The Questioning Librarian

One of the most charming things about Answers in Genesis is a series of articles they call " Arguments Christians Shouldn't Use ," citing a number of arguments that young-earth creationists might use in defense of a literal reading of Genesis that even the charlatans at AiG don't think are good arguments. This is, to anyone who has read the standard fare of this organization, ironic in the extreme. A quick glance over the list of these "bad arguments" reveals claims that most defenders of evolution have heard before in one form or another, ranging from the simply inane (" If Humans Evolved from Apes, Why Do Apes Exist Today? ") to those that are outright lies (The infamous " Darwin Deathbed Conversion " fraud).   The ordinary creationist might be forgiven for seeing Answers dismiss these patently bad arguments and thinking that, since the organization isn't willing to use just any  argument to advance their claims, Ken Ham and a...

If there is anything that I should have learned by now, Ken Ham will use any occasion to spew the nonsense of Answers in Genesis. And I mean ANY occasion. The death of Christopher Hitchens, noted public intellectual, journalist and atheist, is no exception at all. Of course, we should expect Ham and his kind to crow at the death of an atheist, one who thought young-earth creationism nonsense and didn't hesitate to say so either. Still, the very visible exhortations of glee from certain quarters is downright sickening to anyone with even a rudimentary sense of morality. I won't shed a tear when Ken Ham dies, but neither will I dance in the streets, as much as I find him an odious human being whose entire life has been dedicated to spreading lies. Though Ham himself says nothing, he introduces " Two Perspectives on the Passing of an Atheist " which contain much happiness at the death of Hitchens, including a statement that "Hitchens is no longer shaking a fist a...

Over at Answers in Genesis, an anonymous article (I think it reasonable to assume that Ken Ham is the author, or even if it isn't it cites one of his articles and encapsulates views he has expressed elsewhere) decides that the people peddling creationism don't want to be called "young-earth creationists" anymore. The author states that to many, announcing yourself a young-earth creationist (or YEC) is like saying "I'm an anti-science mystic." Well, I couldn't have stated it better myself. Young earth creationists are the pinnacle of anti-science mystics, especially the ones taking an active, promotional role. Old earth creationists are slightly less so, and theistic evolutionists have it mostly right (though in speaking to several, some of the positions they hold are bizarre and anti-science as well). The strange world of Answers in Genesis, where it is more plausible to believe that a six hundred year old man brought two of every "kind...

This one is almost too easy. Ken Ham, the co-founder of the Creation Museum (2007) and Answers in Genesis (1994), is a Biblical literalist who formerly taught biology in Australia before moving to the United States in 1987. Author of The Lie: Evolution , Ham is in the vanguard of creationism as one of its most vocal proponents. He regularly posts blogs and articles on the Answers in Genesis website, claiming over 1.25 million visitors to the Museum and ten million hits on the AiG website. Ham promotes the notion that dinosaurs were on the Ark, that they can exist comfortably  within the framework of the Bible  and that any Christians who find that evolution is compatible with their faith are nothing but a bunch of compromisers who ignore that a literal Genesis is  fundamental  to a Christian worldview. He is also fond of repeating that the creation-evolution "debate" is a choice between God's inerrant Word and "man's fallible opinion", along with the standa...

Ken Ham  complains about speculation . He whines heartily that "secularists" can speculate about the universe, get it written up and published in a reputable science journal while as soon as creationists turn to Genesis 1 they are the focus of mocking and ridicule. How sad for him that not only does he seem to learn nothing over time, but he seems completely unaware as to how science proceeds. The idea of the multiverse, which he dismisses as "speculation", is not even close to being on the same level as the creationist world view. Or is he claiming that the literal interpretation of the Genesis account is just speculation? No, I thought not. He's just mad that "speculation" gets the press while "creation science" gets the mockery. What he doesn't seem to understand, or deliberately ignores, is that the notion of the multiverse seems to arise naturally out of modern physics. Just read Stephen Hawking's book The Grand Design . While ...

Ken Ham complains that evolutionists and non-Christians are intolerant towards creationists and Christians  while mouthing platitudes about tolerance. I will not speak to his first example, for that is another topic entirely, but I do want to focus on the second example, quoting Jerry Coyne (author of the excellent book Why Evolution is True  which I highly recommend as an overview of the evidence for evolution) as saying that having a belief in Intelligent Design should automatically disqualify any  scientist from getting a job in the university. I want to say first that I completely agree with Coyne. Any scientist who expresses belief in the idea of Intelligent Design should be considered as unfit to teach science at the university level. Why do I say this? I'll address that in a moment. But first is the idea that this makes Coyne "intolerant" of the beliefs of others, especially Christians. Ham quotes Coyne stating that he abhors religious discrimination is abhorrent...

Well, another satisfied customer of the Answers in Genesis propaganda wagon, dedicated to an unrelenting assault upon science until there are no educated, critical thinkers left to criticize the drivel that daily emanates from that mad sect.  http://yfrog.com/hscg9sgj If the link doesn't work, do let me know, but in short this is a screenshot of a comment posted on Ken Ham's page, provided to me by Daniel Jonas (thanks for keeping me informed on AiG antics). The woman credits Ham for the following statement made by her child. In church, he noted that no one in the child's program, when asked what they wanted to be when they grew up, wanted to be a scientist. "Is it because they are mostly liars?" the child asked. Thanks,  Ken, for discrediting the validity of ALL science in your quest to discredit the good science of evolution. Hopefully the child will come to some semblance of reason, but childhood indoctrination is a hard thing to break. Oh, and one more thi...

There is a rather odd little article from Answers in Genesis that tries to have it both ways; a literal creation but one that was created "ageless." http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/am/v3/n4/mature-age The universe does not "look old" but is "mature" instead. Because, according to Ham, all of the dating techniques used in conventional science are wrong, they cannot be trusted to give an accurate reading of the past as they are "fallible." He asserts that creation scientists have "proven" repeatedly that the dating techniques are inaccurate. To this I would respond that, if "creation scientists", an oxymoron if there ever was one, had proof or truly good reason to assert that the dating techniques were wrong, then get it published in a reputable science journal rather than engaging in the collective back-scratching of Young-Earth Creationist publications. Science is a self-correcting mechanism; if a hypothesis or th...

Two homeschooling conventions have officially kicked Answers in Genesis out of their roster, leaving Ken Ham stunned and angry! Sadly, the organizers of the one, in an email to AiG, stated that the suspension of Ham's folk was not because they disagreed with his fundamental positions; they do, completely! No, they were annoyed by Ham's public attacks on one of their speakers, a man from the notorious BioLogos, an organization that twists itself into ever-greater levels of nonsensical complexity in arguing for the fundamental compatibility of the Genesis story and modern scientific findings. The Australian biology teacher and childhood indoctrinator extraordinaire was upset that someone who "compromises" on God's word in Genesis was allowed to peddle material to homeschoolers. He only wants his  material expressing his viewpoint to reach the little children, and makes his case in a long, rambling response that I only link in order to give you the full text of the e...

I'm a glutton for punishment. I was at the library a while ago and, looking at the cart of books being sold, I found the Revised & Expanded Answers Book , with one of the authors none other than Mr. Ham. Immediately excited at the prospect of several hundred pages of his comedy stylings (and those of the odious Safarti) I purchased it for about fifty cents, which means I got a lot of intellectual contortions for my money. Quickly into the book, we hit on the real reason why creationists like Ham don't accept evolution; the alleged consequences of the theory. A nice illustration sums it up; with "Creation" at the foundation, we are shown a wholesome society with "God's Word", "Laws", "Marriage", "Standards" and "Meaning of Life" ascending from that. But when we have "Evolution" at the foundation (cue ominous music and lightning) we have listed "Man's Opinion", "Lawlessness", ...

If you thought Ken Ham was harmless, think again. He is videotaped here teaching children how to "resist" the teaching of evolution in classrooms. The response to millions of years of earth history: "Were you there?" This is what passes for intelligent thought in the "Answers in Genesis" world. How about a few other things along that same line. Hey, kids, what do you do when your teacher talks about the Holocaust? "Were you there?" What about the height of Imperial Rome? "Were you there?" World War One? "Were you there?" The vaccinations of Jonas Salk? "Were you there?" Ok, children, thanks for your input. At issue here is how we know what we know. A person doesn't have to have literally been there to know an event happened. We piece the past together through evidence and sound reasoning whether in history, paleontology or physics. No one now alive was witness to the Spanish-American War, the electio...

That's right. Ken Ham posted on his Answers in Genesis website how disappointed and upset he was when he saw Glenn Beck and a Jewish rabbi discussing the Tower of Babel, not in a literal sense but as a figurative tale. Unsurprisingly, Glenn Beck saw it as a parable about socialism, how man all became the same, but then God brought down the tower and everyone became happy individuals again. It's an interpretation that could nicely be called "novel", but of course Beck has many such "novel" interpretations of things. Ken Ham's just mad that Beck doesn't (apparently) believe in a literal Babel. Here's the link:  http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/2011/01/24/help-us-defend Ken wants us all to know that his supporters should pray, or give money, to help defend the truth of AiG from an unbelieving world."We need to be doing all we can to help people understand that the history in the Bible is true." Yes, because we all know that eve...

Ken just can't stand all the bad press he's been getting in the blogosphere over his "Ark Encounters" project, as well as for a lifetime spent trashing science and promoting a fable. He complained about it twice on his Facebook page in the past few days; he consoled himself with the statement of a friend that "Nothing reveals the heart of a man more than blog space!" Ham writes that it makes him think of a verse from the Bible, Jeremiah 17:9, "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked. Who can know it?" So, for everyone out here, a (mercifully) brief glimpse into the inner workings of Ken Ham's mind. Blogs=heart of man. Thus bad blog press=wicked sinful man. Or more succinctly, blogs critical of him signal the sinful nature of man. Because after all, lying to children, parents, the general public, the people and government of Kentucky, whether willfully or not, isn't wrong if it is done in the service of God, right? ...

I happened upon the website for Answers in Genesis this morning and found, under Ken Ham's blog, a lovely post where he has put up the account of a young girl who visited the Creation Museum. http://blogs.answersingenesis.org/blogs/ken-ham/2011/01/18/a-day-at-the-creation-museum/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+KenHam+(Around+the+World+with+Ken+Ham) Isn't it great to know that, right now, even as I write this, children are being encouraged to believe that which never was, that which science has continually shown to be untrue? Instead of giving the future of America a first-rate education in the sciences, and the reality of what science is telling us, we get a definite subculture in promoting a delusion, that of a literal, six-day creation. This child writes of seeing representations of Adam and Eve, of Methuselah, and Noah building the Ark (just how exactly did he fit all of those animals on board...and if the waters covered all the world,...