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Christianity Today, February, 2008 |

ID Tagged

Faculty member at Iowa State University denied tenure for supporting intelligent design.

Jocelyn Green | posted 1/10/2008 08:55AM

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"They pressured our president because they don't like theistic evolution," said Colling. "There's no doubt in my mind that if not tenured, I would have been released last year."

Instead, president John Bowling removed Colling from teaching general biology, banned his book from university classes, and directed that biological origins be team-taught with religion or theology faculty.

The difference between Colling's situation and his, Gonzalez said, is that private Christian colleges are expected to require adherence to religious doctrines. "[But] public universities claim to protect their faculty's academic freedom, no matter how unpopular their ideas might be among their colleagues," he said.

Gonzalez is appealing his case to the Iowa Board of Regents. His appointment as assistant professor at ISU ends in May.

Related Elsewhere:

The Discovery Institute's Center for Science & Culture has a section on Gonzales, with collected media coverage and information about his work.

Previous Christianity Today articles about science and higher education are available on our site.

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February 2008, Vol. 52, No. 2

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Displaying 1 - 3 of 11 comments.

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Tom P

Posted: January 13, 2008 7:25 PM

The naive idea, that it is possible to draw a clear line between scientific, religious and philosophical ideas is rupturing and breaking down before our very eyes. Those who question the insecure and fragmenting, orthodoxy that is hurriedly trying to paper over the cracks to preserve the possibility of such a demarkation, between philosophy and science, are subjected to rejection and loss of tenure. Not only have we lost our heads, in being unable to tell the difference between an idea and a test tube, but we have truly become men without chests.

Mark Roberts

Posted: January 12, 2008 1:12 PM

If you believe "ID isn't based on science but an explanation to justify a belief", what is it in Dr. Gonzalez's "The Privileged Planet" that is not science? Dr. Gonzalez's work in astrophysical habitability zones is stuff of genius! Take a look at Dr. Marks' web site EvoInfo.org. This is astonishing insight into sources of information in the evolutionary process. Don't repeat the mantras of others without being uninformed. Gonzalez and Marks are victims of the thought police in the Darwinian mafia. Check out ExpelledTheMovie.com.

BobC	Posted: January 12, 2008 1:18 AM

A faculty member who doesn't understand the science of evolution would give any university a bad reputation. What intelligent student would want to have anything to do with a university that employs a faculty member too dumb to understand important scientific facts? Evolution is accepted by virtually every biologist in the world for a good reason. I would like to quote from a book recently published by the National Academy of Sciences. "Scientists no longer question the basic facts of evolution as a process. The concept has withstood extensive testing by tens of thousands of specialists in biology, medicine, anthropology, geology, chemistry, and other fields. Discoveries in different fields have reinforced one another , and evidence for evolution has continued to accumulate for 150 years." Evolution-denier Guillermo Gonzalez is a disgrace to his profession. Evolution is not an opinion. It's a proven fact. Intelligent Design is a belief in magic.

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