Bash Bush, Find Guaranteed Audience

There is an assured audience for any Bush-bashing, however implausible and easily debunked. The latest example of this truism has been provided by PEER, the Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility:

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 [link] 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.

Oh, please - Ronald Bailey at Hit and Run and Red State Mike, commenting at Political Animal, had the same seemingly-obvious idea - check the Park Service website for the Grand Canyon (OK, I had the same idea, so I'm sure it was not that brilliant).

Let's see - among the Frequently Asked Questions, these are third and fourth:

How old is the Canyon?

That's a tricky question. Although rocks exposed in the walls of the canyon are geologically quite old, the Canyon itself is a fairly young feature. The oldest rocks at the canyon bottom are close to 2000 million years old. The Canyon itself - an erosional feature - has formed only in the past five or six million years. Geologically speaking, Grand Canyon is very young. (top of page)

Are the oldest rocks in the world exposed at Grand Canyon?

No. Although the oldest rocks at Grand Canyon (2000 million years old) are fairly old by any standard, the oldest rocks in the world are closer to 4000 million years old. The oldest exposed rocks in North America, which are among the oldest rocks in the world, are in northern Canada.

In the Natural Features and Ecosystem section, we find this:

Geologic formations such as gneiss and schist found at the bottom of the Canyon date back 1,800 million years.

And the Park brochure has similar geologic information on page three.

As to the notion that Park Rangers are not allowed to provide honest answers to the great unwashed, I note that school tours covering the geologic history of the canyon are available, as well as this presentation to the public:

Introduction to Grand Canyon's Geology Why is the Grand Canyon so deep, wide, and grand? Why does it exist only here in the world? Come and participate in this fascinating talk to learn how Grand Canyon was formed.

What, one wonders, do the Rangers talk about? I would bet they present the same material found at the website and in the pamphlet, but I have not sat through a presentation, so for all I know, they do three hours of Marcel Marceau impressions.

As to what is motivating this PEER press release I can only guess, but here we go - from the letter sent by PEER to the National Park Service, it appears that PEER is hoping to create an embarrassing situation for some Bushies:

At the same time, Park Service leadership has blocked publication of guidance for park rangers and other interpretative staff that labeled creationism as lacking any scientific basis. As a consequence, NPS staff has no official guidance as to how to answer questions from the public concerning topics such as creationists’ “young earth” claims.

So PEER wants a specific memo explaining that creationism is bunk, and the Bushies don't want to write it. However, PEER goes on to note the not-so-subtle finesse adopted by Evil BushCo:

Ironically, in January 2005, your Director’s Order # 6 was amended to provide:

8.4.2 Historical and Scientific Research

Superintendents, historians, scientists, and interpretive staff are responsible for ensuring that park interpretive and educational programs and media are accurate and reflect current scholarship...

The interpretive and educational treatment used to explain the natural processes and 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...

Interpretive and educational programs must refrain from appearing to endorse religious beliefs explaining natural processes.

OK, I think I get it - PEER wants some senior Bushie to take pen to paper and and write that creationism is bunk.   Rather than undertake career suicide, the Bushies are slyly dodging this by ordering their minions simply to teach the best available science - hardly the mortification that PEER was seeking, and hardly the outrage described in the press release.

But PEER does know its audience - I have yet to find a lefty site that did not swallow this whole.  Among the credulous are Steve Benen of Political Animal, Mona of Inactivist [Yike!  Not a lefty, a libertarian.], Tim F of Balloon Juice, and the Huffers.

I will pray for them.  And wish them a Happy New Year.

UPDATE:  Mona turns out to be a libertarian, and I wouldn't be shocked if Tim F is as well - I am trying to recall the intellectual arc of John Cole's blog and I should keep in mind that not every Bush basher is on the conventional left, especially with issues that involve the religious right.  My apologies.

Comments

[Terrye]

I recently finished the book, The Lost Dinosaurs of Egypt. I was talking to a fundamentalist about the book and how much the world has changed since the days that Dinosaurs walked the earth and Egypt was green and he said, But how can you really know?

His contention is not that there were no such critters but that scientists claim a certainty and level of proof to their findings that the evidence just does not support. As evidence he noted the mistakes made by palentologists in regards to the dinosaur bones in the Natural History museum in NY. I pointed out that mistakes happen but that does not negate the whole science. For instance if Pluto is not a planet does that mean science was wrong about Mars?

This is I think the crux of the problem with creationists. They feel that some scientists have made claims with no basis in fact while those same scientists require that creationists produce fact to prove something they can not possibley prove using the scientific method.

It seems here they not only want proof, they want outright denials. It would be like asking a Christian how is it that Mary could have concieved a child without the input of a mortal man? Well obviously that Christian will not answer that by saying, artificial insemination. He will say it was an act of God. I say, leave them be. This is an unnecessary fight.

[Christopher Fotos]

2000 million years old

Geologists speak this way just to annoy us, correct?

[PeterUK]

There are few more impressive sights in the world than an Executive Director of a cheesy acronym on the make.

[Patton]

The problem with some scientist Terrye is they want to say things are FACTS but then want to be free to change their minds.

Scietists once believed the earth was flat, they once believed the Sun went around the Earth, etc. etc.
Scietists should be much more clear that they are guessing and are not using facts.

[Patton]

One interesting item is global warming. When a group of scientists took the global warming software models and fed them 'grey' data, or just any old data, a very interesting thing happened.

In every instance the global warming software model showed global warming no matter what data was plugged into it. This means that the model itself has built in biases.

Of course the global warming scientist crowd are as radical in their beliefs as they believe Christians are, and if you question their belief system they get angry and upset and start calling names.

[JJ]

File this under chain-yanking, the best of which is this happy process (for them) of inter-tangling drivel and legitimate questions. (Not answers, questions)

Maybe there needs to be a new internet verb: to be "murphy-ed" -- which is to be momentarily suckered into taking seriously lame red herrings.

Because we know the truth about 911, baby!

[Patton]

Rock and Dinosaur logic debunked:

Do you see what has been done? The rock is 70 million years old, why? Because it contains a dinosaur bone. The dinosaur bone is 70 million years old, why? Because it is found in this rock. This is plainly a case of circular reasoning. In reality you have no idea how old the dinosaur or the rock is.

The rock was dated by the fossil it contained and the fossil was dated by the rock it was found in. Do geologists really do that? Yes. In his book on historical geology, Carl Dunbar, a geologist and an evolutionist, admits the circular reasoning involved in dating fossils by rocks and rocks by fossils.

A few years back the Encyclopedia Britannica in an article on fossil dating contains an admission of circular reasoning in dating fossils by rocks and rocks by fossils, but it is claimed to be so consistent that obviously it must be correct.

In reality, there is not a single valid scientific dating method that can be used to determine the age of this fossil. And there is not a single valid dating method to determine the age of sedimentary strata. They are non-dateable by any method we know.

[Paul Zrimsek]

Geologists speak this way just to annoy us, correct?

They may do it to avoid international confusion. At one time, "billion" in Britain meant the same thing we mean by "trillion". I'm told they've since come around to our usage, but there could be other countries out there where they still do the same thing.

Patton is either ignorant of isotope dating or is betting that the rest of us are ignorant of it.

[Patton]

"""Patton is either ignorant of isotope dating.... """

Is this a homosexual thing?

[boris]

Once dated an isotope. She was pretty hot and glowed in the dark.

[Patton]

Except everytime scientists use these methods and come up with a date that doesn't match their deeply held belief system, they make an excuse why the date must be wrong and their belief system was right all along.

[Patton]

It may shock some to find out that scientists love to fudge their numbers to meet their deeply held non-religious beliefs.

For example, researchers applied posterior reasoning to the dating of Australopithecus ramidus fossils.10 Most samples of basalt closest to the fossil-bearing strata give dates of about 23 Ma (Mega annum, million years) by the argon-argon method. The authors decided that was ‘too old,’ according to their beliefs about the place of the fossils in the evolutionary grand scheme of things. So they looked at some basalt further removed from the fossils and selected 17 of 26 samples to get an acceptable maximum age of 4.4 Ma. The other nine samples again gave much older dates but the authors decided they must be contaminated and discarded them. That is how radiometric dating works. It is very much driven by the existing long-age world view that pervades academia today.

A similar story surrounds the dating of the primate skull known as KNM-ER 1470.11 This started with an initial 212 to 230 Ma, which, according to the fossils, was considered way off the mark (humans ‘weren’t around then’). Various other attempts were made to date the volcanic rocks in the area. Over the years an age of 2.9 Ma was settled upon because of the agreement between several different published studies (although the studies involved selection of ‘good’ from ‘bad’ results, just like Australopithecus ramidus, above).

However, preconceived notions about human evolution could not cope with a skull like 1470 being ‘that old.’ A study of pig fossils in Africa readily convinced most anthropologists that the 1470 skull was much younger. After this was widely accepted, further studies of the rocks brought the radiometric age down to about 1.9 Ma. Such is the dating game.

Are scientists conspiring to massage the data to get what they want? YES! It is simply that all observations must fit the prevailing paradigm. The paradigm, or belief system, of molecules-to-man evolution over eons of time, is so strongly entrenched it is not questioned—it is a ‘fact.’ So every observation must fit this paradigm. Unconsciously, the researchers, who are supposedly ‘objective scientists’ in the eyes of the public, select the observations to fit their basic belief system.

[boris]

they want to say things are FACTS but then want to be free to change their minds.

To be fair, we use the word THEORY for the best explanation we have for OBSERVATIONS that has beed backed up by EXPERIMENT or in some cases PREDICTED OBSERVATIONS (which is actually what an experiment is).

An explanation that fits known observations but is not backed up by experiment is generally called an HYPOTHESIS.

Geological dating is solidly backed up.

[Mona]

But PEER does know its audience - I have yet to find a lefty site that did not swallow this whole. Among the credulous are Steve Benen of Political Animal, Mona of Inactivist, Tim F of Balloon Juice, and the Huffers.

Tom, I'm not a lefty, whatever that term even means anymore. PEER is not an organization I would normally rely on, since I have a somewhat reflexive prejudice against environmentalists. (Which I must guard against because they are not always wrong.)

Maybe PEER over-stated its case, and the NPS web site is evidence that they did. I've always had a bug up my butt where creationists are concerned, but if this PEER report is wholly nonsense, I'll say so.

[Terrye]

Patton:

In the book I just read one of the scientists made mention of the fact that the theory of gravity has not been proven, it has just not been disproven. And in truth it was not scientists who believed the earth was flat, it was just about everyone. The entire concept of the scientific method is relatively recent in fact.

Newton, Gallileo, Copernicus all developed theories that are largely accepted as fact today. Unless of course you think the sun rotates around the earth and the earth is flat.

The truth is it was not until the 1960's that continental drift was established as fact in spite of the fact that just looking at a map of the world tells you our planet looks like a jigsaw puzzle.

One of the things I liked about the book was that they included geological as well as palentological information about the world the dinosaurs lived in.

Anyone who thinks global warming is a new or strange or man made phenomenon should read this book. The changes the world has gone through make it plain that there is no normal.

[boris]

I've always had a bug up my butt

... must ... not ... respond ...

[tars]

Patton,

It's over at archeoblog. He translated some fortran - try and write about it.

Yes, science is wrong about Mars. Global warming is accelerating faster than we thought. So, if we start now with machines to terraform an aptmosphere on Mars rather than using manned space to pay JPL in California, we might survive. It's maybe forty years now, not 400.

[boris]

we might survive. It's maybe forty years now ...

Repent the End is Nigh!

[PeterUK]

Isotope dating,geological dating...you guys will go out with anyone.

[boris]

geological dating...you guys will go out with anyone ...

What can I say? In younger days I was Rock Star.

[Patton]

"""Geological dating is solidly backed up."""

By what? Should scientists consider 'solidly back-up' to be throw out any result that doesn't meet your pre-conceived notions??

[boris]

throw out any result that doesn't meet your pre-conceived notions

The other way to phrase that would be "accuracy is improved by considering a diverse sampling of indicators".

[boris]

Geology is far from my area of competence but the existence of common timelines across the planet is solid backing.

There is a rock layer that contains high levels of an element common to meteors but rare on earth. The theory is that layer was formed after a large meteor strike when the atmosphere of the planet was filled with smoke and dust from the explosion.

[PeterUK]

"What can I say? In younger days I was Rock Star."

There are some things even rock stars won't do,not many but.....

[Patton]

Let me just say that istope dating has the same problems with carbon dating. How are you referencing your samples?

And 20 years from now, will scientists be laughing at how stupid those scientists were back then to not have taken into account, X, Y, and Z in their theories and algorythms.

Scientists do one thing well, prove the last generations scientists were wrong.

Now I am going back to eating my butter....

[Terrye]

tars:

When I said is science right about Mars, I was referring to the fact that there is question now as to whether Pluto is a planet and if they were wrong about that does that mean we have to assume that they are wrong about Mars being a planet. The answer to which obviously is NO. Really people, don't be so obtuse.

And Patton you are not helping your cause.

[boris]

will scientists be laughing ...

A sense of humor is absolutely necessary. Lack of one is reason enough for skepticism.

All the good ones have it.

[Patton]

Would any scientists today argue that Darwins 'Survival of the Fittest' and 'Natural Selection' are anything more then presentations of a belief system not unlike religion, rather then based on scientific fact?

[Terrye]

And Patton if it were not science there would be no internet, no polio vaccine, no satellites, no antibiotics, not concept or understanding of DNA etc.

Even scientists do not always agree on issues like global warming, nor do they claim to.

But I refuse to believe that the world was made in a week or that it is only a few thousand years old or that dinosaurs either never existed or only went extinct about a day and half ago. ONe thing about Creationists while they complain that the scientists have no proof of this or that, they themselves do not even attempt to come up with anything remotely resembling evidence to make their own points.

Carl Sagan said that God created the laws of nature and allowed them to take their course.

[boris]

Of course on the one hand there is the scientific theory of evolution.

On the other hand there is postmodern dogma: The semi-religious belief that everything happened by accident, there is no purpose or higher power, genetics and behavior are completely separate, IQ can't be inherited, didn't evolve, and doesn't exist.

[Terrye]

That should be if it were not FOR science.

[Terrye]

boris:

Yes there are two polar extremes. Neither which will tolerate dissent.

[Patton]

Terrye, I was told for years that Pluto was a planet.
I wasn't told that it was just scientific speculation and they really didn't know.
Maybe you recieved a different education, but that's the crap the scientists fed us.

I bet ten years ago, if I said Plutos' not even a planet, I would have been called an idiot, a baffoon, etc. etc.

If my 'cause' was Plutos not a planet, I think my point has now been made.

Now I am going back to tinker with my cold fusion reactor that has solved the worlds energy needs.

[Patton]

My guess is their are some scientists still pushing Piltdown man:

In 1913 an ape's jaw with a canine tooth worn down like a human's was uncovered at a site near Piltdown. British paleoanthropologists came to accept the idea that the fossil remains belonged to a single creature who had a human cranium and an ape's jaw - offering the missing link between apes and humans in the evolutionary chain. In 1953, Piltdown 'man' was exposed as a forgery. The skull was modern and the teeth on the ape's jaw had been filed down.

Ohhh, those funny guys. Ha ha..big laughs.
Guess you do have to laugh it off when your that obtuse.

[Patton]

I guess all I am saying is I don't want scietists pushing tbheir religion onto people anymore then they want religious zealots pushing their religion.

An interesting case from Alaska where sciteific zealotry hurts our children:

From Daniel Porter:
One day, I received an email from a high school student in Alaska. Her chemistry teacher handed out a list entitled, “Carbon 14 Dating Successes.” The topmost item on the list read, “Shroud of Turin – Proven Fake.”

“I asked my teacher about it but was ridiculed for not being scientific,” she wrote. Later, during a true or false examination, the student had to acquiesce to the “truth” that the shroud was fake or be marked down. She objected. She brought in an article from Wikipedia and another article obtained from the internet (she was writing to me in search of more articles). Her teacher told her, in front of the entire class, that she could believe anything she wants about her “religion,” but when it comes to science the shroud is a fake, and that is a “scientific fact.”

This student was being punished for not holding to the scientists belief system, even though we know that three labs in three locations with three different teams of scientists all GOT THE DATE OF THE SHROUD WRONG.

But this student was being attacked for not comforming with the scientific belief system. This teacher clearly had bought the scietific line, no matter how wrong it was simply because they told a good story.

[Terrye]

Patton:

Science is not a religion. If it were not for science women with an overfondness for house cats and a knowledge of the healing nature of plants would still be burned at the stake by some morons who thought such women were all witches.

And my follow up remark about Pluto was made to tars. How can people be this dense?

The idea is that from time to time new discoveries are made that do change what people believe. When scientists got more information about Pluto they began to doubt it was a planet. When Columbus got to America instead of India people changed their ideas about not only the shape of the earth but just how little they knew about it. So what????

As for the Shroud, who knows? Prove it is the burial cloth of Jesus. You can not do it.

I am open to the possibility, but I know that proof either way does not exists.

And I do not want my child to go to school and be taught that anything that might cast doubt on certain religious beliefs, whatever they may be, must be discounted out of hand.

[Patton]

"""As for the Shroud, who knows? Prove it is the burial cloth of Jesus. You can not do it."""

I don't really care if Jesus was buried in it or not, so I have no interest in proving it. What I am saying is these scientists had an interest in DISPROVING it and that's why they got bad results.

They were more interested in disproving its religious significance then in doing real science. Thus their were more interested in pushing their belief system, then pushing facts.

Regardless of the shrouds religious significance, it is a relic no matter who wore it. The point is that the scietists should have gotten it RIGHT regardless if they were testing the shroud or testing a
pile of camel dung.

Otherwise, quite coming out writing articles and giving press conference proclaiming this and that. Just tell us you have a theory that could be wrong but your sticking with it for the time being because it fits your world view and your belief system. And 100 years from now some other just as confident scientist will prove you wrong, but by then the damage will have been done.

[PeterUK]

I've always known Pluto was an animated cartoon dog.

[Patton]

In fact, if they can't get a couple thousand year old cloth right, why should I believe then when they tell me the age of a multi-million year old rock?

Its like your mechanic screwing up a simple oil change and then allowing him to replace your engine block.

[Soylent Red]

As a Christian, I have always reconciled religion with science in the following way:

1. There is no record of the length of time between day 6 of creation and the fall of man (when Judaism and Christianity start marking time). You can look that up. It could have been a day, a week, or a 4000 million years. The Bible doesn't say.

2. I think all Christians, at least all of them I know, believe in the concept that Adam and Eve were given "perfected" bodies and lived in a world free of disease. Therefore, just as the book of Revelation describes how believers will be raised and given perfected bodies to live in for eternity, Adam and Eve could have been very, very old. Even 4000 million years old.

3. Nothing I have ever seen or heard of suggests that various forms of caveman could not have been created during the span of day five of creation. The reference to Adam and Eve being created in the image of God has nothing to do with the actually form of their bodies, and several other animals have cousins across genus or family boundaries that look similar (e.g. foxes ≠ wolves, but they look somewhat the same).

4. Taking that one step further, Adam and Eve could have been witness to natural selection and resulting evolution of species. They could have witnessed the rise and extinction of dinosaurs and autralopithicenes and so forth. Living for a vast amount of time (4000 million years?) would afford that opportunity.

[Charlie (Colorado)]

Patton, you ninny, whether Pluto is a "planet" or a "dwarf planet" is an essentially arbitrary choice of names. Just as you're "Patton" here, and I'm "Charlie (Colorado)". My drivers license is something else, and I post at YARGB as "Seneca the Younger" for historical reasons.

When I'm posting as Seneca, I'm not someone else; when we call Pluto a "dwarf planet" instead of a "planet" we're not saying that Pluto has changed.

[Patton]

In fact Terrye, it is only because the shroud is a relic on religious significance, that anyone went back and showed that the scientists had screwed up.

If it had been any common object the scientists report would have just been bought hook line and sinker by everyone and we would have never known about their errors.

So how many other items have they gotten wrong and no one has bothered to go back and check?? One, ten, a thousand?

[Patton]

That's funny Charlie, because everyone is talking about having to change all kinds of text books, childrens tests, etc.

But your saying don't bother, scientists are just hedging and haven't really decided for sure and they will get back with us sometime in the future.

[clarice]

Happy New Year, Soylent.

[Patton]

Capping years of intense debate, astronomers resolved Thursday to demote Pluto in a wholesale redefinition of planethood that is being billed as a victory of scientific reasoning over historic and cultural influences. But the decision is already being hotly debated.

Officially, Pluto is no longer a planet.

"Pluto is dead," said Mike Brown, a planetary scientist at the California Institute of Technology who spoke with reporters via a teleconference while monitoring the vote. The decision also means a Pluto-sized object that Brown discovered will not be called a planet.

FUNNY HOW SCIENTISTS EVEN SAY THOSE PRIOR SCIENTISTS WERE SWAYED BY HISTORICAL AND CULTURAL INFLUENCES. Nahh, that can't be true can it??

[Barney Frank]

Try reasons.org for a good website that reconciles faith and science. Started by a Cal tech astronomer. Lots of interesting info and fresh ideas for anyone whose position isn't already set in cement.

[Soylent Red]

Happy New Year to you Clarice, and everyone else up here for that matter.

I hope everyone has luck and prosperity and does better than poor, poor Pluto.

[Charlie (Colorado)]

Patton, I said you were a nitwit above. Now I think you're an idiot. Did *you* change, or did I just lower my opinion of you?

[Patton]

Don't worry about Pluto. I am sure a few good scietists in a few years will change everyones mind after watching a good movie about planet size theory.

It worked for steady state theory of Bondi, Gold and Hoyle which was inspired by the circular plot of the film Dead of Night they watched together. Got to hand it to those scientists, they will fall for anything, at least till the funding runs out.

Imagine trying to get funding today to prove their is no abnornmal global warming. No bucks in that bucket...so let's come up with a funding shovelling theory.

[Tom Maguire]

I hope everyone has luck and prosperity and does better than poor, poor Pluto.

Words to live by.

I apologized to Mona in the comments but my browser ate it (and folks say Freud is dead). Anyway, I am trying again now - Mona is a libertarian, as I successfully noted in an UPDATE.