On the surface, this seems like a good idea…
but the scientific community overlooks one important aspect of invincible ignorance–it’s invincible. No matter what is tried, there will be “blowback.” The religious right will use the mythical creature exhibit as proof that the creationist theory is part of mankind’s deepest beliefs and that the creatures displayed have validity in the objective world of science. The museum may have the intention of edification of its visitors, but I fear the opposite will occur with those most in the need of enlightenment. For the them, the exhibit will serve as catalyst for further, insistent lunacy in the face of fact.
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Exhibit: dragons, other mythic creatures
By DEEPTI HAJELA, Associated Press WriterFri May 25, 4:22 PM ET
Harry Potter would probably feel right at home here.
A new exhibit pairs an unusual subject — dragons and other fantastic creatures — with an unlikely location: a science museum. “Mythic Creatures: Dragons, Unicorns and Mermaids” opens Saturday at the American Museum of Natural History and runs through Jan. 6
What’s going on? Has one of the pre-eminent science museums in the world made a discovery that would show these creatures are real? No, no, the exhibit looks at how people have come up with all kinds of myths and stories to account for things they didn’t understand.
“Across cultures and throughout time these creatures are what people dreamed up as a way of interpreting and making sense of the strange and often mindboggling but real wonders of the natural world,” said museum President Ellen Futter.
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“Just like analytical science is one way of interpreting the world, myth was a way people interpreted the world up until quite recently,” said Mark Norell, the show’s co-curator. “If you look at all the mythical creatures … they do have real underpinnings in biology.”
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Images: (Chronicles of Narnia) main photo; (W) via unconfirmedsources.com; (Babs tattoo) photo by Jon Chase–Harvard University Gazzette via hno.harvard.edu; I had originally manhipulated the photograph in February, 2006 in a blog about W’s Human-Anmal hybrids.
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Please find the entire article here.