[asa] Baylor, Marks, and Uncommon Descent

In the last few days, some interesting developments have taken place,
culminating in some strange and counterproductive behavior by the
Uncommon Descent site.

What has happened is best described in a posting at UcD by Denyse
O'Leary http://www.uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/baptist-university-pulls-plug-on-evolutionary-informatics-lab-links-to-intelligent-design-fatal/

Baylor University removed Robert Marks' website until Marks would
place some clear markers on the page that this so called 'laboratory'
was not associated with Baylor.

As a side note, Denyse's historical interpretation of what happened at
Baylor seems a bit revisionist

<quote>"Dembski's ordeal", above, refers to the Michael Polanyi Center
, a previous ID think-tank headed by Dembski that Baylor
suppressed.</quote>

Of interest to ASA may be Denyse's spin about Baylor, a Christian
university that in my opinion for excellent reasons distances itself
from Intelligent Design. That Marks collaborated with Dembski and
formed a 'lab' may have added to the frustration. That the lab was
hailed as a great victory for Intelligent Design may have been the
icing on the cake.

<quote>
Denyse O'Leary: A typical "Christian" university like Baylor battens
off the wealth of Christians who can afford college for their kids, on
the understanding that it brokers the relationship between Christians
and an increasingly hostile secular elite - an elite that often
displays a general contempt for traditional religious freedoms.
</quote>

Is this all about traditional religious freedoms then? Does religious
freedom mean that anything religious should be allowed to be taught at
Baylor?

<quote>The understanding is that - (a wink and a nod) - the real world
is irrelevant to the pious fantasies of Christians. But in large parts
of North America, for some unknown reason, Christians are a large,
powerful, and affluent group. So they must be taught to adapt. A wink
and a nod in many a faculty lounge, I am sure.

Christians must be educated in such a way that they present no threat
to the secular establishment supported by their taxes, which makes the
laws and rules they must obey.

At this point, you, clever reader, have probably already tumbled to
the one weakness in so elegant a strategy for battening off the wealth
of Christianity while drawing its sting: What if there were clear
evidence that - for example - Darwinism or materialism is not actually
a reasonable account of reality. The leadership of such a university
would lose most of its intellectual capital
</quote>

Of course, Darwinism or materialism are two very different concepts.
While Denyse, who admits to not be a scientist, may not be familiar
with the differences, it should come as no surprise that the Discovery
Institute's approach has been to cloud the distinctions between
science and philosophy to suggest that Darwinism and science in
general, by using methodological naturalism, are forms of
philosophical naturalism.

So what if, as the evidence strongly suggests, Darwinism is a
reasonable account of reality? Some of our children may be convinced
by poor 'scientific' arguments to adhere to the viewpoints of the
Discovery Institute and many of its ID followers? Surely, as Augustine
observed, such would do significant damage to our credibility as well
as to our faith.

<quote>
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.
</quote>

Nice rhetoric, but this is a two-edged sword. What if universities
cater to a worldview which is known to be at odds with fact?

<quote>
Now do you see the threat posed by an intellectually rigorous inquiry
into intelligent design?</quote>

There is no such thing as an intellectually rigorous inquiry into
intelligent design, let's not fool ourselves.

To see how non-scientists like Denyse may be easily fooled, I present
the following claim by her

<quote>*It has been known since the 1960s that the evidence from
mathematical probability will not sustain Darwinism. Mike Behe's Edge
of Evolution follows up on that, using the evidence from
biochemistry.</quote>

Surely, Augustine would be concerned with Denyse's statement which
most would recognize as in conflict with science. However, there are
no laws against following scientifically vacuous ideas, yet as
Christians we should be aware of the cost to our own faith as well as
to the larger concept of religion.

And perhaps Denyse, if she is still reading this group, may explain
her use of Darwinbots?

<quote>Won't Christian Darwinbots point to that as evidence that Marks
should never have been allowed in anyway? And if they can't get rid of
him, they can at least do their very best to suppress his
research.</quote>

All these claims of suppression of his 'research' as if ID has done
any relevant research in these areas.

As I said, there is more to this. Yesterday, a previously unknown
contributor to UcD named Botnik posted a 'letter from Lilley,
president of Baylor'. While the letter had all the earmarkings of a
parody, it was not marked as such until later when many ID proponents
had shared their outrage and other interesting comments on the matter.

In many ways, this foolish attempt at parody seems to mirror Dembski's
press -release after Baylor had given him the directorship of the new
ID center at Baylor. Claiming that his opponents had met their
'Waterloo', Dembski managed to fumble his recent success and was
quickly replaced by Baylor.

It will be interesting to follow the developments with Baylor, the
'parody' email.

Wesley Elsberry has a good posting at his blog Austringer
http://austringer.net/wp/index.php/2007/09/01/weird-situation-at-baylor-gets-weirder/

PZ Myer also has a posting
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2007/09/baylor_has_a_stalker.php#more

<quote> Dembski:

Here's a fun interview with my friend and colleague Robert Marks. I
hope you catch from the interview the ambitiousness of the lab and how
it promises to put people like Christoph Adami and Rob Pennock out of
business (compare www.evolutionaryinformatics.org with
devolab.cse.msu.edu). </quote>

Update: Peter Irons reports

<quote>In reply to Bob O'H, Denyse O'Leary all-but-confirmed to me
that Dembski wrote the hoax letter, after I told her I suspected his
authorship, telling me that "Botnik" was someone "of whose identity I
suspect there is little doubt." Dembski hasn't denied it, although
I've given him the opportunity to do so.

Posted by: peter irons | September 2, 2007 1:22 PM </quote>

More recently, Dembski removed the offending posting, although he
claims the actions were one of a third party who had approached
Dembski with the idea.

The original thread is available at pandasthumb, enjoy

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Received on Sun Sep 2 23:14:45 2007