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Kate Strickler, "Intelligent Design debate lingers" (2005)
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Kate Strickler, "Intelligent Design debate lingers" (2005)
"Iowa State Daily" September 01, 2005; http://www.iowastatedaily.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2005/09/01/43168d658d5da?in_archive=1
Intelligent Design debate lingers
> Hector Avalos<div>
> Daily Staff Writer<div>
> <p>At the request of ISU President Gregory Geoffroy, the ISU Faculty Senate will work to organize a forum to discuss Intelligent Design, a topic that in recent weeks has sparked hot debate on campus.<p>
Intelligent Design is a theory that suggests certain human biological characteristics are so complex they could not have evolved but had to have been created by an intelligent being.
Guillermo Gonzalez, assistant professor of physics and astronomy, and Hector Avalos, associate professor of religious studies, have emerged as faculty members with strong feelings on Intelligent Design.
> Guillermo Gonzalez <div>
Gonzalez said his attendance at a possible forum to discuss the subject remains unclear.
“I would be willing to attend a forum, on one condition — that Hector Avalos and John Patterson had nothing to do with it,” Gonzalez said.
Avalos said if no pro-Intelligent Design faculty participate, the forum will still be held by various departments. Despite whether there is a forum, there should be a lecture this year, he said.
Geoffroy has asked the Faculty Senate to sponsor a forum, said Tanya Zanish-Belcher, Faulty Senate secretary and associate professor of library.
“I don’t know when,” she said. “They hadn’t set a date, last I knew.”
The idea was suggested at a reception last week, but was not formally discussed.
Claudia Baldwin, president of the Faculty Senate and associate professor of veterinary clinical sciences, said the date of the forum will be announced this semester.
“This is something we said we would do,” she said. “There just aren’t any details yet.”
Gonzalez is the author of “The Privileged Planet,” a book supporting Intelligent Design. Avalos, who opposes Intelligent Design, is the author of “¿Se puede saber si Dios existe? (It is possible to know if God exists?),” a defense of atheism.
Avalos, adviser to the ISU Atheist and Agnostic Society, participated in the creation of a statement circulating the faculty in opposition to Intelligent Design at Iowa State. The statement, co-written by Avalos and professors Jim Colbert and Michael Clough, has been signed by 124 faculty members, roughly 7 percent of ISU faculty, as of last Friday, Avalos said.
Gonzalez denounced the statement against the teaching of Intelligent Design in science classrooms as “a political approach.”
A counter-statement has been issued to the faculty, he said.
Gonzalez, adviser to ISU Truth Bucket, a Christian student organization, said he could not disclose the name of the person who started the statement and he did not know the number of signatures on the statement.
“I personally am not issuing a counter-statement,” Gonzalez said, “but I have received lots of e-mail from faculty expressing their support.”
In classrooms, Gonzalez said he thought evolution should be taught fully — both positively and negatively, giving students a critical approach.
