academic freedom

Austin, TX — Today, the Texas Board of Education chose science over dogma and adopted science standards improving on the old “strengths and weaknesses” language by requiring students to “critique” and examine “all sides of scientific evidence.” In addition, the Board — for the first time — specifically required high school students to “analyze and evaluate” the evidence for major evolutionary concepts such as common ancestry, natural selection, and mutations. The new science standards mark a significant victory for scientists and educators in favor of teaching the scientific evidence for and against evolution. “Texas now has the most progressive science standards on evolution in the entire nation,” said Dr. John West, Senior Fellow at Discovery Institute. “Contrary to the claims Read More ›

Tenure votes at the earliest levels are made by a faculty member’s department, and they typically set the tone for whether that faculty member will ultimately receive tenure. Dr. Guillermo Gonzalez was first denied tenure by his Department of Physics and Astronomy at Iowa State University (ISU) in November 2006, and he soon thereafter received a letter from the Eli Rosenberg, Department Chair, asserting that intelligent design (ID) played only a minor role in tenure deliberations. As Dr. Rosenberg stated: “Your co-authorship of ‘The Privileged Planet’ and related activity was raised by several of the external and internal letter writers and discussed briefly in the faculty meetings where your promotion was under consideration.” Tenure notification letter from Dr. Rosenberg to Read More ›

We’ve recently discussed Iowa State University physicist John Hauptman’s prejudice against ID-proponents which was printed in the Des Moines Register. In response to our article observing misrepresentations of Guillermo Gonzalez’s arguments, David Deming, geologist and geophysicist and associate professor at the University of Oklahoma, sent some enlightening comments that further respond to Hauptman’s op-ed against Guillermo Gonzalez. Part of Dr. Deming’s comments are reprinted below: It certainly must have been a profound embarrassment for the Iowa State president to issue a press release stating ID had nothing to do with the tenure decision on the same day that Hauptman published a confession that it was the essentially the only reason he voted against Gonzalez’s tenure. I saw your most recent Read More ›

The Alabama Academic Freedom Act was originally proposed by Senator Wendell Mitchell (Democrat) in the Alabama State Legislature in 2004 to protect the rights of teachers and students to present scientific views and hold positions regardless of their views on biological evolution. It was re-proposed this year. This legislation is needed in light of the threat to teacher academic freedom to present scientific evidence that might challenge evolution, prohibited by Judge Jones in his Kitzmiller ruling. Sadly, it looks like the bill will not pass this year because Alabama State Senator Jim Preuitt (Democrat) pulled an unfair political power-play and demanded that the bill have its application to the K-12 grade levels removed if he were to permit it to Read More ›