Robert Crowther

Access Research Network has just released its second annual “Top 10 Darwin and Design News Stories” and its “Top 10 Darwin and Design Resources” list for the year ending in 2007.

The origins debate continued to capture the attention of a world-wide audience in 2007, as evidenced by some of the key news stories designated as among the more important according to Access Research Network (ARN), a leading science and technology watch-dog group based in Colorado Springs, CO.

“Part of our mission at ARN is to help educate the public about issues relating to Darwin and Design,” says Kevin Wirth, ARN Director of Media Relations. “Not only are there a lot of moving parts to this issue, but it also suffers heavily from significant mis-information. One of the things we do is monitor science news and other reports related to this topic, and provide access to resources designed to help others better understand the full scope of this issue. Overall in 2007 I’d say we’ve observed a growing consternation running through many scientific disciplines over issues that were once thought to be resolved long ago. For example, the so-called ‘simple cell’ continues to demonstrate far more complexity and information content than anyone ever imagined. This continues to sustain the argument for Design theorists, but places a growing burden on Darwinists who maintain that this is merely evidence of ‘apparent design’. But we’re seeing a growing number of scientists who simply aren’t buying the ‘apparent design’ explanation. “

CSC Senior Fellow John West this week had an insightful commentary in the Tampa Bay Tribune about the growing discussion of religion and science in conjunction with the ongoing presidential campaigns. Ironically, both the preoccupation with religion and the avoidance of science in the presidential campaign may have been fueled by the scientific community itself. Increasingly, self-proclaimed defenders of science have tried to turn “science” into an ideological weapon to attack any questioning by religious believers of the “consensus view” of scientific elites on embryonic stem-cell research, global warming, Darwinian evolution, and similar issues. Read the full piece here.

Two years ago this month, defenders of Darwinian evolution gleefully pronounced the death of the scientific theory of intelligent design because of a court ruling by an activist federal judge in Pennsylvania. But if Darwinists truly think intelligent design is dead, why are they continuing to spend so much time trying to kill it? As a regular Evolution News & Views visitor, you have been continually informed of the ways in which leading Darwinists have unleashed an unprecedented wave of persecution, propaganda, and paranoia in an effort to strangle an idea that they insist is already dead. Fortunately, America still thrives on the free exchange of ideas–despite Darwinists’ best efforts to stifle open discussion. That’s why the Center for Science Read More ›

By Pete Chadwell

In further attempts to try and justify the e-mail lynching of Guillermo Gonzalez by his ISU colleagues during their secret tenure deliberations, there are a few folks trying to make a case that Gonzalez’s prestigious record of publication isn’t up to snuff, and that somehow he’s not been productive during his time at ISU. Nothing could be further from the truth.

The Design Matrix by Mike Gene is now available. It’s the first in a series of books and items that Discovery President Bruce Chapman is highlighting as great Christmas gifts at Discovery Blog.

The Ames Tribune editorial today tries to make out that Discovery Institute is more interested in headlines than in truth. Ironic, coming from a news organization that hasn’t even reported all of the news on this story. The piece sounds like it was ghost-written by the press office at ISU (or at least is based on ISU’s talking points).
The news at the press conference this week was that a hostile work environment was created at ISU for Dr. Gonzalez — and then covered up by his colleagues, his department, the university, and now the Board of Regents. This thing stinks from top to bottom.

That’s a big story. They tried to cover up what amounts to a crime — viewpoint discrimination in a personnel and hiring issue. Dr. Gonzalez’s academic freedom was trampled, and now the news media in Iowa are largely ignoring it, along with the cover up. Instead they raise red herrings like the grant issue, which is old news.

The top two news pieces for local CBS and Fox affiliates in Des Moines are about the press conference yesterday at which it was revealed the extensive lengths ISU faculty and administration went to cover up the hostile work environment and blatant viewpoint discrimination directed against ISU astronomer Guillermo Gonzalez. Fox News affiliate channel 17 click hereCBS News affiliate channel 8 click here (Note, these links may die. If you go to the video page for each channel you should be able to scroll down and find the news reports.)

ISU’s tenure process and official explanation in the Gonzalez case exposed as a sham.
Des Moines, IA — Iowa State University faculty plotted to deny tenure to a distinguished astronomer, as revealed in private emails written by faculty and administrators at ISU.

Discovery Institute is making public a record of secret emails exchanged among faculty at Iowa State University about noted ISU astronomer Dr. Guillermo Gonzalez. The emails demonstrate that a campaign was organized and conducted against Gonzalez by his colleagues, with the intent to deny him tenure because of views he holds on the intelligent design (ID) of the universe, expressed in his 2004 book The Privileged Planet. In spite of his distinguished publishing career, Gonzalez was denied tenure by ISU in the spring of 2007.

Faculty involved in the tenure decision were well aware of Gonzalez’s support for ID. More than one year before his tenure evaluation was scheduled, one ISU professor wrote an e-mail that left no doubt that Gonzalez’s tenure application would never receive a fair evaluation.

“He will be up for tenure next year,” wrote the professor. “And if he keeps up, it might be a hard sell to the department.”
Contrary to his public statements, and those of ISU President Gregory Geoffroy, the chairman of ISU’s Department of Physics and Astronomy, Dr. Eli Rosenberg, stated in Dr. Gonzalez’s tenure dossier that Dr. Gonzalez’s support for intelligent design “disqualifies him from serving as a science educator.”

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Click to download ID Was the Issue After All (including e-mail quotes)
Click to download Backgrounder on Guillermo Gonzalez Story
Click to download Q&A on Guillermo Gonzalez Story

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“Dr. Rosenberg misled Dr. Gonzalez, the public, and the media when he said that ID barely played a role in the decision,” said Casey Luskin, Discovery Institute’s attorney for public policy and legal affairs. “In fact, a third of his own statement in the tenure dossier focused on Gonzalez’s views on intelligent design, where he instructed faculty that support for ID as science should be a litmus test for denying tenure to Dr. Gonzalez.”

ISU faculty have claimed that ID was not discussed as often as other subjects during the tenure deliberations, but that “is only because at secret and inappropriate tenure deliberations held via e-mail a year before the official process started, they decided that they wanted Gonzalez out of ISU because he supported intelligent design,” said Luskin.

Gonzalez’s colleagues privately deliberated via e-mails about his tenure and collaborated to express their intolerance toward him by asserting that ID is “intellectually vacuous,” and “more than just vacuous,” and that “embalming is more of a science” than ID.

They also wrote that Gonzalez should be lumped with “idiots” and “religious nutcases.” They mocked Gonzalez’s ID work, saying they would study it “[u]nder medication.”

His own department members drafted–and nearly released–a petition against ID with the avowed purpose “to discredit” Gonzalez and “give Gonzalez a clear sign that his ID efforts will not be considered as science by the faculty.”

On Monday December 3rd, at a news conference in the Iowa state capitol, Discovery Institute will release a record of secret emails exchanged among faculty at Iowa State University about ISU astronomer Guillermo Gonzalez. The emails demonstrate that a campaign was conducted against him by his colleagues, with the intent to deny Gonzalez tenure because of views he holds on the intelligent design of the universe, expressed in his 2004 book The Privileged Planet.

Gonzalez was denied tenure at ISU earlier this year. While ISU president Gregory Geoffroy claimed that the decision was because Gonzalez “did not show the trajectory of excellence that we expect” and not because of his views on ID, it has become increasingly clear that his views on ID are exactly what led to his being forced out. Indeed, the day after the president announced his decision ISU professor John Hauptman published an op-ed in the Des Moines Register in which he contradicted the university and admitted that ID was the specific reason that he voted against Dr. Gonzalez receiving tenure.

Here is Dr. Gonzalez’s trajectory of excellence, a trajectory that far outstrips most other faculty at ISU with tenure, even in his own department.