Yee haw! Ridin’ high at the Creation Museum’s triceratops rodeo
Among the many problems confronting the Rethuglicans in their attempt to rebuild themselves into a viable political party is this one, reflected in this poll last year from Gallup:
PRINCETON, NJ — There is a significant political divide in beliefs about the origin of human beings, with 60% of Republicans saying humans were created in their present form by God 10,000 years ago, a belief shared by only 40% of independents and 38% of Democrats.
Today’s NY Times has an article titled Paleontology and Creationism Meet but Don’t Mesh. It details a recent visit to the Creation Museum in Kentucky by a group of European paleontologists. It begins thusly:
PETERSBURG, Ky. — Tamaki Sato was confused by the dinosaur exhibit. The placards described the various dinosaurs as originating from different geological periods — the stegosaurus from the Upper Jurassic, the heterodontosaurus from the Lower Jurassic, the velociraptor from the Upper Cretaceous — yet in each case, the date of demise was the same: around 2348 B.C.
When you stop to think about it, the Creation Museum is a perfect metaphor for the whole Rethuglican narrative: The USA began in 1980 with the election of Ronald Reagan. The civil rights struggle,The New Deal, the Progressive Era, the Gilded Age, slavery, the Founding Fathers– all that never really existed, but are merely the product of fake fossils planted into the historical record by Satanic liberals meant to test and deceive the faithful.
The article continues:
“I’m very curious and fascinated,” Stefan Bengtson, a professor of paleozoology at the Swedish Museum of Natural History, said before the visit, “because we have little of that kind of thing in Sweden.”
When 60% of your party believes that the live action feature version of The Flintstones is a reality show, you’ve got a long row to hoe.
[slight edit]
[Image from John Scalzi]
