Re: [asa] DI Professor: 'Religion' behind tenure dispute

 
 
It is sad (but not surprising) to see the Discovery Institute (and World Net
Daily) continue to put out misleading propaganda like this.
I say this as someone who *agrees* with them that "viewpoint discrimination"
probably played at least some role in the denial of tenure to Gonzalez. But
it does not help the cause to present a slanted view like this article does.
 The flaws have been discussed before on this list; let me highlight three
things:
 
1) The "68" publications. Tenure is primarily based on what a person has
done *after* starting the faculty position. The *correct* number to use here
would be the publications from work done at Iowa State, after Gonzalez was the
one responsible for intellectual leadership of research. Earlier
publications as a grad student or postdoc, under somebody else's research leadership,
carry little weight in tenure. Tenure at a research university is not
primarily about the ability to DO good research (as might be evidenced by grad
student or postdoc publications) -- it is about the ability to LEAD good research.
 
2) The "91%" tenure number, implying that anybody denied tenure is being
unusually singled out. Using a campus-wide number like this is misleading and
nearly meaningless. At a mid-level university like ISU, there will be some
departments that set the bar pretty high for tenure, and others that give
tenure to any warm body who is not grossly incompetent. The *correct* comparison
would be the rate at which tenure has historically been granted (maybe in the
past 10 or 20 years) in Gonzalez' particular department. I believe that
number came out in these discussions at some point, and it was significantly
less than 91% (I seem to recall 75%, but don't hold me to that).
 
3) It fails to mention the important factor that Gonzalez apparently brought
in *no* external funding for his research at ISU. At a mid-level research
university, in a science or engineering department, bringing in external
funding is an important component of tenure decisions (whether it is in the
official criteria or not).
 
Again, I am somewhat sympathetic to the overall claim that Gonzalez did not
get a fair deal because of his religious viewpoint. But if he cares about
fairness, maybe he should distance himself from these "defenders" of his cause.
 With friends like these ...
 
Allan (ASA member)
 
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Dr. Allan H. Harvey, Boulder, Colorado | SteamDoc@aol.com
"Any opinions expressed here are mine, and should not be
attributed to my employer, my wife, or my cat"

Professor: 'Religion' behind tenure dispute
World Net Daily ^ | Friday, July 13, 2007 | Staff Writer
Posted on 07/13/2007 11:27:37 AM EDT by Turret Gunner A20
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1865407/posts [refresh
browser to get the latest on-going comments]

Intelligent Design scientist faults university evolution ideology

A scientist who believes the theory of intelligent design helps
explain life's origins is appealing to state officials to save his
job at Iowa State University, where his tenure was rejected because
of his "personal religious and ideological beliefs."

snip

John West, associate director of the Discovery Institute's Center for
Science & Culture, where Gonzalez is a senior fellow, said the tenure
denial is "clearly a result of the vicious attacks he's had to endure
from Darwinists and various atheists for presenting a scientific
argument for the intelligent design of the universe based on the
empirical evidence from physics and astronomy."

Gonzalez, who will be out of his job at ISU after the 2007-2008 year
if the decision is not changed, was rejected by officials despite his
publication of 68 peer-reviewed scientific articles, nearly four
times what his own department suggests as a standard for "excellence."

His articles also have the highest normalized citation count among
all of the astronomers in his department, a standard used to evaluate
the work of professors.

"Incredibly, ISU's President Geoffroy denied tenure to Gonzalez while
approving 91 percent of those applying for tenure this year," said
West. "Geoffroy even promoted to full professor one of Gonzalez's
chief persecutors at ISU, atheist religion professor Hector Avaloz,
who believes that the Bible is worse than Hitler's Mein Kampf."

The day after ISU's president announced his rejection of Gonzalez's
first appeal, a member of ISU's department of physics and astronomy
published an article in the Des Moines Register openly admitting that
Gonzalez's support for intelligent design was the only reason he
voted against tenure for Gonzalez.

snip

Gonzalez has said he does not teach intelligent design at the school.

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Received on Sat Jul 14 21:45:18 2007