A fun day out for all the creationists
James Russell
Monday January 2, 2006
The Guardian
Do you have doubts about Darwin? Does the Big Bang leave you cold? Then why not pay a visit to Noah's Ark Zoo Farm, the UK's premier creationist attraction? Not that the place is advertised like that. Instead, people are tempted by "The Rhinos of Wraxall", a fine example of alliterative branding in the competitive world of family attractions.
However, when Anthony and Christina Bush, who had farmed in the north Somerset village for almost 40 years, launched Noah's Ark in 1999, they had two aims. The first was to show people where food comes from, the second to teach creation science. An Oxford-trained mathematician, Anthony Bush is no fire-and-brimstone evangelist, but he is committed in his beliefs. In the 1980s he was a founder of the revolutionary Send A Cow programme, and it was, he says, the long-term study of livestock that first suggested to him the limits of evolution.
More than 80 types of animal now live on site, including two white rhinos, monkeys and reptiles, as well as sheep and goats, but it doesn't feel like a zoo. Not that the animals are mistreated. Far from it. Rather, they are presented in a different way from, for example, nearby Bristol Zoo, where a powerful environmentalist message dominates.
When I visited Wraxall with my son's nursery group, we went to the animal show and learned the difference between a cow's horn and a deer's antler. We learnt that ewes have udders, and we watched the presenter milk a ewe and drink the milk. Then events took a curious turn. A donkey was led in and the presenter traced a marking on its back. Did we know that the domesticated donkey has a dark cross marked on its back, he asked us casually, whereas the wild donkey doesn't? Did the cross not remind us that the donkey carried Jesus?
In retrospect, I was intrigued by my shock at this mild evangelical interjection, a reaction that reflects a more general antipathy towards creationism. Anthony Bush hopes "to give people permission to believe in God", by disputing the truth of Darwin's theories. However, the prospect of a religious world-view having any authority fills non-believers with dread.
Christians are warming to creationism, in Britain as elsewhere, but the religious challenge to evolution is not new. The Creation Science Movement (CSM) was founded in London in 1932. At the new Genesis Expo museum in Portsmouth, CSM makes its case with an animated dinosaur and dioramas designed to persuade people that creation through evolutionary processes is impossible.
There are similar displays at Noah's Ark (and online) that argue, inter alia, the historical truth of Noah's flood and the ineluctable differences between animal families. Bush is certain of his convictions. "There is nothing in the Old Testament," he says, "that stops me, as a scientist, believing it."
Darwinists and Big Bangers, ignore at your peril. In 2005, 100,000 people visited Noah's Ark Zoo Farm.
guardian.co.uk
James Russell
Monday January 2, 2006
The Guardian
Do you have doubts about Darwin? Does the Big Bang leave you cold? Then why not pay a visit to Noah's Ark Zoo Farm, the UK's premier creationist attraction? Not that the place is advertised like that. Instead, people are tempted by "The Rhinos of Wraxall", a fine example of alliterative branding in the competitive world of family attractions.
However, when Anthony and Christina Bush, who had farmed in the north Somerset village for almost 40 years, launched Noah's Ark in 1999, they had two aims. The first was to show people where food comes from, the second to teach creation science. An Oxford-trained mathematician, Anthony Bush is no fire-and-brimstone evangelist, but he is committed in his beliefs. In the 1980s he was a founder of the revolutionary Send A Cow programme, and it was, he says, the long-term study of livestock that first suggested to him the limits of evolution.
More than 80 types of animal now live on site, including two white rhinos, monkeys and reptiles, as well as sheep and goats, but it doesn't feel like a zoo. Not that the animals are mistreated. Far from it. Rather, they are presented in a different way from, for example, nearby Bristol Zoo, where a powerful environmentalist message dominates.
When I visited Wraxall with my son's nursery group, we went to the animal show and learned the difference between a cow's horn and a deer's antler. We learnt that ewes have udders, and we watched the presenter milk a ewe and drink the milk. Then events took a curious turn. A donkey was led in and the presenter traced a marking on its back. Did we know that the domesticated donkey has a dark cross marked on its back, he asked us casually, whereas the wild donkey doesn't? Did the cross not remind us that the donkey carried Jesus?
In retrospect, I was intrigued by my shock at this mild evangelical interjection, a reaction that reflects a more general antipathy towards creationism. Anthony Bush hopes "to give people permission to believe in God", by disputing the truth of Darwin's theories. However, the prospect of a religious world-view having any authority fills non-believers with dread.
Christians are warming to creationism, in Britain as elsewhere, but the religious challenge to evolution is not new. The Creation Science Movement (CSM) was founded in London in 1932. At the new Genesis Expo museum in Portsmouth, CSM makes its case with an animated dinosaur and dioramas designed to persuade people that creation through evolutionary processes is impossible.
There are similar displays at Noah's Ark (and online) that argue, inter alia, the historical truth of Noah's flood and the ineluctable differences between animal families. Bush is certain of his convictions. "There is nothing in the Old Testament," he says, "that stops me, as a scientist, believing it."
Darwinists and Big Bangers, ignore at your peril. In 2005, 100,000 people visited Noah's Ark Zoo Farm.
guardian.co.uk
