Creationist Students Take Field Trip to Hotbed of Evolution:

[Nieztchean Uber-Amoeba]

The Genesis of a Debate
Creationist Students Take Field Trip to Hotbed of Evolution: The Smithsonian

By Steve Hendrix
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, March 11, 2009; Page A01

Every winter, David DeWitt takes his biology class to the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History, but for a purpose far different from that of other professors.
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DeWitt brings his Advanced Creation Studies class (CRST 390, Origins) up from Liberty University in Lynchburg, Va., hoping to strengthen his students' belief in a biblical view of natural history, even in the lion's den of evolution.

His yearly visit to the Smithsonian is part of a wider movement by creationists to confront Darwinism in some of its most redoubtable secular strongholds. As scientists celebrate the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin's birth, his doubters are taking themselves on Genesis-based tours of natural history museums, aquariums, geologic sites and even dinosaur parks.

"There's nothing balanced here. It's completely, 100 percent evolution-based," said DeWitt, a professor of biology. "We come every year, because I don't hold anything back from the students."

Creationists, who take their view of natural history straight from the book of Genesis, believe that scientific data can be interpreted to support their idea that God made the first human, Adam, in an essentially modern form 6,000 to 10,000 years ago.

A 2006 poll by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life found that 42 percent of Americans believe humans have always existed in their present form. At universities such as Liberty, founded by the late Jerry Falwell, those views inform the entire science curriculum.

Like the Liberty students, avowed creationists across the country are making a practice of challenging the conventional wisdom at zoos (questioning the evolutionary explanation of giraffe necks), the Grand Canyon (dating the rock layers in thousands, not millions, of years), and cave parks (describing the formations as evidence of rapid drainage after the Great Flood).

In the upcoming issue of Answers, a leading magazine of the young-Earth movement, the list of "creation vacations" includes the Lowell Observatory in Arizona, the New England Aquarium in Boston and London's Natural History Museum.

"Why should we be afraid to test our worldview against reality?" asked Bill Jack, a Christian leadership instructor who leads groups across the country for a company called Biblically Correct Tours. "If Christianity is true, it better be true in the natural history museums and in the zoos."

Creationists have been popping up in enough mainstream institutions that one museum has produced a creation-vs.-evolution primer to help volunteer docents handle their sometimes-pointed questions. When the Museum of the Earth in Ithaca, N.Y., published its guide, more than 50 museums called looking for a copy, according to director Warren Allmon.

But creationists say the purpose of their visits to what some describe as "temples to evolution" is to train themselves to think critically, not to pick rhetorical fights with curators or other visitors.

"I'm not standing up and saying to everybody in the room, 'Gather around,' " Jack said. "That would be disruptive. But I'm speaking loudly enough for my people to hear and sometimes others join in."

At the Smithsonian, officials said they were unaware of any organized visits by avowed creationists but said they are welcome. Still, all visitors should come knowing that the museum -- like all mainstream natural history institutions -- is fundamentally Darwinian, said spokesman Randall Kremer.

"Evolution is the unifying principle for all the biology, past and present, in our halls," Kremer said. "That is the foundation of the research we conduct at the museum."

Actually, the field trippers from Liberty University didn't find much to object to at their first stop, the museum's soaring hall of fossils. DeWitt's main complaint was that the 1980s-era introductory film on the beginning of life was woefully outdated (lots of dancing amoebas, no mention of DNA).

"It's embarrassing," said DeWitt, who found himself filling in some of the latest evolutionary thinking for his students. His PhD in neuroscience is from Case Western Reserve University. "As an educator, I want them to see the most up-to-date material."

Otherwise, the 20 students listened attentively as co-leader Marcus Ross, an enthusiastic paleontologist who teaches at Liberty, expertly explained about the world-class fossil collection and told ripping tales of the towering tyrannosaurus rex that was casting skeletal shadows over the group.

"I love it here," said Ross, who has a doctorate in geosciences from the University of Rhode Island. "There's something romantic about seeing the real thing."

Modern creationists don't deny the existence of dinosaurs but believe that God made them, and all animals, on the same sixth day that he created man. In fact, Ross's only real beef in the fossil hall is with the 30-foot lighted column that is a timeline marking 630 million years of geology. As a young-Earth creationist, he asserts that the vast majority of the rocks and fossils were formed during Noah's flood about 4,000 years ago. Most paleontologists date the T-Rex to 65 million years ago.
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The group moved on, talking quietly among themselves. At a diorama of a hominid burial site, a Liberty student described how the famous Neanderthal brow ridge is really not that distinct from many found on modern human skulls.

"The really big difference is between human and ape skulls," said David Asfour, 28, a general biology major.

At one point, DeWitt called them together under a Nigerian proverb stenciled on a wall. "The Earth goddess fashions the human body just as the potter fashions her pot," DeWitt read. "So there is some religion here."

But in the hall of mammals, which reopened in 2003 after a $23 million renovation, evolution assumes center stage, and the Liberty students grew a bit more subdued. They openly admired the well-lighted, meticulously designed dioramas. But they lamented that the texts and videos give no credit at all to a higher power for the wondrous animal variety on display.

Near the end of the "Evolution Trail," the class showed no signs of being swayed by the polished, enthusiastic presentation of Darwin's theory. They were surprised, though, by the bronze statue of man's earliest mammalian ancestor.

"A rat?" exclaimed Amanda Runions, a 21-year-old biochemistry major, when she saw the model of a morganucodon, a rodent-like ancient mammal that curators have dubbed Grandma Morgie. "All this hype for a rat? You're expecting, like, at least an ape."

Before heading back to Lynchburg each year, DeWitt makes a point of stopping by the Jefferson Memorial. The quotes on the wall there (his favorite: "Can the liberties of a nation be secure when we have removed a conviction that these liberties are the gift of God?") make for a better ending to the trip than the secular shades of the museum, he said.

I'd be rather interested to learn how a paleontologist can also be a YEC, but furthermore I have to give credit to Creationists effectively inoculating their flock by going to real science places rather than simply giving them the standard Mushroom Treatment.

Link to the Washington Post article: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 03721.html

[hongi]

I'd be rather interested to learn how a paleontologist can also be a YEC

Extreme cognitive dissonance.Deception as well. The guy wrote a dissertion for Christ's sake on mosasaurs and in there he used all the conventional millions of years dating. The dishonesty is just mindblowing...

[Covenant]

I'd definately not give them credit for this--they're not challenging their own assumptions, they're just arming themselves with nonsense against it. While I assume they'd accuse me of doing the same thing, the weight of evidence falls in favor of an old Earth and evolution, so what they're really doing is reducing the shock value of having your ideas challenged in such all-encompassing dramatic fashion. If they can go, in a comfortable support group, and walk the halls of science they can ignore all evidence entirely.

I'd give them some credit for going to these places to examine the evidence and do some thinking, instead of just picking on science teachers and outdated research. But there's no merit in learning "to think critically" when there's no criticism or thinking. These educators are, by their own actions, quite willing to subvert some basic standards of ethics.

I'm not sure what exactly is most distasteful about that kind of misrepresentation, but I think the biggest disconnect is how easily he can treat evidence as an opinion, something which is at the heart of what a scientist is. While he should not be sneered at for having a minority theory, I don't see how he can claim to be a scientist and yet have no interest in holding any standard for evidence. I know the answer is cognitive dissonance, but I really hate how they're parading their degrees around at the same time as they attempt to make them worthless by showing they don't respect the authority of the issuing agency enough to write a paper based on their actual theory.

[Traveller]

I have heard of this sort of thing before, these trips have nothing to do with teaching anything like critical thinking. While this DeWitt clown claims to be nice and polite, he lets slip one of the real reasons for these field trips.

"I'm not standing up and saying to everybody in the room, 'Gather around,' " Jack said. "That would be disruptive. But I'm speaking loudly enough for my people to hear and sometimes others join in."

There are several things they hope to acheive on these forrays. One, despite his claims, in many of these instances, the creationists are in fact, disruptive. While i have not heard of any case(s) of the nutcases getting expelled(no pun intended), quite of number of them do seem to enjoy testing just how far they can go. Many of these trips are used to prostelize, if media attention is gained, so much the better. Another purpose it serves is largely rhetorical as well. Creationists love to appear to be seen as 'rational', 'thinking critically', for lack of a better word, its a form of resume padding. This is merely a small part of a larger strategy, debate real scientists, try to graduate credentialed creationists(ie Wells, Behe), denigrate real science useing any and all means etc. Lastly, visiting 'temples to evolution', is there equivalent of a test of faith. Personally, I find it beyond ironic that a lot of these 'tours' involve usually one or two creationists leading around there flock of fundies, telling them WHAT TO THINK. Or as Kem Ham loves to say interpreting the evidence for them.

It is also likely, these tours are in large part, a repsonse to the numerous trips made to ken Hams Flat-Earth creation museum by real scientists.

Here is a link, featureing these BC nut-cases in action: A distressing example of child abuse and religious brain-washing if there ever was one. And some people think the decline in American is science is overstated.....

Link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=McxGZyBBXMY

I notice that they also visit observatories as well, no doubt to challenge the ebil Round-Earthers on the own turf as well

[Surlethe]

Split Sky Captain's one-liner. This has potential for discussion, folks; don't make lame-ass one-liners in lieu of actual points.

[Samuel]

"There's nothing balanced here. It's completely, 100 percent evolution-based," said DeWitt, a professor of biology.

Reality has a bias folks.

More seriously, this is part of a disturbing trend where American fundamentalists are trying to carve out a seperate world where their beliefs can exist without fear of contradiction and then push that world on the rest of us, bit by bit. Does anyone know how effective this indoctrination techniques are?

[Setesh]

Near the end of the "Evolution Trail," the class showed no signs of being swayed by the polished, enthusiastic presentation of Darwin's theory. They were surprised, though, by the bronze statue of man's earliest mammalian ancestor.

"A rat?" exclaimed Amanda Runions, a 21-year-old biochemistry major, when she saw the model of a morganucodon, a rodent-like ancient mammal that curators have dubbed Grandma Morgie. "All this hype for a rat? You're expecting, like, at least an ape."

Do the words 'earliest mammalian ancestor' fly right over your head. I'd expect a biochem major to have, like, at least a brain.
I think this right here shows more about the quality of creationist education than anything else. Since biochemistry manifestly demonstrates all life that currently exists is descended from a single ancestor denying evolution is extremely hypocritical at best. A sign her ability to think logically is damaged at worst.

[Darth Wong]

The Smithsonian is a museum, not a critical thinking school. They're not "challenging" their students by taking them through there, especially since they guide them through it. In fact, the whole point of that exercise is to control their perceptions while going through there, so they will never visit the place on their own without the well having been poisoned beforehand.

[Kodiak]

The Smithsonian is a museum, not a critical thinking school. They're not "challenging" their students by taking them through there, especially since they guide them through it. In fact, the whole point of that exercise is to control their perceptions while going through there, so they will never visit the place on their own without the well having been poisoned beforehand.

I agree completely. What they're doing is taking students to the museum, showing them facts, then laying down their own interpretation as the "correct" understanding so that when these students are confronted by fossils and geologic evidence in the future they can say "Yeah, I saw that at the Smithsonian and we were taught....</bullshit> They aren't doing anything other than coaching and pre-emptively slipping their patent answers to tough questions in before they're even asked. If anything they are prevent a challenge from ever occurring.

[Junghalli]

Deception as well. The guy wrote a dissertion for Christ's sake on mosasaurs and in there he used all the conventional millions of years dating. The dishonesty is just mindblowing...

He almost certainly thinks those aren't the real dates, but he's parroting "evolutionist dogma" out of self-preservation. Imagine if you were sent back to the Middle Ages and became an astronomer. You'd know the sun was the center of the solar system, but if you valued your neck you'd lie about it if the question ever came. YECs envision themselves as being in the same position when they have to talk about deep time in a serious academic setting.

[Sarevok]

This is evil beyond belief. What they are doing is training their minds to resist fact in same way athletes train to withstand pain. If creationism can be likened to a virus then it is adapting to the world of modern science by with a newly emerging strain of fact-proof idiots.

[Coyote]

Part of the problem is, they really do see "Darwinism" as a competing belief; a religion. To them, it is just another form of, say, Islam or Hinduism, etc. A person "believes in Darwin" or "believes in science", from their perspective, as if there is some sort of faith needed to go that route...