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A Tale of Two Universities
With the Guillermo Gonzalez controversy as the background, blogger Lawrence Selden at Darwinian Fundamentalism has written an insightful comparison of Iowa State University and Arizona State University. He concludes: While Iowa State is trying to shut down creative thinking, Arizona State is reveling in it. Where would you rather go to school? An excellent question.
ISU Department: “Evaluation of research ability is based primarily upon published papers in refereed journals”
There has been much unfounded speculation this week about the specific standards governing astronomer Guillermo Gonzalez’s application for tenure at Iowa State University. Some have claimed, for example, that outside research grants must be a primary criterion for tenure at ISU. Unfortunately, the specific tenure and promotion standards adopted by the Department of Physics and Astronomy at ISU have not been available online. So we have decided to make them available for download here so that people can read the standards for themselves. These standards make clear that the key criterion for research excellence in Dr. Gonzalez’s department is the number of refereed papers, not the level of outside funding: Evaluation of research ability is based primarily upon published papers Read More ›
Breaking News: Iowa State Department Faculty Acknowledge ID Played Role in Gonzalez’s Tenure Denial
According to a story to be published in the May 26 edition of World Magazine (already available online here), two faculty members of the department that denied tenure to Guillermo Gonzales at Iowa State University have admitted that his work on ID played a role in the denial. While Prof. Eli Rosenberg, Chair of the Department of Physics and Astronomy, insisted to the magazine that intelligent design “was not an overriding factor” (emphasis added), he then conceded according to the magazine that Gonzalez’s pro-ID book The Privileged Planet “played into the decision-making process. He also explained that the reputation of a professor among others in his field is a significant factor.” Of course, if “reputation” is used as a code Read More ›
Guillermo Gonzalez’s Denial of Tenure Brings out Widespread Intolerance among Rank and File Darwinists
It seems like just yesterday that University of Minnesota biologist P.Z. Myers, who runs what Nature declared to be the #1 science blog, admitted, “I get to vote on tenure decisions at my university, and I can assure you that if someone comes up who claims that ID ‘theory’ is science, I will vote against them.” As Iowa State University (ISU) has denied tenure to Guillermo Gonzalez, possibly due to his views on intelligent design, pro-ID biologist Mike Gene has provided insightful commentary on the situation: “[T]his issue has become larger than Guillermo Gonzalez’s situation, so it won’t matter when the official reasons for denial are eventually supplied. What matters is that the academics have gone on record and given Read More ›
Darwin’s Theory, Darwinism, and Eugenics
My friend and colleague John West wrote an essay recently commenting on my post about the link between Darwinism and eugenics. He raised some very important points, with which I agree, and I’d like to clarify my view and clarify our fundamental agreement.