The story of Prof. Robert Marks’s Evolutionary Informatics Lab and its removal from Baylor has finally made it into the local paper:
Web site sparks new intelligent design battle at BU | By Tim Woods
www.wacotrib.com/…/09092007wacintelligentdesign.htmlWaco Tribune-Herald | Sunday, September 09, 2007
A Baylor University professor is fighting university officials to have the school restore his personal Web site in a battle some link to academic freedom and intelligent design.
About a week after informing distinguished professor of electrical and computer engineering Robert Marks that his Evolutionary Informatics Lab site would need to be taken down, Benjamin Kelley, Baylor’s dean of engineering, ordered the site be removed without Marks’ permission, according to Marks’ attorney, St. Paul, Minn.-based John Gilmore.
The site, which was on a university server, has been down since early August. . . .
In the online version of this article, I offered the following comments:
Comments by William Dembski | Sep 9, 2007 9:17 AM
Just a few points of clarification:
(1) The EIL website can be found on a mirror site off the Baylor server at www.evolutionaryinformatics.org. This is essentially what the Baylor administration removed.
(2) When Prof. Marks received notice from Dean Kelley that he was to remove the site from the Baylor server, there was nothing said about “Baylor branding.” Here is what Kelley wrote to Marks about removing the site: “I have received several concerned messages this week about an interview and web site dealing with evolutionary computing associated ID. Please disconnect this web site immediately and Cheryl will arrange a time for us to meet immediately upon my return.” With a meeting of attorneys pending, Kelley still removed the site — without Prof. Marks’s permission.
(3) Centers and institutes are university sponsored, have an annual budget, and need to cleared with the university. Labs and groups are not. Prof. Marks has other labs and groups at Baylor that never received Baylor’s official blessing and continue on to this day without any disclaimers. This is about ID and guilt by association. It has nothing to do with established university policy. For a full account, see uncommondescent.com/…/of-groups-and-labs-at-baylor.
(4) For an updated summary of all news coverage on this academic freedom crisis (it’s already been reported in the Chronicle of Higher Education, WORLD Magazine, and the Baptist Press), consult uncommondescent.com/…/media-coverage-baylor-robert-marks-and-the-evolutionary-informatics-lab.