Creation "Science" Museum

[Bluenose]

Hi Siblings,

I read today that the Answers in Genesis mob have opened a new "Creation Science Museum" in Northern Kentucky.

Now I am all for anyone having their say and I absolutely do not want to prevent these guys from having theirs, even though I am diametrically opposed to what they are saying.  Had they called their shiny new theme park "Bibleland", "Genesis World" or some such thing I would have a quiet little chuckle to myself at the inanity of their ideas and that would be that.  However they have chosen to call it a museum (and a science museum at that!) which looks to me like an attempt to borrow credibility from genuine museums to make their totally unscientific nonsense appeal to the uneducated.

It seems to me that there are really only two possible explanations for this, either these people are deliberately spreading untruths (that is, they are lying) or they really do believe the crock they are spreading.  IMO, the latter is the most likely, which brings me to wonder how can reasonable, rational people counter this cancer that seems to be expanding in our world today.  I heard on the radio this morning in an item about this so-called museum that a recent survey of adults in the USA revealed that about 50% do not believe in evolution and think that mankind was created in its present form within the last 10,000 years.  Can this possibly be true?  Frankly I find it hard to believe.

It cannot be that the scientists are not spreading the message, I would find it hard to believe that any significant proportion of people in the western world would not have at least a passing acquaintance with the basic idea of evolution and the actual age of the Earth - at least that age being in the billions of years rather than thousands.  So it must simply be that for some reason these people, probably as children, have heard these concepts but have had their minds closed to them by some other idea implanted earlier.

The USA has been a world leader in technology, science and reasoned thought for most of the last century, but unless this gross misdirection of it's children's education is remedied it will not be so for long.  China and India are growing at phenomenal rates and their children are not being burdened with total BS masquerading as science.  Within just a few decades unless the US can reverse this retreat from reason, I fear it will become a backward, inward looking and probably largely fundamentalist state with little relevance to the modern world.  This would be a great tragedy and IMO a complete abandonment, indeed betrayal of of the high ideals upon which the country was founded.

Personally if this terrible outcome comes to be, it will be as if we have all lost a good friend.  What can we do to prevent this?  How do we counter, in an effective way the likes of the Creation Science Museum?  I don't know and the that lack of knowledge scares me.

Sibling Bluenose

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

For a while the light of science was at the center of the Muslim world in the Baghdad Caliphate. History has this silly habit of repeating itself so...

[Bluenose]

Yeah, and this this time round the fundies will have nuclear weapons... 

[Aggie]

We got one in Alberta, too.  Apparently they think it's an answer to the Royal Tyrrell Museum.

Compare for yourself:
http://www.bvcsm.com/
http://www.tyrrellmuseum.com/

[Swatopluk]

How can we prevail, if the opposition is helped by Bible-Man? 

http://dneiwert.blogspot.com/2007/05/armies-of-god.html

[Sibling Lambicus the Toluous]

We got one in Alberta, too.  Apparently they think it's an answer to the Royal Tyrrell Museum.

Compare for yourself:
http://www.bvcsm.com/
http://www.tyrrellmuseum.com/

I can't get enough of this picture!  The POV is perfect!



Guess which "museum" the picture is of.   

[beagle]

Let me guess. The one that has the scroll showing Henry VI's lineage back to Adam and Eve? Reminds me of that Charles Addams cartoon where a proud host is showing his house guest the family portraits ranging from Victorian back to caveman and saying "Ours is a very old family".



Wouldn't worry too much about Bibleman. Looks like he spends all his time at the gym working on the abs of absolutism.

[Griffin NoName]

We could start building Museums for Father Christmas, The Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny.

What would Barbie make of Bibleman?

Sorry, Sibling Bluenose, I can't think of any sensible answer......

[Swatopluk]

Time for a Discworld Museum with the Great God OM guarding the entrance (as both bull and turtle). Of course with a (swampy) chapel for the worship of Offler.

[Aggie]

Guess which "museum" the picture is of.   

Heh, you could run 'nutty museum' tour out here - that one is quite close to the Torrington Gopher Hole Museum.

[Griffin NoName]

Best museum I've been to is the Gnome Museum

[Sibling Lambicus the Toluous]

Heh, you could run 'nutty museum' tour out here - that one is quite close to the Torrington Gopher Hole Museum.

That's bizarre.  I shake my head.

I thought this quote from your page was interesting:

"The gophers are a tremendous problem for the farmers here," explained Angie. "We have to kill them. Is it so bad to put them on display afterwards?"

"We do our best to anthropomorphize gophers, then bring kids through the museum to help them equate gophers with people.  At the same time on their family farms, the kids are learning to kill gophers and regard them as worthless."

I wonder if the kids from Taber ever had a field trip to Torrington.     

[Aggie]

Hmmm... are Taber kids the Children of the Corn?  (Southern AB in-joke, I suppose).

That Gopher museum is about the size of my apartment.  I drove by one time, but didn't check it out (was on work hours).

[Sibling Lambicus the Toluous]

Hmmm... are Taber kids the Children of the Corn?  (Southern AB in-joke, I suppose).

Dunno about the Children of the Corn reference, but I was referring to one kid from Taber in particular.

[Aggie]

Ayup - I know that one (also confirms the notion that it's violence on American (news) TV that is to blame.  ).  Medicine Hat kids are no better.

Corn-on-the-cob at roadside stands here is inevitably billed as 'Taber Corn' and naturally, is held to be superior to any other area's corn.