Creationism and the National Park Service - A Follow-Up (UPDATED 3:32 EST)

Photo by Phillip Capper. (License: Creative Commons Attribution)

PEER - the Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, issued a press release on December 28, 2006 claiming that Grand Canyon National Park is not permitted to give an official estimate of the geologic age of its principal feature [the Canyon], due to pressure from Bush administration appointees. The release was featured in this column, prompting a great deal of reader discussion on the topic.

PEER, like many organizations and individuals, has expressed concern at the increasing influence of Fundamentalist Christianity over public affairs since the beginning of the Bush Presidency in 2001. Though Christian Fundamentalism's influence has certainly expanded in the six years since President Bush was sworn into office, PEER's claims remain unverifiable and vehemently denied by the Park Service. In a letter dated January 3, 2007, David Barna, the Park Service's Chief of Public Affairs, stated the following in response to queries made by this column in reference to PEER's assertions:

Therefore, our interpretive talks, way-side exhibits, visitor center films, etc use the following explanation for the age of the geologic features at Grand Canyon. 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

PEER's claims, argues Barna, stem from a book the Park Bookstore has been selling since 2003. The text in question, Grand Canyon: A Different View, gives a "creationist" view of the Canyon's origins and is filed, appropriately, with photographic texts, poetry books, and Native American books (that also give an alternate view of the canyon's origin). Barna also notes that the Park's bookstore stocks numerous texts which detail the NPS geologic view of the formation of the canyon. Barna defends the inclusion of Grand Canyon: A Different View, claiming that it is not our [the National Park Service's] place to censure alternate beliefs and that the Park Bookstore functions in much the same manner as a public library and thus includes a wide scope of viewpoints rather than an exclusively scientific catalog.

PEER's alarmist claim then, is reduced to a far less substantive one specifically relating to the appropriateness of a single book offering at a National Park Service gift shop. Though the Park Service does implement, as PEER asserts, a approval process [that] is very selective, the inclusion of Grand Canyon: A Different View in the Park Service's catalog is only significant alongside the 22 other books that were rejected for placement during 2003. As there is nothing inherently objectionable in the inclusion of a Christian perspective among other artistic, fictional, and mythological accounts of the Canyon's origins and PEER's claims of Bush Administration restrictions have been flatly denied, it is difficult in the extreme to give any credence to PEER's claims of religious motive and imposition.

UPDATE (2:04 PM EST) -- Jeff Ruch, PEER's Executive Director, has responded to some of my inqueries on this matter. When I asked him about PEER's first and most concerning claim, that Grand Canyon National Park is not permitted to give an official estimate of the geologic age of its principal feature [the Canyon], due to pressure from Bush administration appointees he noted that this is based upon a number of different sources.

1. Reports from Grand Canyon NP interpretive staff, some of whom have been seeking clarification from their chain-of-command relative to questions about the validity of "young earth claims." The more than three-year hold-up in blocking official guidance on this question is part of this concern.

2. Statements by NPS HQ officials that the creationist view should be given equal time in park materials.

3. The reply from the Grand Canyon superintendent's office to media inquiries on the official park view on the age of the Canyon.

Point 1 is, despite PEER's objections, to be expected. The NPS can't tell it's rangers to shoot down creationists and it can't tell them to uphold their viewpoints either. That official guidance on the issue has been a long time is coming is regrettable, but hardly constitutes the furtherance of an actively creationist viewpoint by the Park.

Point 2 is more concerning, but when I asked Mr. Ruch for PEER's sources as to this claim he directed me to PEER's Oct 13 2004 press release. Neither the release nor the media sources referenced support PEER's claim of an "equal time" endorsement from the NPS or its officials.

Point 3 references the Park Supervisor's office. Inquiries to the NPS itself, however, result in the geological estimates of the Canyon's age.

PEER's claims then, as to the pressuring of Park Service Employees would seem eronious, though those that have objected to the inclusion of the aforementioned creationist text have clearly not received the response they might prefer.

Mr Ruch was kind enough to provide a list of 21 of the 22 books rejected by the NPS in favor of the text in question. The titles alone suggest that "A Different View" was the only "young earth" text considered and that the other texts were secular in nature.

As such, and given the early filing of "A Different View" under "natural history" the inclusion of the text is distressing, though not as much so as the as-yet-unverified claims PEER makes earlier on in their press release. Though a more suspicious reader might allege that Mr. Ruch's organization has exaggerated and perhaps manufactured allegations of NPS endorsement of Fundamentalist beliefs to gain visibility for its continued fight against "A Different View," at this time I can neither confirm nor disprove PEER's claims that Park Service Employees have been instructed to parrot a Creationist agenda.

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