Noah’s Ark park will mislead our schoolchildren

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2:41 PM Friday, January 7, 2011

By J.K. Bhattacharjee, G.R. Janssen and T.G. Gregg

Ark Encounter, a planned theme park of Answers in Genesis (the Creation Museum) of Northern Kentucky and Ark Encounter LLC of Louisville, will hijack science. The centerpiece of their effort is an attack on evolution itself. Here we go again.

Building a “life-sized replica” of the ark in a Genesis-themed park in Kentucky, with publicity reaching even to The New York Times, strikes a severe blow to the teaching of evolution after 150 years of accumulated scientific knowledge that is based on proven and testable scientific evidence generated by hundreds of thousands of scientists from many different disciplines in physical and biological sciences. Even a George W. Bush-appointed federal judge in Pennsylvania has ruled that overwhelming scientific evidence discredits the claim that creationism or intelligent design are scientific.

Creationists maintain the earth is less than 10,000 years old, that humans and dinosaurs co-existed 4,000 years ago, and that the fossil record is the result of a Noachian flood. Such absurd claims are contrary to an enormous amount of scientific evidence and undermine the credibility of science itself.

The ark myth ignores the indisputable scientific evidence of single-celled bacteria originating approximately three billion years ago. These early life forms gave rise to multi-cellular organisms approximately one billion years ago, which in turn gave rise to land plants 475 million years ago, fish 500 million years ago, amphibians 360 million years ago, mammals 200 million years ago, birds 150 million years ago, and modern humans originating in Africa approximately 150,000 years ago.

Even the most elementary knowledge of biogeography and evolutionary biology, not to mention common sense, would argue against the possibility of getting millions of diverse species from different continents organized into one place, at one time, to get on an ark, only for the majority of them, like the dinosaurs, to become extinct after the ark landed.

Biologists and other scientists have used meticulous scientific approaches to identify several million species of life. It is estimated that millions more remain to be identified. Among known species, there are close to 500,000 animal species and several hundred thousand plant species, not to mention the microbial species. Careful consideration should reveal the physical impossibility of assembling two each of all the animal species, including those now extinct, with diverse habitat and dietary requirements and accommodate them on an ark of any size for six months.

There is also no mention of saving plants on the ark. Students in middle school learn that animals are heterotrophs, and thus they cannot produce their own food, as the photoautotrophic plants do. All animals, directly or indirectly, depend on plants as a food source. So how could hundreds of thousands of animals with different dietary requirements, including carnivores, be fed for six months? And if plants were not on the ark, how did they survive 180 days under water, and what would the herbivores have eaten after getting off the ark to start the food cycle again?

Aside from money, one wonders about the motivation behind the establishment of the Noah’s Ark theme park. One possibility is to undermine the scientific foundation of biological evolution, defined as descent with modification from a common ancestor, resulting from natural selection, acting on genetic variation. Both the museum and the theme park will continue to influence visitors, especially schoolchildren, into thinking evolution is wrong and the biblical account is factual.

This anti-science museum and theme park are particularly disturbing, knowing the performance of U.S. high school students in science and math is so dismal, compared to other developed countries. Students in 17 countries, led by Finland, Hong Kong and South Korea, outperform U.S. students in mathematics, and those in 12 countries surpass our students in science. An interactive science technology theme park would be more appropriate to educate the public and inspire schoolchildren to be more competitive in math and science and to aspire to regain America’s leadership in the global market.

The ark is an effective myth for teaching people to obey God, but trying to make it scientifically feasible is indefensible. We will not regain our pre-eminence in science and technology if we don’t teach our children how to distinguish faith-based myth from scientific fact.

J.K. Bhattacharjee is professor emeritus of microbiology, G.R. Janssen is a professor of microbiology and T.G. Gregg is professor emeritus of zoology at Miami University in Oxford.

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