Slashdot Mirror
Course Debunking Intelligent Design Canceled
Thib writes "As widely reported everywhere, University of Kansas chairman of religious studies Paul Mirecki has withdrawn the "Special Topics in Religion: Intelligent Design, Creationism and Other Religious Mythologies" course that he was preparing for the upcoming Spring semester. From the AP: "Mirecki recently sent an e-mail to members of a student organization in which he referred to religious conservatives as "fundies" and said a course depicting intelligent design as mythology would be a "nice slap in their big fat face." He later apologized, and did so again Thursday in a statement issued by the university." Mirecki was inspired to offer the course after the Kansas Board of Education moved to back intelligent design in state science standards in November."
It's too bad that now fundamentalists are going to have this news story as a weapon against proponents of science. This is despite this person apparently having nothing to do with science. We need better representatives, like the following:
Skeptical Inquirer: The Magazine for Science and Reason
http://www.csicop.org/si/
Discussion and debate of biological and physical origins
http://www.talkorigins.org/
Understanding Evolution
http://evolution.berkeley.edu/
Not just a university -- a private university. Perhaps the GP was confusing The University of Kansas with Kansas State University.
How can a post be modded "overrated" or "underrated" when it hasn't been rated yet?
No university is really private anymore, they all leech government money through the guise of "financial aid" and "grants", which amount to a voucher system of public education.
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
High school science classrooms are not a forum of scientific debate. What bothers me most about this entire discussion is the assertion that, for some reason, a board of education decides what is science... that introducing it in classrooms is somehow equivalent to having it published in Nature... and that, for some reason, this is a valid way to discuss what is and isn't science.
It just isn't. Classrooms are for teaching science. Science has its own forums for such debates.
Now, when you put it in that light, the question becomes "do we want material that is not accepted by the scientific community taught in classrooms.
For those of you digging at religion, remember that a good portion of the religious community, including the Catholic Church, do not accept ID.