One of many fun diaramas at the Creation Museum in Kentucky.
Breaking news story: the Creation Museum is adding a theme park.
Does this mean that the creationists are admitting that their story for the origin of the universe/planet is just that- a fairytale story? You know, like Mickey Mouse?
What kind of attractions do you think the creationists are going to build?
Better yet, what kind of attractions are we going to put in our SCIENCE theme park? Help me out- it won’t be difficult as science is way more fun than Bible stories. What sort of neat attractions/rides should we put in our science theme park about the origin of the universe/planet?
Give me your suggestions, and I’ll compile these and make a second post with a proposal for the Scientific Origin of the Earth & Universe Theme Park. Of course, as our knowledge grows our exhibits will have to be revised/changed/added to. Because that’s how science works…
Seriously. We should build our own theme park. We can have rollercoasters and giant models of crystals like The Atomium in Belgium. How can we go wrong?
The Atomium, Brussels, Belgium.
DNA water slide?
Noah’s Log Flume Ride. 40 days and nights of wet and wild fun!
I have to wonder how their rides are going to work… won’t they have to believe in the laws of physics? Or will God keep the coasters on the tracks?
It’s already been done, the Exploratorium in Frisco
How about a Tower of Terror style freefall ride? We can call it “The Descent of Man”.
Mr Tesla’s Wild Ride
Evelyn,
How about a scientifically accurate model of the creationist species?
Evolutionary adaptations of a Scientific Creationist
http://www.democracyforums.com/showthread.php?t=25947
LOL!!!!
– : )
Well, I bet one of the creationist rides would be “Ride a Dinosaur” or something of that kind. Didn’t man and dinosaurs co-exist?
As for our Science Theme Park, I suggest Earthquake Ride or a Volcano Roller Coaster
@MarlowePI: “How about a Tower of Terror style freefall ride? We can call it “The Descent of Manâ€.”
COTW – Brilliant.
I thought the Creation Museum WAS a theme park.
I find it amusing that creationists try to depict dinosaurs as part of God’s creation. Did they ever think about the implications of a god that could create entire groups of animals only to allow them to go extinct? No, Noah’s flood cannot explain that, since the Bible story makes clear that God told Noah to save at least two of every kind of animal from that time. Either dinosaurs were included, and they died out centuries after the flood, or they were already extinct before the flood. Either way, God as creator is discredited. If God’s creations are so good, he would not have allowed so many of them to disappear, leaving only fossils behind.
Update: My mom (an artist and author/illustrator of the “Other Known Animals of Physics”) has agreed to help me illustrate a subset of these science theme park attractions. So far we’ve got:
-“DNA” waterslide
-“Descent of Man” freefall ride
-“Mr. Tesla’s Wild Ride” (any more description?)
-Volcano Rollercoaster
-Earthquake Ride
Keep ’em coming… we may just illustrate a subset of these…
What characters (famous scientists?) should we have walking around?
Tectonic plate bumper cars.
Roller-coaster of ridicule.
@James Fox: I LOVE tectonic plate bumper cars!
Jurassic Jive (you’re not allowed to) Dance Hall.
Chaperoned by the Spanish Inquisition!
Just what we need, more mythological nonsense.
A Straw man haunted house, The excluded middle obstacle course, the Slippery ski slope, and occams razor sharp swinging ship.
“The Large Hadron Collider”: The one where you get rotated until you feel like you are smashed against the wall.
Somehow off-topic, but awesome anyway:
Sorry, I had to send this to people that would fully appreciated it and SGU is offline for some reason…
It is already constructed like a ride at Disneyland, so this seems a natural progression.
See
http://doctorideas.blogspot.com/2010/06/knowledge-questors-visit-creation.html
“Cetacean show”: dolphin show. :P
“The Milky Way” Think space moutain but with acccurate star patterns.
“Cosmos” the incredible personal journey.
“Fantastic Voyage” A journey through the body.
“Quest for Fire”
Carl Sagan, Albert Einstein. Issac Asimov, Nikoli Tesla, Bill Nye, Sid
“The Super Colider”
I dunno what it would do but there has to be a ride named that.
@James Fox: The bumper cars… Do they move incredibly slowly but inexorably, and when they collide, do they form subduction trenches and volcanoes?
Volcanoes are cool.
Every secular amusement park has unstated science and engineering theme. “is the roller coaster safe? Yes, we ran the numbers and designed it to be safe.” As opposed to “Yes it is safe we prayed and god told me it was OK.”
Ummm… I think we’re missing the lead story here: What is Adam doing to that lamb in the first picture?
Schrodinger’s slot machines. There’s a radioactive nucleus that may or may not have decayed triggering a detector that will release a prize. Up until you put your coin in to look, there both is and isn’t a prize!
Isn’t there already one of those? It was called EPCOT Center and was awesome. Now it’s just called Epcot and is still pretty good, if a little dumbed down.
@Mr Ed: COTW
So the safety disclaimer at the creation theme park is along the lines of “Nothing here has been tested. Our safety protocol is prayer. By entering you hold the proprioter harmless as any misfortune you suffer up to and including death is an act of God.”
IdeasManPhD: Very nice your detailed description of the exhibit. I’m not entirely sure your interpretation is right, but until I find out more I can’t say (I’ll comment in your blog).
Regarding how to counter this kind of stuff, I’ve thought for some time that it might make sense to take up all the myths from the Bible, and other holy books, and turn them around.
Two examples: Eve’s interaction with the snake, and god’s punishment, have to do with her not respecting a prohibition to investigate further — Eve as the first skeptic, sort of.
Prometheus being punished by Zeus for brining fire to mankind. Defiant and pro-human refusal to follow gods’ directives.
I don’t know if anything like that has been actually put together somewhere.
But the “Eve” theme has potential, I think — and powerful connections with today’s world (Afghanistan, for example).
@IdeasManPhD: About half way through your blog post. I started thinking “Nuremberg rally”. Remember, Godwin doesn’t apply when you actually are discussing fascism.
@Evelyn:
Are you sure people wouldn’t just try to get all the cars stuck to recreate Pangea?
@Bjornar: Wasn’t the Pangea a Chinese version of the Yugo?
How can we have a theme park about the origin of the universe without a big bang?
I suggest performances by the Mythbusters.
@Skepotter: Especially Kari.
Oooh! Can I just say I nearly wee-ed….weed?…wet myself reading this post. It doesn’t happen very often that my home country is mentioned on a skeptical blog. So, as the token Belgian on this blog… I thank you.
Now, lets change those pants… it’s getting uncomfortable.