Talk:Ark Encounter

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Arbitration Ruling on the Treatment of Pseudoscience

In December of 2006 the Arbitration Committee ruled on guidelines for the presentation of topics as pseudoscience in Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Pseudoscience. The final decision was as follows:

Neutral point of view as applied to science: Wikipedia:Neutral point of view, a fundamental policy, requires fair representation of significant alternatives to scientific orthodoxy. Significant alternatives, in this case, refers to legitimate scientific disagreement, as opposed to pseudoscience.
Serious encyclopedias: Serious and respected encyclopedias and reference works are generally expected to provide overviews of scientific topics that are in line with respected scientific thought. Wikipedia aspires to be such a respected work.
Obvious pseudoscience: Theories which, while purporting to be scientific, are obviously bogus, such as Time Cube, may be so labeled and categorized as such without more justification.
Generally considered pseudoscience: Theories which have a following, such as astrology, but which are generally considered pseudoscience by the scientific community may properly contain that information and may be categorized as pseudoscience.
Questionable science: Theories which have a substantial following, such as psychoanalysis, but which some critics allege to be pseudoscience, may contain information to that effect, but generally should not be so characterized.
Alternative theoretical formulations: Alternative theoretical formulations which have a following within the scientific community are not pseudoscience, but part of the scientific process.

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A fact from Ark Encounter appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 29 June 2016 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that the July 7 opening date for the Ark Encounter theme park was chosen to correspond with Genesis 7:7?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2016/June. The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Ark Encounter.

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Wording

It is clear that this attraction is simply a religious theme park. I don't think we need to use terms such as "pseudoscientific" and "creationist" in the opening section. Do we really need to explain that religion is not science? The first two paragraphs of the article should be changed from:

"Ark Encounter is a creationist theme park that opened in Grant County, Kentucky on July 7, 2016.The centerpiece of the park is a large representation of Noah's Ark based on the Genesis flood narrative contained in the Bible. It is 510 feet (155 m) long, 85 feet (26 m) wide, and 51 feet (16 m) high.

Ark Encounter is operated by Answers in Genesis (AiG), a young Earth creationist (YEC) organization that also operates the Creation Museum 45 miles (70 km) away in Petersburg, Kentucky. The theme park promotes pseudoscientific young Earth creationist beliefs about the age of the universe, age of the Earth, and co-existence of man and non-avian dinosaurs."

To instead say:

"Ark Encounter is a religious theme park that opened in Grant County, Kentucky on July 7, 2016. The centerpiece of the park is a large representation of Noah's Ark based on the Genesis flood narrative contained in the Bible. It is 510 feet (155 m) long, 85 feet (26 m) wide, and 51 feet (16 m) high.

Ark Encounter is operated by Answers in Genesis (AiG), a Christian fundamentalist organization that also operates the Creation Museum 45 miles (70 km) away in Petersburg, Kentucky. The theme park promotes the Genesis creation narrative on the origin of the universe, the earth, and humanity, and the idea of the co-existence of man and non-avian dinosaurs."

The whole religion vs science controversy jargon would be better reserved for the controversy sections of the article. Underneaththesun (talk) 00:28, 14 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Please see WP:PSCI, the policy on pseudoscience. We should also not present the topic from the view of primary sources but that of independent reliable sources (WP:RS). While it is indeed an attraction park, its purpose is also the proselytism of discredited pseudoscientific views. —Paleo Neonate – 01:00, 14 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

This attraction isn't bible school. My reading of their web site, and their sister attraction the Creation Museum, is that a main point is creationism. In this case the creationism is interwoven with Noah and the flood narrative. People did not coexist with dinosaurs. If this place purports to educate visitors otherwise it should be labelled as pseudo-science.

The first paragraph emphasizes that the theme is the Noah and flood narrative. Changing "creationist" to "religious" in this paragraph seems OK to me.
The second paragraph calling out pseudo-science seems correct to me as it stands.

– M.boli (talk) 04:14, 14 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Religious and creationism would indeed both do, on the other hand creationist is more specific: it tells which religious ideas (and implies religious, "religious creationist" would be redundant of course)... —Paleo Neonate – 12:31, 14 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I think @Underneaththesun:'s point is well-taken: it is undeniable that this park revolves around a religious narrative and teaches an aspect of Christianity. And that point is missed in the lede sentence. @PaleoNeonate:'s point is also correct, it promotes creationism and teaches a creationist narrative. So I've added to the lede sentence, instead of replacing. – M.boli (talk) 15:01, 14 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know exactly which Christian denominations believe in the young earth theory and which do not, but calling the park creationist seems implied to me because divine creation is a central aspect of most religions. Also, I understand the Wikipedia policy on pseudoscience, however, I am not sure we can necessarily put creationists in the same category as people who believe in Bigfoot or the Loch Ness Monster. Underneaththesun (talk) 08:10, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

This is literalist inerrantist YEC (the sentence "The theme park promotes pseudoscientific young Earth creationist beliefs about the age of the universe, age of the Earth, and co-existence of man and non-avian dinosaurs." seems to describe it and is well sourced). Expanding would be a misuse of this talk page as a forum, but this is also about a mythological theme with so many problems if we try to rationalize its possibility; it's a distinguishable aspect of the attraction. Walking inside one is exposed to posters along the way that deny or reinterpret much of science (not only physics, geology and biology but also about the origin and context of the texts used to reach those conclusions). While there is a spectrum of creationist doctrines, reliable sources unambiguously describe these YEC interpretations as pseudoscientific or false. It may be possible to rework the lead a bit to be less redundant and replace the multiple uses of creationist/sm by a single "Young earth creationism" mention. On the other hand, I suggest reading the talk page archives: the lead has been a lot of work. —Paleo Neonate – 12:53, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Yowza! I had not looked at the talk page archives. This has been discussed ad nauseam. (If anybody doesn't know where to find them, look in the yellow box at the top of the talk page. There are links to three archive pages, plus a search box.)

The main point is that Ken Ham, the driving force of Answers in Genesis and Ark Encounters, is unabashedly selling pseudoscience. Ark Encounters isn't merely religious education (although religious education is part). It is "Noah's flood created the Grand Canyon" and "the dragons of myth were the really the dinosaurs that lived among us" creationism. Ham has debated Bill Nye about this stuff several times on TV, and he designed this theme park as a way to teach it to the public.

I wish I had looked at the archives before. Anyway the archives make it clear that pesudoscience is the conclusion, apparently it went to arbcon: see here (which is still raw and contentious). – M.boli (talk) 13:21, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I suppose M.boli's edit will do. The religious aspect of the park cannot be ignored regardless of the reasoning the group uses to explain the flood narrative, and how they present it. Underneaththesun (talk) 16:30, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Pure Life Ministries

Williamstown and Dry Ridge, and indeed Grant County, are relatively very small, with tiny populations. It therefore seems unlikely that the Ark Encounter theme park and the institution Pure Life Ministries, both promoting fundamentalist Christian values, are unrelated enterprises. This especially would apply as PLM requires its 9-month residential program participants to work in the community, and employment opportunities are extremely limited. Pure Life offers to assist aspirants with 'impure' sexual lifestyle temptations and habits, including infidelity, masturbation, porn addiction, ALL homosexual inclinations and activity (as impure and un-Christian), etc. If these businesses are cross-pollinating, 'twould be noteworthy. rags (2Aug19) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ragityman (talk • contribs)

Attendance section needs to be trimmed/removed

The "Attendance" section is currently three very large paragraphs disputing whether 1 million visitors a year visit, or 850,000 visitors as its detractors claim....which is a silly enough argument to highlight anyways since the numbers are not exactly off by orders of magnitude. And since the park notes that the 850,000 is how many paying visitors attend the park and the other 150,000 are non-paying guests and/or young children, etc...it seems completely reasonable. Which makes this already-lengthy article look even worse that we dedicate space to trying to dispute what appears to be two numbers which are consistent with each other; three paragraphs can be reduced to a single sentence "The park draws nearly a million paying visitors a year", voila. 86.106.90.101 (talk) 20:10, 21 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Even that suggestion sort of belies a question of bias in one direction or another. One can say "nearly a million," as you suggest, or "less than a million." Neither would be a neutral term. Perhaps the best way to go would be to find a quote and let that speak for itself. --Icowrich (talk) 17:44, 26 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Virtual reality theater

The recent opening of a virtual reality theater might be something to note in the article, but I'm not certain and will leave it on the talk page, at least for now: 1,2 --1990'sguy (talk) 03:03, 8 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

"No live animals"

Sources from 2016 say that "there are no live animals within the exhibit", and this line is in the "Visitor experience" section of the article. However, an image from 2019 in the article shows live animals inside the ark, and the picture's caption says "A live animal exhibit alternates [...] day to day." This Wikipedia article currently contradicts itself, and I'm not sure what the best way to resolve it is. Dogman15 (talk) 04:31, 28 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Good catch. Found a cite explaining that the live animals are brought from the petting zoo. Wracking ^talk! 05:15, 28 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you! Dogman15 (talk) 09:51, 28 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]