Amy Gutmann, president of the University of Pennsylvania, warned today of the perils of extremist rhetoric, a topic on which she is writing a book. In a speech at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, in Washington, Ms. Gutmann said extremist rhetoric now saturates public discourse and is undermining democracy.

“It demeans opponents, and it radically simplifies the issue at hand,” she said, after playing a clip from MSNBC’s Hardball With Chris Matthews. “The entertainment is that of a wrestling match with far less demonstrable skill.”

Furthermore, Ms. Gutmann said, extremist rhetoric is “often bullshit,” evoking titters from the mostly college-age attendees.

Ms. Gutmann cited the debate over intelligent design as an example of how such rhetoric spawns equally inept counter-rhetoric. She dubbed the view that all human understanding derives from scientific inquiry as “scientism,” which she said “treats religion with contempt just as creationism treats evolution as beyond the pale of reasonable understanding.”

A political scientist and philosopher, Ms. Gutmann has become an increasingly visible national figure since becoming Penn’s president two years ago. She is also a rumored candidate to assume the presidency at Harvard University, her alma mater. However, Ms. Gutmann recently told The Philadelphia Inquirer that she was staying put.