Grand Canyon Created During Biblical Noah's Flood?

[Liv]

I've been there many times, and I can honestly say Noah's ark had nothing to do with it. However I'm quite sure it's a landing pad for aliens. I'm writing a book on it, anyone know how I can submit it to the national park service?

[A Person]

Heresy!

All the wiggles and channels clearly indicate it to be the work of the Flying Spaghetti Monster (May you be touched by His Noodly Appendage)

I've seen imprints of the Holy Meatballs. The Colorado river is visited by more pirates than any other US river.

[RebelSnake]

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

In last week’s eSkeptic , we published highlights from a press release issued by PEER (Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility), a Washington D.C.-based environmental watchdog group. That press release, dated December 28, 2006, was headlined:

HOW OLD IS THE GRAND CANYON? PARK SERVICE WON’T SAY
Orders to Cater to Creationists Makes National Park Agnostic on Geology

The first sentence of the release reads:

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.

Everybody remember this one? Now the real truth comes out.

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.

One of our readers directly challenged Jeff Ruch, the Executive Director of PEER:

When I challenged that PEER guy to show me some evidence and provided him evidence to the contrary, he didn’t have much. I would say PEER did more than jump the gun. I’d say they are spreading misinformation.

Another Grand Canyon park interpreter offered this explanation:

Ruch’s attempts to insinuate a conspiratorial link between the NPS and organized religion are misguided and founded in fervent anti-Christian opposition, not reason or the law. Ruch’s anti-Judeo-Christian bias is evidence by his lack of opposition to GCA’s selling of Native American creation myths. His misinformation campaign aims to tarnish the reputation of the NPS to leverage his position that creationism books should not be sold in the GCA bookstore. I’ve emailed a few of my contacts at GRCA, and so far, all deny any conspiracy and all freely give the canyon’s age in education programs (as does all official GRCA print material). I’ll post updates as information becomes available. Until then, don’t believe everything you read.

Very interesting. Apparently someone has been spreading a bunch of unfounded lies.

Not wishing to simply call Ruch a liar, and allowing myself to calm down a bit, I emailed him and asked:

Can you tell us who in the Bush administration put pressure on park service employees? Can you name one person in the GCNP staff who says that they are not permitted to give the official estimate of the age of the canyon?

He responded:

I do not know — it is at the Director’s level or above. We have been trying to find out for three years.
Julie Cart, Los Angeles Times.

I then reached Julie by email, who said that she too knew of no such silence on the part of park staffers regarding the age of the canyon.

The truth finally emerges.

[BecauseHeLives]

I wonder what the motivation was for the lies. I think I know.

[SouthernFriedInfidel]

Here's a suggestion for a text that rangers at the Grand Canyon can use on visitors:

"Ladies and gentlemen, for those of you interested in science and geology, the Grand Canyon is roughly 5 million years old. For those of you who believe that it was caused by the great flood described in the bible, it is a few thousand years old- and for the terminally stupid, we dug the whole thing out of the ground a few weeks ago using a rusty spoon."

That should cover pretty much all of the bases, other than maybe the Matrix folks.

[Liv]

I think the whole Grand Canyon is a conspiracy... I think it was staged by Nasa, and we've actually never been to the grand canyon.

[RebelSnake]

That should cover pretty much all of the bases, other than maybe the Matrix folks.

You left out Paul Bunyon.

[BecauseHeLives]

Nah... it was likely created by the flood or after effects of the flood just a few thousand years ago. Its amazing what God can create isn't it?

[SouthernFriedInfidel]

Nah... it was likely created by the flood or after effects of the flood just a few thousand years ago. Its amazing what God can create isn't it?

Well, at least the original text works for BHL.

[BecauseHeLives]

[A Person]

Nah... it was likely created by the flood or after effects of the flood just a few thousand years ago. Its amazing what God can create isn't it?

It's amazing that that depth of sediments could be eroded, deposited and re-eroded in the space of a year or two. Especially since the sediments contain wind-blown desert sands, many generations of burrows, roots and a steady organization of fossil communities that do not match any hydraulic sorting or mobility (faster animals outrunning the flood ) hypotheses. But don't let that confuse you, God diddit, he just made it look remarkably as if there was 1,750,000,000 years of geological history. Presumably because God hides himself from unbelievers and only an unbeliever would think of suggesting that we should actually examine God's creation to see how it was done. Instead one should read the writings of men from thousands of years ago as they were better placed to understand these things since God was breathing down their necks.

[BecauseHeLives]

Nah... it was likely created by the flood or after effects of the flood just a few thousand years ago. Its amazing what God can create isn't it?

It's amazing that that depth of sediments could be eroded, deposited and re-eroded in the space of a year or two. Especially since the sediments contain wind-blown desert sands, many generations of burrows, roots and a steady organization of fossil communities that do not match any hydraulic sorting or mobility (faster animals outrunning the flood ) hypotheses. But don't let that confuse you, God diddit, he just made it look remarkably as if there was 1,750,000,000 years of geological history. Presumably because God hides himself from unbelievers and only an unbeliever would think of suggesting that we should actually examine God's creation to see how it was done. Instead one should read the writings of men from thousands of years ago as they were better placed to understand these things since God was breathing down their necks.

Yup. amazing indeed.