Oh, and whilst we’re talking about creationist loonies, the Guardian has a report from the Creation Museum which will open next year in Kentucky.
The Creation Museum – motto: “Prepare to Believe!” – will be the first institution in the world whose contents, with the exception of a few turtles swimming in an artificial pond, are entirely fake. It is dedicated to the proposition that the account of the creation of the world in the Book of Genesis is completely correct, and its mission is to convince visitors through a mixture of animatronic models, tableaux and a strangely Disneyfied version of the Bible story.
It would all be very funny if there weren’t so many people who take it seriously. Seriously enough to spend $25m on creating the museum. Of course everyone involved is a complete nutter as the Guardian’s gentle probing reveals.
But what, I ask wonderingly, about those fossilised remains of early man-like creatures? Marsh [Patrick Marsh, who designed the displays] knows all about that: “There are no such things. Humans are basically as you see them today. Those skeletons they’ve found, what’s the word? … they could have been deformed, diseased or something. I’ve seen people like that running round the streets of New York.”
It’s almost worth a visit. Just to point and laugh!
Update: No need to wait until it opens. Or to travel all that way. The museum web site allows you to laugh at them now. And from the comfort of your own home.
That site has been keeping me amused all afternoon – I particularly love the idea that the museum will answer tough questions like where Cain’s wife came from.Turns out, of course – why didn’t I think of this – that the answer is that he married one of his sisters, which wasn’t a problem back then, because the rules about not marrying your siblings don’t turn up until a later chapter of the bible. Priceless stuff.