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The new Chief Astronomer for the Vatican Jose Gabriel Funes says science, especially astronomy, does not contradict religion. He believes the Big Bang Theory is the most "reasonable" explanation for the creation of the universe. The theory says the universe began billions of years ago in the explosion of a single, super-dense point that contained all matter.
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Sound Off: What is being said about this story from around the blogging and opinion world.
Transcript of today's show:
Six months after its opening, the controversial Creation Museum has attracted over one quarter of a million visitors, double the number predicted. The largest audiences are home-school families and Christian school students, who come to learn the creation-based science that the museum so vividly portrays. Museum founder Evangelist Ken Ham, who has focused his ministry extensively on education, has added afternoon lectures and plans several children's workshops.
[source: Northern Kentucky News]Listen to the 1-minute broadcast of this story [mp3]Comment on this story.
from an editorial by James K. Willmot, appearing in the Louisville Courier-Journal:
There is a great educational injustice being inflicted upon thousands of children in this country, a large percentage of whom come from the Kentucky, Ohio and, Indiana areas…. If adults want to believe in a 6,000-year-old Earth, that dinosaurs and humans lived together in harmony (all dinosaurs were vegetarians, you see) and that Noah saved all of the Earth's animal species by placing them on his ark, then they have the right to do so. What I object to is that thousands of children, particularly the growing number of Christian home-schooled children in this country, are visiting the museum in droves, much to the delight of the museum's founder, Ken Hamm….
The obstruction of scientific information is nothing new in the history of fundamentalist theology. What is new is the way this organization is using the power of radio (AIG is broadcast over 850 radio stations), the Internet and, now, a pseudo-natural history museum to convince well-meaning, hard-working people that science is not to be trusted, that the theory of evolution is evil and that belief in scientific theories of our creation leads to barbaric behaviors…. Unfortunately, the creation museum in Northern Kentucky has been very successful at encouraging their non-thinking, anti-reasoning philosophy, especially among young, dinosaur-loving children. Inaction in this matter may come back to haunt us in the future. [read full story]
from Evolution Blog:
The issue is not that someone knowledgeable about science will go in understanding the evidence for evolution and come out a fire-breathing creationist. Rather, it is the people who have never really thought carefully about the subject, who go out of curiosity or because a friend roped them in, we have to worry about. Such people rarely consider the possibility that such slick and expensive propaganda could possibly be wall-to-wall nonsense. Where there's smoke, there's fire, right?
Furthermore, the success of the creation museum leads to favorable press coverage…. That leads to young-Earthism being a ubiquitous and accepted part of the social discourse. If the polls are to be believed, fully half the country is already in thrall to this garbage. Add in a lot of neutral to favorable press coverage and you bet people are going to start being persuaded. If not of full-blown YEC, at least of the idea that this is something that needs to be presented in science classes….
The fact is that if the courts ever step out of the way we will have some sort of creationism taught in virtually every school-district in the country. Frame your way out of that. We're one Supreme Court justice (and the right case, of course) away from having it found constitutional to teach this dreck in public schools. If, as seems a distinct possibility, we have President Giulliani in January of 2009, I'm afraid I see little hope for keeping the forces of darkness and ignorance from finally getting what they want. [read full blog post]excerpt from an article in Answers Magazine, published by the Answers In Genesis ministry, which funded the Creation Museum:
Most parents who take their children to church on Sunday also send them off to a secular school the rest of the week. This is the case in approximately 88% of U.S. households with school-age children. If the teacher teaches from secular textbooks, the child’s Christian education is challenged.
At church they are taught that they are special in God’s eyes; in fact, they are created in His image. In most secular schools they hear the philosophy of naturalism, the idea that mass and energy are all that exist and that the universe and life all arose by natural processes. There is no supernatural Creator God.
In a key 1995 statement, the National Association of Biology Teachers (NABT) affirmed that naturalism is a fundamental tenet of science education:
The diversity of life on earth is the outcome of evolution: an unsupervised, impersonal, unpredictable and natural process of temporal descent with genetic modification that is affected by natural selection, chance, historical contingencies and changing environments.
“Unsupervised” means no Creator God. “Impersonal” means life has no special meaning. “Unpredictable” means we are a product of blind chance. “Natural process” means processes inherent in matter. It should be noted that in 1997, the NABT removed the words, “unsupervised” and “impersonal” when they realized they were distancing themselves from religious people, but the words “unpredictable” and “natural processes” remain. [read complete article]
Signed statement from concerned scientists in Kentucky, Ohio, and Indiana
"We, the undersigned scientists at universities and colleges in Kentucky, Ohio, and Indiana, are concerned about scientifically inaccurate materials at the Answers in Genesis museum. Students who accept this material as scientifically valid are unlikely to succeed in science courses at the college level. These students will need remedial instruction in the nature of science, as well as in the specific areas of science misrepresented by Answers in Genesis." [see full statement]
Transcript of today's show: Sound Off: Science & Faith. Our point/counterpoint regulars Shelley (the voice of science) and Peter (the voice of faith), comment on the story. 
Despite repeated complaints, bookstores at the Grand Canyon are still selling a book that claims the canyon was created by the biblical flood. The National Park Service has stonewalled for 4 years on a promise to pull the book from the shelves. Its officials claim that a broad range of viewpoints should be available to visitors. But park rangers adamantly disagree. They say that selling the book is simply a veiled endorsement of creation theory. [source: San Francisco Chronicle]Listen to the 1-minute broadcast of this story [mp3]
The Voice of Faith: Peter Williamson, M.Div., comments:
The characteristic mark of America and the cornerstone of her greatness is the First Amendment right of Freedom of Religion, Press and Expression. We are a country who has taken great pride in its embrace of religious tolerance. Does that not also extend to tolerance generally? Does our tolerance apply to science? Does scientific tolerance stand beside religious tolerance, as would racial tolerance, ethnic tolerance, and social tolerance?
The National Park Service is 'stonewalling' because what they are being asked to do flies in the face of the First Amendment right of press, as well as our national commitment to tolerance. Singling out one book among many whose viewpoint differs on ideological grounds is the behavior we would expect from a dictatorship. Removing this book from the National Park bookstore would set a disastrous precedent and would be a tremendous insult to American values, rights, and democracy itself.
Transcript of today's show: Sound Off: Science & Faith. Our point/counterpoint regulars Shelley (the voice of science) and Peter (the voice of faith), comment on the story. The Voice of Science: Shelley Greene, Ph.D., comments: The Voice of Faith: Peter Williamson, M.Div., comments:
Yes, there were baby dinosaurs in Noah's Ark, according to Australian evangelist Ken Ham, whose Creation Musuem opens 
this Memorial Day. The Baby Dinosaurs were in the Ark because they were small enough to fit and co-existed with mankind on an Earth that is only 6,000 years old, according to Answers in Genesis, the organization responsible for the Museum opening May 28th near Cincinnati, Ohio. Source: Dylan T. Lovan/Associated Press
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Sure, Ken, go ahead and rewrite anthropological history. Hey, your guess might be as good as anyone elses'. Though it's too bad you don't like that carbon dating thing. I understand how it completely throws off your biblical data vis-à-vis the age of the earth, the time of the dinosaurs and the date of Noah's voyage. So, yeah, if the empirical tool doesn't support your theory, hell yes, throw it out! (And don't let the scientists' vehement disapproval of that practice deter you. What do they know? Most of them are atheists!).
And Ken, if you're going to ditch a precision scientific tool, carbon dating is the perfect choice: now you can date historical events to your heart's content! For a Biblical literalist, you can get a lot of mileage out of this one. Brilliant, Ken, you've done it again.
They said it couldn’t be done. By “they” I mean the godless Darwinists who claim that Biblical knowledge cannot be reconciled with science. Ken Ham has done so seamlessly, elegantly and with a child-friendly presentation. He has not left science behind, as the unbelieving naysayers insist. The quality of the exhibits and the science from which they were conceived and created rival the best natural history museums in the world. It is not what Ken Ham 'left out' that makes this museum so controversial, it’s what he has revealed -- the Gospel truth about our origins, which incidentally, hundreds of millions of Christians and Jews have accepted for thousands of years. This museum is for their edification and pleasure. And for you who cannot handle the Truth, take the kids to DisneyWorld.
Transcript of today's show: Sound Off: Science & Faith. Our point/counterpoint regulars Shelley (the voice of science) and Peter (the voice of faith), comment on the story. The Voice of Science: Shelley Greene, Ph.D., comments: The Voice of Faith: Peter Williamson, M.Div., comments:
Ken Ham’s Creation Museum may become the biggest controversy yet in the God vs. Science wars. The museum depicts the origin of life according to a literal interpretation of the Bible -- including the premise that the Earth is only 6,000 years old -- a notion violently opposed by most of the scientific community. The Museum opens this Memorial Day. [source: Christian Post]
I urge all scientists and sane-thinking people to make some kind of protest. We who remain silent will ironically voice approval, not just for this museum, but for the others of its kind to make their promised appearances in the coming years. Do something! Get online and sign a petition. Inform friends and family. If you live near Cincinnati, get on a bus and protest. This whole affair is being carefully watched by bloggers and media. Any little bit of activism can be noticed and have some measure of impact.
The outcry in response to the opening of this museum smacks of 'double standard.' For decades and decades, evolutionary science has held a monopoly on science museums and the historical and biological portrayal of the origin of earth and man. To deny Christian believers the opportunity to build museums that portray this history according to their truths, is the attitude of a poor sport. The scientific community, it appears, is deeply threatened; it recognizes the vulnerability of its pre-eminent theories in the face of Gospel Truth. The scientific community has demonstrated, again and again, that it will not share power with any world view that in any way is deemed contradictory.
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The Voice of Science: Shelley Greene, Ph.D., comments:
Another conservative Christian agenda slips innocently enough through a seemingly innocuous national agency. How did this happen, we ask in astonishment? I can hear Bush now, sitting around the Crawford ranch with his posse after a day of fishin' and cyclin': "Hey boys, why don't we get some of those Christian biblical flood stories into the bookstores of some of them national parks out west here? You know, written by some scientists of our persuasion. None of them Bible books with cartoon drawing, but those science-lookin' books. They got a lot of them now. Good way to get the word out. And the Christians will love these books! Buy 'em up by the case. What do they want with those big serious science books that say the earth's millions of years old? We have a responsibility to our people. Especially when they come to a government place. We need to get the truth out there. It's good for the people, it's good for us. I'm not just a war president, I am a God president. Got to get the word out. You know what to do boys, and don't let those liberal, a-religious park rangers cause you any trouble. We're on God's side."