The Curious Case of Kenneth Ham

The Creation Museum in Kentucky announced with alarm this morning the disappearance of its president, Kenneth Ham. It is unknown where Mr. Ham has gone, or indeed when he was last seen, as colleagues report that an imposter had been coming into work for at least several weeks. Museum employees admit that the subterfuge should not have been so surprising, as Mr. Ham was only growing more apelike in both appearance and rhetoric as the months passed, and the imposter was later revealed to be a middle aged chimpanzee. 

Mr. Ham is one of few humans on the planet not to have evolved from apes, being instead a descendant of the only species created entirely through poetic license and metaphor. The case of Mr. Ham is accordingly a stunning example of convergent evolution, demonstrating successive transformations from H. sapiens to H. ignoramus and finally to costumed Planet of the Apes cast member.

Finding Mr. Ham has been complicated by his goofy 19^th Century beard and the amateur Photoshop skills used on his missing person poster

Coworkers became suspicious of the chimpanzee during its email correspondence with biologist PZ Myers and participation in a debate hosted by the BBC. The highly proficient primate set alarm bells ringing when both friends and museum staff began to notice an apparent improvement in Mr. Ham’s coherence. 

Wife Marilyn was stricken with grief at the news of Mr. Ham’s evolution, lamenting “I had no idea he was so sick.”

Initially friends suspected that Mr. Ham had been eaten by one of the museum’s animatronic dinosaurs, which they warn are “very much true to life.” Fears were allayed however when cooler heads noted that the museum is only home to a Tyrannosaurus and other herbivores.

Mr. Ham has long been a divisive figure in Christianity. His founding several years ago of the Answers in Genesis ministry caused controversy when his literalist followers took the name to mean that the rest of the Bible was superfluous. The brief flirtation represented the greatest degree of accord ever achieved with local atheists, before the misconception was lovingly (but violently) corrected.

Many young Earth creationists are unlikely to thank him for evolving into another species, or indeed failing include a hyphen between ‘young’ and ‘Earth’, a careless mistake which could easily lead to witless detractors desperate for jokes capitalizing on the ambiguity by poking fun at the creationist’s own lack of youth.

As investigators still struggle to solve this puzzle, local residents can only wonder whether, like everything else, the answer will turn up in Genesis.

Everything else