Another look at Ham’s Folly

Stephen Bates of the Guardian gets an advance tour of Ken Ham’s new creation science museum. It’s amusing and creepy at the same time.

When it is finished and open to the public next summer, it may, quite possibly, be one of the weirdest museums in the world.

The Creation Museum — motto: “Prepare to Believe!” — will be the first institution in the world whose contents, with the exception of a few turtles swimming in an artificial pond, are entirely fake. It is dedicated to the proposition that the account of the creation of the world in the Book of Genesis is completely correct, and its mission is to convince visitors through a mixture of animatronic models, tableaux and a strangely Disneyfied version of the Bible story.

“Entirely fake” is right—the title is a misnomer, it’s not a museum, it’s a carnie show. A very serious, very expensive, very elaborate freak show exhibit.

[The workers], too, know they are doing the Lord’s Work, and each has signed a contract saying they believe in the Seven Days of Creation theory. Mornings on this construction site start with prayer meetings. Don’t think for a minute that this is some sort of crazy little hole-in-the-corner project. The museum is costing $25m (£13m) and all but $3m has already been raised from private donations. It is strategically placed, too — not in the middle of nowhere, but within six hours’ drive of two-thirds of the entire population of the US. And, as we know, up to 50 million of them do believe that the Bible’s account of Creation is literally true.

That 50 million is a very conservative estimate, I fear.

You know, I hate to give these guys any money, but I would like to propose that sometime after that “museum” opens, we should organize a mob of sciencebloggers (and others) to descend upon it, take the tour, and coordinate a massive storm of ridicule. I am, unfortunately, more than a six hour drive away, so I’d have to fly in to Cincinnati to do it, but I’d be willing. Is there anyone else who’d be up for a vivisection without anesthesia of Ken Ham’s Temple of Idiocy? Depending on when they actually finish the foolishness, maybe late summer 2007 or early summer 2008?

A summary of the MnCSE Science Education Saturday

My day was spent in the Twin Cities attending the inaugural public meeting of the Minnesota Citizens for Science Education (MnCSE), and I can safely say now that Science Education Saturday was a phenomenal success: a good turnout, two top-notch talks, a stimulating panel discussion, and an involved audience that asked lots of good questions. You should have been there! I expect that, with the good response we got today, that there will be future opportunities to attend MnCSE events.

I’ll just give a brief summary of the main points from the two talks today. I understand that outlines or perhaps even the powerpoint files will be available on the MnCSE page at some future date, but give the organizers a little time to recover from all the effort they put into this meeting.

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Demand higher standards for homeschooling!

Spank me and make me cry. Or just read this freakin’ terrifying article about homeschooling kids. First, start with the arrogance of Patrick Henry College:

“Christians increasingly have an advantage in the educational enterprise,” he says. “This is evident in the success of Christian home-schooled children, as compared to their government-schooled friends who have spent their time constructing their own truths.” The students, all evangelical Christians, applaud loudly. Most of them were schooled at home before arriving at Patrick Henry—a college created especially for them.

Then take a look at what their truths are like.

These students are part of a large, well-organised movement that is empowering parents to teach their children creationist biology and other unorthodox versions of science at home, all centred on the idea that God created Earth in six days about 6000 years ago.

Their “advantage” and “success” is completely artificial, the product of years of gutting standards so they can cultivate these little, self-satisfied, ignorant homeschooled kids in a hothouse of ignorance…and then they need to set up special colleges to maintain the illusion that they know anything.

Home-school parents are able to teach their children this way thanks mainly to a group called the Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA), a non-profit organisation based in Purcellville—like Patrick Henry College (PHC), which the HSLDA founded. In the 1970s and early 1980s, the practice was largely illegal across the US. “The mechanism that was causing home-schooling to be illegal was teacher certification,” says Ian Slatter, director of media relations for the HSLDA. In 1983 two evangelical attorneys, Michael Farris and Mike Smith, founded the organisation to defend the rights of home-school parents. They fought to remove requirements that parents be certified to teach their own children. Through an impressive run of legal battles and political lobbying, they managed to make home-schooling legal in all 50 states within 10 years. “We rolled back the state laws,” says Slatter.

At my department, we just got the requirements for state licensure of education students, and we’ve been given the task of making sure our course content delivers what future teachers will need. It’s not trivial getting licensed to teach; but any idiot can declare themselves to be a teacher for purposes of homeschooling, and apparently many idiots do.

Please. Can we bring those laws back?

…there is virtually no government regulation of home-schooling. “Some states say you need a high school diploma,” Slatter says. “But we really don’t have many problems getting people, shall we say, qualified.” In Virginia, for instance, parents need a degree to teach at home, but there is a religious exemption, so those running a home-school for religious reasons don’t need a degree. In contrast, a public high school teacher must have a bachelor’s degree, and in some states a master’s degree, plus a state-issued teaching certificate. Thirty-one states require teachers to take additional exams to show proficiency in their subject matter.

A religious exemption? A religious exemption? I call that the freedom to abuse children. This is shameful. The article talks about how, if they only get enough people to adopt homeschooling and pull their kids out of the public school system, public education in the US will collapse—and they speak of this as a good thing.

I’m serious. We need to stop this. I think any politician who professed to be concerned about educating the children of this country, by supporting the NCLB, for instance, ought to be required to support increasing the qualifications and standards for homeschooling…and if a district doesn’t have the resources to monitor the competence of homeschool teachers, they ought to simply refuse to allow the kids to be pulled out of school.

Otherwise, we’re going to increase the percentage of idiots like creationist Jay Wile in our next generation.

“Home-schoolers are going to be leaders in their field,” says Wile. “They are going to change science and how science is done.”

That’s a horribly true statement.

(via Jim Anderson)

Science summarizes ID’s success in the voting booth

Science magazine this week included a brief report on the electoral progress of the ID movement. I don’t think they’re celebrating in Seattle this week.

Intelligent design (ID) received a drubbing yesterday, with pro-evolution candidates taking control of the Kansas State Board of Education and strengthening their representation on the Ohio State Board of Education. Many scientists also cheered the defeat of Senator Rick Santorum (R-PA), one of the most politically influential supporters of the ID movement.

In Ohio, incumbent board member Deborah Owens Fink lost decisively to Tom Sawyer, a former teacher and U.S. representative. Owens Fink had repeatedly attempted to dilute evolution in Ohio’s science standards. Sawyer, who contested the seat at the urging of Ohio scientists, will help swell the ranks of moderates on the 19-member board. The scientists’ group, Help Ohio Public Education, is also celebrating the victory of three other “pro-science” candidates including incumbent G. R. “Sam” Schloemer, who had described his candidacy as a referendum on ID. Schloemer won by a 2-to-1 margin over John Hritz, an ID supporter. The only pro-ID candidate elected Tuesday was Susan Haverkos.

In Kansas, supporters of evolution were already assured a majority on the 10-member state board after a primary election earlier this year. But that 6-4 edge was all they could manage yesterday, as two conservative incumbents retained their seats. “That shows the state is still very split on intelligent design. We have to continue educating the public about the issue,” says Sally Cauble, a moderate Republican from southwest Kansas who will make her debut on the board next month.

I don’t think he’s going to help

There’s a group in the UK called “Truth in Science” (it’s not just Republicans who title things ironically) which is pushing creationism in the schools there. A recommendation in Parliament is trying to dismiss these silly people as something that should be treated very cautiously by the schools, and one blogger wrote his member of Parliament asking for support. He got a curious reply.

I would be very happy to act on this matter as soon as you can prove beyond all reasonable doubt that Creationism is not true, and I look forward to hearing from you as soon as possible.

My first thought is that our blogger is being blown off. Seriously, anyone who makes such an overweening demand is not looking for a genuine answer—he’s looking for an excuse to pretend to have evaluated the evidence, but his mind is made up. The brave blogger is going to try and persuade him otherwise, and has a draft letter online. It’s not bad; take a look and make suggestions.

Time bobbles the God and science debate

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The cover of Time magazine highlights the current struggle: it’s God vs. Science, or as I’d prefer to put it, fantasy vs. reality. I have mixed feelings about the story; on the one hand, it presents the theological sound in such a godawful stupid way that it gives me some hope, but on the other, stupid seems to win the day far too often. It sure seems to have won over the editors of Time.

The lead article covers a debate between the forces of reason and dogma. They picked two debaters and pitted them against each other, and on our side, we have Richard Dawkins. Dawkins talked to us a bit about this on our visit, since he’d just recently gotten back from a quick flight to NY to do this. Time says they’d had to consider a number of possibilities for this argument: Marc Hauser, Lewis Wolpert, Victor Stenger, and Ann Druyan (speaking for Carl Sagan, who has a posthumous book on religion coming out), so they had a competent collection on one side, and they just needed to find a good representative for the other. Unfortunately, here’s how Time characterized the search.

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