Feb. 8

Quick Takes: Tenure Appeal Denied to Intelligent Design Supporter, Wellesley Replaces Loans, Probation for Western CC’s, Maryland’s Study of Slavery, Female Students Who Drink, New Charges at Oral Roberts, Seeking Compromise on Border Fence

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The Iowa Board of Regents on Thursday rejected the appeal of Guillermo Gonzalez, who had been denied tenure in the department of physics and astronomy, The Des Moines Register reported. Gonzalez is a supporter of intelligent design, which most scientists view as a non-scientific cover to attack evolution, and his backers have accused Iowa State of discriminating against him for his anti-evolution views. The university has maintained that a variety of measures of his scholarship were the crucial factors in the tenure review — and those measures didn’t have anything to do with evolution.
Wellesley College announced Thursday that it would replace loans with grants for students on financial aid who come from families with annual income below $60,000, and would reduce loans for those on financial aid with higher income levels.
The Accreditation Association of Community and Junior Colleges, part of the Western Association of Schools and Colleges, placed three institutions on probation at its meeting last month and continued the probation of three others. They two-year colleges put on probation were: Modesto Junior College, Los Angeles County College of Nursing and Allied Health, and College of Marin; those continued on probation were College of the Redwoods, Lassen College and Northern Marianas College. The accrediting agency also removed two institutions from probation: Brooks College and Hartnell College.
Prompted in part by Brown University’s commission that studied links between the institution and the slave trade, many other institutions have considered how to explore that part of their history. The University of Maryland at College Park has just announced a new approach to conducting such a study. In the next academic year, a senior-level course in the history department — with admission based on competitive application — will conduct research and prepare a report for the university president. The course will be taught by Ira Berlin, one of the leading historians of slavery in the United States.
First-year female undergraduates who, as many do, significantly increase their drinking upon starting college, are significantly more likely to experience sexual assaults or other physical assaults, according to a study by the Research Institute on Addictions, of the State University of New York at Buffalo.
A former accountant suing Oral Roberts University has added new charges to his suit and now argues that more than $1 billion was funneled through the university annually for inappropriate uses, including personal gain by some officials, The Tulsa World reported. University officials denied the charges.
The University of Texas Board of Regents has adopted a resolution endorsing the importance of homeland security, but criticizing a federal plan to build a fence in south Texas that would separate part of the campus of the University of Texas at Brownsville and Texas Southmost Campus, The Austin American-Statesman reported. The regents are seeking more negotiations over the plan, which is opposed by the Brownsville campus. A federal suit for access to land for the fence is possible.

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Comments

Iowa Tenure Denial

In my opinion, the Iowa Board of Regents rightly denied the tenure appeal of Guillermo Gonzalez, but I am disappointed they skirted the Intelligent Design issue. Advocates of I.D. are not merely expressing a religious conviction. They are rejecting the geological record, more than a century of scientific research, and the methodology and habits of mind of science itself. People are free to believe whatever they want, of course, but people who reject science cannot then call themselves scientists. Gonzolez is not a physicist and has no business being in a physics department.

Jim, at 8:45 am EST on February 8, 2008

Denial of tenure

Is it possible, maybe just barely possible, that Gonzalez was turned down for tenure because he didn’t meet the criteria,—like thousands of other denials—and his belief in ID is merely an excuse? Is it possible that there is a correlation between believing in ID and lacking the ability to put together intellectual scholarship? Hmm.

Fred Flener, Retired, at 9:05 am EST on February 8, 2008

Tenure Denial

I’m with Jim. It’s disappointing that Iowa State hasn’t made a statement about the contradiction between I.D. and educational science. What kind of program would it be if he’d been given tenure? -especially at a state school.

I understand why they haven’t acknowledged the intelligent design factor in their decision, but it would be triumphant if they would point out how an I.D. supporter is essentially inept as a science professor.

momar, at 9:45 am EST on February 8, 2008

one’s beliefs should not be a factor in a tenure decision

I have to disagree with the comments that Iowa State should have taken this as an opportunity to made a statement about intelligent design. A tenure decision should be made purely on the merits of the tenure case — i.e., the candidate’s record in research, teaching, the external evaluation letters, and whatever else goes into the tenure dossier. Anything else the candidate might happen to believe in is irrelevant to the evaluation, and should be disregarded.

It’s possible, of course, that in this case, Gonzalez’s views may have contributed to his being denied tenure: I can easily see how ID-oriented research could have trouble getting funding and publications. Nevertheless, the tenure decision itself should be based solely on his record as a scholar — nothing more, nothing less.

S.K.Debray, Univ. of Arizona, at 11:50 am EST on February 8, 2008

Relax about ID

ID is so widely misunderstood. It’s nothing more or less than the idea that scientific evidence points to a Designer. You can be a fundamentalist Christian and believe God did it, you can be an E.T. believer and think the aliens did it, you can be an evolutionist and think that the Providential Clock Maker started it all and then left, you can be a mythology buff and think that Zeus did it. It’s not a conspiracy to bring down science; ID folks merely see intentional design in the universe, where others, like neo-Darwinists, see random chance.

Stop Overeacting, at 12:25 pm EST on February 8, 2008

EGO CAN’T RELAX ABOUT ID

Scientific evidence cannot “point toward a designer” (no matter how “tolerantly” it is allowed that the designer might be God, an ET alien, or whatever). Evidence, itself, does not “point” in science; at best, an optimist might find evidence consistent with a theory or explanation to “point toward.” (Of course, finally, the scientist attempts to disconfirm, but let’s leave that alone right now.) The scientific explanation just *is* the “design", so to speak. Scientists posit “designs", or models/theories, that can be empirically tested (they contain some referent to observable reality). There is no non-circular “design” of this type that could refer back to a “designer” as part of the theory being tested. Methodologically, the idea is absurd. —Love and kisses, Rod Bell

Rod Bell, Adjunct at College of DuPage, at 1:50 pm EST on February 8, 2008

Don’t forget

Don’t forget the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

george miller, Neogeo, at 1:50 pm EST on February 8, 2008

Yes, Stop Overeacting

Stop Overeacting’s comments are well put. The criticism that people of faith can’t be scientists belies the bigotry and ignorance of those who so freely dispense such criticisms. Those who make these bigoted statements allow stereotypes and narrow-mindedness to get in the way of clear thinking and demonstrate a glaring lack of understanding about what scientists with faith convictions actually do believe.

Amy De Rosa, at 1:50 pm EST on February 8, 2008

keep complaining

i think that Amy’s comment represents what I perceive as a common error. I don’t see any significant part of the scientific community claiming in any way that religion or having a religious belief is inconsistent with science. Most of the great controversial scientists who have challenges dogmas in the past were believers. A majority of US citizens are religious in some way, and some millions of them make excellent scientists. It is I-D supporters and some others who have put forward the idea that science is inconsistent with religion. Hence I-D “theorists” frequently refer to correcting the “errors” of evolutionary thinking — not by pointing out errors, but by claiming that it might not be true. They have a right to question any scientific concept, but that doesn’t make their ideas a part of the scientific discourse of evidence and explanation.

HL, at 3:00 pm EST on February 8, 2008

re: ID is misunderstood

If ID is misunderstood, it’s because so many fundamentalist Christians are using it as a means to debunk evolution and brainwash young minds into thinking the evidence for evolution is tenuous at best.

If you’re professor, it can also be a lucrative to peddle your ID “research” to the fundamentalist, anti-intellectual masses.

And for that matter, ID probably wouldn’t even exist or at least be as prominent, if EVOLUTION wasn’t misunderstood.

MD, at 4:15 pm EST on February 8, 2008

Re-thinking this

Hmmm. HL makes a good point. Perhaps I mis-construed “Denial of Tenure” and “Tenure Denial” above as conflating ID proponents with any scientist with religious convictions. Although it is fashionably intellectual in academia to claim that faith and reason can’t go together, perhaps this isn’t a case of that. Thanks.

Amy De Rosa, at 4:50 pm EST on February 8, 2008

Science is primarily concerned with the discovery of “how.” “Why” is generally relegated to those useless dreamy folk in philosphy. Yet putting aside professional bias, it’s odd that many scientists are so prickly about ID. The existence or lack of sentient impetus has little if any bearing on their craft; there’s plenty to explore in the fact of the big bang, without investing a moment’s consideration on whether someone was responsible. If some are more comfortable believing that the vast and extraordinary complexity of the universe, not to mention the creative and curious nature of its denizens, bespeaks a creator, nothing in that belief threatens the cold realist in his pursuit of physical knowledge, or cheapens his discoveries.

George Straschnov, at 6:05 pm EST on February 8, 2008

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