Big Valley Creation Science Museum—The Press Page
The Big Valley Creation Science Museum in Alberta is a tiny building full of big lies. It opened on June 5th. At that time, we looked at their promotional video. In just a few days, it will have its “grand opening”, even though it has been running for a month already. Maybe that’s how creationists can get away with claiming that the Earth is only 6000 years old. It “unofficially” opened 4.5 billion years ago, but it didn’t have its grand opening until Sunday, October 23, 4004 BCE.
In honor of the Big Valley Creation Science Museum’s grand opening this weekend, I thought it would be worth looking at their web site. Let’s start with the Press page, because it distills the essence of the museum onto one page. It’s sort of the eau de toilette, with the emphasis on the toilet. It starts with:
The museum is located on main street in Big Valley … right across from the train station.
Oh, good! The citizens have a rail on which to run these blockheads out of town.
The vision of Harry Nibourg to offer a scientific and biblically based alternative to the evolutionary view of earth history … has become a reality in Big Valley, Alberta.
So which is it? Scientific or Biblical? According to the Bible, pi = 3, so it’s hardly the source I turn to for reliable science.
It is Canada’s first permanent creation museum.
As weird as that sounds, Canada has at least two traveling creationism museums. I wonder if that’s by necessity and not design. If your museum is on wheels, you can flee town before the locals realize they’ve been swindled.
The artifacts and displays in the museum have been obtained from around the world and it is immediately evident when you step into the museum that you are looking at world class fossils and displays.
As in third-world class.
There are numerous themes presented in the museum displays including:
“Evidence From Geology” display which deals with the geological column….
I wish a geological column would fall on this museum.
“Fossils and the Flood” is a fantastic visual arrangement…
Finally, some truth from these people! Here’s the first (i.e., preferred or dominant) definition of “fantastic”, according to Merriam-Webster:
1 a : based on fantasy : not real b : conceived or seemingly conceived by unrestrained fancy c : so extreme as to challenge belief : UNBELIEVABLE
At least there’s a little truth in advertising. Continuing with the BVCSM Press page:
…that contains only genuine, museum quality fossils and a giant model of Noah’s ark.
The “giant” model somehow manages to fit inside their tiny museum building! The only thing giant about the model is the lie it tells.
“Dinosaurs and Humans” display shows considerable evidence that not only did dinosaurs exist recently, but also that humans existed with them.
That’s right! Mr. and Mrs. Ogg living right next door to their wacky neighbors, the Velociraptors! “Hey honey, the Velos invited us over for dinner!”
“Terrible Lizards” display demonstrate dinosaurs were one of God’s greatest creations (Job 40 & 41).
Again, according to Merriam-Webster, “dinosaur” comes from the Greek deinos terrifying + sauros lizard. A “terrifying lizard” is a better description than a “terrible lizard”. This is yet another simple detail that these creationists can’t get right. (Here’s another site with more information about the origin of the term.)
“Bacterial Flagellum and DNA” are interactive displays … which provide compelling evidence for creation and refute any unguided, ‘natural’ processes such as evolution.
Creationists keep bringing this up, as if the bacterial flagellum has some sort of a magical ability. It doesn’t. It’s a simple mechanical system that evolved just like millions of other simple mechanical systems in nature.
I think that fundies have a subconscious flagellation fetish. It’s apparently the only form of self-abuse that they approve of. Self-flagellation used to be quite the thing for the devout to do on a Saturday night, or any other time they were feeling randy. It’s all to reenact the fundies’ favorite snuff film, the crucifixion of Jesus.
“Age of the Earth” display packs a pile of leading-edge information regarding dating methods, fast fossils, rapid cave formations and Out of Place Artifacts.
Well, it packs a pile of something!
“Evidence From Genealogy” is one of the favourite displays of our visitors. These scrolls from the Lambeth Palace in England trace the genealogy of King Henry the 6th and the current monarchy of Queen Elizabeth back to Adam and Eve.
I haven’t the foggiest idea what that’s supposed to prove. That genealogy was manufactured in the 15th century by the royal court to try to justify the monarchy’s dictatorship over the populace. By counterfeiting a document “proving” that Henry #6 was descended from A&E, they could justify their claims of divine rule.
By this logic, the BVCSM might as well stock their museum with all of the hoaxes that P.T. Barnum created for his fake museums. A fake mermaid doesn’t prove that mermaids exist, only that some people know how to create lies convincing enough to fool the retarded. There’s a fundie born every minute.
The final paragraph on this page tries to convince the unwary to make the long detour from wherever they are really going to come way out to Big Valley to see this house of lies. It finishes with:
Additionally you can make it a day’s adventure by booking a trip on Alberta’s Steam Train which includes lunch and a train robbery.
As opposed to the Big Valley Creation Science Museum, which is merely highway robbery.
July 9th, 2007 at 1:18 am
Additionally you can make it a day’s adventure by booking a trip on Alberta’s Steam Train which includes lunch and a train robbery.
What??!
July 9th, 2007 at 3:58 am
Here vis skeptic’s circle. They should look at Alfred the Great’s genealogy in Asser – in a great compromise between paganism and Christianity traces his descent from biblical figues via Woden. Yes, that Woden. Most major Welsh figures go through Brutus on their way to the bible, which is similarly wonderful.
July 13th, 2007 at 1:49 pm
So, I’ll see you there? You sounded like you wanted to go!
July 22nd, 2007 at 8:34 pm
I don’t get it. We have irrefutable evidence of mutations happening everyday around us. Creationists are forced to acknowledge their existence. How do they reconcile that fact with their idiotic claim that nothing changes and all was created “in the beginning”? The mind boggles.
July 22nd, 2007 at 10:33 pm
Most of them believe in “micro-evolution”, which is how things can change in small ways. They just don’t like the idea that one “kind” changes into another.
Some of them even use evolution to explain how Noah’s Ark could hold a bazillion animals. It didn’t have to! All it had to do was hold a few holobaramins and let the modern animals evolve from those, once they stepped off the ark. Of course, there are no transitional fossils to support that idea!
For more about this stuff, see these prior articles:
Fundie Taxonomy
Kangaroos: Jumping to the Wrong Conclusions with Conservapedia
Don’t be Kind
July 31st, 2007 at 9:13 am
“Keeping the radical right at bay” Good slogan! You’ve joined the titanic struggle between right and wrong…and you support the dark side.
Cute mockery is your weapond of choice… is that because truth is not part of your arsenal?
Satire can serve both sides…but is not pretty. I used it in http://www.emperorswithoutclothes.com and I support it with reasoned argument.
If you attempt to present real proof of real evolution, you will soon discover that there is none.
Repentance and rebirth can set you free. You are closer than you think!
July 31st, 2007 at 10:49 am
Thank you for entertaining my readers.
I’m just trying to preserve the Constitution. Thank you for telling us which side you think Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and George Washington are on.
I present both mockery and truth on this website. Some articles have more of one than the other. You obviously haven’t read the rest of the site.
I’ve presented real proof of evolution in some of the articles. If you’re still confused and need more proof, I suggest you check out the links in the sidebar under “Evolution Explained”.
Sorry. Ever since Roe v. Wade, I’ve had freedom of choice. My rebirth has been aborted.
August 1st, 2007 at 12:13 am
“It’s a simple mechanical system that evolved just like millions of other simple mechanical systems in nature.”
Who’s in denial here? The bacterial flagellum is hardly simple … unless you ascribe ’simplicity’ to electric motors, stators, rotors, high-speed bearings etc.
Tell me you’re not a professional engineer … you surely would not regard such important and intelligent inventions as trivial happenstance, the inevitable outcome of throwing metals, molecules and materials around?
It could not ‘evolve’ such parts separately by random copying errors (mutations), let alone ‘evolve’ a production line for assembly, nor ‘evolve’ a system of reproduction.
What I find remarkable about this kind of evolutionism is the complete lack of self-awareness.
There is this ridiculing of the faith of others, not stopping to think or consider for one moment just how much of their own position is based on faith and presupposition.
When it ridicules the faith of others, it is, ipso facto, ridiculing itself.
August 1st, 2007 at 1:25 am
Please learn some biology before you go spouting your mouth off, Dr. Gitt.
I just read your bio over at AIG. Apparently you are a skilled and well-regarded physicist. This does not make you an expert in every science. Your statements about evolution show a colossal lack of understanding of the subject.
August 6th, 2007 at 9:27 am
There goes that lack of self-awareness again!
Here’s a website, a public proclamation if you will, by a non-scientist, non-engineer, non-biologist .. essentially an un-lettered man … who accuses university professors, scientists, Ph.Ds etc of “SPOUTING OFF“.
And he doesn’t even see the contradiction – it’s almost painful.
Ah, the Left.
August 6th, 2007 at 9:46 am
Really, you know that I’m not a scientist? Not an engineer? Not a biologist? I have been employed as all three at different times in my life. Once again, you creationists make claims for which you have no evidence.
Instead of attacking people, why don’t you simply provide some evidence for your absurd claims? I don’t mean that shit that you call evidence. I mean real, credible, verifiable, evidence that can stand up to peer review. I don’t mean your peers, either. If you want to play in this ballpark, you need to assemble a team. T-ball doesn’t cut it.
August 8th, 2007 at 10:04 pm
Did I just read the proprietor of this website complain of being “attacked“?
Breathtaking!!
Indeed, the proprietor appears to have no self-awareness whatsoever, as was stated above.
Here is an internet website, a public forum, given over to “attacking” and ridiculing other people … particularly people of faith, which, as has been pointed out, overwhelmingly includes the proprietor …
… yet he whines and opines that he is being “attacked” when those he has been “attacking” respond to his malevolent jibes!
This is quite astonishing in its double-standard and acute lack of self-awareness.
“Do as I say, not as I do” says Mr Britton.
OB should apologise for not checking his facts .. or for making presumptions … but Mr Britton can quickly correct the record since it IS his website.
So it turns out that Mr Britton IS in fact a lettered scientist.
We would naturally love to know more about the details of your degrees, qualifications, publications, achievements etc.
We would ask whether they stack up against the towering track record of those Mr Britton “attacks”, such as the following:
Creation Scientist Biographies
We find it doubtful, and would accordingly, cordially and respectfully invite Mr Britton to go back to mama and ask her to teach him how to have respect for others, particularly those who are his betters.
He seems never to have learned that lesson.
August 8th, 2007 at 11:11 pm
You are correct. I used the word “attack”. However, I’m not feeling persecuted. I just thought it was foolish (and typical) of AIG creationists to sling mud at somebody without checking up on the facts first. If they want to sling groundless accusations around, go right ahead. That’s typical behavior, from what I’ve seen.
As far as respect goes, that is something that has to be earned. The creationists’ grasp of biology is so incorrect that not only can I not respect them, they have actually earned my disrespect.
October 26th, 2007 at 4:11 pm
Whether you recieve it or not…be praying for you.
November 2nd, 2008 at 11:50 am
The mystery of ancestral descent, from Noah’s Ark
This is tale which tells what recessive genes hold, what inbreeding cause’s and what degenerate animals look like.
A male lion breeds with a female tiger, makes a liger of great size!
2
a male leopard breed with a female lion brings forth a leopon. Which not only has the size and strength of the lion but also has the climbing abilities of the leopard.
3
All that has so far been said, is recognized by science.
4
Now into the realm of what has not yet been ‘validated’ (by science).
5
All the other cats are said to interbreed
from time to time.
6
The division of Species is based on the idea that, only members of the same ‘Species’ can indeed breed.
But if all cats ( including the Egyptian house cat) can breed, they are not different Species but only subspecies of the original cat.
Now, if the liger is bigger and the leopon is of the same size and better. Then it comes to reason that the original cat from off the Ark was a super cat.
Scientists say that the “extra” abilities that come out of these ‘hybrids’ are caused by “recessive genes”
Recessive Genes are created by inbreeding.
Now here is the part that might interest a historian.
Gen 7:2
“Of every clean beast thou shalt take to thee by sevens, the male and his female: and of beasts that are not clean by two, the male and his female.”
In this I think that the clean animals were allowed to descend without inbreeding and therefore pure. While the others were forced into inbreeding, which caused their abilities to go into ‘Recessive genes’. The ancients had enough trouble with the lions, tigers, etc. So this might have been set to preserve man. Did you know that in India they breed the wild dog with the wolf to get a bigger breed. This alone means nothing, except that there is a story whcih appeared shortly after the flood. No later that 500 years, or 600, or 700, etc, after the flood. The story told of a great king who had wolves so great that his men were able to ride upon them, for they were far greater than any horse.
Maybe I’m going nowhere, but if only two cats, two dogs, two bears, etc, walked off the Ark. Then I say that it would immediately force inbreeding, which in turn would force abilities to go into recessive genes. And (to the point) would force the super Cat to degenerate into the lion, tiger, leopard, cheetah and house cat that we have today.
I’m sorry I couldn’t help joking and calling the lion and tiger a degenerate.
“In the production of pure breeds of sheep, cattle, hogs, and horses inbreeding has frequently been practiced extensively, and where in such cases selection has been made of the more vigorous offspring as parents, it is doubtful whether any diminution in size, vigor, or fertility has resulted. Nevertheless it very frequently happens that when two pure breeds are crossed, the offspring surpass either pure race in size and vigor.”
Sudden Origins by Jeffrey H. Schwartz
The tiger is either a pure breed are a degenerate species!
Or I say.
They are one and the same..!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Else, the reason why the clean were in sevens as opposed to the others.
Genetic research (and this basic reasoning and breeding) has shown that every type of wolf, dog, fox and coyote etc. came from the 1 original wolf.
Scott, John Paul and John L. Fuller Genetics and the Social Behavior of the Dog
Behaviour of Wolves, Dogs and Related Canines (Hardcover) by Michael W. Fox
Mitochondrial Eve (mt-mrca)
“Mitochondrial Eve is the ………..common ancestor (MRCA) of all human via the mitochondrial DNA pathway . In other words, she is the MRCA found when ancestry of all living humans is traced back in time, following only the maternal lineage. Mitochondrial DNA pathway is equivalent to maternal lineage, because Mitochondrial DNA is only passed down from mother to child, never father to child. [1]”
Camel-Llama-alpaca
All known subspecies of the “horse” are known to breed!
1 Last thing.
this theory is observable & testable, in that you can breed new ‘breeds’ of dogs in just a few years. But each of these will have less ‘ablities’ than the last.
Just take 2 dogs (of your choice) & place them in a zoo. Now there children will be fine but as there children breed with each other you will see the same thing happen. Only it will go ten times further than before.
Kentish Son
I am sending this into the world because I want to get the word out.
November 2nd, 2008 at 12:44 pm
That last comment is spam. He’s been leaving this same comment on other blogs. I decided to leave it in, because it’s so funny. I did remove the link to his own site. Spammers don’t get rewarded with links.
Creationists work extremely hard to prop up their house of cards, as the above comment illustrates. If anyone is confused by his ramblings, you should watch this video: Cheetahs Disprove Noah’s Ark.
March 26th, 2009 at 2:11 pm
You all should be thankful Jesus died on the cross for you, not make fun of him. You will go to hell for doing so.
March 26th, 2009 at 4:16 pm
Ah, yes. Now there’s some more of that vaunted Christian “love” for you!
I wonder, Lauren, does it give you a small sense of smug satisfaction to literally tell someone with whom you disagree to go to Hell? I think it does. Come on. You can be honest with us. You love the idea of all of us dickhead atheists getting our just desserts when we die, don’t you?
Here’s something I hope you ponder, if you even read this: even if the celestial rules pertaining to life and death are as you describe them, why in the frak would I even want them to be true? Not only do I not believe in your tyrannical, jealous ogre of a deity, I am so fucking glad he doesn’t exist. Your idea of heaven, replete with the endless worship of a being so richly undeserving of it sounds a hell of a lot worse than death to me. Give me the same eternity of nothingness when I die that I experienced before I was even born. That didn’t seem to bother me in the slightest.
March 27th, 2009 at 4:08 am
It most certainly does. It’s part of their obscene power fantasy, but most are unaware of it, and they’d certainly never admit it, in any case. If there is a group of people less prone to introspection than Christians, I have yet to come across it.
Lauren saw something here that gave her a momentary twinge of doubt. She lashed out and ran away to reassure herself; this is one of the hallmarks of addiction. Probably started praying, or went immediately to a Christian site to buttress the walls of her fortress of denial.
March 27th, 2009 at 4:34 pm
Never to return to this accursed site, no doubt. I’m betting that she truly feels like she won one for the Lord with her brief comment. Seriously, she’s so out of touch she most likely believes we’ll be persuaded by her scolding.
You’re correct about Christians’ aversion to self-examination and criticism of their precious faith. As I said in another comment, I believe this to be indicative of a profound insecurity about their beliefs, whether they realize it or not. Lashing out at something you not only don’t understand but assiduously try to avoid comprehending is a classic example.
At any rate, I’d love for her to know that the prayers she surely made on our collective behalf had absolutely no effect.
March 27th, 2009 at 5:32 pm
Frankly, I think drive-by posting ought to be illegal. If they leave a snarky remark, they should be made to hang around and deal with the responses.
For people so frikking obsessed with the idea of consequences for actions, Christians really do seem to think they can say whatever the fuck they feel like saying and get away with it.
March 27th, 2009 at 5:32 pm
What an amazing thread. Truly stunning levels of cognitive dissonance so insistently displayed and aggressively argued are rare. Usually you just get the shrieking fundies whose caps-lock key and ! key seem to be permanently stuck. But people who can actually write a whole sentence and spell most of the words correctly…and who claim to be scientists with real degrees who still rabidly defend medieval superstition and a belief in supernatural explanations…well, I must say I’m impressed.