Iowa State Daily on Gonzalez tenure emails

_{David L. Hagen

December 4, 2007

Intelligent Design}

Share: Facebook; Twitter; LinkedIn; Flipboard; Print; Email

Organization attacks ruling to deny tenure

E-mails suggest Gonzalez’s beliefs affected decision

Kyle Miller and Ross Boettcher

“Issue date: 12/4/07 The Discovery Institute, a pro-intelligent design organization, released portions of e-mails of ISU professors and administrators “conspiring” to deny tenure to Guillermo Gonzalez, associate professor of physics and astronomy, in a press conference in Des Moines on Monday.

Casey Luskin, program officer for public policy and legal affairs for the Discovery Institute, said “thousands of pages of e-mails” obtained through an Iowa Open Records request from earlier this year hold statements pointing out a possible “hostile work environment” at Iowa State. Luskin said it points to a conspiracy to deny tenure to a “deserving professor” involving not only Iowa State but the Board of Regents as well, who have decided not to use e-mail evidence in its upcoming decision on whether to grant tenure. State Sen. David Hartsuch, R-Bettendorf, was on hand to speak about academic freedom in institutions of higher learning in Iowa. . . .” continued at: Full Article HTML
Full Article PDF

Comments

"What gives you the audacity to say that God definitely did not have a hand in creating such stunning complexity we see in life?" Somewhere I got the idea that ID did not invoke religious explanations, or specify any identity associated with the design. Was this wrong, or has it changed?MacT_{December 4, 2007
December
12
Dec
4
04
2007
02:12 PM
2
02
12
PM
PDT}

Bugsy and Digdug, For you guys to belittle the ID hypothesis by trying to equate it with bigfoot and the study of Angels, in the face of such outstanding and mind boggling complexity that science is finding in molecular biology, is just plain wrong and blatantly biased as far as the pursuit of science is concerned. What gives you the audacity to say that God definitely did not have a hand in creating such stunning complexity we see in life? What gives you the audacity to think that science is not allowed to investigate if and how God may have created this stunning complexity, especially in the face of Darwinism's bankruptcy to produce ANY conclusive evidence. This following statement is very fitting for the ID/evolution controversy: No amount of experimentation can ever prove me right; a single experiment can prove me wrong. Albert Einstein So prove us wrong and demonstrate evolution empirically and be done with us heretics! Are you going to say we can't investigate how God may have created life because it is considered supernatural? Well I guess scientists should just stop all research into quantum mechanics right now, because this supernatural stuff is just a bunch of bologna in your eyes. It was commonly presumed by the materialistic philosophy that scientists would find a solid object in the atom somewhere. What scientists actually uncovered is a lot stranger than they had imagined prior to investigation. "Those who are not shocked when they first come across quantum mechanics cannot possibly have understood it." Niels Bohr Though quantum mechanics applies to all sub-atomic waves/particles; protons, neutrons, electrons and photons (Richard P. Feynman), Let's look at some of the specific quantum mechanics of just the electron; The Electron; :performs something called a quantum leap, which means it disappears from one spot; then, instantaneously appears at another spot without traversing the space in between. :sometimes "blinks off" which means, for a short time, it just disappears before reappearing. :has actually never been seen; only the effects of an electron have been witnessed. :circles the nucleus of the atom billions of times in a millionth of a second; giving the atom the "appearance" of being solid. :acts like a particle sometimes; sometimes, like a wave, depending on how we look at it. The electron also acts like it knows how we were going to look at it before we actually look at it. :absolutely refuses to act like a solid particle; the best scientists can do for us is give us the likelihood that an electron will be in a certain place at a certain time; for you see, on the quantum level of the electron, anything is possible; but nothing is certain, as far as location is concerned. :has been proven by quantum non-locality to have the ability to instantaneously communicate its state of being anywhere in the universe. This ability defies the speed of light and also gives scientists the spooky impression that the electron may somehow be aware of everything that is going on everywhere in the universe. Mark 10:27 “With men it is impossible, but not with God; for with God all things are possible.” These actions of one of the most foundational “material” building block of the atom, the electron, as well as the actions of all the other sub-atomic building blocks studied, should be very surprising to most everyone. What is very surprising about these characteristics is that they are defying our basic notion that there should be a solid, indestructible “material” building block in the atom, somewhere. Solid “material” objects simply do not disappear, then reappear; neither do they instantaneously move from one spot to another spot, not to mention instantaneous communication everywhere in the universe. Most people, from grade school forward, are aware that atoms are comprised mostly of empty space; yet, to find that there are no truly solid objects anywhere in the atom, obeying the three-dimensional constraints that we are subject to is a bit of an eye-opener, to say the least. Since only "material" objects which have their basis in a higher dimension can transcend boundaries imposed on objects of a lower dimension, This is obvious and compelling proof that the electron, as well as all other atomic “particles”, have their basis in a higher dimension; so they are able to seemingly “miraculously” transcend the three-dimensional constraints we are subject to. "Atoms are not things", Werner Heisenberg, author of the “Uncertainty Principle in Quantum Mechanics” It is now apparent the electron is far more than just a simple point particle. The "solid" physical reality of the electron is obviously based on transcendent principles we only naturally associate with the higher dimension of the invisible spiritual realm. The electron is capable of many things, that are clearly, not possible for a simple “solid” point particles. Thus, this hard scientific evidence offers very compelling and very logical proof that what we refer to as the spiritual realm (higher dimension) is, indeed, the ultimate source of our physical “material” reality. So Bugsy and Digdug do you think quantum mechanics is "bigfoot" research?bornagain77_{December 4, 2007
December
12
Dec
4
04
2007
01:57 PM
1
01
57
PM
PDT}

Whoops, cut and pasted wrong. Oh well, you get the picture.angryoldfatman_{December 4, 2007
December
12
Dec
4
04
2007
01:09 PM
1
01
09
PM
PDT}

digdug and Bugsy, I'm glad you see why Gonzalez had to be denied. He did not believe in the orthodoxy, so he definitely couldn't be asked to teach it. How could he possibly teach something as unscientific as ID? ID is not science, because there's been no research done on it, and anybody that researches it is not doing science because ID is not science because there's been no research done on it, because there's been no research done on it, and anybody that researches it is not doing science because ID is not science because there's been no research done on it, because there's been no research done on it, and anybody that researches it is not doing science because ID is not science because there's been no research done on it...angryoldfatman_{December 4, 2007
December
12
Dec
4
04
2007
01:08 PM
1
01
08
PM
PDT}

According to one of the e-mails, Eli Rosenberg, professor and chairman of astronomy, said Gonzalez's belief in intelligent design "disqualifies him from serving as a science educator."
I guess Professor of Religion, Hector Avalos---who led a petition drive to isolate GG and repudiate ID---got tenured before their was a "beliefs test" for tenure. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2007/05/iowa_state_promotes_atheist_pr.html
Avalos's promotion to full professor comes just in time for the publication of his new book on the Bible later this month. According to the publisher's description, Avalos argues in the book --------- that our world is best served by leaving the Bible as a relic of an ancient civilization instead of the "living" document most religionist scholars believe it should be. He urges his colleagues to concentrate on educating the broader society to recognize the irrelevance and even violent effects of the Bible in modern life. ------ Just how extreme Avalos's view of the Bible is can be seen in his previous book, Fighting Words: The Origins of Religious Violence (2005), in which he repeatedly equates the Bible with Hitler's Mein Kampf. Indeed, in a section of the book titled "Scripture: A Zero-Tolerance Argument," Avalos actually suggests that the Bible is worse than Mein Kampf: --------- In fact, Mein Kampf does not contain a single explicit command for genocide equivalent to those found in the Hebrew Bible... Thus, if all of Mein Kampf is to be rejected simply for its implied genocidal policies, we should certainly reject all of the Bible for some of its explicit and blatant genocidal policies. [p. 363] --------- At other points, Avalos appears to blame Jewish people for Hitler's attempt to exterminate them, locating the origins of the Holocaust in what he calls "Hebrew racism." Consider the following passages: ------- "The purpose here is to show that the Nazi policy of genocide was based on premises quite similar to those in the Hebrew Bible." [p. 316] -------- "the Nazi Holocaust represents the synthesis of attitudes found in both the New Testament and the Hebrew scriptures." [p. 318] --------- "[Scholars Katz and Wolpoff] fail to see the parallels between certain practices promulgated in the Hebrew Bible itself. Indeed, the supreme irony of the Holocaust is that the genocidal policies first systematically enunciated in the Hebrew scriptures were reversed by the Nazis. Nazi ideology simply had better technology to do what biblical authors had said they would do to their enemies." [pp. 318-319] -------- "Hitler saw himself as trying to counteract Hebrew racism, which he saw as the main counterpart and enemy of the German race." [p. 319]
What belief could possibly be out of bounds for a professor of religion if not the above?russ_{December 4, 2007
December
12
Dec
4
04
2007
11:12 AM
11
11
12
AM
PDT}

From the full article: "Dr. Gonzalez is not teaching intelligent design in classes. The majority of his research is based on astronomy and cosmology. He has stellar reputation as cosmologist and astrologer. Why wouldn't you want a great scientist like that on your staff?" Luskin said. A "stellar reputation as" . . . an astrologer?MacT_{December 4, 2007
December
12
Dec
4
04
2007
09:30 AM
9
09
30
AM
PDT}

Prev 1 2

You must be logged in to post a comment.

Organization attacks ruling to deny tenure

E-mails suggest Gonzalez’s beliefs affected decision

Kyle Miller and Ross Boettcher

Leave a Reply