John P. Rickert is a Catholic priest with a Ph.D. in mathematics from Vanderbilt University. Given his education, Rickert met the requirement for signing the Discovery Institute’s very silly and (given its goal) actually self-undermining petition A Scientific Dissent from Darwinism, which he did. Rickert is – relatively typically for the signatories – not a scientist by a long shot, however. Instead, Rickert has made a bit of a career campaigning against reductionism in churches (though he doesn’t seem to have a very clear idea about what “reductionism” might possibly mean). Rickert is, however, a young-earth creationist, who thinks the fact that some fossil finds (such as ancient whale bones found in what is currently a desert) haven’t been explicitly and speicifcally predicted by scientists may be evidence against evolution. He is just asking question, though, and responds to criticism of his claims by suggesting that his interlocutors are afraid of questions.
Diagnosis: Minor figure, to be sure, but he is a creationist and did put his name on that list, so here he goes.