Proponent of Intelligent Design Denied Tenure by ISU

The Ames Tribune ^ | May 5, 2007 | William Dillon

[GodGunsGuts]

Proponent of intelligent design denied tenure by ISU

By: William Dillon

05/12/2007

Guillermo Gonzalez, an assistant professor of astronomy and physics who argues for the theory of intelligent design, was denied tenure this semester by Iowa State University.

"I was surprised to hear that my tenure was denied at any level, but I was disappointed that the president at the end denied me," Gonzalez said during a telephone interview with The Tribune Friday.

Gonzalez filed an appeal with ISU President Greg Geoffroy on Tuesday, May 8. Geoffroy has 20 days to respond.

While his work is heralded as "path-breaking" by supporters of intelligent design as a way of offering a new theory supporting design in the universe, Gonzalez has come under criticism by the mainstream science community for incorporating the theory of intelligent design into his work.

Opponents maintain that proving intelligent causes or agents is not science but rather the study of theology and philosophy. Some also have accused Gonzalez, an openly non-denominational Protestant, of thrusting religion into science.

In the summer of 2005, three faculty members at ISU drafted a statement against the use of intelligent design in science. One of those authors, Hector Avalos, told The Tribune at the time he was concerned the growing prominence of Gonzalez's work was beginning to market ISU as an "intelligent design school."

The statement collected signatures of support from more than 120 ISU faculty members before similar statements surfaced at the University of Iowa and the University of Northern Iowa.

According to ISU's policy on promotion and tenure, evaluation is based "primarily on evidence of scholarship in the faculty member's teaching, research/creative activities, and/or extension/professional practice."

In addition to that criteria, Gonzalez's department of astronomy and physics sets a benchmark for tenure candidates to author at least 15 peer-reviewed journal articles of quality. Gonzalez said he submitted 68, of which 25 have been written since he arrived at ISU in 2001.

"I believe that I fully met the requirements for tenure at ISU," he said.

Gonzalez said he would rather not comment on why he believes he was denied tenure.

On Friday, Geoffroy declined comment on why Gonzalez was denied tenure.

"Since an appeal is on my desk that I will have to pass judgment on, it is not appropriate for me to offer any comment," he wrote in an e-mail to The Tribune.

In addition to his research and teaching at ISU, Gonzalez is a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute, a conservative Seattle think tank leading the intelligent design movement.

John G. West, associate director of the Center for Science and Culture at the institute, said he sees this as a clear case of "ideological discrimination" by ISU against Gonzalez. He said he thinks the statement against intelligent design drafted at ISU played a large part in the eventual denial of Gonzalez's tenure.

"What happens to the lone faculty member who doesn't agree and happens to be untenured," he asked. "That is practically, with a wink and a nod, a call to deny him tenure."

Faculty members typically leave a university if they are denied tenure.

ISU considered 66 faculty cases for promotion and tenure during the past academic year. Only three, including Gonzalez, were denied tenure.

William Dillon can be reached at 232-2161, Ext. 361, or William.Dillon@amestrib.com.

[gondramB]

>> Why doesn’t evolution have to meet that criteria?

And since when are unproven theories of any kind considered science?<<

Evolution and every other serious accepted theory has to meet that criteria.

I’m not a biologist - but one way that could be done is to predict things about fossil sequences and DNA from evolutionary theory. Biologists will tell you many correct predictions are made from evolutionary theory.

Bear in mind that scientific theories are never “proved” the way theories in math can be proved. They are only accepted based on the evidence and usefulness of the theory. Usefulness has to do with the ability to predict correctly.

So all major scientific theories are “unproven” but they are all useful at predicting.

>>Both ID and evolution are religion, or faith based. You need to have a ton of faith to believe either. Much more faith, I would say, to believe in evolution than a Creator.<<

It doesn’t take much faith for me to believe in God. Jesus made a good analogy with a grain of mustard.

Science is only based on faith if you don’t understand the science. If the science is sufficiently beyond one’s knowledge, it appears as magic and does require faith.

Much of medicine and biology, I do take on faith - faith in the scientific process and community but its faith based on experience studying other parts of science for myself.

That’s why I don’t have a problem with people who don’t understand something about science. Its only when they try to force teaching based on non-science I have a problem.

[mjolnir]

Well said!

I do have to say, though, Smolin’s book, “the Trouble With Physics” is really excellent, even conservative in its warnings about how a general consensus can become an innovation stifling monopoly. Smolin on String Theory sounds very much like Crichton on Global Warming, although not quite that strident.

[RobbyS]

You are confusing Intelligent Design with a literal belief in Genesis.

[RobbyS]

Not many scientists have much grounding in the philsophical foundations of modern science. The average biology professor has as much knowledge of such things as the average civil engineer has of theoretical physics.

[AmishDude]

I don't understand. What is so sacrosanct about the scientific method that if a scientist, with peer-reviewed work in science itself also belongs to an organization that chooses not to use that method?

After all, Chomsky uses his position in the exceedingly trivial area of linguistics to expound on politics. To the point that he has no unexpressed thought.

Moreover, plenty of academic areas use the veneer of the scientific method to justify what is, at best, pseudoscience.

[gondramB]

>>So basically, you’re saying that, after you saw he was affiliated with the Discovery Institute, you tuned everything else, all his accomplishments, anything he’s actually said or written, out.<<

That is correct.

>>I’m sorry, that’s an intellectually lazy approach that doesn’t befit you-— I know this sounds smarmy, but I seriously know you can do better than that.<<

Maybe... its not my field

>>Should I disregard Wesley Smith’s work on the ethics of cloning simply because he’s affilated with DI?<<

I wouldn’t dismiss his work, if his work interested me for some other reason. But I would not give him more status with the university when he is misusing his current status and when it would make the school look bad.

>>Besides, tenure does not generally work the way you have described.

Generally, when a man’s peers i.e. the department he is in, decide to grant him tenure, the president’s sign off is a usually a rubber stamp-— read amishdude’s posts.

The fact is, Gonzalez’s record of scholarship is undeniable. Is there anything either of you can think of to criticize that record?<<

The Privilege and Tenure Committee usually is the deciding factor. And no, I have no specific criticism of his work other being a fellow at the Discovery Institute - that’s like asking if I have a problem with a conservative activist other than his extensive work promoting NARAL. That’s enough that I would not want to promote that person.

[mjolnir]

Those are great answers to those questions-— but again, Gonzalez’s research has literally nothing to do with trying to undermine TOE-— his target is the Mediocrity Principle, not Darwin.

Awesome tagline!

[gondramB]

That’s a darn good question and I don’t want you think I’m ignoring you but I have to go to bed early tonight. I’d welcome further discussion in the future.

[AmishDude]

Bear in mind that scientific theories are never “proved” the way theories in math can be proved. They are only accepted based on the evidence and usefulness of the theory. Usefulness has to do with the ability to predict correctly.

You must admit, though, that scientists use the language of metaphysical certainty to express results. At best, it is "the best guess we can come up with so far."

[AmishDude]

FYI, I am taking it on the word of another poster that the department voted in the majority to tenure him. I do not know this is true. This tenure case might have been forced through by the professor. The story isn’t clear.

[RobbyS]

Science is only based on faith if you don’t understand the science. If the science is sufficiently beyond one’s knowledge, it appears as magic and does require faith.

I can live with this IFone understands that the theory of evolution is not something that any person can reify, so that in a strict sense, no one can know it, as one much understand by studying an actual organism. That the devil is in the details is a cautionary maxim in appoaching a theory that tries to explains so much, much grander in ambition than Einstein's general relativity theory.

[AmishDude]

You’re very kind. Oh, and CPUSA is “Communist Party, USA”

[mjolnir]

Seems like a pretty dogmatic rule-— the Discovery Institute is not a place where everyone marches in ideological lockstep as is done in NARAL, so I don’t think the analogy works.

For instance, John Angus Campbell has no problem with Darwin’s TOE and thinks ID’s conclusions wrong-— but he’s in DI.

Smith isn’t an ID’er either-— but he’s in DI.

Well, anyway, thanks for being so cordial is disagreement!

[mjolnir]

I hear you— but I would assume unless some reason exists to think to the contrary that that’s the case, since that’s what Gonzalez’s words (expressing surprise and disappointment at the president’s action) suggest.

Thanks for the info and honesty!

[AmishDude]

There's also a bit of ISU politics here. The president appoints the provost and deans (oversimplifying, but this is the truth). The provost is new (you might remember her, she was president of UColorado who had to leave after the football/sex scandal and I guess Churchill was part of this) and the president, who seems to have a very steady job and plans to be around awhile, decided to take the heat here.

Ordinarily, the provost, who is not really a public figure, would be the heavy.

If one is into symbolism, this decision is the president saying: "This has nothing to do with academics, the university does not want him for who he is."

I am not a fan of ID. I compare it to the humanities, but I have loathing and disdain for the humanities. They have no intellectual or academic standards at all. I'm not saying they're all stupid, but if they were, it wouldn't hurt their careers in the least.

This represents a sea change for me. The humanities and the (not much better) social "sciences" have enforced orthodoxy and many departments are nothing more than partisan political organizations.

But it wasn't until climatology and then the stem cell nonsense that science began to take on the worst aspects of religion itself. Now, a professor is denied tenure because of what he does, independent of his scholarship.

"First they came for the IDers," etc.

[GodGunsGuts]

==What is the single most powerful argument you have for ID?

My single most powerful argument for ID is that there is intelligence and design in the universe.

BTW, ID does not attempt to explain who the designer is, they only seek to use the scientific method to detect design in nature. In that sense, their program is rather modest, in that they leave the identification of the designer for other disciplines (which, given our current understanding, is where you leave the realm of science and enter the field of metaphysical cosmology, religion, etc).

[Coyoteman]

The most powerfull argument that I have seen for Intelligent Design is the complexity of the information that is coded in the DNA. To create a single protein long strings of amino acids must be placed in the correct order. The information about the order in which to arrange Amino acids is coded in the DNA which can have one of four bases at any location - this is similar to binary computer code which an can have either a 1 or a 0 at any location.

Natural selection would not favor the gradual evolution of a new and beneficial protein, because, the intermediate stages would not provide a benefit to the organism. So, the new proteins (or at least any chunk of protein large enough to provide a benefit) would have to develop by chance before it could be protected by natural selection. The odds against randomly generating such a beneficial protein are astronomical due to the large number of DNA bases that would have to be arranged in the proper order. This is why I believe that intelligent design was required

Thank you for the reasoned answer. That is somewhat rare here of late.

What you are saying is that the question is complex. Nobody denies that.

But the problem I see in your argument is the tremendous leap from the idea that natural selection and related forces caused the changes over large amounts of time to we don't know how the changes occurred, so God must have done it.

I cannot see that, because we don't yet know the details of a specific change through time, the only other choice is supernatural intervention. Perhaps science is only a few weeks or years from discovering the exact details. It would not be the first time that some natural phenomenon previously ascribed to the supernatural has been explained by science.

[Coyoteman]

And since when are unproven theories of any kind considered science?

No theories are proved in science. They can only be disproved. See the definitions on my FR homepage.

Both ID and evolution are religion, or faith based.

False. The theory of evolution is based on evidence. ID is based on scripture and revelation.

ID is religious belief masquerading as science in a dishonest attempt to force religious belief back into science classes.

[GodGunsGuts]

Funny you should bring that up. I ordered his book and video last night both to show my support, expand my mind, and register my dissent. If there is ever a legal defense fund, I will be sure to make a sizable donating to that too. I will be showing the video, and keep showing the video, to as many people as it takes to multiply my support for Dr. Gonzalez by at least four more people. In fact, I don’t think I will ever stop pushing this issue. What they are doing to Dr. Gonzalez is the last straw for me. As Tertullian used to say, “The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church.” As far as I’m concerned, the same thing applies to the people who are persecuting IDers, scientists who challenge human-caused global warming, etc.

[GodGunsGuts]

==A giant step for education. We need to work together to get and keep all of these special interest “intelligent design” whako’s out of out nations schools.

We will win in the end. In fact the Darwiniacs have already lost, they just don’t know it yet. They should really take stock of how they are treating IDers, because the pendulum always overswings in the other direction. In other words, payback’s a bitch.