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The Great Escape A tribute to Bob Marks

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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 just too good a creation story for materialism to pass up. So otherwise respectable scientists have been lying for Darwin ever since, and snuffing out the careers of anyone who breaks rank.

Contrary to popular belief, you need NOT be a creationist or an ID guy. All you have to do is stop believing in magic – Darwinian magic – and ask for evidence.

That’s a Big Sin because the evidence does not support Darwinism.

Well, that explains the role of the Darwinist, who can hardly help suppressing evidence, but what about Baylor, the alleged Christian university? Elsewhere, I have pointed out that institutions like Baylor essentially protect Christians from a world that favours materialism. The justification for their existence would be revolutionized if word got out that materialism is largely disconfirmed over a broad area. As I said there,

In a trice, the harsh reality from which the institution protects its dumb sheeplike students is – a harsh UNreality. The students are not meat puppets who foolishly imagine that they have immortal souls and must therefore be humoured by their silly little campus groups. They are people who actually do have immortal souls who are being trained by the institution to accept a culture that lies to them that they are meat puppets. And the institution essentially brokers the lies in the interests of the materialist culture – and to its own prestige.
Now do you see the threat posed by an intellectually rigorous inquiry into intelligent design?

Last night, my mom and I were watching a video of one of my favourite movies – The Great Escape. Suddenly, some of the dialogue seemed startlingly relevant to the struggle of scientists like Marks.

Listen, as the German Colonel Von Luger explains to the Allied prisoners of war:

We have in effect put all our rotten eggs in one basket, and we intend to watch this basket carefully. Very wise. You will not be denied the usual facilities. Sports, a library, a recreation hall, and for gardening we will give you tools. We trust you to use them for gardening. Devote your energies to these things. Give up your hopeless attempts to escape. And, with intelligent cooperation, we may all sit out the war as comfortably as possible.

What institutions like Baylor want is precisely that – faculty who will just “sit out” the war between rampant materialist atheism and all non-materialist traditions, in the comfort of a Christian environment.

But Group Captain Ramsey responds,

Colonel Von Luger, it is the sworn duty of all officers to try to escape. If they cannot escape, then it is their sworn duty to cause the enemy to use an inordinate number of troops to guard them, and their sworn duty to harass the enemy to the best of their ability.

Ramsey’s reply is the proper duty of the Christian (or other non-materialist) academic in these times.

It is also the only safe one. There is no surprise, really, in the fact that today’s academic environment is quickly losing touch with the goal of intellectual inquiry. As Mario Beauregard and I show clearly in The Spiritual Brain, materialists do not believe in the reality of the mind. In that case, it is more humane as well as easier to just program the young meat puppets to be whatever is needed, and sideline any mis-programmed puppets who interfere.

Only a non-materialist tradition – in which intellect functions as a cause of events – can responsibly support intellectual freedom.

A Christian you say? Well then, do not be a good prisoner of your Christian campus. Be a Bob Marks. BE a problem!

Also:

Spying on a Darwin fan’s nightstand

More on why dog breeding cannot explain evolution.

The Mindful Hack on The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Life After Death

Also, science journalist notices that people are smarter than apes – wow!

And Wikipedia competitor Citizendium takes dead aim at propaganda, featured as news. And don’t miss RationalWiki – more rational than a rabid raccoon.

Comments
[…] Informatics Lab on probability and random processes (the one Baylor’s Darwin followers tried to shut down). Look, finally the books have to be […]September 2014: Events that made a difference to ID | Uncommon Descent
December 31, 2014
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[…] remember him, […]Bob Marks on apologetics | Uncommon Descent
October 19, 2014
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[…] won’t tell you, but O’Leary will. I offered him a tribute here. He has, it seems, rolled back into the game despite the own-side […]Bob Marks’ talk at ASA on the nature of information | Uncommon Descent
August 7, 2014
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[...] guys at Evolutionary Informatics Lab (the one the Baylor dean tried to can years ago, remember?) do exactly that: The precise code snippet where this frontloading is being [...]Uncommon Descent | Memo to physicist David Thomas: Make Darwinism work. Get an intelligent agent involved.
May 28, 2012
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[...] guys at Evolutionary Informatics Lab (the one the Baylor dean tried to can years ago, remember?) do exactly that: The precise code snippet where this frontloading is being [...]God's iPod - Uncommon Descent - Intelligent Design
April 6, 2012
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Thanks for getting back. I haven’t read your book, so I don’t know why you’ve concluded that “materialists do not believe in the reality of the mind” (it seems highly unlikely to me – does Richard Dawkins believe he doesn’t have a mind? I wouldn’t have thought so! - presumably you mean materialists don’t agree with your definition of the mind?) But it is surely inaccurate to claim that materialists are universally and necessarily indifferent or hostile to intellectual freedom?duncan
September 11, 2007
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Duncan, if you don't believe that the mind exists or causees anything to happen, why should you go to any serious trouble for intellectual freedom?O'Leary
September 10, 2007
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"Only a non-materialist tradition - in which intellect functions as a cause of events - can responsibly support intellectual freedom." I don't understand this! Any chance you could expand on it? Thanks.duncan
September 10, 2007
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By the way, if anyone wants to read the Wistar report, I scanned it into a PDF. If anyone wants a copy, email me at johnnyb@eskimo.com.johnnyb
September 8, 2007
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[...] #197: DK: T”he issue, as I see it, is not whether both conclusions have the same wording,... russ: I wonder how all of the history of this controversy will be written or (re-written) when IDfinally manages to... [...]MEDIA COVERAGE: Baylor, Robert Marks, and the Evolutionary Informatics Lab | Uncommon Descent
September 8, 2007
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Actually, the Wistar meetings showed that way back in the 1960s, but Darwinism is just too good a creation story for materialism to pass up. Actually, it's not such a good creation story. It's just that it is the only straw to which they can grasp. It's not so much that they can't pass it up, it's that they can't give it up or they have nothing. But if Professor Marks can drive a motorcycle over barbed wire, it wouldn't hurt!!tribune7
September 8, 2007
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[...] UD on Bob Marks…. [...]Darwiniana » The big sin, and a bigger one
September 8, 2007
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I realize that this one controversy is about questioning one aspect of Darwinism and not about promoting ID as such, but I think the principle remains the same. It is a two sided coin; fighting error is the flip side of promoting truth.StephenB
September 8, 2007
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"Well, then, do not be a prisoner of your Christian campus. Be a Bob Marks. BE a problem." This analogy comparing the fight for intellectual freedom to an escapte from a prison camp dramatizes the far reaching impact of this controversy. Most major universities support the elitist goal of creating heavily credentialed worker bees who cannot think for themselves and who will take up arms against those who resist the establishment. To promote, support, and defend ID is to undermine the intellectual slave traders and reintroduce the concept of a purpose driven, self directed life style. This battle is not just about intellectual freedom, it is about freedom, period. If I am not permitted to say that the design that appears in nature is real, neither am I permitted to say that there is any design or purpose to my existence. That means that there cannot be any such thing as a personal destiny or any moral or political right to pursue it.StephenB
September 8, 2007
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