Actual Scientists Visit the Creation Museum June 28, 2009

Actual Scientists Visit the Creation Museum

By Guest Contributor
June 28, 2009

Six dozen paleontologists visited the Creation Museum last week.

There’s a joke in there somewhere.

Amazingly, they were shocked by what they saw:

“It’s like a theme park, but the problem is it masquerades as truth,” said Derek Briggs, a Yale University paleontologist.

…

The critique of scientists even extends to the gift shop, where among the DVDs for sale is one entitled, “The Cure for a Culture in Crisis: It doesn’t take a Ph.D.”

It all had Wednesday’s visitors shaking their heads.

“Faith is one thing,” said Mark Terry, a high school science teacher from Seattle, “but when it comes to their science statements, they’re completely off the wall.”

Hmm… PhDs who study evolution for a living versus Creationists who read the Bible. I wonder which side I should trust…

Anyone else think some of those paleontologists took pictures while atop the dinosaur with a saddle on it, just for shits and giggles?

(Thanks to Scott for the link!)

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  • Carlie

    That just doesn’t read right – it’s like they’re shocked, shocked! that such things are going on. Are there really paleontologists who aren’t aware of how much of a threat the creationists are, and how crazy their ideas are?

  • Yeah! Not like creationists have been secretive about what they’re doing. Surely, those scientists knew what to expect.

  • Sometimes, you don’t expect people to be THAT stupid or crazy. When your an expert in something, its even more painful when you see people are really that crazy.

    I _still_ to this day cringe and get shivers down my spine when I see what ‘computer experts’ and ‘computer consultants’ do to people’s computers and networks. The sheer disbelief never really goes away.

  • Shae

    I’ve been to that creation museum, and what is has to say is truly shockingly crazy. I say this even as an ex-fundamentalist Christian myself.

    Plants are not alive, weeds didn’t exist before Adam and Eve ate the apple, and a host of other highly specific and loony claims are made about the Earth’s flora and fauna and what it’s up to.

  • Jason Rosenhouse just wrote about his visit to the creation museum. It’s well worth the read.

  • BathTub

    Remember Hemant, Ken told PZ Myers that the dino with the saddle is currently out for repairs.

  • gwen

    Maybe we (‘Darwinists’) should start going to the Creation Museum (group rates of course) and treat it like the joke it is. If we point and laugh at the absurdities,maybe others will begin to question the presentations.

  • Abbie

    For example, multiple rooms are devoted to the great flood, which a strict biblical interpretation might explain was a rebuke for questioning God. The implication, some of the paleontologists say, is that their studies concluding Earth is millions of years old — not thousands as creationists claim — must pose a similar threat to mankind.

    Well technically, the Earth is also thousands of years old. Just lots of thousands.
    I’ve never heard the claim that scientists are going to cause a 2nd flood before. THAT’S why the creationists are so mad!

  • MaleficVTwin

    Anyone else think some of those paleontologists took pictures while atop the dinosaur with a saddle on it, just for shits and giggles?

    If they didn’t, we have to send them back. 🙂

  • Josh

    Personally, I am shocked every time I read about the views of these people.

    Isn’t it time we address why the museum exists at all? Why fully half of Americans reject the scientific reality? It is not malicious intent – these people truly believe what they say. And they truly think that scientists are divided on this issue, which is demonstrably false.

    If they are not being dishonest, where is is this sentiment coming from?

  • anothermike

    Sorry to be so uninformed; is this thing tax-funded?

  • Six dozen paleontologists visited the Creation Museum last week…and all they got me was this lousy bible.

    I have a question. Do people pay to go into museums in the US or are they free? I hate to think that people are funding these crackpots.

  • TXatheist

    hover, there is a fee. I was in Glen Rose,TX and went to the dinosaur exhibit and just down the road was the Creation one. I did take a pic with their huge logo but that’s as close as I got to giving them a penny. I paid $1.99 for Expelled and still want my money back.

  • Matto the Hun

    That just doesn’t read right – it’s like they’re shocked, shocked! that such things are going on. Are there really paleontologists who aren’t aware of how much of a threat the creationists are, and how crazy their ideas are?

    Why not. Don’t forget, we sort of live in this bubble where we keep tabs on this kind of thing all the time.

    Even middle of the road, dare I say even sane(?), Christians may know that there is some kind of hub-bub regarding their faith but not realize the debate is stemming from crazy morons like Ken Ham or just how crazy he and his crowd are.

    So I don’t think it is at all unreasonable that there many in the science community the extent to which faith based insanity has poisoned our society.

    I’m just glad the good guys are starting to wake up, and that this is out on a mainstream media outlet… outside of our super cool-smart bubble 😛

  • Even middle of the road, dare I say even sane(?), Christians may know that there is some kind of hub-bub regarding their faith but not realize the debate is stemming from crazy morons like Ken Ham or just how crazy he and his crowd are.

    That has been my experience. Most people I meet (outside of atheist circles) are pretty much unaware of creationist claims. I think that may be why atheists are seen as being rude when we attempt to debunk creationist claims; the general public isn’t even fully aware of what the claims are or how scientifically implausible they are. Unfortunately they seldom bother to look into it further.

  • Reginald Selkirk

    anothermike: “Sorry to be so uninformed; is this thing tax-funded?”

    Not directly. But it is tax-subsidized, in that it is tax-exempt as a non-profit.

  • Reginald Selkirk

    “Anyone else think some of those paleontologists took pictures while atop the dinosaur with a saddle on it, just for shits and giggles?”

    I don’t think so. I hear the saddled triceratops is out for repair

  • Cypress Green

    I have a question. Do people pay to go into museums in the US or are they free? I hate to think that people are funding these crackpots.

    Hoverfrog, most museums have a fee. But some, like the Cleveland Museum of Art by me are still free. Special exhibitions, classes, gifts and concerts are where they make money. Gotta pay to park nearby, too.

  • Thumpalumpacus

    hover, there is a fee. I was in Glen Rose,TX and went to the dinosaur exhibit and just down the road was the Creation one. I did take a pic with their huge logo but that’s as close as I got to giving them a penny. I paid $1.99 for Expelled and still want my money back.

    Ah, Glen Rose. Went there at age nine for a hiking trip, and found my first two fossils: an impressed fishtail (in sandstone) and an ammonite shell. Well, those were all over. That got me to thinking about how perhaps god wasn’t there and all that. Got me started, y’know?

    Ironically, the trip was organized by my cousin’s fundy Southern Baptist church.