Fairness and Balance

As well as Creation, there's a second movie about Charles Darwin being released this year. It's called The Voyage That Shook The World, and is funded by Creation Ministries International, so expect nothing less than some hardcore creationist propaganda. According to PZ Myers:

They got several Darwin experts (Peter Bowler, Sandra Herbert, and Janet Browne) to appear in the "documentary" by concealing their motives. And then they admit to cherry-picking the interviews to put together their story.

The movie's website has a page entitled Digging Deeper, which promises "more information about origins from leading sources of both viewpoints". Sounds reasonable, right? Wrong. The page offers two links, one for creation and one for evolution. The creation link leads to the pretty, expensive-looking Creation Ministries website:


...while the evolution link leads to this:

DeWitt-less Fool

There's an article in the Washington Post describing Liberty "University" Professor David DeWitt's creationism-themed tours around the Smithsonian. Here's what he has to say about the museum:

There's nothing balanced here. It's completely, 100 percent evolution-based.

I think he means: "There's nothing supernatural here. It's completely, 100 percent evidence-based."

This man is shamelessly indoctrinating students with archaic and long-disproven theories. Like the tale of a 6000-year-old Earth that was somehow magically constructed by a mysterious entity that exists outside of physical space. And he calls himself a Professor? Let's hear about his institution, from a proper scientist:

Noah's Ark Zoo Farm

Noah's Ark Zoo Farm is a creationist-run zoo in the south west of England, aimed (admirably) at teaching children where food comes from, but also (far less admirably) at brain-washing kids into believing religious claptrap. The Guardian's James Russell visited the farm a couple of years ago:

When I visited Wraxall with my son's nursery group, we went to the animal show and learned the difference between a cow's horn and a deer's antler. We learnt that ewes have udders, and we watched the presenter milk a ewe and drink the milk. Then events took a curious turn. A donkey was led in and the presenter traced a marking on its back. Did we know that the domesticated donkey has a dark cross marked on its back, he asked us casually, whereas the wild donkey doesn't? Did the cross not remind us that the donkey carried Jesus?

This page on the farm's website claims that "Evolutionism is as much faith as Creationism is". Putting aside the poor grammar, as well as the dreadful, misleading word "evolutionism" (should we start refering to doctors as "medicinists"?), this claim is of course indefensible. Science is based on evidence, not faith (which is defined as belief despite a lack of evidence). The page goes on to give a brief run-down of some of the major steps in evolution, implying that they are each unsupported by any facts or data. For example:

13. Birds such as Archaeopteryx, complete with wings, feathers etc, evolved from an unknown theropod dinosaur.

This is a common creationist tactic; creationists have not a shred of evidence for their beliefs, so one strategy is to point out weaknesses in the alternative. These "weaknesses" usually amount to a certain specific detail that has not yet been accounted for. Richard Dawkins summed it up: “I bet you don’t know how the elbow joint of the lesser-spotted weasel frog evolved. You don’t? Right then. God did it.”

This approach is doomed to failure.

In order for their case against evolution to be understood by their audience, creationists must first present evolution, how it works, and what it implies. But given the simplicity of the theory, and the fact that it can be understood without recourse to any mathematics or advanced concepts, and the sheer number of phenomena that it can explain so satisfactorily (Dobzhansky said that "nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution"), do creationists really want their followers to be exposed to it?

A theologian recently thanked the organizers of the UK atheist bus campaign for keeping God in the public sphere. Well, the same applies to evolution. Creationists are bringing Darwin and Wallace's theory directly into the churches and sunday schools, and Noah's Ark Zoo Farm is planting the seeds of the theory directly into the minds of young children before they've even attended a science class. We can only hope that these kids are bright enough to figure out the truth for themselves.

No Parking Without God

The Secular Alliance of Indiana University recently visited the Creation Museum, and made a video about it. It's both frightening and hilarious:



Visit their blog to read more.

Indoctrination

Thanks to Josh Stein for the video.

The Handy Dandy Evolution Refuter

The Handy Dandy Evolution Refuter is a creationist manual for Christian students, and is available online here. One of its Appendices is called "What Students can do to Counterattack Evolution and Change the Schools". This is some of the advice they give:

Develop a sharp eye for dogmatic statements, i.e., statements of "fact" that cannot be demonstrated to be factual.

Learn how to ask intelligent, probing questions that expose dogma for what it is.

Demand empirical evidence for all statements of faith.

Now that's some good advice right there, for all Christians.

Creation Museum

An excellent article by Demonbaby about the Creation Museum in Kentucky:

Creation Museum Review

While you're on the site, check out an equally thought-provoking article about downloading music.

Here's another review, this time written from a Christian perspective. It has a very detailed description of the exhibit, but the verdict is not good:

Reconciling Christian claims about God, creation and humanity with the findings of Darwin and his successors is an important and daunting task, one that mainline theology has still not satisfactorily accomplished. [The creation museum] can hardly be faulted for attempting the task, though its effort is a spectacular failure.

Biblically Correct Museum Tours

This video is not so much amusing as infuriating:



It says a lot that the museum curators allow these tours. They are obviously optimistic that the children will see the overwhelming evidence on display and will be able to make up their own minds. Hopefully these kids won't be too warped by the horrific indoctrination they're being subjected to.