Seniority should count(re: prevaricating press' Grand Canyon flap)

The Hualapai Indian Tribe plans a $30 million Grand Canyon skywalk, an engineering wonder. Meanwhile, for more than three years the National Park Service sells a book claiming the Grand Canyon was created by Noah's Flood. Also, according to Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, NPS is not permitted to give the scientific estimation of the Grand Canyon's age. PEER executive director Jeff Ruch says it is to avoid offending religious fundamentalists.

No equal concern is given to the Hualapai Indian tribe's beliefs. Scientific knowledge bows in censorship to be "politically correct" for Christian fundamentalists, but not for the beliefs of the Hualapai Indians.

If political correctness is more important than science, we should attribute the creation story of the Grand Canyon to Native Americans. After all, Native Americans lived near the Grand Canyon long before any fundamental Christians started coming in tourist buses. And seniority should count for something.

Interesting post... this comes from a press release from this group PEER, which also was run by skeptic.com (which is banned on FR for reasons I know not); but some of skeptic's readers were, well, skeptical.

The National Park Service staff are outraged at the suggestion that park staff are expected to teach young-earth creationism. It's complete hooey, as the staff of "skeptic" discovered when they investigated (after, mind you, running the press release).

Here is what the NPS actually says about the geological history of the Grand Canyon (scroll down):

http://www2.nature.nps.gov/geology/parks/grca/

So as you see, the article is bullsh..... er, inaccurate. The editor of "skeptic.com" (a website) gamely ate crow over this issue and now believes that the PEER press release was fabricated. The MSM outlet that ran the story in this thread probably won't.

New media on one hand, old media on the other. Think of it as evolution in action.

d.o.l.

Criminal Number 18F

And Native Americans have lots of good stories. Here's one now!

Crow Creation Story

In the beginning, Old Man Coyote stood alone with water surrounding him. Two ducks swam by, and Coyote asked if they had seen anyone else. The ducks said no but thought that something might exist under the water.
Coyote asked if they would travel underwater for him and report on what they saw. The ducks did as they were asked, finding nothing. He asked again, and the ducks returned with a root. On the third try, they found mud and Coyote was happy. He told the ducks that they could build with it, and he began to shape and mold the mud into an island. He blew on it, and it expanded. He blew again, and it grew into the earth. The ducks said they did not like the earth's emptiness, so Coyote created grass and trees out of the roots that came from the water.
Coyote and the ducks loved the earth, but it was flat. They wanted rivers, valleys, mountains, and lakes. So it was done. Soon Coyote and the ducks made a perfect earth, but they grew lonely, with only the three of them to sit and enjoy the land. So Coyote molded dirt to form men and then more mud to create many types of male ducks. Soon, they realized that without women, the males could not have children. So with more dirt he made women and female ducks to populate the earth.
One day Old Man Coyote traveled upon the land and was surprised to find another Coyote. When asked where he came from, the younger brother, named Shirape, said he was unsure of his origin and only knew he existed. As the two traveled along, Shirape wanted Old Man Coyote to make other animals, for only ducks, humans, and the two Coyotes had been created. The elder Coyote agreed, and as he spoke the new animals' names, they were created. He said "Elk" and an elk appeared. He said "Bear" and a bear appeared. This is how it was until all animals were created.

The press release is not fabricated. The PEER letter is still at their website, right here.

I am, like Skeptic magazine, a *bit* irritated on this. And like, Skeptic, in my overeagerness to write the letter, didn't dig deeper as I usually do on issues. You can be sure that I am going to explicitly wary of anything that comes out of PEER anymore. While this misleading information running about, PEER is going to be losing its credibility and burning bridges. This will harm them more, I believe, in the long-term perspective. People like me and media outlets like Skeptic have awfully long-term memory when it becomes to being mislead.

I am going to do the legwork now to bring everyone else who was duped to be unduped.

Evan Derkacz, Editor for AlterNet.org was contacted by me and gave me a reply nine minutes later that they will do a follow-up ASAP.

Jeff Ruch has burnt bridges for PEER. As the misinformation is corrected, and I am doing all effort possible to do this, PEER's trustworthiness as a source is marred.

You can expect that any future press releases by PEER, as long as Jeff Ruch is its Executive Director, will be either ignored or scrutinized to its bones.

It is ironic that the one time where I don't do my usual checking, this happens. I am usually the one attempting to expose misinformation in the media. I am, however, not going to let this pass by silently into the night.

I'm sorry Stewart -- I wasn't suggesting that the news story was a fabrication, only that PEER's press release was a fabrication, upon which the news story stood.

It is a tendency in the media to assume that the PRs you get, while certainly awash in spin, have a factual basis. The only fact in all of this is that some creationist book is for sale in the park bookstore along with truckloads of other books; and some plaques referring to the Biblical Flood are along the South Rim. (In previous times, Biblical imagery was very widespread in US culture... you cannot read anything Lincoln ever wrote without hearing King James cadences).

It is also a tendency for people in general to be less skeptical of things that generally agree with their viewpoint (note the recent blogstorm over "Hillary" attacking Obama on his "madrassa upbringing," which was a crock, or the competing blasts on "Jamil Hussein," which make everybody involved look at least careless and at most [this is you AP] mendacious).

As flaky as the PEER release is, it SOUNDS like something some clown in the Bush administration might do, almost; and it probably sounds much more that way to people who are antipathetic to Bush (which would include 95% of journalists).

"If your mother says she loves you, get two on-the-record quotes in support." This was always good advice, and yet it's advice that's hard to take when the story is so delectably in line with one's comfortable assumptions.

d.o.l.

Criminal Number 18F

I wrote:

The editor of "skeptic.com" (a website) gamely ate crow over this issue.... The MSM outlet that ran the story in this thread probably won't.

Er, assuming that the Stewart.Thorpe who posted here is actually Stewart Thorpe, which seems from his tone to be an eminently reasonable assumption, I need to eat crow now.

Stewart, thank you for standing up for standards. Good luck to you.

d.o.l.

Criminal Number 18F

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