Good news for scientists, bad news for creationists.
Pensacola’s Dinosaur Adventure Land – a museum and playground intended to teach children about creationism – is being sold off to pay back taxes. The founder, Kent Hovind, is in prison.
Yesterday I found a brief blurb on the internet, with this link, Judge clears way for dinosaur park to be seized, an article in a Pensacola paper, which said:
A ruling by U.S. District Judge Casey Rodgers states that the nine properties that make up Dinosaur Adventure Land as well as two bank accounts associated with the park will be used to satisfy $430,400 owed to the federal government.
Kent Hovind, who founded the park and a ministry, Creation Science Evangelism, is serving 10 years in federal prison for failing to pay the Internal Revenue Service more than $470,000 in employee taxes.
I did a little more research, using the awesome power of the Google, and I’ll tell you what I found anon.
First, I wondered if the Pensacola museum had a website. Yes, they do. It’s here. If you click on "Our Fossils," you can see the plastic replicas for sale and you can read some of the weird articles written by Hovind.
Then I looked a little harder and found a 2004 review called "Stupid Dino Tricks" from the Skeptical Inquirer (which is a really fun magazine if you prefer science to superstition). The review is well-written and humorous. The museum has (or had) playground activities: a swing on a tree, a sandbox, a trampoline, a slingshot with water balloons. There are some big plastic heads of dinosaurs. There’s a Bible. There’s a TV hooked up to a VCR. At one point, the kids can see a Madagascar hissing cockroach, which supposedly is "proof" that evolution is wrong. I imagine the bug thinking, "Hey, I might be a cockroach, but at least I'm not a creationist." Here’s a line from the review:
Here you will find some confounding assertions about granite and polonium halos; there a sign calls Darwin a liar. Here’s a display telling you that sea monsters are real; there a beach ball floats on a shaft of air generated by a fan. Curatorially speaking, the place is a disaster.
I also found a YouTube video with Ali G (aka Borat aka Bruno aka Sacha Baron Cohen) interviewing Kent Hovind, but I’m not linking to it because it’s not very funny. Mostly it’s Ali G being stupid. Do a Google search if you really want to watch it.
I looked up Kent Hovind in Wikipedia, which has a long and detailed article here. He didn’t pay the FICA taxes for his employees because he claimed they were all ministers working for the Lord. He also never got building permits, a business license, or tax-exempt status. He didn’t pay his personal income taxes because he claimed they were voluntary. Here’s an excerpt from Wikipedia:
Hovind's creationist presentations have asserted that the reason biblical creationism is not taught in public schools was tied to "an international conspiracy" of "'The New World Order' (NWO) consisting of Ted Turner (and his wife, Jane Fonda), the British Royal Family, the State of Israel, the ACLU, and a smattering of former and present US government officials, business leaders, and social activists (particularly those advocating population control) — shades of the Trilateral Commission." In May 1999, he claimed "the implementation of the NWO's world-domination plan was May 5, 2000."
Hovind has several conspiracy theories about the U.S. government. He believes that the cyanide-releasing compound Laetrile is a "cancer cure" and argues that the US government is conspiring to suppress a cure for cancer. On his radio program he has said that the U.S. government was behind the 9/11 attacks killing nearly 3000 people and that a "lot of folks were told not to come to work." He also believes the Oklahoma City bombing was carried out by the government. "Did you know the Federal Government blew up their own building to blame it on the militias and to get rid of some people that weren't cooperating with the system?" Regarding UFOs Hovind recommends books by conspiracy theorists who believe "some UFO’s are U.S. Government experiments with electrogravitic propulsion as opposed to jet propulsion, while others are Satanic apparitions." Additionally, Hovind believes that the Federal Reserve, the Council on Foreign Relations, the United Nations, and various other groups are actively planning to create a one world government and that the 1993 World Trade Center attack was staged by the US Government in order to pass "anti-terrorism" legislation that restricts civil liberties.
Lunatic or con man? According to Skeptical Inquirer, the museum had a maximum of 50 visitors per day. But according to Wikipedia, in 2002, Hovind sold $1.8 million of creationist merchandise (without paying a penny in taxes).
Unfortunately, The Species Isn't Extinct
The death of this creation museum is just a drop in the pond. There are still a bunch of others. Google led me to this creationist website, which lists a couple dozen Creation Museums that are located all over the country:
7 Wonders of Mount St. Helens - Creation Museum (WA)
A Key Encounter! Nature Theatre and Planetarium (Key West, Florida)
Akron Fossils and Science Center (Akron, Ohio)
Ark Museum & Dinosaur Park by Project Creation (Nashville, Tennessee )
Biblical Archeology and Anthropology Museum (Ridgecrest, Calfornia)
Big Valley Creation Museum (Big Valley, Alberta Canada)
Creation Discovery Museum (Ft. Lauderdale, Florida)
Creation Evidence Museum (Paluxy River, Glen Rose, Texas)
Creation Museum and Family Discovery Center (under construction, Cincinnati, Ohio)
Creation Studies Center (South Florida)
Creation Truth Ministries Traveling Creation Museum (Alberta, Canada)
Dinosaur Adventure Land (Pensacola, Florida)
Genesis Expo (on Portsmouth Hard of the UK)
Creation Research of the North Coast (under construction, Bayside, CA)
Grand River Museum (Lemmon, South Dakota)
IBSS - Museum Project the Institute for Biblical and Scientific Studies (?)
Lebendige Vorwelt Museum (Germany)
Lost World Museum (Phoenix, NY)
Mt Blanco Fossil Museum (Lubbock, TX)
Museum of Creation and Earth History (Santee, California)
Museum of Earth History (Eureka Springs, Arkansas)
Noah's Ark Museum (Uzengeli Village, Turkey)
The Gallery of Creation (Stone Mountain, Georgia)
Wyatt Museum (Cornersville, Tennessee)
There are at least two more. One in Kentucky, deliciously dissected in this DKos diary. And another one in Montana, from this DKos diary.
I wish I had a good summary apart from saying the list of creation museums makes me sad. I wish I had a call to arms. I don't want to make creation museums illegal; I believe in free speech. I guess the best way to fight creationism is through education. We need to support real science in our public schools and make sure that creationists don't get elected to school boards on the local level.
I don't know. Anyone have any suggestions?