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“Angry Astronomer” Provides Great Example of Anti-Intelligent Design Intolerance

A blogger named “Angry Astronomer,” an undergraduate at the University of Kansas, has exemplified how anti-ID intolerance is passed on to the next-generation. The “angry” Jon Voisey assumes that Guillermo Gonzalez does not deserve tenure because Dr. Gonzalez displays “dishonesty” in “extension activity” simply because Gonzalez supports intelligent design. Mr. Voisey has no evidence of dishonesty on the part of Dr. Gonzalez, but simply assumes that supporting intelligent design necessarily implies dishonesty. In Mr. Voisey’s vision of academia, ID proponents need not apply. We should feel for college undergraduates like this who have been led down the path of intolerance by University of Kansas professors who model knee-jerk prejudice against proponents of intelligent design**.

The “angry astronomer” then cites Discovery Institute’s internal search engine listing of publications by Guillermo Gonzalez on our website and claims that it “doesn’t feature a single one published in a respected astronomical journal.” Poor Mr. Voisey: He’s trying to imply Dr. Gonzalez doesn’t have a prestigious publication record, and is so eager to join the fray that he doesn’t consider the possibility that our website doesn’t house Dr. Gonzalez’s dozens of technical research articles. In fact, Dr. Gonzalez has published refereed journal articles in journals such as The Astrophysical Journal, The Astronomical Journal, Astronomy and Astrophysics, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Solar Physics, Icarus, and Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific. Dr. Gonzalez’s research has been highlighted in Science and Nature and Dr. Gonzalez even wrote the cover story for Scientific American in 2001. For a list of Dr. Gonzalez’s publications, click here.

Mr. Voisey is apparently a sci-fi fan, so it’s appropriate to end by observing that the wrath of the “Angry Astronomer” appears little more potent than the useless rage of “Mr. Furious” from the movie Mystery Men.

** “All they are is oppressors. They’re not martyrs and victims.”
–University of Kansas Professor Paul Mirecki on “intelligent design proponents,” Lawrence Journal World, Nov. 22, 2005

[Some corrections and edits made a few minutes after this was posted.]

 

Casey Luskin

Associate Director and Senior Fellow, Center for Science and Culture
Casey Luskin is a geologist and an attorney with graduate degrees in science and law, giving him expertise in both the scientific and legal dimensions of the debate over evolution. He earned his PhD in Geology from the University of Johannesburg, and BS and MS degrees in Earth Sciences from the University of California, San Diego, where he studied evolution extensively at both the graduate and undergraduate levels. His law degree is from the University of San Diego, where he focused his studies on First Amendment law, education law, and environmental law.

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