Paleontologists visiting the Creation Museum at the conclusion of a convention got more than they bargained for when they found their life’s work under attack.

After having a few laughs and taking some pictures, most were surprised and offended to see the way in which evolution was being ridiculed by the museum, which some call a “creationist Disneyland” .

“It’s sort of a monument to scientific illiteracy, isn’t it?” Jerry Lipps, professor of geology, paleontology and evolution at University of California, Berkeley, told the AFP news agency. “Like Sunday school with statues… this is a special brand of religion here. I don’t think even most mainstream Christians would believe in this interpretation of Earth’s history.”

Some 715,000 patrons have visited the $27 million museum since it opened in mid-2007 to “bring the pages of the Bible to life.” The 70,000 square-foot facility presents a literal interpretation of the Bible, and suggests that disbelief of this view leads to moral relativism and the breakdown of social values.

University of Akron paleontology professor Lisa Park was moved to tears as she walked down a hallway displaying flashing images of war, famine and natural disasters that the museum blames on belief in evolution.

“I think it’s very bad science and even worse theology — and the theology is far more offensive to me,” Park told the AFP news agency.

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Howard University anatomy professor Daryl Domning shook his head several times throughout his tour of the museum. “This bothers me as a scientist and as a Christian, because it’s just as much a distortion and misrepresentation of Christianity as it is of science,” he told the AFP. “It’s not your old-time religion by any means.”