Reader Stephen Latham flags this one, which is really breathtaking in its stupid venality:
Look for national parks' geology to be written more in the image of creationists over the next four years in the continuing effort to create "faith-based parks." An ongoing dispute at Grand Canyon National Park bookstores is that Grand Canyon, a Different View was ordered to stay on the bookshelves by top National Park Service brass. The book says that the Grand Canyon is 4,500 years old and was formed by Noah's flood. Conventional scientific wisdom has the canyon more around 6 million years old, still rather young compared to the age of the Earth. Despite protests from scientists and the Grand Canyon Park superintendent, the book has stayed on the shelves. The Bush administration said it would review the policy, but the review hasn't even been started since the February complaint. NPS has also ordered bronze plaques with verses from Psalms placed at canyon overlooks, truly emphasizing what a Judeo-Christian religious experience the view can be.
So a government agency orders that visitors be offered a book of lies about the natural history of the Grand Canyon--in order to appease the homegrown Taliban--and is also posting religious messages for visitors to the park.
Question: is there anyone in the civilized world who isn't laughing at the United States these days? I guess those who are running in fear for their lives....
UPDATE: Glenn Branch, Deputy Director of the wonderful National Center for Science Education, writes:
The plaques in question were donated to the park system by the Evangelical Sisterhood of Mary more than thirty years ago. A visitor to the park noticed them and asked the National Capital Area chapter of the ACLU to investigate, and the chapter sent a (non-threatening) letter of inquiry to the park superintendent, who then had the plaques removed. But this decision was then countermanded by the deputy director of the National Park Service, and the plaques were replaced. (All this in 2003.) A final decision on their status has yet to be reached, as far as I know.
So it's still a church/state problem, and the NPS higher-ups are still suspiciously dragging their heels, but in this instance new religious material hasn't been added. Cold comfort, I know.
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