Posted on 05/28/2007 5:44:20 PM PDT by SirLinksalot
There is evidence for intelligent design in the universe." This does not seem like an especially radical statement; many people believe that God has revealed himself through creation. Such beliefs, however, do not conform to politically correct notions in academia, as Professor Guillermo Gonzalez is learning the hard way. An astronomer at Iowa State University, Professor Gonzalez was recently denied tenure—despite his stellar academic record—and it is increasingly clear he was rejected for one reason: He wrote a book entitled The Privileged Planet which showed that there is evidence for design in the universe.& nbsp; Dr. Gonzalez's case has truly distressing implications for academic freedom in colleges and universities across the country, especially in science departments.
Dr. Gonzalez, who fled from Cuba to America as a child, earned his PhD in astronomy from the University of Washington. By academic standards, Dr. Gonzalez has had a remarkable career. Though still a young man, he has already authored sixty-eight peer-reviewed scientific papers. These papers have been featured in some of the world's most respected scientific journals, including Science and Nature. Dr. Gonzalez has also co-authored a college-level text book entitled Observational Astronomy, which was published by Cambridge Press.
According to the written requirements for tenure at the Iowa State University, a prospective candidate is required to have published at least fifteen peer-reviewed scientific papers. With sixty-eight papers to his name, Dr. Gonzalez has already exceeded that requirement by 350%. Ninety-one percent of professors who applied for tenure at Iowa State University this year were successful, implying that there has to be something seriously wrong with a candidate before they are rejected.
What's wrong with Dr. Gonzalez? So far as anyone can tell, this rejection had little to do with his scientific research, and everything to do with the fact that Dr. Gonzalez believes the scientific evidence points to the idea of an intelligent designer. In fact, as World Magazine has reported, at least two scientists in the Physics and Astronomy Department at the Iowa State University have admitted that intelligent design played a role in their decision. This despite the fact that Dr. Gonzalez does not teach intelligent design in any of his classes, and that none of his peer-reviewed papers deal with the subject. Nevertheless, simply because Gonzalez holds the view that there is intelligence behind the universe, and has written a book presenting scientific evidence for this fact, he is considered unsuitable at Iowa State.
What is the state of academic freedom when well qualified candidates are rejected simply because they see God's fingerprints on the cosmos? Isn't the Academy supposed to be a venue for diverse views? Aren't universities supposed to foster an atmosphere that allows for robust discussion and freedom of thought? Dr. Gonzalez's fate suggests that anyone who deigns to challenge conventional orthodoxy is not welcome in the club.
In the future, will scientists who are up for tenure be forced to deny that God could have played any role in the creation or design of the universe? Will Bible-believing astronomers be forced to repudiate Psalm 19, which begins, "The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands"? Will faithful Catholics be required to reject the teaching of Vatican I, which said that God "can be known with certainty from the consideration of created things, by the natural power of human reason..." Just where will this witch hunt lead?
The amazing fact is that, even as many science departments are working overtime to forbid professors from positing that there is evidence for intelligent design in the universe, more and more scientists are coming to this conclusion. The Discovery Institute has compiled a list of over seven-hundred scientists who signed the following statement: "We are skeptical of claims for the ability of random mutation and natural selection to account for the complexity of life. Careful examination of the evidence for Darwinian theory should be encouraged." The list of scientists who find good reason to doubt the strictly materialistic Darwinism that is currently scientific orthodoxy is growing every day.
It seems that many scientists and academicians who hold views contrary to Dr. Gonzalez have concluded that the best way to avoid debate about the evidence for intelligent design is to simply deny jobs to those who will not affirm their atheistic worldview. The fact that these scientists, who are supposedly open to following the evidence wherever it leads, have resorted to blatant discrimination to avoid having this conversation speaks volumes about the weakness of their position. They realize their arguments are not sufficient to defeat the intelligent design movement and they must, therefore, shut their opponents out of the conversation. All the evidence suggests that it is unjust that Dr. Gonzalez was denied tenure and that this ruling should be overturned on appeal. Nevertheless, what happened to Dr. Gonzalez is a reflection of the growing strength of the intelligent design movement, not its weakness.
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Ken Connor is Chairman of the Center for a Just Society in Washington, DC and a nationally recognized trial lawyer who represented Governor Jeb Bush in the Terri Schiavo case.
While the conclusions reached within that framework may work within that framework, they’re totally useless when brought into an undistorted wider reality. And they’re incapable of answering the questions that mean the most to humanity, yet science is being treated like the end all and be all of existence. The greatest insult that can be bestowed on it’s opponents is that of ignorance. If science is all that there is and all that has any validity, then what a purposeless existence.
How pathetic to be trapped into such a mindset.
Pathetic?
You can have magic, superstition, wishful thinking, divine revelation, old wives tales, folklore, what the stars foretell and what the neighbors think, omens, public opinion, astromancy, spells, ouija boards, anecdotes, tarot cards, sorcery, seances, black cats, table tipping, witch doctors, crystals and crystal balls, numerology, divination, "miracles," palm reading, the unguessable verdict of history, tea leaves, new age mumbo-jumbo, hoodoo, voodoo, and the rest of the other un-natural phenomena.
I'll take science any day.
So, from now on, if asked why there’s life on earth, my answer can be a truthful, “just because.” While this could well be true, we really don’t know if it is. More scientific research is needed.
Yet “why” we still ask. Perhaps science isn’t the way to truth? (Just a simple suggestion)
Best synopsis of creationism/ID I've heard yet. I bet you didn't mean what you said.
The problem you have is that EVERY thing that has previously been labeled supernatural that has been studied to a reasonably complete understanding (rain, thunder, seasons etc etc) has been found to have a natural explanation. The fruits of this research is generally good.
The point is that saying 'god did it' is not a decent explanation. From a scientific point of view it's just a cop out.
Things held on faith (sans evidence) should be kept private. Otherwise intractable arguments in sue. For example there are three versions of the 10 commandments, which do you want in your courthouse? (Protestant, Catholic or Hebrew versions?)
Take science all you wish.
Just be sure to ask “why” along the way. It’ll reset your focus when you get stuck.
“Well, you’ve been working on it half the night and I still haven’t seen any evidence for “ID.” All you’ve got is random quotes, vague blarney. You haven’t shown a mechanism that connects the supernatural to the natural, much less how such a mechanism would work. This isn’t about “PC,” its about evidence in the physical world, or lack thereof.”
Wow! Can someone really be that ignorant — and advertise it proudly on FR?
Let me start with a quote:
An honest man, armed with all the knowledge available to us now, could only state that in some sense, the origin of life appears at the moment to be almost a miracle, so many are the conditions which would have had to have been satisfied to get it going. —Francis Crick, co-discoverer of DNA and Nobel Laureate
And that is actually quite an understatement. We have no idea how life could have originated without ID. The simplest known living cell rivals the complexity of all man’s technology. Proteins are very complex and very precise, yet the apparatus that produces them is itself made of protein. How those proteins that build other proteins were made is a complete enigma.
Yes, I know that you can speculate until the cows come home about how the protein synthetic apparatus in the cell could have been built up gradually, but there is no evidence whatsoever that that happened. It’s all just wild speculation. Yet fools like you will take even the slightest hint of plausibility of such speculation as “proof” that it happened without ID as sure as proof that gravity exists or 1+1=2.
If you are in the mood to educate yourself on the basics, I suggest you also read up on how fine tuned the basic physical parameters of the universe are. It’s truly amazing. If any of several fundamental physical constants were different by miniscule amounts, the universe and life as we know it would not exist. Fools like you wouldn’t be pulling idiotic assertions out of their rear end — well, that would be the plus side.
You are avoiding her point, which is that the claims of — not science actually but of scientists— are to be accepted uncritically. Is it not ironical that the things you list are flourishing in this world just as much if not more than they were in the 18th Century. Scientists are regarded as great magicians who are expected to pull rabbits out of the hat. In the 14th Century, religion suffered a great loss of reputation after the Black Death brought the high Middle Ages down to earth and seemed to install the devil as master of the house. What happens to science if the magician reaches into the habit and suddenly the hat is empty? Most people are unaware of how close death was to ordinary people in the 1930s and how antibiotics have transformed the world. Now we have signs that that vein may have played out. AIDS stubbonly resists and now we see the return of tuberbulosis to the West. Consumption was a better description of that. In any case, the Greeks with their cyclic notions of history remain to remind us that any theory of progress must include the undeniable fact that what goes up must come down. Easier to grasp in 1942 than now, I grant you.
I agree.
But the way to combat that-which-drags-us-down is not magic and superstition. That has been tried before, and did not work.
Thanks for the ping. Bump for later reading.
The Romans did quite well without “modern science.” and did the Chinese, and, for that matter, the Europeans of the 13th Century. Europe at that time had many more machines than either Rome or China at their respective heights. This includes the mechanical clock without which no science. But, the problem is not science which has made the world infinitely more comfortable but the insistence of some that life has no meaning other than that which they say it has. The ancients knew that they literally were in the hands of forces—malevalent or begnign that were beyond their control. So do we. That is why the average Londoner today is as superstititious as the
average Roman of the first Century. The ancient gods were totally indifferent to the fates of mankind. So, people understand, are the “gods” of science. Add a pound here to this fund, a penny there, and maybe,maybe miracles will occur.
Anthropogenic Global Warming is to Revelations as Evolution is to Genesis. You defy the powers that be, and you pay the price in the scientific world. What matters more and more isn’t whether something is truly scientific; what matters is who’s going to fund the work. He who pays the piper...
That's how it works, folks. That's why evolutionists regard believers in Intelligent Design as "unscientific." They've jiggered the rules.
You nailed it.
But the “rules” of science have not always rules out ID a priori. That’s a relatively new phenomenon. You can call it “politically correct” science.
And PC scientists all seem to use the same tactics, whether it be in support of hard-core purely naturalistic evolution or global warming. Rather than debate honestly, they simply dismiss the dissenters as fringe lunatics and cranks. Al Gore has nothing on Richard Dawkins in this regard.
Thanks for the ping!
“I’ll take science any day.”
Science is good for the most part but its not the end all.
Well then, I suppose since at one time people believed illness was a result of spells, scientists should have ignored that, because, after all, everyone knew what caused illness. Or we shouldn't investigate folklore and medicines? Things like foxglove being good for dropsy? Axe that and don't find digitalis.
The problem with your thinking is that you won't find out a lot of things. There are things that are occurring in the world that defy explanation and yet they are happening and they are real. But sure, go ahead, write them off. Close your eyes, stick our fingers in your ears and sing, "La, la la, la la, la laaaaa.... I can't hear you. It's not real."
I'm not saying that all of those things you listed are real, but without investigating them you never find out if they are. Ignoring them because simply because they've been labeled by scientists as *supernatural* does a disservice to humanity. If science is all it's cracked up to be, it behooves it to investigate even things that seems strange because you never know what you're going to discover. If it's disproved, fine. Write it off and don't bother with it any more. If it's inconclusive, wait and look again later as new information and technology become available.
But go ahead, pretend that anything you can't see or touch or measure isn't real, if you want. That'll kill science and progress faster than anything I can think of.
Heretic. sheesh
The problem you have is that EVERY thing that has previously been labeled supernatural that has been studied to a reasonably complete understanding (rain, thunder, seasons etc etc) has been found to have a natural explanation.
Exactly the reason that science shouldn't blow off anything it doesn't understand.
Yet, here we have scientists with the attitude of "Oh, it's *supernautral*. How stupid." Not the best way to make progress.
On the contrary, it's science/scientists who are putting the limits on what qualifies to be investigated.
The creationists/IDers want science to look at it and all we get is the mantra, "But it's noooot sciiiieeeeence."
Creationists/IDers aren't the ones fighting it. They think the evidence is there. Scientists have written it off for no good reason that I've ever heard.
No, Intelligent Design can’t be science, because it doesn’t play by the rules of science. And using my previous analogy, ID cannot be a game of chess, because it doesn’t follow the rules of a game of chess.
That is, apples and oranges. Science is a limited, closed system. The error comes when trying to interpolate or extrapolate it to reality outside of its parameters. That is, it is sloppy thinking to assume that because it can be done in a scientific experiment, that it performs the same way in the world at large.
People are confused because it *seems* that science can be readily interpolated or extrapolated. But that is no longer scientific, even if the two things seem to behave the same.
There is no way that Intelligent Design can be integrated into a scientific experiment, because it is irreproducible, invisible and unmanageable. I cannot add it to the experiment, or take it away, observe it in action or modify that action. Therefore by the rules of science, I have to ignore it in my experiment.
This does NOT mean it does not exist, just that it transcends the experiment, and cannot be made part of the limited, closed system.
Importantly, ID is not alone in this capacity. Lots of very valid other things are excluded from scientific experiments. For example, anecdotal evidence can be very real, but is not admissible. Neither is luck or accident. Even if the experiment doesn’t come out as predicted, it may invalidate the experiment; and only a second experiment, with the unexpected result as a new possible outcome can be used.
But all of this goes to the heart of science education. If you are educating for science, then non-scientific information is excluded, no matter how valid. Just as much as when you are teaching chess, you do not incorporate rules from other games. You only teach chess rules.
This means that ID can never be taught as science, but it *can* be taught as ID. No real conflict there.
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