The British Humanist Association (BHA) has urged tourist boards and other agencies to stop promoting the Noah’s Ark Zoo Farm in North Somerset, because it advocates the idea that God created the world.
BHA has called on the British and Irish Association of Zoos and Aquariums, North Somerset Council, Visit Britain and South West England to shut down the zoo. The secular group claims that the zoo is misleading tens of thousands of visitors annually and ‘threatening public understanding’ by questioning the traditional view of evolution.
Andrew Copson, BHA Director of Education and Public Affairs, said:
‘We believe Noah’s Ark Farm Zoo misleads the public by not being open about its Creationist agenda in its promotional activities and by advancing misunderstandings of the natural world.’
The zoo attracts around 120,000 visitors a year. Anthony and Christina Bush, the owners of the zoo, stated in their recent interview that they believe in creationism but do not adhere to a strict creationist-only view. They said:
‘We are slightly different from popular Creationism and hold a view that the natural world around us is the product of both God and evolution.
‘Although technically Creationists, we do not hold the stereotypical Creationist views that the world was created 6,000 years ago and there is no evolution.’
The website of the zoo also states:
‘After looking at the current scientific explanations for origins and evolution; it is our view that the evidence available can be accurately explained using an evolution framework with an initial Creation by God. This is treated as controversial by some and welcomed by others: but our aim remains the same. We do not profess to have all the answers, but we will search for them with an open mind and publicise our theories.’
(Click here to see the statement)
The website says Darwinism is 'flawed' and wants to encourage a 'creation/evolution debate'.
Jon Woodward, the zoo’s research assistant, said:
‘We are offering our visitors the chance to look at the evolution/creation debate. As it is a free country, that is within our right. Contrary to a small minority of people’s claims, we do not teach false science. This is clearly shown within the zoo with one exhibition talking about Darwin and another offering another point of view.
‘We are slightly different from popular creationism. We hold a view that the natural world around us is the product of both God and evolution.’
(See the interview in The Guardian)
He says that when lectures were held at the zoo for visiting schools they did not depart from the National Curriculum and did not mention Creationism in any way, unless a request to do so was made.
Will Heaven, writing for The Daily Telegraph, called BHA ‘the secular Stasi’. He continued:
‘It comes as no surprise that, out of 120,000 visitors a year, around 10 complaints are received by the zoo concerning the owners’ creationist agenda. And what a boring and curmudgeonly lot those ten humanists must be. While the visiting children were amused and awed by the impressive animals on display – the Bengal tigers, the giraffes, the rhinos, the zebras – the atheists wandered around, brimful with secular venom, noting down the wording on the signs.’
(See the Telegraph blog)
In 2008, BHA told the Equality and Human Rights Commission that the Scout Association discriminates against young atheists by requiring its young members to promise that they ‘do their duty to God’.
(See The Times, The Independent and The Daily Telegraph reports)
Noah’s Ark Zoo Farm is a 100-acre tourist attraction — a zoo and entertainment centre based around a working farm — in Wraxall, North Somerset, about 6 miles from Bristol. The zoo’s hedge maze, planted in 2003, is 3.2 km long. It has two parts; one is a large rectangle in green beech (representing Noah’s Ark), in the other part seven ‘monster animals’ outlined in copper beech. Green beech cuttings are used to feed the camels and giraffes.
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