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PZ Myers is a biologist and associate professor at the University of Minnesota, Morris.
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The thing between Death's triumphant digits was a fly from the dawn of time. It was the fly in the primordial soup. It had bred on mammoth turds. It wasn't a fly that bangs on window panes, it was a fly that drills through walls.
(Terry Pratchett, Mort)
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Category: Creationism
Posted on: June 16, 2007 7:30 PM, by PZ Myers
Everyone did good: they met Scalzi's challenge and then some, so now he has to go spend $20 and tour the horrid little place.
This will chap Ken Ham's buns, too. Sure, he'll have to buy a ticket, but he also raised $5,118.36 all of which will be donated to Americans United for the Separation of Church and State. Good deal!
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Comments
Posted by: Martin Wagner | June 16, 2007 7:50 PM
Get ready for the funniest field report ever!
Posted by: Dan | June 16, 2007 8:25 PM
I wonder if Ken Ham knows about any of this. I'd love to see his face at the revelation that Scalzi managed to offset his trip by donating 256 times the admission price of Ham's Folly to Americans United to the Separation of Church and State.
Amazing, really.
Posted by: Oran_Taran | June 16, 2007 9:56 PM
Awesome! I hope they use that money well.
What a great idea.
Posted by: Jeb, FCD | June 16, 2007 10:08 PM
I predict he will banned from tasting of Ham's Folly.
Posted by: Odonata | June 16, 2007 11:29 PM
Woo hoo! What a great sport Scalzi is.
Posted by: Joseph j7uy5 | June 16, 2007 11:29 PM
Is there an organization named "Americans United for the Separation of Church and Everything?
Posted by: John M. Burt | June 17, 2007 12:18 AM
On the one tentacle, it's tempting to alert Mr. Hamm of the upcoming visit, to make him cringe.
OTOT, there's the risk of Hamm barring Scalzi from the place on some "security" pretext, which would deny us the pleasure of the field trip report.
Posted by: TJ | June 17, 2007 1:19 AM
My first thought on reading this was that he should pay in bills with various quotes written on them. So that later when they were used to give back change...
Posted by: Thought[sic] | June 17, 2007 1:20 AM
Wouldn't denying Scalzi entrance into the Fauxseum be considered denying him the supposed word of god? And therefore also a sin against Hamm? Oh, I love irony.
Posted by: rob | June 17, 2007 3:31 AM
Denying him access would be the best thing we could hope for. It would probably multiply be 100 the number of people that know that he is even going, and garner all kinds of bad press for the museum.
Posted by: Evolving Squid | June 17, 2007 8:22 AM
If they banned him without reason, would there not be grounds for a discrimination suit against the church?
Posted by: CalGeorge | June 17, 2007 8:48 AM
Can we send Scalzi to PBS?
Apparently, they're going to do a show called "Wall of Separation" this month.
It's a production of Boulevard Pictures.
Via Americans United for the Separation of Curch and State, some info on the film company's president:
We at Americans United did a little research on Boulevard Pictures, and here's what we found. Although the Web site for the film company mentions no religious or political agenda, its president is Jack Hafer, an evangelical Christian who told one interviewer that Christians have an obligation to "shape the culture" and "spread the faith." He urged Christian young people to go into the arts as "kingdom-spreaders" and as "a form of missionary service."
http://blog.au.org/2007/06/08/pbs-revelation-networks-wall-of-separation-has-religious-right-genesis/
If you are looking for some hardcore religious bias later this month, you know where to go.
Atheism bad!
Posted by: wrg | June 17, 2007 9:06 AM
Discrimination suits against churches for excluding people? That'll be quite a surprise. Vocal American religious groups have been encouraging discrimination in public policy against minority groups, much less ideologically opposed individuals. I've yet to hear of these churches being taken to court for it.
Sure, the Creation Museum may be billing itself as an institution of (pseudo)science rather than a church, but creationists are always ready to hide behind religious privilege when it's convenient.
Besides, they can probably find rock-solid grounds to exclude Scalzi, since for all we know he may well have Ammonite or Moabite ancestry.
Posted by: CalGeorge | June 17, 2007 9:10 AM
The show's writer is Brian Godawa.
He's a Christian film writer and critic.
Working on a film called Monkey Trial.
Posted by: Mats | June 17, 2007 9:15 AM
Always good to see unguided evolutionists making so much publicity for the Creatiom Museum. Free of cost!
Keep up the good job.
Posted by: CalGeorge | June 17, 2007 9:22 AM
Godawa called Brokeback Mountain a "brilliant piece of subversive homosexual propaganda."
And he has said:
"Society SHOULD suppress immoral behavior and it does so on many fronts. So if homosexualism is immoral, then yes, it should be suppressed, just like child molesting, its ugly step-brother hidden in the closet, just like adultery, just like promiscuity."
He said of Passion Christ: "Don't go by yourself, get a group of friends. And don't go just once, go twice."
Sources for the quotes: http://groups.google.com/group/alt.education/browse_thread/thread/51fd44b7e4ed49bb/5c0cc682f4b70a9d
Posted by: Ex-drone | June 17, 2007 9:55 AM
Since Ham was able to scam desperate Flintstones fans for $27M, I don't think he'll be impressed that Scalzi came up with $5K. However, now we know that the Board of Directors of the Flintstone Museum are syphoning off that capital through exorbitant salaries, Ham is probably bugged that he won't be able to get his hands on the Scalzi's donations.Posted by: CalGeorge | June 17, 2007 10:00 AM
"Wall of Separation" has already aired in some places.
PBS ombudsman responds to some of the reaction:
http://www.pbs.org/ombudsman/
Posted by: Caledonian | June 17, 2007 10:16 AM
The museum is - correct me if I'm wrong on this - a private one, even if it's run by a church. It can ban and exclude whatever private individuals it wishes. If they're including it as part of a church (doubtful, but maybe the law really is that dumb) then they probably need to give the public access for a certain amount of time per unit time, but I'm sure they could easily come up with a pretext to keep him out.
Freedom: it's not just for the people you agree with.
Posted by: David Marjanović | June 17, 2007 10:34 AM
A cephalopod! A cephalopod!
Posted by: David Marjanović | June 17, 2007 10:35 AM
Sure. We love to share a good joke.
Posted by: Dan | June 17, 2007 11:22 AM
Poor Mats. You'll take anything as a compliment won't you? It's like calling a dog a useless, turd-eating putz, and so long as you speak in a soothing voice and rattle some treats, its tail will wag, and it will feel happy and loved.
Posted by: Nick Gardner | June 17, 2007 11:25 AM
I enjoy the menancing large theropod foot that smashes down in their "commercial", I suppose it's intended to be post-Fall of Man. I do hope someone sneaks a video camera, I'd love to make the trip myself, but the cost of travelling versus more useful wastes of money and necessary expenses would have it that I must deny myself the pleasure.
Posted by: JohnnieCanuck, FCD | June 18, 2007 12:36 AM
Did the Moabites also originate during the Late Silurian to Early Devonian?
Posted by: Chinchillazilla | June 18, 2007 1:37 AM
#16:
I called it "hot. Oh, and it had a good story."
But I'm a teenage girl, so what would I know?
Posted by: Kseniya | June 18, 2007 11:59 AM
You mean Scalzi's not being given a guided tour? I'm outraged!
Posted by: tony | June 18, 2007 1:05 PM
Apparently *every* tour is guided.... but only for the brainwashed IDiots who believe...
Skeptics need to find their own way (SOP)
Posted by: arensb | June 18, 2007 4:19 PM
In case anyone cares, I visited the creation museum a couple of weeks ago, and took a bunch of pictures, starting here. I haven't had a chance to do a proper write-up yet.