In today’s Washington Post one finds this story about the opening of a museum dedicated to so-called “Creation Science”
The nation’s largest museum devoted to the alternative reality that is biblical creation science is rising just outside Cincinnati. Set amid a park and three-acre artificial lake, the 50,000-square-foot museum features animatronic dinosaurs, state-of-the-art models and graphics, and a half-dozen staff scientists. It holds that the world and the universe are but 6,000 years old and that baby dinosaurs rode in Noah’s ark.
Yes, that’s right, these people believe that men and dinosaurs lived together in some kind of biblical version of The Flintstones. This despite all of the scientific evidence which clearly demonstrates that man and dinosaurs are seperate about some 100 million years of time.
They may sound like crackpots, but sadly their message seems to be resonating.
But by any measure, Young Earth Creationism — which holds that the Bible is the literal word of God and that He created the universe in seven days– has a more powerful hold on the beliefs of Americans than evolutionary theory or intelligent design. That grip grows stronger by the year.Polls taken last year showed that 45 percent of Americans believe that God created humans in their present form 10,000 years ago (or less) and that man shares no common ancestor with the ape. Only 26 percent believe in the central tenet of evolution, that all life descended from a single ancestor.
Another poll showed that 65 percent of Americans want creationism taught alongside evolution.
If nothing else, poll results such as these are a glaring indication of an apalling lack of real science education in American public schools. The fact that creationism is incompatible with fundamental scientific priniciples and ignores evidence that has been confirmed countless numbers of times does not matter to people who believe things because “the Bible tells me so.”
But often, scientists say, the creationist bottom line is a through-the-looking-glass version of science. The scientific method of theory, experiment and assumptions upended does not apply. Ask Ham if he could accept evidence that conflicts with his reading of Genesis — proof, say, that a fossil is more than 6,000 years old — and he shakes his head.Creationists believe man became mortal when God cast Adam and Eve out of Eden 6,000 years ago. Death did not exist before that.
“We admit we have an axiom: We have a book and it’s the Bible and it’s revealed history,” says Ham. “Where the Bible teaches on science, we can trust it as the word of God.”
In other words, ignore the evidence that contradicts your faith, or simply distort it.
“There are people who are prepared to accept that the universe is a pretty untidy place,” said Ian Tattersall, a curator at the American Museum of Natural History. “And there are people, like the creationists, whose minds rebel at this notion.”
The fact that we are still talking about this nonsense in the 21st Century is appalling.
Update: And for those claiming there is no evidence supporting evolution, the evidence is right here.
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