This past spring, students in the Cuyahoga Falls City School District went on a field trip to the Akron Fossils & Science Center. That all sounds fine… until you realize the “science center” is really a low-budget Creation Museum, promoting the view that the world was created in six days, about 6,000 years ago, and that dinosaurs and humans coexisted — all of which is rejected by science. The place is like an episode of Whose Line Is It Anyway?: Everything is made up and the points don’t matter.

According to the district’s superintendent, the teacher who booked the field trip is new and probably just didn’t do the proper research ahead of time. (Though that doesn’t explain how Copley-Fairlawn Middle School made multiple trips there before the district realized what was happening and put a stop to it.)

That said, Bob Dyer of the Akron Beacon Journal says that the museum thrives off the deception by having a name that suggests it presents real science:

Now, wouldn’t you think that if people truly believe in their mission, they would be right up front about the nature of that mission? But when I asked why the place isn’t called the “Akron Creation Museum” or the “Akron Intelligent Design Center,” I was told that wasn’t necessary because their “science” deserves equal time. “When you go to the Natural History Museum, it doesn’t say, ‘the Natural History Museum of Evolution,’” said Josiah Detwiler, who has worked for the center since it opened in 2005. “Of course, they’re presenting the evolution model of origins there. And so we’re making a statement here that, you know, we are presenting science.” He insisted that evolution is also a faith-based approach “because there are unexplainable aspects to it.” OK, then.

I’ll admit: I’m not sure how anyone could get fooled by them when their website mentions Creationism repeatedly… but Dyer says that, five years ago, the Akron Zoo, Cleveland Orchestra, and COSI (Center of Science and Industry in Columbus), all raised money for the “science center” without really knowing what they did.

It’s the typical Christian bait-and-switch, isn’t it? They fool you into thinking one thing… and then, when you least expect it, they throw God at you. It’s like that person who befriends you in school for the sole purpose of taking you to church. Deception is okay, in their minds, because it’s done in the name of Jesus.

Whoever runs the “science” center’s Facebook page didn’t appreciate Dyer’s column either, writing, “We are in the newspaper again by the same author who didn’t get his facts straight the first time.” They never actually point out which facts he got wrong. Instead, they just complain about how he doesn’t take their bullshit seriously. It’s all they can do since Dyer knows the facts while the center willfully ignores them.

(via Pharyngula)



