But I wasn’t discussing how some ideally-practiced “biological science” would operate. I was discussing how real biologists today, in 2019, behave when someone who endorses ID wants a job in their department, or wants tenure. I was making a sociological argument about the actual behavior of biologists.
I’d be interested in hearing Joshua’s report on what biologists at his university are like. Suppose for the sake of argument that some biologist there was applying for tenure. Suppose that he had brought in enough research money, published enough articles, etc. to meet all the normal requirement of the department and the university, and suppose that not a single one of the published articles endorsed or even hinted at ID. But suppose also that this person has “come out” as an ID proponent, and has written a popular book and/or done a number of popular You Tube talks endorsing ID. And to sweeten the pot, suppose that he makes no arguments against macroevolution or an old earth, and offers no opinions about the Bible and no Christian apologetics, and is not involved in any crusade to change high school science curricula. He just happens to believe that some design inferences are convincing and that there should be no barrier to making ID inferences in biological science, and in his public talks (though never in any undergrad lecture or grad seminar to date) has said so in no uncertain terms.
In such a case, will the members of the department turn a blind eye to what they know he personally believes and endorses regarding ID, and make their tenure decision solely on the normal objective criteria of research funding, supervision of grad students, number of articles published in good journals, etc.? Or will their loathing of ID, and their perception that having an ID proponent on their faculty will be embarrassing to them, cause them to vote against the candidate? I’m speaking of the majority of those who have a vote in the tenure decision. Let’s say 10 people have a vote, and 9 out of 10 would likely vote for tenure based on merit alone. Would it still be 9 out of 10 once the person’s allegiance to ID became known? Or would it drop to 8 or 7 or 4 or 3 out of 10? I’m asking for a realistic estimate of how the vote would probably go.
Asking science to treat ID supporters with neutrality…
Is like asking the Pope to elevate:
a known terrorist,
who designs bombs,
for Hamas …
Into a Cardinal.
Its nuts:
ID supporters have a superstitious view of science,
they oppose separation of church and state,
And they want to end the practice science as we know it today.
You didn’t read my hypothetical example closely enough. I specified that this guy with what you are calling a “superstitious view of science” has produced peer-reviewed articles squeaky-clean regarding methodology, articles (not about ID) which his colleagues respect and admire. I also specified that he accepts an old earth and macroevolution. I also specified that he is involved in no campaign to alter the high school science curriculum. I also specified that he makes no mention of the Bible or religion in his discussions of ID, and has engaged in no religious apologetics.
Assuming for the sake of argument that such a candidate existed, what do you predict the biology department members would do? Vote to give him tenure in exactly the same numbers? Or vote to give him tenure, but he loses some support and just barely squeaks through? Or vote not to give him tenure?
More important, what does Joshua think the voting faculty at his school would decide?
I predict that they would vote not to give him tenure, or at best that he would lose enough votes to almost not make it.
Even if that were true, it would not address the point of principle. If such a person existed, then, given the attitudes of typical biology professors today, would they vote to give him tenure, or not? And if not, would they be right to act so? I.e., would they be right to set aside their department’s and university’s stated normal requirements for tenure, rejecting a candidate who they would never otherwise reject, basically because they don’t want an ID supporter as a colleague?
I think they would give him tenure, in the vast majority of cases they would. This last month moreover I have seen one atheist defend the legitimacy of Behes tenure.
It aspires to fairness. Whether it always lives up to that aspiration can be determined only by the actual decisions of scientists in situations where they are tempted by personal inclinations to behave unfairly. I will watch all reports of tenure decisions regarding ID supporters carefully over the next 5 years and pay attention to whether the actual behavior of the biologists lives up to their vaunted principles. Where it does, I will offer praise. Where it does not, I will point that out.
As you know, Christians aspire to a whole bunch of things, too, but quite often fail to live up to them, when circumstances tempt them to do things out of personal interest that Christians should not do. And not just Christians but people of all kinds do not always live up to their ideals, professionally, in business, in faith, in family life, as union members (cf. On the Waterfront), as socialists supposedly respectful of human dignity (cf. Solzhenitsyn on the Gulag), in artistic work (see cases of plagiarism in music etc.), or elsewhere. You have perhaps read claims in recent years that a shockingly large percentage of Psychology papers (presumably in most cases written by people with science Ph.D.s) have turned out be plagiarized and/or to falsify data. So we always have to be watching to make sure that people, including scientists, don’t just talk the talk, but walk the walk.
No one who endorses ID has sufficient productivity to be seriously considered for a junior faculty position or a tenured faculty position at any research university in the US.
I don’t think Joshua would agree with you. He has just said that he believes his colleagues at St. Louis would vote for tenure in the hypothetical case I described, and I don’t think he believes that his colleagues are idiots.
Of course they do, and should. That isn’t the issue raised in the hypothetical case I proposed. I did not propose, demand or suggest that any ID proponent should receive more lenient treatment regarding academic standards. I asked what would happen to an ID proponent who met all the normal standards and would normally be granted tenure, but whose ID leanings were disclosed before the tenure vote was taken. I certainly would not trust 100% of the biologists and biochemists I have engaged with on origins websites or read in blogs to set aside their revulsion to ID and vote only on the basis of qualifications. If they are any indication of the prejudices that exist in biology departments, I would not give much for the ID proponents’ chances.
But Joshua says that his colleagues at St. Louis would be fair, and would stick to the objective guidelines normally used in tenure decisions. If he is right, then St. Louis is a place I will not have to worry about.
But what about Lehigh? Can we be confident that Behe, who was granted tenure before he started writing books about ID, would have been granted tenure if the first of those books came out before he got it? Even if everything else on his tenure application was exactly the same as it was? Given the visceral and loud public response of his colleagues over the past 20 years, I simply do not have confidence that this would have been the case. I think they would have been very strongly tempted to deny him tenure solely on the basis of his ID position.
Sure there is. Michael Denton would be in the overlap zone of the Venn diagrams. So, suppose for the sake of argument that Denton applied for tenure in some place, and suppose that he met all normal requirements at that particular institution. Do you really believe that his public statements that nature provides evidence (not proof, but evidence) for design would not be held against him by some of the faculty? I think it would be, in most biology departments, though perhaps not in St. Louis, since Joshua assures me otherwise.
I won’t press this further, since we are talking about hypothetical cases and one can only make plausibility arguments. But I certainly have witnessed exactly parallel discrimination in Religious Studies departments (not regarding ID, but regarding sacred cows considered “consensus” scholarship in Biblical studies, etc.), and I know for a fact that it is widespread across the continent and has destroyed academic careers. It is a little much for me to believe that only Arts professors ever let their personal opinions color their hiring decisions, that Science professors are so pure that they never, ever do this or would even dream of doing it. Especially when I’ve read e-mails written by people with Ph.D.s in climatology scheming for how to prevent dissenting views on global warming from ever seeing the light of day, or at least, if they do see the light of day, appear only in journals delegitimized by careful political machinations. I’m sorry, but I know too much about human nature, and especially about academics, to believe that any group of academics, whether biologists or climatologists or anything else, are such paragons of virtue that none of their number would ever let their personal prejudices taint their professional decisions.
Well, I don’t think that Denton thinks it important to call himself an ID proponent, with caps. Sometimes he writes as if he considers himself an ally of ID proponents rather than an ID proponent himself. But the point is that he makes design arguments. Especially in Nature’s Destiny. And I’m saying that whether he called himself an ID or an id proponent, his conclusions about design in nature would be equally unwelcome to most biologists in secular universities, insofar as they claimed to be derived from studying the scientific data. They would say that the scientific data requires no such conclusion, and in fact points in the direction of non-design.
I know Joshua would not say that, but many biologists would. Joshua would say that science it neutral regarding design or non-design. But T. aquaticus tells us that a nested hierarchy implies non-design. And it’s very clear that people like P. Z. Myers, Richard Dawkins, and Jerry Coyne believe that the scientific data point to non-design. I doubt that Coyne would vote for tenure even for James Shapiro, who is not an ID defender, or for Scott Turner, who is not an ID defender; for Coyne, even though they deny the validity of ID arguments, they still smell suspiciously of design thinking. In that light, it’s pretty clear that for Coyne, Denton’s more direct affirmations of design would be beyond the pale. Even if he said he was id rather than ID.
(For some reason, I did not pick up on your reply when you posted it.)
Actually, you are disagreeing with me, because I believe the reason was already there, infused by my Father for me to find and enjoy and marvel at. Certainly, humans are capable of attributing meaning where there is none, but that does not mean everything is meaningless.
Do you have a scientific reason why our species should even be able to infer meaning at all? Do you have a scientific reason for why we should be able to reason and use abstract logic – to even be able to do science, or for why we should be conscious and self-aware? To be able to marvel?
ID isn’t science. This is a well established fact. ID is a belief system. Given that a person’s religion can’t be used in hiring decisions, a person’s beliefs shouldn’t be a part of the hiring or tenure process.