Monthly Archives: September 2007
Baylor, Marks, Faust, and Selling One’s Soul
| September 11, 2007 | Posted by GilDodgen under Education, Intelligent Design |
There is an ancient legend about a man named Faust, who sold his soul for temporal selfish gain and self-aggrandizement. Although the immediate but ephemeral rewards were intoxicating, the ultimate consequences were hideous. The legend of Faust has inspired much art, music, and theater over the centuries. The reason is obvious: There is a fundamental… more
So where ARE the Friends of Robert Marks? Of intellectual freedom at Baylor?
| September 11, 2007 | Posted by O'Leary under Intelligent Design |
 by Denyse O’Leary The latest Baylor explanation of why Prof. Robert Marks’ evolutionary informatics website was taken down is that he wasn’t doing “approved research.” There is no precedent for this notion of “approved research” at Baylor — which is most likely why the Baylor administration did not cite it earlier. They have just thought… more
Only “Approved Research” on our site! — And who gives approval?
| September 11, 2007 | Posted by William Dembski under Intelligent Design |
The Baylor University student newspaper, the Lariat, finally has a piece about the academic discrimination case involving Prof. Robert Marks and his Evolutionary Informatics Lab (EIL). The story introduces an interesting new twist: now the problem with the EIL site is that it doesn’t contain “approved research.” And who is supposed to approve Prof. Marks’s… more
“Baylor Forces Professor to Shut Down Site”
| September 10, 2007 | Posted by William Dembski under Intelligent Design |
Here’s the Syracuse University student paper weighing in on the Baylor Academic Freedom Crisis — one wonders when the Baylor student paper, The Lariat, is going to have something to say about this. Baylor forces professor to shut down site By: Nicole Loring | Posted: 9/10/07 Source: The Daily Orange (Syracuse University Student Paper) Just… more
They would have believed in CREATION?! – if it wasn’t in the Bible?
| September 10, 2007 | Posted by O'Leary under Intelligent Design |
Now and then someone has written to me to claim that it’s just not true that mid-twentieth century physicists disliked the Big Bang because of the religious implications of the idea of a beginning to the universe. A contact, however, quotes Simon Singh’s Big Bang: The Origin of the Universe: The British physicist William Bonner,… more
Baylor’s Post Hoc Rationalizations
| September 10, 2007 | Posted by William Dembski under Intelligent Design |
The Baylor administration, in attempting to justify its censorship of Prof. Robert Marks and his Evolutionary Informatics Lab, is now raising procedural concerns about the proper deployment of labs and groups on the Baylor server as well as doubts about Prof. Marks’s job performance. This is unconscionable. As I have pointed out here at UD,… more
PZ Myers supports academic freedom for Marks
| September 9, 2007 | Posted by DLH under Constitution, Education, Evolution, Science |
PZ Myers of Pharyngula has stood up on the side of academic freedom at Baylor University for Robert Marks, II. Baylor episode is getting wider circulation Posted on: September 4, 2007 3:07 PM, by PZ Myer “The story of the Robert Marks debacle has now made the pages of The Chronicle of Higher Education. If… more
Baylor Academic Discrimination Crisis Makes Sunday Front Page of Waco-Trib
| September 9, 2007 | Posted by William Dembski under Intelligent Design |
The story of Prof. Robert Marks’s Evolutionary Informatics Lab and its removal from Baylor has finally made it into the local paper: Web site sparks new intelligent design battle at BU | By Tim Woods www.wacotrib.com/…/09092007wacintelligentdesign.html Waco Tribune-Herald | Sunday, September 09, 2007 A Baylor University professor is fighting university officials to have the school… more
Front loading passes peer review in Cell Cycle
| September 9, 2007 | Posted by Dave S. under Intelligent Design |
1: Cell Cycle. 2007 Jun;6(15):1873-7. Epub 2007 Jun 6. Links Universal genome in the origin of metazoa: thoughts about evolution. Sherman M. Department of Biochemistry; Boston University Medical School, 715 Albany St., Boston, Massachusetts 02118, USA. [email protected] Recent advances in paleontology, genome analysis, genetics and embryology raise a number of questions about the origin of… more
Who dares read Behe’s heresy?
| September 8, 2007 | Posted by DLH under Evolution, Intelligent Design |
Michael Behe’s The Edge of Evolution: The Search for the Limits of Darwinism, was released this June 2007. Most scientific establishment reviews have been negative. e.g. See Wikipedia. However, now that schools and universities have awakened from summer, Edge of Evolution is running at Amazon.com Sales Rank: #8,778 in Books. Popular in these categories: #3… more
Of Groups and Labs at Baylor
| September 8, 2007 | Posted by William Dembski under Intelligent Design |
You might wonder whether Prof. Robert Marks is the only faculty member at Baylor who has a “group” or a “lab” not blessed by the Baylor administration. The other day I mined a bunch of cases here at UD where the terms “group” and “lab” are used at Baylor, almost certainly without the Baylor administration’s… more
The Great Escape A tribute to Bob Marks
| September 8, 2007 | Posted by O'Leary under Intelligent Design |
What does Bob Marks want? He wants the right to run computer simulations at Baylor that might (possibly) reduce confidence in Darwinian evolution. That is, the simulations might show that Darwinian evolution is not nearly as probable as professional Darwinists claim. Actually, the Wistar meetings showed that way back in the 1960s, but Darwinism is… more
John Derbyshire: “I will not do my homework!”
| September 7, 2007 | Posted by William Dembski under Intelligent Design |
[[Derbyshire continues to embarrass himself regarding ID -- see his most recent remarks in The Spectator -- so I thought I would remind readers of UD of a past post regarding his criticisms of ID. --WmAD]] John Derbyshire has written some respectable books on the history of mathematics (e.g., his biography of Riemann). He has… more
Baylor Public Relations on Marks Evo-Info Lab in Free Fall
| September 7, 2007 | Posted by William Dembski under Intelligent Design |
The Baylor President, Provost, Dean of Engineering, and Baylor legal counsel need to get their story straight: Not so fast: Baylor’s treatment of an ID-advancing research lab has shifted from friendly to fire | Mark Bergin WORLD Magazine, September 15, 2007, Vol. 22, No. 33 http://www.worldmag.com/articles/13312 Last month, as John Gilmore flew home from Waco,… more
Discovery Institute Issues Press Statement Concerning Evo-Info Lab
| September 6, 2007 | Posted by William Dembski under Intelligent Design |
For Immediate Release Sept. 6 Press Contact: Anika Smith (206) 292-0401 x155 [email protected] Baylor University Denies Research Scientists’ Academic Freedom “Baylor University has proven yet again that academic freedom has been thrown off campus and academic persecution is now the norm,†said Discovery Institute’s Casey Luskin in reaction to Baylor University’s deletion of a professor’s… more
Ultra-conserved DNA with no evident immediate purpose
| September 6, 2007 | Posted by Dave S. under Intelligent Design |
Edward Rubin again finds hard evidence supporting a front loaded evolution. Front loading is a design engineering term generally used to describe design elements inserted for possible use in the future (contingency) as opposed to immediate use. The mechanism of random mutation and natural selection is incapable of contingency planning. RM+NS can build based on… more
Alister McGrath goes after Richard Dawkins – atheism is simpleminded narcissism?
| September 6, 2007 | Posted by O'Leary under Intelligent Design |
Oxford historian Alister McGrath, author of Twilight of Atheism and formerly an atheist himself, reflects on his debates with Richard Dawkins, who seems to have retired from his science career to bash religion. Simpleminded? I am disappointed. I would have expected an Oxford professor to use a much more careful, scholarly approach, always trying to… more
Matter of time for intelligent design
| September 6, 2007 | Posted by DLH under Darwinism, Intelligent Design |
Three cheers for an editor with courage: “Editor: Lebanon Daily News In the words of the brilliant investigative-journalist and four-time Gold Medallion winner, Lee Strobel, “My road to atheism was paved by science … but, ironically science became my later journey to God.†The public needs enlightenment on the truth of intelligent design as increasing… more
Baylor’s Main Argument Against the Evo-Info Lab — Reply to Lori Fogleman
| September 6, 2007 | Posted by William Dembski under Intelligent Design |
In her remarks to the Baptist Press, Lori Fogleman (well beloved Baylor sports personality who regularly comments on “Inside Baylor Sports” for the Lady Bears) offers the following argument against allowing Robert Marks’s Evolutionary Informatics Lab to continue at Baylor: Lori Fogleman, director of media communications at Baylor, told Baptist Press Sept. 5 that the… more
Baptist News reports on the Evo-Info Lab Controversy
| September 5, 2007 | Posted by William Dembski under Intelligent Design |
I.D. rift hits Baylor again http://www.bpnews.org/BPnews.asp?ID=26372 Posted on Sep 5, 2007 | by Erin Roach WACO, Texas (BP)–Baylor University officials ordered the shutdown of a personal website of one of a handful of the school’s distinguished professors because of anonymous concerns that the site, hosted on the university’s server, supported Intelligent Design. Robert Marks, distinguished… more