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.'"
"why dude, why?"
Because you posited an axiom that (a) is unsupportable and (b) an axiom that I _KNOW_ you've been called on multiple times.
I have no patience for willful stupidity.
Radio and television, microwaves, infared, visible light, ultraviolet light, x-rays and gamma rays are all the same thing. The only difference is radio has long wavelengths and low frequencies, while gamma rays have short wavelengths and high frequencies. The colors we see with the eye are part of the same electromagnetic spectrum as dental x-rays, radar beams, and microwave ovens.
So, in this microwave experiment we are measuring the speed of microwaves, not the speed of light? Nuts. I wanted to see a 700nm mark on the chocolate.
So there is some kind of reciprocal relationship whereby one has never discovered a long wave with a high frequency or vise versa? Just asking.
This is basic, *basic* science. This isn't advanced physics. This isn't even freshman college physics. This is grade school stuff! If you want to debate intelligently on scientific issues it really helps to understand some basic science, such as the electromagnetic spectrum. I don't expect you to turn around and drop everything and believe the earth is 4 and a half billion years old. However, with some basic understanding of science will come the realization that the earth cannot be merely 10,000 years old.
Either that or Darwin Central saboteur.
The conspiracy that caresTM
It depends on if you're talking about a waves in the water or light. It goes back to the speed of a wave being defined as the wavelength in distance multiplied by the frequency in Hertz. If you have a long wave with a high frequency, the speed is going to be faster than a short wave with a low frequency. A short wave with a low frequency would be an occasional ripple on still water, where a long wave with a high frequency would be rough seas. Now all light is pegged at the speed of light, so yes, there's a reciprocal relationship between frequency and wavelength for light energy. We make use of this principle when calculating the speed of light from the frequency of a microwave oven and the distance between the hot spots.
Facts are immutable!
Apparently Fester doesn't realise that not all light waves are in the visible spectrum.
If he really is like that, I pray to the Creator that his children are not home-schooled.
They're the same thing.
Nuts. I wanted to see a 700nm mark on the chocolate.
Get a really small ruler. But at 700nm the wavelength is too short to transfer energy to the water molecule.
Most of them. Most have died are were still the same person they were when they got the prize. Didin't change: no tails, no wings, no feathers, just arms, legs and human genitalis.
Somewhere in here you assume the lurkers are not idiots and rest your case.
If they're the same thing how come I can see one, but not the other? At any rate, I think you are saying every wave within the electromagnetic spectrum travels at the speed of light. Yes?
This keyboard sucks.
Sigh
No one can be willfully stupid. Are we being deflected?
Because the receptors (rods and cones) in your eye are able to detect a very narrow bandwidth of EM called the visible spectrum (red thru violet). (Note: only the cones are sensitive to color) This is why you see only shades of gray in very dim light such as night. The rods are far more sensitive to the dim light but they don't differentiate colors.
I think so.
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