Creationism: Creationists visit temple of evolution

Steve Hendrix notes in the Washington Post (March 11, 2009) that "Creationist Students Take Field Trip to Hotbed of Evolution: The Smithsonian":

A 2006 poll by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life found that 42 percent of Americans believe humans have always existed in their present form. At universities such as Liberty, founded by the late Jerry Falwell, those views inform the entire science curriculum.

Like the Liberty students, avowed creationists across the country are making a practice of challenging the conventional wisdom at zoos (questioning the evolutionary explanation of giraffe necks), the Grand Canyon (dating the rock layers in thousands, not millions, of years), and cave parks (describing the formations as evidence of rapid drainage after the Great Flood).

Wow. I am certainly not a young earth creationist, but I suspect that many tax-supported establishment figures think that they should all be put in jail for questioning anything at all.

The conventional wisdom at a lot of temples of science (= museums and zoos) - apart from the curators or zookeepers' lore about how to actually prepare bones or keep an exotic animal alive - is often rubbish and deserves to be questioned:

Creationists have been popping up in enough mainstream institutions that one museum has produced a creation-vs.-evolution primer to help volunteer docents handle their sometimes-pointed questions. When the Museum of the Earth in Ithaca, N.Y., published its guide, more than 50 museums called looking for a copy, according to director Warren Allmon.

Well, that'll give them all something to do. It may reduce the number of utterly stupid insults to intelligence that are commonly inflicted on museum-goers in the name of "evolution."