On 7/14/07, SteamDoc@aol.com <SteamDoc@aol.com> wrote:
>
>
> It is sad (but not surprising) to see the Discovery Institute (and World Net
> Daily) continue to put out misleading propaganda like this.
Hear hear. The DI seems to have no sympathy for Gonzalez and is
focusing on further undermining his chances.
> I say this as someone who *agrees* with them that "viewpoint discrimination"
> probably played at least some role in the denial of tenure to Gonzalez. But
> it does not help the cause to present a slanted view like this article does.
> The flaws have been discussed before on this list; let me highlight three
> things:
Excellent overview
> 1) The "68" publications. Tenure is primarily based on what a person has
> done *after* starting the faculty position. The *correct* number to use
> here would be the publications from work done at Iowa State, after Gonzalez
> was the one responsible for intellectual leadership of research. Earlier
> publications as a grad student or postdoc, under somebody else's research
> leadership, carry little weight in tenure. Tenure at a research university
> is not primarily about the ability to DO good research (as might be
> evidenced by grad student or postdoc publications) -- it is about the
> ability to LEAD good research.
And many of the papers were based on work started while a postdoc
elsewhere. Little new research seems to have been involved/
>
> 2) The "91%" tenure number, implying that anybody denied tenure is being
> unusually singled out. Using a campus-wide number like this is misleading
> and nearly meaningless. At a mid-level university like ISU, there will be
> some departments that set the bar pretty high for tenure, and others that
> give tenure to any warm body who is not grossly incompetent. The *correct*
> comparison would be the rate at which tenure has historically been granted
> (maybe in the past 10 or 20 years) in Gonzalez' particular department. I
> believe that number came out in these discussions at some point, and it was
> significantly less than 91% (I seem to recall 75%, but don't hold me to
> that).
Seems correct either 2 or 4 out of 12 in the last 10 years. I need to
check my notes
>
> 3) It fails to mention the important factor that Gonzalez apparently brought
> in *no* external funding for his research at ISU. At a mid-level research
> university, in a science or engineering department, bringing in external
> funding is an important component of tenure decisions (whether it is in the
> official criteria or not).
Well, Gonzalez brought in a last minute 'grant' from the DI :-)
> Again, I am somewhat sympathetic to the overall claim that Gonzalez did not
> get a fair deal because of his religious viewpoint. But if he cares about
> fairness, maybe he should distance himself from these "defenders" of his
> cause. With friends like these ...
A fair observation.
> Allan (ASA member)
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> Dr. Allan H. Harvey, Boulder, Colorado | SteamDoc@aol.com
> "Any opinions expressed here are mine, and should not be
> attributed to my employer, my wife, or my cat"
>
> Professor: 'Religion' behind tenure dispute
> World Net Daily ^ | Friday, July 13, 2007 | Staff Writer
> Posted on 07/13/2007 11:27:37 AM EDT by Turret Gunner A20
> http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1865407/posts
> [refresh
> browser to get the latest on-going comments]
>
> Intelligent Design scientist faults university evolution ideology
>
> A scientist who believes the theory of intelligent design helps
> explain life's origins is appealing to state officials to save his
> job at Iowa State University, where his tenure was rejected because
> of his "personal religious and ideological beliefs."
>
> snip
>
> John West, associate director of the Discovery Institute's Center for
> Science & Culture, where Gonzalez is a senior fellow, said the tenure
> denial is "clearly a result of the vicious attacks he's had to endure
> from Darwinists and various atheists for presenting a scientific
> argument for the intelligent design of the universe based on the
> empirical evidence from physics and astronomy."
>
> Gonzalez, who will be out of his job at ISU after the 2007-2008 year
> if the decision is not changed, was rejected by officials despite his
> publication of 68 peer-reviewed scientific articles, nearly four
> times what his own department suggests as a standard for "excellence."
>
> His articles also have the highest normalized citation count among
> all of the astronomers in his department, a standard used to evaluate
> the work of professors.
>
> "Incredibly, ISU's President Geoffroy denied tenure to Gonzalez while
> approving 91 percent of those applying for tenure this year," said
> West. "Geoffroy even promoted to full professor one of Gonzalez's
> chief persecutors at ISU, atheist religion professor Hector Avaloz,
> who believes that the Bible is worse than Hitler's Mein Kampf."
>
> The day after ISU's president announced his rejection of Gonzalez's
> first appeal, a member of ISU's department of physics and astronomy
> published an article in the Des Moines Register openly admitting that
> Gonzalez's support for intelligent design was the only reason he
> voted against tenure for Gonzalez.
>
> snip
>
> Gonzalez has said he does not teach intelligent design at the school.
>
>
>
>
>
> ________________________________
> Get a sneak peak of the all-new AOL.com.
To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@calvin.edu with
"unsubscribe asa" (no quotes) as the body of the message.
Received on Sat Jul 14 23:06:49 2007
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.8 : Sat Jul 14 2007 - 23:06:49 EDT