Posted on 05/13/2007 11:07:52 AM PDT by 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.
==The left has infiltrated into higher education, and will do anything at all to keep its power, including being unfair to qualified individuals.
Unfortunately, the universities were largely abandoned to the Left. Conservatives need to make a concerted effort to retake them one professor/administrator at a time.
The main proponent of ID is the Discovery Institute.
From the Discovery Institute's Wedge Document:
The proposition that human beings are created in the image of God is one of the bedrock principles on which Western civilization was built. Its influence can be detected in most, if not all, of the West's greatest achievements...We are building on this momentum, broadening the wedge with a positive scientific alternative to materialistic scientific theories, which has come to be called the theory of intelligent design (ID). Design theory promises to reverse the stifling dominance of the materialist worldview, and to replace it with a science consonant with Christian and theistic convictions.
Governing goal: To replace materialistic explanations with the theistic understanding that nature and human beings are created by God.
"Entirely scientific and statistical" eh? Sounds more like religion to me.
What Cicero said!
>>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.”<<
Yes. That is particularly true of people who have not had a super high level of science education and/or are insecure about their own knowledge.
A perfect example would be the equation F=ma (force = mass * acceleration). You’ll see that presented as a fact but its only true if the mass doesn’t change (i.e. it doesn’t work for rockets) so there is a more complex form. And the more complex form is only approximately true because it doesn’t take relativity into consideration. But does a 6th grade science teacher know that, maybe and maybe not.
Your question deserved a sneer.
>>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!<<
Thank you. And I’m working on the assumption that Gonzalez has done good work that would otherwise be worth of tenure. I’m also speculating that the university’s logic is similar to mine. There can be all kinds of political crap that goes into tenure decisions. Its possible that they really have a political reason at heart. It certainly wouldn’t be the first time.
But I’m saying that separate to whatever their motivation is, their decision would be justifiable on the grounds of the effect giving him tenure would have on the university.
Well, no. I'm talking about actual scholarly work in the field of intelligent design. The Discovery Institute is an advocacy group, and acts accordingly, making it a handy whipping boy. I could respond that Planned Parenthood is the main proponent of Darwinism today, because it supports the Darwinian idea of weeding the weaklings out of the gene pool. But obviously they, too, are an advocacy organization rather than a scientific authority.
I'm speaking about scholars like William Dembski and Michael Behe.
>>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’m paraphrasing Arthur C. Clarke (2001 A Space Odyssey and 30 other novels)
He wrote the three laws of prediction.
1. When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.
2. The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.
3. Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
Two things: First, in the interest of full disclosure I actually am a Creationist so I do believe that this is evidence that God created life. However, the intelligent design advocates like the professor here would merely argue that when such complexity cannot currently be explained by natural selection or random chance then the possibility of design should be considered. Its this sort of reasoned critique of Evolution that I think should be available to kids in the schools so they can see both the arguments supporting and the arguments against evolution.
>>You’re very kind. Oh, and CPUSA is “Communist Party, USA”<<
Aha. Being a nerd, I was trying to figure out what this thread had to do with Central Processing units. :)
See Clarke's third law just upthread.
Thats certainly nice speculation and it is true that as we study life we discover more an more complexity which explains things that we never understood before. But if evolution does not have an explanation for how the complexity of life came about I think that is definately a valid scientific critique of the theory unless someone can provide a working explanation. Isn’t this just using observation to show that a theory as it is currently understood does not fit certain observable data.
Either login_and_reason or pure materialism. Pure materialism means even your intelligence is nothing but atoms and molecules. ID is anti-materialistic. ID recognises that the universe consists of matter+energy+intelligence. ID is not religion, but it is CONSONANT with religion. Materialism is anti-religion. If materialism is science, so is ID. If ID is not science, so is materialism. THIS IS FAIR. Dr. Gonzalez's work has nothing much about biological evolution. It is about The Privileged Planet - Earth's privileged position in the universe to support life and to enable scientific discovery. Learn about ID
Aleady did. I guess great minds think alike :o)
>>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.
We should probably define terms here. By scientific theory I mean a model of natural phenomena, capable of predicting future occurrences or observations of the same kind, and/or capable of being tested through experiment.
To be a useful theory, the predictions need to be those that are not predicted by other theories.
Since ID does not make predictions it would not be a scientific theory by this definition.
I’m told that evolutionary theory does, in fact, make correct predictions. That would seem to contradict your statement and make evolutionary theory a scientific theory (and thus science). I don’t know enough biology to state that it is a useful theory but biologists tell me it is.
Some predictions (I’m just repeating what I have read elsewhere - I claim no great knowledge of biology). And I’m only gonna cite simple ones I can understand - there are apparently very complex predictions.
1. There are two types of whales baleen and teeth. Prediction: there must be a whale with both teeth and baleen.
2. Darwin found no Precambrian fossils. He said evolutionary theory required there to be such fossils.
3. Fossils should be found in series that reflect evolution. So should DNA.
4. Evolution predicts that fossils from different eras will never be found together - the example I was given was that you would “never find fossils of trilobites with fossils of dinosaurs”
Apparently there are all kinds of complex DNA predictions and evolutionary applications to bacteria and viruses but we’d need somebody who knows much, much more than I to have that discussion.
>>I’m speaking about scholars like William Dembski and Michael Behe.<<
Do you know if any of their work makes new biological predictions that turned out to be true?
I know I’m about to over-simplify but what I’ve read of Professor Dembski seems to show him as a philosopher with a strong math background rather than someone actually working in biology or paleontology or any field related to evolution.
I’ve seen Professor Behe’s work on “irreducible complexity” - he argues that there are problems with the evolutionary model but he doesn’t seem to make predictions to justify his jump to ID as science.
>>Two things: First, in the interest of full disclosure I actually am a Creationist so I do believe that this is evidence that God created life. However, the intelligent design advocates like the professor here would merely argue that when such complexity cannot currently be explained by natural selection or random chance then the possibility of design should be considered. Its this sort of reasoned critique of Evolution that I think should be available to kids in the schools so they can see both the arguments supporting and the arguments against evolution.<<
I believe in ID and that God created the first life.
But would it necessarily follow that He left evidence? He has had plenty of communication with humans but seems to leave such things to faith.
Absent such evidence why would science single out ID as something to teach without supporting evidence?
Showing areas of biology that still need work and/or have unanswered questions is absolutely part of a good education - that’s different from teaching beyond the available evidence.
Science is disyinguished from magic in this regard: magic invokes invisible powers while science tries to ignore them.
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