Creation Museum
The Creation Museum, located in Petersburg, Kentucky, United States, is a museum that promotes a pseudoscientific form of young Earth creationism, portraying the origin of the universe and life on Earth based on a literal interpretation of the Genesis creation narrative of the Bible. It is operated by the Christian creation apologetics organization Answers in Genesis.
The museum cost 27 million, raised through private donations, and opened on May 28, 2007. In addition to the main collection, the facility has a special effects theater, a planetarium, an Allosaurus skeleton and an insect collection. As the headquarters of AiG, the museum has approximately 300 employees, and permanent employees must sign a statement of faith affirming their belief in AiG's principles.
Reflecting young-Earth creationist beliefs, the museum depicts humans and dinosaurs coexisting, portrays the Earth as approximately 6,000 years old, and disputes the theory of evolution. Scientists, educators, and theologians have criticized the museum for misrepresenting science and expressed concerns that it could harm science education, and even some Christians have expressed concern that its rejection of scientific consensus could damage the credibility of Christianity and its adherents. Tenets of young-Earth creationism enjoy substantial support among the general population in the United States, however, contributing to the museum's popularity.
The museum is controversial and has received much commentary from cultural observers and the museum community. Scholars of museum studies, like Gretchen Jennings, have said that creationist exhibitions lack "valid connection with current worldwide thinking on their chosen discipline" and with "human knowledge and experience", and are not in their view museums at all.
Background
The Creation Museum portrays a literal interpretation of the creation narrative from the Book of Genesis in the Bible using creation science, a pseudoscientific form of young Earth creationism. It is owned and operated by Answers in Genesis, a creation apologetics organization. According to the AiG website, the purpose of the museum is to "exalt Jesus Christ as Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer", to "equip Christians to better evangelize the lost", and to "challenge visitors to receive Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord". AiG founder Ken Ham said: "We're not out to convert people to believing in Intelligent Design. We're not out to convert people to not believe in evolution. And we're not out to just convert people to being Creationists. We're Christians."YEC, the belief that the God of the Bible created the Universe and everything in it in six 24-hour days, approximately 6,000 years ago, contradicts the scientific consensus that the Earth is approximately 4.5 billion years old and that living organisms come into being by descent from common ancestors through evolution. A Sunday Independent columnist said in 2007 that "there are plenty of Americans ready to embrace Ham and support his museum", citing the fact that the $27 million museum was entirely privately funded and citing a Gallup public opinion poll showing widespread belief among Americans in biblical accounts of human origins. A similar poll conducted by Pew Research Center in 2016 found that 35% of Americans agreed with the statement "humans and other living things have existed in their present form since the beginning of time".
History
From the time AiG was founded in Florence, Kentucky, in 1994, the group's officials planned to open a museum and training center in the area. Ken Ham, a native of Australia, said that "Australia's not really the place to build such a facility if you're going to reach the world. Really, America is." In a separate interview with The Sydney Morning Herald's Paul Sheehan, Ham explained, "One of the main reasons moved was because we are within one hour's flight of 69 percent of America's population." The museum is located in Petersburg, Kentucky, west of the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport.File:KenHam.JPG|thumb|left|upright|alt=Ken Ham's photo, showing a man with gray hair and a thin, gray beard|Ken Ham, founder and executive director of Answers in Genesis
In 1996, AiG petitioned Boone County to rezone a tract of land near the Big Bone Lick State Park from agricultural to industrial use for the construction of the Creation Museum. The county initially opposed the rezoning, citing in part potential conflicts with the fossil-rich state park. In 1999, newly elected commissioners approved the rezoning of an alternative site south of Interstate 275 to public facilities use, and allowed construction to go forward there.
In May 2000, AiG purchased land for an undisclosed price and expected to begin construction in March 2001. At the time, AiG planned a museum, which they believed would cost 14 million and would open by mid-2002. After market research projected more visitors to the museum than AiG had initially anticipated, plans for the museum were altered, expanding it to and pushing the cost estimates to approximately 25 million and later to 27 million when more favorable visitor projections led them to add another to the museum. AiG staff moved into the Creation Museum's office space in late 2004. All funds for the museum were privately raised, and the organization received donated architectural and construction services.
Opening
The Creation Museum opened on Memorial Day, May 28, 2007. Approximately 4,000 patrons and 200 protesters visited the museum on opening day, and the event was covered by international media outlets. The Orlando Sentinel wrote that the majority of the media coverage had a "mocking" undertone, similar to that found in reporting on the 2001 opening of Orlando's Holy Land Experience theme park.Across the street from the museum, scientists, educators, students, and atheists protested at a "Rally for Reason" organized by Edwin Kagin, the Kentucky state director of American Atheists. Kagin told the Kentucky Post that the purpose of the rally was to send a message that there are "plenty of people who don't agree with the so-called science of creationism." The Reverend Mendle Adams, a protest participant, said, "my brothers and sisters in the faith who embrace understanding call into question the whole Christian concept" and "make us a laughing stock".
The Northern Kentucky Convention and Visitors Bureau used the museum's opening as part of their overall strategy to attract religious group conventions, which accounted for significant amounts of visitor spending in the area.
In October 2007, the Kentucky Department of Transportation erected four signs along highways near the museum bearing Kentucky's "Unbridled Spirit" logo and directing motorists to the museum's location, prompting concern from some residents about the separation of church and state. The Cincinnati Post reported that AiG paid $5,000 each for the signs, which are available to any "cultural, historical, recreational, agricultural, educational or entertainment center". The Post quoted Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, as saying it was a "close call" as to whether the signs violated the separation of church and state.
Expansion
In April 2016, the Boone County Fiscal Court approved a development plan that will add a three-level, museum building, among other expansions that will total between $15 million to $20 million.In November 2019, the Creation Museum opened a $3 million expansion which includes a 4D theater and a large area with several exhibits.
In October 2021, the Creation Museum announced plans to refurbish the Legacy Hall auditorium and create the Eden Teaching Center, an addition to the museum's animal space and petting zoo which will include a new animal facility, conservatory and greenhouses, classroom, and interactive dig site.
Attendance
AiG had projected that the museum would have 250,000 visitors in its first year of operation, but officials said that number was achieved in just over five months. In its first year of operation, 404,000 people visited the Creation Museum. In 2012, Cincinnati CityBeat reported that, from July 1, 2011, to June 30, 2012, Museum attendance had dropped to 254,074, a 10 percent drop from the previous year and the fourth straight year of declining attendance. AiG officials cited the poor economy and high gas prices as reasons for the decline. By mid-2015, 2.4 million people had visited the museum.In 2016 Slate.com reported that public schools were taking students on field trips to the museum, citing planned or completed trips to the museum by schools in Kentucky, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. The Freedom From Religion Foundation wrote letters to the schools in question, demanding that the trips be cancelled, or in cases where they had already occurred, not be repeated. In July 2016, in response to FFRF's letters to schools, Ham posted on his blog that student groups would be admitted at $1 per child and no charge for accompanying teachers."
In 2017, AiG reported that in the year since its other attraction, the Ark Encounter, opened, the Creation Museum saw over 800,000 visitors, nearly triple the annual average of 300,000 visitors. In April 2021, the Creation Museum and Ark Encounter welcomed their 10 millionth visitor altogether.
Collection
The Creation Museum proper encompasses. In the museum's planetarium, visitors view a presentation written by AiG's staff astrophysicist that presents creationist cosmologies as alternatives to the Big Bang theory of the origins of the Universe. The planetarium underwent a $1.2 million renovation in 2020 while the museum was closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic; the renovations expanded the planetarium's capacity, upgraded its display equipment, and improved its acoustics. In the 200-seat theater—which features special effects such as seats that vibrate and jets that spray the audience with mist—a film depicts two angelic beings who proclaim, "God loves science!" The museum also includes a restaurant and a medieval-themed gift shop. Outside the main structure are walking trails and a lake.Patrick Marsh, who designed the Jaws and King Kong attractions at Universal Studios Florida, led the design of the exhibits for the Creation Museum. Kurt Wise was hired as scientific consultant and also played a major role in designing the exhibits, including the 52 professionally made videos. In 2009, AiG added an exhibit about natural selection, featuring models of finches, which Charles Darwin observed before proposing the theory of evolution in 1859. A 2013 expansion project added a lobby display suggesting that ancient stories of monsters and dragons may have been accounts of human encounters with dinosaurs. An animatronic character depicting a science professor in a research lab, dubbed "Dr. Crawley", tells visitors that, due to the variation and complexity of bug species, they could not have evolved naturally but must have been created by God.
File:Creation Museum Allosaurus skeleton.jpg|thumb|upright|left|"Ebenezer", the Allosaurus skeleton represents AiG's mission to "take the dinosaurs back ".
Dinosaurs are prominently featured in many areas of the museum. Prior to the museum's opening, Ham stated, "We're putting evolutionists on notice: We're taking the dinosaurs back... They're used to teach people that there's no God, and they're used to brainwash people. Evolutionists get very upset when we use dinosaurs." While some of the museum's dinosaur models are animatronic, many were sculpted from fiberglass by a taxidermist. Near the museum's lobby, a diorama depicts two ancient-age children playing near a stream, unmolested by nearby dinosaurs.
Since 2014, the museum has displayed the skeleton of a long, wide Allosaurus fragilis dubbed "Ebenezer". Over half of the skeleton, including a nearly-complete long skull with 53 teeth, was recovered from the northern Colorado portion of Morrison Formation. The Elizabeth Streb Peroutka Foundation of Pasadena, Maryland, purchased the skeleton and donated it to the museum, and AiG paid an anonymous expert based in Utah to restore it before displaying it. The skeleton is presented as evidence of Noah's Flood. In 2021, Brian William Delafayette was indicted for making a bomb threat after posting on an AiG-affiliated web page that a bomb had been planted under the Allosaurus display at the museum; no bomb was found at the site.
The museum is also critical of evolutionary theory that links dinosaurs with bird evolution. The second room of the Creation Museum, for example, displays a model prehistoric Utahraptor, stating that the species was featherless and had no connection to birds, referring to Genesis 1, which states that birds were created before the advent of land animals.