SETI public: Gonzalez, Iowa States "Wizard of ID," on defensive

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http://www.stnews.org/articles.php?category=guide&guide=Intelligent%20Design&article_id=2170

Gonzalez, Iowa State’s "Wizard of ID," on defensive

Iowa State astronomy assistant and Intelligent Design supporter Guillermo
Gonzalez says his critics have got him wrong.

By Kevin Ferguson

(November 10, 2005)

It could not have been an easy place for life to flourish: a superheated
atmosphere in which the ground rapidly shifted and sulfuric material was
incessantly spewed. Primordial Earth? Actually, it was Iowa State University
in March 2004 as intelligent design proponents and their critics squared off
following the publication of The Privileged Planet by Guillermo Gonzalez, an
astronomy professor at Iowa State University, and Jay W. Richards, a former
teaching fellow at Princeton Theological Seminary. Both are senior fellows
at the Seattle-based Center for Science and Culture at the Discovery
Institute, which supports ID research.

Gonzalez, a well-respected astronomer who has been feted by both NASA and
the National Science Foundation, is in good company. His openness to — some
would say promulgation of — intelligent design theory puts him in same camp
as John D. Barrow, a research professor of mathematical sciences at the
University of Cambridge, who said at a Templeton-Cambridge Journalism
Fellowship seminar in June the extraordinary “fine-tuning” of the universe.
Nonetheless, Gonzalez has managed to draw peer ire for discussing
intelligent design theory. In fact, Gonzalez’s stand impelled Hector Avalos,
an associate professor of religious studies at Iowa State and faculty
adviser to the ISU Atheist and Agnostic Society, to spearhead an anti-ID
petition at Iowa State. More than 120 faculty members have signed it.

But Gonzalez’s critics have got him – well, mostly – wrong, he said. “The
statements use overheated rhetoric, such as labeling intelligent design as
the ‘new creationism,’ ” said Gonzalez. “They don’t really try to engage
intelligent design proponents. So, I see a particularly high level of
intolerance for real discussion among leading scientific organizations.”

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