I Want to Save a Child's Sight!

Friday, September 23, 2005

Museums Fight Back

"Lenore Durkee, a retired biology professor, was volunteering as a docent at the Museum of the Earth here when she was confronted by a group of seven or eight people, creationists eager to challenge the museum exhibitions on evolution. They peppered Dr. Durkee with questions about everything from techniques for dating fossils to the second law of thermodynamics, their queries coming so thick and fast that she found it hard to reply."

"Similar efforts are under way or planned around the country as science museums and other institutions struggle to contend with challenges to the theory of evolution that they say are growing common and sometimes aggressive. One company, called B.C. Tours "because we are biblically correct," even offers escorted visits to the Denver Museum of Science and Nature. Participants hear creationists' explanations for the exhibitions." [NYT]

Wonderful. We have traveling packs of creationists in the museums questioning everything and creating more controversy. Now, my opinion is clear: I side with science, and with evolution. It's not always a pleasant thought that my very very distant ancestors may have been flinging their own dung at each other for sport, but I think it's better than some fantasy land that the world was created in 6 days ("he" rested on the seventh, remember), 4,000 years ago. Science has proved that the Earth is much older than the 4,000 years the bible states, and we also have mountains of fossil and evolutionary evidence. I'm always open to new ideas, and call me atheist or whatever, but I don't believe that some higher power created the world in six days, 4,000 years ago. Rubbish. Is there a God? I really don't know. That's between you and your faith.

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