Over the past year, Guillermo Gonzalez, a soft-spoken science professor at Iowa State, has had his beliefs condemned, his academics questioned and his book – and a documentary based on it – ridiculed by his peers.

Gonzalez, a Cuban immigrant with a doctorate in astronomy, risked his reputation in espousing Intelligent Design, a theory that has revived the creationism vs. evolution debate in schools and statehouses nationwide.

The theory suggests that the universe and living things are so finely tuned and complex, they must have been designed by a supreme, intelligent force.

To religious conservatives, Gonzalez is held in high esteem as co-author of the 2004 book, “The Privileged Planet: How Our Place in the Cosmos is Designed for Discovery.”

Critics, including dozens of Gonzalez’s colleagues at Iowa State, say his book is not based on science at all.

“I think there is a real need to discuss it, but things have become so uncivil,” said Gonzalez, sitting at a desk in an office cluttered with stacks of papers, books and curled posters of the universe.

“So many people are coming to the discussion with their minds already made up … they label it creationism so they can easily dismiss it. It really is quite different. But if you label it a religion, then it’s easy to keep it out of science,” he said.

Battles have flared over teaching the theory in public schools, especially when President Bush said he would like to see it taught alongside Darwinian evolution.

Parents sued when a Pennsylvania school board approved the theory for part of its science curriculum in October 2004. After a lengthy, landmark trial, a federal judge in December 2005 declared the theory religious rather than scientific, ruling it violated the constitutional separation of church and state.

Gonzalez, who identifies himself only as a Protestant, says he is irritated with religious groups that use Intelligent Design to advance an agenda. He is also frustrated by those who refuse to consider it on scientific merits.

Darwinism does not mandate followers to adopt atheism; just as Intelligent Design doesn’t require a belief in God, Gonzalez says.

“Intelligent Design doesn’t go so far as to identify the agent of change,” Gonzalez said. “It doesn’t start with religious assumptions.

“But I do think it falls within the realm of science. It’s a way of looking at nature, its patterns, and explaining its complexities.”

Last fall, Gonzalez was the unnamed target of a petition circulating on the ISU campus renouncing Intelligent Design as legitimate science. More than 120 ISU faculty signed it.

“The standard reaction of scientists on stuff like this that goes over the edge is to roll your eyes and ignore it,” said Lawrence Krauss, director of the Center for Research in Cosmology and Astrophysics at Case Western Reserve University. “And that’s an unfortunate reaction, however, because in the public domain you have to go out and fight those ideas.”