« Meet Jose: The Living Capacitor | Main | Redheads: Gone by 2100? »
January 23, 2007
The Grand Canyon is Still Pretty Old
Although I make no claim to be an official source of news and the like. I merely catalog bits of ideas and media that may be useful for my research later. I can't say I was pleased to learn that I was duped by fucko manic Environmental Activist Group PEER.
A Grand Canyon park interpreter wrote:[This is incorrect. I have NEVER been told to present non-science based programs. In fact, I received “talking points” demanding that Grand Canyon employees present programs BASED ON SCIENCE and that we must use the scientific version supported by the National Science Foundation and the National Academy of Sciences. As an interpreter I have shared the “creation” story of the Hopi people and the Paiute people because it is culturally relative. I used these stories as a tool to introduce the scientific story. Be confident there are good people running government, too.]
Know this: I'm not against environmentalist causes. People who rally behind green trees, fresh air, and un-kicked puppies are definite "good people" in my book. What I can't stand are insane zealots that lie in order to get points across. They're not helping any damn body.
Then why did PEER issue that statement in the first place? In my opinion, this is why:PEER is an anti-Bush, anti-religion liberal activist watchdog group in search of demons to exorcise and dragons to slay. On one level, that’s how the system works in a free society, and there are plenty of pro-Bush, pro-religion conservative activist watchdog groups who do the same thing on the other side. Maybe in a Hegelian process of thesis-antithesis-synthesis we find truth that way; at least at the level of talk radio. But journalistic standards and scholarly ethics still hold sway at all levels of discourse that matter, and to that end I believe we were duped by an activist group who at the very least exaggerated a claim and published it in order to gain notoriety for itself, or worse, simply made it up.
To that end I apologize to all of our readers for not fact checking this story before publishing it on eSkeptic and www.skeptic.com. Shame on us. But shame on you too, Mr. Ruch, and shame on PEER, for this egregious display of poor judgment and unethical behavior.
Given some of the bullshit that comes out of the current administration's offices daily, I know why I was easily taken by this press release. New Scientist, though, is supposed to be a formal type news source for people keeping up on the science world. Why they didn't check their facts before printing is beyond me.
Be assured that the newly found eSkeptic magazine is nowoin my folder hot list.
(my original post, gaiman's outrage, skeptic.com)
Posted by Groonk at January 23, 2007 02:57 PM | Ministry of Politics, Science, eMag
