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Abd ul-Rahman Lomax

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Abd ul-Rahman Lomax[1][2] (born 1944 as Dennis George Lomax, which continues to be his legal name)[3][4][5] is an American conspiracy theorist who is best known as proponent of pseudoscientific cold fusion. He also supports diet woo and was formerly a member of an Islamic cult with links to the alt-right. He has a notorious history of getting into internet vendettas with people who do not share his views, and often defends people with other fringe views such as Neo-Nazis.

Lomax became a Muslim in 1970.[2] He was involved for two years with the Murabitun World Movement, a politically active extremist Sufi sect with a history of antisemitism,[6][7] but was forced to leave the group in 1980. Despite this he has written extensively about Islam on the internet since the 1990s. Lomax is a free speech advocate and proponent of civil liberties, unless it's other people's rights to privacies and to lambast his viewpoints without being harassed.

He is widely considered to be an internet troll, and cyber-harasser, noted for disruption, trolling and posting of personal information. He has been banned on a number of forums and wikis, including Wikipedia, RationalWiki, Wikiversity, Meta-Wiki,[8] and Encyclopedia Dramatica.[9]

He has written a series of blog posts defending people such as Emil O. W. Kirkegaard, Michael Coombs and other alt-right activists.[10] He is also known to use his blog to attack people he is disgruntled with, including administrators on websites he is banned from. One of his favorite methods of attack is to 'weaponize' Google searches, so if someone searches for a name Lomax's blog will show up with ad hominem and lies written about them.

Education

Lomax claims to have studied undergraduate physics at the California Institute of Technology; he has no degree. He admits he never "graduated from any college or university."[1][11] However, he writes on websites he attended Cal Tech lectures, studying with Richard Feynman (1961-1963), further that he has knowledge of physics.[12][13][14][15] He also claims to have taken Linus Pauling's freshman chemistry class.[2] Despite, or perhaps because of this, Lomax has previously asserted that formal teachings are unnecessary for him, because he is able to "learn by writing".[16]

Religious views

Islam

Lomax converted to Islam in 1970[17][2] and claims to have "become a leader of a spiritual community"[18] as a successor to a popular New Age mystic Sufi named Samuel L. LewisWikipedia's W.svg. As is customary for converts to Islam, Lomax changed his name, taking a Muslim first name. The name he took, Abd ul-Rahman means "servant of the most gracious".[19] His legal and birth name is Dennis George Lomax.[1][2]

Between 1978-1979 Lomax was a member of the Tucson branch of the Islamic Murabitun World Movement, an extremist Sufi sect.[20][6] While a member of the sect, Lomax associated with Abdalqadir as-Sufi, the sect's extreme right wing founder and noted antisemite,[6] Lomax helped him publish books.[20] He was asked to leave the sect in unclear circumstances in 1980. Lomax distanced himself from the sect, and later described it as a "shady cult".[21] Although Lomax claims to still be on good terms with Abdalqadir.[22]

During the 1990s,[23] Lomax was a regular on the Usenet newsgroup soc.religion.islam.[24] Lomax claims to be a moderator of the newsgroup.[22] He has posted voluminously on the subject of Islamic teachings and the sect he was formerly a member of, which he describes as a cult, but claims that is an objective description and not meant with negative connotations.[25] Since leaving Usenet, Lomax became active on Quora, posting similarly.[26]

Numeric miracles in the Qur'an

Lomax does not deny the possibility of miracles but has disputed the claims of Rashad Khalifa regarding numeric miracles in the Qur'an.[27][28]

Concerning Khalifa, Lomax has written:

"Dr. Khalifa’s claims, at best, fall into the category of pious fraud. … Had God intended the Qur'an to carry a code verifying its perfect preservation, he could have done it much more effectively and simply than the complex, arbitrary, and inconclusive 'code' claimed by Dr. Khalifa.[29]

He was also involved in a long internet debate with Edip Yuksel on numeric miracles in the Quar'an. The debate was printed in book format in 1995 and republished in 2012.[30] According to critics, Lomax is notorious for ad hominem.[31]

Martin Gardner

Lomax's skepticism about numerical miracles was positively cited in a book by Martin Gardner.[29] Lomax cites Gardner on websites to prevent himself from being labelled as a pseudo-scientist for his unorthodox views about cold fusion.[32] However, what this actually shows is an example of stopped clock.

Pseudoscience

Cold fusion

See the main article on this topic: Cold fusion

Lomax is the owner of the pseudoscientific "Infusion Institute" which he formed in December, 2013.[33] It is not a recognized scientific institute, he is the only member. In 2015, he wrote a paper arguing for cold fusion that was published in the peer-reviewed journal Current Science.[34][35]

According to Lomax:

Cold fusion is real, and it is time that serious work is funded to study the conditions of cold fusion and other correlated effects, gathering the evidence needed to understand it.[36]

At least one news report has incorrectly described Lomax as a "physicist".[37] Lomax has made a number of far-fetched claims, for example he has stated that with further development "cold fusion could supply clean power for humanity indefinitely."[38]

Lomax is the owner of Lomax Design Associates, now based in Northampton, Massachusetts. In 2011 he gave a presentation at the pseudoscientific Cold Fusion/Lattice-Assisted Nuclear Reactions Colloquium at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.[39]

Diet woo

Lomax is an advocate of the Atkins Diet, a low-carb fad diet that most of the medical community have rejected as quackery.[40]

Parapsychology

See the main article on this topic: Parapsychology

Lomax is supportive of research in parapsychology but claims he is not a "believer" in the subject. He has argued against skeptics who dismiss parapsychology as pseudoscientific and refers to skeptics of parapsychology as "pseudoskeptics".[41][42] Lomax argues that:

Parapsychology is, by definition, a science.[43]

The vast majority of scientists, however, consider it a pseudoscience.[44][45]

He has worked with psychic Craig Weiler and his friend Ben Steigmann in promoting paranormal studies on Wikiversity. These studies were deleted in January, 2018.[46]

Defence of Emil Kirkegaard and racialism

Lomax's exact views on race are hard to pin down, but he has defended individuals from the "race realist" community, which Lomax believes is a respectable position. In February 2018, he wrote an extremely bizarre article defending Emil O. W. Kirkegaard and the controversial London Conference on Intelligence.[10] Lomax says he has not seen any evidence that offensive or racist material was presented at the UCL conferences.Do You Believe That? This is despite the fact that over 80% of the speakers have published papers in the Mankind Quarterly, a pseudo-scholarly racist journal.[47] Lomax has defended the journal and criticized the Wikipedia article on it as biased, describing it as "clearly a scientific journal".[10] Mainstream academics have described the Mankind Quarterly as a "white supremacist journal".[48]

Lomax takes issue with the Southern Poverty Law Center which he claims is "highly political". He criticizes their report on Richard Lynn, claiming "this hit piece is simply hitting on stereotypes about racism and sexism, knee-jerk expectations".[10] On his blog, Lomax links to the neo-Nazi encyclopedia Rightpedia as a "valid" source of information. One can speculate that his defence of alt-right speakers such as Kirkegaard and Lynn stems from his interest in protecting civil liberties:

I was also an officer in the Cal Tech chapter of the ACLU, probably as a sophomore there. (I picketed the House Unamerican Activities Committee meeting in Los Angeles then). The ACLU has defended Nazis and other groups widely considered reprehensible, as action protecting civil liberties. Civil liberties are not just for those with politically correct or popular views, but for everyone, and if it becomes an offense to defend the unpopular, democracy is in double trouble.[49]

Internet trolling

As an internet troll, and cyber-harasser, Lomax is infamous for disruption, trolling of admins, and posting of other editors personal information. He has been banned on a number of forums and wikis, including Wikipedia, RationalWiki, Wikiversity, Meta-Wiki,[50] and Encyclopedia Dramatica.[51]

He uses his blog to attack administrators on websites he is banned from; mainly by weaponizing Google searches, so if someone searches a name — his blog will show up with ad hominem, lies and smears written about them. After being blocked from RationalWiki and Wikipedia, Lomax wrote thousands of words on his blog about his bans, continuing to attack more editors.

In December 2017, Lomax was permanently blocked on Wikiversity for long-term disruption and misusing the site for his personal vendettas to harass other users.[52] In February 2018, he was globally banned by the Wikimedia Foundation.[53]

After being banned on practically every respectable wiki on the internet, Lomax became a troll poster on Encyclopedia Dramatica. However, in February 2019, even bottom feeder Encyclopedia Dramatica had enough of him and permanently banned Lomax for attacking other editors by creating defamatory articles about them.[54]

See also

External links

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Biography: Abd ul-Rahman Lomax. Cold Fusion Community.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 Abd Profile "Born in 1944, Abd ul-Rahman is not my birth name, I accepted Islam in 1970. Not being willing to accept pale substitutes, I learned to read the Qur'an in Arabic by reading the Qur'an in Arabic."
  3. ↑ Known on RationalWiki as User:Abd
  4. ↑ Also known for a time as Daniel Lomax. [1]
  5. ↑ Lomax v. WikiMedia Foundation, Inc. et al PacerMonitor.
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 Scotland on Sunday; Denis Campbell, November 4, 1995: The Shadowy World of the Murabitun Sect
  7. ↑ Aarhus University; Nils Bubandt, November 13, 2018: Murabitun: Global Sufism and World Transformation.
  8. ↑ https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Abd
  9. ↑ User:Abd. Encyclopedia Dramatica.
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 10.2 10.3 Well-sourced. Cold Fusion Community.
  11. ↑ Cold fusion/Experts/Abd ul-Rahman Lomax
  12. ↑ Abd Ul-Rahman Lomax, Sat with Richard P. Feynman, 1961-63. I know a *little* about Physics..
  13. ↑ sat with Richard P. Feynman at Cal Tech 1961-63, in the “Feynman Lectures
  14. ↑ As an undergraduate student at the California Institute of Technology, I studied physics with Richard P. Feynman.
  15. ↑ [http://lesswrong.com/user/Abd/ I was at Cal Tech for a couple of years, being in Richard P. Feynman's two years of undergraduate physics classes.
  16. ↑ I learn by writing. (Archived).
  17. ↑ Christian-Muslim Exchange: Islamic Encounters — Part 3
  18. ↑ I became a leader of a "spiritual community," and a successor to a well-known teacher, Samuel L. Lewis
  19. ↑ See the Wikipedia article on Abd al-Rahman.
  20. ↑ 20.0 20.1 soc.religion.islam, January 31, 1997: Who are the Murabitun? (Archive snapshot)
  21. ↑ Warning about a Shady Cult: Murabitun and Ian Dallas. (Archive snapshot)
  22. ↑ 22.0 22.1 Coldfusioncommunity.net; Abd ul-Rahman Lomax, February 28, 2017: And Abd’s favorite topic. (Archive snapshot)
  23. ↑ soc.religion.islam, Abdullah, November 11, 2004: Where is Mr. AbdulRahman Lomax? (Archive snapshot
  24. ↑ Matthew Smith, August 22, 2004: Othman the Italian resurfaces. (Archive snapshot)
  25. ↑ soc.religion.islam; various, 1997: Cultic behavior amongst Muslims. (Archive snaphot)
  26. ↑ Lomaxs Quora profile
  27. ↑ The Number 19 in the Qur'an. Bahá'í Library Online.
  28. ↑ bismillAhi r-raHmAni r-raHiym.
  29. ↑ 29.0 29.1 Gardner, Martin. (2000). Did Adam and Eve Have Navels. New York: W. W. Norton & Company. pp. 260-261. Online.
  30. ↑ Yuksel, Edip. (2012). Running Like Zebras. Braionbow Press. ISBN 978-0982586730.
  31. ↑ Personal Attacks from Daniel Lomax.
  32. ↑ Abd Profile at LessWrong. (http://archive.is/DQiBq Archived). "As to rational skepticism, I was known to Martin Gardner, who quoted a study of mine on the so-called Miracle of the Nineteen in the Qur'an, the work of Rashad Khalifa, whom I knew personally."
  33. ↑ What is Infusion Institute?
  34. ↑ Lomax, Abd ul-Rahman. (2015). Replicable cold fusion experiment: heat/helium ratio. Current Science 108 (4): 574-577. (Also check Archive if link is offline).
  35. ↑ Articles written by Lomax, Abd Ul-Rahman. Current Science.
  36. ↑ Replicable cold fusion experiment: heat/helium ratio. Archive.
  37. ↑ Cold fusion is real, claim scientists. "We have direct evidence that the effect is real and is nuclear in nature," US physicist Abdul-Rahman Lomax of the Infusion Institute in Massachusetts says in his report."
  38. ↑ Cold fusion journalism.
  39. ↑ 2011 Cold Fusion/Lattice-Assisted Nuclear Reactions Colloquium
  40. ↑ Talk:Atkins diet. Wikipedia.
  41. ↑ Parapsychology/Dispute over Scientific Status/Abd. Wikiversity. (Archive).
  42. ↑ Update May 16, 2016. Also check the Archive.
  43. ↑ Archive
  44. ↑ Friedlander, Michael W. (1998). At the Fringes of Science. Westview Press. p. 119. ISBN 0-8133-2200-6 "Parapsychology has failed to gain general scientific acceptance even for its improved methods and claimed successes, and it is still treated with a lopsided ambivalence among the scientific community. Most scientists write it off as pseudoscience unworthy of their time."
  45. ↑ Pigliucci, Massimo; Boudry, Maarten. (2013). Philosophy of Pseudoscience: Reconsidering the Demarcation Problem. University Of Chicago Press p. 158. ISBN 978-0-226-05196-3 "Many observers refer to the field as a "pseudoscience". When mainstream scientists say that the field of parapsychology is not scientific, they mean that no satisfying naturalistic cause-and-effect explanation for these supposed effects has yet been proposed and that the field's experiments cannot be consistently replicated."
  46. ↑ The Parapsychology articles on Wikiversity were written by Dean Radin, Abd ul-Rahman Lomax, Ben Steigmann and Craig Weiler but were later deleted. Also see the archived Parapsychology talk page. Wikiversity.
  47. ↑ Exposed: London’s eugenics conference and its neo-Nazi links. London Student. 10 Jan 2018.
  48. ↑ Joe L. Kincheloe, et. al, Measured Lies: The Bell Curve Examined, Palgrave Macmillan, 1997, pg. 39
  49. ↑ Emails. Cold Fusion Community.
  50. ↑ https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Abd
  51. ↑ User:Abd. Encyclopedia Dramatica.
  52. ↑ Abd Blocked. (Archived). "Wikiversity is not your personal podium: persistent long term disruption."
  53. ↑ User:Abd "Abd has been banned by the Wikimedia Foundation from editing Wikimedia sites".
  54. ↑ http://archive.is/WiyJi
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