Creation Museum seeks wider audience

Some additions lack religious themes

The new Dr. Crawley’s Insectorium at the Creation Museum in Petersburg, Ky., showcases hundreds of beetles, butterflies, and other bugs. The insect exhibit is one of many new features at the controversial museum.

PETERSBURG, Ky. — The Kentucky museum where dinosaurs and biblical characters coexist has rolled out new exhibits and attractions — some with no religious message — to try to bring in new visitors.

The Creation Museum has added a bug exhibit that would fit right in at a natural science center, an outdoor zip line course, and a display examining whether the dragons of ancient tales were actually dinosaurs.

Since it opened six years ago, the museum — built with $27 million in private donations — has become an epicenter for the creationist message, which presents biblical stories from the chapter of Genesis as a literal telling of the world’s origin.

The museum, just south of Cincinnati, has long been criticized by scientists for dismissing evolution and asserting that Earth’s age is in the thousands, not billions, of years.

Museum co-founder Ken Ham said he knew when it opened to big crowds in 2007 that new features would need to be added from time to time. Total attendance since the opening is approaching 1.9 million, he said.

Mr. Ham is president of the Answers in Genesis ministry, which owns and operates the museum.

Steel cable lines soar over the rear portion of the museum’s property, part of a 2.5-mile zip line and sky bridge course billed on the museum’s Web site as “a family-friendly outdoor adventure.”

Unlike the inside of the museum, the course lacks any religious teachings.

Mr. Ham said the museum is welcoming to people seeking fun without a creationism lesson.

Inside, at the new Dr. Crawley’s Insectorium, brightly lit displays showcase hundreds of beetles, butterflies, and other bugs donated by a museum supporter. A life-sized animatronic professor who appears to be working in a research lab tells visitors the insects are too complex and varied to have evolved over millions of years.

“Isn’t God’s handiwork beautiful?” he said.

Near the entrance, a series of displays explores ancient dragon and monster myths from around the world and asks the visitor to consider whether the ancient people who told these tales had actually seen dinosaurs.

The new exhibits have gone in as the ministry’s ambitious Noah’s Ark-themed park has stalled, with about $13 million raised toward a $24 million goal.

The Ark Encounter project, which would include a massive replica of the vessel, was unveiled about two years ago, but its opening has been pushed back indefinitely.

Mr. Ham said he hopes the big boat can open by 2016.