For my term paper in RELG 362: Religion and Its Critics, I (as mentioned in an earlier post) am writing about the controversy over Iowa State University’s decision to deny tenure to Assistant Professor of Astronomy, Dr. Guillermo Gonzalez, who supports Intelligent Design. The paper will not (at least at the moment) come down on a particular side, but instead will discuss the relationship between intelligent design supporters, namely the Discovery Institute, and “modern” naturalistic science within academia.

Intelligent Design theory suggests that the biological aspects of life are too complex to have evolved randomly, but must have been produced by an unidentified (supernatural) intelligence. Contemporary Intelligent Design is an extension of the teleological argument for the existence of God, asserted by William Paley’ in his “watchmaker analogy” found in Natural Theology (1802).

The controversy–this potential “intellectual mccarthyism” (this is not my “official” stance on the situation, but an interesting statement that I have read recently)–does not merely stem from Dr. Gonzalez pro-ID stance, but also his expertise in his field of study, Astronomy. This would not be such an issue if Dr. Gonzalez was not so learned in the discipline. Dr. Gonzalez has the highest ranking among the entire I.S.U. faculty, according to the Smithsonian/NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS), which calculates the scientific impact of scientists in astronomy. The ranking system is devised on how much a scientist impacts other colleagues’ research. The more times a person’s papers are cited in other scientific articles or research, the more weight that person receives. The citation index is normalized so there is a greater weight placed on papers that have a single author as opposed to several. Based on 2001-2007 publications, Dr. Gonzalez received a 143 on the normalized index. The next closest I.S.U. professor staff has a score of 103, and the next best tenured astronomer scored 68.

The Discovery Institutes website quotes Dr. John West, associate director of the Center for Science and Culture (CSC) saying, “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.”

Gonzalez, who has written 68 peer-reviewed journals (53 more than the 15 required by his department to meet its standard of excellence in research) does not teach ID in class, however, and that it is purely outside research.

Well, I previously mentioned that I would not come down on a particular side, but it seems that I have–with substantial empirical evidence of his contribution to astronomy.

On June 1, 2007, Gregory Geoffroy, President of Iowa State University, rejected Gonzalez’s appeal and upheld the denial of tenure. In making this decision, Geoffroy states that he “specifically considered refereed publications, [Gonzalez's] level of success in attracting research funding and grants, the amount of telescope observing time he had been granted, the number of graduate students he had supervised, and most importantly, the overall evidence of future career promise in the field of astronomy” and that Gonzalez “simply did not show the trajectory of excellence that we expect in a candidate seeking tenure in physics and astronomy — one of our strongest academic programs.” Geoffroy noted, “Over the past 10 years, four of the 12 candidates who came up for review in the physics and astronomy department were not granted tenure.”Gonzalez appealed to the Iowa Board of Regents and the board affirmed the decision on February 7, 2008.

This should be an interesting situation to research.

[Contributed by Stephen Hess]

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