…and this is a 
They should put it where?
Category: Creationism
Posted on: January 17, 2007 8:36 PM, by PZ Myers
Steve Reuland follows up on that strangely repeated claim that Ken Ham's creationist museum is within 6 hours of 2/3 of the population of the US. Short answer: NO WAY, DUDE. He did make an interesting suggestion, though.
If you wanted the museum to be close to a lot of people, shifting it to the northeast by a couple of hundred miles would have been the smart thing to do.
Look at a map. A few hundred miles northeast of Cincinnati? It's the perfect location.
Dover, PA.
Comments
If location is everything then, when they were building the thing, couldn't Ken Ham et al manage to re-find the place from which Jesus was supposed to be able to see all the world at once? ;-)
Posted by: SEF | January 17, 2007 9:10 PM
I don't know, though. My family used to drive from the suburbs of NY to the suburbs of Raleigh in a day (~600 miles). I think, at that radius, a significant proportion of the US population would be in driving distance.
But this brings me back to a question that I like to ask people, from time to time: how far would you drive to see aliens that landed on the planet (and as always, the answer to the second question is yes, you would see the aliens on the news)? The answers have ranged from 25 miles - 3 days' drive, with an average of, I would say, less than a 3 hour drive. If people won't, on a completely unscientific average, drive 4 hours to see extraterrestrials, how many people of their target audience are going to drive 12 hours to see a museum with people riding on dinosaurs?
Posted by: Brian | January 17, 2007 9:11 PM
I think a three hour drive would be the max for most families with kids to go to a museum. And even that might be pushing it depending on the age and temperament of the kids. I definitely won't be going to the creationist museum but NOT because of distance!
Posted by: Paguroidea | January 17, 2007 9:39 PM
Too many liberties taken.
maps.google.com:
Cincinnati,OH to Dover,PA = 484 mi, almost due East.
Akron, OH would be the best match for the suggestion.
Posted by: Spamsink | January 17, 2007 9:58 PM
Still to close to Canada. How about 550 miles due east? Hopefully white elephants don't swim well.
Posted by: Gene Goldring | January 17, 2007 10:26 PM
I would drive a long way to see someone riding a dinosaur. The important qualifier is that I would need to be persuaded it was real before I set off.
How far would I be prepared to drive to see the creationist museum? I wouldn't even be willing to put the key in the ignition, even if it was 5 minutes away - there are already too many things worth doing in life to fit them all in, so why would I waste time doing that?
Posted by: John | January 17, 2007 10:33 PM
Do you people have reading comprehension issues? It is described as a "six hours' drive of two-thirds f the entire population of the US". 'Drive' not 'trip'. As long as the museum is within an hour or two from an airport and train station, then clearly 2/3rds of Americans can get to the museum without having to drive more than six hours. They may have to also take a six hour train ride, but that is their problem.
/sarcasm
Posted by: Reed A. Cartwright | January 17, 2007 10:48 PM
Ken Ham, (from answering genesis infamy), is an ex australian school teacher who went to the US to be with the rest of his fundie mates, of which he found many.
I say, blame australia!! The bloody place is just a haven for convicts and reprobates! (ooops, forgot I was australian for a moment...)
Posted by: beepbeepitsme | January 17, 2007 10:59 PM
I say, blame australia!!
I say just blame Queensland.
Posted by: Snail | January 17, 2007 11:18 PM
Speaking as a typical Cincinnatian, clearly the two-thirds figure is calculated by weight, not by the absolute number of individual Americans. I'm fairly certain that the circle on Steve's map encompasses two-thirds of the total mass of all Americans.
Posted by: HP | January 17, 2007 11:27 PM
Reed- You're right that six hours "drive" is different than "trip"! Would you hop a plane from North Carolina to see that creationist museum?
Posted by: Paguroidea | January 17, 2007 11:30 PM
Is it too late to suggest that this museum be relocated somewhere on the bottom of one of the Great Lakes, maybe Lake Superior or Lake Michigan?
Posted by: Stanton | January 18, 2007 12:07 AM
To make amends, I think we Aussies should agree to put the museum in Yeppoon.
Posted by: John | January 18, 2007 12:35 AM
I already requested the Atlantic Ocean as a location Stanton. We could be democratic about it though and have a vote. Maybe Ham will oblige the winners.
Never hurtz to ask.
Posted by: Gene Goldring | January 18, 2007 12:38 AM
RE john:
Yeah, I think Ken "Fundie" Ham was from Yeppoon in Queensland.
Posted by: beepbeepitsme | January 18, 2007 3:09 AM
One last one here, as I can speak semi-authoritatively from more than one angle.
First. This is typical of how information gets spread in most "informal" media, including word-of-mouth.
Two. This tells you something about journalism. No, only maybe about reliability, etc. It's resources. Content is never vetted anywhere close to science. For example, newswire stories must be assumed reliable or otherwise almost none would ever be printed. Think it through. It could take days to confirm a single wire story.
Wire stories that get picked up from member papers almost automatically are edited down. Thus summaries and deletions occur. Again, whomever is editing that doesn't have the original reporters' information. Again, possibly days involved. Also, wire stories used are often edited to space on deadline. So, anything, literally anything that's not written by a local reporter that you read/see in local media you should assume contains errors. But that's okay. The only option is to not use those stories at all.
Three. I spent my life up through college within, roughly, two hours of Ham's con game. So, I know for a fact that the whole area is more than six hours away from everything. I've driven everyplace to and fro from there. Besides, all the population is on/close to the coast and will only get more so. Once I moved to the ocean, I never left it.
Posted by: SkookumPlanet | January 18, 2007 3:11 AM
To make amends, I think we Aussies should agree to put the museum in Yeppoon.
And then sink Australia, drowning creationism once and for all.
Yeah, sure, it'll be a sacrifice, but only a small one. No serious loss to life or property would result.
Posted by: Phoenician in a time of Romans | January 18, 2007 5:09 AM
Hey phoenician
Not much point in sinking australia mate, the dude lives in the US ;)
Posted by: beepbeepitsme | January 18, 2007 9:41 AM
If I can suppress both my gag reflex and my horror that people could actually be convinced by what they see in that carnival side show . . .
And if I can get child care for the day so my 2-year-old is not exposed to a single diorama (maybe my mother-in-law can take him to the excellent aquarium in Covington, across the river from Cincy) . . .
And if I can find a way to stiff Ham for the cost of my admission (please, PLEASE let the sign say "suggested contribution" so I can emulate Homer and unapologetically freeload) . . .
. . . I'll be there with bells on, my friends. And they will have to throw me out within 15 minutes because I will be convulsing on the floor with loud, sustained laughter.
Oooh, better yet: Y'know how the Fundies sometimes run unauthorized tours of real museums and spread the Cre@tionist mumbo-jumbo? I say we turn it back on them. Come join us at Ham's museum for the "Here's why this is a big pile of horse excrement" tour!
Posted by: OhioBrian | January 18, 2007 10:32 AM
I probably should have said "a few hundred" miles northeast instead of "a couple hundred". The idea was to get that circle to encompass the population dense northeast, especially NYC, yet still encompass the population dense Great Lakes region. I think somewhere in the middle of Lake Erie would do the trick.
Posted by: Steve Reuland | January 18, 2007 2:22 PM
The whole dinosaur thing just makes me ill. It's clearly just aimed at kids. As if the fact that dinosaurs existed were the only reason kids might start to question the lunacy of YECs.
I really get physically ill when I think about taking something that amazes and delights a lot of kids and twisting it into something to limit and dull their minds. That's really what drives me nuts about most fundamentalists... their lack of imagination... the complete inability to alter their world view to accomodate reality. It's actually very pathetic.
Posted by: Ben | January 18, 2007 2:39 PM
I whipped this map up:
http://img114.imageshack.us/my.php?image=kookmapzg1.jpg
As you can see, only 30% of the US population is within a 400 mile radius, and 51% within 600 miles.
Posted by: Welby | January 18, 2007 3:25 PM
Posted by: llewelly | January 18, 2007 3:41 PM
So how far would we get putting up a billboard across the road that said something like:
LIES all LIES
Posted by: JohnnieCanuck | January 18, 2007 5:04 PM
I think somewhere in the middle of Lake Erie would do the trick.
Oh, please: the zebra mussels have just finished cleaning up what was once the most polluted of the Lakes -- but I doubt even they could handle that volume of organic runoff. Besides. that's too close to the Canadian border, and we prefer that the only loons in the neighbourhood be of the avian kind.
Personally, I wouldn't drive even one hour out of my way to see this place. Even if it was next door, I'd still have the ethical conundrum of whether it was worth giving them the admission charge for the privilege of seeing the Carnival of Lies with my own eyes.
Posted by: Steve Watson | January 18, 2007 5:24 PM
Dover, PA.
LOL!!
Oy...........
Posted by: oddjob | January 19, 2007 11:15 AM
Posted by: arensb | January 20, 2007 2:03 AM