Seeing Creation and Evolution in Grand Canyon (By JODI WILGOREN)

[Chimaera182]

Seeing Creation and Evolution in Grand Canyon (By JODI WILGOREN, New York Times, Thursday, October 6, 2005)

GRAND CANYON NATIONAL PARK, Ariz. - Tom Vail, who has been leading rafting trips down the Colorado River here for 23 years, corralled his charges under a rocky outcrop at Carbon Creek and pointed out the remarkable 90-degree folds in the cliff overhead.

Geologists date this sandstone to 550 million years ago and explain the folding as a result of pressure from shifting faults underneath. But to Mr. Vail, the folds suggest the Grand Canyon was carved 4,500 years ago by the great global flood described in Genesis as God's punishment for humanity's sin.

"You see any cracks in that?" he asked. "Instead of bending like that, it should have cracked." The material "had to be soft" to bend, Mr. Vail said, imagining its formation in the flood. When somebody suggested that pressure over time could create plasticity in the rocks, Mr. Vail said, "That's just a theory."

"It's all theory, right?" asked Jack Aiken, 63, an Assemblies of God minister in Alaska who has a master's degree in geology. "Except what's in the Good Book."

For Mr. Vail and 29 guests on his Canyon Ministries trip, this was vacation as religious pilgrimage, an expedition in search of evidence that God created the earth in six days 6,000 years ago, just as Scripture says.

That same week, a few miles upriver, a decidedly different group of 24 rafters surveyed the same rock formations - but through the lens of science rather than what Mr. Vail calls "biblical glasses." Sponsored by the National Center for Science Education, the chief challenger to creationists' influence in public schools, this trip was a floating geology seminar, charting the canyon's evolution through eons of erosion.

"Look at the weathering, look at the size of the pieces," Eugenie C. Scott, the center director, said of markings in Black Tail Canyon. "To a standard geologist, to somebody who actually studies geology, this just shouts out at you: This is really old; this is really gradual."

Two groups examining the same evidence. Traveling nearly identical itineraries, snoozing under the same stars and bathing in the same chocolate-colored river. Yet, standing at opposite ends of the growing creation-evolution debate, they seemed to speak in different tongues.

Science unequivocally dates the earth's age at 4.5 billion years, and the canyon's layers at some two billion years. Even the intelligent design movement, which argues that evolution alone cannot explain life's complexity, does not challenge the long history of the earth.

But a core of creationists like Mr. Vail continue to champion a Bible-based theory of the canyon's carving. And polls show many Americans are unconvinced by scientific knowledge.

Though it did not ask specifically about the global flood or six-day creation, a November 2004 Gallup survey found that a third of the public believes the Bible is the actual word of God that should be taken literally and that 45 percent think God created human beings "pretty much in their present form" within the last 10,000 years.

Gallup found in another poll that 5 percent of scientists, and fewer than 1 percent of earth and life scientists, adopted the "Young Earth" view.

The twin rafting trips epitomize the parallel universes often inhabited by Americans with polarized positions. Members of both groups said they had signed up for these charters to be surrounded by like-minded people. Indeed, all the American adults on Mr. Vail's boats voted for President Bush last fall, while all but two on the evolutionists' rafts cast ballots for Senator John Kerry.

When not running the rapids, Mr. Vail's group, which included three pastors, sat in makeshift sanctuaries of sand and stone to offer psalms and prayers of praise for their surroundings.

Some were committed creationists and others were still asking questions. But all began with a literal interpretation of the Bible, seeking examples in the rocks to support its story that God did it all in less than a week.

When they made camp, Dr. Scott's rafters, nearly half with Ph.D.'s in science, had evening discussions of tidal patterns and plateau shifts, as well as tutorials on tactics in the evolution debate. Most of them ardently secular, a few practicing believers, they started with what they see as unchallengeable facts about the Earth's age, and dismissed creationism as unscientific. After each "geology moment," Dr. Scott play-acted the creationists, saying sarcastically of their evidence, "My part of the lesson is always a lot shorter and less detailed."

Mr. Vail, whose book on the Grand Canyon scientists tried to ban from park stores last year, describes this natural wonder as "Exhibit A" for Young Earth creationists. Dr. Scott calls it a scientists' Louvre.

To Kathryn Crotts, 56, a pastor's wife from Greensboro, N.C. , touching the canyon's basement rock was a spiritual moment.

"In the book of Genesis, it talks about God walking the face of the earth," Mrs. Crotts explained. "Maybe His footprints are there."

But to Charlie Webb, 58, an emergency-room doctor in Colorado Springs, it is evolution that answers "the great philosophical questions why are we here, where did we come from."

"Evolution is the basis of biology, biology is the basis of medicine," said Dr. Webb, dismissing the flood explanation as childish and pathetic. "You're messing with something important when you mess with evolution."

For eight days and 280 miles, with a reporter along for half of each journey, the groups relaxed on motorized rafts, hiked the hills, dined on Dutch-oven delicacies, frolicked in waterfalls and admired rainbows, each awed by what they see as truth.

Origins of Two Journeys

About 4.5 million people visit the Grand Canyon each year, peering over the rim and perhaps popping into a gift shop, where Mr. Vail's book, "The Grand Canyon: A Different View," ranked 17th among 800 products sold last year. Some 22,000 hardy souls raft its river.

Mr. Vail, 57, a former corporate computer manager, took his first trip in 1980, and soon "turned in my three-piece suit for a pair of flip-flops." He had been guiding full time a dozen years when a pilot celebrating her 40th birthday rode on his raft and whispered the Gospel in his ear.

That fall, in a tent in the Himalayas, he recited the Sinner's Prayer in the Bible she had sent with him, and, he said, "I came home a child of Christ."

Back on the river, Mr. Vail said, "I started asking, 'How does what I see here in the canyon relate to what I read in God's word?' " He attended creationist seminars, married the airline pilot, and in 1997 founded Canyon Ministries, which brings some 200 Christians to the river each year.

His 2003 book, a coffee-table-quality photo gallery with quotations from Scripture, has sold 40,000 copies, despite science organizations' protests of its sale in park shops.

Dr. Scott, 59, first chartered a canyon expedition in 1999. A former professor of physical anthropology, she has run the National Center for Science Education, a 3,800-member advocacy group based in Oakland, Calif., for 17 years.

Among the rafters on this year's trip were Susan Epperson, 64, a former high school biology teacher who was the plaintiff in the 1967 Supreme Court case that found Arkansas' law banning the teaching of evolution unconstitutional, and Ken Saladin, 56, a professor at Georgia College and State University in Milledgeville who has been protesting any mix of church and state for 30 years.

"I won't defend evolution," Dr. Scott said in exasperation one evening. "We don't defend the spherical Earth. We need to stop defending, as they put it, Darwinism, and just make them show they have a scientific view."

At orientation, when the rafters wrote their names on mugs, Libbi Hendley, 52, who owns a newsstand in Boone, N.C., with her husband, marked hers with the Christian fish symbol. In the other group, Eric Hildeman, 34, a Milwaukee seminarian turned atheist accountant, wore a cap with the same symbol, filled with the word "Darwin."

Worship in a Glorious Cathedral

"Isn't this a wonderful cathedral to meet in?" the Rev. Stephen Crotts, a pastor in Greensboro, N.C., asked the congregation encircling him on a Sunday morning.

The worshipers sat on the ground, many of them barefoot. The rushing river and canyon wrens accompanied the impromptu choir along with Mr. Vail's wife, Paula, on flute and 17-year-old Andrew Panes, who brought a guitar from England. The preacher had three days' growth.

"What is this place that God created saying to you and me?" asked Mr. Crotts, 55. "One of the things it says to me is I'm small and God and the world He created is huge. This is a man-dwarfing place."

Religion permeated Mr. Vail's trip, the group bowing heads before meals and hikes. At lunch one day, four women clustered in a tight hug, praying for one who had multiple sclerosis.

"We just need to talk to the only person who can do anything about it," said Linda Lomax, 58.

When Lucy Panes, 20, shouted, "Oh my God!" after a guide doused her with river water, she immediately covered her mouth, only to be admonished by her mother, Diana, "Please don't shout that."

Diana Panes began questioning evolution, which she had studied in school like most everyone else, seven years ago when Andrew came home from school asking whether Genesis was fable or history, and about dinosaurs dating back millions of years.

"I was gobsmacked," Mrs. Panes recalled.

So she started reading, attending lectures, watching creationist videos. "I don't want to believe in fairy tales. I'm interested in truth," Mrs. Panes said.

[Chimaera182]

(Sorry, had no clue this article was so long; I saw something on page one that galled me and felt I should post the whole article)

Convinced that Jesus himself believed the global flood and genealogy of Genesis were true historical accounts, "the whole thing becomes his reputation at stake," Mrs. Panes, 54, said of why she felt compelled to come to the canyon to see for herself. "For years there were huge areas I couldn't answer. My faith was devotional."

Of the explanations offered by Mr. Vail and other creationists, she said, "For me it was just the most immense relief that it didn't have to remain a mystery forever."

Questions and More Questions

But Brenda Melvin, 46, a nurse practitioner, was not so sure. "My Christian heart wanted to believe, but my scientific mind had questions," Ms. Melvin said. "I believe totally that God created heaven and Earth - I don't know how he did it, I don't know exactly when he did it. I don't know that we're ever going to learn the answers here."

Her pastor, Paul Phillips, also did not accept Mr. Vail's explanations of rock layers and fossil remnants without question. "Whatever he says, I'm just trying to think: There's a really smart person, there's tons of really smart people, that think the other side," he said.


For Mr. Phillips, 42, the most profound revelation came not about when the canyon was carved, but why: Genesis recounts the great flood as God's harsh judgment on a world filled with sin.

"If I'm a sinner, and this is the punishment for sin, then I might want to rethink my position before God," he said. "If you acknowledge a creator and a designer, then you have to deal with that entity. If it just happened, then I don't have to worry about an entity that ripped apart the earth."

Faith in Science

"I've always believed in evolution," Irene Rosenthal, 71, a semiretired psychologist, said over soup one night.

"Accepted evolution," interjected George H. Griffin, 58, a retired law enforcement officer in Colorado. "That's what Genie wants us to say," he said, referring to Dr. Scott. "Genie said anyone who said 'believed' would have to walk home."

Dr. Scott and others cringe at creationists' charge that Darwin's theories have become dogmatic faith, that creationism and evolution are just two parallel belief systems, equally plausible and unprovable. "We have faith in science, but it's not a religion," said Herb Masters, a retired firefighter. "It's a faith in a body of knowledge."

While the creationists sang hymns, Dr. Scott taught her crew a biologist's ditty about the amphioxus, a fishlike invertebrate in the human evolutionary line, to the tune of "It's a Long Way From Tipperary":

It's a long way from amphioxus - it's a long way to us.

It's a long way from amphioxus to the meanest human cuss.

Goodbye fins and gill slits,

Hello lungs and hair!

It's a long, long way from amphioxus,

But we come from there.

Most on the science trip were atheists or agnostics, dismissive and at times disrespectful of religion. Standing under a gushing waterfall, they joked about baptism. When a white dove appeared after a harrowing hike, Dr. Scott teased, "It's a sign!"

But six of the rafters said they belonged to churches or synagogues, four attending weekly. Alan Gishlick, with silver-painted toenails sticking out of his Tevas and a shoulder tattoo of a Buddhist word puzzle meaning "Knowledge makes me content," said he was a "devout Christian."

"Ultimately, creationism is not just bad science to me, it's bad Christianity, it's Bible worship," said Mr. Gishlick, 32, a paleontology Ph.D. "There's just no reason to look at these patterns of layered sediment, or in the fossil record, or at the stars, and think that what you're seeing isn't what you're seeing. God doesn't require you to be stupid, to deny what you see, to deny what you know."

Ms. Epperson, who sings in the choir at her Presbyterian church and brought her Bible along on the trip, said, "The more you learn about science, the more magnificent God is.

"I can look at a rainbow, and I know that white light can hit water droplets and it gets dispersed and the light spreads out and has lots of different colors," she said, "and I also say, 'Thank you, God, for the rainbow.' "

She said she asked God whether her role as an evolution advocate was meant to be her mission. "I say, 'God, if this is wrong, if I'm wrong, please strike me with lightning, because I don't want to be walking down the wrong path.' "

Same Object, Different Views

Walking along a path in the Redwall limestone, Mr. Vail splashed water on fossilized outlines of nautiloids, large aquatic critters that present one of creationists' chief complaints about standard canyon geology.

Mr. Vail said fossils preserved death without decay, suggesting catastrophe, and that huge numbers of nautiloids in a six-foot layer spreading some 5,700 square miles could only be the result of a massive flood.

Examining a vertical outline of a nautiloid, Mr. Vail ridiculed the geology explanation, saying it would have had to "stand there like that for tens of thousands of years while it got buried."

"Anybody want to buy that one?" he added.

A similar question came to the science group from a creationist student of Professor Saladin who had sent him a long e-mail message to ponder on his trip. Mr. Gishlick said scientists had not documented the billions of nautiloids creationists cite and had found no stunning pattern in their orientation, citing the very vertical fossil Mr. Vail had mentioned.

"These guys don't look like they were buried in something chaotic," he said. "They look like they floated down to the bottom."

Some around the circle complained about the credence being given to the creationist argument in order to answer it.

"I don't really care how they reconcile Noah's flood with scientific things - it's about religion," protested Mary Murray, 54, an artist from Laguna Beach, Calif., who came with her biology-professor husband. "We shouldn't be talking about religion at all in the public schools."

Through four days, Mr. Vail mentioned public schools only once, saying that 80 percent of Christians walked away from their faith when studying science that confounded the creation story. "It's foundational to our faith," he said, throwing a stick into the sand in frustration. "We're raising a generation of confused children, and it's the public schools that are doing it!"

That morning, Mr. Vail led his troops up a rocky overlook to scout Hance Rapid before running through its 30-foot drop.

"As you look at the rapid from up here, you can see the run," he pointed out. "You can see where the rocks are. You can see the bump - that's obviously somewhere you don't want to go. You can pick your way through the waves.

"When you're back on the boat, look at the rapid as you're coming into it and see how much you can see," he continued. "We can read God's word and we know what we're supposed to do. It's real clear up here what we're supposed to do."

"It's all theory, right? Except what's in the Good Book." This comment just irked me no end, hence why I posted this extraordinarily-long thread. The only "proof" people like Jack Aiken have is their faith, so it's just theory, too.

Anywho, comments?

[Fiona]

Before I comment I would like to make it plain that I am not religious in any way.

I have been thinking for some time that part of the problem is the "hegemony" of science in our culture. I am not sure that is the best word, but what I mean is that for the last long time the "scientific method" has been spectacularly successful in advancing knowledge in fields where it is appropriately applied. It has a well defined method and (despite some political and ideological problems which undermine the ideal and which I don't want to get into here) has built in mechanisms for identifying and correcting error. It is not surprising that people want to extend this method into areas where it is not really useful. That would be fine if there were only honest attempts to learn from the approach and to apply it with the rigour it enjoys in the fields where it has been employed for a long time. In my experience that is not the case. There are many areas where "pseudoscience" is used to make matters of opinion seem more robust that they really are (see Sokol's article which Dottie linked in the "essays for free" thread).

I hasten to add that this is not the fault of science, My point is that there are many areas where the approach has little or nothing to teach us; and where the discipline has been abused for political or ideological purposes. Anything which is dressed in the clothes of science has a superficial authority so that lay people find it much harder to challenge. And the use of maths and statistics sometimes tends to limit the terms of debate and the kinds of challenge which can be made. Scientists are sometimes accorded a respect when speaking about matters outside their own fields, because they enjoy a sort of "halo effect" which suggests that all their conclusions are based on impartial assessment of the evidence. I am not saying that scientists have demanded that, though some have, just that the success of their approach in so many areas leads to a popular belief that it is good for everything.

Religious people are caught in a bind. They are constrained to address the questions which interest them in the terms which are accepted as legitimate in scientific discourse. It is arguable that they should not engage in this and many do not. However I do see it must be frustrating that other kinds of thought tend to be dismissed.

Perhaps what we need is some other words for the kinds of knowledge which are not open to scientific investigation. It is not possible to have a meaningful discussion between the two groups which are epitomised in the article. They are from different universes and each frustrates the other. The friction does seem to be increasing, particularly in the US. You see the same thing in Europe though it seems to be more between different ethnic and religious groups rather than within them (or are the fundamentalists and secularists in the US now so far apart that they cannot be described as one group - I have little knowledge of the US). If we could accept that there are different types of knowledge and they all have value it might be possible to reduce some of the frustration. Though that will not answer the political aspects of the problem it might at least clarify what is going on.

I am sorry this is so long. A lot of things I am interested in are touched on here, but I haven't really thought out in depth how they fit together. If this makes no sense, move on

[Dottie]

@Fiona: Why do you think that the age of a cliff or the earth is something not possible to investigate with scientific methods? There are plenty of evidence laying around.

[Fiona]

@Dottie. I don't think that, and I'm sorry if I seemed to imply it. I think (tentatively) that religious people are talking about something completely separate from this. They swim in the same water as the rest of us and it is now difficult to be satisfied with "mystery", even for them. They are forced to defend deep emotional and religious perceptions in terms of facts and in particular forms of debate. I am not really qualified to understand this approach to life and certainly not so speak for the religous on anything. But when I speak to people who are very committed to a faith they seem to be talking within the conventions of argument at first, and I get the impression that evidence and logic will be relevant. It usually turns out that they are not and I think it would be helpful if we had some respectful word to identify what kind of dialogue that is. That's all I meant.

[VonDondu]

I enjoyed reading the rebuttal that biologist Paul Z. Myers posted on his website Pharyngula:

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Posted by PZ Myers on 10/07 at 06:49 AM

This is quite possibly the worst example of incompetent "he said, she said" journalism yet: Seeing Creation and Evolution in Grand Canyon. And it's in The New York Times, in the Science section! It begins and ends with the point of view of a creationist rafting trip down the Grand Canyon, and in between has snippets from another trip, by a group of scientists and informed laymen led by Eugenie Scott. Nowhere does it discuss the volume of evidence that refute the creationist view of a young earth; instead, we get repeated statements about it being just a "different view". The Christian group are humble people off to "Worship in a Glorious Cathedral", who are sincerely "interested in truth". The scientists, meanwhile, are "dismissive and at times disrespectful of religion". Even when it acknowledges that many in the NCSE group were religious, it goes out of the way to make them seem like weirdos:

Alan Gishlick, with silver-painted toenails sticking out of his Tevas and a shoulder tattoo of a Buddhist word puzzle meaning "Knowledge makes me content," said he was a "devout Christian."

He says he's a Christian, but no True Christian™ paints his toenails and wears Buddhist tattoos, you know.

Here's the message of the article:

Two groups examining the same evidence. Traveling nearly identical itineraries, snoozing under the same stars and bathing in the same chocolate-colored river. Yet, standing at opposite ends of the growing creation-evolution debate, they seemed to speak in different tongues.

It dishonestly gives equality to creationists and scientists. No, they are not examining the same evidence; the creationists are ignoring the great bulk of the geological evidence, and distorting intentionally what little they do see. The reporter, Jodi Wilgoren, is doing exactly the same thing and slanting her article to favor ignorance. This is the kind of poor reporting that should have been examined by a competent science editor, and immediately thrown out as dumb dreck pandering to the know-nothing creationists. It definitely should not have appeared in the Science section; I'd expect at least a token effort to show the geological evidence contradicting the creationist nonsense there.

I know the NY Times has run good science articles. Why are they so damn determined to ruin their reputation by running this kind of crap?

[Chimaera182]

lol bravo. I honestly just liked the idea you found a counter-article, really.

A lil sidenote: I don't pay for the NYTimes; I get it delivered free online just so I can try and keep up somewhat with the news. But it's a shame that the New York Times--which was once considered the US's best newspaper (although they fell short of papers in England)--has fallen so far. It's unfortunate that the competent editor Myers wanted probably condoned the article's religiosity.

But yeah, the article did seem to have a sort of "hooray for religion" undertone to it. Like I said originally, the reason I had to post the article was because that one guy had the impudence to say that what's in the Bible isn't theory.

[Dottie]

@Fiona: Sorry, I misunderstood you then.

Originally Posted by Fiona

It usually turns out that they are not and I think it would be helpful if we had some respectful word to identify what kind of dialogue that is. That's all I meant.

What about the words "belief", "fatih", "religion" and "theology"? I don't find it disrespectful to demand facts when factual matters are discussed, and these people were discussing the age of a cliff, not the possibility of a god or afterlife or transcendent energy. I think it's harmfull to act apologetic when someone claims the earth is flat just because that person is religious.

[Fiona]

Originally Posted by Dottie

@Fiona: Sorry, I misunderstood you then.



What about the words "belief", "fatih", "religion" and "theology"? I don't find it disrespectful to demand facts when factual matters are discussed, and these people were discussing the age of a cliff, not the possibility of a god or afterlife or transcendent energy. I think it's harmfull to act apologetic when someone claims the earth is flat just because that person is religious.

I tend to agree with your last sentence. Very often religious people seem to expect special consideration for their views and a unique level of tact. I don't think they should get that. But the words you quote seem to me to illustrate the problem.These things don't mean similar things (at least to me). You are of course right, if they are discussing the age of a cliff this seems to be about facts. But I do remember reading a religious pamphlet which explained that God had left evidence for evolution around to test our faith. Leaving aside what kind of being would do such a thing, how can I conclude these people are discussing facts in any shape or form? They may think they are, but this is something else.