1. Comment #54723 by AmericanHumanist on July 8, 2007 at 6:28 pm

Reminds me of a nifty quote by Judith Hayes:

"If we are going to teach creation science as an alternative to evolution, then we should also teach the stork theory as an alternative to biological reproduction."

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2. Comment #54729 by windfall on July 8, 2007 at 7:10 pm

Good video - always nice to hear this stuff - and I admit it's ironic.

However, no creationist watching this will be impressed. To them, it will just sound like a lot of technical mumbo-jumbo. They will claim that the science book illustration is just a made up story to match the fossils (which it is in an important sense, which is a GOOD thing).

They'll think - wow, god did ALL THAT in so little time! He must be REALLY amazing!

I wonder how the creationists deal with the ark story and the tiniest of living organisms. Did Noah go out with a pipette and a set of glass slides to collect his samples? How did he figure out which insects were which, and ensure he got one male/female of each? And how did he keep them on the ark (no aqauriums, no glass at all...). What about bacteria? Did god kill them too? What did Noah just dunk his head in the water a couple of times?

I'm sure a creationist would respond 'well, that just shows you how powerful god is, that he was able to get Noah to do all that'. Maybe he did the tough parts himself. So why use Noah at all?

Oh, yeah I forgot - it's just a story. It's like arguing about how many angels can dance on a pinhead. It misses the important point entirely.

Oh, creationists, please wake up and smell the coffee. Science is serious stuff. People spend their lives doing careful research and you just piss on it because it doesn't line up with your magic book. We're actually figuring out what the past was really like based on real evidence. It's exciting! Don't you see that?

Oh, what's the use?

Incidentally, they misspelled 'were' at the end.

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3. Comment #54784 by Veronique on July 9, 2007 at 1:08 am

PZ you're fine. No problem. However, in the midst of what you were describing, especially re: trilobytes, it would have been salutary to mention that the old caves in lower middle Australia have rendered up living trilobytes. Not all of them were fossilised!! They live, yeah!

As for Ken Ham and his money making venture reliant on income from the incredulity of southern Americans who are prepared to part with money (into his coffers), I despair. And, like Rupert Murdoch, he used to be an Australian. Oh! dear!

I have seen a 'survey' that tells me that the majority of Americans believe that creation is true, either with god's direct involvement or his tweaking of the evolutionary process. Sob, what hope is there?

No windfall our excitement merely puts them in a tiz. Sad, sad, sad.

Cheers
V

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4. Comment #54803 by moopet on July 9, 2007 at 2:27 am

windfall - they also misspelt "etc." which annoyed me out of all proportion :)
Good video, though.

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5. Comment #54822 by He-man Daunted World on July 9, 2007 at 3:39 am

Is there anywhere in southeastern Australia where it's that easy to find fossils?

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6. Comment #54851 by Graeme on July 9, 2007 at 6:26 am

5. Comment #54822 by He-man Daunted World

I dont know about SE Aus, but I have a box of small but perfectly formed iron pyrites (or fools gold!) ammonites on the window sill in front of me, all of which I have collected from our beach here in Charmouth...(Black ven)
I'm happy to send you one....
In fact I'll be happy to send anyone a genuine fossilised ammonite if they e mail me at
GETESMART@aol.com
(sod the expense!)
I think they are mid or lower jurassic...about 180- 195 million years old....
(Open to creationists too.. take em to church!! show em to you mates...pretend that theyre only 6000 YO. You'll only be about, say, 180-195 million years wrong!)


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7. Comment #54880 by Greg23 on July 9, 2007 at 8:15 am

moopet - also, where for were.

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8. Comment #54963 by Johnny O on July 9, 2007 at 1:25 pm

In fact I'll be happy to send anyone a genuine fossilised ammonite if they e mail me at
GETESMART@aol.com
(sod the expense!)

Graeme, I only live up the road in Hampshire and my kids would love one of those. I shall e-mail you and if you send them with your address I'll send you the money for the postage.

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9. Comment #54973 by D'Arcy on July 9, 2007 at 2:10 pm

Unfortunately, in my experience, creationists are not susceptible to reasoned argument. They only "know" that their holy book is right and that anyone or anything that contradicts it is an agent of Satan. They start from the basis that the Bible is the word of God and that is therefore beyond challenge.

The progress of science has pushed such a viewpoint more and more to the extremities of credibility, such that even many "mainstream" Christians regard the creationists as freaks.

If the Creation Museum is built upon fossils many millions of years old, it must have been conceived and paid for by freaks with a fossilised mentality.

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10. Comment #54997 by Ivan The Not So Bad on July 9, 2007 at 4:13 pm

You might all enjoy the text below, taken from The Economist magazine which printed this deadpan funny review of the Creation Museum when it opened a couple of months ago.



THE CREATION MUSEUM

Keeping the word - The triumph of faith over experience in Kentucky



DINOSAURS are monstrously exciting. Alas, museums with dinosaur exhibits tend to indoctrinate visitors with Godless evolutionary theory. So parents who believe that every word in the Bible is literally true have nowhere to take their tots for an uncorrupting fix of Tyrannosaurus rex.

Until this week. The Creation Museum opened in Petersburg, Kentucky, on May 28th. Here impressionable youngsters can watch awesome animatronic dinosaurs interacting with primitive humans, just as Genesis implies they did, shortly after the beginning of time one Monday morning in 4004BC.

The museum's aim is to teach visitors how to answer attacks on the Bible's authority in geology, biology and so on, while providing a "family-friendly experience". The founder, Ken Ham, raised $27m from thousands of pious donors to build it. The exhibits are as whizzy as any in a theme park. But starting with scripture and trying to force the facts to fit makes for odd science.

The museum says that, if Noah took two of every animal on his ark, he must have had dinosaurs. Could dinosaurs have fitted into a boat only 300 cubits (about 135m) long? "It is likely that God brought young adults. Being smaller, they would be easier to care for."

The attention to detail is superb. In one exhibit, tiny human figures about to be engulfed by the rising floodwaters are shown throttling each other, to remind visitors why they deserved to drown. The flood killed off most dinosaurs, of course, but the descendants of those Noah saved survived until quite recently, which is why legends of dragons pop up in so many cultures. They were probably hunted to extinction by chaps like St George, says another exhibit.

The debate about the origins of everything is presented even-handedly. Some people trust God, accept that the universe is 6,000 years old and will go to heaven. Others trust human reason, think the Big Bang happened 14 billion years ago and, having abandoned God, are quite likely to start browsing the internet for pornography or commit genocide. Visitors are spared graphic examples of porn, but there are some nasty pictures of lynched black Americans and of Nazi concentration camps.

The museum has humorous touches, too. Fragile displays are labelled "Thou shalt not touch! Please". Unfinished exhibits carry the apology: "This space is still evolving". And, apart from the supercilious ape-descended journalists at the opening, the crowds seem to love it. Ben, from West Virginia, says he is delighted to be able to take his children to a museum that stands up to secularism, even if, at four and two years old, they may be "a bit young to take it all in".

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11. Comment #55180 by Graeme on July 10, 2007 at 7:54 am

Nice post "Ivan the not so bad!"....

and Johnny O yours fossils are in the post...
Any other takers???
Graeme

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12. Comment #55265 by Alkal on July 10, 2007 at 11:36 am

It is so funny that the creation museum does not take into account that there are a few billion people WHO DO NOT believe in the Flood story from Christianity.....
How does one convince them. The Bible story is so tacky- all of the Bible stories are.. no imagination no nothing THe other myths are so much more intertesting... Hindu creation,the Greeks etc...

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13. Comment #178976 by rho on May 12, 2008 at 10:28 am

A question that always comes to mind when reading about Noah: If god is almighty, why did he need the help of Noah?
If he didn't like the result of his first attempt, he just could've started from scratch. That shouldn't have been a problem for someone that can create a universe in several days.

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14. Comment #178998 by Quine on May 12, 2008 at 11:19 am

I like this video very much because it flies in the face of the idea that science is done in some far away ivory tower where there is a big conspiracy to lie to the people about evolution. This guy and his boy go outside and just pick it up off the ground. Priceless!

I have used the link to this video in the past to try to get folks to open their eyes, and suggest that others here do so as well.

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15. Comment #179004 by Diacanu on May 12, 2008 at 11:27 am

Alkal-

all of the Bible stories are.. no imagination no nothing

And no originality.
The bible steals greatly from Gilgamesh, Mithrah, etc, etc.

It's a forgery of a plagiarism of a hoax.

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