Quicky: Creationist Bashing
Just a quick heads-up on this absolutely wonderful article by Bruno Maddox on the soon to be opened creation museum in the fine town of Hebron, Kentucky. The article, published in the latest issue of Discovery, begins thusly…
In the beginning, wrote God in His epic, loosely autobiographical best seller, The Bible, the Lord made the heavens and the Earth. Pondering from the vile comfort of the Marriott in Hebron, Kentucky, I assumed that this single statement represented the bulk, if not the entirety, of creationist ideology. Hence the name, I reckoned in a flash of insight. God created everything; if something exists, then God created it. Yes, that’s what they believe, those creationists.
A creationist group called Answers in Genesis, which believes in the literal, scientific truth of the Bible, has decided to spend $27 million building a creation museum only minutes away by cab from this unlovely spot. When it opens in May, the museum is going to try to dazzle people with the wonder, beauty, and sheer scientific cunning exhibited by God during that action-packed week when He willed everything that exists into being. Yet the museum’s founders have chosen to set it in one of the few spots on Earth that could plausibly have been designed by chimpanzees.
There is another great irony to the project, it occurs to me as I finish my coffee and rise to meet my driver: that of God almost certainly not existing.
… and simply gets better.
Two side stories here.
First, you might take note of one of the persons mentioned in the article, Ken Ham. He is a man of obviously high integrity, and who has a reason for living in Kentucky and not Austrailia.
And second, don’t forget the wonderful idea from the SciBlogger and gray parrot lover, Shelley Batts about what to do when these museums start to open. Something about Annoy-a-trons…
Eclectics Anonymous 
“Creationist Bashing”
Careful…once you start, it’s almost impossible to quit.
*sigh*
As I am finding out here.
I’ll probably end up in a clinic. Right next to the heroin addicts and methadone freaks. (Oh! Wait! I’ll get to meet Britney! Cool!)
Ben,
I went there and read it…you some almost like you are about to imagine yourself into Deism. 🙂
Very well done.
Although one quibble, and that is that while a German Shepherd and a Dachsund can’t breed very effectivly due to physical incompatability, I’ve never heard anything to indicate that their genetics prevent combination; which would be a requirement for speciation.
There is no genetic problem. Yet.
That’s why I formed the question as to include physical difficulties. (Note how I carefully framed the very definition of species.)
But, since the genetic pathways can no longer intermix, any further differences will lead to more incompatablities. This is a genetic separation as wide as the Atlantic. A physical incompatablity will lead to genetic drift carrying the two breeds farther and farther apart.
Considering humans have been breeding dogs for a few thousand years, a couple of hundred thousand should lead to genetic Dachshund/Great Dane incompatablities.
But you’re right the point could have been better made.
Ah I understand now.
I retract the question. Sorry for the misunderstanding.