. The 3rd branch of science has basically been established. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.6.85.234 ( talk) 05:10, 21 August 2013 (UTC)
I happened by the page, and threw a few edits in as I worked down it... but was absolutely appalled when the page took a direct path away from "this is what the book purports to cover" to...
...basically an assassination, rather than an encyclopedic-format reference to a book. The appropriate information for the visitor to a page that makes record of a written work is not the input of the critics, or if the information is new, or if it is not in a format a scientific journal editor would prefer: the important thing is if the man is right or not. As that most definitely remains up in the air, the vast majority of the content of this page is no more than wasted space for the poor soul who attempts to slog through it. This is exactly the kind of thing that contributes to Wikipedia's bad name. You simply can't read the pages here with any level of trust. The environment encourages "I disagree" to become "This is how it is" and further, promotes "I disagree" as valid content, which it most certainly is not.
Note that I am in no way saying Wolfram is right, or wrong, for that matter. And yes, I've read the book and understand most of the ground he covered. I am simply saying that the appropriate information for an encyclopedic entry on a book is a precis of what it is about, information on publication and availability, and cross-links to other works by the author, works expressing other and/or contrary views, web pages, etc.
Trying to create "one-stop-shopping" with a focus on book review is not only inappropriate, it is absurd. The editors should be ashamed.
--Ben (Wikipedia ID fyngyrz - not signed in presently, terminally tired of sites/pages that forget who I am. If Wikipedia doesn't care enough to keep me signed in, I don't care enough to sign in. Pbbbbt.) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.171.17.158 ( talk) 23:48, 14 November 2015 (UTC)
Cellular automata seem to attract Wolfram and others because they are easy to program on a computer. Whether they will ever have any importance in maths, I don't know. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.26.7.22 ( talk) 14:45, 30 September 2015 (UTC)
I couldn't be bothered to read the whole book, but in a passage with which I do have some experience, it produced a competent review of old theorems. No new theorem was produced. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.26.7.22 ( talk) 14:50, 30 September 2015 (UTC)
"simple systems such as cellular automata are not complex enough to describe the degree of complexity present in evolved systems"
I don't really get this argument. Cellular automata are turing complete, therefore can implement stochastic algorithms, such as neural networks, which sample evolved system's space and can predict/mimic its behavior. In particular, Pascals's Triangle related automations (including these Rule systems) are explicitly based of probabilities of some events happening. So these automations obviously can describe some if not all properties of evolved systems. In other words, Wolfram expressed his excitement and proposed new interesting problems in a "check this out" way, and some old grandpas in academia got annoyed, throwing up some ramblings, instead of proving or disproving. Do we even need to mention that noise?
NikitaSadkov ( talk) 13:27, 1 October 2018 (UTC)
The reception section seems to consist of nothing but criticism. There have been lots of reviews of the book that included sentiments other than criticism. As it is written right now, the article reads like a very biased take-down of Wolfram and the book, with nothing positive to say about either. Kaldari ( talk) 17:26, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
Hello. I have just tagged this article {{ undisclosed paid}}, because it was very heavily edited by a (highly likely paid) sockfarm that is focused almost exclusively on promoting Stephen Wolfram and his work. Please see this COIN thread ( perma) and the related SPI for more information. The article will need a thorough review before the tag is removed. Thanks and best, Blablubbs| talk 15:18, 13 March 2021 (UTC)