I had difficulty answering the question—he acknowledged that nearly everyone else did as well. I answered something about the psychology of Creationism, which was true enough; but I've given it some thought, and this is what I really think I learned there.

Obviously, I learned no genuine factual knowledge, really nothing about actual science, philosophy, or truth; while some of the statements made in the museum were true (e.g. the Earth is 10,000 kilometers in diameter), most were trivial, and all were familiar. The Creation Museum had a lot of information I already knew, and many outright lies and absurdities. Nor did I learn much about the actual claims of Creationists; perhaps a little, but in general I'd heard almost all of it before.

What I really learned was what we are up against. I learned how wealthy, how powerful, and how dedicated the enemies of science truly are. The Creation Museum was, above all, a sick parody of a natural history museum, with all the same bustling gift shops, full-color posters, and animatronic animals, but none of the actual scientific validity. (Same great taste, less filling?) I was reminded that we cannot simply ignore this issue; we cannot sit idly by while anti-scientific values and beliefs become more and more powerful. We must stand up and support science against these attacks before it is too late.

I also learned about indoctrination, and was forced to confront the fact that a lot of what we call "teaching" is really not teaching at all, but indoctrination. The Creation Museum is a masterwork of indoctrination; but then, it is not so different from a mainstream science museum. Most of the information presented by even a mainstream, respectable natural history museum is presente without justification, without evidence, and frequently in a dumbed-down form that omits significant qualifications and nuances. The posters are beautiful—but the evidence to support their claims is scant. In short, they are presented as dogma, rather than inference. There is really no more reason for a young child to believe the claims of a mainstream science museum than there would be for them to believe the claims of the Creation Museum. When we say that the K-T boundary was laid down 65 million years ago, we don't show the convergence of geological, physical, chemical, and biological evidence for this; we merely state it as a fact, to be accepted and digested. When we declare that quasars are millions of light-years away, we don't discuss the astronomical and physical reasons we think so; we merely declare it to be true. (Oddly, the Creation Museum does not deny the size of the universe—after showcaseing the universe's incredible grandeur and Earth's total irrelevance in the cosmos, it merely hand-waves the contradiction with the Biblical account using a few sentences of technobabble about "gravitational time dilation," which has already been accounted for in the mainstream age of 13.7 billion years, and "alternative synchronicity conditions," which as far as I can tell is just a meaningless phrase.)

We need to change this; it's time to restructure our educational system so that it really is about education and not indoctrination. We need to teach logic, probability, critical thinking, inductive inference; these things are far more important than astronomy, geology, biology, chemistry, and physics. A student trained in logic can go on to learn everything there is to know about biology, but a student indoctrinated in biology may never go on to learn what everyone needs to know about logic. There is no skill or knowledge more important than the capacity to critically evaluate new information; yet our education system barely even deals with this subject. We must stop filling buckets and start lighting fires.

But of course you want to hear about the Creation Museum. This will also help us to understand what not to do in science education.

After five hours of driving (including rest stops), we arrived shortly after noon at the massive high-tech complex, part of a beautiful tree-lined campus, surrounded by Kentucky cornfields. (Presumably the land was cheap.) Slightly chubby yet fairly intimidating security guards directed us to an appropriate place to park in the enormous lot. Lesson Learned: Locate your educational facilities where people are, preferably somewhere near a major city.

We ran into quite a few people from the Secular Student Alliance, but none of them knew how to register and collect our prepaid tickets. Eventually we learned that somewhere in the fine print it had said that registration was at 11:00, and so we had to buy new tickets from the Museum itself. This cost us an extra $60, for which we were quite annoyed. Lesson Learned: Always be suspicious of education that costs you money.

Entering the Museum, we found a display offering "both sides" of the Creationism controversy, the Christian Young-Earth-Creationist version juxtaposed with the mainstream scientific evolutionary account. It was a surprisingly fair description of each—but the notion that there were only two options was already biasing things in favor of Creationism. Next came a series of displays arguing for why we should accept the Biblical account ("God's Word") rather than the mainstream scientific account ("Human Reason"). The arguments were among the most ridiculous and least compelling I've ever heard, yet they were presented on beautiful full-color displays. Lesson Learned: Either only show your own views with minimal reference to other views—or specifically include all the relevant alternatives people have believed throughout history, with all these beliefs placed in appropriate historical and cultural context.

After that was a moderately revisionist history of the relationship between religion and science—a history which ended at Darwin, as if Darwin were the last word on science's knowledge of nature or its relation to religion. Lesson Learned: It's easy to twist history to support your view; all you have to do is leave out important things.

This was followed by a display of the alleged "degradation" of modern culture, represented by postings of newspaper articles about gay rights and feminism (unequivocally good things by any sane standard) combined with depictions of apathy and moral relativism (certainly bad things; but hated just as much by scientists as by religious leaders). Then we went through a "time tunnel" which was basically a bunch of lights stuck onto a round ceiling—something like what the stars appear to be according to the book of Genesis. This was followed by a display of the grandeur and awe of science, with little notes about how to interpret this grandeur in an appropriately Biblical way. (Actually I think they shot themselves in the foot; distant galaxies don't seem to fit with Genesis, and what Intelligent Designer would make dolphins swim sideways and be unable to breathe underwater?) Lesson Learned: Okay, this time I have nothing.

Shortly after this, we walked through an exhibit of animatronic animals and (very Uncanny Valley) androids, apparently to represent the story of Genesis. There was no explanation of the animatronic technology; presumably the children are to think it's all divine magic. Moreover, all the animatronics were sexless creatures, lacking nipples or genitals; I presume this was to avoid traumatizing the children with tasteful displays of correct anatomy. The story of the Tree of Knowledge was carefully articulated, including the fact that apparently it accounts for all evil everywhere ever, because evidently we all deserve to be punished for the actions of Adam and Eve. Lesson Learned: Robots probably aren't necessary, but if you do have robots, include information on how they were constructed and what they were based on; that's part of science. Also, animals have sex organs, and it's best to include these in your robot representations. Sure, be tasteful rather than pornographic; but you're not "protecting" anyone by avoiding showing any kind of sex organs. Kids know that boys have penises and girls have vaginas, and most realize that animals come in male and female varieties as well.

There was also a series of displays about death, horror, suffering, and other forms of evil. Apparently all of these things can be attributed either to Adam's Fall or to Darwinism; they seem to waffle on this point. Lesson Learned: Scare tactics generally lead to the closing, not opening, of minds. Avoid depictions of horror and violence unless specifically necessary (e.g. Holocaust museum). Moreover, due to the structure of the human mind, any depiction involving text and words will be more rational than a depiction involving images, which will be more rational than a depiction involving videos, motion, or animation.

Soon we came to a display of Noah's Ark, a large wooden mass apparently representing 1% of the craft's total volume. I presume it was based on actual Biblical references, perhaps with a slight overestimate of the length of the "cubit" in meters. It certainly could have contained a great many animals, but what about food? Was waste simply shoveled overboard? Moreover, do Creationists have any idea how many species there are on Earth? Naturally, we did not receive a display indicating the precise configuration of animals and food upon the Ark (e.g. where the trilobytes go, how the tyrannosaurs are kept from eating the bovines) while in motion. We were however treated to dioramas in which a pair of some sort of sauropod was carried onto the Ark. This was also accompanied by displays of Egyptian hieroglyphics, for no apparent reason. Lesson learned: Naturally, you can't include every possible detail about everything; but acknowledge that, admit the limitations of education and of science in general, and offer resources for learning more. Cool displays are fine, but they need to be backed up by serious evidence and additional resources.

Next came a surprisingly accurate display about evolution and natural selection. The explanation was clear and cogent; what its authors didn't seem to understand was that it was completely beside the point. Yes, natural selection only adapts organisms to an environment; it does not make them objectively more "fit" in any deep sense. Evolutionary biology is based on this principle, so I don't know what exactly they were trying to argue against. Lesson Learned: Make sure you understand your opponent's position before you start arguing against it. They might not even disagree with you.

Then we saw a display about the geologic column, and some ridiculous hand-waving explanation for how it could have formed in the Flood. Basically it was an insult to all human intelligence. And then, of course, the gift shop! The gift shop was enormous, full of books, DVDs, tee shirts, and toys; one tee shirts attacked the Darwin Fish, saying "Legs that mock have knees that will bend." For me, the most frightening part was the children's section. It was at this moment that I learned the deepest lesson of my visit to the Museum: It is in the minds and hearts of our children that the battle will be fought; and it is they who will suffer the most because of this.

After that, we visited the planetarium, where we were treated to an eminently sound account of the vastness and awe that is the natural universe, with a few spliced-in sound bytes about how "secular science" will never account for things that in fact it already has. Finally, there was a petting zoo with adorable hybrid animals (supposedly illustrating the flaws in evolution's concept of "speciation" in favor of a broader "kind"; in reality these hybrids clearly illustrate the fact that speciation exists on a continuum—exactly what evolutionary theory would predict); no terrifying hybrid animals, I might add. No snakes, no spiders, no mutant worms; just zebra-horses and llama-alpacas.These two final exhibits may actually have, more than anything else, converted a few Creationists to the scientific side: They are so much more consistent with the evolutionary view, and so obviously so. Pale Blue Dot plus a continuum of speciation equals checkmate. Lesson Learned: If there is powerful evidence against your side, you should probably reconsider your side. Failing that, you should at least develop counterarguments that are fairly compelling. Just displaying the evidence without addressing it makes you look pretty foolish.

And there you have it; the Creation Museum and what I learned from it. My numerous and highly amusing photos of this experience have been uploaded to my photoblog in the album "Creation Museum."