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Fundamentalists re-create Eden, with dinosaurs
The Sunday Times (U.K.) ^ | 03/10/2002 | Oliver Poole

Posted on 03/09/2002 4:05:28 PM PST by Pokey78

AMERICAN scientists are outraged over plans for a multi-million-dollar museum dedicated to telling the nation's schoolchildren that God made the world in seven days and that Darwin is a fraud.

The backers of the $14 million (£10 million) Creation Museum and Family Centre, which is to open in 2004 close to the Ohio River in Kentucky, boast that the structure will act as an antidote to the "brainwashing" taught in science museums worldwide.

Exhibits will include re-creations of the Garden of Eden and Noah's Ark. A giant double helix of DNA will be suspended in the middle of the hall in order to argue that living creatures are so complex that they could not have evolved by random mutation.

Real fossils will be used to demonstrate how scientific methods such as carbon dating can be wildly inaccurate, and life-sized dinosaurs will illustrate the belief that they lived alongside Adam and Eve in a period before the Fall, when animals, man and dinosaurs cohabited, free from violence.

Ken Ham, whose Answers in Genesis ministry is behind the project, said that the museum was a long overdue offensive against the scientific establishment.

"This is a cultural war," he said. "They need to know we're coming. We're not doing this to say: 'Here's the evidence for and against, now you decide.' We admit our bias right from the start.

"The Bible is not a science textbook. But where it touches on science, we can trust it. This is the truth."

The only other museum in America dedicated to "creationism" - the theory that the Bible's Genesis story is both literal and accurate - is at the Institute for Creation Research near San Diego in California.

It covers 3,500 sq ft and will be dwarfed by Mr Ham's Creation Museum, which will include a 50,000 sq ft exhibition hall and 47 acres of outdoor trails and displays. Some exhibits have already been purchased, including the DNA and dinosaur models, in addition to a walk-through replica of a human cell.

Answers in Genesis already puts out a faith-based family magazine, a technical journal detailing the "science of creation", a daily radio programme that is broadcast on 400 stations across the United States, and pamphlets distributed worldwide on subjects such as "Where Did the Races Come From?".

A recent survey in the magazine Scientific American reported that 45 per cent of Americans believe that God created life some time in the past 10,000 years, despite the vast majority of scientists maintaining that life in its simplest form first appeared 3.9 billion years ago and has been evolving ever since.

Eugenie Scott, the director of the National Centre for Science Education, said that the new creationist museum was a sermon disguised as scientific study intended to hoodwink the public. "The authoritarian presentation of this information is likely to confuse people into thinking that these are scientifically valid views," she said.

"Science is not a democratic process. Once an idea is proved wrong, you don't continue to present it. The idea that everything on Earth appeared all at once 10,000 years ago has been disproved."

In recent years Christian fundamentalists have been accused of targeting small towns and placing supporters onto the local boards of education in a campaign for more teaching time to be spent on creationism. Two years ago the Kansas Board of Education reversed a decision to ban mentions of Darwin in schools after a public revolt voted a number of its members out.

To the outrage of the state's scientific community, Ohio is proposing a similar initiative to forbid teaching of scientific evolution. Similar propositions are also to be debated soon in New York State and Massachusetts.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; News/Current Events; US: Kentucky
KEYWORDS: crevolist
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To: TransOxus
You know, at Mass today the gospel reading was very applicable to these discussions. The reading was John 9:1-41 -- the story of the blind man who was cured and then kicked out of the synagogue in the end. How is this applicable? The Pharisees refused to see the evidence before their very eyes, relying instead upon their interpretation of Scripture. The creationists on these threads are of much the same ilk, refusing the evidence science has uncovered, instead relying upon their own interpretations of Scripture. Remember, it is not the word of the law (Scripture), it is the spirit of the law (Scripture) that matters.
121 posted on 03/10/2002 8:57:35 AM PST by Junior
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To: medved
Spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, spam.
Glorious spam!
Wonderful spam!
Spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, spam.
122 posted on 03/10/2002 9:11:54 AM PST by Junior
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To: sirchtruth
How theoretically, could Something come from Nothing without a WHO?

PMFJI, but how theoretically could Something come from Nothing WITH a who??? Have you ever seen a who create something from nothing? (Apart from God of course, which is the entity whose very existence is under debate, so He can't count as an example.)

123 posted on 03/10/2002 9:12:09 AM PST by jennyp
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To: Junior;medved
Condensed audio version of medved's posts
124 posted on 03/10/2002 9:13:40 AM PST by jennyp
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To: jennyp
The more pertinent question in this post is what in the world does the acronym PMFJI represent?

Who on this forum as an evolutionist, is going to try to debate a WHO exist and either created or set evolution in motion? My point is simply there is no logical way to conclude Something exist without a Something in the first place...

125 posted on 03/10/2002 9:28:32 AM PST by sirchtruth
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To: American in Israel
I have never participated on these "bash the creationist" threads because that's all they really are. Anyway it gives the evolutionists continual opportunities to claim intellecual superiority and make themselves feel better about themselves and congratulate each other for being smmart, they seem to need it a lot.
126 posted on 03/10/2002 9:34:13 AM PST by Iowegian
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To: American in Israel
Oops typo, that should be "smart", I'm not stupid. LOL
127 posted on 03/10/2002 9:37:08 AM PST by Iowegian
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To: American in Israel
You guys are so silly. ... I have studied both creationism and evolution and found far more junk science in Evolutionists than in true creationists.

Well, now that you've studied it, I guess the matter's settled for all time. Thanks for the keen analysis.

128 posted on 03/10/2002 10:37:58 AM PST by PatrickHenry
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To: sirchtruth
How theoretically, could Something come from Nothing without a WHO?

Jennyp asked it first (PMFJI is "Pardon Me For Jumping In") but so far as I noticed you didn't answer. What difference does a WHO make in getting something from nothing?

Outside of space/time there is no begining and there is no end...it's just a theory.

How is "outside of time" any easier to intuit than "the universe "has"/"has not" (pick one) always existed?

129 posted on 03/10/2002 10:40:57 AM PST by VadeRetro
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To: sirchtruth
My point is simply there is no logical way to conclude Something exist without a Something in the first place...

I agree. That's why I believe there was never "nothing." The big bang notwithstanding. But I don't know where your "WHO" fits in. I suspect that no one else does either.

130 posted on 03/10/2002 10:41:10 AM PST by PatrickHenry
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To: American in Israel
I have studied both creationism and evolution and found far more junk science in Evolutionists than in true creationists. That is ok, if I am right you all can explain it all to the Creator. If you are right we are all fertilizer. Have a nice jump.

Hi, AiI. Taking a break from the more intense news items of the day, I hope!

I'm curious to know what it is about evolution you think is junk science? Also, what flavor of creationism do you consider to be "true creationism"?

131 posted on 03/10/2002 11:58:36 AM PST by jennyp
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To: Junior
It wasn't until the Rennaissance and the revival of classical thinking that scientific thinking took off in the West.

The Protestant’s and their rejection of Catholic laws concerning usury allowed commerce to thrive and society to flourish.

132 posted on 03/10/2002 12:21:40 PM PST by TightSqueeze
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To: VadeRetro
It's not obvious to me that you wre ever making any sort of a point other than posting a few images and that buys you anything ONLY if everybody in the house agrees to view any evidence of any sort of change as evidence of change by evolutionary processes. Not only do I not buy that, but you haven't even started to answer a fairly sizable number of questions, and all you've really shown us is pictures of primative birds whose wings still had features of claws. The first Porsches likewise had numerous VW parts in them; that does not mean that the Porsche EVOLVED from the VW; it was RE-ENGINEERED from the VW. You could shuffle a VW parts warehouse from now till kingdom come and no Porsche would ever appear from any sort of a stochastic process.

Moreover, as I note, you have not told us what purpose the arm served when it was 20% of the way to being a wing, what purpose when 40% of the way, what purpose when 60% of the way etc. etc. You haven't told us how the flow-through heart and lungs evolved or what purpose a heart halfway such a transition might serve, oer even how it might work.

Basically, all I ever really see from you is a bunch of ballyhooing and BS claims to have refuted everybody else on the field along with claims that everybody else owes you apologies.

Don't hold your breath.

133 posted on 03/10/2002 12:57:45 PM PST by medved
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To: Junior

A Portrait of "Junior"
in his Own Words

"We've got a whole lot of these folks on this forum..."
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/fr/630185/posts#4

"Knowing gore3000, he'll take a look at your link and claim that evolutionists say coyotes are descended from whales. Do not underestimate the power of willful ignorance..."
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/fr/630185/posts#68

You didn't even read the freakin' article, you dolt, or you wouldn't have made the inane comment about whales evolving from coyotes, or vice versa. Do you ever read any of the stuff we give you, or do you glance at the pretty pictures, decide that nothing's going to change your mind and then post inanities on these threads?
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/fr/630185/posts#143

My theory has always been he's nothing more than a rather primitive computer algorythm.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/fr/630185/posts#152

You are the only person I've met who suffered from Tourette's Syndrome of the keyboard.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/fr/630185/posts#384

Face it, gore3000, your brain (or programming) has been trained to force a cognitive disassociation between the pariticulars of evidence and the sum total of evidence. You can't see the forest for the trees. You'll pick at individual pieces of evidence given you, but fail to understand the overall picture painted by the evidence coming in from dozens of scientific disciplines. And, you show an inherent inability to actually learn anything
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/fr/630185/posts#632

except by creationists who cannot see the forest for the trees and refuse to accept any evidence unless in the form of a living, breathing critter (and then they'd probably claim it was ginned up by geneticists in some secret laboratory to mislead good, God-fearing Christians in an effort to damn their souls to Hell).
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/fr/630185/posts#750

Gee, you get caught quote-mining red handed, and attempt to weedle out of it by bantering semantics. You haven't read any real science since that nice old guy down the street introduced you to Saturnism... http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/fr/630185/posts#978

Dear, dear, deluded g3k.... http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/fr/630185/posts#1073

What must God think of you that you are reduced to bantering semantics, twisting words, willful ignorance, and outright lies to support Biblical creation?
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/fr/630185/posts#1080

I never said that, you liar and twister of words. The serpent in the Garden of Eden could take tips from you.... Remember, God said, "Thou shall not bear false witness" (which means lying). Of course, you probably think lying for God makes you a saint, don't you?
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/fr/630185/posts#1082

Ahem, Mr. "I've got to lie for God,"
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/fr/630185/posts#1088

I'm wondering if my asking gore3000 how he believed God felt about his lying for Him is what caused him to clam up. Medved, you claim God hates idiots, but not one of the commandments states "Thou shalt not be stupid." However, there is a "Thou shalt not bear false witness." Now that you know that your quotes are, at best, disengenuous, shouldn't you attempt to distance yourself from them, or is it okay to lie as long as it's "for the children?" http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/fr/630185/posts#1209

That is why PatrickHenry keeps publishing the list - so that y'all do not keep spouting the same, discredited drivel. http://www.FreeRepublic.com/forum/a3a68abe52d91.htm#147

I merely said that's what the Indians claim. And shortsighted politicians are more than willing to bend over and grab their ankles for these folks.
http://www.FreeRepublic.com/forum/a3a68abe52d91.htm#191

Ah... the "Static Cling Theory" of life, the universe and everything. Came to you one day while cleaning out the dryer lint trap, did it?
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/fr/636491/posts?q=1&&page=101#140

I figured it had to be you. Can't keep a tinfoil hatter down.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/fr/634527/posts?q=1&&page=51#55

Your beliefs can't be proven scientifically so they must be forced on the populace through deception and the courtroom. Nice. In a few centuries America will have come to resemble the Islamic world in its backwardness and you can sit back in that special Hell God reserves for people who lie in His name, and gloat at your handiwork.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/fr/634066/posts?q=1&&page=151#164

Proof positive you have absolutely no clue about that which you speak. Your creationist brethren have given up this argument as factually incorrect, but you persist in your ignorance as if it were some sort of talisman keeping the real world at bay.
The Sun does not "reverse" entropy, you muggle....
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/fr/626685/posts?q=1&&page=201#203

BTW, a mutation is simply a change in the genome. It happens all the time -- usually during the creation of the sex cells from transcription errors (there is a word for this, but I cannot remember it for the life of me). Sometimes it is caused by an external influence -- a stray particle of radiation might knock part of a gene out of kilter (the biggest source of such radiation, BTW, is the Sun), or environmental chemicals might play merry hell with one's genetic coding. It's quite common and happens all the time -- which you would know if you actually read something other than the Bible once in a while.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/fr/626685/posts?q=1&&page=301#346

Oh, I forgot, the scientific community is conspiring to keep you silent, so just sit in your basement and brood...
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/fr/626685/posts?q=1&&page=351#356

A case could be made that you should alter your drinking...
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/fr/626685/posts?q=1&&page=351#372

You are more incoherent than usual. Have they upped the dosage on your meds?
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/fr/626685/posts?q=1&&page=551#556

Are you being dense, or what? A descendent species can coexist with its parent species. There is nothing precluding Homo Erectus, Homo Neanderthalensis and Homo Sapien from occupying the planet at the same time. The fact that you cannot see this obvious situation indicates a lack of thought on your part.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/fr/630185/posts?q=1&&page=1370#1367

gore3000: God did it. I have special dispensation to lie for God. Besides, I'll ignore all your evidence so that I can complain you never give me any.
medved: God came from Saturn.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/fr/630185/posts?q=1&&page=1408

Seek Help, 'Junior'...


134 posted on 03/10/2002 1:02:57 PM PST by medved
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To: medved
It's not obvious to me that you wre ever making any sort of a point other than posting a few images and that buys you anything ONLY if everybody in the house agrees to view any evidence of any sort of change as evidence of change by evolutionary processes. Not only do I not buy that, but you haven't even started to answer a fairly sizable number of questions, and all you've really shown us is pictures of primative birds whose wings still had features of claws.
You are utterly on the wrong page. Not that I don't stand by Confuciusornis sanctus as an important clue to the origin of birds, but your attack on punctuated equilibrium was refuted in Divine Design, Thread III, Post 126. I reluctantly copy forward to prevent further confusion.

1. It is a pure pseudoscience seeking to explain and actually be proved by a lack of evidence rather than by evidence (all the missing intermediate fossils).

Again, you attempt to bludgeon others with your own ignorance:

Speciation by Punctuated Equilbrium.

Note that there's more than logic involved. There's evidence. And more evidence. And more evidence. And more evidence. And more evidence.

And I already gave you the TalkOrigins page on vertebrate intermediate fossils. You have failed to rebut.

2. PE amounts to a claim that inbreeding is the most major source of genetic advancement in the world. Apparently Steve Gould never saw Deliverance...

Inbreeding became a problem for the cheetah species, which has come through such a bottleneck in the later Pleistocene that they can give skin grafts to each other and all tend to be susceptible to the same feline distemper strains. But most species bottlenecks aren't that small. (And how does creationism explain that? All the species on the Ark supposedly went through an even smaller bottleneck only 5-6 thousand years ago.)

3. PE requires these tiny peripheral groups to conquer vastly larger groups of animals millions if not billions of times, which is like requiring Custer to win at the little Big Horn every day, for millions of years.

Hardly necessary, although not impossible. After the kind of catastrophe that isolates a lot of species, a lot of others are extinct and a given ecological niche is just as likely to be empty or at least very uncrowded.

4. PE requires an eternal victory of animals specifically adapted to localized and parochial conditions over animals which are globally adapted, which never happens in real life.

Long periods of stasis are punctuated by catastrophism. Again you are wilfully(?) ignorant.

5. For any number of reasons, you need a minimal population of any animal to be viable. This is before the tiny group even gets started in overwhelming the vast herds.

Most species that go to the edge of extinction go over. So?

FWIW, that primitive bird's forelimb is as close as I can imagine to "half claw, half wing." One of your FPDDs (Frequently-Posted Dumb-Dumbisms) says that can't happen.
135 posted on 03/10/2002 1:18:08 PM PST by VadeRetro
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To: medved
Crank-dot-net: cranks, crackpots, kooks & loons on the net.

TOP TEN REASONS WHY VELIKOVSKY IS WRONG .

AN ANTIDOTE TO VELIKOVSKIAN DELUSIONS .

136 posted on 03/10/2002 1:26:41 PM PST by PatrickHenry
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To: medved
Moreover, as I note, you have not told us what purpose the arm served when it was 20% of the way to being a wing, what purpose when 40% of the way, what purpose when 60% of the way etc. etc.

You want 20 percent of the way to a wing? Is this close enough?

And why would such a thing develop? Maneuverability. If you don't have the longest legs out there, get maneuverable or get eaten.

You have been answered on every bit of this before, but you're still born new on square one every thread.

137 posted on 03/10/2002 1:31:29 PM PST by VadeRetro
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To: jennyp
Who is the Creator? That may be answered only probably when Man becomes closer to being like God in discovering how to create artificial life forms. We seem to be heading in that direction. Maybe we are just an experiment for some Higher Power out there but we are so small we can't see it. We may just be germs, microscopic life forms, etc. to some Higher Power. Maybe we are just part of sub-atomic particles that we are so small that time and space is infinite. The Sun may just be a spark of fire which extinguishes very quickly in seconds to some Higher Power but for us it is like eternity as we see it slowly extinguish over infinite time and space. Maybe as the Sun cooled down, life from distant planets emigrated to the next closest planet which now had the right temperature for life to be created by the superior life forms escaping the previous dying planets. One can go on and on but the fact is that it is arrogant to think that only we can exist and not God. Why is it that life as we see it only exists on Earth and not the other visible planents.

Nobody is saying stop the research into the theory of evolution. But evolution has not been proven and thus it should not be taught or believed as a proven fact. Teach it as a theory. The current trend in scientific advances in fact proves that Man is becoming closer to creating life. Maybe when Venus cools down and Earth becomes uninhabitable, Earthlings will go there in Noah's ark spaceships and create and introduce new life forms. Then the new Venusians may think of Earthlings as God!!! Life can be a many splendoured dream in the eternal fire of creation.

138 posted on 03/10/2002 1:41:23 PM PST by TransOxus
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To: PatrickHenry
I notice that one of your BS sources lists Nikola Tesla as a 'crank'. I assume your house uses direct current for light bulbs...

Other than that, Leroy Ellenberger (one of your other sources) is a known psychotic.. You're really doing well today.

139 posted on 03/10/2002 1:52:04 PM PST by medved
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To: samtheman
Yes the ceationism debate is secondary to the great issues of conservatism vs big gov collectivism etc.; however, the creationists tend to get all consevatives painted with the same brush, lending credence to charge of ignorance and closedmindedness. In other word, they give conservatism a bad name. And the greater attention they garner, the more damage they do.
140 posted on 03/10/2002 1:52:49 PM PST by luvbach1
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