Science or Pseudo-Science: Yes, It Matters!

I live in southwest Ohio, a beautiful area with streams and hills full of fossils embedded in its limestone; so I can see evidence of the fossil record daily. Yet, on May, 28 2007--just across the Ohio River in Petersburg, Kentucky--a new museum opened; the Creation Museum, built for $27 million by Answers in Genesis, a nonprofit, international ministry, based in Petersburg. According to one Web site, The Answers in Genesis Creation Museum is a one-of-a-kind, high-tech museum, filled with animatronic displays (e.g., moving dinosaurs), striking videos, a state-of-the-art planetarium, Special Effects Theater, etc., that is spread out over 60,000 feet incorporating up to 40-foot ceilings to contain some of its massive exhibits. The museum will go beyond telling the compelling story of the creation of life on this planet to proclaiming the Bible as supreme authority in all matters it addresses. --ALRC News Kitchen, 2007 Over 160 exhibits promote beliefs that the Earth is 6,000 years old; that dinosaurs and humans coexisted; and that geological features such as the Grand Canyon and fossils were created by the Great Flood as described in the Book of Genesis (Rothstein, 2007). Together with many colleagues in Ohio, Indiana, and Kentucky, I signed a petition explaining the differences between science and pseudo-science. However, the protest of scientists and science educators did not deter the Kentucky Visitors Bureau's Web site from repeating the museum's publicity: "This 'walk through history' museum will counter evolutionary natural history museums that turn countless minds against Christ and Scripture" (Rutledge, 2007). The head of the Kentucky Paleontological Society protested that the tax-supported Visitors Bureau should not use the museum's controversial language. Eventually, the language was modified, but the museum remains as a Northern Kentucky attraction on its Web site (Northern Kentucky Convention and Visitors Bureau). Indeed, in less than six months, over 265,000 museum visitors have contributed to the economic well-being of the area, spending an estimated $10 million on gas, food, and lodging (Kelly, 2007). By the end of the summer, the Museum announced that it had run out of parking spaces and needed to build a new lot! "Deja vu," I think as I read these accounts in local and national newspapers. Twenty-five years ago, NABT, as a plaintiff, and BSCS, as a witness, joined other science groups to defeat the Arkansas law that required the teaching of creationism as well as evolution in science classes (Heylin, 1982). Judge William R. Overton's decision included a concise and classic description of science, noting, in part, that science is guided by natural law and that its claims are testable and falsifiable. His decision was published in The American Biology Teacher (Volume 44, Number 3, March 1982, pp. 172179). I've always attributed his clarity to the fact that his mother was a biology teacher! And, like many others, I thought that the creationist/evolution debate was settled. Overton also noted that the emphasis on evolution in the three original BSCS texts undoubtedly increased efforts to attack that theory. Dorothy Nelkin's book Science Textbook Controversies and the Politics of Equal Time (1977) describes how the textbook controversy sustained the creationism debate. In 1964, the New Mexico Board of Education required that the inside covers of all BSCS books be stamped with a statement that evolution was a theory, not a fact, and that this was the official statement of the Board. In Texas, the controversy raged for months with its State Board finally approving all three BSCS texts. However, in 1969, Texas removed two of them from its state-approved list. BSCS was able to survive the onslaught, because it retained content control and the copyrights to its materials. However, its market shriveled and small, not large, publishing houses handled future editions. …