U. of Kansas Draws Media Frenzy With News That It Will Offer Course on Intelligent Design as Myth By THOMAS BARTLETT
It's rare for the announcement of a new college course to spark a news-media frenzy. But that's exactly what happened on Tuesday, when word spread that the University of Kansas would be offering a course next spring titled "Special Topics in Religion: Intelligent Design, Creationism, and Other Religious Mythologies."
The course will be taught by Paul A. Mirecki, chairman of the religious-studies department. "Creationism is mythology," Mr. Mirecki told the Journal-World, a newspaper in Lawrence, Kan. "Intelligent design is mythology. It's not science. They try to make it sound like science. It clearly is not."
The professor did not return calls for further comment on Tuesday.
News of the course, along with Mr. Mirecki's comment, appeared in television, Internet, and newspaper reports across the country.
Later on Tuesday, after a tidal wave of reporters called, the university seemed to be at pains to dampen the controversy. David E. Shulenburger, the provost, posted a statement on the university's Web site that said: "It is unfortunate that the course title's reference to 'mythologies' has been misconstrued. The terms 'myth' and 'mythology' are common in the academic study of religion and not an affront."
The statement went on to say that the purpose of the course was not to "debunk any particular beliefs but instead encourage students to explore religion and its place in the world."
Earlier this month the Kansas Board of Education voted in favor of teaching public-school students about criticism of evolutionary theory. Before and since that vote, there has been a public war of words between Steve Abrams, chairman of the Kansas Board of Education, and Robert E. Hemenway, the university's chancellor.
Mr. Hemenway has called evolution "the unifying principle of modern biology" and argued that there is no contradiction between it and a belief in God. Mr. Abrams, who believes in creationism, has said that one must decide between belief in the Bible and belief in evolution.
The controversy in Kansas has played out while a federal judge in Pennsylvania is considering the arguments he heard in a lawsuit over a local school board's decision to teach intelligent design to schoolchildren. The judge is expected to rule in that case next month.
Intelligent design is the theory that some aspects of living organisms are so complex that they could not have evolved according to the principles of evolution laid down by Charles Darwin 150 years ago, but must have been designed by some superior intelligence. Critics of the theory say it is little more than creationism, which considers God to have been the designer, and is in any event not a scientific theory.