Ken Ham Hopes To Prove Dinosaur Bones Are Only Thousands Of Years Old

One important point that needs to be considered concerning these "donated bones."  Once a fossil site is disturbed, it cannot be put back together.  In essence all vital information is destroyed, and a critical part of the story is lost.  So Ham et al are really only seeing half the story.

It appears that the Creation Museum’s Ken Ham hopes to use donated bones and his specially patented “observational science” to prove once and for all that dinosaurs were present on the Earth only a few thousand years ago — rather than over 65 million. Together with creation scientist Dr. David Menton, Ham says he soon hopes to publish findings from the study of the bones — hinting that what he thinks they’ll find will be world-changing.

At issue again is the mis-representation of Mary Schweitzer's work:

Soft tissue surviving in dinosaur bones isn’t an entirely new idea — according to Smithsonian Magazine, a Tyrannosaurus Rex bone with soft tissue still present was discovered a decade ago. Even then, young Earth creationists quickly hijacked the discovery as evidence that donosaur fossils were not millions of years old after all — but the scientists who are familiar with the study of these bones say that it shows, instead, a misunderstanding about how decay works.

Paleontologist Mary Schweitzer, who discovered this first dinosaur soft tissue — more has been found in other fossilized bones since — says it’s upsetting that creationists like Ken Ham distort her work. She knows the fossil she was working with is 68 million years old.
 
How does she know this? In part because the fossil comes from the Hell Creek formation — one of the most extensively studied fossil excavation sites on Earth. The site has clearly defined strata, and the fossils there range from 65 million to 70 million years old.

What else is interesting and relevant about the Hell Creek site? Well, it happens to be where Ken Ham says his museum’s new fossils come from, as well.

It’s not clear whether Dr. David Menton and the Creation Museum staff have intentions to use any methods other than “taking pictures and looking at samples under [Menton’s] microscope” to determine the age of the bones, or whether finding soft tissue would be sufficient “evidence” to claim proof of a young Earth and co-existing humans and dinosaurs — but it is clear that Ken Ham hopes he’ll soon be using these bones to prove that entire fields of science are fabricated and flat-out wrong.

Ken Ham Hopes To Prove Dinosaur Bones Are Only Thousands Of Years Old

Founders Of Idaho Creation Museum Urge Visitors To 'Think Critically' | Boise State Public Radio

"This stone right here, you can see there's a man on it riding on a triceratops dinosaur."

Stan Lutz, Co-Founder, Northwest Science Museum (Boise, Idaho)

__

I have written before about this group of creationist ideologues. This is a group who, like Ken Ham, have no qualms stating, "No apparent, perceived, or claimed interpretation of evidence in any field, including history and chronology, can be valid if it contradicts the Scriptural record." So in claiming they are a "science museum" is an out right false hood.

Most scientists, textbooks, and natural history museums would tell you the Earth is several billion years old, that plant and animal species evolved over time, and that dinosaurs died out millions of years before our human ancestors appeared. You might even take that as a given. But a large segment of the population believe something else happened.

That's the funny thing about science, it is not based on "belief" but evidence. As I have stated before, science is not a democracy.

The ole tornado in the junkyard gambit, “If you can make up a system that says there is no god, that things just happen by chance, then we're not accountable to any higher being,” he said. “And so you can do what you want and have no consequence.”

A blatant mis-statement of what science tells us; a strawman argument in which the analogy works by random chance to a final product that is unlike the beginning product. Evolution on the other hand operates by a fixed law - natural selection - complex results that are built up gradually; it is a cumulative process minus a specific target (airplane).

But this is the most baffling of what the "museum" presents:

“I think everybody needs to see the evidence we will have in the museum,” he added. “One of the things we have here in this vision center is probably the most controversial stones in the world. Because they show man and dinosaurs interacting.”

In one of the glass cases, Stan Lutz, one of the other founders, pointed out a collection of “Ica stones,” which he said are ancient stones from Peru.

“This stone right here, you can see there's a man on it riding on a triceratops dinosaur,” he said.

Lutz pointed to a tan colored stone with a man on a lizard-like creature.

“We have rocks showing at least 14 species of dinosaur that are all accurately drawn,” he said.

First, Stan Lutz is the least qualified person to be presenting evidence:

Stan has been interested in reconciling the Bible with science for most of his life, and is in the process of developing a creation museum. Toward that end, he has assembled numerous artifacts, which he displays for interested groups upon request or when speaking on various topics of creation apologetics.

He formally studied creation science through Kent Hovind’s ministry and successfully finished the equivalent of 20 college credits of creation science 101, 102, 103, and 104.

In early 2005 and part of 2006 Stan worked for Joe Taylor at the Mt. Blanco Fossil Museum, in Crosbyton, Texas. During his time at Mt. Blanco, he led museum tours and partipated in two fossil digs that resulted in the excavation of parts of two mammoths. Mr. Lutz also assisted with the assembly of a Bison priscus skull from Alaska, a large Hadrosaur skull, and a Psittacosaurus skeleton. In addition, he helped finish the Lone Star Mastodon skull found in San Antonio, Texas, which is said to be one of the largest four-tusked mastodon skulls ever found.

Stan also spent time at Creation Evidence Museum in Glen Rose, Texas along the Paluxy River examining the dinosaur and human footprints found together. While at Glen Rose, Stan and Ian Juby filmed a dig with Carl Baugh where several new tracks were discovered.

For the rest, I'll just leave this here.


And this as well.

The farmer who gave Cabrera his first stone was subsequently arrested for selling the stones to tourists. In his defence, he said that he had not in fact found them in a cave, as he had told Dr Cabrera, but made them himself. Other local people continue to make these engraved stones. They are selling forged hoaxes – a Bad Archaeology double whammy! However, Cabrera countered this claim with the sheer numbers of stones. As well as the 20,000 or so in his collection and those sold to tourists, he said that locals have found about 50,000, while the cave contains another 100,000. This is too great a number to be the effort of a single poor farmer with little spare time to create so many hoaxes. Nevertheless, he maintained that he carved at least some of them. Neither he nor Dr Cabrera revealed the location of the cave that is supposed to contain the huge cache of stones.

It is possible that some of the stones are genuine examples of pre-Columbian Peruvian art, but at least some are forgeries. Many of the allegedly anomalous images are so highly stylised that it is difficult to see exactly what is being depicted. Some are so plainly bizarre that they can be discounted, as in the example showing a human riding on the shoulders of a pteranodon, a species of pterosaur that (should the bizarre act ever have occurred) could never have supported such a weight. Those that show dinosaurs, especially, show them as reconstructions popular in the early to mid twentieth century did: as lumbering beasts, dragging their tails along the ground. We now know that this was not how they walked, a clear demonstration (as if any were needed) that the stones are a twentieth-century product and not the creations of people who saw living dinosaurs.

Founders Of Idaho Creation Museum Urge Visitors To 'Think Critically' | Boise State Public Radio

Bob Dyer: Cuyahoga Falls students get faulty science - Local - Ohio

In the immortal words of the great philosopher Alice Cooper, school’s out for the summer.

Here’s hoping the long vacation will enable a group of students from Cuyahoga Falls to forget some of the things they were taught this spring.

On one of the last days of the school year, a big yellow Cuyahoga Falls school bus was parked in front of the Akron Fossils & Science Center in Copley, just south of Copley Circle.

Giving your students a science lesson at the Copley Fossils & Science Center is the equivalent of hiring Alice Cooper to be your principal.

This “science” center is nothing of the sort. It is a paean to creationism.

[,,,]
So why would an educational institution bring students to a place that teaches the opposite of what is taught in its classrooms?

Two reasons:

•The name of the place is deceptive.

•Educators are not doing their basic homework.

Cuyahoga Falls Superintendent and CEO Todd Nichols says that last week he wasn’t able to get ahold of the teacher who organized the May 30 field trip, but says she is new, and he assumes she just didn’t know what she was getting into.

She’s in good company.

As I noted five years ago, the name fooled the Akron Zoo, the Cleveland Orchestra and even COSI, the renowned science center in Columbus. All three groups contributed to a fundraiser for the center without understanding what they were contributing to.

[,,,]
Now, wouldn’t you think that if people truly believe in their mission, they would be right up front about the nature of that mission? But when I asked why the place isn’t called the “Akron Creation Museum” or the “Akron Intelligent Design Center,” I was told that wasn’t necessary because their “science” deserves equal time.

Bob Dyer: Cuyahoga Falls students get faulty science - Local - Ohio

UPDATE::New Boise creationist museum seeks to promote 'true science' by disputing evolution | Boise, Garden City, Mountain Home | Idahostatesman.com

So basically, the fundies are only trying to open up the conversation to all possibilities currently being shut out by the Christian persecuting, secular-lib-humanist, fasci-Marxist tyrants who rule our once-great Judeo-Christian nation.

A group of Idahoans dismayed by science education have opened the Northwest Science Museum offering a Biblical explanation of Earth's origins and disputing other explanations, such as evolution.

"We want to show a lot of science that's being censored and not presented to the public," said Doug Bennett, the museum's executive director.

[,,,]
The central premise of the museum is to counter "mainstream science" with exhibits about life on Earth as created by God in six days, about 6,000 years ago — not over a span of millions of years.

Bennett said the founders had been kicking around the idea for a creation museum for 10 or 20 years.

The organization is "just a group of us that have kind of the same idea of promoting true science," he said, adding that it's not affiliated with any church or religious group.

What is sad, it is thinking such as the above, "We want to show a lot of science that's being censored and not presented to the public." And, "No apparent, perceived, or claimed interpretation of evidence in any field, including history and chronology, can be valid if it contradicts the Scriptural record."  That leads to shit like this,




and yes Comfort is be serious.**

Or how bout this:



Which then tends to become "mainstream" leaving the next generation grasping at straws to understand basic 
science.

 
(H/T: DeadState)

So yes religious ideology masking itself in faith does have consequences.

New Boise creationist museum seeks to promote 'true science' by disputing evolution | Boise, Garden City, Mountain Home | Idahostatesman.com


**PS::  As some may remember Ray Comfort became comic relief for many in the atheist and science communities for his banana analogy.  Not long after, he continued with his stupidity by first saying, "Oops, my bad, guess I wasn't very clear in my meaning.  Seriously who has the time to read science like books to learn a basic understanding of agricultural methods through the ages.  Anyway it was Gawd that gave man the smarts to modify it, so that it perfectly fit into his hand.  Yea, Gawd did it." [My words]  Then in another interview, he flip-flops yet again adding a few more unsubstantiated claims.Truth-Saves has an excellent write-up concerning this banana controversy concluding with this statement: 

Ray Comfort appears to be more concerned with what he wants to be true rather than what is actually true. If he did care about what was true then Ray would have taken at least five minutes to research his original claim and also would not have twisted the words and information of his own sources. Ray Comfort's entire career revolves around telling creationists what they want to hear during his lectures or in his own books and television show so there is also the likely possibility that he lies because it is financially profitable. Regardless of why Ray Comfort intentionally lies so much may not be clear but whatever his true agenda is the fact remains that Ray Comfort is anything but honest. He is too smart to make all of these false claims accidentally, especially when the truth is provided in his sources, so that means is claims are an act of pure dishonesty. This lack of concern for honesty really comes at no surprise given his track record for dishonesty and deceit.

A New Museum Devoted to Creationism Will Open Tomorrow in Idaho

The Museum’s Statement of Faith gets right to the heart of why it doesn’t actually promote science:

No apparent, perceived, or claimed interpretation of evidence in any field, including history and chronology, can be valid if it contradicts the Scriptural record.  <--that right there should scare the bejeebus out of you!!

For them, the evidence doesn’t matter if it poses a challenge to their faith.

That’s not how science works.

With science, you go where the evidence leads you. You don’t get to shoehorn science into the narrow confines of a holy book.

So, like I said, the Brainwashing Compound opens up tomorrow in Idaho. It’ll compete with Ken Ham’s Kentucky-based Creation Museum in a race to warp the minds of little kids and gullible adults everywhere.

A New Museum Devoted to Creationism Will Open Tomorrow in Idaho

T. rex fossils arrive at Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History - The Washington Post

Such exciting news,,,

“It’s like Christmas morning,” declared dinosaur curator Matt Carrano.

The Nation’s T. Rex, discovered by a Montana rancher near Fort Peck Reservoir in 1988 and owned by the Army Corps of Engineers, is on loan to the Natural History Museum for 50 years.

It will replace a life-size T. rex replica that’s been displayed in the Natural History Museum’s dinosaur hall since 1999, shortly after the Smithsonian lost out on Sue, the world’s most famous dinosaur fossil, at a hotly contested auction.

“The absence of a T. rex was unforgivable,” Johnson said, standing among the crates. “It’s this amazing dream for me to get this iconic fossil.”

“It’s a wonderful day for the nation,” said Lt. Gen. Thomas P. Bostick, the Army Corps commander who signed off on the long-term loan.

Then this wanker comes along,,,

For example, recently,  the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History (in Washington, DC), acquired a T. rex skeleton, known as “the Nation’s T. Rex.”  This T. rex is very complete. The museum director, Kirk Johnson, believes the new dinosaur skeleton will draw many children to the National Museum of Natural History, saying, “Dinosaurs are the gateway drug to science for kids.”

Of course, secularists know that children love dinosaurs, and they use dinosaurs to indoctrinate kids into evolutionary ideas. “The Nation’s T. Rex” will be a centerpiece for the Smithsonian—a museum funded by our tax dollars. In reality, then, the government is imposing the religion of evolution and millions of years on children visiting the Smithsonian, while also claiming a supposed separation of church and state! Our tax dollars are funding the religion of naturalism (atheism) and its evolutionary story to be exhibited in the Smithsonian in the nation’s capital!

Ham seems to forget that his "museum" is funded by  a $43 million tax rebate from the state of Kentucky, as well as a 75 percent property tax discount.  Must be penis envy.

The real difference between the Creation Museum and the Smithsonian is that we tell children the truth of God’s Word and the gospel. We explain the true history of the world concerning creation and the Flood—and in doing so we correctly explain the history in regard to dinosaurs and solve the mystery as to what happened to them.  We point visitors to the truth of God’s Word in Genesis, and teach kids that dinosaurs were created on Day Six of the Creation Week and that most of the fossils of dinosaurs were formed during the Flood of Noah’s Day about 4,300 years ago.

Creation Museum officials say funds in place to start building Noah's Ark theme park | The Courier-Journal | courier-journal.com

The recent debate must have been a cash-cow for Ham. But when the Ark sinks, just like the museum is doing now, who will be to blame?

The creators of Northern Kentucky’s controversial Creation Museum say enough money has been raised to proceed with a new biblical theme park built around a 510-foot replica of Noah’s Ark.

Ken Ham, the president of Answers in Genesis who gained national attention earlier this month after a debate with Bill Nye the Science Guy, said that after a recent bond offering “the funding is in place” to start building the “Ark Encounter” park on an 800-acre site in Grant County, Ky.

The Ark’s website says it has raised $14.4 million in private donations toward the $24.5 million needed to build the ark alone as part of a theme park that is expected to cost more than $120 million. The complete first phase totals more than $70 million, and officials said they sold most of the $62 million in municipal bonds offered to investors.

[,,,]
But Josh Rosenau, policy director for the California-based National Center for Science Education, said the Ark park is objectionable because it displays “a false account of world history and biology” and presents it “as if it were fact.”

[,,,]
Late last year, the city of Williams­town, where the park would be located, helped by offering $62 million in municipal bonds on behalf of the Christian group. The city isn’t responsible for repaying the unsecured bonds, which would come from park revenues. Partly because of a lackluster response, the sale was extended in December.

Mike Zovath, the Ark project coordinator, said the minimum amount was sold, which constituted most of the bonds, and AiG purchased some. They did not provide exact figures.

[,,,]
Earlier this year, Bloomberg News reported that the Ark project was drawing comparisons to tourist attractions from Alabama to Nebraska that have defaulted on such bonds, and noted that it came with the added risk of legal challenges from those who believe the religious themes may violate the Constitution.

Creation Museum officials say funds in place to start building Noah's Ark theme park | The Courier-Journal | courier-journal.com

Noah's Ark biblical theme park project risks collapsing without more bond buyers | The Courier-Journal | courier-journal.com

I don't know about y'all but if I was Ken Ham I would take this funding failure as a sign. A sign of dis-approval maybe - doh!!

Even though $26.5 million of securities have been sold, the project needs to sell at least $55 million in total to avoid triggering a redemption of all the bonds, Ken Ham, the nonprofit’s president, said in an email to supporters Thursday. Without the proceeds, construction funding will fall short, he said.

[,,,}
“We still need those Ark supporters who weren’t able to purchase the Ark bonds at closing to prayerfully consider participating in a secondary bond delivery at the level they had indicated to us,” Ham said. “Will you please step out in faith with us?”

[,,,]
Industrial-development bonds are considered the riskiest municipal debt because they account for the largest proportion of defaults in the $3.7 trillion municipal market. Williamstown issued the bonds without a rating, making the prospect of repayment even less clear.

[,,,]
The documents cite at least 39 risks to buyers, including that Answers in Genesis has no obligation to back the debt. Bondholders’ sole revenue stream would come from money spent by visitors.


Noah's Ark biblical theme park project risks collapsing without more bond buyers | The Courier-Journal | courier-journal.com

This is happening: Bill Nye ‘The Science Guy’ will face Creation Museum founder Ken Ham in debate

Bad move on Nye's part, the legitimacy issue is is why Dawkins will not debate creationists as well: "‘See, I debated a prominent scientist; I must be taken seriously now.’" Hell no!!

In an exciting and somewhat controversial development, Bill Nye “The Science Guy” will debate Creation Museum founder Ken Ham next month.

The topic of the debate will be whether the Bible-based version of Earth’s origins can hold up to scrutiny. The event will take place February 4 at the Creation Museum in Petersburg, Kentucky.

Ham, the president and CEO of Answers in Genesis, said that he’s excited to debate Nye.

“It’s quite rare these days for such a well-known evolutionist to publicly debate a creationist – so we do expect a lot of media interest,” Ham said on his Facebook page.



This is happening: Bill Nye ‘The Science Guy’ will face Creation Museum founder Ken Ham in debate