In 2010, as part of a seminar on evolution, creationism, and intelligent design, I took a group of graduate students on a field trip to the Creation Museum in Petersburg, Kentucky. Developed by the group Answers in Genesis (AiG), the museum is devoted to the promotion of a literal reading of Genesis. While our visit engendered a lively discussion about the history and goals of the creationist movement, I believe the conversation would have been richer had we had Kathleen C. Oberlin’s fascinating new study, Creating the Creation Museum. Oberlin documents the history of the museum’s origins, AiG’s relationship with the larger creationist movement, and the strategies behind the museum’s architecture and exhibit design. She analyzes the Creation Museum in terms of social movement theory as an example of what she calls “plausibility politics” (14)—that is, the use of the rhetoric of pluralism and inclusion to undermine the cultural...

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