ON the other side, they are very successful and the way they are PRESENTING their story is really worth a closer examination.
In the case of creationists, it's lie, dissemble, lie some more, cheat, hastily cover up, lie a bit more, hire a bunch of pr flacks, lie a little more, fake up a publication record that doesn't exist in the real world, threaten politicians with the Christian Right and then lie some more. Rinse, lather, repeat.
You can always learn
Oh, many people have. Between them, creationists, the tobacco industry and holocaust deniers have perfected the art of creating a fake controversy. All later cranks - from Deepak Chopra to the HIV/AIDS deniers - are modelled on parts of their strategy.
There are, however, a number of reasons why I don't believe that a progressive political campaign can co-opt such strategies. Chief amongst them being the fact that systematically lying is anti-enlightenment, anti-intellectual and fundamentally reactionary.
- Jake If you only spend 20 minutes of the rest of your life on economics, go spend them here.
The techniques you use to showcase the exhibits are all state of the art. Other museums would love to have that kind of money to spend and that kind of expertise in trying to bring across a message. Of course they are stumped, by what is being said. That doesn't make the how it is being said less interesting.
Especially as a scientist, I would have thought you would interested in understanding how people are being manipulated - word to tell the truth and words to tell lies are the same words?
I also think, you are underestimating them, if you assume they do this, to cause outrage. While they certainly benefit from the outrage caused for marketing reasons, getting people into their place. It is the reaction of the people having been to the place and visit repeatedly that is of interest to museums professionals - the word of mouth of visitors, the every day.
If you look at museums and how they present science, they can learn interesting things from this museum and how it presents fairy tales.
f.e its location. do you know, why it is where it is? It was build in that location, because it would reach the greates number of Americans in a days round trip.
This is a peculiar concept for a museums (at least in Britain) There is local connection, for local museums, political choices for location of "abstract" museums (Holocaust, Native American) but to built a Musuem in the middle of no-where just because it is conveniently reachable by car, or plane is a new concept FOR museums (not so for Shopping Malls).
That is only one example, of why this museum and its concept is interesting for a Museums professional.
In no way, do I want to defend the museum in what it does - or am myself a museums professional, I only repeat (from memory) discussions I had with them.
Who has argued that some creationists do not have some good ideas about museum design, etc. ? What a waste of time. Maybe it's because I'm a Londoner - that I moved to Nice.
... And this is, in sum, the Creation Museum. $27 million has purchased the very best monument to an enormous load of horseshit that you could possibly ever hope to see. I enjoyed my visit, admired the craft with which the whole thing was put together, and was never once convinced that what I was seeing celebrated was anything more or less than horseshit. Popular horseshit? Undoubtedly. Horseshit hallowed by tradition and consecrated by time? Just so. Horseshit of the finest possible quality? I would not argue the point. And yet, even so: Horseshit. Complete horseshit. Utter horseshit. Total horseshit. Horseshit, horseshit, horseshit, horseshit. I pity the people who swallow it whole. * So that is the key to understanding the Creation Museum. But what is the enormous load of horseshit that sits, squat yet moundy, at its very center? It's simple: That the Bible is the literal and inerrant Word of God. If the Creation Museum doesn't have that, it doesn't have anything. ... Let me say this much: I have to admit admiration for the pure balls-out, high-octane creationism that's on offer here. Not for the Creation Museum that mamby-pamby weak sauce known as "Intelligent Design," which tries to slip God by as some random designer, who just sort of got the ball rolling by accident. Screw that, pal: The Creation Museum's God is hands on! He made every one of those animals from the damn mud and he did it no earlier than 4004 BC, or thereabouts. It's all there in the book, son, all you have to do is look. Indeed, every single thing on display in the Creation Museum is either caused by or a consequence of exactly three things: The six-day creation; Adam eating from the tree of life; Noah's flood. Really, that's it. That's the Holy Trinity of explanations and rationalizations. And thus we learn fascinating things. Did you know, for example, that Adam is responsible not only for the fall of man, but also for the creation of venom? It didn't exist in the Garden of Eden, because, well. Why would it? Weeds? Adam's fault. Carnivorous animals (and, one assumes, the occasional carnivorous plant)? Adam again. Entropy? You guessed it: Adam. Think about that, won't you; eat one piece of fruit and suddenly you're responsible for the inevitable heat death of the universe. God's kind of mean. ... http://scalzi.com/whatever/?p=121
... And this is, in sum, the Creation Museum. $27 million has purchased the very best monument to an enormous load of horseshit that you could possibly ever hope to see. I enjoyed my visit, admired the craft with which the whole thing was put together, and was never once convinced that what I was seeing celebrated was anything more or less than horseshit. Popular horseshit? Undoubtedly. Horseshit hallowed by tradition and consecrated by time? Just so. Horseshit of the finest possible quality? I would not argue the point. And yet, even so: Horseshit. Complete horseshit. Utter horseshit. Total horseshit. Horseshit, horseshit, horseshit, horseshit. I pity the people who swallow it whole.
*
So that is the key to understanding the Creation Museum. But what is the enormous load of horseshit that sits, squat yet moundy, at its very center? It's simple: That the Bible is the literal and inerrant Word of God. If the Creation Museum doesn't have that, it doesn't have anything. ...
Let me say this much: I have to admit admiration for the pure balls-out, high-octane creationism that's on offer here. Not for the Creation Museum that mamby-pamby weak sauce known as "Intelligent Design," which tries to slip God by as some random designer, who just sort of got the ball rolling by accident. Screw that, pal: The Creation Museum's God is hands on! He made every one of those animals from the damn mud and he did it no earlier than 4004 BC, or thereabouts. It's all there in the book, son, all you have to do is look. Indeed, every single thing on display in the Creation Museum is either caused by or a consequence of exactly three things:
