Meditation 618
Creation Science Museums: Neither science nor museum
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Earlier this week (28 May 2007), a so-called Creation Museum opened in Petersburg, Kentucky. Built by the owner of the Answers in Genesis website, the museum cost some $27 million. It will be open seven days a week (I guess these Answers in Genesis people don't read any further in the Bible or they would know about Deuteronomy 5:12 or Exodus 20:10) Admission is $20.
To my dismay, another such travesty is opening next week (5 June 2007) in my home province of Alberta. Located in Big Valley (population 308,[1]) the Big Valley Creation Museum cost a mere $300,000 and admission is a relatively affordable $5.00.[2] It is only open six days a week, but strangely, Wednesday is the day it is closed.[3]
Both these operations give the lie to Creationism being science. They are unquestionably religiously oriented, specifically literalist Christian with their references to Adam and Eve, and their models of Noah's ark. Neither is teaching science, both are preaching religion.
The intellectual dishonesty is clearly demonstrated in Big Valley where a genealogy is displayed showing the descent of England's King Henry VI from Adam and Eve. This is identified as evidence for the Biblical creation story, evidence for which there is absolutely no documentary support for the key segment which links the ancestry of British royalty to the mythical biblical genealogies.
Both museums present what they call evidence that dinosaurs and early human beings (Adam and Eve through to the Noah family) coexisted with dinosaurs. This is nothing less than a deliberate misinterpretation of the fossil evidence. And this is called proof that scientific evidence of dinosaurs living tens of millions of years earlier is false.
However, suppose that indeed it could be proven that some dinosaurs were indeed alive at the time of the earliest humans. It is within the realm of possibility that scientifically acceptable proof could turn up. All this would do would disprove the currently accepted conclusion that dinosaurs died out 60 million years ago. It would not shake in the slightest the established age of the dinosaur fossils already found.
The operators of these so-called museums don't understand the scientific method. There is no science in their claims. They are not operating museums, they are operating religious propaganda mills.
Footnotes:
- for comparison Peterburg, KY - population approx 86,000
- Perhaps these numbers say something about the relative gullibility of American and Canadian believers.
- So much for keeping the Sabbath.