Intelligent Design Debate Continues

In the next academic year, two new courses at the University of Kansas, both taught by professors with doctorates from Harvard, will evaluate the fiercely contested issue of intelligent design and its place in science classrooms.

The planned courses have incited resistance, largely due to the professors’ use of the term “mythology” in reference to intelligent design.

Kansas has been at the center of the debate over intelligent design, the theory that natural selection cannot account for all of life’s evolution and that an “intelligent designer” must have guided the process. The Kansas Education Board recently voted to teach alternatives to evolution in the state’s science classes.

Both professors said their courses will critically examine this viewpoint and teach students to distinguish between what they refer to as “science and psuedoscience.”

John W. Hoopes, an associate professor of anthropology at Kansas who received a doctorate from Harvard in 1987, will teach a course next fall entitled Anthropology 210, “Archaeological Myths and Realities and Religion.”

Chair of the Department of Religious Studies Paul Mirecki, who received a doctorate from Harvard Divinity School in 1986, had tentatively titled his spring course Religion 602, “Special Topics in Religion: Intelligent Design, Creationism and Other Religious Mythologies.”

He recently removed the word “mythologies” from the title after facing strong criticism, but he said the subject matter of the course will not change.

“Myth is something positive and true instead of negative and false; the American people have been hoodwinked into thinking the latter,” Mirecki said.

But John Calvert, managing director of the Intelligent Design Network, said the term “mythology” should not be used in connection with intelligent design since it connotes an idea that is unscientific.

“These two courses are just a joke. A theologian and an anthropologist have no place in teaching intelligent design,” Calvert said.

Both Hoopes and Mirecki cited their experiences at Harvard as very influential in their respective paths at Kansas.

Hoopes, a former resident tutor in Dunster House, credited his work with retired Peabody Professor of Archaeology Stephen Williams, who used to teach a course called “Fantastic Archaeology.”

“We covered the idea of intelligent design, but back then it was called scientific creationism,” Hoopes said.

Williams said he was pleased with the resurrection of his once popular course, adding, “It is definitely worthwhile to continue this kind of teaching in the new century. One would assume that as time passed there would be greater reliance on science, but it seems that people will always try to push their views without proper evidence.”

Mirecki, on the other hand, did not specifically focus on creationism while at Harvard, but he still connected his learning at the Divinity School with his current work.

“The New Testament faculty at Harvard taught me to observe and analyze mythology, and that is what I am doing,” Mirecki said. “Intelligent design is a modern mythology that has to be discussed.”

Mirecki’s dissertation advisor, Morrison Professor of New Testament Studies Helmut H. Koester, agreed with his former pupil’s position.

“Creationism and its history should certainly be taught, but not in the academic world as a science,” Koester said.

“Intelligent design is a statement of faith, which has nothing to do with scientific fact. Where will we end up if every statement of faith is translated into scientific studies?”