Creation Museum’s Ken Ham Believes Pokémon Go Proves Creationism Is Real

The Creationist Believes Pokémon Go Is Dangerous but Denying the Existence of Evolution Is Not

One is described as an experience that brings “pages… to life, casting characters and animals in dynamic form and placing them in familiar settings.” The other, an experience that uses real locations to encourage players “to search far and wide in the real world.”

If you aren’t sure which is Young Earth creationist and Christian fundamentalist Ken Ham’s Creation Museum, and which is the popular mobile game Pokémon Go, the latter is the one which doesn’t feature “children [playing] and dinosaurs [roaming] near Eden’s Rivers.” (It just features Pokémon playing with children, which is arguably more realistic than children and dinosaurs roaming the earth together.)

The Creation Museum and Pokémon Go have something in common, however, as reported by Patheos and according to Ham: neither feature evolution. (It should be noted that the mobile game, much like the history of every species on Earth, features evolution.)

“It’s hard to spend any time on the Internet, or even watch the news, without hearing about the newest craze, Pokémon Go,” Ham wrote on his Answers in Genesis blog. “Well—despite three of our staff members trying to explain it to me—I still don’t understand what it is or how it works. I guess I’m just from the wrong generation!”

The explanation the museum’s staff offered Ham was featured on his Facebook page via a Live broadcast. In it, Ham advised that one of his staff members “nearly got thrown out” when they used the word “evolve” in their description of the game and its contents. “What did you tell me about Pokémon and evolve?” he asked.

The staff member advised that Pokémon do, in fact, evolve, citing that “apparently, you give them candy and they become stronger.” Ham retorted that such an act was “no good for the Creation Museum.”

When the staff member asked if Ham would like to evolve one of the Pokémon, offering the Creationist his phone, game at the ready, he advised he didn’t believe in evolution right before asking how to proceed.

Ham pressed the appropriate buttons with the staff member’s guidance, and the Pokémon (described as a “bird”) simply became a “bigger, better bird.” This was not the act of evolving, according to Ham, as it “[was still] a bird! … That’s not evolution!”

“It should have evolved into something else,” he continued. “It just grew up into a big bird. It definitely shows that birds remain birds. Okay, we’ve figured that out.”

The textbook definition of evolution is “the gradual development of something, especially from a simple to a more complex form.”

Ham later called the game dangerous, but advised that he “found out one thing…  it teaches birds stay birds. I found that out. So that’s good.”

Hemant Mehta at Friendly Atheist, who first reported on Ham’s “discovery” laments, “Ham’s comments aren’t a joke. He sincerely believes this nonsense.”

While Ham may view the mobile game as dangerous, it is apparent that in his view, denying the existence of evolution, discriminating on the basis of religion, and promoting creationism over factual education are not.

The full video can be seen below:

 

Image by Eduardo Woo via Flickr and a CC license