Upcoming dragon exhibit in Creation Museum

[frameacloud]

Trigger warnings: Conflict between religion and science.

May: The Creation Museum, a well-funded museum promoting Christian young-earth creationist views on history and biology, located in Petersburg, Kentucky, announced that it will install a new exhibit about dragons. The museum is advertising it with billboards in several cities. The exhibit will be about dragons in global mythology and legend. Young-earth creationists believe that dinosaurs lived alongside humans. The exhibit suggests that old myths about dragons might really be about dinosaurs.

Doubtful News, a skeptical current events blog, expresses dismay about this exhibit for several reasons.

The teaser for the exhibit says that it will contain a great deal of original artwork, including "two large colorful dragons from China." The museum is famous for, among other things, the high quality and professionalism of its artwork. The museum's web-site says the exhibit will open "soon," but another page said it was going to open back on the weekend of May 24-25, so maybe it was postponed?

I'm not aware of any young-earth creationists in the otherkin, therianthrope, or dragon communities. I am aware of a lot of dragon mythology enthusiasts and Christians here, though, so maybe this will be of interest.


Sources

idoubtit, "Creation Museum invokes DRAGONS! Ooooh, scary!!!" 2013-06-23. Doubtful News. http://doubtfulnews.com/2013/06/creation-museum-invokes-dragons-ooooh-scary

"Bring forth the dragons!" 2013-05-07. Creation Museum. http://blogs.answersingenesis.org/blogs/creation-museum/2013/05/07/bring-forth-the-dragons

"Dragon invasion." Creation Museum. http://creationmuseum.org/whats-here/exhibits/dragon-invasion/

Ken Ham, "'Dragon Invasion' Coming to Creation Museum." 2013-05-15. Creation Museum. http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/2013/05/15/dragon-invasion-coming-creation-museum

Comments

[frameacloud]

Other than creationists, there are a lot of authors who argue that dragons are based on vague reconstructions of extinct animal fossils. I haven't even seen proof of that connection, though. I think that connection is speculative. I would think that wyverns look so much like pterosaurs that some ancient person must have found some really sweet pterosaur fossils, but I haven't heard of anybody proving that connection. I've heard the argument that gryphons (yeah, not quite dragons, never mind) could have been fanciful reconstructions of protoceratops fossils (a four-legged animal with a beak). While it's possible and even likely that the ancients must have found dinosaur bones, we don't know that the ancients had a nice protoceratops fossil and decided it was a gryphon. The similarity between a protoceratops and a gryphon could still be coincidental.

The only example I know of where we know for sure that a specific dragon myth was based on a fossil-- and it's not even a dinosaur fossil-- is the linnorm of Austria, because the people in question displayed a weird skull and said it was a dragon's, and kept the skull, so moderns were able to identify it as a rhino skull.

Maybe we never based dragons on dinosaurs. Maybe we reconstruct dinosaurs to look dragon-like. Out of wishful thinking. What else could an unknown large reptile be, but the thing from our myths and preconceptions?

[Edited a minute later to add:] Wait no I am so stupid I forgot! We do know for sure that the "dragon bones" used in traditional Chinese medicine are fossils, and a lot of them are dinosaur fossils. But they get all ground up into powder, not reconstructed. So I don't know how people would figure that those bones would look like reptiles. ...This is what I get for posting about my favorite subject just off the top of my head, without consulting any of my notes.

[citrakayah.livejournal.com]

Well, it does make a certain amount of sense. It's certainly true that the connection is speculative, but it isn't much of a stretch. I mean, great big skull like that of Dracorex... well, it's big and vaguely reptilian. And the Chinese have mistaken identities more than once (http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2005/04/14/1334145.htm#.UdBypdiMV8E).