The Open-Minded Professor

It sounded iffy to me when I read about it yesterday, and today Michelle Malkin has quite a bit more:

Kansas University's Paul Mirecki, the controversial religious studies professor whose planned course on creationism and intelligent design was canceled after he derided Christian conservatives as "fundies," was allegedly beaten on Monday morning by two unidentified white men who he claims targeted him for his views.If Mirecki was indeed the victim of this alleged crime, it is a travesty and a shame, and the alleged assailants should be prosecuted to the fullest extent.

There is, however, another possibility: It could be a hoax. Mirecki's reticence, lack of specifics, and odd behavior are raising some doubts. Says one skeptic:

If a pickup truck was driving behind you in the early morning in a deserted rural area, and two men got out holding a large metal object, and you were still in your car, would you get out to go talk with them? ... How did those in the pickup truck find him? Were they waiting at his house? In that case Dr. Mirecki should have noticed them right away. How would they just randomly find him in the middle of the country?
Asking such questions may seem mean-spirited, but given the prevalence of staged hate crimes since the Tawana Brawley hoax two decades ago, skepticism is warranted. Just last year, an assistant visiting professor at Claremont McKenna College was sentenced to prison after she staged an anti-Semitic hate crime against herself. Earlier this year, a lesbian student at Mt. Tamalpais High School in Marin County, Calif., faked several anti-gay incidents to garner attention and sympathy.

Curiously, earlier Wednesday, Mirecki resigned the chairmanship of KU's religious studies department. (Resignation letter here.) According to Barbara Romzek, interim dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Mirecki resigned on the recommendation of his colleagues. Strange. Do they know something we don't?

You can read more about this at Wittingshire- here is their second post, compiled after Mirecki's resignation. Here is their first.

I think the links in the Wittingshire posts are well worth your time.

From this link to Telic Thoughts you will learn that Kansas U. Professor Paul Mirecki planned to teach a course on intelligent design as mythology, which apparently sparked some controversy. Provost David Shulenburger issued an official statement regretting regretted that “the course title’s reference to mythologies’ has been misconstrued”, and that it shouldn’t be taken as an “affront”. However, Professor Mirecki apparently did not get that memo. In an email he sent to the email list ironically titled: 'the Society of Open-Minded Atheists and Agnostics' (emphasis mine own), the open-minded Prof said:

“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,’”

He signed it, “Doing my part (to upset) the religious right, Evil Dr. P.”

As you might imagine, there was a considerable reaction to the Open-Minded Professor's injudicious remarks. There was so much reaction that, being the cynical sort that I most certainly am, when I first read about that assault my initial reaction was "How bizarre, and how very convenient. How unlikely it all sounds."

He may well have been beaten up, or injured somehow. But does it seem likely to you that the only thing he really remembers is that while hitting him with a large metal object they 'made reference to' the most recent instance where he made a public spectacle of himself, and he doesn't even get very specific about that?

Isn't it just a little too coincidental that these two nondescript (except they were white and drove a pick-up, naturally) men happen to represent the very group Mirecki desires to vilify? What better way to redirect attention from his own foolishness while justifying his hostility towards these ID thugs?

This post at Telic Thoughts includes some interesting comments in the comment section. It seems that Mirecki drove himself to the hospital and was treated and released. The police say they were dispatched to the hospital, yet at one point Mirecki claimed he called them from the roadside. He declines to explain the discrepancy to the reporter trying to get the ducks of this story all in a nice tidy chain. Mirecki said he could explain the discrepancy, he just didn't want to.

Verum Serum's reaction:

Mirecki is now the most famous atheist in America. He has been beaten for the cause, making him a martyr. Expect to hear about this in the very next Maureen Dowd column. Expect to hear about it on the Jon Stewart show. Expect atheist websites who had no problem with him verbally abusing Christians and using his position as a bully pulpit to tell this story ad infinitum....

So two idiots in a pickup have just turned Mirecki, who is still a creepy little man in my book, into a folk hero. Nice going, morons

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Take away the two idiots in a truck and I think we might just be on to something.