Noah's Ark Zoo Farm - Creationism

Creationism

Anthony Bush is an Oxford graduate and Anglican Christian who advocates creationism. The Bushes named the zoo farm for the biblical Noah's Ark, and zoo displays argue the historical truth of both creation and Noah's flood. Bush has said, 'From the outside, our farm is not overtly Christian. 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'.

Although 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, but much younger than the 4.54 billion year accepted by scientific consensus and Old Earth creationists.

Bush claims to be offering a mediating origins hypothesis despite scientific consensus that the fossil record contains evidence of common descent and that radiometric dating is not inaccurate:

We argue the case for a new approach encompassing a creator God AND pre-programmed evolution to provide variation and adaptation. We believe the fossil record does not show one evolutionary tree of life; instead possibly diversification of a number of body forms instead. Geological dating methods currently used may be inaccurate and thus earth history timescales could be very different from those presumed.'

The zoo has been criticised by the anti-creationist British Centre for Science Education for 'contradicting vast swaths of science needed to pass public examinations'. Medical doctor and journalist Ben Goldacre, author of the Bad Science column in The Guardian, especially criticised 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, 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'. In August 2009, the British Humanist Association urged tourist boards to stop promoting the zoo out of concern that it might 'undermine education and the teaching of science', and vicar Michael Roberts, an authority on Darwin and geology, agreed that the BHA was 'justified in criticising' the zoo and argued that church groups should have been more forthright in their criticism.