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A skeptic visits Noah's Ark: evolution and creationism in England.
DURING THE FIRST WEEK OF February, 2009, on the occasion of Charles Darwin's 200th birthday celebrations at various locals around England (including his birthplace city of Shrewsbury--see photo montage below), my hosts Andrew Kelly (a science writer who authored a gorgeous coffee-table book entitled Darwin.. For the Love of Science) and Brace Hood (a University of Bristol cognitive psychologist and author of the forthcoming book Supersense), arranged for a visit to Noah's Ark Zoo Farm in Bristol, run by a kindly creationist gentleman named Anthony Bush. (Yes, in addition to being a zoo for the public to tour, it is a working farm.)
Bush's warmth and good cheer were appreciated on this blistering cold snowy day, one of the worst witnessed in the UK in decades. As we started our tour Mr. Bush made it clear to me that he did not want to be confused with those "loonie American creationists" who think that the Earth is only 6,000 years old. "No, no, the Earth is much older than that," he proclaimed. "How old do you think it is?" I queried. "Oh, I've worked it out to be around 100,000 years old, with Adam and Eve at around 21,000 years old." No, indeed, there was no confusing Mr. Bush with those nutty American creationists! And what was happening between those two time spans? If I understood him correctly, he believes that between the creation at 100,000 years ago and Adam and Eve 21,000 years ago, there was the pre-Adamite period during which the dinosaurs roamed.
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What about all the geological evidence for a much older Earth? All those strata of, say, sandstone, which was once loose sand compressed into solid rock over immense periods of time--how could that possibly happen over thousands instead of millions of years? Those strata are laid down every season, like tree-rings, he explained. Interesting analogy, since we can see trees growing from year to year, but where on earth can we see sand being compressed into stone each year?
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The conversation turned most passionate for Mr. Bush when we arrived at the primate cages, featuring marmosets and gibbons. Standing next to a poster charting the differences between apes and humans (implying that humans are not apes, which we are), Mr. Bush seemed particularly interested (obsessed really) in the sexual differences between us, insisting that humans are the only primates that ...
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...the cold shoulder from his mum. He was abandoned after tumbling from mum's pouch soon after he was born at Noah's Ark Zoo Farm in Wraxall, Bristol. But help was at hand from anxious keepers who drafted in an intensive care incubator from Bristol...
Source: HighBeam Research, A skeptic visits Noah's Ark: evolution and creationism in England.