Reform & Revive

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…maybe I’ll post my final paper (due this Friday!!!).

I thank Whit for leading us off here at R&R. I think it rather appropriate for us to start off in humility, understanding that God far surpasses our ability to fully comprehend His nature and ways. What we have comes from revelation in the Scriptures and the words that the Spirit moves on our hearts and minds. I simply want to pick up on some thoughts from “I am who I am” and add in some more general ideas floating through my mind right now. I want to briefly unpack that word “knowledge,” focusing on how it relates to faith and our own ideas of R&R’s mission. This will virtually be a copy and paste job from a recent post on my own blog (see the list of contributors for a link):

Tonight, I attended a performance of “Rebirth of a Nation,” a film created by Paul Miller (aka DJ Spooky) that seeks to deconstruct and remix the 1915, W.D. Griffith film, “Birth of a Nation,” a highly acclaimed cinematic venture and historical one of the most controversial films in America. The film led off with a clip of two gentlemen sitting down, each smoking a cigarette and talking about the original film, “Birth of a Nation.” The gentlemen to the left of the frame asked the other man, Griffith himself, creator of the film, “Do you believe ‘Birth of a Nation’ to be truth?” It is what Griffith responded with, what was later affirmed by Paul Miller, that has me most irked and desperate to release these thoughts. Griffith quoted Pontius Pilate’s words to Jesus before allowing him to be crucified, “What is truth?” (John 18:38). This question is the central question of postmodernism as well. What is tragically ironic about Pilate’s statement was that he was looking at Truth. One of the great mysteries of the Christian faith is that Truth is not a set of principles, or morals, or facts to be ascertained; Truth is a person, Jesus Christ. That is not something that can just filed away–that is a thought that begs for contemplation and that ultimately humbles this college student holding knowledge as supreme, and yet constantly mistakes knowledge in the heart with mental propositions. God truly surpasses any attempt by such a finite being to comprehend without revelation. Oh, how far has cultural Christianity erred from this awe-inspiring, jaw-dropping idea into morality!?!

Our American culture has a habit of ridiculing the French, but I think their language (among others) has more to offer in terms of expression, especially when it comes to types of knowledge. In the English language, we are limited to the phrase “I know this/that,” but in French (and Spanish and other non-English languages), there are distinctive meanings to “knowledge” — savoir and connaitre. Savoir refers to knowing “something,” some fact, or how to do something. Connaitre is used when someone knows someone else, another person. Did I get a stellar score on the AP French exam in high school–no! But I think this distinction has actually been the most valuable piece of knowledge I have received from those required language classes. It is a distinction that many of us, me being the worst, fail to understand in the way we approach our faith! Knowing God is about connaitre, not savoir. But in our Western “enlightened” culture, we continually think of our faith by way of savoir. As if knowing enough scripture or reading numerous “Christian” texts gives eternal life. What we need is to know (connaitre) a person, or rather Three Persons in One, the Holy Trinity. Jesus explains the difference to the Jews around him at the time [John 5:39-40]:

You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me, yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life.

Study without prayer (a common pattern in my life) becomes a shallow intellectual pursuit. Jesus shows the futility in pursuit for that knowledge. My hope is not (well should not be) founded on a scientific proof of God, but rather the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, son of God the Father. How often have I reduced my “relationship” with Christ to some combination lock of scripture and pedantic intellectualism?? The knowledge that God speaks of is always a matter of the heart!

My prayer for both us as contributors and for any and all that may comprise our audience is that we would be firmly resolved to proclaim Christ as supreme in all things. I pray that we would have a conviction that the all of the Scriptures testify to Christ, with his name exalted from Genesis to Revelation. For those of you that have not come to know the Lord, I pray that you would not see these words as another argument, but rather a humble attempt to contextualize the Scriptures to our current moment. At the end of the day, our hope is that you would have a real encounter with the God of the Universe and come to know the indescribable love of Christ in your heart.

This is not about more book knowledge to file away somewhere, this is about knowing Christ intimately.

~Stephen Hess