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Robert J. Marks II

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Robert Jackson Marks II is a Distinguished Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Baylor University and proponent of intelligent design. From 1977 to 2003, he was on the faculty of the University of Washington in Seattle. He was the first president of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Neural Networks Council (now the IEEE Computational Intelligence Society) and the editor-in-chief of the IEEE Transactions on Neural Networks. Marks has over 300 peer-reviewed technical publications, and is a fellow of the IEEE and the Optical Society of America.[1] An old earth creationist,[2] he is a subject of the 2008 pro-intelligent design motion picture, Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed.[3][4] In 2010, he was named as one of the twenty most brilliant living Christian professors.[5][6]

The Evolutionary Informatics Lab website controversy

Main article: Evolutionary Informatics Lab

In 2007, Marks created on a Baylor University server a website for a cyberspace entity known as the Evolutionary Informatics Lab, a site promoting the controversial topic intelligent design.[7] The website, initially hosted on Baylor servers, was deleted when Baylor's administration determined that it violated university policy forbidding professors from creating the impression that their personal views represent Baylor as an institution. Baylor said they would permit Marks to repost his website on their server, provided a disclaimer accompany any intelligent design-advancing research to make clear that the work does not represent the university's position.[8][9][10] The site now resides on a third-party server [11] and still contains the material advancing intelligent design.

Additional controversy arose when it as discovered that William Dembski, a notable intelligent design proponent and former Baylor staff member at the heart of a previous intelligent design controversy at Baylor over the Michael Polanyi Center's promotion of intelligent design who was removed as the center's director, had returned to Baylor as a member of the Evolutionary Informatics Lab.[12] Dembski's participation was funded by a $30,000 grant from the Lifeworks Foundation, which is controlled by researcher Brendan Dixon of the Biologic Institute, another lab promoting intelligent design affiliated with the Discovery Institute.[13][14]

Marks has expressed agreement that "associating with [intelligent design] proponents can be harmful to your career" and sympathy for Guillermo Gonzalez and William Dembski, who feature with Marks in the controversial pro-intelligent design film Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed.[15] Interview footage with Marks was shot for Expelled following the deletion of the website.[3] The motion picture alleges persecution of intelligent design advocates by academic institutions and the scientific establishment.[4]

Describing the work of Marks and Dembski, Stephen C. Meyer, Senior Fellow of the pro intelligent design think tank the Discovery Institute, writes:[16]

Marks shows that despite claims to the contrary by their sometimes overly enthusiastic creators, [evolutionary] algorithms ... do not produce large amounts of information "from scratch." //

Marks ... quantified the amount of active information that a computer program imparts into a system with each iteration as the result of the knowledge provided to it by the programmer. //

Marks's analysis of evolutionary algorithms shows that, in order to produce or find the ... information present in the target, a programmer must design a search algorithm that reduced the information requirements of the search to a manageable level.

Anti-intelligent design mathematician Mark Perakh[17] states that in a reply by Dembski and Marks,[citation needed] [18] to "an article critical of Dembski's concepts" by Swedish mathematician Olle Häggström:[19]

One of the main themes of this reply is the idea that evolutionary algorithms can succeed (in particular outperforming blind search) only if they are assisted by what the authors call "Active Information." (AI). As opposite to what they call "endogeneous" information, suggest Dembski and Marks, AI can only be either front-loaded into the search algorithm, or supplied by an outside source -- which, most importantly, can be a certain intelligent agent (which is just another rendition of Dembski's earlier vigorously promoted "Displacement problem.")

Perakh states that while he "agree[s] that the concept of AI as such may be construed as reasonable",[19]

...the question is not whether AI as a concept has contents, but rather whether or not evolutionary algorithms can only succeed if the AI is ether front-loaded or supplied from outside sources. This question is related not only to Dembski's "displacement problem" but also to the significance of the NFL theorems for biological evolution. To start with, Dembski and Marks offer no evidence that AI necessarily must be added to what they call "endogeneous information." They simply claim that this is so. (In the same categorical but unsubstantiated way Dembski pushed his "displacement problem," the term now replaced with "active information." There is a difference though. The very existence of AI is a reasonable idea; however its necessity for biological evolution, as it was asserted by the "displacement problem," was an unsupported surmise).

A Dembski and Marks paper introducing endogenous information and AI, published in a peer reviewed cybernetics journal,[20] was #1 in Access Research Network's "2009 Top Ten Darwin and Design Science News Stories."[21]

Technical contributions

With his colleagues at the University of Washington, Marks was the first[22] to apply an artificial neural network to forecast power demands for utilities, in 1991.[23] Six years later neural networks were being used by 32 major North American utilities.[22]

The sampling theorem's Cheung-Marks theorem[24] shows that samples taken from a signal at or above the Nyquist rate may prove incapable of restoring the signal in the presence of small amounts of noise.[25]

The Zhao-Atlas-Marks time-frequency distribution,[26] (a.k.a. the ZAM distribution or ZAMD), was originally called the cone shaped time-frequency distribution.[27] It is a special case of Cohen's class distribution function.

The Zhao–Atlas–Marks distribution produces a good resolution in time and frequency domains. The ZAMD method reduces the interference resulting from the cross-terms present in multi-component signals. It is useful in resolving close spectral peaks and capturing non-stationary and multi-component signals. [28]

[T]he Zhao-Atlas-Marks time-frequency distribution ... significantly enhances the time and frequency resolution and eliminates all undesirable cross terms. // The ZAM distribution has been applied to speech with remarkable results.[29]

The ZAMD is currently in the MATLAB Time-Frequency Toolbox[30] and National Instrument's LabVIEW Tools for Time-Frequency, Time-Series, and Wavelet Analysis [31]

Marks and his colleagues developed algorithms for real time identification of placement of radioactive seeds in cancerous prostates.[32][33] For this work, he was a co-recipient of the Judith Stitt Best Abstract Award from the American Brachytherapy Society.[34] The algorithm found clinical application.[35]

Marks is also a co-recipient of a NASA Tech Brief for development of power efficient communication in wireless arrays.[36][37]

In the field of detection theory, Marks and his colleagues developed the first closed form Neyman–Pearson lemma based solution describing the performance of an optimal detector in non-Gaussian noise[38][39]

Religious activities

Marks served as the faculty adviser to the University of Washington's chapter of Campus Crusade for Christ for seventeen years. He has presented his talk "What Does Calculus Have to Do with Christianity?" [40] in Poland, Japan, Canada, Russia, and the United States.[1]

Marks has made science-oriented Christian apologetics presentations internationally.[41] Venues include Poland, Japan, Moscow, Canada, and Siberia.[34] His creationist view is highlighted in "Genesis and Science: Compatibility Extraordinaire."[2] There he says the God of Genesis is the creator of the universe, and indicates that the "sequence of events in Genesis is consistent with the sequence of events in science."

Other activities

Books by Robert J. Marks II

  • R.J. Marks II, "Handbook of Fourier Analysis and Its Applications," Oxford University Press, (2009).[14]
  • R. D. Reed and R.J. Marks II, Neural Smithing: Supervised Learning in Feedforward Artificial Neural Networks, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, (1999).
  • M. Palaniswami, Y. Attikiouzel, R.J. Marks II, David Fogel and Toshio Fukuda; Editors, Computational Intelligence: A Dynamic System Perspective, IEEE Press, (1995).
  • R.J. Marks II, Editor, Fuzzy Logic Technology and Applications, IEEE Technical Activities Board, Piscataway, (1994).
  • J.Zurada, R.J. Marks II and C.J. Robinson; Editors, Computational Intelligence: Imitating Life, (IEEE Press, 1994).
  • R.J. Marks II, Introduction to Shannon Sampling and Interpolation Theory, Springer-Verlag, (1991).[15]
  • M.A. El-Sharkawi and R. J. Marks II, Editors, Applications of Neural Networks to Power Systems, IEEE Press, Piscataway, (1991).

See also

Wikiquote has quotations related to Robert J. Marks II.


References

  1. ^ a b Marks' 'expanded biography'
  2. ^ a b Genesis and Science: Compatibility Extraordinaire (slide presentation)
  3. ^ a b Jerry Pierce, "Baptist professors featured in new film," Southern Baptist Texan (January 28, 2008)
  4. ^ a b Lesley Burbridge-Bates (2007-08-22). "Expelled [[Press Release]]" (PDF). Premise Media. Retrieved 2008-04-07. {{cite web}}: External link in |publisher= (help); URL–wikilink conflict (help)
  5. ^ [1] Tim Woods, "Baylor faculty member named one of '20 Most Brilliant Christian Professors,'" Waco Tribune-Herald,(April 15, 2010)
  6. ^ The 20 Most Brilliant Christian Professors, CollegeCrunch.com, (April 4, 2010)
  7. ^ Follow the money: more Dembski/Baylor-related mischief? Andrea Bottaro. Panda's Thumb, September 7, 2007.
  8. ^ William Dembski Addresses Forthcoming Intelligent Design Research that Advances ID and Answers Critics, Evolution News & Views, Discovery Institute
  9. ^ Crisis averted, Mark Bergin, World Magazine
  10. ^ Baylor U. Removes a Web Page Associated With Intelligent Design From Its Site by Elizabeth F. Farrell. Chronicle of Higher Education, Sept. 4, 2007. onlinesubscription access
  11. ^ EvoInfo.org
  12. ^ Grace Maalouf, Brad Briggs "BU had role in Dembski return," Baylor Lariat, Nov. 16, 2007[2]
  13. ^ Follow the money: more Dembski/Baylor-related mischief?, Andrea Bottaro, Panda's Thumb
  14. ^ Lifeworks Foundation 990 form for the year 2006
  15. ^ Well-Informed: Dr. Robert Marks and the Evolutionary Informatics Lab, Casey Luskin interviewer, "Intelligent Design the Future" podcast series of The Center for Science and Culture of the Discovery Institute.
  16. ^ Stephen C. Meyer, Signature in the Cell: DNA and the Evidence for Intelligent Design, HarperOne (2009)
  17. ^ [3], Mark Perakh, Unintelligent Design, Prometheus Books (2003).
  18. ^ William A. Dembski and R.J. Marks II, Active Information in Evolutionary Search, listed at:
  19. ^ a b Olle, Tom, and "Active Information", Mark Perakh, TalkReason
  20. ^ [4], William A. Dembski and Robert J. Marks II, "Conservation of Information in Search: Measuring the Cost of Success," IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man and Cybernetics A, Systems and Humans, vol.39, #5, September 2009, pp.1051-1061
  21. ^ [5], Access Research Network, "2009 Top Ten Darwin and Design Science News Stories."
  22. ^ a b A. Khotanzad, R. Afkhami-Rohani, Lu Tsun-Liang, A. Abaye, M. Davis, D.J. Maratukulam, "ANNSTLF-a neural-network-based electric load forecasting system," IEEE Transactions on Neural Networks, Volume 8, Issue 4, Jul 1997 pp. 835-846.
  23. ^ D.C. Park, M.A. El-Sharkawi, R.J. Marks II, L.E. Atlas & M.J. Damborg, "Electric load forecasting using an artificial neural network", IEEE Transactions on Power Engineering, vol.6, pp.442-449 (1991).
  24. ^ J.L. Brown and S.D.Cabrera, "On well-posedness of the Papoulis generalized sampling expansion," IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems, May 1991 Volume: 38 , Issue 5, pp. 554-556
  25. ^ K.F. Cheung and R.J. Marks II, "Ill-posed sampling theorems", IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems, vol. CAS-32, pp.829-835 (1985).
  26. ^ Leon Cohen, Time Frequency Analysis: Theory and Applications, Prentice Hall, (1994)
  27. ^ Y. Zhao, L. E. Atlas, and R. J. Marks, “The use of cone-shape kernels for generalized time-frequency representations of nonstationary signals,” IEEE Trans. Acoustics, Speech, Signal Processing, vol. 38, no. 7, pp. 1084–1091, July 1990
  28. ^ G.X. Chena and Z.R. Zhou, "Time–frequency analysis of friction-induced vibration under reciprocating sliding conditions," Wear, Volume 262, Issues 1-2, 4 January 2007, Pages 1-10
  29. ^ Lokenath Debnath, Wavelet transforms and their applications, Birkhäuser Boston, (2001) p.355
  30. ^ [6] Time-Frequency Toolbox For Use with MATLAB
  31. ^ [7] National Instruments. LabVIEW Tools for Time-Frequency, Time-Series, and Wavelet Analysis. [8] TFA Cone-Shaped Distribution VI
  32. ^ [9] S. Narayanan, P.S. Cho and R.J. Marks II, "Fast Cross-Projection Algorithm for Reconstruction of Seeds in Prostate Brachytherapy", Med. Phys. 29 (7), July 2002, pp.1572-1579.
  33. ^ [10] S. Narayanan, P.S. Cho and R.J. Marks II, "Three-dimensional seed reconstruction from an incomplete data set for prostate brachytherapy", Phys. Med. Biol., vol.49, pp.3483-3494 (2004).
  34. ^ a b Marks' curriculum vitae Cite error: The named reference "MarksCV" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
  35. ^ D.R. Reed, K.E. Wallner, S.Narayanan, S.G. Sutlief, E.C. Ford, P.S. Cho, "Intraoperative fluoroscopic dose assessment in prostate brachytherapy patients," INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF RADIATION ONCOLOGY BIOLOGY PHYSICS, Vol 63, Issue 1, September, 2005, pp. 301-307
  36. ^ NASA Recognizes Baylor Engineer For Innovative Technology
  37. ^ A.K. Das, R.J. Marks II, M.A. El-Sharkawi, Payman Arabshahi and Andrew Gray, "Minimum Power Broadcast Trees for Wireless Networks: Optimization Using the Viability Lemma", Proceedings of the NASA Earth Science Technology Conference, June 11-13, 2002, Pasadena, CA
  38. ^ S. A. Kassam, Signal Detection in Non-Gaussian Noise. Springer Verlag, 1988.
  39. ^ Detection in Laplace noise R.J. Marks II, G.L. Wise, D.G. Haldeman and J.L. Whited, IEEE Transactions on Aerospace and Electronic Systems, vol. AES-14, pp.866-872 (1978).
  40. ^ "What Does Calculus Have to Do with Christianity" Presentation
  41. ^ Marks' apologetics page
  42. ^ [11] WPFR TeleTalk (from Marks's web page.)
  43. ^ [12]Benjamin Hawkins, "Southwestern professors make no bones about Christ’s resurrection," Mar 26, 2008
  44. ^ [13]W.A. Dembski and R.J. Marks II, ``The Jesus Tomb Math," in Buried Hope Or Risen Savior?: The Search for the Jesus Tomb, edited by Charles Quarles.
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