In the beginning . . . Adam walked with dinosaurs [Creationist Park]

Telegraph.co.uk ^ | 02 January 2005 | James Langton

[PatrickHenry]

With its towering dinosaurs and a model of the Grand Canyon, America's newest tourist attraction might look like the ideal destination for fans of the film Jurassic Park.

The new multi-million-dollar Museum of Creation, which will open this spring in Kentucky, will, however, be aimed not at film buffs, but at the growing ranks of fundamentalist Christians in the United States.

It aims to promote the view that man was created in his present shape by God, as the Bible states, rather than by a Darwinian process of evolution, as scientists insist.

The centrepiece of the museum is a series of huge model dinosaurs, built by the former head of design at Universal Studios, which are portrayed as existing alongside man, contrary to received scientific opinion that they lived millions of years apart.

Other exhibits include images of Adam and Eve, a model of Noah's Ark and a planetarium demonstrating how God made the Earth in six days.

The museum, which has cost a mighty $25 million (£13 million) will be the world's first significant natural history collection devoted to creationist theory. It has been set up by Ken Ham, an Australian evangelist, who runs Answers in Genesis, one of America's most prominent creationist organisations. He said that his aim was to use tourism, and the theme park's striking exhibits, to convert more people to the view that the world and its creatures, including dinosaurs, were created by God 6,000 years ago.

"We want people to be confronted by the dinosaurs," said Mr Ham. "It's going to be a first class experience. Visitors are going to be hit by the professionalism of this place. It is not going to be done in an amateurish way. We are making a statement."

The museum's main building was completed recently, and work on the entrance exhibit starts this week. The first phase of the museum, which lies on a 47-acre site 10 miles from Cincinatti on the border of Kentucky and Ohio, will open in the spring.

Market research companies hired by the museum are predicting at least 300,000 visitors in the first year, who will pay $10 (£5.80) each.

Among the projects still to be finished is a reconstruction of the Grand Canyon, purportedly formed by the swirling waters of the Great Flood – where visitors will "gape" at the bones of dinosaurs that "hint of a terrible catastrophe", according to the museum's publicity.

Mr Ham is particularly proud of a planned reconstruction of the interior of Noah's Ark. "You will hear the water lapping, feel the Ark rocking and perhaps even hear people outside screaming," he said.

More controversial exhibits deal with diseases and famine, which are portrayed not as random disasters, but as the result of mankind's sin. Mr Ham's Answers in Genesis movement blames the 1999 massacre at Columbine High School in Colorado, in which two teenagers killed 12 classmates and a teacher before killing themselves, on evolutionist teaching, claiming that the perpetrators believed in Darwin's survival of the fittest.

Other exhibits in the museum will blame homosexuals for Aids. In a "Bible Authority Room" visitors are warned: "Everyone who rejects his history – including six-day creation and Noah's flood – is `wilfully' ignorant.''

Elsewhere, animated figures will be used to recreate the Garden of Eden, while in another room, visitors will see a tyrannosaurus rex pursuing Adam and Eve after their fall from grace. "That's the real terror that Adam's sin unleashed," visitors will be warned.

A display showing ancient Babylon will deal with the Tower of Babel and "unravel the origin of so-called races'', while the final section will show the life of Christ, as an animated angel proclaims the coming of the Saviour and a 3D depiction of the crucifixion.

In keeping with modern museum trends, there will also be a cafe with a terrace to "breathe in the fresh air of God's creation'', and a shop "crammed'' with creationist souvenirs, including T-shirts and books such as A is for Adam and Dinky Dinosaur: Creation Days.

The museum's opening will reinforce the burgeoning creationist movement and evangelical Christianity in the US, which gained further strength with the re-election of President Bush in November.

Followers of creationism have been pushing for their theories to be reintegrated into American schoolroom teaching ever since the celebrated 1925 "Scopes Monkey Trial", when US courts upheld the right of a teacher to use textbooks that included evolutionary theory.

In 1987, the US Supreme Court reinforced that position by banning the teaching of creationism in public schools on the grounds of laws that separate state and Church.

Since then, however, many schools – particularly in America's religious Deep South – have got around the ban by teaching the theory of "intelligent design", which claims that evolutionary ideas alone still leave large gaps in understanding.

"Since President Bush's re-election we have been getting more membership applications than we can handle,'' said Mr Ham, who expects not just the devout, but also the curious, to flock through the turnstiles. "The evolutionary elite will be getting a wake-up call."

[shubi]

Funny, they have found remains of men that are older than 10,000 years. I wonder how that happened?

[shubi]

"Yes I believe God created the universe in the last 10,000 years."

Are you a scientist, too?

[MEGoody]

"The Cambrian Explosion was about 50 million years long, and there is evidence of precursor fossils dating from earlier."

Oh? Interesting that there are a number of scientists who disagree with that assessment. Now of course, these scientists have been peer reviewed, performed serious research, taught at real schools, speak at real gatherings of scientists. But because of your preconceived notions, you will, of course, dismiss them.

[shubi]

"I'm seeing a great harmony between the Scriptures and geologic discoveries. The theory of a young Earth just doesn't stand up to honest observation."

I see a great harmony between Gen 1, Einstein and modern biology. The young Earth idea is nonsense, not scientific theory. But your use of the word theory is a good illustration of the difference between a scientific theory and the colloquial use of the word.

[shubi]

Please list the "scientists" who think the Cambrian lasted less than many millions of years:

(This should be good)

[Doctor Stochastic]

Of course he's lying. He posted on this thread about Flew. Or maybe not; maybe he's just ignorant about the topics he posts on.

[shubi]

"The other issue with the Cambrian explosion is that 'evolution' appears to have occurred 'from the top down' so to speak. In other words, complex creatures suddenly appear with no fossil evidence of any transition from previously existing life forms. Then, after that, small changes occur in those complex creatures. (Evolutionary theory would claim a 'bottom to top' formation of life, i.e. that the small changes would result in complex creatures over millions of years.)"

Evolution does not deal with the concept of "complexity"-just survival. Parasites are less "complex" I would imagine in your view than free living worms, but evidence suggests free living worms came first (unless you are suggesting that God created parasites inside animals at the time of special creation. I don't see any Bible verse that suggests such a notion.)

Your top down bottom up idea is interesting. You are suggesting that worms evolved from Man?

s-"There are no serious questions about evolution."

"Sorry, but I've just listed one."

I said SERIOUS.

[Michael_Michaelangelo]

Micro vs. Macro

Proponents of evolution often attempt to discredit creation by pointing to occurrences of microevolution, such as speciation, adaptation, etc. To the evolutionist, microevolution is vindication for their belief in the much larger macroevolution. Their belief is that if these microevolutionary changes have enough time to accumulate, then eventually this will lead to a macroevolutionary change. And therefore, in their way of thinking, if microevolution is a well established fact, macroevolution must logically be an established fact as well.

[PatrickHenry]

Oh? Interesting that there are a number of scientists who disagree with that assessment ["The Cambrian Explosion was about 50 million years long, and there is evidence of precursor fossils dating from earlier."]. Now of course, these scientists have been peer reviewed, performed serious research, taught at real schools, speak at real gatherings of scientists. But because of your preconceived notions, you will, of course, dismiss them.

So you have "a number of scientists who disagree with" what, exactly? That the Cambrian period was 50 million years in duration? Or that there are precursor fossils? Which is it? Or perhaps it's both. I can provide links to evidence of pre-Cambrian fossils. Can you provide links to credible sources claiming that these fossils are bogus?

[shubi]

Sorry, your cite misunderstands micro and macro. They are the same process. Creationists look at the results and think the process is different, but it is not.

[shubi]

"Ah, so you really aren't interested. Don't want anyone to upset your preconceived notions, now do you?"

I knew you would give me a good laugh. Thank you.

Why is it that creationists, like communists, project their world view to others?

[Michael_Michaelangelo]

Why is it that creationists, like communists, project their world view to others?

Is it not the evo's who use Gov't funds and the power of the ACLU to force school boards to teach Origins a certain way?

[Lucky Dog]

… I said (and this point you skipped over):

What you call macro-evolution is nothing more than the cumulative effect of numerous instances of micro-evolution, which I assume you accept. You accept micro-evolution because you can literally see it happening from one generation to the next. You can't live long enough to see the cumulative effect of tens of thousands of generations -- except in the case of bacteria.

Sorry, I thought I had addressed this issue. Nonetheless, based upon your comments, I obviously did so poorly. Therefore, please accept the following exposition as addressing the issue you have raised:

As I recall, experiments in genetics have been conducted successfully with fruit flies and other relatively complex animals that have short life cycles (in contrast to simple one-celled bacteria). Macro-evolution could conceivably be demonstrated in similar fashion as “tens of thousands of generations” could be observed relatively easily (at least, compared to other animals). Halley made and carefully recorded a prediction concerning the comet that bears his name using Newton’s theories. Halley knew his predictions could not be verified in his lifetime. Nonetheless, he recorded his predictions based upon theory and others, later, substantiated them.

Such a demonstration has not, to my knowledge, been forth coming in the case of macro-evolution. Given the potential, since Darwin first posited his theory in 1869, to possibly structure such an experiment, even if it required several temporally successive researchers to provide the observations to verify predictions, my challenge to the macro-evolution theory for lack of experimentally reproducible evidence seems to be valid. Do you have a cite for such an experiment to which you could refer me?

If you accept micro-evolution because of the evidence, and if macro-evidence is just a bunch of micro-evolution, what makes you say that there is no evidence?

Please see the above discussion for my response to this issue.

And why do these discussions so quickly arrive at the "Run, Spot, run" level of discourse?… But macro-evolution doesn't need to be experimentally reproducible, any more than the history of France does… All I can do is try to explain things for the reasonably intelligent person. But can't devote my efforts to removing each new obstacle you throw in your own path.

I do not fault your motive in attempting to “explain things for the reasonably intelligent person.” In fact, I applaud it. Nonetheless, where it is possible to find fault in your explanations is in what appears to be the fallacies of logic of your expositions. Please allow me to construct some admittedly overly simplistic syllogisms to illustrate my point:

First Syllogism:

Premise: Fossils, DNA sequencing, etc., exist.

Premise: The theory of macro-evolution provides a reasonable explanation of how these things came to be.

Conclusion: Therefore, the theory of macro-evolution is fact.

Alternate Syllogism:

Premise: Fossils, DNA sequencing, etc., exist.

Premise: The theory of intelligent design provides a reasonable explanation of how these things came to be.

Conclusion: Therefore, the theory of intelligent design is fact.

Both of these syllogism have the following logic fault:

Non causa pro causa

The fallacy of Non Causa Pro Causa occurs when something is identified as the cause of an event, but it has not actually been shown to be the cause. For example:

"I took an aspirin and prayed to God, and my headache disappeared. So God cured me of the headache."

This is known as a false cause fallacy. Two specific forms of non causa pro causa fallacy are the cum hoc ergo propter hoc and post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacies.

I suppose where you and I clash is in what I perceive as your insistence that a theory (the theory of macro-evolution, specifically) is a fact rather than an explanation competing with other potentially valid explanations.

I am willing to entertain your counters to my exposition above if you feel it is not “at the "Run, Spot, run" level of discourse.”

[Lucky Dog]

Please see post 433. Sorry, I neglected to put you as an addressee.

[stremba]

I think you need to differentiate between what scientists say and what the theory actually says. Many scientists may say that evolution occurs via random variation and natural selection, but the theory itself does not say this. The theory itself says that evolution proceeds via variations that are chosen by natural selection. It doesn't say that these variations are random (although it doesn't say that they are not.) Whether the variations are random or are guided by God in such a way as to appear random is not a scientific question and as such no mention of it should appear in a scientific theory. The reason is that the idea that God guides the variation is not falsifiable. Any potentially falsifying observation could be explained away by invoking the omnipotence of God. When scientists insist that the variation must be random, they are simply injecting their own personal beliefs or reflecting the methodological materialism that science must assume, not stating anything that is implied by the theory of evolution.

[stremba]

So then, if dinos and humans lived in separate parts of the world, the dino and human footprints that supposedly proved that dinos and humans coexisted happened how?

[balrog666]

Premise: Fossils, DNA sequencing, etc., exist.

Premise: The theory of evolution provides a reasonable explanation of how these things came to be.

Premise: No other scientific theory has been proposed which explains even the slightest bit of the evidence.

Conclusion: Therefore, the theory of evolution is the current scientific paradigm.

[azhenfud]

My fear is that the wedge of "Scientism" associated with the exclusive teaching of Materialistic Evolution can only be seen as a wedge to deter an investigation of scripture.

Understandable, but faith in the Creator must be greater than that. If the Evolutionists test, let them test. God's decrees will far surpass the scrutiny of mortal man, no questions. Yet, the indications are there the earth and hosts of heaven bear witness to the timelessness of their Creator. One must observe the heavens and see the stars are totally out of man's reach - yet they consistantly reach us with their steady, faithful stream of light - much like the Sovereign.

I have yet to find credible evidence in scripture supporting a young earth, but much to support the theory Adam's race toward death didn't begin until after he was removed from paradise.

That, my friend, is supported by Genesis - but then, it's only my theory of creation too.

[Lucky Dog]

I find no fault in your reasoning.

[Lucky Dog]

Premise: No other scientific theory has been proposed which explains even the slightest bit of the evidence.

I challenge your assertion recorded as your third premise. Please defend it logically without relying exclusively on "authorities" or assertions of opinion as fact.