Hydra heads and creation museums

Apparently having one Creation Museum in the United States (in Glen Rose, Texas) wasn't sufficient.  So in 2007, a bigger and better one opened in Petersburg, Kentucky.  Then those museums started having some financial problems due to declining attendance, with projects like the infamous "Ark Encounter" being put on hold because of loss of revenue.  So clearly, there was only one possible solution.

Build yet another Creation Museum.

This is getting ridiculous.  Fighting these things is becoming a little like trying to lop off the heads of a really stupid Hydra.

This one is in Boise, Idaho, which certainly makes sense, site-wise.  Boise is the capital of Idaho, a state where over 80% of citizens are Christians, where last month a group introduced a proposal to have Idaho officially declared a "Christian state," where just two weeks ago three legislators boycotted an invocation given in the Senate because it was delivered by a Hindu.

So I have no doubt that yet another expensive boondoggle meant to celebrate a completely counterfactual and unscientific view of biological and geological science will turn out to be wildly popular.

At least, that's the hope of Douglas Bennett, who is one of the museum's founders, and who is (mystifyingly) a trained geologist.  How someone who has a degree in geology can actually subscribe to the idea that all of the Earth's sedimentary rocks were laid down by one cataclysmic flood five-thousand-odd years ago is beyond me.  You'd think that the single question, "Where did all of the water go afterwards?" would be sufficient to raise questions for anyone with scientific training, wouldn't you?

Of course, if the rain was magicked down by god, maybe it was magicked away again.  Or maybe there's a big floor drain at the bottom of the ocean.  I dunno.

Be that as it may, what perhaps sets this museum apart from the others its that for each exhibit, there will be the biblical explanation side-by-side with the explanation that comes from actual science.  "The museum is dedicated to the fact that creation science can explain the evidence we see in the world around us and that it is not just religion," Bennett said. "Because we feel we don't have anything to hide.  If we put both out there, a person that's actually seeking the truth will look and say, 'Ah, the biblical explanation fits what I see in the world around us a lot better than evolution.'"

Me, I find this troubling.  Because you can bet they didn't hire an actual evolutionary biologist or geologist (I'm discounting Bennett, here, for obvious reasons) to write the scientific explanations.  I'm pretty certain that the point/counterpoint was written by people who buy the whole creation story wholesale, which means that the scientific explanations will be misrepresented, oversimplified, or just plain wrong.

[image courtesy of the Wikimedia Commons]

So this whole enterprise sets up the evolutionary side of the argument (i.e., reality) as one great big straw man.  I probably shouldn't let this bother me; after all, it's unlikely that the museum is going to convince anyone who wasn't already convinced.  But this kind of slick, hyped-up marketing makes the anti-science crowd even more convinced of their beliefs -- that the scientists are a bunch of godless charlatans trying to bring the world to wrack and ruin.  It's also appealing to children, who are more easily convinced, especially when their parents are telling them that anyone who tries to show them evidence to the contrary is making an evil, Satan-inspired end run on their immortal souls.

And the last thing we need is yet another generation growing up with a lousy understanding of science.

Oh, yeah, and I haven't told you about the other thing the Idaho creationists are trying to do.  They're wanting to raise money for a "life-sized Ark" that will be next to the interstate somewhere between Boise and Nampa.

Because we all know how well that ended for the Kentucky "Ark Encounter" project.

So on the whole, I suppose I should be glad that the creationists are sinking their funds into these kinds of mare's nests.  The more money they put toward building monuments to silly, counterfactual worldviews, the less they'll have to put toward buying congresspeople who support their views.

Ebenezer's shame

Coming right on the heels of yesterday's post, wherein I mused over the question of whether the woo-woos are actually just kidding, and are seeing how outlandish their claims can become before we skeptics catch on, we have a story today that makes me ask the same question about the creationists.

It will probably come as no great shock that the latest bizarre salvo from the biblical literalists has come from none other than Ken Ham, whose trouncing by Bill Nye the Science Guy in a debate that brought to mind the phrase "having a battle of wits with an unarmed man" seems not to have dampened his convictions.  Now, according to a story that I first saw in (of all places) the Pakistan Daily Times, Ham is claiming that an extraordinarily well-preserved Allosaurus specimen is concrete proof of the biblical creation story.

Yes, I know that Ham et al. believe that everything is proof of the biblical creation story.  But does it seem to you that deliberately choosing a 150 million year old fossil as proof of their mythology is a little... crazy?  They're on shaky enough ground with all of the "look at the pretty butterflies and fascinating fish, god musta did it" stuff that the Creation Museum excels at; why would they deliberately pick a Jurassic-era dinosaur?

[image courtesy of photographer Andy Tang and the Wikimedia Commons]

And it's not like it came cheap, either.  According to Ham's own site, Answers in Genesis, the Creation Museum shelled out $1.5 million for the privilege of displaying something that conclusively disproves their entire raison d'être.  Not that that's the way they put it, of course.  Ham was quoted in the article as saying that the allosaurus skeleton "fulfills a dream I’ve had for quite some time. For decades I’ve walked through many leading secular museums, like the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C., and have seen their impressive dinosaur skeletons.  But they were used for evolution.  Now we have one of that class, and it will help us defend the book of Genesis and expose the scientific problems with evolution."

I read that entire passage with the following expression on my face:

But it only got worse from there, because then Michael Peroutka weighed in.  Peroutka is the guy who sold Ham the skeleton, and he said that the allosaurus "is a testimony to the creative power of God in designing dinosaurs, and that it also lends evidence to the truth of a worldwide catastrophic flooding of the earth in Noah’s time."  Dr. Andrew Snelling, the Creation Museum's staff geologist, said that "Ebenezer" (as they're calling the allosaurus) "most likely died in Noah’s Flood, over 4,300 years ago.  In fleeing the rising waters... Ebenezer was swept away in a debris flow and buried rapidly under massive amounts of sediment, preserving many of its bones," adding that the whole story "will be published in AiG’s peer-reviewed Answers Research Journal."

I think that this was the point that I said, "... wait a minute."  "Peer-reviewed?"  By whom?  By other bible-toting, science-ignoring creationists?  I suppose, to be fair, that's what "peer" means in this context, as in telling a kindergartner that he needs to "interact with his peers" even though they are peers mainly in the sense that they aren't reliably avoiding wetting their pants on a daily basis.

Yet the AiG people do have scientists.  There is the aforementioned Andrew Snelling, who has a Ph.D. in applied geology from the University of Sydney.  Even more mystifying is Georgia Purdom, whose Ph.D. in molecular biology has not stopped her from making bafflingly wacky statements like "From the creation perspective, all bacteria were created 'good,'" presumably only becoming evil pathogens after the Fall of Adam.

And this, I have to admit, is the point when I am overtaken by incredulity.  How could people become sufficiently knowledgeable in geology and molecular biology (respectively) to receive doctorates, and simultaneously hold the belief that the entire universe is 6,000 years old?  And, furthermore, the belief that the science itself supports that view?  The whole thing is a little like my pursuing a medical degree while claiming that diagnosis and treatment should be based on the "Four Humors" model of human health. "I'm sorry, Mrs. Finkwhistle, but your stomach pains are clearly caused by an imbalance between your phlegm and black bile.  We're going to fix it by cutting your arm to let some blood out."

The sad fact, of course, is that like our crop circle "astronomologer" in yesterday's post, these people are serious.  So as much as I'd like to think that Ham and Co. are playing some kind of elaborate prank, not only on us skeptics but upon their tens of thousands of followers in the United States and elsewhere, it appears that they're sincere.  Hard though it is to fathom, they will now have a $1.5 million allosaurus skeleton with which to make their point to the gullible public.  And I can't help but think that Ebenezer the allosaurus would be ashamed if he knew his bones were being used for such a purpose.

Robertson vs. Ham vs. science

You know it's gonna be a surreal day when Pat Robertson starts making sense.

Yup.  The same guy who said that the Haitian earthquake and Hurricane Katrina were punishments sent by god because of voodoo curses, and Americans' acceptance of abortions and homosexuality, respectively.  The same guy who said that kids shouldn't go trick-or-treating, because Halloween candy had been cursed by witches.  The same guy who used to claim that he could leg-press a Volkswagen.

A couple of days ago, Robertson announced on his show, The 700 Club, that James Ussher, the 17th century clergyman who gave us our current scientifically accepted date of 4004 B.C. as the time of the creation of the universe as per the Book of Genesis, was just... wrong.  He was responding to a woman who had written in saying that her children were in danger of walking away from god because they were questioning the bible -- all because some lousy science teacher had told them about dinosaurs:  [Source]

Look, I know people will probably try to lynch me when I say this, but Bishop Ussher, God bless him, wasn't inspired by the Lord.  He said it all took six thousand years.  It just didn't.  You go back in time, you got radiocarbon dating, you got all of these things, and you've got the carcasses of dinosaurs, frozen in time up in the Dakotas, you've got Sue, that big... Tyrannosaurus Rex...  They're out there!  And so there was a time when there were these giant reptiles on the Earth, and it was before the time of the Bible, so don't try to cover it up and try to make like everything was six thousand years.  That's not the Bible, that's Bishop Ussher.  So... if you fight revealed science, you're going to lose your children.  I believe in telling it the way it was.

Predictably, the firestorm started immediately, with Ken Ham of the Creation Museum leading the fray.

"Not only do we have to work hard to not let our kids be led astray by the anti-God teaching of the secularists, we have to work hard to not let them be led astray by compromising church leaders like Pat Robertson," Ham said.  "Pat Robertson gives more fodder to the secularists.  We don't need enemies from without the church when we have such destructive teaching within the church.  I still shake my head at the number of church leaders who want to appease the secularists and accept their anti-God religion of millions of years and even molecules to man evolution.  Such leaders (including Pat Robertson) have a lot to answer to the Lord for one day.  Such leaders are guilty of putting stumbling blocks in the way of kids and adults in regards to believing God's Word and the gospel."

But despite the criticism of Ham and others, Pat Robertson's spokesperson announced, "Dr. Robertson stands by his words."

So.  Okay.  Is it too much to hope for that Pat Robertson has finally come to his senses?  Unfortunately, I think the answer is probably "yes," given that other broadcasts from The 700 Club this month have suggested that liberals "want death" because some of them support abortion and euthanasia, and that we atheists are trying to "steal Christmas" because we are "miserable and want to spread that misery around to others."  (As an aside, I don't know about you, but isn't the "war on Christmas" thing getting a bit old?  Most of the atheists I know give Christmas presents and attend Christmas parties, and many of them put up trees and lights and so on.  So for warriors, we're remarkably lazy, hedonistic ones.)

So I think that Robertson's momentary departure from the party line is only a glitch.  But still, it does give me hope.  If the obvious rationality of science can be evident, even through the fog of superstition, and even to a fire-breathing demagogue like Pat Robertson, maybe we rationalists have reason for optimism.

Science, credulity, and the "Ark Encounter"

I was just reading an article in the Louisville Eccentric Observer, a weekly online news source that bills itself as an "alternative" news source that tackles issues that the mainstream media won't touch.  The article, entitled "Investors of the Lost Ark," describes the financial troubles that are facing the "Ark Encounter" project, which had as its goal to build a life-sized replica of Noah's Ark by 2014.

The "Ark Encounter" project, which is the brainchild of Ken Ham, of Answers in Genesis, has the full support of Kentucky governor Steve Beshear, who arranged for $43 million in tax breaks for Ham's projects.  Beshear's budget also included a 6.4% cut to funding for public education.  [Source]  Funny how those two go together, isn't it?

In any case, the LEO article tells of a visit by LEO staffers and a variety of scientists to the Creation Museum, another of Ham's projects.  One of the visitors was Daniel Phelps, president of the Kentucky Paleontological Society, who reports that he had a contact with a 13-year-old "volunteer guide" who informed him that King Arthur's sword was made of iron from a meteorite.  Phelps, who was standing in front of a display of St. George slaying a dragon at the time, asked the boy if King Arthur had killed any dragons with that sword.

"I'm not sure if he did," the boy replied.  "But Beowulf killed three dragons."  The boy went on to describe the third dragon Beowulf killed as being of the flying and fire-breathing type, and told Phelps that "it was probably a pterosaur."

"Aren't those just fictional stories?" Phelps asked the boy.

The boy was vehement.  No, tales of dragons interacting with humans are proof that dinosaurs and humans coexisted, he said.

Okay, now skip downward to the comments section, and you will find two outraged comments directed at Joe Sonka, who wrote the article.  I quote:

Regarding your opening paragraph: I have been to the Creation Museum many times, and I know they don’t have tour guides, much less 13-year-old ones. It’s a self-guided museum. The teen might have been at the museum with a parent to do some volunteer work (like stuffing envelopes) and was taking a break inside the museum. But there are certainly no guides in the museum, and this young man (though obviously a bright kid) was not representing the museum.

And also:

You are to be pitied: taking the words of a 13 year old boy who is not a guide at the museum (and thus does not represent it) and implying that his beliefs are those of the museum (you wrote that ” fantasies” such as his are a part of the museum’s mission) is low journalism. In my academic life, I was told to seek out primary sources when researching and writing an accurate paper about a topic. Oppose the museum’s message if you want, but to quote a teenager barely out of childhood -- and who is not a representative of the museum -- to help make your case is pathetic journalism.

So, let me get this straight: Sonka's calling the boy a "volunteer guide" (which was misleading; I, too, thought the boy was an official volunteer, and in fact thought it was curious they were using guides that young) somehow negates his main point -- than the fact that the museum is so scrambling fact with fiction that it leaves a 13-year-old unable to tell the difference?

And that's the problem, isn't it?  By undermining the gold standard of scientific induction as a way of knowing, the Creation Museum calls all of actual science into question.  Dragons in Beowulf?  Oh, sure, they were dinosaurs.   How did the animals not kill each other on the Ark?  Because god made them all peaceful plant eaters for the duration of the voyage.  What about fossils of animals that don't exist any more?  Those species died in the Great Flood.  What about the light from distant stars showing that the universe has to be older than 6,000 years?  The speed of light isn't constant, and neither is the rate of flow of time, and both have altered by just the amount necessary to reconcile astronomical measurements with Genesis.  (If you don't believe me that this last one is something that creationists actually argue, go here.  Make sure you have a soft pillow on your desk for when you faceplant.)

So, anyway, back to the LEO article, which describes the financial troubles that Ham's organization is having, and the gloomy projections of budget shortfalls that will force the opening of "Ark Encounter" back to 2016.  Sonka seems pretty cheered by this.  Myself, I find the whole thing profoundly discouraging -- even if the "Ark Encounter" is delayed, they still seem to be raking in money hand-over-fist.  Mike Zovath, vice president of Answers in Genesis, stated that they already have $100 million of funding committed for the project.  "God's raised up investors," Zovath told an enthusiastic crowd at a Grant County town hall meeting last August.

What bothers me most is that this project, and the Creation Museum as well, are specifically designed to target children.  They're intended to be flashy, eye-catching, and entertaining, with interactive exhibits and displays of biblically-themed stories.  The underlying, and more sinister, message is: don't believe what your public school teachers are telling you.  Don't believe what the scientists are saying.  They're being tempted by Satan to mislead you.  Whenever you have a question, go back to the bible; and if what the bible says is different from what anyone else ever says, about anything, the individual is wrong and the bible is right.  In other words: stop thinking, stop trying to figure things out, just believe.

And that stance is completely antithetical to real science, which takes nothing on authority, and only respects the firm ground of hard evidence.  Groups like Answers in Genesis hate science for this very reason.  But the end product of such bizarre thinking is what Phelps saw in his 13-year-old helper -- a teenager who actually, honestly thought that Beowulf was real and had fought a dinosaur.

If you can be indoctrinated to believe something for which there is no evidence, and then to doubt the principles of scientific induction themselves, there is no end to the foolishness you can be induced to swallow.