It's awfully easy to forget Ken Ham's monument to malevolent ignorance, the Creation Museum, but while we're not visiting it, it's apparently doing a bang-up business, and they're even planning a major expansion. Stupidity sells, especially in America.
So it's a good thing that some people are still shining the spotlight on it. There's a new review of the museum from Demonbaby that's worth a read. This one highlights the creepy and gruesome nature of Ham's bogus theology.
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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…
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…
As we all know to our great shame, Ken Ham has this Creation "Museum" in Kentucky. As has been reported before, it's a thoroughly bogus bit of bunco, with dinosaurs wearing saddles and all the ills of the world laid at the feet of Charles Darwin.
There are a few things you might not know. Like that…
Tonight's edition of The O'Reilly Factor featured a discussion of the brand new creation museum outside Cincinnati. Guest host John Kasich was sitting in for Bill O'Reilly. Representing darkness and ignorance was creationist impresario Ken Ham, president of Answers in Genesis. On the side of…
As an Australian, I would feel compelled to apologize to the US for Ham, but then again, what would you expect? He's from Queensland.
I read the review, and I am actually slightly bemused and horrified that this institution actually exists.
Ken Ham (who I'd never heard of till today) has a lot to answer for - not from nonbelievers, but from the millions of reasonable, rational-thinking theists around the world who are brought into disrepute by this utter nonsense.
I hadn't paid attention to prior criticisms of that silly museum, but I must say the sign that tells us that "God's Word" tells us that Noah's Flood caused fossil layers to form is unexpected. Does Mr. Ham have some extra books in his Bible? Mine never said any such thing.
Bogus theology, as opposed to...?
Non-creepy theology? Ham hates people.
Isn't that an oxymoron?
;o)
I think a lot of intelligent people go there out of morbid curiosity. Sadly, I know I would. There are probably podcasts you can listen to that give you a walking tour with actual scientific information, correcting the museums mistakes as you go. I know there are walk-throughs of real museums from a creationist perspective.
I'm a little confused here. There's this picture at the Creation museum in which they show an example of the horse changing over time. In it they say that, as North America cooled:
-larger species replaced smaller species
-grass eating species replaced leaf eating species
-swift species replaced slower species
Then there's the note that "present changes are too slow to explain these differences, suggesting God provided organisms with special tools to change rapidly".
I'm guessing one of those special tools is EVOLUTION, though I don't think that's what they're really arguing for. It also suggests they don't know what they're talking about.
"There are people who believe that dinosaurs and men lived together. That they roamed the Earth at the same time. There are museums that children go to, in which they build dioramas to show them this. And what this is, purely and simply, is a clinical psychotic reaction. They are crazy. They are stone cold f*ck nuts. I can't be kind about this, because these people are watching The Flintstones as if it were a documentary."
-Lewis Black
I think reality TV makes it pretty clear that stupidity sells in America.
Which might even be true, were the Earth 6000 years old.
@ #9: Excellent quote. Lewis Black is awesome. And very right.
Very nice. At the risk of being accused of syncretism, can we see the map of turtopia?
Lightnin @ #1 Bride of Shrek is from Queensland; are you impugning the whole state or just the demented part?
Is this Demonbaby-site NSFW? My company's contentfilter blocks the site, because apparently it falls in the category "Tasteless." Maybe that's just because it's about a creationist museum?
If there were a God, he would show them the error of their ways...
Millions of years, ask "Were you there" So he is training them to be disruptive too.. doesn't Ham, sound like a car salesman.
The skepTick @ 8#
Creationists will concede what they call "adaptation" in animals, but the emphatically reject this is evolution at work, which they say is false because it means (to them) "one species changing into another, a cat becomes a dog, etc" (common rhetoric of theirs)...which is why Creationism well nigh depends on a Young Earth theory, because if you allow for what they term "adaptation", and stretch it over a true geologic time scale, you get...wait for it...um, Evolution.
I got very tired of arguing this point over and over with my Creationist Ex-wife (don't ask); She never could give me an adequate response as to why her "adaptation" was not merely the workings of the evolutionary process in biology, especially stretched over known geologic time scales.
it's the Bible's long-lost Appendix, which starts with God saying "ok, ignore the rest of this shit, that's for all the primitives - here's the good stuff:...."
it then goes on to predict the internet, explain a working method for cold fusion, and yea indeed, to explain fossil layer formation among other things.
This is really quite sad.
I feel horrible for those kids.
I used to work for a company called Science Matters in Colorado. We did after school programs for elementary aged kids. They all loved it! They got to do cool experiments, chemistry and biology were always the favorites but physics was fun too. I am just thinking about their little faces filled with wonder when they learned the chemistry of fizzy drinks or saw an acid-base reaction(baking soda and vinegar, of course). There are sooo many cool things about science that kids appreciate.
The poor kids that are taken to That Place, may never get to see just how cool science is.
That makes me sad.
And Ken Ham makes me made. Were YOU there? Jerk.
Its ok Holbach, seriously I'm from the demented part. Born and bred in the deep north which is like scary kind of Deliverance country. I shit you not, its been such a bugbear in my life that when I went to boarding school in the south they made me have elocution lessons to rid me of my northern accent.
Whilst all that worked and I am now the consumate lady ( as you would all know since I never say fuck or slut or anything like that), I am still in possession of the knowledge of:
a) how to kill a cane toad with a golf club/cricket bat
b) how to remove an Amethystine python from your chook shed
and
c)How to distill you own rum from sugar cane pilfered from the local plantation.
I meant "mad". Ken Ham makes me mad.
Can we deport him?
Serena @ # 21
Not to Australia you can't Serena, we don't want the bastard back.
What I don't understand is how easy it is for foreigners like Ken Ham and Ray Comfort to emigrate to the US and set up shop in what I presume are greener pa$ture$. I'm assuming that they didn't get here under a H-1B work-authorization.
I'll take the hard-working immigrants in my neighborhood over these bozos.
Bride of Shrek:
Well, shit. What are we gonna do then?
Serena @ # 24
Perfect candidate for Gitmo he is!
Your request to URL "http://www.demonbaby.com/blog/2008/06/exploring-creation-museum-america…" has been blocked. The URL is listed in categories (Erotic/Sex, Newsgroups/Blogs) which is not allowed by the Corporate Internet Access Policy.
Guess I'm not reading the review.
Serena said:
In the spirit of compromise you could always ditch him in the Ocean at the exact half way point between Australia and the States ;-)
Re #25. Oh come on! The inmates are suffering enough already! If one wanted an example of "cruel and unusual punishment", being locked up with Ken Ham would surely be perfect.
Well OK. What is an Amethystine python snake like and how do you remove one from your chook shed. Pythons are snakes and chooks are chickens so that does sound like a worthwhile skill.
Hmmm. Gitmo or compromise.
I like compromise. It makes us sound fair and just, which we are.
Done!
It's NSFW for me either, the firewall gives no explanation. Anyone have another way to get at it? Maybe post it here if it's not too long (I imagine it is)?
Actually, I kind of like the "I evolved from stupid" T-shirt.
Stupidity sells, especially in America.
Come on. Stupidity sells equally well everywhere. It's just easier for you to see the sale of stupidity here.
Bride of Shrek: Just think of the fun and chaos we would cause if a bunch of us visited the Demented Museum. We can stand in front of each exhibit and laugh and guffaw with insane mirth abd make the most shitty comments and be sure that the insane rabble is within earshot. Standing in front of the dinosaur exhibit and exclaiming; "Hey, they stole this stuff from the Flintsones; we're telling!" And, "Hey look, isn't that a picure of their god in that pile of dinosaur shit; holy shit, that's a big pile of shit", yeah, and in more ways than one!" I'm telling you we would get our money's worth out of that pile of insane rubble!
"Well, let's see. First the earth cooled. And then the dinosaurs came, but they got too big and fat, so they all died and they turned into oil. And then the Arabs came and they bought Mercedes Benzes. And Prince Charles started wearing all of Lady Di's clothes. I couldn't believe it."
-- from Airplane II, The Sequel
My only hope is that, since the museum is expanding, that it follows its predecessors in creationism and expands too much, and collapses (as it's apt to) while Ken Ham lines his pockets and finally goes to prison, as Hovind did.
The Creation Mausoleum won't last - none of these things do - especially since it has no relationship with any legitimate institution and certainly will never be accredited by the AAM (American Association of Museums). In fact, this travesty and the other "creation science museums" around the country may force the International Council of Museums to tighten the definition of what a museum is.
Ken Ham's piece of crap was featured in the AAM's publication, Museum, in Nov/Dec 2007.
http://www.aam-us.org/pubs/mn/scienceonfaith.cfm
Cdesign proponentsists interpret the Bible by quote-mining it.
This way, it seems, they have built a habit of "reading" every book this way. They don't feel like liars about it. They honestly believe this is how to figure out what written words mean.
I really like the painting of the Chinese using "dragons" as beasts of burden. That convinces me.
For a review that truly gives the museum the respect and seriousness it deserves, see http://buffalobeast.com/117/let_there_be_retards.htm
When I was a child I quite seriously believed that no one actually took the book of Genesis seriously and it was a myth much like the Greek gods, I never imagined that a stain on humanity like the 'Creation Museum' could have existed in a modern nation like the USA.
I still love the automobile bumper sticker I bought at the time of the Museum's opening:
"I visited the Creation Museum and all I got was STUPIDER!"
Amen!
@#1 - umm, it's not 1976 anymore. Joh died. Maybe you should come up here and visit (those sorts of jibes are getting just a bit old).
That said, I'm embarrassed that Ken Ham is a graduate of the university where I now teach (QUT). I argued with him when I was in high school in 1982 - he came out to visit our little prayer group of four boys at Brisbane Grammar (he was just starting out - already had the Amish look) and I remember making him really angry by suggesting that there were two conflicting Genesis creation stories. He got quite aggressive, and used as many intimidating methods as he could - it's very clear in my memory even now.
I think there's a big element of insecurity and control-freakishness there.
Maybe it has creepy kitsch value like The House on the Rock. The Gods in Neil Gaimon's American Gods liked to meet there.
Like tearing a painting into a thousand pieces, then gluing it back together while mixing and matching the pieces with pages from GQ magazine.
I live less than 5 miles away from this atrocity... I wish I could move.
One intrepid journalist pretended to be mentally challenged and had his friend push him around in a wheelchair through the museum. He even got an interview with Ken Ham! It's just so wrong that I hesitate to post it....
About a week ago I saw an AP photo in the paper showing a model giraffe being transported to a new Ark reconstruction in the Netherlands. I don't know if any model baby dinosaurs were also being transported.
I remember making him really angry by suggesting that there were two conflicting Genesis creation stories.
Hold the phone -- he actually argued against that?
Here's a few pics of the Ark in the Netherlands.
http://www.pbase.com/paulthedane/noahs_ark
I forget that they have that crap here. Everything is fine in my bubble...
Dennis N:
Search for "Creation Museum" on YouTube and you'll find a lot. My favorite is this:
The Creation Museum Teaches Super Evolution - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5mPPnN1c0jk&feature=related
I like how they use the products of science, technology, to illustrate what magic cannot do, but which Ham claims it did.
Say Ken, wouldn't it save a lot of time and money if you just prayed for magical displays, instead of turning to evil materialism to provide the goods? But no, you wouldn't expect God to repeat any miracles, and you'll do what any person hoping to accomplish something does, turn to secular science to do what religion can't do.
The honest message of the museum is that science works, religion doesn't, and Ken Ham knows this somewhere in his ill-functioning brain. Fortunately for Ham, evolution has provided the gullibility and deniability that turns a display of the triumph of science over religion into a fraud that fools millions.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
Here are some pics from our travel to the Creation Museum.
My favorite pics are of the girlfriend taking her anti-baby pill, flashing the devil horns and placing her mouth over a dinosaurs "horn".
We had the most fun in the "Anti-God" section.
http://gallery.mac.com/gllopc#100022
Last week, a German newspaper (Frankfurter Rundschau) published an article (also available online) about the Swiss company Genesis Land AG planning a theme park in Germany. While the article accepts their claim to the reporter that they were doing it for non-profit, educational purposes, their own site states the opposite:
http://www.genesis-land.ch/HTML/home_eng.html
The news article is here:
http://www.fr-online.de/in_und_ausland/politik/aktuell/?em_cnt=1344765
The Protestant church's worldview appointee (that's the official title) states that the theme park and similar institutions elsewhere are based on false and long-refuted theology and can only hurt Christianity, while the local Green Party spokeswoman sees a threat to the state's image as a welcoming site for technology and science.
Oh hum. I think there's a museum in Alberta too.
I dunno how THAT ONE is faring though
One wonders what the evolutionary pressures to be stone cold fuck nuts are, and if we can alleviate them.
Does anybody have any white phosphoresce? I understand that can change all sorts of pressures.... (so joking!)
I just finished watching the YouTube video, "Ken Hambone vs retard-himself". You wonder who is the one delivering more sense; the retard with his pointed and serious questions, or Hambone with his insane and faking sanity as answers. Incredible to think that we are witnessing this widespread demented insanity at the same time that the Cassini spacecraft is exploring Saturn and it's moons!
http://www.aboyandhiscomputer.com/Greetings_from_Idiot_America.html
This article, originally in Esquire, is a great piece that mentions this pitiful excuse for a museum.
my favorite quotes:
"The kids run past that and around a corner, where stands another, smaller dinosaur.
Which is wearing a saddle. It is an English saddle, hornless and battered. Apparently, this was a dinosaur used for dressage competitions and stakes races. Any working dinosaur accustomed to the rigors of ranch work and herding other dinosaurs along the dusty trail almost certainly would wear a sturdy Western saddle.
This is very much a show dinosaur."
and
"This Adam is reclining peacefully; eventually, if the plans stay true, he will be placed in a pool under a waterfall. As the figure depicts a prelapsarian Adam, he is completely naked. He also has no penis. This would seem to be a departure from Scripture inconsistent with the biblical literalism of the rest of the museum. If you're willing to stretch Job's description of a "behemoth" to include baby brachiosaurs on Noah's Ark, as Ham does in his lectures, then surely, since we are depicting him before the fall, Adam should be out there waving unashamedly in the paradisaical breezes. For that matter, what is Eve doing there, across the room, with her hair falling just so to cover her breasts and midsection, as though she's doing a nude scene from some 1950s Swedish art-house film?"
Tom K (#15) asks,
Aye, it is NSFW and Tasteless and blocked by most filters.
However(/i> there's an easy way to get around most filters.
1. Right-click on the hyperlink and copy the properties (the URL).
2. Search for the URL in Google.
If you're lucky, Google will have cached the page, so just click on the "Cached" link under the definition and enjoy.
You won't get plugins or images, but you do get a kick out of bypassing the corporate overlords.
The one in Alberta is an actual science museum, one of my favourites. The Royal Tyrell museum in Drumheller. It's in the middle of the badlands where a lot of dinosaurs were found. I reccomend it.
Bride of Shrek, You have python's in Queensland? Eeeuww! Thats scary. Is Queensland where the the Billabong's are? I've always wondered what the hell those are.
It's a flocking theme park, people. Ham panders successfully to a gullible demographic. It's up the the rest of us to make sure that the intellectual damage is contained.
Most theme parks survive year after year by updating their theme. Where could Ham possibly go? The message is static, thus the theme cannot change. New exhibits? Sure. But how many different ways can this very limited set of very limiting ideas be portrayed? I expect (hope) it to stagnate as the novelty wears off.
I must speak up for Queensland. My sister in law is from Queensland, and she seems to be perfectly sane.
The fundamentalists have been quite successful in their efforts to undermine science education (especially evolution) in this country for almost a century. This coupled with an insidious campaign on mainstream culture to decouple religion from criticism in general has created an environment of "tolerance" of and reverence for ignorance.
qsmd #39
THANK YOU, what a great double parody, Fear and Loathing in CreationLand.
I love the Buffalo Beast, I read their "50 most Loathsome Americans" on the air every year.
Thanks again, my sides still hurt. That was hysterical.
@54, 59:
I had an amazing time at the Royal Tyrrell Museum when I was a kid. But there is a "Creation Science Museum" in Alberta. It looks a lot smaller, though.
http://www.bvcsm.com/
@coffeeassured (#40)
I understand exactly what you mean. Catholics generally are assumed to be among the more 'reasonable' christians, but I went to a catholic school for grades K-12. My fifth grade year one of the priests came to our classroom talking about the bible and how to take it literally vs. figuratively. He started asking questions during class about our bible knowledge, and I remember one of the questions was "How old is the earth". Being a good student, I was one who answered "2 or 3 billion years (gimme a break, I was in fifth grade...)". I don't remember what some of the other kids answered, but I remember thinking it weird when, later that day, I was in the bathroom and one of the kids in that class came in and asked me if I really believed the world was a few billion years old, with that tone of "I don't believe you.".
Keep in mind, these were the supposedly moderate, rational catholics.
Even back at that age I remember thinking "this guy isn't that stupid, is he?"...
David Marjanović, OM (#37):
Yeah. In an odd way, the cdesign proponentsist pays everyone from Darwin to Dawkins a backhanded compliment by reading their books in the same fashion he reads the Bible, i.e., with his eyes usually closed.
I'd rather see pictures of the visitors to this crapfest. Sure, the exhibits are funny/scary, but I want to see pictures of the cars in the lot, the visitors to the place. I would guess that a lot of them would be at home here as well:
http://www.mulletsgalore.com/
Dirk @ 65 I checked the site out and loved the second line; "I spent more time in this museum than I did in the Smithsonian." Translation: "I spent more time in a state of dementia than I did in consciousness." Moron.
While they certainly do quote-mine the Bible (it's called exegesis), I believe in this particular case they're employing the alternative strategy of making shit up. At least, I can't recall coming across a cretinist supporting geological strata being laid down by the Deluge with a Biblical quote, distorted or otherwise.
I have a confession to make. While ranting to a friend about the Creation Museum it was pointed out to me that Ken Ham is Australian. I am Australian. I'm sorry. We're all very sorry.
( at least we exported him )
Well the thing is, Science is not a collection of facts and useful technologies. Rather, it is a method of inquiry. It isn't the facts, it HOW we learned them. ALL scientific theories are subject to revision as new facts are discovered. But most people don't understand this. For them, science is the collection of facts that scientists have told them. For them, there's little reason to trust those facts more or less than those their ministers tell them. "Science" has given us ipods and "faith" promises us life everlasting.
The fact that the Creation Museum is able to ape without understanding the appearance of a typical natural history museum is an indictment of the typical natural history museum, not evidence of the inherent stupidity of those in attendance. If a natural history museum was doing a good job of describing the scientific process, HOW we know rather than WHAT we know, it wouldn't be POSSIBLE for the fundies imitate its affect. A good exhibit should use the displays to explain how we've drawn the conclusions about the world that we have, rather than "science tells us." Because "science tells us," is really no beter than "the Bible tells us," if you don't understand in at least a broad sense, the process behind it.
The word "museum" means something very specific. A museum is a repository of knowledge, where items of scientific, historical, or cultural significance are made accessible to the public.
The abomination in Kentucky doesn't qualify. I propose that regardless of what it calls itself, we should refer to it as what it is: The Creation Theme Park. The word "museum" denotes far more prestige than it deserves.
qbsmd #39:
Thank you, thank you.
Now if I could just get the "Billions Of Dead Things" song out of my head, I'll be ok. Really.
Walton wrote (in #2):
You hadn't heard of this museum or Ken Ham until today?!?!
If you're going to engage with American atheists, you need to know what we're fighting against. Ken Ham has been on the American young-earth creationist scene since at least the 1980s, and was featured in an episode of PBS's "Evolution" series.
This museum was fairly widely reported when it opened, in mainstream media, not just on blogs.
Damn, forgot to preview. Post #75 should read like this:
Walton wrote (in #2):
You hadn't heard of this museum or Ken Ham until today?!?!
If you're going to engage with American atheists, you need to know what we're fighting against. Ken Ham has been on the American young-earth creationist scene since at least the 1980s, and was featured in an episode of PBS's "Evolution" series.
This museum was fairly widely reported when it opened, in mainstream media, not just on blogs.
LadyH, the Royal Tyrrell is indeed a respectable museum, but the one Michelle is referring to the Big Valley Creation Museum in Big Valley, Alberta. I stopped by with a few friends after a camping trip in Cypress Hills last summer. The curator sniffed me out in a second; apparently the look of "you've got to be fucking kidding me" shone like a beacon from my face. Nonetheless, I politely paid my $5, took a few pictures, looked at their scale model of the ark and the detailed patrilineage of Jesus "my father is God" Christ(?) and left.
This bit from the Grauniad yesterday made me think of the utter non-museum-ness of Ham's little wankiverse:
Truth! The Hamster wouldn't know it if it came up and bit his nose off!
Nobody seems to know that the first such museum is in Eureka Springs , AR. It has been here for about 10 yrs.
And now an SNL News update:
Generalisimo Francisco Franco is still dead.
KingHeathen ponders the predicament of a creationist museum in Texas trying to sell a mastodon skull...that's 40,000 years old. Ken Ham gets a mention.
Trying that again.
The page is safe aside from a couple bits of distinctly earthy language... The site does delve into NSFWry at times. He got his web-wide fifteen minutes a while ago with a post about crazy Japanese sex toys...
Brownian@77,Roger@79:
Glorified backyard displays aren't really in the same category; they don't involve the degree of organization or capital investment indicative of a powerful base of support like A.I.G., and can hardly convey the appearance of authority through their sheer scale the way Ham's folly does. The impression made on the viewing public is probably rather less than other roadside oddities like the Santa Cruz Mystery Spot or the Bowman UFO Welcome Center.
Don't forget the option of extraordinary rendition to Uzbekistan to be boiled alive... sometimes waterboarding is not enough, y'know? But I'm sure it's not as bad as it sounds. Not real torture, just an enhanced interrogation technique. Anyway, the CIA goons don't actually put the guy in the tub of boiling water, they just ask the questions, so their not technically doing anything except asking a few questions, right?
OK, that was a little gruesome. I'm not actually suggesting that for Ken Ham... or for any of the poor bastards labeled "unlawful combatants", for that matter.
FFS! Don't be giving 'em ideas. If they exported all their religious loons, where would be safe?
:o)
You're very right, Pandragon. The Creation Museum is in its own class of snake oil slickness, and poses a much greater threat to children because of its ersatz authority.
Unfortunately, there have been "creation museums" since the time automobiles became popular in the United States.
Usually they were rather dull roadside affairs meant to scam a few nickels out of customers who stopped to buy gas or lunch. But then, as an opposite, when the 100 inch reflector was being moved to Griffith Observatory (in the days before Los Angeles Smog made it hard to see from there) people actually lined up at railroad stations to see it pass.
The last 100 years there has always been a sector of the population who are credulous and ignorant. All too often they wield political power above that of their numbers.
DLC @ 87 I visited the Griffithy Observatory several years ago before they closed it for a much needed renovation. So now I have to go back again and enjoy that Art Deco observatory!
On a related note, there is an excellent book about the Palomar Observatory which describes the years in preparation, particularly the time, cost, and problems in grinding the 200 inch mirror! And like the Griffith, hundreds of thousands of people lined highways and railroad tracks to see the great mirror being shipped from the Corning Glass Works in Corning, New York to California. The book came out in 1992 and so far I have read it five times, such is the fascinating story which at the time was the largest telescope in the world.
The book: "The Perfect Machine: Building the Palomar Telescope" by Ronald Florence. If you like Astronomy, then this will be a fascinating read!
Here is my review from just after the "Anti-Museum" (that is a name AIG gave the place) opened last year: http://www.ncseweb.org/resources/articles/1411_the_antimuseum_an_overvi…
AIG was very upset at some of the words I used. Their ears are probably melting now.
What I find puzzling is the number of Americans who think Ken Ham is a devoted Christian when he so clearly looks like Satan, minus the horns.
I wouldn't be surprised to learn he carries a golden fiddle when he visits Atlanta.
Nice review, Dan. I'm only able to skim while at work, but I'll read it more carefully at home, blood pressure permitting.
@#1
Exactly, he's like Pauline Hanson. A complete idiot, but we tend to ignore their presence because they were born north of the border...
But still, there is a slight pain in the abdomen when I hear that guys mangled Australian accent, I'm sure New Zealanders feel the same about Ray Comfort. Yes he's an idiot, but at least he had to move to the US to perpetuate the crazy :P
Lightnin #1 wrote:
Hey! I'm from Queensland, too (though I don't live there anymore) - but it's not the Australian equivalent of Kentucky. A lot of fossils have been found there (my mother and uncle found one that we believe went to the Smithsonian) and there's an element of dinosaur tourism in some areas. Sure, there are a lot of hick rednecks and anti-intellectualism but there's not that much crazy-woo going on up there, and support for creationism is mostly non-existent.
After all, Ham had to go to the US to actually build his museum - I doubt anyone there would have done much to help him.
To back up number 1, I would like to apologise for bananaman comfort. Can we find a place where they wont make such a public nuisance of themselves?
Holbach (@#88): I may have conflated the Griffith Observatory's installation with Mt. Palomar. But either way, my point is that people used to follow Science more, it seems.
Oh, and thanks for the book recommend.
For the Aussies here: I will apologize for your being saddled with Mel Gibson.
For a real laugh, check out the new zealand creation museum, housed ironically enough in a former mental hospital. www.creation-museum.org.nz
Robert Davidson @42,
I met Ken Ham around that time too, maybe 1985, in Melbourne, and the memory remains very vivid. He became very angry, as in ropable, when I suggested that the first "day" might not necessarily have been 24 hours. He set off my "this guy is dangerously insane" alarm bells.
Patricia, #60, wrote:
Pythons are the good ones - they might bite you but you won't die; they don't get big enough to eat adults here, unlike in Asia proper. It's the poisonous ones (brown snakes, taipans etc.) that you've got to look out for. Still, they are hazardous to one's chooks - if one owns any.
Oh, and a billabong is a kind of swampy lake at the end of a river or creek. They can be found all over Australia - well, they did; with the climate change there are far fewer than there used to be.
And in defence of Queensland: Pat Rafter (US Open tennis winner) and Geoffery Rush (actor) both come from there - and don't forget the late Steve 'The Crocodile Hunter' Irwin. Sure, he was a bit annoying but he helped kids learn to love wildlife.
Hey Robert @# 42
I was at BGGS at the same time you were at BGS. Small world.
Bride of Shrek - you said earlier you were from 'the north' - which part? I'm a northener myself, from Bowen.
About half way between Cairns and Port Douglas from a small town called Clifton Beach. Well it was all small back then- not the megalopolis of tourism debauchery it all is now up there. Back then it was cane fields, cane fields and, well more cane fields. Looking back now it was an insanely dangerous childhood, playing hide and seek in fields full of taipans ( never wearing shoes of course), playing dodge the cane fire during the burning season. Camping out in the rainforest by ourselves for days a time. Somehow our parents never seemed to worry and we all survived but with adult eyes it makes my toes curl as to what we got up to.
I've also spent many adult years living in Townville and Innisfail though and was sent away to be educated in Brisbane so have progressively moved further south.
What about a nightmare scenario in the land of freedom ?
If this is so profitable, what will stop him from franchizing his operations, and sooner or later we'll have a few hundred of these theme parks spread accross the country ?
Nothing could stop it from happening. It's the land of free expression, free entreprise, and the market for stupidity is very resourceful...
Clifton Beach sounds familiar but I only went north of Cairns once or twice. Went to Uni in Townsville and spent one summer in Tully picking bananas - what fun that was. But I live in SA now and haven't been back for a few years.
I led a slightly less wild childhood - plus in Bowen there's no cane, which means fewer snakes; apparently they don't like mango trees or tomatoes quite as much. But yeah, compared to what kids are discouraged from doing these days it seems pretty crazy.
Good to know someone else survived with their sanity intact - and can help stave off the bad reputation given to our state by the likes of Ken Ham.
DLC @ 95 I should have commented on the appeal of Science by more people earlier in the twentieth century as is borne out in many articles I have read on that interest. When you mentioned the Griffith Observatory I was waylaid by my great interest in Astronomy, and so failed to pick it up. Anyway, Science is tops with me in all its endeavors, and anytime it can debunk religious insanity it makes it all the more worthy and necessary.
On science popularization, I think we were riding a wave of science and technology born out of the Space Race of the 50s and 60. The world saw amazing new technologies accomplishing larger than life feats that were very marketable. I just don't see as many accomplishments today that are as marketable. People should be clued in to the fact that science is still as interesting as ever. Just my take.
Sure, this pales beside everything else, but does anybody else see some serious irony in their attacking René Descartes for claiming that people can be certain of the existence of their own minds, when he promptly went on to claim that he knows, through faith, that god exists? I mean, really, you'd think they could have at least gone the extra mile and quoted somebody who's actually come out in favor of science, like Galileo.
"I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with senses, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use and by some other means to give us knowledge which we can attain by them."
Seems so much more relevant to the controversy they're trying to manufacture.
DLC @ 104 Heck, I apologize for all of us that Mel Gibson went insane to produce that appalling "Passion of the christ", a piece of crap I have never seen and never intend to see. At least in the Mad Max movies he was trying to kill off the outback scum and was therefore more in reality than that insane crapola movie that has all the demented retards gushing.
@wowbagger (#93)
Just remember that Ken Ham's museum is build on fossil-bearing rock. :P
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2007/07/now_this_is_how_to_critique_…
Bride of Shrek, a billabong is a place??.. Then that old ditty I learned in grade school - Waltzing Mathilda - (which I sang constantly until my family wanted to kill me)doesn't make sense.
Awh. *pout* I thought it was gonna be something really cool like a platypus. *sniff, pout*
Billabong just means a body of water like a lake.
Patricia wrote:
Patricia, what did you think was happening? At the end he throws himself into the billabong - did you think he was forcing himself down the throat of some behemoth/leviathan? I mean, that is kind of cool, but would one camp near such a thing? That's the first verse:
Ah, sheep stealing, song-singing, suicide to escape justice and ghosts - the foundations upon which our great nation is built...
Bride of Shrek and Wowbagger; Nice to read comments from savvy Australians, especially when they describe their home turf. Never been to Australia, but hope to before I croak. I'm a geography lover and Australia fascinates me, especially that incredible geography on the continent and Tasmania. Read several books over the past few months, all good stuff, and when I hit the Lottery for millions I'll spend a year there roaming at will. Some of the books:
"The Girl From Botany Bay"; "A Commomwealth Of Thieves: The Improbable Birth Of Australia" and an older book by Tony Horwitz, "One For the Road: Hitchhiking the Australian Outback", which had the booze flowing like the Murray-Darling! And Bill Bryson's book "In A Sunburned Country". These and a few others only whet the appetite for a long visit. Hey, are the Asians getting to be a real problem as reported some time ago? We have enough problems here without running into them in Australia.
Holback wrote:
You're joking, aren't you? Please tell me you are. The only people who had a 'problem' with Asians were our equivalent of rednecks - the same people who wanted to 'fix' our economy by printing more money.
It could be argued that we're getting to a point where our natural resources can't support our population but that isn't the fault of Asians any more than it is that of any other ethnic group.
We get the same kind of comments here in NZ, the thing is the largest group of immigrants to NZ are infact from the UK, followed by chinese. The reason people moan about the blardy asians is until they open their mouths and reveal an english or scottish or irish or taffy accent, UK immigrants are just another white face in the street.
"Taffy" ... ?
taffy = welsh
Wowbagger @ 113 But of course I am joking as we have the same type of rednecks who use similiar methods against any newcomer minority. Didn't mean to have it interpreted in the racist viewpoint, but as a similiar localized problem.
A few years ago a pen friend from Atlanta visited Sydney for the first time. We asked how we would recognise them (hadn't seen them before) and they said they'd be the Asians. Uh huh... riiight.
If you've ever been to Sydney you'd know why we thought that was hilarious.
Holbach,
Good to know. I understand racists about as much as I understand the religious. Neither makes much sense to me...
I'm one of those people who thinks that dwindling water supplies (for example) indicates the need for sensible population management - but I also feel that to specify that one ethnic group is in any way preferable to another is ludicrous.
Living in a cultural 'melting pot' is a good thing.
#111 - Wowbagger - Thats not the version I was taught...oh shit, no wonder - 'there sat the stockman, waiting on his billabong, and he sang as he sat, you'll come a waltzing Mahtilda with me...'
I learned this in the fourth or fifth grade, our whole class was taught it was the offical song of Australia. Naturally a young child will imagine that a billabong must be something really special if it's worth waiting on, and what with the platypus and kangaroos being cool.
Oh great, now I'm a dumbass that would go on a billabong hunt with a flash light and a gunny sack.
When you're finished chasing down billabongs you could head off to Scotland for a haggis hunt.
Patricia, it's not your fault if you were taught it by someone who got the words wrong!
I had to look it up myself to remember all of it. Have a read; it's actually really interesting. Turns out most of what i thought it meant (the use of the word waltz for starters - it's not a dance at all) isn't what it means.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waltzing_matilda
Billabongs were hunted to extinction by drop bears.
I have no stomach for hunting haggis.
A billabong, or billy, is what we used to manufacture out of a plastic juice bottle, a length of hose and a cone. Add a dash of choof and bob's yer uncle.
Ah cones and billies... A bucket bong was also good for special occasions. To be young again...
Just an FYI, because of some implied statements... just because the Creation Museum is IN Kentucky, it does not make us all ignorant hicks. If you drive past the place (which I try not to do), the VAST majority of visitors are from out of state.
Thanks for that link Wowbagger, now I don't feel 'quite' so stoopid. Looks like the song can be sung just about anyway one wants to. Shite, another childhood fantasy debunked.
Now don't twit me about the noble haggis. I'm one of 'those people' that actually likes the stuff. :)
Whoever said no one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public was a prophet who'd make the ones religions worship seem like pikers.
I've been asking this question since I was a kid and still haven't gotten an answer: Can anyone, ANYBODY, tell me how humanity got past Adam and Eve without their grandchildren being pigment-challenged, porch-squatting banjo players?
Oh, and my son wants to know if the ark carried polar bears and, if so, how'd they get to and from the Arctic? (And don't say through the island's time portal!)
Geez,
your son's a genius. Mine just asked me how the Hulk kept his pants on when he grows.
defectiverobot, I believe the 'explanation' (and I use the term loosely) is that any negative results of incest today are due to the corrupting influence of sin on the world.
Back then nailing your sister/brother/drunk dad led to perfectly healthy children. Who, by the way, were white with blue eyes, just like Jebus in all the pictures.
Hell, when you can believe that a T-Rex had long sharp teeth so it could husk and eat coconuts then nearly anything is possible.
#128 - Now you see here defectiverobot, them porch squattin' banjo players are my kin folks, and I'll thankyou not to confuse them with sex crazed hippies that reject sweet baby Jesus. EVERYONE KNOWS that blue skinned banjo players are NOT caused by incest. That is a myth thrown about by Billabong Believers.
A billabong is what's otherwise known as an oxbow lake.
Waltzing Matilda is a poem by A. B. "Banjo" Patterson written in 1985. It tells the tale of a swagman (itinerant) who steals a sheep (jumbuck) to eat (put in his tuckerbag), and when confronted by the owner of the sheep and three police ("Down rode the squatter, mounted on his thoroughbred/Down rode the troopers, one, two, three") he commits suicide by throwing himself into the billabong and drowning ("his ghost may be heard as you pass by that billabong").
It's not really kiddy stuff :(
That should be "written in 1895"!
prl, have you ever read the original grimm fairy tales? http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~spok/grimmtmp/
defectiverobot, perhaps you've been asking the wrong people? Generally, if I wanted to find out what creationists thought about certain topics, I would go look at creationist sites said about them. In this case a good place to start would be www.answersingenesis.org and www.creationontheweb.com. For example, to find out why they don't think that Adam and Eve's children would've been mutants, I would look at http://creationontheweb.com/images/pdfs/cabook/chapter8.pdf. Then for the question about the polar bears I would look at http://creationontheweb.com/content/view/716.
"It's not really kiddy stuff :("
Sure it is. Kids love ghost stories.
For what it's worth, I'm sure if Ham was from any other state or territory other than my own (NSW) I'd make the same comment! Come to think, I'd probably be just as harsh on NSW, most of the stupid people I know are from NSW. Anyway, this reminds me of a joke...
A young man started working a local grocery store. On his first day, an elderly man came in and requested half a lettuce, to which the young man replied that he'd have to ask the manager.
He went out the back and said to the manager "Some wanker wants to buy half a lettuce," only to discover that the old man had followed him and was standing right behind. Upon seeing the old man the young grocer immediately added "And this gentleman kindly offered to buy the other half".
Once the transaction had proceeded and the old man had left, the manager commented to the young man how impressed he was thinking on his feet like that, and asked him where he grew up.
"Queensland," the young grocer replied.
"Oh really, did you enjoy living there?"
"Nah-nobody but whores and football players up there." The manager was taken aback by this remark, and told the young man that his wife was from Queensland, to which he immediately exclaimed;
"Wow-which team did she play for?"
When I first read of this 'museum' (about a year ago), my first thought was, 'only in America!'. Then I read further and noticed the designer and owner was Australian, I automatically assumed it was a clever scam to rip of credulous Americans. Cause Australia really doesn't have much of a 'young earth' literalist culture. But if Robert Davidson (42) actually argued with Ham about.... it's so disappointing that there are Australians taken in by this.
"There once was a swagman who camped by a billabong, under the shade of a koolbah(sp?) tree." At least that's what I learned as a kid.
This all would be so much funnier if the commercial sponsor of my morning news was not the Creation Museum. The Cincy Enquirer noted that this museum had the second most prolific attendance in the area-- 50% more that the Cincinnati Art Museum. I live in a slough of despond or Cincinnati.
Felix @#53
They want to build such an insult to human intelligence HERE in Germany? Surely there must be something we can do about that; we have enough loonies already and there is absolutely no need to encourage them any further.
Ach, Scheiße.
I have an idea. Lets start a collection to buy a piece of land big enough to set up a town and tell the fundies its their pre-millennial haven for the saved. Set it up with all the conveniences like shops, grocery, gas station etc. Get them to go live there together, and then they can BS each other and won't have to be seen by the public. Sort of like the idiot son that was left to live in the barn because he humped everyone's legs when visitors came over.
What? It's been done? Kentucky?
Oh well!
Stupidity sells, especially in America.
Part of the reason for the interest, many Museums look pretty much the same over a period of years. Despite my disagreement with the evolutionist angle, and unlike some of PZ new students who are generally not interested in old programs like Carl Sagan, I love history and viewing old artifacts from different cultures of the past.
As far as "stupidity" it wasn't very smart for a group of atheists and evolutionists in general who tried to block the creationist museum from ever being built in the first place. This is America, not communist China. As it turned out, the creationist Museum location changed as well as the layout which was originally smaller.
As far as "stupidity" it wasn't very smart for a group of atheists and evolutionists in general who tried to block the creationist museum from ever being built in the first place. This is America, not communist China. - Michael
I'm sure they have many "museums" wholly dedicated to deceiving the visitor in communist China, so the creationist "museum" has made America considerably more like communist China.
Cite?
Apparently you haven't taken a careful look at God's Children, lately. GW Bush and Deliverance Banjo Player for instance, separated at birth?
Love what Eric Bogle did with "Waltzing Matilda", love what the Pogues did with Eric Bogle's song. Checked out the Wikipedia entry, (thanks Walton!), and was bemused to see that "God Bless Australia" thing.
My favorite Antipodean-themed song, however, is "Wild Colonial Boy", I just wish singers could agree on the kid's name!
Weekly Prayer Request
http://www.answersingenesis.org/prayer/default.aspx#requests
Project: Golf Outing Fund-raising Event for the Creation Museum
Purpose: To provide a great time of fellowship and fun while raising funds to support the ongoing enhancements and exhibit expansion at the Creation Museum
Specifics: Please pray that the outing would be well attended, the final details would come together well, and that the weather would be nice on the day of the event.
Deadline: June 16, 2008
----------------------------------------
Quick, there's not much time! Everyone together... PRAY NOW!
Jack Doolan was his name
of poor but noble parents
he was born near Castlemaine.
Crikey. Where the hell did that come from? I think Dr Hook did a version in the 70s.
Damn, honest parents not noble. They may have been noble but I think the lyrics say honest. Or was it noble? If I could bother googling...
As an Australian, I would feel compelled to apologize to the US for Ham, but then again, what would you expect? He's from Queensland.
Is Queensland the Australian version of the American South now? I guess swampy environments are ideal for the breeding of stupid.
Bride of Shrek #20
You are the coolest girl ever!
Brandon P. wrote:
No it's bloody not. I was born in Queensland and don't have that much affection for the place (I live in another state) but I have to point out that thuggish right-wing redneck anti-intellectualism doesn't always equate to nonsensical religious beliefs. Again, Ken Ham had to go to the US to build his museum in the first damn place.
To my knowledge Queenslanders aren't by and large any more religious than those of the other states. Unless you count rugby league as a religion.
Wow Wowbagger, thuggish right-wing redneck anti-intellectualism, is the best description of the average Queenslander ever. :-)
Seriously though we tend to equate right-wing rednecks in the US of A with religiosity. You definitely can't do that in Australia. Even in Qld.
Nope. It's a heresy. Everyone knows the one true religion is Aussie Rules.
Most Australians who identify as Xian aren't anything like those in the USA - thankfully. There's no way the anti-science crowd could get the same sort of foothold here.
I was thinking about what would happen if they tried; unlike the US, we've got quite a few respected public media figures who'd shoot them down - Dr Karl Kruszelnicki for one.
Other than the late Carl Sagan I can't think of too many US equivalents. I think that's one of the reasons you're in the situation you're in - you don't have a 'face' that fence-sitters might listen to.
Maybe PZ needs his own tv show...
This kook is also from Queensland:
(Source: wacky creonewsletter)
I suppose not all Queenslanders are kooks but all the kooks are from Queensland.
:-)
Sigh. I just can't keep up. Where are the rest of the Queenslanders? Our honour is at stake!
Mind you, I abandoned the place over 10 years ago - maybe I had an allergy to crackpotism. It's probably the humidity softening their brains.
Pace Wowbagger, there are parts of southern Queensland with some history of (by regional standards) nonsensical religion to go along with the ant-intellectual redneckery, but there's been such a flood of southerners immigrating that the demographics of Queensland have changed a lot since Joh's day.
There are parts of Queensland where up to six different python species can be found (amethistines or 'scrubbies' being the largest), which is pretty cool for a group with less than 30 species worldwide. Also the oldest fossil record of pythons, I might add.
There are also indeed dinosaur fossils found across a large area of the state, though ichthyosaurs and plesiosaurs are much more common. A number of small regional fossil museums have sprung up, including my place of work waay out northwest. I have only been annoyed by two cretinists in four and a half years of presenting lab tours (I get a biased sample of visitors - mostly southern and overseas tourists - because those uninterested in science, afraid of prehistoric monsters, or terrified of learning some true stuff about the fossil record never get through my door).
And though there are Adventists, JWs and Mormons visibly active on the streets, they seem to keep records of where they've been sent away unwelcome, and they don't come round my home any more. And yeah, the loudest religious celebrations around my neighbourhood always seem to occur on wednesday nights in winter, some rite called 'State of Origin'.
Yeah, State of Origin
30-nil, take that NSW!
(and this from a rugby girl- go Wallabies)
I was having a great time reading the comments and the links until I discovered that Ray Comfort was born in New Zealand.
I am now attempting to overcome a strange but overwhelming impulse to declare that I have never set foot in the country, let alone lived here my whole life *sigh*
Other than that, the Creation Museum is appalling.
I just happened upon this site, never to return to it, thank you, and just have to say that I'm chuckling over such animosity toward Ken Ham and the Creation Museum. I visited the Museum recently and LOVED it!!!!!! Yeah, call me "stupid" or "ignorant" or whatever kind term you want to use, but, LOL, I don't mind at all. The foolish things of this world defy the so-called scholars and skeptics.
I'll be praying for your enlightenment!!! :)
(I wonder if you'll really post my comment, or if you'll censor it....I'll never know, nor do I really care what you think) :)