Science and Culture Today | Page 1341 | Discovering Design in Nature

Iowa State University (ISU) physicist John Hauptman is talking out of both sides of his mouth. The ISU Daily has a great article up today on the Guillermo Gonzalez case, in which ISU professor John Hauptman was quoted as saying: the tenure decision was “absolutely not” based on Gonzalez’s research into intelligent design Really? Huh. I hate to be rude, but aren’t you contradicting something you wrote rather publicly in the Des Moines Register early this summer? Back in June, you honestly admitted that you voted to deny Gonzalez tenure because of The Privileged Planet. This is better than John Kerry’s infamous “flipper” line. In this case, John Hauptman’s vote was because of ID… before it wasn’t.

Note: This is one of a series of posts adapted from my new book, Darwin Day in America. You can find other posts in the series here.

During the early decades of the twentieth century, Katherine Blackford , M.D., urged America’s businesses to reinvent their employment policies by drawing on the discoveries of modern science, especially Darwinian biology. Employment selection procedures, in short, needed to be based on the facts of natural selection.

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.

Dear Human Events: If Mac Johnson is to be believed, intelligent design (ID) advocates are Neanderthals–their theory “dressed up in a lab coat and a mail order Ph.D.” [“Intelligent Design, and Other Dumb Ideas,” November 15] Mr. Johnson regurgitates the tired falsity of Darwinists everywhere. Leading ID advocates have reputable Ph.D.s, and avid readers of Human Events (HE) know as much. Michael Behe does biochemical research with his University of Pennsylvania Ph.D.; Jonathan Wells does biological research with his U.C. Berkeley Ph.D.; Stephen Meyer researches the history and philosophy of science with his Cambridge University Ph.D.; etc. This kind of argument is called “poisoning the well.” That is, HE readers are supposed to dismiss ID scientists because they are not Read More ›

Last night Brit Hume highlighted the Guillermo Gonzalez tenure battle during the “Grapevine” segment of his nightly news show on the Fox News channel. You can watch the segment online here.

Nature recently carried a glowing review of “Judgment Day: Intelligent Design” which uses strong language to attack ID: “Judgment Day gracefully avoids ridiculing intelligent design for the pseudo-intellectual fundamentalist fig-leaf that it is.” Rather than make any attacks against the reviewer, Adam Rutherford, I’ll just let Mr. Rutherford speak for himself: “were I in a position to offer Guillermo Gonzalez tenure, I would deny it for the precise reason that his, yes, religious views about purpose in the universe explicitly mean he is a crap scientist.” (emphasis added) Rutherford continues: Guillermo Gonzalez has been denied a physics post by his university. Quite right: you cannot believe in ID and call yourself a scientist. So farewell, I hope, to the scientific Read More ›

According to KOB News in New Mexico, the Rio Rancho School District has “rescind[ed]” its “intelligent design policy,” which allegedly “allow[s] alternative theories of evolution to be discussed in public school science classes.” But according to my understanding of the district’s Science Education Policy 401 (revised April, 2006), it says absolutely nothing about teaching intelligent design. In fact, if board members rescinded this policy, then they rescinded a policy that protected against indoctrinating students in religious or philosophical viewpoints, encouraged sensitivity towards the controversy caused by teaching about origins, and required “objective science education, without religious or philosophical bias, that upholds the highest standards of empirical science.” Only a Darwinist would rescind a policy like this. To my knowledge, here Read More ›

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.)

Public document requests under Iowa’s Open Records Act have obtained revealing correspondence of key faculty members within ISU’s Department of Physics and Astronomy. Various e-mails show that Dr. Gonzalez’s department was concerned about the “embarrassment” that intelligent design (ID) caused the department’s reputation and unconcerned about protecting his academic freedom–despite the fact that ISU’s faculty handbook claims that “[a]cademic freedom is the foundation of the university.” Uncritical bias against ID on the part of ISU physicists and astronomers that voted on his tenure, and unreflective ridicule of Gonzalez’s position on ID come out repeatedly. The faculty considered releasing a statement condemning ID in hopes that it would send a message to Dr. Gonzalez that he was unwelcome at ISU, but Read More ›