I'm getting under Ken Ham's skin

He seems a bit peevish. He now has a blog post up complaining about me and my "inaccuracies". His complaints are amusingly petty.

I object to the lies at the very heart of his "museum", and he thinks he is rebutting me by whining over petty details.

For instance, he quotes me as regarding the idea of "Noah's ark being built to carry off members of every species on earth", and then he primly informs his readers that that isn't true: it only carried every kind of "land-dwelling, air-breathing animal". Oh, well, that fixes the logistical problems of the ark right up, doesn't it? Here we have a great big flood that turns the globe into Waterworld, and he doesn't have to worry about the effects of salinity changes on aquatic organisms, doesn't have to think about the plants, and the birds can just stay airborne for a year until the flood recedes. I don't care what fraction of life on earth the poop-shovelin', travelin' family of Noah squeezed onto their big imaginary boat — the whole story is ludicrous and unsupported by the evidence or by sense.

Then he complains that I mentioned his "dinosaurs with saddles". He's only got one, he says, and it's out for repairs, and it wasn't out in the exhibits anyway. But again, this is his whole schtick behind the museum: that like the Flintstones, humans and dinosaurs coexisted! He's got exhibits with kids playing with carnivorous dinosaurs, and he specifically claims that dinosaurs existed within the last 10,000 years. The point is that the founding premise of his scammy little "museum" is false.

He also complains that he doesn't make any direct accusations of "malice and dishonesty" against biologists in general, but again, that's the implication he makes by calling evolution a lie and the work of Satan. He says he doesn't blame Darwin for the world's problems — that's caused by sin, of course — but again, it's pretending that a major focus of his "museum" is on how godless Darwinism leads people away from the true faith and into depravity.

He thinks the numbers I cited are wrong. Well, take it up with the source I cited, which tracks charitable organizations to give potential donors information on what the institution is doing. Mr Ham can always provide them with up-to-date information, and I'm sure they'll make the numbers more current.

Finally, the most pathetic whimper of all: I called it "Ken Ham's 'museum'". It's not his museum, he says, it's the Lord's. Yeah, right.

Since Mr Ham is so concerned about my accuracy or lack thereof, and is obviously stressed at the poor publicity I'm giving his little monument to ignorance, I'll make him an offer. I'll give him a whole day of my time if he'll fly me in and give me a personal tour, during which he can point out all the things I've gotten wrong about Creation, and I will dutifully write them down and post a complete report of his various rebuttals. Thorough coverage for the price of a plane ticket. How can he possibly turn down such an offer?

If he was really confident of the legitimacy of his museum, I could probably even gather a small group of mouthy, obnoxious, and culturally prominent godless scientists who'd also take advantage of such an offer, and he could shepherd us all through at once, evangelizing as much as he wanted. It would be great! Come on, Mr Ham, put a little bit of your money where your mouth is.

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