THE LAWYERS marched two by two into Federal Court yesterday as a geologist launched a fraud case against a creationist who says the Earth is 6,000 years old and all living species emerged from Noah's Ark.
"It's the first time in the world a scientist has sued creationists said the Melbourne University geology professor Ian Plimer who has filed the case - dubbed the "Monkey Trial II" - together with a US marine salvager, David Fasold.
In 1925, a high school science teacher in Tennessee, John Thomas Scopes, was tried for teaching Darwin's theory of evolution and fined $100 in a case which was the subject of a celebrated film called Inherit the Wind, starring Spencer Tracy.
In the Australian case a church elder who claims to have visited the remains of Noah's Ark is accused of misleading conduct in a test case brought under consumer protection laws.
Allen Roberts, a pastoral elder, also claimed falsely to be involved in scientific work associated with the discovery of the possible remains of the Ark in Turkey, the Federal Court was told.
In his opening address, Mr Stephen Walmsley, barrister for Mr Fasold and Mr Plimer, said that Dr Roberts had made false claims in video and audio tapes sold to the public, as well as having breached copyright laws.
Dr Roberts belonged to a group which expressed a belief in the Genesis account of creation. He held a doctorate of Christian education, received after completing a 22 month external course with a Florida university, Mr Walmsley said.
It was not a case about whether or not Dr Roberts had found Noah's Ark, nor an examination of whether or not the Genesis account of creation was correct, he said.
"It is, however, a case concerning breach of copyright of a drawing and a case concerning false claims made by (Dr Roberts) when delivering lectures to a paying audience and in video and audio tapes of those lectures sold ... to members of the public."
Mr Walmsley said that as a result of Mr Fasold's observations, measurements and scientific investigations, he prepared a drawing of the site on Mount Ararat, which was included in his book The Ark of Noah.
Mr Fasold wrote the book following numerous trips he made to Turkey in the 1980s to visit Mount Ararat. He claims his copyright was infringed when the drawing was used with the caption "If this is not Noah's Ark then what is it?" in a brochure published by Dr Roberts's support group, Ark Search Incorporated.
In 1991, Dr Roberts was abducted by Kurdish separatists while visiting the claimed ark site at Akyayla, near Mount Ararat. He was released unharmed three weeks later and then undertook lecture tours.
Numerous claims by Dr Roberts in his lectures and tapes were misleading, including statements about his involvement in the Turkish expedition, Mr Walmsley said.