Give Ham the Scalzi treatment

John Scalzi lives right near the Creation "Museum," and he refuses to go. Good for him, I say — we're going to have to start starving Ken Ham soon. On the other hand, if anyone could mock Ham's Folly effectively, it's Scalzi … it's also so much fun to torment him. So his readers are teaming up to compel him to go.

Here's the deal: Scalzi has a price. If people send him at least $250, which he will turn around and donate to Americans United for Separation of Church and State, he'll suffer through the cheesy dinosaurs and silly lies, and also write an amusingly snarky summary of the visit. If he gets a thousand dollars or more, he'll reward everyone a bonus prize or two.

This is brilliant. Rather than sending a scientist to that joke of an exhibit, send a comedian. Laughing at these clowns is the best way to expose them. So go ahead, get on over there and chip in a few bucks, and let's get an appropriate commentator to review the show.

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Last June, we goaded science-fiction author, blogger, and professional wise-ass John Scalzi into promising to visit Ken Ham's Creation "Museum" (actually we bought his attendance by sending him money, which he turned around and donated to Americans United for Separation of Church and State). Well…
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…
This week, the creationist Ken Ham and his organization, Answers in Genesis, are practicing the Big Lie. They have spent tens of millions of dollars to create a glossy simulacrum of a museum, a slick imitation of a scientific enterprise veneered over long disproved religious fables, and they are…
And they know it. Ken Ham has started a new billboard campaign for the creation "museum", with a variety of different designs, all featuring prehistoric* creatures as draws to get kids and family to attend. Here are some examples: Notice what's smart about them? They're focused, featuring an…

I just sent him $25.00. :)

By Wolfhound (not verified) on 09 Jun 2007 #permalink

Why not send the crew that brings us The Family Guy?

I shamelessly stole this idea from Mr Scalzi's comments section.

LOLtRex

Ridicule can work wonders!

I always hate to be the last guy in the room with a clue, so could somebody point me at something of Scalzi's that would explain to me why I would want to give him money to trashtalk a creationist museum? Never heard of the guy, and as far as I can see so far (having read half-a-dozen blog entries) he's just a dude with a reasonable command of English grammar and style and a particularly unfortunate geographical circumstance. Somebody needs to pull the trigger on this thing for me.

K. Signal Eingang. John Scalzi is a professional writer and blogger (his site, the Whatever, gets something like 24k+ hits a day. He is best known for his SciFi, but he writes professionally on a number of subjects. You can count on him to be fair, reasonable, and pretty dammed funny went it suits him.

His wikipedia entry is fairly accurate (according to Scalzi himself, he even occasionally refers people to it).

Whether or not you donate to the cause is certainly up to you, of course, and Scalzi would be the first to tell you that.

By HMS Beagle (not verified) on 09 Jun 2007 #permalink

As much fun as it is to mock young earth creationists (and it is a lot of fun), I'm starting to worry a little that we are generating too much publicity for them. I'm thinking that Ham will probably take negative coverage over none at all. Then again, I do think that not speaking out against this absurdity is undesirable as well.

Not that I had any money, but... ridicule works. You know how the KKK was removed from the mainstream, right? I think I've read it here on Pharyngula.

By David Marjanović (not verified) on 10 Jun 2007 #permalink

Whoa - right after I saw the first loltrex I thought "What it should say is..." and then saw exactly that on the second by Mondado. I shall go hang my head in shame now that I am so familiar with the lol meme that I could do that.

This is brilliant. Rather than sending a scientist to that joke of an exhibit, send a comedian. Laughing at these clowns is the best way to expose them.

I have another ideia: why don't you send a darwinist to the Museum, and show the Creationists, in a testable falsifiable way, how the unguided and undirected forces of nature have the ability to create life out of nothing?

I have another ideia: why don't you send a darwinist to the Museum, and show the Creationists, in a testable falsifiable way, how the unguided and undirected forces of nature have the ability to create life out of nothing?

Why would one send a "darwinist" for that?

By wildlifer (not verified) on 10 Jun 2007 #permalink

Mats: well, we would do, but he might have difficulty getting his supporting props - THE ENTIRE GEOLOGICAL RECORD OF THE EARTH, AND THE DNA AND MORPHOLOGY OF EVERY LIVING ORGANISM - through the door with him. So we tend to write "books" about it instead.

Not that I had any money, but... ridicule works. You know how the KKK was removed from the mainstream, right? I think I've read it here on Pharyngula.

By David Marjanović (not verified) on 10 Jun 2007 #permalink

I have another ideia: why don't you send a darwinist to the Museum, and show the Creationists, in a testable falsifiable way, how the unguided and undirected forces of nature have the ability to create life out of nothing?

I have another ideia: why don't you send a darwinist to the Museum, and show the Creationists, in a testable falsifiable way, how the unguided and undirected forces of nature have the ability to create life out of nothing?

Oh how cute. Argument from ignorance meekly disguised.

Not quite there yet chat, but a "darwinist" (lame word) could go and show how we got from Ardipithecus ramidus to Homo sapiens or from Hyracotherium to Equus