Mark Perakh, who was an author at Panda’s thumb passed away. From the NCSE website:
Perakh was born (as Mark Yakovlevich Popereka) on November 2, 1924, in Kiev, Ukraine. After serving in the Soviet Army during World War II, he earned the equivalent of a PhD in physics from the Odessa Polytechnic Institute in 1946. From 1950 to 1973, he conducted research and taught physics in several universities in the USSR, receiving a Diploma of Doctorate of Sciences from Kazan Institute of Technology in 1968. He emigrated to Israel, where he changed his surname to Perakh and was appointed a professor of physics at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, in 1973. He subsequently emigrated to the United States in 1978, where he was a professor of physics at California State University, Fullerton, from 1985 to 1994. During his career, he received a number of prizes and awards for his research, including one from the Royal Society of London, and authored almost three hundred scientific papers and several monographs.
He was wrong about ID, he was an opponent of what Uncommon Descent stands for, but for his other work as a real scientist, I salute him. I’m sorry he chose to take the opposite side in the debate over Intelligent Design. I extend condolences to his friends and family.
For all his railing against the hypothesis of creation, he did say one notable thing which I can agree with:
there still remain unanswered many fundamental questions about nature…nothing should be prohibited as a legitimate subject of science, and excluding the supernatural out of hand serves no useful purpose
Mark Perakh