But in short: they knew what the rules were going in. If they didn't like the rules, they shouldn't have played by them. There are plenty of institutions which don't place the same value on scholarly publications as the big universities. Gonzalez landed the tenure-track, then didn't fulfill the conditions for tenure. But then he compounded his error by successfully soliciting help from the krypto-religious ideologues at DI, and became a poster child for their peculiar brand of intellectual freedom.

This ended any hope he ever could have had for professional rehabilitation, and now he's stuck in an academic limbo of his own making. Of course DI will stand by their poster child: they can't afford to pasture this losing horse without donors calling their barely-existent credibility into serious question. Once they included their court astronomer among the ranks of the EXPELLED, they were duty-bound not to expel him themselves. So they crow about securing him a 0.5-meter, and issue press releases.

Now, with four times the power of my backyard instruments, unlimited access to one of those babies would send an amateur like me into paroxysms of ecstasy. But sober reflection suggests that there isn't much a 20-inch can do to advance Gonzalez' hypothesis about a privileged status for Earth: it simply hasn't the resolution, especially from low altitudes. Given some good computing power, he might be able to find evidence for a few nearby extra-solar Jupiter-sized planets, but he'd better hurry.

So the DI sensibly throws in a squib about getting time on the MacDonald. Well, now we're barely starting to bat in the necessary ballpark for instrument size, but we're still hoping to tease out spectral data from an earth-sized planet transiting a distant sun-like star here. I don't hold out much hope for that happening until the Webb Space Telescope is operational in the next decade. Then there's the whole problem of proving a negative: one exception and your whole hypothesis is nothing more than an ink stain.

DI may as well have bought their court astronomer tickets to a peep show (>slap! Bad Farb! Bad, bad, Farb!<). In essence, they already have, and are congratulating themselves for their generous patronage.

What is more, if the real reason that Gonzalez was fired had to do with DI, then you would expect otherwise he would have gotten tenure. That means the tenure decision would have either not really had sufficient grounds to deny him tenure or would have fabricated reasons to deny him tenure. Either way the DI would have revealed the problems with the decision. The fact that they haven’t is very strong evidence that the decision contains sufficient valid reasons to deny him tenure (or, rather, insufficient valid reasons to give it to him, since tenure is something that must be earned).

As to the topic at hand: I still don’t understand how ANYONE can reconcile a belief in biblical fairy tales which directly conflict with known scientific fact so as to call themselves a scientist. “Yes, the Bible is accurate and the word of god, but I see scientific evidence of a planet far older than 6,000 years. So, I don’t take the biblical text literally (as it says I must), yet I still remain faithful to it and its contents.” Huh? How can this conflict be reasoned away? Haven’t the various religions cast out folks for lesser offenses of unbelief? Isn’t the official dogma of all religions an either/or proposition: either adopt the creed TOTALLY or be excluded from the fold? Or, am I misinterpreting those main areas of the Koran and the Bible (in all its versions) which deny membership to all unbelivers for even the slightest fudging of the dogma?

You may be right. Yet it’s also not that hard to engineer a decision off-stage – that’s part and parcel of the world of politics – and that seems where DI is headed with the e-mails. Yet you could be right. It’s all about as clear as dirt pudding.

,,,and God looked around ITS universe and said,”Huh? Where the Frak am I?”

Thus WE are the One, trying to figure out how we got to where we are,,,”

Personally I like the Gnostic interpretation of things. That the physical universe is a hollow recreation of the true universe created by God. That a demented, amnesiac son of the actual deity is responsible for this flawed universe but doesn’t realize that he’s made a flawed creation because he doesn’t consciously remember the real thing.

In the Gnostic view the Abrahamic God of the Old Testament (Worship me, or else! Bow before me! You will be punished! I will reign fire on the unbelievers!) is the demented sub-deity and the God of love and forgiveness in the New Testament is the actual Deity who is trying to save mankind.

Not saying its true but it would sure explain a lot.

There is one sure-fire way to prove that Gonzalez’s tenure was denied because of his beliefs. The tenure committees’ decisions were all heavily documented and given to Gonzalez so he knew exactly what he did wrong. The university has refused to release this information, saying it is the private business of the person under review. However, Gonzalez is able to release it if he wants to. He has not done so as far as I have heard. If his work with the DI was an issue in the tenure committees’ decision, it would be documented there. Yet Gonzalez and the DI have not found it worthwhile to release this to prove their case. Why not? I guarantee you that if there was even the slightest shred of circumstantial evidence in that document the DI would be harping on it constantly. Yet they and Gonzalez have steadfastly refused to release it. This indicates to me that there is nothing in the actual decision to help their case, and that is why they are relying on the emails.

Since this was a Discovery Institute statement, I naturally went looking there. What I found was, of course, their version of events. But the interesting thing is they claim to have found e-mails that show ID was the reason Gonzalez was denied tenure. See:

http://www.discovery.org/a/4343

At this point I suspect it might be a combination of both. Perhaps Gonzalez didn’t meet the requirements and his support of ID didn’t help matters. And granted the Discovery Institute has a reason to spin this. But, I might add, so does Iowa State. Something that’s raising a warning flag is the Discovery Institute’s assertion that Gonzalez has met the publication requirement. Now, whatever one might think of the Discovery Institute, to make this claim without at least some evidence that could be interpreted that way would be a very stupid thing to do, and that makes me wonder if *something* is there.

I also wasn’t able to find the statement that in was because of his religious beliefs, at least not skimming the Discovery Institute web site. If they did make that statement, I suspect it had to do with a claim of bias due to his religious belief, not to ID. But without seeing the statement I can’t evaluate it.

There’s a bit more here than meets the eye. It all might settle out to be exactly what ISU claims, but at this point it’s a bit open.

I’m troubled by the idea voiced here that tenure *should* be denied to those who hold some views. Imagine if a university had the consensus that Global Warming wasn’t happening. Should they deny tenure to those who believe it is? Or suppose that a physics department is staunchly behind String Theory. Should they deny tenure to a scientist who doesn’t?

The reflex answer is to ask if someone who supports a flat earth theory should be given tenure in the geology department, or if an outspoken heliocentric believer should be granted tenure to teach astronomy. Yet things aren’t usually that clear cut.

I don’t have an answer for this. I can see how abuse can happen both ways. One can be used to suppress new theories and the other can be used to continue disproven ones long past their expiration date. Neither seems like a very good idea.

One of the premises of the Bible(old testament) is that God is self creating.
One of our major understandings of the origination of life(abiogenesis) is that life is SELF CREATING,,,
Do you see the essential connect between those two points of view?

,,,and God looked around ITS universe and said,”Huh? Where the Frak am I?”

Thus WE are the One, trying to figure out how we got to where we are,,,

I LOVE introducing weird premises into logical discussions. Logic is so,,,limiting,,,though still useful.

Gary 7

Davidlpf Says:
July 9th, 2008 at 7:02 pm
He probably going to try to prove the universe is only 6000 yrs old.

Josh Roseneau’s blog contains a link to Gonzalez’s book, “Privileged Earth”, which also seems to be his theory of the cosmos. A few minutes of reading indicate that he’s extrapolating the “rare Earth” theory to “only Earth”, in other words he’s going to try to prove that Earth is the only place in the universe capable of supporting intelligent life. As well as, of course, dumb life.

By the way, I think the Universe just happened and we all have
to fend for ourselves. Just look at how many people are screwed
in their daily lives with no obvious intervention from a “benevolent”
deity.

bad Jim: Heh, that’s a good one. And it’s all a good reminder to keep on our toes for anti-science nonsense when talking about astronomy. I’m sure that someone somewhere has written about the amount of slop we really do have in the various physical constants before matter becomes… well, doesn’t become.

Read the fine print on your Tasco box. To see images like those displayed on the box, you have to first launch your telescope into orbit, then point it at Hubble’s eyepiece. (Some extra equipment required.)

And can I just say that ‘tuter’s is an awesome name for inmates of the Discovery Institute? Of course, I do have a juvenile sense of humour sometimes…

How about “creodote” for the hangers-on, for example stuck up historian of mathematics Berlinski?

Not to take away from your amazing powers of prognostication, but the ID bunch supporting this “scientist” took no great Rosicrucian abilities. Keep it up, Dude.

The fact that Gonzalez is a proponent of antiscience had nothing to do with it …

AIUI, it in fact could and should have had something to do with it, because Gonzalez chose to include his book “The Privileged Planet” in his tenure dossier. If you include something in your tenure dossier, you can hardly complain if the referees decide to look at it! See http://www.pandasthumb.org/archives/2007/12/iowa-citizens-f-1.html