by David Usborne
Weekend Australian Magazine (Australia), page 40+
November 17-18, 2007
This former school teacher from Australia is the force behind the Creation Museum, a controversial new institution in the US that aims to demolish the theory of evolution.
Dinosaurs of all kinds abound here, from the stegosaurus silhouettes rearing atop the iron gates as you first reach the parking lot to the numerous and impressively convincing animatronic pterosaurs wagging their giant tails and chewing plastic cud inside. At America’s newest public museum dedicated to exploring the origins of man and our planet, dinos are big box office, especially with kids.
Yet, there is something askew about the exhibits here and it doesn’t take long to see. It’s not just the “Thou shalt not touch” signs or the biblically named Noah’s Café, offering respite for lunch. How about a stroll down the Trail of Life – first stop, the Garden of Eden with faux cypress trees and gurgling streams? Look, there are Adam and Eve taking a dip, and not far away another dinosaur lurks, and a lion, too.
It’s not just the presence of the naked pair, with niftily placed lily pads to cover their naughty bits, that seems barmy. Wouldn’t they have been gobbled up by now, before they’d had the chance to eat the forbidden fruit? What were the designers of this place thinking?
Here’s what they were thinking: Adam and Eve really did beget us, and before they sinned all creatures were vegetarian, meaning dinosaurs were no more likely to eat them than butterflies were. They were thinking also that man and dinosaurs lived at the same time. As you proceed on your walk, a few more surprises await. We are told how the world is no more than 6000 years old and Noah’s Flood created all the world’s fossils as well as its topography (including the Grand Canyon, gouged by its ebbing waters). And yes, Earth and the entire universe were indeed created in six days.
