🚀 go-pugleaf

"RF" <RF@atti.net> wrote in message news:55ucp2t4gpao2lvvfqbik67dfe3ns8ge93@4ax.com...
| Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility News Release
| (www.peer.org)
| 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."
| 
| ###

Yeah, it's a wonder they said "no comment" instead of 6 millennia. 
Maybe not sure, huh?
Still, in the USA if you disagree with someone you are likely to 
get shot... I was appalled at the mentality of the bigot that had
a bumper sticker that read "God said it, I believe it, that settles it".