Evolution News & Views

Links of Interest: Hoax of Dodos, a response to inaccuracies in Flock of Dodos Haeckel's Bogus Embryo Drawings (Clip on YouTube)

Defeating Olson’s "A"-argument: Haeckel’s Fraudulent Drawings Are in Textbooks
The easiest way to demonstrate that Haeckel’s fraudulent drawings are in Raven & Johnson’s 2002 edition of Biology is simply to show drawings straight out of the textbook. In Figure 1 below, Haeckel’s original drawings are shown on the left, while Raven & Johnson’s actual drawings are on the right:

Figure 1: Haeckel's Embryo Drawings (Rotated) Next to Raven & Johson (2002) for Comparison of Near-Identical Similarities

If you still aren’t convinced that Raven & Johnson’s diagram is merely a colorized and ever-so-slightly reworked version of Haeckel’s drawings, then consider Figure 2, where Haeckel’s original drawings are overlain on top of Raven & Johnson’s (2002) drawings of Haeckel’s Embryos:

Figure 2: Haeckel's Embryo Drawings Overlain on Raven & Johnson (2002) to show Equivalence

Alternatively, click here to see an animation that overlays Haeckel’s embryo drawings over the drawings of Raven & Johnson’s 2002 biology textbook. (Depending on your connection speed, it may take a little while to load.)

Raven & Johnson’s textbook merely took Haeckel’s original drawings, slightly reworked them, and added some color. For all intents and purposes, these are Haeckel’s drawings. The textbooks don’t lie: here are Haeckel’s drawings in a modern textbook.

Defeating Olson’s "B"-Argument: Haeckel’s Fraudulent Drawings Are Used to Represent Factual Data That Promote Evolution in the Present Day
As I explain in "What do Modern Textbooks Really Say about Haeckel's Embryos?," Raven & Johnson use Haeckel’s fraudulent drawings to promote evolution as fact in the present day:

The drawings are presented as valid evidence for the modern theory of evolution, and are not used merely to provide historical context. They come from a section entitled "Embryonic Development and Vertebrate Evolution." The caption reads: “Embryonic development of vertebrates. Notice that the early embryonic stages of these vertebrates bear a striking resemblance to each other, even though the individuals are from different classes (fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals). All vertebrates start out with an enlarged head region, gill slits, and a tail regardless of whether these characteristics are retained in the adult.” (pg. 1228-1229) The text states: “The patterns of development in the vertebrate groups that evolved most recently reflect in many ways the simpler patterns occurring among earlier forms. Thus, mammalian development and bird development are elaborations of reptile development, which is an elaboration of amphibian development, and so forth (figure 58.16).” (pg. 1228-1229) Although Haeckel is mentioned, it is clear that the textbook authors regard these drawing as evidence apart from Haeckel’s interpretation.

The text not only discusses “ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny” but also affirms it, albeit in a slightly different form. This entire discussion comes from a subsection entitled “Ontogeny Recapitulates Phylogeny,” in which the authors repudiate Haeckel’s claim but then defend a reformulated version of it: “The developmental instructions for each new form seem to have been layered on top of the previous instructions, contributing additional steps in the developmental journey. This hypothesis, promoted in the nineteenth century by Ernst Haeckel, is referred to as the ‘biogenetic law.’ It is usually stated as an aphorism: ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny; that is, embryological development (ontogeny) involves the same progression of changes that have occurred during evolution (phylogeny). However, the biogenetic law is not literally true when stated in this way because embryonic stages are not reflections of adult ancestors. Instead, the embryonic stages of a particular vertebrate often reflect the embryonic stages of that vertebrate's ancestors.” (pg. 1228-1229, emphases in original) Earlier the text stated: “In many cases, the evolutionary history of an organism can be seen to unfold during its development, with the embryo exhibiting characteristics of the embryos of its ancestors.” (pg. 450) The basis for the text’s claims that the law holds is the fraudulent Haeckel-derived drawings, which obscure the differences between the embryos.

There is no indication whatsoever that Haeckel’s drawings are used to merely give some kind of “historical context.” Rather, the drawings are used to represent facts about development in the present day, based upon the fraudulent obfuscation of differences between early embryo stages.

In short, Randy Olson’s arguments have failed. He recently claimed that “PZ Myers a few days later on his blog, took the movie, went through it scene by scene, moment by moment in that whole sequence on Haeckel’s embryos, and bottom line said there’s nothing inaccurate in the film.” According to Olson, it would seem that PZ Myers does not consider it “inaccurate” to use drawings which are known to fraudulently obscure the differences between embryos to promote a version of the idea that ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny.

Conclusion
In a debate over his film, Olson recently claimed that it was his “agenda” to make the issue of Haeckel’s embryos the “battlefield” over intelligent design. Have it your way, Dr. Olson: Perhaps Haeckel’s ideas aren’t the bedrock of modern evolutionary biology in 2007, but his drawings and ideas sure are used in a lot of textbooks to promote evolution as fact. Moreover, we never claimed Haeckel's ideas were the foundation of evolutionary biology today—we only said the drawings and ideas are inaccurate and shouldn’t be used as any kind of an argument for evolution. Randy Olson responded by denying that they are even in textbooks promoting evolution: Either (A) They aren't in textbooks, or (B) They're used in textbooks

If Randy Olson wants to make this the “battlefield,” so be it: The textbooks don’t lie: This textbook uses Haeckel’s drawings to promote evolution as fact in the present day. And that’s precisely the kind of textbook that Randy Olson and his film have claimed doesn’t exist.

Posted by Casey Luskin at 11:11 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Observational Astronomy, a peer-reviewed astronomy textbook by D. Scott Birney, Guillermo Gonzalez, and David Oesper (2nd. ed., Cambridge University Press, 2006).

One of Dr. Gonzalez’s recent accomplishments at ISU that has received less attention is his co-authorship of a prestigiously published astronomy textbook, Observational Astronomy. Published by Cambridge University Press and also peer-reviewed, the textbook is used in Dr. Gonzalez’s own department to teach astronomy. Aside from his own department, universities internationally use Observational Astronomy, including University of Toronto, New Jersey’s Science & Technology University, University of Manitoba, Valparaiso University, and Franklin and Marshall College. Prestigious textbook authorship is a new avenue of scholarship for Dr. Gonzalez since he joined ISU. How can his critics sustain the claim that he has not "started new things" at ISU?

This is not Dr. Gonzalez’s only recent foray into textbooks. The concept of "galactic habitable zone," a term that Science reported was "coined in 2001 by astronomer Guillermo Gonzalez" (Robert Irion, "Are Most Life-Friendly Stars Older Than the Sun?," Science Vol. 303:27, 01/02/2004), is discussed in the latest edition of the college introductory astronomy textbook The Cosmic Perspective (Addison Wesley Publishing, 2007, 4th ed., pg. 723).

Another measure of a scientist’s productivity is the number of citations to his or her work by other scientists. As we recently reported, Guillermo Gonzalez has the highest normalized citation count among all astronomers in his department since 2001, the year he joined ISU. What makes this significant is that he leads his department in normalized citations even in recent years, such as 2006, the same year he published Observational Astronomy. To maintain that level of output shows he is working—and producing—very hard and very effectively. His work has not "slowed down considerably" since joining ISU. In fact, Dr. Gonzalez is making a larger individual impact upon his field, measured by normalized citation counts, than any other astronomer in his department since the year he joined ISU.

Perhaps next time the Chronicle of Higher Education will be able to find a foil who actually has "studied Mr. Gonzalez's work in detail" so they aren’t embarrassed by such baseless comments.

Posted by Casey Luskin at 1:41 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (1)

Not so fast, say disabilities advocates Andrew J. Imparato and Anne C. Sommers of the American Association of People With Disabilities. In their Washington Post article, "Haunting Echoes of Eugenics," the two authors describe, among other things, the terrible campaign to eliminate persons with Down syndrome before they ever arrive.

According to Imparato and Sommers, fully "85% of pregnancies diagnosed with Down syndrome end in abortion."

As I have written earlier, this year marks 100 years since Indiana passed the world's first forced sterilization law. Like Mike Egnor yesterday, Imparato and Sommers note that it is also 80 years since "the disgraceful Supreme Court decision in Buck v. Bell" where Justice Holmes wrote:

It is better for all the world, if instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for crime, or to let them starve for their imbecility, society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind . . . Three generations of imbeciles is enough.

Incidentally, last week in the Senate I heard parents from the Down Syndrome Association of Northern Virginia (DSANV) speak about their experiences. They are supporting the Prenatally Diagnosed Condition Awareness Act. Each one spoke of how difficult it was not to have support and information from their doctors but rather a speech about "you have a choice to make."

Unfortunately, Imparato and Sommers do not mention where Holmes--an avid Darwinist--got his "unfit" language. But hopefully the message came across in their conclusion:

On this 80th anniversary of Buck, let's not foolishly believe that victims of eugenics are an artifact of history. So long as we speak in terms of good genes and bad genes, recognize a life with a disability as an injury, and allow health policies to value some lives over others, we continue to create human rights violations every day.

Posted by Logan Gage at 12:20 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Each February, admirers of Charles Darwin celebrate his birthday. “Darwin Day” is a celebration of secularism and of materialistic science, and particularly a celebration of Darwin’s theory of evolution. Some particularly enthusiastic Darwinists compare Darwin Day to Lincoln’s birthday. Their motto (I'm not making this up): “Lincoln freed the slaves; Darwin freed our minds.”

Some of us take a more nuanced view of Darwin’s legacy. This May is a poignant time to pause and to reflect on Darwin’s influence on American medicine and society. This May 2nd marked the 80th anniversary of the Supreme Court decision in Buck vs. Bell.

On May 2, 1927, the United States Supreme Court returned an 8 to 1 verdict in the case of Buck vs. Bell. Carrie Buck (above, with her mother) was a sixteen-year-old girl who was raped and had given birth to a daughter. Carrie had some problems in school, and her mom had some brushes with the law in her youth. Carrie’s social worker noted that she fit the definition of “feeble minded” under Virginia’s eugenic laws. She was involuntarily institutionalized at the Virginia Colony for Epileptics and Feeble-Minded, and she was ordered sterilized. She fought sterilization all the way to the Supreme Court.

Chief Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote the majority decision:

We have seen more than once that the public welfare may call upon the best citizens for their lives. It would be strange if it could not call upon those who already sap the strength of the State for these lesser sacrifices, often not felt to be such by those concerned, in order to prevent our being swamped with incompetence. It is better for all the world, if instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for crime, or to let them starve for their imbecility, society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind. The principle that sustains compulsory vaccination is broad enough to cover cutting the Fallopian tubes…Three generations of imbeciles are enough.

Where did this modern “science” of eugenics come from? In Descent of Man, Darwin himself applied his theory of natural selection to the breeding of human beings:

…the weak members of civilised societies propagate their kind. No one who has attended to the breeding of domestic animals will doubt that this must be highly injurious to the race of man. It is surprising how soon a want of care, or care wrongly directed, leads to the degeneration of a domestic race; but excepting in the case of man himself, hardly any one is so ignorant as to allow his worst animals to breed.

Eugenicists set out to realize Darwin’s dream — to take “random” evolution in hand, and to breed, selectively, from our “best stock.” In the first half of the 20th cenury, sixty thousand Americans who were judged to be of inferior stock were involuntarily sterilized. Recently, Darwinists have scrambled to distance themselves from the obvious connection between Darwinism and eugenics. But the historical record is clear. The founders and scientific leaders of the eugenics movement—Darwin himself (in Descent of Man), his cousin Francis Galton (who coined the word 'eugenics') and his admirer Herbert Spencer (who coined the term 'survival of the fittest'), and Darwin's acolytes Karl Pearson, Ernst Haeckel, R.A. Fisher, Charles Davenport, and Harry Laughlin— were all fervent Darwinists.

Eugenics is still with us. It persists in the form of prenatal testing and abortion of handicapped or unwanted babies, in the growing acceptance of euthanasia of the seriously ill in the United States and of euthanasia of the handicapped in many countries in Europe. Culling the unfit, which Darwin wistfully endorsed in Descent of Man, is very much a part of 21st century medicine.

Darwin did “free our minds.” He freed many well-educated scientists and doctors from the traditional Judeo-Christian standard of human exceptionalism. He freed many doctors from the Judeo-Christian view that human beings have inherent dignity simply as human beings, and that the moral value of our actions is measured by what we do to help the least, not the best, of our brothers. Judeo-Christian ethics is the antithesis of social Darwinism, and of eugenics. The eugenic doctors who sterilized Carrie Buck were freed of their ethical moorings by Darwin’s ideas.

Darwin cast a long shadow on American medicine. It is fitting to take some time to remember the people who were caught in that shadow. Please find a moment to remember Carrie Buck, and how her life was changed, and why.

Posted by Michael Egnor at 3:53 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

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Action Item: Help Guillermo Gonzalez in his fight for academic freedom. Contact ISU President Gregory L. Geoffroy at (515) 294-2042 or email him at president@iastate.edu and let him know that you support academic freedom for Dr. Gonzalez to follow the evidence wherever it leads.

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How frequently a scientist’s work is cited by other scientists is an important indicator of the impact the scientist is having on the scientific community. The Smithsonian/NASA data system allows one to compute a "normalized" citation count that corrects for inflated citation rates caused by articles with multiple authors. In the normalized citation count, an article published by a scientist with many co-authors is weighted less than an article authored by the scientist alone.

Gonzalez joined ISU in 2001. His normalized citation count for articles published during 2001-2007 is 143, the best of any other astronomer in his department during this period. The next best citation count among all of his astronomer colleagues is 103; and the best citation count for a tenured astronomer in his department is only 68, or less than half of Gonzalez's count.

"In other words, Iowa State denied tenure to a scientist whose impact on his field during the past six years outstripped all of the university's existing tenured astronomers according to a prestigious Smithsonian/NASA database," said Dr. John West, Associate Director of the Center for Science and Culture at Discovery Institute.

"It's important to stress that the normalized citation counts for 2001-2007 only include citations to articles published during the most recent 6 years, yet Gonzalez is still the top ranked in his department," added Discovery Institute analyst Casey Luskin, M.S., J.D., who computed the citation counts using the Smithsonian/NASA data system. “These statistics refute any claim that Gonzalez’s scholarly productivity and impact ‘trailed off’ since coming to Iowa State.”

In fact, if one looks at normalized citation counts for articles published during individual years, Gonzalez topped his astronomy colleagues in 2001, 2003, and again in 2006 (the most recent full year for which statistics are available). In addition, he came in second in his department in 2002. The years in which Gonzalez was not first in his department in normalized citations likely reflect his work on two major book projects—The Privileged Planet, written under a competitive research grant from the Templeton Foundation that was awarded after a peer-review process by several leading astronomers; and Observational Astronomy, a peer-reviewed college-level astronomy textbook published by Cambridge University Press in 2006.

According to Luskin, "This new data adds to the mounting evidence that Gonzalez may have been denied tenure at ISU not because of his record as a scientist, but because of discrimination against his views in support of intelligent design."

Amazingly, even if one compares the lifetime normalized citation counts for all of the astronomers at ISU, Gonzalez comes out in second place. The only colleague who has a higher lifetime normalized count than Gonzalez is a senior tenured astronomer who already is a full professor.

"For an untenured assistant professor to best nearly everyone in his department in lifetime normalized citations is most impressive, and it makes even more indefensible the university's decision to deny him tenure," comments Luskin.

The normalized citation count is not the only measure of impact on the scientific community by which Gonzalez is ranked highly among the astronomers in his department. As reported last week in the Chronicle of Higher Education, Gonzalez also ranks second among his astronomer colleagues according to the "h-index" statistic, which similarly seeks to measure how widely a scientist's articles are cited by other scientists. According to the Chronicle, “Mr. Gonzalez has a normalized h-index of 13."

A full discussion of these findings, along with the data supporting them, is provided in an article by Luskin posted here.

[UPDATED on May 28, 2007 at 9:25 am. Article originally reported that Gonzalez had highest h-index in department based on Chronicle of Higher Education report; but the Chronicle erred in its calculations and posted an updated calculation here.]

Posted by Robert Crowther at 8:30 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

An extremely important measure of a scientist's reputation is the impact his or her research is having upon a field as measured by the number of citations to that scientist’s work in research articles by other scientists. In short, the more times a scientist’s work has been cited by others, the greater the impact of his work on his particular field. By this standard, Iowa State University (ISU) astronomer Guillermo Gonzalez has performed incredibly well, despite his denial of tenure by ISU.

Gonzalez joined ISU in 2001, and for his publications since 2001 he has the highest normalized citation count of all astronomers in his department, including both tenured and untenured faculty! Moreover, despite the fact that he is much younger than many of the tenured faculty members in the department, he has the second highest lifetime normalized citation count among all astronomers in his department.

Normalized citation counts for ISU astronomers are reflected in the graphs below:

This data was collected using the Smithsonian/NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS), a widely respected database cataloging the scientific literature in astronomy. The database can calculate the “normalized citation count” for a given scientist, which represents a sum of the number of citations for each paper of a given author corrected for the number of authors in each paper. This is intended to measure the individual contributions made by a single scientist by taking into account the fact that an author will have relatively less contribution to a paper with many authors compared to a paper with fewer authors. (Thus if a paper has 2 authors, each author would get .5 citations added to their citation count every time that paper is cited; if there are 4 authors, then each author gets 0.25 citations; but if there is only 1 author, the author gets 1 citation added, and so forth.)

Normalized citation counts for ISU astronomers since 2001, and also over their entire lifetimes are also represented in the third and fourth columns in the table below:

Table 1: Normalized Citation Count for All Astronomers in ISU Dept. of Physics & Astronomy (2001-2007, and Lifetime) (Emboldened data indicates highest in the table for that column; methodology explained in further detail below.)

Name	Description	Normalized Citation Count
		2001-2007	Lifetime
George H. Bowen	Professor Emeritus, Tenured Astronomer in ISU Dept. of Physics and Astronomy.	33	587
David A. Carter-Lewis	Full Professor, Tenured Astronomer in ISU Dept. of Physics and Astronomy.	11	96
Guillermo Gonzalez	Assistant Professor, Astronomer in ISU Dept. of Physics and Astronomy; Recently Denied Tenure.	144	850
Stephen D. Kawaler	Full Professor (Current Program Coordinator), Tenured Astronomer in ISU Dept. of Physics and Astronomy.	40	905
Charles Kerton	Assistant Professor, Astronomer in ISU Dept. of Physics and Astronomy.	30	53
Frank Krennrich	Associate Professor, Tenured Astronomer in ISU Dept. of Physics and Astronomy.	35	117
Richard C. Lamb	Professor Emeritus, Tenured Astronomer in ISU Dept. of Physics and Astronomy.	18	422
Martin Pohl	Assistant Professor [Recently Granted Tenure], Astronomer in ISU Dept. of Physics and Astronomy.	103	489
Curt Struck	Full Professor, Tenured Astronomer in ISU Dept. of Physics and Astronomy.	68	688
Lee Anne Willson	University Professor, Most Prestigious Tenured Astronomer in ISU Dept. of Physics and Astronomy.	13	680

As can be seen, Dr. Gonzalez has the highest normalized citation count for articles published since 2001 (the year he joined ISU) among astronomers in his department. He is even second in his department in lifetime normalized citations! Given this high citation count, it seems clear Dr. Gonzalez has had a tremendous impact upon the science of his field of astronomy. By this measure, there is every reason to believe he has demonstrated the “excellence” in research that normally leads to an award of tenure. Perhaps are there other factors in the mix?

Methodology:

It’s clear from the ideologically motivated attacks on Dr Guillermo Gonzalez, an assistant professor of astronomy and co-author of The Privileged Planet, that scientists who acknowledge the evidence for design in the universe are not welcome as tenured members of the Iowa State University faculty.

Anti-design scientists and bloggers have admitted publicly that they will continue to exclude intelligent design scientists from academia. Yet in the 20th century many of the advances in the understanding of our universe were accompanied by vigorous open discussion of the design implications of cosmological theories.

From the Enlightenment to early the 20th century, virtually all astronomers believed that the universe was eternal. When solutions for Einstein’s tensor equations were proposed in the first decades of the 20th century, it was evident that they were compatible with an expansion (or contraction) of the universe. With Edwin Hubble’s observation of the redshift that showed evidence for an expanding universe, some astrophysicists proposed that the universe had a moment of creation. Many other astrophysicists were troubled by the theological implications of a “moment of creation,” and proposed a Steady State (eternal) model of the cosmos.

There was a vigorous free discussion of the scientific, philosophical and theological implications of the expanding universe by scientists in the early and mid 20th century. A “moment of creation” — the Big Bang — implied a creator, and implied design. Based on the evidence, design won, and the advocates of the steady state model showed integrity and grace in acknowledging that the Big Bang theory, despite its design implications, was the best theory to explain the emergence and structure of the universe.

As agnostic astrophysicist Robert Jastrow famously said:

For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries.

Modern atheists know that they lost the scientific debate about the Big Bang in the 20th century. This time around, they are making sure that there will be no debate.

Please contact Iowa State University President Gregory L. Geoffroy (515-294 -2042 or president@iastate.edu) and ask him to grant tenure to Dr. Gonzalez, and to end the blacklisting of scientists who support intelligent design at Iowa State.

Posted by Michael Egnor at 9:11 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

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Action Item: Help Guillermo Gonzalez in his fight for academic freedom. Contact ISU President Gregory L. Geoffroy at (515) 294-2042 or email him at president@iastate.edu and let him know that you support academic freedom for Dr. Gonzalez to follow the evidence wherever it leads.

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Here is a recap of the major developments this week in the Guillermo Gonzalez tenure case:

1. The Chronicle of Higher Education reported that Gonzalez ranks first among his astronomer colleagues at ISU according to the "h-index" statistic, which seeks to measure how widely a scientist's articles are cited by other scientists. According to the Chronicle, “Mr. Gonzalez has a normalized h-index of 13, the highest of the 10 astronomers in his department. The next closest was Lee Anne Willson, a university professor who had a normalized h-index of 9.”

2. It was revealed that at same time ISU denied tenure to Gonzalez this past spring, the university promoted to full professor his chief academic persecutor, atheist professor Hector Avalos, who believes that the Bible is worse than Hitler's Mein Kampf.

3. The world's preeminent science journal, Nature, featured the Gonzalez case in an article in its news section. In the article, Gonzalez's former post-doctoral advisor at the University of Texas, Austin, is quoted as saying: "He is one of the best postdocs I have had” and "I would have said he was a serious tenure candidate."

4. U.S. Senator and presidential candidate Sam Brownback issued a statement defending Gonzalez's right to academic freedom, while Darwinist academics vociferously advocated blacklisting pro-intelligent design scientists from academia.

5. ISU spokesman John McCarroll continued to invent facts in his effort to defend the tenure denial, this week claiming that a professor's publications prior to being hired by ISU aren't considered during the tenure process. Asked to provide documentation for this latest claim, McCarroll declined to respond.

If you have just heard about this story, you should check out the key developments from last week, which included the admission by two members of Gonzalez's department that intelligent design played a role in his tenure denial, and the release of tenure statistics showing that ISU approved 91% of its tenure applications this year. In addition, tenure standards for ISU's Department of Physics and Astronomy revealed that outside research funding was not a stated criterion for tenure decisions in the department.

Posted by John West at 12:15 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Links of Interest: Hoax of Dodos, a response to inaccuracies in Flock of Dodos Haeckel's Bogus Embryo Drawings (Clip on YouTube)

Darwinian biologist Ken Miller has authored many biology textbooks. His first textbooks (from the early 1990s) used Haeckel’s fraudulent embryo drawings and blatantly promoted the idea that ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny. This is seen below in the re-printed text and scan of page 162 from Miller’s 1994 textbook Biology: Discovering Life with the caption also shown (see here for the full scan of page 162):

To Miller’s credit, he fixed later editions of his textbooks—he took out Haeckel’s drawings and replaced them with real embryo photographs, and he also stopped promoting recapitulation theory. Like many Darwinists, however, Miller then tried to rewrite history and pretend that these mistakes had not been promoted by biologists for many decades.

Randy Olson would have you believe that when Haeckel’s drawings are used, they are only given to provide some kind of “historical perspective on biology” or “historical context” and that they are not promoted as actual fact in the present day. Miller & Levine’s 1994 version of Biology: Discovering Life demonstrates how Olson’s claim is false:

Darwin and his contemporaries knew that early embryos of many animals look nearly identical and that the earliest stages of development in “lower” animals seem to be repeated in the development of “higher” animals such as ourselves (Fig. 8.15). Darwin realized that the similar developmental paths followed by animal embryos make sense if all of us evolved long ago from common ancestors through a series of lengthy evolutionary changes.

These striking embryological similarities led some of Darwin’s contemporaries (though apparently not Darwin himself) to believe that the embryological development of an individual repeats its species’ evolutionary history.

Why, then, should the embryos of related organisms retain similar features when adults of their species look quite different? The cells and tissues of the earliest embryological stages of any organism are like the bottom levels in a house of cards. The final form of the organism is built upon them, and even a small change in their character can result in disaster later. It would hardly be adaptive for a bird to grow a longer beak, for example, if it lost its tongue in the process.

The earliest stages of the embryos life, therefore, are essentially “locked in,” whereas cells and tissues that are produced later can change more freely without harming the organism. As species with common ancestors evolve over time, divergent sets of successful evolutionary changes accumulate as development proceeds, but early embryos stick more closely to their original appearance.

(Joseph S. Levine & Kenneth R. Miller, Biology: Discovering Life, pg. 162 [2nd Ed., D.C. Heath, 1994])

Miller was clearly promoting Haeckel’s famous idea that ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny, as he argues that “the embryological development of an individual repeats its species’ evolutionary history,” and that animals evolve by simply tacking on new stages of development to old ones, which are locked in.

Before Darwinists object by claiming that Miller is merely discussing the history of evolutionary thought and the views of "Darwin's contemporaries," I point out two important facts:

(1) The quoted text comes from a section titled "DATA SUPPORTING THE FACT OF EVOLUTIONARY CHANGE" (emphasis in original) and a sub-section titled "Similarities in Anatomy and Development." (pg. 162)

(2) There is no indication anywhere in the text that any of these ideas are wrong or that they are no longer believed. The reader is left with the distinct and unambiguous impression that this is how vertebrate development works.

It seems that Darwinists like Olson are simply wrong to argue that these drawings and ideas have not been promoted in modern textbooks. As one example, keep in mind that during the Dover trial, Miller testified that at its peak usage, students in "more than 200 colleges and universities around the country" read his early textbooks like this one. (Day 1 am testimony, pg. 41) Yet Darwinists are now denying that any of the ideas in these textbooks, shown here before your very eyes, have ever been promoted in modern textbooks.

Posted by Casey Luskin at 12:05 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Readers of Evolution News and Views will no doubt be familiar with the decision by Gregory L. Geoffroy, the president of Iowa State University, to deny tenure to Dr. Guillermo Gonzalez, an assistant professor and pro-I.D astronomer. It is obvious that Dr. Gonzalez, who was extraordinarily qualified for tenure, was denied tenure because of his pro-I.D. views.

One hundred and twenty Iowa State faculty members signed a petition denouncing Dr. Gonzalez’ viewpoints, and he was opposed by his department chairman and several faculty members who have made their bias against intelligent design scientists clear in public statements.

Ironically, we owe much of our modern understanding of the universe to pro-intelligent design astronomers. Georges Lemaitre was the astrophysicst who pioneered the Big Bang Theory. Fr. Lemaitre (above, with Einstein) was a Belgian Roman Catholic priest, honorary prelate, and a professor of physics and astronomy. He famously described the moment of the Big Bang as “the day without yesterday”, referring to the first day of creation in Genesis, and he was explicit in his belief in the evidence for God’s design in the universe. His Big Bang theory met with considerable opposition because of its religious implications.

Would a young Georges Lemaitre get tenure at Iowa State today?

The bias against Dr. Gonzalez has made it clear that scientists who think that there is evidence for design in the universe need not apply for tenure at Iowa State University. That would mean that Fr. Lemaitre, not to mention Nicholas Copernicus (a Catholic cleric), Galileo (a devout Catholic who saw the cosmos as God’s handiwork), Albert Einstein ("I believe in Spinoza's God who reveals himself in the orderly harmony of what exists…” ) , Arthur Stanley Eddington (pioneer astrophysicist and devout Quaker), and countless other physicists and astronomers who have explicitly acknowledged that they see intelligent design in the universe just don’t pass Iowa State’s ideological litmus test.

Dr. Gonzalez, by believing that there is evidence for intelligent design in the universe, is in very good company. It seems that scientists like Dr. Gonzalez and Fr. Lemaitre who see design in the universe are persona non-grata on Iowa State’s faculty.

Please contact Iowa State University President Gregory L. Geoffroy (515-294 -2042 or president@iastate.edu) and ask him to reverse his decision to deny Dr. Gonzalez tenure. Iowa State should foster integrity and scholarship, not ideological bigotry, in science.

Posted by Michael Egnor at 12:05 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Fundamental to the argument of many Darwinists against intelligent design theory in biology is the assertion that design in biology is undetectable. Darwinists argue that biological design is undetectable because, while we have experience with ‘designers’ in archeology, forensic science, etc., we have no experience with designers in biology, and thus cannot reliably detect the work of a biological designer. Intelligent design proponents reply that there are reliable criteria that indicate design, regardless of whether we have actual knowledge of the designer.

Without doubt, the detection of design is of primary importance in many fields of science, such as archeology, forensic science, cryptography, and bioterrorism. And the detection of design is at least theoretically possible even if we have no experience with the designer. The design inference is the scientific basis for the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, in which investigators search for signal patterns that imply intelligent agency amid the dense background of naturally occurring signals in the cosmos. Despite our lack of experience with extraterrestrial intelligence, we assume, reasonably, that we could detect at least some design in signals sent from intelligent agents.

In the field of archeology, a remarkable discovery has shed light on the scientific validity of the inference to design when we have no knowledge of the designer. In 1900, divers exploring a 1st century B.C. shipwreck off the Greek island of Antikythera found a coral-encrusted device the size of a small laptop computer that was clearly part of the 2000 year-old ship’s cargo. Further examination of this device, called the Antikythera mechanism, including x-ray and CT studies, shows it to be a remarkable assembly of precisely designed gears. Many scientists believe that it was a device for predicting eclipses and planetary motion, but its precise function is still a mystery. Its resemblance to an analog computer is striking (an x-ray image is shown above). Archeologists believe that the technology to produce such a device didn’t emerge until at least the 14th century A.D. They have no evidence as to who designed it, and no evidence even of who could have designed it. Yet the inference to design is obvious, and no archeologist doubts that it is a designed artifact. Design can be inferred from an artifact alone, regardless of the obscurity or the implausibility of a designer.

Living things are full of nanotechnology that greatly exceeds the complexity and the specificity of the Antikythera mechanism. In any other field of science, such technology would be recognized as the product of intelligent design. The Darwinian mechanism of random mutation and natural selection has never been shown experimentally to be capable of producing such remarkable specified complexity. Although the philosophical implications of the design inference in biology are profound in comparison with the implications of the design inference in the Antikythera mechanism, we can infer design in both situations. The reverse engineering approaches to studying the Antikythera mechanism can be applied to biology as well.

Although we have no direct scientific knowledge of the designers of either the Antikythera mechanism or of the nanotechnology in living cells, the inference to design, by analogy to modern human design, is reasonable and is valid scientific methodology.

Posted by Michael Egnor at 2:10 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

He's a young astronomer with dozens of articles in top journals; he has made an important discovery in the field of extrasolar planets; and he is a proponent of intelligent design, the idea that an intelligent force has shaped the Universe. It's that last fact that Guillermo Gonzalez thinks has cost him his tenure at Iowa State University.

Gonzalez's early career was far from controversial. He graduated with a PhD from the University of Washington, Seattle, in 1993 and did a postdoc at the University of Texas in Austin. "He proved himself very quickly," says David Lambert, director of the university's MacDonald Observatory. He and Gonzalez co-authored several papers on variable stars, and Lambert says that while there, the young Cuban immigrant was an impressive scientist. "He is one of the best postdocs I have had," he says.

Unfortunately, some scientists are quite proud to support the dogmatic trampling of Gonzalez's academic freedom at Iowa State University (ISU).

"I would have voted to deny him tenure," says Robert Park, a physicist at the University of Maryland in College Park. "He has established that he does not understand the scientific process."

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Action Item
Help Guillermo Gonzalez in his fight for academic freedom. Contact ISU President Gregory L. Geoffroy at (515) 294-2042 or email him at president@iastate.edu and let him know that you support academic freedom for Dr. Gonzalez to follow the evidence wherever it leads.

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"We were starting to see Iowa State mentioned as a place where intelligent-design research was happening," says Hector Avalos, a religious-studies professor who helped lead the signature drive. "We wanted to make sure that people knew the university does not support intelligent design." Avalos adds that they did not name Gonzalez directly, and he takes no position on the astronomer's tenure.

"There is a pattern happening to everybody who's pro intelligent design," says one pro-design biologist, who declined to be named because his own tenure process has just begun. "The same thing could happen to me," he says. "I don't want to get into trouble."

Eli Rosenberg, who chairs Iowa State's physics department, concedes that Gonzalez's belief in intelligent design did come up during the tenure process. "I'd be a fool if I said it was not [discussed]," he says.

But not all scientists agree. "Nothing I have seen in his refereed papers leads me to believe his beliefs are impinging on his science," says David Lambert. "I would have said he was a serious tenure candidate."

UPDATE 4:25PM PST:
Dr. Gonzalez is out of the country speaking at a university but was reached via e-mail today with news about the Nature article. He responded as follows:

The reporter is not correct to say that I am appealing on the grounds of my religious belief. That is absolutely false. I specifically told a representative of the President's office last week that I am not appealing the tenure decision on the grounds of religious discrimination.

Regarding the second quote [that "He considers himself a 'sceptic' of Darwin, and says that his Christianity helps him to understand Earth's position in the Universe"], it is not something I said. I said something like, "ID research can have positive religious implications". The way he phrased it, it might be interpreted to mean that I employ my Christian beliefs to force fit the data into a Christian mold. My ID research is strictly based on observations; it does not depend on any religious assumptions, Christian or otherwise. Neither do we discuss religious aspects in our Privileged Planet book.

Posted by Robert Crowther at 12:17 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

In my previous post on bloggers who were intolerant of ID-proponents in the academy, I highlighted University of Minnesota biologist P.Z. Myers’ admission that, "if someone comes up [for tenure] who claims that ID 'theory' is science, I will vote against them." But Myers isn’t the only example; other influential Darwinist scientists and other academics have made similar comments. Jason Rosenhouse, assistant professor of mathematics at James Madison University, asks, if we "assume that Gonzalez's ID advocacy played a significant role in the school's decision," then "[i]s that a bad thing?" His answer is clear: "No, it isn't." Rosenhouse explains how he believes it is reasonable to be intolerant of ID-proponents in the academy:

In my view it is perfectly appropriate to deny tenure to someone you reasonably believe is going to devote much of his career to the professional advocacy of pseudoscience.

Indeed, Dr. Rosenhouse displays no real commitment to academic freedom. He refers to academic freedom as "a vague notion" that probably doesn't apply to non-tenured faculty because "[t]he whole point of tenure is to give you academic freedom … You have to earn academic freedom ... by not spending your pre-tenure years aligning yourself with groups hostile to the sort of work your department does." In his view, academic freedom is gained by agreeing with the establishment. (Note: Evidently the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) disagrees with Rosenhouse: "During the probationary period a teacher should have the academic freedom that all other members of the faculty have." (AAUP Policy Tenth Ed.2 10/26/06).)

But Rosenhouse suggests that if you happen to come to a conclusion in your work that is unpopular among your department, you do not have the freedom to remain as an academic. If that view isn't a little disturbing, consider how Rosenhouse explicitly states that there should be no academic freedom when "your opinions are so at odds with the facts or your arguments are so easily refuted that no abstract principle can or should protect you." What Rosenhouse is saying is that academic freedom grants merely the freedom to generally agree with everyone else in your department. Is that really "freedom"?

Admitting Intolerance, But Not Justifying It
Another influential Darwinist, blogger Ed Brayton, has himself acknowledged that anti-ID viewpoints very likely negatively impact ID-proponents during tenure evaluations, admitting, “My point is not that ID didn't have anything to do with being denied tenure; it may well have had quite a bit to do with him being denied tenure. … Publicly espousing an idea rejected by 99% of those in your field is almost certainly going to have an effect on how your colleagues view you…" (emphasis added)

In the same discussion, North Carolina State University biologist Reed Cartwright justified viewpoint discrimination against ID proponents by stating, “I think it is reasonable to hypothesize that Gonzalez's connection to the Discovery Institute did him no favors. If there were any faculty members, who were knowledgeable about Behe and Lehigh, they might have formed the opinion that granting tenure to Gonzalez was risky.” Brayton and Cartwright have accurately described the fact that intolerant behavior weighs heavily during tenure evaluations, but have they actually justified this behavior?

Fortunately, the constricted view of academic freedom favored by these Darwinists has not been adopted in the official standards at Iowa State University. In fact, ISU is supposed to uphold a strong commitment to academic freedom, as its faculty handbook claims that academic freedom is “the freedom … to explore all avenues of scholarship, research, and creative expression” and ISU claims that “[a]cademic freedom is the foundation of the university because it encourages and guarantees the right to inquiry, discourse, and learning that characterize a community of scholars.” (emphasis added)

Apparently this "foundation of the university" does not truly matter to some leading and influential Darwinist academics.

Posted by Casey Luskin at 11:19 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

At the heart of the attacks on Iowa State University astronomer Guillermo Gonzalez is the book The Privileged Planet, which he co-authored with Jay Richards. We now know that Gonzalez's authorship of this book played a role in his denial of tenure. It also provoked more than 120 of Gonzalez's faculty colleagues to sign a petition in 2005 denouncing intelligent design and urging all other faculty members to do the same. Ironically, the book has garnered praise from an impressive list of scientists, including some prominent supporters of biological evolution. Consider just a few of The Privileged Planet's endorsements and ask yourself whether the ideas raised in this book presented any kind of valid reason for removing Gonzalez from his university:

Is our universe a blind concatenation of atoms, evolution a random walk across a meaningless landscape, and our sense of purpose a pathetic shield against a supremely indifferent world? Or does the universe and our place within it click into place, repeatedly? These starkly different views open up immense metaphysical and theological questions, and at least part of the answer must come from science and the unfolding triumphs of cosmology, astronomy, and evolution.

In a book of magnificent sweep and daring Guillermo Gonzalez and Jay Richards drive home the arguments that the old cliché of no place like home is eerily true of Earth. Not only that, but if the scientific method was to emerge anywhere, the Earth is about as suitable as you can get. Gonzalez and Richards have flung down the gauntlet. Let the debate begin; it is a question that involves us all.
Simon Conway Morris
Professor of Evolutionary Paleobiology, University of Cambridge
Author of Life’s Solution: Inevitable Humans in a Lonely Universe

This thoughtful, delightfully contrarian book will rile up those who believe the ‘Copernican principle’ is an essential philosophical component of modern science. Is our universe designedly congenial to intelligent, observing life? Passionate advocates of the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) will find much to ponder in this carefully documented analysis.
Owen Gingerich
Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
Author of The Book Nobody Read: Chasing the Revolutions of Nicolaus Copernicus

Not only have Guillermo Gonzalez and Jay Richards written a book with a remarkable thesis, they have constructed their argument on an abundance of evidence and with a cautiousness of statement that make their volume even more remarkable. In my opinion, their Privileged Planet deserves very careful attention.
Michael J. Crowe
Cavanaugh Professor Emeritus at the University of Notre Dame
Author of The Extraterrestrial Life Debate 1750-1900

Impressively researched and lucidly written, The Privileged Planet will surely rattle if not finally dislodge a pet assumption held by many interpreters of modern science: the so-called Copernican Principle (which isn’t actually very Copernican!). But Gonzalez and Richards’ argument, though controversial, is so carefully and moderately presented that any reasonable critique of it must itself address the astonishing evidence which has for so long somehow escaped our notice. I therefore expect this book to renew—and to raise to a new level—the whole scientific and philosophic debate about earth’s cosmic significance. It is a high class piece of work that deserves the widest possible audience.
Dennis Danielson
Professor of English, University of British Columbia
Editor, The Book of the Cosmos: Imagining the Universe from Heraclitus to Hawking

In this fascinating and highly original book, Guillermo Gonzalez and Jay Richards advance a persuasive argument, and marshal a wealth of diverse scientific evidence to justify that argument. In the process, they effectively challenge several popular assumptions, not only about the nature and history of science, but also about the nature and origin of the cosmos. The Privileged Planet will be impossible to ignore. It is likely to change the way we view both the scientific enterprise and the world around us. I recommend it highly.
Philip Skell
Evan Pugh Professor Emeritus of Physics, Pennsylvania State University
Member, National Academy of Sciences

This new book is an excellent and timely contribution to the broadening and increasingly important discussion of origins.
Henry F. Schaefer III
Graham Perdue Professor of Chemistry
Director, Center for Computational Quantum Chemistry, University of Georgia
Five-Time Nobel Prize Nominee

Posted by Robert Crowther at 12:05 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

United States Senator and Republican presidential candidate Sam Brownback (R-KS) has issued a forceful statement expressing alarm over the denial of tenure to pro-intelligent design astronomer Guillermo Gonzalez at Iowa State University. According to Sen. Brownback, “such an assault on academic freedom does not bode well for the advancement of true science.”

Obviously, the Gonzalez case is not a partisan issue, and surveys show that the vast majority of Americans of both major parties as well as independents support academic freedom for learning about intelligent design. Let’s hope that officials from across the political spectrum begin standing up for Gonzalez’s academic freedom. Iowa State University is a government-funded institution, and it is ultimately accountable to the taxpayers that fund it as well as the citizens who pay tuition. Thus, it is perfectly appropriate for public officials to express their concern that ISU live up to its own standards of academic freedom as well as the guarantees of the First Amendment.

The full text of Brownback’s statement is reprinted below, taken from Brownback’s website:

Brownback Alarmed by Tenure Denial in Iowa

"Such an assault on academic freedom does not bode well for the advancement of true science."

DES MOINES, Ia— U.S. Senator Sam Brownback, Republican candidate for President, today commented on the denial of tenure to Iowa State University Professor Guillermo Gonzales.

"When I was informed that Professor Guillermo Gonzalez was denied tenure, I was puzzled given his excellent academic record of achievement and faithful service. I understand that now two of Dr. Gonzalez's colleagues have indicated that Gonzalez's interest in intelligent design theory was, at least in part, responsible for this denial of tenure. This is rather alarming."

Dr. Guillermo Gonzalez is currently an Assistant Professor of Astronomy at Iowa State University, and has authored more than 65 scientific papers and articles. Dr. Gonzalez developed the concept of the Galactic Habitable Zone and co-authored "The Privileged Planet: How Our Place in the Cosmos is Designed for Discovery, which was published in 2004." The Privileged Planet provides scientific evidence for intelligent design theory, which challenges neo-Darwinism's claim that the development of the universe is the result of an unpredictable and purposeless process. Intelligent design theory rather explores recent discoveries in the fields of physics, cosmology, biochemistry, genetics, and paleontology that logically point to an intelligent cause in the development of life and the cosmos.

Brownback continued, "Observation, testing, and the development of reasonable hypotheses have long been integral to good science. Scholars, such as Professor Guillermo Gonzales, ought not to be intimidated nor silenced by those in the academic community who would rather dismiss a well-reasoned hypothesis than debate it on its merits. Such an assault on academic freedom does not bode well for the advancement of true science."

Posted by John West at 1:37 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

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Action Item: Help Guillermo Gonzalez in his fight for academic freedom. Contact ISU President Gregory L. Geoffroy at (515) 294-2042 or email him at president@iastate.edu and let him know that you support academic freedom for Dr. Gonzalez to follow the evidence wherever it leads.

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This week McCarroll is being quoted in the Chronicle of Higher Education asserting that "Tenure review only deals with his [Gonzalez’s] work since he came to Iowa State."

Wrong again. There is nothing in ISU’s applicable tenure standards that says that articles published prior to coming to ISU somehow don’t count. (By the way, even if McCaroll’s claim happened to be true, it shouldn’t matter, because Gonzalez has produced 21 peer-reviewed journal articles since coming to ISU, which is still significantly more than the 15 peer-reviewed articles that are supposed to demonstrate research excellence in his department). ISU is obviously getting desperate in its effort to discredit Gonzalez. If I were in their shoes, I guess I would be too. How do you defend the denial of tenure to someone who has produced 68 peer-reviewed journal articles, exceeding by 350% his own department’s standard for excellence in research needed for tenure?

Yesterday we sent an e-mail to Mr. McCarroll asking him to justify his latest bogus claim by citing for us the applicable language in the Faculty Handbook or departmental tenure standards. He has not responded.

Posted by John West at 11:59 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (1)

While Iowa State University denied tenure this spring to gifted pro-ID astronomer Guillermo Gonzalez, it turns out that it decided at the same time to promote to full professor outspoken atheist Hector Avalos, religious studies professor and faculty adviser to the ISU Atheist and Agnostic Society. Avalos has led the charge against Gonzalez and intelligent design on ISU's campus, helping to draft a 2005 petition denouncing intelligent design that ultimately was signed by more than 120 ISU faculty.

Apparently ISU professors who are horrified by the supposed mixing of metaphysics and scholarship on the part of ID proponents have no qualms about supporting Avalos's explicit anti-religious propaganda, including his effort to equate the Bible with Hitler's Mein Kampf (for more on Avalos's view of the Bible, see below). It is worth pointing out that ISU issued a press release a few years ago boasting about Avalos's appointment as the executive director of a group affiliated with the Council for Secular Humanism that seeks to debunk religion.

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]

As if these statements were not enough, Prof. Avalos has equated creationism with Nazism, denounced religion-inspired acts of love, and even suggested that we "eliminate religion from human life altogether":

"Nazi ideology is similar to creationist ideology, which believes that scientific findings support the biblical stories of Creation and the Flood." [p. 318]

"any act of love based on religion is immoral." [p. 369]

"Mother Teresa... advocated policies that helped to generate the very pool of poor people she was attempting to help. Religious beliefs are largely responsible for arguments against contraception, which helps to perpetuate poverty and conflicts over scarce resources. So in the end, did Mother Teresa help more people than were harmed by her religious belief?" [p. 370]

"until the Abrahamic religions overthrow the master-slave model in which they were born, we see little progress to be made. Since all religious beliefs are ultimately unverifiable, the greatest scarce resource of all is verifiability. And one way to remedy or minimize unverifiability in any decision-making process, especially that leading to violence, is to eliminate religion from human life altogether." [p. 371, emphasis added]

Iowa taxpayers can be relieved to know that ISU is making sure their tax dollars will be spent on worthy scholars like Prof. Avalos rather than disreputable astronomers like Dr. Gonzalez.

Posted by John West at 1:42 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

An article today by Chronicle of Higher Education reporter Richard Monastersky reveals new evidence that further strengthens the case that pro-ID astronomer Guillermo Gonzalez was denied tenure at Iowa State University on illegitimate grounds, although Monastersky does his best to downplay the evidence through spin and speculation.

According to Monastersky, data from a prestigious Smithsonian/NASA astrophysics database show that Gonzalez has the highest rating for citations to his work of anyone in his department: “Mr. Gonzalez has a normalized h-index of 13,” the second highest in his department. The fact that Gonzalez—an Assistant Professor—is ranked higher than almost every other member of his department, including full tenured professors, is incredible.

Even the originator of the h-index rating (physicist Jorge Hirsch) concedes the point: “Under normal circumstances, Mr. Gonzalez's publication record would be stellar and would warrant his earning tenure at most universities, according to Mr. Hirsch.” (emphasis added) Hirsch's assessment especially would seem to be true at a university like ISU, where the approval rate for tenure applications was 91% in 2007!

But then comes the spin.

Although Hirsch acknowledges “he has not studied Mr. Gonzalez's work in detail and is not an expert on his tenure case,” that doesn’t stop him from ill-informed speculation: “It's not clear that he started new things, or anything on his own, in the period he was an assistant professor at Iowa State." (How the heck would Hirsch know, if "he has not studied Mr. Gonzalez's work in detail"?) The same kind of speculation is offered by David L. Lambert, who supervised some of Gonzalez’s postdoctoral work in the 1990s, and admits that it was good. But he adds that "I don't know what else he has done” (emphasis added) since arriving at Iowa State. So now professed ignorance of Gonzalez’s work is apparently considered adequate grounds for dismissing it.

Buried in Monastersky’s article is additional information that places these attacks on Gonzalez in a different light:

Mr. Gonzalez's publication record, however, does list 21 papers since 2002, many in top journals. "It looks to me like discrimination," said one astronomer, who did not want to be named, fearing a backlash for speaking up in favor of an intelligent-design proponent. "They can't say that he doesn't have a decent publication record, because he absolutely does," said the astronomer of Mr. Gonzalez's scholarship.

Mr. Gonzalez also published a textbook, through Cambridge University Press, that is being used by other faculty members in the department.

In other words, even if one counts only the articles Gonzalez has published since 2002 (the year after he came to ISU), he still has produced significantly more papers than the 15 needed to fulfill