Page - 61 - in JRFM - Journal Religion Film Media, Volume 03/02

Emulating Science | 61www.jrfm.eu 2017, 3/2, 53–64 visual representation has two important rhetorical objectives: (1) to promote the idea that, rather than a million-year-process of evolution, all different speci- mens quickly developed in a short process that began only 4,363 years ago, when the waters of the Flood had finally subsided; and (2) the animals trans- ported in the ark were in fact smaller than their contemporary versions. A text accompanying the diagram clarifies the first objective and puts an end in any eventual hypothetical counter-argument: drastic changes from small species to larger contemporary species could have happened in a short span of time. how? “God provided organisms with special tools to change rapidly.” furthermore, why is a smaller animal represented at the beginning of the crea- tionist version of an equine parade? this arrangement from smaller to larger species is not supported by material evidence. the visual choice is not random. this image also aspires to erase an important contradiction in Creationism: the problem of the size of the ark and the size of some “kinds” of animals, such as elephants, giraffes, horses, and even dinosaurs. Logically, it is possible to ar- gue that even if the ark only carried the original “kinds”, it would have been impossible for Noah to host a variety of big animals in his vessel because of the obviously limited space. the illustration solves the problem: at the beginning, before and during the flood, horses were smaller, and later, after the deluge, they evolved into bigger and taller species. Antithesis is also an important rhetorical figure for Creationism. In fact, it is not too much to state that the entire museum complex works as a project of antithesis to evolutionary theory. that should come as no surprise. as already mentioned, Creationism would not exist without evolutionary theory. the in- trinsic dependence of the existence of the opposite for its own definition is precisely how the syntax of antithesis functions. fahnestock has stressed that “whether the opposed terms in an antithesis are contraries, contradictories, or correlatives”, the figure requires two parallel if not identical phrases20 Moreo- ver, Creationism must pose itself as a contrary, otherwise the analogy between secular and Christian rhetorical devices could cause confusion for the museum’s audience. the confusion is addressed by appealing to what creationists consider the two kinds of authority regarding the origin of the universe and humankind. Many diagrams around the museum make the point again and again that de- cisive authority comes from “God’s Word”, translated according to creationist interpretation of the Bible. for creationists, the Bible is the key to understand- ing the past, present, and future of this planet. the other authority, which lacks stature and the power to trump faith, advocates for evolution: “man’s word”, with no capital letters. With this simple use of antithesis – God’s versus man’s – 20 fahnestock 1999, 49.