Robert L. Park

Robert Lee Park (born January 16, 1931 in Kansas City, Missouri), also known as Bob Park, is a professor of physics at the University of Maryland, College Park and a former Executive Director of the American Physical Society. Park is most noted for his critical commentaries on alternative medicine, telepathy and homeopathy in his popular book "Voodoo Science". He is also seen in the media as an outspoken critic of human spaceflight, efforts to colonize space, and the prototype U.S. National Missile Defense. He criticized Dennis Lee's claims that he had invented a device from which he could extract "free energy", which would violate the conservation of energy.

Park writes a weekly column, "What's New", which features discussions on topics such as science news, space exploration, energy, the government in science, pseudoscience, alternative medicine, the creation-evolution controversy, and nuclear weapons.

Park was one of the featured participants in the alternative medicine episode of Penn & Teller's "".

He has characterized Wikipedia as a target for misuse by the "purveyors of pseudoscience".cite web|url=http://bobpark.physics.umd.edu/WN07/wn032307.html#3|title=Wikipedia: Has a beautiful idea fallen victim to human nature?|publisher=What's New By Bob Park|author=Bob Park|date=2007-03-23|accessdate=2007-04-02]

Books

*"Voodoo Science: The Road from Foolishness to Fraud", Oxford University Press, 2001. ISBN 0-19-514710-3.

ee also

* Criticism of Wikipedia's Suitability as an Encyclopedia

References

External links

* [http://www.bobpark.org/ What's New] – Bob Park's weekly column and newsletter
* [http://www.physics.umd.edu/people/faculty/park.html Robert L. Park] – faculty homepage, Physics Department, University of Maryland, College Park
* [http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C02E5D61639F93AA15757C0A9669C8B63&sec=health A Claim-Buster by Calling] , by Patricia Cohen, New York Times April 29, 2000
* [http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&contentId=A55991-2000Jun24 Testing the Current] , by Charles Platt, a review of "Voodoo Science", Washington Post, June 25, 2000
* [http://nucnews.net/nucnews/2000nn/0007nn/000723nn.htm Objections to Platt's review] , including one from Park, with a response from Platt, Washington Post, July 23, 2000, page X11 (reproduced at the "NucNews" website; scroll about one third down, or search for the term "voodoo")
* [http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2843/is_6_28/ai_n6333317 APS's Bob Park elected a CSICOP fellow] , Skeptical Inquirer, Nov-Dec, 2004 (reproduced at "findarticles.com")
* [http://www.aps.org/programs/honors/prizes/prizerecipient.cfm?name=Robert%20Lee%20Park&year=1998 Robert Lee Park, 1998 Joseph A. Burton Forum Award Recipient]
* [http://www.aps.org/publications/apsnews/200607/bob-park.cfm What's New: The end of an era] APS News, July 2006, announcing that Park is stepping down as APS spokesperson