Kentucky: the new center of Creationist tourism

Plans are in the works for a theme park and Creation science Hall of Fame, the latest additions to a growing tourism industry.

It's exactly what it looks like.

The Creationist Museum of Kentucky, established in 2007, is in the process of turning a stretch of interstate into multi-stop brainwashing/unlearning tour of Biblical proportions.
The Guardian:

Online-only institution the Creation Science Hall of Fame hopes to establish a real-life creationism center located between the Creation Museum and planned creationism theme park Ark Encounter.

The hall of fame website was launched in February and honors "those who honored God's word as literally written in Genesis." Any scientist who the institution believes furthers the scientifically inaccurate idea that God created the world 6,000 years ago can be included.

"We honor these people, not because we believe everything they say, but because they made critical contributions to creation science and to the explanation of the Genesis story," secretary/treasurer of the hall of fame Terry Hurlbut told the Cincinnati Enquirer.

There are several creationism institutions in the US, including another creation museum in Texas and a mobile museum that takes fossil exhibits to churches and schools. The hall of fame would solidify northern Kentucky as the center for creation-tourism.

The Creation Museum opened in May 2007 and was built by Answers in Genesis, the Australian ministry that is also behind Ark Encounter.

Ark Encounter – which would feature a life-size replica of Noah's Ark – was supposed to break ground in Kentucky in 2011, but has been unable to reach its $24.5m fundraising goal.

Creation Science Hall of Fame organizers are asking for between $2m and $3m and would feature biographies, pictures, and artifacts of inductees.

Their website honors 104 deceased male scientists including Leonardo Da Vinci, Michael Faraday and Guglielmo Marconi. To explain why these individuals are included, the site excerpts biography information from the book Men of Science, Men of God, written by a man widely recognized as the father of creationism, Henry Morris.
Honorees also include 12 prominent living figures in the creation science field – again all male. The real-life hall of fame would also include artifacts from people listed on the site's honorable mention list, which features 58 male recommendations from website readers and the hall of fame committee.

In a May 2012 Gallup poll 46% of Americans said they believe God created humans in the present form.

Some of the wacky ideas presented in Creationist Museums are also squirreling their way into school curricula in several states, including states that heavily promote private school voucher programs. In public schools, this often takes the form of a disclaimer about evolution being only a theory, so it doesn't mean shit, and may coincide with Intelligent Design being taught as an alternative theory of the origin of species, so to speak.  This BBC report show what the current museum in Kentucky looks like:



And this PBS NOVA documentary is an excellent watch for a thorough debunk of the junk science behind Intelligent Design, otherwise known as the slightly less Bibled-out version of Creationism.