BRAVE NEW SCHOOLS
Darwin challenged, research censored
Christian university removes professor's website, data from public
view
Posted: October 4, 2007
1:00 a.m. Eastern
By Bob Unruh
© 2007 WorldNetDaily.com
Baylor Prof. Robert Marks
Baylor University Professor Bob Marks, whose research could be the
foundation for a major challenge to Darwin's theory of evolution,
is at odds with his historically Christian employer, which ordered
that his work be taken off the Internet.
Maybe it's because for so many years the logical alternative to
evolution, which is grounded on principles such as random selection
and survival of the fittest, has been disregarded and ridiculed by
the scientific community. And intelligent design, as it is called,
presumes the existence of an outside intelligence influencing life,
according to a critic of the university.
Walt Ruloff, the executive producer of Premise Media, who worked
with actor Ben Stein on a new project called "Expelled: No
Intelligence Allowed," about the monopoly Darwinian beliefs hold in
academia, wrote in the Baylor student newspaper about his
concerns.
"As many of you have heard, Marks, a distinguished professor of
electrical and computer engineering, has been conducting research
that ultimately may challenge the foundation of Darwinian theory.
In layman's terms, Marks is using highly sophisticated mathematical
and computational techniques to determine if there are limits to
what natural selection can do," he wrote. "At Baylor, a Christian
institution, this should be pretty unremarkable stuff. I'm assuming
most of the faculty, students and alumni believe in God, so
wouldn't it also be safe to assume you have no problem with a
professor trying to scientifically quantify the limits of a blind,
undirected cause of the origin and subsequent history of
life?
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"But the dirty little secret is university administrators are much
more fearful of the Darwinian Machine than they are of you," he
said.
"Here's what's going on: Somebody within the scientific community
let [Baylor dean Ben] Kelley know that Marks was running a website
that was friendly to intelligent design. Such a thing is completely
unacceptable in today's university system even at a Christian
institution. Kelley was probably told to have the site shut down
immediately or suffer the consequences," Ruloff said.
"What are those consequences? The ultimate penalty is to have
Baylor marginalized by being designated as not a 'legitimate
institution of higher learning.' So designated merely for the
'crime' of allowing Neo-Darwinism to be questioned, since
conventional elitist wisdom holds it's no longer a theory but an
inviolable truth."
Prof. Marks told WND he could not comment since his lawyer and the
university are in negotiations over the situation. And Baylor
spokeswoman Lori Fogleman said there are "ongoing legal discussions
that we hope will be resolved to both party's mutual
satisfaction."
"What I can tell you is we're optimistic that it will be resolved
satisfactorily to all parties," she told WND. "This has to do with
the policies and procedures here at the university, as far as
posting research on a website, and the use of the university's
name. We're not talking about a content issue, we're talking policy
and procedure."
However, she told WND she was unaware of a single other instance in
which any research posting by any Baylor professor had been treated
in a similar fashion.
Ruloff, however, has. "Google the names of Richard Sternberg,
Caroline Crocker, Guillermo Gonzalez, Dean Kenyon and Bill Dembski
and see what you find," he said. "These distinguished scientists
have suffered severe consequences for questioning Darwinian
theory
"
WND has reported in the case involving Gonzalez.
Guillermo Gonzalez
The scientist at Iowa State University is appealing to state
officials after his tenure was rejected by department managers
because of his "personal religious and ideological beliefs."
Gonzalez was not given tenure, even though his performance reviews
had been exemplary, according to a story in World Magazine, after
physics department chairman Eli Rosenberg admitted Gonzalez'
research into intelligent design "played into" the decision-making
process.
Proponents of intelligent design say it draws on recent discoveries
in physics, biochemistry and related disciplines that indicate some
features of the natural world are best explained as the product of
an intelligent cause rather than an undirected process such as
natural selection a key foundation of belief in Darwinian theory.
Advocates include scientists at numerous universities and science
organizations worldwide.
John West, associate director of the Discovery Institute's Center
for Science & Culture, where Gonzalez is a senior fellow, said
the tenure denial is "clearly a result of the vicious attacks he's
had to endure from Darwinists and various atheists for presenting a
scientific argument for the intelligent design of the universe
based on the empirical evidence from physics and astronomy."
Gonzalez, who will be out of his job at ISU after the 2007-2008
year if the decision is not changed, was rejected by officials
despite his publication of 68 peer-reviewed scientific articles,
nearly four times what his own department suggests as a standard
for "excellence."
Casey Luskin, a spokesman for the Discovery Institute, told WND
that his organization hasn't been involved directly in the Marks
case, as it is with Gonzalez. But he said it's a situation that
appears to be developing more and more as science investigates
realms of information that even a decade ago were
unsearchable.
He said Baylor summarily ordered Marks' research taken down, then
came up with some "ridiculous requirements" regarding disclaimers,
then ultimately said even that wasn't enough.
But the research has been unavailable for more than a month, and
continuing, he said.
"This is very serious research. It's very common among evolutionary
biologists to do computer simulations. Results are published in
some of the most prestigious journals," he said, citing the Journal
of Nature.
He said the scientists essentially are looking at the ability of
random search engines to come up with the type of information that
would be necessary for evolution to exist.
Luskin said Marks essentially showed "you can't just produce enough
information through random searches."
Baylor, which has been a university since it was chartered by the
Republic of Texas, is affiliated with the Baptist General
Convention of Texas. It has about 14,000 students on its Waco
campus.
But in a recent guest column, Mark Ramsey, the founder of Texans
for Better Science Education, called the dispute "a giant leap
backward" for Baylor.
"This censorship is based not on poor scholarship or bad data but
on a disagreement about the research's conclusions. The conclusions
were not deemed to be particularly favorable to the notion that
Darwin was right and no intelligence was required in the creation
of the world and everything in it," he wrote.
"One would think that scholarship consistent with the beliefs of
the vast majority of both Americans in general and Baptists in
particular would be something Baylor would cultivate, not censor,"
he continued. "The geology department's Web page on evolution is
instructive. It recommends several sources whose work are in direct
conflict with clear teaching of most Baylor parents and students'
beliefs."
He cited a "suggested reading" list including Richard Dawkins, "The
most vocal living atheist on the planet who openly mocks all
religion."
Marks' site was called Evolutionary Informatics, and said its goal
was to investigate how information makes evolution possible.
Attorney John Gilmore, who is representing Marks, told local
reporters it began when the professor gave a podcast interview with
the Discovery Institute.
"A week later, it was removed," Gilmore said of the website.
Gilmore said the university earlier agreed that the site would add
a disclaimer saying it was unaffiliated with Baylor. But then the
school changed positions, seeking provisions that would allow it to
control the site content, he said.
It's not Baylor's first brush with the same issues.
Several years ago, according to the university newspaper, the
faculty senate requested that the university shut down the Michael
Polanyi Center, labeling the studies on which director William
Dembski and assistant director Bruce Gordon were working as
"creationist."
"Expelled," being marketed by Motive Entertainment, which has
spearheaded major previous Hollywood blockbusters, including "The
Passion of the Christ," "Polar Express" and "The Chronicles of
Narnia," addresses the issues Baylor is confronting directly.
"Expelled" documents how teachers and scientists alike are being
ridiculed daily, denied tenure and even fired believing there is
evidence of "design" in nature and challenging the current
orthodoxy that life is entirely a result of random chance.
For example, Stein meets Richard Sternberg, a double Ph.D.
biologist who allowed a peer-reviewed research paper describing the
evidence for intelligence in the universe to be published in the
scientific journal Proceedings. Shortly after publication,
officials from the National Center for Science Education and the
Smithsonian Institution, where Sternberg was a research fellow,
began a coordinated smear-and-intimidation campaign to get the
promising young scientist fired. The attack on scientific freedom
was so egregious that it prompted a congressional
investigation.
Also Caroline Crocker, a brilliant biology teacher at George Mason
University who was forced out of the university for briefly
discussing problems with Darwinian theory and for telling the
students that some scientists believe there is evidence of design
in the universe.