The Guillermo Gonzalez Case: Not Just Rhetoric

Some of the more vocal opponents of Intelligent Design have accused the Discovery Institute and other ID supporters of overstating the Guillermo Gonzalez tenure case. Gonzalez was denied tenure this year at Iowa State University, which essentially amounts to being slowly sacked from his position. His academic credentials were strong, his publishing record exemplary, and his grant funding high. He and the Discovery Institute said it appeared to be his position on Intelligent Design that got him in trouble, which if true means his academic freedom was seriously infringed. Not so, said detractors: you're making this up to try to reinforce ID by a rhetorical, public relations ploy.

But yesterday the Des Moines Register said, "Not so." It would be hard to sell the accusation that they did it to shore up the ID/Discovery Institute position.

"Iowa State University professor Guillermo Gonzalez's support of the theory of intelligent design damaged his prospects for tenure long before his peers voted on the job promotion, according to e-mails from at least one professor in his department to those who decided Gonzalez's tenure request.  "The e-mails were provided to The Des Moines Register by ISU officials in response to a request for public records pertaining to the tenure case."

...

"'I think Gonzalez should know that some of the faculty in his department are not going to count his ID work as a plus for tenure,' physics and astronomy professor Bruce Harmon wrote in an e-mail dated November 2005 - a year before the department voted on the tenure case.

"'Quite the opposite," Harmon added"

There is more on this today--this time, yes, from the Discovery Institute, but with full documentation. It includes this:

"One faculty member wrote in e-mails that '[i]n view of an upcoming tenure decision, secrecy in the department may equally be interpreted as prejudging the case as 'making a statement” because '[i]f it becomes clear that there were efforts to write such a statement and that the statement was not made only to avoid the impression of a hostile environment, isn’t this strong evidence for secrecy in the department[?].' Another stated, 'I don’t think talking behind Guillermo’s back is quite ethical.'”

Here's why this matters, beyond being an injustice perpetrated on a scholar. You may recall that Gonzalez's work is not in the very contentious field of biology, but in cosmology, where the facts are much more plain and distinct. Our universe is very incredibly finely tuned for life. This is now the consensus opinion of astronomers and cosmologists. In a book called The Privileged Planet, Gonzalez and co-author Jay Richards showed that our position in the universe is not just incredibly finely tuned for life, but also for our ability to discover truths about the universe. These facts are easily quantifiable. Without controversy, they are genuine science.

Gonzalez has suggested that this implies some tinkering with the system by a Designer. Professors like Paul Davies at Arizona State University, or even more openly, Owen Gingerich at Harvard have not gotten in trouble for saying so; but Davies and Gingerich do not support the parallel idea that biology speaks of Intelligent Design. I don't think Gonzalez has done so in any professional capacity either--but he committed the unforgivable sin of giving aid and comfort to people who do. And he got whacked for it.

It demonstrates a point that ID proponents have been making for a long time: academic prejudice contributes to ID being squelched, for reasons that have little to do with its academic merits.

Posted: Mon - December 3, 2007 at 12:21 PM |

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The Guillermo Gonzalez Case: Not Just Rhetoric

Thinking Christian by Tom Gilson