A major skirmish, or maybe battle, in the creationism-vs.-science war has resumed. An 8 July headline at the UK’s Telegraph illustrates the defense-of-science theme seen in much of the widespread reporting about it: “Noah’s Ark ‘replica’ unveiled in Kentucky amid anger at ‘scientifically preposterous’ museum.”
The landlocked vessel, built to specifications recorded in scripture—cubit by cubit, to display animatronic animal replicas embarked two by two—measures half the 337 m length of the US Navy’s latest supercarrier. Its builder, the proselytizing religious organization Answers in Genesis (AiG), calls it the world’s largest timber-frame structure.
The New York Timesreport‘s opening paragraph echoes the book of Genesis stylistically: “In the beginning, Ken Ham made the Creation Museum in northern Kentucky. And he saw that it was good at spreading his belief that the Bible is a book of history, the universe is only 6,000 years old, and evolution is wrong and is leading to our moral downfall.”
Two years ago, a media report in the present venue carried the headline and subhead “Creationist Ken Ham charges ‘science has been hijacked by secularists': ‘Science Guy’ Bill Nye debates at Ham’s museum, which depicts a human child near a living dinosaur.”
Creationist Ken Ham envisions his new ark in Kentucky as a world-class theme park to promote a literal interpretation of Christian scripture—and to oppose science. Credit: Answers in Genesis
Ham dates Noah and the biblical flood to 6000 years ago. News articles, citing science, place dinosaur extinction 65 000 000 years ago. The ark and museum, meant to work together, are 45 minutes apart.
“The scientific aspects of creation are important,” says the first bullet point in AiG’s Statement of Faith, “but are secondary in importance.” Another bullet proclaims, “The account of origins presented in Genesis is a simple but factual presentation of actual events and therefore provides a reliable framework for scientific research into the question of the origin and history of life, mankind, the earth, and the universe.”
Slantwise, selective acknowledgment of science and fact pervades the bullets. One admits that “biological changes” have taken place over time, but stipulates that they’ve been “limited.” The final bullet asserts, “By definition, no apparent, perceived or claimed evidence in any field, including history and chronology, can be valid if it contradicts the scriptural record.”
What about actual facts? That final bullet adds this parrying attempt: “Of primary importance is the fact that evidence is always subject to interpretation by fallible people who do not possess all information.”
The Telegraph quotes Harvard biology PhD Nathaniel Jeanson, an AiG adviser: “This is not anti-science. I would say we embrace all science. We are just teaching people to think differently.”
It also quotes James Krupa, who teaches evolutionary biology at the University of Kentucky: “That Ken Ham is trying to ignore vast evidence to the contrary and convince people the world is 6,000 years old is an embarrassment to Kentucky, the US, and to Christianity.” Krupa laments that in the US, “public acceptance of evolution is the second lowest of 34 developed countries.”
The Times article summarizes a legal dimension of the battle’s recurrence:
In an interview, Mr. Ham railed against atheist groups for trying to prevent his project from receiving tax incentives from the state of Kentucky. Answers in Genesis claimed that the state’s denial of those tax credits violated the group’s First Amendment rights. Judge Greg Van Tatenhove of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky agreed, writing in his January decision that tourist attractions—even those that advance religion—meet the neutral criteria for the tax incentives.
On the morning of 8 July, Google News yielded 217 000 hits on the search term “Noah’s ark.” AiG has posted online a 1-minute aerial tour of the ark and its site.
Ham reportedly envisions next a replica Tower of Babel.
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Steven T. Corneliussen, a media analyst for the American Institute of Physics, monitors three national newspapers, the weeklies Nature and Science, and occasionally other publications. He has published op-eds in the Washington Post and other newspapers, has written for NASA’s history program, and was a science writer at a particle-accelerator laboratory.
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