Britain's answer to Ken Ham's Creation "Museum"

It may be on a much smaller and relatively innocuous scale by comparison to Kentucky's monument to failure in science and honesty, but Noah's Ark Zoo Farm is likely to be just as potent to the young, malleable minds who course through, attracted by the cute animals and drawn in by the creationist forces that dwell within.

Paul Simms of New Humanist takes the tour and offers us a closer look.

Set in the glorious North Somerset countryside just outside Bristol is Noah’s Ark Zoo Farm, a “unique zoo and working farm”. The clue to what’s “unique” about it is in the name – it’s a creationist zoo run by a Christian couple, Anthony and Christina Bush. At first sight the welcome gate, marked by a colourful sign featuring a pair of giraffes and a rainbow, looks innocuous enough. And judging by the scores of young families queuing to get in when I visited in mid-August, it certainly appeared to be living up to its claim to be “one of the South West’s top tourist attractions”, without any overt proclamation of religion.

But the zoo’s owner Anthony Bush seems in no doubt that there is a moral, didactic purpose to the enterprise. “From the outside, our farm is not overtly Christian,” he once told the Church Times. “But, from the inside, we are very strongly Christian. I am a Creationist, and we see the farm as a mission station to give people scientific permission to believe in God.”

While some creationist parlors like to be loud & proud about their particular brand of "education", most actually prefer the method depicted here: sound harmless (and even credible) enough to attract unsuspecting people, and then expose them to creationist materials and "education".

The full account is a lengthy and interesting one, so head on over and read it. Here, I'll just showcase a couple of pics that Paul Sims took for us to examine and laugh and/or cringe at.

So ... we know for certain the Ark existed, because we ... have its measurements? I don't suppose those could've been, say, invented, right?

Ah, again with that ugly Creationist Hamite theory of racial origin. Ham must've been one bad kid to have led to all those "impure" races. (PZ also touched on this a while back, which (predictably) earned him the ire of Ken Ham – can't have his precious silly notions criticized, can he now?)

Hang on ... is this repeating that utterly, hilariously stupid claim that before the Flood, all life was vegetarian (poor carnivores) ... or did it just call our ancestors impotent?

And of course, the grand finale: you just can't be a creationist parlor without some good ol' Darwin-bashing.

Make no mistake: despite external appearances as being a "functioning farm" and a zoo with plenty of admittedly cute animals (you just can't go wrong with those), this is a Creationism hive intended to spew kookery, crankery and generalized scientific failure and dishonesty as much as its means allow. What's even worse, is how it is not only fully supported by organizations promoting the "best zoos", but is also geared to attract children in large numbers, already accepting (and encouraging) school field trips and the likes. Just as with the cool dinosaurs at Ken Ham's "museum", the cute animals and the playground – yes, the Zoo Farm has a playground, complete with slides, the whole surrounded by creationist material – Bristol's Noah's Ark Zoo Farm is evidently a place suited best to bring in the young influenceable minds and corrupt them from a young age. It deserves no more respect than does Kentucky's Creation "Museum".

(via Friendly Atheist)

Technorati tags: kookery · religion · pseudoscience · creationist · christianity · new humanist