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A guest columnist reported he visited the museum. Jacob Tanenbaum, who was a fourth and fifth grade science teacher, wrote the column titled “A Science Teacher Draws the Line at Creation.” The piece was originally published in the January 2013 print edition of Scientific American under the title “Creation, Evolution and Indisputable Facts.”

Unsurprisingly, Mr. Tanenbaum’s “facts” about our exhibits weren’t exactly accurate.

Tanenbaum caricatured and misrepresented what biblical creationists believe.

For instance, Tanenbaum claimed that we teach, regarding the global Flood, that “Noah saved all animal species that we see today from the Flood.” This is a common equivocation that evolutionists make in regard to the animals on Noah’s Ark. As we clearly teach in the Creation Museum, Noah didn’t take representatives of every species of animal we see today—he took representatives of every “kind” (which is usually at the “family” level of classification) of land animal (not every type of animal). And these animals would have had the genetic material within them to eventually produce the many species we see today.

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There were other problems with Tanenbaum’s column. He claimed, “Creationists begin with answers and work to prove that those answer are right. … Scientists who formed the idea of human evolution did not invent the idea and go looking for fossils.”

What’s interesting about this statement is that some form of the idea of evolution seems to have been around since at least the time of the ancient Greeks. Over 2,000 years ago, a group known as the Epicureans had a belief that there were no gods who intervened in the world. They also believed that over long ages, all life emerged from atom-like materials, and that life gave rise to higher life, such as mankind.

However, we do have an eyewitness account of the origin of the world—the Word of God Himself, the Creator and Sustainer of the universe. We don’t have to rely on man’s ideas (fallible speculations) of how the world may have come to be, because the Bible tells us plainly how the universe and everything in it was created.

In 2014 I debated Bill Nye at the Creation Museum.

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There’s no doubt that debate has had, and continues to have, a phenomenal impact. I’ve also heard from people who have become Christians as a result of the debate.

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As we were leading up to what some people had dubbed the “debate of the century,” “an historic debate,” and even “Scopes 2,” I want to share some personal thoughts that were going through my mind.

The Scopes trial in 1925 was a turning point in the history of America, and not just for the creation/evolution debate. The man representing Christianity (William Jennings Bryan), a fine man, sadly did a poor job defending the Christian faith as he went against the ACLU attorney Clarence Darrow. Bryan didn’t know how to answer questions like “where did Cain get his wife?” and he also compromised the Bible with millions of years.

Even though Bryan technically won the trial, in the whole scheme of things it was a win for the secularists. In a real sense, the well-publicized trial showed the world that Christians couldn’t defend the history in the Bible—and that they were willing to give in to the secular teaching of millions of years.

I truly felt inadequate. Yet I knew the Lord had put me in this position. As some bloggers and media reports were comparing this evolution/creation debate to that of the Scopes trial, I must admit I shuddered. You see, I thought of the heavy responsibility of representing Christianity to both the Christian and secular world who would be watching. I truly felt inadequate. Yet I knew the Lord had put me in that position.

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For Bible-believing Christians, another factor that drove interest in the debate was because biblical Christianity had been losing its influence on the culture over the decades—particularly since the election of President Obama and his pro-gay “marriage” agenda and pro-abortion stance.

And don’t forget how atheists had been successful in imposing their worldview (their religion) on the culture. They had successfully removed Christian symbols like crosses, Ten Commandments displays, and nativity scenes from many public places. And we had also seen that prayer, Bible readings, and creation had all but been eliminated from schools.