Christianity Today features news item on young astronomer denied tenure

Newsmag Christianity Today has an interesting item of Guillermo Gonzalez, the brilliant young astronomer who was denied tenure at Iowa State University, explicitly because he thinks that the science evidence supports design of the universe, as well as natural law and chance:

In Gonzalez's tenure dossier, Rosenberg stated, "The problem here is that Intelligent Design is not a scientific theory. . The fact that Dr. Gonzalez does not understand what constitutes both science and a scientific theory disqualifies him from serving as a science educator."

Gonzalez said he never taught intelligent design (ID) in his classes. "The recent controversy surrounding me is strictly about the research I have done on ID," he said. "My ID research [published in The Privileged Planet] was funded in part by a grant from the Templeton Foundation, which ISU administered."

So many people have so much to lose from the truth about our universe.

In my view, the evidence for design is hated primarily because it means that every decision that we ever made on the basis of the idea that human life is meaningless was wrong, double wrong, max wrong - and we are to blame for what we did to them because the mind is real and we really did choose somethng that was wrong.

That doesn’t mean that there is no forgiveness; it just means that we need forgiveness because no one was ever really disposable- twentieth century mass-murder style.

Anyway, despite his, um, “stellar” publication record, Gonzalez is looking for another job:

Here’s a recent interview I did with Gonzalez, before the Board of Regents turned him down: “Is Earth an accident, or a staging platform for exploration of the universe?”

Incidentally, I was the journalist who broke the story of the showing of Guillermo’s Privileged Planet film at the Smithsonian. Here’s a synopsis of the film, so you can see just how dangerous the guy is.

Here are some other Post-Darwinist stories relating to Gonzalez. Enjoy!

My original story about his tenure denial

Reflections on the people who experience a severe compulsion to put Gonzalez down ...

Gonzalez tenure case: University admin’s credibility in shreds as truth emerges (E-mails demanded as public records showed that the decision to deny Gonzalez tenure was made on the basis of his interest in intelligent design, NOT on the basis of any of the claims made publicly. In arriving at its negative decision, the Board of Regents refused to look at this evidence.)

Science historian weighs in.

Columnist and lawyer comments

Here is the kind of thing Gonzalez had to put up with and here too.

Gonzalez will be featured in the Expelled film, about the persecution of scientists who talk about the evidence for design.

Also: what’s wrong with the tenure process.

Podcasts:
Here’s a podcast interview with Gonzalez on the Privileged Planet hypothesis and here’s one on astronomy and intelligent design