Sunday 6 April 2008

Blood of Eden


We never seem to be without people prepared, completely in the face of all available scientific evidence, to promote fundamentalist views condemning the theory of evolution(http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2008/apr/05/evolution.controversiesinscience). A US based Australian, Ken Ham, is currently touring the UK to advance his message that one should take the Bible absolutely literally and regard most fossils as records of Noah's flood some 6000 years ago. He claims that animals like Tyrannosaurus rex were in the Garden of Eden but were left out of the Ark because they were not vegetarians (how then did the Lion and the Tiger escape the deluge?). Mr Ham's views are advanced by the wealthy 'Answers in Genesis' organization's Creation Museum of Kentucky which had more than 100,000 visitors in its first week of opening. The 'museum' includes animatronic sets with Adam, Eve and T. rex (the basis, according to Ham, of dragon 'myths) all together. His tour concluded with a 'Creation Conference' at Westminster chapel on 5th April . The 'conference' seemed from accounts more like preaching as the standard response, when challenged on anything, appeared to be 'go back to the book' (a response that didn't do much for Medicine in the days of Galen). It is really difficult for anyone in science to have any kind of debate under such circumstances (science and religion are quite differnt things).

2 comments:

Matthew Byrnes said...

Ridiculous. Have you ever heard of "Dr" Kent Hovind? Toured the states for years indoctrinating the meek with tedious rhetoric and established a dinosaur/creation/bible theme park and filtered millions out of it. Well, now he's doing ten years for tax evasion. The Lord works in mysterious ways eh?

Paul Brain said...

I have and he (the Lord) certainly does (he seems also to have a thing about carnivores). The worrying thing is that a non-American 'social worker' believes such stuff.

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