I’d planned to have that Creation Museum carnival done early this morning, but the response has been huge—I’ve culled it down to about 65 entries, and I’m busily trying to sort them out in some semblance of order, so it’ll be a little longer. Have patience.
Boy, you guys really hate Ken Ham’s Propaganda Palace. It warms me right down to the black, empty void at my heart, where I think the temperature might have risen to a whole tenth of a degree above absolute zero.
Hurry! (But do it right of course) I’m running low on ammunition….Need more view points on this form of child abuse.
Thanks PZ
The NCSE (National Center for Science Education) has weighed in already.
http://www.ncseweb.org/resources/news/2007/KY/563_reactions_to_creation_museum_5_25_2007.asp
Don’t forget the ‘toooooooooooons!
But isn’t this very boring?
There’s very little that anyone is going to say that I haven’t heard a million times before. (Sorry if that sounds arrogant!)
Didn’t we win this argument over a century ago? It’s completely absolutely untenable for any modern day informed person to intellectually defend creationism. The case is closed.
Why we’re at it- let’s have a carnival discussing why we think the Earth is spherical.
——————————————————-
I really apologize for carping! I appreciate that there’s a very real fight going on between reason and irrationality in this country and I salute those who are fighting the fight.
unfortunately, we did not WIN the argument for posterity. And, as bizarre as it seems, we are losing it today. The people who question evolution are not just crazy people muttering to themselves in subways. They are your coworkers, even your friends. They are educated people- lawyers, CPAs, Ph.D.s, physicians, and yes, TEACHERS.
Donig: Any scientific disagreement is over. Modern peer-reviewed journals do not publish creationist papers.
Of course, many people don’t read the scientific literature or pop-science books or pay attention in school. So what? Some people will always be ignorant. That doesn’t mean the argument hasn’t been won.
The only people left defending the creationist view are stupid, ignorant or have a religious agenda. But, it doesn’t matter how many of them there are- they haven’t made any progress at all in uncovering any intellectually tenable challenge to evolution.
here in australia , it is illegal to misrepresent what you are selling.
if these guys are charging for entry , and calling the place a museum ,which implies truth and factual information .
then i would say that a bunch of like minded people should visit , pay their money , and then SUE the “museum ” for intentional deceptive trading practices.
this could force them to have disclaimers etc posted at entrances.
Pure rhetoric PZ. It’s easy to read a warm heart into all that you write. You wouldn’t care if the country went to the dogs of religion if your heart wasn’t in the right place and at the normal temperature for us all.
Ignorance is not bliss. It’s dangerous.
Am I glad that we no longer live in Cincinnati (the museum is in the greater Cincy Metro), having moved to New Orleans where everyone is so much saner and rational.
Any entry I could have sent would have been superfluous, obviously — take your time to get it right, P.Z.
In the interim, please be aware of the stakes. A commenter over at Millard Fillmore’s bathtub notes that the yahoos now lead the fight to stop any memorial to Rachel Carson, claiming that DDT is perfectly harmless and that, but for Silent Spring, malaria would be conquered by now and Africa would be a cross between the Paris and the Wall Street of the 21st century. Here’s the post at HIS blog: http://rabett.blogspot.com/2007/05/who-ordered-that-hundred-year-wingnuts.html
Oh, and the links? Well, it turns out that the yahoos leading the fight against Rachel Carson’s honors are the same yahoos who led the fight for the good health effects of tobacco (against those who said smoking is harmful), and — wouldn’t you know it? — in the Senate, the yahoos who join them are the same yahoos who campaign for creationism against science.
Akbar has an interesting suggestion…
It won’t work, and I don’t think it should work.
This tactic was attempted by Australian geologist Ian Plimer ten years ago against creationist Alan Roberts. It was a curious affair. Roberts was an isolated Noah’s Ark “researcher”, whose nutty ideas were not even accepted by other creationists, like Answers in Genesis.
The basic upshot was that Plimer lost the case. The Judge found that Roberts had been deceptive, but not in the sense that was prohibited by the Trade Practices Act, that was the basis of the lawsuit.
You can find lots more by googling, or read a radio transcript of post-trial interviews: The Religion Report: Judgement on Noah’s Ark (ABC Radio National, Wed 04 Jun 1997). In the judgement, the Judge said: “Unless caution is exercised, there is a serious risk that the courts will be used as the means of suppressing debate and discussion on issues of general interest to the community.”
The right way to deal with this is what PZ is doing. Hold them up for unrelenting ridicule.
Nice to see what’s #1 the same day the museum opens.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/03/books/bestseller/0603besthardnonfiction.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
BTW, very entertaining book. My local library got copies in quick and there’s a major waiting list for it. I had requested it early, so I was fortunate.
The “Answers In Genesis” are wrong.
Well, I live in northern KY, and I was very pissed to drive up I-75 yesterday and see a billboard about half a mile from my house for the creation museum. It read, “see why god rested on the 7th day” or something like that. I think I’ll just drive through town instead of using the interstate so that I don’t have to look at that nonsense.
Ive been giddy about this Carnival since you announced it, PZ. As little patience as I have with professional Creationists, I still do genuinely believe that Average Joe Creationists can be persuaded by reason. All the more so when they realize that the people they trust, the people who are supposedly looking out for their souls, are lying through their teeth and shamelessly treating their flock like idiots. Average Joe Creationists are being taken advantage of, and the day they turn on the bastards making a living off lies and ignorance… *sigh*
A girl can dream.
Oh surely it rose to 0.11 degrees above absolute zero.
0.11 degrees what? Kelvin? Celsius? Fahrenheit?
“Ken Ham’s Propaganda Palace”… I’m thinking “Ken Ham’s Flinstone Funhouse” myself.
Is the 65 symbolic for the number of millions of years since the dinosaurs died? :)
Don’t slander the Flintstones so. Fred might have started out supporting Ham, but by the end of the episode, Wilma, Barney and Betty would have brought him around to science. I mean, they started out advertising for Winston cigarettes, but by the end of their run the cigarettes had dropped away.
OK, Ken Ham’s museum looks like fun, but can it match Alberta’s new Big Valley Creation Science Museum with its Evidence from Genealogy: a reproduction of a 15th-century chronicle showing the ancestry of King Henry VI back to Adam and Eve. Those are scrolls, you know, real scrolls. How can you doubt?
Prof. Garrison Hilliard
The “Answers In Genesis” are wrong.
… because they’re not from the back of the book? :-)
(I kid, I kid.)