Iowa State Daily on Gonzalez tenure emails
| December 4, 2007 | Posted by DLH under Intelligent Design |
Organization attacks ruling to deny tenure
E-mails suggest Gonzalez’s beliefs affected decision
Kyle Miller and Ross Boettcher
“Issue date: 12/4/07 The Discovery Institute, a pro-intelligent design organization, released portions of e-mails of ISU professors and administrators “conspiring” to deny tenure to Guillermo Gonzalez, associate professor of physics and astronomy, in a press conference in Des Moines on Monday.
Casey Luskin, program officer for public policy and legal affairs for the Discovery Institute, said “thousands of pages of e-mails” obtained through an Iowa Open Records request from earlier this year hold statements pointing out a possible “hostile work environment” at Iowa State. Luskin said it points to a conspiracy to deny tenure to a “deserving professor” involving not only Iowa State but the Board of Regents as well, who have decided not to use e-mail evidence in its upcoming decision on whether to grant tenure. State Sen. David Hartsuch, R-Bettendorf, was on hand to speak about academic freedom in institutions of higher learning in Iowa. . . .” continued at: Full Article HTML
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36 Responses to Iowa State Daily on Gonzalez tenure emails
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DLH,
I don’t really believe “all that exists is material and natural”, certainly not that ideas, time, and truth are all made out of atoms and quanta. I was just frustrated with the argument ‘style’ of a couple people who seem to no longer be with us. But I won’t rehash their posts.
But no, I’m definitely not on the side of philosophical naturalists. And I personally think the idea of time, ideas, and truth being ‘made out of atoms or quanta’ is pretty ridiculous itself.
Just wanted to clear that up.
nullasalus
Thanks for clarifying. I missed the satire/irony. Straightforward statements would help when quickly reading arguments.
Whoa- released emails?
Pie is on someones’ faces… This evidence is damning.
They were probably stored on the university server.
Bob
“Here is an undeniable, scientific fact: Absolutely everything that exists is material and natural, period. Ideas, time, truth – all of these things are made out of atoms or quanta, . . .”
Statements like this, which are often repeated by otherwise sensible academics, are evidence that most of our brightest people are not liberally educated. Consider just what this statement implies normatively: one is obligated to believe the truth. But that normative claim is not empirical; and yet, it seems undeniably true. Consider another: the number 3 exists and I can know it. Now there are those who deny the ontological status of numbers. They may be correct. But it is certainly not the case that their is view undeniable, that somehow a logical contradiction is entailed by affirming that one can know immaterial entities like numbers, the principles of logic, or even relationships between propositions and the world.
Consider yet another example: ID advocates are dishonest. This is something often asserted on assorted blogs. And yet, the premise beneath this claim, that gives us warrant to believe it–one ought not to be dishonest–is a non-empirical normative claim that implies a certain end or purpose to human character, precisely the sort of telos that we are told by non-theistic materialists cannot be known or proven. And yet, the charge of dishonesty, and its implied wrongness, depends entirely on that understanding, that is apparently known.
At some point those who persist in uttering these moral declarations–without any awareness of their inconsistency with their public project–have to rely on something far more stable than just the fact that their equally uninformed peers let them get away with it. How ironic: the worshippers of “reason” become the followers of Rorty.
Gil: I asked my wife, who practiced law for 10 years, about this. She said (unofficially) that if the law required the disclosure of the emails, but the university redacted several sections because, for example, they’re confidential personnel matters, then a judge would have to view the censored portions to make sure they’re legitimately off-limits. If they’re just incriminating to ISU, then the judge would order the blanked-out sections restored.