Guillermo Gonzalez (born 1963) is a Cuban-born American astronomer. He is a research scientist at the University of Alabama in Huntsville. He is a proponent of intelligent design, a pseudoscientific argument for the existence of God. He is a senior fellow of the Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture, which is considered the hub of the intelligent design movement, and a fellow with the International Society for Complexity, Information and Design, which also promotes intelligent design.
Education and career Gonzalez obtained a B.S. in 1987 in physics and astronomy from the University of Arizona and his Ph.D. in astronomy from the University of Washington in 1993. He has done post-doctoral work at the University of Texas, Austin and the University of Washington. He has received fellowships, grants and awards from NASA, the University of Washington, Sigma Xi, and the National Science Foundation.Guillermo Gonzalez at the International Society for Complexity, Information, and Design. Accessed November 13, 2006 He supports the Galactic habitable zone concept,The Galactic Habitable Zone I. Galactic Chemical Evolution, Guillermo Gonzalez, Donald Brownlee, Peter Ward, arXivRobert Roy Britt, Amid the Universe's Chaos, a Few Habitable Places, Space.com, 28 May 2002 which was coined in 1986 by L.S. Marochnik and L.M. Mukhin, who defined the zone as the region in which intelligent life could flourish.Marochnik, L.S. and Mukhin, L.M. (1986) In The Problem of the Search for Life in the Universe, Proc. Conf. SETI, Tallinn, Estonia, USSR, Dec. 7–11, 1981, edited by V.A. Ambartsumyan, N.S. Kardashev, and V.S. Troitskii, Nauka, Moscow, pp. 41–46. Until May 2008 he was an assistant professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Iowa State University, then taught at Grove City College, an evangelical Christian school, and since 2013 is an assistant professor at Ball State University in Muncie.
Gonzalez was a regular contributor to Facts for Faith magazine produced by Reasons To Believe, an old Earth creationist group.The Measurability of the Universe––a Record of the Creator’s Design By Guillermo Gonzalez, Facts for Faith Issue 4, 2000. In addition to his work for the Discovery Institute and International Society for Complexity, Information, and Design, he is a researcher for the Biologic Institute, which is funded by the institute for research into intelligent design.
In 2004 he published The Privileged Planet and its accompanying video, which takes the arguments of the Rare Earth hypothesis and combines them with arguments that the Earth is in prime location for observing the universe. He then proposes that the Earth was intelligently designed. William H. Jefferys, a professor of astronomy at the University of Texas at Austin, reviewed the book writing "the little that is new in this book isn't interesting, and what is old is just old-hat creationism in a new, modern-looking astronomical costume." Co-author Jay Richards responds to such criticism with the following statement: "It has absolutely nothing to do with biological evolution. We are talking about the things that you need to produce a habitable planet, which is a prerequisite for life. It doesn't tell you anything about how life got here." A documentary based on the book was produced by the Discovery Institute.Privileged Planet official webpage
His primary research interest is studying radial velocity and transit techniques for the detection of extrasolar planets.Grove City College - Faculty. Accessed" 10 September 2018.
Iowa State University tenure denial
Faculty statement Two years prior to his consideration for tenure, approximately 130 members of the faculty of Iowa State University signed a statement co-authored by associate professors James Colbert and Hector Avalos and assistant professor Michael Clough opposing "all attempts to represent Intelligent Design as a scientific endeavor." Similar statements were issued by faculty at the University of Northern Iowa and at the University of Iowa. A total of approximately 400 professors signed the three petitions.Intelligent Design opponents willing to debate, Marcos Rivera, Virginia Arrigucci and Emily Schaefer, Iowa State DailyStatement by Iowa State University Faculty No mention of Gonzalez was made in these petitions, and the professors maintained the statement "was in no way targeted specifically at Gonzalez", that Tom Ingebritsen, an associate professor in the Department of Genetics, Development and Cell Biology, had been advocating, and teaching a course in, Intelligent Design at ISU for a number of years before Gonzales arrived, and that "[a]t that time [the] statement began to circulate, Dr. Gonzalez was not well-known as an ID advocate to most faculty even at ISU". Avalos also criticized the Discovery Institute for "combining sentences from different sections of [the statement] in order create a fragmented syntax that appears to target Gonzalez":Never trust a creationist ellipsis — Hector Avalos on the Gonzalez emails , Pharyngula
Two years later, an article in the local newspaper The Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier reported Gonzalez's appeal against his denial of tenure and claimed he was "the unnamed target" of the ISU petition. The article noted that "Gonzalez won't discuss the reasons for the tenure denial" but that he "noted...that he has frequently been criticized by people who don't consider intelligent design as a legitimate science." Comments from John West, the associate director of the Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture – at which Gonzalez was a senior fellow – blamed the failure to secure tenure directly upon Gonzalez's belief in intelligent design and compared it to a "doctrinal litmus test" typical of his native Cuba.Intelligent design advocate denied tenure at ISU, Nafeesa Syeed, The Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier
Denial of tenure and appeals In April 2007 Iowa State University denied Gonzalez tenure.
On June 1, 2007, Gregory Geoffroy, president of Iowa State University, rejected Gonzalez's appeal and upheld the denial of tenure. In making this decision, Geoffroy states that he "specifically considered refereed publications, [Gonzalez's] level of success in attracting research funding and grants, the amount of telescope observing time he had been granted, the number of graduate students he had supervised, and most importantly, the overall evidence of future career promise in the field of astronomy" and that Gonzalez "simply did not show the trajectory of excellence that we expect in a candidate seeking tenure in physics and astronomy – one of our strongest academic programs." Geoffroy noted, "Over the past 10 years, four of the 12 candidates who came up for review in the physics and astronomy department were not granted tenure." Gonzalez appealed to the Iowa Board of Regents and the board affirmed the decision on February 7, 2008.
Reasons for denial The university has issued an FAQ concerning the situation saying that "The consensus of the tenured department faculty, the department chair, the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, the dean of Liberal Arts and Sciences, and the executive vice president and provost was that tenure should not be granted. Based on recommendations against granting tenure and promotion at every prior level of review, and his own review of the record, President Gregory Geoffroy notified Gonzalez in April that he would not be granted tenure and promotion to associate professor."Facts regarding status of tenure case at Iowa State, Iowa State University The denial of tenure for Gonzalez resulted in one of the Discovery Institute intelligent design campaigns with the institute encouraging its followers to call and email Geoffroy and urge him to reverse the decision."Action Item: Help Guillermo Gonzalez in his fight for academic freedom. Contact ISU President ... let him know that you support academic freedom for Dr. Gonzalez to follow the evidence wherever it leads." Iowa State Avoids Key Question in Gonzalez Tenure Case Discovery Institute, Evolutionnews.org.Dr. Guillermo Gonzalez And Academic Persecution Discovery Institute. May 18, 2007.
The Chronicle of Higher Education said of Gonzalez and the Discovery Institute's claims of discrimination "At first glance, it seems like a clear-cut case of discrimination ... But a closer look at Mr. Gonzalez's case raises some questions about his recent scholarship and whether he has lived up to his early promise." The Chronicle observed that Gonzalez had no major grants during his seven years at ISU, had published no significant research during that time and had only one graduate student finish a dissertation.Advocate of Intelligent Design Who Was Denied Tenure Has Strong Publications Record Richard Monastersky. The Chronicle of Higher Education, May, 2007. Subscription needed The Discovery Institute misrepresents an op-ed by John Hauptman, one of Gonzalez's colleagues in the physics department. Hauptman states clearly that Gonzalez's work falls far short of what scientists know to be science, containing not one single number, not one single measurement or test of any kind.ISU Physicist Misrepresents Guillermo Gonzalez’s Arguments for Testing Intelligent Design Casey Luskin, Discovery Institute. EvolutionNews.org, June 4, 2007.Rights are intact: Vote turns on question, 'What is science?' John Hauptman. Des Moines Register, June 2, 2007. dead link as of November 13, 2007 "I believe that I fully met the requirements for tenure at ISU," said Gonzalez. On May 8, 2007, Gonzalez appealed the decision.Gonzalez appeal to be decided by Board of Regents Andrea Beisser, Iowa State Daily. February 7, 2008.
Gonzalez's failure to obtain research funding has been cited as a factor in the decision. "Essentially, he had no research funding," said Eli Rosenberg, chairman of Gonzalez's department. "That's one of the issues."www.desmoinesregister.com | Printer-friendly article page According to the Des Moines Register, "Iowa State has sponsored $22,661 in outside grant money for Gonzalez since July 2001, records show. In that same time period, Gonzalez's peers in physics and astronomy secured an average of $1.3 million by the time they were granted tenure." On February 7, 2008, his appeal to the board of regents was denied.Intelligent Design and Tenure: Not in the Stars, The Chronicle of Higher Education, February 7, 2008
Discovery Institute and intelligent design campaign The Discovery Institute launched a campaign portraying Gonzalez as a victim of discrimination by "Darwinist ideologues" for his support of intelligent design,Intelligent Design Scientist Denied Tenure Despite Exceeding Standard Requirements , Discovery InstituteProponent of intelligent design denied tenure by ISU , By: William Dillon, Mid-Iowa News comparing Gonzalez's denial of tenure to the claims of discrimination by Richard Sternberg, another institute affiliate, over the Sternberg peer review controversy.Updated: Iowa State University Denies Tenure to Noted Scientist Who Supports Intelligent Design, John West, Evolution News & Views, Discovery Institute The institute's public relations campaign also makes the same claims of discrimination as the campaign it conducted on behalf of institute Fellow Francis J. Beckwith when he was initially denied tenure at Baylor University.