My trip to the Creation Evidence Museum

I have been making the drive out to Dinosaur Valley State Park in Glen Rose to do some mountaint biking. The place is famous for its giant dinosaur tracks, but it also has an extensive mountain bike trail system and has some of the best trails in Texas.

About 2 minutes away from the park, is the Creation Evidence Museum. I passed it, and immediately turned around to go have a look. What I found inside must be one of the most preposterous examples of pseudoscience in Texas.

The museum clings strongly to the notion that the earth was created in only 6 days and is no more than 6,000 years old. I watched a video by the museum's director, Dr. Carl Edward Baugh. He described how God first created something out of nothing when he created the heavens and the earth. He stated that only an omnipotent and all knowing being could perform such a feat. This actually made some sort of sense to me. It was about the only thing that did.

He then went on to explain that all the land and earth that is present today is was formed immediately. He cited evidence of this by mentioning some unstable radioactive isotope with a very short half life. He failed to explain why this isotope supported the immediate appearance of land in any way. He seemed to just be using scientific terms that lay people wont understand, and likely wont question.

As the presentation went on, the claims grew more and more ridiculous. By far, the most preposterous claim was that Noah's flood did indeed occur. He explained that Noah somehow collected ALL the creatures of the earth, and put them on an arc to survive the flood. As you might imagine, this would be completely and totally impossible. Apparently, the flood also had some major effects on the earth's atmosphere. There was apparently a crystaline barrier that surrounded the earth pre-flood that helped retain electromagnetic energy from the sun. This somehow allowed for humans to grow to very large sizes. I dont understand how this factors into their theory at all, but I was stunned that they even made this claim. They attempted to support this claim scientifically by building a "Hyperbaric Biosphere" that was meant to simulate the earth's environment pre-flood. They then claimed that this atmosphere supposedly detoxified snake venom and had some very poor evidence backing this claim.

At this point, I was completely shocked. I could not believe that people actually believed wholeheartedly in science that was so clearly fallable. It seemed to even stray from the wholesomeness of the Bible, and into something akin to witchcraft. I wanted to ask the people in the room next to me if they could believe this crap. But they seemed to swallow it whole, and shook their heads in agreement everytime Dr. Baugh made another claim. After the video tour, I took some pictures, and decided the place was entirely to creepy for me. Luckily, I made it out of there unbrainwashed.

Despite complete lack of any scientific or even rational thinking in this museum, I do understand why it exists. Christianity was born in a time when we knew very little about our natural world. Indeed, dinosaurs had not been discovered, they had no concept of the atom, of biology, evolution, much less something like relativity or quantum mechanics. Just as clear evidence to the contrary squashed the theology of the greek gods (Zeus, Apollo, etc), the theory of evolution is in a dangerous position to completely debunk the theory of creation. Then we may begin to question the validity of Christianity itself. How can we believe in only some parts of God's word? This would leave millions of people with the notion that perhaps there is no God, and that there isnt some all knowing being that loves and cares for them uncondiotionally. Thats a pretty disheartening idea to get used to for many. So, I see why there exists this small and allbeit ridiculous movement to combat evolutionary theory with creationism. Sometimes I wish I hadnt ever discovered evolution so that I could still believe wholeheartedly in the Bible. It was a nice, comforting feeling to have complete confidence in your fate after death.

Anyway, I could write and talk about this topic for hours, and have many times. But, I just wanted to share this brief experience with anyone who is willing to read.