Science and Culture Today | Page 1362 | Discovering Design in Nature

Guillermo Gonzalez is the outstanding astronomer who was blacklisted from tenure at Iowa State University because of his support for intelligent design. As my colleagues here on ENV have pointed out, Dr. Gonzalez’ academic record is superb. Since his arrival in 2001, Dr. Gonzalez has been the most productive astronomer in his department, judged by the impact factor of his publications.

It’s clear that Dr. Gonzalez was denied tenure for only one reason: he stated publicly that he believes there is evidence for design in the universe. As I observed in a previous post about Georges Lemaître, the Catholic priest who is the father of the Big Bang theory, many of the most prominent astronomers in history have shared Dr. Gonzalez’s opinion about the evidence for design in the universe. Nowadays, it is very dangerous to state such beliefs in science departments of many universities, including Iowa State University.

Who else, besides Dr. Gonzalez and Dr. Lemaître, would qualify for Iowa State’s blacklist? Nobel laureate Dr. Arno Penzias (photo) meets Iowa State’s implicit criteria for denial of tenure. He has discussed his opinions regarding the philosophical ramifications of his discovery quite openly, and, in many ways, has done so in a way that was more explicitly religious than Dr. Gonzalez.

In a recent law review article in Rutgers Journal of Law and Religion, Stephen A. Newman, law professor at New York Law School, provides a wonderful example of how prevalent among some academics is the idea that it is acceptable and appropriate to censor intelligent design ideas. Newman writes: Consider the experience of two librarians who received copies of two intelligent design books, Darwin’s Black Box by Michael Behe and Darwin on Trial by Philip [sic] Johnson, as donations to their high school collections. When the librarians refused to put the books on the school library shelves, they were accused of censorship. In fact, exercising their professional judgment, they concluded that these books had “little or no value to our Read More ›

The Des Moines Register has today published a letter by CSC Senior Fellow, Dr. Jay Richards, defending his and Dr. Guillermo Gonzalez’s work in their book The Privileged Planet. Below you will find the complete text of Dr. Richard’s letter.
There were additional letters published today in support of Gonzalez following the president of Iowa State University’s decision last week to uphold his denial of tenure. Two challenge Dr. John Hauptman’s op-ed from last week. Amazingly, Hauptman admitted his complete disregard for academic freedom and said that he denied tenure to Gonzalez, who he said was “very creative, intelligent and knowledgeable, highly productive scientifically and an excellent teacher,” because Gonzalez was a proponent of intelligent design. One letter pointed out:

Coincidentally, on the same day that Hauptman’s lengthy defense of his “no” vote appeared in the Register, another article in the paper noted that ISU president Gregory Geoffroy “said that, Gonzalez’s advocacy of the ‘intelligent design’ concept was not a factor in the decision to turn down his request for tenure.”

Michael Behe was featured on the Michael Medved Show this week to talk about his new book, Edge of Evolution: The Search for the Limits of Darwinism, and the audio is now available here.

Bringing up the way evolution has been popping up in the presidential debates, Michael Medved had the fortunate insight to note that this isn’t an issue about evolution per se. Behe was able to respond by clarifying the debate with the right question to ask: is life the result of purpose or an accident?

P.Z. Myers over at Pharyngula has responded to my recent post in which I criticized strict materialist explanations for the human mind. I have argued that the mind is not completely caused by the brain. By that, I mean that there are properties of the mind, such as ideas, that are not caused by brain matter alone. Brain matter cannot be the complete cause for ideas because matter and ideas share no properties. Cause and effect can’t be ‘linked’ between substances that have no properties in common. I pointed out that the materialist view that matter alone causes ideas is substantially the same as the view that ideas alone move matter, which is the pseudoscience of ‘telekinesis’.

I believe that materialism is incapable of providing an adequate explanation for the mind. Clearly ideas can influence the movement of matter (via the brain), and vice-versa, but materialism alone is inadequate to explain the link. The link between the mind and the brain must involve agency that has such non-material properties as purpose and judgment, and, as such, an adequate explanation for the mind must necessarily be open to immaterial causes.

The current issue of the Montana Law Review features a lively exchange of views about the Kitzmiller v. Dover intelligent design decision, and the articles are now available online at the law review’s website. The lead article on the Dover decision (“Intelligent Design Will Survive Kitzmiller v. Dover“) is co-authored by David DeWolf, me, and Casey Luskin. A second article by Peter Irons (“Disaster in Dover”) responds to our article, followed by a short rebuttal by DeWolf, me, and Luskin. There is also an editors’ introduction with a timeline of the Dover case (currently not available online).

Does Panda’s Black Box really contribute something new or is it just more Darwinist “name-calling and fingerpointing”? A book has come out about intelligent design, published by Johns Hopkins University Press and titled The Panda’s Black Box, that promises on its dust-jacket that it “moves beyond mere name-calling and fingerpointing.” Does it live up to its promise? Let’s look at some of the statements in the book to find out. We’ll start with my favorite quote, by bioethicist Jane Maienschein: “There is no doubt, there is no evidence against evolution, and there is no controversy about the science of evolution.” Just keep repeating that to yourself over and over again until you believe it. Other examples include Scott F. Gilbert’s Read More ›

Explore Evolution: The Arguments For and Against Neo-Darwinism (Hill House Publishers Ltd., Melbourne and London, 2007) is the first biology textbook to present the scientific evidence both for and against key aspects of Darwinian evolution. “Sadly, the majority of biology textbooks in use today are ‘dumbed-down’ and do a poor job explaining evolution,” said Dr. John West of Discovery Institute, the book’s United States distributor. “Explore Evolution will improve the teaching of evolution by providing teachers and students with more information about evolution than they are likely to find in any other textbook written at the same level.” West is Associate Director of the Institute’s Center for Science and Culture. Explore Evolution promotes inquiry-based learning, encouraging students to participate in Read More ›

Two new law review articles were recently published in Rutgers Journal of Law and Religion discussing the teaching of evolution. Asma T. Uddin authored an article entitled, “Evolution Disclaimers, Establishment Jurisprudence Confusions, and a Proposal of Untainted Fruits of a Poisonous Tree,” which aimed to “determine the constitutionality of disclaimers” regarding the teaching of evolution. The second article, “Evolution and the Holy Ghost of Scopes: Can Science Lose the Next Round,” by New York Law School professor Stephen A. Newman, provides a shimmering example of how mainstream academics support blatant censorship of the pro-intelligent design viewpoint. A series of two posts will discuss these articles. Disclaiming Disclaimers I’ve discussed recently why think textbook disclaimers are not an effective way to Read More ›