Intelligent Design Class to be taught at Cornell University

http://www.syracuse.com/newsflash/national/...ITHACA, N.Y. (AP) - Cornell University this summer will offer a class
on intelligent design
(http://evolutionlist.blogspot.com/2006/04/evolution-and-design...),a theory that has sparked heated debate around the country on whether
alternatives to evolution should be taught in public schools.The course will include texts that oppose and support the theory of
intelligent design and will be offered through the undergraduate
biology program. It will be a history of biology class that looks at
ethics and philosophy."I'm not going to be bashing (intelligent design), but I'm also not
going to be advocating it," said lecturer Allen MacNeill
(Blogger: User Profile: Allen MacNeill ), an evolutionary biologist
who will teach the course. "I'm going to be using it - and
evolutionary biology too - to think about these very complicated ideas."Cornell President Hunter Rawlings III in an Oct. 21 speech
(http://www.cornell.edu/president/announcement_2005_1021.cfm)
condemned the teaching of intelligent design as science, calling it "a
religious belief masquerading as a secular idea."Intelligent design is a theory that argues that life is too complex to
have developed through evolution, implying a higher power must have
had a hand. It has been harshly criticized by The National Academy of
Sciences and the American Association for the Advancement of Science,
which have called it repackaged creationism.Around the country, attempts to introduce public school students to
alternatives to evolution such as intelligent design have largely failed.Hannah Maxson, president of the Intelligent Design Evolution Awareness
Club at Cornell
(Blogsome),
said she is glad the issue is being taken seriously."We'd just like a place at the table in the scientific give-and-take," she said.