Humanists accuse zoo of pushing creationist agenda

[Rrose Selavy]

A secular group was today demanding that tourism groups stop promoting what it calls a "creationist" zoo, that questions the traditional view of evolution (http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/evolution).
The Noah's Ark zoo farm (http://www.noahsarkzoofarm.co.uk/pages/visiting/visiting.php), in Wraxall, near Bristol, was accused (http://www.humanism.org.uk/news/view/346) by the British Humanist Association (http://www.humanism.org.uk/home) (BHA) of misleading tens of thousands of annual visitors and "threatening public understanding".



The BHA said the zoo farm, run by husband and wife Anthony and Christina Bush, seeks to discredit scientific facts such as radio carbon dating, the fossil record and the speed of light. The BHA said signs at the zoo also describe how the "three great people groups" could be descended from the three sons of Noah.
The zoo's owners said they were "slightly different" from pure creationists because the zoo explains life as being created by "both God and evolution", and there is a long detailed section on this on the zoo's website entitled "Creation Research".


More here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/aug/27/humanists-creationism-noahs-ark-zoo




http://www.noahsarkzoofarm.co.uk/pages/research/research.php

[DC]

Genetic information needs an intelligent programmer to put it there.[citation needed]. Animals have the ability to act voluntarily; they have life in a sense in which bacteria and plants do not have life. Because life in the sense of consciousness is not a property of matter, the existence of animals requires a life-giver[citation needed]. The normal word for such a being is "God"[oh forget it].

Creationists propose that in the beginning God spoke and by his word brought a relatively small number of types of organism into being. Over time the genetic information with which these basic types were endowed enabled them to develop into a great variety of species, leading to the flora and fauna which biologists study today.

To illustrate the amount of evolutionary change that could have taken place within basic types, we have prepared a database of animal kinds. So the snake kind, for example, eventually gave rise to more than 2,000 snake species. We are not claiming that we have always drawn the boundaries in the correct place. To take the snake again as an example, it is possible that snakes themselves may have descended from a branch of early lizard. Genesis itself suggests as much when it says that the 'serpent' (or dragon) was fated (over time) to crawl on its belly - in other words, to lose its legs.

On this website we have included a few pages that touch on some of the critical issues, such as the biology of bacteria, the limits of evolution, the differences between reptiles and mammals and the differences between apes and man. We are keen to encourage discussion, and believe that students of all ages should be informed of both the creationist and Darwinist interpretations. While the concepts of creation and evolution are opposites in some respects, they are complementary in others.

The alternative to Darwinism is, strangely, difficult for some to accept: that we have a Creator who still sustains and directs his world and universe. He is not like the vengeful or apathetic gods of some religions, but the loving, gracious, concerned God who has revealed himself to the whole world in the world's best-selling book, the Bible. In the words of C. S. Lewis "Is He safe? Oh no. But He is good".

Some people find the idea of life being created by God difficult to swallow. In the words of Richard Dawkins; the notion that a God "chose to create it in such a way that it looked as though he was not there" does not allow him the freedom to believe. This is where faith enters and sadly where Dawkins, amongst others, lack the understanding of its importance: God has chosen to remain hidden, for us to exercise faith; without which we cannot please him. Hebrews 11:6

:eek:

what an uggly attempt of mixing science and creationism

http://www.noahsarkzoofarm.co.uk/pages/research/03-creation-biology/creation-biology.php

[thaiboxerken]

It's not just an accusation, it's a fact.

[shandyjan]

I emailed them my dismay. We dont need all these creationism things popping up everywhere. I dont understand science, so I say I don't understand, I dont try to comfort myself in belief in something supernatural, I told them I was dismayed at them misinforming young minds!

[shandyjan]

I got a reply...

Dear Jan



Thank you for your note.



I employ four science graduates on the staff here, so I assure you we do not misinform children.



With best wishes



Anthony Bush

[BNRT]

Would it be bad if I said 'What's in a name?'?

[Fishstick]

So does someone with a BA in Computer science count as a "science graduate" ?

[Aitch]

So does someone with a BA in Computer science count as a "science graduate" ?

I'd think so; mind you, I have BSc in that subject, which may be different in a pedant's eyes.

[Marduk]

mbwahahaha
:cool:

they didn't reply to my e mail yet

[DC]

I got a reply...

Dear Jan



Thank you for your note.



I employ four science graduates on the staff here, so I assure you we do not misinform children.



With best wishes



Anthony Bush
what a blatant lie this is.
they do misinform everyone. just read the homepage.

[Ocelot]

Haha missing links (http://www.noahsarkzoofarm.co.uk/pages/research/gaps/gaps.php) the irony...


We're working on it!
This section of the web site is currently undergoing essential maintenance.

Please check back soon...

[Jontg]

You don't know what words mean, do you?

[thaiboxerken]

They are outright morons. I do think that they sincerely believe that what they show at their "museum" is fact. However, they do no have any actual science to support their notions. They get their "facts" from the bibble and their preachers and Kirk Cameron. They could have science majors employed, but they don't have any scientific evidence.

[shandyjan]

I wondered why he' d need 4 scientists on his payroll. Maybe if its true, they are on vacation from college grabbing some summer employment.

[shadron]

So does someone with a BA in Computer science count as a "science graduate" ?

Oh, no. We're just ignorant electronical binaryists here. Please don't rattle our cages and we won't injure your young.

[shadron]

They are outright morons. I do think that they sincerely believe that what they show at their "museum" is fact. However, they do no have any actual science to support their notions. They get their "facts" from the bibble and their preachers and Kirk Cameron. They could have science majors employed, but they don't have any scientific evidence.

Naaaaa, this isn't Kirk's work. There are no convenient hand holds, no melt in your mouth rationale.

This is the jolly, happy, soft old time religion taught in Sunday School, where Noah and his jolly lot never get drunk or sleep in the raw without a blanket, where one's elder wife never gets abandoned on the road in a salted state. Where no one ever heard the wails of the children or the wives or the mothers behind those trumpet-blasted walls. Where they never offered up their daughters to make sure the Lord's powerful angels didn't get raped by the neighbors, or scare your own son silly by hog-tying him and pulling a knife. The one where David wrote poetry rather than raped his friends wives. ("Ah, it's great to be the king!!!") The one where we're saved, but never mentioned are those damned Philistines who deserve rocks to the forehead, and the Phoenicians had better find new digs because we're going to sulfurize their land. Don't mention those stupid Samaritans who never took advantage of the vacation to Babylon, and got with the new religion. You know, "Jesus loves me, this I know...". That educational process.

[Rrose Selavy]

Online article in the latest New Humanist mag on this


More outlandish “scientific facts” were waiting for me at the gibbon enclosure. The sign introducing the gibbons was uncontroversial, but around the side of the enclosure was a giant poster explaining “30 reasons why apes are not related to man”, which argued that biological differences, such as apes’ possession of 24 pairs of chromosomes to humans’ 23, “prove” that there is no relationship between the species. Theology is mingled with the pseudo-science, as in reason number 30: man and apes cannot share a common ancestor because “Our belief in God can give us power to love the unlovable and values that are greater than physical life itself.”


If there is a degree of subtlety to the way creationism is inserted in the animal information, the veil is well and truly ripped aside in the “Noah’s Ark Exhibition”, an indoor display whose centrepiece is Anthony Bush’s 14-foot scale model of the Ark itself, “designed to Bibical sizes”, the sign boasts, after more than 1,000 hours of labour by a professional model maker. Inside the glass cabinet animals, including dinosaurs, make their way on to the Ark in two-by-two formation. Posters explain how the great flood – an event “confirmed” by both written and geological records – came about as a result of “three simultaneous events: the eruption of the subterranean deep, the opening of the ‘windows of heaven’ and a downpour of torrential rain”, and how Noah and his family set about rebuilding civilisation. Thanks to some information cards dotted around the Ark, I also learned that “Eating meat was allowed after the Flood” but “Before this most people might have been veggies” (you have to admire that “might”), and received an enlightening insight into creationist racial theory, discovering that “All the people in the world come from Noah’s sons Shem, Ham and Japheth. Caucasian from Japheth, Semitic from Shem, and Negroid/Mongoloid/Redskin from Ham.”


http://newhumanist.org.uk/2132

[Piscivore]

I got a reply...

Dear Jan



Thank you for your note.



I employ four science graduates on the staff here, so I assure you we do not misinform children.



With best wishes



Anthony Bush

They run the concession stands and muck out the stalls.

[Hux]

You know, the really disgusting thing about this is that if you go to an legitimate Zoo in the UK, they don't have staff waiting at the door to berate you about evolution. Perhaps it is because they are confident in their zoological studies, but if you ask a keeper about the animals in their charge they will answer you confidently. You will not get a lecture on evolution.

So why do these numbskulls feel they have to push their mythology down people's necks? its dangerous because young children love animals and they would beleive any crap you tell them. Graduates can't get the jobs they train for here, so it comes as no surprise that they might have some on the staff roster. But that is irrelevant if they are going to be willing parties to falsehood and lies.

[Rrose Selavy]

Creationist Zoo Wins Education Award
http://www.layscience.net/node/1078

The zoo that believes in Noah's Ark: Creationist attraction is approved for school trips

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1299033/Christian-zoo-challenges-science-approved-school-trips.html?ITO=1490#ixzz0vad1XmwY


http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1299033/Christian-zoo-challenges-science-approved-school-trips.html?ITO=1490

[sgtbaker]

I got a reply...

Dear Jan



Thank you for your note.



I employ four science graduates on the staff here, so I assure you we do not misinform children.



With best wishes



Anthony Bush

You should reply and ask if they were real scientists or honorary scientist and in what field are their expertise.

[The Norseman]

You should reply and ask if they were real scientists or honorary scientist and in what field are their expertise.

So does someone with a BA in Computer science count as a "science graduate" ?



Q: What is the only science that is not a science?

A: "Political science."

[fuelair]

Online article in the latest New Humanist mag on this



http://newhumanist.org.uk/2132

I'm going to assume that the line in your quote "Before this most people might have been veggies" is a Britishism in which "veggies" means vegetarians. Here (US) the line would mean most people were vegetables and thus imply a very major change in our status and genetics after the flood.:jaw-dropp:)

[WanderingSkeptic]

They are not a real zoo ... in 2009 they were expelled from the zoo industry's regulatory body for bringing the association into disrepute ... so somebody somewhere has some common sense ...

Beyond that in March of this year zoo inspectors said there were some failures to comply with the Secretary of State's Standards of Modern Zoo Practice.

OK, so where do they stand well.., now put you coffee down ... OK, ready ... here we go ... the owner says ...
"we see the farm as a mission station to give people scientific permission to believe in God"

Oh heck, I told you to put that coffee down, now look its splattered all over your desktop ... here borrow my tissue.

OK, let push on ... so what do they actually believe ... well ... Anthony Bush believes in Noah's Ark, he does not accept flood geology and believes that age of the earth is 100,000 years old—much older than the 6,000-10,000 years that Young Earth creationists believe ... [Oh so that makes it OK then!!!] ..

Given that the earth is actually roughly 4.5 billion years old, that still puts him a few orders of magnitude out of whack with reality ... but from his viewpoint, not a nutty as the 6,000 year old gang!!!

You will however be delighted to know that a few local skeptic hero's have been busy chewing their arses a bit ...

Ben Goldacre, author of the Bad Science column in The Guardian, especially criticized the zoo's statement, 'To follow Darwinism is to recognise only the fleshly side of our natures, and, as we know, the flesh perishes; Darwinism, in other words, is a philosophy of death'. To which Goldacre retorted, 'Harsh words. Bring on the darkness'. Goldacre also said that the attraction had 'the distinction of being the only pseudoscience zoo in the UK'.

In February 2009 psychology professor Bruce Hood [Remember him, he spoke at TAM-8 this year], director of the Bristol Cognitive Development Centre at the University of Bristol, described the zoo proprietor as 'the delightful but completely delusional Anthony Bush' and claimed that although Bush had rejected young creationism, he 'had constructed an elaborate but equally unscientific account of life on earth

[Skeptic Ginger]

I got a reply...

Dear Jan



Thank you for your note.



I employ four science graduates on the staff here, so I assure you we do not misinform children.



With best wishes



Anthony BushScience graduates? As in they graduated from ?????? with?????

[noreligion]

Science graduates? As in they graduated from ?????? with?????

Apparently they were hired direct from primary school.

[dasmiller]

:eek:



To illustrate the amount of evolutionary change that could have taken place within basic types, we have prepared a database of animal kinds. So the snake kind, for example, eventually gave rise to more than 2,000 snake species. We are not claiming that we have always drawn the boundaries in the correct place. To take the snake again as an example, it is possible that snakes themselves may have descended from a branch of early lizard. Genesis itself suggests as much when it says that the 'serpent' (or dragon) was fated (over time) to crawl on its belly - in other words, to lose its legs.



so . . . to make sure I'm following this . . . snakes and lizards are so similar that they're of the same kind; the differences are simply microevolution. Meanwhile, the differences between humans and chimps are so vast that it's obvious that we're different kinds. Is that it?

[shandyjan]

You should reply and ask if they were real scientists or honorary scientist and in what field are their expertise.

I did at the time, I dont think I got any reply! I asked a few questions, but I cant remember what exactly, its been a year! If I'd got a reply I'd have been back in the thread with it. I forgot all about this, but off to check out the daily mail, affronted email at the ready :D