The BHA has criticised Noah’s Ark Zoo Farm – or rather bodies which appear to reward it for its anti-scientific displays and advocacy of Creationism – on a couple of occasions. Today, Ann Widdecombe interprets this as being anti-free speech.

(If criticising something means you’re trying to “silence” it, then isn’t that exactly what she’s doing…?)

Thus spake Ann Widdecombe:

Has anyone noticed that what the opponents of religion really want is that Christianity should be silent? Last week it was reported that the British Humanist association has condemned an award given to Noah’s ark Zoo, a creationist centre near Bristol.

The zoo has put on such an imaginative [very imaginative!] and educational [um...] display that the Council for Learning Outside the Classroom has issued it with a mark of recognition. Those who run the zoo have established workshops which cover the national science curriculum but do not include discussion of religion and do not promote the extreme creationist view that the world was created 6,000 years ago. In other words it is a moderate, education-focused organisation that challenges children’s minds and produces evidence from fossils.

Actually the zoo’s owner, Anthony Bush, told the Church Times that “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.” Displays within the main part of the zoo explain the “30 reasons why apes are not related to man” against all contemporary scientific evidence, and a scale model of Noah’s Ark, built to “biblical proportions”, features dinosaurs climbing aboard.

The British Humanist association says the award is inappropriate merely because the zoo concentrates on creation. In short the British Humanist association does not believe that children should be allowed even to discuss creation or to be exposed to any evidence that might support it.

Actually the BHA policy on, for example, Religious Education, is that children should indeed be informed and, most importantly, discuss the details that make up religious belief systems, that ideally this would form part of a broader subject that would be part of the national curriculum (RE currently is not) and would be inclusive of secular worldviews.

http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/192408/Don-t-condemn-all-debate-as-religious-propaganda

The British Humanist Association has previously criticised the Noah’s Ark zoo for its Creationist material. The zoo was expelled from BIAZA (British and Irish Association of Zoos and Aquariums) after it failed to cooperate on alleged links with a circus featuring tigers and was found to have buried a tiger’s carcas on its grounds, against regulations. The zoo has been cleared of related cruelty charges but the local council has imposed seven additional conditions on the zoo’s license to ensure that it complies with the Secretary of State’s Standards of Modern Zoo Practice (SSSMZP).