"To what purpose are powers limited, and to what purpose is that limitation committed to writing,
if these limits may, at any time, be passed by those intended to be restrained?"
-- Chief Justice John Marshall, Marbury v. Madison, 1803

Sunday, September 25, 2005

Outside Cincinnati, a $25 million dollar museum has opened dedicated to documenting the most gullible, idiotic, simplistic, moronic members of society. 

The nation’s largest museum devoted to the alternative reality that is biblical creation science is rising just outside Cincinnati. Set amid a park and three-acre artificial lake, the 50,000-square-foot museum features animatronic dinosaurs, state-of-the-art models and graphics, and a half-dozen staff scientists. It holds that the world and the universe are but 6,000 years old and that baby dinosaurs rode in Noah’s ark.

The $25 million Creation Museum stands much of modern science on its head and might cause a paleontologist or three to rend their garments. But officials expect to attract hundreds of thousands of visitors when the museum opens in early 2007.

“Evolutionary Darwinists need to understand we are taking the dinosaurs back,” says Kenneth Ham, president of Answers in Genesis-USA, which is building the museum. “This is a battle cry to recognize the science in the revealed truth of God.”

I’m absolutely astonished that anyone capable of believing this drivel was actually able to raise $25 million in the first place.  Then again, maybe not.

But by any measure, Young Earth Creationism—which holds that the Bible is the literal word of God and that He created the universe in seven days-- has a more powerful hold on the beliefs of Americans than evolutionary theory or intelligent design. That grip grows stronger by the year.

Polls taken last year showed that 45 percent of Americans believe that God created humans in their present form 10,000 years ago (or less) and that man shares no common ancestor with the ape. Only 26 percent believe in the central tenet of evolution, that all life descended from a single ancestor.

Another poll showed that 65 percent of Americans want creationism taught alongside evolution.

I’m waiting for the Museum of Phrenology to open up down the street.

“We’re placing this one in the hall that explains the post-Flood world,” explains the guide. “When dinosaurs lived with man.”

A reporter has a question or two about this dinosaur-man business, but Mark Looy—the guide and a vice president at the museum—already has walked over to the lifelike head of a T. rex, with its three-inch teeth and carnivore’s grin.

“We call him our ‘missionary lizard,’ “ Looy says. “When people realize the T. rex lived in Eden, it will lead us to a discussion of the gospel. The T. rex once was a vegetarian, too.”

Seriously, when I read this I’m disheartened for the future of mankind.  Believing in God is one thing, ignoring the sum total of human knowledge is another thing entirely.  It’s absolutely terrifying.

H.L. Mencken once said “Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public.” I think this is especially true of religious zealots.  Just look at the Middle East.