New research published in PLoS ONE says that horses have a variety of facial expressions (even if they’re not all distinctive to us) and use them when communicating with other horses.

Creationist Ken Ham knows why that is: Because God created horses. (Obviously.)

Ham writes:

In a creation worldview this new research makes sense. God created many animals with the ability to communicate with one another through facial expression, gestures, or song… … … But then the researchers in the PLOS ONE journal say “The potential to make such cross species comparisons can enhance our understanding of the meaning, function, and evolution of communicative behavior” (emphasis added). Clearly, they are trying to align such expressions with those of humans and other animals based on the belief that horses and humans are related because of progression in their evolutionary belief system. This is not observational science. … … Humans, horses, and other animals do not use similar facial muscles and communicative expressions because of shared ancestry, but they do share a common Designer and so we would expect to see similarities in living things — and we observe that.

Look: In a “creation worldview,” everything makes sense because 1) There’s no scientific standard you have to meet and 2) The audience is too ignorant to argue otherwise.

It rained in Chicago last night. I could give you the scientific reasons for that. But why bother when Ham will tell you God is just crying over the legalization of gay marriage? In his world, no research is complete without mentioning God, and God’s presence in a “research” article makes anything the authors say automatically true. (Just once, I’d love to see a rejection letter by the folks who put together the Answers in Genesis research journal. Because they’ll accept anything if you use the right Creationist buzzwords.)

There are theories for how smiling developed that don’t include “God did it.” Ham’s crack research team didn’t bother looking into any of that.

Maybe that’s because their petting zoo (a.k.a. the Creation Museum’s research lab) offers everything you ever need to know about the subject:

You can learn more about the horse kind when you visit the Creation Museum here in northern Kentucky. We have a zorse and a zonkey in our petting zoo that show visitors that horses, donkeys, and zebras are all part of one created kind, the horse kind.

The “horse kind.”

Because you can’t say “bullshit” at a petting zoo.



