My lo cal paper, the Bowling Green Daily News is an unabashedly conservative paper. From the editorials to the chopping of headlines, to the op-ed columnists [Goldberg, Krauthammer, Reagan, et al.] this paper is on the right. A few months ago they ran an op-ed piece wherein they said "Yes, we're conservative, that's the way it is.
I subscribe because I feel it is important to support local businesses, especially newspapers--it's the only one in town.
So it was with no small amount of surprise that I opened my Sunday paper and saw that one of the features writers had a 1500+ word essay entitled "‘Museum’ Mangles Facts, Faith" about the creation museum in our state.
What followed what a serious, thoughtful evisceration of the museum, its founders, and people who buy into that crap.
A quick disclaimer: I write book reviews for the paper on an occasional basis. I'd say that about 15 - 25 of my reviews appear per year. I am also good friends with the general editor, who is a progressive [talk about a tough job!].
And a quick story: A couple of years ago the paper ran an editorial by Jonah Goldberg defending torture. I wrote a letter in response in which I quoted some FBI agents and soldiers from the Army saying "torture doesn't work." A few hours later I got a phone call from the editor of the opinion page. He spent 5+ minutes screaming at me so loudly that my wife, standing five feet away, could hear him. He called me a traitor, a "Nancy-Pelosi-loving communist" and all sorts of other nastiness. That person is the son of the owner. My friend the general editor forced him to print the letter anyway, and for about a year my LTE had to go to the general editor instead of the op-ed editor.
That gives you an idea of the nature of the paper. So, Sunday. This is what Jim Gaines [same last name, no relation, to the owners] opened with:
After my recent discovery that some of our local school board members can’t distinguish between science and religion, while most others won’t take a position, I received several exhortations to learn the "truth" through Answers In Genesis and its "Creation Museum." So I did.
The Creation Museum is the tiny-brainchild of Ken Ham, grand poobah of AiG. This $27 million mess opened in 2007 outside Petersburg to raucous laughter from actual scientists.
Ha. I thought, "uh oh, this'll be interesting." The author is known for his humorous columns, perceptive writing, and for his willingness to say--and back up with evidence--what's on his mind.
Gaines planned his trip, and tried to get a visit with Ham, the owner of the museum. Instead he got a letter saying Ham was out of town, as well as this admonition:
the museum security manager sent Myers a letter listing all the things they were afraid we’d do, including "overtly homosexual" behavior.
Priceless.
Who are the knowledgeable folks at the museum?
"I start with the Bible. My colleague does not," says a pseudo-paleontologist in an introductory video. Right from the start, Ham and company commit what Bertrand Russell called the cardinal sin of philosophy: starting from the desired conclusion, and disregarding anything that might imperil that, rather than reasoning from all available evidence and following where that leads.
Not that the creation museum can be trusted to even state its premises honestly. "Joe the paleontologist" isn’t a paleontologist at all. A display in the gift shop identifies him as Buddy Davis, a "singer-songwriter, adventurer and paleo-artist." He’s got a CD of inane Ham-worshipping ditties.
Fair use prevents me from quoting much more, but I'll give an example of how the author handles the museum's take on evolution:
To squeeze in all those critters, the Creation Museum accepts the reality of evolution. It just refuses to call it that.
Instead, Hammy engages in elaborate semantic gymnastics, saying that Noah took "kinds" of animals that later morphed into today’s species, but refusing to define how a "kind" differs from a regular ol’ ancestral species. Young-Earthers reluctantly acknowledge that creatures change through "microevolution," but they denounce "macroevolution" as impossible.
That, of course, is a false distinction. Microevolution is macroevolution, over an extremely long period of time. Instead of very gradual divergence over millions of years, the Hamseum presses great changes into an absurdly short period, then denies that any serious change took place.
and finally
Consider Lucy, the famous 3.2 million-year-old Australopithecus Afarensis skeleton. Turns out she was really Noah’s granddaughter, according to the Creation Museum. Perhaps Noah forbore to mention his midget, deformed, tiny-brained granddaughter, but Ham happily claims her as a near relation.
I had a short e-mail exchange with the author, who says that he hasn't [yet] gotten a lot of negative feedback. But he will. We are in Mitch McConnell's state, and our representative is Brett Guthrie. Rand Paul lives here and practices medicine in town [and is widely acknowledged by colleagues as the best eye surgeon around--if you can get him to shut up]. To say that we are a "red" area is to misunderstand the nature of "red."
Anyway, pop on over and read the piece, and if you're of a mind to, drop the author a note saying "good job."
[Wow! Rec List! Thanks. More thanks to Jim Gaines, the author of the piece. Stop by and read it.]
Update #2
Today's edition of the paper has a reader response.
It says, in part:
His arrogance and flippant remarks attest to his ignorance of the Bible and what it stands for - absolute truth.
So, there ya go.