if wishing would make it so

[Pure]

[Park authorities withdraw posting of the]
Official Age Of Grand Canyon For Fear Of Offending Creationists...

December 29, 2006 03:53 PM
http://www.peer.org/news/news_id.php?row_id=801



AP

Due to pressure from Bush Administration officials, the National Park Service is not permitted to give an official age for the Grand Canyon. Additionally, a book claiming the Grand Canyon was created by Noah's flood is for sale at the National Park's bookstore.

The sale of Grand Canyon: A Different View was scheduled for review over three years ago, but no such review has been schedule or even requested. The creationist book was the only item approved for sale in 2003 (22 other items were rejected).
===
see the older Time magazine article on the same topic

http://www.time.com/time/columnist/...,783829,00.html

Web Exclusive |

by Leon Jaroff

Faith-Based Parks?
Creationists meet the Grand Canyon

Posted Wednesday, Nov. 17, 2004

 

[Selena_Kitt]

[Park authorities withdraw posting of the]
Official Age Of Grand Canyon For Fear Of Offending Creationists...

December 29, 2006 03:53 PM


AP

Due to pressure from Bush Administration officials, the National Park Service is not permitted to give an official age for the Grand Canyon. Additionally, a book claiming the Grand Canyon was created by Noah's flood is for sale at the National Park's bookstore.

The sale of Grand Canyon: A Different View was scheduled for review over three years ago, but no such review has been schedule or even requested. The creationist book was the only item approved for sale in 2003 (22 other items were rejected).

 

[Liar]

The sale of Grand Canyon: A Different View was scheduled for review over three years ago, but no such review has been schedule or even requested. The creationist book was the only item approved for sale in 2003 (22 other items were rejected).

Uh, how can that be "A Different View" if there's no official view for it to oppose?

 

[starrkers]

Oh, for crying out loud.

 

[Joe Wordsworth]

That's pretty disappointing, really.

 

[cloudy]

Can't upset the scary creationists....

 

[Pure]

scarier are the people the cater to the creationists! (who likely don't believe in the creationists' position anyway).

as david kuo, formerly in Bush's faith based initiative program has stated in a recent book, Rove and co. refer to the Xtian right as 'nuts.' they are being thrown scraps in return for being used politically.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/16/AR2006101601017.html

 

[MasterPhoenix]

These wingnuts are doing their best to take us back to the Dark Ages....

 

[Pure]

but surely knowledge is inferior to faith!

 

[deathlynx]

but surely knowledge is inferior to faith!

That reminds me of Stephen Colbert at the whitehouse...The fthird part isn't quite as good but the first two are hysterical! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QTWDnPi7W1o

 

[SlickTony]

Pure, is there a link to this story?

 

[Guest]

Pure, is there a link to this story?

I found one here -

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2006/12/29/park-service-cant-give-o_n_37406.html

But it doesn't have any more information.

 

[Pure]

google for "grand canyon" age "creationists"

the story is widely reported, e.g., (below) there is a related
NY Times story of the controversy at the addy below.

http://www.peer.org/news/news_id.php?row_id=801

http://www.truthout.org/issues_06/122906EB.shtml

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/06/s...0194700c0c7d2c&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

 

[Boxlicker101]

This is to be expected in a theocracy. Iran is worse, but not really by much.

 

[SlickTony]

The US Government is guilty of a lot of mendacity, but I'm inclined to believe the NPS's official position papers over PEER.

 

[Pure]

tony,

the story was about what visitors to the Canyon see. apparently not its age.

is that so, tony?

what is NPS policy?

 

[Boxlicker101]

There are some comments directly after the Huffington article, and one of them has this link: http://www.nps.gov/grca/naturescience/naturalfeaturesandecosystems.htm

This would seem to disagree with what this thread is about.

 

[Pure]

the National Parks Service website

http://www.nps.gov/grca/naturescience/naturalfeaturesandecosystems.htm

says that the deepest formations are 1800 million years old. i thought the issue is what info is available to visitors at the park, and what's posted in the park.

 

[Pure]

box,
i see this posting at HuffPo,

By: HeywoodJablohmee on December 29, 2006 at 05:18pm
Flag: [abusive]

.
More Leftwing Bullshit fearmongering.

From the official government website on the Grand Canyon:
"Geologic formations such as gneiss and schist found at the bottom of the Canyon date back 1,800 million years."
http://www.nps.gov/grca/naturescience/naturalfeaturesandecosystems....

More fearmongering bullshit dishonest hysteria from Moonbats.

Gee, what a shock.


I'm not sure the gist of the article is called in to question by the website info. The namecalling by right wing is proof of its desperation, imo.

 

[Pure]

the "peer" website (Public Employees for Environmental Resp.)

http://www.peer.org/news/news_id.php?row_id=801

P: does contain refs. to official documents, and includes the one excerpted below, Director's Order #6. the prose is turgid and bureaucratic, but there are some clues as to the intent to honor 'multiple points of view.'

in particular the line Programs, however, may acknowledge or explain other explanations of natural processes and events.

would one 'explanation' of the natural processes in the Canyon be 'Noah's Flood', ordered by God?

the document does not *prove* the allegations of the article, for which we rely on the employees' word, but it raises suspicions (in me, at least), and certainlly appears to 'walk on eggs.'

=====

http://www.nps.gov/policy/DOrders/DOrder6.html

[see the link at the bottom of the story at the PEER website]

[start quote]
8.4 Research
8.4.1 In General. Quality interpretive programs and media require sound research. The content of interpretive and educational services must be accurate, inclusive, respect multiple points of view and be free of cultural, ethnic, and personal biases. However, in accordance with section 7.5.5 of Management Policies, "[a]cknowledging multiple points of view does not require interpretive and educational programs to provide equal time, or to disregard the weight of scientific or historical evidence." Programs presented by cultural demonstrators should be introduced as clearly representing the particular culture being presented.
(See section 8.5, Consultation below)

8.4.2 Historical and Scientific Research. Superintendents, historians, scientists, and interpretive staff are responsible for ensuring that park interpretive and educational programs and media are accurate and reflect current scholarship. To accomplish this, an on-going dialogue must be established. Questions often arise round the presentation of geological, biological, and evolutionary processes. The interpretive and educational treatment used to explain the natural processes and history of the Earth must be based on the best scientific evidence available, as found in scholarly sources that have stood the test of scientific peer review and criticism. The facts, theories, and interpretations to be used will reflect the thinking of the scientific community in such fields as biology, geology, physics, astronomy, chemistry, and paleontology. Interpretive and educational programs must refrain from appearing to endorse religious beliefs explaining natural processes. Programs, however, may acknowledge or explain other explanations of natural processes and events.

(See section 7.5.4 of Management Policies. Also see Director's Order #11B: Ensuring Quality of Information Disseminated by the National Park Service)

8.5 Consultation

The NPS will present factual and balanced presentations of the many American cultures, heritages, and histories. Through civic engagement, consultation, and collaboration with diverse constituencies, the NPS fosters the development of effective and meaningful interpretive and educational programs. Broad civic engagement ensures appropriate content and accuracy, and identifies multiple points of view and potentially sensitive issues. The Service will actively consult traditionally associated peoples and other cultural and community groups in the planning, development, presentation, and operation of park interpretive and educational programs.

(See sections 5.2.1 and 7.5.5 of Management Policies. Also see Director's Order #75A: Civic Engagement and Public Involvement)[end quote]

 

[Pure]

That there is a debate about the grand canyon seems beyond doubt;

also that the debate has involved the parks service. here are two articles from the mainstream:

http://www.time.com/time/columnist/jaroff/article/0,9565,783829,00.html
Web Exclusive |
by Leon Jaroff
Faith-Based Parks?
Creationists meet the Grand Canyon

Posted Wednesday, Nov. 17, 2004

At a park called Dinosaur Adventure Land, run by creationists near Pensacola, Florida, visitors are informed that man coexisted with dinosaurs. This fantasy accommodates the creationists’ view that the Earth is only 6,000 years old and that Darwin’s theory of evolution is false. Among the park exhibits is one that illustrates another creationist article of faith. It consists of a long trough filled with sand and fitted at one end with a water spigot. Above the trough is a sign reading “That River Didn’t Make That Canyon.” When visitors open the spigot, the water quickly cuts a gully through the sand, supposedly demonstrating how the Grand Canyon was created, practically overnight, by Noah’s flood. That’s nonsense, of course, but what else would you expect at a creationist park? Certainly, one might think, this couldn’t be acceptable at, say, a National Park, right? Think again.

Two-thirds of the way across the continent, some four million people annually visit Grand Canyon National Park, marveling at the awesome view. In National Park Service (NPS) affiliated bookstores, they can find literature informing them that the great chasm runs for 277 miles along the bed of the Colorado River. It descends more than a mile into the earth, and along one stretch, is some 18 miles wide, its walls displaying impressive layers of limestone, sandstone, shale, schist and granite.

And, oh yes, it was formed about 4,500 years ago, a direct consequence of Noah’s Flood. How’s that? Yes, this is the ill-informed premise of “Grand Canyon, a Different View,” a handsomely-illustrated volume also on sale at the bookstores. It includes the writings of creationists and creation scientists and was compiled by Tom Vail, who with his wife operates Canyon Ministries, conducting creationist-view tours of the canyon.

“For years,” Vail explains, “as a Colorado River guide, I told people how the Grand Canyon was formed over the evolutionary time span of millions of years. (Most geologists place the canyon’s age at some six million years). Then I met the Lord. Now I have a different view of the Canyon, which according to a biblical time scale, can’t possibly be more than a few thousand years old.”

Vail’s book attracted little notice when it first appeared in the NPS stores in 2003, until a critical review by Wilfred Elders, a respected University of California geologist, brought it to light and took apart its pseudoscientific claims. That led David Shaver, who heads the Geologic Resources Division of the Park Service, to send a memo to headquarters urging that the book be removed from the NPS stores. “It is not based on science,” he wrote, “ but on a specific religious doctrine…and should not have been approved for in NPS affiliated book stores.”

The presidents of The American Geological Institute and six of its member societies also weighed in, expressing their dismay to the Park Service. Noting that the Grand Canyon “provides a remarkable and unique opportunity to educate the public about Earth science,” the scientists urged that, “in fairness to the millions of park visitors, we must clearly distinguish religious from scientific knowledge.”

But when Grand Canyon National Park superintendent Joe Alston attempted to block the sale of Vail’s book at canyon bookstores, he was overruled by NPS headquarters, which announced that a high-level policy review of the matter would be launched and a decision made by February, 2004. So far, no official decision has been announced.

Even worse, according to the Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), an organization that includes many Park employees, papers obtained under the Freedom of Information Act reveal that no review has ever taken place. Indeed, PEER claims that the Bush Administration has already decided it will stand by its approval for the book and that hundreds more have been ordered. “Now that the book has become quite popular,” explained an NPS flack to a Baptist news agency, “we don’t want to remove it.”

Even more troubling, PEER charges that Grand Canyon National Park no longer offers an official estimate of the age of the canyon, and that the NPS has blocked publication of guidance intended for park rangers that reminds them there is no scientific basis for creationism. The group has been increasingly concerned about what it calls the Park Service’s “Faith-Based Parks” and the agency’s seeming indifference to the separation of church and state Among other moves, for example, NPS has allowed the placing of bronze plaques bearing Psalm verses at Grand Canyon overlooks. PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch is indignant, “If the Bush Administration is using public resources for pandering to Christian fundamentalists, it should at least have the decency to tell the truth about it.”

Is this religious bias, as some creationists charge? Hardly. It’s more than likely that the majority of scientists, environmentalists and others protesting the NPS stand are themselves intelligent, rational Christians who are convinced by overwhelming evidence that the Grand Canyon is no Johnny-Come-Lately. The creationists have demonstrated again that they are scientifically illiterate, and out of step with the 21st century.



http://www.beliefnet.com/story/138/story_13843.html
A Million Years Apart

Scientists and creationists square off over the age of the Grand Canyon

By Adelle M. Banks
Religion News Service

Washington, Jan. 12 [2006? pure]

-(RNS) Traditional scientists and Christian creationists have lined up on either side of a dispute over sales of a new book at Grand Canyon National Park that claims the canyon dates to the biblical flood of Genesis rather than millions of years ago.

The presidents of such organizations as the American Geological Institute and the American Institute of Biological Sciences have written or signed letters to the park's superintendent expressing concerns that the book's presence could leave visitors with the impression that it is endorsed by the National Park Service.

Answers in Genesis, a ministry whose president wrote an essay in the book, is urging its supporters to ask park service officials to permit "Grand Canyon: A Different View" to remain on the shelves of the park's three bookstores.
The debate has reached the point that a Washington [etc.]

 

[oggbashan]

If I were a tourist visiting the Grand Canyon, I might be tempted to buy that book to take back to the UK to show how nutty some US groups are.

But I can find equally wrong-headed people close to my front door, so why bother?

Og

 

[Pure]

it's not so much the % of nuts in the population, but their influence on government.

also, the US has an undue concentration of Xtian fundamentalists; if these are 'nuts', the US has far more, and far more influential 'nuts' than Britain.

 

[rgraham666]

Well, Europe has had things like The Inquisition and the Thirty Years War. So they have a clearer idea than we do about how extreme the consequences of fanatical religion are.

We don't and so more people fall under its spell.

 

[oggbashan]

In the 1970s and 1980s we had infiltration of the Labour Party by the hard Left, whose ideas were as dangerous as anything the Christian fundamentalists could have.

Our political party memberships are shrinking to very low numbers. A few dedicated activists could have influence far beyond their numbers.

The UK is not immune. The threat is different. The methods are similar.

Og