Posted on 05/28/2007 5:44:20 PM PDT by SirLinksalot
There is evidence for intelligent design in the universe." This does not seem like an especially radical statement; many people believe that God has revealed himself through creation. Such beliefs, however, do not conform to politically correct notions in academia, as Professor Guillermo Gonzalez is learning the hard way. An astronomer at Iowa State University, Professor Gonzalez was recently denied tenure—despite his stellar academic record—and it is increasingly clear he was rejected for one reason: He wrote a book entitled The Privileged Planet which showed that there is evidence for design in the universe.& nbsp; Dr. Gonzalez's case has truly distressing implications for academic freedom in colleges and universities across the country, especially in science departments.
Dr. Gonzalez, who fled from Cuba to America as a child, earned his PhD in astronomy from the University of Washington. By academic standards, Dr. Gonzalez has had a remarkable career. Though still a young man, he has already authored sixty-eight peer-reviewed scientific papers. These papers have been featured in some of the world's most respected scientific journals, including Science and Nature. Dr. Gonzalez has also co-authored a college-level text book entitled Observational Astronomy, which was published by Cambridge Press.
According to the written requirements for tenure at the Iowa State University, a prospective candidate is required to have published at least fifteen peer-reviewed scientific papers. With sixty-eight papers to his name, Dr. Gonzalez has already exceeded that requirement by 350%. Ninety-one percent of professors who applied for tenure at Iowa State University this year were successful, implying that there has to be something seriously wrong with a candidate before they are rejected.
What's wrong with Dr. Gonzalez? So far as anyone can tell, this rejection had little to do with his scientific research, and everything to do with the fact that Dr. Gonzalez believes the scientific evidence points to the idea of an intelligent designer. In fact, as World Magazine has reported, at least two scientists in the Physics and Astronomy Department at the Iowa State University have admitted that intelligent design played a role in their decision. This despite the fact that Dr. Gonzalez does not teach intelligent design in any of his classes, and that none of his peer-reviewed papers deal with the subject. Nevertheless, simply because Gonzalez holds the view that there is intelligence behind the universe, and has written a book presenting scientific evidence for this fact, he is considered unsuitable at Iowa State.
What is the state of academic freedom when well qualified candidates are rejected simply because they see God's fingerprints on the cosmos? Isn't the Academy supposed to be a venue for diverse views? Aren't universities supposed to foster an atmosphere that allows for robust discussion and freedom of thought? Dr. Gonzalez's fate suggests that anyone who deigns to challenge conventional orthodoxy is not welcome in the club.
In the future, will scientists who are up for tenure be forced to deny that God could have played any role in the creation or design of the universe? Will Bible-believing astronomers be forced to repudiate Psalm 19, which begins, "The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands"? Will faithful Catholics be required to reject the teaching of Vatican I, which said that God "can be known with certainty from the consideration of created things, by the natural power of human reason..." Just where will this witch hunt lead?
The amazing fact is that, even as many science departments are working overtime to forbid professors from positing that there is evidence for intelligent design in the universe, more and more scientists are coming to this conclusion. The Discovery Institute has compiled a list of over seven-hundred scientists who signed the following statement: "We are skeptical of claims for the ability of random mutation and natural selection to account for the complexity of life. Careful examination of the evidence for Darwinian theory should be encouraged." The list of scientists who find good reason to doubt the strictly materialistic Darwinism that is currently scientific orthodoxy is growing every day.
It seems that many scientists and academicians who hold views contrary to Dr. Gonzalez have concluded that the best way to avoid debate about the evidence for intelligent design is to simply deny jobs to those who will not affirm their atheistic worldview. The fact that these scientists, who are supposedly open to following the evidence wherever it leads, have resorted to blatant discrimination to avoid having this conversation speaks volumes about the weakness of their position. They realize their arguments are not sufficient to defeat the intelligent design movement and they must, therefore, shut their opponents out of the conversation. All the evidence suggests that it is unjust that Dr. Gonzalez was denied tenure and that this ruling should be overturned on appeal. Nevertheless, what happened to Dr. Gonzalez is a reflection of the growing strength of the intelligent design movement, not its weakness.
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Ken Connor is Chairman of the Center for a Just Society in Washington, DC and a nationally recognized trial lawyer who represented Governor Jeb Bush in the Terri Schiavo case.
Once you understand that diesel engines are made from materials that occur naturally in the natural world, iron for example, and the other materials with which iron alloys to make steel which also exist in nature, when you understand that even petroleum from which diesel itself is derived, also exists in nature, you will understand that it would be unscientific to posit a “Detroit”.
Instead imagine how long it would take for these materials to combine themselves into a working machine, then from that you can back-calculate the approximate age of the machine.
Since some land-fills seem to have more of these than others, it may be that some areas simply were more conducive to the combination of events that produced them for reasons science has yet to fully explain.
Again, there are no scientific data supporting such a notion.”
And Professor Gonzalez was not teaching this in his class.
Should a professor in economics, who believes that Jesus Christ was beaten and killed for the sins of mankind, and then arose in bodily form 3 days later, be denied tenure?
And that economics professor teaches economics in the classroom and not Christianity?
Since we don’t have absolute scientific proof (at the present time) that Christ was resurrected, then does the economic professors belief in the resurrection, make him unqualified for a economics tenured position?
False analogy.
Diesel engines are not self-replicating. (Duh!)
I don’t know, I’ve seen little ones buried in the land fill right next to a couple of big ones.
Let's see what the great Darwinian (and Darwin Medalist) J.B.S Haldane advocated:
…Marxism is the application of scientific method to the widest field so far achieved by man. If Marxism were taken for granted, or even if its general principles were widely understood in this country, such emphasis would be unnecessary.And of course the great Darwinian, Horatio Newman, advocated teaching eugenics in science class, but that's another story.Sixty years ago Karl Marx died in London. Every year since his death he has had a greater influence on world history above all since Lenin put his theories into practice in 1917. … [Marx] can justly be compared with contemporaries like Faraday, Darwin, and Pasteur, who are still influencing our lives and thoughts, because their ideas were important not only for their own time, but for many generations to come. These men applied scientific method to new fields. So did Marx.
Just as Darwin applied scientific method to the problem of man's ancestry, and Pasteur to that of his diseases, Marx applied it to history, politics, and economics.
We celebrate the anniversary of the great teacher who has shown us the way out of our present distresses, who has demonstrated that there are no limits to the application of science.
J.B.S Haldane, Science Advances, 1947
That's easy to understand. The little ones are Chevies.
Man is just the diesel engine's way of making another diesel engine.
Now, thats funny, I don’t care who y’are.
Just to be clear, are you suggesting we reject any theory or belief that has been misused by eugenicists?
The opposite of intelligent design is stupid design.
Let me get your argument straight. Because Darwin's ideas are still influencing our lives and thoughts, as are Faraday's, Pasters', and Marx's, that is proof that Darwin's theory of evolution, as modified by 150 years of scientific advances by tens of thousands of scientists, is hogwash.
Is that what you were trying to peddle?
In the "anthropic principle" it is proposed that the universe adapted to us, rather than the other way around. Abundant data exist which contradict such a notion.
Multiple universes have their foundation of support in string theory or the postulated existence of multiple time dimensions---but this does not support the existence of an anthropic universe.
To resolve this as it fits ID, someone (actually many scientists) will have to put forth a testable hypothesis, test it, replicate and do it again and again with the same theme but with variation as they suggest themselves by the data. That has not been done and that's why ID does not rise to the level of science.
And thereby hangs a tale...
We don't know what's going on behind the scene. These two could be bitter enemies, going back decades, in re: to something that had nothing whatsoever to do with ID or evolution or even anything related to academia. When it comes to pettiness, vindictiveness, jealously, spit, envy, holding grudge those types are no different than we are -- in fact, maybe even more so.
If the econ. prof. tried to make the case that the "laws" of economics were the result of Jesus' crucifiction and assent to Heaven, he too would have problems.
Well, no.
The evidence for fine tuning, and the evidence for many universes, happens to be the same evidence-— the anthropic coincidences themselves.
That’s why the physicist Lawrence Krauss feels that if his many worlds version of string theory doesn’t work, the alternative is design.
Suppose someone saw a video of me taking a shot at a basketball hoop from 70 feet, and making the shot.
The hypotheses I’m lucky, that I’m good, or that I simply took many shots and the video shown happens to be of me making it, all rely on the same piece of data-— the video of me making the shot.
Of course, this is beside the point when it comes to Gonzalez, whose credentials are unassailable and has presented evidence supporting his “Rare Earth” hypothesis in Nature, among other peer-reviewed journals.
And, actually, you just put your finger on it.
Just to push my little (imperfect) analogy a little further, it takes two things to turn iron ore into a functioning machine, it takes information and work, or to put it another way, it takes intelligently guided work. An engine is a repository of information, there is a huge accumulation of information and knowledge embedded in the design of that rather simple engine. Study the development (dare we say the evolution) of the design of diesel engines and you can see that the accumulation of knowledge comes slowly, at great cost in time and brainpower.
In software engineering the holy grail, so to speak, is software that can modify itself, that can adapt to changing circumstance without additional intervention from the programmer. If we manage this, it isn't evidence that programmers aren't necessary, it reflects rather an enormous accumulation of programming knowledge.
As for programs that replicate themselves, we already have those, unfortunately most of them are "malware" and we don't want them...
The machine analogy is pretty imperfect I realize, but when I look at a photograph of a living cell, I see what looks to me like a little micro-machine, complete with moving parts, with a little control system at the heart of it controlling the sequences, with information and commands being transmitted, ok not with wiring, but with some kind of electrochemical signals. Its pretty fascinating.
I try to imagine what it would take for me to design something like that, I almost think I could do it, I almost think I could design a cat for example, and mine would be less annoying than the original. Its just a matter of design and intelligently guided work in my (admittedly weird) little shop in the basement. I think I could do it. But the replication-thing would be a tough nut to crack, I admit. Oh, that and fitting the 286 in his head, I think I'd have to settle for a wireless router, and the processor would be in the attic. That will keep him close to home, at least.
I just can’t see how the evidence for the anthropic principle exists anywhere except for pure conjecture. If Krauss can’t get his view of string theory to work, maybe it’s because it doesn’t. I don’t see how it follows that if a theory doesn’t work then the alternative must be the anthropic principle-—now that’s a leap of faith. It could also be that string theory and other, related theories are not my bailiwick. But, as a life scientist of 47 years’ practice, I see strong (a gross understatement) evidence that life forms adapt to the universe, or die, and that the universe did not or does not adapt to us.
“This most elegant system of the sun, planets, and comets could not have arisen without the design and dominion of an intelligent and powerful being.” —Sir Isaac Newton, The Principia
These fools would deny tenure to Isaac Newton.
And Newton came to his conclusion without any knowledge of the incredible complexity of the simplest living cell. If he knew what we know now, he would have infinitely *more* reason to recognize ID.
Overwhelmingly strong proofs of intelligent and benevolent design lie around us ... the atheistic idea is so nonsensical that I cannot put it into words. —Lord Kelvin (1824-1907)
And they’d deny Kelvin tenure too. Amazing what we have come to in this age of political correctness.
The more I study nature, the more I am amazed at the work of the Creator. —Louis Pasteur (1822-1895)
Pasteur too. Oh, well, he wasn’t much of a scientist anyway, was he. I guess he didn’t understand the “scientific method.”
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