On TheBlackCat’s remarks about research support – there are some (a few?) areas of astronomy where one can remain in the research game without external funding. You can usually swallow the expense of a meeting or observing run per year. However, publishing the results is a lot harder with the expense of page charges, and you will definitely not be supporting graduate students (not to mention contributing to the departmental slice of overhead money, much of which does in fact support research infrastructure such as computers, library acquisitions, and electronic journal access). On top of these factors, universities claim to be very impressed with the recognition of research prowess provided by obtaining funding via nationally peer-reviewed proposals (no matter how many times the people at the NSF say they’re tired of being de facto parts of every tenure review in th ecountry in science, it still goes on). That said, the typical funding levels vary a lot across the discipline – if you build gizmos and have to employ technicians and equip a lab as well as support students, that costs a lot more than doing theory where the major expenses are student support and travel.

Nice straw man. The argument being made (by Phil and friends) is that GG’s academic work was insufficient to earn himself tenure. Faculty are well within their rights to deny tenure to colleagues who fail to meet the department’s standards. Tenure tends to be difficult to obtain — you don’t get it for being a nice guy, or even for good work done a few years back. GG is just another piece of roadkill on the road to academia; there are lots of us out there.

Oh well, I hope he ll ——-get tenure next time around? NOT!!!

Oh yeah, Dover is still perfectly intact, and the drought rolls on, essentially unabated (we’ve had a couple of insignificant drizzles).

LAST TIME I CHECKED, PAT ROBERTSON DIDN’T CUT MY PAYCHECKS.

–God

-EM

Romania removes theory of evolution from school curriculum

So what’s happened to Gonzalez shouldn’t be too surprising since he’s not produced to the level that would even put him on the level for tenure-track even back in those days if that’s still in use at the schools nowadays!

So it not just GG’s career they’re trying to ressurrect. It’s not the discrimination against GG they’re really interested in. They will want the judge to rule that GG’s work on ID must be taken into consideration (in a positive way) in his application for tenure and thus vindicating their position that ID is a valid scientific pursuit.

They will fail. At the very best, in the highly unlikely event that they win the court case, then it will be on the narrowest grounds that GG suffered a hostile workplace or some sort of discrimination. If that happens, GG will still fail to get tenure, since his record at ISU simply isn’t good enough. (That won’t stop the DI from spinning any win in court, of course, but it would be a hollow victory).

Unfortunately, I don’t think the DI is confused. They realize science is by definition philosophically materialistic and wish to change it… and everyone loves an underdog, so they whine about being repressed by mean ol’ atheist scientists. That’s not what science is supposed to be. All the great scientists in the history books, Newton, Galieo, et al were religious. Some were even properly devout. See, religion has a place in science.

Never mind that Newton never said masses attract because God pulls them together, or that Galieo never said that objects accelerate independent of weight because God makes all things equal.

Naw, it wasn’t strictly money. How I reckon it, he was a kook (he submitted Priviledged Planet as part of the materials for his tenure application? Doesn’t pass the logic test to me!) who wasn’t profitable enough to make up for his kookiness.

That’s not much of a counterargument, to be sure, but I’m decidedly cynical when it comes to academia.

If the reason for tenure denial was strictly money, I’m not sure I’m comfortable with that, either. I guess I had one too many expensive graduate courses that were taught by a teacher’s aide because the professor was doing grant based research, and when I looked into the research, it was quite often really questionable or lightweight stuff.

*scales fall from eyes*

It all becomes clear. Now I can agree wholeheartedly that this sort of fruitcakiness doesn’t belong anywhere near astronomy.

It won’t come to court, or at least they won’t. They’ll duck out the same way they did in Dover.