Aug 9, 2004

nothing to see here

I love museums. If I'm forced to go along with a tour guide, I try to ask tough questions, to see if she really knows the material, or is just parrotting the placards.

I also love learning about hoaxes and scams. So, a museum dedicated to the world's most egregious pseudoscience sounds like a fun place to visit. But what about visiting with twenty-five skeptical experts in tow? The Institute for Creation Research's "Museum of Creation and Earth History" never really has a chance when Karen Bartelt shows up with some tough customers. The tour guide doesn't even make it out of the introductory video without being caught in a lie.

(But then, when your basic premise is that the world is less than 10,000 years old, you can handle more than a little cognitive dissonance.)

4 comments:

Unknown said...

Where do you find time to go to all these places?

Jim Anderson said...

"All these places"? I haven't been to the ICR's phony "museum" yet. But being a teacher does have some advantages.

Unknown said...

Well, I meant in nature....and stuff. There was also Sequim earlier this summer...

Jim Anderson said...

All of those places are easily reached in a few hours by car. They just seem remote. (After all, last summer I went to South Africa. That was *real* traveling.)