The Cincinnati Zoo inexplicably decided to enter into a promotional deal with the ludicrous anti-scientific Answers in Genesis “Creation Museum” last week, but that didn’t last long after science bloggers found out: Creation ‘Museum’ rebuffed by Cincinnati Zoo.

“A promotional deal between the Cincinnati Zoo and the Creation Museum was scuttled Monday after the zoo received dozens of angry calls and emails about the partnership,” reported the Cincinnati Enquirer (December 1, 2008). The promotion involved a package deal for tickets to the zoo’s annual Festival of Lights and to a Christmas-themed event at Answers in Genesis’s Creation Museum. The museum, which opened its doors in northern Kentucky during Memorial Day weekend 2007, aims to illuminate “the effects of biblical history on our present and future world” — that is, to evangelize for Answers in Genesis’s particular brand of young-earth creationism.

On November 30, 2008, biologist and blogger P. Z. Myers complained about the promotion at his blog Pharyngula, writing, “the Cincinnati Zoo has betrayed its mission and its trust in a disgraceful way, by aligning themselves with a creationist institution that is a laughing stock to the rest of the world, and a mark of shame to the United States,” and urging his readers to write to the zoo to “point out the conflict between what they are doing and what their goal as an educational and research institution ought to be.” Other bloggers echoed his call, and the zoo was evidently flooded with calls and e-mails, prompting it to cancel the promotion because of the uproar. No refunds will be necessary, since no packages of tickets had been sold.

Kudos to the Cincinnati Zoo for canceling this ill-conceived partnership with one of the most backward creationist travesties in America.

Previously at LGF:
The Anti-Museum
Penn and Teller Take on Creationism
The Creation Museum