The Answers in Genesis Museum is asking the governor of Kentucky to grant it special police powers so that “their 10- to 20-person security team can gain access to better training and equipment to ensure they can handle the crowds and traffic anticipated when the facility opens May 28” according to the Cincinatti Post. “The goal is not to become an armed encampment or anything like that,” says AiG Museum Security Director Jeffrey Hawkins.
And Ken Ham is not amused: Christian publisher Ken Ham said Maher showed up unannounced this week to videotape an interview with him at Ham’s Creation Museum, which is just south of Cincinnati. The $25 million facility, due to open in the spring, tells visitors that the earth is just a few thousand years old and that Adam and Eve lived among the dinosaurs. Ham said a camera crew arranged a Monday visit to the museum, but he was not told that it was connected with Maher, host of HBO’s “Real Time with Bill Maher." ...
P.Z. Myers pointed out the beginnings of a backlash against “the new atheism” in the Wall Street Journal on January 5, now on January 16 Ken Ham at Answers in Genesis has joined in: We’ve warned you about them before on our website—but now they’re on a much more aggressive march all across America. No longer are they just staying in their classrooms or writing books and articles in the comfort of their offices. They are “the new atheists,” and they are aggressively going after your children, your liberties, and your faith! … These atheists are not just publicity seekers. They are very serious about their mission. Dawkins, from England, was recently crusading across America to proclaim his atheism to newspapers, websites, and at public meetings. ...
This post is a followup to my series of ten posts about the finances of creationist ministries which were previously reported in Reports of the National Center for Science Education in 2000 in an article by John Cole: Answers in Genesis, Institute for Creation Research, Access Research Network, the Creation Evidence Museum, Creation Illustrated Ministries, Creation Moments, Creation Research Society, Creation Worldview Ministries, the Discovery Institute, and, though not reported in Cole’s article, I also looked at Walter Brown’s Center for Scientific Creation. As Nick Matzke pointed out in a comment on the last of these, there are other creationist organizations out there of some significance, such as the Foundation for Thought and Ethics (publisher of the creationist/intelligent design textbook, Of Pandas and People), Probe Ministries (Ray Bohlin’s group in Texas which authored the annotated bibliography of Josh McDowell’s book Reasons Skeptics Should Consider Christianity–the anti-evolution sections of which were ghost authored by an individual who now supports evolution), and Hugh Ross’s old-earth creationist group, Reasons To Believe. There are also five groups that were listed in Cole’s article which I did not cover–these were the five smallest groups, the Creation Education Society of Tennessee, the Creation Resource Foundation of El Dorado, California, the Creation Science Association for Mid-America of Kansas City, Missouri (originators of the “Lucy’s knee joint” argument), the Creation-Science Fellowship of Pittsburgh, and the Genesis Institute of Mead, Washington. And there are still others out there, like the Twin Cities Creation Science Association of Minneapolis/St. Paul, Kent Hovind’s organization (which didn’t file anything with the IRS, which is part of why he’s in jail right now), and various online creationist ministries. I may, as Nick suggested, take a look at some of these others in the future. At this point, however, I wanted to see if any conclusions can be drawn from the data in the Form 990s of the groups I’ve covered so far. I took a look at one section of each of the Form 990s which gives income data for previous years, and totaled those amounts up for each year across all the groups for which I had data. In some cases, I had to use other sources which were not quite comparable (such as the revenue figures from John Cole’s article), but are probably good enough for approximation to look at the size of the creationist market each year. (The main difference between the income figures I used versus the revenue figures is that the income figures show money coming in for purchases without subtracting the cost of goods sold, while the revenue numbers deduct the cost of goods sold.) The Discovery Institute’s totals were used, even though the DI does more than creationism, so that may have contributed to an overestimate, while the omission of all of the other groups above would have contributed to an underestimate. Since the DI brings in considerably more revenue than the other groups, it would take quite a few creationist groups making less than $100,000 a year to make up the difference. So this can’t be considered definitive. Given this total size of the creationist market for each year, I then looked at each group’s percentage of that marketplace, and how it has changed over time. Here are the numbers, rounded to the closest $1 million: 1998: $13 million market Institute for Creation Research: 45% Answers in Genesis: 28% Discovery Institute: 15% Creation Evidence Museum: 3% Creation Moments: 2% Creation Illustrated Ministries: 3% Creation Research Society: no data All others: less than 1% each 1999: $13 million market Institute for Creation Research: 41% Answers in Genesis: 30% Discovery Institute: 13% Creation Evidence Museum: 7% Creation Moments: 2% Creation Illustrated Ministries: 2% Creation Research Society: 2% All others: less than 1% each 2000: $16 million market Answers in Genesis: 46% Institute for Creation Research: 34% Discovery Institute: 10% Creation Evidence Museum: 4% Creation Illustrated Ministries: 2% Creation Moments: 1% Creation Research Society: 1% All others: less than 1% each 2001: $20 million market Answers in Genesis: 46% Institute for Creation Research: 30% Discovery Institute: 15% Creation Evidence Museum: 3% Creation Research Society: 1% Creation Illustrated Ministries: 1% Creation Moments: 1% All others: less than 1% each 2002: $19 million market Answers in Genesis: 49% Institute for Creation Research: 31% Discovery Institute: 12% Creation Evidence Museum: 3% Creation Illustrated Ministries: 2% Creation Research Society: 2% Creation Moments: 1% All others: less than 1% each 2003: $21 million market Answers in Genesis: 52% Institute for Creation Research: 28% Discovery Institute: 15% Creation Evidence Museum: 2% Creation Illustrated Ministries: 2% Creation Moments: 1% Creation Research Society: 1% All others: less than 1% each 2004: $22 million market Answers in Genesis: 59% Institute for Creation Research: 20% Discovery Institute: 16% Creation Research Society: 1% Creation Moments: 1% Creation Evidence Museum: no data Creation Illustrated Ministries: no data Even with these approximations and limitations, there are a few things that stand out clearly: 1. The marketplace for creationism has been growing. 2. Answers in Genesis’ market share has grown and dominates the market. 3. The Institute for Creation Research has had a declining market share. 4. The Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture has had a fairly static market share (overrepresented here, as well, since their numbers include other branches of the DI). 5. Other creationist groups have tended to lose market share in the face of Answers in Genesis’s dominance, even if their overall revenue has grown.
This is the tenth and final in a series of posts about the finances of the creationist ministries which were previously reported in Reports of the National Center for Science Education in 2000 in an article by John Cole: Answers in Genesis, Institute for Creation Research, Access Research Network, the Creation Evidence Museum, Creation Illustrated Ministries, Creation Moments, Creation Research Society, Creation Worldview Ministries, the Discovery Institute, and now we finally reach Walter Brown’s Center for Scientific Creation to complete the series. Although Brown’s organization was not included in Cole’s article, I include this one because it is a Phoenix-based organization and one that I’ve personally interacted with. ...
This is the ninth in a series of posts about the finances of the creationist ministries which were previously reported in Reports of the National Center for Science Education in 2000 in an article by John Cole: the Access Research Network, Answers in Genesis, the Creation Evidences Museum, Creation Illustrated Ministries, Creation Moments, the Creation Research Society, Creation Worldview Ministries, the Institute for Creation Research, the Discovery Institute, and I’ll add Walter Brown’s Center for Scientific Creation to the list. ...
This is the eighth in a series of posts about the finances of the creationist ministries which were previously reported in Reports of the National Center for Science Education in 2000 in an article by John Cole: the Access Research Network, Answers in Genesis, the Creation Evidences Museum, Creation Illustrated Ministries, Creation Moments, the Creation Research Society, Creation Worldview Ministries, the Institute for Creation Research, the Discovery Institute, and I’ll add Walter Brown’s Center for Scientific Creation to the list. ...
This is the seventh in a series of posts about the finances of the creationist ministries which were previously reported in Reports of the National Center for Science Education in 2000 in an article by John Cole: the Access Research Network, Answers in Genesis, the Creation Evidences Museum, Creation Illustrated Ministries, Creation Moments, the Creation Research Society, Creation Worldview Ministries, the Institute for Creation Research, the Discovery Institute, and I’ll add Walter Brown’s Center for Scientific Creation to the list. ...
This is the sixth in a series of posts about the finances of the creationist ministries which were previously reported in Reports of the National Center for Science Education in 2000 in an article by John Cole: the Access Research Network, Answers in Genesis, the Creation Evidences Museum, Creation Illustrated Ministries, Creation Moments, the Creation Research Society, Creation Worldview Ministries, the Institute for Creation Research, the Discovery Institute, and I’ll add Walter Brown’s Center for Scientific Creation to the list. ...
This is the fifth in a series of posts about the finances of the creationist ministries which were previously reported in Reports of the National Center for Science Education in 2000 in an article by John Cole: the Access Research Network, Answers in Genesis, the Creation Evidences Museum, Creation Illustrated Ministries, Creation Moments, the Creation Research Society, Creation Worldview Ministries, the Institute for Creation Research, the Discovery Institute, and I’ll add Walter Brown’s Center for Scientific Creation to the list. ...