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The cream of Cornwall

Gavin Cox chats with Dr David (Dubby) Rodda

David (Dubby) Rodda graduated in agricultural science from Reading University in the UK, which also granted him a master’s degree in poultry science. He earned a Ph.D. in animal science and genetics from Guelph, Canada, specializing in statistical approaches to genetics and animal breeding. Later he had practical experience in guiding a successful turkey-breeding program on the family farm.

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Rodda’s is a household name in Cornish dairy (figs. 1 and 2), but it was not always famous. Dubby says it started as “just a one-room household business alongside the farmhouse.” Born in 1946, Dubby describes himself as a “retired scientist, geneticist-cum-poultry-breeder, creationist, and missionary.” Although he never became a business partner, during his youth Dubby played his part in Rodda’s creamery business.

Prayer was always integral to Rodda’s business; they sought to put God first. According to Dubby, “we witnessed His remarkable guidance on many occasions.”

One hundred years ago in 1922, Fanny Rodda (Dubby’s grandmother) discovered how to make cream last longer. Before refrigerators, cream went bad quickly, so Fanny wondered how to solve this problem. A praying woman, the idea came to her that sterilizing cream in jars might help to preserve it. She knew it worked for fruit, and when she tried it, she found the cream lasted for at least 3 months!

Fanny’s discovery led to the establishment of the family business. It developed slowly (interrupted by WW2 with its milk rationing), until Rodda’s was supplying not just local trade but airlines, national supermarkets, and even overseas markets. From 1952 onwards, Rodda’s also raised and bred turkeys. Here, Dubby later played a key scientific advisory role, as will be seen.

A call to mission

Raised in a Christian household, Dubby had an early conversion experience, aged eight. But it was only at age 14 that he received assurance of salvation. He was inspired by the writings of a pioneering missionary in Tanzania, Dr Paul White, who wrote a series of books called Jungle Doctor.¹He expected that his professors would present him with lots of experimental evidence to justify the widespread confidence in evolutionary theory. But, he says, in all the evolution classes and papers he read, he found absolutely none!

When Dubby was 15, he was challenged to reach African people groups under Islamic influence. The challenge came from his missionary uncle, who said that few missionaries were going to these peoples. His question was: “If God wanted you to go, would you be willing?” Dubby did not exactly warm to this, but nevertheless recognized, “Since Jesus is Lord of my life, if that is what He wants me to do, then I have no choice but to say ‘Yes.’” He then decided to plan his educational goals with missions in mind.

When Dubby started his doctoral studies in genetics and animal breeding, he was confident God had created everything, but was unsure about whether or not this was by using evolution. He expected that his professors would present him with lots of experimental evidence to justify the widespread confidence in evolutionary theory. But, he says, in all the evolution classes and papers he read, he found absolutely none!

So he questioned his professors about evolution. One professor loaned him a book about abiogenesis (or chemical evolution, the idea that the first life arose by itself from non-living chemicals).² However, Dubby found it far too mathematically improbable to believe.

He boldly suggested, “Isn’t it easier to believe in God?” The professor’s reply struck Dubby powerfully: “Well, yes, of course it is—but who wants to believe in God?” Dubby says, “His choice to refuse to believe in God was plainly in spite of the overwhelming evidence.”

Encouraged on creation

Around this time, Dubby was very impressed by a book by A.E. Wilder-Smith,³ one of the pioneers of the modern creation science movement, who held three earned science doctorates. His book described life’s complex chemistry, the inconceivable amounts of information encoded into the ‘simplest’ organisms, and the impossibility of life’s chance emergence.

To the mission field

After completing his Ph.D. in 1975, Dubby trained with New Tribes Mission⁴ (NTM) in North America for two and a half years. He then spent 28 years in Senegal, the first 15 years teaching French to missionaries and evangelising educated locals. He discovered the importance of teaching Scripture chronologically, starting in Genesis, after recognizing that Jesus taught the disciples this way (Luke 24:13–35). A video Dubby made of this method was a significant help to other missionaries to Muslims. Another NTM missionary, Trevor McIlwain, also introduced this teaching method in the Philippines with great success after realizing the locals did not see the point of the Gospel unless taught from Genesis onwards.

During this time, Dubby met Anna, his wife-to-be, also with NTM. Anna spent nine years analyzing the language of the West African Balanta Ganja tribe. They married in 1992, and then lived among the Muslim Saafi people until 2008, learning their language and culture, and preparing the ground for future workers.

Developing a new turkey breed

Commercial turkey farming has long involved turkey breeds with all white feathers. This is because the pigment in dark feathers, as in the original turkeys, leaves dark stubs after slaughter, which consumers find unsightly.

It is extremely helpful to farmers if male and female hatchlings (poults) can be readily visually distinguished on hatching, rather than several weeks later. But in the white-feathered breeds at the time, poults were typically identical (fig. 3) This meant they could not be sexed at hatching without the cost of professional individual inspection.

If traditional black⁵ turkey females were crossed with a particular brown turkey type, male and female poults looked different due to the brown sex-linked colour gene. But the resulting adult turkeys were dark-feathered, thus with the unsightly stubs. In short, there were no breeds that combined the white-feathered and the easy-sexing characteristics.

Mr Carol Harvey, Rodda’s turkey-farm manager, (fig. 4), wanted to change that. In 1971 Carol discovered conjoined-twin turkeys hatched from a single egg, something never seen before. One, a female, possessed a dark head spot, while the other, a male, had no spot. Carol wondered if this might be caused by a sex-linked colour gene. After six years of breeding experiments, he developed turkeys with bigger, darker, and more widespread patches of colour in the poults, but there was no evidence of sex-linkage. The same colour was present in males and females alike.

Just before abandoning the project in 1977, Dubby had a ‘light-bulb’ moment! He explains:

I suddenly realized the significance of the dark colour in these poults. Normal white turkeys still carried the genetic instructions for making the colour pigments in their feathers, but these had been switched off.

The darkness in our poults was the result of these instructions for colour being switched back on (reactivated)—but only while the embryo was developing in the egg. At hatching they had been switched back off, and feathers formed afterwards were only white.

Knowing of the brown sex-linked gene in other breeds, Dubby saw the potential for a breakthrough. He says:

I recognized that by way of appropriate mating combinations, it was likely we would eventually be able to produce black males and brown females when they hatched, so that the poults could be easily separated. But after that, all the feathers produced as they grew up would be white.

Before sourcing turkeys with the brown colour gene, Dubby realized that it first required further darkening the colour in the poults, by removing (breeding out) genes which dilute the colour. It also meant identifying and removing other genes which might confuse results. Plus, it required reducing the frequency of genes ‘broken’ by mutation. This involved painstaking and meticulous breeding programs, involving thousands of turkeys.

Carol continually prayed for wisdom. After several more years of patient trial and error with turkeys from other sources, a brown sex-linked gene with the right characteristics was obtained and introduced into Rodda’s flock. Test matings produced females which hatched with brown colouring (inherited from their father), while males were black (from their mother), so could easily be separated at hatch. And, as adults, all of their feathers were white.

It was then necessary to integrate the gene into the flock and select for increased meatiness in that line. The final goal was largely achieved in 1986, after 15 years of painstaking effort (fig. 5).

Implications for evolution

All of this took a huge amount of labour over many years. Many thousands of turkeys were tracked and recorded for their weight, shape, and colour at hatch. Only a small proportion were selected as parents for the next generation. As Dubby puts it:

The project required years of planned effort to develop the pure breeds for only two existing genes and to breed out the many undesirable genes that inevitably came to light in the process. It was plain hard work, even though we knew what to do!

Our practical experience demonstrates clearly that ‘evolution’ is really a fairy tale, and has nothing to do with real, practical science! So, why believe it?

Yet, he says, Darwinian evolutionists believe that ‘blind’ natural selection and random mutations produced all life on earth starting from a single cell! They claim that ‘somehow’ new genetic information, coding for and regulating new functions, ‘arose’. Then natural selection produced ever more complex organisms, through unguided processes, over billions of years. In reality, says Dubby,

They have no idea how all this is supposed to have happened! Our practical experience demonstrates clearly that ‘evolution’ is really a fairy tale, and has nothing to do with real, practical science! So, why believe it?

Continuing creation evangelism

Dubby’s heart is to evangelize, and to challenge the Church to return to the authority of God’s Word. He recognizes that evolution with its millions of years represents an obstacle, blinding the eyes of unbelievers and Christians alike. As well as working with his local church, Dubby continues to keep in very close touch with the ongoing work in Africa. He also keeps developing his YouTube channel and his ministry website, ‘Facing death with joyful hope’, which focuses on themes consistent with positive faith. Dubby states:

I am fully confident, on the basis of all the genetic evidence I have seen, that every living organism is descended from a Genesis kind, created originally perfect a relatively short time ago. This is exactly what the Bible teaches!

Posted on homepage: 6 January 2025

References and Notes

1. The Jungle Doctor, jungledoctorcomics.com, acc. 15 Mar 2022. Return to text.
2. See Maclachlan, R., Abiogenesis?, creation.com/abiogenesis, 20 Dec 2014. Also Batten, D., Origin of life, creation.com/origin-of-life, last updated 8 Nov 2021. Return to text.
3. Wilder-Smith, A.E., The Creation of Life; A cybernetic approach to evolution, Harold Shaw, Illinois, 1970. Return to text.
4. Since renamed Ethnos360, but keeping its original name in the UK. Return to text.
5. Technically black turkeys are called ‘bronze’, and the brown ones are called ‘copper’ (or ‘auburn’). Return