According to Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), [1] the U.S. National Park Service won’t admit the well-established age of the Grand Canyon. Why? Because our National Park Service doesn’t want to offend young earth creationists.
Here’s the well-established geological story: [2]
The principal consensus among geologists is that the Colorado River basin (of which the Grand Canyon is a part) has developed in the past 40 million years and that the Grand Canyon itself is probably less than five to six million years old (with most of the downcutting occurring in the last two million years). The result of all this erosion is one of the most complete geologic columns on the planet.
The major geologic exposures in Grand Canyon range in age from the 2 billion year old Vishnu Schist at the bottom of the Inner Gorge to the 230 million year old Kaibab Limestone on the Rim.
Here is what young earth creationists [3] believe:
The belief that the Earth was created by God within the last ten thousand years, literally as described in Genesis, within the approximate timeframe of biblical genealogies (detailed for example in the Ussher chronology [4]). (They may or may not believe that the Universe is the same age.) It rejects not only radiometric and isochron dating [5] of the age of the Earth, arguing that they are based on debatable assumptions, but also approaches such as ice core dating and dendrochronology. Instead, it interprets the geologic record largely as a result of a global flood [6].
In a sane world, the books sold by the National Park Service would represent the prevailing scientific view. Not so, according to PEER:
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.
In August 2003, Park Superintendent Joe Alston attempted to block the sale at park bookstores of Grand Canyon: A Different View by Tom Vail, a book claiming the Canyon developed on a biblical rather than an evolutionary time scale. NPS Headquarters, however, intervened and overruled Alston. To quiet the resulting furor, NPS Chief of Communications David Barna told reporters and members of Congress that there would be a high-level policy review of the issue.
“In order to avoid offending religious fundamentalists, our National Park Service is under orders to suspend its belief in geology,” stated PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch. “It is disconcerting that the official position of a national park as to the geologic age of the Grand Canyon is ‘no comment.’”
[Since we read this press release from PEER, it appears that the claim is inaccurate, perhaps deceptive. See this follow-up article from Skeptic Magazine [7]]
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