Dr. Baugh, who, incidentally, appears to have received his Ph.D. through a branch of his own unaccredited religious school, has for years argued in favor of a Biblical model of the world's development. To support his case, he cites evidence of giant men who roamed the planet before the Flood, supposed experiments showing that eggs can't hatch outside Earth's magnetic field, and first-hand accounts of glow-in-the-dark pterodactyls flying over New Guinea. He opened the CEM in 1984 so that humanity may bear witness to his theories.

By way of videocassette, Dr. Baugh himself guides visitors through the museum, sharing his breakthrough artifacts: the iron cup encrusted in coal, the stone-encased hammer and the rock that looks amazingly like a fossilized human finger. The real ones aren't on display, of course; those are in safety deposit. But you can purchase replicas for $25.

A 62-foot version of the biosphere is under construction in a facility next door. Reportedly, Baugh at one time figured that if increased O2 were good, then O3 would be even better, and he planned to live in the tube and secure a physiological advantage for himself. Apparently, someone informed the doctor that breathing pure ozone would kill him and he abandoned the experiment. Similar tests are still planned for lesser creatures.

Baugh spends the rest of the tape explaining his version of a six-day genesis. Here, his sales pitch kicks into high gear with a well-rehearsed patter, articulating his theories with an almost poetic scientific idiom. He speaks of a geocentric stretching of the fabric of space and its resultant time dilation, and of a firmamental canopy of metallic hydrogen that previously assimilated short-wave radiation, kept the electromagnetic field charged and admitted long-wave spectral radiation, "bathing the globe with benefits."

It's all very convincing as long as you don't try to understand what he's talking about, like watching a commercial that extols its product for having chondroitin or retsin, while saving you the hassle of knowing what they do. By the end, you're ready to cry out, "How could I have been so blind?" until you realize you still have no idea what "polonium haloes" are nor the slightest notion what their presence in granite has to do with natural selection.

You may as well buy it, though, because, "In the evolutionary model, everything ends in despair," the good doctor concludes. "But!" he exclaims, "In the creation model, there is promise for hope."

Weird Texas