PHL of REL

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0 n February 4, 2014, CNN streamed a much-anticipated live debate between Ken Ham (CEO of Answers in Genesis [AiGJ) and Bill Nye ( of Bill Nye the Science Guy fame). At the center

of the debate was the following question: "Is creation a viable model of origins in today's modern scientific era?" Tom Foreman, of CNN, mod­ erated the more than two-and-a-half-hour debate that was staged in the Creation Museum's fifteen-hundred-seat auditorium, Legacy Hall.1

The debate consisted of five-minute opening statements, thirty-minute main presentations, rebuttals, counter-rebuttals, and responses to au­ dience questions.

In the months leading up to the debate, mainstream scientists and other commentators criticized Nye's willingness to debate Ham. Jerry A. Coyne, professor of evolutionary biology at the University of Chicago, said that he thought the debate would be "pointless and counterpro­

ductive" since Nye "gives [creationists] credibility simply by appearing beside them on the platform." Agreeing, Dan Arel, a freelance writer for Huffington Post and Alternet, unequivocally stated that "scientists should not debate creationists. Period:' Like Coyne, Arel argued that doing so gives credibility to a position that otherwise has none. Writing on behalf of the National Center for Science Education (NCSE), Josh Rosenau issued the same warning and reminded his readers that the NCSE has,long recommended against scientists debating creationists.2

Criticism notwithstanding, the debate went forward. As to who won, opinions vary. Not surprisingly, evolutionists tended

to declare Nye the winner. Science blogger Greg Laden stated by way of a well-worn pun that "Nye didn't really debate Ham. He ate him for breakfast:' Even Nye's predebate science critics, like Coyne and Arel, de-

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dared Nye the winner. 3 Also, not surprisingly, creationists tended to say Ham won. Conservative Christian (and former member of the Indiana House of Representatives) Don Boys declared on his blog that "Ham won the debate;' although he said it was "no grand slam:' Other Chris­ tian bloggers argued without reservation that Ham won.4 That said, not everyone lined up in predictable ways. Michael Schulson, for instance, writing in the Daily Beast, argued that "if you listened closely, what Ham was saying made absolutely no scientific sense. But debate is a format of impressions, not facts. Ham sounded like a reasonable human being, loosely speaking, and that's what mattered" (emphasis in original).5

The conclusion few contested was that the debate was an impor­ tant media event. Although numbers varied, all indications were that the online audience for the debate was huge. The New York Times reported that five hundred thousand people watched the debate live. MSNBC said eight hundred thousand were registered to watch, and the

Christian Science Monitor put the number at more than three million. AiG claims that more than 5 million viewers watched it within the first twenty-four hours. YouTube numbers indicate that as of October 2014, another 3.6 million viewers watched the "official" online recording.6 In addition to online spectators, seventy media organizations attended the live debate along with the lucky audience members who managed to purchase a ticket before they were sold out online in just two minutes.7

Referred to by some (including AiG) as Scopes II, the debate had historical significance, but certainly not because it settled the 1creation/ evolution question.8 To be sure, it did no better at settling that debate than did the Scopes trial.9 Importantly, the historical significance of the Ham/Nye debate finds its origins in the understanding of the Scopes trial that emerged among conservative Christians some decades after the actual trial.10 By the 1980s, conservative Christians had resolved never again to suffer the humiliation Bryan had brought upon them. Never again would they look like backwater fools who knew nothing of science, who equivocated on the age of the Earth and, even worse, wavered on the literal meaning of Genesis. On a national stage located within the Creation Museum and witnessed by millions of Americans, Ken Ham put that ghost to rest.n How did he do it?

Clearly, he did not do it by coming away the undisputed winner in either substance or style. Instead, he did it by providing an unrelenting performance of what might be called the "not-afraid-of-science Chris­ tian apologist:' In the course of the debate, Ham argued that only a lit-

66 Righting America at the Creation Museum

eral reading of Genesis that flies in the face of mainstream geology and evolutionary science will save America from complete moral decline. And as he made that case, he spoke the word "science" 105 times. On

our count, that was 2.4 more times than Bill Nye "the Science Guy" used the word. Perhaps to make sure no one missed the point, near the end of his thirty-minute presentation, he enthusiastically exclaimed, "I love science!"12

Ham did not merely speak the word "science:' He made arguments about it and with it. In an effort to counter one of Nye's main arguments that belief in young Earth creationism threatens scientific and innova­ tive progress, Ham argued that there are plenty of hard-core scientists and inventors who are young Earth creationists. To support his claim, he played videos of scientists and inventors with impressive credentials who testified to their belief in young Earth creationism. In another of his main arguments, he claimed that science, properly done, "confirms" a literal interpretation of the Genesis account of origins.13 To back up that claim he argued, among other things, that the Bible says we are all one race and that biogenetics has proven the Bible to be right. Fi­ nally, more than a third of his remarks in the debate were dedicated to instructing mainstream scientists and Christians alike in what appears to be for Ham an absolutely crucial distinction between "historical sci­ ence;' which is speculative, and "observational science;' which is objec­ tive, repeatable, and verifiable.14

Ken Ham is not obliged to mobilize science on behalf of his reading of Genesis. He does not have to argue that a literal interpretation of Genesis 1-11, according to which the Earth is no more than ten thou­ sand years old, can be "confirmed" by scientific observations. Indeed, he could skip the scientific arguments altogether and simply say that a proper Christian should accept a young Earth as a matter of faith regard­ less of what the geological column or genome mapping might indicate to the contrary. If the Bible really is the uncompromised Word of God, what difference should it make to a faithful Christian that mainstream science contradicts it? One could even argue that seeking to ground a faith-based argument in science undercuts the very faith that science is being used to buttress.

Ken Ham has not chosen that argumentative path. That is likely be­ cause AiG is an apologetics ministry that seeks to be persuasive. And mobilizing science on behalf of young Earth creationism affords at least three important rhetorical advantages. First, in a culture that largely

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understands science to be the discourse of truth-that is, the methods and practices that yield real facts and reliable conclusions-an argu­ ment for a young Earth that can claim scientific support is likely to be much more persuasive to believers and unbelievers alike.15 Second, and closely related, if one is going to make the claim that the account of origins in Genesis is accurate history in a culture that believes in sci­ ence, one is going to be expected to provide evidence of the events in that history. That is, if there really was a global flood, then it should have left behind some evidence of its effects. Embracing rather than ignoring or contesting this logic makes the argument for special crea­ tion much more persuasive, assuming such evidence can be provided. A third rhetorical advantage is specific to the evangelical/fundamentalist subculture. By embracing science, Ham is able to perform (in the debate and elsewhere) the not-afraid-of-science Christian apologist that con­ servative Christians in America have been seeking. Ifby the end of the twentieth century conservative Christians were humiliated by the way William Jennings Bryan sacrificed a literal reading of Genesis at the altar of modern science, at the end of the Ham-Nye debate, conservative Christians likely felt triumphant for having witnessed a young Earth creationist put science in the service of the inerrant Word. The conserv­ ative Christian need no longer be troubled by science. Science now bows to the inerrant word. Or, at least, that is the idea.

"Science" at the Creation Museum

In his opening remarks at the debate, Ken Ham pointed out (as he often does) that "science" comes from the Latin word scientia and that it means "state of knowing" or ''knowledge."16 He then went on to argue that there is much confusion about science in contemporary culture be­ cause people do not understand the difference between observational science (also called experimental or operational science) and historical science (also called origins science).

According to Ham, "operational [or observational] science deals with knowledge that is gained by observation and repeated testing in our present world:'17 Important in this definition is the notion that ob­ servational science mobilizes the practices ·of the scientific method to produce knowledge about phenomena in the present. Ham continues: "W hether scientists are Christian or non-Christian, they can all perform the same operational science:'18 Because observational science involves

68 Righting America at the Creation Museum

applying the scientific method to phenomena in the present and be­ cause its methods are repeatable, it is objective. Anyone who follows correct scientific procedure, no matter his or her religious perspective, should arrive at reliable results.

By contrast, Ham argues, "Historical science deals with history-the past:' It seeks to answer the question, "What happened in the past?" According to Ham, an event or process that occurred in the past is not available to observation in the present and thus cannot be understood by way of observational science. As Ham puts it: "We do not have access to the past. We only have the present. All the fossils, all the living ani­ mals and plants, our planet, the universe-everything exists in the pres­ ent. We cannot directly test the past using the scientific method (which involves repeating things and watching them happen) since all the ev­ idence we have is in the present:'19 Faced with a fossil and wondering how it came to be, Ham reasons, the scientist cannot hope to come to any reliable answers by way of observational science. Instead, the scien­ tist must use historical science. Historical science involves applying a set of assumptions or a belief system, like evolution or special creation, to questions about the past.20

Ham offers the following example to clarify the difference between observational science and historical science: "If we are talking about the fact that we can see and study apes today, and we can see and study people, that is operational science. But if somebody claims that millions of years ago ape-like creatures turned into people, what is that? That is historical science. W hat if we said that God made Adam from dust, what is that? That is historical science, too."21 In short, when scientific methods are applied to evidence in the present, and conclusions are drawn about that evidence that pertain to the present, then one is doing observational science. When inferences are made about the past by way of evidence that exists in the present, then historical science is under­ way. Moreover, historical science, unlike observational science, always involves the application of a set of beliefs and assumptions about the past. Thus, whereas observational science is objective, historical science is not.

Although observational science and historical science are distinct, they are related. Observational science cannot answer questions about the past, but historical science can. Historical science does so by con­ structing models that explain how things might have happened in the past. Observational science then supports the construction of models by

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providing evidence to "confirm" them.22 Ham and his colleagues at AiG do not use the language of "proof " in this connection. Observational science can never prove whether a model that aims to account for the origins of the Earth is true. That is impossible because, again, no sci­ entist living in the present is able to witness something from the pp5t.

For Ham, this distinction between observational science and histor­ ical science is crucial because it corrects a problem in people's under­ standing about evolution and special creation.23 Ham argues, "Instead of perceiving the real issue, [people] have been deceived into believ­ ing that evolution/millions of years is science and that the Bible's ac­ count of origins is religion. But this is not so:'24 Evolution is not real science, according to Ham, because it makes claims about phenomena and processes that cannot be observed since they are in the past and because it makes inferences about those things in the past based on a set of presuppositions. It is not objective. Evolution is historical science. Likewise, special creation or the biblical account of origins is historical science.25 By making this distinction, Ham removes evolution from the category of real science.26

Although Ham's language of historical science and observational science is an innovation, the overall argument is not. 27 Young Earth cre­ ationists have argued that evolution is not real science on the grounds that it makes inferences based on things that cannot be observed and that it is presuppositional-that its inferences always depend on a set of assumptions that may not be true-since the early twentieth century. Likewise, young Earth creationists, especially since the emergence of "creation science" in the early 1970s, have argued that, given this, evo­ lution and special creation must be understood to have the same episte­ mological status. 28 Since evolution and special creation are both models, evolution can claim no special scientific status as fact. 29

While the Creation Museum rarely, if ever, employs the language of observational versus historical science, this distinction repeatedly ap­ pears. For instance, in the Dig Site room, the first room in the Bible Walkthrough Experience, visitors see a series of cases that display ob­ jects that look like pieces of evidence that a scientist might study, such as an artificial sapphire, a cast of a fossil, and an artist's reconstruction of Trilobite tracks. To the right of each case is a placard. Each placard follows the same form. At the top is a statement in large font: "The evi­ dence is in the Present" (emphasis in original). Below that statement is an identification of the evidence, such as "Archaeopteryx Fossils" (italics

70 Righting America at the Creation Museum

This life-size diorama, the first in the Bible Walkthrough Experience, features

nvo paleontologists-one who believes in an old Earth and one who believes in

a young Earth-that marks the beginning of the museum's argument that main­

stream science is no more credible than creation science since it too is grounded

in certain untestable presuppositions. Photograph taken by Susan Trollinger. For

more images of and information about the museum, go t� creationmuseum.org.

in original). Below that, in smaller font, is a desc�iption of the object: "This is a cast of an Archaeopteryx lithographica specimen from the Solnhofen Limestone (Jurassic System), Germany" (italics in original). Below that is another heading that says, "But what happened in the Past?" (emphasis in original). Below that several questions are listed: "When did the animal live? What did the animal look like? (For exam­ ple, was it a bird?) How did the animal behave? (For example, could it fly?) How was the animal related to other animals? (For example, is it related to dinosaurs?)" (all emphasis in original). Opposite this series of cases and placards is the centerpiece of the Dig Site room-namely, a diorama featuring what the placard in front of it calls an "artist's re­ construction" of a paleontology dig site complete with two paleontolo­ gists working to liberate the skeleton of a Utahraptor from what looks like rocky ground. The accompanying placard follows the same form as

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those just discussed, identifying the skeleton and then asking a series of questions about when it lived, how it died, where it lived, and how its body was preserved. 30

Without saying so, these displays and placards instruct the visitor that there is a big difference between observational science, which stud­ ies objects that exist in the present, and historical science, which pos­ its conjectures about those objects in the past. Given that the ostensive claim of the Creation.Museum is that a proper understanding-that is, a literal interpretation -of Genesis reveals the truth that the universe was created fewer than ten thousand years ago, given that the Creation Museum looks to be a natural history/science museum that defends that claim, given that Ken Ham and his colleagues at AiG ''love science," and given that observational science (not historical science) is the only real science, one would expect to see plenty of observational science on dis­ play at the Creation Museum in support of the claim for special creation and a young Earth. Is this, in fact, what we find?

Writing to the AiG website, one visitor to the Creation Museum complained: "My parents and I recently visited the Creation Museum ... and were greatly disappointed. We did not feel that enough scientific evidence was given to support creationism. We think a museum should be more about evidence than faith. There seems to be plenty of evidence out there-it is just not present at all:'31 Jason Lisle (PhD in astrophys­ ics, director of the planetarium at the Creation Museum, and author and designer of Created Cosmos-the film typically shown in the plane­ tarium) responded: "Of course, there is plenty of science that confirms biblical creation .... Much of this science is presented in the Creation Museum. Some of this science in the museum is very apparent (such as the information presented in the planetarium, or the Flood ... geology room). But much of the science is 'behind the scenes,' and you may not have noticed it."32

Since a visit to the Creation Museum does not include access to the science that resides "behind the scenes;' and since Lisle says the places to look for the science that "confirms" a special creation are the Stargaz­ er's Planetarium and the Flood Geology room, it makes sense to take a close look at those spaces. And since elsewhere AiG says that "much of the scientific content of the museum is presented in [the] videos" dis­ played on monitors in the Wonders of Creation room, 33 it makes sense to take a close look at those, too.

The analysis that follows takes a close look at the science presented

72 Righting America at the Creation Museum

in these spaces. Its focus is not so much on determining the quality or accuracy of the information presented. In keeping with the previous chapter, which analyzed the museum on its own terms as a natural sci­ ence museum, this chapter seeks to analyze the mobilization of science at the Creation Museum on its own terms. Thus, this chapter focuses on whether the Creation Museum delivers on the promise implied in Lisle's response-namely, that the Creation Museum presents "plenty of science" that "confirms biblical creation."

Breaking that question down, three subquestions emerge. First, ac­ cording to its own definition of observational science, does the Creation Museum present real science? That is to say, is the science presented here observable in the present, and are those observations repeata­ ble? Second, is there, as Lisle implies, plenty of evidence? Since opin­ ions may differ on what constitutes "a lot," the analysis will endeavor to provide a clear idea of how much observational science is on display in these rooms so that the reader may decide. Finally, does the science that appears in these rooms "confirm" a special creation?

Notably, Harn warns against mobilizing the notion of "proof" when it comes to questions about origins. In the Ham/Nye debate, for in­ stance, he said, "I've been emphasizing all night, you cannot ever prove, using the scientific method in the present, you can't prove the age of the earth. So you can never prove it's old:'34 Ham insists that processes that occurred in the past cannot be observed in the present, and, therefore, any claims made about them cannot be proven. At best, such claims can be "confirmed:' Accepting that qualification, the question for the analysis that follows is not whether the Creation Museum proves a spe­ cial creation on the basis of scientific evidence but, rather, whether the Creation Museum presents a strong case based in real (observational) science that the universe was created by the God of the Bible in six twenty-four-hour days less than ten thousand years ago.

The analysis that follows evaluates evidence that appears in the Creation Museum against the criteria associated with "observational science" and ''historical science." This is not because the distinction between observational science and historical science makes sense. It may or it may not make sense. Instead, this distinction is applied in this analysis because it plays a crucial role in the argument of the Crea­ tion Museum (and AiG). Indeed, this distinction between observational science (or real science), which can be repeated, on the one hand, and historical science, which cannot because it occurred in the past, on the

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other, is what enables Harn and his colleagues to remove evolution from the category of real science and put it into a category of something akin to religion. Given that argument, it is fair to ask whether the science displayed at the Creation Museum is, according to Ham's and Ai G's cri­ teria, "real science."35

The Stargazer's Planetarium

Created Cosmos, one of two films screened on the 30-foot dome of the Stargazer's Planetarium every day, is a 23-minute trip from Earth to deep space and back.36 Along the way, the film provides information about the Earth, the solar system, the Milky Way, and distant stars. For instance, viewers learn that the Earth is about 8,000 miles in diameter, that the Apollo astronauts traveled approximately 240,000 miles from Earth, that the distance between the Sun and the next nearest star sys­ tem (Alpha Centauri) is equivalent to 4,278 solar systems stacked end to end, that Sirius (the brightest star in our night sky) is 50 trillion miles away, that Betelgeuse (a red super giant star) is 600 times the diameter of our Sun, that from the location of the nearest stars in Orion's Belt our solar system is invisible to the naked eye, that a nebula (cloud of hydrogen and helium gas) is very colorful and sometimes hot, and that the globular cluster called M 4 is 40 million billion miles from Earth and consists of about 100,000 stars densely packed together.37

Does the planetarium present plenty of observational science? The answer seems to be yes. The size of planets, their distance from the solar system, the characteristics of nebulae, and so forth fit the definition of observational science. These facts (assuming they are accurate) are ob­ servable, and their measurement can be repeated. Moreover, the fact that the film devotes a full seventeen minutes ( or 77 percent of the film) to the presentation of this observational science indicates that there is plenty of science here.

But does Created Cosmos make a strong case that the observational science presented therein confirms a biblical creation? In that regard, the film makes three basic arguments on behalf of a biblical creation. The first argument is that the immensity, beauty, and/or diversity of the universe, which scientific observation makes visible, testify to an in­ finite God who is their creator. For example, after describing nebulae at some length, the film reflects on their characteristics and concludes "These amazing creations can rightly be called the artwork of God:' I�

74 Righting America at the Creation Museum

a more developed version of this argument, the opening statement of the film says, "As we learn more about the universe, we are continually amazed at the astonishing diversity and beauty we find. Though marred by the curse, the universe still exhibits the handiwork of the Lord. By learning more about the intricacies of the celestial realm, we gain an infinitesimal glimpse into the infinite mind of God. One extraordi­ nary aspect of creation is the incredible range of sizes and distances we observe:'38 Following this statement, the film offers five minutes and thirty-five seconds of uninterrupted information about, for instance, the sizes of planets and their distances from the Sun.

Of course, this kind of argument is a variation of long-standing ar­ guments that reason that some characteristic of nature-especially its beauty and complexity-cannot be explained by chance and, therefore, must be taken to indicate an intelligent designer. 39 To be sure, this kind of argument is compelling to some people. Still, questions remain about its articulation here. Why do immensity, diversi6d beauty serve as signs for God? Do they reflect God? Are they characteristics that are fa­ vored by God? Moreover, if immensity, diversity, and beauty indicate God, would smallness, homogeneity, and/or ugliness counterindicate God? If the universe displayed smallness, homogeneity, and/or ugliness, which it undoubtedly does somewhere, would they indicate that God does not exist? Even if these characteristics do support the notion of a divine designer, what indicates that this divine designer is the God of the Bible? Finally, even if that designer is the God of the Bible, what evidence suggests that these nebulae and planets and such were created in six twenty-four-hour days fewer than ten thousand years ago?

Another kind of argument that the film makes takes a completely different tack. When speaking of worlds deep in space, the film says, "Since current technology is not able to observe these worlds directly, we can only speculate what they look like. But we can be certain that their richness declares the majesty of their maker:' In arguments like this one, rather than reason that some observable characteristic of the universe serves as a sign that the God of the Bible created them, the ar­ gument presents no observable phenomena and assumes that the God of the Bible is their creator. Importantly, this argument cannot be taken to confirm a biblical creation based on observational science since no observational science is presented.

A third kind of argument made in the film says that observational science provides evidence that contests the notion of an old universe.

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Regarding blue stars, for instance, the film says, "Blue stars, like Al­ nilam, are very luminous. They expend their fuel quickly and cannot last billions of years. So, blue stars remind us that the universe is much younger than is generally claimed .... [More than this,] star formation is riddled with theoretical problems and has never been observed:'4° First, it should be noted that even if some observational science challenges the notion of an old universe, taken by itself, it would not necessarily con­ firm a biblical creation. Second, assuming that it is true that blue stars "cannot last billions ofyears;' the crucial question here is whether it is right also to assume that Alnilam was created when the universe was created. If one need not assume that, then the fact that blue stars cannot last billions of years poses no problem for an old universe. Finally, the film makes the more general claim that "star formation is riddled with theoretical problems and has never been observed;' without ever iden­ tifying those "theoretical problems" or explaining how those problems would undermine the notion of an old universe.

To be sure, the planetarium presents plenty of observational science. But it is hard to see how all of that "real science" confirms that the God of the Bible created the universe in six twenty-four-hour days fewer than ten thousand years ago. Yes, the film offers observational science on behalf of a supernatural designer. But does it provide a good reason to infer that that designer is the God of the Bible? Yes, the film offers observational science that is supposed to challenge the notion of an old universe. But does that data really contest an old universe? Yes, the film makes claims that grow out of the assumption of biblical creation, but where is the observational science to support those claims?

The Wonders of Creation Room

The Wonders of Creation room shows fifteen videos in continuous loop on about the same number of small flat-screen monitors mounted high on the walls that form the perimeter of the room. On average, these videos last about two minutes and twenty seconds and feature a combi­ nation of photographic images, video clips, computer-generated images (still and moving), diagrams, and biblical text. All but one of the videos have a voiceover that provides information about the topic at hand.41 For instance, the "Solar System" video tells viewers about the size of each planet, its location in the solar system, what it is made of, its tem­ perature at the surface, how many moons it has, and so forth. The pres-

76 Righting America at the Creation Museum

Photographs and video loops displayed on numerous flat-screen monitors in the Wonders of Creation room impress upon the visitor the argument that the beauty, precision, and complexity so clearly displayed in the universe and on Earth testify to the creation of all things by the God of the Bible. Photograph taken by Susan Trollinger. For more images of and information about the mu­ seum, go to creationmuseum.org.

entation of descriptive information takes up one minute and fifty-one

seconds of the total two minutes and thirty-two seconds of the video

(or 73 percent of the time in the video).42 Similarly, the "Stars" video, which is the shortest video in the Wonders of Creation room, dedicates fifty

two of the total seventy-five seconds of the video ( or 68 percent of its

time) to the presentation of descriptive information such as what stars

are made of, how much energy the Sun gives off, how many stars are in

the Milky Way, and so forth.43

In short, and in keeping with Created Cosmos, the videos in the Won­ders of Creation room appear to feature plenty of observational

science. As regards the arguments made by the videos, while there are

a few that (also in keeping with Created Cosmos) suggest that the universe cannot be as old as mainstream science claims, the most

frequent argument is made on behalf of divine design. Indeed, thirteen

of the fifteen videos

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on display argue that something observable in nature suggests a divine

designer. These arguments take something that is observable in the

present-the Earth's location in relation to the Sun, the complexity of

the structure of bird wings, or the fact that DNA resembles a language­

and argue that it serves as a sign for divine design. For instance, the

"Designed for Flight" video argues on the basis of what feathers look like

and how bird muscles work: "Every feature of birds from the muscles in

the chest to the feathers on the wings is well designed for flight" ( empha­

sis added).44 Likewise, the "DNA'.' video reasons that since DNA consists

of four nucleotides that appear in various sequences to produce differ­

ent genetic information, "DNA seems to represent a language-the lan­

guage of life. An unseen author, the creator of heaven and Earth has left

a testimony of his existence in the DNA of every living thing:'45 Other

videos argue that observed complexity; similarity among the chemicals

found within organs, organ systems, and DNA; resemblances among

species within a scientific family; or the fact that all organisms require

cooperative relationships to survive point to an intelligent designer. 46

While most of the videos in the Wonders of Creation room make

explicit arguments that the Creation was made by a divine designer, one

does not. Clocking in at four minutes and thirty-one seconds (nearly

twice the average length of the other videos) the "Creator Clearly Seen"

video is unique among the fifteen in that it has no voiceover and, thus,

does not present any oral scientific information or argument for a divine

designer. Likewise, no diagrams or computer-generated images of sci­

entific models appear. Instead, this video displays a stream of still and

moving images that very quickly change from one to another in accord­

ance with the rhythms of two classical music pieces.

Everything that appears in these images-whether a body of water, a

flower, an insect, a bird, a dog, or a person-is beautiful. Water is clean;

grass is lush; smiles are bright; snow is white; skin is clear. There are no

imperfections, no decay, no violence, no pollution, and no destruction.

The argument that appears to be implied in this video is that a world

filled with so much beauty could not be an accident and, therefore, must

be the creation of a divine designer.

Again, the argument that the beauty, complexity, and apparent pur­

posefulness that is observable in nature indicates a divine designer is

persuasive to many people. Still, questions remain. 'Nhy is it that beauty,

complexity, similarity, apparent purposefulness of design, and the coop­

erative nature of certain relationships confirm a divine designer? What

78 Righting America at the Creation Museum

is it exactly about beauty, similarity, complexity, or cooperativeness that indicates an intelligent designer? Would their opposites-ugliness, sim­ plicity, difference, or competitiveness-contest the notion of a divine designer? To be sure, all of these qualities are also observable in nature. Do these observable characteristics in nature contest the notion of a divine designer? Now, one could argue that these opposite qualities in nature do not contest a divine designer but, instead, are symptomatic of the Fall. The argument then would seem to be that ugl�ss, simplicity, difference, and competitiveness are all the result of sin. But that would be a troubling argument to make. Difference is the result of the Fall? Simplicity is a sign of sin? Moreover, who determines what is beautiful or ugly, complex or simple, similar or different, cooperative or competi­ tive? Is the assumption that these qualities are universally recognized by all peoples? What if they are not? How would that impact the implied argument here? The videos are silent on these important questions.

Unlike Created Cosmos, the videos in the Wonders of Creation room are not content merely to suggest some kind of supernatural designer. They take the additional argumentative step of saying that the divine designer of the universe is the God of the Bible. Typically, they do this by displaying a verse from the Bible at the end of the video, while the voice­ over makes some suggestion that the verse speaks to whatever aspect in nature has been featured in the video. Thus, the observational science in the video appears to confirm what the Bible says.

Sometimes the connection between the observational science and the biblical text seems fairly direct, whether or not it is convincing. For instance, the "Eyes" video closes with the following scripture, which ap­ pears against the backdrop of a digital animation of an eyeball: "The Lord has made ... the seeing eye. Proverbs 20:12" (ellipsis in original).47 Similarly, the "Designed for Flight" video closes with the following verse superimposed in Hebrew script, which (oddly) appears upside down: "God created every winged bird after its kind, and God saw that it was good. Genesis 1:21:'48

Given that these verses appear out of context in the videos, it is dif­ ficult for the visitor to determine whether, in fact, the texts really do reiterate the observational science in the videos. But other connections between the ultimate claim of the video and the closing scripture are even less direct. For instance, the "Communities" video, which argues that the cooperative relationships seen in nature are the creation of the God of the Bible, closes with the following scripture: "One Spirit ... one

SCIENCE 79

Lord . . . one God. Ephesians 4:4-6:' Viewers are left scratching their heads for the connection here. This is not at all surprising given that this heavily excised text, which was reduced from forty-one words to a mere six, is cryptic. Aiming, perhaps, to fill in the blanks, the voiceover says, "Cooperative relationships, cycles of provision, communities of or­ ganisms, a complex interwoven web of life where every organism has a place and a function in the larger whole. The value of the individual and the necessity of community-these are beautiful manifestations of a tri­ une creator God. Three persons in one:'49 Assuming the visitor accepts the suggestion that this scripture is talking about "a triune God;' how do cooperative relationships within nature confirm such a God? Moreover, would observational science that takes note of competitive relationships in nature contest a triune God?

Even less clear is the relationship between the central claim of the "Solar System" and its closing scripture. The claim is that the ''beauty" of the planets and the "clockwork precision" of their orbits confirm that the God of the Bible is the creator of the solar system. The closing scripture says, "The heavens declare the glory of God. Psalm 19:I:'so Given that this verse comes from Psalms, a book of poems, one is in­ clined to read it figuratively. Thus, one would probably not take this verse to be a historical account of the origins of our solar system. Is the suggestion here that one should imagine that the heavens literally de­ clared God's glory? If so, how would such a vague declaration support the central claim of the video? Finally, how does all this support the vid­ eo's claim that the God of the Bible created this solar system in a single twenty-four-hour day fewer than ten thousand years ago?

AiG is right. The videos in the Wonders of Creation room provide plenty of "real science" measured against Ham's criteria. But to what end? Much of the observational science that appears in these videos is used in support of the argument that a divine designer created the universe. All the beauty, complexity, similarity, and apparent purpose­ fulness of design that is observable in our world and beyond cannot be the result of mere chance, so the argument goes; there must have been some kind of divine designer who created it all. Assuming for the mo­ ment that the reasoning behind that argument makes sense, does it also make sense, based on bits of Bible verses often only tangentially related to the evidence provided, that the God of the Bible is that designer? As with the film in the planetarium, such claims seem to have little or no connection with observational science.51 But perhaps the rooms devoted

80 Righting America at the Creation Museum

to flood geology, the science that has been at the heart of young Earth creationism for more than a century, make a strong scientific case for a biblical creation.

Flood Geology

Four rooms in the lower level of the museum, including the Flood Geol­ ogy room, the Natural Selection room, the Facing the Allosaurus room, and the Post-Flood room, present the museum's case that flood geology explains the appearance of an old Earth. Three of these rooms exhibit placards large and small, flat-screen monitors, miniature encased dio­ ramas, and other inset lighted cases. The Facing the Allosaurus room­ renovated in 2014 to accommodate this exhibit-features a life-size skeleton of an Allosaurus dinosaur standing on a bed of white gravel be­ hind a glass partition. This skeleton, consisting of actual bone and bone casts, is thirty feet long and ten feet high. On either end of the skeleton, also behind the glass, sit two flat-screen monitors on stands showing videos about the dinosaur along with a few small placards. Elsewhere in the room there is a glass case that holds, according to the accompanying

placard, "the actual fossilized skull of Ebenezer, theAllosaurus:' Taken together, these rooms (which we call the flood geology section

of the museum) exhibit some thirty-eight placards. Given that placards dominate these rooms visually by their number and often large size, and given that they appear to present plenty of information on behalf of a biblical creation, the analysis that follows focuses on the placards. In addition to placards, these rooms also show seven videos in continuous loop on flat screens.52 These videos are similar in length to the videos in the Wonders of Creation room, averaging two minutes and fifty-one sec­ onds. They explain the models depicted on the placards that accompany them. In addition, three computer-generated animations are on display. One has no text and appears to be a simulation of a model designed to explain the Flood's role in plate tectonics. The other two appear inside the glass partition with the Allosaurus. One shows the dig site where the skeleton was found, and the other provides descriptive information about the skeleton.

Flood geology has served as the scientific keystone of young Earth creationism since the early twentieth century when George McCready

Price, a Seventh Day Adventist, published a textbook on the topic- The New Geology. Then in 1961, it was made widely popular among evan-

SCIENCE 81

gelicals and fundamentalists when Henry M. Morris and John C. W hit­ comb put forward what was largely a restatement of Price's argument in The Genesis Flood. The centrality and popularity of flood geology is due to the fact that it holds out the promise that the fossil record and other presumptive evidences of an old Earth can be shown scientifically to support a young Earth instead.53 That being so, one might expect the vast majority of placards in the Flood Geology room to feature ob­ servational science since observational science is the only true science according to Ken Ham and his colleagues at AiG. Surprisingly, fifteen of the thirty-eight placards on display in the Flood Geology room ( 40 percent) are identified by white print in the top right corner as "mod­ els:' These models include the "residual catastrophism model;' the "Bretz Columbia River flood model;' the "catastrophic plate tectonics model;' the "Vardiman hypercane model;' and the "biogeographic raft­ ing model;' just to name a few.

According to AiG, models (including big ones like creationism and evolution) are historical science and not "real science:' Roger Patterson, who serves on AiG's Educational Resource team and writes on a range of topics, including evolution, polygamy, and Easter, explains:

Operational science deals with testing and verifying ideas in the pres­

ent and leads to the production of useful products like computers, cars,

and satellites. Historical (origins) science involves interpreting evidence

from the past and includes the models of evolution and special creation.

Recognizing that everyone has presuppositions that shape the way they

interpret the evidence is an important step in realizing that historical

science is not equal to operational science (emphasis added).54

Since models are interpretations of the past rather than observations made and repeatable in the present, not one of these fifteen placards, by AiG's criteria, qualifies as "real science:'

That said, the fact that a placard self-identifies as a model does not necessarily mean it displays no observational science. Given that, a close content analysis was conducted of all thirty-eight placards in the flood geology section, the purpose being to ascertain whether, in fact, these rooms deliver on the Creation Museum's promise to provide "real sci­ ence" that confirms a biblical creation.

It makes sense to start by asking how many of the thirty-eight plac­ ards look like they display scientific information according to a com­ monsense notion of science-that is, information that appears to have

82 Righting America at the Creation Museum

been culled from careful observation, experimentation, and/or meas­ urement. It turns out that twenty-six of the thirty-eight (68 percent) pass that test by displaying information such as the length of a dinosaur skeleton, the age of rock layers, the amount of ash deposited by a vol­ canic eruption, the depth of ice in the middle of Greenland, and so forth.

This means that 32 percent (nearly a third) of the placards in the flood geology section display nothing that even resembles scientific ev­ idence, never mind evidence that can meet AiG's much more stringent criteria for observational science. Instead, these twelve placards provide introductions or summaries for a certain series of placards, speculate on processes that might have occurred during or after the Flood, make moral arguments for the destruction of all land-based life that did not get on the Ark, display a picture or map, or define terms such as "natural selection" and "evolution:'

So, what about the twenty-six placards that appear to present sci­ entific evidence? It turns out that ten of these twenty-six (39 percent) do not display "real science" according to AiG's definition. Often that is because the information presented is based on observations that took place in the past and cannot be repeated. For instance, two placards in the Flood Geology room make the crucial argument that the kinds of geological changes that evolutionists say take billions of years can actu­ally be accomplished in a very short period of time. This argument relies on the example of the Mount Saint Helens eruption, which occurred on May 18, 1980, and its aftermath. In support of the argument, these plac­ards identify processes set in motion by the eruption. They refer to "mud flows;' the "lava dome;' the "ash cloud," "pyroclastic deposits;' and "bark rubb[ing] off floating logs:' These processes, which took place decades ago, are neither observable in the present, nor repeatable.55 Thus, the statements made about these processes, such as that "mudflows cut can­yons out of solid rock in just a few years;' must be regarded, according to Ham's instruction, as statements about the past and therefore as his­torical, not observational science.56

Another placard among these ten, which hangs in the Post-Flood room, explains the "residual catastrophism model" according to which the Earth's "crust settles down after the Flood" as "supervolcanoes" and "superquakes" gradually subsided. Listed on that placard are five vol­ canic eruptions along with the amount of ash they produced and a map suggesting the area covered by the ash. The five eruptions named there are the Yellowstone eruption that produced the Huckleberry Ridge Tuff

SCIENCE 83

(600 cubic miles of ash), the Yellowstone eruption that produced the Lava Creek Tuff (240 cubic miles of ash), the Long Valley eruption that produced the Bishop Tuff (150 cubic miles of ash), the Crater Lake erup­ tion (seventeen cubic miles of ash), and the Mount Saint Helens erup­ tion (.25 cubic miles of ash).

No dates appear on this placard to indicate when these eruptions occurred and were observed. Other placards indicate that Mount Saint Helens erupted in 1980, but what about the other four eruptions? Ac­ cording to the United States Geological Survey, the most recent of the four (at Crater Lake) happened about seventy-seven hundred years ago and the most remote (the first Yellowstone eruption) about 2.1 million years ago.57 Of course, according to the story that is told in the Crea­ tion Museum, none of these eruptions could have occurred more than about forty-three hundred years ago since, as the model makes clear, all five were residual effects of the Flood. Although it would be helpful if the placard provided AiG's dates for these eruptions, the important point here is that no scientist living today could have witnessed four of these eruptions or measured the amount of ash deposited by them. And although a scientist living today may have witnessed the Mount Saint Helens eruption, any observations they may have made at the time can­ not be repeated.

A third example provides a good sense of how information that appears scientific on these ten placards fails to meet AiG's criteria for "real science:' The placard called "Canyons Erode;' which appears in the Post-Flood room, explains the "breached dam model;' according to which "lakes filled up behind the Kaibab Upwarp" after the Flood, then "broke through, carved Grand Canyon, stripped slopes clean, and drained away;' leaving "1000 cubic miles of sediment ... in the Salton Sea trough:' This placard is important because it makes an argument that instead of taking millions of years to form, "canyons were carved rapidly after the Flood."

A crucial piece of evidence for this argument on the placard is "the small difference in age between lake deposits upstream and surge de­ posits down stream." This information is key because a small difference in age could indicate that these processes occurred in quick succession, thus diminishing the amount of time required to produce canyons. Although "the small difference" identified here is not specified, and al­ though the magnitude of the difference is crucial to the argument, still one can imagine a geologist performing repeatable experiments to de-

84 Righting America at the Creation Museum

termine the age of the two deposits. Thus, although vague, this crucial evidence looks like it passes AiG's test for "real science:'

But does it? According to Ham, dating methods are not "real sci- ence:' As he put it in his debate with Bill Nye,

My point is all these dating methods actually give all sorts of different

dates. In fact, different dating methods on the same rock we can show

give all sorts of different dates. You see, there are lots of assumptions

in regard to radioactive dating. Number one, for instance, the amounts

of the parent and daughter isotope at the beginning, when the rock

formed-you have to know them, but you weren't there; see, that's his­

torical science. 58

Since no scientist actually observed the formation of either the "lake de­ posits upstream" or the "surge deposits downstream," since no one today can observe their formation, and since any attempt to discern their ages using dating methods amounts to historical science, this evidence must be regarded as not "real science:'

The point here is not that the evidence on these placards is, in fact, bogus or unreliable. Maybe it is, and maybe it is not. The point is also not that it is unreasonable to draw inferences from evidence that comes from the past. The point here is that while the information on these ten placards looks like science-thus contributing to the visitor's impres­ sion that the flood geology section displays plenty of science-it does not meet the criteria for "real science" that AiG uses to dethrone evolu­ tion as sham science.

If these ten placards, which feature historical science rather than observational science, are removed from the list of twenty-six placards that appear to provide scientific information when measured against a commonsense notion of scientific evidence, just sixteen ( 42 percent of the total number of placards) remain that display what AiG calls "real science:' To what purpose are they put?

One purpose to which this observational science is put is simply to provide information. Three of the sixteen placards that display obser­ vational science do that. All three appear in the Facing the Allosaurus room. One, titled "Why the Long Face?" describes Ebenezer's skull, noting (among other characteristics) that it is "34 inches long and 22 inches high, and is 97 percent complete;' and that "there are 53 curved, saw-edged, saber-like teeth, up to 4.5 inches long including the roots:' A second placard, titled "What Was Found?" provides "details from the

SCIENCE 85

dig;' including the fact that "this animal was found buried lying on its left side;' that "the skeleton was oriented with the head at the western end and the tail pointed southeast;' that "the remains of the animal's spine .. . were found lying in a curved alignment," and that "due to ero­ sion of the hillside he was found in, most of Ebenezer's limb bones and mid-section were not recovered:'

Neither placard makes any connection between the observational science presented and a claim for a biblical creation. Then there is a third placard, titled "Who Am I?" which explains that ''.Allosaurus" means '"other lizard; " that Allosaurus "belongs to the suborder of dinosaurs that contains theropods;' that Ebenezer was likely a "formidable, car­ nivorous dinosaur;' and that a "carnivore is something that eats mostly meat." The placard also notes that this skeleton was named Ebenezer because "some of the people involved in excavating this dinosaur ... saw him as a reminder of God's judgment of the world and how He pre­ served mankind and animal kinds on Noah's Ark:' Although this and one other biblical reference appear on the placard, it does not make an argument that any of the information provided about the dinosaur skel­ eton supports a claim for a biblical creation or a global flood. The infor­ mation about the dinosaur simply appears alongside statements about a biblical story that includes the name "Ebenezer:'

When these three placards, which display observational science in a purely informational way, are removed from the list of sixteen plac­ ards that display observational science, just thirteen (about a third) re­ main that might make a connection between observational science and a claim for a biblical creation. This is surprising given that flood geology is the scientific keystone of the young Earth creationist argument, and given AiG's own claim that this is one of the areas in the museum that displays "plenty" of science that confirms a biblical creation.

A Particular Kind of Science at the Creation Museum

Importantly, AiG's distinction between observational science and his­ torical science, so crucial for demoting evolution from the status of real science, is steeped in a tradition long familiar to evangelicals and fun­ damentalists. According to that tradition, proper science is a thoroughly empirical enterprise grounded in careful and precise observation. All presuppositions or preconceptions are to be put aside so that observa­ tions may be true to the object under study. Not even hypotheses are

86 Righting America at the Creation Museum

appropriate in this scientific approach. To bring any preconceptions whatsoever to the practice of observation only distorts the observation and, thus, renders it unreliable. When properly done, science begins with numerous disciplined observations, and only on the basis of those observations does one venture an inference about what might be the case more generally.

Understanding science in this way dates back to the nineteenth cen­ tury when, as Mark Noll points out, evangelicals believed "that strict induction from verified individual facts to more general laws offered the best way to understand the data of any subject:' Likewise, argues Noll, creationists insisted upon "no speculation without direct empirical proof, no deductions from speculative principles, no science without ex­ tensive empirical evidence:'59 According to Ronald L. Numbers, the point of taking this strict view of science has been to delegitimate evolu­ tion: "Even·when promoting their beliefs as science, creationists some­ times denied similar legitimacy to evolution. They did so by limiting science to Baconian fact-gathering or, more typically, by appealing to dictionary definitions of science as factual knowledge."60

According to this view, "real science" is not just about whether ob­ servations are repeatable in the present but even more about whether observations serve as the grounds for inferences. According to this tradition within evangelicalism and fundamentalism, the only proper ground for a conclusion is observation, indeed multiple observations. Given the Creation Museum's indebtedness to this view, as evidenced by its emphasis on the distinction between observational science and historical science, one would expect a corresponding emphasis on a scientific method in which observations made free of preconceptions serve as the grounds for cautious inferences. Is this the kind of scientific method that is on display in the flood geology section?

When the remaining thirteen placards are examined closely, it turns out that only seven (18 percent) of the total thirty-eight placards, both display evidence that appears to pass the test for observational science and use that evidence as grounds for some kind of claim that could sup­ port a larger case for a biblical creation.61 Of those seven, four reason from observational science to a claim not directly on behalf of a bibli­ cal creation but against evolution instead. All four of these placards are found in the Natural Selection room, and all four argue that natural selection is not a process that leads to evolution.

Three of these four placards discuss specific examples of natural

SCIENCE 87

selection: blind cave fish, blind mice, and antibiotic-resistant bacteria. On each of the three placards, observational science is presented in the form of observable examples: cave fish that live in very dark waters and that are albino and blind, mutant mice whose DNA produces a defec­ tive protein and that exhibit deficiencies such as blindness, and certain bacteria that produce mutant forms of a protein that antibiotics cannot affect. On the basis of this evidence, each placard claims that the muta­ tions that produce these changes involve the loss of genetic information (to produce color, eyes, sight, or a certain kind of protein) rather than any gain. Since evolution requires the production of new genetic infor­ mation to create new species, the reasoning goes, these three examples support natural selection, not evolution.

The fourth placard that grounds a critique of evolution in observa­ tional science also emphasizes the differences between natural selection and evolution. But here, rather than take up a specific genetic change within a particular species, the focus is on the sorts of changes that might appear in the context of a "kind:' For young Earth creationists, the cate­ gory of the "kind" is crucial. It is bigger than a species and, according to AiG and other young Earth creationists, is akin to the scientific "familY:' Because a kind encompasses many species and, with the help of natural selection and a rich genetic pool, can produce many more species, the notion of a kind both reduces the number of animals that had to be on the ark and can help to explain how lots of species were produced by the relatively small number of kinds that survived the Flood.62

The two "kinds" discussed on this placard, which is titled "What about Speciation within Kinds?" are :finches and dogs. One placard ar­ gues,''.Although often viewed as an icon of evolution, Darwin's finches serve as a perfect model of variation within a created kind:' This is so since, ''baraminologists (scientists who study created kinds) have de­ termined that 'kind' is likely equivalent to the 'family' level (in relation to common classification terminology):' Thus, "all of Darwin's finches belong to the same family, Emberizidae, and therefore likely belong to the same created kind .... " Armed with this distinction between "kind" and "species;' the placard argues that "natural selection ... has caused fluctuations in the populations of finches and possibly led to finch speci­ ation but never a finch evolving into another kind of organism:'

The placard makes a similar argument regarding dogs. A beginning premise of the placard is that "it has been determined genetically that all dogs (wolves, coyotes, foxes,jackals, dingoes, and domestic dogs) are

88 Righting America at the Creation lvfuseum

related to each other:' Given this and the fact that "God said, 'Let the earth bring forth the living crea1ure according to its kind" ... all dogs, whether wild or domestic belong to the same family-Canidae. Thus, all dogs likely belong to the same created kind:' As in the case of finches, so too vvith dogs: "Natural and artificial selection have acted upon vari­ ation vvithin the populations of dogs leading to the wide variety of dogs we see today:' The placard continues, "Dogs have never evolved into another kind of organism. Instead what we observe is the selection of existing information ... not the addition of new genetic information as required for molecules-to-man evolution:'

But is it true that all of these examples involve only the loss of ge­ netic information? Even if that is true, can these examples stand in for all instances of genetic mutations or alterations? That is, do genetic changes in other instances ever produce new genetic information? Also, is it true that all evolutionary processes must involve the production of new information? Could a mutation that causes a loss of genetic infor­ mation participate in larger evolutionary processes? If that were a pos­ sibility, then these three examples could just as well be taken to support a claim for evolution.

More than this, simply contesting evolution does not make a case for biblical creation. So, it is important that only three placards in the flood geology section make an argument based in observational science on behalf of a biblical creation. \¥bile none of these three placards provides evidence for a twenty-four-hour-a-day, creation, all three do, at least at first glance, seem to reason from observational science to a claim in support of a global flood.

One placard, which appears in the Flood room and is titled "The Flood Buries the Earth;' presents the "Paleozoic-Mesozoic flood model:' This placard displays plenty of observational science63 from the Grand Canyon for an argument on behalf of a global flood. Evidence includes the fact that "thousands of feet above sea level, the Red wall Limestone has abundant fossils, including billions of nautiloids;' that "the Cocon­ ino Sandstone covers 300,000 square miles of area in western North America;' that "the Redwall Limestone is continuous with limestones across the United States, including the rocks where Mammoth Cave is found in Kentucky," and that "the Tapeats Sandstone is continuous with sheet sandstones covering most of North America:' While no specific claims are associated with any of this evidence, visitors could conclude

SCIENCE 89

that such information supports the placard's subtitle, "The Flood Cov­ ered All the Continehts in Sediment."

Other evidence on the placard is offered to support specific claims about processes that may have (note the repetition of the word gest") occurred during the Flood. For instance, the fact that "Cocon­ ino Sandstone is several hundred feet thick, .. suggest[s] rapid, thick deposition:' Likewise, a "six-foot layer containing billions of nautiloids suggests rapid deposition;' "abundant, well-preserved fossils suggest rapid, thick deposition;' "thin layers also suggest rapid deposition;' and "tight bending of the Tapeats Sandstone through the Kaibab Formation suggests one mile of sediment was deposited quickly and was still soft when bent:' How it was that thick sandstone was rapidly deposited by the Flood, how billions of nautiloids were rapidly deposited by the Flood, how "thin layers" of something (which is not identified by the placard) was rapidly deposited by the Flood, or how the Flood bent the Tapeats Sandstone is left entirely to the imagination of the visitor.

In a video titled "Rock Layers" that is displayed next to this placard, Andrew Snelling (who earned a PhD in geology from the University of Sydney and serves as director of research at AiG) and the video's voice­ over help the visitor out as they discuss some of the evidence that ap­ pears on the placard. Surprisingly, the video does not argue directly that evidence observed in the Grand Canyon indicates a global flood. Instead, the video argues that processes observable in the present are incapable of producing the evidence displayed on the placard, like fossils, rock lay­ ers, or sand carried across continents. Snelling asks, for instance, "What river or what process today is carrying material from the Appalachians to the Southwest?" ,vith no answer given, the viewer is invited to con­ clude that there is no such river or process in the present. An alternative answer is offered by the voiceover: "a global flood could carry sand and mud enormous distances:' Likewise, Snelling observes, "In the Grand Canyon area we've got limestone bed-the Red Wall Limestone-the same limestone can be found over here in the Eastern United States:' The voiceover says, "A global flood could form thick layers across entire continents."64

Thus, the global flood serves as a possible answer for "mysteries" that, according to the video, cannot be explained by processes observa­ ble in the present. 65 Of course, the repeated use of the word "suggests" gives away the fact that the claims made in this video and implied in

90 Righting America at the Creation Museum

the placards nearby are speculative. But if speculating is appropriate,

despite the fact that the global flood is not observable in the present,

why not consider other possibilities? Are there any other geological pro­

cesses that might have taken place in the past that could explain this

evidence? If so, would it not behoove a geologist to consider multiple

possibilities in order to arrive at the best possible explanation?

The second of the three placards that appear to ground a claim for a

global flood in observational science is titled "Backyard Scale;' and, like

the previous one, it is in the Flood Geology room. This placard presents

observational science about river floods: "River floods commonly erode

and deposit less than 1/1000 cubic miles of sand and mud in minutes

to hours:' No claim appears on the placard, but the placard appears in

a series of six other placards that, together, suggest a larger argument.

The first placard of the series claims, "In our own backyards we can see the layers rain produces on a small scale" (emphasis in original). The

five placards that follow talk about ever-increasing scales: from "Back­

yard Scale" to "County Scale" to "State Scale" to "Regional Scale" to

"Global Scale:' Taken together, one of the arguments that this series of

placards makes is that visible layers (small to big) indicate catastrophes

(small to big). In that context, the "Backyard Scale" placard functions as

evidence for the claim that a small catastrophe in the present can serve

as a mini-analogy for a global one of the distant past.

But can it? The data displayed on this placard is about how much

erosion a river flood produces in a short period of time. But the claim

that the data are supposed to support is that "in our own backyards we can see the layers rain produces on a small scale" (emphasis in origi­

nal).66 Is a river flood to be understood as a backyard event? The image

of a river flood that appears on the placard, which is not identified in any

way, looks more like it would take out a backyard than be considered a

"bacl'}'ard event." In the end, this placard does not display any evidence

(observational or otherwise) in support of the claim associated with it.

Despite the fact that the observational science on this card seems,

at best, ill chosen, the argument itself reappears in somewhat different

form in a video shown in the Post-Flood room. The video, titled "Can­

yons;' talks about the same scales that appear in this series of placards

and presents them in the same order. In the course of the video, the

voiceover says, "In soft mud or sand in your own backyard you can see

the power of heavy rains on a small scale. A rainstorm can create min­

iature canyons in only minutes. Though these canyons are very small,

SCIENCE 91

cut into mud, they share many of the same characteristics as the world's

great canyons:'67 In support of this claim, the video shows images of rivu­

lets cutting tiny "canyons" into wet soil. Thus, unlike the "Backyard Scale"

placard, the video does appear to present observational science appropri­

ate to the claim that small "catastrophes" can give clues about big ones.

But with the evidence scaled down to the backyard, does the rea­

soning make sense? In what sense does the process of a rivulet cutting

a miniature "canyon" in one's backyard give clues about a global flood

cutting the Grand Canyon? Are the hydrodynamics of a rivulet anything

like those of a global flood? Does this analogy work?

Perhaps one of the most baffling aspects of all this analogical "evi­

dence" regarding the Flood is that the Creation Museum itself makes

the case that such analogies are out of order. The very first placard that

visitors encounter in the flood geology section, titled "The Key: God's

Word;' says, "The present is not the key to the past;' thus repudiating a

central principle of geology dating back to Charles Lyell. According to

this placard, one cannot understand the past by means of evidence in

the present, especially when it comes to the global flood since, "Noah's

Flood and times following involved more violent catastrophism than

anything known in the present:'

If the argument is that the global flood was so huge and so cata­

strophic that there can be no analogies in the present, then neither the

"Backyard Scale" placard nor the "Canyons" video can provide any sup­

port whatsoever for a global flood or a biblical creation. More than that,

if no process in the present can serve even as a mini-analogy for a global

flood, then it does not matter how fast a rivulet can cut a minicanyon

in one's backyard. Indeed, it does not matter how fast any process ob­

servable today can do anything. According to this logic, even if Mount

Saint Helens erupted today and cut a brand new canyon in an hour, it

could provide no support for the argument that a global flood could

have radically transformed the Earth's surface in a short period of time.

If this is the case, then a crucial claim of the Creation Museum-namely,

that "real science" (observations made and repeatable in the present)

can provide support on behalf of a global flood that produced fossils,

canyons, and rock layers in a matter of years-is, at best, seriously com­

promised. 68

The final placard among the three that appear to ground a claim

for a biblical creation in observational science, titled "What Happened

to Ebenezer?" appears in the Facing the Allosarnrus room. This is an

92 Righting America at the Creation Museum

important placard because it is the only one in this exhibit that goes

beyond simply presenting information about the skeleton to making

some kind of argument about the skeleton's relationship to the global

flood. The placard is divided into three sections: the "Pre-Flood World;'

"During the Flood;' and "Entombed by the Flood:' The observational

science displayed on the placard appears in the first section where it

says that "the fossil record contains many more varieties of fossilized

plants and animals than we see among the plants and animals living

today." Whether or not this difference is actually borne out by the fossil

record, this evidence would seem to count as observational science.

The claim that this observational science is used to support is, "Be­

fore Noah's Flood, the world bore little resemblance to present-day Col­

orado where Ebenezer was found;' and further that "Ebenezer probably

lived on a vast supercontinent with a tremendous assortment of plant

and animal life:' The placard makes no connection between the fossil

record Ebenezer's habitat before the Flood, and the Flood itself. Vis-

itors are left to come up with the link. But, if they have been paying

close attention to claims made elsewhere in the flood geology section,

they might take the placard to be saying that the fossil record, which

indicates that there was once greater diversity of plant and animal life

than there is now, suggests that the catastrophic effects of a global flood

reduced that diversity. How the fossil record provides any evidence for a

"supercontinent" is not made clear here. 69

Even less clear is the connection between the fossil record, which is

the only observational science on this placard, and the placard's main

argument, which begins to take form in the second section. This section

merits quoting in full:

So, what were the final moments like for this dinosaur? During Noah's

Flood, the fountains of the great deep were broken up. As rain fell, water

levels rose; and elevated land areas were progressively covered. Violent

waves surged increasingly inland over the continental fragments where

dinosaurs and other land creatures lived in the pre-Flood world. Flee­

ing the encroaching danger could only be a temporary reprieve as the

Flood waters continued to rise and surge. The accumulating sediments

quickly covered and fossilized many footprints that dinosaurs-maybe

even Ebenezer-left behind.

The third section continues in the same way as the second as it describes

Ebenezer's demise: "Overwhelmed by the rising Flood waters, Ebenezer

SCIENCE 93

eventually drowned as his body was swept away in a sediment debris

flow consisting of a mixture of sand and pebbles:' In the end, "his body

was quickly buried lying on his left side. Entombed, his bones were rap­

idly fossilized:'

No observational science appears in either of these two sections.

Even the fact that the dinosaur was buried '1ying on his left side" can­

not be considered observational science since, now that the skeleton has

been removed from the soil, it cannot be observed today.

Given that this placard appears in the room wherein a truly impres­

sive skeleton of a real dinosaur is on display, and glven that this placard

tells a story that seeks to link that skeleton to the Flood, it is surprising

that the placard makes no mention of the skeleton itself. Not one piece

of physical evidence from the skeleton is mobilized in any way by this

placard. No inferences whatsoever are drawn from the skeleton about

Ebenezer on this placard. It is as if nothing about Ebenezer is relevant

for the story that is being told about him. Thus, the visitor is left won­

dering what value, if any, Ebenezer holds for a case on behalf of a global

flood and a biblical creation.

Oddly, the placard argues that Ebenezer has great value since his

demise is prototypical: "Ebenezer is only one example of what occurred

on a global scale to billions of creatures. Except for those on Noah's

Ark, .all of the dinosaurs, other land creatures, birds, and humans died

in the global catastrophe." But how can Ebenezer-the-skeleton (not

Ebenezer-the-dinosaur that was once living and is now inaccessible) serve as an "example" when nothing about Ebenezer-the-skeleton is ap­

parently relevant? More to the point, how can Ebenezer-the-skeleton

indicate anything about what happened to other creatures in the global

flood when Ebenezer-the-skeleton apparently can say nothing about

what happened to himself?

In the end, Ebenezer-the-skeleton appears to make no contribution

to an understanding either of his demise or any other creature's. The

real evidence for the argument being made on this placard has nothing

to do with Ebenezer. It turns out that the real evidence-that is to say, the evidence that does provide support for the claim that all creatures

not on the Ark suffered this horrible fate-is the story of the Flood that

appears in Genesis 7:21-23 and that is rewritten on this placard as a

series of physical events involving "the fountains of the deep;' "violent

waves;' and "accumulating sediments:' It is on the basis of this extrapo­

lation from Genesis, not Ebenezer-the-skeleton, that the story of Eben-

94 Righting America at the Creation Museum

ezer's demise is spun. According to this placard, Ebenezer-the-skeleton is irrelevant for figuring out how he died, much less for how all the other creatures died. Since an extrapolation from Genesis serves as the evi­ dence here, and since that story already tells what happened to all of the land creatures that did not make it on the Ark, no example in the form of a skeleton, or anything else, is needed.

The Creation Museum emphasizes the point that "real science" demands repeatable observations in the present. But when it comes to presenting arguments that the global flood created the geological formations we see today in a very short period of time, observational science plays no significant role at the museum. Observational science does not appear to serve as the ground for claims about a global flood or a biblical creation.7°

If observational science does not serve as the basis from which infer­ ences are made on behalf of the Flood or a biblical creation, then what is its function? So far, we have seen that it serves as the criterion by which AiG renders evolution akin to a religion rather than "real science:' We have also seen that it serves as the evidence that the Creation Museum displays "plenty" of science. But does it make any direct contribution to a case for a biblical creation?

Ken Ham pointed in the direction of an answer to this question when, at the end of his opening remarks during his debate with Bill Nye, he stated that "creation is the only viable model of historical sci­ ence, confirmed by observational science, in today's modern scientific era" (emphasis added).71 Later, in his thirty-minute prepared remarks, he used the word "confirm" fifteen more times in statements about ob­ servational science "confirming" this or that aspect of a biblical creation. For Ham, the function of observational science is to "confirm" a biblical creation. But what does that mean?

In The Lie, Ham describes a peculiar scientific method that mobi­ lizes observational science in support of young Earth creationist apol­ ogetics:

We can take what the Bible says about history and see if the evidence of the present does fit. If we take the book of Genesis, which is a detailed account of our origins, we can see what it says concerning how the world was created and what subsequently happened. We can decide what we would expect to find if the Bible is true (this is our worldview, or model, built on the creation account). Then we can look at the world to see if

SCIENCE

what we observe confirms the account in God's Word (and it does, over and over again).72

95

For Ham, observational science "confirms" a biblical creation when it provides evidence for a model that has been constructed by young Earth creationists to support a biblical account of origins. Returning to an example provided by Ham and referred to above clarifies the scien­ tific method he advocates: "Genesis tells us that because of man's wick­ edness, God judged the world with a worldwide Flood. If this is true, what sort of evidence would we find? We could expect that we would find billions of dead things (fossils) buried in rock layers, laid down by water and catastrophic processes over most of the earth. This is exactly what we observe. Observational science confirms the Bible's historical science" (emphasis added).73 Based on this description, Ham's scientific method appears to have four steps: (1) assume that what the Bible says about the creation and Flood is historically accurate; (2) construct a model based on the biblical account of creation to explain some event, process, or phenomena; (3) look for evidence observable in the present that can confirm the model and, thus, the biblical account; and ( 4) if observations support the model, then a biblical creation can be said to have been confirmed by science.

Notably, in both of Ham's descriptions of this scientific method he mobilizes a conditional statement at a critical point. In the first desc�ip­ tion he says, "We can decide what we would expect to find if the Bible is true;' and in the second description, he says, "lf this [aspect of the bib­ lical account] is true, what sort of evidence would we find?" (emphasis added). In both cases, Ham suggests by way of the conditional state­ ment the possibility that the biblical account may or may not be true. Given this language, one might think that in Ham's scientific method it is possible either to confirm or deny the biblical account. Indeed, given this language one might imagine that Ham's scientific method is like the scientific method used in mainstream science: begin with a hypothesis, conduct observations or experiments, and either confirm or deny the hypothesis.

But this is not the case. As Ham put it in the debate: "We build mod­ els based upon the Bible. And those models are always subject to change. The fact of Noah's Flood is not subject to change, but the model of how the flood occurred is subject to change:'74 Ai G's statement of faith makes the point even more clearly: "By definition, no apparent, perceived or

96 Righting America at the Creation Museum

claimed evidence in any field, including history and chronology, can be valid ifit contradicts the scriptural record."75 Observational science may confirm the model and, thus, a biblical creation. Observational science may never contest a biblical creation. Thus, our phrasing of the last step in Ham's model must be revised: if observational science proves consist­ ent ·with the model, then it can be said to confirm a biblical creation, and if observational science appears inconsistent with the model, then ei­ ther the observational science or the model must be changed until both confirm a biblical creation. Under no circumstances may observational science lead a young Earth creation scientist to raise questions about the truth of a twenty-four-hour, six-day creation or a global flood.76

Given Ham's absolute conviction that the biblical creation can never be challenged no matter what observations are made, one can only wonder why he uses the conditional "if" when he describes his method.

With clarity about Ken Ham's peculiar scientific method, which moves from an uncontestable assumption to a model, to some obser­ vation, it is worth taking a second look at all thirty-eight placards.77 It turns out that of the thirty-eight placards in the flood geology section, fourteen placards, or just over a third of the total number of placards, reason according to Ham's odd scientific method. All fourteen assume that Noah's Flood occurred about forty-three hundred years ago and was global. All but three identify a model that explains one or more effects of this global flood.78 And all suggest that evidence ( whether that evidence can pass muster as observational science or not) is consistent with the model describing the effects of a global flood and, thus, con­firms a biblical creation.

Strikingly, of those fourteen placards that reason according to Ham's scientific method, only eight display observational science. A typical placard among these eight appears in the Post-Flood room. The visi­ tor who begins at the top of the placard, where the boldface title ap­ pears, and works his or her way down experiences the steps in Ham's scientific method. The title at top left assumes the global flood: "The Flood Recedes:' Below it, and in smaller font, a subtitle begins to work out the model: "Continents were scoured by retreating Flood waters:' Beneath that, more explanation of the "regressional erosion model" is provided: "Flood waters dropped thousands of feet of mud and sand onto the world's continents. Retreating Flood waters swept some of that pile of sediment away:' Then, below the explanation of the model ap- pear three photographs of the "Kaibab Upwarp;' the "Grand Staircase;'

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and the "Red Butte and Cedar Mountain:' These photographs function as the observational science on the placard since these geological for­ mations can be observed today. Finally, statements below each of the photographs suggest how these geological formations, which are visible today, "confirm" the model and, thus, the Flood.

Below the photograph of the Kaibab Upwarp, the placard says that "warping in the late Flood times left a fold in the crust know as the Kai­ bab Upwarp. At that time there was probably another mile of sediment over this area:' How one would know that "warping in late Flood times left a fold in the crust;' or what "warping" is, or why that process would have "left a fold in the crust;' or in what sense the Kaibab Upwarp is a "fold" is not explained. Moreover, statements under this photograph and the photograph of the "Grand Staircase" about the amount of sed­ iment the Flood moved around or deposited may sound like observa­ tional science that confirms the model. However, since the post-flood processes that left behind all that sediment, according to the Creation Museum, occurred more than 4,,000 years ago, they certainly cannot be observed or measured now. Thus, the visitor is left to wonder how AiG scientists determined those amounts.

The visitor who considers this placard-even the visitor who accepts Ham's curious scientific method-is obliged to fill in a lot of blahks as causal connections are barely hinted at and little observational science is provided (save three photographs). But if thoughtful visitors must fill in a lot of blanks on "The Flood Recedes" placard, even studious visi­ tors will be at a loss when they consider "Rafting:' This placard, which also appears in the Post-Flood room, seeks to explain how plants and animals were distributed across the continents after the Flood. Given that the Ark contained all of the living plants and land animals when the floodwaters receded, an explanation as to how those plants and an­ imals were disseminated so as to repopulate the Earth in a relatively short period of time is crucial. The time frame is tight since the Flood occurred only about four thousand years ago, and since in its aftermath 938 "kinds" had to mutate by way of natural selection into the roughly 8 million species that populate the Earth today.79

Like the previous placard, this one assumes that the global flood occurred and then puts forth a ''biogeographical rafting model" to ex­ plain processes that occurred afterward: "When the Flood destroyed the world's forests, it must have left billions of trees floating for centuries on the ocean. These log mats served as ready-made rafts for animals to

98 Righting America at the Creation Museum

cross oceans:' Then comes the observational science that "confirms" the model and, thereby, the biblical account of the global flood. Below this appear three maps of the continents. On the first map, certain coastal areas are shaded in yellow, coral, lavender, and mint. Areas shaded the same color indicate coastal areas populated by a particular species. For instance, an area along the southeast African coast and another in south­ ern Asia are shaded coral. According to the map, observational science shows that both of these areas are home to "mammal Rhinocerotidae:' A pair of coral-colored arrows that, together, form an oval over the In­ dian Ocean appear to indicate a migration pattern. The suggestion here seems to be that at least four rhinoceros (two male, two female) boarded the log rafts produced by the global flood and, following "the paths of ocean currents;' found themselves on one of these two coastal areas, where they reproduced. How those rhinoceros managed to get on a log mat and, even more, survive the voyage across the Indian Ocean is not suggested. Nor is any explanation given for why a rhinoceros would get on a log mat in the Indian Ocean in the first place.

The second map shows the same image of the continents as the first map and features the Ark, in yellow, situated on the land between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, where it presumably came to rest when the floodwaters receded. Yellow arrows extend from the Ark into central and south Asia, northern Africa, and Europe. No explanation is offered of these arrows. However, since the placard is all about migration pat­terns, it seems reasonable to infer that they represent the routes taken by animals (and perhaps also by plants somehow) from the Ark across and into other continents. Other arrows extend from red dots in places like present-day Iran, Mozambique, and Panama into southern Asia, sub-Saharan Africa, and Mexico and South America, respectively. The only text associated with this map says that these are "places of high diversity (probable landing sites):'80 Blue arrows on the oceans seem to suggest patterns of migration that animals (and plants?) may have taken to and from those landing sites. Again, little observational sci­ence is provided to support the claims implied by the arrows. If visitors are to conclude from this map that observational science confirms the "biogeographical rafting model;' they will be able to do so not because they have actually encountered observational science, but rather be­cause they trust that "real science" lies behind the red dots.

The third map shows the same image of the continents. Like the other two maps, it displays a migration pattern, though not one seen on

SCIENCE 99

either of the other two maps. This migration pattern is for a particular species, the Geochelone (or giant) tortoise. Above the map appears the phrase, "distribution of Geochelone tortoises." Three small areas on the map are highlighted: the Amazon basin in western Brazil, the Galapa­ gos Islands off the western coast of South America, and the Seychelles Islands off the eastern coast of Africa. 81 Projected from each of the three highlighted areas is a photographic image of a tortoise. Five blue ar­ rows that appear on t.he water masses between South America and the Seychelles indicate the migration route of the tortoises. All of the arrows point in the same direction-that is, from South America toward the Seychelles. Appearing to follow ocean currents, the first arrow begins off the west coast of South America and ends just off the southern coast of the Galapagos Islands. The second arrow points straight west from the Galapagos Islands across the Pacific Ocean. The third weaves its way be­ tween New Guinea and Indonesia, to the north, and the northern coast of Australia, to the south. A fourth appears to follow currents across the Indian Ocean. The last makes a sharp turn northward between the east African coast and the Seychelles.

The claim that this map seems to make is that the location of Ge­ ochelone tortoises today in the Amazon basin and the Galapagos and Seychelles Islands confirms the "biogeographical rafting model" accord­ ing to which land animals migrated from the Ark to distant locations by way oflog mats and ocean currents. Thus, so the reasoning would seem to go, observational science confirms the biblical account of the Flood and a biblical creation.

But closer examination of the model raises a number of questions. The observational science on this map suggests that giant tortoises currently inhabit the Amazon basin and the Galapagos and Seychelles Islands. Justin Gerlach (a zoologist with particular expertise in Geo­ chelone tortoises, senior member of the faculty at Robinson College at the University of Cambridge, and scientific coordinator of the Nature Protection Trust of Seychelles) says that whereas giant tortoises can be found on the Galapagos and the Seychelles, they are not to be found in the Amazon basin. 82 If that is so, then they cannot serve as observational science and, thus, cannot confirm the model. Moreover, the supposed observational science on the map indicates that these three groups of tortoises share an ancestor-namely, the two tortoises that survived the Flood on the Ark. The fact that mainstream scientists who study these tortoises disagree about whether they have a common ancestry raises

100 Righting America at the Creation Museum

questions about that assumption. 83 If they do not share an ancestor then, again, they cannot confirm the model or the account of the Flood in Genesis.

Putting aside, for the moment, the issue of whether the evidence and assumptions in this argument are accurate, what about the migration model presented here? According to the model, the first leg of the voy­ age would require two giant tortoises (one male, one female) to travel over land from the Amazon basin to the western coast of South Amer­ ica. Assuming they took the most direct route possible, they would have had to travel more than 700 miles over land. The top speed of a Geoch­

elone tortoise is .2 miles per hour. 84 Assuming these tortoises moved at top speed and never stopped to rest or eat, this leg of the trip would have taken at least 145 days (or nearly five months) to complete. And that would just be the beginning.

The second leg of the trip would also be challenging but perhaps possible for the tortoises given strong ocean currents that flow from the

western coast of South America to the Galapagos Islands. 85 To pull off this leg of the trip, the tortoises would (according to the Creation Muse­ um's model) need to board log mats and travel a distance of more than 650 miles. That would likely take a week at ocean current speeds. No small feat. Once on the Galapagos, the two tortoises would either have to be joined by another pair from South America or would have to pro­ duce a pair of descendants. Either way, two tortoises would need to re­ main on the Galapagos to produce the population that is there now, and two more tortoises would have to embark on the third, much longer, leg of the voyage.

To complete the third leg of the trip proposed by the model, two tor­ toises would have to board log mats once again. This time, however, in­ stead of riding strong and direct currents for 650 miles, these tortoises would have to find their way across the full breadth of the Pacific Ocean between the Galapagos and the southern shores of New Guinea. As­ suming they took the most direct route possible across the Pacific, they would have to travel more than 8,400 miles to arrive in New Guinea. From there, they would have to steer their way through the waters be­ tween New Guinea, the northern coast of Australia, and the southern coast of Indonesia. Once in the Indian Ocean, they would have to drift all the way across the Indian Ocean. The fourth leg of the trip from New Guinea to the Seychelles would add more than 6,200 miles to the voyage across the Pacific. All together, to get from the Galapagos to the

SCIENCE 101

Seychelles, they would (according to the best case scenario) cross ap­ proximately 14,600 miles of sea. Notably, the majority of that trip would be in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

According to Gerlach, to imagine two tortoises completing the last

two legs of the trip (from the Galapagos to New Guinea and from New

Guinea to the Seychelles) is simply not reasonable. Although tortoises are known for their ability to disperse via water, they could not survive the (at minimum) three months it would take them to cross the Pa­ cific Ocean plus the (at minimum) additional two months that it would take for them to cross the Indian Ocean. Of course, all calculations here assume both ideal traveling conditions lasting months on end and the tortoises' ability to navigate a straight line for thousands of miles across the Pacific Ocean on a log mat despite currents. This is not a reason­ able expectation. As Gerlach points out, the tortoises "would have to switch from one current system to another and then wait for the seasons

to change. They would be stuck in the middle of the Indian Ocean for

months or years."86

It may be that one can observe big tortoises that appear to resem­ ble one another in the Amazon basin and the Galapagos and Seychelles Islands. It may be that one can draw arrows on a map from point A to point B to point C. But does it really make sense to imagine that a cou­

ple of tortoises made this trek from the Amazon basin to the west coast of South America, then to the Galapagos, and then across the Pacific Ocean and the Indian Ocean? Indeed, in what sense does the so-called observational science presented in conjunction with the "biogeographi­

cal rafting model" confirm anything, much less a global flood?

The Creation Museum claims to put forth plenty of "real science" on behalf of a biblical creation. In the course of this analysis, we have scrutinized this claim by looking closely at those places identified by AiG as displaying the science of young Earth creationism. In sum, what

do we find? The planetarium and the Wonders of Creation room do present

plenty of observational science, but little of it is mobilized in support of a biblical creation or a global flood. Instead, it is used to support the much more modest claim that the complexity, beauty, and apparent purposefulness that can be observed in nature suggest a divine designer who could be the God of the Bible.

As expected, the flood geology section is the space wherein "real sci­ ence" is mobilized specifically on behalf of a biblical creation. But does it

102 Righting America at the Creation Museum

provide plenty of science to that end? A close analysis of the thirty-eight

placards on display indicates that while twenty-six appear at first glance

to display some kind of science, only sixteen pass Ai G's test for "real sci­

ence." Of those sixteen, three merely contain information and make no

connection whatsoever to a biblical creation. Thus, just thirteen plac­

ards (about a third) on display in the Flood Geology room both display

observational science and make some argument in support of a biblical

creation.

Of those thirteen, only seven reason in the tradition of inductive sci­ence from observations to conclusions, and most of those (four) focus on critiquing evolution rather than advancing an argument for a bibli­cal creation. Of the remaining three, one merely suggests that a global flood can explain "mysteries" observable in the present; another makes an analogy between observations in the present and a global flood, but that analogy is undercut by another placard nearby that says no such analogies are possible; and the third, on closer examination, assumes that the global flood occurred based on the biblical account and then infers from that assumption what a particular dinosaur's demise must have been like. In the end, only two placards in the Flood Geology room that offer arguments on behalf of a biblical creation reason in the tra­ditional scientific way-that is from observations to conclusions-and mobilize scientific evidence that passes muster as observational science. Put another way, just 5 percent of all of the placards in the Flood Geol­ogy room reason from "real" scientific evidence to a global flood. What­ever one's definition of "plenty of science;' to borrow Ai G's Jason Lisle's statement about

the amount of science that appears in the Creation Mu­seum, 5 percent seems unlikely to rise to it.

If we accept Ken Ham's curious scientific method, we find that four­teen (just over a third) of the placards follow that pattern of reasoning from uncontestable assumption to model to observation. If we apply AiG's criteria for "real science;' only eight of those fourteen placards pass the test. Thus, even when Ham's particular kind of science is the measure,just one in five placards can be said to "confirm" a biblical cre­ation. To call this "plenty" hardly seems accurate either.

None of this says anything about whether or not the arguments

made on any of these placards are reasonable. Do the arguments in the

flood geology section make sense? Our close analysis of many of the ar­

guments on these placards suggests that the answer is no because they

SCIENCE 103

depend on unwarranted assumptions (such as that Geochelone tortoises can he found in the Amazon basin or that they could float on a log from the Galapagos to the Seychelles Islands) or because they leave many questions unanswered (such as, in what sense a tiny rivulet caused by

a rain shower is analogous to a global flood) or because placards in one

spot contest the reasoning of placards in another (such as the plac­ ard that says no analogies can be made with the Flood that flatly con­

tests the reasoning of several other placards that draw such analogies).

Not to put too fine a point on it, the viewer who takes a critical view of the reasoning on these placards is likely to be bewildered by the science in the Creation Museum.

Bewildering or not, a crucial underlying assumption at the Creation Museum is that the scientific claims that are made throughout the en­ tire museum align with what the Bible says is true about our world and beyond it. In short, the implied claim of the Creation Museum is that its science is the Bible's science. Is that, in fact, the case?

The Bible's Science

In February 1616, Cardinal Robert Bellarmine issued a private warn­

ing to Galileo on behalf of the Inquisition. In March of that same year,

the Catholic Church issued a decree banning Copernicus's hook, On the

Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres. In June 1633, Galileo was found guilty of heresy at a trial of the Inquisition and sentenced to house arrest for the rest of his life. 87 Why did the Catholic Church and the Inquisition

take tpese grave actions? They did so for one simple and crucial reason: Copernicus's and Galileo's scientific writing-which suggested that the Earth moved and that the Sun was stationary-contradicted the obvi­ ous truth of the Bible and thus had to be silenced so as to protect the faithful from false teaching. 88

So what was the biblical cosmology that Copernicus and Galileo

were contradicting? Put simply, it was the cosmology of ancient Near

Eastern cultures that had been understood and verified by human per­

ception and experience for centuries. That cosmology consisted of a

three-tiered universe with the Earth in the middle, the heavens above,

and the "netherworld" below. The Earth in the middle was a fixed, disk­

shaped landmass surrounded by a sea. On that landmass were moun­

tains that held up the sky, which was a solid structure in the form of a

104 Righting America at the Creation Museum

tent or a dome that held back the cosmic waters. Now and again, rain would fall from those cosmic waters through openings in the sky. Be­ yond the celestial waters were the heavens where a deity or deities ( de­ pending on one's religion) dwelt. The Sun moved across the sky each day and passed into the netherworld, which was beneath the Earth, at night. The Moon moved in a similar fashion. The Sun, Moon, and stars were embedded in tracks on the surface of the sky that enabled them to move across the sky.89

Given that the biblical writers were steeped in that ancient cosmol­ ogy, it is not surprising to find it reflected in both the Old and New Testaments. Thus, for instance, Genesis says that God created a "dome" (NRSV) or "firmament" (NKJV) to separate "the waters from the wa­ ters" (NRSVl:6-7)90 and, in the Flood story, tells of the "windows" in the heavens that opened to release the waters held back by that firmament or dome ( 7:11). Genesis also echoes the notion that the Sun, the Moon, and the stars were embedded on the surface of the dome or sky when it says, "God made the two great lights-the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night-and the stars. God set them in the dome of the sky to give light upon the earth" (1:16-17). Psalm 19:6 affirms the readily observable idea that the Sun crossed the Sh.'}' each day when it says, "Its rising is from one end of heaven, And its circuit to the other end" (NKJV; emphasis in original).91 The book oflsaiah reiterates the ancient notion that the Earth was a flat disk and that God resides above it when the text says that God "sits above the circle of the earth" ( 40:22). Importantly, the Hebrew word translated here as "circle" refers not to a sphere but to a two-dimensional shape.92 Finally, in Proverbs, the notion that the Earth is a flat circle surrounded by water appears in the verse describing God's creation of the Earth: "He drew a circle on the face of the deep" (8:27). In the New Testament, the apostle Paul refers to a three-tiered cosmos when he says that "at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth"

(Philippians 2:10). Here Paul is underscoring that all will bow by nam­ ing the three regions that Near Eastern people understood to constitute the cosmos.

When twenty-first-century readers of the Bible put aside their mod­ ern cosmology and read the Bible as it is actually written, they can see that it assumes an ancient cosmos. In that ancient cosmos, the Earth is flat, circular, and immovable and is surrounded by a sea. Enclosing both the Earth and the sea is a fixed dome or firmament with stars embedded

SCIENCE 105

in it. The Sun crosses that dome each day. Above the dome are heavenly waters and a heavenly realm beyond that. 93

The Creation Museum's Science

In the course of his debate with Bill Nye, Ken Ham asserted, "By Cre­ ation, we mean here at Answers in Genesis and the Creation Museum, we mean the account based on the Bible. Yes, I take Genesis as literal history, as Jesus did. And here at the Creation Museum we walk peo­ ple through that historY:'94 For Ham, the Creation Museum, and young Earth creationism in general, the whole point of arguing that the uni­ verse was created in six twenty-four-hour days fewer than ten thousand years ago is to support a literal reading of the Bible. Given this, and given that a literal reading of the Bible yields a three-tiered universe, one would expect to see a three-tiered cosmos on display at the Creation Museum.

In the Starting Points room, the Earth appears at least ten times in association with God's Word (versus in association with Man's Reason). Each time it appears in a two-dimensional representation of a sphere floating in space. In Six Days, which is the film shown in the Six Days Theater, the Earth appears five times as a three-dimensional sphere floating and rotating in space. In one image, one large land mass and one smaller land mass can be seen. Neither appears as a flat circle but, instead, as an irregular organic shape.95 In the Wonders of Creation room appear two-dimensional images of the Milky Way and its spiral arms, the Earth as a sphere floating in space, and the solar system with the Sun at the center and orbital rings suggesting the movement of the planets around it. Videos like "The Solar System" add many more im­ ages of the Earth, the other planets in the solar system, and the Sun at its center. Similarly, the animation of Adam's creation shows the Earth floating in space with the Moon nearby and the Sun in the distance. The Voyage of the Ark room features a video displayed on a compos­ ite of four large flat screens that shows a three-dimensional spherical Earth floating in space as floodwaters quickly consume the surface of the Earth. In the flood geology section three placards feature seven images of the Earth in either two-dimensional or three-dimensional representations of a sphere floating in space. In addition, five maps of the continents in the Post-Flood room show them in their present-day shapes with oceans and seas separating them, rather than in a single flat

106 Righting America at the Creation Museum

circle. Finally, in the Created Cosmos video featured in the planetarium,

the Earth is shown numerous times as a sphere floating in space. Its

landmasses appear in their contemporary shapes with oceans and seas

among them. The solar system appears at least three times. In each case

the Sun is a sphere at the center with spherical planets orbiting it. Dis­

tant stars float in space rather than sit fixed on the surface of a dome.

A distant solar system is depicted with planets orbiting it as well. The

Milky Way, along with many other galaxies, is also shown as a three­

dimensional form floating in space.

In all, the Earth appears more than twenty times on placards in the

Creation Museum. Each time, it appears as a sphere floating in space.

Many more representations of the Earth as a sphere floating in space

appear in videos shown in the Wonders of Creation room, the flood ge­

ology section, and the planetarium. Other images on placards and in

videos depict the solar system with the Sun at its center and the Milky

Way floating in space. Images and maps of the continents show these

landmasses not as one single flat circle surrounded by water but instead

in their contemporary shapes amidst oceans and seas on the surface of

a spherical Earth. Put simply, at the Creation Museum, a modern uni­

verse is clearly on display.

In the Starting Points room, one of the first placards visitors see is

titled "Same Universe." At the center of the placard is an image of the

Milky Way. Superimposed over the left side of the image are four im­

ages that depict, in order, the "Big Bang" in the form of what appears to

be matter expanding; the beginnings of the solar system with the sun

and two planets; the Earth, Sun, and Moon; and the Earth with water,

a landmass, and clouds. These four images and their labels that refer,

respectively, to the "Evolution of galaxies;' the "Evolution of our solar

system;' the "Evolution of earth and moon;' and the "Evolution of con­

tinents" appear under the heading "Human Reason:' Below the fourth

image appears the phrase, "Billions of Years Ago:' Superimposed over

the right side of the image of the Milky Way are four more images that

depict, in order, a blue sphere; the Earth with water and clouds; the

Earth with landmass, water, and clouds; and the Earth with a landmass,

water, clouds, Sun, and Moon. Next to each of these images are labels

such as "Day I Let there be light;' "Day 2 Let there be a firmament;' and

so forth. Above this series of images appears the title "God's Word" and

below the fourth image is a label "Thousands of Years Ago:'

The point of the placard is a simple one repeated again and again in

SCIENCE 107

the museum-namely, that evolutionists and young Earth creationists

start with the same evidence, in this case the "Same Universe;' but draw

different conclusions about that evidence on the basis of their "Starting

Points:' Indeed, they do. Both start with a modern universe complete

with spherical Earth rotating on its axis and orbiting the Sun along with

the other planets in a solar system that is located on the edge of the gi­

gantic Milky Way, which is but one galaxy among many in an enormous

universe.

But how can that be so? If the Creation Museum promises, as Ham

declares that it does, a literal interpretation of the Bible, how is it that

visitors do not see a three-tiered universe and a flat, stationary Earth?

The answer, quite simply, is that when it comes to representing the uni­

verse at the Creation Museum, a modern universe is preferred over the

ancient cosmology indicated by a literal reading of the Bible.

W hy is this so? Why do AiG and the Creation Museum impose a

modern universe on the Bible, which clearly reflects in its language and

phrasing an ancient cosmology? While we cannot speculate on inten­

tions in this regard, it does seem obvious that if the Creation Museum

were to display an ancient cosmology, it would be jarring to visitors who

assume a modern universe. Indeed, to display an ancient cosmology

would cement the idea, lamented by many fundamentalists decades

after the Scopes trial, that accepting the notion of a young Earth means

embracing a view of the universe that mainstream science disproved

hundreds of years ago.

Moreover, imposing a modern universe on the Bible has certain rhe­

torical advantages-namely, it enables the visitor to have the experience

of modern-day science seeming to confirm the Bible. If the cosmology

of the Bible appears to be the same as modern-day science, then confir­

mation by scientific evidence can appear to be underway. Indeed, it is

likely the case that in order for the science at the Creation Museum to

"confirm" the Bible at all, the Bible's cosmology must be made to match

a modern universe. The physical rules of an ancient cosmology are quite

different from those of a modern universe. Given that all the many pre­

suppositions and rules of modern science reflect the structure of a mod­

ern universe, how could modern science confirm an ancient cosmology

with a completely different structure and set of relationships among its

heavenly bodies? For modern science to confirm a young Earth, the Bi­

ble's cosmology must be made modern.

Commentators have argued that the Creation Museum seeks to de-

108 Righting America at the Creation Museum

throne science as a discourse of truth in order to elevate the status of young Earth creationism and a literal interpretation of the Bible.96 This is certainly true. W hile that demotion of mainstream science is espe­ cially visible in the Starting Points room and the flood geology section, it undergirds much that is seen throughout the museum. That said, when it comes to cosmology something else is clearly underway at the Crea­ tion Museum. Rather than dethrone science, science appears to be priv­ ileged to the point of imposing a modern universe onto the text of the Bible, in the process, as John Walton has observed, "making the text say something that it never said:' 97 Indeed, when it comes to how the uni­ verse is made to appear to visitors, it seems that modern science rather than a literal Bible rules at the Creation Museum.

3

Bl BLE

W riting in the second quarter of the fourth century BCE, just about a half century after papyrus arrJived in Greece, Plato has Socrates comment in the Phaedrus on the dangers of a

new technology of writing that was transforming his world from an oral to a written culture. Socrates says of written words,

You'd think they were speaking as if they had some understanding, but

if you question anything that has been said because you want to learn

more, it continues to signify just that very same thing forever. When

it has once been written down, every discourse rolls about everywhere,

reaching indiscriminately those with understanding no less than those

who have no business with it, and it doesn't know to whom it should

speak and to whom it should not. And when it is faulted and attacked

unfairly, it always needs its father's support; alone, it can neither de­

fend itself nor come to its own support.1

For Plato's Socrates, writing is a kind of sham speech. It resemb.les oral speech-it seems to have understanding, to be able to communicate, to defend itself-but because the author is absent it can do none of these. Worse yet, unlike words spoken to an intended listener, written words may go anywhere and address anyone with no regard for whether the reader will get their meaning or completely misunderstand it.2 The chief problem with writing, in other words, is that as a technology of dissemination, it invites unintended readers and, thus, enables mis­ taken readings. In short, th�Jn:oblem with writing.is.i:eadiRg.

Matters only got worse with the arrival of another technology of communication: the book. And once words were separated by spaces,

109