This one has lots and lots of photos and details—I don’t think I’ll ever need to visit Ken Ham’s folly, to my relief, since I can already see everything that’s in there.
The article makes another good point: this museum is going to be a tool to drive apostasy. It’s so ridiculous, so cartoonish, that some people are going to go into it mildly supportive of creationism and come out wondering what kind of kooky nonsense they’ve affiliated themselves with.
The article makes another good point: this museum is going to be a tool to drive apostasy. It’s so ridiculous, so cartoonish, that some people are going to go into it mildly supportive of creationism and come out wondering what kind of kooky nonsense they’ve affiliated themselves with.
uh, yay Ken Ham??
nope, just can’t say it
*shudder*
For those woh haven’t seen it yet…
http://www.theonion.com/content/amvo/creation_museum_grand_opening
I saw this post on DailyKos yesterday where it was cross-posted (check the ‘science’ tag). Excellent!
Again, the humans look European/White. Very accurate.
Anything held together by a tissue of lies must eventually fall apart when public scorn ‘rains’ down upon it. (I just made that up, thank you…thank you…)
Let’s hope this precipitates (heh, heh) a hailstorm of scorn.
I want to hear what the parents are telling their kids when they ask what that evil teen is doing in front of the computer, or why is that man tying rubber tubing around his arm? Oh, that’s right. We just have to shut up and BELIEVE, and that makes it OK. Even I, a horrible godless parent, would not show half that stuff to my kids.
I am so thankful that I can point and laugh at this and not have to contribute monetarily to this travesty.
I’m so sorry.
But I see on Google that the creationists still come out first in the searches for “creation museum.” We need to get out and do some linking, people!
Or here:
http://thestubborncurmudgeon.blogspot.com
My boyfriend was looking at the first picture, and said, “I don’t really get it. Maybe it’s that scrolls are better than books. That must be it; they’re more efficient and you can’t find anything in those books. Especially a stack of books.”
Also, we found it amusing that “Reason” is arbitrarily squiggly and “God’s Word” is arbitrarily straight, or, “erect.”
Corey, I see what you are getting at, but I think that a cultural bias is among the least of the problems here.
Thanks for posting this hatchet job on the Kentucky Ham Spam-u-zeum with the click-to-enlarge pix.
Is the Flintstone interpretation really there?
I refuse to believe there are 100 Americans who actually believe this shit! It is a total embarrassment that I don’t think will last half a decade.
I’m so sorry.
Posted by: God | June 10, 2007 10:45 PM
not good enough.
we’ve filed a class-action lawsuit.
our lawyer will contact yours; consider yourself served.
see you in court.
In the scene in which Adam is naming the animals, he has his hand on a lamb. I thought that before the Fall there was no death, therefore no births, so what the heck is a lamb doing there? Does Ham have no regard for authenticity?
just keep telling yourself that. it makes it easier to sleep.
Like nothing. Here’s more photos taken of the crackhouse. Note: watch for the bush sculpture of a T.rex in an outdated classic pose.
Technorati Photos of Ham’s crackhouse of a “museum”
Great tour! I feel as if I had been there myself (but with less chance of getting cooties).
I noticed, by the way, a tiny problem with the poster near the end of the tour. The one about church involvement by teens. Creationists are not only bad at science, they suck at math, too.
Is anyone else getting eaten by moderation?
Oh my word, it’s even worse than I imagined. I am a little relieved at the hysterical tone of some portions of the main exhibit, though. In our graduate classes, we discussed studies that had been done that showed that people who visit museums tend to regard them as authoritative, and discussed the implications of that for us as future curators and educators, how accuracy was important, and good management of floor staff essential.
So I was concerned about this, but I’m hoping that people will take a different view of a museum that literally asks you not to think the minute you walk in the door, and really doesn’t seem to explain how the earth was created at all, but just pushes the Christian creation story that we already all can recite by heart, even those who, like me, were raised agnostic and are in that 60% that don’t participate in church life as adults.
BTW, the exhibits look very static and old-school to me. I mean, come on — dioramas? I thought those went out with The Hustle! And it doesn’t look very interactive. People don’t like that nowadays. I wonder if there are plans to change the exhibits or develop any supporting programming.
thank you for the post it just reinforces my reasons for being an atheist. If there were a god then why did he give people the ability to think and to reason and then this travesty tells you as you enter don’t think or reason “just believe”. I to also hope that this joke goes belly up and very quickly, as others have stated to expose children to this nonsense is a serious form of child abuse, and will only contribute more to the dunmbing down of America.
That was, perhaps, the funniest thing I have seen all day. ;)
This isn’t really a museum. It is a pseudomuseum propaganda effort. Where are the authentic artifacts? Pieces of the Big Boat, a coconut chewed by a T. rex, dinosaur saddles, even dinosaur bones with a bronze spear point embedded, etc..
Predictions of its demise, IMO, are greatly exaggerated. The P.T. Barnum principle comes to mind. Still, their story is about 4,000 years old. Nothing about it has changed or can change. Word of god and all that. So, it is static, fixed. Seen it once and you’ve quite literally seen it all. There can’t be much in the way of new discoveries or expansion in the light of new knowledge or anything. Besides the implausibility, creationism is boring. No sense of mystery, just a steady retreat from reality. Everytime there is a scientific discovery that conflicts, well, the meddler in chief, had to poof another miracle. Universe looks like it is 13.7 billion years old. No problem. Light used to go faster. A whole lot faster just a few thousand years ago.
I think they have an ulterior motive with this museum. Like the Monty Python joke that was so funny it was lethal, this museum has been designed to kill off the unbelievers through ruptures, fits and seizures caused by laughter. I came close upon hearing T-Rex’s fondness for coconuts and am now having trouble typing after finding out that blimmin’ weeds are all the fault of Adam and Eve. Aaaargh, help i’m dying…
Is it me, or is the “Eve” character with the velociraptor wearing a nighty straight out of the Sears-Roebuck catalog? I think my grandmother had the same one.
You may right, PZ. When I first heard about Libertarianism I thought that it ought to be just the thing. Then I met some Libertarians…
I still can’t believe that they’re pitting “God’s word” against “human reason”. I mean…. what ? It is of course entirely accurate, which is why I’m stunned.
I would have though they’d have used “godless scientists” or something instead of “human reason”. Afterall, the museum is claiming that the flood creating the grand canyon is reasonable.
But, admitting that the bible is actually the opposite to “human reason”…… I just don’t get it. I suppose they might be able to get some really stupid people to completely reject human reason, but…
Surely this museum was designed by someone who’s trying to destroy creationism from the inside.
The entry fee seems a little steep. $20 and your brain.
OK, just a couple comments here. First, as a professor of art and city dweller I gotta say that that has to be the WORST attempt at graffiti I’ve ever seen in my life. No wonder the tagger didn’t put his name on it. Christ! And those dioramas? Better be Sophomore work or I’d be sending them back down to foundation level classes.
OK, next, I think we all gotta give the museum some slack here. Unlike what most people are saying, humans and dinos not only did live together, but still DO! I’ve got a bunch of em squabbling over at my bird-feeder right now.
Third, the sign at the end. Now I know I’m just an artist, so I can’t do math, but isn’t 1/3 actually 33.3% or somewhere thereabouts? I think 3 out of 10 would probably be more accurate…but then that’s being obviously nit-picky, and these are not detail orientated folk who made this monstrosity.
I found the article funny, but having grown up surrounded by this kind of willful ignorance, it was still kind of hard to laugh. Thanks though!
Since their central contention is off by ~6 orders of magnetude, I’ll cut them a little slack for being off by 3-4%.
“I refuse to believe there are 100 Americans who actually believe this shit! It is a total embarrassment that I don’t think will last half a decade.”
As someone who grew up in a fundie family in the midwest in the early 70s, I can think of at least 25 hardcore believers of this crap from my childhood (who would says things to me like “Did you ever consider that Satan might have buried dinosaur bones to tempt scientists?” and “All I know is I didn’t come from no monkey.”). The same people were rather suspicious that Jimmy Carter was the antichrist, that ATM cards were a precursor of the mark of the beast, and that Satan directly controlled personal computers. In other words, I thought they were clearly insane, and that I would go away to college and never encounter that kind of craziness again. But instead, over the past 30 years, I watched them take over a major political party, litigate their way into schools, and buy their way into media outlets. And now they can apparently raise money so readily that they can squander their resources on propaganda museums.
Frankly, after watching all of that, I’m too terrified to be complacent. There are very, very many more than just 100 of them. And they are dangerously close to turning this country into an ignorant fundamentalist theocracy.
Anyone else notice that the slacker rolling a doobie in the “Kids Today” diorama is a Mac user?
Are they somehow more evil?
Heya Mel!
You and I seem to be kindred souls. You could have been describing my family, upbringing and thoughts. I once scared the shit out of my wife by explaining that Bush, Wolfie, etc aren’t actually that concerned about the end of the world because they expect it and are looking forward to it in many ways. That’s when God will come and make everything OK! She didn’t grow up with the same background and had never realized that such a thing was possible. It is and it’s deadly real…as you obviously know. Best to ya!
Dahan
Look again at the “I’s a scienteest, unearthin’ a dinosaur” Michael Behe dead-ringer exhibit. Wow, how nice of the earth to keep all them lil’ bones and vertebrae in perfect order for us to find! Dr. GH skewers that “excavation” at Wes’s forum.
Sheesh.
Is it me, or is the “Eve” character with the velociraptor wearing a nighty straight out of the Sears-Roebuck catalog? I think my grandmother had the same one.
I saw a dress just like that in the hotel’s shop in Guayquil, JT. It friggin cost over $1500.
Mel, Dahan, another midwesterner here.
I thoroughly identify. I was warned often that the mark of the beast was being manifest in bar codes and computer technology. The Antichrist was going to sneak his way into politics and try to take over, etc.
When watching Carl Sagan or anything else sciency that talked about evolution, my sweet little old grandmother would say, “You don’t really believe that do you?”
Satan was everywhere.
And where I grew up, *things haven’t changed much to this day!* The Rapture is just as imminent now as it was then.
People learn the basics of fundy math.30% is a third.It must be in a system where pi is 3.If you read the bible you wouldn’t be so fuckin’ stupid.Things are whatever I say they are nothing more nothing less.
Strange how the Creationists completely leave out any basis for mental illness. The slightest mention of anything related ties into “Adam’s sin” where he brings “emotional pain” into the world. Maybe it’s a good thing that they didn’t go into mental health- who knows, they’d probably blame it on possession by the devil. Anyway, the article’s a great read…and if you look closely at the collage walls, you can see headlines about that woman microwaving her baby. Ahh yes, Godlessness leads to exploding babies.
Deepsix, #28:
…and your immortal soul. :)
I suggest picket signs and bumper stickers saying:
GOD MADE ADAM AND EVE, NOT FRED AND WILMA.
Please don’t conflate Austin, Minnesota’s great Spam Museum by using it in the same sentence as this creationist nonsense. Not everything in the SPAM museum is science either, but at least it has a sense of humor — including an exhibit commemorating the famous Monty Python SPAM sketch.
(My former college roommmate is a “Spambassador” there.)
Perhaps it’s only a cultural bias. But I can’t help relating it to this sign, which says that back in the creation days there were less deformity-causing mutations (“mistakes”) in the human genome. Am I reading too much into it?
Perhaps it’s only a cultural bias. But I can’t help relating it to this sign, which says that back in the creation days there were less deformity-causing mutations (“mistakes”) in the human genome. Am I reading too much into it?
Now Ken, God made Fred and Wilma , too.
bet He skips out on bail…
“God” says, “I’m so sorry.”
Wha happen to “love means never having to say you’re sorry”?
Mel says, “There are very, very many more than just 100 of them. And they are dangerously close to turning this country into an ignorant fundamentalist theocracy.”
They’ve already accomplished that. If we examine closely why, we would see that the rest of us have continuously confused ethical behavior and morality with an abiding tolerance for religious/cultural belief without understanding the potential backlash. They are not the same.
Too many of us automatically behave as if belief is off limits to any challenge, but one would not consider a cultural belief in ritualistic murder or cannabalism, for examples, as tolerable…even a gardener knows enough to weed out certain species in order to maintain a desirable garden. Its a battle between cultures. Unfortunately, as much as we may cringe at it, not all cultures are compatible. If its a culture WE have to live in, you have to fight for it. That’s what they’ve been doing, while too many of us have held a respect for omni-cultural tolerance. And now we’ve paid the steep price for that kind of social “permissiveness”.
Its all of us in that social stew. Its the very same social climate that strongly promotes “New Age” baloney as an alternative to “traditional religion” in lieu of rational scientific approach to understanding the actualities of nature. But its all still the same hogwash, and as long as we tolerate it, it will become very much worse.
A majority of people distrust science. Why do you think that is? Well, its because the superstitious are better at entertaining and exciting the imagination of the public than scientists are. The majority of kids at school don’t learn science and math: they learn that science and math are boring. There’s a lot more money in it too. IF its an EDUCATION PROBLEM (YEAH, THAT MEANS “ENTERTAINMENT”!), then scientists will have to do a hell of a lot more than arrange for elaborate and expensive (as well as spectacularly ineffective) “outreach programs” or write popular books that only a tiny percentage of those who are enthralled by superstition will ever bother reading.
We don’t need any single evangelically charismatic communicator of science like Carl Sagan or Jacob Brownowski. We need ALL scientists to become communicators to the public as effectively as they communicate to other scientists in their specialized fields. Folks like PZ Myers. We need them ALL to come out and voice their OPINIONS as members of a society that is a hell of a lot bigger than the AAAS or whatever other scientific instituion they happen to belong to. We need them to tell the truth of nature as science has extracted it BY THEIR PERSONAL HUMAN OPINIONS, like everyone else tries to do.
What could possibly be wrong with that? That’s how the socio-political world operates outside of the scientific culture. Science won’t get injured by humans being human. Time to speak up and express our PERSONAL O-P-I-N-I-O-N-S!!! Good citizenship requires nothing less.
Apologies to Sonja, Austin-to-Austin. (#40)
It is a real calumny on the genuine article SPAM ™ and the museum in our sister city. I apologise. I was overwhelmed by the possibilities of the Ham-O-Rama & was swept away! Visit our seasonal Spam-O-Rama sometime.
Agree that better ways of communicating science to the public is a good idea; disagree that “all” scientists need to become public communicators. Just as with any other sphere of interest — from religion to computers to politics to history, you can have the public communicators and you can have individuals who prefer to be more technical or research-oriented and so forth. Maybe college science curriculums can include some courses in public speaking for those interested in going more that route.
Of course! Why do you think they use an APPLE, the symbol of temptation and forbidden knowledge, as their logo?
(I was being facetious there, but just out of curiosity I did a Google search, and found this [I think this is a joke site])
(Could be an in-joke for the “Museum’s” commissioned tech nerds)
bet He skips out on bail…
wouldn’t be the first time.
nothing but a deadbeat dad.
Steve Jobs and Steven Wozniak found it amusing to price their first computer, the Apple I, at $666. Some people continue to take this very seriously and shudder every time they see the Apple logo, especially the version with the rainbow stripes (because that’s both Satanic and gay).
If you Google “jobs wozniak 666” you’ll find simple historical entries to confirm the story, plus tons of religious gibberish. The authors of the latter stuff are folks you’ll find in line at the Creation Museum.
Oh, ICK! I just realized that I live only 75 miles from that travesty!
I’d heard about the creaseum for a long time, but as a relative newcomer to the Midwest, I didn’t bother looking into it. I’ll just have to hold my nose when the wind is from the east.
— CV
When you’re done looking at the cheap Ham bones, drive yourself over to the Chicago Field Museum online and see a REAL example of a dinosaur exhibit (it opened March 30, 2007). (Ahhhhh….)
(BTW, did anybody go and see the Field Museum’s Evolution exhibit? I went last summer and it was excellent — totally interactive, colorful, informative. Saw tons of kids and parents there as well…I guess in the interests of hope we should keep in mind that good honest museum work is also being done in some of the great cultural centers of the country.)
My almost-four-year-old and I just returned from a train trip to Chicago and the Field Museum’s evolution exhibit. We loved it!! We spent most of the day in that exhibit and it was no struggle to get her to do this. Fantastic! Then I rode her all over town on the bicycle. Ahhhh, reality.
Sonja: Spam museum? Is that near the Largest Ball of Twine in Minnesota?
I think it’s a shame that so many people have approached this with such a negative mindset. Yes, it is the opposite of what our liberal school systems have been teaching our children and us for years. But just because our schools are teaching us one thing, does NOT make it true.
The human body and everything around us is much too complex to have happened ‘accidentally’, someone has to be and IS controlling it all. It is sad that so many people have let the world tell them what to think. It is completely ridiculous to think that we evolved from monkeys. If this were true, people would still be forming from monkeys. What part of the theory of evolution (which even Darwin admitted was completely unreasonable on his deathbed) says that it suddenly stops? None, supposedly we are constantly changing to adapt. Well, as a mother, if I were adapting to my circumstance, I would have at least 4 arms by now. But I don’t.
I take my children to church every weekend to learn about God and his love for us in hopes that they too will believe and have hope for the future; because if the evil in the world is the only way, then there is no hope. Isn’t it better to teach our children about life, love, and forgiveness than the idea that killing innocent children (abortion) is acceptable?
As for the person who said that he told his wife that Christians look forward to the end of the earth, he needs to at least get his facts straight before he tries to tell how others believe. I am not looking forward to the end of the world, because I will not be here for it. I look forward to the day that the good Lord comes back and takes his people from this earth. Hopefully then the unbelievers will see how wrong they have been and what they missed out on. The years after he takes his people are not going to be easy on the rest of you.
Everyone who is being so negative needs to go get a bible and read it, study it, believe it, and live it. It will be life changing and the world will be a much better place.
The human body and everything around us is much too complex to have happened ‘accidentally’, someone has to be and IS controlling it all. It is sad that so many people have let the world tell them what to think. It is completely ridiculous to think that we evolved from monkeys. If this were true, people would still be forming from monkeys. What part of the theory of evolution (which even Darwin admitted was completely unreasonable on his deathbed) says that it suddenly stops? None, supposedly we are constantly changing to adapt. Well, as a mother, if I were adapting to my circumstance, I would have at least 4 arms by now. But I don’t.
If you are teaching your children this, you, ma’am, are a liar and an incompetent and negligent parent.
Yes, I am teaching my children TRUTH. I am not a liar and I am not going to resort to name calling. I don’t understand how an intelligent human being can actually believe that this world and everything in was formed by swirling particles coming together. How on earth does someone study this theory and not say to themselves, “Hey! That sounds completely ridiculous.”?
By the way, my children are far from neglected. They are loved, bright, beautiful, and as protected as I can get them from the evils in this world.