Comments on 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

• Iowa Tenure Denial
• Posted by Jim on February 8, 2008 at 8:45am EST

• 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.

• Denial of tenure
• Posted by Fred Flener , Retired on February 8, 2008 at 9:05am EST

• 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.

• Tenure Denial
• Posted by momar on February 8, 2008 at 9:45am EST

• 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.

• one's beliefs should not be a factor in a tenure decision
• Posted by S.K.Debray at Univ. of Arizona on February 8, 2008 at 11:50am EST

• 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.

• Relax about ID
• Posted by Stop Overeacting on February 8, 2008 at 12:25pm EST

• 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.

• EGO CAN'T RELAX ABOUT ID
• Posted by Rod Bell , Adjunct at College of DuPage on February 8, 2008 at 1:50pm EST

• 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

• Don't forget
• Posted by george miller , Neogeo on February 8, 2008 at 1:50pm EST

• Don't forget the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

• Yes, Stop Overeacting
• Posted by Amy De Rosa on February 8, 2008 at 1:50pm EST

• 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.

• keep complaining
• Posted by HL on February 8, 2008 at 3:00pm EST

• 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.

• re: ID is misunderstood
• Posted by MD on February 8, 2008 at 4:15pm EST

• 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.

• Re-thinking this
• Posted by Amy De Rosa on February 8, 2008 at 4:50pm EST

• 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.

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

• 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.