Created by Noah’s flood a few thousand years ago?

Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility

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 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.



  1. J says:

    #30 Timbo

    Thank you for the evidence that truth is very subjective.

    The facts are that the Grand Canyon is aprox 5 or 6 million years old. So if that is “rather recent” to you………ok then that is the truth..

    The oldest artifacts found at the GC are aprox 12,000 years old from the Paleo-Indian period. Even that isn’t “rather recent” IMO BUT Everyone has their truth. No?

    “The geologists dated it to the end of the last ice age.”

    Which geologists? or should I say which respectable geologists?

    The rest of your post is just filled with so many false statements I don’t have the energy to go through them all. Lets just say this THEY ARE ALL INCORRECT and not backed up by scientific evidence.

  2. Gary Frankenbery says:

    Will I be able to purchase a copy of “Skeptical Inquirer” magazine at the park?

  3. Mr. Fusion says:

    #30, Timbo,

    I am about to go out and get religion. Just so I can pray for you.

  4. Timbo says:

    first off, the original contention was whether that itty bitty river could have carved out the Grand Canyon by having Millions of Years to do so or not. For the sake of the Humanist dogma of evolution, it had to. I say not.

    Here’s evidence that it didn’t have to, looking at the Bonneville Lake incident:
    http://vulcan.wr.usgs.gov/Glossary/Glaciers/IceSheets/description_lake_bonneville.html

    Here’s someone else who suspects volcanic basalt dams that caused the major floods that eroded the Grand Canyon:
    http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/719633/posts

    Either way, it is the Humanist religion that has to prove the itty bitty river theory. We Christians are safe & secure with Jesus and His gospel and His signs & wonders.

    Assuming everyone who disagrees with you are fools and liars is not a way to find the truth. Galileo would disagree with this premise.

  5. Mark says:

    Timbo, one question. If the dam was on the east side of the Rockies and the Grand Canyon on the west. How did the water cross the Continental Divide? Even then, water could not flow uphill.

  6. Ranger X says:

    There are a lot of problems with this story. My investigation turned up a lot. Don’t believe everything you read.

    http://parkrangerx.blogspot.com/2007/01/dont-believe-everything-you-read.html

    GRC sells books, not the NPS. GRC is a private, non-profit group. They also sell American Indian books with creation myths. The book in question is in the “inspirational” section. Most of PEER’s claims are wildly unsubstantiated.

  7. Rino says:

    The Grand Canyon website states the following:

    “The oldest human artifacts found are nearly 12,000 years old and date to the Paleo-Indian period.”

    This would seem to contradict any claim that the world is only 6000 years old.

  8. Allen Roy says:

    I’d just like to point out that in the year 2000 all the scientists who have been studying Grand Canyon got together for a symposium [Grand Canyon Symposium] to determine the age of Grand Canyon. Scientist after scientist presented his evidence. About 10 different ages were proposed ranging from 65 Ma to 1 Ma. There was NO consensus and there remains NO consensus. One group has since updated their estimate to 750,000 years. [All this can be found by a simple search on the internet]

    The PEER group is not really interested in the age of Grand Canyon, they just want to censor freedom of speech in public places and public stores, because it does not agree with their religous beliefs; i.e. the religion of evolutionism. [look up religion on dictionary.com]

    Allen

  9. Charles Chilcott says:

    The truth is, the Grand Canyon was formed far into the distant past at about the same time as the formation of the Pacific Ocean Basin. When the extraterrestrial body that formed the Pacific arrived, it folded the terrain on both sides and uplifted the Rocky Mountains and what was to be the Great Plains. The Great Plains at this time was an inland sea and the water that was displaced as the land rose began to run towards a southeasterly direction as it raced to the now exposed Pacific Ocean canyon. It was this tremendous onrush of water that took perhaps a thousand years to empty that carved the Canyon. Age would be approximately 63 million years ago.

  10. Child of God says:

    I am so glad that scientists are finally giving credit to Genesis. I have recently participated in a creation vs. evolution class and was blown away by the evidence of creation and the results of the Biblical flood. I always believed but it just made it so much clearer to me. I can see why people would not want to believe that the earth is only 6-10 thousand years old, because that supports a Creator and would then create a moral dilema for many.

  11. Sticks says:

    Hate to tell you this, FRAGaLOT, but there is a canyon in Texas that was created by flooding in just 3 days – not as deep as the Grand Canyon, but very similar in layout. A Canyon caused by flooding would create straight walls verses sloped walls which would indicate erosion. And, FYI, Noah’s Flood covered the entire earth, not just the Middle East.

  12. anyman says:

    The evolutionary claims for the age of the grand canyon have *evolved* over the 50 – 60 yrs.

    It has gone from being as old as 40ma to now being said to be **less than** 5 – 6ma (ma = mega annum or million years for our non-geologist readers). Of course they are careful not to specify how much less than 5 – 6ma with some evolutionary folks suggesting it may have formed as recently as 1 million years ago or less.

    It is good that scientists (as we ought) are able to revise former predictions/hypotheses…and yes, even theories. But changing paradigms (or removing reigning paradigms) is not as easily accomplished among scientists as many might imagine. It generally takes decades/generations for paradigm shifts to occur.

    Perhaps even more interesting is that many evolutionary geologists have moved away from the gradualistic (uniformitarian) view of the canyon’s formation. Many now embrace the view that it was formed by catastrophic processes (a lot more water and a lot less time…than originally claimed).

    Maybe in another 50yrs or so, the view that it could have been formed as recently as a few thousand years ago and that it was likely formed by catastrophic flooding or flood relevant processes will be the vogue reigning paradigm.

    In the meantime, the claim by PEER (and others that have circulated the claim) that rangers are not allowed to comment on the age of the canyon is ludicrous and nothing short of a lie. The Bush administration has never stifled the park staff from openly declaring the NSF, et al claims of millions of years.

    Both the park website (and related gov sites) as well as the gov staff are free and usually quick to say that the canyon is ~ 5-6ma…and most of them don’t emphasize the **less than** aspect of their claim.

    The controversy should be taught rather than suppressed and censored (our evolutionary friends would prefer censorship)

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