ID is a career killer

Note: As Larry Moran rightly points out in the comments everything isn't all about putting out papers and us science bloggers should put out graphs of our own publication rates, as well. For my own part, I've contributed nothing so I couldn't even make a graph, but I know there has been some discussion about some of the leading spokesmen for evolution and their publication rates (Dawkins and Gould, for example, have put out plenty of popular works, but how did that affect the amount of technical work they accomplished?). The point that jumping on the ID bandwagon adversely affects productivity remains, I think, but at the same time we should be forthright with our own publications. As I said, I don't have anything to contribute here but what about those who do? Science isn't all about pumping out papers as fast as you can, so what about the publication rates of prominent evolutionary scientists in the public eye? What does their rate of publication say about them and their research? Thanks to Larry for pointing out the gaping hole in this post.

Intelligent design kills careers, plain and simple. While many creationists in this group whine and complain about the academic community destroying the lives of those who oppose the shadowy network of "Darwinists," the record clearly shows that becoming an ID advocate is tantamount to shooting yourself in the foot academically. Take Guillermo Gonzalez, for example (and read Phil Plait's analysis of the controversy surrounding him if you're not already familiar with this topic). As a recent graph provided to use by the Evil Monkey and John Lynch, Gonzalez's publication rate plummeted even between 1999 and 2003, the publication of his book The Privileged Planet marking the low point of his time at Iowa State University. After a tiny rebound in 2005, his publication rate continued to drop (although it was already almost as low as it could get). It's evident from such a graph alone that Gonzalez was not putting out much research or bringing in much money to the university, so it's not surprising that he was denied tenure given such a drop in productivity.

The problem is that his productivity most likely dropped due to his increasing involvement with the intelligent design movement and his work on his popular book (which is not a scientific work). The history of Lehigh biochemist and fellow ID advocate Michal Behe shows a similar trend, with Behe only putting out one scientific paper in the last decade! He seems to have spent much more time working on his popular books, doing tours, and generally advocating intelligent design that contributing to science, and I don't imagine that the trend is going to improve. Even if we forget about ID as pseudoscience for a moment, it's clear that becoming a spokesman for it directly adversely affects publication rate and research. As Jason Rosenhouse mentions in a recent post on this topic, though, the ISU physics department somewhat skirted to ID issue when discussing why Gonzalez was not granted tenure. The recent Disco Institute press release about this controversy is full of quote mines and high-pitched rhetoric, but the ISU faculty should have been more forthright in voicing their concerns about Gonzalez's publication record drying up because he was spending more time on intelligent design. The Disco Institute is trying to draw attention away from this, making bold claims about a hostile work environment and intellectual persecution, but the information that has surfaced show that this was simply the case of a researcher devoting less time to actual science and more time to intelligent design (an activity outside the university that involved no scientific study whatsoever).

[Mike Dunford provides a good overview of why bringing in funding is important, too]