VR: This sort of thing always stirs things up.
CSC: The big story this week was the denial of tenure to widely-published pro-ID astronomer Guillermo Gonzalez at Iowa State University, despite the fact that he exceeded by 350% his department’s standard for research excellence in peer-reviewed publications. A quick recap of the key developments in the case:
1. Two tenured professors in Gonzalez’s department publicly admitted that his work on intelligent design played a role in his tenure denial.
2. Two additional faculty members in Gonzalez’s department were found to be connected to a national statement denouncing intelligent design as “creationist pseudoscience.”
3. Tenure statistics were obtained showing that 91% of faculty who applied for tenure this year at ISU received it, refuting the university’s claim earlier in the week that its tenure standards are “so high, that many good researchers have failed to satisfy the demands of earning tenure” at ISU.
4. Tenure standards for ISU's Department of Physics and Astronomy were released showing that outside research funding was not a stated criterion for tenure decisions in the department.
5. ISU continues to pretend that nothing is wrong while ignoring the hostile work environment for Gonzalez.
11 comments:
They should sac up and admit that they don't want someone like that in their department, as they feel it reflects poorly on the department (which it does).
But this is a much better case for ID-based decision making than that awful case made with the AMNH guy a while ago. I think I am more conservative about it now: tenure is a long term committment take on a huge economic, interpersonal, and academic risk. Without knowing more details it is hard to evaluate this.
As Victor is probably aware, tenure decisions are often quite capricious and based not in the good in people, but the worst parts of people (their fears, jealousies, irrational biases). This may be a case in point, but without more information it is very hard to tell. Nobody who gets tenure is happy about it, and they can often point to all sorts of immoral machinations which they feel explain things.
Not sure all I said is consistent, but what the hey.
Nobody who gets tenure is happy about it
Err, I meant nobody who DOESN'T get tenure....
I'm not sure there is enough information to really make a call on this one.
Plus, it seems that John West (the author of this story) has overstated the case a little.
". . . he exceeded by 350% his department’s standard for research excellence in peer-reviewed publications."
Not quite true. Of the 68 published articles, only 25 were written after he came to ISU. That is the seven years under evaluation, so let's admit that he exceeded their guideline for publications by 66% instead of 350%.
"1. Two tenured professors in Gonzalez’s department publicly admitted that his work on intelligent design played a role in his tenure denial."
Eli Rosenberg, the head of the department and one of the faculty selectively quoted in the article cited, answered the question about whether Gonzalez's views on ID were considered in his denial by saying, "Only to the extent that they impact his scientific credentials."
[More on this under #2]
"2. Two additional faculty members in Gonzalez’s department were found to be connected to a national statement denouncing intelligent design as 'creationist pseudoscience.'"
Okay, so West is suggesting that these two faculty members did not set this aside when considering his tenure application? Isn't it pretty normal that faculty members often disagree on issues? West is accusing these people of not setting their disagreements aside. Does he have any reason to believe this is the case?
Plus, most scientists say that intelligent design is "creationist pseudoscience." This is an empirical matter. Perhaps, they are right. And if intelligent design is "creationist pseudoscience" and if Gonzalez frequently espouses those views, shouldn't that be considered when evaluating someone's scientific credentials?
"3. Tenure statistics were obtained showing that 91% of faculty who applied for tenure this year at ISU received it, refuting the university’s claim earlier in the week that its tenure standards are 'so high, that many good researchers have failed to satisfy the demands of earning tenure' at ISU."
Again, this is overstated. West fails to mention that only 66% of those applying for tenure in Gonzalez's department in the last ten years received it. Out of the 12 who were up, only 9 received it.
"4. Tenure standards for ISU's Department of Physics and Astronomy were released showing that outside research funding was not a stated criterion for tenure decisions in the department."
Tenure appointments are more than simple check-lists. If ticking off boxes was all there was to it, they would not need to have a committee meeting at all. Professors could send original copies of publications and performance evaluations, the dean could check them, and tenure would be automatic.
Instead, though, at ISU, there is a six-level process. Tenured members of his department, students, and scientists outside the department all had a say, and he did not pass any level of this. This leads me to believe there is more to the story.
"5. ISU continues to pretend that nothing is wrong while ignoring the hostile work environment for Gonzalez."
Perhaps this is true, but it is irrelevant to the discussion.
Anonymous said:
Again, this is overstated. West fails to mention that only 66% of those applying for tenure in Gonzalez's department in the last ten years received it. Out of the 12 who were up, only 9 received it.
>>>Uh, 9 out of 12 is 75%, not 66%, dude. And I'm not sure how much honing down to departments is more relevant than the overall percentage. Is there supposed to be some regularity in Gonzalez's department, or some set of more stringent criteria, that would cause us to zoom in on this class of approvals? Why not limit it to hispanic male applicants and then we can get our percentage of approvals even lower?
Also Anonymous
Vic,
Take a deep breath, put down the CSC kool-aid, and put your logical skills to work. Points 2 and 5 only make sense if you think Intelligent Design proponents have a right to never encounter strong disagreements, a policy that would be far more harmful to academic freedom than anything ISU has been accused of. Don't fall for that kind of nonsense, you're better than that. 3 and 4, based on everything I've heard about the tenure process, simply misunderstand it; it is not, as has already been said, about meeting a checklist of requirements.
The only point of any interest is #1, but notice that the main source quoted indicated it was a small factor, not an overriding one. It has been revealed that while Gonzales was a good postdoc, he his record trailed off when he got to ISU. This was probably damaging on its own, and when his ID work is combined with the first fact, he probably had people worrying that he was going to stop doing good mainstream work and spend all his time on ID. That's very different than denying tenure because he was involved in ID while, at the same time, he was doing solid mainstream research.
Also Anonymous,
Sorry, dude, I hit the 9 key instead of the 8 key on my laptop (I hate typing numbers on my laptop; they are too close together). 8 out of 12 is 66%.
"And I'm not sure how much honing down to departments is more relevant than the overall percentage. Is there supposed to be some regularity in Gonzalez's department, or some set of more stringent criteria, that would cause us to zoom in on this class of approvals?"
Yes, it appears that denial of tenure is more frequent in Gonzalez's department than in the other ones. This probably has something to do with the tenured faculty in that department who have a big say in whether junior faculty get tenure. They might be a very disagreeable bunch; I don't know.
The point is that comparing a department with a 66% acceptance rate to the university's 91% is misleading. Perhaps, the university's Underwater Basket-Weaving department has a 100% appointment rate that skews the results. To compare a relatively stingy department with the whole university overstates the case.
Hallq says: "Don't fall for that kind of nonsense, you're better than that."
Hallq, I know it is all too fun and easy to get away with condescending to kind people, but I'm not sure Victor was doing anything more than listing the issues that are being raised. I don't see a value-judgement on his part with regard to any of these points.
Anonymous
This isn't even Victor's post; it's pasted from here. It is written by John West.
Victor distinquishes this in the first two lines, attributing this to "CSC."
Vic,
Appologies for assuming this was your writing. Normally you include an original-source link when doing a cut and paste, hence my confusion.
Hey Victor! Someone recently turned me on to your work and I want to tell you that I really appreciate your writings very much. Thanks for your hard work and feel free to keep it coming.
Blessings
Regarding GG's work before and during his time at ISU, see Ed Brayton's blog. A quote:
"The only grant he has garnered in 7 years at ISU was not for research but to publish a popular book with a popular press advocating an idea rejected by virtually everyone in his field, including everyone in his own department, and that contained no original research whatsoever. And then on top of that, he has the gall to publicly claim that ISU was endorsing a project that the entire astronomy faculty explicitly rejected. And that took up 3 of his 7 years at ISU."
Ed also notes that the DI's response to his tenure denial may well jeopardize his chances of ever getting tenure at any other institution that's not run by evangelical Christians.
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