If you visit the Smithsonian Institution museums in Washington, D.C. (free admission courtesy of your tax dollars) and have your political antennae extended, you’ll find some possibly liberal facts, but some conservative-sounding editorializing too. Among them are:
Diamonds form over millions — or even billions — of years in the Earth. Dinosaurs existed up to 66 million years ago or more. Why, how can that be if the Earth is only 6,000 years old?
Human evolution and Climate Change— Surprisingly, David Koch‘s name is attached to the Natural History Museum‘s Hall of Human Origins (in addition to the new dinosaur and fossil hall), where the caption greeting visitors states:
Travel back 6 million years to discover how our ancestors struggled to survive dramatic climate changes and, in the process, evolved the traits that make us human.
Now, that caption could be read two ways. While it acknowledges climate change, it seems to imply that climate change is a natural occurrence and has happened many times before, the further implication being that today’s climate change and global warming is perfectly natural. Likewise, exhibits contain statements such as:
Humans evolved in response to a changing world
and:
The characteristics … that make us human …. did not evolve all at once. It took about 6 million years for our human traits to accumulate.
Apparently, the reference to earlier periods of climate change aside, Koch did not have much editorial control over the exhibit, as he and his brother Charles have attempted to do at schools such as Florida State University.
Speaking of climate change, the Natural History Museum’s oceanic exhibit contains a more liberal-sounding statement:
Rising temperatures linked to human activities are disrupting polar ecosystems. In the Arctic, dangerous chemicals rarely used there have entered the food web, brought by wind, water, rain, and snow.
Additionally, as the photo at the top of this post indicates, a nearby exhibit mentions climate change resulting from “rising carbon dioxide levels linked to human activities.”
If you thought the Smithsonian is somehow immune from the Culture War that conservatives wage on America every day, just recall what happened when the Smithsonian exhibited photos of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge as the battle for oil drilling in ANWR was raging in 2003. Indeed, one small exception where the conservatives seem to have won a Smithsonian Culture War battle is in the Natural History Museum’s mummy exhibit, where a mummy of an Egyptian boy is on display, and the caption below him indicates that his genitalia is still intact, yet a cloth has been strategically draped over said genitalia. Apparently, John Ashcroft had a say in the display.
Similarly, the popular Smithsonian Air and Space Museum is practically a monument to Big Government programs like the Mercury, Apollo, Space Shuttle and Mars Rover projects. One inconvenient truth for right-wing haters of government is that big corporations are always heavily involved in these Big Government space projects. Even the missiles sport corporate logos at Air and Space. It seems many Republicans hate government regulation, but they sure do love those government contracts.
So the question then becomes, how do some religious zealots and others who deny science and reality react when touring the Smithsonian? Sadly, many of them probably avoid the Smithsonian and instead head over to places like the Creation Museum in Kentucky, where:
Adam and Eve live in the Garden of Eden. Children play and dinosaurs roam near Eden’s Rivers. The serpent coils cunningly in the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.
All of this reminds us of Stephen Colbert‘s famous quip to President George W. Bush that “reality has a well-known liberal bias.” That is, at least until the next series of Republican administrations take over in Washington and not only measure the drapes, but hang them too.
