Some Iowans have the right idea!!

[jett_28]

http://desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070514/NEWS/70514050/1001

[Wasted Sapience]

My inorganic chemisty professor was sort of an ID guy. Don't know if he was a 'creationist' or a 'theistic evolutionary,' but he was a very ardent Christian. He deserves some slack, though, giving me a C+ in a class where I deserved a D-. What's up with the physical scientists being so unscientific?!

[RBH]

That situation's a little less obvious than one might think, regardless of the hoorah the Disco Institute is making. Ed Brayton has a post on it (http://scienceblogs.com/dispatches/2007/05/tenure_and_the_id_persecution.php). As far as I can tell from public documents, Gonzalez does not have a major research grant, and universities don't like to tenure people who can't bring in research money to support their own work. Again, as far as I can tell Gonzalez doesn't have any grad students or post-docs, which is a major-league drawback for him if true. That latter is a little shaky -- public documents don't necessarily show it.

RBH

[Wasted Sapience]

That situation's a little less obvious than one might think, regardless of the hoorah the Disco Institute is making. Ed Brayton has a post on it (http://scienceblogs.com/dispatches/2007/05/tenure_and_the_id_persecution.php). As far as I can tell from public documents, Gonzalez does not have a major research grant, and universities don't like to tenure people who can't bring in research money to support their own work. Again, as far as I can tell Gonzalez doesn't have any grad students or post-docs, which is a major-league drawback for him if true. That latter is a little shaky -- public documents don't necessarily show it.

RBH

Confused and misrepresented cause and effect. Where would we be without them?

[Dr.GH]

I cannot imagine why anyone could think Brayton credible about anything, but least of all tenure. He is not eligible, and will never be eligible.

I have both received tenure, and been refused tenure. Plus, I have served on a tenure committee (we rejected the application). From that experience, I would like to make a few observations. First, tenure is not awarded on simple single issues, but is easily denied by single issues. I was once given tenure because of the amount of grant money I had generated when also considered with teaching evaluations, publications etc. I was once rejected for tenure because I objected to a fellow faculty member's habit of trading good grades for sex. This was the same year I brought in more grant $$ than my salary, received the Board of Trustees "Commendation for Excellence" and named "Teacher of the Year." I had also published 6 papers that year with undergraduate researchers as co-authors.

I hope that Guillermo Gonzalez was rejected for tenure because he is an embarrassment to the university. Why is Gonzalez an embarrassment? Because he is using logically unsound reasoning to promote a theological "God the designer" argument that was falsified nearly 200 years ago.

It is possible that Gonzales was turned down for some trivial reason which would be a real shame.

[Wretchosoft]

I cannot imagine why anyone could think Brayton credible about anything, but least of all tenure. He is not eligible, and will never be eligible.

Huh? Where did that come from?

[Jet Black]

probably an error of some kind.

[Worldtraveller]

Let's keep this on the subject of tenure and Gonzales, please.

Thanks,
Lane, E/C Moderator

[RBH]

The Disco Institute is really shooting itself in the foot on this one. John West, the Associate Director of the Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture has repeatedly published (http://www.evolutionnews.org/2007/05/key_developments_in_gonzalez_t.html) the email address and phone number of the President of Iowa State, calling for supporters of Gonzalez to phone or email him. That's asking people to flood the president. I cannot imagine that'll be helpful to Gonzalez at Iowa State, and it damn near guarantees that no other secular university will touch him. He's going to have to work for Biola or Liberty U or Patrick Henry U. Or maybe he can get a job reading dissertations for Patriot U., Kent Hovind's alma mater.

What they're going to accomplish (and maybe this is their plan) is make a martyr of Gonzalez, a la Sternberg. Good: the more such martyrs they make, the fewer loons are working in real education.

[Dr.GH]

Wasn't that "edumacation?"

[lpetrich]

PZ Myers has blogged on the University of Iowa's denial of tenure to Guillermo Gonzalez:

Let the caterwauling commence…errm, increase! (http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2007/06/let_the_caterwauling_commencee.php)
The swooning begins (http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2007/06/the_swooning_begins.php)

complete with this image from William Dembski's blog Uncommon Descent about him:

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/upload/2007/06/martyr_gonzalez.jpg

[Celine]

It's Iowa State, not Univ. of Iowa.

Here is the transcript of the president's statement of refusal:

http://www.iastate.edu/~nscentral/news/2007/jun/statement.shtml

Edit: But it's also true, as one blogger indicated above, that if Gonzoles had brought in $10 million in research monies instead of $21,000, you can bet the university would've viewed in all in a different light. This is all only slightly about intellectual integrity.