Creation Museum's Foes Pay It a Visit

Paleontologists have little good to say after touring the museum.

SUMMARY: Six dozen paleontologists visited the Creation Museum in Petersburg, Kentucky last week to get a glimpse at marketing tactics being used by the museum. The scientists had been in the area already for a conference.

Although they spend their careers studying evolution, they were visiting a place dedicated to a literal interpretation of the Bible and to disproving the theory. "The real purpose of the museum visit is to give some of my colleagues an opportunity to sense how they're being portrayed," said Arnold Miller, a paleontology professor at the U. of Cincinnati which was hosting the conference. "They're being demonized, I feel, in this museum as people who are responsible for all the ills of society."

The scientists objected to exhibits that portray science as doing more harm than good. They were disturbed at the depiction of the great flood as being a rebuke for questioning God. They didn't like seeing dinosaurs alongside cows, monkeys and other animals in a model of Noah's Ark or in another exhibit, two young girls pictured playing near dinosaurs.

Dr. David Menton, a biology professor with Answers in Genesis, which founded the museum, insisted the museum largely uses the same evidence that other scientists use but with a starting point millions of years later. Scientists can't prove anything beyond a few thousands years anyway, he said. He defended the idea that dinosaurs and man were contemporaries but doubts that they spent much time hobnobbing with each other.

To read the entire article click on this MSNBC link.

COMMENT: Why would so many paleontologists pay a visit to a place that publicly they look at with such deep contempt? Certainly, curiosity might be the reason. However, they might have wanted to tour the museum so that they could freely criticize the place without someone complaining that they shouldn't criticize an institution they haven't seen. We'll see what if anything these scientists have to say in the days and weeks ahead about what they learned at AiG's museum.

If we are allowed to hope, we might hope and pray that at least some of the scientists might be "closet creationists" or at least "closet evolution-doubters" who have had questions about Darwin's theories that may have deepened as a result of their visit. That some of them spoke out against the museum isn't surprising because one could lose his/her standing in the evolutionist fraternity if appearing to be too soft on creationism.

It is interesting that these scientists were paleontologists. Two people creationists most like to quote are paleontologists. In regard to the alleged evidence for evolution in the fossil record, the late Stephen Jay Gould wrote such things as "All paleontologists know that the fossil record contains precious little in the way of intermediate forms; transitions between major groups are characteristically abrupt." The late Colin Patterson of the British Museum of Natural History wrote in a letter regarding a book on evolution he had authored, "‘I fully agree with your comments on the lack of direct illustration of evolutionary transitions in my book. If I knew of any, fossil or living, I would certainly have included them." Evolutionists may falsely maintain these men were misquoted or their remarks were taken out of context, but even though Gould and Patterson remained evolutionists, their honesty regarding the fossil record can't be ignored.

As for the claim that creationists believe Darwinians are responsible for all the world's ills, that is an overstatement. There were plenty of problems in the world long before anyone ever heard of Charles Darwin. For instance, the Bible makes it clear Noah's Flood was sent because of the serious tide of sin that had overtaken the world at that time. Still, a theory that insists we are descended from animals can't be good for society. Some people may take that as permission to sometimes act like animals. Most important though, evolutionism destroys the need for a Savior and causes people to look at science as their god instead of looking to the only true God in heaven who alone can provide salvation. This He does, of course, through the death of Jesus Christ by which He offers salvation to anyone willing to accept it.

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QUESTION OF THE DAY

According to author Vance Ferrell, what are the evolutionary formulae for the evolution of the first cell and the first human?

Nothing+Time+Chance="Simple" Cell
Cell+Time+Chance=Man

Source: The Evolution Handbook by Vance Ferrell

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