Gonzalez Tenure Appeal Rejected

The Ames Tribune has reported that the tenure appeal of Iowa State University (ISU) astronomer Guillermo Gonzalez has been denied by ISU President Gregory Geoffroy. It’s a sad day for academic freedom. A statement by Geoffroy defending his decision can be found here, while a statement by Gonzalez disputing the decision can be found here.

The Textbooks Don’t Lie: Haeckel’s Faked Drawings Have Been Used to Promote Evolution: Raven & Johnson (2002) (Part 2)

Links of Interest: Hoax of Dodos, a response to inaccuracies in Flock of Dodos Haeckel’s Bogus Embryo Drawings (Clip on YouTube) As noted recently, we are presently highlighting some textbooks that use Haeckel’s fraudulent embryo drawings to promote evolution. These textbooks use Haeckel’s drawings to assert that they represent factual evidence for evolution in the present-day. “Flock of Dodos” film producer Randy Olson has claimed that either (A) the fraudulent drawings haven’t been used in any modern textbooks, or alternatively, if that argument fails, then (B) when they are used, it isn’t to promote evolution, but simply to demonstrate some kind of historical perspective on the development of evolutionary thought. This post will discuss one recently-published textbook, Peter H Raven Read More ›

Key Developments in Gonzalez Tenure Denial Case, May 21-26

Action Item: Help Guillermo Gonzalez in his fight for academic freedom. Contact ISU President Gregory L. Geoffroy at (515) 294-2042 or email him at president@iastate.edu and let him know that you support academic freedom for Dr. Gonzalez to follow the evidence wherever it leads. Here is a recap of the major developments this week in the Guillermo Gonzalez tenure case: The Chronicle of Higher Education reported that Gonzalez ranks first among his astronomer colleagues at ISU according to the “h-index” statistic, which seeks to measure how widely a scientist’s articles are cited by other scientists. According to the Chronicle, “Mr. Gonzalez has a normalized h-index of 13, the highest of the 10 astronomers in his department. The next closest was Read More ›

The Textbooks Don’t Lie: Haeckel’s Faked Drawings Have Been Used to Promote Evolution: Miller & Levine (1994) (Part I)

Links of Interest: Hoax of Dodos, a response to inaccuracies in Flock of Dodos Haeckel’s Bogus Embryo Drawings (Clip on YouTube) Since Randy Olson’s film “Flock of Dodos” was shown on Showtime this week, we thought it worth re-highlighting material discussing Haeckel’s fraudulent embryo drawings. “Flock of Dodos” and Randy Olson’s statements have tried to rewrite history by claiming that Haeckel’s fraudulent embryo drawings have never been used in modern textbooks to promote evolution in the present day. His argument is that either (1) the drawings were never in textbooks, or, when that argument doesn’t work, he falls back on his old claim that (2) the drawings were in textbooks, but they were used only to provide a historical context Read More ›