A creationist museum is a facility that hosts exhibits which use the established natural history museum format to present a young Earth creationist view that the Earth and life on Earth were created some 6,000 to 10,000 years ago in six days.[1] These facilities generally promote pseudoscientific Biblical literalist creationism and contest evolutionary science, which has led to heavy criticism from the scientific community.[2]
Cabazon Dinosaurs, located in Cabazon, California, are best known for their appearance in the film Pee Wee's Big Adventure. When the attraction's original owner died in 2005, the roadside dinosaurs were sold and turned into a museum promoting creationism.[8][9] Unlike other creationist museums, the materials at this museum argue that dinosaurs still exist today.[10]
Museum of Creation and Earth History, located in Santee, California,[8] was originally part of the Institute for Creation Research. The museum, established shortly after its parent in 1970, moved to its current site in the mid-1980s. The museum presents the view that all humans are descendants of the first humans created by God some six to ten thousand years ago and that a worldwide flood left behind beds of fossils that can be found all around the world, including on high plateaus and mountain ranges.[11] The museum displays portraits of people the museum identifies as evolutionists, such as Andrew Carnegie – who is described as "cruel and heartless in his own day to competitors and laborers alike" – along with Karl Marx and Adolf Hitler.[11]
Florida[]
A Key Encounter Theater, located in Key West, Florida.[12]
Creation Museum, located in Petersburg, Kentucky, opened in 2007 and constructed at a cost of $27 million, includes exhibits of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden accompanied by dinosaurs.[8] Fossils are said to have been created in the biblical Flood during the days of Noah.[1] Plans for the museum date back to 1996.[15]
Museum of Earth History, located in Dallas, Texas,[26][27] was described by The Guardian as "first dinosaur museum to take a creationist perspective" and was constructed as a joint venture of the Creation Truth Foundation and the Great Passion Play outdoor Biblical theme park, which attracts over seven million visitors a year to its 4,500-seat arena. Among the high-quality replica casts of dinosaurs are exhibits showing dinosaurs coexisting in the Garden of Eden with Adam and Eve. The museum asserts that most dinosaurs became extinct during the Great Flood, and that while a pair of young dinosaurs accompanied elephants and lions on Noah's Ark, these became extinct later.[2][28][29]
