Somebody has floated the idea of building an Evolution Museum in the same neighborhood as Ken Ham’s Creation “Museum”. Superficially, it’s a fine idea, but no, I can’t support it, for a number of reasons.
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Every natural history museum is an evolution museum.
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There is already a natural history museum in Cincinnati—The Cincinnati Museum Center.
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The web page for this proposed museum is thin and unprofessional. It looks like someone had the bright idea to build a competing museum, and his first and only strategy was to scribble up some html, in the hopes that millions will come pouring in through Pay Pal.
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You want to build a real museum? Get the support of the scientific community first. Try to integrate with existing institutions. Line up real money from investors. Then ask private individuals to put a few dollars on their Visa card. This proposal is entirely backwards.
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Charging forward as a private citizen and making naive plans to just “build a museum” might, if they’re very lucky, produce four walls and some space, but it will be just as superficial and empty as Ken Ham’s kitschy pile of crap.
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Their financial page just makes me cringe. They’ve got 0 donations, but they’re dreaming of donations on the order of $10 million per month. Unbelievable.
So, like, ugh. There is a right way to go about putting together the complex resources needed to build a museum, and I’m pretty darned sure this isn’t it.
Now, if somebody were working with regional universities and museums and had a real plan that tapped into investments from the state government and/or local industry, then we’d have something I could get behind. This is, however, a much bigger project than the instigator has imagined.
The one in Chicago (Field Museum) has got it right.
Their heart and mind is in the right place, but they have NO freaking clue about the kind of costs a museum entails!
If they want to help, let them volunteer as a docent at the Cincinnati Science Center or similar institution: museums are ALWAYS strapped for cash, and can always use the help!
What, you mean there’s not a lot of people who would donate tens of millions per month?
Maybe this guy is just correcting for inflation?
http://i27.tinypic.com/2h6yet5.jpg
That is all.
They should put money towards a new, well-advertised exhibit specifically promoting evolution at the natural history museum.
Or they could just build a big sign with an arrow that reads, “LAME” or “FAIL.”
It would be far more constructive to invest the money in an Evolution show at the Museum Center. You’re right, it is a beautiful museum and I’ve spent many long afternoons wandering through it. I’m sure an evolution exhibition would be quite welcome and very popular. And that guy’s website is copied from a template… badly.
I don’t even think it’s a good idea. Sorta seems to me like you make evolution look like a competing theory when you build a “competing museum” across the street from the Creationism one. Makes it look like people can choose between the two. I say let the Creationist folks spew their nonsense. Those who want to know the facts will find them; those who want to believe fantasy aren’t going to be swayed by an Evolution Museum anyway.
Personally, I think, if anything, building a university across the street from Ham’s Temple of the Burning Stupid would be a better idea. But I agree with you, PZ. Building an Evolution Museum –or anything to counter creationist nonsense– is just going to fluff those creationist egos to the point where they will never shut up.
Nah. The better counter to Ken Ham’s museum is to get several biologists together to create an audio “tour” of the creation museum.
Figure out what is exactly at each exhibit at the Creation Museum, and have biologists, paleontologists, geologists, astronomers and such speak to why the exhibit is wrong, and how we know it is wrong. Explain the science behind the truth, and give references.
The narrator, an audio “tour guide”, could say which exhibit is next, where to go, which way to turn, and give out helpful bits of info – like how much money has been wasted on the museum, and how many science scholarships it could have supported, or school children it could have supported.
Then create a website for the audio tour – advertise it widely, get people to download it and take it to the museum.
We’d have to keep on top of it – update the tour if the Creation Museum changes an exhibit and such.
And remember, if they change an exhibit because of the audio tour – that would count as a small win.
But if they do something draconian – like outlaw all personal music players on museum property – that would count as a MAJOR win. We could tell everyone that science was “Expelled”.
And go visit one of the other natural history museums in the area – I’m sure there are some good ones not too far away.
The biology curator at the Cincinnati museum is Dr. Herman Mays, an ornithologist. He would be more than happy to get donations and volunteer docents.
Tell him I sent you.
fusilier
James 2:24
I think this is not a bad idea if it is NOT a museum, but rather, some kind of educational facility for school groups to show up at. There must be a nature area of some kind, probably an existing facility, that can be upgraded to be an educational experience with explicit evolution (and don’t bother with the explicit anti-creationism … just have the guides/instructors properly trained).
If you want to stress the competing nature of two ideas, open up an attraction that is more in line with creationism. Open up a Disney theme park across the street, and promote it as scientific fact. And maybe an astrology museum. Maybe a dowsing school. A homeopathy university. Turn the area into the Las Vegas strip of kook ideas, so no one gets confused about what it is (well, maybe some people will take it all seriously).
A museum that would properly contrast with Ham’s creationism show would be a museum of theocracy. It could have exhibits about the Inquisition, plight of Galileo, the Salem witch trials, etc. Easy to understand and relatively cheap to do.
So send me $10 million a month.
Also, this is not about “balance” (see their web site). Not at all.
Not for nothin’, but I was just at the Yale Peabody Museum this weekend, and they’ve currently got this exhibit on Travels in the Great Tree of Life up. It was a sort of drive-by visit (with some out-of-town guests), so I didn’t get a chance to study the exhibit well enough to judge it (even if I were qualified to do so), but it looked intriguing. Any commenters seen it? Comments?
Calladus #10: I would commit time and knowledge to helping create that.
This sounds like a scam to me. However, on the off chance that it isn’t, a much better way to spend any money raised would be to buy a few billboards – one across from Ham’s Funhouse, and others next to the embarrassing adverts that one can see along I-75.
Oh yeah – figure out a way to shame places like Embassy Suites into discontinuing their Creation Museum packages. I stayed there this weekend and could not believe what I saw.
I have to agree with PZ that donations could be more effectively directed elsewhere: e.g. National Center for Science Education. Having an edifice standing across the road from Ham’s folly won’t draw people away from the latter because they aren’t open to discovering facts and making an objective comparison of truth vs. fiction. The ‘faithful’ are only there to find support for their delusions via the (additional) fallacy of argument by authority.
Yeah, I think it’s a bad idea too. It supports the false dichotomy that it’s Creation vs Evolution as competing worldviews.
It’s Creation vs Science!
Superstition vs Rationality
What we should get built is a Museum of Christianity Through the Ages.
Witch World: Hands on witch burning (animatronic witches)
Spanish Plain: dress up as the Inquisition and put your sister on the rack
Crusader Park, where you can cut the heads off Infidels,
Leviticus Rules! where disobedient children are stoned and poly-cotton clothing is cut off and burned.
I’d pay to see that.
I would go one step further than Greg and say that a cheaper way to make more of an impact would be to create a traveling show that would go to schools for assemblies/classroom demos. All you need is a tricked-out van, some good specimens, someone who knows how to put together a good show, and loads of volunteers who can take a few hours out of the day here and there, plus scads of organizational skillz.
Agreed. A redundant idea.
However, a full-on, bells’n’whistles, one-stop-shop online evolution museum would be cool. Unless there already is one, and I’m just not hip enough to know about it.
There’s a lot of info out there already, obviously, but much of it is pretty sterile and uninspiring for the wee’uns, and frankly that’s what this culture war is about: getting those impressionable ADHD, PS3-loving, text-messaging brains before They do. That means kick-ass web design, interactive animations, and narration by David Attenborough*. And dinosaurs. Of course.
As much as it’s wonderful to see scientists getting on the web and taking it directly to the people, we have to concede that our marketing has consistently failed to elevate itself above the level of barely mediocre (although, I have recently succeeded in making a little red spot move across the screen in Flash CS3…).
If we’re going to pass the hat around, I think a good cause would be a professionally designed website on evolution.
Innerbrat – being an electrical engineer in California, I have neither the time nor the knowledge to commit. Besides, I’m busy with other things at the moment.
I would, however, be happy to pledge some money to the person who stepped up and showed that he or she could run such a venture.
A truly awesome image…
http://i27.tinypic.com/2h6yet5.jpg
At Penn’s Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology in Philadelphia, there’s an evolution exhibit running through May of next year:
http://www.museum.upenn.edu/new/exhibits/surviving/index.shtml
I haven’t seen it yet, so I can’t really comment on the experience, but I plan to do so soon.
According to the website, Philadelphia is also celebrating “The Year of Evolution” this year, which sounds pretty awesome.
@Steve_C: Psh. I beat you to it! :P Look up!
It’s not about balance, it’s about truth. Reality is not malleable. You are free to believe things that conflict with reality in your own time; but in the education system, what matters is the syllabus (which ultimately is set by the universities and, we have to presume, grounded in reality). It is only right and proper that such beliefs be left outside the gates of a school.
What really, really blows my mind, though, is the way that such an important underpinning concept as the Theory of Evolution seems to be treated as an afterthought!
Imagine if a chemistry syllabus paid so little attention to atomic theory!
This is what really needs to be addressed in science education. Any biology teacher who doesn’t emphasise right from day one how all life on Earth has a common ancestor if you go back far enough in time, isn’t doing their job properly. And any biology teacher who tries to make out that the world was created in 6 days by a jealous god who punishes his subjects with eternal damnation if they dare to covet, or sneezed from the nose of the Great Green Arkleseizure, deserves no more lenient treatment than a physics teacher who tries to make out that transistors and diodes contain magic blue smoke.
Do they folks know that there are entire professions based around designing and curating museums? Just like biological research isn’t done by random people off the street, neither are museums. If you want to get important collections, films, and so forth, people don’t just give those to you on a whim.
Dang it. Well played Michelle.
Not so unbelievable if this is a scam. Looks like the only thing that works over there is the DONATE button. The gullible are always with us but usually they give to the other side.
Oh and they seem to think the
and somehow this will create it! Well-meaning geeks or opportunists seeing a gap in the market? Either way it wouldn’t get a penny from me.
Put your money into education at your own local level. It makes much more sense than this crackpot idea.
Carlie – what you describe is called Theatre in Education in the UK and is financed through Government/Lottery subsidy.
Ummm, why do they need $12,000,000 when their pie chart says it will cost $500,000?
I think Calladus (#10) has proposed a feasible and potentially effective idea. Something like that could be quite simple to put together and distribute. I’d be willing to bet Dawkins would get behind it, perhaps even lend his voice.
Wow! The hands point in the right direction! That’s rare.
The dinosaur’s, I mean.
Erm… and he knows who fusilier is? :-S
You forgot to add the footnote.
This looks like it’s going nowhere. But I think the idea is good enough. Never mind that it’s not a matter of “balance” or “creation vs. evolution”, the fact is that a museum (or whatever) of evolution in some god-soaked state, preferably near Ham’s museum, would answer questions that some honest creationists genuinely have.
Any such facility should be part of a more comprehensive museum, however, partly to indicate that evolution is integrated with the other sciences, partly because a significant amount of this is already being done at good natural history museums.
Don’t forget that the “American Museum of Natural History” in New York City put in a considerable section on human evolution, both tweaking the noses of creationists everywhere and fulfilling a genuine museum function. It’s pretty good, too, I’d say from my visit to it.
Of course that’s in New York, thus hardly a great counter to Ham’s pile of junk. Exhibits like that one, or even Chicago’s Field Museum (dinosaurs etc., not explicitly about evolution, but unavoidably dealing with it considerably) in some southern state could provide a good counterpoint to Ham’s dreck.
And believe me, it isn’t always easy to find what you’re looking for, when you’re a questioning creationist. The web helps today, yet evolution is a huge subject, often hard to wrap your mind around if you don’t have much of the basics. There really need to be more displays like those at the American Museum of Natural History, for some creationists are simply in a culture that dupes them, and these might be able to learn through actually good teaching methods.
A new museum is probably not a good idea. New sections dealing explicitly and implicitly with evolution in museums in the god-soaked states are a great idea.
Glen Davidson
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
(.)(.)
There is another thing what disturbs me.
If there is a contest between a current
natural history museum and the creationism one,
im sure they would pay money to the people
in order to have it full every single day.
At last enough time to score it as a victory
of GOD over we godless pagans.
Anyway, give money to the local museum,
sounds a lot better than give it to the local
church. Science its the one always short of
money.
How about a for-profit organization that organizes Evolutionary Biology after-school classes?
I’ve been playing with this idea, lately. Based on the same observation exploited by the Ham and Jeez Museum: Kids LOVE dinosaurs .
But there’s also plenty of other cool stuff about Evolutionary Biology, like archeology, and skeletons and so forth.
The sales pitch to parents is that their children are not receiving an adequate scientific education in public schools for political reasons. In places like Houston, Dallas, Atlanta, etc, where the secular rationalism co-exists alongside christo-fascism, I believe such an endeavor might attract enough initial enrollment to get off the ground, and also provide some extra income for talented science teachers.
I don’t have to convince anyone here that evolution is fascinating and fun, and NEVER underestimate the intelligence of children whenever they are given something interesting to tackle.
The whole freakin planet is an evolution museum. Get a naturalist or biologist to lead nature walks in the hills of Kentucky surrounding the Creationist Museum and point out the complexity and diversity of the local ecosystem and how the local organisms evolved.
Wasn’t there talk about building a museum to promote the biblical belief in unicorns next to the creation museum? I’d guess that would be much cheaper than building an evolution museum there, and maybe even more effective.
Quidam @20: Last week here in Portugal (@ “Enlightened Western Europe”) a group of Catholics were more or less doing this for us.
They staged a reconstruction of a witch burning (with an actress playing the witch and, I guess, a load of stuff that burns at a low temperature). The reason they gave for doing this was not for teaching history but as a symbolic attack on withcraft (and satan).
Occasionally it freaks me out that I moved here.
Quidam @ 20 poly-cotton clothing is cut off and burned.
That would be the ‘adults only’ part of the tour, then?
Count me in, too!
Calladus (comment #10) has an incredible idea. That would be awesome.
Another vote for what Calladus said @ #10.
This is a great idea!
Yup. But…
…this “win” is not too likely. It’s not that they wouldn’t do something so draconian on principle; it’s that in this day and age, such a ban would be impossible. Maybe in the days when “personal music player” were clunky cassette and CD players attached to listeners’ heads by wires, you’d have a hope of enforcing such a ban… but when every cellphone and PDA is also a media player, standalone players are invisibly small, and obtrusive headphones have been replaces with inconspicuous earbuds and Bluetooth earpieces, the only way to make such a ban stick would be to resort to airport-level (or prison-level!) security screening. I presume even creo idiots understand how counterproductive that would be.
The Cincinnati Museum Center could use donations. The building looks beautiful, but the archaic exhibits are twenty years old and no longer relevant. I would love to see Cincinnati Museum Center get it’s act together and replace the dusty antiques in their exhibits with more modern education.
For what it’s worth, Ithaca, NY is a small town with a very good “evolution museum”, it’s called the Museum of the Earth. It would be worth copying if anybody wants to build a good “evolution museum”.
http://www.museumoftheearth.org/
Dauphin, I understand that actually enforcing a ban on an MP3 player is unfeasible for the creationist museum. But every single time I’ve thought that creationists in general can’t be THAT foolish, I’ve found that I’ve underestimated their capability for foolishness.
It would not surprise me if the museum posted signs that strongly discouraged MP3 players for the “good” of the patrons. They might not mention this audio tour by name, but they would surely try to discourage it. I would count that as a win too.
And this sort of thing would be a great response to the “creationist tours” of natural science museums that we’ve heard about before.
Also, why stop at one museum. If this were pulled off, audio tours of other creationist displays could also exist on the same website.
In addition, I’d suggest the website host links to donation boxes for groups like the NCSE. You wouldn’t have to donate anything to download the audio, but if you actually planned to pay money to visit a creation museum you might feel better in paying a “stupidity offset” of an amount equal to the entrance ticket to an actual science organization.
I’m still willing to pledge some money to this project – and I’d be willing to help edit the audio. (I’m okay with Audacity). I have a lot on my plate otherwise.
Existing museums could do with the donations. It’s probably more economical to augment existing institutions than to build one from scratch.
Who are the people behind this proposal? The web site doesn’t provide any information about their qualifications, resources and abilities to carry out a project of this scope.
Judging from the quality, organization, and information on their site, the people behind the idea could just as easily be the same folks trying to bilk your grandmother out of her life-long savings.
Or worse yet, what if this is really a Trojan Horse project like the one perpetrated by the Expelled movie producers.
I’d say donate to your own local Natural History Museum, and promote more local education through your museum on topics of evolution and ecology.
Wouldn’t it be cheaper to buy a couples of acres of land across the highway from the Creation Museum and build a trebuchet from which to launch evolutionary text books into their parking lot. Flaming bibles would work too.
Who are the people behind this proposal? The web site doesn’t provide any information about their qualifications, resources and abilities to carry out a project of this scope.
Judging from the quality (dreadful), organization (dreadful), and information (mostly absent) on their site, the people behind the idea could just as easily be the same folks trying to bilk your grandmother out of her life-long savings.
Or worse yet, what if this is really a Trojan Horse project like the one perpetrated by the Expelled movie producers.
I’d say donate to your own local Natural History Museum, and promote more local education (through that museum) on topics of evolution and ecology.
I’ve heard that the Cincinnati Museum Center actually is planning thinking about redoing and expanding the natural history section. I don’t know what the plans are or what the time frame is. If anyone appears to be taking advice about hw to implement it, I’ll let everyone know.
JayGilb (@50), you owe me a keyboard! Trebuchet-launched flaming bibles indeed!
How about an “Evolution of Judeo-Christianity” museum? I think that would be fun. Maybe it would make a better amusement park theme.
It’s probably a plant from some bunch of creationists to try to make those of us who aren’t insane look bad. The web address is a private domain by proxy so it’s not easy to see who owns the site. I can tell you that the site is hosted with singlehop.com, but that’s about it.
I have a simpler to implement counter point to the Creationist museum.
A box van with a large TV on the side playing cdk007’s “The Origin of Life – Abiogenesis”. Explains things fairly well in 10 minutes. http://www.youtube.com/user/cdk007
Just park it near the exit. Or the entrance. I wonder how hard it is to build a walk around TV rig, like an old EAT AT JOE’s sign board.
We already have a very nice evolution museum. It’s quite large with a floor space of about 200 million square miles, there’s no entrance fee, and all the exhibits are hands-on. It could use a few more well trained docents, though.
I’m President of the Kentucky Paleontological Society, often donate fossils to the Cincinnati Museum Center, and am part of group that has been trying to get Kentucky to have a real natural history museum for over 15 years.
I HAVE NEVER HEARD OF THIS “EVOLUTION MUSEUM” PROJECT UNTIL READING THE ABOVE POST!
I wonder who is behind the project (if it is not a hoax). Any ideas? I’m very skeptical of the claims at the “museum’s” website. When AIG picks up on this they will use it to make us look bad.
(#27)
You mean they don’t contain magic blue smoke? I’ve caused many of them to release it, and they stop working once the blue smoke is gone…
(Hey! Evidence! That puts the Theory of Blue Magical Smoke one step ahead of creationism…)
What belongs next to the Creation Museum is a Pastafarian Pirate Ship! With a full scale beer volcano! The Flying Spaghetti Monster theory of Unintelligent Design is every bit as likely to be true as their mythology, and it’s way more fun. If they want to promote their stupidity, we should get equal time for OUR stupidity. It’s only fair.
How about buying a couple of nice big billboards
to put up either side of Ham’s Folly ?
They could advertise the Cincinnati Museum Center, and perhaps note that the thing you’re about to pass is a bunch of crap.
Or words to that effect.
Okay, well.. time to mount up on my dinosaur and ride on out.
Unfortunately, the rate of fire would be too low to harm that level of stupid. What’s required is some kind of book-firing Gattling gun using flaming bibles as tracers every dozen rounds or so.
Ubi Dubium @60,
Now yer talkin’! The roof of the museum could look something like this.
It must be a scam to draw money from the gullible. If so, it’s the most moronic scam ever!
David M, #33 asked if herm knows who I am – yes, he does. Both by screen name and real name.
fusilier
James 2:24
I am with the people who think this is some sort of hoax. At best it’s a naive sort of “Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney let’s put on a show” sort of amateurish attempt. In either event, the people (person?) behind this could be anybody.
Remember, on the internet, no one knows you’re a dog
Museum of Theocracy n+1ed.
Make sure none of it gets censored. Especially the torture-stuff. An explicit showing of someone getting broken and weaved on a cart-wheel should turn anyone stomach.