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Iowa State Daily on Gonzalez tenure emails

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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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Comments
Is there any legal recourse to get the uncensored versions? If ISU is legally obligated to provide the e-mails, how is it that they can legally censor their content? Doesn’t this completely defeat the whole purpose of the freedom of information principle?
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.russ
December 5, 2007
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“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.francisbeckwith
December 5, 2007
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I still don’t understand why those people saved those incriminating emails. Anyone have an answer?
They were probably stored on the university server. BobBob O'H
December 4, 2007
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Whoa- released emails? Pie is on someones' faces... This evidence is damning.bork
December 4, 2007
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nullasalus Thanks for clarifying. I missed the satire/irony. Straightforward statements would help when quickly reading arguments.DLH
December 4, 2007
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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
December 4, 2007
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nullasalus
"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, . . ."
You commit the logical fallacy of claiming to prove a negative from incomplete knowledge. Without comprehensive knowledge of all the universe over all time, your assertion is vacuous. You are only declaring your presupposition of philosophical naturalism.DLH
December 4, 2007
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Casey, were you misquoted:
"He has stellar reputation as cosmologist and astrologer. Why wouldn't you want a great scientist like that on your staff?" Luskin said.
Would this be intentional? A Freudian slip?bFast
December 4, 2007
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aardpig wrote: And to Casey Luskin: Sir, would you fault a geography department for declining to give tenure to someone who adheres to a flat-earth system?” I really enjoyed your comments in the other thread related to tenure, and I was in full agreement with you on that. Your comments were quite good. These latest comments almost seem to appear like you now are baiting WmD to ban you. The above quote is nothing more than stupidity. Based on your insightful comments on tenure, I should think you know better than that. Also, the venomous spewing in a few of your posts are so unlike what I read in the other thread. Were you just trying to be on your best behavior, and is your normal state of emotion that of an insulting jackass? I'm really disappointed in your flat-earth argument. It really shows your ignorance. Two things on this: 1. I can take a plane or sail a boat around the world and discover that the earth is round. I could send a satellite up into space and also prove it. And, if I had no technology at all, I could watch my friend sail over the horizon and magically return. That would pretty much prove the Earth is not flat. Then, I could use proven mathematical models from geodesy to prove that the Earth is round. To attempt to place NDE on the same level as those tests, is incredible. Even SJ Gould and Dawkins would argue about NDE mechanisms. Was Gould a nut job? If not, then how could he ever disagree with Dawkins... 2. before Christ, virtually everyone knew that the Earth was round. In fact, Eratasthones calculated the actual size of the Earth in 500BC, using the principles of trigonometry. Therefore, for you to try and tie NDE to round vs. flat Earth is absolute stupidity. The tie-in of flat earth to ID is sad, and really causes me to question your judgement on any analysis you might make. Heck, I even checked the spelling of aardpig because I could not believe that the same person who had such good insights on the tenure situation could be so ignorant to use one of the cheesiest arguments out there. But, sadly, it is the same person. I guess it shows that even bright people can be so overcome with blinded hatred of religion that they will buy into the most juvenile arguments that has ever been brought into the debate. I hope you stick around. I also hope you come to your senses and return to the rational aardpig we saw previously.ajl
December 4, 2007
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aardpig, you said "simply those who cannot come to terms with the success of science in illuminating the beautiful universe around us." That is a incredibly arrogant and condescending statement. There are many of us here who are voracious readers of science and its history and marvel at its success and those that have practiced in the field. We find those who are anti ID are nearly always ignorant or what ID means or stands for. For purposes of debate I hope you stay here but over the years I have seen those who oppose ID usually disassemble in some obvious way, usually in name calling or discussing completely irrelevant items. I have never seen an anti-ID person win an argument against the basic ID positions though we often learn from those who don't agree with ID on a lot of scientific issues. If you think you can refute the basic ID position, I hope you stay around and try.jerry
December 4, 2007
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aardpig wrote: "I place you in the latter category, and will light a candle tonight in the hope that one day, perhaps, you will emerge from your cave of willful ignorance and enjoy the true splendors of the world." I can't help but wonder what the naturalist explanation is for how one person lighting a candle has some influence on another person "emerging from their cave of willful ignorance" etc. Sounds like superstition to me.TRoutMac
December 4, 2007
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Again, let me stress again, as the guillotine hangs suspended: if and when aardpig is gone, it would reflect better on this blog's integrity to keep rather than purge his comments.getawitness
December 4, 2007
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aardpig states that supporters of ID "...cannot come to terms with the success of science in illuminating the beautiful universe around us." I beg to differ. Science cannot illuminate the beauty of anything. Beauty is a subjective quality, which science cannot speak to. Scientists can explore nature and may find beauty in what they are studying. However, modern naturalistic science is incapable of dealing with the concept of beauty. Materialists cannot explain beauty.DrDan
December 4, 2007
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What draws me to ID is the absolute failure of NDE in explaining the diversity and origin of life on this planet. Aardpig, if for you all of the discussion on UD boils down to religious fanaticism or willful ignorance, then you, sir, are the one living in a cave. ID proponents accept all of the science that everyone knows to be true. What they don't accept is the "science" that materialists faithfully assume must be true. What do you know? What do you assume? There is a difference.vrf
December 4, 2007
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aardpig, its venimous comments like those spewed in post 18 that get you booted. Try being reasonable and actually saying something with substance, which doesnt' actually have to agree with the ID philosophyDrDan
December 4, 2007
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When public schools and the secular (tax funded) community only funds researchers that have a naturalistic interpretation of the evidence with stolen tax dollars while not funding all opposing researchers and when they only introduce one side of the evidence to students with stolen tax dollars while censoring all other sides, what have they got to hide? Why introduce one side of the issue (that which is consistent with materialism) while censoring all opposing views? That's not science, science welcomes criticism and opposing views. When the secular community brainwashes students with naturalism with stolen tax dollars while censoring all opposing views they are being anti - scientific. UCD and other naturalistic philosophies are anti - scientific because they steal tax dollars for funding while censoring all criticism and opposing views, something that science would never welcome.Bettawrekonize
December 4, 2007
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Could we avoid purging all the comments by a poster when that poster is banned? First, sometimes (as with Carl Sachs) that poster has said good things in the past. Some of aardpig's early comments are substantial if disputable. Second, even the silly and stupid comments should remain in the record as justification for the later banning. Removing comments that have been posted distorts history and makes it impossible for a reader who comes along later to figure out what happened.getawitness
December 4, 2007
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aardpig
vrf (11) — I, too, would like to see the emails. Why have they been censored? What is UD trying to hide?
Maybe they don't want us to be overwhelmed by irrelevant comments like the following.
And to Casey Luskin: Sir, would you fault a geography department for declining to give tenure to someone who adheres to a flat-earth system?
Seriously, the only thing dumber than the belief in a flat earth is the belief that the universe and life is the result of unguided naturalistic processes. Now, if any darwinists or naturalists have any serious and relevant arguments/comments about the OP then feel free to post and we will respond accordingly. If this is the best you can do then you pretty much admit defeat, Gonzalez was denied tenure because he advocates ID and that's evidence that UCD and other naturalistic philosophies can't stand up to scrutiny because if they could then the secular community would not need to resort to such dishonest tactics to brainwash people with naturalism/materialism at the expense of taxpayers and truth.Bettawrekonize
December 4, 2007
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Bugsy and digdug are gone, I gather (not my doing), and aardpig will soon be too, as a matter of fact. It was expected that people anxious to paper over the scandal would post here to detract Gonzalez by associating him with nonsense. This is a case where the perpetrators of systems intended to discriminate on the basis of viewpoint have - so far as I can see - been caught redhanded. So the spin, spin, spin begins - and it won't end any time soon. Except here.O'Leary
December 4, 2007
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aardpig wrote: "And to Casey Luskin: Sir, would you fault a geography department for declining to give tenure to someone who adheres to a flat-earth system?" How 'bout this one, arrdpig: Would you fault an archaeology department for declining to give tenure to someone who claimed that the Rosetta Stone is a product of blind, natural processes?TRoutMac
December 4, 2007
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Isn't it wrong to keep misrepresenting Gonzalez's qualifications in presenting his case? The DI keeps quoting figures that count work he did under other departments and leaders, which is academically a very very different thing than running a section of your own department and seeing how you do. For a tenure decision, the only really relevant part of his career are what he did at ISU, and what they would expect he would do for the school in the future. The fact is, he brought in almost no grant money, published far far below what he had in the past and very few significant papers, and got only (as of now) a single grad student through to their dissertation. That's, objectively, just not a very good record at all. That doesn't say to a school "here is a guy that, when given the chance to work under his own power, can make things happen." As I blogged, there's another big problem here. If you want to convince people that ID is good science, then you can't immediately scream viewpoint discrimination every time someone criticizes ID without at least making some effort to get into the particulars of the claims and why they are or aren't legitimate. Like it or not, real scientific ideas get criticized and smacked down and declared worthless all the time. If a scientist finds someone's arguments vacuous, as one did in the case of Gonzalez, and then ID supporters immediately declare that this criticism is illegitimate, then this pretty much advances the point that to those supporters this is an issue of demanding respect for religious beliefs, not a scientific issue. Scientific ideas aren't due politeness. The DI and the producers of Expelled seem to be taking the tack that it's simply not even worth mentioning, let alone considering, the possibility that any supporter of ID could do wrong, make bad arguments, or engage in misconduct. That's a position that's very tempting for PR purposes, but is intellectually very sketchy.Bad
December 4, 2007
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Regarding my comment above -- by 'emails', I mean the posts by Bugsy and digdug24.aardpig
December 4, 2007
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Once again, I'm left wondering what all these comments are responding to... Can we somehow see the orginial comment?vrf
December 4, 2007
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Casey, I noted that much of the text in some of those e-mails was blacked out. Is there any legal recourse to get the uncensored versions? If ISU is legally obligated to provide the e-mails, how is it that they can legally censor their content? Doesn't this completely defeat the whole purpose of the freedom of information principle?GilDodgen
December 4, 2007
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Thank you, Casey. I just don't get where those guys were coming from. No one in this day and age with even a passing interest in science would give much credence to Bigfoot. Do they think they were being clever or something? Good riddance to bad rubbish and if that is uncivil of me, I'll understand if you want to edit it out of this comment.poachy
December 4, 2007
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I still don’t understand why those people saved those incriminating emails. Anyone have an answer?
Why did GG's department head declare that ID is not falsifiable even as famous people like Ken Miller at Brown were loudly delivering falsification arguments against it? They're so smug and arrogant that they do no homework or research on the issue or their opponents. I guess this is what happens when you only ever have to engage like-minded academics---selected for their idiological conformity---and uncritical students who just want to graduate.russ
December 4, 2007
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I still don't understand why those people saved those incriminating emails. Anyone have an answer?Larry Fafarman
December 4, 2007
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The evidence released yesterday shows undeniable evidence that Dr. Gonzalez faced a hostile work environment and was denied academic freedom becuase he supports intelligent design. Regardless of whether you agree with ID, open minded people should be abhorred at what took place at ISU. Bugsy and Digdug24 provide us with excellent examples of how Darwinists cope with evidence of their academic intolerance towards ID: they change the subject and make comments about angels and cryptozoology, etc. To see a discussion of the issue of ID and the identity of the designer, see http://www.discovery.org/a/4306.Casey Luskin
December 4, 2007
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Frankly, Bugsy, I'm tired of hearing all these baseless criticisms of "materialism". 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, and it's only a matter of time until we find chromatons in the lab. And intelligent design? I have news for you people: Absolutely nothing in nature is designed, period. Since everything can be explained by an entirely natural, mundane process - brains included - that means that there's no need for this "design" concept at all. Blog comments, airplanes, cities - all of these things are the result of chemical interactions, nothing more. Read your Dennett, people! (Lesson here being: Anyone can spit out caricatures and gimmicks, Bugsy. It's cute, but not exactly informative.)nullasalus
December 4, 2007
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Here are the points for and against Gonzalez in my humble opinion : 1) Gonzalez's belief in ID should be a NON-FACTOR in determining whether or not to grant him tenure. If he can prove that it IS the decisive factor, then he would have a case. The fact of the matter is this -- Gonzalez's PUBLISHED and PEER REVIEWED work, including those cited by his peers have little to do with his personal belief in Intellient Design. 2) If Gonzalez's RESEARCH WORK were the sole criteria for granting tenure, then ISU's case is weak. By all criteria -- citation counts, published work, etc. Gonzalez's body of work EXCEEDS even the professors in the committee reviewing his tenure application. Now here is where Gonzalez's appeal starts to weaken. TWO ISSUES : A) ABILITY TO GENERATE RESEARCH GRANT MONEY. B) NUMBER OF GRADUATED STUDENTS SUPERVISED. Someone mentioned in another Gonzalez related thread that the amount of research grant money he generated was a pittance compared to the $1.3 Million on average his co-faculty were able to generate. Like it or not, MONEY TALKS and Money buys prestige, equipment, salaries, etc. If Gonzalez is unable to generate research grant money, he becomes an economic liability. So, it has nothing to do with his work. It has to do with his work's attractiveness to sources of funding. Grant Money of course relates to Graduate Students supervised. If you don't have the money, it goes without saying that you can't attract students who want to work under your supervision. Any refutations of my analysis to show where I am wrong are welcome of course.SeekAndFind
December 4, 2007
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