You clearly have never heard my father and I talk about Pat Robertson.
–Cliffy
This, of course, is big news around here (points to location:)
Here’s the local paper’s story.
Below the article is a link to the comments posted by readers.
Many of them suggest that Mirecki is faking, trying to become a martyr for his cause.
Personally, I admire the professor. (As well as Maryann). And clearly he is not to blame for what happened. But let’s face it, the course he set up was very provocative, and a hand-stab at Christianity. None of us should be surprised that some people were going to take this lightly. If it were me teaching a course like this anywhere, and especially a red state, I’d be very cognizant of my own safety.
BTW, do we have anything but his own conjecture that the two thugs were rabid creationists? They could have just been real assholes.
FWIW “rural Douglas County” as the article describes it is not exactly the Wild West, it’s an area made up of either small-medium-sized farms or well-heeled suburbanites who have moved their houses out to be away from Lawrence. I used to own a large piece of property in that very County for many years, and lived there for at least 5, and I know this. It has about no violent crime to speak of, and aside from being suspicious of anyone trying to get you to pull over, it’s not a place where you expect anything to happen. I’m not saying it has NO violent crime, but just that in general it’s one of the safer places you could be in in the entire country.
KU? UofK? Which is the one in Manhatten?
From the article linked to by the OP:
Provocative, indeed; a hand-stab, maybe, though I would have said “at religious conservatives” rather than “at Christianity” (can we please stop equating these?). His e-mailed comments sound like borderline trolling, although one wonders whom they were sent to, and why, and in what context.
Needless to say, none of this justifies his beating, and the morons who did it are entirely Pitworthy.
The University of Kansas is in Lawrence. Kansas State in is Manhatten.
Fortunately the actions of these morons are not indicative of all - or even a majority - of Christians. You know, it’s kinda like how the vile generalizations you espouse on a regular basis are not indicative of all atheists.
Especially in light of some of the prof’s previous comments. The article in today’s Chronicle goes on to quote him as saying:
Now, by no means did the man deserve to be chased down and beaten, but I would expect at least some verbal backlash. It sounds as if he’s every bit as confrontational as the people he’s speaking out against.
If he was speaking of those who are waging a cynical political campaign to pull down evolution and insert creationism in its place, “fundies” seems like a good label, and I have no objection to a (metaphorical) slap in their willfully ignorant faces. Similarly, I’d have no objection to language in an email among such fundies which called on them to “slap down those who speak of evolution”, or of “lefties” or “bleeding-heart liberals”.
If the professor were speaking of Christians, or US evangelical Christians in general, it would be too harsh. Depends on context.
I have no idea which group he was referring to, but my opinion would be that to send out an email campaign to fundamentalist christians, and then go on record to gloat about it by saying that dispelling ID as mythology would be a “slap in their big fat faces” is antagonistic to say the least.
There are plenty of christians who look at Robertson and see a liar, a charlatan, a phony, and a heretic. There are plenty of them who, along with their church’s officials and their own official dogmas, reject almost everything Robertson is selling. These same christians who reject Robertson (and there are a lot of them) also reject the morons who beat up this Kansas professor.
I think it was a good original posting by Der Trihs
mswas well include me in the “ignorant” too because I beleive that creationism, Intelligent Design and all other deity-related “sciences” are total bullshit and are definitely in conflict with evolution and science in general.
This story of the University of Kansas professor is somewhat analagous to the story of Hypatia
… and when the barbarians stormed the gates, no one was there to stop them.
Sign me up too, and apparently a whole lot of other people.
http://nightlight.typepad.com/nightlight/2005/11/vatican_rejects.html
Vatican Rejects “Intelligent Design”: Where Does That Leave The Religious Right?
The Vatican’s Chief Astronomer (yes, they have one - I’ve written about him before) has made the Church’s position on “intelligent design” even clearer: it’s bogus and should be kept out of the classroom.
http://blog.case.edu/mxs24/2005/11/23/catholic_church_turns_away_from_intelligent_design_creationism
The Catholic World News reports that:
The director of the Vatican Observatory has lashed out at proponents of the theory of Intelligent Design, the Italian news service ANSA reports.
“Intelligent design isn’t science, even if it pretends to be,” said Father George Coyne. He said that if the theory is introduced in schools, it should be taught in religion classes, not science classes.
In another story news story:
The Vatican has issued a stout defence of Charles Darwin, voicing strong criticism of Christian fundamentalists who reject his theory of evolution and interpret the biblical account of creation literally.
Cardinal Paul Poupard, head of the Pontifical Council for Culture, said the Genesis description of how God created the universe and Darwin’s theory of evolution were “perfectly compatible” if the Bible were read correctly.
His statement was a clear attack on creationist campaigners in the US, who see evolution and the Genesis account as mutually exclusive.
“The fundamentalists want to give a scientific meaning to words that had no scientific aim,” he said at a Vatican press conference. He said the real message in Genesis was that “the universe didn’t make itself and had a creator”.
This idea was part of theology, Cardinal Poupard emphasised, while the precise details of how creation and the development of the species came about belonged to a different realm - science. Cardinal Poupard said that it was important for Catholic believers to know how science saw things so as to “understand things better”.
His statements were interpreted in Italy as a rejection of the “intelligent design” view, which says the universe is so complex that some higher being must have designed every detail.
Further support for evolution came from Monsignor Gianfranco Basti, director of the Vatican project STOQ, or Science, Theology and Ontological Quest who reaffirmed John Paul’s 1996 statement that evolution was “more than just a hypothesis.”
“A hypothesis asks whether something is true or false,” he said. “(Evolution) is more than a hypothesis because there is proof.”
And the story of Hypatia has gone under some revision since Sagan included that bit in Cosmos. Such as by Maria Dzielska, who casts Hypatia as a person much more involved in the politics and who may have bet on the wrong political horse, IIRC, rather than just a person perseucted by Christians. However, I don’t think there is any “proof” to either side, although having read Dzielska’s work this last Summer, it appears to cover all the bases.
It doesn’t say it was sent out to any type of Christians. It says it was sent out to “a student organization”. Given the content, my best guess is that he sent it around the science faculty or something like that, thinking he’d have his audience solidly behind him - “Yeah! Stupid creationists!” - and it backfired on him.
True, and I misread that and inferred it was to a Christian group. But I think my point still stands. If your intent is really to educate and to foster understanding and hopefully wipe out some ignorance (like ID), then going into it saying “Nyah, nyah! You’re all a bunch of stupid doodyheads and here’s why!” is not the best way to go about doing it. It’s provocative and headline grabbing, to be sure. It disappoints me that an educator had an opportunity to open some minds, and instead they’re now all closed even tighter than before. He’s done that university and those students no favors.
Every bit as confrontational? Oh, please! I don’t see him trying to get his religion moved into science class, do you?
Seems more a stab at creationism.
From what I understand, the email wasn’t something that was meant to see wide distribution: he was blowing off steam to a friendly audience. I’d bet most of us have emails our outbursts that we say to such groups that we would never say in public for fear of having them be taken as serious grand comments stating your opinion for the world at large instead of kvetching to friends. It may have been pretty harsh language, but there’s no reason to think it was intended to be “headline grabbing.”
First of all, let me clear something up. Christians are explicitly commanded to love their neighbors. It’s recorded in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Here’s Matthew’s version of it:
It seems to me that by beating up this teacher because of his views, not only are they violating the second commandment, but, by so violently rejecting evolution, they are also violating the first commandment and failing to love God with all their minds by mindlessly accepting an argument that amounts to “God did it!” Then again, what do you expect from a liberal Christian who finds evolution far more intellectually satisfying than Creationism?
Second, there isn’t any way in which the actions of the professor’s attackers are justified under my form of Christianity. That whole “love your neighbor business” applies to obnoxious jerks as well as entirely likable people, and I’ve no idea where the professor falls on that scale. If anything, it applies more stringently to obnoxious jerks because they’re harder to love in the sense that love means treat with courtesy and respect. “Love” does not require liking in my interpretation. Yes, I’m also required to love the guys who beat him up and treat them better than they would probably treat the likes of me.
By the way, the Episcopal Church also accepts evolution and I’ve heard Pat Robertson denounced during sermons in my church. Sometimes, from what I read in the news, especially what with Christians making a flap over being wished “Happy Holidays” and megachurches in Kentucky not holding services on Christmas Day because it falls on a Sunday (cites available for both), I’m not even entirely sure I’m actually following the same religion as some of these folks. 
CJ