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(URL now dead)
From the Northhampton Chronicle & Echo – We have the following example of balanced journalism.
Spotlight
Was Darwin Wrong.
IF YOU wanted to get hold of a copy of the Bible, few people would think of looking in the science section of the local library. With tales of Adam and Eve, Noah and his Arc and Armageddon, there's admittedly no shortage of drama, but a group, which has just launched in Northamptonshire, is arguing there is much more to the Word of God and in particular the Old Testament than simply hell fire and damnation.
To put it simply, the Northants Creation Group believe the world was created just 30,000 years ago, Adam and Eve were real, Noah did build an Ark and that Darwin and his theory of evolution was wrong, very wrong.
Dr Farid Abou-Rahme, the consultant civil engineer who heads the group, is used to being ridiculed for his beliefs, but has supreme confidence that he is right and that the general accepted truths of how man and the world developed are false.
"Over the many years I have been researching, I have found so much evidence against evolution, not just religious hearsay, but scientific evidence," he says from his Grange Park home. "Evolution is based on the Big Bang, but it can't explain where that first speck of life came from.
"Evolution contradicts many scientific theories. Genetic engineering has tried all different ways of creating life, but without using existing cells they can't do it. Life can only come from life." Despite what he says, Dr Abou-Rahme, comes across as a quietly spoken scientist, rather than a turquoise clad David Ike figure, and if the first meeting of the group, which attracted 50 people, is anything to go by there are more like-minded people out there than you might think.
"The earth was created 30,000 years ago and there is nothing in science to contradict that," he says with absolute confidence. "People say dinosaurs roamed the earth millions of years ago, but in fact dating methods are not at all accurate.
"Footprints of man and dinosaurs have been found together in one valley in Texas, but that doesn't fit with what scientists have been telling people for so many years, so it has been suppressed." The whole idea of creationism is not new, the organisation was first founded in 1932, but the group came under the media spotlight most recently when parents launched a protest against the takeover of a school in South Yorkshire, by a foundation which promotes the beliefs.
The Emmanuel Schools Foundation already has four colleges in the north of England, all of which have attracted adverse publicity. "We have done many talks in schools and universities and the auditorium is usually packed out," says Dr Abou-Rahme, who graduated from Sheffield University. "It is getting more difficult to get into schools, but all we want to do is present scientific evidence, we are not interested in brain washing the young, once they have heard what we have got to say they can make their own minds up.
"When people hear what we believe, they are often very upset that they haven't been told about it before."
The creationist movement's evidence for the Bible as scientific fact, involves thermodynamics, chemical compounds and complex mathematics, but when I ask the doctor for a more simple example he tells me of the masterpiece of engineering which is Noah's Ark. "When I was at university we did research into the stability of ships in the sea," he says. "One was a scale model of Noah's Ark, made to the dimensions which are given in the Bible.
"They are very exact and very detailed and as the storm was simulated all the other boats sank, the only one to survive was Noah's Ark. People often ask how could he have fitted two of every animal in there, but it was one and a half times the size of a football pitch and could have fitted 125,000 sheep-sized animals in it."
And it's not just the Ark, according to the creation movement the Bible is packed with scientific facts.
"There is one line, which says, 'He hangs the earth on nothing'," says Dr Abou-Rahme. "That was written 3,500 years, but it is 20th century physics. The Laws of Gravity which Newton discovered do not add anything to what Job recorded.
"At the turn of the last century scientists believed that a substance called ether existed in space and somehow helped hold the earth in its position. Of course this has now been disproved and what the Bible says is still the very best way to describe the earth. "There is also another line which describes the world as a circle, but it wasn't until 1519AD that the famous navigator Magellan sailed around the world to disprove the belief the earth was flat.
"If the Bible is so scientifically accurate then we need to be aware of the message it contains."
But what about Darwin and what about his theory of evolution and the survival of the fittest, which since it was published in 1859, has been a cornerstone of the science world? All nonsense, according to those who believe in creationism.
"The theory of evolution doesn't work," says Dr Abou-Rahme. "But the alternative is creation and God and some people don't want that. "People say 300 million years ago such and such happened, but it's nothing more than a fairytale.
"They find a couple of bones and draw the figures around them. People talk of Neanderthal man, but perhaps these people were misshapen because of illness.
"Look at the Piltdown man he was in the British Museum for 40 years before it was discovered it was a fake. These are the kind of things we have been teaching people and for some people it would be unthinkable to do a U-turn.
"We were created perfectly and mutations have made us less so. Mutations are not as Darwin said good things, but bad things. We are getting worse and worse, not better. "I think Darwin used his imagination a lot. I think he was upset with the church and decided to write something which would hurt it. But his theory has so many holes. What Darwin called the simple cell, scientists have since discovered contains 40,000 strands of DNA and has three billion chemical bases. How could that have come by accident?"
Having happily accepted the theory of evolution for some years, it's all quite a lot to take in, but before I have chance to absorb the rudiments of creationism, Dr Abou-Rahme, whose book And God Said… has been published in 15 different languages, delivers his ultimate bombshell, dinosaurs still exist.
"There have been so many theories about why dinosaurs died out," he says. "Some evolutionists have had to admit that the most logical answer is that they must have become extinct due to a natural catastrophe like a flood, but for obvious reasons they don't mention Noah.
"And we can explain the absence of huge dinosaurs today. Lizards, unlike other animals, keep growing in size for as long as they are alive. The Bible explains how after the flood Noah and all the animals came out into a different world.
"The lifespan of animals was shortened from 1,000 years to 100 years, so therefore they would only grow to a fraction of their normal size, hence why today you get things like the komodo dragons, which are effectively miniature dinosaurs."
While prepared for the inevitable 'crank' allegations, the Northants Creation Group is hopeful it will be a success.
"We are confident of getting some very important speakers to come to Northampton to tell people of the evidence in favour of creationism," adds Dr Abou-Rahme. "I don't know whether we will ever see scientists accept our way of thinking, but we will keep on trying."
For information about Creation Science, visit www.creationsciencemovement.com or email arahme@... 05 July 2004
Another of his articles can found here: