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the way i see it: the fred and wilma flintstone museum
5.22.2007
i read this article in the paper on sunday and it made my blood boil. i had heard about it some here and there, but never paid much attention to it until now. i have the hardest time understanding how human beings, equipped with the most developed brains among living things, can simply disregard unrefuted scientific facts. i suppose 99.84% of almost 500,000 us scientists might be wrong. i reckon 72 us nobel prize winners, 17 state academies of science and 7 other scientific societies are mistaken.
oh, that article:
Tyrannosaurus rex was a strict vegetarian, and lived with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.
There were dinosaurs of every kind aboard Noah's ark. Some dinosaurs managed to hang around until just a few hundred years ago. The legend of St. George slaying the dragon? That probably was a dinosaur.
Exhibits showing all this and more will be at the Creation Museum, a $27 million religious museum set to open next week in northern Kentucky.
The museum, in Boone County, is being built by a nonprofit group called Answers in Genesis. Museum and northern Kentucky tourism officials expect the museum, which will open on Memorial Day, to be a boon to the region, bringing in at least 250,000 visitors in its first year.
It already is getting media attention. Newspapers and television stations from Europe, Asia and Australia have visited, and CNN was there recently.
But mainstream scientists, who have dubbed it The Fred and Wilma Flintstone Museum, say the museum's message is just plain wrong.
The museum is based on a literal interpretation of the Bible: The world was created in six 24-hour days, sometime between 6,000 and 10,000 years ago. Humans appeared on Day 6, and they didn't evolve from anything.
Ken Ham, an Australian who is Answers in Genesis' $120,000-a-year founder and president, says the museum opening will be a significant event in Christendom.
"No one else has ever built a place where you can experience biblical history and merge it with the science," he said.
But Eugenie Scott, a former University of Kentucky anthropologist who is director of the California-based National Center for Science Education, said the information provided in the museum "is not even close to standard science."
Scott visited the museum recently as part of a British Broadcasting Corp. radio program. Although she didn't get a tour, she saw enough to know that the museum will be professionally done. And, she says, that's worrisome.
"There are going to be students coming into the classroom and saying, 'I just went to this fancy museum and everything you're telling me is rubbish,' " Scott said.
Daniel Phelps, president of the Kentucky Paleontological Society, says the museum will embarrass the state because of the "pseudoscientific-nutty things" it espouses, and because it portrays evolution as the path to ruin.
But the Rev. Bill Henard, senior pastor of Lexington's Porter Memorial Baptist Church, said that Sunday school classes and other groups from his church are likely to visit.
"I think people will enjoy ... being able to see a different side from what some scientific findings have shown," he said.
Henard said he believes in the literal story of creation, adding that "I think you would be surprised to know how many people hold to a young-Earth creation."
More than a century and a half after British naturalist Charles Darwin published "The Origin of Species," which suggested that life evolved over millions of years from one-cell organisms, quite a few people agree with Henard, pollsters say.
When the Gallup Poll asked people about their views on the subject in March, 47 percent of Americans polled said that God created humans pretty much in their present form some time in the past 10,000 years. That belief was strongest among those with less education, regular churchgoers, people 65 and older, and Republicans.
Like a natural history museum or an amusement park, the Creation Museum will use people's fascination with dinosaurs as a draw.
There will be 80 lifelike dinosaur models, some of which move their heads and tails and roar.
"The evolutionists use dinosaurs to promote their world view; we're going to use that to promote our world view," Answers in Genesis spokesman Mark Looy said.
The museum already has generated criticism from comedian Bill Maher, who often mocks religion. Looy said Maher came by last month and sneaked in for a half-hour interview with Ham, who didn't know who he was.
The museum and Answers in Genesis also are the unflattering subject of a chapter of "American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America." The book, published last year, is by former New York Times correspondent Chris Hedges.
Tom Caradonio, president of the Northern Kentucky Convention and Visitors Commission, said the museum is expected to bring plenty of people to the region, including religious conventions.
Asked about the contention that the museum will embarrass the state, Caradonio noted that Lexington allows betting on horses at Keeneland Race Course, which some find objectionable.
"I learned a long time ago in this industry that if we had to make moral judgments, we would probably end up selling nothing," he said.
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you really should check out the creation museum website. there's a walkthru with some real gems (emphasis mine):
Explore the wonders of creation. The imprint of the Creator is all around us. And the Bible's clear-heaven and earth in six 24-hour days, earth before sun, birds before lizards.
Other surprises are just around the corner. Adam and apes share the same birthday. The first man walked with dinosaurs and named them all!
God's Word is true, or evolution is true. No millions of years. There's no room for compromise.
don't forget refreshments:
Retreat to the café for refreshment or a feast. Enjoy a spectacular view of the lake and nature trails, or take a seat on the patio and breathe the fresh air of God's creation.
sorry, wrong photo...
