Basu: Bias over views or credentials?

Just when I thought this discussion was over-here we go again. I'll say a few things here that will no doubt cause a few regulars to continue to ID bait me, rather than deal directly with my arguments.

For the record, just to remove any misunderstanding and attempt to move this debate to where it belongs (discussion of the meaning of the term "academic freedom"), any person who has access to EBSCO data host or a University library can hunt down the March 2007 issue of The Journal of Economic Issues and discover my academically published views on Darwinism in the social sciences. Those person(s) would quickly discover that not only am I pro-evolution, I am pro extending evolutionary concepts to the social sciences (with some caveats). I say this only because several people keep responding to what I am saying with accusations that I am shilling for the ID people. Nothing could be further from the truth.

That disclaimer out of the way, let me make another one: I still don't have any real evidence that Gonzales was improperly denied tenure.

Now, on to the real issue. I am bothered by the statement that Gonzales' pro ID views might have been considered negatively against him in the tenure decision because they negatively weighed against his scientific credentials.

There is to my mind a significant difference between a federal judge, for purposes of trying to decide what can and cannot be forced on high school biology classrooms, and trying to officially decide what counts as a scientific view for a tenure decision.

Science proceeds best when it is open to challenge and critical scrutiny (that is not the same as saying science education proceeds best...). Science today does indeed rest on a naturalistic world view. There is nothing wrong and sinister about that. In addition, people have the responsibility to teach the curriculum.

However, especially at the University level academic freedom does include the right to hold views that are considered outside the pale in one's discipline. How much one has the right to introduce views outside the pale into the classroom is a tricky issue. On balance, I don't have a problem with someone discussing ID to a very limited degree (and I stress very limited) in a **College** science classroom, provided the standard curriculum is covered and covered rigorously.

Furthermore, provided one is publishing in accepted academic journals, getting grant money, turning out graduate students, etc. or meeting other University specified requirements, one has the right to advocate even crackpot theories. Now if one's crackpot theories make it impossible to publish, then that's a different story.

To make a long story short: the way to decide these matters generally is to apply a "But for" test. In other words, remove the fact that Gonzales is a well known advocate of ID and ask would his record have been tenurable otherwise. The way to test this is to compare his record to that of other people recently granted and denied tenure. If by comparison his record was tenurable, and people are on record as saying that his pro-ID views were a motivating factor, then I would have to say there is prima facie evidence of viewpoint discrimination.

Again, I wish to stress that I have no evidence any of this happened to Gonzales. If he really has evidence, there are mechanisms by which to bring his complaint to light. He certainly has the right to generate publicity to support his case. But in the end, I doubt that publicity will decide the matter. His individual case should be decided first by the appropriate University appeals mechanisms. People should avoid jumping to any conclusions until that is done and the record is in writing.

Now, I'll bring this to a close with my central point: I continue to oppose any effort to impose any kind of "litmus test" on the viewpoints of anyone in academia as a condition for granting or maintaining tenure.

The saddest part of the article was reading the comments after the article, complete with accusations that the reporter got her marching orders from MoveOn and that she is ideologically comparable to Castro. This does not include the usual quote mining and other forms of intellectual dishonesty displayed by her readers.
Be that as it may, the issue of tenure has always been a tangled one, as there is a very large subjective element in any such decision. Anywhere in the process, anyone who has had a run-in with the applicant has an opportunity to grind his axes. In the case of professors who have taken controversial stands, such as arguing that slavery played no role in the run up to the Civil War, will find it more difficult to be granted tenure. So long as the denial of tenure is not based on civil rights grounds, at one point, it seemed a professor could be denied tenure for something as minor as preferring to wear polka dot bowties at seminars.
Now maybe things have changed in the ensuing years, but the whole issue of tenure is another issue separate from the ID debate (if it can be so dignified)altogether.

HMMM, interesting fact #1
Two members of the department that denied tenure to astronomer Guillermo Gonzalez at Iowa State University (ISU) have publicly admitted that Gonzalez's work on intelligent design played a role in his denial of tenure.

Interesting Fact #2
After Gonzalez published "The Privileged Planet" an "atheistic religious studies professor" (explain that connection to me) had a petition signed by 120 faculty members of ISU to reject ID from even being considered science. (Sounds like Orwell's thought police are alive and well at ISU) even though Gonzalez never taught ID in his class. Now if that is not setting the stage for "witch hunting" I don't know what is. It is/was definitely a hostile work environment for Gonzalez. In spite of Gonzalez excellent research record, which would compare favorably with any fully tenured professor, and the fact He never taught ID in class, It is most likely from the solid evidence presented so far that he was denied tenure for his personal beliefs. To deny this is to deny the facts.
This does not surprise me for I find evolutionists are experts in ignoring hard facts that are inconvenient to them and exalting suggestive facts that can't be conclusively proved.

However, especially at the University level academic freedom does include the right to hold views that are considered outside the pale in one's discipline.

ID is not a controversial alternative scientific line of inquiry, as, say, string theory currently is; it is, and has repeatedly been proven to be, a pack of lies, a con-game based on misunderstanding and misrepresentation of facts and how science works. To continue to advocate ID, after all the public smackdowns it has received, is a sign of either incompetence or dishonesty -- either of which should be considered valid reasons for denial of tenure.

I continue to oppose any effort to impose any kind of "litmus test" on the viewpoints of anyone in academia as a condition for granting or maintaining tenure.

Even when those "viewpoints" are blatantly contrary to known truth or the basic values the university wishes to uphold?

Calling a well-known lie a "viewpoint" should not insulate it from scrutiny or accountability, whether it's ID, rejection of germ theory, or a Jewish-conspiracy story.

It is most likely from the solid evidence presented so far that he was denied tenure for his personal beliefs.

So is ID valid science, or just a "personal belief?" And which did Gonzalez say it was?

I have heard elsewhere that Gonzalez had no research grants. Does anyone know if that is the case, and if it is, does that not provide solid grounds for denying him tenure, regardless of whether or not he is an IDist?

Re Aagcobb

Prof. Gerard Harbison of the Un. of Nebraska attempted to discover if Prof. Gonzalez had ever been awarded any grants during his tenure at Iowa State Un. He was unable to find any evidence of such awards. As Prof. Harbison points out, this by itself would be sufficient to deny tenure these days.

http://homepage.mac.com/gerardharbison/blog/RWP_blog.html

Re Chip Poirot

I suspect that many of the faculty members at Iowa State Un. were very reluctant to grant tenure to a Peter Duesberg, Michael Behe, Brian Josephson, Arthur Butz type of individual like Prof. Gonzalez. These individuals have tenure and have been an embarrassment to their universities. Faculty members understandably don't like being embarrassed at national meetings by the presence of tenured whackjobs at their universities.

According to this blub from DI:
Dr. Gonzalez has published 68 refereed articles in peer-reviewed journals, exceeding the normal standard of his department by 350%! Significantly, nowhere do his departmental standards even mention outside research grants as a criterion for promotion or tenure.
Why exactly should ID be ruled out prior to investigation. To assert that it not even possible to deduce intelligence is to deny many commonly accepted diciplines of science and is to hold a biased presumption prior to investigation.(That is clearly bad empirical science in its own right) Remember, the materialistic philosophy fought tooth and nail to prevent the Big Bang from joining mainstream science because of its Theistic implications. Even today we find a few people fighting against the Big Bang because of its implications. Yet we are suppose to unquestionably follow the materialistic party line of evolution and never question that it could produce the amazing complexity we are witnessing around us. Excuse me if I don't click my heals to the thought police on this matter and demand proof that cleary violates Genetic Entropy.

I have heard elsewhere that Gonzalez had no research grants. Does anyone know if that is the case, and if it is, does that not provide solid grounds for denying him tenure, regardless of whether or not he is an IDist?

Mr. [sic] Gonzalez said he does not have any grants through NASA or the National Science Foundation, the two agencies that would normally support his research, on planets beyond our solar system and their parent stars.

I have heard elsewhere that Gonzalez had no research grants. Does anyone know if that is the case, and if it is, does that not provide solid grounds for denying him tenure, regardless of whether or not he is an IDist?

Mr. [sic] Gonzalez said he does not have any grants through NASA or the National Science Foundation, the two agencies that would normally support his research, on planets beyond our solar system and their parent stars.

5.2.2.3.2. Research /Creative Activities. Faculty members who engage in research/creative activities are expected to make original contributions that are appropriate to their chosen area of specialization and that are respected by peers within and outside the university. Some examples of research/creative activity include the following: * conduct of experimental research * creative performance or exhibition * conceptualizing and theorizing in an original way * synthesis, criticism, and clarification of extant knowledge and research * innovative collection or analysis of empirical data * seeking and obtaining competitive grants and contracts * relating research to the solution of practical problems * leadership in professional societies or organizations A portfolio format is used to document faculty research/creative activities beyond what is contained in the candidate's vita. The faculty portfolio includes materials such as summaries of completed, current, and future research projects; descriptions of applied use of research; summaries of grants, patents, and inventions; exhibition catalogs and other non-juried creative works. The effectiveness of the candidate's research/creative activities is determined by evaluating the character of the scholarship of these activities using the criteria described in the scholarship section and in Table 1. Scholarship resulting from research/creative activities is documented through means appropriate to the specialty, such as peer-reviewed publications, lectures, performances, exhibits, invited lectures, conference papers. Evaluation of scholarship considers its impact as judged by its influence, use, or adoption by peers; its originality, richness, breadth and/or depth of expression.

Under normal circumstances, Mr. Gonzalez's publication record would be stellar and would warrant his earning tenure at most universities, according to Mr. Hirsch. But Mr. Gonzalez completed the best scholarship, as judged by his peers, while doing postdoctoral work at the University of Texas at Austin and at the University of Washington, where he received his Ph.D. His record has trailed off since then.

That pattern may have hurt his case. "Tenure review only deals with his work since he came to Iowa State," said John McCarroll, a spokesman for the university. When considering a tenure case, faculty committees try to anticipate what kind of work a professor will accomplish in the future. "The only reason the previous record is relevant is the extent to which it can predict future performance," said Mr. Hirsch. "Generally, it's a good indication, but in some cases it's not."

The department's promotion and tenure guidelines do not explicitly list external financial support as a requirement for tenure, he said. But Iowa's Mr. McCarroll said that the tenure-review process does consider how many research grants scientists have received.

PC2,

I know I'm going to hate myself for this in the morning, but OK, I'll bite. Could you please state for us precisely what you mean by "genetic entropy". What is the basic concept? Is it published in any real scientific journal? Is it just another way of saying "conservation of information"? Did you just make this up by yourself or did you copy the idea from someone else? Do you really think this is a problem for evolutionary theory? Do you have any evidence? Will you be submitting your ground breaking research to any journal soon? How about the DI journals, will they be publishing this soon? Inquiring minds want to know.

Now, as for the topic of the thread. PvM kindly provided the portion of the faculty handbook that states that "seeking and obtaining competitive grants and contracts" is expected for the position. According to the evidence presented here, this guy had none. That is the criteria most often applied in these types decisions, as far as I know. Why condemn yourself to forty more years of this guy if you think you can hire someone else who can bring in millions in grants? I didn't say it was right. I just mean that the reasoning is at least understandable.

Far more telling is the part that says:

"Faculty members who engage in research/creative activities are expected to make original contributions that are appropriate to their chosen area of specialization and that are respected by peers within and outside the university."

So, it seems appropriate that views that are definately not respected by most peers should be considered. Especially if you choose to be very public about those views prior to the tenure decision.

Even if the whole thing is one big conspiracy, so what? What is anyone going to do about it? If the evil Darwinist conspiracy reaches into every decision in every deparment in every major university, then I guess you better just give up now. Or, you could try to adopt illegal legislation that would demand the brainwashing of school children and mean the end of science in this country. Yea, I'm sure that's the right way to go to fight an ideological conspiracy.

Why exactly should ID be ruled out prior to investigation.

Because there's been PLENTY of investigation, and ID never stands up under serious scrutiny.

Remember, the materialistic philosophy fought tooth and nail to prevent the Big Bang from joining mainstream science because of its Theistic implications.

Philosophies don't fight; people and interest groups fight. Who, specifically, "fought tooth and nail to prevent the Big Bang from joining mainstream science?" And why did the Big Bang become the accepted theory despite such a horrific fight?

Even today we find a few people fighting against the Big Bang because of its implications.

Who, specifically, and why? The fact that the Big Bang is currently accepted, proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that science does not reject new ideas merely because of their "theistic implications."

Excuse me if I don't click my heals to the thought police on this matter and demand proof that cleary violates Genetic Entropy.

And this statement very strongly implies that "PC2" is actually "realpc," version 2.0. Aparently the upgrade from version 1.0 didn't have much of an effect on performance.

If any faculty members worked in the vicinity of Gonzales or even had casual conversations with him about scientific matters, I would suspect that it would be quite likely they picked up on some disturbing misconceptions in Gonzales' thinking. It is extremely difficult to hold the kinds of views the ID/creationists do without having major conceptual errors in one's scientific understanding.

These kinds of conceptual problems would be strong indicators of limited future potential in obtaining competitive grants, mentoring graduate students, teaching classes, and contributing to advancing knowledge.

I think that anyone who has worked around an idiot who has maintained his/her position by political means will understand these implications. Getting rid of such idiots before a political process locks them in place is far better than living with them after it becomes impossible to ditch them.

At this point, we just don't know the details, but if Gonzales' problems are anything like those we see in the fake scientists at the Discovery Institute, then the process of dumping him will very likely be subtle and obscure. It wouldn't be persecution; it would be a pragmatic awareness of the future difficulties caused by supporting someone who is very likely to be incompetent. It would also take into consideration the political battles that would almost certainly ensue whenever ideologists, like those among the ID/creationist crowd, start howling that they are being persecuted for their religion when in fact they are really incompetent.

The idea that his research record should be evaluated independently of his veiws on ID is wrong - his views on ID are part of his research record. It would be an entirely different matter if his views on ID had only been expressed in private. However, he has published extensively on the subject, so it is completely legitimate to consider it as part of his record for tenure evaluation. The point of tenure is to decide "is this person going to be a productive scientist and contribute positively to the department and the university?" Gonzalez's support of ID shows him to have very poor scientific judegment and cannot be seperated from the rest of his record.

If any faculty members worked in the vicinity of Gonzales or even had casual conversations with him about scientific matters, I would suspect that it would be quite likely they picked up on some disturbing misconceptions in Gonzales' thinking. It is extremely difficult to hold the kinds of views the ID/creationists do without having major conceptual errors in one's scientific understanding.

These kinds of conceptual problems would be strong indicators of limited future potential in obtaining competitive grants, mentoring graduate students, teaching classes, and contributing to advancing knowledge.

I think that anyone who has worked around an idiot who has maintained his/her position by political means will understand these implications. Getting rid of such idiots before a political process locks them in place is far better than living with them after it becomes impossible to ditch them.

At this point, we just don't know the details, but if Gonzales' problems are anything like those we see in the fake scientists at the Discovery Institute, then the process of dumping him will very likely be subtle and obscure. It wouldn't be persecution; it would be a pragmatic awareness of the future difficulties caused by supporting someone who is very likely to be incompetent. It would also take into consideration the political battles that would almost certainly ensue whenever ideologists, like those among the ID/creationist crowd, start howling that they are being persecuted for their religion when in fact they are really incompetent.

(I'm not sure what is happening with the posting. Sometimes hitting Post produces nothing, then trying again a few minutes later produces a double post. Is there something I am missing? I'm trying this a second time, so if there is a double post, that is what happened.)

Faculty members understandably don't like being embarrassed at national meetings by the presence of tenured whackjobs at their universities.

Never having heard of the book, Privileged Planet, I put it in search engines and got some excerpts. It seemed to be typical creo nonsense. Supposedly the atmosphere is transparent to visible light so our eyes can see. More likely that our eyes are evolutionarily selected to be sensitive to visible light because that is what the atmosphere is letting through. If it couldn't get through, it wouldn't be called "visible" now, would it.

One other thing that bothers me. Astronomers say that the nearest large spiral galaxy, Andromeda, will collide with the milky way in ca. 2 billion years. This could definitely be hard on life in our galaxy. So what is so privileged about being a rabbit in the headlights while a spectacular intergalactic collision occurs? It's not like we are going to be able to stop it or anything.

FWIW, when fundies are presented with possible future problems like global warming, overpopulation, asteroid dinosaur killer class impacts, emerging diseases such as HIV, SARS, avian flu evolving into human pandemic capable forms, etc., their usual response is so what. After all, any day now, Gabriel will blow his horn, the rapture will occur, and we will all be killed by our benevolent creator and sent to various afterlifes. They've been wrong for 2,000 years but being wrong never seems to bother them.

@Chip Poirot:

I disagree with you that holding views that are utterly beyond the pale for one's dicipline should not negatively effect your chance of tenure. For that matter, I don't believe that you really believe that either, if you think about it for a while. Would you claim that being active in a holocaust denial group (in any capacity other than agent provocateur) should not factor negatively into a tenure decision for a Political Science chair? After all, holocaust denial doesn't have to negatively impact the performance of any specific duties of the chair in question.

I'm sorry ID'ers (and other crackpots), but holding beliefs that are objectively batshit crazy does disqualify you from employment at most respectable scientific institutions. And that's not even going into the fact that Behe's lacklustre performance since joining the DI gives every reason to believe that being tenured and creationist at the same time does Bad Things for your productivity.

Disclaimer: I'm not claiming moral equivalence between holocaust deniers and creationists - merely that they are wrong by approximately the same order of magnitude (10^6, to be precise...).

- JS

@Chip Poirot:

I disagree with you that holding views that are utterly beyond the pale for one's discipline should not negatively effect your chance of tenure. For that matter, I don't believe that you really believe that either, if you think about it for a while. Would you claim that being active in a holocaust denial group (in any capacity other than agent provocateur) should not factor negatively into a tenure decision for a Political Science chair? After all, holocaust denial doesn't have to negatively impact the performance of any specific duties of the chair in question.

I'm sorry ID'ers (and other crackpots), but holding beliefs that are objectively batshit crazy does disqualify you from employment at most respectable scientific institutions. And that's not even going into the fact that Behe's lacklustre performance since joining the DI gives every reason to believe that being tenured and creationist at the same time does Bad Things for your productivity.

Disclaimer: I'm not claiming moral equivalence between holocaust deniers and creationists - merely that they are wrong by approximately the same order of magnitude (10^6, to be precise...).

- JS

For the record, just to remove any misunderstanding and attempt to move this debate to where it belongs (discussion of the meaning of the term "academic freedom"),

I still don't have any real evidence that Gonzales was improperly denied tenure.

PC2 is obviously "RealPC"; hasn't this person broken several PT rules already?

Is anyone else disturbed by the opening sentence in the Chronicle article?

"At first glance, it seems like a clear-cut case of discrimination."

Shouldn't the Chronicle of Higher Education have a more sophisticated understanding of what "discrimination" might (or might not) entail in a tenure review? The article approaches the question by stacking up Gonzalez's professional merits, as though approval or denial of tenure can be justified by looking at the length of the publication record.

I blogged about this here before I realized the Chronicle article had been discussed in this thread.

I tend to agree that if someone is being considered for the position of full-time lifeguard, the fact that he's written a book called "Why God Wants People to Drown" is relevant and disturbing. The facts that the candidate has great eyes and ears, is a powerful swimmer, passes all the technical requirements (carries of violent thrashing victims, carries in heavy waves, etc.) are certainly important, but what we're trying to assess here is what the candidate WILL do when required, not what he CAN do.

Gonzalez seems to have spent far more time pursuing his anti-science activities than actually doing any science, and over time the situation is clearly deteriorating. No way I'd want him as a tenured scientist.

Raging Bee,

I disagree. It's that simple. Academic freedom includes the right to work outside the prevailing paradigm or even to challenge the prevailing paradigm.

Again, as I stated: if one's work outside a paradigm makes it impossible to publish, to get grant money, or to teach the curriculum effectively, then it is valid to deny someone tenure for those things.

I agree, that given the normal conventions of science, ID is not a scientific line of inquiry per se (using the term science very narrowly here to refer to what is done in the natural and physical sciences). I would call ID in the abstract, a mildly interesting philosophical/metaphysical position. I would call ID as advocated by the Discovery Institute a bad joke.

The issue is whether or not a scientist has a right to hold and publicly express a position on philosophy/metaphysics. I think they do, even if that philosohical/metaphysical view is unpopular or subject to abuse. On the other hand, they don't have a right to turn an astronomy class into a course on religious philosophy.

PvM:
I reject this "bean counting" argument you keep turning up. This isn't the issue (it may be for some, but not for me). Of course publications need to be weighed. But the weighing is not a subjective, pesonal weighing. It's a weighing of things similar to what a jury in a trial is supposed to do. The evidence for future performance is based on past performance-not a subjective, wild guess about what you think might happen at date x in the future. If someone has proven potential by meeting relevant requirements, you can't make up new requirements, or use the weighing to say ridiculous things like: sure he published in the relevant journals but...

The issue in Gonzales case is what he was told at the time of appointment. If he knew he needed money and didn't get it, then he has nothing to complain about. If on the other hand, research money was not a requirement, but one factor to be weighed among others, then it is necessary to look at how things have been done in the past.

Someone else said: you could deny tenure for wearing the wrong kind of tie. Legally, you may or may not be able to do that, depending on the state. Practically, in many localities denying tenure for invidious reasons would open a University to legal action. Furthermore, no University is going to admit that they are denying tenure for invidious reasons (unless they are just stupid, which does happen). Those actions raise controversy and might lead to institutional censure by the AAUP (not that anyone pays attention to the AAUP's list).

The point remains: There isn't enough evidence to say anything about Gonzales' case, and frankly, I think people should stop speculating and wait for the matter to work out. As far as I am concerned it helps no one and helps no cause to say he was denied tenure inappropriately. Similarly, it helps no one and serves no cause to say the deinal was appropriate.

The simple matter here is that nobody knows, nor could we know (nor for that matter I don't see any reason why Iowa State would release the information to us it would require for us to know).

From my pov, thus far, this is what I am willing to say. There is no evidence of persecution and to claim that this demonstrates persecution against ID proponents cannot be supported by any evidence.

Ok Dave Stanton, you don't have to yourself, but here is what I'm talking about when I say genetic entropy, "Genetic Entropy" is a growing body of evidence that indicates a level of entropy for the information in a life form that is separate and more rigorous than the entropy demonstrated by the Second Law of Thermodynamics for the material realm. A book titled "Genetic Entropy" has recently been written. The following is a review of that book that I found on amazon. Please note the the stature of the scientist who wrote the book.
"Genetic Entropy" was written by Cornel University Professor of Genetics, John Sanford. In his 25 years as a research scientist at Cornell he was granted 25 patents, the most well known one for the gene gun, better known as the ballistic process. It is as a result of this development that I first learned of his important work (I have used this technology in my molecular biology research). I agree with much in this book partly because I have come to the same conclusion as Dr Sanford, only by a very different route. This work for me only further solidified the case for evolution, only evolution the wrong way, downward instead of upward, i.e. the genome is degenerating. Even if half of Dr Sanford's well documented arguments turn out to be incorrect, he has still made his case in this well written, yet packed full of insight, easy to read, book. He makes his case in 10 chapters, any one of which stands alone as clear evidence for genome degeneration. One point that impressed me was the fact that most mutations are not neutral, as commonly believed, but near neutral. As a result, they are not selected out by natural selection. Consequently, they accumulate in the genomes of all life forms so that, as a set, they reduce fitness for the entire species, eventually producing genetic meltdown. This may be one reason for animal extinction. The harmful mutations are not the problem because those that are dominnt are usually soon selected out by natural selection. This, as is well documented in this book and elsewhere, is the main role of selection, to help maintain the stability of the genome by reducing the effects of deleterious mutations. Neo-Darwinist today believe that the major means of producing new genetic information is mutations and selection. As Sanford documents, the problem is not the survival of the fittest, though, but the arrival of the fittest because mutations as a whole clearly reduce usable information, not increase it. All other theories of the source of new genetic information, such as Darwin's pangenesis, and acquired traits as developed by Lamarckism ideas, have been discarded. The only viable theory left is mutations. This book will be important in showing that mutations are not only not the answer to the arrival of the fittest problem, but are clear evidence against Neo-Darwinism.

Thanks SLC.

I've taken the relatively unpopular position that Gonzalez's promotion of ID, per se, should not have been considered in his tenure case. However, it appears The Privileged Planet was included in his tenure file. Gonzalez did not have to do this, but he did, and therefore The Privileged Planet was subject to review for scientific rigor. If some of the claims about The Privileged Planet have been reported accurately - e.g. that the transparency of the atmosphere at visible wavelengths shows the planet was designed for human eyes - then it must surely have been an unfavorable review.

By the way, it's not just the DI that have been making fallacious or misleading claims about the Gonzalez case. Denyse O Leary today discussed at length hoiw one of his papers has over a hundred citations - without disclosing that the paper dates to 1998, before he began at ISU, and therefore would not have been a significant part of his tenure review. I have several papers that were cited hundreds of times from my grad. student days; they were not included in my tenure review.

Gonzalez's output during his probabionary period was apparently nondescript in both quality and quantity; he lacked major funding; and he included scientifically questionable material in his tenure file. I doubt it was even a close call.

Hey, Phil, you dishonest spamming troll plagiarist,

YOU ALREADY POSTED THAT, with no attribution. At that time, I identified the possibilities.
They are: you are spamming the comments with drivel YOU WROTE that appears elsewhere and could simply be linked to,
OR
You are plagiarizing the hack who reviews books on Amazon under the nom de fool "The Professor."

Both sorts of behavior are against the comments policy here. Do yourself and the rest of us a favor, and go away.

Thanks SLC.

I've taken the relatively unpopular position that Gonzalez's promotion of ID, per se, should not have been considered in his tenure case. However, it appears The Privileged Planet was included in his tenure file. Gonzalez did not have to do this, but he did, and therefore The Privileged Planet was subject to review for scientific rigor. If some of the claims about The Privileged Planet have been reported accurately - e.g. that the transparency of the atmosphere at visible wavelengths shows the planet was designed for human eyes - then it must surely have been an unfavorable review.

By the way, it's not just the DI that have been making fallacious or misleading claims about the Gonzalez case. Denyse O Leary today discussed at length hoiw one of his papers has over a hundred citations - without disclosing that the paper dates to 1998, before he began at ISU, and therefore would not have been a significant part of his tenure review. I have several papers that were cited hundreds of times from my grad. student days; they were not included in my tenure review.

Gonzalez's output during his probationary period was apparently nondescript in both quality and quantity; he lacked major funding; and he included scientifically questionable material in his tenure file. I doubt it was even a close call.

Academic freedom includes the right to work outside the prevailing paradigm or even to challenge the prevailing paradigm.

To challenge it with facts, evidence, and logic, yes. To challenge it with old and discredited ideas, lies, smoke, scapegoating, misrepresentation, arguments from ignorance, and all of the other nonsense that has proven standard tools of the IDers, no. "Academic freedom" does not mean ID any more than it means Holocaust-denial, astrology, geocentrism, or deranged conspiracy theories.

Also, "academic freedom" does not mean freedom from being judged by the consequences of your work. We judge ID based on its lack of results, and on the dishonesty of leading IDers that has been exposed in Federal courts.

If you're getting money to do certain kinds of work, you WILL be judged by the people who sign your paychecks. Don't like it? Find someone else to sign your paychecks.

I would call ID as advocated by the Discovery Institute a bad joke.

Please tell us exactly how Gonzalez' version of ID is less of a "bad joke" than the DI's.

Never having heard of the book, Privileged Planet, I put it in search engines and got some excerpts. It seemed to be typical creo nonsense. Supposedly the atmosphere is transparent to visible light so our eyes can see. More likely that our eyes are evolutionarily selected to be sensitive to visible light because that is what the atmosphere is letting through. If it couldn't get through, it wouldn't be called "visible" now, would it.

Raging Bee,

Could you kindly send or post your list of banned topics for research/advocacy? Could you make it discipline specific?

I think Gerald said it well. If his tenure file was thin and not up to snuff, and it included non-scientific or junk science materials in support of his tenure bid, then the decision was justified.

And that is the only reason to make such a decision. If in applying the "But for" standard (which btw is the relevant legal standard for either academic or discrimination cases) he would have been granted tenure, then the decision was wrong.

I am against imposing any kind of litmus test on any discipline about what kinds of views one may hold in order to be considered eligible for tenure. And if that means people get tenured with weird views or bad views, then I can live with that. I'd prefer to that any kind of orthodoxy sniffers going around trying to decide what views lie outside the pale of academic freedom. I don't know if that is what you intend, but that is the result you will get.

As I said, ID is a metaphysical/philosophical view. You can't deny tenure on the basis of a metaphysical/philosophical view. Again, apply the "but for" test. That is the legal standard.

I've read The Privileged Planet. Based on that, and the assumption that either the grant to write the book or the book itself was submitted as part of the tenure package, I would vote against granting tenure.

Further, I would write a seriously critical review attached to my vote. To summarize, The Privileged Planet is exceedingly bad science filled with flawed logic.

In fact, it is so bad that even if it had not been submitted as part of the tenure package (it being just a hobby), I would still vote no and for the same reasons: no science professor can have as a hobby promoting anti-science, no matter how disguised...

As I said, ID is a metaphysical/philosophical view. You can't deny tenure on the basis of a metaphysical/philosophical view.

Still steamed, compare with

Peter D Ward & Donald Brownlee
Rare Earth: why complex life is uncommon in the universe

Speculative, yes. But based on sound science, some of it Professor Ward's own...

In fact, it is so bad that even if it had not been submitted as part of the tenure package (it being just a hobby), I would still vote no and for the same reasons: no science professor can have as a hobby promoting anti-science, no matter how disguised...

David,
Interesting you would mention Rare Earth, for two reasons. One, it has been implied (incorrectly, IMO) that the thesis is "crypto-creationism" for its superficial relationship to "fine-tuning" arguments, and Two, the authors mention Gonzales's work (favorably) at least once in the text. (I checked, though, as this whole brouhaha began, and they do not cite any of his papers. This was in 2000/01, before Priveleged Planet)

David Heddle --- Read Rare Earth to see some sound speculation based on actual science.

But to argue to dis-merits and illogic of The Privileged Planet on this thread is technically off-topic.

So instead, attempt yourself to understand why much of the logic in The Privileged Planet is flawed...

PC2,

I knew I would hate myself for asking. See what you went and did. You already dumped that load of crap here once. See my response in a previous thread. By the way, I don't recall ever seeing a publication in a peer reviewed jopurnal using the term "genetic entropy". I wonder why that is. I'm thinking of publishing a book on gnomes that live in the Martian canals. I guess that will count as "growing evidence" as well.

As for the topic of this thread, Gonzalez was denied tenure. Deal with it. Whether the reason was just or not, whether the decision was legal or not, the people that needed to make the decision made it. If you don't like it, sue them. If you think Gonzalez was descriminated against, or if you think he was denied due process, sue ISU. I'm sure the Thomas Moore Law Center will take the case. I'm sure that is just what ID needs right now, aother legal decision against them. If you don't think it will go that way, sue. Any guess as to the outcome of the UC case?

David B. Benson,

I'll interpret your reluctance to answer in the worst possible light.

CJO --- I believe if you look for citations to Peter D. Ward's work, you'll find him well-regarded. I certainly didn't see any crypto-creationism in his book.

I don't recall any reference to Gonzalez, but I read the book several years ago, before really knowing anything about ID+DI. (Same for The Privileged Planet.)

Is it easy for you to quote Ward & Brownlee in this regard? I, at least, would find it interesting...

If Gonzalez's unpardonable sin is the Privileged Planet, then I challenge Raging Bee to provide references as to where the main contention of the Privileged Planet, namely that habitability is correlated with observability, has been proven to be a pack of lies. I would argue that, while it may be wrong (it would actually be better for ID if it is wrong) it is nevertheless an interesting speculation, and probably would have been treated as such had it be offered in a book that wasn't closely tied with the ID movement.

For your argument that our eyes evolved to match the transparency conveniently ignores two other relevant facts. (1) That (narrow) transparency also falls where the intensity of the sun is more or less at its peak---thus evolution did not have to "decide" whether our eyes matched where the atmosphere was transparent or where the sun was pumping out photons---it got both for the price of one. An additional bonus is that visible light interacts well with organic molecules---and that's based on evolution-independent chemistry. Furthermore, the transparent atmosphere clearly makes astronomy possible---again showing that the observability-habitability correlation is not necessarily credo pseudo-science.

Oh dear

The atmosphere is transparent in the visible region because, in fact, most simple first row molecules do not absorb in that region. Nor do most organic molecules. To get absorbtion in the visible region, you need a series of conjugated double bonds, or an unusual electronic structure. Simple proteins don't absorb in the visible; neither does DNA. Living organisms have evolved unusual and quite specialized molecules, like retinal, to do it. In fact, we find that organisms that live, say, in the deep sea, shift their visual pigments to suit; and in fact, the clear evidence for rhodopsin and the three cone pigments suggests that the pigments evolved to make wider use of the visible spectrum, not vice versa

Of course, were the atmosphere not transparent in some region above the infrared, there would have been no reliable fuel source for most life.

For your argument that our eyes evolved to match the transparency conveniently ignores two other relevant facts. (1) That (narrow) transparency also falls where the intensity of the sun is more or less at its peak---thus evolution did not have to "decide" whether our eyes matched where the atmosphere was transparent or where the sun was pumping out photons---it got both for the price of one. An additional bonus is that visible light interacts well with organic molecules---and that's based on evolution-independent chemistry. Furthermore, the transparent atmosphere clearly makes astronomy possible---again showing that the observability-habitability correlation is not necessarily credo pseudo-science.

Oh dear

The atmosphere is transparent in the visible region because, in fact, most simple first row molecules do not absorb in that region. Nor do most organic molecules. To get absorbtion in the visible region, you need a series of conjugated double bonds, or an unusual electronic structure. Simple proteins don't absorb in the visible; neither does DNA. Living organisms have evolved unusual and quite specialized molecules, like retinal, to do it. In fact, we find that organisms that live, say, in the deep sea, shift their visual pigments to suit; and in fact, the clear evidence for common ancestry of rhodopsin and the three cone pigments suggests that the pigments evolved to make wider use of the visible spectrum, not vice versa

Of course, were the atmosphere not transparent in some region above the infrared, there would have been no reliable fuel source for most life.

David, nor did I see anything suspect in the book, which I quite like. I just mention it, because I was taken aback when I read some criticism of it from that angle.

In a couple hours, I'll find the mention (the book's been sitting out on my desk, as I've been re-reading parts of it since I went checking for cites of GG).

Heddle, I'll bite. I don't know about "polite company" but the reasoning certainly strikes me as facile. Douglas Adams's parable of the puddle comes to mind. Regarding the transparency of the atmosphere at the precise wavelength of visible radiation, since the evolution of life on earth has been a major factor in the (changing) composition of the atmosphere, the planet was habitable before the supposed fine-tuning even occured.
As regards the moon and eclipses, again, timing is all. Had astronomers been around when the moon looked bigger, because it was closer, what conclusions would we draw from that?
It strikes me, at the most basic level, as "having it both ways." Features of the environment that make it easy to investigate the universe are good for observability. And features of the environment that make us think in order to conceptualize (why isn't the rotation of the earth synchronized with its orbital period, making calendrics easier?) are good for spurring scientific reasoning. Heads you win, tails I lose.

For your argument that our eyes evolved to match the transparency conveniently ignores two other relevant facts. (1) That (narrow) transparency also falls where the intensity of the sun is more or less at its peak---thus evolution did not have to "decide" whether our eyes matched where the atmosphere was transparent or where the sun was pumping out photons---it got both for the price of one. An additional bonus is that visible light interacts well with organic molecules---and that's based on evolution-independent chemistry. Furthermore, the transparent atmosphere clearly makes astronomy possible---again showing that the observability-habitability correlation is not necessarily credo pseudo-science.

David Heddle --- I am not uniquely qualified to make mince-meat (if that is possible) out of that wretched book. Any logician could do it, which means any analytic philosopher could do it, being a professional logician is not required.

Glen D, in a just prior post, points out one of the many completely ludicrous arguments in the book, regarding the just-so distance and diameter of the moon.

The book is full of marvelous correlations without the slightest scientific (even speculation) of how these came about.

And all this is occurring on a cool, cloudy day here. Wow. Isn't that an important correlation!

Grow up.

One should not argue from ignorance backed up only by Google searches.

From ncse.org Review of The Privileged Planet The Privileged Planet: How Our Place in the Cosmos Is Designed for Discovery by Guillermo Gonzalez and Jay W. Richards Washington DC: Regnery Publishing, 2004. 444 pages reviewed by William H. Jefferys, The University of Texas at Austin The Privileged Planet is based upon the odd notion that the more unsuitable our universe is for producing intelligent life, the more likely it is that our universe was "designed" to produce intelligent life by a "designer" of indeterminate nature; put another way, supposedly the less likely it is that there could be a planet in our universe that supports intelligent life, then the more likely it is that the universe was "designed" to produce a particular intelligent life form -- us -- that can and will investigate the nature of the universe. DELETED MOST FOR LENGTH REASONS. REFER TO THE WEBSITE. Finally, I turn to Gonzalez and Richards's notion that our earth is uniquely designed for its inhabitants to do scientific exploration, and that the universe is similarly designed for us to do that scientific exploration. They point to a number of phenomena that have aided our scientific enterprise, such as the transparency of the earth's atmosphere, the fact that we have a moon that is just far enough from the earth to produce spectacular solar eclipses, and so on. Of all the arguments in the book, I find this the weakest. It puts the cart before the horse. For suppose it were not so; if we existed on another world very different from the earth, then we would surely be doing something. We would be doing whatever was possible for us to do under the circumstances in which we found ourselves. If we accepted the Whiggish reasoning of the authors, we would be just as justified in concluding that our planet -- and our universe, if we could see it in this alternative reality -- was designed so that we would do whatever we happened to be doing at the time or find interesting at the time (as diverse human cultures have always done). The authors could learn much by studying a little anthropology and a little history. To summarize, 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. It is the same old shell game. It's too bad that Guillermo Gonzalez (whom I know from his tenure as a postdoctoral fellow in the University of Texas's Astronomy Department) has allowed himself to be sucked in as an advocate for this ancient argument. The Argument from Design is 200 years old, if not older, and it has not improved with age. It hasn't resulted in any new knowledge in all of those years. Modern astronomy is constantly producing new knowledge and understanding of the universe. Guillermo is a promising young astrophysicist, and I hope that he doesn't throw away his career on such nonsense.

Gerard,
I quite understand the physics, at least as well as you do, I'm guessing, as to why our atmosphere is transparent---that however does not explain why we have such an atmosphere. Arguments of bio-feedback may be right, but at the moment they are just-so arguments. At least equally plausible is a (religion-agnostic) anthropic argument: our atmosphere is transparent at the correct wavelengths because if it weren't we wouldn't be here.

There is simply no proof that life produced a transparent atmosphere rather than a transparent atmosphere enabled life. If there is, let me know.

What do you mean infrared photons are good at "moving nuclei?"

And, of course, you don't need anything unusual to get absorption in the visible region. Take a look at Venus.

Raven,

I don't care about book reviews that complain about the ID in thePP, I want a scientific refutation of the correlation between habitability and observability. Did you find that in your Google search?

Let's get this straight: Four people have been denied tenure at Iowa State in the physics department in the last decade, and 75% of them were NOT advocates of intelligent design?

[Get ready, here's the statistical falsehood coming . . .] Why this bias in favor of intelligent design advocates? Non-advocates get denied tenure three times as often . . .

I quite understand the physics, at least as well as you do, I'm guessing, as to why our atmosphere is transparent---that however does not explain why we have such an atmosphere. Arguments of bio-feedback may be right, but at the moment they are just-so arguments. At least equally plausible is a (religion-agnostic) anthropic argument: our atmosphere is transparent at the correct wavelengths because if it weren't we wouldn't be here. There is simply no proof that life produced a transparent atmosphere rather than a transparent atmosphere enabled life. If there is, let me know.

— David Heddle

What do you mean infrared photons are good at "moving nuclei?"

And, of course, you don't need anything unusual to get absorption in the visible region. Take a look at Venus.

At least equally plausible is a (religion-agnostic) anthropic argument: our atmosphere is transparent at the correct wavelengths because if it weren't we wouldn't be here.

There is simply no proof that life produced a transparent atmosphere rather than a transparent atmosphere enabled life. If there is, let me know.

Way off topic, but a quick check shows that the early atmosphere consisted of volcanic outgassing, the minor constituents being transparent: carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide, hydrogen sulfide and hydrogen chloride.

However, about 95% was water vapor. Likely it was very, very cloudy. Maybe completely dark?

I continue to oppose any effort to impose any kind of "litmus test" on the viewpoints of anyone in academia as a condition for granting or maintaining tenure.

Tenure review is a litmus test. Just as is granting a degree, oral exams, promotion reviews.

Now one of the questions here is whether espousing a particular belief is a good reason to deny tenure. It's pretty clear that certain beliefs are not -- the belief that the Beach Boys were more creative than the Beatles, for instance. Others are though, especially beliefs that impact the university as a whole, for instance by hurting its reputation or making it harder to get funding. Espousing pseudoscience is such a belief, and that's what ID is (it actually has even less meat in it than many pseudosciences, incredibly enough).

I was going to make a couple more points in my last post, but one thing drove out another....

One was that our atmosphere is not so excellent at allowing transmittance of information, and would be rather better at it if we had no ozone layer. But, but, we need the ozone layer. Yes, yes, we do, however, doesn't that go straight against the supposed "amazing coincidence" of good living conditions comporting with excellent observability?

And couldn't God come up with a way of making us impervious to the harmful effects of short wavelength UV radiation, gamma radiation, X-ray radiation? Furthermore, our atmosphere happens to be opaque to many interesting infrared regions and even to a significant regions of the radio spectrum. Why some radio waves, especially?

If the atmosphere blocked out visible wavelengths and we had thus not evolved to be fairly resistant to their somewhat harmful effects, presumably the claim would be how fortunate we are that those wavelengths are blocked by clouds or some such thing.

Then too, some harmful UV radiation makes it through, and as do the shorter wavelength IR waves, and while scientifically-uncomprehending animals can sense these radiations, the humans for whom this earth was supposedly prepared and made into an observation platform, cannot (sans instruments). Huh, what do you know?

The greatest strike at Gonzalez's claims, however, is that we're hardly fitted out to grasp the workings of the universe in the way that we design, say, computers to be (to the extent that we can design them so far). Science was a long time in coming, because there is nothing in vision to tell us about the nature of light, in hearing to tell us about the nature of acoustical waves, or even in color to tell us what causes a cardinal (bird) to be red.

We're phenomenological beings, and it was only with many false starts that we gradually made our way from behind the nearly impenetrable and apparently evolved representations of our world to models which reasonably and fairly consistently represent how the cosmos interacts.

So Gonzalez's notion is that we have a superb platform from which to discover our universe, while he neglects to note (probably doesn't really understand) the considerable difficulties we had in scientifically comprehending what we saw through our transparent atmosphere.

The best explanation that seems to be is that some primates found themselves on a planet with adequate windows both to the heavens as well as to the observing niches found on earth, and they evolved enough capabilities to compensate for the decidedly unscientific way in which they evolved to sense the world. I am glad for the windows through which we can sense the heavens, for the most orderly phenomena that we can observe were there, but I am more than a little aware that the windows are narrow, the lack of phenomena on earth which presented the same orderly progressions as the heavens did was an impediment to scientific discovery, and our phenomenological brains were not especially well-suited to developing science.

All of these are reasonably explained by current scientific modeling, while Gonzalez's claims leave many curious questions to be asked.

Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/35s39o

Gerard,

If I utterly missed the point, it's because your writing is as clear as mud, since your answer, as far as I could parse its unnecessarily pedantic style, was (in part) that organic molecules do not, in general, absorb visible light therefore the atmosphere is transparent to visible light. But that doesn't answer the question of why our atmosphere is what it is, and why doesn't it contain quantities of other gases that absorb (or scatter) visible light to such a degree to render it opaque? (And to me your response certainly does have something to do with life.)

CJO,

The puddle analogy is hardly a scientific refutation. Furthermore, while it might apply, in a non scientific way, to the fine-tuning side of the PP, I don't see how it applies to the observabilty question. A puddle creature might say "isn't my puddle perfect for life" but it doesn't follow that he'll be able to say: "and see how I can do cosmology. "

The PP argument is on a par with Lee Smolin's cosmic evolution. Even their claims of falsifiability, neither of which I think make the grade, are similar sounding "challenges." Smolin says: find something in our universe that demonstrates it is far from optimal at producing black holes. Gonzalez says: find a planet with complex life that is not a good observatory.

Glen,

I am trying real hard to leave ID and God out of it. My point is: the simple claim of the PP that observability is correlated with habitability can stand or fall on its own merits. If an atheist had made the observation, we would not rebut his claim with arguments along the lines of " and wouldn't God come up with a way..." So pretend an atheist made the claim, and tell me how you'd refute it.

If I utterly missed the point, it's because your writing is as clear as mud, since your answer, as far as I could parse its unnecessarily pedantic style, was (in part) that organic molecules do not, in general, absorb visible light therefore the atmosphere is transparent to visible light. But that doesn't answer the question of why our atmosphere is what it is, and why doesn't it contain quantities of other gases that absorb (or scatter) visible light to such a degree to render it opaque? (And to me your response certainly does have something to do with life.),

For D.B. Benson, and anyone else who might also be interested in references to G. Gonzalez in Peter Ward and Donald Brownlee's 2000 book, Rare Earth

p.43:
"Of all the properties of the solar system, perhaps the most curious...is that it is so rich in metals. Recent studies by Guillermo Gonzalea and others have shown that the sun is quite rare in this respect."

p.69
"The 'where' of life's origin is obviously controversial, and as pointed out by University of Washington astronomer Guillermo Gonzalez, the favored habitats appear to depend on a given scientist's discipline."
The authors then go on to quote a passage to that effect from what they call a "delightful 1998 essay" titled "Extraterrestrials: A Modern View."

Heddle, I never said the puddle analogy was scientific. I alluded to it once, prefacing two at least sciency objections that came off the top of my head, and then you replied (to others) that you thought weak anthropic reasoning was better than the "just so" story of a biotic origin of the present atmosphere, so I pointed out that Adams' little parable illustrates just such reasoning. Even about such a simple matter, must we go in circles?

So far the number of proven life bearing planets is one. It has an atmosphere transparent to some wavelengths of light. So the facts are that the correlation is 100%. OTOH, the sample size is also one. Correlations BTW, do not prove cause and effect, basic logic Even good scientists make this error and often end up wrong.

Really, there isn't enough data to do anything more than speculate. That can be entertaining in a thought experiment sort of way but isn't going to prove anything. We would need to know how many life bearing worlds there are in a large enough sample of the galaxy and how many of those have transparent atmospheres. Going to be a while before that data is available.

I can imagine easily life bearing worlds where one can't see the stars. If the atmosphere was thicker, the ambient temperature warmer, we might end up with a permanent cloud cover. Or the earth could be inside a globular cluster or deep inside a dusty cloud. And this proves....nothing.

I could also easily imagine someone dwelling around a red dwarf arguing that that is a privileged place. 70% of the stars around sol are red dwarfs, much more common than our G class sun. They last much longer than G class stars. Our star is gradually heating up, will fry the biosphere in another 2 billion years or so, go red giant, and then blow up. People living around red dwarfs will have a stable functioning solar system long after we are gone.

CJO --- Thank you! It appears that Gonzalez, in his UW years, was making contributions to astrophysics/astronomy. It also appears he was not so successful at ISU...

By the way, I said first row, not just 'organic'. You really shouldn't think of oxygen and nitrogen gases as organic.

should I explore some points further?

Glen, I am trying real hard to leave ID and God out of it. My point is: the simple claim of the PP that observability is correlated with habitability can stand or fall on its own merits. If an atheist had made the observation, we would not rebut his claim with arguments along the lines of " and wouldn't God come up with a way..." So pretend an atheist made the claim, and tell me how you'd refute it.

Chistopher Yukna esme.fr Astrobiology 101 Red dwarfs are smaller, (Q.2)dimmer, and cooler than our sun. There are more than a dozen of these stars within a few light years of our Earth, yet not one of them is visible to the naked eye. For years it was thought that they were a poor place to look for alien lifeforms. However, recent computer models contradict this supposition. This is excellent news for xenobiologists since four out of every five stars is a red dwarf. The argument against life being present on the planets orbiting around red dwarfs was twofold. First, these stars are so faint because they begin with ten to sixty percent less mass than the sun. They are frugal: their nuclear reactions are far slower than in other types of stars. This (Q.5) stinginess could be a point in their favor since the average lifetime of a red dwarf is one hundred times that of the Sun, which would allow life a much longer time to evolve. Although with so little energy available how could there be life? Living organisms as we know them depend on a range of temperatures where water is liquid. A planet orbiting a red dwarf at the same distance as our planet orbits the Sun would be a frozen ball of ice. Of course, you could simply place the planet closer to the red star, hence it should be warmer and habitable. But that is the second problem; a closer orbit comes with a cost. A planet that is (Q.6) nestled next to the star would always present one face towards the star, very much like our moon does to the Earth. So one side would be a blast oven and the other an icy circle of hell. Not so, according to Robert Hablerle and Manoj Joshi at NASA's Ames Research Center. When they ran a computer simulation of such a planet they found out that if the planet had an atmosphere only about 15 percent thicker than ours the results implied that it could shelter life. Venus already has an atmosphere ninety times that of Earth's so a slightly denser atmosphere is well within the realms of possibility. A more abundant atmosphere would transfer enough heat from the eternal sunny side to endless night. The temperature range was inside acceptable norms: from 50 degrees to minus 50 degrees Celsius. Another difficulty presents itself with this scenario since water would tend to migrate from the hot side to the frigid dark side. However, Martin Heath of Greenwich Community College, London thinks he might have the solution to this dilemma. He postulates that if the oceans are deep enough, water will circulate back from the nether regions over to the hot side. Under a deep ice cap, sea water would be insulated from the intense cold and remain liquid and thus be able to freely disperse. While this type of planet might be able to bear life, the conditions would be (Q.9) strikingly dissimilar to what we find on Earth. One important fact to remember is red dwarfs emit a great deal of their energy in the infrared. Which could offer some problems to the process of photosynthesis. In addition, red dwarfs exhibit more massive starspots than Sol which could reduce incoming light by up to two fifths. Starflares also pose a problem since they can brighten a red dwarf by as much as one hundred percent. Besides these global changes, life would have to deal with the variety of fixed temperatures on this planet. Ground zero in the hot zone would be centered on the equator where the star would be directly overhead. The rim of eternal shade would be somewhere around zero degrees and cooler the deeper you went until you reached temperatures of minus fifty degrees centigrade. Since the sun would be stationary in the sky, the backside of a hill would be in perpetual shadow, as well. This continuous light vs constant shade would certainly produce intriguing ecosystems.

Science 11 May 2007: Vol. 316. no. 5826, p. 799 DOI: 10.1126/science.316.5826.799a Prev | Table of Contents | Next Editors' Choice: Highlights of the recent literature Habitable Earth-like planets must form just close enough to their parent star for liquid water--and hence life--to exist on their surfaces. Any closer and surface water would be boiled off; any further and it would freeze. Moreover, stars must be at least as long-lived as the Sun for habitable planets to form around them. Red dwarfs offer possible suitable sites: They are both the most common type of star in the Milky Way and also, being smaller than the Sun, exceptionally long-lived. However, Lissauer argues that red dwarfs may not be so hospitable after all. Because red dwarfs are faint, their current habitable zones lie very close to the star. Billions of years ago, though, the star would have been much hotter, and so if a planet were already in place then, its volatiles would have evaporated quickly. Also, the debris left over from disks around such star systems is relatively confined, and so any planets would have been buffeted by collisions with many asteroids, causing water and volatiles to be lost. -- JB Astrophys. J. 660, L149 (2007)10.1111/j.1469-8137.2007.02103.x (2007).

One was that our atmosphere is not so excellent at allowing transmittance of information, and would be rather better at it if we had no ozone layer. But, but, we need the ozone layer.

No, that's quite enough, since you keep missing the boat, which is not why our atmosphere is transparent (as I said, I certainly know the physics at least as well as you do, but apparently you like having an excuse to tell everyone you know what the Born Oppenheimer Approximation is) .

The following guidelines for promotion to the various ranks with respect to evaluation of excellence in research are intended to define typical cases; they do not set absolute numerical standards, but rather illustrate what experience has shown to be the usual case. In the Department, persons appointed to the faculty rank of instructor ordinarily already possess the Ph.D. degree. For promotion from instructor to assistant professor, clear promise of excellence in research is required, as demonstrated typically by six papers of good quality, either published or accepted by refereed journals. What is stressed is the promise of the research effort, presumably foreshadowing a national reputation. For promotion to associate professor, excellence sufficient to lead to a national or international reputation is required and would ordinarily be shown by the publication of approximately fifteen papers of good quality in refereed journals. For promotion to professor, attainment of a national or international reputation for excellence in research is expected, and would usually require at least thirty published papers of good quality in refereed journals. It should be emphasized, however, that subjective judgment is involved in all of these cases; promotion with fewer papers than indicated above, or non-promotion with more, could occur based upon the Committee's evaluation of the research involved.

In "Life Everywhere: The Maverick Science of Astrobiology" by David Darling, the author gives a very interesting anecdote about Gonzalez's influence on Brownlee and Ward, the authors of "Rare Earth: Why Complex Life is Uncommon in the Universe."

Brownlee and Ward apparently got many ideas from Gonzalez, but that was before Google was popular, so they actually didn't know he's an ID'er. While Darling is writing the book, Darling's wife hears in the church about a "creationist scientist" who talks about why the earth must be designed for us. Guess who the "scientist" was!

The book then portrays a series of very interesting e-mail exchanges, including

B or W (I forgot who it was): "No, he never mentioned he was a creationist. Are you sure that's the same Gonzalez?"
D: "Yeah, sure look at this..."
B or W: (forwarding the letter to G) "OK, I need an explanation."
G: (some lame reponse on how he keeps his professional life and personal belief separate)

(I'm quoting out of memory, but that's about the essence of it.)

By the way, "Life everywhere" is an interesting book. Take a look if you're not working in this field but interested in astrobiology. (Although I fear it's somewhat outdated by now...)

- Jick

By the way, I don't recall ever seeing a publication in a peer reviewed journal using the term "genetic entropy".

— David Stanton

Dr. Gonzalez has published 68 refereed articles in peer-reviewed journals, exceeding the normal standard of his department by 350%! Significantly, nowhere do his departmental standards even mention outside research grants as a criterion for promotion or tenure.

— PC2

Why exactly should ID be ruled out prior to investigation.

— PC2

Having written the Tenure and Promotion guidelines for our department, I have to say I think ISU Physics did a lousy job. Either they don't care about funding, in which case they're going to rapidly go down the tube, or else they have an unstated funding requirement, which leaves them, in my strictly unprofessional opinion, vulnerable to legal challenge. I'm bet the latter is the case.

The ISU University guidelines do, IIRC, require demonstration of a sustainable research program, and for a scientist that pretty much requires funding. But still, I wish people would lose this quaint idea that we're all gentlemen-scholars and that money doesn't matter.

Seems that certain seem to think that
A) Transparent atmosphere is a requirement for life.
And
B) Earth is some how extra special for having a transparent atmosphere

Both are indefensible. We still don't know enough about Earth's genesis event(s) to make the first claim and the 2nd claim is just not true.

We know extremophiles exist and thrive in conditions we didn't think possible many years ago. Just within our solar system there are 2 other bodies that could support life as we know understand it. 1 has an atmosphere also as transparent as ours the other has little to no atmosphere but may have more liquid water then the earth and has a good chance of having conditions similar to our "black smokers"

Saying that A & B is evidence for our planet being "Privileged" is as bogus as claiming that water is the only molecule which solid form is less dense then its liquid form and that liquid water is "rare" and thus because of this fact water/ice proof that the universe is designed for us.

Personally I find such argument disturbing from a theological position.
For 1 it means that the "god" that did this designed the universe and some how thought "Damn I need ice to float on top of water to make this world work." And more importantly ignores the evidence that liquid water is not all that rare in this property.

When it was pointed out to a certain people that their statement that liquid water is "rare" in the universe they seem to have ignored it. When it was pointed out the property of ice "floating" was not limited to just water and 1 other element they tried to argue why the other examples didn't count. Essentially cherry picking why a property in one case makes Earth "Privileged" while ignoring questions why the same property somewhere else can just be ignored.

Mr. Harbison,

Arrogance from world-class scientists---well that I'll respectfully tolerate. But not from you. We were discussing absorption and I mentioned Venus. You answered that Venus was opaque mostly because of scattering, which is true enough though beside the point since we were discussing absorption (which, btw, you brought up in the first place, for unknown and irrelevant reasons, since the question at hand was and is transparency regardless of the cause--but I guess you really wanted to show you knew what the Born Oppenheimer approximation was.) But you come back to it, for in your insecurity you need to use big words even when they aren't necessary and declare victory where none is to be found. I just ignored it, for I don't suffer from those same insecurities. But since you do bring it up again, I'll point out that Venus is indeed a much better absorber of visible light due to the sulfur compounds and other nasties its atmosphere contains.

Wayne,

By wording it as "seems to think the earth is extra special" you have biased the discussion already. But there is nothing unscientific whatsoever about the mere proposition that perhaps an atmosphere which is transparent where the sun's intensity peaks (and perhaps even in the appropriate range) is indeed a necessary though accidental perfect storm, and from the 10^22 or so planets in the observable universe should happen now and then. If so, it then follows that observability trivially tags along, at least in that instance, with habitability.

To make a long story short: the way to decide these matters generally is to apply a "But for" test. In other words, remove the fact that Gonzales is a well known advocate of ID and ask would his record have been tenurable otherwise. The way to test this is to compare his record to that of other people recently granted and denied tenure. If by comparison his record was tenurable, and people are on record as saying that his pro-ID views were a motivating factor, then I would have to say there is prima facie evidence of viewpoint discrimination.

Bob,

Thanks for the reference. I guess I jusst don't read the right journals. Oh well, I guess I'm completely wrong again. Just another reason to hate myself.

No wait. What does that have to do with evolution? Nothing. Huh. Well, at least PC wasn't just making stuff up again. This time that combination of words could indeed be found, somewhere. And at least one real scientist agrees with him, just like when he denied the connection between AIDS and HIV. Do you sense a pattern here?

Comment #177568 Posted by PC2 on May 21, 2007 10:02 AM (e) According to this blub from DI: Dr. Gonzalez has published 68 refereed articles in peer-reviewed journals, exceeding the normal standard of his department by 350%! Significantly, nowhere do his departmental standards even mention outside research grants as a criterion for promotion or tenure.

Why exactly should ID be ruled out prior to investigation.

To assert that it not even possible to deduce intelligence is to deny many commonly accepted diciplines of science and is to hold a biased presumption prior to investigation.(That is clearly bad empirical science in its own right)

Remember, the materialistic philosophy fought tooth and nail to prevent the Big Bang from joining mainstream science because of its Theistic implications. Even today we find a few people fighting against the Big Bang because of its implications. Yet we are suppose to unquestionably follow the materialistic party line of evolution and never question that it could produce the amazing complexity we are witnessing around us. Excuse me if I don't click my heals to the thought police on this matter and demand proof that cleary violates Genetic Entropy.

Hee hee, you can almost see Heddle rubbing his sore bottom and fuming.

Thanks for that, Gerard, you made my day.

Re Heddle

Prof. Heddle continues to harp on the notion of transparent atmospheres as a possible requirement for the existence of life. This has already been falsified by the finding of life at the bottom of the oceans which receives no energy from the Sun but relies on heat from vents in the ocean floor. The composition of the atmosphere is completely irrelevant to these organisms. It would be further discredited if life were found on Europa in the postulated liquid water sea beneath the ice cap.

Re Harbison

1. Theoretically, Prof. Harbison is correct that Prof. Gonzalezs' creationist work should be irrelevant if it were a "hobby" and was not submitted as a part of his tenure package. However, we live in the real world. Members of his department have to consider the consequences of giving such an individual tenure. Let's take an example. I suspect that Prof. Harbison would not be a happy camper if Prof. Michael Behe were a tenured professor of biochemistry at the Un. of Nebraska rather then Lehigh.

2. The argument about the different absorption characteristics of electrons and nucleons based on the large mass difference, unfortunately, could be argued by the IDiots as proof of ID, i.e. the "designer" created it that way so as to have the required characteristics! With these guys, it's heads I win, tails you lose. It would, perhaps, be interesting to speculate as to what the universe would look like if electrons did not exist and the only leptons were muons and neutrinos.

Prof. Heddle continues to harp on the notion of transparent atmospheres as a possible requirement for the existence of life. This has already been falsified by the finding of life at the bottom of the oceans which receives no energy from the Sun but relies on heat from vents in the ocean floor.

Heddle wrote:

"Please go back and reread. The speculation, right or wrong, is that complex life requires a transparent atmosphere. Why would you assume that Gonzalez was unaware that there was life in the deep ocean?"

I don't know. Why do you assume that tube worms, crabs and other multicellular life is not "complex"? Bacteria are not the only kind of life forms that inhabit deep sea thermal vents.

Don't try to wiggle out of it by saying they evolved elsewhere. That is not relevant as to whether they exist there. And in any case, you would then have to admit they evolved into their present form.

I guess what you have to do is defend the assertation that these forms are not "complex". Maybe Dr. Dembski can help you out there. I hear he has some equations you can use.

In any event, all this nonsense is irrelevant to the thread topic. Gonzalez lost. Deal with it. Or sue. Frankly my dear . . .

Heddle:

Complex life requires a tranparent atmosphere? I guess if it ain't human's, it ain't that complex, huh?

"Anybody who starts a comment with "oh dear" and then launches into irrelevancies to show how smart they are---well this type of person I find annoying,"

Oh dear.

I don't know. Why do you assume that tube worms, crabs and other multicellular life is not "complex"? Bacteria are not the only kind of life forms that inhabit deep sea thermal vents. Don't try to wiggle out of it by saying they evolved elsewhere. That is not relevant as to whether they exist there. And in any case, you would then have to admit they evolved into their present form. I guess what you have to do is defend the assertation that these forms are not "complex". Maybe Dr. Dembski can help you out there. I hear he has some equations you can use. In any event, all this nonsense is irrelevant to the thread topic. Gonzalez lost. Deal with it. Or sue. Frankly my dear ...

Heddle wrote:
"As for complex life, a working definition is simple in this context. Since Gonzalez ties observability to habitability, we can take complex life, for the purposes of the main contention from the PP, to mean life that is complex enough, or nearly so, to take advantage of, at least in principle, the observability.

"Just arguing "human chauvinism" (tubeworms are complex too!) may make you feel enlightened, but it's an argument that is not germane to Gonzalez's speculation, unless you think it might be possible that tubeworms are engaged in science."

Listen to the subdued rustle of moving goal posts.....

David Heddle,

Sorry, the comment about Gonzalez was not particularly directed at you. As for Dembski, I'm glad that you were not happy with the suggestion to go to him.

Now, about those crabs. I believe they can observe their environment just fine. It might even be possible that they could look at stars given the proper equipment. They are free to observe and do any science they choose to do. The atmosphere does not help them at all. In fact it doesn't help humans observe stars either. Hence the teloscopes on Palomar and on mountains in Hawaii as well as the Hubble telescope. If the earth is so perfect for observing, why have an atmosphere at all? Why at least not have mountains high enough to rise completely above the atmosphere? Just lack of planning I guess.

Wait a minute. Maybe Darth Robo was right, maybe humans are the only "complex" life that counts. Well, I guess that makes sense. To me, the whole Priviledged Planet idea is that humans are somehow special. Didn't pan out when we thought we were at the center of the universe. Didn't pan out when we thought the sun went around the earth. Maybe
this time around it will work out. I would sure like to be special.

I see David Puddle is back with more of his Puddleology. :groan: I'm always reminded of Feynman's essays on the limits of skill, reason and knowledge when Puddle shows up. And my Sociology 101 lectures on man's tendency to towards anthropomorphizing the universe with him in the middle.

Listen to the subdued rustle of moving goal posts.....

Now, about those crabs. I believe they can observe their environment just fine. It might even be possible that they could look at stars given the proper equipment. They are free to observe and do any science they choose to do. The atmosphere does not help them at all. In fact it doesn't help humans observe stars either. Hence the teloscopes on Palomar and on mountains in Hawaii as well as the Hubble telescope. If the earth is so perfect for observing, why have an atmosphere at all? Why at least not have mountains high enough to rise completely above the atmosphere? Just lack of planning I guess.

Posted by David Heddle on May 22, 2007 10:24 AM (e) I challenged, a challenge that has not been met, someone to provide a scientific refutation of the speculation that habitability and observability are correlated. All I got was a link to a book review. A review from a scientist (Jefferys) who, btw, has an unpublished (as far as I know) paper whose abstract states "And we shall furthermore show that with certain theologies suggested by deities that are both inscrutable and very powerful, the more "finely-tuned" the universe is, the more a supernatural origin of the universe is undermined" which, unlike Gonzalez's habitability-observability correlation is, it would seem, a perfectly acceptable form of speculation.

David Heddle wrote:

"Do you really think that? Surely space based telescopes greatly advance our knowledge of the universe, but do you think there is any chance we would have reached the point where we can place them in orbit were it not for all the prior physics accomplished by taking advantage of a transparent atmosphere?"

I don't know if I really think that or not. I guess I wrote it, so maybe I do. Anyway, if the "transparent atmosphere" were so perfect for observing we wouldn't need orbital telescopes. When the crabs develop their telescopes, I'm sure they will feel priviledged that they were protected from harmful ultraviolet radiation by the water they live in.

Heddle wrote:

"If the PP contention is wrong, and habitability and observability are not correlated, then I would suggest that that fact would be a feather in the ID cap---the earth would be more "miraculous," not less.)"

My last post was unresponsive to this point so I'll have try again, or be accused of not having any reading skills (which is apparently true anyway). As others have pointed out, one data point does not make a correlation. As others have pointed out, the burden of proof is on the one making the claim. I guess Gonzalez is buzy with SETI now, or maybe trying to get a space ship to explore the planets just discovered. Of course correlation does not prove causation either, but then at least we might have something to explain. In the meantime, I for one plan on continuing to think that I am special anyway.

I don't know if I really think that or not. I guess I wrote it, so maybe I do. Anyway, if the "transparent atmosphere" were so perfect for observing we wouldn't need orbital telescopes. When the crabs develop their telescopes, I'm sure they will feel priviledged that they were protected from harmful ultraviolet radiation by the water they live in.

Okay!
Don't get your air of superiority caught in the door on your way out!

David heddle wrote (before he said he was departing for a year);

"whheydt

"Listen to the subdued rustle of moving goal posts.....

"Ah, I see the standard form of arguing on PT, which is to reach in the bag and pull out a charge of "moving the goal posts" or some logical fallacy is still alive and well. No need to make a substantive response---the charge itself constitutes a total rebuttal by PT standards. It doesn't matter that I didn't give a definition of complex before, even though "moving the goal posts" would, to most people (but not PTers), presuppose that the goal posts were in fact planted at an identifiable location prior to their being moved. What is your reference point against which I have moved the goal posts?

"And what is your definition of complex life? What is your definition of intelligent life?

I call it as I see it. You said "complex life" without specifying what degree of complexity you were demanding. When called on that, you restricted your definition. That's a classic "moving the goal posts" argument. If you don't like it, be specific in the first palce, or accept that your stated criteria have been met and concede gracefully.

I'm just an engineer (though decidedly not of the creationist variety). I'll accept the biologists definition of "complex life". If I'm not too greatly mistaken, multicellular pretty much fits the standard definition.

As for "intellingent life"... I don't have a definition beyond the, decidedly non-scientific, I know it when I see it. This is mostly because "intelligence" seems to be poorly defined in a formal sense. Indeed, I can well imagine that there is intelligent life in the universe that I *wouldn't* recognize as intelligent for a number of reasons.

If you haven't slammed the dorr shut on your way out yet, perhaps you can supply a definition. (Or perhaps not. As a PhD physicist, such a definition is farther out of your area of expertise than it is from mine. As a working programmer, my work at least touches the sort of equipment used in AI research.)

I doubt that "complex life" could be defined in a way that gives a definite yes/no for everything. Also not sure how multicellular could be used as the criteria, since the stuff inside a typical cell is more complicated than the arrangements of cells in lots of multicelled creatures (if not all of them).

Henry

Btw, "multicellular" and "multicelled" aren't in the spell checker. And neither is "Btw".

Henry J --- Yes. I found that the weakest part of Ward & Brownlee's arguments. Their case would be stronger if they had simply argued that life is unlikely in the universe...

Since Gonzalez ties observability to habitability, we can take complex life, for the purposes of the main contention from the PP, to mean life that is complex enough, or nearly so, to take advantage of, at least in principle, the observability.

Henry J --- Yes. I found that the weakest part of Ward & Brownlee's arguments. Their case would be stronger if they had simply argued that life is unlikely in the universe...

They make much out of the ~3 billion years it took to get to multicellular life.

CJO --- Thanks again. I had forgotten that part of the argument, figuring that eukaryotes were already rather complex.

Flint --- If by complex one means multicellular animals, didn't these evolve at about the same time ass snowball earth occurred? If so, might be able to make something out of that along your lines...

All interesting questions.
It seems to me that, at a minimum, you need the kind of structural integrity that the cytoskeleton provides to start building mulicellular organisms. And the path that earthly prokaryotes took to eukaryotic structure was endosymbiosis --seemingly the 'short path,' at least as opposed to the independent evolution of oganelles in situ as opposed to their parallel evolution as free-living eukaryotes.

Heddle: I challenged, a challenge that has not been met, someone to provide a scientific refutation of the speculation that habitability and observability are correlated.

raven: So far the number of proven life bearing planets is one. It has an atmosphere transparent to some wavelengths of light. So the facts are that the correlation is 100%. OTOH, the sample size is also one. Correlations BTW, do not prove cause and effect, basic logic Even good scientists make this error and often end up wrong. Really, there isn't enough data to do anything more than speculate. That can be entertaining in a thought experiment sort of way but isn't going to prove anything. We would need to know how many life bearing worlds there are in a large enough sample of the galaxy and how many of those have transparent atmospheres. Going to be a while before that data is available. I can imagine easily life bearing worlds where one can't see the stars. If the atmosphere was thicker, the ambient temperature warmer, we might end up with a permanent cloud cover. Or the earth could be inside a globular cluster or deep inside a dusty cloud. And this proves....nothing. I could also easily imagine someone dwelling around a red dwarf arguing that that is a privileged place. 70% of the stars around sol are red dwarfs, much more common than our G class sun. They last much longer than G class stars. Our star is gradually heating up, will fry the biosphere in another 2 billion years or so, go red giant, and then blow up. People living around red dwarfs will have a stable functioning solar system long after we are gone.

Heddle: I challenged, a challenge that has not been met, someone to provide a scientific refutation of the speculation that habitability and observability are correlated.

raven: So far the number of proven life bearing planets is one. It has an atmosphere transparent to some wavelengths of light. So the facts are that the correlation is 100%. OTOH, the sample size is also one. Correlations BTW, do not prove cause and effect, basic logic Even good scientists make this error and often end up wrong. Really, there isn't enough data to do anything more than speculate. That can be entertaining in a thought experiment sort of way but isn't going to prove anything. We would need to know how many life bearing worlds there are in a large enough sample of the galaxy and how many of those have transparent atmospheres. Going to be a while before that data is available. I can imagine easily life bearing worlds where one can't see the stars. If the atmosphere was thicker, the ambient temperature warmer, we might end up with a permanent cloud cover. Or the earth could be inside a globular cluster or deep inside a dusty cloud. And this proves....nothing. I could also easily imagine someone dwelling around a red dwarf arguing that that is a privileged place. 70% of the stars around sol are red dwarfs, much more common than our G class sun. They last much longer than G class stars. Our star is gradually heating up, will fry the biosphere in another 2 billion years or so, go red giant, and then blow up. People living around red dwarfs will have a stable functioning solar system long after we are gone.

"scientific refutation of the speculation that habitability and observability are correlated"

les --- raven bought up a good counter-example: Mars. The two rovers have looked over quite a bit of it. Mars is observable, in the strange sense meant here. Mars is clearly not very habitable, even the rover robots have some difficulties getting through the Martian winter.

So the correlation is now done to 50%.

But I'll suggest that both Mercury and Pluto have great observability and lousy habitability.

Correlation is now 25% and rapidly decreasing...

down, not done.

Maybe habitability is a subset of observability? since obviously there can be places from which one could observe things if one had appropriate life support equipment on hand.

At least, it seems like that would be the next thing advocates of this speculation ought to say in order to support it.

Henry

How does one refute a speculation?

Especially one that's a tautology

in the single sample we have, habitability and observability both exist

(Had problems getting PT up yesterday, is it having server probs again or is it just my damn pc? Oh, well)

"Do you really think that? Surely space based telescopes greatly advance our knowledge of the universe, but do you think there is any chance we would have reached the point where we can place them in orbit were it not for all the prior physics accomplished by taking advantage of a transparent atmosphere?"

Is this actually Heddle's argument for cosmological ID?

Oh no, it appears I drove Heddle away with my breath-taking innanity. I didn't mean to, honest. And no one even thanked me. My argument was pretty infantile I guess. But then again, I was arguing with someone who thinks he's special because the air is clear.

Seriously, the anthropic principle has been discredited so many times in so many ways, I'm amazed anyone could seriously advocate any form of it. Besides, that really isn't the topic of this thread anyway.

"And no one even thanked me."

Thanks. Could you also stop by AtBC, too? ;)

les --- raven bought up a good counter-example: Mars. The two rovers have looked over quite a bit of it. Mars is observable, in the strange sense meant here. Mars is clearly not very habitable, even the rover robots have some difficulties getting through the Martian winter. So the correlation is now done to 50%. But I'll suggest that both Mercury and Pluto have great observability and lousy habitability. Correlation is now 25% and rapidly decreasing...

That was a short year ...

Short of an empty void, what place in the universe isn't good for scientific observations? It seems like the PP argument is trivial.

I would point out that the PP argument is that a habitable place for complex life will necessarily be good for scientific observations...

"Good for scientific observations" basically means that scientists have the ability to observe it. And if complex life evolves in a particular place, those life-forms will have the sensory ability to observe their environment, at least well enough to find food and avoid predators. And if any such life-forms become scientists, they will either evolve or manufacture whatever tools they need to observe whatever they want to observe, with the precision they want. So, based on what Heddle says at least, the "PP argument" is about as empty as all that sophistry about "the best of all possible worlds" that Voltaire made fun of a few centuries ago.

Yes, it's really convenient that we have eyes to see through our atmosphere, but so what? If we didn't evolve eyes, we'd have something else about as useful, and philosophers with huge ears and long tastebud-covered whiskers would be marvelling at how convenient it is that our atmosphere allows us to smell different brands of beer a mile away or hear a bird pooping in the next county. But would any of it prove "design?"

Having been on many tenure reviews in the sciences...

— Heddle

Just when I thought I had seen the dumbest argument the creationists could come up with, we get the observability argument. It's embarrasing, really. It's not peanut butter, but it's getting there.

Laser,

For 11-12 years I had a joint appointment at the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Lab and its virtually next door neighbor, Christopher Newport University. At CNU, after I was tenured, I served on the Faculty Review Committee--in fact I chaired it for a while. That committee gets tenure and promotion applications after the Dean and before the Provost. I couldn't say exactly how many reviews I was on--but it was too many. Reading those files is worse than root canal.

The school in NH that you somehow managed to associate with me is a small private college where I occasionally teach a course as a humble adjunct.

I wish I were in my mid-thirties.

Just when I thought I had seen the dumbest argument the creationists could come up with, we get the observability argument. It's embarrasing, really. It's not peanut butter, but it's getting there.

David Heddle whined: From your posts around the web, I see tendency for you to argue by simply declaring something stupid. That's your right, but it hardly befits the word science in your name. The habitability-observability connection is not stupid. It might be wrong, but it is not stupid.

Take the example of Gonzalez's galactic habitable zone which was obviously respectable science---being published in multiple journals. But being in the habitable zone means we are in an area where the density of stars is low, under the theory that complex life could not arise in an intense radiation environment. Maybe that's wrong---but it certainly isn't crackpot (the journal editors and reviewers of Gonzalez's habitable zone work deemed it worthy).

First, all this is based on a very narrow and unimaginitive view of the range of possible environments in which complex life could spring up and evolve. What about poanets with denser atmospheres to filter more harmful radiation? What about oceans of either water or some other organic liquid (with or without a covering of frozen liquid)? What about sensory organs that don't depend on "visible" light? You're quietly assuming a lot about environments and adaptation without justifying your assumptions.

Second, your "habitable zone" includes a huge area of this galaxy, plus similar areas of other galaxies and globular clusters. How is the Earth "privileged?"

Third, how does any of this lead to any sort of "design?" Did Gonzalez' arguments for "design" get past those journal editors?

As a consequence of the necessity of being in a low density region, we are in a good place to do astronomy (we want a nice, dark, night sky). At a certain level, far from being "stupid" the idea might be more legitimately criticized as obvious.

This is a complete non-sequitur, in addition to being meaningless from the standpoint of habitability. If the stars were closer, brighter, and more tightly packed in the night sky, then optical astronomy would simply have had to wait for better tools, and the technological development timeline would have been very different; but that would not necessarily make observing the nearby cosmos impossible.

PS: In the absense of proof that there is, or is not, complex life on any planet other than Earth -- let alone outside the "habitable zone" -- is any of this PP stuff even testable at this time?

PPS: Would any of this talk of how easy it is to observe the Universe from here have carried any weight before the invention of our more powerful optical telescopes? It seems to me Heddle's "good place to do astronomy" argument depends a lot on technology we've created.

Even if we had evolved in an opaque atmosphere, sooner or later we would have discovered that some EM radiation travels better outside that atmosphere, and we could then have invented orbiting telescopes that use that part of the spectrum. We would have learned about the other stars a lot later than we did, but we still would have found the Universe just as "observable" as we find it now.

"a habitable place for complex life will necessarily be good for scientific observations"

And it will also be good for birds of prey that locate their prey from great height by sight.

The Earth was designed for hawks and falcons! Oh, and Old World vultures.

Lucky for us it suited us too, as a mere happy accident, when we came along later.

Raging Bee,

We are talking about intense x-Rays and gamma rays. You would have to have clouds of lead. Of course, you should really be taking this up with the editors and referees who approved the habitable zone papers. The papers were not rejected, and certainly not for any of the considerations you list. Why? Because it is not crackpot, once you look at the chemistry and physics, to argue that complex life will likely be carbon based, require liquid water, and be in a region free of intense radiation. Divorce it from any creationist baggage and many biochemists would agree. Carbon is the best basis for complex chemistry. Water is the best natural solvent. And radiation, in simple terms, breaks matter down.

As for design, you know quite well that I would agree that that is not science. It's a metaphysical conclusion. And yes, the design idea is found throughout the Privileged Planet. My point is, however, if you consider the central theme of the book, that habitability correlates to observability, and you allow yourself to set aside the design aspects of the rest of the book, then you should be able to see that the idea is not lunatic fringe, and not necessarily tied to creationism or ID.

Indeed, as I've stress many times, is somewhat anti-design. To see that, ask yourself which of these two arguments would IDists prefer to make:

1) The earth is in the habitable zone. As a consequence, we'll be able to see outside our galaxy.

2) The earth is in the habitable zone. As an added surprise bonus, it appears as if "someone" also wanted us to be able to do Astronomy.

It think it is fairly obvious that the second argument is more ID friendly---but the PP argument is the first.

Before I read the PP, when I spoke about cosmological ID, I used to make the second argument. (We used to call it the "tie-breaker.") I no longer do. The PP convinced me that observability is not a feather in ID's cap---it's simply a neutral consequence of habitability. (Well, convinced is probably too strong---I would say the argument is sensible enough that it completely neuters argument 2.)

No, I do not think the PP argument (habitability -- observability) is testable. But that doesn't mean it is lunatic fringe---it means it is not science per se. Just like, say, Susskind's cosmic landscape and Smolin's cosmic evolution. Interesting ideas that most likely can never be tested in any normal sense of the word.

How does one refute a speculation? I speculate that you're 6'7" and have a club foot. How could you possibly refute that? Especially one that's a tautology There's no need to speculate on statements that we know are true, and certainly not ones that are necessarily true. in the single sample we have, habitability and observability both exist In the single sample we have, someone named les posting in this thread hasn't a clue what a speculation, a refutation, or a tautology, is, but he isn't necessarily clueless.

David Heddle --- First, it is not May 2008 yet. :-)

But it was you who moved the goalpost. It was you who made claims regarding habitability - observability correlation.

That's demolished. So now you change your tune to

habitability implies observability

which is obviously different.

And by the way, the galactic life zone argument appears in Rare Earth and, restricted to life-as-we-know-it, is certainly sound...

Oops. statements, not claims.

Apologies.

David Stanton,

First of all they are correlated according to the PP argument. There is no goal post moving. According to the PP premise every place habitable for complex life will be good for observation. My statement: habitability---observability correlation stands. You just foolishly took it to mean that the fact that they are correlated implies that observability-->habitability when it implies no such thing.

Second, even if I was sloppy with my language (which I wasn't), everyone who has read the PP knows what they argued--if you haven't read it, then you shouldn't be voicing your opinion about it.

Third, as your rebuttal shows: gee Pluto is a good observation platform but a bad place to live, case closed, game over man! you are arguing from the premise that Gonzalez is an idiot (or I am) for never considering such a slam dunk rebuttal. Oh gosh, I never thought that Pluto would be a great place for a telescope! D'oh! That's a really poor way to argue--to use my oft-used example, that is the intellectual equivalent of a YEC coming here and smugly asking "what good is half an eye? A-ha, gotcha!"

David Heddle --- It is still not May 2008. :-)

I am not Stanton!

You used the word correlation. Guess you don't understand its meaning.

I read The Privileged Planet several years ago. So distastefully wrong that I have forgotten most of it.

So it was up to you to define exactly what you meant to say, instead of just slanging it around...

David Benson,

Oops, sorry about the name--but what is the 2008 reference? That's going over my head.

David Heddle --- When you left the other day, you said you would check back in a year, implying, at least, not earlier.

I'm just reminding you of that. :-)

"The Earth was designed for hawks and falcons! Oh, and Old World vultures."

It was designed for monkeys. The banana is proof.

Seriously, the anthropic principle has been discredited so many times in so many ways, I'm amazed anyone could seriously advocate any form of it.

The PP argument is on a par with Lee Smolin's cosmic evolution.

Guillermo is a promising young astrophysicist, and I hope that he doesn't throw away his career on such nonsense.

A review from a scientist (Jefferys) who, btw, has an unpublished (as far as I know) paper whose abstract states

But I don't know if planets around red dwarfs are thought to similarly spiral inward or not.

One important fact to remember is red dwarfs emit a great deal of their energy in the infrared. Which could offer some problems to the process of photosynthesis.

life at the bottom of the oceans which receives no energy from the Sun but relies on heat from vents in the ocean floor

For example, two types of fungi--one that was induced to make melanin (Crytococcus neoformans) and another that naturally contains it (Wangiella dermatitidis)--were exposed to levels of ionizing radiation approximately 500 times higher than background levels. Both species grew significantly faster (as measured by the number of colony forming units and dry weight) than when exposed to standard background radiation. The researchers also carried out physico-chemical studies into melanin's ability to capture radiation. By measuring the electron spin resonance signal after melanin was exposed to ionizing radiation, they showed that radiation interacts with melanin to alter its electron structure. This is an essential step for capturing radiation and converting it into a different form of energy to make food. Dr. Casadevall notes that the melanin in fungi is no different chemically from the melanin in our skin. "It's pure speculation but not outside the realm of possibility that melanin could be providing energy to skin cells," he says. "While it wouldn't be enough energy to fuel a run on the beach, maybe it could help you to open an eyelid."

Torbjorn Larsson,

Thank you for responding to my comment. Also thanks for pointing out that there are many different types of "anthropic principles". As you point out, some are easier to discredit than others. This is not my field of expertise, so I was basically assuming a simple argument such as: "I am special because (fill in the blank): the universe was created for life/me, the universe was created so that life/I could evolve, the universe was created so that life/I could observe it, etc. The following are a few references that I have come across as Talkorigins and elsewhere. I don't know if they address all the types of anthropic principles, but at least they are a start.

Fulmer (2001) A Fatal Flaw in Anthropic Principle Design Arguments. International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 49:101-110.

Kane et. al. ((2002) The Beginning of the End of the Anthropic Principle. New Astronomy 7:45-53.

Drnge (2000) Fine Tuning Argument Revised. Philo 3(2):38-49.

Stenger (1999) The Anthropic Coincidences: A Natural Explanation. Skeptical Enquirer 3(3):2-17.

life at the bottom of the oceans which receives no energy from the Sun but relies on heat from vents in the ocean floor