Tomorrow is the first anniversary of the big Creation Museum in Kentucky. They grow up so fast, don't they?
To recognize the occasion, the Northern Kentucky Enquirer offers us this article. It's a sadly typical representative of the genre.
All 280 staff members of the museum and founding ministry, the nonprofit Answers in Genesis, begin their days in prayer before visitors arrive.Since it opened May 28 last year, more than 400,000 people have visited the $27 million, 60,000-square-foot museum, which presents a literal interpretation of the Bible, including the belief that God created the world in six days 6,000 years ago.
“It's humbling to think that God would allow us to be part of this,” Answers in Genesis founder Ken Ham said.
“I think because it honors God's word, honors him as creator, that we would say that God has mightily blessed us.”
“Humble” is not the first word I think of with respect to Ken Ham.
Here's a charming euphemism:
For some of the museum's visitors, it's the perfect family vacation spot. It's also a popular faith-building getaway for churches, as a field trip for Christian school groups and home-schooled families; or a spectacle for visitors who subscribe to a solely scientific view of natural history.
I guess I should be pleased by the implication that the museum is not really about science.
It seems the rot is growing:
To keep up with larger-than-expected crowds, the museum has added extra cafés and seating, doubled its restrooms, opened a two-story Dinosaur Den exhibit, added to its botanical gardens and walking trails and opened a petting zoo featuring llamas, miniature donkeys and goats.
New programming, including a lecture series, children's reading program and theatrical performances, was introduced.
I'll be driving to Western Kentucky next month to attend a friend's wedding. The Museum is not terribly out of the way. Might have to stop by for a return visit!
- Log in to post comments
The claim about larger-than-expected crowds is I suspect simply false. By the accounts of friends who have been there there haven't been many people there when they went.
I'm sure we will have a post by asshole Mr. Jon S about how wonderful this piece of crap is and what a wonderful guy slime off the bottom of the cesspool Ken Ham is.
Best review of the musuem is the one by John Scalzi:
http://scalzi.com/whatever/?p=121
It begins with:
"Imagine, if you will, a load of horseshit. And we're not talking just your average load of horseshit; no, we're talking colossal load of horseshit. An epic load of horseshit. The kind of load of horseshit that has accreted over decades and has developed its own sort of ecosystem, from the flyblown chunks at the perimeter, down into the heated and decomposing center, generating explosive levels of methane as bacteria feast merrily on vintage, liquified crap. This is a Herculean load of horseshit, friends, the likes of which has not been seen since the days of Augeas."
It's a scream.
I'd be curious to see if they still have the exhibit that shows an evolutionary tree of canine species arising, by common descent with variations, from an ancestral pair on the Ark. Even Ken Ham has to admit Darwin was right about where species come from, and that's always fun to mention to creationists.
It is odd that in the article they never say anything like "of course this is not science but a religious interpretation" or "99.3% of paleontoligists agree that man and dinos never walked the earth together".
or something other than that goofy line about creation science begins with the bible...
Which came first, the chicken or the egg?
This old philosophical question has been asked many times.
I'm not looking for an answer because I believe the chicken had to be created first, whether it is the embryonic nucleus of the chicken containing all the DNA and instructions for creating the chicken and future generation or it is the chicken able to reproduce itself with organs that are capable of reproduction of future generations.
This is how creation by intelligent design works imo.
What I want to know is how evolution explains which came first, the chicken or the egg?
Thomas,
First you will have to define what you mean by "chicken" and "(chicken) egg". Assuming that you manage to somehow define the cutting off point between "chicken ancestor" and its direct child the "chicken", what would be the definition of "chicken egg"?
Is it an egg that came from a chicken? Or is it an egg containing chicken in it?
Also, going back to the assumption of what makes something a "chicken", you cannot use as a definition of chicken to be the descendant of a chicken ancestor that can no longer breed with the chicken ancestor. The first chicken(s) would still be able to breed with its parents' generation, but possibly not with its distant cousins (that split off dozens of generations ago) or with ancestors dozens of generations ago, you see. Good luck with figuring out what makes something a chicken to you!
Or, we can just take you literally and simply answer, "The egg came first. There were dinosaur and fish eggs before chickens existed."