Amusement I'll have to miss

A reader in Canada just let me know that CBC Radio 1 will broadcast a program on creationist museum tours sometime this morning (between 9:30 and 10...the timezone is unclear). I won't be able to listen because I'm going to be lecturing the freshmen on the perfidies of creationism, so if anyone catches it, let us know how it goes.

More like this

I think the program has passed (I tried), but if you had missed an Esquire article from last year where the author had a preview of Ken Ham's Creation Museum in Kentucky, some site reprinted it here. Gee, Adam is...umm...lacking:

The whole group then bustles into the lobby of the building, here they are greeted by the long neck of a huge, herbivorous dinosaur. The kids run past that and around a corner, where stands another, smaller dinosaur.

Which is wearing a saddle. It is an English saddle, hornless and battered. Apparently, this was a dinosaur used for dressage competitions and stakes races. Any working dinosaur accustomed to the rigors of ranch work and herding other dinosaurs along the dusty trail almost certainly would wear a sturdy Western saddle.

...

As the figure depicts a prelapsarian Adam, he is completely naked. He also has no penis. This would seem to be a departure from Scripture inconsistent with the biblical literalism of the rest of the museum.

Go to the website and select Winnipeg, Calgary, or Vancouver to hear it at 9:30 their time.

I'm listening to it right now on the Winnipeg station and it's 10:30 EST in Toronto.

The program is about a creationist museum in Denver. The tour is called "Biblically Correct Science."

By Larry Moran (not verified) on 31 Oct 2006 #permalink

The program is about a creationist museum in Denver. The tour is called "Biblically Correct Science."

Not exactly; it's about a Colorado organization called Biblically Correct Tours which does science-trashing tours of science museums.

By Jim Wynne (not verified) on 31 Oct 2006 #permalink

I caught some twenty minutes of it in Eastern time, commuting. Came off a bit confused, bits I heard. Excerpt I recall: Museum palaeontologist joined the tour, just to hear the guy out, found himself at the end in a back and forth of spiralling weirdness with a buncha burly evangelical schmucks demanding to know how he can prove *he* exists... Later, he hears on right-wing talk radio that since the museum palaeontologist does not know he himself exists, there is no reason to expect he has particularly good evidence for evolution either...

In other words, the usual patently deceptive solipsism from the 'lying for the Laird' gang. Nothing to see here, I went on with my day...

But if anyone misses the live chances left (I believe the Vancouver show is about another hour and ten from now as I write this at 11:11 ET), you can also get the archived show at http://www.cbc.ca/thecurrent/ -- should be up by tomorrow morning.

As the figure depicts a prelapsarian Adam, he is completely naked. He also has no penis.

Yep. Adam was a dickless liberal male.

That Esquire article I posted goes on at length about "Idiot America." I think you scientists here will especially appreciate its focus on how Americans have bastardized what expertise means. Also, you MIT folks. It's really a good summary. HINT: Please read from top to bottom. :-)

Here it is again: http://www.aboyandhiscomputer.com/Greetings_from_Idiot_America.html

Yep. Adam was a dickless liberal male.

Until his tragic but ultimately life-changing encounter with an uppity feminist, that is.

RedMolly, do you mean Lillith, Adam's first wife? She got air-brushed out of the bible, because she was Adam's equal, (and liked to go on top). Adam's second wife was Eve, reputedly fomed from Adam's rib, and suitably compliant, and always underneath Adam (missionary position), just as required by the misogynistic Abrahamic religions.

By Richard Harris, FCD (not verified) on 31 Oct 2006 #permalink

I caught the whole of the CBC program on the Creationist Museum. I believe the producers thought it was a balanced presentation since it gave time to both sides. As if there were a "both sides" on the issue. The poor evolutionist who tagged along on the tour was repeatedly sandbagged by the tour leader playing to a troop of pre-high schoool kids from a Christian Acadamy who had been trained to scream out "Show me the proof!" whenever a science point was introduced.

The episode of the evangelical goon squad (above) was just one of the disquieting episodes. My top choice would be the cheery guide expressing the belief that the museum was really a church ... and everyone knows what you do in church ... you put money into the donations box.

Too bad there's not a Museum of Lucky Rabbit's Feet outside if one of the Casino Meccas. It could have displays of fiberglass blue haired grannies awash with their winnings kissing the horseshoe which allowed then to triumph over the so called Laws of Probability. Some poor mathematician could be drafted to explain why it was just chance while the tour operator chanted "but why her?"

I have a recording of it. It's about 25 minutes long. I can upload it if anyone wants to hear it.

Oh gawd! I listened to the Vancouver show. That Bill from the Brookstone Christian Academy made me want to throw up, just as Ken Ham makes me feel. Here are some direct quotes from Bill:

1. "living microbes can't be birth to themselves."

2. While talking to the kids, he asks them in a childish voice, "And how do you know it's true?" Then sarcastically says that, "...as we go through the museum we'll see scientific evidence...everybody go oooh - ahhh," and the kids go oooh and ahhh in unison. He tells them that "a fossil is a pile of dead things." "Is this evidence?" The kids in unison reply, "Noooo!" "It's artwork," Bill says. He said to the kids that after the tour through the museum, if they see it's really a church and not a museum he'd give them all an ice-cream cone.

3. "Evolution is at the root of drug addiction...paganism..." (I forgot the order of things.) The Columbine event was because "they were trained to think they were nothing but mistakes of nature...they followed that worldview consistently."

4. "[What they teach in science class] is indoctrination." Make no mistake, he said it's indoctrination. If that isn't irony!

5. In replying to the paleontologist, "Sharks teeth evolving from scales is an assumption...that's why this museum is a church....It's (evolution) not the same as gravity."

6. He mentions that all this scientific evidence is artwork again. At that point I'm beside myself wanting to strangle this guy.

I get angry when people talk to young kids this way. He was definitely a Ken Ham clone.

I definately think it's child abuse. I feel so sorry for those poor kids... it makes me ill... it's the same sick feeling I get when someone makes racist jokes in front of kids too... it's disgusting.

I heard the program, but wasn't paying particular attention (I can only take so much creationism early in the morning). I think the apparent even-handedness may be less than meets the eye as the CBC audience is a good bit more skeptical and educated than the general population. The folk who will think the creationist fraud came off well will be listening to 'Doug and Brenda on AM 1234 ... call in to win!' not listening to The Current, while the folk listening in are not likely to buy evolution as the cause of Columbine, to mention just one insane bit.

"Evolution is at the root of drug addiction...paganism..." (I forgot the order of things.) The Columbine event was because "they were trained to think they were nothing but mistakes of nature...they followed that worldview consistently."

With the Fordham Institute report giving Colorado only a 1 out of 3 for evolution in its science standards, I think we'll have to lay this one at the feet of the creationists and IDers.

The CBC does seem to provide some very good science programming. Unfortunately I don't listen much (though we do have Sirius, which carries it), but I have listened to RCI (the shortwave service) from time to time, and I've liked what I've heard.