Editorial: Directors of Tulsa Zoo Have Opened a "Pandora's Box" of Creation Stories

July 10, 2005

Source: The New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/10/opinion/10sun2.html?ex=1121659200&en=6b719bdb7f5b56ba&ei=5070

On July 10, 2005 The New York Times reported, "Christian creationists won too much of a victory for their own good in Tulsa, where the local zoo was ordered to balance its evolution science exhibit with a display extolling the Genesis account of God's creating the universe from nothing in six days. A determined creationist somehow talked three of the four zoo directors, including Mayor Bill LaFortune, into the addition by arguing that a statue of the elephant-headed god Ganesh at the elephant house amounted to an anti-Christian bias toward Hinduism.

After the inevitable backlash from bewildered taxpayers warning that Tulsa would be dismissed as a science backwater, the directors 'clarified' their vote to say they intended no monopoly for the Adam and Eve tale but rather wanted 'six or seven' creation myths afforded equal time... The futility of this exercise was emphatically made clear last week when a crowd of critics demanded reconsideration. With the speed of the Mayan jaguar sun god, zoo directors reversed themselves, realizing they had opened a Pandora's box. In stumbling upon so many worthy cosmogonies, Tulsa did us all a favor by underlining how truly singular the evolution explanation is, rooted firmly in scientific demonstration."