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Creationism Museum Opening in Kentucky
Noel Linback writes "A new creationism-espousing museum is opening in the state of Kentucky. According to a New York Times article the museum depicts humans and dinosaurs living together in traditional 'diorama' style exhibit. 'Whether you are willing to grant the premises of this museum almost becomes irrelevant as you are drawn into its mixture of spectacle and narrative. Its 60,000 square feet of exhibits are often stunningly designed by Patrick Marsh, who, like the entire museum staff, declares adherence to the ministry's views; he evidently also knows the lure of secular sensations, since he designed the Jaws and King Kong attractions at Universal Studios in Florida. For the skeptic the wonder is at a strange universe shaped by elaborate arguments, strong convictions and intermittent invocations of scientific principle. For the believer, it seems, this museum provides a kind of relief: Finally the world is being shown as it really is, without the distortions of secularism and natural selection. '"
I mean, the whiskey has to count for SOMETHING, right?
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
And they rested on the seventh, but that was due to union regulations.
Just remember: not everyone who partakes in Christianity (big C or little c) believes the world was created 4,000 years ago. Some of us actually believe in evolution. (Well, us non-fundies anyway.)
Slashdot: where repeating an article in a post is "+5 Insightful"
We have lots of cave drawings of man with impressive animals like wooly mamoths and the like. So why are there not cave drawings of man with really impressive animals like the dinasaurs. I mean I I was impressed enought to paint the large elephant like creature you would think that a 20' high meat eating moster would at least reate a few pictures.
Undetectable Steganography? Yep, there's an app fo
Satan.
See, isn't this easier than thinking?
Tags != Comments, and -1 (Troll) != -1 (I Would Respond Angrily To This Poster So They Must Be Trolling)
"It's a great place for children who are in public school and haven't really decided what to believe yet."
Who ya gonna believe! GOD or some hairy liberal professor!
Welcome to the 21st Century, America!
you had me at #!
The dinosaurs wouldn't uh... stand still long enough. Cave-men drawn pictures are time-exposed shots.
Ken Ham (President of Answers in Genesis, sponsor of the museum) would be amusing to watch if he wasn't so scary. There was a segment in the documentary "Friends of God" which showed Ken speaking to a group of children about dinosaurs and evolution. His logical argument to the children was that since scientists weren't around 4,000 years ago but god was then we have to believe god and not the scientists.
"Intelligent Design" groups have been running tours through legitimate museums, providing their own narrative in order to dispute the information provided by the museum displays. Maybe after this museum opens some atheist tour group so do the same thing...take tours through Ken's "museum" and provide scientific narrative to dispute his biblical nonsense.
"We make our world significant by the courage of our questions and by the depth of our answers." Carl Sagan
Since God gave man dominion over the earth, it wouldn't look right if a dinosaur was eating a man. If the museum flops, it can always be turned into a minature golf course.
http://answersingenes.blogspot.com/2006/12/creatio nism-explained.html
That just about covers it, I think.
668: Neighbour of the Beast
The best way to protest this is to get a couple thousand people to show up there and laugh for 5 minutes on queue. I recall a similar protest was done in India some years ago and it is brilliant.
Just laugh as hard as you can at them for 5 minutes. Rinse. Repeat.
"If you want to improve, be content to be thought foolish and stupid." - Epictetus
I'm not positive that science has everything right. . .
That's the great thing about science: neither do scientists! They don't know what they have right, either. Isn't that a fucking hoot?
What they know is what *makes sense* based on observed facts. The epistemology of science is simple: if your explanation is contradicted by observation, it is not true. Otherwise, it *might* be true.
That's it. Nothing is ever "proven." It's just that some things only have one current explanation, and so we use those as our working assumptions. If another explanation comes around that isn't contradicted by the *observable facts*, that explanation is also considered.
Human nature makes us sure of ourselves-- sometimes *too* sure. But, for the most part, the scientific method, and the knowledge gained from that method, are self-correcting.
And that is why this museum can never win any converts from those who understand science. Their explanations do not cover the observable facts.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
I'd defend the right of the people who started this to continue on as long as they can support it, but I'm not sure it should be called a "museum". A museum implies some hind of historical accuracy.
Perhaps "theme park", or "house of ill repute" instead?
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several groups (both religious and secular) will be protesting. come join us!
If there is a salvation to be had, here is the secret: Be kind to each other.
What else could possibly matter?
Any God that cares if you worshipped him doesn't deserve the position.
The problem is that most 'true believers' aren't just content to hold their own beliefs, and to indoctrinate their kids while they're young and accepting. All the born-agains I know says that it's also god's will for them to convert others and "bring us to Christ's truth." That's not tolerance, and if the rational people of the world refuse to make a stand against this kind of ancient bullshit, then religious mania will take us over. Just look at the 'moral majority' of the 70s carrying Reagan into office, or our current situation with George Bush.
And it's ridiculous to put religious belief on par with scientific explanations for how things came to be. Science generates hypotheses; those hypotheses are tested with observation and experiment, and the ones that hold up become theories, which will be amended or rejected when contradictory evidence is found. When science doesn't know an answer, it speculates, but it does not proclaim. Contrast this with religion, which tells us god made everything, and our brains can't comprehend the awesomeness of it all. What proof do they offer for these extraordinary claims? Oh, no proof, see, because it's all about faith--believing DESPITE the fact that all they really have to back it up is a book, and the words of 'holy men' who, of course, have a vested interest in keep the sheeple flocking in one direction.
Religion is poison to rationality, and we lose sight of that at our own peril.
It always amazes how these people underestimate the scale and beauty of "god"'s creation by so many orders of magnitude. Apparently their god would not have been subtle enough to make life which could adapt to a changing world? There is nothing in any science which confirms or denies god's existence. Imagine if they had won over the astronomers, we would have been stuck with a tiny god who could only manage one little planet, and one star. Now we know about the vast beauty of the stars and galaxies spread across the sky. Surely if you are going to believe in a creator, this sort of knowledge can only increase your respect for it? There I go again, trying to apply reason to religion. But why doesn't it ever work?
Home fucking is killing prostitution.
Now I'm torn between supporting young-earth creationnists or an organisation with a marquee on its website. Help me Slashdot !
The human mind only knows what it experiences (including the experience of receiving communication from others in any form). The accuracy of said experiences, as well as the soundness of the interpretation, is always questionable.
Some people are very uncomfortable with uncertainty. They desperately crave a solid and unquestionable source for correct knowledge. So, in the absence of such a source, the mind will play games with itself to create one. Hence the popular religious trend of interpreting mythology as if it were history.
It is true that scientific knowledge is not rock-solid. It is vulnerable to inaccuracy and just as questionable as any other kind of knowledge. So, the religious believers are correct in pointing this out. However, there is a very important difference of methodology at work. The scientific process is one of perpetual questioning and re-examination of fact, and hence of perpetual refinement of accuracy. The religious process utterly lacks this element, and as such it has no demonstrable means of approaching any kind of practical validity. That, however, does not prevent people from convincing themselves that their religion of choice is correct and unquestionable, and that any and all evidence to the contrary must be in error.
So long as this thought process is confined to the realm of private institutions (museums, churches, clubs, and what have you), I am fine with it. Just don't go infecting public education with your myths.
Urm, even if you reject the scientific theory of evolution, it's just ridiculous to reject natural selection. You can easily observe it in your own lifetime, as Darwin did.
apterous.org
I'm attaching this as a reply to the first post in the hopes that it will be seen by people entering the thread and thus head off some inevitable posts. Creationists, this is addressed to you.
Here goes:
The word "theory" is not synonymous with the word "hypothesis" in science.
Please, please try to remember this when you instinctively want to cry "but it's only a theory!" when talking about evolutionary theory. As has doubtless been explained to you ad nauseum by the scientifically-inclined, Theory is a designator that must be earned and requires a reasonable body of supporting evidence. So while indeed the colloquial allows the use of "I have a theory" to mean a hypothesis, this is not correct in science.
Make whatever other arguments you will, but please stop making this elementary mistake. cheers.
P.P.S. I'm doing Science and I'm still alive.
OK, so man and dinosaurs lived together. That must mean then, that all the Biblical hero's were pansies. I mean all they did was kill few wolves (David) and enter a Lions den (Daniel) . If they were real hero's why did they not slay one of the T-Rexes that were wondering around eating everything in sight or enter a den of hungry Velosoraptors. Then they would have been real hero's.
Undetectable Steganography? Yep, there's an app fo
#1.
No, DNA mutations have been observed. Most of these mutations have NO adaptation value AT THE POINT IN TIME THAT THEY OCCURRED. Changes to the environment AFTER those mutations caused them to become advantageous.
#2.
Yes, it has. The easiest example is a colony of fruit flies. Split them into two sub-colonies and within a dozen generations they will no longer be able to inter-breed between the colonies. They have become two different species.
Your fish/frog example is flawed because there is no reason to believe that one those different animals could achieve gestation within each other. Modern fish came from animals that were ALMOST identical to modern fish. Modern frogs came from animals that were ALMOST identical to modern frogs.
#3.
And yet the evidence seems to support that theory.
And not only that, but the theory of evolution is the basis of our entire medical science now. And that seems to work, also.
If I weren't already catholic I'd probably steer clear, based on those things you said. Most of them were false, but I imagine you know that.
The only one I'll address is "their teachings are not Christian and aren't considered so by anyone other than themselves".
Everyone in the world, except for a few Protestant sects, considers the Roman Catholic Church to be Christian. By that I mean literally about 97% of the world.
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
I weep for America when, in otherwise legitimate media, the articles actually approach a topic from a superstitious angle: "... For the believer, it seems, this museum provides a kind of relief: Finally the world is being shown as it really is, without the distortions of secularism and natural selection." I'm not an American, but from what I have read of NYT's articles, I got the idea they was the kind of newspaper that would not stoop as low as to lend any credibility to superstition.
Evolution has nothing to do with religion. I don't care if you're Hindu, Voodoo, Greek (pagan), Seikh, Muslim, Wiccan, or Catholic--evolution has nothing to do with religion.
If you decide to ignore all the evidence out there that supports evolution (including its laboratory use, and as a basis for creating new technology), that's your choice, but realize you lose credibility with everyone else that decides not to ignore the evidence.
Also, Catholicism supports theistic evolution. Even Pope Benedict's more recent comments on the situation weren't actually against evolution in spite of what many have said, but rather the use of evolution to push atheism.
Peacefully co-exist? Sure, but you and everyone else that says evolution isn't science should just be honest and say that you don't really believe in science, instead of hiding behind some pseudo-science like ID.
// file: mice.h
#include "frickin_lasers.h"
Why are you protesting? Who gives a shit? As long as they keep their creationist crap out of our schools, that's all I care about.
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Unless, of course, said deity saw that, if done correctly, attending regular worship services could help people to be nicer to each other--and said deity also knew that it would only do that if those worship services were teaching certain specific bits of information. Furthermore, if the deity was really smart, said deity might also want people to know about its true nature before it revealed itself to them. So, there just might be a reason to be religious after all.
Oh, and perhaps there are some other reasons for going to church that you just haven't thought of. One of the neat things about postulating an omniscient being is that it is smarter than you are.
"We don't know what we are doing, but we are doing it very carefully,..." Wherry, R.J. Personnel Psychology (1995)
No, you have it exactly wrong: belief has nothing to do with it, and that's the point.
The schools should be teaching what is supported by evidence (e.g., evolution), not what is proposed to prop up a theology (e.g. creationism).
... I always thought Creationism belonged in a museum.
-- -- The Dragon De Monsyne
Are you kidding? This museum is doing us a tremendous favor. If anything, we should send them money.
The intelligent design movement managed to make creationism look vaguely scientific. Its proponents had academic degrees and wrote books; Behe is actually a biochemist. They didn't make patently absurd claims about world being 6000 years old, they didn't use the Bible as a primary source, and they didn't directly refer to God and Jesus in every third sentence. They didn't do science, but they did a decent job of pretending to, and made creationism look almost respectable.
But if you want to see creationism made to look ridiculously unsophisticated and ignorant again, nobody could do a better job than this museum. Apatosaurus living with Adam and Eve? Dinosaurs on Noah's Ark? If you were trying to parody creationism, or create a strawman of all the worst creationist arguments, you couldn't do a better job. And the intelligent design guys- Behe and Dembski- will suddenly find that when they're arguing for creationism, people will be asking them if they believe that Jesus rode a Velociraptor.
So I say, put the Genesis account on display, in all its glory, and let people see it. I think most people will leave thinking exactly what they thought when they came in: evangelicals will leave still knowing that every word in the Bible is true, people looking for a laugh will emerge thinking that while science doesn't have all the answers, it's a lot better than a bunch of ancient myths, and kids- well, I say, let them see dinosaurs and men living alongside each other. Because while adults like to be told what they already know, kids like to ask questions, and I think those dioramas will get them asking a lot of questions.
(1) "Evolution is just a THEORY"
This is the most common (and the most disappointing) creationist argument I hear on a regular basis. While it's true that evolution is a theory, this statement is made in an attempt to cast doubt on evolution by implying that evolution is akin to a wild guess that scientists came up with after a night of heavy drinking. Newsflash: it's not going to work. Most educated people understand that you're confusing the word "theory" (which means an explanation or model that is capable of predicting future events) with the word "hypothesis" (which means an educated guess). Calling evolution a "theory" isn't an insult. For the millionth time, I will repeat this: gravity is also "just" a theory (for example, google the "General Theory of Relativity"). I might even add that most scientists would consider evolution to be a better-supported theory than gravity, because of the fact that gravity cannot (currently) be quantized, despite decades of attempts. If you want to debate evolution, fine- but don't play these childish word games.
(2) "But evolution has never been observed!"
Most creationists, faced with the mind-numbingly obvious fact that viruses and other creatures (like those famous moths) evolve right in front of our eyes, make a distinction between micro-evolution and macro-evolution. Micro-evolution is "proven", they say, because it only represents a change in allele frequency within a species. Macro-evolution, defined as change from one species to another (aka "speciation"), is more of a problem for creationists. They often insist that speciation has never been observed outside of laboratory experiments. This is blatantly false. Many examples of speciation have been observed in the wild- for example check out this large list of peer-reviewed journal articles here and also here.
The next step that creationists take in response to this rebuttal is to claim that speciation proves nothing- only a change from one kind of organism to another will prove evolution. What's a "kind", you might ask? No one knows. Creationists will give vague examples, such as saying that a dog is a different kind of animal than a whale, but a rigid definition has never (to my knowledge) been offered or universally accepted by the major creationist organizations. It's just a convenient goal post which keeps getting pushed back every time new evidence is found. The fact is, speciation is rather easy to observe in organisms which breed relatively quickly. Observing the creation of, say, a new phylum or order could take many millennia. Unfortunately, human civilization hasn't been around that long. Plus, standard biological nomenclature isn't based on evolutionary criteria, so it isn't clear to me that equating a "kind" with a phylum or order is meaningful in this context.
(3) "But Intelligent Design is different than Biblical Creationism! It's a purely scientific alternative theory."
Don't try to pretend that "Intelligent Design" is somehow different than creationism. Especially don't try to pretend that it's a scientific theory. Seriously. No one's buying it. "Intelligent Design" is a disguise- a secular-sounding term thrown over religious creationism to try to smuggle it into a state-funded science class
If God created Adam and Eve, then they were His children and His responsibility. It was His duty to teach them, to guide them, to nurture them, to comfort them, to correct them when they made mistakes, and to keep them safe from their own ignorance. Creating beings with free will, whether by divine powers or natural conception, makes you responsible for those who are created. If they screw up their lives because you left them in an environment with dangerous elements that your children have no experience in dealing with, then it is your fault. Heck, from the perspective of Adam and Eve, the snake was probably a perfectly legitimate source of guidance; nobody had told them it wasn't!
In any case, if Adam and Eve existed, then they had pretty much the worst growing up experience possible. They were given curiosity but were kept ignorant, provided with dangerous temptations, and given no guides save for malicious entities that they had never even been warned against. When the urge to satisfy that curiosity (at the urging of a creature made by their same creator and dwelling in their own safe garden) became too great, they were irrevocably changed, cast out from paradise, and defamed as the originators of sin for the rest of eternity. At THIS point, their all-powerful 'parent' offers no comfort or assistance, but decides that NOW He would put protection on the one thing that might, possibly, have reversed the change done to them.
You are arguing that this deity loves us, and that we should worship Him? The average everyday, non-omniceint, flawed-in-various-ways father and mother that most of us had growing up is far more worthy, in my opinion (not that I worship anybody, but maybe I'm just a bit too cynical).
There's no place I could be, since I've found Serenity...
A good book by Richard Dawkins who wrote 'The Selfish Gene'. Here's a summary:
.. no, that's holy? . .. We are used to not challenging religious ideas but it's very interesting how
Richard Dawkins on why religion sticks: "There is no such thing as a Muslim Child. There is a child of Muslim Parents. There is no such thing as a Christian Child. There is a child of Christian Parents.
My specific hypothesis is about children. More than any other species, we survive by the accumulated experience of previous
generations, and that experience needs to be passed on to children for their protection and well-being. Theoretically, children might learn from personal experience not to go too near a cliff edge, not to eat untried red berries, not to swim in crocodile-infested waters. But, to say the least, there will be a selective advantage to child brains that possess the rule of thumb: believe, without question, whatever your grown-ups tell you. Obey your parents; obey the tribal elders, especially when they adopt a solemn, minatory tone. Trust your elders without question. This is a generally valuable rule for a child. But, as with the moths, it can go wrong.
Natural selection builds child brains with a tendency to believe whatever their parents and tribal elders tell them.
Such trusting obedience is valuable for survival: the analogue of steering by the moon for a moth. But the flip side of trusting obedience is slavish gullibility. The inevitable by-product is vulnerability to infection by mind viruses.
Sociologists studying British children have found that only about one in twelve break away from their parents' religious beliefs."
Remember the old consistency thing. People are loathe to change their mind:
"It would be a severe disadvantage, for example, when hunting or making tools, to keep changing one's mind, so under some circumstances, it is better to persist in an irrational belief than to vacillate, even if new evidence or ratiocination favors a change."
Douglas Adams: "Religion . . . has certain ideas at the heart of it which we call sacred or holy or whatever. What it means is, 'Here is an idea or a notion that you're not allowed to say anything bad about; you're just not. Why not? - because you're not!' If somebody votes for a party that you don't agree with, you're free to argue about it as much as you like; everybody will have an argument but nobody feels aggrieved by it. If somebody thinks taxes should go up or down you are free to have an argument about it. But on the other hand if somebody says 'I mustn't move a light switch on a Saturday', you say, 'I respect that'.
Why should it be that it's perfectly legitimate to support the Labour party or the Conservative party, Republicans or Democrats, this model of economics versus that, Macintosh instead of Windows - but to have an opinion about how the Universe began, about who created the Universe .
much of a furore Richard creates when he does it!
Everybody gets absolutely frantic about it because you're not allowed to say these things. Yet when you look at it rationally there is no reason why those ideas shouldn't be as open to debate as any other, except that we have agreed somehow between us that they shouldn't be."
Andrew Mueller: "Pledging yourself to any particular religion 'is no more or less weird than choosing to believe that the world is rhombus-shaped, and borne through the cosmos in the pincers of two enormous green lobsters called Esmerelda and Keith'."
Sam Harris: "We have names for people who have many beliefs for which there is no rational justification. When their beliefs are extremely common we call them 'religious'; otherwise, they are likely to be called 'mad', 'psychotic' or 'delusional' . . . Clearly there is sanity in numbers."
Richard Dawkins: "The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodth
Just wanted to say a few things before you get modded down into non-existence.
Evolution isn't any more "non-science" than astro-physics is non-science. Sure, it's pretty hard to set up an experiment to test evolution. But the same can be said for most of what goes on in space. That hasn't kept science out. Unfortunately, it does mean that the scatter is a little larger and research takes longer. But research still does happen because predictions can be made and then you wait and see if the observations match up.
Evolution is falsifiable. If we actually wanted to run experiments we could. It might take a few hundred million years, but we could do it. Creation, on the other hand, is not falsifiable. But that won't stop those with blinders on from claiming they are similarly situated.
Why are you protesting? Who gives a shit? As long as they keep their creationist crap out of our schools, that's all I care about.
This museum represents a direct attack on science. I give a shit because I happen to think that science and scientific literacy are important. The stuff presented in this museum is blatantly wrong, and ridiculous, and is a menace to the public understanding and enlightenment even without government support (though, I would not be surprised if the museum has not benefited at least indirectly from the tax breaks our government is too happy to give religious institutions.) The only educational value it has to serve as a case-in-point as to how excessive religious faith can obliterate any trace of rationality in an otherwise intelligent individual.
Also, some schools (hopefully only private/religious schools) are undoubtedly planning field trips to this museum (an earlier article I read noted the parking lot which was designed to comfortably accommodate school buses). It's bad enough that parents and churches poison impressionable, helpless children's minds with this garbage, but now they'll have a multi-million dollar, Universal Studios caliber set of displays and presentations to even more thoroughly inculcate kids to this backwards, pre-medieval nonsense.
Evolution is a science. Why is it a science? Because it follows the scientific method. There is evidence and rules what can be treated as evidence. When the evidence no longer fits the model the model will be changed to fit the evidence. An this goes on and on until the evidence and the model fit together like a fine wine and cheese.
Creationism on the other hand cannot follow the scientific method. For one thing there is only one theory and that theory can never be modified. Where on the other hand the theory of evolution has changed in the last 150 years since is formulation. Creationism is just the opposite of science. Since you can't change the theory you have to change the evidence. You can't do that in science. You have to go by what the evidence says.
My friend as Penn & Teller say, "Creationsim is Bullshit!"
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Unless you researched everything yourself, then there is belief. Who do you trust?
Creationism and Evolution have one thing in common - a big stack of paper that tells what each is. But that's where it ends.
Creationism says "This stack of papers states the absolute proof and if you challenge it you are a heretic who will burn in hell."
Evolution(ism) says "These papers say the way we think things are based on the information we've found so far. If you can refute the evidence and findings in them, please do so, and add your evidence and findings to the stack of papers."
One requires blind belief in "information" that cannot be examined or refuted. The other requires no belief and encourages examination and refutation.
This just shows how evil and destructive the theistic movement is -- they've already brainwashed society into thinking that evolution is an untested theory. It HAS been tested -- undergrad students (and even high school students) routinely run experiments in which they allow various traits to evolve in micro-organisms. There are thousands of examples of species that have evolved in the last century, many of them extremely novel. Novel ecosystems have developed. Entirely new metabolic pathways have appeared -- I somehow doubt that titanium-oxidizing bacteria, nylon-oxidizing bacteria, or fungi that subsist on high levels of ionizing radiation, developed before Human were around to provide pure titanium, nylon, or Chernobyl-level nuclear disasters.
Creationism is falsifiable. The Genesis creation story makes some very specific claims about the way everything was created which should have predictable effects on the fossil record.
For instance, all of the animals were made on the same day according to Genesis. This means that we should see fossil cows at every level of the geological column. Do we? No. Creationism is not only falsifiable, it is falsified.
All I want is a secure system where it's easy to do anything I want. Is that too much to ask ~~ Randall Munroe