There's been so much written about the Creation Museum that there is little need to write more.
This post, though, is about the news media, and specifically Northwest Ohio's paper of record, the Pulitzer Prizewinning Toledo Blade. To that paper's everlasting shame, this is THE page-one headline that appeared last Sunday:
Creation Museum's Era Dawns: Facility Offers 'Dinosaurs" and Biblical Perspective
For those readers who aren't familiar with Ohio geography, let me take a moment. The Creation Museum is located in Petersburg, Kentucky, which is just over the border from Ohio's southwest corner. The Blade is published in Toledo, in the state's northwest corner, 225 miles away. If the museum were anywhere nearby, it might be reasonable for the Toledo paper to cover its opening. But giving the premier headline real estate to the opening of a facility some three and a half hours away is already suspect. The Blade doesn't generally report on events and openings in Columbus, Cleveland, or Dayton--all cities closer than Petersburg, Kentucky--and yet it reported on this.
In the entire article, written by religion editor Dave Yonke, the one reference to the utterly fraudulent and fictitious nature of the museum's purpose and presentation may be found in this sentence:
While prevailing scientific theory is that the Earth is 4 billion years old and that humanity evolved from ape-like creatures, Mr. Ham and his Creationist colleagues contend that scientific evidence supports the biblical account of the origin of the universe, and that evolution theory hinges on certain scientific presuppositions, or biases.
That's it--half a sentence to reason, science and Darwin in a 32 paragraph article that occupies the prime headline slot in the news section of the paper.
But it gets worse.
A day later, The Blade did publish a much shorter, unsigned op-ed from the Los Angeles Times labeled "Another Opinion," which briefly pointed out the factual and scientific absurdities of the Creation Museum's exhibits:
The museum, a 60,000-square-foot menace to 21st century scientific advancement, is the handiwork of Answers in Genesis, a leader in the "young Earth" movement. Young Earthers believe the world is about 6,000 years old, as opposed to the 4.5 billion years estimated by the world's credible scientific community. This would be risible if anti-evolution forces were confined to a lunatic fringe, but they are not. Witness the recent revelation that three of the Republican candidates for president do not believe in evolution. Three men seeking to lead the last superpower on Earth reject the scientific consensus on cosmology, thermonuclear dynamics, geology and biology, believing instead that Bamm-Bamm and Dino played together.
Get that? The notion that human beings and dinosaurs walked the earth together just 6,000 years ago is news, i.e., fact. But the rational, scientific explanation as to why that notion is impossible is opinion, i.e., just some crazy random thought that popped into someone's head.
And it gets worse still.
In today's paper, there is a letter to the editor by one Terry Hubert of Holland, Ohio, which reads as follows:
Evolution not science, rather a sacred cow
A May 28 article reprinted from the [Los Angeles] Times is a lie promoted by an obviously atheistic author. Evolution parades behind a mask of "science," but is really a sacred cow that is as factual as Greek mythology. It contradicts even the most basic laws of thermodynamics.
Only a fool who is trying to escape accountability before the Creator would believe such far-fetched jargon. Creationism welcomes and encourages investigation. However, how the universe began is a matter of history, not science.
The Bible is a book of history that factually records the historical events of creation. Unless you are willfully blind, the fact that the universe operates by design is a simple deduction from everything you see in the cosmos. It is evolution that is an assault on science.
To be sure, the same edition of the paper also carried a letter sharply critical of creationism and The Blade's adoring coverage of The Creation Museum. Such editorial and publication decisions are presumably made by those who swallow the "teach the controversy" line, the notion that schools (and newspapers) should give equal time to science and mythology and let the readers decide which is accurate. This is particularly ironic given The Blade's concern about "brain drain," the loss of Toledo's best and brightest to cities whose papers of record don't provide a forum for Flintstones zoology. I wouldn't blame any recent college graduate for wanting to get the hell out of a city whose preeminent news outlet denigrated science, reason and fact the way The Blade has on this issue.
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