Friday, November 14, 2008

A Trip to the "The Anti-Museum"

Charles Johnson over at Little Green Footballs has a link to a "highly entertaining account of a trip" to the Petersburg, Kentucky creationism museum by Ken Phelps, president of the Kentucky Paleontological Society. It is priceless. Along the way, he has some interesting comments:

The creationist version of "catastrophic" plate tectonics was most amusing. Apparently the continents moved really rapidly during the Flood. The creationists apparently think the Precambrian supercontinent of Rodinia was the pre-Flood world. The Late Paleozoic supercontinent of Pangea then forms under water early in the Flood. After the "fountains of the great deep were broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened" Pangea breaks up under water. Somehow the earth and life survived the enormous amount of energy released during this one-year planetary resurfacing.

This is amazing if nothing else for the fact that there is zero geological evidence to support this model—Zero! Furthermore, there is no scriptural evidence to support it either. The Genesis account says nothing about shifting plates and changing land masses. Ludicrous!

He concludes by saying the following:

The absurd claims made in the Anti-Museum are no threat to science. However, I'm not sure how much of a threat the Anti-Museum is to science education. It might have an effect on local public schools where supporters of the "museum" may be sending their children. Teachers may start avoiding evolution and geology in this part of the state, but they probably are already doing this. Most homeschoolers are already teaching their children creationism, so the museum may at worst strengthen the message the kids are getting at home. Some of the claims, such as the vegetarian Tyrannosaurus and other carnivores are so absurd one wonders how many of the children (or adults) are really going to accept it. There is a lot of scientifically valid information available on dinosaurs in books and on the Internet. Creationists are really going to have to go to great lengths to shelter their children from this information.

According to reports, the effect on public schools has been limited. How to address home schoolers is another matter. Read the whole thing.

2 comments:

  1. Anonymous1:04 PM

    After reading that review I looked up internet images of Adam and Eve with the Serpent nearby. It would appear the Serpent has no legs, which is an obvious contradiction of Gen 2.

    Apparently they even have difficulty getting their own facts straight.

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  2. Not surprised. They appear to get very little else right.

    ReplyDelete