The Ark Encounter, Right Wing Radical "Religion" And Tax Scams

 

Every year at about this time or a bit earlier, in spring, summer, and early fall, on Facebook travel based groups, especially those which are focused on Kentucky, Southern Ohio, and Southern Indiana, there are numerous questions from people from all over the USA and even the world about how to find, buy tickets for, and access other services around the location of The Ark Encounter in Northern Kentucky.  I always respond to those questions, and smilingly accept the fake outrage of the questioners, and advice the questioners about the unresolved tax shams which have been perpetrated by The Ark Encounter and its ownership against the state of Kentucky and Grant County.  Over the years since the idea of The Ark Encounter became reality in Northern Kentucky, the state and local governments bent over backward to award the management several million dollars worth of tax waivers, reductions, and outright gifts of tax abeyance.  There is an extensive and extensively documented history of The Ark Encounter and its ownership having failed to live up to, or even attempt to live up to, the promises they made the state and county in order to gain those millions of dollars of sweetheart tax deals.  Their avoidance of their responsibilities and promises has been nothing short of criminal.  

On July 21, 2017, the Louisville Courier Journal ran a story under this headline, "Ark Park Violates Agreement, gets over $18million in state tax breaks suspended". The story clearly describes the underhanded actions of the owners which caused the state of Kentucky to lose that $18Million.  One may assume that the newspaper editorship feels strongly about the misdeeds they have documented so thoroughly based on the fact that they leave this article up for free access when they almost always insist on subscriptions from viewers in order to read their stories.  

Four days later, on July 25, 2017, the national magazine "Forbes" also ran a major story about the tax affair which contains a very succinct and accurate description of how the scam worked: 

"...Ark Encounter LLC transferred the property where the Ark is parked for now to Crosswater Canyon Inc for a nominal sum.  Since the  tourism cabinet had made its deal with Ark Encounter LLC, it suspended the tax incentive.  So Crosswater transferred the property back to Ark Encounter LLC." Forbes, July 25, 2017)

Nearly three years later on February 24, 2020, across the river in Ohio. "The Cincinnati Enquirer" ran a story under the beautifully constructed headline "Opinion: Ham fleeced a town that gave him his Ark Encounter". David MacMillan, the author of that story has this to say about his credentials for questioning the scam, "As a former Kentucky creationist turned science advocate, I’m honored to be one of the voices in the film (We Believe In Dinosaurs) critical of the Ark Encounter. I’ve written at length about my past with Answers in Genesis and about the struggle of leaving science denial."  Obviously, Mr. MacMillan knows his subject matter well, having once believed their lies.   

On July 16, 2017, (yes, it was a busy week for journalists covering the story) the Kentucky School Boards Association opinion of the deal was covered by Linda Blackford who wrote about the $10  (ten dollars) property transfer by Ham and associates which stiffed the state and county of their millions.  This is obviously a story which will not, and should not ever die. Like thousands of other Kentucky citizens, I hate a tax cheat and that is exactly what The Ark Encounter and its management are and are likely to forever be.  Literally no one I know in Kentucky is naive enough to believe that The Ark Enconter's management and staff are ever likely to be struck by a sudden, unforeseen desire to actually practice the "Christianity" they espouse without any prior proof and repent, pay the money back, and move on to become good citizens.  

Recently, I literally blundered into the book whose cover is portrayed at the top of  this page, "Saving Darwin" by Karl W. Giberson, who is a former professor of physics at Nazarene College and Director of the Forum on Faith and Science at Gordon College. Currently, Dr. Giberson is a faculty member at Stonehill College where he serves as the Scholar-in-Residence in science and religion.  He is the author of roughly a dozen books most of which discuss the subject matter of the intersection of science and religion.  The author of the foreword to "Saving Darwin" which prompted this blog post is Dr. Francis S. Collins, M. D., Ph.D, the former Director of The National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, and has this to say in that foreword: 

"...a "creation museum" has opened just outside Cincinnati, depicting humans frolicking with dinosaurs, despite overwhelming scientific evidence that they were separated in history by sixty million years. What's going on here?  How can  the most advanced technological country in the world also be home to such antiscientific thinking?" (Saving Darwin, pp. v)

I had purchased this book without any prior knowledge of the interior arguments it presents but I was so pleasantly surprised to find the above writing by such a distinguished scientist as Dr. Francis S. Collins that I knew I had to write about the book, and this quotation specifically, in this blog. During his tenure at NIH, Dr. Francis S. Collins was the Director of the Human Genome Project.  Let me say clearly that I am not a scientist and I have never met Dr. Francis S. Collins or Dr. Karl W. Giberson.  But I do have a Master of Education Degree in Human Development from Lindsey Wilson College and I have spent many days at the National Institutes of Health with my wife in the early and mid-1990's  during a five year period at the height of the Human Genome Project while she was a research subject due to having a rare genetic anomaly.  I have met numerous individuals at NIH who were deeply involved in the Human Genome Project. I am not just a naive Kentuckian who is simply outraged by the actions of the management of The Ark Encounter. I am a reasonably well educated person with more than ordinary knowledge of some of work which Dr. Francis led at NIH.  I consider it a very serendipitous event that I strayed into this book and this quote from Dr. Francis.  

No one on earth should ever ignore the wisdom in that quote or brush it off as an attack by an unqualified detractor of The Ark Encounter.  Every year since The Ark Encounter began to cheat the taxpayers of Kentucky, I have watched their actions with increasing loss of whatever minimal respect I might have ever had for them.  I have steadily tried to educate their gullible and misled patrons about their tax cheating and the fallacies which are inherent in everything they do and say.  I will continue to do that so long as those taxes go on unreturned and so long as their lies about human origins are being spread. I will write further on this blog about this story as I finish reading the book.  I will also suggest, as I always have, that their naive patrons go instead, or at least go also, to The Big Bone Lick State Historic Site in Union, Kentucky, which is a state park of long standing located just a thirty minute drive from The Ark Encounter.  Big Bone Lick was a major research site due to the site having been the scene at which numerous dinosaur fossils were discovered.  The state website describes Big Bone Lick in this manner: 

"Big Bone Lick is the perfect place to get hands-on lessons in history, science, and environmental education. Engage your class, youth group, home school group, or scout troop through a field trip to the park. Your group will experience fun programs and exploration in an outdoor setting. Park Interpreters can also bring programs to your classroom, school, or organization to enrich any curriculum. Programs can be presented to adults as well. Field trips and outreach programs may have a small fee. For more information and scheduling, please contact the park at (859) 384-3522."  (Kentucky State Parks)

If you must go to The Ark Encounter, please be open minded and give yourself an opportunity to learn the truth about science and evolution at Big Bone Lick in Union, Kentucky.  

The Need For Genetic Diversity In All Species

When I read and wrote about Bill Best's book, "Kentucky Heritage Seeds Growing, Eating, Saving", I learned a great deal and was also reminded of a basic principal I learned many years ago.  That principal is the fact that we need as much genetic diversity in all species,plants, animals, vegetables, as we can get.  As gene pools narrow, the tendency for minor genetic problems becomes intensified and the more narrow a gene pool gets the more likely it becomes that a specific species will become extinct.  Seed savers, zoo keepers, and farmers all work all around the world to keep as many species as possible with a broad, diverse genetic base.  This quote from the website "The Teacher Friendly Guide To The Evolution Of Maize" puts it nicely into a nutshell:  

"Genetic diversity is important because it helps maintain the health of a population, by including alleles that may be valuable in resisting diseases, pests and other stresses. ... If the environment changes, a population that has a higher variability of alleles will be better able to evolve to adapt to the new environment."

Bill Best talks in his book about how seed companies, agricultural companies, and others, have weakened and harmed many different types of vegetables by breeding for long shelf life, mechanical harvestability, and other traits.  What he says is that they have created nice, round, thick skinned tomatoes with a shelf life of a week or more but those tomatoes have no flavor and also tend to lose specific combinations of nutrients which are important to both animals and people.  In my life, I have also seen problems arise from the fact that breeders of horses, Thoroughbreds and Standardbreds specifically, bred for speed with little concentration on breeding for other traits.  As a result, high numbers of both breeds have a tendency to be mean and aggressive.  I have actually known several Thoroughbred stallions who had successful careers as race horses and were nearly too mean to be handled on the farm and in the breeding shed.  

I knew several blind individuals in my young days and had a girlfriend who was blind and owned a Seeing Eye Dog from the wonderful, non-profit, Seeing Eye.  The Seeing Eye is the first and definitely the best of the organizations which breed and place guide dogs.  They invented that effort and have always been the organization which their imitators fail to equal.  But The Seeing Eye, for several years, sought to breed a specific type of German Shepherd which was medium in size, highly intelligent, and very docile in disposition.  Over time, they found they were breeding far too many dogs with significant health problems  such as hip dysplasia.  They were actually forced to seriously alter the gene pool in the dogs they had been breeding with too narrow a gene pool.  They brought in other dogs, diversified the gene pool, and created a much better dog which was not exactly what they had originally sought.  

Dalmation dogs, which were bred for years to produce their famous spots now have a tendency to breed deaf dogs.  Nearly all short faced dog breeds such as pugs, bull dogs, and a few other breeds have a very high rate of breathing and tooth structure problems.  Humans, when we seek to play God with our plants and animals have consistently made matters worse.  Now, in this age of genetic alteration, we are headed into a period when we are likely to further damage many species of plants and animals and even to create problems in humans if we allow scientists to go beyond the range of common sense. 

There is also a concept called hybrid vigor which has been used for hundreds of years by farmers and other breeders of plants and animals to produce better plants and animals.  It is described in this manner: 

Hybrid vigor is the increase in certain characteristics like growth rate, size, fertility, yield etc. of a particular hybrid organism over its parents. Hybrid vigor is also known by some other names, including heterosis and inbreeding enhancement.

 Hybrid vigor is what we need in both plants and animals. It can also come in handy in humans.  As we diversify any gene base, we make the resultant offspring better.  We create plants with flavor, texture, productivity, and other qualities which are highly effective for the world at large.  When we breed cattle, hogs, sheep, and other food animals with diverse gene pools, they have better feed conversion rates, better taste, better body structure, and better reproductive rates.  As a civilization, we are facing a scientific and ethical nightmare if we allow too much narrowing of the gene pools in plants and animals.  We must work as individuals and societies to protect the diversity of all these populations and species.  Our increased knowledge of genetics has placed us at the edge of a scientific precipice and we must not allow ourselves to fall over the edge.  

Roughly twenty years ago, my wife was a patient at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, for several years during the time when the human genome research was in its infancy.  We would travel to NIH about two or three times a year and stay for up to five days.  During this time, we met patients, researchers, and medical staff from all over the world who were involved in cutting edge research much of which has contributed to the ongoing problem of destroying diversity in gene pools.  It was a highly educational experience.  We learned a great deal there.  But over time, I have realized that all this research has become a classic double edged sword and we must use it wisely.