Dick Hoppe at Pandas Thumb has an interesting post on growing funding of Young Earth Creationist organizations.
Todd’s Blog, via PT, reports that that total market for YEC organizations has more than doubled from $14.6 million in 2003 to $33.3 million in 2008 (the last year 990 tax records are available).
Answers In Genesis remains the big boy in the business, far ahead of Creation Ministries International (from which AIG split a few years ago) and Institute for Creation Institute. AIG is the owner of the Kentucky-based Creation Museum, which features saddle-wearing dinosaurs and a recreation of Noah’s Ark built to biblical scale.
Sadly, the gross revenue of National Center for Science Education, the primary defender of public education from anti-science attacks by such religious organizations, is only 5.7 percent of the $22.7 million AIG brought in in 2008.
Also, an interesting newcomer to watch is GodQuest, founded by Eric Hovind, the son of Kent “Dr. Dino” Hovind, the disgraced creationist currently residing in federal prison for tax fraud and creator of the DVD series Why Evolution is Stupid. In 2008, the organization, also known as Creation Science Evangelism, brought in more than $931,000 in sales and donations.
The Seattle-based Discovery Institute, which pushes the creationist concept of intelligent design, was not included in the ranking.
