Iowa State Fair: Teach The Controversy

I’d nearly forgotten the apoplectic annoyance this exhibit induced, but looking at the photos brings it all rushing back. Upon seeing the hokey banners and looping video with a narrator sharing ‘proof’ the earth was only 7,000 years old, I froze- the urge to run up and correct everyone there combined with simultaneous confusion as to exactly what point was being made canceled out all motor skills.

(click for a larger image)

Eventually I snapped some photos in a continued attempt to figure out what the point of this all was. Dinosaurs didn’t go extinct, they were drowned in the Great Flood, maybe? A friendly older woman came up to me and said all the pamphlets were free; I could take what I wanted. I took several before my friend dragged me away; I think he thought I’d angrily start correcting her, when really the only thing I wanted to ask was ‘what are you trying to tell people?’

After reading the pamphlet, detailing the hows and whys of dinosaurs being left off the ark, along with a confusing tangent about animals being ‘paired in twos’, not necessarily male/female couples (God would take care of it?), I was more confused than ever. I think the point of the exhibit wasn’t dinosaurs at all, but how the Earth is much younger than scientists believe. If anything, the experience was a comfort- no matter how well-funded and deeply believed the silliness is, without competency the message doesn’t get across.