How the Darwinists help the ID guys (# zillion and three)

Nobody seems to be blogging these days, including me, but a friend sent me something interesting: I've often said that the ID guys owe a good deal of their success to their opposition, and here is an example of just what I mean, kindly provided by ID embryologist Jonathan Wells's Politically Incorrect Guide to Darwinism and Intelligent Design (Regnery, 2006) about Paul Mirecki:

From Chapter 15 (p. 173):

Anti-Christian zealots are often in the forefront of attacks on intelligent design. In 2005, the chairman of the University of Kansas Religious Studies Department, atheist Paul Mirecki, proposed to teach a course titled "Intelligent Design Creationism and Other Mythologies." Mirecki boasted on a web site that "fundies" would see the course as a "slap in their big fat face." He also endorsed a description of Pope John Paul II as "a corpse in a funny hat wearing a dress." [13]

[note 13] Laura Bauer, "Intelligent design backers criticize KU course title," The Kansas City Star, November 23, 2005. Available online (January 2006)
Scott Jaschik, Emails Kill a Course, Inside Higher Education, December 2, 2005. Available online (January 2006)
Michelle Malkin, "What Happened to Paul Mirecki?" December 7, 2005. Available online (January 2006)

Now, this kind of thing raises an interesting question: Why would anyone expect to be taken seriously if this is the best they can do?

Or is my conspirazoid coffee buddy right - the nefarious Discovery Institute is paying people to act this way? Naw, that level of PR fiasco is pretty hard to fake. Isn’t it? Surely the political parties would have scarfed up anyone with that kind of talent long ago, outpricing the Discos easily.

But gee I wish Mirecki's course had run. Just think of the great quotes I could have got for my blogs. Rats. Now I have to work.

(Note: I have altered the end note [13] above by embedding the links, so as to avoid broken links. )

My other blog is the Mindful Hack, which keeps tabs on neuroscience and the mind.

If you like this blog, check out my book on the intelligent design controversy, By Design or by Chance?. You can read excerpts as well.

Are you looking for one of the following stories?

My recent series on the spate of anti-God books, teen blasphemy challenge, et cetera, and the mounting anxiety of materialist atheists that lies behind it.

My review of Francis Collins’ book The Language of God , my backgrounder about peer review issues, or the evolutionary biologist’s opinion that all students friendly to intelligent design should be flunked.

Lists of theoretical and applied scientists who doubt Darwin and of academic ID publications.

My U of Toronto talk on why there is an intelligent design controversy, or my talk on media coverage of the controversy at the University of Minnesota.

A summary of tech guru George Gilder's arguments for ID and against Darwinism

A critical look at why March of the Penguins was thought to be an ID film.

A summary of recent opinion columns on the ID controversy

A summary of recent polls of US public opinion on the ID controversy

A summary of the Catholic Church's entry into the controversy, essentially on the side of ID.

O'Leary's intro to non-Darwinian agnostic philosopher David Stove’s critique of Darwinism.

An ID Timeline: The ID folk seem always to win when they lose.

Why origin of life is such a difficult problem.

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