Robert J. Marks II

Robert J. Marks II (born August 25, 1950) is Distinguished Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Baylor University and a proponent of intelligent design. He appeared in the documentary Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed.

Quotes

 * Computers are no more able to create information than iPods are capable of creating music.
 * Quoted in Stephen C. Meyer, Signature in the Cell: DNA and the Evidence for Intelligent Design, HarperOne (2009) p. 292


 * Is it wrong to pray for God to make me more successful so that I can be more humble?


 * If "knowledge puffs up," then we professors are in ever-present danger of having egos resembling threatened blow fish.


 * Computer programs, including all of the models of Darwinian evolution of which I am aware, perform the way their programmers intended.  Doing so requires the programmer infuse information about the program's goal. You can't write a good program without [doing so].
 * From the viewpoint of computer simulation, our universe does not contain the probabilistic resources to get a meaningful result for even a moderately sized unassisted [Darwinian] search. In fact, if you take ten to the one thousand of our universes in what is sometimes referred to as the multiverse, the probabilistic resources don't exist there either.


 * Engineers actually design things. This is why [many] engineers are interested in the area of intelligent design.


 * All engineering fields are either solutions looking for problems or problems looking for solutions.


 * Forecasting the future of technology is risky. Predictions tend to be linear whereas technical advances come in quantum jumps from paradigm shifts. After the second World War, forecasters in electronics [who did not foresee the transistor] would have linearly [and incorrectly] foretasted breakthroughs in better vacuum tube reliability from, for example, improved filament chemistry.


 * Christians are being subjected to the same “separate but equal” discrimination used to justify discrimination in the old Jim Crow south.


 * Science packages theory, places it on a throne, and honors and protects it much like a queen. Engineers make the queen come down from the throne and scrub the floor.  And if she doesn’t work, we fire her.


 * For the record, I don’t deserve this. But I have lower back pain and don’t deserve that either. (After being listed as one of the twenty most brilliant living Christian Professors.)


 * There is no foundational mathematical or physical reason the relationship between Pythagorean and tempered western music should exist. It just does.  The rich flexibility of the tempered scale and the … bountiful archives of western music are a testimonial to this wonderful coincidence provided by nature.


 * Can anyone write code to explain to a computer their sensory experience of enjoying hot buttered sweet corn?


 * The universe as accepted by science in terms of size and age is not big enough or old enough to explain evolution.


 * Saying the Bible is not a book about science is like saying a cookbook is not a book about chemistry.

Non-Computable You: What You Do That Artificial Intelligence Never Will (2022)

 * Actual AI is written with computer code such as Python or C++. “Super-intelligent AI” is written using PowerPoint slides.
 * Software without bias is like water without wet.
 * [Ray] Kurzweil says that “consciousness is a biological process like digestion, lactation, photosynthesis, or mitosis.” Or, to revise Descartes, “I lactate. Therefore, I think.”
 * [N]on-algorithmic computing in digital silicon is an oxymoron.
 * The ultimate success of AI is not due to journal papers, blogs, press releases, forecasts, corporate acquisitions, speculation, or promises. Success is measured by reduction to practice.
 * Those who believe in the coming of Strong AI argue that non-algorithmic consciousness will be an emergent property as AI complexity ever increases. In other words, consciousness will just happen, as a sort of natural outgrowth of the code’s increasing complexity. Such unfounded optimism is akin to that of a naive young boy standing in front of a large pile of horse manure. He becomes excited and begins digging into the pile, flinging handfuls of manure over his shoulders. “With all this horse poop,” he says, “there must be a pony in here somewhere!” Strong AI proponents similarly claim, in essence, “With all this computational complexity, there must be some consciousness here somewhere!”
 * Given enough time, any algorithm performed on a modern-day computer can be done by the programmer with pencil and paper.
 * Computers can only analyze inside the box. Remarkable humans have the meta-ability to go outside ourselves, look back inside, and explore our abilities. We can understand understanding, think about thinking, and … know about the unknowable
 * Emotions that make us human will never be duplicated by a machine. These include compassion, love, empathy, elation, sadness, fear, anger, disgust, pleasure, pride, excitement, embarrassment, regret, jealousy, grief, hope, and faith. Properly defined, creativity, sentience, and understanding are also on the list. These and other non-algorithmic traits are evidence of non-computable you.
 * Any claim that “all religions are true” is like claiming any liquid from a cow, when chilled, goes well with a chocolate chip cookie.
 * [S]ome modern [Christian] praise music sung in churches during Sunday worship service is referred to as 7-11 music: seven words repeated eleven times.
 * Those who worship at the feet of materialism often don’t admit to the limitations imposed by their narrow core belief.
 * The best immortality prospect for the materialist looks to be either deep freezing dead bodies until a cure is found, or computer replication of brains in silicon. One won’t work and the other can’t survive a power outage.
 * Individual self-sovereignty is a load-bearing pillar on which liberty rests.
 * Individual self-sovereignty is a load-bearing pillar on which liberty rests.

Quotes About Marks

 * Bob’s research will vindicate itself. He finds himself at the center of a firestorm that is really not of his own making, and one day — yes, this day is coming, eventually — after the controversy wanes, Bob’s work will still be standing, simply because it is powerful and true.
 * Ian A. Gravagne. Tim Woods, "Baylor faculty member named one of 20 Most Brilliant Christian Professors," Waco Tribune-Herald, April 15, 2010


 * Robert Marks... deals in high-level mathematics -the kind of stuff only a handful of people around the planet even understand." "[His math] basically lead[s] you to the conclusion that there is design in the universe." Mark Mathis, Executive Producer of "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed.


 * Bob Marks is an unbelievably prolific public intellectual.
 * Michael Medved,
 * I categorically reject Marks’ whole philosophy and I’d probably call him delusional.
 * P.Z. Myers. from "PZ Myers supports academic freedom for Marks," [Uncommon Descent Blog], September 9, 2007.