The Creation Evidence Museum of Texas, originally Creation Evidences Museum,"Footprints of Fantasy"
, by Kaylois Henry, ''

Dallas Observer ''Dallas Observer'' is a free digital and print publication based in Dallas, Texas. The ''Observer'' publishes daily online coverage of local news, restaurants, music, and arts, as well as longform narrative journalism. A weekly print issue circ ...

'', December 12, 1996. Retrieved August 15, 2008. is a creationist museum in

Glen Rose Glen Rose (April 23, 1905 – September 3, 1994) was an American college football and college basketball coach. He served as the head basketball coach at the University of Arkansas from 1933 to 1942 and again from 1952 to 1966, as well as the hea ...

in Somervell County in central

Texas Texas ( , ; or ) is the most populous U.S. state, state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. It borders Louisiana to the east, Arkansas to the northeast, Oklahoma to the north, New Mexico to the we ...

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

. Founded in 1984 by

Carl Baugh Carl Edward Baugh (born October 21, 1936) is an American young Earth creationist. Baugh has claimed to have discovered human footprints alongside non-avian dinosaur footprints near the Paluxy River in Texas. Baugh promoted creationism as the form ...

for the purpose of researching and displaying exhibits that support

creationism Creationism is the faith, religious belief that nature, and aspects such as the universe, Earth, life, and humans, originated with supernatural acts of Creation myth, divine creation, and is often Pseudoscience, pseudoscientific.#Gunn 2004, Gun ...

, it portrays the Earth as six thousand years old and humans coexisting with non-avian dinosaurs, disputing that the

Earth Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to Planetary habitability, harbor life. This is enabled by Earth being an ocean world, the only one in the Solar System sustaining liquid surface water. Almost all ...

is approximately 4.5 billion years old and non-avian dinosaurs became extinct 65.5 million years before human beings arose.''Finding the Evolution in Medicine''
, Cynthia Delgado,

NIH The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is the primary agency of the United States government responsible for biomedical and public health research. It was founded in 1887 and is part of the United States Department of Health and Human Service ...

Record, July 28, 2006.Larry Martz & Ann McDaniel, ''

Newsweek ''Newsweek'' is an American weekly news magazine based in New York City. Founded as a weekly print magazine in 1933, it was widely distributed during the 20th century and has had many notable editors-in-chief. It is currently co-owned by Dev P ...

'' CIX(26): 23-24, June 29, 1987, ISSN 0028-9604

History and projects

The Creation Evidence Museum was founded by Carl Baugh, a

young Earth creationist Young Earth creationism (YEC) is a form of creationism which holds as a central tenet that the Earth and its lifeforms were created by supernatural acts of the Abrahamic God between about 10,000 and 6,000 years ago, contradicting established ...

, after he came to Glen Rose in 1982 to research claims of

fossilized A fossil (from Classical Latin , ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserved ...

human footprints alongside

dinosaur Dinosaurs are a diverse group of reptiles of the clade Dinosauria. They first appeared during the Triassic Geological period, period, between 243 and 233.23 million years ago (mya), although the exact origin and timing of the #Evolutio ...

footprints in the

limestone Limestone is a type of carbonate rock, carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material Lime (material), lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different Polymorphism (materials science) ...

banks of the

Paluxy River The Paluxy River, also known as Paluxy Creek, is a river in the U.S. state of Texas. It is a tributary of the Brazos River. It is formed by the convergence of the ''North Paluxy River'' and the ''South Paluxy River'' near Bluff Dale, Texas in E ...

, near

Dinosaur Valley State Park Dinosaur Valley State Park is a state park near Glen Rose, Texas, United States. History Dinosaur Valley State Park, located just northwest of Glen Rose in Somervell County, Texas, is a scenic park set astride the Paluxy River. The land f ...

. He claims to have excavated 475 dinosaur footprints and 86 human footprints,"Creation Evidence Museum, Glen Rose, Texas"

Roadside America Roadside America was an indoor miniature village and railway covering . Created by Laurence Gieringer in 1935, it was first displayed to the public in his Hamburg, Pennsylvania, home. The miniature village's popularity increased after stories ...

. Retrieved August 15, 2008. which form the basis of the Creation Evidence Museum as well as other exhibits."Creationism Alive and Kicking in Glen Rose"
by Greg Beets, August 5, 2005, ''

Austin Chronicle Austin refers to: Common meanings * Austin, Texas, United States, a city * Austin (given name), a list of people and fictional characters * Austin (surname), a list of people and fictional characters * Austin Motor Company, a British car manufac ...

''. Baugh, who does not have an

accredited Accreditation is the independent, third-party evaluation of a conformity assessment body (such as certification body, inspection body or laboratory) against recognised standards, conveying formal demonstration of its impartiality and competence to ...

degree, remains the director and main speaker for CEM. In 2001 Baugh and Creation Evidence Museum were featured on ''

The Daily Show ''The Daily Show'' is an American late-night talk show, late-night talk and news satire television program. It airs each Monday through Thursday on Comedy Central in the United States, with extended episodes released shortly after on Paramount+ ...

'' where Baugh likened human history to ''

The Flintstones ''The Flintstones'' is an American animated sitcom produced by Hanna-Barbera, Hanna-Barbera Productions, which takes place in a romanticized Stone Age setting and follows the titular family, the Flintstones, and their next-door neighbors, the R ...

'' and the show poked fun at his claims about the hyperbaric biosphere, pterodactyl expeditions, and dinosaurs. The Creation Evidence Museum sponsors continuing

paleontological Paleontology, also spelled as palaeontology or palæontology, is the scientific study of the life of the past, mainly but not exclusively through the study of fossils. Paleontologists use fossils as a means to classify organisms, measure geolo ...

and

archaeological Archaeology or archeology is the study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of Artifact (archaeology), artifacts, architecture, biofact (archaeology), biofacts or ecofacts, ...

excavations among other research projects, including a hunt for living pterodactyls in

Papua New Guinea Papua New Guinea, officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea, is an island country in Oceania that comprises the eastern half of the island of New Guinea and offshore islands in Melanesia, a region of the southwestern Pacific Ocean n ...

,"Adam, Eve and T. Rex"
by Ashley Powers, August 27, 2005, ''

Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' is an American Newspaper#Daily, daily newspaper that began publishing in Los Angeles, California, in 1881. Based in the Greater Los Angeles city of El Segundo, California, El Segundo since 2018, it is the List of new ...

''. Retrieved August 14, 2008. and expeditions to

Israel Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in West Asia. It Borders of Israel, shares borders with Lebanon to the north, Syria to the north-east, Jordan to the east, Egypt to the south-west, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. Isr ...

."Bronstein, head of Israeli Department of Antiquities, lectures in Glen Rose"
, John Watson, '' Cleburne Times-Review'', February 05, 2006. Materials from the museum have been recommended by the National Council on Bible Curriculum in Public Schools,"The Case for Teaching The Bible"
by David Van Biema, ''

Time Time is the continuous progression of existence that occurs in an apparently irreversible process, irreversible succession from the past, through the present, and into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequ ...

'' magazine, March 22, 2007. but the NCBCPS curriculum has been deemed "unfit for use in public school classrooms." One of the museum's projects is a "

hyperbaric Hyperbaric medicine is medical treatment in which an increase in barometric pressure of typically air or oxygen is used. The immediate effects include reducing the size of gas emboli and raising the partial pressures of the gases present. Initial ...

biosphere The biosphere (), also called the ecosphere (), is the worldwide sum of all ecosystems. It can also be termed the zone of life on the Earth. The biosphere (which is technically a spherical shell) is virtually a closed system with regard to mat ...

", a chamber which the museum hopes will reproduce the atmospheric conditions that these creationists postulate for Earth before the

Great Flood A flood myth or a deluge myth is a myth in which a great flood, usually sent by a deity or deities, destroys civilization, often in an act of divine retribution. Parallels are often drawn between the flood waters of these myths and the primeva ...

, and enable them to grow non-avian dinosaurs. Baugh says that these conditions made creatures live longer, and get larger, smarter and nicer. He claims that tests under these conditions have tripled the lifespan of fruit-flies, and detoxified copperhead snakes. A much larger version is under construction in the new building. In 2008, a descendant of a family that provided many original Paluxy River dinosaur tracks in the 1930s claimed that her grandfather had faked many of them, including the Alvis Delk Cretaceous Footprint. Zana Douglas, the granddaughter of George Adams, explained that during the 1930s depression her grandfather and other residents of Glen Rose made money by making

moonshine Moonshine is alcohol proof, high-proof liquor, traditionally made or distributed alcohol law, illegally. The name was derived from a tradition of distilling the alcohol (drug), alcohol at night to avoid detection. In the first decades of the ...

and selling "dinosaur fossils". The faux fossils brought $15 to $30 and when the supply ran low, they "just carved more, some with human footprints thrown in." In 2015, Baugh said the museum was receiving 15,000 visitors annually.

Exhibits

All of the creationist exhibits have been strongly criticized as incorrectly identified dinosaur prints, other fossils, or outright forgeries."Seeking Ancient Paths"
John R. Armstrong, PSCF 41 (March 1989): 33–35,

American Scientific Affiliation The American Scientific Affiliation (ASA) is a Christian religious organization of scientists and people in science-related disciplines. The stated purpose is "to investigate any area relating Christian faith and science." The organization publi ...

. Retrieved August 15, 2008."The Rise and Fall of the Paluxy Mantracks"
by Ronnie J. Hastings, PSCF 40 (September 1988): 144–154.

. Retrieved August 15, 2008. The second floor balcony of the museum features prominently a high statue of

Dallas Cowboys The Dallas Cowboys are a professional American football team based in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex. The Cowboys compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the National Football Conference (NFC) NFC East, East division. T ...

football coach

Tom Landry Thomas Wade Landry ( ; September 11, 1924 – February 12, 2000) was an American professional football coach, player, and World War II veteran. Regarded as one of the greatest head coaches of all time, he was the first head coach of the Dallas ...

. Displays in the Creation Evidence Museum include: * The "London Artifact", also known as the "

London Hammer The London Hammer (also known as the "London Artifact") is a hammer made of iron and wood that was found in London, Texas in 1936. Part of the hammer is embedded in a limey rock concretion, leading some to regard it as an anomalous artifact. Th ...

", an

out-of-place artifact An out-of-place artifact (OOPArt or oopart) is an artifact of historical, archaeological, or paleontological interest to someone that is claimed to have been found in an unusual context, which someone claims to challenge conventional historica ...

found in 1934 in

London, Texas London is an unincorporated community in northeastern Kimble County, Texas, United States. According to the ''Handbook of Texas'', the community had an estimated population of 180 in 2000. History Len L. Lewis, a horse trader and former Uni ...

. This is a hammer "of recent American historical style" (18th or 19th century) found in a

concretion that has been claimed to be

Ordovician period The Ordovician ( ) is a geologic period and system, the second of six periods of the Paleozoic Era, and the second of twelve periods of the Phanerozoic Eon. The Ordovician spans 41.6 million years from the end of the Cambrian Period Ma (mill ...

Cretaceous The Cretaceous ( ) is a geological period that lasted from about 143.1 to 66 mya (unit), million years ago (Mya). It is the third and final period of the Mesozoic Era (geology), Era, as well as the longest. At around 77.1 million years, it is the ...

rock. It was examined by scientists who concluded that the stone had not necessarily been part of the surrounding rock formation but could have formed around the hammer relatively recently: "The stone is real, and it looks impressive to someone unfamiliar with geological processes.... Minerals in solution can harden around an intrusive object dropped in a crack or simply left on the ground if the source rock (in this case, reportedly Ordovician) is chemically soluble." * The "Burdick Track", a human footprint in Cretaceous rock. Glen J. Kuban and geologist Gregg Wilkerson described anatomical errors in the "footprint", and remains of algae which indicate that it was carved into the bottom of a limestone slab, similar to other tracks that were carved in the

area. * The "Fossilized Human Finger", a finger where tissues appear to have been replaced by Cretaceous stone. The stone was not found in situ and according to Mark Isaak "looks remarkably similar in size and shape to the cylindrical sandstone infillings of Ophiomoipha or Thalassmoides shrimp burrows commonly found in Cretaceous rocks. Although its general shape is fingerlike, it has none of the fine structure one would expect from a finger." * The " Meister Print", two

trilobites Trilobites (; meaning "three-lobed entities") are extinct marine arthropods that form the class Trilobita. One of the earliest groups of arthropods to appear in the fossil record, trilobites were among the most successful of all early animals, ...

slate Slate is a fine-grained, foliated, homogeneous, metamorphic rock derived from an original shale-type sedimentary rock composed of clay or volcanic ash through low-grade, regional metamorphism. It is the finest-grained foliated metamorphic ro ...

that appear to be crushed in a

sandal Sandals are an open type of shoe, consisting of a sole held to the wearer's foot by straps going over the instep and around the ankle. Sandals can also have a heel. While the distinction between sandals and other types of footwear can sometim ...

print. The print is "questionable on several accounts" such as the shallowness of the print,

spall Spall are fragments of a material that are broken off a larger solid body. It can be produced by a variety of mechanisms, including as a result of projectile impact, corrosion, weathering, cavitation, or excessive rolling pressure (as in a ba ...

patterns, striding sequence, and similarities to the

Wheeler formation The Wheeler Shale (named by Charles Doolittle Walcott, Charles Walcott) is a Cambrian ( 507 Annum, Ma) fossil locality world-famous for prolific agnostid and ''Elrathia kingii'' trilobite remains (even though many areas are barren of fo ...

. "In short, the trilobites in the specimen are real enough, but the 'print' itself appears to be due solely to inorganic, geologic phenomena," according to Kuban. * The "Hand Print in Stone", allegedly a hand print in Cretaceous rock."Creation Evidence Museum Online — Museum Displays"
, official site. Retrieved August 15, 2008. Baugh has provided no evidence it was

in situ is a Latin phrase meaning 'in place' or 'on site', derived from ' ('in') and ' ( ablative of ''situs'', ). The term typically refers to the examination or occurrence of a process within its original context, without relocation. The term is use ...

in any Cretaceous bed, nor allowed experts to inspect it. Creationists have been critical of it too."Creation Science Rebuttals — Creation Evidence Museum Lacks Evidence!"
, by Greg Neyman,

Answers in Creation Old Earth Creationism (OEC) is an umbrella of theological views encompassing certain varieties of creationism which may or can include day-age creationism, gap creationism, progressive creationism, and sometimes theistic evolution. Broadly speaki ...

. Retrieved August 15, 2008. * The "Alvis Delk Cretaceous Footprint", allegedly a human footprint partially overlapped by an

Acrocanthosaurus ''Acrocanthosaurus'' ( ; ) is a genus of carcharodontosaurid dinosaurs that existed in what is now North America during the Aptian and early Albian stages of the Early Cretaceous, from 113 to 110 million years ago. Like most dinosaur genera, ...

dinosaur footprint, found when a slab supposedly taken from Glen Rose was later cleaned up."Rock solid proof?"
, by David May, '' Weatherford Democrat'', July 28, 2008. Also printed a
"Rock-solid proof?"
, in '' Mineral Wells Index'', July 28, 2008."Creation Evidence Museum Online – Alvis Delk Cretaceous Footprint"
official site. Retrieved August 15, 2008.
by David May, August 11, 2008, '' Mineral Wells Index''. Retrieved August 15, 2008."Rock's finders discovering celebrity not always pleasant"
, by David May, August 12, 2008, '' Mineral Wells Index''. Retrieved August 15, 2008. The footprint is presented as representing ''Homo bauanthropus'', a species name coined by Baugh but not recognized by anyone else. Biologist

PZ Myers Paul Zachary Myers (born March 9, 1957) is an American biologist who founded and writes the '' Pharyngula'' science blog. He is associate professor of biology at the University of Minnesota Morris (UMM)

described it as a blatant fake. The "human print has toes like tubes and a weirdly dug-in big toe", while "the dino print is even worse — it’s basically a three-pronged flat plate" with no resemblance to a real dinosaur footprint. Kuban described anatomical problems in detail. He notes that the slab was not documented in situ, and there are significant issues with

CT scan A computed tomography scan (CT scan), formerly called computed axial tomography scan (CAT scan), is a medical imaging technique used to obtain detailed internal images of the body. The personnel that perform CT scans are called radiographers or ...

s claimed to authenticate the slab. Other creationists have not supported the claims, and one of those originally promoting the slab has removed the information from his website. In 1982–1984, several scientists, including J.R. Cole, L.R. Godfrey, R.J. Hastings, and Steven Schafersman, examined Baugh's purported "mantracks" as well as others provided by creationists in Glen Rose. In the course of the examination "Baugh contradicted his own earlier reports of the locations of key discoveries" and many of the supposed prints "lacked characteristics of human footprints." After a three-year investigation of the tracks and Baugh's specimens, the scientists concluded there was no evidence for any of Baugh's claims or any "dinosaur-man tracks".

Criticism from creationists

Young Earth creationist organizations such as

Answers in Genesis Answers in Genesis (AiG) is an American fundamentalist Christian apologetics parachurch organization. It advocates young Earth creationism on the basis of its literal, historical-grammatical interpretation of the Book of Genesis and the Bib ...

and

Creation Ministries International Creation Ministries International (CMI) is a nonprofit organisation that promotes the pseudoscience of young Earth creationism. It has branches in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Singapore, South Africa, the United Kingdom, and the United Stat ...

have criticized Baugh's claims saying he "muddied the water for many Christians ... People are being misled." Don Batten, of

wrote: "Some Christians will try to use Baugh's 'evidences' in witnessing and get 'shot down' by someone who is scientifically literate. The ones witnessed to will thereafter be wary of all creation evidences and even more inclined to dismiss Christians as nut cases not worth listening to." Answers in Genesis lists the "Paluxy tracks" as arguments "we think creationists should NOT use" mphasis in original The old Earth creationist organization

Answers In Creation Old Earth Creationism (OEC) is an umbrella of theological views encompassing certain varieties of creationism which may or can include day-age creationism, gap creationism, progressive creationism, and sometimes theistic evolution. Broadly speaki ...

also reviewed Baugh's museum and concluded "the main artifacts they claim show a young earth reveal that they are deceptions, and in many cases, not even clever ones." The "Burdick track" and "fossilized finger" were featured on the controversial

NBC The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a subsidiary of Comcast. It is one of NBCUniversal's ...

program ''

The Mysterious Origins of Man ''The Mysterious Origins of Man'' is a pseudoarchaeology, pseudoarchaeological television special that originally aired on NBC on February 25, 1996. Hosted by Charlton Heston, the program presents the fringe theory that mankind has lived on the E ...

'', aired in 1996 and hosted by

Charlton Heston Charlton Heston (born John Charles Carter; October 4, 1923 – April 5, 2008) was an American actor. He gained stardom for his leading man roles in numerous Cinema of the United States, Hollywood films including biblical epics, science-fiction f ...

."A Review of NBC's 'The Mysterious Origins of Man'"
1996, Glen J. Kuban. Retrieved August 15, 2008. Creationist

Ken Ham Kenneth Alfred Ham (born 20 October 1951) is an Australian Christian fundamentalist, young Earth creationist, apologist and former science teacher, living in the United States. He is the founder, CEO, and former president of Answers in Genesis ...

criticized the production in the February 1996

newsletter in a review titled "Hollywood's 'Moses' Undermines

Genesis Genesis may refer to: Religion * Book of Genesis, the first book of the biblical scriptures of both Judaism and Christianity, describing the creation of the Earth and of humankind * Genesis creation narrative, the first several chapters of the Bo ...

." Ham attacked Baugh's claims, saying, "According to leading creationist researchers, this evidence is open to much debate and needs much more intensive research. One wonders how much of the information in the program can really be trusted!"

References

External links

Creation Evidence Museum Online
— official site. {{Creationist museums Museums established in 1984 Museums in Somervell County, Texas Pseudoscience Creationist museums in the United States Religious museums in Texas

History and projects

Exhibits

Criticism from creationists

See also

References

External links