Follow Up on Martin Gaskell’s Lawsuit of the University of Kentucky

December 14th, 2010

I’ve had some time to read more about what is going on and think I’m getting a clearer picture.   Let me restate the basic issue with greater understanding than I did before.

Martin Gaskell is an astronomer in my subfield, and a pretty good one, and someone I consider a friend.   He’s also pretty religious and has been writing and speaking about the relationship between science and religion for some time.

A few years ago, it seems he was forced out of his faculty position at the University of Nebraska.   I am fuzzy about some of the details there.   What I read yesterday some places suggested that he was finding ways of circumventing his teaching duties in favor of research.   I know Martin told me 5-6 years ago that the astronomers had taken on extra voluntary teaching to offer more astronomy courses, and that the physics-dominated department was also moving away from astronomy in general.   So, I don’t know these details for sure, although they’re likely relevant in the sense that he’s had some history of problems that led to his job search in 2006-2007.

He was up for a job at the University of Kentucky for observatory director.   Their observatory is not a research facility, but a facility for education and public outreach.   A PhD level scientist like Martin, with 30 years experience and a hundred publications, was overkill.   So, he’s either overqualified or superman here.   Kentucky wound up hiring someone with only a masters degree whom they already knew well and had been working in the department supporting classroom demonstrations and the like.   He’s apparently been doing a good job in the position.

I’m also kind of surprised Martin would even apply for this job, or be happy if he got it, as it’s not a research position at all.   More about that coming below.

So, according to some of the depositions and things I’ve read, Martin didn’t get the job offer for several possible reasons, one of which is related to his religious beliefs but perhaps only indirectly.   Here were the two main reasons:

1. Martin is a high-powered astronomer who might neglect his observatory director duties in favor of doing research.   Maybe he would do a minimally acceptable job as observatory director, but why not hire someone with a background better matched to the job who will do it with enthusiasm?

2. Martin has a track record of writing and speaking about the relationships between religion and science.   No problem there, per se, except that his track record is pretty weak concerning evolution in particular, and his positions may be construed as supporting some form of creationism.   Given that this is a public outreach job, in a city near a Creation Museum, perhaps it is not wise to hire someone who will be seen as less than bulletproof as a scientist and send the wrong message about the University, and who may in fact speak about evolution during the course of his job activities?

There is more to support the concerns in point 2.   Martin apparently gave a talk at Kentucky in 1997 about religion and science.   Apparently the talk was primarily good science, but did include more doubts about evolution than an astronomer should articulate, and in the follow-up Q&A there was a testy exchange.   Apparently Martin said things that gave a number of people the impression he was some version of a creationist.   His writings online (see last post) do seem to indicate that in the realm of evolution he wants to bend science to include supernatural elements, a form of intelligent design.   Intelligent design was a movement, well, designed, to disguise creationism enough to get it into schools.   Very few supporters of intelligent design, maybe none, are not religious and using the arguments to support their religious beliefs.   In any case, intelligent design is not a scientific theory, there is essentially no serious research involving intelligent design, it isn’t scientific, and it does undermine science (in my opinion).

I have to say I’d hire Martin in an instant as a research astronomer, and probably wouldn’t in a job to communicate science to the public, school kids, etc., because I wouldn’t trust him to be fair about what’s good science and what isn’t.   That, to me, is the issue, not his religion.

And that seems to be the issue among the astronomers hiring at Kentucky, too, except not everyone there sees that distinction.   Some believe, or were concerned, that not hiring him based on point 2 was religious discrimination, and left a paper trail (email anyway) to that effect.   Some just didn’t want to hire a high-powered researcher for the position.

We’ll see what the jury thinks.   I have a hard time believing that they’ll be likely to have a jury with enough science literacy to follow the case well.   I’m also having a hard time imagining Martin, and several of my friends at Kentucky, all going to court to testify over this stuff.

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