…and this is a 
Frustrate Ken Ham
Category: Creationism
Posted on: May 22, 2007 8:53 AM, by PZ Myers
As if you need any more motivation to contribute to the Creation Museum carnival, it turns out that these kinds of criticisms rankle Ken Ham. DefCon blog issued a press release accusing them of peddling lies, and Ham fired back with an indignant "Well! I never!" response. The funniest bit is where he tries to defend creationism by claiming that many famous scientists were creationists—and some of them were even contemporaries of Darwin. Then he lists a whole gang of famous scientists who mostly preceded Darwin, and were in disciplines in which they never had to consider biological evolution. It's the usual deception these guys pull.
So contribute to the Creation Museum carnival! Make Ken Ham twitch and cry!
Comments
That's a long list of scientists "who accept Genesis creation", but worded in that way, it does not even necessarily mean that they are explicitly anti-evo-- some people have such complex schizophrenic opinions. Some of them (a minority) are even active in biology. I thought I'd check PubMed to see their scientific production, but after trying three of them with a total yield of four publications in obscure journals, I decided I had better things to do.
Posted by: amph | May 22, 2007 9:22 AM
Wow! Did you see that graphic at the Ham site -- the sauropods with the -- what are they -- pronghorn antelope? Talk about Darwinian competition! Fans of Olduvai George will note the sauropods are not quite right, and the pronghorns could use some tweaking, too (they could be some odd African ungulate for all we can tell from the photo -- though the hills look a lot like the Mormon's Adam-ondi-ahman, enough to make one wonder if Ham has even more secrets to tell).
Do you think Ham knows the story of how "evolutionists," noting the speed of the pronghorn, hypothesized a cat-like, cheetah-like, now-extinct predator to spur the selection of faster antelope? And do you think he knows that the hypothesis has been confirmed?
Posted by: Ed Darrell | May 22, 2007 9:27 AM
Wow! Did you see that graphic at the Ham site -- the sauropods with the -- what are they -- pronghorn antelope? Talk about Darwinian competition! Fans of Olduvai George will note the sauropods are not quite right, and the pronghorns could use some tweaking, too (they could be some odd African ungulate for all we can tell from the photo -- though the hills look a lot like the Mormons' Adam-ondi-ahman, enough to make one wonder if Ham has even more secrets to tell).
Do you think Ham knows the story of how "evolutionists," noting the speed of the pronghorn, hypothesized a cat-like, cheetah-like, now-extinct predator to spur the selection of faster antelope? And do you think he knows that the hypothesis has been confirmed?
Posted by: Ed Darrell | May 22, 2007 9:30 AM
Apologies for the double post -- the system said it failed, and after waiting for what seemed a suitable time . . .
PZ, don't you have a lab squid who could delete duplicate posts for you?
Posted by: Ed Darrell | May 22, 2007 9:33 AM
Newton, Copernicus, Gallileo and Kepler did not believe in evolution. Newton, Copernicus, Gallileo and Kepler were all brilliant scientists. Therefore, the world was created exactly as it says in Genesis. QED!
Futhermore, Newton, Copernicus, Gallileo and Kepler did not believe in germs. Therefore, all diseases are caused by an imbalance of humours. QEFD!
Not only that, but Newton, Copernicus, Gallileo and Kepler did not expressly believe in ultraviolet lightwaves. Therefore, the remote control works by witchcraft. QEMFD!
Posted by: factlike | May 22, 2007 9:39 AM
QEMFD! Brilliant! I will be using this, often, so thanks!
Posted by: J-Dog | May 22, 2007 10:15 AM
Ahem. Newton also did not believe that Jesus was God. Sorry to break it to you, Hammie! ;-)
Can my short story come to the carnival?
Posted by: Kristine | May 22, 2007 10:50 AM
Fegh, we don't have to visit Ham's carnie funhouse to know that it's a pack of lies. Anyone who has been involved in the c/e debate for a while already knows that any person who claims that science supports YECism is one or more of: a charlatan, a crank, or a dupe of the first two. Anyone who's ever heard Ham, or visited the AiG website knows that he's no exception. And pre-opening media coverage -- from journalists who have been inside, and including quotes from the Ham-bone himself -- is sufficient for us to know that this "museum" does not depart from the previous YEC party line (not that there was ever any real doubt).
So his claims of blind prejudice are (like everything else these clowns say) just so much bilgewater.
Posted by: Eamon Knight | May 22, 2007 10:51 AM
I just found out, via Mr. Ham's blog, that T-rex was created an herbivore and had such big pointy teeth in order to open coconuts.
My eyebrows are now raised into orbit!
Posted by: astromcnaught | May 22, 2007 11:18 AM
Yes, Astro. Amazing, isn't it? And the Tasmanian Devil, which as we all know ranged far and wide across the lands of the Old Testament, was given those sharp pointy teeth to crack filberts. A day's supply of filberts was kept in its pouch. Praise God!
Posted by: Kseniya | May 22, 2007 11:29 AM
Though, if T-rex was designed to eat coconuts, then how come fossil coconuts are found only in India, Australia and New Zealand, whereas the fossils of T-rex and its relatives have only been found in Northern China, Mongolia and the US?
Posted by: Stanton | May 22, 2007 11:38 AM
Remote controls work with IR, not UV, but Newton, Copernicus, Galileo and Kepler didn't "believe" in IR, either.
Posted by: Manduca | May 22, 2007 11:44 AM
While being disparaging of Ham and his ilk is something i strongly approve of I feel i should point out that Ed Darrell has it the wrong way around. Miracinonyx (the American cheetah-like cat) probably did prey on Pronghorn but this relationship was only suggested after the first bones of the species were properly recognised. While they got Miracinonyx material properly organised for the first time in the 70s i dont think any connection was made to the anomalous speed in Pronghorn until the '90s.
Posted by: Barndad | May 22, 2007 11:44 AM
Good question Stanton.
I would guess that all coconut fossils were washed about in the flood and landed where they did because of the big waves. Very remarkable, but makes sense 'cos coconut fossils are obviously quite light and wash-aboutable.
Noah: Have you got the bananas for the velociraptors?
Son: Yes Boss
Noah: And the filberts for the Tassie Devil's (bad name that), and the carrots and beetroot for the tigers and lions?
etc...
Posted by: astromcnaught | May 22, 2007 11:54 AM
Maybe *that's* what happened to the dinosaurs, Stanton.
That God--what a kidder!
Posted by: RavenT | May 22, 2007 11:54 AM
Obviously, the coconuts were carried there by swallows
Posted by: Jim Lemire | May 22, 2007 12:09 PM
Though, if T-rex was designed to eat coconuts, then how come fossil coconuts are found only in India, Australia and New Zealand, whereas the fossils of T-rex and its relatives have only been found in Northern China, Mongolia and the US?
because the T-rexes ate all the coconuts in Northern China, Mongolia, and the US, silly. That's why they died off: there were no more coconuts to eat.
Posted by: Becca | May 22, 2007 12:21 PM
The real question is: were they African or European swallows? Maybe Ham can answer which were desiged for coconut transportation.
Posted by: kellbelle1020 | May 22, 2007 12:34 PM
Well, I did my part to irritate him.
Posted by: Bronze Dog | May 22, 2007 12:36 PM
The compulsion to turn all carnivores into herbivores is due to the belief that before Adam disobeyed, nothing was supposed to die (making the need for a "tree of life" in the garden an incoherent mystery). As if any earthly ecosystem can be imagined without death. It's as Tom Stoppard put it, in a different context:
"We're more of the love, blood, and rhetoric school. Well, we can do you blood and love without the rhetoric, and we can do you blood and rhetoric without the love, and we can do you all three concurrent or consecutive. But we can't give you love and rhetoric without the blood. Blood is compulsory. They're all blood, you see."
Posted by: Greg Peterson | May 22, 2007 12:44 PM
No death?No fungi?It must of been a hydroponic garden.By the way if somebody gets to the museum would you check the pubic hair of Adam and Eve for crabs,they must be there.
Posted by: spartanrider | May 22, 2007 1:20 PM
I guess shark's teeth must have been for eating kelp then.
Oy gevalt.
Posted by: Sophist, FCD | May 22, 2007 2:20 PM
Has anyone seen the banana as atheist's nightmare video clip on YouTube, and the delightful parodies of it and answers to it? I've collected a few of the best ones I came across on my blog at http://blue.butler.edu/~jfmcgrat/blog/
Posted by: James McGrath | May 22, 2007 2:20 PM
The other day I Photoshopped a new front page for the museum website. I think this one is more accurate.
Posted by: dorid | May 22, 2007 3:07 PM
Both Copernicus and Galileo were devote Catholics, the former a Canon of the Cathedral Chapter of Frauenburg and therefore a professional cleric the latter a layman. Kepler was a Lutheran Protestant who trained for the priesthood before being assigned to duties as a maths teacher by his astronomy professor Maestlin. Later in life his local parish priest banned from taking part in church services with the accusation that he was a Crypto-Calvinist, a standard form of abuse for all Lutheran in the late 16th and early 17th centuries who didn't toe the party line. He was however a deeply convinced Lutheran all of his life. Newton was a real religious wing nut, a Catholic hating Unitarian who believed that he had been chosen by God to discover the secrets of the universe. Boyle, also deeply religious, was an orthodox lititudinarian Anglican who hated Catholics, Jews, Muslim and Puritans.
In science they were all united in their Copernicanism but if you had locked them all in one room and stated a religious debate there would have been at least a verbal if not a physical explosion and probably a few noses would have got broken!
Posted by: Thony C. | May 22, 2007 3:40 PM
Actually, if you look at the byline of that response, Ken Ham didn't even write it...
...unless he's doing exactly what he accuses us of doing and sock-puppeting, which wouldn't surprise me.
I'll work on a nice, offensive entry for the carnival in a bit.
Posted by: markbt73 | May 22, 2007 3:45 PM
I think the critters with the sauropods are springbok. Presumably if the cheetahs were vegetarian the disruptive coloration was for decorative purposes only. Or did God know they were going to need it later to help avoid being eaten?
Posted by: Richard Simons | May 22, 2007 5:23 PM
I think the critters with the sauropods are springbok. Presumably if the cheetahs were vegetarian the disruptive coloration was for decorative purposes only. Or did God know they were going to need it later to help avoid being eaten?
Posted by: Richard Simons | May 22, 2007 5:24 PM
You're thinking of infra-red, sorry. :\
As for the cartoon of sauropods with mammals -- I'm still waiting to see Ken Ham's illustration of a T. Rex grazing in a meadow.
My part to annoy Ham is a cartoon. It came to me after I prayed on it for a week.
Posted by: Warren | May 22, 2007 6:56 PM
Didn't we get those from gorillas? Getting down and dirty with gorillas sounds post-Original sin to me - unless it happened when Adam was cruising for "help meets" among the animals.
Posted by: windy | May 22, 2007 7:30 PM
Wow! Mendel didn't believe in evolution? The, you know, monk? Never!
Incidentally, a Google search of 'Mendel evolution' turns up several sites which imply that, actually, he thought evolution kicked ass and wanted in on it.
Will do. That place is within a day's drive of me, you know. (Really only a couple hours. I'll try to get up there sometime when I'm already in the area, because it doesn't warrant a special trip.) I look forward to being thrown out of it.
Posted by: Chinchillazilla | May 23, 2007 4:19 PM