Creation museum backlash

PZ Myers recently urged Pharyngula readers to write to the Cincinnati Zoo, which had done a deal with the nearby Creation Museum. I think buying tickets to one got you cheaper tickets to the other or something. Myers was rightly outraged by this: the zoo is a centre for learning and education and the Creation Museum is a joke. It is anti-education and anti-science. The deal with the zoo lent it spurious credibility since endorsement by such a respected organisation suggests there must be some real science going on at the museum.

Nothing could be less true. The museum shows early humans riding dinosaurs. It caricatures evolution, denies facts and just plain makes stuff up, all the time claiming this is science.

Anyway, due in part to the complaints of Pharyngula readers, the zoo terminated the agreement with the 'museum'. It seemed that the marketing department had got ahead of itself and the zoo's management saw better of it. It's the feel-good story of the year.

You can read all about this on Pharyngula. Since then, Myers has been receiving letters of complaint from outraged idiots. The following link has a small and hilarious sample of these:

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/12/here_we_go_again_i_get_more_em.php

I particularly recommend the second letter, which is deserving of special ridicule:

I read about the recent attacks on Christianity from your department. I am referring to the trouble that was made over the Creation Museum in Kentucky and their joint venture with the Cincinnati zoo. My only words are : The Cincinnati zoo should let their monkeys go and cage the evolutionists because they act more like monkeys than the real ones.

What is it with these people and monkeys? What do they find so offensive about them or the fact that we are closely related to them? Also, they love their labels, don't they? It's always 'the evolutionists' as though we're all in some kind of club, all share the same political views and all hate Christmas.

This nation is going crazy with left wing attacks on traditional America and the Christian principles on which it was founded (not the revisionist historian separation of church/state myth). The war on Christmas every year, the blatant attacks on Christianity, and all the insane excuses people come up with to attempt to avoid God.

Speaking of insane excuses, the separation of church and state is built right into the constitution and always has been (even before it was the constitution). How could anyone claim that the notion is revisionist? It's another case of lying for Jesus: if you want something to be true, just say that it is. Jesus won't mind because it's all in his interest. So it's not really lying. And anyway, the god doesn't actually say you shouldn't lie: there's something about false witness, but it is generally agreed that this doesn't mean lying in the general sense, HOORAY!

Evolution is the biggest lie Satan has ever told. Have you ever even read about where the idea of "millions of years" come from? It wasn't entirely Charles Darwin's idea. He simply used that idea to justify his own personal revelation to discount God. In other words, the only way his idea of evolution (it is not a theory because it is not testable in a lab environment) would work is if there was an massive expanse of time for it to happen in. Up until Darwin and a few others before him the idea of an old earth was ridiculous - and don't call me a flat earther because that term in itself is incorrect. Even the prophet Isaiah knew that the earth was round. (Read The Politically Incorrect Guide to Science)

Creationists seem to adore accusing evolutionists of circular logic. All it ever shows is that they don't understand logic or science. Or, very likely, circles for that matter. There are lots of things wrong with this assertion. First, there is no evidence that Darwin was motivated by a desire to discount god. His desire was to explain some things about the world. Second, the idea that the Earth would have to be old in order for evolution to have happened is one of the predictions the Theory of Evolution made. Creationists are forever claiming that evolution makes no predictions. In fact, this one makes a slightly weaker assertion along the same lines - that evolution cannot be tested in the lab - in the same sentence as describing how one such test might be done. This is not circular reasoning, but even if it were, that would be beside the point because there is evidence that the Earth is old. Loads of it. It doesn't matter whether the reasoning that led to it was circular or not because it's an established fact.

Creationists of this type seem to have ongoing difficulty with the idea of what a scientific theory is or the depth of knowledge of their subject that professors tend to have. His quoting a pop-science source is hilarious.

Plainly, these attacks on normal people such has been instigated in this case is downright silly and totally uncalled for. It is amazing that ultra-left wingers believe in nothing, yet support a 'separation of church and state". I too believe in this. I believe that the state, including university professors, should stay out of the church's business. Liberals complain about creationism being taught in school. Well, you know what, we do not want evolution taught in our churches and if we want to build a museum dedicated to the creator, then that's our right and our business. If you don't like it, don't look at it. It's as simple as that.

Wait a minute, who are these normal people who have been attacked? Some people expressed their concern over a policy in a zoo. Nobody has been attacked, even verbally as far as I can tell. Where does this idea come from that if a person doesn't believe in god, she doesn't believe in anything? It's the kind of phrase that trips off the tongue and is gone before people think "hey.....wait a minute....." It is condescending, arrogant and pointless. It is trotted out as a de facto insult without actually meaning one single thing. The part about professors staying out of church business is priceless. Since when is expressing concern about a zoo's business practice tantamount to messing with the church's business? But nevertheless, it's the church who is doing the interfering here: specifically with pushing the creationist agenda in schools. If they'd lay off stuff like that, I'm sure PZ would be more than delighted to stay out of their business. He's not protesting against the building of the creation museum, although he is disappointed with how retarded, anti-science and anti-education it is. He protested against the zoo's policy of endorsing it.

Evolution is used now as a tool to promote the vulgar and disgusting homosexual movement that has recently become violent.

I like the way he steers just shy of calling homosexuals vulgar and disgusting, as though saying that of the homosexual movement (whatever that is) is more acceptable. Has that movement recently become violent? I don't know what he's referring to, but I read it in quite a different way to what the writer intended. I read it as "which has only just become violent, as opposed to being violent since inception, like the church"

By claiming that evolution is real, the gay community can claim that they were born gay, which is absurd. No one is born gay. it is a psychological problems that stems from early childhood scenarios. Even the APA used to say this until they were pressured by the far left to change history and change science. That's what they do best.

There's a good dollop of protesting too much here. Not in the 'smelt-it-dealt-it' sense, but in the 'grasping-at-anything-that-sounds-like-evidence-for-what-I-want-to believe' sense. And it doesn't make the slightest sense. Gay people can claim whatever they like, regardless of evolution. It isn't clear that evolution being real implies that some people are born gay other than the evidence of homosexuality in other animals. But like everything he/she has said so far, this statement is a kind of soundbite, uttered without evidence and without point.

I wish I could get a job teaching at a University, but I am not qualified. I am not a terrorist (BillAyers) and do not worship the environment(global warming nuts), do not seek monkeys as my creator (evolutionists) and do not brainwash other people (Marxists).

A nice mix of misrepresentation here, all in the name of ad-hominem. But quite a sophisticated one: slagging off a whole bunch of people makes university teachers seem bad and PZ is a university teacher. Clap. Clap. Clap.

I suppose I am disqualified from teaching. Maybe someday, America will wake up and fire every hippy liberal brainwashed professor and hire real teachers who teach the truth rather than a mock version of reality. How did that terrorist Bill Ayers not get executed for treason in the 1960s anyway? It is amazing that a man of his sickening stature could get a job teaching. Thank you ACLU! (Allied Communist Lickers Union). You have destroyed America. Maybe someday there will be an uprising and real Americans can take back this country from the slaves of deceit and aggressors who seek the destruction of their own well-being. I guess all that dope in the 1960s just hasn't worn completely off yet. Maybe one day America will wake up after the 60s generation is dead and gone and realize that we need to reclaim America again.

This crescendo was inevitable and when it comes, it is something of a relief.

Until then, happy monkey! (or what ever non Christmas evolution people say)

I'm not sure what a non-Christmas person, evolution or otherwise is. As an atheist and an evolutionist, I say Happy Christmas. I don't know a single person who doesn't.

But you knew the writer couldn't leave it at that:

P.S. MERRY CHRISTMAS! (It's about calling it what it is!)
Name deleted
DOWN WITH COMMUNISM!
DOWN WITH SOCIALISM!
DOWN WITH MARXISM!
DOWN WITH DARWINISM
DOWN WITH ISLAMIC TERRORISM

Smooth.