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Incorporated, a worldwide network of science museums and related institutions.
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This weekend, I had the pleasure of taking my two sons to Dinosaur  
State Park, southwest of Ft. Worth, Texas.  It is a place I highly  
recommend - there are dinosaur footprints visible in the riverbed.   
In the summer, one can wade and swim in the shallow pools.  The most  
spectacular are two sets side by side - one showing a carnivore, the  
other a herbivore.  While there is no way to know if the hunter was  
stalking its prey, it certainly fires the imagination.

But this is really about the issue of pseudo museums.  As I was  
watching my boys on the other side of the river, skipping stones, of  
course, two twenty-something men came down to the bank.  After  
exchanging pleasantries, how cold is the water, etc.  they asked a  
question which stunned me:  "Do you know where the set of tracks are  
showing the human footprints right next to the dinosaurs'?"   Of  
course I said no.  To which they replied, "We stopped at the Museum  
on the way in and they have a picture of them (the side-by-side  
tracks).  They're supposed to be near here.  Boy, that's something  
I'd really like to see."

They had been to the Creation Evidence Museum.  I'm sorry the boys  
and I didn't have time to visit, it would have been fascinating.    
Perhaps I should say it would have been illuminating.  If you have  
time, and the inclination, I recommend perusing their website:

http://tinyurl.com/2rnao9

It is a wonderful example of obfuscation through scientific language.

Recently there was a nice piece on the news about how a creationist/ 
intelligent design organization uses the Denver Museum to take tours  
of home schoolers to show how they, the intelligent designers, are  
right and the rest of us are wrong.  If someone has the link to that,  
I would love to see it shared.

Frankly, I don't know why I feel compelled to share the story of this  
encounter.  I have no desire to make fun of these two young men.   
They are as interested in the pursuit of truth and meaning as anyone  
else.  Nor did I feel any compunction to engage them in a  
conversation about the flaws in what they had seen at the 'museum.'   
I'm not on the front line of the war, or skirmish, or whatever it  
should be called, between intelligent design proponents and those who  
work hard to try and keep pseudo science in its appropriate place -  
outside of science.

If I gained anything from the experience, it is a deeper admiration  
for those who do wage the war.  If I learned anything from the  
experience, looking at their website, it brings home our collective  
willingness to defer to those who offer themselves as experts.


	



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