More On Subjectivity and Tenure
by MikeGeneBiologist PZ Myers has told us that the decision to grant tenure is "a subjective evaluation of the compatibility of the individual with the other scholars of the department" and we have seen that many people from academia agree. In fact, several critics from academia have noted that Guillermo Gonzalez's ID views probably did, or should have, played a role in preventing him from getting tenure. Now, even more academic critics of ID have echoed these same themes. At this point, this issue has become larger than Guillermo Gonzalez's situation, so it won't matter when the official reasons for denial are eventually supplied. What matters is that the academics have gone on record and given you a peek behind the closed doors and how they would handle someone who took ID seriously.
Don't get distracted by the attempts to knock-down the conspiracy and persecution claims because in doing so, the academics give you more valuable information. Keep your eye on the ball and note that as in the previous posting, these academics are telling you that a) the tenure process is subjective and/or b) Gonzalez's ID views should have prevented him from getting tenure.
Plenty of extraordinary people get denied tenure. A very good professor of mine was denied tenure a while back, despite a publication record far beyond what was required, grant support, etc. Why was it denied? In part, because he didn't come to department luncheons. And that was a legitimate reason to deny him tenure! To get tenure, you need to demonstrate not just that you can publish papers, but that you'll be valuable member of the University community. Because he was someone who kept himself in extreme isolation – he taught his classes, kept office hours and and met with his graduate students, but aside from those, no one ever saw him. He didn't interact with other faculty, didn't participate in any of the faculty committees, etc. So despite an outstanding publication record, advising a half-dozen PhD students who had successfully defended, and bringing in enough money in grants to more than cover his entire salary plus several students, he was denied tenure for being antisocial.
That's the way things go.
I know of two other people who were faculty at an Ivy League University. A group of faculty in the department wanted to hire people who did work in a particular specialty. But the department chair thought that work in that specialty was garbage. So one of the two guys I know was hired, stayed for 6 years, published out the wazoo, and was denied tenure because the department chair didn't like his research area. So the faculty hired *another* person in that area, who stayed for 4 years, published like crazy, and left because he'd been told in no uncertain terms that no matter what he did, he wasn't going to get tenure, because the chair didn't like his area.
Unfair? Yes. Legitimate? Yes. That's the way it goes: you can be denied tenure if someone thinks your research area isn't good, even though you publish and bring in money. The people who were wrong in the story above are the ones who keep hiring people that they *know* haven't got a chance of getting tenure.
I don't know why Gonzalez didn't get tenure. But this endless conspiracy ranting is nonsense. Tenure is a crap-shoot – to get tenure, you need to have the right publications, the right funding, the right research area, the right relations with other members of the university community, etc. Gonzalez clearly didn't have the right relations with the university community, and if the paranoid rantings of his supporters are any reflection of his own attitude, I wouldn't be surprised if he had a serious problem getting along with the other members of his department. Here
I have no idea whether Professor Gonzalez deserved tenure on the basis of his performance to date, but I think it is reasonable to deny tenure on the basis of a prediction that he will continue to be an embarrassment to the university. Try this thought experiment: In the original essay and in every comment above, replace the words "intelligent design" with the word "astrology" and see what you get. Here
My best guess is that the university had reason to believe that his pseudoscience was going to contaminate his science or it may have already done so. The risk here is that you end up with a wingnut babbling incoherently…..who has tenure. Much harder to fix later on and a black eye for the university. Tenure is not where one wants to take a risk. Here
And even if his peers at ISU decided he didn't deserve tenure because of his pro-ID ideas, that's not a conspiracy against ID, it's called the sensible protection of the university's reputation by members of the faculty. It would be perfectly justified, in my opinion, to block someone from getting tenure over their ID stance in a science department, because ID isn't science. It's an effort to undermine science. It's denialism. Here
With regards to Prof. Gonzalezs' quaint beliefs in ID, there is every incentive to deny tenure for individuals suspected of incipient nuttery so that one doesn't later end up with whackjobs who can only be fired with extreme difficulty and who are an embarrassment to the university. Consider the following individuals. Here
Obviously, part of the tenure decision is political as well, with considerations made regarding whether or not a person would just fit in with the institution and whatnot, so beliefs enter into that as well. Here
May 15th, 2007 at 4:03 pm
These suggest that if you want to make your cranky hobby a big part of your academic career, it would be best to wait until after you are tenured. Prior to tenure, you should probably concentrate on a legitimate academic field, and make sure you bring in some grant money.
Comment by Aagcobb — May 15, 2007 @ 4:03 pm
May 15th, 2007 at 4:14 pm
In other words, hide your interest in a Trojan horse?
Comment by Krauze — May 15, 2007 @ 4:14 pm
May 15th, 2007 at 4:20 pm
Hi Krauze,
If you spend all day on your job playing at your hobbies, you can generally expect to be fired. Part of Gonzalez's job was to obtain research grant money. I have read (though I can't confirm) that he failed to do so. Maybe if he did his job, he would've gotten tenure. Once you have tenure, you can pretty much do what you want.
Comment by Aagcobb — May 15, 2007 @ 4:20 pm
May 15th, 2007 at 4:21 pm
This whole thing illustrates something interesting I think.
Fair enough if they want to deny Dr Gonzales tenure because they don't like him. This is apparently entirely legitimate. Ok how it goes.
But I suspect in the long run such actions will just continue to show up the irrelevance of many of the universities and what they teach. After all, look at the humanities departments in universities, plagued by ideological correctness and tenure decisions made on those grounds, and the general rampant idiocy that is so popular in those place. I mean does anybody else apart from tenured academics and their ill educated peons take marxism seriously anymore ?
I guess the sciences are going the way of the humanities.
Comment by thesciphishow — May 15, 2007 @ 4:21 pm
May 15th, 2007 at 4:24 pm
Aagcobb, you evidently think you have made a point here and you have but it is not what you intend. Guillermo Gonzalez is a legitimate scholar and whether or not the capacity to secure sufficient funding was the actual reason for not granting tenure remains to be determined. The actual data used by Gonzalez (and many if not most IDists) is not controversial. The fine tuning argument, which is the most commonly used one to support a cosmological ID inference AFAIK, relies on solid data. Opponents of Gonzalez's scientific arguments (I'll exclude Avalos who argues from a religious basis) do not dispute the data underlying his arguments, for the most part. However, they do dispute secondary interpretations based on the data. What this should indicate to you is that the practice of real science is not affected by secondary arguments of interpretation. If you understand that then you will realize the true source of your own disaffection with Gonzalez et. al.
Comment by Bradford — May 15, 2007 @ 4:24 pm
May 15th, 2007 at 4:26 pm
Not if you are an attorney.:mrgreen:
Comment by Bradford — May 15, 2007 @ 4:26 pm
May 15th, 2007 at 4:42 pm
I have been saying for a long time: the battle ground over ID is immensely larger than the public school issue. It involves issues with academic freedom and persecution of students and faculty. The public school issue, Dover, Kansas were only a part of the story. The "post-wedge" world has revealed where the real cultural battle ground is.
In my dialogues with my ID comrades throughout the land, the public school issue was only part of the story. What has weighed more on the hearts and minds of my circles are people like Gonzalez and the plight of students and faculty under threat to persecution and intimidation and their lack of access to ID materials.
We don't know for a fact that ID was the deciding factor in Gonzalez case, but many ID proponents trying to move into academia would surely be discouraged to speak their conscience freely.
ID may have to prosper outside of academia. I feel sorry however that the institutions of higher learning in the USA are infested favoritism and closed mindedness rather than places for the exploration of ideas.
Maybe a university's role is evolving. Maybe the idea of tenure is antiquated. That discussion is something I cannot speak to. Secular institutions are compromising their ability to recruit and retain top talent when they are dismissive of individuals because of the individuals perceived religious views.
The kind of ID that Gonzalez has promoted is exactly the kind Francis Collins and Charles Townes are comfortable with and have themselves promoted. What a loss for ISU if Gonzalez is not retained.
If a large amount of basic scientific research is now being done outside of universities, maybe that's a good thing, especially if universities are becoming infested with closed minded favortism.
The critics are undoing the post-wedge world. They are proving that ID was not really about public schools only, but they are showing that ID really was a hypothesis which sincere scientists were willing explore and willing to pay a high price to defend.
Nick Matzke and friends couldn't have done a better job at blinding themselves to the truth of what ID was really about.
Comment by Salvador T. Cordova — May 15, 2007 @ 4:42 pm
May 15th, 2007 at 5:16 pm
It's what we suspected all along.
Basically, most science departments in America have become so corrupted by their metaphysical belief systems that they are utterly incapable of giving any non-reductionistic, non-materialistic, or teleological possibilities the most basic sort of a fair hearing.
It's time to stop trying to break the doors down and build our own fort to play in. The wiser of them are well aware of how blind and corrupt their institutions are, and will come to pay attention to what honest, sincere, and careful people are doing outside of the cul-de-sac of "official science".
Comment by mcromer — May 15, 2007 @ 5:16 pm
May 15th, 2007 at 5:31 pm
Salvador,
You give them too much credit. "Academia" is a club of overgrown children who fight over the right to spend other people's money. Decisions on who to mentor as a grad student, who gets their doctorate, who gets hired to faculty and who should receive tenure are based on politics, whose back gets scratched and whose back gets a dagger.
People like Galileo, Newton, Einstein, and the like engaged in science because they loved to learn and contribute. Nowadays, that takes fifth place behind prestige, tenure, recognition, and grant money.
They have prostituted themselves and the truth in exchange for a pocket full of trinkets and control of institutions. And the wisest of them can see what their institutions have become.
Academic freedom belongs to the men and women brave enough to bid a hearty "f*** that" to the game of whoring themselves out to that system. We don't need any of that to perform science. And anyone who kowtows to a particular set of credentials or fancy robes as being a "scientific authority" has simply reinvented dogmatic authoritarian beliefs.
We don't need PeeZee or Richard Dawkins or any of the rest of them to investigate reality carefully, systematically, and uncover what is real. Yes, it's nice to have a feather-bedded tenured sinecure provided at taxpayer expense. But not necessary to conduct science. It's time for those of us who are not dogmatic knee-jerk reductionistic atelic atheists to stop whining and stop wishing they would choose us for their softball team, and start stepping up to the plate and building our own team.
Comment by mcromer — May 15, 2007 @ 5:31 pm
May 15th, 2007 at 5:33 pm
Yes, damn straight.
Comment by mcromer — May 15, 2007 @ 5:33 pm
May 15th, 2007 at 5:59 pm
:=)
I will say it's heartening to see the volume of scientific advancement happening outside of academia. Can we say Bell Labs, General Electric, Merck, Pfizer, NIH, NASA, etc. etc. etc….
And of course places like the Discovery Institute and Loma Linda University/Geoscience Research Institute.
Furthermore, if the research has operational benefit (makes real products that make every day life better), this is better than peer review. Heck, in this day and age, if one makes a great discovery, there is at least some incentive not to publish on it but keep it a trade secret. There is tons of real science, some of the best science in the world, which is never published!
I look forward to the day an ID inspired version of Rosetta Genomics will make breakthoughs in biotech.
PS
For the reader's benefit, it would be instructive to see a 10 minute video of the kind of materials the anti-teleologists at ISU found so harmful to students minds! Here is a youtube clip of Gonzalez in his famous video:
Privileged Planet Part V
Comment by Salvador T. Cordova — May 15, 2007 @ 5:59 pm
May 15th, 2007 at 6:28 pm
Sal:
Hi, Sal. I know y'all are mostly a lot younger than me, but academia has been the last bastion of bigots and turf warriors since forever. Meanwhile, out in the real world, an awful lot of research gets done that you may never have heard about, some of it spectacularly well-funded (on the relative scale of how much money's out there in the world).
My father spent thirty years in NIS, and I guarantee they were well-funded. Then he retired, and went right through the revolving door into the 'basement' labs of Corning, Dow, TI, etc., working mostly on the space program before retiring-retiring to GE. He did teach for awhile at The Citadel, and could have gone back to academia when it came time to get out of the Navy, but why would he want to do that if there was a whole world of real applications out there?
I experienced some of the same myself, going with the real applications end and giving up teaching because it's thankless. Could have gone places through those corridors had I not been utterly disgusted with them too. Ran away with the circus instead…
Just to say academia doesn't necessarily house the real movers-shakers, and there are some out there who will forego a Nobel in order to test their theories in very significant ways before they die. All the action isn't in Ivory Towers. Never was… tenure is just a version of retirement if you've nothing more significant to contribute.
Comment by Joy — May 15, 2007 @ 6:28 pm
May 15th, 2007 at 7:26 pm
Just from a human standpoint, what incentive is there to hire people who are radically unlike you? In private industry, it's a matter of necessity. In universities? What's the incentive? I find this perfectly believable.
By way of contrast, in private industry, there is incentive to pool together people despite their differences. Outside of Academia, top scientists found companies like Intel or Applied Materials. Nobel Laureate Shockley helped found silicon Valley and his rebellious proteges founded companies like Intel, National Semiconductor, and Advanced Micro Devices.
Bell Labs has several Nobel Laureates and famous scientists associated with it, including Charles Townes and Claude Shannon.
So, with respect to academia, I find the notion of favoritism as the way to do business perfectly believable. The exceptions would be instances where someone like Claude Shannon or Albert Einstein were independently famous and invited (begged) to become faculty members.
Comment by Salvador T. Cordova — May 15, 2007 @ 7:26 pm
May 15th, 2007 at 10:19 pm
"Biologist PZ Myers has told us that the decision to grant tenure is "a subjective evaluation of the compatibility of the individual with the other scholars of the department" and we have seen that many people from academia agree."
Right. It's called establishment bias.
Fine then. Enough arguing. Let the people who pay the tuitions to this establishment begin to defund them.
Comment by kornbelt888 — May 15, 2007 @ 10:19 pm
May 16th, 2007 at 1:13 am
mcromer:
So, what's stopping you?
Seriously, why don't all the poor wronged academics get together and at least start a refereed journal where they can publish their ID-based research? Do it online and it takes very little money and effort.
I find it really humorous that the religious-minded go around like a persecuted minority because some of their favorite professors can't get tenure. If you haven't noticed, there is a huge body of the religious minded in this country, and a huge infrastructure of institutions that are funded by them. If ID is such a powerful theory of the universe, and is neglected by mainstream institutions, that is a great opportunity for alternatives to pick up the slack. Those could be the more traditional religious instiutions or the new-agey places that you cited earlier. But in any case, there's no lack of opportunity or resources for ID concepts to be developed.
Comment by mtraven — May 16, 2007 @ 1:13 am
May 16th, 2007 at 9:27 am
I'm confused. Why are you asking me this? I just said nothing is stopping anyone, and now you are asking me what is stopping me.
You are just repeating what I said.
There could be a new journal specifically for ID research, or it could be published in some of the existing journals I already mentioned such as the Journal for Scientific Exploration.
There is nothing "new agey" about the Journal of Consciousness studies. It's just a very openminded publication which has published ideas from a broad spectrum of perspectives, from Daniel Dennett to David Chalmers to Rupert Sheldrake.
Precisely what I said.
Comment by mcromer — May 16, 2007 @ 9:27 am
May 16th, 2007 at 9:42 am
Hi kornbelt888,
Absolutely. A person who wants to go into the ID field should defintely apply to or transfer to one of the many christian universities or seminaries where that pov will be embraced. As mcromer, Sal and Joy have pointed out, tenure availability is pretty much irrelevant with all of the research opportunities available to IDists outside of secular academia.
Comment by Aagcobb — May 16, 2007 @ 9:42 am
May 16th, 2007 at 12:53 pm
mcromer wrote:
I find this to be a defeatist attitude. Public institutions like public colleges and universities are just that, public. They don't belong to narrow minded groups with narrow minded agenda's and ideologies, they belong to the citizens of a pluralistic society, which includes both the religious and non-religious. Read the first amendment to the constitution. It says:
That seems to be a pretty broad guarantee protecting not only religious freedom but intellectual freedom (of the speech, press and assembly) in general.
There are those like P.Z. Myers who suggest that it is okay to deny tenure for social or political reasons are way off base here.
As an outsider I don't know why Gonzales was denied tenure. Maybe getting tenure in a scientific field like astronomy is extremely difficult. However, if he was denied tenure because colleauges did not like some of his constitutionally guaranteed religious and/or intellectual beliefs, I believe that we have a serious problem that is very much worth fighting for. Universities are the first place we should expect intellectual openness not the last.
Comment by JOHN_A_DESIGNER — May 16, 2007 @ 12:53 pm
May 16th, 2007 at 12:57 pm
If you genuinely want this, then you will have to wrest control of the science departments away from the science departments and back to the public.
Comment by mcromer — May 16, 2007 @ 12:57 pm
May 16th, 2007 at 1:15 pm
Hi mcromer,
I would suggest passing a law requiring each public university to have a department of pseudoscience, so that the cranks would have somewhere to play with sullying the reputation of the science department.
Comment by Aagcobb — May 16, 2007 @ 1:15 pm
May 16th, 2007 at 1:17 pm
Center it around OOL.:mrgreen:
Comment by Bradford — May 16, 2007 @ 1:17 pm
May 16th, 2007 at 1:27 pm
My personal recommendation is for them to become professionals in industry. If they wish a grad school degree I recommend SECULAR colleges not the insular Christian colleges. Besides, except for a few places like Biola, even Christian colleges like Wheaton, Darwinism is taught. Recall what happened at supposedly Christian colleges like Baylor and SMU.
I suggest they also study a field or study in a department that doesn't require much kissing up to Darwin.
If they are really eager to teach they can get jobs as part-time term or assistant professors.
But back to the topic of subjectivity in Tenure. Many job hiring decisions involve an element of subjectivity. The difference between Tenure and other careers is that the magnitude of the decision is considerably different. A professional in most industries can be let go pretty easily if he doesn't work out.
The whole notion of granting permanent rights to employment for decades seems awfully inefficient and ripe for abuse.
I suppose I personally don't have problems with subjectivity in hiring when we are dealing with private institutions. However, universities receiving public funding, I have major issues as to the kind of subjective criteria that can be permitted. I especailly take issue if the hiring process will tend to recruit professor who will seriously alienate prospective students. That's just plain bad for business!
Comment by Salvador T. Cordova — May 16, 2007 @ 1:27 pm
May 16th, 2007 at 1:36 pm
aagcobb, "Absolutely. A person who wants to go into the ID field should defintely apply to or transfer to one of the many christian universities or seminaries where that pov will be embraced."
I'm not interested in sending good professors to Christians universities. I'm interested in defunding the biased bigots in secular universities out of existence so that good professors don't have to resort to religious universities.
Comment by kornbelt888 — May 16, 2007 @ 1:36 pm
May 16th, 2007 at 2:11 pm
kornbelt888 said
The problem is, kornbelt, that yours is a minority position. An IDist student doesn't have the choice of forcing public universities to fire all the secularists. His choice is to go to a secular university, go to a christian university which embraces IDism, or not go to college at all.
Comment by Aagcobb — May 16, 2007 @ 2:11 pm
May 16th, 2007 at 2:37 pm
Having argued about this topic on the K-12 level (I'm an education major), I'm surprised this hasn't been brought up before now. Many people are against tenure on multiple levels for much the same reason. On the college/university level, it seems to be in part to promote academic development – research and such – one of the things that most instutitions require of their full-time faculty. On the other hand, I'd say that it would be awfully unfair for an academic to put a great deal of satisfactory work forth and receive nothing for it, which is one reason why it seems unfair to deny someone like Gonzalez the promotion and (I can only assume) the pay increase that comes with it. The line of reasoning in response to this seems to be, "Well, tenure isn't always a matter of fairness," which I think lends credence to the idea that it may not be such a great practice after all.
Comment by thechristiancynic — May 16, 2007 @ 2:37 pm
May 16th, 2007 at 3:42 pm
aagcobb, "The problem is, kornbelt, that yours is a minority position. An IDist student doesn't have the choice of forcing public universities to fire all the secularists."
As a non-religious person, myself, I have no desire to fire "all the secularists." I only only want the anti-ID biased bigots fired, those who take a priori philosophical positions and then close their mind like steel traps against anything that conflicts with their notions. I'm not going to pay for it, and I will do my part to help others to wake up to the situation.
I doubt I'm in the minority position. It's only that the majority is uninformed and unorganized. This needs to change. I'm doing my part.
Comment by kornbelt888 — May 16, 2007 @ 3:42 pm
May 16th, 2007 at 3:48 pm
mcromer wrote:
Okay then where do you draw the line? I work in the engineering dept of a private sector, but publicly funded company as a designer. I love science as well as technology, but I also have some very profound religious beliefs. And, while I don't wear my religious beliefs on my sleeve, most people I work with know that I am at least somewhat religious. At present I believe most of my colleagues respect the quality of the work that I do. That has been communicated to me both informally as well as formally as part of my companies annual review process.
Suppose that next week I get a new boss who is personally hostile to organized religion. Suppose that he has the attitude that a person that believes some of the things that I do can not possibly do good work as an engineer. Does he have the right to fire me, or deny me a promotion me for that reason?
Are the only options left open to me Christian engineering firms or companies? Do such sectarian companies exist? Where are they? Think about it for few minutes and it starts to become more than a little bit absurd. At least it does for me.
How is it any different for Gonzales, who is working for a public institution? Should he be judged on his religious, or perhaps more correctly, religiously influenced beliefs, or for the quality of his scientific work? Is religious freedom a constitutional right on university and college campuses, or are they sovereign and therefore outside of the protection of the U.S. Constitution?
aagcobb wrote:
I'm curious have you read anything that Gonzales has written?
Comment by JOHN_A_DESIGNER — May 16, 2007 @ 3:48 pm
May 16th, 2007 at 4:07 pm
Just a question (and forgive the comparison): would anyone be okay if this was a racially motivated denial of tenure as long as Gonzales could go to a Hispanic university and do his research? It seems that race is just as irrelevant to Gonzales' research as his religion or even his work with cosmological ID, and people could object just as easily to having Gonzales as a tenured colleague because they were prejudiced against Latinos. If someone does good science, let them do science. [This of course will not apply if there were proper academic reasons for denying Gonzales tenure.]
Comment by thechristiancynic — May 16, 2007 @ 4:07 pm
May 16th, 2007 at 5:24 pm
This is close. Here's a case of the public demanding and receiving government funding for a particular brand of quasi-pseudo-science. Results have been mixed. I don't think you could do the same thing for ID because of the establishment clause — the motivations for ID are clearly religious.
Comment by mtraven — May 16, 2007 @ 5:24 pm
May 16th, 2007 at 7:22 pm
The quest for quality is always subjective. What have you against quality in education?
Comment by edarrell — May 16, 2007 @ 7:22 pm
May 16th, 2007 at 7:32 pm
A cynic said:
Was he denied tenure because he said the existence of skin color proves there is a god with an agenda, even if he didn't say what the agenda was in the interests of being "more scientific?"
Comment by edarrell — May 16, 2007 @ 7:32 pm
May 16th, 2007 at 8:08 pm
A cynic? Man, talking about bruising a guy's ego!
I kid, of course.
But to your point, you're just bearing out the ways that the comparison is not fitting (and I implied that it wasn't perfect). However, we have seen testimony that tenure is a very politicized process and that it can be denied for reasons that could easily be seen as irrelevant to the quality of one's work. The reason I raised the question is to show that there are some reasons that we would reasonably decry as injustices. Of course one's race doesn't generally entail certain beliefs, so that's part of why your situation seems quite a bit more absurd than mine, but my example was meant to display the inequity in saying that Gonzales should just suck up the tenure denial and keep trucking to a Christian school where he could do his work without fear of retribution. It smacks of "separate but equal" just a tad, don't you think?
Comment by thechristiancynic — May 16, 2007 @ 8:08 pm
May 16th, 2007 at 8:18 pm
"I have been saying for a long time: the battle ground over ID is immensely larger than the public school issue. It involves issues with academic freedom and persecution of students and faculty. The public school issue, Dover, Kansas were only a part of the story. The "post-wedge" world has revealed where the real cultural battle ground is.
In my dialogues with my ID comrades throughout the land, the public school issue was only part of the story. What has weighed more on the hearts and minds of my circles are people like Gonzalez and the plight of students and faculty under threat to persecution and intimidation and their lack of access to ID materials."
The battle over ID should have started in accadamia rather than in the heated politics of public schools. I think IDists lost a lot of ground (not necessarily by their own doing) with Dover, because it marked them as religiously motivated. No matter how well Behe, Dembski, et. al. conducted themselves in writing and in testimony duirng Dover, it will still sink into the American psyche (in the same veign as INHERIT THE WIND) as religion against reason.
How do IDists turn the tables on this misconception? Activism is the way that new movements begin to have influence from a grass-roots standpoint. But on the other hand, do IDists want ID to be viewed as merely another political movement? I think that ID's opponents are correct to some extent with calling for ID to present rigorous scientific evidence. IDists need to drive home what has already been presented, and then assure that an awareness of new research is also driven home, so that the current milieu of slapping on the religious label and then being done with it becomes a thing of the past.
I've been reading the materials at ARN and ID the Future and seeing evidence that this is being done. Perhaps IDists have failed to drive home the distinction between the ID "movement" and ID as research. This is perhaps because of the double standard among ID opponents of allowing atheistic philosophical POVs to go unchallenged, while over-emphasizing when someone who supports ID has a particular religious view, and stating that such a person is religiously motivated.
The verdict is not in on Gonzalez at this time, but I suspect that the underlying suspicions of IDists that Gonzalez was denied tenure due to his views on ID are correct.
Furthermore, I think that there is some truth, however ill conceived, that IDists presenting themselves as victims of the academic establishment might not be the way to go about establishing ID among the same acadamia. My father used to remind me as a child "you are not hard done by" despite my protestations. It was when I rose above my "victimization" that I gained the respect of my parents. Perhaps this same dynamic might provide some insight into how IDists ought to go about presenting ID in as positive a light as is possible.
IDists have a lot to learn from their opponents. In world politics, the way one culture conquers another is in learning more about that culture than the citizens of that culture know themselves. Perhaps IDists need to move into mainstream acadamia even more so than at present and learn from their opponents in the same way, but with the utmost respect and reason. Gonzalez's situation is so perhaps because he is one against hundreds of opponents. It is wrong to expect people like Gonzalez to be our Davids against a Goliath without joining in the frey. Real battles are not won by individual champions, but by unresigned commitment of the many.
Comment by Randy — May 16, 2007 @ 8:18 pm
May 16th, 2007 at 8:42 pm
Hi mtraven,
But Universities can hire religiously motivated schlars, plus the Department of Pseudoscience should be open to all cranks: xenobiologists, astrologists, psychics, etc.
Comment by Aagcobb — May 16, 2007 @ 8:42 pm
May 16th, 2007 at 9:55 pm
What a crock! What "ID materials" has anyone been denied? What "ID materials" exist?
Comment by edarrell — May 16, 2007 @ 9:55 pm
May 16th, 2007 at 10:04 pm
So, I gather you've not worked much in either academia or business?
In universities, the incentive to hire people unlike one's self is to get diversity in the department, to cover more bases, to get better intellectual challenges, to strengthen one's own research.
On the other hand, HR departments are, as performance psychologist Charles Garfield described them many years ago, the land of the turkeys — people who didn't fit exactly anywhere else. And they are encouraged to hire people who don't threaten them.
There are some corporations who do a great job of encouraging diversity, some corporations who have learned that diversity in teams especially makes for better performance. But on the whole, there is much more of that in most universities.
One thing that has frustrated all faculty decisions is the paucity of funding for positions. Budget cuts at the federal level, by the states, and rising costs, have made it tougher for schools to hire new faculty. Tenured positions are no longer places where schools can afford to take a chance. When do the ID advocates go to Congress to urge more funding, generally, across the board, for all research? When do ID advocates begin to show the collegiality to other ideas that wins tenure?
Comment by edarrell — May 16, 2007 @ 10:04 pm
May 16th, 2007 at 10:30 pm
Why would IDists urge Congress to spend more money for the research efforts of others? Let the beneficiaries do their own urging. "Collegiality to other ideas?" Ask that of Professor Avalos. He's a textbook example of it's all about religion.
Comment by Bradford — May 16, 2007 @ 10:30 pm
May 16th, 2007 at 11:05 pm
Assuming that Gonzalez's appeal is rejected, what is likely to happen to him at ISU? Is it even in his best interest to stay at ISU? I think that he can probably put the firestorm of publicity that his is receiving to good use, or is this naive thinking?
Comment by AnaxagorasRules — May 16, 2007 @ 11:05 pm
May 16th, 2007 at 11:11 pm
Hi Aagcobb,
You make it sound like scientists, and their departments, are delicate little flowies. Are we really still back in high-school here?
Comment by MikeGene — May 16, 2007 @ 11:11 pm
May 17th, 2007 at 7:41 am
How about a law making it illegal for faculties to apply their own local standards when deciding who to appoint. Tenure should be decided be a central committee who apply purely objective standards of compatibility, sort of like an arranged marriage. Additionally they could take account of petitions and lobbying by interested groups such as local churches.
Under such a system the central committee would account for things like number of publications and quality of spelling / grammar, and then assign them to the geographically most convenient research faculty.
And if the faculty objected to that appointment because they believed that their new colleague was somehow "anti-science", then tough luck.
Comment by salimfadhley — May 17, 2007 @ 7:41 am
May 17th, 2007 at 7:46 am
Most likely he will be given a final one-year contract. That is, he can stay another year while looking for a job. If he doesn't have a job offer lined up, then of course it will be in his interest to stay.
Comment by David Heddle — May 17, 2007 @ 7:46 am
May 17th, 2007 at 7:50 am
Hi MikeGene,
It was just a lighthearted response to mcromers suggestion that the yahoos decide what constitutes science in public university science departments. We already know Behe would include astrology (just kidding!).
Comment by Aagcobb — May 17, 2007 @ 7:50 am
May 17th, 2007 at 1:18 pm
Earlier I asked aagcobb wrote:
Either he(or she?) didn't notice my question or chose not to answer. That being the case let me make my point and open it up for wider discussion. What if anything in Gozales' 68 refereed papers and articles could be described as pseudo science? Shouldn't he be judged on the basis of his scholarly work rather than his personal beliefs?
I remember about five years ago that ID critics (at least the more objective ones) were arguing that ID was a philosophical and/or theological position, not a scientific one. (BTW, that is the position I more or less agree with) Now suddenly it has become a pseudo science. When and how did that happen? And, what exactly is a pseudo science?
Comment by JOHN_A_DESIGNER — May 17, 2007 @ 1:18 pm
May 17th, 2007 at 1:50 pm
Hi kornbelt888,
The teleological perspective is extremely well organized and informed through churches and organizations such as the DI. They got their heads handed to them in elections over the last couple of years anyway. That would indicate a minority position. Of course, as a non-religious IDist, maybe you can help get the new-agers organized and allied to the christian fundamentalists who are the backbone of the ID movement. Politics does make strange bedfellows!
Comment by Aagcobb — May 17, 2007 @ 1:50 pm
May 18th, 2007 at 12:05 am
Because that's what scientists do. When the French government was set to cut off Pasteur's funding, Darwin rose to Pasteur's defense, despite Pasteur's stark criticism of Darwin's work.
It's how Christians do science. Maybe you've let on more than you intended.
Comment by edarrell — May 18, 2007 @ 12:05 am
May 18th, 2007 at 12:31 am
Why would IDists urge Congress to spend more money for the research efforts of others?
The analogy is faulty. You are arguing for a general increase in funding, not preventing a cut off for a specific project. There is a common misconception that progress is directly related to funding. Truthfully it is more complex than that. If IDists are to seek funding they are better advised to seek it for projects related to the views of a Guillermo Gonzalez or OOL research like the type cited by Salvador. Anti-IDists wield the real power anyway and are not in any way dependent on IDists for support.
Comment by Bradford — May 18, 2007 @ 12:31 am