- Searching for the elusive answer to a persistent question concerning the seeming gullibility of my fellow Americans—namely, why did 42 percent of adults surveyed this spring by Gallup say they believe that God created humans in their present form less than 10,000 years ago?—I recently found myself in the office of Ken Ham, the born-again Barnum behind Kentucky’s $35 million Creation Museum, debating a separate but related question, one whose existence I had not previously recognized but which became for me a source of instant paleontological delight: How could dinosaurs have coexisted with other animals within the teeming confines of Noah’s Ark? Because, you see, Noah’s Ark, in Ken Ham’s understanding of the world, was crammed stem to stern with dinosaurs. The cleverest creationists don’t deny the historicity of dinosaurs; they simply argue that they were alive at the start of the Flood, which, by their calculation, occurred approximately 4,350 years ago. (What happened to the dinosaurs after the waters receded is another story.) One sign of Ham’s genius—and he is, at the very least, a marketing genius—is his ability to shape a conversation on his terms, which is why I heard myself arguing against the possibility of a dinosaur-laden ark, rather than arguing against the notion that the ark itself was an actual thing that existed. My argument, in case you were wondering, is that the Tyrannosauruses would have eaten the sheep. QED, right? Except, no. “Many dinosaurs,” Ham says, “were smaller than chickens.”
At least that's what I was told. But it's been a long time since I was in Sunday school; apparently the scholarship has evolved since then.How could dinosaurs have coexisted with other animals within the teeming confines of Noah’s Ark?
Noah brought dinosaur eggs aboard, duh.
I was pleasantly surprised by this piece. It's so banal to make fun of young earth creationists. When people like Bill Maher start on that path, I turn the channel. But this piece had something more interesting, which is it's attempt to understand why these people exist, despite all evidence of them being factually incorrect. I found this quote very enlightening: "if Genesis is mythology, then you can justify any behavior you want." The Catholics (and not just the hierarchy, but the common people themselves) were some of the biggest supporters of fascism in Europe before, during, and even after WWII. Maybe devout religion is a cry for a moral authority in the face of a more and more relativistic world. I remember reading about how the fundamentalists are producing math textbooks that eschew Goedel, because his theories imply that even mathematics can offer no absolutes. So what's the way to reach people who need a dictator in their lives? How to educate those who prefer not to be? Is it even worth trying? Perhaps if we leave them alone, their shrinking political clout will eventually just fade into nothing. Part of me thinks that when Bill Nye debates Ham in public that all he's doing is legitimizing Ham's position, and anyway we're all in on the joke, but it's just not that funny anymore.
I suppose that there are some insulated youth that might stumble upon the debate and get something from it, but by and large, you are able to be swayed by scientifically gathered evidence or you are not. In some sense, each party is being disrespectful to the other.Part of me thinks that when Bill Nye debates Ham in public that all he's doing is legitimizing Ham's position, and anyway we're all in on the joke, but it's just not that funny anymore.