The "Creation Evidence Museum" is real

[booksenkatz]

Just got back from visiting my family in Texas. I had not been down to Glen Rose to see the dinosaur tracks in about 15 years and felt it was time to take my 4-year-old son to see them. I couldn't stifle my disgust as we drove into the park and saw a large building with huge, tantrum-throwing letters on its signage: CREATION EVIDENCE MUSEUM.:puke: I imagine the museum was just a great, cavernous, empty space, but I'll never know for sure, as I did not wish to give them my patronage. In retrospect, I should have gone in. Next time, I will. But someone will have to put duct tape over my mouth first. I'm trying to do better at keeping an open mind, even towards people like my cousin, who says that God gave us dinosaur bones to test our faith, etc.

I was very surprised to learn that the dino tracks I'd seen in the late 1980s are already pretty much gone. The explanation given is that the freezing/thawing cycles take their toll on the tracks. Imagine that! The tracks are mostly located in the shallow waters of the river. Personally, I wondered if it had anything to do with the Comanche Peak nuclear facility right up the creek, but what the hell do I know. The tracks survived millions of years but can't take five goddamn minutes of exposure to us... or um, freezing/thawing cycles, yeah, that's the ticket. Sheesh.

[ComerPerro]

1. Going in would have been a waste of time

The only evidence for creation is the Bible.

[devinsgram]

5. Probably, just a bible sitting in the middle of the room!

[enki23]

2. perhaps the water level in the river has been lowered

which itself could be a result of human activity. one thing's for sure, the tracks weren't exposed to millions of years of running water. there wouldn't be any tracks, obviously. their uncovering has to have been a relatively recent occurrence, and the river itself is without a doubt wearing them away at some rate. freezing/thawing would just be another set of forces helping to break them down.

[mac2]

3. For profit religion.....

Bring in the Ashcroft oil and get saved!!!

[Ohio Dem]

4. They have a website.

http://www.creationevidence.org/

[ironflange]

11. Check out the kids page

Gives me the willies. :scared:

Did YOU know an electron is smaller than the head of a pin?

Edit: Sorry, "tip" of a pin. Whatever that is.

[Superfly]

17. Holy balls, batman..

that place is strange...

[DarkPhenyx]

6. Remember those tracks survived...

...most of those millions of years encased in rock and not exposed to the elements.

[GreenPartyVoter]

7. I'd pass too

I'm a believer in Theistic evolution, myself.

[Wickerman]

8. about the tracks

I was once at the home of a family of great wealth. The patriarch of the family, when constructing the home, had illegally purchased some dinosaur tracks from somewhere and had, in some protected manner, encased them in cement by the swimming pool. It was cool. A travesty and a loss to the study of Western Civilization no doubt, but very cool.

My point - they should still be viable - something bad is going on down there.

[havocmom]

9. Bogus science advocated by using bogus credentials

I guess creationists have to justify their opinions that bible stories (metaphors, allegories and nice prose to explain what was not always understood) are absolute and should be taught in school as science. I see that Carl Baugh, proponent of creationist thinking uses a PhD after his name to give himself the appearance of being credible.

Carl Baugh PhD seems to have trouble proving his credentials.

http://members.aol.com/Paluxy2/degrees.htm

<snip> Although questions have been raised before about Baugh's science degrees<3> (and will be expanded upon here), even Baugh's claimed theology degrees appear somewhat overstated. The theology degree most frequently claimed by Baugh is a "Doctor of Philosophy in Theology from the California Graduate School of Theology."<4> Baugh described this as an "earned degree" (implying normal course work and graduation); however, attempts to verify the degree from CGST have been unsuccessful,<5> and a former close associate of Baugh's stated that the degree was "not real, but honorary."<6> In any case, the school is not accredited by any national or regional accrediting agency,<7> and evidently has little standing in the academic community (it is not even listed in standard college and graduate school directories).<8>

<snip> Baugh gave the location of the College of Advanced Education (CAE) as Irving, Texas; however, the Chamber of Commerce, and Department of Taxation, and phone directory in Irving have no record of the school.<16> When pressed by an assistant for the address of CAE, Baugh gave it as "2355 West Pioneer, Irving, TX, 75061" and indicated that its dean was Dr. Don Davis.<17>. The address appears on a small house in Irving, located next to Sherwood Baptist Church, whose pastor is Rev. Don Davis. Davis indicated that CAE is a "missions" school, with no science classes or facilities.<18> The school is not accredited by any national or regional agency, nor certified by the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board (which must be obtained to legally grant degrees in Texas). In fact, none of the educational organizations that I contacted had ever heard of the school.<19>

Hey, I am an ordained minister. Just about anybody can be. (I can really preform marriages) Should everybody listen to me in matters of religious doctrine even though the title is not backed up by any formal, accredited studies in theology?

These people are trying real hard to prove something that I thought had to be taken on faith. Seems odd. That they fib about credentials seems somewhat more malicious and corupt than just odd.

[Kathy in Cambridge]

10. Waiting for the DU Creationist Defenders to Flock to this thread

like flies to shit.

[ret5hd]

12. MY WIFE AND I WENT IN!!!...Read about it here...

Well, kind of a long story...

When my (now) wife and i first met, about 1999, we played hookey from work and went to Glen Rose. We saw the museum, drove past it and looked around at the dinosaur tracks. We laughed about the museum, made jokes about what was in it,etc

We were leaving and saw the museum again. We decided to go in, laughing about it.

Can you guess what they had displayed as "evidence"? I will tell you:

A PAINTING!!!

A painting of people playing with dinosaurs inb a stream/pond!!

A PAINTING!!!

We couldn't believe it. The sad part is, there was a bus load of kids there from some private school watching a film and listening to an instructor, getting their heads filled with drivel, eyes wide open in wonder at the thought of playing with dinosaurs as depicted in THE PAINTING!!!

We couldn't believe it. Hardly able to keep from bursting out laughing, we had to leave.

[earthman dave]

15. AHA! It must be that old shite about human footprints

mixed with dinosaur footprints. Every time they bring that one out, it gets slapped down, but somehow, unaccountably, they fail to inform the right-thinking believers. Must be forgetful, I guess, because as Proper Scientists they would never be dishonest. :)

On edit: "mixed with", not "on top of" - that would prove nothing. D'oh!

[Tims]

23. The footprint picture...

they have on their site has been proven to have been altered. Not only have the tool marks been found, but they have several "before" pictures of the same fossil print which shows only a blurry outline that somewhat resembles a human footprint. The pictured footprint has been highly altered. Also never mentioned is the fact that this footprint was part of a series of prints clearly made by same creature (as one would expect since animals don't simply drop out of the air, place one foot down then disappear back in the air). This was the only one which resembled a human print and it was far from the clearest print in the series.

What is even more interesting is that the Institute for Creation Research and most other creationist organizations admit that the Glen Rose "man-print" is a fake, while at the same time they make no efforts to remove it from their textbooks or their sponsored museums.

The human finger is simply an odd rock. It has no mineralogical relationship to any know fossilization process. Also, soft tissue rarely fossilizes and when it does it does so only after the tissue has desiccated (shrivelled up) or has been compressed, so an undistorted soft tissue fossilized finger is so beyond unlikely that it literally screams "hoax". The iron tool is a common 19th century artifact which is clear to anyone who looks at it. The claim that it was discovered in a "ancient" strata is not backed up by any properly documented evidence.

[Solly Mack]

16. Dinosaurs and fundies frolicking together....just imagine

Just close your eyes and picture a T-Rex scooping up Fred Phelps.

Let the thrill carry you as raptors stalk and capture Ralph Reed.

Watch as Ashcroft attempts to cover up the bumpy ridges of the Ceratosaurus.

[VTMechEngr]

13. What the.......

Its all BS. Look at universe before big bang. Empty, clean. After: stuff everywhere, Hence entropy. And the second law of thermodynamics claim is bullshit. The entropy of the universe must be increasing, but an individual system can be decreasing, via chemical reactions and such. Hey, what do you know, plants have -s, but wow, now theres plants everywhere instead of bare clean rock. So +s.

This is why engineers hate fundies.

[Jacobin]

14. It's nextdoor to the Flat Earth Society Headquarters.

[Tims]

18. The "real" museum is near San Diego

This one is operated by the Institute of Creation Research, the main organization behind most of the "creationism-is-legitimate-science" crap. They are also responsible for most of the creationist textbooks being pushed on public schools and in use in many religious schools.

Their museum is located in Santee, California just east of San Diego. You can check it out at http://www.icr.org/museum/ - it's quite elaborate.

One of the things I've always noticed about these sites is that they never have any way to contact them. I guess they really don't take too kindly to differing viewpoints. I've rarely been to a real scientific web page that didn't provide some form of reader feedback.

[slackmaster]

20. Sorry about my dupe, didn't see Tims's post

The ICR museum is a hoot!

[slackmaster]

19. The Creation Science Museum is a 15-minute drive from my home

It's in Santee, California and worth the price of admission (free) plus a half hour of your time just for the laughs.

http://www.icr.org/museum/

[DoYouEverWonder]

21. It sounds like you missed the tracks

that are down the road from the state park on some families private property. There are little hand written signs posted all around the roads by the river. The place itself looks like a shack out of the Ozarks and the old couple that live there let you go through their back yard to get down to that section of the river for $5.

Along the banks, usually out of the water are the main track beds. There are 3 different dinosaur tracks there and at least 60 footprints. The family over the years has sold off a couple of tracks here and there, so there are a couple of spots with square chunks missing. But aside from that, it was incredible. The mold of the track bed in the American Museum of NH in NYC is from this section of the river.

Saw the Creation Museum / ah shack that you mentioned but we just laughed and drove by.

[booksenkatz]

24. Last time I went (back in the late 80s)

the ones that are now under water were in a dry bed. And even though they are looking worse with each passing decade, they're still damned amazing, you're right. Would have loved to have met the Ozarks-esque couple! I expect to get down that way this June, will try to keep it in mind.

Edited because it's two words, not one, what was I thinking?

[Brian Sweat]

22. The museum is real.

The Creation Evidence is fake.