A convention of Paleontologists met in Ohio recently, and when a few dozen of them crossed into Kentucky to visit the Creation Museum the New York Times was on-hand to report. Among the highlights:
Near the entrance to the exhibits is an animatronic display that includes a girl feeding a carrot to a squirrel as two dinosaurs stand nearby, a stark departure from natural history museums that say the first humans lived 65 million years after the last dinosaurs.
Dr. Bengtson noted that to explain how the few species aboard the ark could have diversified to the multitude of animals alive today in only a few thousand years, the museum said simply, “God provided organisms with special tools to change rapidly.”
About 50 kinds of dinosaurs were aboard Noah’s ark, the museum explains, but later went extinct for unknown reasons.
That last bit is my favorite.
Long-time followers of this blog know all about the Creation Museum, of course, so the only news lead-in is the visit by the bone-collectors. One wonders: did the Times put them up to it? This is just the sort of ploy they might use to sell a few more papers in Indianapolis or Boulder. If so, I don’t think it will work; my sense is that Darwinism as a theater in the Culture Wars has played out for now. Middle America is going to find all new ways of exhasperating the Guardians in the years to come, but Creationism won’t be chief among them.
I have an old friend who’s a Roman Catholic archaeologist, and the Creationists drive her buggy. I am, however, quite jealous, as she has taken her students on school-sponsored trips to this place. This is right up at the top of my list, next to Salt Lake City’s crazy Jesus planetarium.
Comment by Gabe — July 1, 2009 @ 2:58 pm
One of my best friends works for AIG and helped with opening the Creation Museum and I think he gave (maybe still gives) tours there. I turned down the opportunity to take a tour around the place before it opened. I love him like a brother, but I can’t get behind this.
Comment by 97jedi — July 2, 2009 @ 12:12 am
My girlfriend desperately wants to go to that museum.
Comment by eddoctorwho — July 2, 2009 @ 7:16 am
It’s settled, then. Jedi’s buddy will take Ed’s girlfriend.
Comment by Gabe — July 2, 2009 @ 4:19 pm
Not likely, since my friend is quite happily married to the daughter of the head of AIG and they just had their second kid.
Comment by 97jedi — July 4, 2009 @ 12:58 am