NO DICE

"God does not play dice with the universe."

-- Albert Einstein

In Petersburg, Kentucky evangelical Christians are prepared to open a creation science history centre, the Answers in Genesis Creation Museum. No self-respecting Muse would find herself in such a place, especially Clio. The girlfriend, Muse of history and poetry, liked to hang with Herodotus the father of history and Anna Comnena the first woman historian. The Greeks, with their inquiry into knowledge, would be appalled that this sham could be called a museum. Certainly, this gnat of a religious centre, could never make the revered claims of being of intellectual descent from the first museum, the Library at Alexandria established by Ptolemy I Soter (Savior). There is not the spirit of scientific quest or honesty that characterizes a good museum in the Answers in Genesis theme park. It is a waste of 27 million dollars to create a theme park that has no basis in facts and that supports an outdated and dangerous belief system.

Creationists, being the muddleheads that they are, believe that the world is 6,000 years old. In geographic dating of rocks, the nearest estimate is 4.54 billion years old. They think that the Grand Canyon was created with a flood such as that in the Bible, or in the Christian's borrowed theology from the stories of Ziusudra,Xisuthros,Atrahasis and Utnapishtim. In reality, slow erosion from wind, rain, and the Colorado River (what is left of this waterway with pollution, drought, and overuse) form the Grand Canyon.

In the biological sciences, the evangelicals do not fare much better. The Answers in Creation Science centre displays dinosaurs coexisting with humans but the dinosaurs, with the exception of their evolved descendants the birds, died out 65 million years ago. The centre also portrays Tyrannosaurus rex as a vegetarian although he was one of the nastiest meat-eaters around at the time. Anthropological evidence of humans show our species to be only 3 million years young (Note: George W. Bush no doubt considers Queen Elizabeth II of the same era...).

This evangelical ignorance of the sciences not only lacks factual basis but endangers human life. By promoting creationism the evangelicals disregard that, for example, bats and humans have a common ancestor. It is very critical to public health to have only evolution taught in schools because with a common ancestor, as mammals, bats are vectors for human diseases through rabies, Ebola, Marburg, Nipah and Hendra and SARS viruses. Creationists imperil human lives with their superstition and stubborn idiocy.

Hopefully, the Answer in Genesis Creation Museum will close its doors soon after its opening. Human life depends on science like evolution being taught to the public, not the charlatan trickery of creationism.

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