Patrick Marsh on the origins of life
"As for scientists, so much of what they believe is pretty fuzzy about life and its origins..."
- Patrick Marsh on why the Bible is best, as quoted in The Guardian
In a highly entertaining account of the new Creation Museum soon to open in Kentucky, Stephen Bates brings us news of Patrick Marsh. Formerly a designer at Universal Studios, Marsh converted to Christianity and came to believe that the Bible was the "only thing that gives you the full picture" about where the world began. So he offered his services to help populuate the new museum with animatronic depictions of the Seven Days of Creation as described in Genesis, including the Flood, the creation of Eve from Adam's rib, and the Fall of Adam and Eve (modestly protected by "appropriately positioned" lambs).
For a museum that claims to be faithful to the scriptures, it's bit hard to understand why the place is teaming with dinosaurs, but we suppose that's one way to pull in the punters. The museum's director is predicting 300,000 visitors per year.
Jason Lisle, who has a PhD in astrophysics from the University of Colorado, is in charge of "scientific research" for the attraction. He told Bates that he saw the light in graduate school but kept a low profile so as not to upset people. When asked how he passed his exams with such a contradictory sense of how things came to be, he replied, "I never lied, but if I was asked a question about the age of the universe, I answered from my knowledge of the topic, not my beliefs."
You can read the rest of Bates' piece here.