Williamstown secret deal may get a free fire station for the Ark

0 Comments
PVA property plot of the possible future Williamstown fire station. Note that it is surrounded by Ark property and only accessible via the Ark’s service road.

Will the Ark Park get a free fire station from the City of Williamstown? Is the Ark going to announce a Tower of Babel ride soon (and get more tax incentives)?

Back on January 8, 2026, the acting Mayor of Williamstown, Kentucky, Dave Henson, had a special meeting/luncheon with Ken Ham and several Answers in Genesis/Ark Encounter officers on the Ark Encounter property. I submitted a Kentucky Open Records Act (KORA) request to Williamstown and received a handful of documents including photographs of the Mayor with Ken Ham and the meeting agenda. The meeting agenda briefly mentions a discussion of a “Fire Department substation” on Eibeck Lane (the employees’ and delivery entrance to the Ark) but nothing specific. Since this wasn’t considered a City Council meeting, nothing appeared to be official.

In early August, I noticed a record in the Grant County News where Ark Development, LLC (an Answers in Genesis shell company) had sold the City of Williamstown an ~1.9 acre property on Eibeck Road for $1. This piqued my curiosity, and I sent a KORA request to the City on August 3, 2026. On August 7, 2026, before the City responded to my open records request, I visited Williamstown in person to look up the exact location and take a photo of the site.

Publisher recalls book that misquotes Michael Behe

0 Comments

A report in Retraction Watch, University press removes book about intelligent design for misquoting ID proponent, reported, “New York University Press is pulling all copies of a book about intelligent design after the author falsely quoted another scholar in the work.” The book is Designer Science: A History of Intelligent Design in America, by C.W. Howell. I was slightly taken aback by the word falsely, where inaccurately might have held less baggage. At any rate, Retraction Watch says,

The misquote stemmed from a passage in a court ruling Howell “mistakenly” read as a direct quote from Behe and attributed as such, he told us. Howell writes about the intersection of faith and science, and serves as an academic director for the C.S. Lewis Foundation.

The book has been pulled from the market and does not appear on Amazon. The Press will presumably reissue the book after the error has been corrected. I consider that beyond principled: I consider the the misquotation a minor error (all books have errors, even mine). I would have treated it like an error in a published paper and simply issued an erratum, posted the erratum on the publisher’s and my web pages, and probably tried to get Amazon to follow suit.

Loxodonta cyclotis

0 Comments

Photography Contest.

Joel Eissenberg, Honorable Mention.

Close-up of elephant eye.
Loxodonta cyclotis – African elephant. Dr. Eissenberg writes, "Image taken at Roger Williams Park Zoo in Providence RI. Elephants have wrinkled skin composed of a dense network of fractures that helps them survive in hot climates. The deep creases form a web of microvalleys that trap moisture, allowing their skin to retain up to ten times more water than a smooth surface. This trapped moisture cools them through evaporation."

Ken Ham's attack on the press

0 Comments
The fake ark on opening day, by Dan Phelps.
The "Ark" on opening day. Photograph by Dan Phelps.

Recently, Marina Johnson of the Louisville Courier-Journal and Jolene Almendarez of the Cincinnati Enquirer duplicated some of my work and documented declining Ark ticket sales (they confirmed what I have been documenting for many months. They also confirmed that the sales tax rebate incentive from Kentucky Tourism ended in mid-August, 2026).

Tellingly, Ken Ham refused to be interviewed for this story. Rather, on August 25, Mr. Ham responded with an AIG-produced video. The video is filled with “jokes” and brief cuts of Donald Trump.

Apparently, Mr. Ham doesn’t like speaking to reporters who might ask him difficult questions. Mr. Ham spent more time in this video discussing declining newspaper sales than the fact that his Ark is selling fewer tickets every year. He basically admitted that ticket sales are declining but deflected the issue by pointing out that the newspaper that originally published the story (the Cincinnati Enquirer) has declining sales. Mr. Ham is such a master of obfuscation that his followers are likely to not understand the deceitful and irrelevant switch in topics.

Megarhyssa greenei and M. atrata

0 Comments

Photography Contest.

Malcolm Schongalla, Honorable Mention.

Ichneumonid wasps. Mr. Schongalla notes, "These photographs were taken June 2026 in the Northeastern US. The two wasps were laying eggs on horntail larvae in the same log, at the same time. These are 'parasitoid wasps,' also known as Darwin wasps, of the family Ichneumonidae. The lighter color wasp [above] is Megarhyssa greenei and the darker one [below] is Megarhyssa atrata. The female member of this insect family lays her eggs on or near another insect host after paralyzing it. The larva feeds on the host insect's body as it grows. Unfortunately, no larvae are visible in these pictures. The larvae are inside the log, and the wasps' long ovipositor is adapted to reaching deep into the bore holes to reach them. The wasps have, amazingly, developed ways to detect the presence of larvae deep within the wood, from the outside."

More, including the second photograph, below the fold.