1.25.2012

Get Your Crayons Ready! It's The Creation Museum Dinosaur Coloring Contest!

The folks over at Kentucky's Creation Museum have announced a fun way to get your children on their way to needing remedial instruction in science.

Can you draw a saddle and a human?
The Creationist Disneyland, as NCSE director Eugenie Scott likes to call it, will give your child $5 off their admission for coloring a picture of their friendly dinosaur. (The dinosaur was created by God on day 6, it says on the page.)

Or, if your child likes to draw, they can turn in a drawing of their favorite dinosaur. If a child were to go this route, I imagine they might get bonus points for drawing Adam & Eve, perhaps saddled atop the dinosaur on a romantic ride through Eden.

The contest will be judged in four age groups: preschool, 5–7 year olds, 8–11 year olds, and 12–14 year olds.

While the Creation Museum is a bit vague about what exactly kids might win, they have confirmed that "prizes will be awarded."

One can be fairly certain that science education is not among the prizes.

Here's what some smart people have had to say about the museum:

British scientist, doctor, and professor Robert Winston:
It was alarming to see so much time, money and effort being spent on making a mockery of hard won scientific knowledge. And the fact that it was being done with such obvious sincerity, somehow made it all the worse.
The National Center For Science Education received over 800 signatures from scientists in the three states closest to the museum (Kentucky, Indiana, and Ohio) on the following statement:
We, the undersigned scientists at universities and colleges in Kentucky, Ohio, and Indiana, are concerned about scientifically inaccurate materials at the Answers in Genesis museum. Students who accept this material as scientifically valid are unlikely to succeed in science courses at the college level. These students will need remedial instruction in the nature of science, as well as in the specific areas of science misrepresented by Answers in Genesis.
Lisa Park, professor of paleontology at University of Akron, and an Elder in the Presbyterian Church:
I think it's very bad science and even worse theology... and the theology is far more offensive to me. I think there's a lot of focus on fear, and I don't think that's a very Christian message... I find it a malicious manipulation of the public.
British writer A.A. Gill:
A breathtakingly literal march through Genesis, without any hint of soul...This place doesn't just take on evolution—it squares off with geology, anthropology, paleontology, history, chemistry, astronomy, zoology, biology, and good taste. It directly and boldly contradicts most -onomies and all -ologies, including most theology.
I think they owe thousands of childen an ap-ology.







5 comments:

  1. Mr Eric Shepherd,

    I never get to post comments on your blog, because I'm always reading it at work (and unable to do so).

    You sir are a wonderful human being. Please don't ever stop posting. You give me faith in humanity even though you're usually shedding light on the worst-possible examples of it.

    I do not know you, but I can most-assuredly say I love you.

    Be happy and well, and thank you for this website from the bottom of my born-gay-raised-in-a-bat-shit-crazy-pentecostal-home-christian-pitying-secular-atheist-loving-human heart.

    Sincerely,
    John Shannon
    Toronto, Ontario, Canada

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  2. Thank you, Mr. John Shannon. That's one of the kindest things anyone's ever said to me.

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  3. questionevolution.com

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  4. Of all the things to gripe about...a coloring book? Really? Why not stick to hard issues, like how the Earth could have the magnetism of a pulsar in the past, which Uniformitarianism requires but which is not physically possible? Picking on the museum for letting kids color a cartoon dinosaur?

    You wish to charge that they have no right to offer kids A BLASTED COLORING BOOK, when so many other institutions do it? Seriously, man....I feel like Gulliver here.

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  5. Hello Ivan.

    The coloring book is a jumping-off point to illustrate the way in which Answers in Genesis is doing a disservice to children.

    The coloring book is not the problem. You are correct there.

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