Michael Peroutka speaking in front of Ebeneezer at the Creation Museum

The Creation Museum, the owner of the remains of an allosaurus named “Ebenezer,” displays the restored skeleton as evidence that the Bible is correct.  They point out that Ebenezer was found in a layer of sediment that formed quickly in a way that is consistent with Noah’s flood.

How can this be?  Is science wrong?

The philosopher Karl Popper pointed out a critical failing in the scientific method, if you look for evidence to support your beliefs, that is what you will find.  There is a defect in the scientific method.  Science denialists take this approach and come to a very different set of answers that the establishment scientific community. Andrew Snelling. the chief geologist for the Creation Museum,  described his approach as using the scientific method to  verify “historical record,” meaning the the Bible as God’s literal account.

Using this approach, creationist scientists accumulate evidence that prove that their beliefs .. whether this means creationism or climate denial, are true.   Snelling  describes his methods: scientists “use the present to inform our understanding of the past.” We “use the past to inform his understanding of the present.”

Back to Ebeneezer, the research was supported by believers in the Bible.  The  Courier-Journal explained that Ebenezer the Elizabeth Streb Peroutka Foundation purchased the skeleton and eventually donated it to the museum. Elizabeth Peroutka’s son Michael runs the Institute on the Constitution, a conservative group devoted to, among other things, “destroying arguments that are against the knowledge of God.”

John Whitmore,  a professor of Geology at the Christian Cedarville University in Ohio, and Andrew Snelling, the Creation Museum geologist led a group of grad students to the Colorado site where Ebneezer was unearthed.  Ebenezer came from the Morrison Formation, a Jurassic-era rock unit that covers a large expanse of the western U.S. As the National Park Service’s Dinosaur National Monument explains, the area is rich with dinosaur fossils, particularly in its river beds, which are better at preserving skeletons. Whitmore told believes that the formation is consistent with what he would expect to see with a catastrophic event like Noah’s Flood. He told Abby Ohlheiser, a reporter for the Wire,: 

“Secular geologists have said ‘this is a flood plain’ or “these are all river deposits, but it’s difficult to understand, from a secular, uniformitarian form of thinking, how a deposit like that could be made. I think a catastrophic origin for that formation and all the fossils in it is very reasonable.”

Snelling has said that the Museum  “would welcome collaboration,” but no one has taken up the offer.

Ken Ham, the director of the Museum  said that the specimen “fulfills a dream I’ve had for quite some time.”

“For decades I’ve walked through many leading secular museums, like the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C., and have seen their impressive dinosaur skeletons, but they were used for evolution. Now we have one of that class for our museum.”

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