Posted on 01/14/2007 5:31:07 PM PST by Tim Long
PETERSBURG, Kentucky - Ken Ham's sprawling creation museum isn't even open yet, but an expansion is already underway in the state-of-the art lobby, where grunting dinosaurs and animatronic humans coexist in a Biblical paradise.
A crush of media attention and packed preview sessions have convinced Ham that nearly half a million people a year will come to Kentucky to see his Biblically correct version of history.
"I think we'll be surprised at how many people come," Ham said as he dodged dozens of designers working to finish exhibits in time for the May 28 opening.
The $27 million project, which also includes a planetarium, a special-effects theater, nature trails and a small lake, is privately funded by people who believe the Bible's first book, Genesis, is literally true.
For them, a museum showing Christian schoolchildren and skeptics alike how the earth, animals, dinosaurs and humans were created in a six-day period about 6,000 years ago -- not over millions of years, as evolutionary science says -- is long overdue.
While foreign media and science critics have mostly come to snigger at exhibits explaining how baby dinosaurs fit on Noah's Ark and Cain married his sister to people the earth, museum spokesman and vice-president Mark Looy said the coverage has done nothing but drum up more interest.
"Mocking publicity is free publicity," Looy said. Besides, U.S. media have been more respectful, mindful perhaps of a 2006 Gallup Poll showing almost half of Americans believe that humans did not evolve, but were created by God in their present form within the last 10,000 years.
Looy said supporters of the museum include evangelical Christians, Orthodox Jews and conservative Catholics, as well as the local Republican congressman, Geoff Davis (news, bio, voting record), and his family, who have toured the site.
FROM 'JAWS' TO EDEN
While the debate between creationists and mainstream scientists has bubbled up periodically in U.S. schools since before the Scopes "monkey trial" in nearby Tennessee 80 years ago, courts have repeatedly ruled that teaching religious theory in public schools is unconstitutional.
Ham, an Australian who moved to America 20 years ago, believes creationists could have presented a better case at the Scopes trail if they'd been better educated -- but he's not among those pushing for creation to be taught in school.
Rather than force skeptical teachers to debate creation, Ham wants kids to come to his museum, where impassioned experts can make their case that apparently ancient fossils and the Grand Canyon were created just a few thousand years ago in a great flood.
"It's not hitting them over the head with a Bible, it's just teaching that we can defend what it says," he said.
Ham, who also runs a Christian broadcasting and publishing venture, said the museum's Hollywood-quality exhibits set the project apart from the many quirky Creation museums sprinkled across America.
The museum's team of Christian designers include theme park art director Patrick Marsh, who designed the "Jaws" and "King Kong" attractions at Universal Studios in Florida, as well as dozens of young artists whose conviction drives their work.
"I think it shows (nonbelievers) the other side of things," said Carolyn Manto, 27, pausing in her work painting Ice Age figures for a display about caves in France.
"I don't think it's going to be forcing any viewpoint on them, but challenging them to think critically about their evolutionary views," said Manto, who studied classical sculpture before joining the museum.
Still, Looy is upfront about the museum's mission: to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ with nonbelievers.
"I think a lot of people are going to come out of curiosity ... and we're going to present the Gospel. This is going to be an evangelistic center," Looy said. A chaplain has been hired for museum-goers in need of spiritual guidance.
The museum's rural location near the border of Kentucky, Ohio and Indiana places it well within America's mostly conservative and Christian heartland. But the setting has another strategic purpose: two-thirds of Americans are within a day's drive of the site, and Cincinnati's international airport is minutes away.
The project has not been without opposition. Zoning battles with environmentalists and groups opposed to the museum's message have delayed construction and the museum's opening day has been delayed repeatedly.
The museum has hired extra security and explosives-sniffing dogs to counter anonymous threats of damage to the building. "We've had some opposition," Looy said.
Which game is this? Nailing jelly to a tree?
--You can proceed to offer links to refute. Shoot, we can both shoot URL's at each other until the backslash button on our keyboards fades away.--
Use copy and paste.
--backslash button --
No wonder most of your links don't work.
Your argumentative skills are basically putting words in others mouths.
Then denying it and acting like an ass.
Its typical.
Ask your friend Cottshop to show me where Darwin refuted his theories....
Yes, the best understanding that we have now says that bacteria became mitochondria (and also chloroplasts, the agents of photosynthesis. Bacteria are capable of amazing things in terms of respiration. There are bacteria that use iron as an electron acceptor; meaning, that instead of "burning" (or oxidizing) carbon compounds, they use the energy in the carbon to "rust" iron. However, the bacteria that we were before we took up mitochondrion were almost certainly anaerobic, meaning that we turned sugar into alcohol or acetate.
The first aerobic bacteria were very probably small. Membranes are required for aerobic respiration. The surface area law (smaller objects have a greater surface area proportional to volume) meant that it was beneficial to these bacteria to be small. However, that meant that they were more likely to be eaten by larger bacteria.
The evidence that mitochondria (and chloroplasts) were once free-living organisms lies in the fact that they still have remnants of genomes. That's right, mitochondria have their own DNA! It's been about a billion years since they were on their own, so much of what their genome was supposed to do has been transferred over to our own genome, but the remnants of their genome are still there.
What is really interesting about mitochondrial genomes is that they have managed to evolve something that no free living organism ever has. Every free living organism on this planet, from bacteria to plants to you, follows the same genetic code. That is not true for mitochondria, since for a billion years, they have not been subject to the same selective pressures. For example, for every free-living organism, the sequence adenosine-uracil-adenosine signifies the amino acid "isoleucine" when making a protein; however, in human mitochondria, the same adenosine-uracil-adenosine sequence signifies "methionine." This is why I love evolutionary theory! It explains so much!
lol i see you're still whining about that- GOOD!
Well said! And very informative.
It is also interesting to note that the biochemistry inside the nucleus of the cell is quite different from that going on outside of the nucleus, but still inside the cell.
Fourth Grade Class Member Bob
"[N]ew knowledge has led to the recognition of the theory of evolution as more than a hypothesis. [... de nouvelles connaissances conduisent a reconnaitre dans la theorie de l'evolution plus qu'une hypothese.] It is indeed remarkable that this theory has been progressively accepted by researchers, following a series of discoveries in various fields of knowledge. The convergence, neither sought nor fabricated, of the results of work that was conducted independently is in itself a significant argument in favor of this theory."Pope John Paul II, 1996
The definition of naturalism.
Not whining, just pointing out your cowardace when you are confronted with a question.
It fits you quite well.
LOL
you know- if you had simply asked politely I would have gladly provided the link- but instead you couldn't resist with the insults/personal attacks- you've only yourself to blame for htis- and enough with the petty little 'coward' crap- I am not hiding anything- the info is freely available on the internet- Coward? That's funny comming from someone who won't discuss the issues and turns the thread into a personal attack to avoid answering the rebuttles and issues posed to them- You know where to find the info central- but when you decide you want to stop with the personal crap and want to discuss the issues further- in a civil manner- then do let me know- till then- I'll just sit back and waTch you and your buddies from darwin central avoid the issues altogether and launch their usual diversionary tactics in order to avoid the hard issues. If looking up Darwin's statements is too hard a task for ya- lemme know civily and perhaps I'll post it for ya.
I know what you were alluding to, and it was wrong, very wrong. When you make a statement, you have to be man enough to back it up, you wouldn't. You have to own what you say, that is how its done.
But, you went and made an ass of yourself instead.
I've read you on other threads, you need help.
nowq you're just outright lying- I told you right from the start I'd post it IF you were civil- and you refused and acted in a childish manner- heck- you STILL refuse- and no- I don't think you do know I wasn't 'alluding' to anythjing- I meant what I said, and Darwin himself DID say that.
Please go on, its fun to watch you lose your mind on this.
All these posts, and you still aren't man enough to stand behind what you stated.
tsk tsk.
Darwin: "Why is not every ge*******
1. I'm not trying to get banned. If I wanted to get banned, I'd "Opus" or egregiously violate this site's terms of service - either of which action would be incomparably easy to perform compared with trying to reason with your little clique.
On the other hand, I no longer have any inclination to make nice-nice when you and your clique misbehave. If that results in my dismissal, too bad.
2. I seriously doubt JR would ban you, Dave.
3. I threatened no legal action - I made note of your legally actionable statement. The two do not equate.
4. I note your grudging retraction of your false accusation of plagiarism.
5. I chose not to respond to your anti-scientific screed because, Dave, experience has shown me that no one can reach you on that score.
So, may I assume that the quote of your little schnitzeljagd was:
why is not every geological formation and every stratum full of such intermediate links? Geology assuredly does not reveal any such finely graduated organic chain, and this perhaps is the greatest objection which can be urged against my theory.
Amusingly, that's a typical example of quote-mining:
why is not every geological formation and every stratum full of such intermediate links? is taken from Chapter 6 of the "Origin of species" while Geology assuredly does not reveal any such finely graduated organic chain, and this perhaps is the greatest objection which can be urged against my theory. comes form Chapter 9 of the same book.
To built of a quote this way should be taken as a sign of dishonesty - I presume, not of your side, but of Don Patton, the manufactured that quote (Or do you claim that you distorted Darwin yourself?)
Darwin often states some questions at the beginning of a chapter, just to answer them in the very chapter...
some folks are as contentedly ignorant of the conventions of dialectic and catechism as they are of logic, grammar, syntax, and denotative definitions.
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