Originally posted in Righting America, October 29, 2024, and reprinted with permission. Glenn Branch is deputy director of the National Center for Science Education, a nonprofit organization that defends the integrity of American science education against ideological interference. He is the author of numerous articles on evolution education and climate education, and obstacles to them, in such publications as Scientific American, American Educator, The American Biology Teacher, and the Annual Review of Genomics and Human Genetics, and the co-editor, with Eugenie C. Scott, of Not in Our Classrooms: Why Intelligent Design is Wrong for Our Schools (2006). He received the Evolution Education Award for 2020 from the National Association of Biology Teachers.

Climate Change for Kids…and Parents Too!, the latest entry in a spate of climate change denial books aimed at a young audience, invites the reader to “[d]elve into the science of climate change and discover how science, removed from assumption and speculation, reflects the history and truth found in God’s Word” (in the words of the back cover). The reference to God’s Word is distinctive: the propaganda efforts in the same vein from the CO₂ Coalition, Mike Huckabee’s EverBright Kids, and PragerU are ostensibly secular. But the authors of Climate Change for Kids are Ken Ham, the founder of the young-earth creationist ministry Answers in Genesis, and Jessica DeFord, who, armed with a master of science degree in wildlife ecology, works for the same organization. In consequence, their book is a mix of error and fantasy, with the errors resembling those of secular climate change deniers and the fantasies emanating from their own reading of — and creative additions to — the Bible.

A fair amount of the eighty-page book purports to address the evidence for climate change and for anthropogenic climate change from the historical record. It would be tedious to describe all of its errors, but a central misunderstanding deserves attention. Acknowledging that “[t]he observational data shows [sic] that the global surface temperature of the earth has been warming over the past 100 years or so since it has been recorded” and reporting that the amount of warming is estimated to be about 1.5–1.8 °C, Ham and DeFord then caution, “But this warming estimate didn’t come solely from the observational data collected at weather stations and by satellites. It’s based on computer models. What you input into these models will decide what predications [sic] the computer model provides” (p. 18). A footnote offers a 2022 paper by meteorologist Roy W. Spencer and climatologist John R. Christy, both at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, as evidence for the middle sentence.

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Two weeks ago, someone pen-named Ulolodes, which I now know is a genus of owl fly, requested more spider pictures. I do not have a whole lot, but here is a snapshot I took this summer of a spider, which I think is Steatoda triangulosa – triangular cobweb spider – dining on Reduvius personatus – assassin bug.

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Since at least May, 2024, the Creation Museum and Ken Ham have been discussing a new display, meant to describe the dinosaur Protoceratops being drowned in the Biblical Flood of Noah (see for example https://creationmuseum.org/blog/2024/05/24/new-dinosaur-exhibit-coming-to-creation-museum/ and https://answersingenesis.org/blogs/ken-ham/2024/07/14/most-detailed-protoceratops-world/). This display finally opened in late October, 2024. Figure 1 is this ridiculous display from Ken Ham’s blog. Pictures of the display are available on several Answers in Genesis’ and Ken Ham’s social media pages. Long (2024) describes the artwork going into this new display. Although the artwork depicting the dinosaur itself is excellent, the display has absurd, inaccurate, misleading, and dishonest information on the depositional environment of the surrounding sediment and the taphonomy of Protoceratops and other Cretaceous vertebrate fossils of Mongolia.

The Creation Museum and Ark Encounter, both owned by the Young Earth Creationistministry Answers in Genesis (AiG), espouse that the fossil record is a result of Noah’s Flood which occurred in 2348 BC. All employees of AiG must sign off on a “Statement of Faith” (https://answersingenesis.org/about/faith/), that states in part:

The great flood of Genesis was an actual historic event, worldwide (global) in its extent and catastrophic in its effects. At one stage during the flood, the waters covered the entire surface of the whole globe with no land surface being exposed anywhere—the flood of Noah is not to be understood as any form of local or regional flood. The Noachian flood was a significant geological event, and most fossiliferous sediments were deposited at that time (Genesis 7:19–20; 2 Peter 3:5–7).

And further:

No apparent, perceived, or claimed evidence in any field of study, including science, history, and chronology, can be valid if it contradicts the clear teaching of Scripture obtained by historical-grammatical interpretation. Of primary importance is the fact that evidence is always subject to interpretation by fallible people who do not possess all information (Numbers 23:19; 2 Samuel 22:31; Psalm 18:30; Isaiah 46:9–10, 55:9; Romans 3:4; 2 Timothy 3:16).

Of course this ends any attempt at science by AiG employees and replaces geology, paleontology, and all other science and history with unchanging religious dogma.

Because of their weird dogma, AiG has an unusual take on dinosaurs and other prehistoric life forms. Both the Ark and Creation Museum have problematic displays on dinosaurs. In dioramas, dinosaurs are depicted as living with people, among ancient buildings, in stalls on Noah’s Ark, and most amazingly, fighting with humans and giants in a pre-Flood arena of death (see Figure 3 below). The Creation Museum has a actual skeleton of the dinosaur Allosaurus on display that was donated by white nationalist and neo-Confederate Michael Peroutka (see: https://rightingamerica.net/dinosaur-bones-mark-meadows-neo-confederates-and-the-tawdry-world-of-young-earth-creationism/). This Allosaurus skeleton is depicted as drowning in Noah’s Flood in 2348 BC.

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The following is a review of The Lie, by Ken Ham (Master Book, 2024), and a comparison of the 1987, 2012, and 2024 editions. A longer article appeared here in 3 Quarks Daily.

Let me first remind you of the scale of Ken Ham’s political significance. He has among his friends Mike Johnson, Speaker of the US House of Representatives, whose law firm has represented AiG pro bono. And among the contributors to its magazine is Calvin Beisner, director of the Cornwall Alliance, whose entire purpose is to deny the importance of human-caused climate change. Cornwall in turn has direct links to the Heartland Institute and to the Heritage Foundation, authors of Project 2025.

Readers here will be familiar with the destructive and anti-scientific approach of the modern creationist movement in the US. But that’s only half the story. It is not only about the beginning of the world, but about its ending. Genesis is pivotal, but so is Revelation. So are the many hints of the end of the world that are explicit in the New Testament, and can be discovered with sufficient ingenuity in the Old.

Such thinking underlines the apocalyptic tone, repeatedly echoed in AiG’s material, that underlies current US right-wing politics. If the Earth does not have a deep past, we cannot expect it to have a prolonged future. We should not be concerning ourselves with conservation, but with righteousness. This perspective has political implications, and comparing the 1987 and 2024 versions of The Lie shows the political aspect becoming increasingly explicit. Otherwise, there is not much difference between the two editions, though The third edition is more repetitious and, where direct comparison is possible, less vigorous in its use of language, and more hectoring, than the original.

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I found this spider trapped in a porcelain sink from which it could not climb out, so I naturally snapped a few pictures. The people at Bugguide classified it as a member of the family Gnaphosidae. They warned me that Google Lens is not good at spiders, but, just for fun, I asked. Among the first hits was my very own picture of this very spider here.

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