Discovery Institute
05-27-07
Pro-Intelligent Design Astronomer Denied Tenure Ranks Top in His Department
According to Smithsonian/NASA Database
Action Item: Help Guillermo Gonzalez in his fight for academic freedom. Contact
ISU President Gregory L. Geoffroy at (515) 294-2042 or email him at
president@iastate.edu and let him know that you support academic freedom for
Dr. Gonzalez to follow the evidence wherever it leads.
Guillermo Gonzalez, the pro-intelligent design astronomer recently denied
tenure by Iowa State University (ISU), ranks the highest in his department
according to a key measure of the scientific impact of his work calculated using
the Smithsonian/NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS), a widely used
database tracking published scientific research in astronomy.
How frequently a scientist’s work is cited by other scientists is an important
indicator of the impact the scientist is having on the scientific community. The
Smithsonian/NASA data system allows one to compute a "normalized" citation
count that corrects for inflated citation rates caused by articles with multiple
authors. In the normalized citation count, an article published by a scientist with
many co-authors is weighted less than an article authored by the scientist alone.
Gonzalez joined ISU in 2001. His normalized citation count for articles published
during 2001-2007 is 143, the best of any other astronomer in his department
during this period. The next best citation count among all of his astronomer
colleagues is 103; and the best citation count for a tenured astronomer in his
department is only 68, or less than half of Gonzalez's count.
"In other words, Iowa State denied tenure to a scientist whose impact on his field
during the past six years outstripped all of the university's existing tenured
astronomers according to a prestigious Smithsonian/NASA database," said Dr.
John West, Associate Director of the Center for Science and Culture at Discovery
Institute.
"It's important to stress that the normalized citation counts for 2001-2007 only
include citations to articles published during the most recent 6 years, yet
Gonzalez is still the top ranked in his department," added Discovery Institute
analyst Casey Luskin, M.S., J.D., who computed the citation counts using the
Smithsonian/NASA data system. “These statistics refute any claim that
Gonzalez’s scholarly productivity and impact ‘trailed off’ since coming to Iowa
State.”
In fact, if one looks at normalized citation counts for articles published during
individual years, Gonzalez topped his astronomy colleagues in 2001, 2003, and
again in 2006 (the most recent full year for which statistics are available). In
addition, he came in second in his department in 2002. The years in which
Gonzalez was not first in his department in normalized citations likely reflect his
work on two major book projects—The Privileged Planet, written under a
competitive research grant from the Templeton Foundation that was awarded
after a peer-review process by several leading astronomers; and Observational
Astronomy, a peer-reviewed college-level astronomy textbook published by
Cambridge University Press in 2006.
According to Luskin, "This new data adds to the mounting evidence that
Gonzalez may have been denied tenure at ISU not because of his record as a
scientist, but because of discrimination against his views in support of intelligent
design."
Amazingly, even if one compares the lifetime normalized citation counts for all of
the astronomers at ISU, Gonzalez comes out in second place. The only
colleague who has a higher lifetime normalized count than Gonzalez is a senior
tenured astronomer who already is a full professor.
"For an untenured assistant professor to best nearly everyone in his department
in lifetime normalized citations is most impressive, and it makes even more
indefensible the university's decision to deny him tenure," comments Luskin.
The normalized citation count is not the only measure of impact on the scientific
community by which Gonzalez is ranked highly among the astronomers in his
department. As reported last week in the Chronicle of Higher Education,
Gonzalez also ranks second among his astronomer colleagues according to the
"h-index" statistic, which similarly seeks to measure how widely a scientist's
articles are cited by other scientists. According to the Chronicle, “Mr. Gonzalez
has a normalized h-index of 13."