Month: December 2007
Wired Magazine Acknowledges Discrimination against Guillermo Gonzalez and Understands What the Ames Tribune Ignored
In a post entitled “Denied Tenure, Astronomer Alleges Intelligent Design Witchhunt,” Wired Magazine‘s blog has acknowledged that Iowa State University (ISU) discriminated against Guillermo Gonzalez because he supports intelligent design: So far, science bloggers and defenders of evolution have dismissed Gonzalez’s complaints. However, I’m not sure they’re being fair. Though out-of-context email excerpts can be misleading, statements like “this is not a friendly place for him to develop further his IDeas” make it sound like Gonzalez was not, as the university insisted, judged solely on the content of his astronomical scholarship. Wired is exactly right. Regardless of Dr. Gonzalez’s level of grants or his publication record, the crucial question here is, Was Gonzalez discriminated against because he supports intelligent design? Read More ›
John Hauptman’s Vote against Gonzalez Was Because of ID … Before It Wasn’t
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.
Meet the Materialists, part 7: Katherine Blackford, M.D., and the “Scientific” Selection of Employees
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.
Ames Tribune Not Interested in News
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 Read More ›
Mac Johnson Misses the Mark
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 ›