I will be in the Cincinnati area this weekend for fun and business. My only dilemma is to decide whether to spend the time and money to actually visit this edifice of counterknowledge?
I’ve written about this place on D.I. since before it was completed. (List of mentions of it on our own blog). Plenty of other bloggers have been there and reported on it with pictures and video. The hotel we are staying in is so close that they keep a block of rooms and a special discount rate for visitors to the museum.
Do I want to give these people my money, and tacit support, just to have better credentials to refute their claims? Do I want to miss out on some hours of dancing (and/or selling) in order to do this?
That's my same dilemma: I'd like to see it just so I can say — and speak from the first hand experience of said — but I don't want to contribute to their coffers.
If there's a way to "visit" as a colleague of a sister institution or some sort of other "meeting of the minds" courtesy maybe…
Okay, I'm on my way without email or internet for 3 days. I expect that I won't spend the time to visit this icon of American Philosophy on this trip, although I might drive past.
Here's a good incisive look at it From a Chicago Tribune contributor
You can still respond and let me know what you'd'a done.
I would have gone. Out of curiosity, but that's me. And I find criticism of any subject acquires a stronger stance if you have experienced it first hand.
"it" = the subject
I wouldn't spend my money on such a fraud, either out of curiosity or out of a belief that one cannot critique a fraud unless one experiences it. I don't need to visit Iraq or spend time in the White House to know that Bush should be impeached and Cheney should be jailed, and I don't need to visit a creationism "museum" to know it's a crock of horse dung.
Armchair critic. 😀
I've pondered this too. I live in Columbus OH, probably not two hours away from the museum. Knowing this has clawed at my conscience. On one hand there exists a strong mirthful desire to look, laugh and blog about it, on the other hand I don't want to support the cause. The scales have tipped for me, I think- many, many blogs out there have posted comprehensive reviews and walk-thrus of the museum, many with oodles of pictures. So giving the museum the price of a ticket seems unjustified- nothing I write about the exhibit could surpass or improve upon the already stunning job others have done.
However, I have heard that Cincinnati has another phony creationist exhibit, one where children dress up as cowboys and shoot dinosaurs (just like the real cowboys did). If I track down that exhibit I just might have to investigate.
I didn't end up going. Our hotel was awash with bus loads of teens in matching fluorescent Jesus shirts, though. There didn't seem to be time to even do a drive-by, because 15 minutes out of the way is 15 minutes less dancing, eating, schmoozing, flirting, or conversing with like-minded people from other places.
At the dance weekend, we were awash in other sorts of zanies. Like this cheerful fellow and his familiar shirt.
<img src="http://dangerousintersection.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/03/0329082206a.jpg" alt="Flying Spaghetti Monster Shirt">
(My phone is a barely adequate snapshot camera).
The caption reads "Touched by his Noodly Appendage" in reference to Spaghediesm. Pastafarianism arose in response to the Kansas Intelligent Design incursion in 2005.
Erika, I posted something about that cowboys and dinosaurs park here in my original post about them putting up this museum. There is a link to a more detailed article.
It's west of Akron.
Thanks Dan. I'm very embarrassed to have forgotten that you mentioned the park in the first place! Can I just pretend that it made for an excellent example of the fallibility of human memory, and duck, red-faced, under my desk?
Public pressure scuttled a promotional deal involving both the Cincinnati Zoo and the Creation Museum.
"A promotional deal between the Cincinnati Zoo and the Creation Museum was scuttled Monday after the zoo received dozens of angry calls and emails about the partnership," reported the Cincinnati Enquirer (December 1, 2008). The promotion involved a package deal for tickets to the zoo's annual Festival of Lights and to a Christmas-themed event at Answers in Genesis's Creation Museum.
http://ncseweb.org/news/2008/12/creation-museum-r…
Now I don't need to go. This video portrays the perfect tour for believers like me:
<object width="400" height="300"><param name="allowfullscreen" value="true" /><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always" /><param name="movie" value="http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=2479296&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=0&color=&fullscreen=1" /><embed src="http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=2479296&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=0&color=&fullscreen=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" width="400" height="300"></embed></object>SAIU trip to the Creation Museum from Secular Alliance on Vimeo.
What a waste of good animatronics.
If you're in the Cincinnati area, you may want to join as The Secular Student Alliance Is Sending PZ Myers to the Creation Museum on Friday, August 7, 2009. They already have over 240 pre-registered for the field trip.
This visit apparently has Ken Ham scared: The Creation "Museum" has given us warning.