Sunday, May 27, 2007

Creation "Science" Museum blog carnival

This week, Answers in Genesis opened their creation "science" museum. Many news organizations treated this uncritically on their pages, but the LA Times published the laudable editorial, Yabba Dabba Science:

THE CREATION MUSEUM, a $27-million tourist attraction promoting earth science theories that were popular when Columbus set sail, opens near Cincinnati on Memorial Day. So before the first visitor risks succumbing to the museum's animatronic balderdash — dinosaurs and humans actually coexisted! the Grand Canyon was carved by the great flood described in Genesis! — we'd like to clear up a few things: "The Flintstones" is a cartoon, not a documentary. Fred and Wilma? Those woolly mammoth vacuum cleaners? All make-believe.

Science is under assault, and that calls for bold truths. Here's another: The Earth is round.

The museum, a 60,000-square-foot menace to 21st century scientific advancement, is the handiwork of Answers in Genesis, a leader in the "young Earth" movement. Young Earthers believe the world is about 6,000 years old, as opposed to the 4.5 billion years estimated by the world's credible scientific community.
PZ Myers has organized a concerted effort to publicize the laughable ignorance on display at the museum, and writes this critique:
I wish the country's newspapers had responded that unambiguously and clearly, but the image above was modified. Journalists, you have a problem. Most of the articles written on this "museum" bend over backwards to treat questions like "Did Man walk among Dinosaurs?" as serious, requiring some kind of measured response from multiple points of view, and rarely even recognized the scientific position that the question should not only be answered with a strong negative, but that it is absurd. Let me ask any reporters out there: when you cover a story about a disaster, say the destruction of a town by a tornado, do you also feel obligated to get a few pithy quotes from a few people who want to argue that the disaster was a good thing, or that the residents deserved it?

One of the worst examples of this inane and unwarranted "fair and balanced" reporting comes from the Newspaper of Record, the hallowed New York Times. The Times published an appallingly credulous article, Adam and Eve in the Land of the Dinosaurs, that strained to give equal time to idiocy.
There are a load of blog posts there that are worth reading. Head on over and educate yourself.

UPDATE: And check out ERV's discussion of creationism, errr, I mean, intelligent design. Very entertaining.

Digg!

7 comments:

ERV said...

Since its only my boss and I in the lab so far, Im in charge of most of the ordering/finance stuff too.

Every time I see 'Discovery Institute brings in $$$' 'AiG spends $$$ on museum' I cant help but thinking of all the research that money could buy.

$27 million. Jesus.

The Factician said...

It's particularly sad when you realize where the money comes from. Read this post from the carnival: http://wanderinweeta.blogspot.com/2007/05/my-father-knew-no-science.html

Her description of her father sounds very familiar. I have an elderly aunt that fits that profile to the T.

PneumaPilot said...

Laughing at someone's carefully developed view with the idea that you are already omniscient on the subject is the opposite of science, sir. I commend the New York Times and others that seek to be unbiased. Only by truly interacting with competing theories can knowledge be advanced.

If the idea (one among many) that our present geology is a record of Noah's Flood is so laughable, then the paper should seek to explain why. The last time I went to the Field Museum in Chicago, their big T-Rex skeleton, Sue, had a write-up on a plaque that said "she must have been standing in a river as it flooded." Not incontrovertable proof, sure, but an uncanny coincidence given the explanations for all the other fossils as well.

The Factician said...

Corey,

Would you argue similarly if I built a $27 million flat earth museum, complete with displays showing how the moon landings were faked, and how HIV and prostitution were caused by teaching that the earth is round?

Anonymous said...

The mystery of ancestral descent






This is tale which tells what recessive genes hold, what inbreeding cause's and what degenerate animals look like.


A male lion breeds with a female tiger, makes a liger of great size!
2






a male leopard breed with a female lion brings forth a leopon. Which not only has the size and strength of the lion but also has the climbing abilities of the leopard.
3






All that has so far been said, is recognized by science.
4


Now into the realm of what has not yet been 'validated' (by science).
5





All the other cats are said to interbreed
from time to time.
6







The division of Species is based on the idea that, only members of the same 'Species' can indeed breed.
But if all cats ( including the Egyptian house cat) can breed, they are not different Species but only subspecies of the original cat.

Now, if the liger is bigger and the leopon is of the same size and better. Then it comes to reason that the original cat from off the Ark was a super cat.
Scientists say that the "extra" abilities that come out of these 'hybrids' are caused by "recessive genes"
Recessive Genes are created by inbreeding.






Now here is the part that might interest a historian.






Gen 7:2



"Of every clean beast thou shalt take to thee by sevens, the male and his female: and of beasts that are not clean by two, the male and his female."




In this I think that the clean animals were allowed to descend without inbreeding and therefore pure. While the others were forced into inbreeding, which caused their abilities to go into 'Recessive genes'. The ancients had enough trouble with the lions, tigers, etc. So this might have been set to preserve man. Did you know that in India they breed the wild dog with the wolf to get a bigger breed. This alone means nothing, except that there is a story whcih appeared shortly after the flood. No later that 500 years, or 600, or 700, etc, after the flood. The story told of a great king who had wolves so great that his men were able to ride upon them, for they were far greater than any horse.





Maybe I'm going nowhere, but if only two cats, two dogs, two bears, etc, walked off the Ark. Then I say that it would immediately force inbreeding, which in turn would force abilities to go into recessive genes. And (to the point) would force the super Cat to degenerate into the lion, tiger, leopard, cheetah and house cat that we have today.





I'm sorry I couldn't help joking and calling the lion and tiger a degenerate.









"In the production of pure breeds of sheep, cattle, hogs, and horses inbreeding has frequently been practiced extensively, and where in such cases selection has been made of the more vigorous offspring as parents, it is doubtful whether any diminution in size, vigor, or fertility has resulted. Nevertheless it very frequently happens that when two pure breeds are crossed, the offspring surpass either pure race in size and vigor."





Sudden Origins by Jeffrey H. Schwartz







The tiger is either a pure breed are a degenerate species!
Or I say.
They are one and the same..!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!







Else, the reason why the clean were in sevens as opposed to the others.






Genetic research (and this basic reasoning and breeding) has shown that every type of wolf, dog, fox and coyote etc. came from the 1 original wolf.
Scott, John Paul and John L. Fuller Genetics and the Social Behavior of the Dog
Behaviour of Wolves, Dogs and Related Canines (Hardcover) by Michael W. Fox








Mitochondrial Eve (mt-mrca)

"Mitochondrial Eve is the ...........common ancestor (MRCA) of all human via the mitochondrial DNA pathway . In other words, she is the MRCA found when ancestry of all living humans is traced back in time, following only the maternal lineage. Mitochondrial DNA pathway is equivalent to maternal lineage, because Mitochondrial DNA is only passed down from mother to child, never father to child. [1]"





Camel-Llama-alpaca






All known subspecies of the "horse" are known to breed!


1 Last thing.
this theory is observable & testable, in that you can breed new 'breeds' of dogs in just a few years. But each of these will have less 'ablities' than the last.

Just take 2 dogs (of your choice) & place them in a zoo. Now there children will be fine but as there children breed with each other you will see the same thing happen. Only it will go ten times further than before.

Kentish Son

I am sending this into the world because I want to get the word out.

Anonymous said...

your a sad man. if you dont like God and the Creation fact. dont try to make us smarter wiser people feel bad for being smart. its not our fault public education makes you dumber than those rocks you believe proove your theory. sorry if this offends you but you offended me.

The Factician said...

Anonymous,

Thanks for your comments. I'm not sad. I'm actually generally described as a rather happy man.

I apologize for trying to make you smarter.

Best wishes,

-F.