Grand Canyon employees forbidden by Bush administration from discussing canyon's age

[begin_within]

Sorry if this has been posted before. I just read about this.

"Grand Canyon National Park is not permitted to give an official estimate of the geologic age of its principal feature, due to pressure from Bush administration appointees. Despite promising a prompt review of its approval for a book claiming the Grand Canyon was created by Noah's flood rather than by geologic forces, more than three years later no review has ever been done and the book remains on sale at the park, according to documents released today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER)"

More at: http://www.crooksandliars.com/2006/12/29/park-service-cant-say-how-old-grand-canyon-is-to-not-offend-creationists/

[niyad]

1. shaking my head . . .

[malaise]

6. Banging mine against the monitor

good fugging grief - chase these madmen out of town. :banghead:

[EFerrari]

2. "Underwear will be worn on the outside -- so we can check!"

:rofl:

[Richardo]

4. ...

:rofl:

:thumbsup:

[EFerrari]

21. "Houston, we have a problem."

lol

:hi:

[Tesha]

43. State your name for the record. "J. Edgar Hoover" (NT)

[A HERETIC I AM]

3. Someone should just go in and buy every copy of that asinine book,

take them to a nearby campground and use them to cook dinner over.

If i was going to visit the South Rim, i would do it myself.

[kestrel91316]

15. I wouldn't BUY them, I'd shoplift them. But that's just me.

[whistle]

5. Unless they say it is only 6,500 years old

[tularetom]

7. 40 years ago we put a man on the moon

and now we've sunk to this. I don't know if the world is doomed but the era of the US as a world power is sure coming to a rapid close if we don't get our head out of our ass and stop giving credibility to this medieval hocus pocus.

We must be the laughingstock of the civilized world.

[kestrel91316]

22. "We must be the laughingstock of the civilized world" - We ARE.

And it's going to get worse.

I had a client yesterday who, after I had a lengthy discussion with him about his cat's hepatic lipidosis (liver failure due to a fat cat not eating for too long - metabolic disaster due to starvation), asked me with a straight face if it was contagious to people. After I had just explained to him in simple lay terms how the cat got sick. By NOT EATING, you fool.

The VERY BASICS of biology and health are incomprehensible to these people, it seems. But I bet he can recite the plots of a dozen TV shows from last week alone.

[niyad]

26. don't forget the sports stats

[Faux pas]

8. Shaking my head too, you can almost hear the rocks rattling in

there. bush's brain has to be the size of a grain of sand....but, bare in mind, that grain is only 5000 yrs old.

[aquart]

12. Barbara's best effort, he is.

Where is ol' Barbara these days?

[Faux pas]

31. nuts begetting nuts and the beat goes on. babs is probably

busy decorating the rancho in Paraguay, in preparation for little george's coronation there.

[hisownpetard]

34. She's hangin' with Barry Bonds, trying to see whose neck is bigger. n/t

[awoke_in_2003]

49. getting more pictures taken

for the Quaker Oats commercials :)

[tammywammy]

9. It says on the official website how old it is

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

"Beginning about 1,200 million years ago (late Proterozoic), 13,000 feet of sediment and lava were deposited in coastal and shallow marine environments. Mountain building about 725 million years ago lifted and tilted these rocks. Subsequent erosion removed these tilted layers from most areas leaving only the wedge-shaped remnants seen in the eastern Canyon."

[begin_within]

11. Apparently the order came down that if they are asked in person how old the canyon is,

to simply say, "no comment."

[tammywammy]

20. That's just really f-ed up n/t

[begin_within]

Well, I guess if global warming is a myth, trees create pollution, ketchup is a vegetable and

tobacco is non-addictive, then hell, sure why not, Noah's flood created the Grand Canyon. But wait... How did the ark then arrive on a mountaintop in Turkey?

Someone should compile all these into "The Big Golden Book of Republican Science"

[begin_within]

10. If it was created (as creationists claim) by a single flood, instead of slowly over

millions of years, then where the hell did all that water go? The rest of the Colorado River bed, between the Grand Canyon and the Gulf of California, couldn't possibly hold that much water at one time (at least without carving out another massive canyon, which there is none.)

[abq e streeter]

16. For some reason this reminded me

of a bumper sticker I've seen: If you don't pray in my school, I won't think in your church...

[aquart]

19. First the sediment had to build up thousands of feet...

Then parts of it had to be worn down....for miles...

I'm exhausted just thinking about it.

[kestrel91316]

23. You ask too many questions.

[Botany]

24. Time for them to stop using geology to look for oil.

It takes millions of years to make oil from the little critters ....
but if the earth is only 6,500 years old where did the oil come
from?

As far your point about the amount of water and no erosion
down stream .... why do you hate Jesus?

[begin_within]

29. Speaking of Jesus,

how did he get "borned" without Mary and Joseph having at least one quick roll in the hayloft...?

[awoke_in_2003]

50. how did he get "borned" ...

The Immaculate Reception. Wait, that was Franco Harris.

[Sabriel]

13. See my thread about the future "science" teacher who disbelieves evolution

And you'll understand how this might happen:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=219&topic_id=8083&mesg_id=8083

[abq e streeter]

14. Don't see what the problem is,

its exactly 6,000 years old give or take 6 days... ( I'm assuming I don't need sarcasm emoticon--can't get it to work anyway)

[begin_within]

25. That was one bitch of a work week for God. Sure hope God took a good nap on the 7th day.

Why didn't God just outsource it - I bet Bechtel could have done it "on time and under budget."

[awoke_in_2003]

51. Just looking at that picture makes me queazy. nt

[Botany]

17. When does this all stop?

... forms the base of the Grand Canyon. The rocks that made up these mountains are about 1.7 billion years old, or about one-third the age of our planet. ...

http://www.bobspixels.com/kaibab.org/geology/gc_geol.htm

Oh for the love of God you can see the layers and when you look @
the rocks you can see it on a "250 year" scale.

[Cha]

18. No way! What won't they do to

pander and plunder?

[Gloria]

27. They've ruined even a nice job like being a park ranger.....

[cosmik debris]

28. BULLSHIT!

This story has been going around for a long time and it is BULLSHIT!

Here is the FAQ from the NPS at the Grand Canyon:

How old is the Canyon?

That's a tricky question. Although rocks exposed in the walls of the canyon are geologically quite old, the Canyon itself is a fairly young feature. The oldest rocks at the canyon bottom are close to 2000 million years old. The Canyon itself - an erosional feature - has formed only in the past five or six million years. Geologically speaking, Grand Canyon is very young.

http://www.nps.gov/grca/faqs.htm#old

[Bluebear]

30. The story has to do with what park employees can answer, not what's on the website

[cosmik debris]

32. PEER was discredited right after this story came out.

It is BULLSHIT. PEER has no credibility. They made up the story to attract attention.

[begin_within]

33. Have you seen this site? It's a panic.

http://www.grandcanyonflood.com/

[tammywammy]

36. You're right

Here's a link

http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/07-01-17.html

"Unfortunately, in our eagerness to find additional examples of the inappropriate intrusion of religion in American public life (as if we actually needed more), we accepted this claim by PEER without calling the National Park Service (NPS) or the Grand Canyon National Park (GCNP) to check it. As a testimony to the quality of our readers, however, dozens immediately phoned both NPS and GCNP, only to discover that the claim is absolutely false. Callers were told that the Grand Canyon is millions of years old, that no one is being pressured from Bush administration appointees — or by anyone else — to withhold scientific information, and all were referred to a statement by David Barna, Chief of Public Affairs, National Park Service as to the park’s official position. “Therefore, our interpretive talks, way-side exhibits, visitor center films, etc. use the following explanation for the age of the geologic features at Grand Canyon,” the document explains."

[undeterred]

35. I would like there to be a ban on discussing age, period.

I just had a birthday, and it makes me feel old.

[tammywammy]

37. This isn't true

http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/07-01-17.html

" Unfortunately, in our eagerness to find additional examples of the inappropriate intrusion of religion in American public life (as if we actually needed more), we accepted this claim by PEER without calling the National Park Service (NPS) or the Grand Canyon National Park (GCNP) to check it. As a testimony to the quality of our readers, however, dozens immediately phoned both NPS and GCNP, only to discover that the claim is absolutely false. Callers were told that the Grand Canyon is millions of years old, that no one is being pressured from Bush administration appointees — or by anyone else — to withhold scientific information, and all were referred to a statement by David Barna, Chief of Public Affairs, National Park Service as to the park’s official position. “Therefore, our interpretive talks, way-side exhibits, visitor center films, etc. use the following explanation for the age of the geologic features at Grand Canyon,” the document explains.

If asked the age of the Grand Canyon, our rangers use the following answer: ‘The principal consensus among geologists is that the Colorado River basin has developed in the past 40 million years and that the Grand Canyon itself is probably less than five to six million years old. The result of all this erosion is one of the most complete geologic columns on the planet.’

Understandably, many of our readers were outraged by both the duplicity of the claim and our failure to fact check it. One park ranger wrote us:

You’re a day late and a dollar short on this one. As a national park ranger, I found most of PEER’s findings to be bogus. So have others: http://parkrangerx.blogspot.com

A Grand Canyon park interpreter wrote:

This is incorrect. I have NEVER been told to present non-science based programs. In fact, I received “talking points” demanding that Grand Canyon employees present programs BASED ON SCIENCE and that we must use the scientific version supported by the National Science Foundation and the National Academy of Sciences. As an interpreter I have shared the “creation” story of the Hopi people and the Paiute people because it is culturally relative. I used these stories as a tool to introduce the scientific story. Be confident there are good people running government, too."

[pinto]

38. Head On, apply it to your forehead. Head On, apply it to your forehead.

:eyes:

[rodeodance]

39. December 29th, 2006 ------any follow up on this??

[tammywammy]

40. See post 37

It isn't true.

[L0oniX]

41. The world is flat and I am sticking to my guns on that. -- George W. Bush

[opihimoimoi]

42. The Dumber we are ...the easier to FOOL...if ya can fool, ya can RULE

So sayeth Mongo from RockRidge

[L. Coyote]

44. I'm applying for a USG grant to look for Noah's ark in the High Himalayas

First, of course, I'm sending a donation to the Republicans. :rofl:

[fishwax]

45. That's a distortion. They even have an estimate of its age up on their web site

http://www.nps.gov/grca/faqs.htm#old

How old is the Canyon?

That's a tricky question. Although rocks exposed in the walls of the canyon are geologically quite old, the Canyon itself is a fairly young feature. The oldest rocks at the canyon bottom are close to 2000 million years old. The Canyon itself - an erosional feature - has formed only in the past five or six million years. Geologically speaking, Grand Canyon is very young.

Don't get me wrong, they shouldn't have to sell a book passing off as fact the fantasy that the Grand Canyon was created by Noah's flood, but that doesn't change (or excuse) the inaccuracy in the opening paragraphs of that article.

[tammywammy]

46. Check post 37

for more info

[fishwax]

47. thanks for the info

I thought this story sounded familiar--I think I've responded to it before :)

Thanks for the full story. :hi:

[applegrove]

48. argh

:argh: