Bill Nye “The Science Guy” may have inadvertently helped revive a $73 million project to build a replica Noah’s Ark in Kentucky by publicly debating creationist Ken Ham this month.
The Noah’s Ark Encounter project was launched in 2010 as a part of a larger theme park built by Answers in Genesis, the ministry run by Creation Museum founder Ham. When private donations proved insufficient to complete the project construction stalled. But Ham announced Thursday that the Ark project was back on track and is expected to be finished by the summer of 2016, after a bond issue raised an undisclosed amount of money to complete the project, the Central Kentucky News reports. Ham said a flurry of media attention stemming from his Feb. 4 debate with Nye helped nudge support for the project over the edge.
On hearing news that the ark project has been given new life, Nye said he was “heartbroken and sickened for the Commonwealth of Kentucky.”