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George Orwell is in NO WAY the father of dystopian literature, so please stop changing that. Zamyatin, Huxley, Rand and Boye all have written massively influental dystopian works that predate Orwell's. Zamyatin is the "father" of the genre, if anyone, and he was an admitted influence on Orwell. Electric Eye
I removed Adam, Eve, and La Malinche because they are not the father or mothers of THINGS. This list reflects those known for starting ideas, concepts, or movements, not beings. Kingturtle 01:17, 20 Nov 2003 (UTC)
Necessity, the mother of invention? (btljs)
Curious that the execrable J.R.R. Tolkien gets the credit for Lord Dunsany's offspring. Sjc 12:05, 25 Oct 2004 (UTC)
This article is very useful. Some single items may be under dispute, but the disclaimer at the beginning of the article is enough, for me, to make me remove the general warning. User:Rsabbatini
What is the best way to refer to this article in the main article of one of its members? I'll try adding a link to it for Art Ingels in that article, preferably with the bookmark to the I section here, if that's possible in a free link. I guess that's one advantage of categories over lists, that you don't need to explicity link the two. Spalding 16:19, Mar 20, 2005 (UTC)
To name Mendel the "father" of genetics. Does no one see the irony?
I hate this article title. Why can't people be authors, inventors, discoverers, they have to be fathers and mothers? It's sexist too. Stoopid list, IMHO. DavidH 03:54, July 28, 2005 (UTC)
I like this list, it is a common term. However, I tend to agree the title of this subsection. I don't know about the rest of them, but since when was Mohammed called the "father of Islam"? He was the founder of Islam. I'm going to remove this. I've never heard this anywhere, and it would likely be considered a POV by Muslims. Rt66lt 01:16, September 8, 2005 (UTC)
Santiago's last name is "Ramon y Cajal", so i put him under R (was under C)
When adding names to list least, please remember, it is for people widely known as the father/mother of whatever, not for the people who might be legitimately considered the father/mother of it. Try a Google search for the name along with "father of blahblahblah" (or provide a source) before adding a new name.
I've removed Pingala as father of "the binary numeral system" again. There are no google hits associating him with "father of binary" or similar phrases; he may have in fact been the father of binary, but he does not seem to be known as the "father of binary" or "father of the binary numeral system".-- ragesoss 01:42, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
Only within Islam is Abraham considered the founder. Non-Muslims, which comprise five sixths of the world's population, consider Muhammad to be Islam's founder, not Abraham. Please stop POV-pushing and adhere to Wikipedia policy. — Aiden 03:56, 8 March 2006 (UTC)
I am not POV pushing. If Abraham is considered "Father of Islam" within Islam, it is certainly acceptable here. I suggest you read WP:NPOV, particularly regarding majority and minority views. There are numerous sources that call Abraham "Father of Islam". -- Dforest 04:21, 8 March 2006 (UTC)
And all of them are Islamic. Yes, please do read WP:NPOV--you obviously haven't. Take special notice of the section WP:NPOV#Undue_weight. Only 1/5 of the world recognizes your claim, while the other 5/6 do not. — Aiden 05:50, 8 March 2006 (UTC)
Please see the Muhammad article. It explicitly states that Muhammad is considered by non-Muslims to be the founder of Islam, hence Muhammad's listing in this article as the father of Islam. That said, founder and father are synonymous terms. If you look up father in a dictionary, one of the definition is "A man who creates, originates, or founds something." Now, for the 5/6 of the world who is not Muslim, Muhammad is considerd the founder/father of Islam and thus it is perfectly in compliance with WP:NPOV to have him listed as such. To avoid offense to Muslims (which is not my intention at all), I included a qualifier making special note that this applies only outside of Islam. Secondly, most people consider Jesus to be the founder of Christianity, not Paul, though he played a large role in the development of Christian dogma and could be considered the founder of Pauline Christianity. The two are entirely different, as most people do consider Muhammad to be the founder of Islam, and Jesus not Paul to be the founder of Christianity. — Aiden 21:14, 8 March 2006 (UTC)
Aiden, your assertion that "only within Islam is Abraham considered the founder" is completely unfounded. Your assumption that 5/6 of the world 'discredit my claim' is completely unfounded. I am only claiming that Abraham has been credited as 'father of Islam' and 'father of Israel', by numerous scholars, in those exact words.
What evidence do you have that all non-Muslims discredit Islam as an Abrahamic religion? Furthermore, even if if we assume that non-Muslims do not believe that Abraham is the "Father of Islam", it does not justify deleting that information from this list. This list is not intended to be exclusive, nor is it intended to judge whether the father is worthy of his title, nor is it intended to push a point of view as you accuse. It is simply intended to describe people who have been called "father or mother of something".
Now, about the definition of 'father'. The definition you give, A man who creates, originates, or founds something is one of many definitions. It can just as well mean "A progenitor" or "A spiritual father; a patriarch", as in the case of Abraham. Indeed, the article very clearly states:
For those who are not familiar, Abraham as 'father of Islam' is clearly stated in the Quran 22:78 [my emphasis]:
Note that Submitters refers to the term Muslim, so in effect Muhammad is saying that Islam is the religion of Abraham, and that Abraham named them Muslims. -- Dforest 01:26, 9 March 2006 (UTC)
Abraham is widely considered (within and outside of Islam) to be the father of all three of the major monotheistic religions (see Abrahamic religion) especially as he's the progenitor of Jews and Arabs, through which these religions originated. Abraham is known as the first monotheist. -- MPerel ( talk | contrib) 17:16, 9 March 2006 (UTC)
Now what do you think of the anon I see who changed Abraham to father of monotheism? That seems a reasonable compromise, no? -- MPerel ( talk | contrib) 23:38, 9 March 2006 (UTC)
Western Monotheism maybe, but Monotheism in general?-- Greasysteve13 01:13, 10 March 2006 (UTC)
I think it's appropriate to add Dennis Ritchie & Ken Thompson as fathers of the UNIX operating system. -DO
I'm jumping in here, because this whole article seems to have turned into a hodgepodge of names that does not come close to meeting the verifiability policy. I just picked on these twp particular entries, because they caught my attention. Many of the other names are probably in equally bad shape.
This article has no References section at all. Why not? I don't have time to look at the history now, but I think it once did.
But the article does say right at the top that "Sources for or references to each person being a father or mother of something should be found in the article to which their name is linked." The articles on Dennis Ritchie and Ken Thompson do not use the phrase father of, let alone give a reference for that use.
Dennis Ritchie and Ken Thompson do, in fact, deserve credit for creating UNIX? Undoubtedly.
Dennis Ritchie and Ken Thompson are widely referred to as "father[s] of UNIX?" No way.
A Google books search on exact phrase "father of UNIX" yields one hit, unfortunately to a restricted page. It's just not customary to refer to computer scientists as "fathers" of their creations. In contrast, a similar search on "father of radio," turns up 100 books, almost all referring to Lee De Forest; "Father of the H-bomb," 165 books, almost all referring to Edward Teller.
This is supposed to be a page of people who are known by the sobriquet" "father of", not just a random page of people credited as inventing or originating something. Dpbsmith (talk) 16:03, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
I changed:
"Sources for or references to each person being a father or mother of something should be found in the article to which their name is linked"
to:
"When adding entries, always include a reference to a source which calls the person a "father" or "mother" of something. If we have an article about the person which includes such a source, copy that source here."
for the following reasons:
Dpbsmith (talk) 20:46, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
Firstly, thanks to Aiden for joining the efforts to source this list. Meanwhile, here's a list and some rationale for my latest tidying effort:
Regards, David Kernow 21:56, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
PS No need to give every <ref> a <ref name= >, only those used more than once (cf WP:FN).
Although it needs to be kept clear that this is a list of people who are widely called "Father of" or "Mother of," in some cases the epithet represents a point of view that is seriously disputed.
More specifically: I propose something like "Disputes" as the title for the fourth column. "Challenged by supporters of..." is too long. "Disputants" or "Challengers" doesn't seem right because it is usually the person's supporters (often the person himself is long dead).
For introductory wording, I propose:
Or maybe it's better as an instruction:
(I don't want to complicate this too much... but there needs to be a distinction between challengers, the people described above, and rivals, which are other people who are also known as "Father of..." e.g. Chuck Berry, Alan Freed, Bill Haley, and Elvis Presley are all widely called "the father of rock and roll"). Dpbsmith (talk) 17:17, 19 April 2006 (UTC)
How about we just put an asterik next to the names of disputed fathers/mothers and at the beginning or end of the article include "*Claim is disputed" — Aiden 18:28, 19 April 2006 (UTC)
I appreciate the notion, but I think the list would be simpler and easier to manage if it doesn't (appear to) formalize the notion of dispute. If (when) disputes arise over whether sources indicate that someone is "often described" as a father or mother of something, then I'd say the talk page is the place to register (and hopefully resolve) them. Regards, David Kernow 22:18, 19 April 2006 (UTC)
Alan Emtage | the Internet search engine | citation needed |
Ye Duzheng | Chinese atmospheric physics | citation needed |
Nikolaj Abraham Abildgaard No Google Books hits. Virtually all Google Web hits seem to be to copies of the Wikipedia article and to this list. Note that our article on Abildgard says that it is his student, Christoffer Wilhelm Eckersberg, who is called the "Father of Danish Painting," not Abildgaard. Neither the article on Abildgaard nor Eckersberg contain any references at all. Dpbsmith (talk) 00:30, 23 April 2006 (UTC) Well, the 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica calls him "father of Danish painting" so back he goes, but... it's sort of weird that our article on Abildgaard gives Eckersberg that title. Dpbsmith (talk) 01:10, 23 April 2006 (UTC)
Alan Emtage: No Google hits except to Wikipedia and its mirrors. Article on Alan Emtage does not reference the epithet except to link to this list. He's described as the creator of Archie, which IMHO means his claim to this title is dubious, since Archie was not an Internet search engine as we know it today; I think that when people say "Internet search engine," 99.99% of the time people are thinking of Web-based tool that searches the Web, and would be mildly surprised to know that there were search tools for the pre-Web Internet. Now, regardless of whether he deserves the epithet, he could be listed here if in fact he was widely known by that epithet... but I don't believe he is. Dpbsmith (talk) 15:23, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
Ye Duzheng: Our article says he is the founder, not that he "is called the father of," which is something different. Since no source is given here, and since our article cites no sources at all, I'm removing the entry from the article for now. Dpbsmith (talk) 22:19, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
![]() | This page is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
George Orwell is in NO WAY the father of dystopian literature, so please stop changing that. Zamyatin, Huxley, Rand and Boye all have written massively influental dystopian works that predate Orwell's. Zamyatin is the "father" of the genre, if anyone, and he was an admitted influence on Orwell. Electric Eye
I removed Adam, Eve, and La Malinche because they are not the father or mothers of THINGS. This list reflects those known for starting ideas, concepts, or movements, not beings. Kingturtle 01:17, 20 Nov 2003 (UTC)
Necessity, the mother of invention? (btljs)
Curious that the execrable J.R.R. Tolkien gets the credit for Lord Dunsany's offspring. Sjc 12:05, 25 Oct 2004 (UTC)
This article is very useful. Some single items may be under dispute, but the disclaimer at the beginning of the article is enough, for me, to make me remove the general warning. User:Rsabbatini
What is the best way to refer to this article in the main article of one of its members? I'll try adding a link to it for Art Ingels in that article, preferably with the bookmark to the I section here, if that's possible in a free link. I guess that's one advantage of categories over lists, that you don't need to explicity link the two. Spalding 16:19, Mar 20, 2005 (UTC)
To name Mendel the "father" of genetics. Does no one see the irony?
I hate this article title. Why can't people be authors, inventors, discoverers, they have to be fathers and mothers? It's sexist too. Stoopid list, IMHO. DavidH 03:54, July 28, 2005 (UTC)
I like this list, it is a common term. However, I tend to agree the title of this subsection. I don't know about the rest of them, but since when was Mohammed called the "father of Islam"? He was the founder of Islam. I'm going to remove this. I've never heard this anywhere, and it would likely be considered a POV by Muslims. Rt66lt 01:16, September 8, 2005 (UTC)
Santiago's last name is "Ramon y Cajal", so i put him under R (was under C)
When adding names to list least, please remember, it is for people widely known as the father/mother of whatever, not for the people who might be legitimately considered the father/mother of it. Try a Google search for the name along with "father of blahblahblah" (or provide a source) before adding a new name.
I've removed Pingala as father of "the binary numeral system" again. There are no google hits associating him with "father of binary" or similar phrases; he may have in fact been the father of binary, but he does not seem to be known as the "father of binary" or "father of the binary numeral system".-- ragesoss 01:42, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
Only within Islam is Abraham considered the founder. Non-Muslims, which comprise five sixths of the world's population, consider Muhammad to be Islam's founder, not Abraham. Please stop POV-pushing and adhere to Wikipedia policy. — Aiden 03:56, 8 March 2006 (UTC)
I am not POV pushing. If Abraham is considered "Father of Islam" within Islam, it is certainly acceptable here. I suggest you read WP:NPOV, particularly regarding majority and minority views. There are numerous sources that call Abraham "Father of Islam". -- Dforest 04:21, 8 March 2006 (UTC)
And all of them are Islamic. Yes, please do read WP:NPOV--you obviously haven't. Take special notice of the section WP:NPOV#Undue_weight. Only 1/5 of the world recognizes your claim, while the other 5/6 do not. — Aiden 05:50, 8 March 2006 (UTC)
Please see the Muhammad article. It explicitly states that Muhammad is considered by non-Muslims to be the founder of Islam, hence Muhammad's listing in this article as the father of Islam. That said, founder and father are synonymous terms. If you look up father in a dictionary, one of the definition is "A man who creates, originates, or founds something." Now, for the 5/6 of the world who is not Muslim, Muhammad is considerd the founder/father of Islam and thus it is perfectly in compliance with WP:NPOV to have him listed as such. To avoid offense to Muslims (which is not my intention at all), I included a qualifier making special note that this applies only outside of Islam. Secondly, most people consider Jesus to be the founder of Christianity, not Paul, though he played a large role in the development of Christian dogma and could be considered the founder of Pauline Christianity. The two are entirely different, as most people do consider Muhammad to be the founder of Islam, and Jesus not Paul to be the founder of Christianity. — Aiden 21:14, 8 March 2006 (UTC)
Aiden, your assertion that "only within Islam is Abraham considered the founder" is completely unfounded. Your assumption that 5/6 of the world 'discredit my claim' is completely unfounded. I am only claiming that Abraham has been credited as 'father of Islam' and 'father of Israel', by numerous scholars, in those exact words.
What evidence do you have that all non-Muslims discredit Islam as an Abrahamic religion? Furthermore, even if if we assume that non-Muslims do not believe that Abraham is the "Father of Islam", it does not justify deleting that information from this list. This list is not intended to be exclusive, nor is it intended to judge whether the father is worthy of his title, nor is it intended to push a point of view as you accuse. It is simply intended to describe people who have been called "father or mother of something".
Now, about the definition of 'father'. The definition you give, A man who creates, originates, or founds something is one of many definitions. It can just as well mean "A progenitor" or "A spiritual father; a patriarch", as in the case of Abraham. Indeed, the article very clearly states:
For those who are not familiar, Abraham as 'father of Islam' is clearly stated in the Quran 22:78 [my emphasis]:
Note that Submitters refers to the term Muslim, so in effect Muhammad is saying that Islam is the religion of Abraham, and that Abraham named them Muslims. -- Dforest 01:26, 9 March 2006 (UTC)
Abraham is widely considered (within and outside of Islam) to be the father of all three of the major monotheistic religions (see Abrahamic religion) especially as he's the progenitor of Jews and Arabs, through which these religions originated. Abraham is known as the first monotheist. -- MPerel ( talk | contrib) 17:16, 9 March 2006 (UTC)
Now what do you think of the anon I see who changed Abraham to father of monotheism? That seems a reasonable compromise, no? -- MPerel ( talk | contrib) 23:38, 9 March 2006 (UTC)
Western Monotheism maybe, but Monotheism in general?-- Greasysteve13 01:13, 10 March 2006 (UTC)
I think it's appropriate to add Dennis Ritchie & Ken Thompson as fathers of the UNIX operating system. -DO
I'm jumping in here, because this whole article seems to have turned into a hodgepodge of names that does not come close to meeting the verifiability policy. I just picked on these twp particular entries, because they caught my attention. Many of the other names are probably in equally bad shape.
This article has no References section at all. Why not? I don't have time to look at the history now, but I think it once did.
But the article does say right at the top that "Sources for or references to each person being a father or mother of something should be found in the article to which their name is linked." The articles on Dennis Ritchie and Ken Thompson do not use the phrase father of, let alone give a reference for that use.
Dennis Ritchie and Ken Thompson do, in fact, deserve credit for creating UNIX? Undoubtedly.
Dennis Ritchie and Ken Thompson are widely referred to as "father[s] of UNIX?" No way.
A Google books search on exact phrase "father of UNIX" yields one hit, unfortunately to a restricted page. It's just not customary to refer to computer scientists as "fathers" of their creations. In contrast, a similar search on "father of radio," turns up 100 books, almost all referring to Lee De Forest; "Father of the H-bomb," 165 books, almost all referring to Edward Teller.
This is supposed to be a page of people who are known by the sobriquet" "father of", not just a random page of people credited as inventing or originating something. Dpbsmith (talk) 16:03, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
I changed:
"Sources for or references to each person being a father or mother of something should be found in the article to which their name is linked"
to:
"When adding entries, always include a reference to a source which calls the person a "father" or "mother" of something. If we have an article about the person which includes such a source, copy that source here."
for the following reasons:
Dpbsmith (talk) 20:46, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
Firstly, thanks to Aiden for joining the efforts to source this list. Meanwhile, here's a list and some rationale for my latest tidying effort:
Regards, David Kernow 21:56, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
PS No need to give every <ref> a <ref name= >, only those used more than once (cf WP:FN).
Although it needs to be kept clear that this is a list of people who are widely called "Father of" or "Mother of," in some cases the epithet represents a point of view that is seriously disputed.
More specifically: I propose something like "Disputes" as the title for the fourth column. "Challenged by supporters of..." is too long. "Disputants" or "Challengers" doesn't seem right because it is usually the person's supporters (often the person himself is long dead).
For introductory wording, I propose:
Or maybe it's better as an instruction:
(I don't want to complicate this too much... but there needs to be a distinction between challengers, the people described above, and rivals, which are other people who are also known as "Father of..." e.g. Chuck Berry, Alan Freed, Bill Haley, and Elvis Presley are all widely called "the father of rock and roll"). Dpbsmith (talk) 17:17, 19 April 2006 (UTC)
How about we just put an asterik next to the names of disputed fathers/mothers and at the beginning or end of the article include "*Claim is disputed" — Aiden 18:28, 19 April 2006 (UTC)
I appreciate the notion, but I think the list would be simpler and easier to manage if it doesn't (appear to) formalize the notion of dispute. If (when) disputes arise over whether sources indicate that someone is "often described" as a father or mother of something, then I'd say the talk page is the place to register (and hopefully resolve) them. Regards, David Kernow 22:18, 19 April 2006 (UTC)
Alan Emtage | the Internet search engine | citation needed |
Ye Duzheng | Chinese atmospheric physics | citation needed |
Nikolaj Abraham Abildgaard No Google Books hits. Virtually all Google Web hits seem to be to copies of the Wikipedia article and to this list. Note that our article on Abildgard says that it is his student, Christoffer Wilhelm Eckersberg, who is called the "Father of Danish Painting," not Abildgaard. Neither the article on Abildgaard nor Eckersberg contain any references at all. Dpbsmith (talk) 00:30, 23 April 2006 (UTC) Well, the 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica calls him "father of Danish painting" so back he goes, but... it's sort of weird that our article on Abildgaard gives Eckersberg that title. Dpbsmith (talk) 01:10, 23 April 2006 (UTC)
Alan Emtage: No Google hits except to Wikipedia and its mirrors. Article on Alan Emtage does not reference the epithet except to link to this list. He's described as the creator of Archie, which IMHO means his claim to this title is dubious, since Archie was not an Internet search engine as we know it today; I think that when people say "Internet search engine," 99.99% of the time people are thinking of Web-based tool that searches the Web, and would be mildly surprised to know that there were search tools for the pre-Web Internet. Now, regardless of whether he deserves the epithet, he could be listed here if in fact he was widely known by that epithet... but I don't believe he is. Dpbsmith (talk) 15:23, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
Ye Duzheng: Our article says he is the founder, not that he "is called the father of," which is something different. Since no source is given here, and since our article cites no sources at all, I'm removing the entry from the article for now. Dpbsmith (talk) 22:19, 22 April 2006 (UTC)