News Releases
For Immediate Release: December 28, 2006
Contact: Carol Goldberg (202) 265-7337
HOW OLD IS THE GRAND CANYON? PARK SERVICE WON’T
SAY — Orders to Cater to Creationists Makes National Park
Agnostic on Geology
Washington, DC — 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).
“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.’”
In a letter released today, PEER urged the new Director of the
National Park Service (NPS), Mary Bomar, to end the stalling
tactics, remove the book from sale at the park and allow park
interpretive rangers to honestly answer questions from the public
about the geologic age of the Grand Canyon. PEER is also asking
Director Bomar to approve a pamphlet, suppressed since 2002 by Bush
appointees, providing guidance for rangers and other interpretive
staff in making distinctions between science and religion when
speaking to park visitors about geologic issues.
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.
According to a recent NPS response to a Freedom of Information
Act request filed by PEER, no such review was ever requested, let
alone conducted or completed.
Park officials have defended the decision to approve the sale of
Grand Canyon: A Different View, claiming that park bookstores are
like libraries, where the broadest range of views are displayed. In
fact, however, both law and park policies make it clear that the
park bookstores are more like schoolrooms rather than libraries. As
such, materials are only to reflect the highest quality science and
are supposed to closely support approved interpretive themes.
Moreover, unlike a library the approval process is very selective.
Records released to PEER show that during 2003, Grand Canyon
officials rejected 22 books and other products for bookstore
placement while approving only one new sale item — the creationist
book.
Ironically, in 2005, two years after the Grand Canyon
creationist controversy erupted, NPS approved a new directive on
“Interpretation and Education (Director’s Order #6) which
reinforces the posture that materials on the “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 [and] Interpretive and educational programs
must refrain from appearing to endorse religious beliefs explaining
natural processes.”
“As one park geologist said, this is equivalent of Yellowstone
National Park selling a book entitled Geysers of Old Faithful:
Nostrils of Satan,” Ruch added, pointing to the fact that previous
NPS leadership ignored strong protests from both its own scientists
and leading geological societies against the agency approval of the
creationist book. “We sincerely hope that the new Director of the
Park Service now has the autonomy to do her job.”