South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford says he believes intelligent design should be taught in his state's public school classrooms.

In a Sunday appearance on a WIS-TV program, Sanford said there's nothing wrong with presenting students with alternatives to the theory of evolution.

"I think that it's just ... that there are real chinks in the armor of evolution being the only way we came about," Sanford said.

Intelligent design posits life on earth is too complex to be explained by evolutionary theory alone.

"The idea of there being a, you know, a little mud hole and two mosquitoes get together and the next thing you know you have a human being is completely at odds with, you know, one of the laws of thermodynamics."

But College of Charleston physics professor Bob Dukes and biology associate professor Robert Dillon Jr. criticized the governor for his statements. They told the Charleston (S.C.) Post and Courier there aren't "chinks in the armor of evolution," and Sanford's citation of the second law of thermodynamics was also incorrect.

Copyright 2006 by United Press International