Sunday, October 23, 2011

#255: Robert J. Marks II


A.k.a. Galapagos Finch


Robert Marks II is a Distinguished Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Baylor University, a proponent of intelligent design and one of Bill Dembski’s closest associates. He has a lot of peer-reviewed publications; evidence for intelligent design is not part of his publication record (though he sometimes seems to think so). Some of his stuff with Dembski has been published online, but that is a different matter (the link also includes a critique of the draft). And one paper has actually been published in an IEEE journal, although it doesn’t quite show what Dembski & Marks want to believe that it shows (see also this). Together Dembski and Marks seem to be rather obsessed with Dawkins’s famous “weasel” program (see also this and this), but they never quite seem to understand it.


Marks’s substantial knowledge of mathematics seems to have a tendency to get gappy once creationism (and, by extension, religion) is involved.


For the nickname, Galapagos Finch, see this one.


Diagnosis: A good scientist in many respects, to be sure, but also another example of the fact that when cherished religious doctrines get in the way even good scientists may resort to pure crackpottery.

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