This month, the Ark Encounter theme park in Kentucky is celebrating its 10th anniversary. There, you can find a big replica of Noah’s Ark from the Bible, including people animals and… dinosaurs.
While some theme parks, like Disney World and Six Flags, have characters and features we all know are fictional, Ark Encounter wants its visitors to believe that its exhibits offer historical truth. A blog post from the attraction website last year argued that “in the case of dinosaurs, there may have been hundreds of species, but there were likely fewer than 85 kinds required on the ark.”
Ark Encounter is associated with the Creationism Museum and is focused on the Christian creationism philosophy.
According to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, creationists believe “in a god who is absolute creator of heaven and earth, out of nothing, by an act of free will,” and also a strict adherence to a specific timeline regarding creation. This timeline is contradicted by widely accepted scientific theory, particularly Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution as explained in “Origin of the Species” and for some (such as the Ark Encounter founder Ken Ham), the creationism timeline puts dinosaurs and humans on Earth at the same time.
“Creationism in the sense used in this discussion is still very much a live phenomenon in American culture today – and in other parts of the world, like the Canadian West, to which it has been exported,” said the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy circa 2018. “Popularity does not imply truth. Scientifically Creationism is worthless, philosophically it is confused, and theologically it is blinkered beyond repair.”
Popularity might not imply truth, but it does bring people to Ark Encounter. Its website said that 1.5 million guests come to the Ark and Creationism Museum annually.
Salon (which called the attraction a “MAGA” theme park due its connection to Republican President Donald Trump’s Make America Great Again Movement) noted that the attractions have continued bringing in guests past the height of creationism making headlines in the U.S. During the tenure of former President George W. Bush, also a Republican, “there were repeated efforts to force public schools to teach Genesis in science classes,” that fizzled out after a 2005 federal trial, Salon said.
“Internal messaging aimed at evangelicals, though, has stayed strong in pushing the view that evolutionary biology is false and that God really did create the world in seven literal days,” the outlet added. “And so it is that the Ark Encounter, which was built at the tail end of [Democrat] Barack Obama’s administration, continues to draw hundreds of thousands of visitors a year, even as its traffic has been declining.”
Amid preparations for the anniversary, Ham recently “threw a tantrum in response to what any reasonable person would see as soft-glove coverage of the anniversary,” said Salon. It cited a story from the Cincinnati Enquirer that included a quote the popular educator Bill Nye the Science Guy, that pointed out how creationism is “anti-science.”
“In response, Ham recorded a video telling [the journalist] to shut up because “no one asked your opinion” and she has no ‘expertise in science,’” said Salon.
Anniversary celebrations at Ark Encounter are scheduled through Saturday. Salon said that the festivities have included “hellfire-and-damnation preachers, a play about prisoners of war in World War II and a speech by the guy who owns Hobby Lobby.”
Saturday’s lineup also features astronauts Captain Butch Wilmore, General Charlie Duke, and Colonel Jeffrey Williams. Wilmore was notably stuck on the International Space Station for months due to issues with Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft.
