CREATIONISM and the GRAND CANYON and the National Park Service

Photographed by Doug Dolde at the South Rim of the Grand Canyon, Arizona on December 26, 2006.

Arca Swiss 4x5 view camera, Released to the public domain. Thank you Doug Dolde! See more of Doug's work: http://www painted-with-light.com
Doug's work is outstanding! Large format, beautiful and can be enlarged by him to any precise size you want! See the images. Thanks Doug!

The original photos here were from the .gov site. The NPS took those down!

You public folks are paying for this .gov site, check it out!
http://www.nps.gov Wow. Can you folks imagine the water in the dry southwest taking 4500 years cutting this deep into the Earth? Also check out: http://www.usa.gov/

A government watchdog group is still disturbed and worrying about the fact that there's a creationist book being sold in the Grand Canyon's bookstore. I do not think there should be on a government owned shelf, in a government facility, in a park that is owned by all Americans -- but heck,(or Hell) you say it is just a book of 'fiction.'

Three years ago, seven scientific groups wrote the National Park Service (NPS) asking that the bookstore remove The Grand Canyon: A Different View, by this creationist fellow, Tom, (or Tommy?) Vail, which claims the canyon was formed about 4500 years ago -- from its Science Bookshelf. In response, NPS geologists reviewed the book and concluded that it should not be sold at all.

Image: by

on 1993-04-14

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But politics and the Constitution and the declining American values coupled to NPS's officials, "compromised," moving the book to the store's "inspirational" section.

The Washington, D.C.-based Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) maintains that this still violates NPS policies, ( I mean: the constitutional separation of churches and the State) that ALL materials available to the public "should be of the highest accuracy and have undergone peer review," says its executive director, Jeff Ruch. On 28 December 2006, PEER wrote NPS Director Mary Bomar to renew its demand that the book be banned from the store. At the same time, PEER put out a press release claiming that park personnel are not permitted to tell visitors the Grand Canyon's true age of 5 million to 6 million years.

NPS has emphatically denied this charge. Emphatically!

As for the book, Corky Mayo, the NPS's manager for interpretation and education, defends the park service decision, saying, "Our job is not to convince the public how to think."

Are these the words a of Corky Mayo, or someone higher up the chain? Tell us they are not your words! See if there is a way to better handle the selling of the Book! Because of the time thing I'd move the book to the inspirational fiction area. Or remove it to send those wanting a copy to the vendor off the government property. "Our job is not to convince the public how to think." Then don't. Stick with what the NPS scientists tell you. Some people think Science is like a religion -- it is not.

No Corky, I am a member of the public now and that sure isn't your job; and it is nothing personal, but I resent paying a manager's salary to someone that is supposed to be educating and interpreting the fact of the Canyon for the public, to provide anything but objective truth. How long do YOU think it takes a river like the Colorado to cut a canyon "like" the grand canyon -- if not the Grand Canyon itself?

And if you say -- and your organization(Our National Park Service) says "Gosh, we don't know, even by a thousand orders of magnitude." I think new jobs selling used cars and picking rocks out of fields in North Dakota where there were vast glaciers a mile thick some 20,000 years ago, would be good honest work for you and your supervisors, and educational and interpretive, too! Of course that is just my opinion -- and I don't work for the government, like you do. I used to work for the government, doing science, like you do, kind of, anti-science.

Remember, the biggest danger to the nation's National Parks System, is not Fire, Terror, or your visit--the danger to the Parks is our National Park Service! Check it out, visit any of the parks and talk to these people, and work your way up their management structure! Could you do their jobs? Be honest! Shake your head. I imagine they can say, "Well, we lease your land and your buildings out to a vendor, and even though it is your government land, we can't keep the vendor from preaching."

(Right -- no constitutional adherence guidelines. In fact . . . I do not object to the preaching either. I like preaching on your public property. I might change the text of the teaching to solid science based utterances, something about 4.5 to 6 million as compared to 4.5 thousand. Surely a typo. . .)

Did You Know?
Grand Canyon's Visitor Center and bookstore at Canyon View Information Plaza is reachable only by free shuttle bus, a one-mile (1.6-km) walk or a bicycle ride from Market Plaza on the Greenway Trail, or a short walk from Mather Point. The Visitor Center is open daily 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.