{"id":5975,"date":"2005-12-02T10:05:57","date_gmt":"2005-12-02T15:05:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/?p=5975"},"modified":"2005-12-02T10:05:57","modified_gmt":"2005-12-02T15:05:57","slug":"so-much-for-the-id-course-in-kansas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/so-much-for-the-id-course-in-kansas\/","title":{"rendered":"So much for the ID course in Kansas"},"content":{"rendered":"

We learned last week that the chairman of the Religious Studies Department at the University of Kansas was taking a firm stand against intelligent-design creationism — by including it in a course on “religious mythologies.” As Prof. Paul Mirecki explained<\/a>, “Creationism is mythology. Intelligent design is mythology. It’s not science. They try to make it sound like science. It clearly is not.”<\/p>\n

It was a great idea that seemed to be well received by the academic community, students began signing up for the course, and non-creationists everywhere were thrilled. But it was all for naught. The course has been cancelled — because Mirecki got a little careless with his choice of words<\/a>.<\/p>\n

A University of Kansas course devoted to debunking creationism and “intelligent design” has been canceled after the professor caused a furor by sending an e-mail mocking Christian fundamentalists.<\/p>\n

Twenty-five students had enrolled in the course, “Special Topics in Religion: Intelligent Design and Creationism,” which had been scheduled for the spring. Professor Paul Mirecki, chairman of religious studies, canceled the class Wednesday, the university said.<\/p>\n

Mirecki recently posted an e-mail on a student organization forum 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 in a statement issued by the university.<\/p>\n

Chancellor Robert Hemenway said Mirecki’s comments were “repugnant and vile.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Let this be a lesson to all of us — if you’re going to teach a course to make religious fundamentalists look ridiculous, don’t put your motivations in print and publish them on the Internet.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We learned last week that the chairman of the Religious Studies Department at the University of Kansas was taking a firm stand against intelligent-design creationism — by including it in a course on “religious mythologies.” As Prof. Paul Mirecki explained, “Creationism is mythology. Intelligent design is mythology. It’s not science. They try to make it […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5975","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5975","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5975"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5975\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5975"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5975"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5975"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}