Chronicle of Higher Education
12-02-07
Concern Over Scientist's Support for Intelligent Design Surfaced Before Tenure
Vote
Public support for the idea of intelligent design damaged an Iowa State University
astronomer’s prospects for tenure long before his peers voted against his
application, The Des Moines Register reported, citing e-mail messages it
obtained.
The university denied tenure to Guillermo Gonzalez, an assistant professor of
physics and astronomy, last spring, after a vote in November 2006 by his
departmental colleagues. Officials stressed at the time that the decision was
based on his scientific activity and publication record, which had trailed off after a
promising start during his postdoctoral years at other institutions. But in the email messages obtained by the newspaper, professors were expressing
concerns at least a year before the departmental vote about Mr. Gonzalez’s
advocacy of intelligent design, which holds that some form of intelligence helped
shape the universe.
The Register quoted Iowa State officials as saying last week that Mr. Gonzalez’s
high-profile support for intelligent design was discussed among his colleagues,
but played only a secondary role in the tenure decision. In 2005, more than 120
faculty members at Iowa State signed a statement, started outside the
department of physics and astronomy, that denounced intelligent design and
urged professors not to portray the idea as science. —Charles Huckabee
Comments
1.
Wow! So much for the tolerance promoting libs who support the “theory” of
evolution. Looks like the cry babies in the department of physics and astronomy
decided it was easier to bully their opposition out than to stand up and take a few
blows to the head. What wimps!
— Scott Tatum
Dec 2, 09:40 PM
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2.
Perhaps Mr Gonzalez should consider switching to the pulpit instead of the
classroom if he wishes to preach religion instead of science. Real science is
difficult enough to find in this society. Sunday morning tv is flooded with
preachers and there are churches on every street corner if students want
religion. Universities should at least be one place a student should be able to find
REAL science.
— George Stevens
Dec 2, 10:25 PM
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3.
The study of astronomy relies either on the strict adherence to known
physical laws (e.g. gravity) or the careful description of phenomena not adhering
to the conventional model (e.g. dark matter). I can’t believe an astronomer who
falls back on ‘God did it’ will have much to contribute to the scientific
development of his or her department or to the discipline.
— Chuck Levitan
Dec 3, 05:34 AM
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4.
It is interesting, but not surprising, to see how quickly a commentor leaps to
ridicule science and evolution, equating them, of course, with liberal politics.
Actually, it isn’t interesting, just more of the same old fluff. As a scientist, I care
whether knowledge is acquired using the objective and empirical process of
science—not what someone believes might have begun the process. It would not
bother me to have a physician who believes in God or creation, as long as he
understands medicine. I would rather that s/he understand something of
evolutionary biology and humans in their context as primates and mammals, but
s/he does not have to. I do not mind if a physicist or astronomer believes in God
or intelligent design or is gay or has had an abortion (or wouldn’t) if that does not
get in the way of how s/he teaches science or astronomy, and if s/he is a
productive scientist and scholar and teacher. But, if any of those issues do
interfere, that becomes a problem.
— Joe Erwin
Dec 3, 07:15 AM
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5.
“ Real science is difficult enough to find in this society. “ – George Stevens
George, I can’t agree with you more. What happened to ‘follow the evidence
where it leads?’, and ‘let’s leave no stone un-turned in our quest for truth in
science’, or ‘a fact is a fact… if the theory suffers, discard it’. Instead we have
scientists distorting evidence, leaving out factual data, looking only where the
data supports their precious theory and no-where else.
When scientists are hand-cuffed to a theory and must make all their research
fit or else, you can expect wondrous things, but unfortunately you can’t expect
any science.
— Ray Thompson
6.
Zeus did it.
Dec 3, 07:27 AM
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— Joe
Dec 3, 07:38 AM
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7.
This is the politicization of science, and so no idea can be allowed to
challenge established thinking. Funny how I read in these Chronicle pages a few
days ago that some prof spouting racial bigotry in a class was found by the
school’s faculty council to have had his academic freedom impinged when a
student complained to the administration which took the complaint seriously. So
what about this profs academic freedom to believe in creation?
— Bill
Dec 3, 08:49 AM
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8.
No. Ray, we are not handcuffed by the theory of evolution. We are scientists.
We are not likely to dabble long in untestable ideas. All of the theory of evolution
is testable and has been subject to extensive testing. The core “theory” of
Creationism (AKA Intelligent Design) is not testable and thus not science.
When a member of a science department declares they are both a scientist
and a believer in intelligent design (AKA Creationism) that strikes us an an
intellectual conflict, not one of science and religious beliefs. I can be an
evolutionary biologist and believe in God as creator of natural laws or the
process of evolution. I cannot be an evolutionary biologist and believe in
creationism.
Besides, how does a physicist teach his class that the universe in only
10,000 plus years old?
— JKW
Dec 3, 08:53 AM
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9.
In private moments I sometimes wish that those who prefer intelligent design
could have their surgeon be a faith healer. Not really, I don’t wish anyone harm,
but if intelligent design trumps everything, then ante up, my friends. Put yourself
to the test rather than asking me to accept what is only supported by words.
— Dave
10.
Dec 3, 09:20 AM
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I believe in a type of Intelligent Design. But I believe God had to design the
laws of gravity, light travel, etc. He decides what causes DNA to mutate. He
designed evolution. God works miracles…not magic. The problem is intellectuals
try to out think FAITH.
— Karlton
11.
Dec 3, 09:40 AM
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Intelligent design is not science. It is religion attempting to pass in scientific
garb. Science seeks to explain nature by means of nature — not by reference to
that which transcends nature. Intelligent design seeks to explain nature by
means of something that transcends nature itself. That’s not science.
— Sally
12.
Dec 3, 09:43 AM
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If they penalized him for being an advocate of Intelligent Design, what a
shame!
— M.A.R.
13.
Dec 3, 09:48 AM
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The young earth creationists and intelligent design advocates portray
evolution as “mere” theory and like to refer to those who view evolution as fact as
“Darwinists,” as if we were desciples of Darwin. All of us should be aware that the
concept of natural selection, as set forth by Wallace and Darwin was not a
complete explanation of the process of evolution. In fact, Darwin knew very little
about genetics and inheritance. There was considerable debate, some quite
heated, between the Mendelian geneticists and the Darwinian selectionists until
Fisher’s “genetical theory of natural selection” introduced the “modern synthesis.”
But even then, the structure of DNA was not known, and modern molecular
genetics and genomics led to tremendous advances in the understanding of
inheritance and development. Even then, the role of the parts of the genome
other than the templates for making proteins was not appreciated. Now we are
more aware of the role of mobile elements in modulating gene function and
promoting insertions, deletions, and rearrangements. And much remains to be
discovered. Perhaps some people’s faith in evolution is as uninformed as antievolutionists claim, but there are many scientists who continue to investigate
without believing for a minute that Darwin had all the answers. Those are the
people who “do real science” with an open mind.
— Joe Erwin
14.
Dec 3, 10:12 AM
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Is there anyone out there old enough to remember “Red baiting”? Or, at least
able to remember to concept of “spin”? As I read this report I was taken by what
appears to be journalistic “spin.” I am willing to take at face value the allegation of
that Mr. Gonzalez was denied tenure because he failed to meet the academic
standards of his department.
If that statement is correct, one can then wonder if his publication recorded
tapered off as a result of his adherence to a belief in ID, thereby making
publishable research difficult. If this be the case, then arguing that he was denied
tenure because of his belief in ID has merit since that belief could have effected
his ability to meet the academic standards of his department. However, the
argument I have seen so far has failed to take into account the performance
standards of Mr. Gonzalez’ department and any consideration of whether or not
the faculty acted in good faith in denying him tenure. As someone who has
served on tenure review committees, I am willing to accept that, in spite of
concerns about Mr. Gonzalez’ beliefs, the department faculty acted on
established performance standards and not capriciously.
— Bob Harris
15.
Dec 3, 10:20 AM
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Why are we still debating this? As reported in the Onion, a peer-reviewed
online journal, the widespread repression of the theory of Intelligent Falling
demonstrates beyond question that Isaac Newton, with his “law” of gravity, has
enshrined scientific intolerance. The Newtonians have so effectively stifled
scientific inquiry that unbiased academics, simply for pointing out that gravity is
only a theory, have been denied tenure!
— BertW
16.
Dec 3, 10:29 AM
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Without wishing to intrude in what is shaping up to be a perfectly good food
fight over evolution—the latest in the dozens, if not hundreds, of these to be
waged in this forum over the past couple of years—I’d like to refocus attention on
the fact that Prof. Gonzalez’ field is physics and astronomy, not biology. Unless
I’m mistaken (and if I am, someone will no doubt contradict me), none of the
research Prof. Gonzalez presented in his tenure dossier was on the subject of
“intelligent design,” nor did he raise it in his physics classes. That being so, this
revelation is disturbing indeed. My extracurricular beliefs may be odd, if not
positively unhinged—I may be a British Israelite, or a Maoist, or the reincarnation
of Queen Marie of Romania—but none of that should have the slightest bearing
on my tenure application so long as they remain extracurricular. I don’t know
what the faculty handbook at Iowa State says, but at my own institution, the
deeply unprofessional behaviour to which members of the P & A department
have now confessed to the Des Moines Register—that a colleague’s tenure
application should suffer because of the “dangerous” nature of his personal views
expressed in his non-academic publications—would be grounds for throwing out
the original review and starting again, before the courts made us do so.
Whatever one’s views on intelligent design (for my part, I’m a sceptic) all of
us have a stake in academic freedom and uncorrupted process, concepts that
seems to be unknown to ISU. If Prof. Gonzalez can be denied tenure because
his non-academic writings are deemed “dangerous” to science, what are we to
do when our non-academic writings, perhaps in the correspondence columns of
the local newspaper, are declared “dangerous” by our employers to the arts and
humanities?
— Gustave
17.
Dec 3, 10:35 AM
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The 2005 Kitzmiller v Dover case against the school board members who
advocated a discussion of intelligent design in their district’s classrooms was
based on a “straw man” argument against intelligent design because it was
proven that those board members and the literature that they used REALLY DID
embrace biblical creationism. That was a sad day for intelligent design because it
seems that forever more, through generalizing from the specific, it will always be
equated as a mask for a childlike, bible-thumping, literal interpretation of
Genesis, which is not always the correct way it should be seen. I say sad
because there are thoughtful people, including myself, who see that science has
yet to discover the actual source of the universe and, more importantly, its laws,
gravity, magnetism, etc., and while it pursues that truth I am happy to look
around and say that whatever or whoever started the process of creating this
universe (which may have involved the creation of billions of other universes)
must have had some intelligence, some ability to reason, to plan, to predict, even
if the only thing that these features entail is the random nature of different
systems and even the chaos that it produced. I believe that chaos and
randomness are part of the genius of this creation and when I see genius I see
some organizing principle behind it which is worthy of our continued exploration,
scientific or otherwise. So for me to say that I recognize that an intelligent design
must have preceded this universe is not to say that I believe in fairies or
monsters or even God as presented in the Old Testament. It means I believe in
an organizing principle that needs further explanation which is very close to what
scientists would agree to if they don’t, in the most ignorant and yet prideful way,
jump to the conclusion that I’m holding my bible behind my back. So in the future,
now that you have been exposed to at least one person who accepts intelligent
design as a likely explanation of the source of the universe but who also believes
in evolution, natural selection, and recognizes the value of chaos and
randomness — do not automatically presume that intelligent design is “A.K.A”
biblical creationism in everyone’s mind. It is not. Paul A
— Paul
18.
Dec 3, 10:48 AM
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Intelligent design does not mandate creationism or any particular age to the
earth. There are different groups with different uses of the term intelligent design.
Nor does Darwininan evolution absolutely make any statement about creation of
life. There are many mergings of ideas that can be compatible. Dogmatic
thoughts serve little purpose, on either side of the dicsussion.
— B. Martin
Dec 3, 10:51 AM
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19.
This is an interesting discussion and in some respects an old tired
discussion. Does anyone remember the events of Copernicus and Galileo? A
thousand or so years passed before two brave souls decided to challenge the
dominate discourse of the time (the religious community) “The earth was the
center of the universe.” Obviously, it was clear that wasn’t the case – it was
proven through scientific means that it was not and it changed the course of the
planets history forever. What happened following those events, the religious
community went on the defensive to exert it dominates. These men were
censured and convicted of heresy. It wasn’t until 1992 when Galileo was
vindicated by the religious institution that convicted him three hundred or so
year’s prior. People believed this false assumption for over a thousand years,
why because of the dominate discourse.
These event speak volumes to what this outdated discussion speaks of.
Theories are up for scientific debate through a means on non biased
empirical investigation. A person can believe in or live for God and teach science,
but when ones personal beliefs distort and influences what is being taught there
have a problem, especially when tries to develop and implement policy based on
what they believe with no empirical evidence.
We need to decide in this country if we are going to teach science and
rational/critical thinking, or teach intelligent design. This is the problem with this
country, people lack critical thinking and rationalization skills and thus employers
suffer from an underprepared workforce. If that is the case, and we teach
intelligent design or whatever name their community decides to come up with
tomorrow, we need to teach all forms of pseudo science (voodoo, mysticism,
alchemy, astrology, etc) and not the assumptions from western thought, then we
can see how the future turns out.
I say stop straddling the fence and pick a side. Don’t hide one’s true
intentions/motives. If you want to preach do it on Sunday in your place of worship
and or outside of the educational classroom. If you want to teach science, do it at
your respected place of employment. Intelligent design supporters will find it
mighty strange if the pastor of their respected places of worship would teach
mathematics and sciences on Sunday instead of preaching. Final note, if this
country really believes in God as it so claims, then why do we have the highest
levels of social ills, violence and racism toward people of color. Why do we have
high levels of white collard crimes in this country? Why is the divorce rate so
high? Someone is not paying attention to their Pastor and for that matter God.
Instead of this ridiculous and vacuous debate, we should be concentrating our
efforts of finding cures for cancer, AIDS, Alzheimer’s, and other terminal illness
that affects thousands of people a year in addition to helping provide support
networks for the less fortunate, the elderly, the orphan, the poor and homeless
and for people who have suffered extreme forms of tragedy.
— Aravind Sloan
20.
Dec 3, 10:59 AM
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One more thing, if a faculty member does not performance to the
departmental, college, or university tenure guidelines as articulated by their
policies, they cannot be award tenure. Now that is what has to be decided.
Did he follow his department, college, and university guidelines for tenure as
articulated by their policies, since coming to his respected university? If not –
then no tenure, if so award him tenure.
That is the question of debate, not so much personal views.
— Aravind Sloan
21.
Dec 3, 11:06 AM
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The debate Intelligent Design v. Evolution/Darwinism is wrong and stupid.
Very briefly:
Darwin and men after him said that evolution went by small, independent and
spontaneous changes – mutations. Now, Intelligent Designers say that these
small, independent and spontaneous changes could not have lead to a
meaningfully functioning organs, and that proves Intelligent Design. All – wrong.
Evolution went by changes in the pattern of cell proliferation in the organism.
In some cases, may be, it was a mutation that began to show its effect in embryo
in some cells-progenitors (stem cells) leading to the change in the specific
lineage of their large progeny. But, in other cases, I believe, a change in the
pattern cell division affected entire embryo. Therefore, in this process the
changes in PROGENY are NOT INDEPENDENT, or small, or spontaneous.
Furthermore, the patterns of cell proliferation and the shape of the resulting
structures are SEVERELY restricted by the intrinsic factor – cells do not move or
proliferate independently (except in cancer), but are connected with each other in
tissue. Just try to play with these structures and you will see the inevitability of
DESIGN and the inevitability of all the well known shapes that we see in
multicellular organisms.
If we accept this, we don’t need to wonder about individual cells mutating
independently but forming together meaningfully functioning structures.
The design was there; it was smarter than some can imagine today.
.
— Michael Pyshnov
22.
Dec 3, 11:51 AM
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Fist let me say that I have a devout belief in God and Jesus Christ and
believe that this universe was created with a purpose. However, I am also a
scientist, and I don’t try to mix the two.
Science is about what can be seen, observed, measured, proven, etc.
Religion is about belief faith, the unseen, etc. Intelligent Design tries to cross the
two areas.
God will not be found when we develop a powerful enough telescope. He
reveals himself in spiritual ways to those who seek Him. On the other hand, it is
ridiculous to assert that scientists are ignoring truth to support their theories.
Believe me, those who say that the theory of evolution has tenuous support are
just ignorant of the facts. I am amazed at the evidence for evolution that comes
from disparate disciplines such as psychology and geology. That is not to say
that we fully understand how it works, but the main idea is really beyond any
question for an intelligent person.
So do I believe that God is the designer of all this? Yes. Is that a scientific
belief? NO. At church I am happy to discus the answers to questions such as
“Why are we here?”, “Where did we come from?” and “Where are we going?”
because I believe that my religion holds the answer to those questions (you’ll
notice the use of the word “believe”.) But when I am in the lab, I look at what I
can SEE. You can’t prove the existence of a creator, and so Intelligent Design
does not belong in science.
If you had a scientist that said he believed in magic and alchemy and
advocated its teaching in school you would be correct in identifying him as
someone whose scientific fitness was questionable. Leave religion in church and
science in the lab.
— Jeff
23.
Dec 3, 12:23 PM
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I like what an old religion professor of my said, “Intelligent design, evolution,
whatever. God did it.” Personally, I need no more reconciliation between faith
and science than that. The problem with ID is that it is antievolution and
unabashedly religious teaching; this was proven in the courts and is obvious to
anyone who follows this ridiculous debate. This is contrary to the “give every
opinion a chance” proponents of ID espouse. A physics professor who is content
to simply say, “God did it” to everything he is uncertain about is not worthy of
tenure.