“The KU faculty has had enough,” said Paul Mirecki, chairman of KU’s religious studies department. He said he planned to teach “Special Topics in Religion: Intelligent Design, Creationism and other Religious Mythologies” next semester.
*snip*
Mirecki said the course would be capped at 120 students, exploring intelligent design as a modern American mythology. Intelligent design is the idea that life is too complex to have evolved without a “designer,” presumably a god or other supernatural being.
The course also will cover the origins of creationism, why it’s an American phenomenon, and why Americans have allowed it to pervade politics and education, Mirecki said. He said several KU faculty have volunteered to be guest lecturers.
“Creationism is mythology,” Mirecki said. “Intelligent design is mythology. It’s not science. They try to make it sound like science. It clearly is not.”
You'd think the DI would be elated! But instead they throw a hissy fit!
“I would predict that (Mirecki’s) effort will go down in history as one of the laughingstocks of the century,” said John Calvert, an attorney and managing director of the Intelligent Design Network in Johnson County.
*snip*
“To equate intelligent design to mythology is really an absurdity, and it’s just another example of labeling anybody who proposes (intelligent design) to be simply a religious nut,” Calvert said. “That’s the reason for this little charade.”
Calvert questioned Mirecki’s expertise, saying the teaching of intelligent design requires an extensive understanding of evolution and science. (He's telling a half truth here, it does take a lot of time, effort and knowledge to debunk ID - afarensis)
“I think the guy is going to fall all over himself,” Calvert said. “I would love to go to his class and say, ‘Explain to me how DNA arose in the primordial soup?’”
John Altevogt, a conservative columnist and activist in Kansas City, said the situation was the equivalent of David Duke teaching about race relations or Fred Phelps teaching about homosexuality.
Teach the controversy indeed!
I guess the title of the article was correct after all ("KU class angers ‘design’ advocates, Course would be taught as religion, not as science")
