Re: [asa] Baylor, Marks, and Uncommon Descent

Pim

didn't you know? UD is a spoof site set up by atheists to bring the whole
Intelligent Design movement into disrepute?

That is the most irreducibly complex interpretation of it.

Michael
----- Original Message -----
From: "PvM" <pvm.pandas@gmail.com>
To: "AmericanScientificAffiliation" <asa@calvin.edu>
Sent: Monday, September 03, 2007 4:14 AM
Subject: [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 Mon Sep 3 05:19:22 2007