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November 29, 2005
How to send me running into the waiting arms of the Discovery Institute, part III
(Just in case you need an update: Here are part I and part II.)
One of my longtime themes in this whole evolution v. intelligent design debate has been the idea that is that people on either side of this debate have talked past one another, sometimes very deliberately and willfully, for the better part of forty years. I will freely grant that much of the bomb-throwing has come from the religion side of the aisle. However, what has personally been frustrating to me (as I'm one who does come from the church people, and I do have a certain affection for their traditions and their values) has been a complete failure from science teaching advocates, and academics of several other stripes, to show even the slightest attempt to understand why someone of Christian faith would have problems with evolution.
(There is quite a distinguished history of people who have Christian faith not having a bit of problem with evolution, in fact using evolution in their own ways to describe how God does business, but that's another discussion entirely. The point is, there are pretty plain reasons for Christians to be troubled by evolution, particularly the current evolutionary synthesis.)
And, while I suppose it's understandable that faculty at the Kansas U might feel particularly aggrieved towards uber-conservative political bodies that they percieve are making their state an educational laughingstock, when I read this blogpost from Centerfield, my first response was "there's no way this can be as bad as it sounds."
So I did my research, thanks to the Lawrence Journal-World's excellent KU coverage.
In a recent message on a Yahoo listserv — a venue where groups of people post questions and comments on a particular topic — Paul Mirecki, chairman of KU’s department of religious studies, described his upcoming course “Special Topics in Religion: Intelligent Design, Creationisms and other Religious Mythologies.”“The fundies want it all taught in a science class, but this will be a nice slap in their big fat face by teaching it as a religious studies class under the category ‘mythology,’” Mirecki wrote.
He signed the note “Doing my part (to upset) the religious right, Evil Dr. P.”
“My understanding was that was a private e-mail communication that somehow was moved out of those channels and has become a public document,” Shulenburger said.
Now, I'm wondering if that post has a publicly-available link. Because that could completely put lie to the KU provost's statement.
On most of the Yahoo! Groups lists that I'm on, the posts made are publicly viewable, not just to subscribers but to the populace at large. (Here's an example near and dear to my heart.) It would be REALLY NIFTY if somebody could track down that post in question. If so, then that's not private e-mail. At best, it's a private mailing list. But, more likely, it's a mailing list where all the posts are out in the open.
And, in any event, the content says one thing and one thing only. In fact, the Associated Press story on this says it even more directly.
"The KU faculty has had enough," said Paul Mirecki, chairman of the department. "Creationism is mythology," Mr. Mirecki said. "Intelligent design is mythology. It's not science. They try to make it sound like science. It clearly is not."
Now, there are proper academic definitions of mythology that are not as loaded. But nobody who is your standard churchgoer is familiar with those. They hear "mythology" and they immediately process "they're putting what we believe on the level of Greek and Roman gods." And offense happens.
And when you brace that with "The KU faculty has had enough"?
The message is plain. Of course you know, this means war.
Now, Professor Mirecki has apologized for his e-mail - but not for his other inflammatory comments, and without even a hint that he understands what he's done to upset people - but, as far as KU is concerned, the damage might already be done. The Kansas Legislature's antennae are already raised, for better or for worse, and this is not a season when you want to be hacking off the people who supply your public funding. More importantly, there are a lot of otherwise rather moderate parents of faith who hear such talk coming from the chair of Relgious Studies (and, of all people, you would think that somebody who studies religion professionally would understand the sensitivities of religious people) and who are thinking "You know, I don't know if I want my offspring going to Kansas University."
And, if you're trying to get across the importance of understanding good science, those are exactly the parents you need to be trying to talk to.
Again, it's sheer arrogance. It's falling into the trap of saying "because I have all these degrees, I know better than you do." And that arrogance is going to blow up in the face of those who don't see the damage that it does.
If you truly want to educate, you need to talk to people, not down at them. You need to understand the biases that they bring to the table, and make sure the biases you bring to the table are out there for everyone to see. Then you can start to discuss facts and ideas, and begin to think critically about them - and hopefully get good critical responses, but not be so arrogant to believe that your understanding is above question.
When I see the knee-jerk responses of those in high positions in education when it comes to the religious faith of the populace, it really makes me wonder how much they're interested in educating - and in learning themselves - and how much they're really interested in indoctrination.
UPDATE: The folks at The Airing Of Grievances (who I like, despite the fact that I disagree with them pretty much completely on this) point to this AP article citing the e-mail that Mirecki sent as going to a Kansas student organization, for which Mirecki serves as faculty advisor, called the "Society of Open-Minded Atheists and Agnostics".
The mailing list does have a homepage on Yahoo! Groups. It is locked down; the e-mails are not publicly visible.
But it's a mailing list, according to the AP, that students and faculty are on alike. And that makes me even more wary of the whole "indoctrination" question, for reasons that I haven't totally worked out right now. Stay tuned.
Posted by Chuck at November 29, 2005 08:11 PM
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