David E. Thomas (born 1953) is a scientist and software engineer best known for his

scientific skepticism Scientific skepticism or rational skepticism (also spelled scepticism), sometimes referred to as skeptical inquiry, is a position in which one questions the veracity of claims lacking scientific evidence. In practice, the term most commonly ref ...

research and writings. He is a graduate of the

New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology The New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology (New Mexico Tech or NMT), formerly New Mexico School of Mines, is a public university in Socorro, New Mexico, United States. It offers over 30 Bachelor of Science degrees in technology, the scien ...

, and his skeptic work covers the Roswell and Aztec UFO sightings, the

Bible code The Bible code (, ), also known as the Torah code, is a purported set of encoded words within a Hebrew text of the Torah that, according to proponents, has predicted significant historical events. The statistical likelihood of the Bible code a ...

global warming Present-day climate change includes both global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its wider effects on Earth's climate system. Climate change in a broader sense also includes previous long-term changes ...

, the 9/11 Truth movement and chemtrails. Thomas is frequently published in

Skeptical Inquirer ''Skeptical Inquirer'' (S.I.) is a bimonthly American general-audience magazine published by the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (CSI) with the subtitle "The Magazine for Science and Reason". The magazine initially focused on investigating clai ...

magazine. Thomas currently works at the Program for Array Seismic Studies of the Continental

Lithosphere A lithosphere () is the rigid, outermost rocky shell of a terrestrial planet or natural satellite. On Earth, it is composed of the crust and the lithospheric mantle, the topmost portion of the upper mantle that behaves elastically on time ...

(PASSCAL) at New Mexico Tech and is an adjunct instructor of psychology and education there.

Education and awards

Thomas is a graduate of the

and holds a bachelor's degree in mathematics and physics and a master's degree in mathematics. He received the Brown Award, New Mexico Tech's highest undergraduate award, in 1979, the Langmuir publication award as a graduate student, and the

National Center for Science Education The National Center for Science Education (NCSE) is a Nonprofit organization, not-for-profit membership organization in the United States whose stated mission is to educate the press and the public on the scientific and educational aspects of con ...

's Friend of Darwin Award. Thomas has served as president of the New Mexico Academy of Science and is a fellow of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry. He has been both a board member of the Coalition for Excellence on Science and Math Education (CESE) and the president of New Mexicans for Science and Reason since 1998.

Career

Thomas worked at BDM International, Inc. in Albuquerque from 1981–1994 and for ITW Magnaflux/Quasar from 1994-2007. Thomas and scientist Kim Johnson co-hosted Science Watch, a weekly podcast on AM 1350, from 2005 to 2010 and has been published in

since 1995.

Skepticism

UFOs

Regarding the

Roswell UFO incident The Roswell Incident started in 1947 with the recovery of debris near Roswell, New Mexico. It later became the basis for conspiracy theories alleging that the United States military recovered a crashed extraterrestrial spacecraft. The debri ...

, Thomas has joked that "My theory...is that the Roswell ship did not actually crash, that it only landed and took off again and continued to land at all these other sites." He maintains that the incident involved a crashed Project Mogul balloon and was not in any way related to extraterrestrial activity. Thomas also frequently discusses the Aztec, New Mexico, UFO incident hoax, and his explanation of the scam at the Aztec UFO Symposium ended his regular speaking appearance there. The Symposium's last meeting was in 2011. In 2009, Thomas presented at UFOcon in Tucson, Arizona, where he covered both incidents.

Bible code

Thomas has applied his knowledge of mathematics and computer engineering to dispute the credibility of the

He offers coincidental examples of secrets "coded" in other texts, such as apparent references to Hitler in ''

War and Peace ''War and Peace'' (; pre-reform Russian: ; ) is a literary work by the Russian author Leo Tolstoy. Set during the Napoleonic Wars, the work comprises both a fictional narrative and chapters in which Tolstoy discusses history and philosophy. An ...

'' and the phrase "The code is a silly snake-oil hoax" in Michael Drosnin's ''

The Bible Code The Bible code (, ), also known as the Torah code, is a purported set of Cryptography, encoded words within a Hebrew text of the Torah that, according to proponents, has predicted significant historical events. The statistical likelihood of th ...

''. Thomas maintains that "Hidden messages can be found anywhere, provided you're willing to invest time and effort to harvest the vast field of probability." Matt Young's ''No Sense of Obligation'', a skeptical examination of science and religion, references Thomas's work.

Climate change

In 2014, Thomas joined fellow scientist Kim Johnson on

Albuquerque Albuquerque ( ; ), also known as ABQ, Burque, the Duke City, and in the past 'the Q', is the List of municipalities in New Mexico, most populous city in the U.S. state of New Mexico, and the county seat of Bernalillo County, New Mexico, Bernal ...

's 94 Rock morning show for a four-part conversation regarding

climate change Present-day climate change includes both global warming—the ongoing increase in Global surface temperature, global average temperature—and its wider effects on Earth's climate system. Climate variability and change, Climate change in ...

. They discussed the geographic patterns and implications of global warming as well as refuting the idea that human interference has a negligible effect on the crisis. That same year, Thomas joined more than 60 fellow skeptics clarifying the media's use of "skeptic" and "denier" when discussing those who undermine and reject climate science. The letter explains that "Proper skepticism promotes scientific inquiry, critical investigation, and the use of reason in examining controversial and extraordinary claims. It is foundational to the scientific method. Denial, on the other hand, is the ''a priori'' rejection of ideas without objective consideration."

The 9/11 Truth movement

Thomas has engaged in several public debates with advocates of the 9/11 Truth movement. After offering a live refutation to architect Richard Gage's 2009 New Mexico Tech alumni weekend presentation on the collapse of the

twin towers Twins are two offspring produced by the same pregnancy.MedicineNet > Definition of Twin Last Editorial Review: 19 June 2000 Twins can be either ''monozygotic'' ('identical'), meaning that they develop from one zygote, which splits and forms two e ...

, Thomas debated Gage and chemist Niels Harrit on the same subject live on

Ian Punnett Case Ian Punnett (March 3, 1960 – December 22, 2023) was an American radio broadcaster, author, professor, and ordained Episcopal deacon. In the early to mid 1980s, Punnett hosted the WLRW morning show in his college town along with Val Wall ...

's nationally syndicated radio show '' Coast to Coast'' in 2010. In 2014, Thomas and Michael Fullerton took part in a similar debate conducted via YouTube. Thomas has written scientific refutations of other conspiracy theorists' claims surrounding the

September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks, also known as 9/11, were four coordinated Islamist terrorist suicide attacks by al-Qaeda against the United States in 2001. Nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercial airliners, crashing the first two into ...

Creationist legislation and intelligent design

In February of 2011, the Education Committee of the New Mexico House of Representatives voted 5-4 to table House Bill 302, which sought to prevent public school teachers from being disciplined or removed from their positions for teaching "relevant scientific information regarding either the scientific strengths or scientific weaknesses pertaining to 'controversial' scientific topics". Thomas testified his concern that the bill "is really just a ploy to get

creationism Creationism is the faith, religious belief that nature, and aspects such as the universe, Earth, life, and humans, originated with supernatural acts of Creation myth, divine creation, and is often Pseudoscience, pseudoscientific.#Gunn 2004, Gun ...

in the classroom." In The Panda's Thumb, he wrote "The proposed legislation is not needed by New Mexico's students or teachers. New Mexico's existing standards already protect students from religious indoctrination or harassment by their teachers. Furthermore, the bill is unconstitutional as written, and its passage and enactment will almost certainly result in expensive litigation." He alleged that the bill originated as part of the

intelligent design movement The intelligent design movement is a neo-creationist religious campaign for broad social, academic and political change to promote and support the pseudoscientific Article available froUniversiteit Gent/ref> idea of intelligent design (ID), which ...

and pro-intelligent design think tank groups. At CSICon 2011, Thomas presented "Something Rotten In Denmark: How Hamlet's 'Weasel' Reveals The Vacuousness Of Intelligent Design" where he discussed

genetic algorithm In computer science and operations research, a genetic algorithm (GA) is a metaheuristic inspired by the process of natural selection that belongs to the larger class of evolutionary algorithms (EA). Genetic algorithms are commonly used to g ...

s as well as reviewing the status of the New Mexico bill. In 2004, Thomas offered the "opposing view" for the New Mexico division of the Intelligent Design Network's Darwin, Design and Democracy V symposium where he outlined why intelligent design is inappropriate for public school science curriculum.

Personal life

Thomas is married and has two sons. He performs juggling and magic shows and was a member of The Vigilante Band on bass guitar, mandolin and vocals.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Thomas, Dave 21st-century American physicists Living people New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology alumni 1953 births American skeptics Mathematicians from New Mexico