Scientific fraud masked as religion

An Op-Ed by Lawrence M. Krauss in this morning's Courier-Journal takes exception to the Creation Museum set to open in northern Kentucky.

A dangerous cultural experiment is taking place in Petersburg, Ky., near the Ohio border. The experiment will shed light on the following question: How much money and glitz does it take to institutionalize a scientific lie?

Great media fanfare is already beginning to surround the official opening next Monday of the $27 million Creation Museum, close to the Cincinnati-Northern Kentucky airport. Designed to oddly resemble natural history museums throughout the world, this will be a supernatural history museum, denying most, if not all, of natural history on this planet as centuries of careful study and experimentation have revealed it.

The reason for this colossal unreason is quite simple: The historical record in Genesis, as it is interpreted by Ken Ham, who created the organization Answers in Genesis, must be literally true. Since this is incompatible with essentially all of modern scientific knowledge, therefore modern scientific knowledge must be incorrect...

...What Ham and his colleagues are doing is not only an educational travesty, it is a disservice to religion. Religion doesn't have to be bad science; similarly, bad science should not be defended simply because it might have a religious basis...

...Religious tolerance is important in modern society. But there should be little tolerance for religiously motivated fraud. Media and government officials alike need to be clear that this project is misguided. Parents should be ready to bring lawsuits for any school system that uses public funds to bring students to this museum of misinformation.