Ugh. This is a terribly dishonest title for an article: Creationist blames dreadful attendance at Ark theme park on tax-starved city not supplying ‘tourist services’. It’s about Ken Ham and his Big Wooden Box theme park, and I knew before even reading it that Ham would not say attendance was dreadful. And he didn’t. The article also claims that the park is failing; we don’t know that, since we can only estimate revenues and expenses. It’s a cheap little outfit, so maybe it’s doing just fine financially — we’ll have to see what their tax statements are like.

Ken Ham is actually complaining not that attendance is low, but that it could be even greater if it weren’t being throttled by the lack of amenities in the region. He’s saying that their attendance is just fine and dandy, and that potentially it could be even greater. Let’s honestly report what he said, OK?

When I visited, I had the subjective impression that attendance was healthy — I think in part because the first part was designed like a cattle chute to confine and restrict the flow of people into the building. But the crowding experience beyond that was, I plainly said, similar to what I’d seen at real museums. So I decided to look at the available data and get a more objective feel for the attendance.

This isn’t easy. I dug up a bunch of annual reports, and sometimes they were surprisingly cagey about attendance figures. In part it’s because some of them are free, so you don’t have metered entrance; most big museums also tend to have traveling exhibits and outreach programs, do you count those for attendance? Or look at something like The Smithsonian museums: multiple museums, no attendance charge, lots of outreach, and they report that they have 12.5 million visitors per year. We cannot compare the Big Wooden Box to the Smithsonian, however.

The American Museum of Natural History brings in about 5 million per year; that’s still an unfair comparison. The regional Science Museum of Minnesota, however, is a comparable in its reach, and their yearly attendance is about 866,000.

Here’s a list of other American science centers. These estimates are just that, estimates, so don’t take them as absolute.

Top 10 Science Centers — USA
1. Museum of Science and Industry, Chicago 1,605,020
2. Pacific Science Center, Seattle 1,602,000
3. Museum of Science, Boston 1,600,000
4. California Science Center Los Angeles, Los Angeles 1,400,000
5. St. Louis Science Center, St. Louis 1,400,000
6. Franklin Institute 892,804
7. Liberty Science Center, Jersey City 866,000
8. Fernbank Science Center, Atlanta 865,000
9. California Academy of Sciences, San Francisco 882,000
10. Exploratorium 600,000

What about the Big Wooden Box theme park? Ken Ham gives some figures in his letter.

For example, last Saturday we welcomed 7,500 guests to the Ark and 2,500 to the museum. Of these 10,000 visitors in one day, almost all of them were from out of state.

He also argues that because of the lack of local hotel rooms, they are limited to to 7,500 to 8,000 guests visiting the Ark in a day. I don’t know how trustworthy his numbers are, though, because he also says this:

Interestingly, a state-commissioned study predicted that if the Ark Encounter were a themed attraction featuring our creationist beliefs (and it does), it would draw 325,000 visitors the first year. The Ark reached that figure in less than three months.

OK, but that suggests that attendance was around 3,600 per day, on average. You also have to expect that the opening months should have a surge of attendance, thanks to the novelty. But if that held up, that would put them on track for about one and a quarter million visitors in their first year, which is respectable. Other estimates put it in the ballpark of a million visitors. Of course, Ken Ham also said this before it opened:

… the full-size Noah’s Ark, when it opens in 2016, is estimated to attract up to 2 million visitors a year…

So there’s the expected exaggeration and inflation by the Answers in Genesis crew, and we can also expect a steady drop off in attendance over the coming years (The Creation “Museum”, for instance, gradually lost attendance to the point where AiG was losing money, and we can expect the Big Wooden Box, given its lack of content, to follow suit), but still — I think my subjective estimate holds up well, and numbers are comparable to what the Science Museum of Minnesota gets.

Here’s why that comparison starts to fall apart for the durability of the Big Wooden Box experience, while still not boding imminent disaster for Answers in Genesis.

• The Science Museum of Minnesota is big and packed full of interesting hands-on activities and material of genuine scientific merit. It also has regularly changing exhibits, extensive outreach activities, and scientifically literate volunteers who are an important part of the experience. The Big Wooden Box…doesn’t. The people working there are guards and salespersons. One point against AiG.

• All that stuff in SMM costs money. Keeping the museum lively and up to date is an expensive investment. The BWB is not going to change, it just has to keep doing the same ol’. It’s relatively cheap to run. One point for the profitability of AiG.

• There’s an invisible component to running a real museum: what visitors see is the public face, but behind the scenes lie extensive collections and research. A real museum is a repository of science and has an active group of research scientists behind it. If you look at the financials for the Bell Museum, for instance, about a third their income goes to research and collections, and another third to public programs. AiG doesn’t have any of that; another point to their profitability, but not their quality.

• AiG gouges their visitors. Admission to the Science Museum of Minnesota: $25 for nonmembers, and that includes a ticket to the Omni Theater. Admission to the Big Wooden Box: $40, not including parking. And they can get away with it, since their visitors tend to treat the expense as a gift to the glory of their god. Another point of profit to AiG.

• Ken Ham has no idea what makes for a good experience. Here’s his idea of adding value to the Creation “Museum”: we are adding a parking lot to accommodate 1,200 more vehicles. The surrounding towns are now expected to build more restaurants and hotels because Ken Ham has invested in more parking spaces to an already comically large parking lot. One point against the long-term survival of AiG.

• The Big Wooden Box does not provide a sound foundation for economic growth, as those surrounding towns are discovering. He also brags that as many as 40 motor coach tour buses arrive from several states on a given day. This is not good for local businesses. That says that a large number of visitors are there specifically for and only for the Big Wooden Box, and that after their visit they’ll get on those tour buses and leave. Another point against long term viability for AiG.

I don’t think AiG can keep this up. They boosted flagging attendance at the Creation “Museum” by sinking a huge amount of money into another gigantic attraction, the Big Wooden Box, but as revenues from that begin to decline, as they will, what will they do next? Add more ziplines? Increase ticket prices? Build an even bigger, more expensive attraction next door (come see the life sized Tower of Babel! Visit the Great Flood water park!)? There are diminishing returns on that kind of pyramid scheme, but don’t write it off yet — people are infinitely gullible when people are asked to donate in the name of Christianity.

But the bottom line is that right now they aren’t showing signs of failing. Those are decent attendance numbers, especially for a rural, out-of-the-way attraction that doesn’t have much content. Compared to real museums or even genuine theme parks with rides and fun things for visitors to do, their expenses are tiny. They’ve got a big wooden box that does nothing but vacuum money out of visitors’ pockets, with no expectation of value provided in return.

They’ll be fleecing the sheep for years to come. I think they’ll disintegrate eventually, but it’ll be a slow decline.

Focus right now on the fact that they sell lies for a profitable living. Attendance is a feature of the gullibility of the American public, which Ken Ham is exploiting; the crappiness of the content is a function of the intellectual bankruptcy of American creationism, which Ken Ham promotes.

Hey, y’all remember the Secular Policy Institute? The dodgy atheist organization that was formed when Edwina Rogers got fired from the Secular Coalition of America, and immediately signed up some big names like Dawkins & Harris & Shermer & Pinker & Boghossian &tc, who shortly afterwards all fled the organization? No? Maybe this photo will trigger your memory, or your gag reflex:

Yikes, but that was one atheist shit-show I wish I could forget. In addition to the desperate reaching to grab the Usual Suspects, there was another individual I’d never heard of, who was busily working hard to alienate other organizations, and also didn’t like me (but I’m so loveable!). This individual had a prominent role in the SPI, and was also working for the Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science.

That person was Johnny Monsarrat.

I know. Who? Never heard of him. But apparently he was going to be a new mover and shaker in the world of atheism He wasn’t. This was several years ago, and he’s more or less vanished from the scene, in part because of odd crackpot crapola in his history, like this:

Reader Jason sent over a blog post that sent me down a bit of a rabbit hole, following the story through a variety of twists and turns. The key player in the story is Jonathan Monsarrat, who among other things founded the video game company Turbine (Asheron’s Call, Lord of the Rings Online, Dungeons & Dragons Online, etc.). In early 2010, Monsarrat was arrested concerning events at a party in Massachusetts. The charges against him were later dismissed. However, there were various blog discussions among local bloggers and commenters. Not long ago, approximately three years after all of this happened, Monsarrat sued two named defendants and 100 “John Does” in a Massachusetts (not federal) court on a variety of charges, centering around defamation, but also including copyright infringement, commercial disparagement, deceptive trade practices and conspiracy. He’s asking for an astounding $5.5 million.

He’s one of those obnoxious people who flings around lawsuits when people say mean things about him, which, unfortunately, seems to be a common affliction within the atheist community. In this case, he tried to sue people who wrote about his rather tacky behavior and arrest record.

Upon arriving at the scene, police found broken beer bottles near the door of the first floor of the apartment and 25-30 teenagers inside. Many were attempting to conceal bottles of beer and other alcoholic beverages, the police report states. Open bottles of alcohol were found in the kitchen area as well as a small amount of marijuana.

Monsarrat identified himself as the host of the party, but denied that any alcohol was being served, the report states. When asked by an officer to inform his guests that the party was ending, Monsarrat became “argumentative” and refused to follow instructions, police said. Officers asked for identification from several partygoers who responded, “We’re in high school, we don’t have ID.”

So what we have is a fellow who is very full of himself and likes to file frivolous lawsuits who managed to get himself associated with some major players in atheism. He has a reputation as a copyright troll who brings on lawsuits with extravagant demands — basically, he’s a legal extortionist. And now he’s up to his old tricks again.

He’s suing Encyclopedia Dramatica for $750,000.

I detest and despise Encyclopedia Dramatica. It’s a kind ugly amalgam of 4chan Lite, fake news, and generic hate, a wiki for 12 year olds who want an outlet for puerile slurs. They even have a page about me with fake quotes and dishonest characterizations, so I owe them no fondness.

But here’s the thing: I don’t care. There are lots of sites filled with what they consider amusing lies, and no one in their right mind is going to cite Encyclopedia Dramatica as a source for anything — any claim made there is immediately tainted by juvenalia and their disregard for the truth. But I also have no patience for wankers who file SLAPP suits, having been a target for this shit myself.

I can’t quite bring myself to donate to their legal fund — it’s one of those sites that would improve the internet with its disappearance — but I also can’t condone this attempt to extort it out of existence, as a general principle. So I’ll just mention here that yes, you could hold your nose and donate to their legal defense fund, if for no other reason than that Monsarrat is a walking talking chancre.

Ugh. Feel so unclean now.