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 ›

Nature‘s “Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial” Reviewer, Adam Rutherford, Calls Guillermo Gonzalez “crap scientist”

Nature recently carried a glowing review of “Judgment Day: Intelligent Design” which uses strong language to attack ID: “Judgment Day gracefully avoids ridiculing intelligent design for the pseudo-intellectual fundamentalist fig-leaf that it is.” Rather than make any attacks against the reviewer, Adam Rutherford, I’ll just let Mr. Rutherford speak for himself: “were I in a position to offer Guillermo Gonzalez tenure, I would deny it for the precise reason that his, yes, religious views about purpose in the universe explicitly mean he is a crap scientist.” (emphasis added) Rutherford continues: Guillermo Gonzalez has been denied a physics post by his university. Quite right: you cannot believe in ID and call yourself a scientist. So farewell, I hope, to the scientific Read More ›

How Eli Rosenberg, Chair of ISU’s Dept. of Physics and Astronomy, Concealed Viewpoint Discrimination When Explaining Tenure Denial

Tenure votes at the earliest levels are made by a faculty member’s department, and they typically set the tone for whether that faculty member will ultimately receive tenure. Dr. Guillermo Gonzalez was first denied tenure by his Department of Physics and Astronomy at Iowa State University (ISU) in November 2006, and he soon thereafter received a letter from the Eli Rosenberg, Department Chair, asserting that intelligent design (ID) played only a minor role in tenure deliberations. As Dr. Rosenberg stated: “Your co-authorship of ‘The Privileged Planet’ and related activity was raised by several of the external and internal letter writers and discussed briefly in the faculty meetings where your promotion was under consideration.” (Tenure notification letter from Dr. Rosenberg to Read More ›

Secret ISU Faculty E-mails Express Vitriol Towards Intelligent Design, Disregard for Academic Freedom, and attempts to Hide a Plot to Oust an Outstanding Scientist

Public document requests under Iowa’s Open Records Act have obtained revealing correspondence of key faculty members within ISU’s Department of Physics and Astronomy. Various e-mails show that Dr. Gonzalez’s department was concerned about the “embarrassment” that intelligent design (ID) caused the department’s reputation and unconcerned about protecting his academic freedom–despite the fact that ISU’s faculty handbook claims that “[a]cademic freedom is the foundation of the university.” Uncritical bias against ID on the part of ISU physicists and astronomers that voted on his tenure, and unreflective ridicule of Gonzalez’s position on ID come out repeatedly. The faculty considered releasing a statement condemning ID in hopes that it would send a message to Dr. Gonzalez that he was unwelcome at ISU, but Read More ›

Design Was the Issue After All: ISU’s official explanation in Gonzalez case exposed as a sham (Updated)

Documents show Gonzalez was denied fair tenure process by hostile colleagues who plotted behind his back, suppressed evidence, and then misled the public. Click Here To See a PDF Version of this Document with Citations Included. Executive Summary. Internal e-mails and other documents obtained under the Iowa Open Records Act contradict public claims by Iowa State University (ISU) that denial of tenure to astronomer Guillermo Gonzalez was unrelated to his writing on the theory of intelligent design. According to these documents: Dr. Gonzalez was subjected to a secret campaign of vilification and ridicule by colleagues in the Department of Physics and Astronomy who explicitly wanted to get rid of him because of his intelligent design views, not his scholarship. Dr. Read More ›