Recently, over 120 faculty at Iowa State University signed a petition that criticized intelligent design as inherently unscientific. The petition was partly spearheaded by Dr. Hector Avalos, Associate Professor of Religious Studies and Faculty Advisor to the ISU Atheist and Agnostic Society. According to the Des Moines Register, Avalos does not want ISU to be known as the "Intelligent Design University." Avalos wrote the petition to counteract the research and influence of Dr. Guillermo Gonzalez, Assistant Professor in Astronomy, who is widely known for coauthoring The Privileged Planet with Jay Richards (see video clip as well). Gonzalez argues that a planet like Earth is rare in the universe; he also argues that there is a correlation between habitability and discoverability in the universe, and that this correlation implies design. Gonzalez is also a Senior Fellow with the Discovery Institute.

Avalos seeks to have Gonzalez participate in a forum where skeptics can question Gonzalez's work, but Gonzalez has refused to take part. Gonzalez claims that the petition is solely directed towards him since he is the only vocal ID proponent on the campus. The president of the faculty senate, Claudia Baldwin, summarizes:

"I think the problem here is we have a great number of faculty en masse who have said this is not science. Dr. Gonzalez is there, perhaps, alone. I don't know how many supporters he has in his department" (DMR).

Baldwin also makes an interesting comment regarding the teaching of intelligent design at the university:

"As educators, we want to put things in front of students, and sometimes our students have to draw conclusions from that. Our students will have the opportunity, I hope, to hear about this theory, and just as with creationism, they will be able to decide what they believe" (DMR).

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Okay, that's enough journalism; now let me give some commentary. Dr. Avalos and the other faculty definitely have a right to express their views regarding intelligent design, and I wholeheartedly support this ability. I also wholeheartedly support Dr. Gonzalez and his lone attempt to argue for intelligent design. Having a balanced debate is good. Gonzalez is somewhat unique since 1) he has published many papers, including the cover article of Scientific American in October 2001, 2) his research in astrobiology can be seen as supportive towards ID.

Although Gonzalez is probably the only faculty member at ISU who publicly supports intelligent design, there may be secret supporters. Consider the following comment by an anonymous poster at Uncommon Descent:

"I am one of the faculty. The petition was emailed prior to publication to give people a chance to sign.

As a young scientist who is in the intelligent design camp, I did not sign. Am I publicly standing up for Gonzalez? It’s extremely risky to deviate from the norm (which, in my discipline, is Darwinism) before having tenure. Actually, before retirement, if you factor politics into your career strategy.

For further analysis of this petition, read Telic Thoughts (an independent blog about intelligent design) here, here, and here. On the evolutionary side, Panda's Thumb analyzes the situation here and here. You decide which side is more reasonable.

Richard Sternberg has released an interesting letter from the Office of Special Counsel today. In 2004, Sternberg became mired in controversy when he decided to publish a pro-ID paper by Stephen Meyer in the Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington.

[8-26 Update]: Sternberg was on O'Reilly Factor (HT: IDTF).

Republican Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist has voiced support for intelligent design (HT: Uncommon Descent). And Democratic National Chairman Howard Dean recently said that "there's no factual evidence for intelligent design."

Is this a sign that Republican <=> Design and Democrat <=> Darwin? And perhaps Independent <=> Theistic Evolution?

[8-26 Update]: Republican Senator John McCain also supports teaching intelligent design.

Australia's education minister, Brendan Nelson, recently suggested that teaching intelligent design along with Darwinian evolution in schools was "fine" (see article). Nelson was probably influenced by the Unlocking the Mystery of Life DVD. Here's another article that suggests that the Catholic Church in Australia may be embracing ID.

A note to ID proponents: if you want advance ID, advance it in Asian countries like Japan. Asia generates a massive pool of smart students, and these students often come to the graduate programs at American universities.

President George W. Bush has recently made comments endorsing the teaching of both sides of the origins debate (here's another summary). Although some pundits say that this could result in a political 'fallout' for Bush, I think that Bush's approval could rise if he continues to support the inclusion of alternative ideas like intelligent design. After all, a full 79% of liberal Californians support teaching the controversy between evolution and ID, according to one poll.

By the way, I wrote an Irvine Review article a while back about some of Bush's science policies and UCI's reaction to them: UCI Weighs in on Bush's Science (this Google cache link may break at any time). Note that this news article attempts to be balanced and does not necessarily represent any of my views.

Telic Thoughts has some thoughts on this issue. Instapundit has some negative thoughts as well. My personal view is that imbalance is detrimental to education. And if I took a poll of my classmates at UCI, most of them would agree with me.