Guillermo Gonzalez, ID theorist extraordinaire, spoke last night (9/28) at University of Northern Iowa (UNI). He was invited to speak there by the local chapter of Sigma Xi back in August. When the biology professors there caught wind of it in mid-September, they organized a petition statement very similar to the one organized by Hector Avalos et al. at Gonzalez’s home institution, Iowa State University (reported on this blog earlier — go here). As a result, the local media was extremely interested in his talk. Indeed, it was reported in just about every major Iowa paper. Not surprisingly, the auditorium was packed. When Gonzalez arrived last night, he found that someone had posted outside the auditorium a huge blowup of the petition statement with all its signatures and a signup sheet for people to add their signatures.
They also had documents from the AAAS and NAS about ID outside. Inside they had written on the blackboard an NAS web address giving a pro-evolution pdf file. On another blackboard they advertised a talk in late October by an ID critic. What’s life without a little intimidation! There were students, faculty and locals in the audience. The whole biology department was there. Even so, Gonzalez acquitted himself well. Hector Avalos, who has now assumed the role full-time Gonzalez stalker, was there and asked the same thing he wrote about in his letter to the editor in the Des Moines Register that I blogged the other day (go here). And of course, the Wedge Document came up (no ID Q&A is complete without it).
Friends, what are our opponents so worried about? All we want to do is crush Darwinian materialism and the secular ideology that has been built on it.