Creation Museum - Controversy and Criticism

Controversy and Criticism

The Creation Museum has been the subject of controversy ever since it was proposed, because the exhibits are based on a young Earth creationist view of the origins of the universe and life. Local opposition caused the construction approval process to take several years. During construction Robert Winston visited the site of the museum during the filming of his documentary "The Story of God" and remarked,

"I admit I was dismayed by what I saw at the Ken Ham museum. It was alarming to see so much time, money and effort being spent on making a mockery of hard won scientific knowledge. And the fact that it was being done with such obvious sincerity, somehow made it all the worse."

Educators criticizing the museum include the National Center for Science Education. The NCSE collected over 800 signatures from scientists in the three states closest to the museum (Kentucky, Indiana, and Ohio) on the following statement:

"We, the undersigned scientists at universities and colleges in Kentucky, Ohio, and Indiana, are concerned about scientifically inaccurate materials at the Answers in Genesis museum. Students who accept this material as scientifically valid are unlikely to succeed in science courses at the college level. These students will need remedial instruction in the nature of science, as well as in the specific areas of science misrepresented by Answers in Genesis."

NCSE director Eugenie Scott characterized the Creation Museum as "the Creationist Disneyland." The Guardian called the facility "quite possibly ... one of the weirdest museums in the world." Physicist Lawrence Krauss has called on media, educators, and government officials to shun the museum and says that its view is based on falsehoods. Krauss said that the facility is "as much a disservice to religion as it is to science."

The introduction to a May 2007 Good Morning America report on the museum stated that according to an ABC news poll, 60% of Americans believe that "God created the world in six days." The report stated that the Creation Museum was aimed at convincing visitors that evolution is wrong, and that the Biblical story of life on earth from Adam and Eve to Noah's ark is scientifically verifiable. In a March 2007 Newsweek poll conducted by Princeton Survey Research Associates International, 48% of respondents agreed with the statement "God created humans pretty much in the present form at one time within the last 10,000 years or so."

The museum has also been criticized by Christians who are not young Earth creationists. Notable among them is geologist Greg Neyman of Answers in Creation, an old earth creationism ministry. Neyman released a press kit dealing with the museum's grand opening in which he said:

"Those who will benefit least from the museum are the non-Christians, who are firmly grounded in their belief through modern science that the Earth is billions of years old. They will see the museum, and recognize its faulty science, and will be turned away from the church. This will increase the already widening gap between the unchurched and the churched. This gap is the direct result of young Earth creationism."

Neyman adds that "today, the church is comprised of many individuals who accept an old Earth" and "is already moving away from young Earth creationism." The Rev. Mendle Adams, pastor of St. Peter's United Church of Christ in Cincinnati, Ohio, joined others, both secularists and Christians, at protests at the museum's opening. He said "my brothers and sisters in the faith who embrace understanding call into question the whole Christian concept" and "make us a laughing stock." Roman Catholic theologian John Haught sees little merit in the museum, saying it will cause an "impoverishment" of religion. He concluded "It's hard for me to come up with a single reason why we should be doing this. ... It's theologically problematic to me, as well as scientifically problematic." Michael Patrick Leahy, editor of the magazine Christian Faith and Reason, says that by replacing the scientific method with biblical literalism, the museum undermines the credibility of all Christians and makes it easy to represent Christians as irrational.

Lisa Park, a professor of paleontology at University of Akron who is also an Elder in the Presbyterian Church was particularly disturbed by the museum's depiction that war, famine and natural disasters are the result of a belief in evolution. She stated:

"I think it's very bad science and even worse theology... and the theology is far more offensive to me. I think there's a lot of focus on fear, and I don't think that's a very Christian message... I find it a malicious manipulation of the public."

Edwin Kagin, Kentucky State Director for American Atheists, organized a “Rally for Reason” outside the gates of the Creation Museum its opening day, May 28, 2007. Kagin, a long time activist against creationism, was joined in this effort by the organization known as the "Campaign to Defend the Constitution" and many other groups and individuals according to the organizer's website. Depending on the media source, it was reported that anywhere from 50 to 200 people attended the rally. The demonstrators displayed protest signs, an airplane trailing a banner flew overhead and speeches were made. As reported by Deb Silverman of WCPO, "There was a long wait to be one of the first inside the Creation Museum but you couldn't get inside the $27 million building created by the group called 'Answers in Genesis Creation' without passing by a long line of protesters."

In July 2007, the UC Davis science radio show This Week in Science published a website parodying the Creation Museum. Based on Christian belief in literal biblical truth, the Unicorn Museum presents a case for Christian belief in unicorns.

In August 2007, the Northern Kentucky Convention & Visitors Bureau was criticized by scientists for describing the Creation Museum as a "'walk through history' museum" that "will counter evolutionary natural history museums that turn countless minds against Christ and Scripture". Daniel Phelps, the president of Kentucky Paleontological Society said that as a tax-supported institution, the use of the language was particularly problematic since many religious people accept evolution. The Bureau initially defended its use of the language saying that they used whatever language was supplied by each attraction, but then decided to change the description.

On his visit to the museum, Phelps noted that several of the dinosaur reconstructions were poorly reconstructed or outdated in depiction. A Tyrannosaurus outside the museum grounds for example, is shown standing in an outdated tail dragging "tripod" stance, an Iguanodon is shown bearing a skin texture completely different from what is known from fossilised skin impressions of the species and a Utahraptor is shown to be without feathers, despite recent discoveries of the opposite, as well as sporting anatomically incorrect forearms. Phelps also leveled criticism at the reconstructions of Mesozoic flora, one example being a cycad plant reconstructed as little more than a giant pineapple. The museum has also been accused of using "outdated 19th Century quack anthropology", since refuted, to promote the idea that different human races (Homo erectus, Neanderthal, and Cro-Magnon) came from Noah's descendants, dispersing after the Confusion of Tongues at the Tower of Babel.

In 2007 Bill Maher "evaded" Creation Museum security and toured the location and interviewed Ken Ham. The footage appeared in the October 2008 film Religulous. In a press release by AiG critical of the movie, it called Maher "dishonest" in gaining access to the Creation Museum and Ken Ham.

In August 2009, more than 300 members of the Secular Student Alliance took a tour of the venue, along with PZ Myers, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Minnesota, Morris. Scientists in the group, such as chemist William Watkin, commented about how scientifically wrong the displays are. Myers posted an account of the tour on his blog, including condemning the venue for "promoting the Hamite theory of racial origins, that ugly idea that all races stemmed from the children of Noah, and that black people in particular were the cursed offspring of Ham." This led to post exchanges between Ken Ham and Myers.

In 2010, A. A. Gill reported it is "a breathtakingly literal march through Genesis, without any hint of soul." "This place doesn't just take on evolution—it squares off with geology, anthropology, paleontology, history, chemistry, astronomy, zoology, biology, and good taste. It directly and boldly contradicts most -onomies and all -ologies, including most theology."

On February 11, 2011, a heterosexual Louisville man attempted to enter the museum with his male friend as part of the museum's "date night" event, but was denied entry, because the security guards were aware that this man had organized a fundraiser through his blog to "send the most flamboyantly gay couple imaginable to this dinner." Mark Looy, the museum's Communications Director, later said that everyone is welcome at the museum. The group that the two men were part of sought refunds for the $71 total admission fee for the unused tickets—the museum refused to refund them the money, but they invited the group to come back, as long as they do not make a scene.