February 7, 2008

Intelligent Design and Tenure: Not in the Stars

The Iowa State Board of Regents voted today against overturning a university decision last year to deny tenure to Guillermo Gonzalez, an assistant professor of astronomy who has publicly supported the idea of intelligent design, an offshoot of creationism.

Mr. Gonzalez was denied tenure in May 2007, and his first appeal was denied by Iowa State’s president, Gregory L. Geoffroy.

John McCarroll, director of university relations at Iowa State, said the board had voted, seven to one, against Mr. Gonzalez’s appeal.

Mr. Gonzalez had a promising research career before arriving at Iowa State, but his work in recent years had less impact among fellow astronomers, according to an analysis by The Chronicle. Members of his department have said they voted against tenure based on the potential of his future scholarship, but e-mail records a year before their decision showed that they had also considered his support for intelligent design as a problem in his tenure case.

Mr. Gonzalez could pursue his case in the courts, but he told The Des Moines Register today that “I’m going to consult with my friends and lawyers what my options are, and I’ll decide with my wife what the best course of action will be.” —Richard Monastersky

Comments

1. An unfortunate and unwise decision. ISU allowed the P&T process to become tainted at the outset by non-professional considerations; at least some of those involved were untruthful about this; and now the University finds itself exposed to a legal process that will subject its actions to a considerably more searching scrutiny than even The Des Moines Register is capable of. On the other hand, ISU had plenty of opportunities to avoid the consequences of its initial mistake; it’s hard to feel sorry for them now.

   — Gustave    Feb 8, 04:03 AM    #

2. I think it’s quite reasonable to deny tenure to a science professor who doesn’t belive in science.

   — Anna B.    Feb 8, 08:18 AM    #

3. ISU made the right decision. In fact, Mr. Gonzales should not be teaching astronomy at all, at any legitimate educational institution, any more than someone who believes that piles of straw and manure spontaneously generate mice and bugs should be teaching biology…

   — Robert    Feb 8, 08:20 AM    #

4. Commenters 2 and 3 assume that the natural sciences as currently constituted form the final framework for figuing everything out, and that there is nothing outside of that (their?) framework that is worth thinking about.

   It was a culture-wars ideological decision, QED.

   — G D    Feb 8, 08:40 AM    #

5. Intelligent design is not a religious tenet or belief—it is incompetent religion. As such it should deny tenure in divinity departments as in science departments. Most religions, within 300 years of their founding, degenerate into literalist magical responsibility-fleeing interpretations of their own self-created myths. Recent research on myth creation in celebrity careers, in celebrity press coverage, in organization mergers and foundings, and like areas have found the same dynamics of magicalization via literalization of initial stories symbolizing self transformation and pioneered new forms of responsible living.

   My problem with fundamentalists is they are anti-spiritual people and anti-religious. They turn stories about self transformation and expansion of personal responsibility for the world (Gogarten) into stories about magical practices and beings that will take responsibility for us so we people do not have to worry about effects our actions have on others very much. It all gets handled when we relinquish our anguish over the world’s suffering to some magical god in the sky who tells us “don’t worry, I will handle everything in life for you, so you need not worry your little self about burning the heathen or banning the book”.

   Let us call a spade a spade—intelligent design is incompetent religion, thereby disqualifying one from tenure, and it is incompetent science, thererby disqualifying one from tenure.

   — Richard Tabor Greene    Feb 8, 08:45 AM    #

6. Is the issue that Dr. Gonzalez (and what is with the disrespectful dropping of the title?!) has these beliefs or that he shares these beliefs with students? If the concern is about the former I am very scared, Einstein said “the more I learn about the universe, the more I believe in God” should that have caused Princeton to deny him tenure? In tenure decisions it seems the key weight placed on any aspect-teaching, scholarship, service shifts depending upon the strength of the candidate and how much the school wants to keep him or her.

   — Amy James    Feb 8, 08:51 AM    #

7. A culture wars decision? The framework for understanding science is science. ISU made the right decision. If there is a lawsuit, so be it. The last time this issue came to court it was decided quite decisively that ID is a transparent cover for a fundamentalist Christian agenda.

   — Stuart Dryer    Feb 8, 09:03 AM    #

8. Dear Amy,

   Einstein’s thoughts on religion and God are a bit more complicated than your quote indicates. He also said:

   “I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it.”

   Sometimes Einstein indicated his “God” was Spinoza’s God, i.e., the universe itself which has no role in granting human prayers and petitions or in judging individuals.

   It is always tempting to get the Big Guns on one’s side, but reality often does not conform to our wishes either about our existence in general or Einstein in particular.

   — arnold asrelsky    Feb 8, 09:28 AM    #

9. Most of the above comments appear to assume that Professor Gonzalez’s belief in intelligent design was the pivotal issue in his tenure decision. Yet this does not appear to be an accurate understanding of the decision. It has surely not been at all uncommon the people who have been denied tenure to have claimed that the decision was based on factors such as race, gender, or religion. But claims of descrimination due to non-research related factors are surely not invariably correct.

   — David    Feb 8, 09:29 AM    #

10. I love the intolerance of some of the comments within this dialog. If an idea doesn’t meet with our interpretation of science, it should never be considered. After all, science explains everything, doesn’t it? We should blindly follow science and never dare to think of anything that counters any scientific theory. Let’s open those big brains out there and let in different ideas. We might be surprised what we discover.

    What is the harm if Professor Gonzalez teaches ID? After all, isn’t teaching all about presenting different theories and letting students draw their own conclusions? Professor Gonzalez should be granted tenure and continue to challenge students with alternative theories to our existence.

    — DDD    Feb 8, 09:44 AM    #

11. As much as the idea of a science professor believing in in ID disturbs me, it is his right to believe in what he chooses, so long as it does not influence what he teaches or how he teaches it.

    — Dan    Feb 8, 09:52 AM    #

12. Dear G.D.,
    There is, indeed, much outside my existing “framework” for understanding “reality” that is worth thinking about… it’s called the “Unknown”! I am comfortable with that. In fact, I revel in the notion of the unknown. But there is much less “Unknown” today than 100 or 200 or 500 or 1000, and so on, years ago, no thanks to the myriad evolutional religious and mythological constructs that created “Answers”, “substantiated and brutally enforced” (even today by Islamic fundamentalist) via the notion of “divine sanction”, that created barriers to pushing the limits and boundaries of what is knowable. Make no mistake; those early belief systems were a necessary and unavoidable aspect of human evolution out of the Stone Age. But it is imperative that we do not allow the need for “Answers”, against which everything we “know” must be vetted, to create barriers to continuing to push the limits of understanding, and what we know.

    — Robert Delutri    Feb 8, 09:52 AM    #

13. Why not award him tenure in fiction writing?

    — Elaine Resnick    Feb 8, 09:59 AM    #

14. If man-made Global Warming is proven to be a myth, we will then deny tenure to everyone who believed and taught it as science?

    — Timothy Conlon    Feb 8, 10:09 AM    #

15. Wow, for supposedly educated readers the level of ignorance (and bigotry) in these comments is astounding.

    Most of you understand neither science nor religion.

    It just proves the old saw: The most intolerant people are those who preach loudest about tolerance.

    — Buzz    Feb 8, 10:19 AM    #

16. Intelligent Design isn’t, and Dr. Gonzalez is further proof of that. But the real issue here is that faculty must remove personal feelings, views, and opinions from the subject they were hired to teach. Parker Palmer in his pedagogically enlightening book, The Courage to Teach, explains: “As I teach, I project the condition of my soul onto my students.” This profound statement should serve as a catalyst for reflection for anyone who teaches anything to another. As in the case of Dr. Gonzalez, the true condition of his soul was eventually revealed. Faculty whose heart is outside the classroom, need to follow their heart.

    — Jack Mac    Feb 8, 10:27 AM    #

17. Just a thought here: couldn’t the denial of tenure be based on both his belief in ID and the potential of his research? If, in other words, he was going to pursue ID-related studies, couldn’t that be seen as work not likely to meet up to the standards of his discipline or lead the discipline into any new knowledge? Tenure is not just about teaching, but creating departments where people pursue serious scholarship (ISU is a research university, after all), and the idea that someone would get tenure in a department and then begin pursuing fields/ideas/scholarship outside that field might be a concern. If a historian tells the department her next project will be a work of historical fiction rather than scholarly history, wouldn’t that department have the right to deny tenure? Certainly, the astronomers may not know everything about the creation of the universe; they may be wrong and Gonzalez may be right, but we work within disciplinary boundaries. That’s not to say these boundaries are always perfect, but they serve a purpose nonetheless.

    — Evan    Feb 8, 10:27 AM    #

18. Just a note on Einstein, to put this in perspective. Einstein was a modern Jew who saw in the science of relativity a confirmation of his perception of Yaweh; in fact, relativity seemed to mesh quite well with Kabbalistic predictions. But Bohr’s quantum mechanics did not. Einstein saw no hand of God in quantum mechanics; indeed, he saw quite the opposite: a physical universe that did require the concept of a creator. Einstein rejected quantum mechanics (“God does not throw dice”), choosing a Jewish concept of the universe over good, hard science. It ruined his career, and he spent what should have been many productive years squirrled away at Princeton, fading into a minor role on the scientific stage. It’s a cautionary story. Had he been at a pre-tenure point in his career, his rejection of quantum mechanics based on the spurious reason that God didn’t throw dice would have cost him his professorial appointment.

    — marci    Feb 8, 11:30 AM    #

19. ERRATUM: My explanation should say: “he saw quite the opposite: a physical universe that DID NOT require the concept of a creator.” Sorry about that.

    — marci    Feb 8, 11:33 AM    #

20. You cannot speak meaningfully about “Intelligent Design” without speaking about a “Designer.” That is what makes ID religion and not science. Science seeks to explain the universe and its contents by means of natural entities — not supernatural entities. Religion seeks, among other things, to explain the universe and its contents (events, etc.) by means of something outside the universe — by something supernatural. If you are an astronomer who understands, appreciates, and explains the stars, planets, etc. by reference to something super-natural, your future research is going to be suspect, indeed. There is a connection here.

    — Sally    Feb 8, 11:42 AM    #

21. Strict evolution speaks of Accidents as Causes, and Survival-of-the-Fittest. You might ask, “Fittest for what?”

    Contrary to what most of the above commentators think, ID is not a “God-of-the-Cracks” theory. It is no more scientific to posit that “things happened by design” than to posit that “things happened by accident”. Both are philosophical explanations that go beyond the material evidence. As humans, we have reason, and reason naturally seeks explanations to the question, “why does it work this way?” The human mind is not just content knowing that something works in such-and-such a way. And this is why we say, “Well, it’s just accidental.” or “Well, it is clearly designed to work that way and there are way too many things that work way to well for them to have happened by accident.”

    While it may be statistically true to think that a billion monkeys on as many typewriters could write Shakespeare, have you ever seen what comes out when a small child plays on a keyboard? The placement of the keys makes it actually impossible that any monkey could ever type Shakespeare.

    — becky    Feb 8, 12:16 PM    #

22. And Sally, it is certainly not in the realm of science to speak about a Designer — such a discussion belongs to metaphysics. But you cannot deny that the roots of one field of study may not be seen in another.
    Music, for instance, takes many mathematical concepts as given — it does not belong to the study of music to prove them — to prove them belongs to mathematics. But that does not mean that the musician cannot notice them.

    — becky    Feb 8, 12:23 PM    #

23. Didn’t science, at one time, believe the world to be flat? A main tenent of science is “theory”. Theories are valid until proven otherwise. Shouldn’t we explore all possiblities? What we know to be true today, may one day have our offspring laughing all the way to their home on Mars. Higher education is about open communication and sharing of thoughts and ideas. Let’s not forget that. Many of the great scientists throughout history were laughed at by their peers and society, only to be revered today.

    — conservative in education    Feb 8, 03:16 PM    #

24. Dear Conservative – alas, you have made the same mistake so common among our students and the public. A main tenent of science is the hypothesis, which is testable. Many, many tested hypotheses go into forming a theory, which has lots of supporting data. So to answer your question, yes, we should explore all possibilities. So when you can come up with a way to test for a designer, a supernatural one at that, with tangible, real-world hand-on experiments, then you’ll be doing science.

    — george    Feb 8, 04:00 PM    #

25. Dear Conservative,

    The goal of the proponents of ID is not to “explore all possibilities” but to drive Evolution from the schools—in fact, to drive all out ‘materialistic’ science from its dominant position in our culture. They wish to do this so that a more spiritual ‘science’ will be taught and the field will be cleared so that students may finally be introduced to Jesus Christ.

    Doubt this? Look for the ‘Wedge Document’ on the web in which the goals of the ID faction are made eminently clear.

    If ‘God did it’ what’s the point of continuing to search for natural, non-theistic explanations? They are doomed to failure. What is ID science? The claim that scientists will never be able to explain the world by purely natural means because the world was not created by natural means. True science, they claim, is theistic. QED. It is no coincidence that ID’s chief spokesmen, e.g., Johnson, Dembski and Behe, happen to be Christians. That’s the central point of this supposed science.

    This being the goal there is no wonder that ID advocates ignore the professional journals and choose to wage their crusade in the schools in particular and in the public forum in general.

    ID is not science, it is a well-funded public relations campaign carried out on a grand scale.

    — arnold asrelsky    Feb 9, 12:36 PM    #

26. Someone said, above,
    “What is the harm if Professor Gonzalez teaches ID? After all, isn’t teaching all about presenting different theories and letting students draw their own conclusions? Professor Gonzalez should be granted tenure and continue to challenge students with alternative theories to our existence.”
    and another,
    “But you cannot deny that the roots of one field of study may not be seen in another.
    Music, for instance, takes many mathematical concepts as given — it does not belong to the study of music to prove them — to prove them belongs to mathematics. But that does not mean that the musician cannot notice them.”

    To be part of a science curriculum, theories must meet certain standards. Generally this includes being testable, being parsimonious (not introducing more explanatory factors than are necessary), and fitting the observed facts. The math inherent in music may not be tested by musicians, but it is very rigorously tested, and revised if needed, by mathematicians following scientific method.

    Intelligent design requires a Creator but the only observable evidence of such a being is in the viewer’s bias that the design of the universe couldn’t occur without the planning of a supernatural being. To me this is about the same as the belief of a paranoid that the people he works with are all spying on him, otherwise why would they walk by his desk so often just because it is right next to the restrooms or elevator. Here are the facts, and if your mind is predisposed you can plug those facts into any theory you choose. Testing here would be moving one’s desk elsewhere, where natural traffic doesn’t occur so much, and seeing if the people still walk by as frequently. The paranoid’s reaction if forced to make this test would be that now the people against him were spying on him using invisible cameras, as proven by the lack of foot-traffic by his desk. The religious folks who support ID have the same sort of reactions.

    Anolther point about ID and creationism is that if we are going to teach soomething tht has no evidence, why are we not teaching Hindu creation theory, Norse creation theory (as I recall a giant cow licked at the ice of the primordial world and brought to view the first humans in that way), Japanese creation theory (some deity let down a fish-hook into the ocean covering the world, and brought up the land that is Japan and then humans climbed down from heaven to earth), and so on and on. There’s as much proof for these as for the theory that God made Adam from mud and breathed life into him ,then made Eve out of his rib…

    People who believe Joan of Arc speaks to them and directs their lives are deemed crazy, but those who receive the same attentions from a society’s designated Big Guy in the Sky are given tax breaks and influence, and forgiven their trysts with prostitutes (“Satan tried to bring me down just because God loves me so much! “ which is to say, my misdeeds prove my lofty religious status!)

    What a mess. The worse our education system becomes, the more of this there will be. But at the university level there are still some standards of intellectual performance and let’s support that.

    — Cynthia Cheney    Feb 10, 01:33 PM    #

27. There seems to be a prevalent assumption here that Dr Gonzalez was properly denied tenure because he taught “intelligent design” in his astronomy classes. To the best of my knowledge, nobody at ISU has claimed any such thing. Rather, the professors whose e-mails were published in the Des Moines Register argued that Dr Gonzalez’ beliefs, even if confined to his spare time, rendered him unfit to be granted tenure. Their reasoning was based on a syllogism: “intelligent design” is inimical to science, properly understood; Dr Gonzalez subscribes to, or at least entertains, the idea of “intelligent design”; therefore he is unfit to teach within the academy. The same process of argumentation is apparent in many of the comments posted above.

    It strikes me as remarkable that so many people seem so ready to accept that the mere holding of an opinion, however wrong-headed it may be, is sufficient ground for terminating someone’s academic career. To take only one example of following this argument to its conclusion: why should professors who adhere to Marxism, a no less fallacious and far more lethal doctrine than “intelligent design,” not routinely be denied tenure for obstinately subscribing to a discredited theory? Should people who are seen buying homeopathic remedies at GNC fear for their professional future on the basis of their presumed lack of commitment to the scientific method? What other personal philosophies, unmentioned anywhere in a tenure file, may be taken into consideration for their supposed “dangerousness,” or evidence of intellectual unreliability?

    Whether “intelligent design” is correct or not is neither here nor there. The question at issue is whether a faculty-member’s career may be ended because others consider his or her personal beliefs or extracurricular activities pernicious.

    — Gustave    Feb 10, 07:38 PM    #

28. Cynthia asks,

    ”Another point about ID and creationism is that if we are going to teach something that has no evidence, why are we not teaching Hindu creation theory, Norse creation theory (as I recall a giant cow licked at the ice of the primordial world and brought to view the first humans in that way), Japanese creation theory (some deity let down a fish-hook into the ocean covering the world, and brought up the land that is Japan and then humans climbed down from heaven to earth), and so on and on. There’s as much proof for these as for the theory that God made Adam from mud and breathed life into him ,then made Eve out of his rib…”

    Are you saying, Cynthia, that Guillermo (or other ID advocates) propose teaching a religion? First, just what is religion, anyway? Basically, religion is defined as a set of dogmas, rituals, and beliefs, backed by a belief in a ‘deity’. One dictionary definition of religion is,

    1a. Belief in and reverence for a supernatural power regarded as creator and governor of the universe.
    1b. A personal or institutionalized system grounded in such belief and worship.
    2. The life or condition of a person in a religious order.
    3. A set of beliefs, values, and practices based on the teachings of a spiritual leader.
    4. A cause, principle, or activity pursued with zeal or conscientious devotion.

    Neither Guillermo, nor the ID hypothesis, proposes that at all. But many would say that a ‘supernatural being’ naturally follows. Not necessarily … Evidence of design is just that, and supernaturality is not implied. It so, why the vast time periods? And why did hominids come last? Let’s be objective and examine ID’s basic tenets:

    On one level, ID looks solely for evidence of design, i.e. a synergy of systems and morphologies that display more than a mere survival advantage, and can be shown not to have evolved stepwise due to systemic complexities. On the cellular level, the DNA/RNA coding is evidence of design, and substantiation of that premise is ongoing.

    Tantamount to ID’s logic, there are many biologic features that offer no survival advantage, especially the many intermediate steps needed to arrive at a specified function. Natural selection of random (and mostly harmful) mutations, and in a logical sequence to arrive at novelty, are extremely unlikely. What is left other than design? Care to posit a third hypothesis?

    ID, correctly defined, is science, and to stifle research based on straw men attacks against ‘religious intent’, a non-sequitur here, does more to harm science than allowing consideration of ID as constituting legitimate science ever could. In short, allow the presenting of ID as a viable scientific theory.

    — Lee Bowman    Feb 11, 04:46 AM    #

29. But, Lee, there is no research here. There is a predetermined assumption that an particular proposal is true, in search of corroborating evidence. This is a lot different than a hypothesis looking to be disproved.

    Darwin came up with his dangerous idea after observation. He had started out a Paleyite IDer. His change came from observing the natural world, contradictions and all. ID makes the claim that the “unexplainable” points to an intelligent designer. But this “hypothesis” can neither be disproved OR proven. It is a philosophical (metaphysical, even) interpretation, not science!

    ID celebrates the pieces it can find with no current explanation, and simply gives a sly and knowing wink at everything else. And, personally, I would have to question the intelligence of a designer that designed in harmful features, unless I can also question the designer’s intention – and not in a good way.

    I learned a long time ago (the 1970s) about David Hume and the dangers of reliance on natural religion to prove the truth of God. What gets me all twisted up is the crew that pushes ID now seems uncaring about the likelihood that science will, eventually, find plausible explanations for the rotary propulsion system of flagellum, or the evolution of the eye. What then?

    Of course NOTHING then. You have neither disproved the existence of God, or even of God’s participation in the physical world (although you HAVE made yourself look stupid and credulous), and you have certainly not weakened evolution. It is a loser’s game for religion in general, and Christianity in specific, all the way around! Why these people want to involve a faith that advertises “We walk by faith and not by sight” in such self-contradictory nonsense is beyond me.

    Look, I am evangelical Christian, and I believe God created the world by means that would never have been comprehensible to anyone writing in the 1000 year period before the birth of Christ, or now, for that fact. Even if I believe that God dictated, word-for-word, what is presently presented in Genesis 1,2 and 3, I know that God was speaking to the pre-scientific people that lived then, not now. There is no reason I can find in the Bible that I must insist on the static condition of species. ID doesn’t solve anything scientifically, nor does it, or will it, build up the Christian Faith.

    ID? Sure – in classes on religion, philosophy, or ethics! In a science class, never.

    — RobJ    Feb 12, 06:54 AM    #

30. “But, Lee, there is no research here.”

    The research done to date on evolution, including paleontological finds and analysis, DNA/RNA coding analysis, dissection of morphologic alterations over time, mammalian anatomic functional analysis, organ complexity analysis, and more, has resulted in various conclusions. In most cases, conclusions based on evidence lack objectivity, and will be posited as evidence for one’s favored theory. The plethora of research to date is often given as proof (substantiation) of evolution, but much of it points more to a ‘design inference.’

    Scientists vested in neoDarwinism will deny any design inferences based on the fossil record, for example, but will not admit that although there is phyletic progression in evidence, the mechanism of that progression has not been substantiated. Exaptation (co option), given as evidence of naturalistic progressions of mechanisms (flagellum), is still speculative, since few examples (type III secretory syringe), have been found. Further, the assertion that the ‘syringe’ preceded the ‘flagellum’ has not been proven. Further research will likely resolve those and other questions.

    Another point: The dearth of ID research is largely as a result of no funding for it, and essentially, a prohibition of it in the scientific community. Additional research may verify the ID hypothesis.

    “ID celebrates the pieces it can find with no current explanation, and simply gives a sly and knowing wink at everything else.”

    You are referring to those with an a priori religious agenda. There are those within the ID community that do not wink and whisper ‘God’ for the un named designer.

    “… I would have to question the intelligence of a designer that designed in harmful features, unless I can also question the designer’s intention … “

    I accept reality as it is, and view it through rational thought. So called “harmful features” may have evolved via happenstance, or may have been intentioned to give corporeal life challenges, i.e. to make life more akin to a ‘sporting event’, than of being utopian. Detractors of ID will say that an omnipotent god could do better. This is an argument based on a monotheistic viewpoint of God, which the arguer probably does not adhere to anyway, and does nothing to negate design evidences.

    “I learned a long time ago (the 1970s) about David Hume and the dangers of reliance on natural religion to prove the truth of God.”

    Regarding David Hume, Bertrand Russell, and yes Dawkins, Hitchens et al, their arguments against religion have no relevance to the ID hypothesis.

    “ What gets me all twisted up is the crew that pushes ID now seems uncaring about the likelihood that science will, eventually, find plausible explanations for the rotary propulsion system of flagellum, or the evolution of the eye. What then?”

    I’m sure they’re awaiting that evidence, and will accept it when and if testable, empirical evidences are provided.

    If we remove God from the case for intelligent design, and analyze empirical evidences of design based on complexity, synergy of systems, intermediate steps that offer no reproductive or survival advantage, and of features that display artistic forms (no functionality), we may build the case for ID.
    If, on the other hand, natural selection of random mutations can be shown to work as hypothesized, I will accept it. The evidence at this point, however, is far and away against solely natural and unguided processes.

    And granted, evidence of design clears the way for some to seek God via organized religion, or on their own, but evidence of design, by itself, does not validate the premise of a caring, interactive god in today’s world. That remains, as it should, a matter of faith.

    — Lee Bowman    Feb 12, 07:11 PM    #

31. And if you see evidence of an intelligent design/designer? What then? Where do you go with that? And if not God (gods, godhead, transcendent plane etc.), what? What does ID as an hypothesis leave you with? Truth? No – still only a hypothesis, and one that is patently of no use to science.

    As far as “following the evidence” – what do exceptions to a theory tell you? That you throw the whole thing away? That you make up an explanation to fill the gap? Or that you go back to the drawing board (or CAD program) because your theory was not robust enough? ID, as an hypothesis, no matter how much money you throw at it, doesn’t move us anywhere, because it has no where to go. No matter how much of it you find, you can just say: “Yep, there it is.”

    Scientists have been told so many times over the centuries (millennia?) that “so far is far enough,” that they have become very suspicious of people who even start down that road. Science won’t follow others down the ID road because it serves no useful service to the scientific project. Thus, ID has no place in the classroom, and certainly no place in the lab!

    Look, do I believe the universe was designed by a designer for a purpose? Yes! I am a Calvinist for gosh sakes. But, just as Dawkins, Hitchens et al. deserve to be laughed off the stage for category confusion and sloppiness (not to mention an excess of yellow bile), anyone who walks into a theology class waving a beaker and claiming they have made “contact” deserves the same treatment. ID, as I claimed, is a matter for philosophers and theologians. Scientists interested in ontology may be fascinated by the idea, but will still be unchanged in their work.

    — RobJ    Feb 12, 11:28 PM    #

32. Evidence of design leaves you with just that. It need not lead to a concerted effort to locate or dissect that designer. Design of biologic life forms, ostensively likened to intervention in the evolutionary processes (genetic engineering), and apparently done over vast time periods, is not an absurd or untenable conclusion. I don’t know where it might lead, but if evidentiary, it simply cannot be ignored or glossed over.

    Contra to what many religionists conclude, I don’t feel that it denigrates God. A supreme God over the universe may have utilized surrogate entities as biologic engineers. Acting alone, or under supervision, they may have utilized this planet as a biologic workshop. Life forms may be vehicles for spirit forms to inhabit to experience a corporeal existence. There may be multiple such experiences. There may be other venues for similar experiences, i.e. other planets/ galaxies.

    Granted, this doesn’t fit the conventional religious viewpoint of one life, and then eternal life in heaven, but it doesn’t deviate significantly either. The Genesis account of creation was written Moses (and possibly others), men without scientific knowledge, and therefore likely an oversimplification of how life came about.

    The above adds philosophically to man’s monotheistic viewpoint of God, but so do the various other sectarian religions including Calvinism, which portrays life as predetermined, directed and rigidly enforced. I differ from the Calvinist view, believing that God has given us free will, and has not rigidly predestined our life to the smallest detail. But all of men’s religions differ in philosophic ways, due primarily to man’s intervention in the formulation of these religions. Rather than God’s words, they are God’s inspired words to men, who then tend to corrupt or alter their meaning and intent, due to man’s subjective reasoning ability, and in some cases possibly to further political agendas.

    Unfortunately, Skeptics have utilized incongruities in organized religions to try to bolster their positions that religion is evil and corrupt, and to even support an atheistic position. If we concede that there may be some incongruities in established religions, but rather than blame God, admit to man’s role in that debauchery, we can silence those critics (Dawkins, Hitchens et al). Further, by raising ID to a level of investigation, and by subsequent validation of design, we lower the bar to faith.

    If Intelligent Design fails the test, no harm done. Science procedes on a materialist premise. But if ID is validated, where do we go from there you ask? Science procedes as usual. Evolution continues to be a valid process; simply limited to an adaptive role, not a creative one. For those who tnen realize that they may not be alone in the Universe, at least they no longer have the atheistic hurdles that would preclude a Creator, and may choose a faith based path.

    Design is plainly evident in all biologic structures. To suppress research based on a tentative conclusion that it falls within a supernatural category, and thus outside the purview of science, is to limit science, rather than advance it.

    — Lee Bowman    Feb 13, 12:16 PM    #

33. This certainly is one of the most interesting discussions I’ve read on these boards recently. Thanks, Lee and Rob. (Especially to Lee, who seems to know more about ID than I thought there was to know.)

    — Tracy G.    Feb 13, 03:09 PM    #

34. Robert, what is evolution other than a belief that over gazillions and gazillions of years “piles of straw and manure spontaneously generate mice and bugs”?

    — formerly known as. . . .    Feb 13, 04:12 PM    #

35. Intelligent Design is an offshoot of creationism? Evolution is an offshoot of naturalism.

    — formerly known as. . . .    Feb 13, 04:21 PM    #

36. Lee, I want you to understand my point (and I am sure we both want to thank Tracy for kind words). Since we started with a discussion about whether or not a prejudice against ID is justified in a university science department (the implicit issue in the story above), my point is, as you suggest “if ID is validated, where do we go from there you ask? Science procedes as usual.”

    That is why I said that ID is a dead end. I agree with you, that ID is shaped to make a “a faith based path” in science. But the path simply leads to a footnote, and nowhere else, as far as science goes. So, I say again – ID has no place in science classrooms.

    In theoretical discussions of cosmology, especially ontological discussions, it cannot be dismissed (and has not been, even by those who do not believe in a “designer”)! In classes on philosophy, or the history of science, the teleological argument will make SURE the issue is raised, and there ID’s arguments will actually have tremendous force. But these arguments are not scientific, but philosophical.

    As for FKA – I will charitably assume (since it is Valentine’s Day) that these were meant to be genuine invitations to dialog, so –

    34. Evolution is precisely the attempt to understand how different sorts of the same critters came out of the manure pile WITHOUT saying “it just happened – I don’t know how!”, and to create investigatory categories and general theories through which ideas could be grounded and tested.

    35. All modern science is a “natural” child of naturalism and the Enlightenment, FKA. The stringent requirements of verifiable, duplicable results in naturalistic science has meant that we now know far more than any at the prior time when metaphysics thought it could rule over phenomenology as well as philosophy. Evolution has proved (so far) to be the only credible theory to explain the origin and differentiation of species which leaves specific room for the generation and testing of hypotheses. If it were as bankrupt and brainless as you suggest, it would have been discarded long ago. However, it has been proved to be the sharpest knife in the drawer SO FAR when it comes to cutting at least a tiny hole the barrier of the millennia which separate us from the truth of development of life on our planet, that will then yield information we can actually use, and not just wonder at. Whether it will continue to be so in the future, remains to be seen. At the moment, the only options are two scientific dead-ends: God (or some other designer) did it, or straw and manure.

    It is wonderful to discuss these things at this level! Thank you, Lee.

    — RobJ    Feb 14, 03:37 AM    #

37. Thank you Gustave for the comment most worthwhile reading. While I am faithful to the belief that ID needs to be flushed down the toilet with the textbooks that once described the earth as flat, there seems to be something else about the particular reason for the denial of tenure that went unexplored by the other commentors.

    — Anon    Feb 14, 04:19 PM    #

38. I, too, agree with Gustave, and the notion that a person may be excluded because of his ideas is the more pernicious if the ideas are religious and you have heard of the First Amendment

    — Don Erickson    Feb 22, 06:57 AM    #

39. The only true fact is that none of us can speak from experience. We were not there when it all began. We can call it what we want ,but the simple version is this, is there a god or isn’t there? I’m not near as educated as most all of you are, and I respect all of the comments. Science has done wonderful things for mankind and has it’s place and much about science is a fact. But it should not be the starting nor the ending. God is the only one I know of who has said I created the world. All things start & end with me. We can no longer prove God exists than we can prove the big bang happened. Regardless of either sides intelluctual arguments not a person on earth can prove their theory beyond any doubt. Then comes the faith part since it cannot be 100% proved either way. It takes more faith to believe in evolution say that we came into being just by happen chance, than it does to say that we were created to be loved by God. We as people don’t have children so they can love us , we have children so we can love them. If it’s faith that we need for either view which is greater? We can only go back as far as the written word to establish an eye witness account. In the last 6000 years nothing has evolved into any thing else a mouse is still a mouse , a cat is still a cat a monkey is still a monkey. The sun is the exact distance from the earth to sustain life for us. We spin on our axis at just the right speed. Gravity is dependable. If survival of the fittest is true I hate to think of how the next set of evolved humans will treat each other. I read in the bible that in the last days men will run to & fro & knowledge will be increased. How far we’ve come in just over 150 years, seems awful short compared to how long they say we’ve been here. In reaction to ID I feel that if you can’t 100% prove evolution and you can’t 100% prove ID then both ideas should be taught and let the hearer decide which is corret for themselves. To teach one or the other as fact is impossible. If the doctor was teaching ID as fact without an alternate opinion of evolution then he was wrong. Our founding fathers had a faith that they were willing to stake there lives on. I wonder how many sceintists & ID believers would stake their life on what they believe.Lets honestley ask oursevlves 2 questions (1) If evolution is true then what have I lost by not believing it? Nothing, (2) If ID is true what have I lost by not believing it. Because if ID is true then that means God is true. Evolution promises nothing beyond death. The one thing that can’t be produced by evolution is hope that only comes from God. May God be with you all . lance

    — lance    Feb 22, 01:34 PM    #

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