A long time ago, Australian evolution denier Ken Ham attacked me for an article about a growing whooping cough epidemic in Australia. The epidemic brought out one of the worst anti-vaccine activists in the form of Meryl Dorey, who is the leading mouthpiece for the anti-vaccination lunacy in Australia.
Dorey is no different than any other pseudoscience propagandist, such as the ones found in the anti-evolution crowd (Ken Ham again), climate change denialists, and sasquatch/alien abduction/Loch Ness Monster/crop circle conspiracists. That’s right, there is no difference between creationism, sasquatch, and homeopathy — no science, and many beliefs based on…nothing.
I guess Ken Ham decided that he had to support Meryl Dorey by attacking me. So, let’s take a look at creationism, anti-vaxxers, Australia, and everything else that brought this story together. It’s fun
All about Ken Ham
At the end of the article about the whooping cough outbreak in Australia, I wrote a snarky/sarcastic/humorous statement about Australia: “OK, my Australian friends, how do you put up with Meryl Dorey? Just don’t send her back to the United States; you already gifted us Ken Ham and his Creation Museum.”
For those of you who don’t know, Ken Ham is an Australian creationist, who after trying to find an audience in secular Australia, and with a trail of lawsuits in his home country, runs to the only part of the world, outside of Islamic fundamentalist countries, where religion takes precedence over democracy. (Note: I wrote that in 2012, and it’s worse today.)
So, he shows up in the USA and sets up the laughable and anti-scientific website, Answers in Genesis, which has more incorrect information on one page than I can find on any Republican website. Oh, sorry, you didn’t think I was going to link you to Answers in Genesis? Scientists have strongly criticized the website for its bad information about science, evolution, and more
After deluding himself with the belief that everyone loves his ideas, rather than the reality that no one, other than uneducated fundamentalist “Christians”, actually believes in his lame ideas, he then wastes money that could be spent on actually helping his fellow man and spends US$27 million to build the Creation Museum, the laughingstock of rational people throughout the world.
In case you didn’t know, the Museum promotes racism (through the Hammite theory of racial origins) and other crazy ideas like humans and dinosaurs living together. Ok, technically avian dinosaurs (birds) are dinosaurs, so Ham’s museum focuses on non-avian dinosaurs. The last non-avian dinosaur died out about 65.3 million years before the rise of the earliest Homo species. I could go on about the museum, but others have done much better.
Ham’s next project is to build another commercial tourist trap and amusement park called Ark Encounter, a $172 million project that is getting excellent tax rebates (according to the ACLU, completely constitutional) from the state of Kentucky. Once again, the hypocritical “Christians” waste $172 million on a huge lie, instead of using that $172 million to help homeless Kentuckians. Oh wait, none of these wealthy “Christians” would contribute to a homeless charity at that amount, they prefer to violate the basic “Christian” principles such as, you know, be humble and help the poor.
The kerfuffle
So we come back to the old Skeptical Raptor and Ken Ham. After posting my article about the Australian pertussis outbreak, I got about 20X the normal hits to my website, which I attributed to talking about whooping cough. But no, that would be incorrect and a little naive on my part. Little old me hit Kenny’s radar, for some strange reason. So, he posts my article on his Facebook timeline, with a few comments:
We shouldn’t be surprised–but I and the Creation Museum get maligned in an article even when the article is not about me or the Creation Museum.
What he didn’t realize was that the article was not even about him, it was about whooping cough vaccinations. It was humor since Australia keeps sending us their crazies, like Crocodile Dundee and Ken Ham. I guess Kenny doesn’t get my humor.
So, Ken Ham continues:
In an article about vaccinations in Australia and Whooping Cough (although the article wrongly uses the word ‘evolution’ for organisms resistance (it is not ‘evolution’ in the molecules to man sense–no new information)…
Kenny, wrong again. The B. pertussis bacterium has evolved since natural selection favored those that can avoid the immune system of the human host. Kenny woefully misunderstood the immune response, since a vaccine’s method of destroying a bacteria is not direct, it causes an immune response “memory” that allows the immune system to rapid kill a new invader.
Those B. pertussis bacteria that had some mutation to their cellular membrane that evades the human immune system can survive and produce a new generation. Ken Ham can’t even get simple science correct, and “Christians” believe in his crap? Amazing lack of critical thinking skills in these fundamentalists.
…in the last line of the article the author decides to bring up my name! I guess the Creation MUseum (sic) is just so well known and gets under the skin of these evolutionists who are worried because of the influence the biblical creation movement has.
Under my skin? Uh no. I actually couldn’t care less about creationists, because they are mostly stupid, causing little true harm to people. Although, to quote Leslie Brunetta, “If you’re looking for a cure for your cancer, don’t look to evolution-deniers for hope. As for me, I give thanks to Darwin and the researchers who have stood on his shoulders.”
Well, that’s true, but lucky for us real research is done in California, New York, Massachusetts, Minnesota, China, Japan, Europe, Canada, and Australia. Yes, Australia. All these places pretty much ignore creationists like Ken Ham, who has to spend the wealth of his supporters on playgrounds for the uneducated. So, it doesn’t get under my skin, because the evidence supports the Fact of Evolution, and it points out the absolute hypocrisy of most “Christians” who would rather put up an amusement park than do good works for mankind.
I don’t know why Ken Ham decided to take me on, but I guess it’s a badge of honor for the old Skeptical Raptor. Oh, and one more thing Kenny, we are all apes. And another thing, evolution is settled science.
