When I follow the coverage of the Ukrainian crisis in some of the most respectable mainstream Western media, I have the strange feeling that I am a part of a tour in a natural history museum. Not any kind of natural museum, but a rather unusual one — a creationist museum. For those who may not know a little factoid: there are over 30 in the USA alone and two in the province of Alberta, Canada — the birthplace of the Reform Party, now the Progressive Conservative Party which has been in power since 2006 (although both names are largely misleading).
One of the newest creationist museums in the US is in Petersburg, Kentucky, a 70,000 square-foot (6,500 square meters) “state of the art” facility. A true marvel of robotics, comparable to the best Hollywood could offer: real-size animatronic pterodactyls, realistic sounds of the crying “king of the lizards” — Tyrannosaurus rex — surrounded by the jubilant and carefree robotic children of Adam and Eve. One may be astonished to learn that this $27 million facility is not losing money, on the contrary — it attracted over 715,000 visitors from all over the world willing to pay $30 per ticket for entry. (1)
So where is the parallel with regards to the coverage of Ukraine? First parallel: the facts, the evidence, the exhibit. In general, the impressive display in Petersburg is consistent with the latest findings of modern paleontology, size and shape of the bone fragments and skeletons, as well as rather believable depictions of full size majestic dinosaurs; certainly all of them could be proudly exhibited in any natural science museum. Furthermore, the offspring of Adam and Eve also looks quite realistic and could be a part of any ambitious curator strategy depicting the dawn of early human settlement.
The only problem is that all of that is pure falsification! It is a well known fact that the world is not 5,000 years old, but 13.2 billion years old and humans, amoeba, killer whales and bacteria responsible for dysentery were not created in 6 days before God’s well deserved weekend. So where is Ukraine here?