Attack on free speech at Grand Canyon

Maybe you can find a secular gologist who thinks dam breaches played some role in the formation of the Grand Canyon.What you will not find is a secular geologist who endorses the idea that most of the strata revealed by the Grand Canyon were deposited in a single year, nor one who thinks that the Canyon was cut into loose sediment rather than rock. Or even one that thinks such ideas are scientifically viable. And I think that you know that. Even though you try to imply otherwise.And I think that you know that the people who signed the letter have no legal power to ban the book. But they have every right to call for it to be removed. That is free speech.If the book deals with the author's faith then it belongs in the "Inspirational" section, if anywhere, - NOT the Science section. The authors disagree. Therefore it can legitimately be criticised on scientific grounds without attacking anyone's faith.

You have yet to establish that the book in question is the product of scientists. It's promoting far more than that. It's promoting the view that the layers of the canyon were laid down in one year in a global flood, that the entire canyon was formed in less than a year when the waters receded, that the radiometric dates of the rocks are all in error, that all the fossils in the canyon are contemporaneous, and so on. You won't find any mainstream scientists agreeing with those views, with good reason. The only "evidence" for them is in the Bible. No, it isn't. Vail and you are free to say anything you want, in any forum which you control or which grants you access, as long as you do not break other laws in the process. But no forum that you do not control is required to give you access, and especially the U.S. Government is not required to give you access and the implicit endorsement which that entails; a court might even find that the U.S. Government is prohibited from giving you the access you desire.An attack on personal faith is an attack on personal faith. The U.S. Government is prohibited by the Establishment clause of the Constitution from attacking your or anyone's faith, just as it is prohibited from according special treatment to your or anyone's faith.There has been no attack on your faith. However, there is good reason to believe that selling Vail's book in the Grand Canyon bookstore in the science section is according special treatment to a particular sect of Christianity. If you want to contest that view, the way to do is to show that it does not depend on Biblical literalism but instead depends on the evidence. You've made some assertions about that, now's your chance to back them up.

On the topic of "breaching lakes" at the Grand Canyon, the only thing I have ever heard mentioned are the breaching of lava damns.I can't remember exactly, but somewhere in the Grand Canyon [near the end??] there is evidence that lava spilled into the canyon, damming the Colorado River. Eventually the river breached the dams.aha! Found some great pictures at THIS site.edit to say: Oops!! I see holmes already posted a link explaining the dam breaches. Sorry.[This message has been edited by roxrkool, 03-09-2004]

Certainly, JonF.A miniature model of how the Grand Canyon could have formed rapidly after the Flood can be seen in the Burlingame Canyon in Washington State. This canyon is approximately 120 feet deep and 1500 feet long.
Less than a century ago there was nothing in the vicinity but irrigation ditches on top of a mesa, but one day, due to heavy rain, water flow had to be directed onto an alternate channel which cascaded off the mesa in a large waterfall.
Now, this situation involved large amounts of water pouring through a small channel, and also wet surrounding sediments that would have facilitated erosion. Sediment removal increased as further layers opened up. All these are remarkably similar factors to what would have occurred following a global flood, with large bodies of water trapped inland and seeking an outlet.
The Burlingame incident produced a canyon out of a ditch in six days.This shows that large canyons can form in comparatively microscopic periods of time, when the conditions are right - as they would have been after the flood. Lots of wet sediment, high water volume in narrow spaces, and so forth. So the authors of Grand Canyon: A Different View do have a valid scientific viewpoint, and they deserve to have it aired in a fair scientific setting.

Yes, and it was not at all similar to the Grand Canyon, because (as even you said in your message) the Burlingame "canyon" was cut into soft, unconsolidated sediment (see HOW LONG DOES IT TAKE FOR A CANYON TO FORM?: "The eroded strata consisted of rather soft sand and clay saturated by the recent rains"). The Grand Canyon was not cut into soft sand and clay ... it included igneous and metamorphic rock, and it's trivially easy to tell the difference between a cut into soft unconsolidated sediment and a cut into lithified sedimentary rock.Also, the volume of material removed in the Burlingame "canyon" is more than 89 million times less than the volume of material removed in the Grand Canyon (Canyon Deception). Let's see your calculations of how long it would take to carve the Grand Canyon based on your example of the Burlingame "canyon". Don't forget to account for the igneous and metamorphic rocks involved in the Grand Canyon ... they take a lot longer to erode than unconsolidated sediment.After that, consider the shape of the Burlingame "canyon" and discuss how fast-moving water would create the meanders of the Grand Canyon, including 180 degree turns.Pathetic. Try again.

to say nothing about explaining the rock pillars that are everywhere in the grand canyon and non-existant in gulley washesanyone who thinks the grand canyon could form in days has not stood on the edge, but there is a bigger problem: the canyon is carved into an elevated, upthrust section and water would run around it instead of over it.the book has lovely photographs of the canyon and I can see people buying it for the pictures before reading the text ... caveat emptor and all that, but I would feel hoodwinked.a final note: the bookstore is not run by the park service but is "outsourced"enjoy.

As the true belivers in God knows that the eatrh and everthing else is only 6000 years old. This book states that the earth is older. That can ot be. Why would any Christian want to see this ill research book be sold at a goverment site. If we Americans allow this book to be sold then any crackpot author will want their veiws to be sold at that site. Mother, The Entity would also want her views to be sold at that site. I would believe that the people who follow other religious view points may want their books to be sold at goverment sites.Secretary
Afterlife2.org

Correction please:

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"As the true belivers in God knows that the eatrh and everthing else is only 6000 years old."

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Should read:Some true believers believe the earth and everything else is only 6000 years old.The YEC crowd cannot even agree on the age of the earth based on counting pages in a book, let alone have any evidence of age limits from outside sources ...... and they can only maintain that belief by denying evidence that exists from multiple sources for ages of things well beyond their purported beginning of "life, the universe, and, oh, everything" (to quote D. Adams).For a discussion on this evidence of age see
Greenland Ice Cores
EvC Forum: Greenland Ice Coresbtw -- as a YEC (I assume anyway), can you give me a date for the flood event? Just to bring this discussion back to the topic, eh?Enjoy.

The book in question promotes the Judeo-Christian creation story, specifically the literal version preferred by fundamentalist Christians. As such, it is unconstitutional for a federally owned bookstore to carry the book, as the First Amendment prohibits the state not only from promoting one religion over another, but also religion over non-religion. Far from being a violation of the First Amendment, the removal of this book is required by the amendment.Further, the implication of the complaint seems to be that all alternatives should be given equal weight. This is patently false, as no public or private bookstore is obligated to carry misinformation.or unsupported opinion. Fairness only applies to alternatives of roughly equal validity. If the call went out to remove a competing scientific explanation, the charge of indoctrination and censorship might have some validity. Since the book in question has no factual basis, and can hardly be called scientific, there is no issue of fairness. Would I have the right to insist on shelving a book saying I dug the canyon last week with a Bobcat front loader and a garden hose? In relation to the geologic time required to form the canyon, my week and the YEC 6,000 years are both a drop in the proverbial bucket and equally fanciful.One parting shot. If the rules of deduction and inference required first hand witnesses, only complete idiots would ever be convicted in a court of law. The fact is we can and do draw inferences and make decisions on events we have never seen. based on a logical evaluation of the evidence available.

My position has been that the earth was created but the Bible doesn't specify when so it's age is unknown. Genesis one simply states that God created the heavens and the earth.As for the Grand Canyon, since many bonafide scientists and archeologists believe the flood created it a few thousand years ago, government park stores should allow it equal access to government stores, especially given the millions of American taxpayers who believe the flood happened. As in the public schools, the secularist taxpayers are being favored and creationist view is unfairly banned. Government is imposing secularistic thought upon US citizens from preschool on up.[This message has been edited by buzsaw, 04-06-2004]

How the Grand Canyon came to be is a scientific/geological matter and it is not unconstitutional to study all possibilities. It's not about a perticular religion, but about whether the geological information in an ancient book is credible and what actually created the canyon.

Your statement here has motivated this true believer to do a thread on whether the Bible states when God created the earth and the universe.

Only one problem. The book in question is not credible. There is no factual basis for its position. At best it is untested hypothesis. In which field of science are untested hypotheses published and promoted as alternative explanations? None that I know of. To say it is not religous is disingenuous in the extreme. Its basis is the Book of Genesis. Period. It posits the canyon as an effect of the alleged global Noachian Flood, for which there is exactly zero empirical, non-Biblical evidence. Since the only evidence for this hypothesis is in the Bible, to say Vail's book is a nonreligious work is incorrect. It is nothing but. In fact, all the evidence available says the flood was impossible. Preliminary results from the examination of drill cores from the 10,000 foot thick Greenland Ice Cap place the age of the cap at 125,000+ years, and there is no sign of total immersion in water anywhere in that core. There was no global flood 4,000 or 6,000 or 10,000 years ago, so any book that claims the canyon was caused by this nonexistent flood is prima facie false. The Park Service is not only under no obligation to present pseudoscientific religious dogma in the guise of science, it is forbidden by the Constitution from doing so. The Bush administration's pandering to the religious right is not only false, it is wrong.

(my emphasis)Really? Who are these bona fide scientists and archaeologists? In which scientific journals have these flood papers been published?

There are many, but for an example, Institute for Creation Research (ICR) has credible highly educated scientists who have done extensive research and study on the Grand Canyon. They have published much and I've viewed their excellent and very professional video study of the canyon and how it was more likely created by a flood than slowly cut over a very long period of time.Most secularist biased popular scientific journals are closed minded to alternative research, so little likely gets published on the creationist research and interpretation it has brought.