Ken Ham poses with dinosaur models in his unfinished $25 million Answers in Genesis museum.
Posted on 05/23/2005 3:29:06 AM PDT by PatrickHenry
Ken Ham has spent 11 years working on a museum that poses the big question - when and how did life begin? Ham hopes to soon offer an answer to that question in his still-unfinished Creation Museum in northern Kentucky.
The $25 million monument to creationism offers Ham's view that God created the world in six, 24-hour days on a planet just 6,000 years old. The largest museum of its kind in the world, it hopes to draw 600,000 people from the Midwest and beyond in its first year.
Ham, 53, isn't bothered that his literal interpretation of the Bible runs counter to accepted scientific theory, which says Earth and its life forms evolved over billions of years.
Ham said the museum is a way of reaching more people along with the Answers in Genesis Web site, which claims to get 10 million page views per month and his "Answers ... with Ken Ham" radio show, carried by more than 725 stations worldwide.
"People will get saved here," Ham said of the museum. "It's going to fire people up. If nothing else, it's going to get them to question their own position of what they believe."
Ham is ready for a fight over his beliefs - based on a literal interpretation of the book of Genesis, the first book of the Old Testament.
"It's a foundational battle," said Ham, a native of Australia who still speaks with an accent. "You've got to get people believing the right history - and believing that you can trust the Bible."
Among Ham's beliefs are that the Earth is about 6,000 years old, a figure arrived at by tracing the biblical genealogies, and not 4.5 billion years, as mainstream scientists say; the Grand Canyon was formed not by erosion over millions of years, but by floodwaters in a matter of days or weeks and that dinosaurs and man once coexisted, and dozens of the creatures - including Tyrannosaurus Rex - were passengers on the ark built by Noah, who was a real man, not a myth.
Although the Creation Museum's full opening is still two years away, already a buzz is building.
"When that museum is finished, it's going to be Cincinnati's No. 1 tourist attraction," says the Rev. Jerry Falwell, nationally known Baptist evangelist and chancellor of Liberty University in Lynchburg, Va. "It's going to be a mini-Disney World."
Respected groups such as the National Science Board, the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the National Science Teachers Association strongly support the theory of evolution. John Marburger, the Bush administration's science adviser, has said, "Evolution is a cornerstone of modern biology."
Many mainstream scientists worry that creationist theology masquerading as science will have an adverse effect on the public's science literacy.
"It's a giant step backward in science education," says Carolyn Chambers, chair of the biology department at Xavier University, which is operated by the Jesuit order of the Catholic church.
Glenn Storrs, curator of vertebrate paleontology for the Cincinnati Museum Center, leads dinosaur excavations in Montana each summer. He said the theory of dinosaurs and man coexisting is a "non-issue."
"And so, I believe, is the age of the Earth," Storrs said. "It's very clear the Earth is much older than 6,000 years."
The Rev. Mendle Adams, pastor of St. Peter's United Church of Christ in Pleasant Ridge, takes issue with Ham's views - and the man himself.
"He takes extraordinary liberties with Scripture and theology to prove his point," Adams said. "The bottom line is, he is anti-gay, and he uses that card all the time."
Ham says homosexual behavior is a sin. But he adds that he's careful to condemn the behavior, not the person.
Even detractors concede that Ham has appeal.
Ian Plimer, chair of geology at the University of Melbourne, became aware of Ham in the late 1980s, when Ham's creationist ministry in Australia was just a few years old.
"He is promoting the religion and science of 350 years ago," says Plimer. "He's a far better communicator than most mainstream scientists."
Despite his communication skills, Ham admits he doesn't always make a good first impression. But, that doesn't stop him from trying to spread his beliefs.
"He'd be speaking 20 hours a day if his body would let him," said Mike Zovath, vice president of museum operations.
Ham's wife of 32 years agrees. "He finds it difficult talking about things apart from the ministry," Mally Ham says. "He doesn't shut off."
Ham said he has no choice but to speak out about what he believes.
"The Lord gave me a fire in my bones," Ham says. "The Lord has put this burden in my heart: 'You've got to get this information out.'"
Not true at all. The nature of light with respect to wave vs. particle is completely understood. Is light a wave or a particle, then? Answer: yes. The problem is that common sense tells us that a wave and a particle are distinct types of things. Common sense is the problem, not our understanding of light, however. Waves and particles are not necessarily distinct types of things; something can have characteristics of both. In fact, all "particles" have wave character, including macroscopic objects. The wavelength of macroscopic objects is just too short to have any significance. However, the wave nature of subatomic particles is significant. That's how electron microscopes were built. Without the wave nature of the electron, the electron microscope would not function.
"Fact is, I am a bigger skeptic than certain evolutionist lap dogs who have the history of the universe memorized from their favorite textbooks."
Ok, the assumption that you base this statement on is that higher level science education is based entirely upon reading and regurgitating passages in textbooks. While I am admittedly not a scientist, I was married to a chemistry PhD student, and I can tell you from direct observation that your assumption is dead wrong.
The principles learned in graduate level sciences are learned by doing, not by reading. The mathematics involved are not memorized, they are learned by working them through. I remember my ex's differential equations class had him just about throwing himself out a window, but he learned it.
Again, none of real science education involves rote memorization, or taking things on faith.
Fester, this isn't you, is it?
LOL!
I will raise you both :-)
http://www.netjets.com/Fleet/Cessna_Citation_V_Ultra.asp
Odd. I thought that was your position. I might point out that both PatrickHenry and Radio Astronomer have posted easy ways to check the speed of light yourself.
Based on my current reading of physics and the nature of light, science hasn't answered all the questions, and this is a currently observable process.
Science has never claimed to have "answered all the questions." Your "and this is a currently observable process" has no obvious antecedent and is therefore unintelligible.
What kind of egotistical fool would expect every student of science to accept a hopeful rendition of history as factual when even the current universe remains largely unexplained?
What other, non-current "universe" are you expecting? -- a notion implied in "when even the current universe remains largely unexplained"?
But the question is a good one, up to this point: "What kind of egotistical fool would expect every student of science to accept a hopeful rendition of history as factual?" Actually, serious students of science are expected to do their own research, and the ones who succeed in overturning a previously accepted theory are the ones who get famous.
I’m curious, though. Do you apply that “what kind of egotistical fool,” question to your somewhat eccentric non-understanding of … well, just about anything you don’t understand? You’re the guy who won’t follow links and doesn’t like quoting an authority (except when you demand citations from others).
Is everyone who fails to accept your personal understanding of the Bible an “egotistical fool”?
The only senators I have to concern myself with are John Cornyn and Kay Hutchison.
Yeah, but why fill your head with unnecessary conservative clutter.
I don't know why anybody expected any thing different from politicians. "Put not your faith in princes," comes to mind.
Want to trade for Chuck Hagel and Ben Nelson?
OK, I'll take just one of them.
OK, I'll take Cornyn's housemaid.
We may be unentertaining and stiff and "booooring" (from another's post), but what we say makes sense, unlike Senor Ham & Co.
Mine didn't. The picture faded out as the tube lost vacuum after 5 years. And with a five year warranty, it was right on schedule.
Which of a ruler, a microwave, a block of cheese, and intelligence are you lacking?
Of course. But when it comes to the common man, he must reply upon, i.e. trust, what is reported to him. Right?
None. But what I lack is physical confirmation of the length of one microwave, which, as far as I know, is outside the frequency for visible light. But then, my issue is not with any scientific declaration that the speed of light can be determined both in quantum and non-quantum terms, nor with the results that have been reported to me. I'm only saying that science is far more ignorant than it presents itself to be, but is afraid to admit it, especially where renditions of unrecorded, unobserved history is concerned. The nature of light is not a settled question. Or has all reasearch in this field come to a halt while science moved on to bigger and better things?
"Of course. But when it comes to the common man, he must reply upon, i.e. trust, what is reported to him. Right?"
No! Wrong! That was my point a few posts back! Sorry for the excessive exclamation points, but...the point is that no one has to take science on faith or trust. It's all out there to be learned for yourself if you really feel the need.
I'll follow links if I feel so inclined, but I prefer to read FReepers who can think and speak for themselves. There appear to be very few of those where the subject of evolution is concerned. Most of them behave as direct descendants of the parrot. I've only demanded citations out of sarcasm because they were demanded of me first.
If links and citations are your bag, please have at it. IMO they show how incapable the evo crowd is when it comes to thinking critically for themselves, and how inept they are at expressing their lofty concepts in simple terms. Or maybe it's a fear of rebuke. Whatever it is, it ain't science. It's about time they were dethroned from the science classroom and enshrined in the hall of shame.
This is such crap. Some months ago, I offered to walk Fester through the process of constructing a phylogenetic tree from molecular data, to show him that a lot of direct evidence for evolution is completely accessible. He declined.
He finds us inpet at expression only because he sticks his fingers in his ears and sings "LALALALALA'
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