A Day Trip to the Creation Museum of the Ozarks

This presentation makes no tedious claims of being “fair and

balanced” or “unbiased.”

There’s no such thing as magic, the world is several billion years

old, and holding anthropocentric views of the universe in the 21st

century is laughable at best.

Deal.

Last Saturday, Thomas, Scott and I loaded up and

headed to Strafford. We were off to visit the Creation

Museum of the Ozarks.

The brainchild of Dr. Rod Butterworth, this ministry has

big dreams of a multi-million dollar facility amongst

Branson’s elite tourist destinations. In October 2010, they

finally set up a starter museum just outside of Springfield.

Calling it a hole in the wall would be getting your expectations

up.

(Scott!)

To compound the awkwardness, Dr. Butterworth was out of town and left

everything to his assistants, Kurtis and Sherry.

Their hyper cheery and polite natures made it too painful to ask any real

questions.

The CMOTO may be tiny, but it’s full of

(by “adventure” I mean “lies”)

The line that CMOTO espouses is similar to the one held by the

Kentucky Creation Museum and others.

“We all work from the same evidence,” Kurtis told us, “we just have

different ways of interpreting it.”

Which is true.

Scientists go at things from an empirical, naturalistic perspective

Living Fossils :

There were several exhibits that pointed to living fossils such as coelacanths, horseshoe crabs, and hissing cockroaches. These are supposed to disprove evolution.

Not true.

-- You don’t have to adapt if your environment doesn’t call for it. All this proves is that the organism in question is adapted extremely well and their environment doesn’t change much.

-- “Living fossils” are usually distinct species from their ancient relatives, as this photo humorously demonstrates.

Great Psuedosciences

Think Alike:

Creationists love to crib notes from a

more respectable field of

psuedoscience, cryptozoology.

Take this Thunderbird diorama.

Cryptozoologists think, “Hey! Maybe

a population of pterosaurs survived

for millions of years and live with us

today! That would explain the myth of

the Thunderbird!”

Creationists go one further and say

“Hey! Maybe they didn’t REALLY live

millions of years ago!”

1. There is NO EVIDENCE for either group’s claims.

2. Even if it were true, that still doesn’t disprove evolution.

3. If a Native American myth were true…why does that validate Judeo-

Christian myth?

1. Ica stones

2. “T-Rex Blood Cells”

3. “Dinosaur” petroglyphs and carvings.

4. The London Artifact

The Alvis Delk Track:To his credit, Kurtis actually admitted that most dinosaur/man footprints are fake. Most creationists won’t.

However, he asserted that this one was “probably genuine”. How can one doubt? It says right there on the tin–“verified by spiral CT scan!”

He states scientists are, once again, trying to cover this up. Is it really so damning?

Any sportsmen want to

take a stab at what’s

wrong with this picture?

The Delk PrintAn actual theropod print

A real footprint cast in

THE SAME

FREAKING MUSEUM

that shows just how

full of shit you are.

Our guides frequently alluded to evolutionist “cover-ups” of their

evidence. Scientists won’t even let the information out, they say.

Not true! All of these are not only easily found, but easily

debunked with a simple Google search.

I wasn’t the

only one who

spotted this as

an obvious

hoax.

Even PZ Myers

covered it.

It wasn’t covered up

It wasn’t ignored

Fossils were misidentified everywhere.

Iguanodont identified as

theropod footprint.

Camptosaur skull identified as a Hadrosaurus.

(the skull of which has never been found, by the

way)

A sauropod (“long-

neck”) skull was

confused with a

duck-billed dinosaur.

Which is pretty hard

to do if you have

any passion about

dinosaurs at all.

(At least they

corrected this one

mistake.)

In 2009, scientists uncovered remains of a female early hominid called Ardipithicus. There was an ensuing media frenzy, and it turns out that it wasn’t as closely related to us as hyped. It’s still closer to us than chimps, though. Still an ape. Still a hominid.

Kurtis told us that Ardi was debunked as “just a lemur.” That’s a little beyond laziness.

In science, mistakes are bugs in the system.

In creationism, it’s a feature.

1. It doesn’t matter how many Fig Newtons and Capri Suns they offer

you. Creationists are malicious liars that prey on the ignorant.

2. Labeling matters!

3. It helps if your displays don’t contradict each other.

4. A trip to the zoo is a quick way to cleanse your brain.

5. I suck at conclusions.

Dinosaurs and Dragon

Legends

Kurtis took us to the back to watch

this video. Happily, it’s available on

Youtube, so you can watch it too!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=us

Yjgy7I_bs

Surely, you will be convinced.

Parasaurolophus was a Lambeosaurinehadrosaur; a family of duckbills that are renowned for their funky-ass headcrests.

Many scientists now think

that these crests were used

to produce sounds.

In 1998 the crest was cat-

scanned, digitally recreated,

and constructed in real-life by

Sandia National Labs.

By blowing air through it,

scientists can roughly

recreate what the animal

sounded like.

The Creation Museum of the Ozarks presents this idea for your approval:

Our guide told us the

crest worked like the

modern day bombardier

beetles, which shoot hot

chemicals out of their

butt. This would prove

fire-breathing Biblical

monsters true, somehow.

I called Dr. Tom Williamson,

curator of the New Mexico

Museum of Natural History

and Science in

Albuequerque.

He’s the paleontologist

behind the original sound

recreation experiment.

“Dr. Williamson, is there any

reason why Parasaurolophus

couldn't shoot liquid fiery

death at all who opposed

him? ”

1. There is no living analog

creature that shoots acid or fire

out of its nose. (Hah! Just what

an evolutionist would say, I

thought.)

2. The walls of the crest are very

thin, and have no evidence of

containing any chemical

spewing bits. Which you don’t

need to look for anyways,

because

3. The crest is part of the animal’s

respiratory system. Ouch.

I eagerly await the creationist rebuttal.