A new course next semester will offer University of Wisconsin students the chance to learn about the versions of science taught in certain sects of Christianity and Islam.

UW physics professor Marshall Onellion will teach the Physics 206 course, set to begin in this spring. He said the idea for the course began after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks when he started to research Islam.

Onellion said he read the Quran, and it made him “more and more pissed off” about what he was hearing in the mainstream media.

“There really is a parallel universe of conferences and international organizations and books and journals all devoted to what is called ‘Islamic Science,'” Onellion said.

He said the Quran and several Islamic groups are critical of evolution, cosmology and quantum mechanics.

For example, Onellion said he talked with several Middle Eastern professors who said that in introductory chemistry classes in Pakistan, students are taught that hydrogen and helium atoms are brought together, a spark is formed and “through the will of Allah” water is created.

“I concluded from examples such as that people at UW were not being intellectually prepared for what they’re going to face,” Onellion said. “You should at least have heard about it and at least have analyzed it somewhere in your education.”

Though the inspiration from the course came from Islamic Science, Onellion said Christianity and Judaism will also be discussed, as will Soviet attempts through the 20th century to stifle Western science.

The course will not focus on mathematics, and only an understanding of high school algebra is needed. Onellion hopes the course attracts both science and nonscience students.

Both last year and this year, Onellion has taught a Freshmen Interest Group, or FIG, on the relationship between science and religion.

Elaine Klein, associate dean of academic planning, said the course would offer something new to UW.

“It is distinctive in the approach that it takes in looking at matters of faith and science,” Klein said. “My perception is that we don’t have many courses that do that as directly.”

UW senior Tarek Elgindi, chair of the Muslim Students Association, said he has no problem with the course so long as Onellion remains fair and balanced.

“If his sources are unbiased, and if he’s approaching the course material in a scientific way, not including any sense of emotion or anything, I can’t say anything bad about that,” Elgindi said.

But Elgindi suggested Onellion may have a bias.

“My only suggestion for students who take this class is to realize that the reason he was reading the Quran was in light of 9/11, which might lead to a bias,” Elgindi said.

Though some natures of the topic may be controversial, Klein said she hopes students stay open-minded and remember the need for “fearless sifting and winnowing” that has become synonymous with UW.

Onellion said he hopes the course becomes a part of the regular UW schedule, but that decision will be left to the faculty.