Talk:George Wald

Talk
Though it is widely believed that Wald held a Columbia Ph.D., the truth is that he never received the degree. He completed his coursework (earning an M.A. from Columbia in the process) and successfully defended his dissertation, but could not afford to deposit 200 copies of it with the university's library as was required at the time. By the time he had the funds to meet this requirement he had become sufficiently well-established in his field that he felt he didn't need a diploma, so he just kept the money.

(The above comment is unsigned, somehow.) Two hundred copies! The idea is absurd. The library would be overflowing with dissertations if that were true. Tex (talk) 20:59, 3 May 2018 (UTC)


 * It is not absurd. I found the 1932-33 Columbia University Catalogue : "Each candidate for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy shall present a dissertation embodying the results of original investigation and research on some topic previously approved by the professor in charge of the major subject. When such dissertation has been approved, it shall be printed by the candidate, and 75 copies shall be delivered to the Librarian of the University before the degree is conferred." It is possible that 200 is an exaggeration. But even 75 copies would have been a significant financial burden. Eos19 (talk) 14:42, 5 January 2023 (UTC)

Religious affiliation. Theory on the origin of life.
Is there any evidence to conclude his philosophical postition(s) in regard to the origin of life, or lack thereof? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.82.58.28 (talk) 19:35, 11 April 2011 (UTC)


 * There is a rather long quote from him (often incorrectly "paraphrased" by creationists). This is the last paragraph of the quote as reported by TalkOrigins, you should read the rest of it for broader context:
 * "That, however, is not the end of the matter. Our present concept of the origin of life leads to the position that, in a universe composed as ours is, life inevitably arises wherever conditions permit. We look upon life as part of the order of nature. It does not emerge immediately with the establishment of that order; long ages must pass before it appears. Yet given enough time, it is an inevitable consequence of that order. When speaking for myself, I do not tend to make sentences containing the word God; but what do those persons mean who make such sentences? They mean a great many different things; indeed I would be happy to know what they mean much better than I have yet been able to discover. I have asked as opportunity offered, and intend to go on asking. What I have learned is that many educated persons now tend to equate their concept of God with their concept of the order of nature. This is not a new idea; I think it is firmly grounded in the philosophy of Spinoza. When we as scientists say then that life originated inevitably as part of the order of our universe, we are using different words but do not necessary mean a different thing from what some others mean who say that God created life. It is not only in science that great ideas come to encompass their own negation. That is true in religion also; and man's concept of God changes as he changes."


 * Wald, G. 1954. The Origin of Life. Scientific American August: 44-53.
 * http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/quotes/mine/part1-4.html

91.125.105.215 (talk) 16:51, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

Wald's Atheism - Unreliable Source
The citation given for the claim that Wald was an atheist is probably unreliable.

It cites "Programming of Life" by Donald E. Johnson. Looking up this book on WorldCat it appears to be about how DNA etc. can be seen as analogous to computer code. I have only ever seen this sort of claim in creationist circles so I'm extremely skeptical this book is worth citing, but I don't know enough about the issue to be sure.

Anyway, the more pressing issue is that the quote this book attributes to Wald ("I will not believe that philosophically...") is a part of a larger quote that creationists made up, per TalkOrigins. From what I have been able to gather, Wald never said this.

I wish I had more time to look into this and fix the potential issue, but for now I'm just going to add the unreliable source tag and point to this topic. Hopefully someone else can sort this out.

C. A. Struck (talk) 04:47, 17 October 2023 (UTC)