Jan. 21, 2007

By Harry T. Cook

Dateline: Arizona.

The National Park Service of the U.S. Department of the Interior continues to offer for sale a book published by a creationist Christian ministry, which says the Grand Canyon was formed less than 6,000 years ago in a divine flood sent to wipe out the wickedness of humankind. That despite the protests of geologists and other scientists who say the government should not be in the business of supporting a religious point of view.

That’s a constitutional issue that will have to be dealt with by the courts. The greater offense is that the U.S. government is supporting gross misinformation and downright ignorance.

The Park Service declined to remove the book from its Grand Canyon bookstores because, said its spokesman, “it is not our role to tell people what to believe.” He says that, while scientists find the book repulsive, “the education and interpretation people would say, ‘Wait a minute. If your science is so sound, the fact that there are differences of opinion should not scare you away.’”

Well, I am scared. I am scared that an official of the United States government in what I take to be a faux effort to be fair and balanced is giving shelf-room to a dangerous pseudo-science that can only lead people – especially youths – astray in a world and at a time when it was never more important to support real science.

You cannot possibly take seriously the idea that the earth was “created,” much less only 6,000 or so years ago. And you cannot possibly countenance the idea that such a phenomenon as the Grand Canyon was caused by a flood. The most elementary middle-school science text explains the process by which such declivities are formed.

Charles R. Darwin, better known, perhaps, for his observation of sea tortoises, marveled at the steep declivities along the rivers running down to the western coast of South America. It was in such places, he wrote, that he was able to see in “magnificent array” what he had been unable to see so obviously in the English countryside, viz., layer upon layer of sediment obviously deposited over eons. There is no gainsaying that observation.

What is it with the creationists that they continue their assault on science? And what is it with the National Parks guy who thinks science and religion are arguing as equals and on the same terms?

The question is frequently asked in a Rodney-King-can’t-we-all-just-get-along way, “Can’t science and religion share common ground?”

The answer to the question is “Yes, but . . .”

Yes. Scientists and religious believers breathe the same air and measure time in the same seconds, minutes and hours. Both count on gravity to keep them on the same terra firma as they walk from place to place.

But. Scientists concern themselves with observable data. Their work is inductive in nature and proceeds a posteriori. They ask why things are as they are or behave as they behave. Scientists begin with observation, move to analysis, to hypotheses, to testing of the same and, if they are uncommonly fortunate, end with a theory (Darwin and Natural Selection) or a law (Newton and gravity). Most, or at least many, religious believers proceed deductively. They begin a priori with propositions conceived beforehand and then marshal data to fit them. In that analysis, science and religion cannot arrive at, much less share, common ground.

I have devoted the greater portion of my adult life to the research of the Hebrew and Christian scriptures a posteriori, disciplining myself to eschew preconceived notions. The emerging result is a rational religious experience that not only shares but enjoys being on common ground with colleagues in science. The issue is, finally, methodology.

Meanwhile, the National Park Service needs politely to say to its creationist book vender that, not only on constitutional grounds but for the sake of not spreading misinformation with governmental imprimatur, the Sunday School text about the Grand Canyon needs to be sold, if it must be sold, in religious bookstores or at church bazaars.

© Copyright 2007, Harry T. Cook. All rights reserved. This article may not be used or reproduced without proper credit.

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