Dinosaurs for Creationists


"The new Museum of Earth History that opened last week in Eureka
Springs, Ark., isn't nearly as big as more famous natural-history
museums in Chicago, Washington and New York City; in fact, the whole
thing would probably fit neatly inside one of their exhibition halls.
And its nine replicas of dinosaur skeletons and skulls don't quite
measure up to the rich fossil collections on display elsewhere.

But it's got something the others don't: an account of Earth's history
that hews to the most literal version of biblical creationism. Nestled
close to the 67-ft.-tall Christ of the Ozarks statue, the museum is
the latest addition to a theological theme park established almost
four decades ago by the late Gerald L. K. Smith, a right-wing zealot
and notorious anti-Semite. So if you go there, you will walk through
exhibits depicting Eden and the Tower of Babel and learn that all life
on Earth was created at one stroke about 6,000 years ago (no mention
of evolution), that dinosaurs and humans walked the earth at the same
time, and that the terrible lizards perished under human pressure and
habitat loss.

Scientists, naturally, won't be rushing for a visit. William Etges, an
evolutionary biologist at the nearby University of Arkansas at
Fayetteville, dismisses the museum's version of history as "utterly
irrelevant to what we actually know and understand about our world."
But the museum's president, G. Thomas Sharp, whose doctorate in the
philosophy of religion and science was awarded by a Florida seminary,
says the exhibits are intended to counter a lamentable shift in public
education to what he calls "a very secular, pagan base," arguing that
"the biblical explanation to earth science is very feasible and very
satisfying." At least for some people: the museum expects from 35,000
to 50,000 visitors a year. --By Steve Barnes".

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1056282,00.html

-RFH

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