British creationism museum with pics

[geni]

Britians only creationism museum, the Genesis Expo down in Portsmouth. Well entry was free and I happened to be standing across the road from it and was slighly ahead of schedule. The photo quality isn't great because the place made me feel uncomfortable. Still lets begin. First the view from the street. Strangely if you don't know it's there (I'd run across a mention on wikipedia and run it through mulitmap at some point) you don't really notice it. Although you can't really see at this scale those windows are full of fossils they are trying to flog.

 

[geni]

Now this is the first of the Dioramas they are so proud of. This one is the probably the best of the lot. A mix of what are either fossils or reporductions of them and various notices with claims like no proto-reptile has ever been found and some stuff about no intermediate steps between scales and feathers.

 

[geni]

Another diorama. I didn't really catch the point of this one. ETA I think it was argueing that wasps han't changed much in the time since they were fossilised.

 

[geni]

In this diorama they were trying to make an argument that the differences on the protien level between species were not what evolution would predict. It mostly caught my attention because the best model they could think of to illustraight is was a mouse and a mousetrap.

 

[geni]

Okey this rather empty diorama was pushing the argument that both DNA in humans and computers were complicated. Since we would reject the idea of a computer appearing by chance we should reject the idea of DNA appearing by chance. As well as the normal flaws in this argument I started trying to work out if it was really that improbable that something that would qualify as a universal turing machine would appear naturaly.

 

[geni]

Through out they had various recordings playing through these speaker phone things.

 

[geni]

Finaly the real dinosaur eggs that they are so proud of. They were a bit on their own perhaps because the museum couldn't quite work out what to do with them.

 

[geni]

All in all a rather sad experience. The overall quality was really poor. I've visited low level museums in various parts of the country and although I've seen some pretty weak ones in my time the Genesis Expo was really bad. Below the level of temporary exhibitions put on by local history societies (which can be quite good due if only out of shear enthusiasm behind them).

On the surface a fair bit of effort had gone into the place. Everything worked, there were various buttons to push that did things and some effort had gone into some of the models. But well there were done as if someone had gone through a list of things a museum should have without really understanding them. The whole thing tended to be a bit random with the standard creationist arguments with a few random objects to illustrate them. Even if one was an ardent creationist I can't imagine that it would be a fun half hour or so.

The museum shop was fairly well stocked mind.

I tend to speculate that the museum exists more so that people can claim there is a creationism museum in the UK rather than for being a museum in it’s own right.

 

[foxholeatheist]

Wow, I figured that we Usians had the market cornered on woo based Museums.

Cool pictures. How many exhibits/dioramas were there? If what you took is all then it's fairly slim.

 

[geni]

Wow, I figured that we Usians had the market cornered on woo based Museums.

Cool pictures. How many exhibits/dioramas were there? If what you took is all then it's fairly slim.

12 dioramas but there was little worth photographing. An ardent creationist might take half an hour or so to get around.

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Yay! The USA isn't the only stoopid any more.

~~ Paul

 

[Kittyclaws]

Yay! The USA isn't the only stoopid any more.

~~ Paul

Yeah, but we do it stoopider than everone else.

 

[Kiosk]

You also do it with a lot more flash, to be fair.

Looking at the quality of that museum, bearing in mind that Portsmouth is visited mostly by people who are primarily interested in ships, and considering the likelihood of the average British family (much less the average British school) organising a day trip to a Creationist Museum, I wonder just how many of these that place will be seeing any time soon:

Maybe they'd insist on two fives, anyway.

 

[geni]

You also do it with a lot more flash, to be fair.

Looking at the quality of that museum, bearing in mind that Portsmouth is visited mostly by people who are primarily interested in ships, and considering the likelihood of the average British family (much less the average British school) organising a day trip to a Creationist Museum, I wonder just how many of these that place will be seeing any time soon:

With the cost of some of the items in the shop it would only take a few creationist fossil fans.

 

[Professor Yaffle]

I'm going to be in Portsmouth for a day quite soon - I was going to take the family and instruct them all to point and laugh loudly. If it's that shoddy, I might not bother.

 

[geni]

I'm going to be in Portsmouth for a day quite soon - I was going to take the family and instruct them all to point and laugh loudly. If it's that shoddy, I might not bother.

Total staff consisted of one old guy and there was one other visitor while I was there. Frankly I would have felt guiltly. I don't really think it is set up to try and gain converts more preach to the converted.

 

[Big Les]

It may the country's only creationist museum, but we are also blessed with a creationist zoo...

http://www.noahsarkzoofarm.co.uk/

As for this "museum", the displays look atrocious. Very sparse, badly designed, early '80s in style, seemingly no genuine objects other than the dinosaur eggs. Bearing in mind I can't actually read any captions, I certainly can't work out what each case is trying to convey.

I assume they aren't MLA accredited (or "registered", the previous version of the standard)? -
http://www.mla.gov.uk/what/raising_standards/accreditation

Mind you, neither are the Witchcraft Museum in Cornwall, and I have a soft spot for that.

 

[geni]

It may the country's only creationist museum, but we are also blessed with a creationist zoo...

http://www.noahsarkzoofarm.co.uk/

As for this "museum", the displays look atrocious. Very sparse, badly designed, early '80s in style, seemingly no genuine objects other than the dinosaur eggs. Bearing in mind I can't actually read any captions, I certainly can't work out what each case is trying to convey.

Well one of their quotes comes from 1994 so must date from after that.


This is the caption for the display with the RAM chips and DNA double helix in:

 

[Robert Oz]

It may the country's only creationist museum, but we are also blessed with a creationist zoo...

http://www.noahsarkzoofarm.co.uk/

What do they feed the carnivores?

 

[UnrepentantSinner]

I'd like to make a snark filled criticism, but they're really just too pathetic for me to mock.