Humans from apes and monkeys do?

The Noah's Ark Zoo Farm in the UK has a presentation about 30 reasons why man is not descended from apes. Given the establishment believes in creationism, that presentation is no surprise. But that school children would attend the place has some educators alarmed. Noah's Ark Zoo Farm, near Bristol, was recently awarded a "quality badge" by the Council for Learning Outside the Classroom.

The council's deputy chief executive defended the decision, the Guardian reports: "An important aim of learning outside the classroom is allowing children and young people access to education that challenges assumptions and allows them to experience a range of viewpoints."

That's a tactic known as "teaching the controversy" - a controversy scientists say does not exist. Evolution is a well-founded theory - among the most solid and important theories in all of science, and among scientists there simply is no controversy.

Among the teachings of Noah's Ark Zoo Farm is that scientists use "faith" to explain Darwinian evolution. That's just bogus. Scientists use evidence, from the fossil record, from DNA comparisons, and from studies in a host of different fields to conclude that evolution is at work and that humans and apes share common ancestry. The disingenuous materials suggest that gaps in the fossil record require leaps of faith to tie Darwinian evolution together.

The farm also promotes a view that Earth is not 4.5 billion years old, as science says, while keeping arms-length from the ludicrous belief of the most staunch creationists that Earth is just a few thousand years old and humans co-existed with dinosaurs. "We believe the earth is much older than 6,000 years but much younger than 4.5 billion years," the farm's web site states.

The farm plants seeds of doubt about evolution in other creative ways, such as with this passage that suggests the great diversity and complexity of life could not have arisen from evolution - a process scientists have in fact described very well and supported very thoroughly, but that a divine designer must be involved: "Researchers notice design in every cell and in every bone, but it's like the proverbial elephant in the room: no one dares mention the obvious implications for a God-excluding view of reality."

Creationism has crept into US classrooms in recent years, too. A recent study found that 12 percent of high school biology teachers present creationism or intelligent design in a positive light in the classroom, despite a federal court's recent ban against it.

Paul Sims，news editor of New Humanist magazine， sums up what's wrong with all this - teaching creationism as a viable alternative to evolution - in the Guardian this way: "Proponents of 'teach the controversy' would have us believe that this is the purpose of education – to allow children to think for themselves, it is necessary to teach them things that aren't true alongside things that are. But if a child leaves school thinking that humans don't share a common ancestor with other apes, isn't the truth just that the education system failed them?"

For the record, reason No. 30 that man is not descended from apes, according to the Noah's Ark Zoo Farm (via another article by Paul Sims): "Man and apes cannot share a common ancestor because "Our belief in God can give us power to love the unlovable and values that are greater than physical life itself.'" Now there's some solid science that should give any Darwinist pause!