Discovery Institute, WA
06-11-07
Would Galileo Side With John Hauptman or Guillermo Gonzalez?
We’ve recently discussed Iowa State University physicist John Hauptman’s
prejudice against ID-proponents which was printed in the Des Moines Register.
In response to our article observing misrepresentations of Guillermo Gonzalez’s
arguments, David Deming, geologist and geophysicist and associate professor at
the University of Oklahoma, sent some enlightening comments that further
respond to Hauptman’s op-ed against Guillermo Gonzalez. Part of Dr. Deming’s
comments are reprinted below:
It certainly must have been a profound embarrassment for the Iowa State
president to issue a press release stating ID had nothing to do with the tenure
decision on the same day that Hauptman published a confession that it was the
essentially the only reason he voted against Gonzalez's tenure.
I saw your most recent comments:
In fact, Hauptman holds scientific theories to a very high standard,
writing, “Any single wrong prediction, and you must junk the theory.”
Hauptman in fact is in way over his head. The philosopher who INVENTED the
falsifiability criterion, Karl Popper, wrote: "In point of fact, no conclusive disproof
of a theory can ever be produced." (Logic of Scientific Discovery, 1959, p. 50)
Hauptman attempted to align himself with Galileo, but evidently was unaware
that Galileo endorsed the Design Argument. In Letter to the Grand Duchess
Christina (1615), Galileo wrote "nor is God less excellently revealed in Nature's
actions than in the Bible".
Hauptman is evidently also unaware that Galileo's contract at his first academic
appointment, the University of Pisa, was not renewed (i.e., he wasn't tenured)
because he fought with the Aristotelian professors on the faculty over how
natural philosophy should be conducted. Galileo believed that natural philosophy
or science should concentrate on efficient causes. The Aristotelians believed that
final causes were more important, and thus were not particularly bothered by the
failure to conform to experiment. Put in modern terms, Galileo wasn't tenured
because he attempted to redefine science--exactly what Hauptman says
Gonzalez must not be allowed to do.