Astronomer Guillermo Gonzalez Appeals Tenure Denial to Iowa Board of Regents

Pro-intelligent design astronomer Guillermo Gonzalez is appealing his denial of tenure at Iowa State University to the Iowa State Board of Regents. Dr. Gonzalez’s first appeal was rejected by ISU President Gregory Geoffroy on May 31. On June 19, Gonzalez filed notice with the ISU President’s office that he would make a further appeal to the Board of Regents. Gonzalez’s current appeal will play out over the next couple of months as the record in the case is forwarded by the university to the Board of Regents and both Gonzalez and the university file their written arguments in the case. If Gonzalez’s denial of tenure is not overturned, he will be out of a job at the end of the Read More ›

Thou Shalt Not Lie to the Police

Something just doesn’t smell right about this story. The Denver Post reports: University of Colorado police are investigating a series of threatening messages and documents e-mailed to and slipped under the door of evolutionary biology labs on the Boulder campus. If true, it is of course reprehensible. But where’s the evidence that the perps are actually creationists, or religious at all? According to Boulder Police: “It basically said anybody who doesn’t believe in our religious belief is wrong and should be taken care of.” As one colleague pointed out, that is hardly the way religious believers refer to their own belief system. Rarely do Christian groups refer to their own “religious beliefs” — it is mainly secularists who refer to Read More ›

OCD Darwinists, Chasing Tennis Balls and the Mythical Argument from Ignorance

When I go to the dog park, my 4 year old lab retriever Kali shows some obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) tendencies. No matter how tired she is, how thirsty she might be, or how out of breath, when I throw the tennis ball she races off after it at top speed. She can’t not chase the ball. Darwinists can’t not claim that that intelligent design is an argument from ignorance. In fact, not only are they fond of insisting this, they show OCD-like tendencies about it. No matter how much information you provide showing that ID is not an argument from ignorance, like Kali with her tennis ball, they switch into high gear. Last week on ID The Future, we Read More ›

Another Way to Defeat the ID = Creationism Meme

Darwinian logic often contends that because a given proportion of ID proponents are creationists, ID must therefore be creationism. It’s a twist on the genetic fallacy, one I like to call the Darwinist “Genesis Genetic Argument.” As noted, it implies that each and every argument made by a creationist must be equivalent to arguing for full-blooded creationism. This fallacious argument is easy to defeat on logical grounds by pointing out that some ID proponents are not creationists, and in fact have been persuaded to support ID in the absence of religion. Thus something other than creationism or religion must be fundamental to the set of views underlying ID (big hint: it’s the scientific data indicating real design in nature)! Michael Read More ›

Some thoughts on the ‘psychology of the mainstream’

A colleague intimately familiar with the debate over evolution offered the following insight, which I thought would be of interest to a number of our readers. Understanding why someone holds to a particular position — understanding how holding that position supports the person’s goals in life — is important to figuring out what will be necessary to cause that person to change position. I came across an observation in a different context that I feel also applies to the evolution/origins debate.