Chum-
You won't be asking me daft questions like that when you've read Spengler. Which takes a while.
Greek baths are an outward sign, among a multitude of other such, of the Greek culture's "soul". Don't forget they had slums. And farmers etc. And slaves. We only know about life at the posh end and that was horrible enough.
The teachings of Jesus, as they have come down to us, are a point of departure from that Classical soul and were not an outward sign of the soul of his culture. Which is why he was crucified. Assuming he existed of course. Words can be made flesh given constant repetition. They can even be made WMDs. And ideas are formed from words.
spendii, I like your punch line, "if he existed..." All else is conjecture.
The Bible vs. science
(By Tom Krattenmaker, USA Today, February 5, 2007)
Chiseled a mile deep and 10 miles wide through limestone and sandstone, the Grand Canyon cuts an awesome divide into the earth for 277 miles. But it may be nothing compared with the chasm that separates the two camps in the public shouting match going on over the primacy of science or religion.
How appropriate, then, that the Grand Canyon - its age, to be precise - has become a big issue in the ongoing argument about creationism and the role it will play in our understanding of the world.
Frustrated by the National Park Service's insistence that the visitors center continue to sell a book with a creationist account of the canyon's formation, a public employees group is accusing the service of invalidating science and promoting fundamentalist religion.
It's not as though the two sides are splitting hairs: Most scientists estimate the canyon's age at about 6 million years. Young-Earth creationists, who believe in the literal account of the world's creation laid out in the Bible's book of Genesis, contend it's closer to 4,500 years.
The protesting group, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, an alliance of scientists, land managers, environmental advocates and others, calls it distressing that the park service is not sticking to pure, mainstream geology in the information it dispenses at the Grand Canyon.
The stakes seem even higher to some on the creationist side. If their rhetoric is any indication, nothing short of the existence of God hinges on their "proving" that the canyon was not the result of gradual geologic processes, but of Noah's flood.
Tom Vail is the author of the creationist book at issue. The book, Grand Canyon: A Different View, riles the science-minded, Vail claims, because "if we're right, if the Grand Canyon is the result of a global flood and the Bible is true, then there's a God. And if there's a God, then there's a God that they might be [answerable] to."
Vail's point, however, begs a question that he and like-minded creationists might not want asked. If they're objectively wrong about the genesis of the Grand Canyon and other geologic matters - you'll be hard-pressed to find a mainstream scientist who says they aren't - must they concede that God does not exist?
That, of course, is a rhetorical question. No amount of scientific evidence will convince an ardent creationist of the validity of human evolution or that the Earth is billions of years old.
Nevertheless, the question frames a problem with the stance of the anti-science creationists that threatens not only their version of the world's origins, but also the credibility of their religion itself. Because by attempting to marshal empirical evidence in support of their beliefs, they enter the debate on the scientists' terms - terms that cannot possibly work in favor of a literal reading of the Bible. By playing in this arena, haven't the creationists already lost the argument?
As the evangelical writer and religion professor Randall Balmer points out, confronting the public with objective evidence of the Bible's literal truth is misguided at its core. Writing about intelligent design (a counter to evolution that sees an unidentified "designer" behind the world's creation), Balmer says, "Paradoxically, when the Religious Right asserts intelligent design is science, it implies that faith in God is inadequate, that it needs the imprimatur of the scientific method."
**********************************
How many Americans are ready to accept the proposition that science has made a colossal error interpreting the fossil and geological record and - more radical still - that the validity of Christianity depends on proving it? If anything, a stance like this repels those wavering between faith and disbelief and gives skeptics one more reason to reject religion.
A suggestion to creationists: Let science be science, and let religion prevail in the vast areas where science has little or nothing to offer. It's not as though science has an answer for everything of consequence. The purpose and meaning of life, the existence of good and evil and love and hate, the nature of a human soul and what becomes of it at death, the existence and will of the divine - these are questions that belong to ethics, philosophy and, of course, religion.
No, religion shouldn't be picking this particular fight with mainstream science. Can't the Bible literalists concede matters of empirical evidence and rational inquiry to science and devote themselves to the questions of ultimate meaning - the mighty questions that rightly occupy religion? Their religion doesn't need any scientific proof. Why should their own faith?
Ms. Mary Bomar
Director
National Park Service
1849 C Street, NW
Washington, D.C. 20240
December 28, 2006
Dear Ms. Bomar:
On behalf of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) I am writing to ask you to redress both a breach in National Park Service (NPS) policies and a lapse in your agency's candor with the public and Congress. In particular, PEER urges you to remove a bureaucratic straitjacket imposed by subordinates during the tenure of your predecessor which prevents NPS interpretive staff from communicating honestly with the public about the geologic age of the Grand Canyon.
In August 2003, the Park Service approved a creationist text, Grand Canyon: A Different View, for sale in park bookstores and museums. The book by Tom Vail claims that the Grand Canyon is really only a few thousand years old, developing over a biblical rather than an evolutionary time scale. That same month, the Grand Canyon National Park superintendent appealed to NPS Headquarters for a "review of the book in terms of its appropriateness" for sale in a park-sponsored facility.
In repeated public statements and in response to inquiries from members of Congress, NPS Chief of Communications David Barna stated that NPS would conduct a high-level policy review. He distributing talking points stating: "We hope to have a final decision in February [2004]." In late February 2004, Mr. Barna crafted a letter which was sent to concerned members of Congress stating: "We hope to have a final decision on the book in March 2004." That draft was rewritten in June and finally sent out to Congressional representatives with no completion date for the review at all.
In fact, the promised review never occurred. According to responses PEER obtained from NPS under the Freedom of Information Act, NPS deliberately avoided conducting the review in order to let the controversy die down. Meanwhile, the Grand Canyon Association ordered hundreds more copies of the book and offered it for a time for sale on the internet site as "natural history" (it is now the sole offering in a heretofore nonexistent category labeled "inspirational").
During this same period, a review by Park Service geologists not only found the book wildly inaccurate but that its sale violated agency policies and undercut its scientific education programs. On January 25, 2004 David Shaver, the Chief of the Park Service's Geologic Resources Division sent a memo (enclosed) to NPS Headquarters calling for removal of the book, concluding --
"Our review of NPS policies and Grand Canyon: A Different View, lead us to conclude that this book: does not use accurate, professional and scholarly knowledge; is not based on science but a specific religious doctrine; does not further the public's understanding of the Grand Canyon's existence; does not further the mission of the National Park Service and finally, that this book should not have been approved for sale in NPS affiliated book sales."
At the same time, Park Service leadership has blocked publication of guidance for park rangers and other interpretative staff that labeled creationism as lacking any scientific basis. As a consequence, NPS staff has no official guidance as to how to answer questions from the public concerning topics such as creationists' "young earth" claims. Further, media inquiries to the Grand Canyon superintendent seeking an official statement on the geologic age of the Canyon have produced replies such as "no comment" and referral of the reporter to NPS Headquarters.
Ironically, in January 2005, your Director's Order # 6 was amended to provide:
8.4.2 Historical and Scientific Research. Superintendents, historians, scientists, and interpretive staff are responsible for ensuring that park interpretive and educational programs and media are accurate and reflect current scholarship Questions often arise round the presentation of geological, biological, and evolutionary processes. The interpretive and educational treatment used to explain the natural processes and history of the Earth must be based on the best scientific evidence available, as found in scholarly sources that have stood the test of scientific peer review and criticism. The facts, theories, and interpretations to be used will reflect the thinking of the scientific community in such fields as biology, geology, physics, astronomy, chemistry, and paleontology. Interpretive and educational programs must refrain from appearing to endorse religious beliefs explaining natural processes. Programs, however, may acknowledge or explain other explanations of natural processes and events. (Emphasis added)
In the view of PEER, the practices at Grand Canyon NP with respect to the book Grand Canyon: A Different View and creationism are clearly at variance with the statutory and policy mandates underpinning your agency. We would request that you review this case and -
1. Remove the book from sale at park bookstores and museums;
2. Provide training to the interpretive staff at Grand Canyon NP regarding how to answer questions from the public concerning the geologic age of the Canyon and related matters; and
3. Approve an updated version of the long-stalled pamphlet "National Park Service Geologic Interpretive Programs: Distinguishing Science from Religion" for distribution to agency interpretive staff.
Continued delay by NPS in forthrightly addressing this issue only undermines the credibility of your agency in its policies and pronouncements with respect to its educational mission and dedication to promoting excellence in science.
We would appreciate hearing from you when you come to a decision on this matter. If you have any questions about our concern, or require any additional documentation, please contact me at 202 265-PEER.
Cordially,
Jeff Ruch
Executive Director
SOURCE (note: 1 page .pdf download)
How Skeptic Magazine Was Duped by an Environmental Activist Group
Michael Shermer, Washington, D.C.
Last week I edited and approved for publication in eSkeptic and www.skeptic.com (the electronic editions of Skeptic magazine) a story that included highlights from a press release issued by PEER (Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility), a Washington D.C.-based environmental watchdog group (www.peer.org). That press release, dated December 28, 2006, was headlined:
HOW OLD IS THE GRAND CANYON?
PARK SERVICE WON'T SAY -- Orders to Cater to Creationists Makes National Park Agnostic on Geology
The first sentence of the release reads:
Washington, DC -- Grand Canyon National Park is not permitted to give an official estimate of the geologic age of its principal feature, due to pressure from Bush administration appointees.
Unfortunately, in our eagerness to find additional examples of the inappropriate intrusion of religion in American public life (as if we actually needed more), we accepted this claim by PEER without calling the National Park Service (NPS) or the Grand Canyon National Park (GCNP) to check it. As a testimony to the quality of our readers, however, dozens immediately phoned both NPS and GCNP, only to discover that the claim is absolutely false. Callers were told that the Grand Canyon is millions of years old, that no one is being pressured from Bush administration appointees--or by anyone else--to withhold scientific information, and all were referred to a statement by David Barna, Chief of Public Affairs, National Park Service as to the park's official position. "Therefore, our interpretive talks, way-side exhibits, visitor center films, etc. use the following explanation for the age of the geologic features at Grand Canyon," the document explains. "If asked the age of the Grand Canyon, our rangers use the following answer:
The principal consensus among geologists is that the Colorado River basin has developed in the past 40 million years and that the Grand Canyon itself is probably less than five to six million years old. The result of all this erosion is one of the most complete geologic columns on the planet."
Understandably, many of our readers were outraged by both the duplicity of the claim and our failure to fact check it. One park ranger wrote us:
You're a day late and a dollar short on this one. As a national park ranger, I found most of PEER's findings to be bogus. So have others: http://parkrangerx.blogspot.com :
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.
One of our readers directly challenged Jeff Ruch, the Executive Director of PEER:
When I challenged that PEER guy to show me some evidence and provided him evidence to the contrary, he didn't have much. I would say PEER did more than jump the gun. I'd say they are spreading misinformation.
Another Grand Canyon park interpreter offered this explanation:
Ruch's attempts to insinuate a conspiratorial link between the NPS and organized religion are misguided and founded in fervent anti-Christian opposition, not reason or the law. Ruch's anti-Judeo-Christian bias is evidence by his lack of opposition to GCA's selling of Native American creation myths. His misinformation campaign aims to tarnish the reputation of the NPS to leverage his position that creationism books should not be sold in the GCA bookstore. I've emailed a few of my contacts at GRCA, and so far, all deny any conspiracy and all freely give the canyon's age in education programs (as does all official GRCA print material). I'll post updates as information becomes available. Until then, don't believe everything you read.
The reference to the creationism book being sold in the Grand Canyon bookstore--Grand Canyon: A Different View by Tom Vail--is true. It is sold in the "inspiration" section of the bookstore, alongside other books of myth and spirituality. In any case, the story is an old one now, and completely irrelevant to the claim that NPS employees are withholding information about the age of the canyon, and/or are being pressured to do so by Bush administration appointees.
Embarrassed and angered by all of this, I promptly phoned Jeff Ruch myself and inquired what evidence he has to support this claim. He initially pointed to the creationism book and the fact that the NPS has failed to address numerous challenges to the sale of same in their bookstore. When I pointed out that this is irrelevant to the claim in the press release, he then reminded me of the biblical passages that have been posted at places along the rim of the canyon. Again, I admonished, this is not evidence for his central claim. We went round and round on the phone until I finally gave up and hung up, convinced that he simply made up the claim out of whole cloth.
Not wishing to simply call Ruch a liar, and allowing myself to calm down a bit, I emailed him and asked:
Can you tell us who in the Bush administration put pressure on park service employees? Can you name one person in the GCNP staff who says that they are not permitted to give the official estimate of the age of the canyon?
He responded:
1. I do not know--it is at the Director's level or above. We have been trying to find out for three years.
2. Julie Cart, Los Angeles Times.
I contacted Julie Cart at the Los Angeles Times, who was out of town on assignment, and got her editor, Frank Clifford, on the phone. Clifford knew all about the creationism book and the biblical passages on the rim of the canyon, but said that he had heard nothing about this new claim of Bush administration appointees silencing park service staff, and that if Julie knew of such a thing the Times would be most interested in following up with the story. I then reached Julie by email, who said that she too knew of no such silence on the part of park staffers regarding the age of the canyon.
Once again outraged and enraged , I emailed Ruch to ask him why he referenced Cart, who denied his central claim. He responded:
I referred you to Julie because of the response she got from the superintendent's office when she covered the issue earlier--not for any new claim.
Thanks a lot. I wasted several hours tracking down that false lead. Now at my wit's end with this guy, I point blank asked him if he made it all up. He responded:
The interpretive staff at GCNP we are working with do not want to be identified and have gone into deep underground as the atmosphere at the park is now somewhat volatile.
Well, it would have been nice (not to mention ethical) if he would have said so in the first place. (I have now wasted about 10 hours of research time on this instead of other projects.) The referencing of sources who wish to remain anonymous is quite common in journalism and, in fact, there are laws protecting whistleblowers . The fact that no such reference was made until I pointedly accused Ruch of flatout lying makes me, well, skeptical of this explanation. His final statement to me doesn't make me any less skeptical:
We are issuing an amended release today that 1) deletes reference to what interpretive staff can and cannot say and 2) features the NPS official statement that they provide geological information to the public.
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, shame on me for not fact checking this story before publishing it on eSkeptic and www.skeptic.com. But shame on you too, Mr. Ruch, and shame on PEER, for this egregious display of poor judgment and unethical behavior.
Monday, January 22, 2007
PEER's "Canyon Controversy Clarification"
PEER has blogged a clarification to their December 28, 2006 press release which claimed the National Park Service wouldn't give the age of the Grand Canyon.
PEER revised the original release on our website, deleting the problematic first sentence. ["Grand Canyon National Park is not permitted to give an official estimate of the geologic age of its principal feature, due to pressure from Bush administration appointees."]
Although the information was not included in the release, that sentence was based on the fact that since 2004 (until this recent controversy erupted) we heard from reporters that the superintendent's office at GCNP had answered media questions about the age of the canyon with either a "no comment" or by referring the reporter to Headquarters.
It seems PEER issued a press release based on hearsay ("we heard from reporters") and made the leap that park rangers aren't permitted to talk about the age of the Grand Canyon.
Again, our apologies to anyone who felt offended or misinformed, and we hope that this clarifies the matter.
Not offended or misinformed so much as misled or deceived. But apology accepted. I hope PEER's future releases are more thoroughly fact checked and less sensationalistic.
As a side note, we spoke today with someone who bought the book [Grand Canyon: A Different View] out of curiosity, and was dismayed to find that it included promotional material about the author's church and for his river tour company. He suggested that this offered further reasons it shouldn't be sold in the NPS bookstore.
Perhaps the Grand Canyon Association shouldn't sell the book. Debunking PEER's claim led thousands to my nascent blog; I only wish people, including those at PEER, would get equally riled up about roads being built in wilderness as they do about books being sold in stores.
Debate rages in Kenya as evangelicals try to keep ancient skeleton in the closet
(The Associated Press, February 6, 2007)
NAIROBI - Deep in the dusty, unlit corridors of Kenya's national museum, locked away in a plain looking cabinet, is one of mankind's oldest secrets.
Turkana Boy, as he is known, is the most complete skeleton of a prehistoric human ever found, hailed by scientists as one of the world's most famous fossil finds.
But his first public display later this year is at the heart of a growing storm - one pitting scientists against Kenya's powerful and popular evangelical Christian movement. The debate over evolution - once largely confined to the US - has arrived in a country known as the cradle of mankind.
"I did not evolve from Turkana Boy or anything like it," says Bishop Boniface Adoyo, head of the country's 35 evangelical denominations, which he claims has about 10-million followers.
"These sorts of silly views are killing our faith." He's calling on his flock to boycott the exhibition and has demanded the museum relegate the fossil collection to a back room - carrying some kind of warning that evolution is not a fact but merely one of a number of theories.
Against him is one of the planet's best-known fossil hunters, Richard Leakey, whose team unearthed the bones at Nariokotome in West Turkana, in the desolate, far northern reaches of Kenya in 1984.
"Whether the bishop likes it or not, Turkana Boy is a distant relation of his," Leakey, who founded the museum's prehistory department, told The Associated Press. "The bishop is descended from the apes and these fossils tell how he evolved."
Among the 160 000 fossils due to go on display is an imprint of a lizard left in sedimentary rock, dating back 200-million years, at a time when the Earth's continents were only beginning to separate.
Dinosaur fossils and a limb bone from an early human ancestor, dating back seven million years, will also be on show along with bones of short-necked giraffes and elephants whose tusks protrude from their lower, rather than upper jaw.
They provide the clearest and unrivalled record yet of evolution and the origins of man, say scientists.
But the highlight will be the 1,52m tall Turkana Boy, who died aged 12 and whose skeleton had been preserved in marshland before its discovery. It will form the centre stage of the exhibition to be launched in July following a massive $10,5m revamp of the National Museums of Kenya, financed by the European Union EU). The EU says it has no concerns over the displays and that the museum was free to exhibit what it wished.
Followers of creationism believe in the literal truth of the Genesis account in the Bible that God created the world in six days. Bishop Adoyo believes the world was created 12 000 years ago, man 6 000 years later. He says each day was equivalent to 1 000 earth years.
Adoyo's evangelical coalition is the only religious group voicing concerns about the exhibition.
Leakey fears the ideological spat may provoke an attack on the priceless collection, one largely found during the 1920s by his paleontologist parents, Louis and Mary Leakey, who then passed their fossil-hunting traditions onto Richard.
The museum, which attracts about 100 000 visitors a year, is taking no chances. Turkana Boy will be displayed in a private room, with limited access and behind a glass screen with 24 hour CCTV. Security personnel will guard the entrance.
"There are issues about the security," concedes Dr Emma Mbua, the head of paleontology at the museum in Nairobi. "These fossils are irreplaceable and we wouldn't want anything to happen to them." Insurance coverage could run into millions of dollars, she said.
Mbua, a practicing Protestant, is a little taken aback at the controversy but has no problems reconciling her own faith in evolution. "Evolution is a fact," said Mbua, who has run the department for the last five years.
"Turkana Boy is our jewel," she said. "For the first time we will be taking him out of the strong room and showing our heritage to the world."
- Deep in the dusty, unlit corridors of Kenya's national museum, locked away in a plain looking cabinet, is one of mankind's oldest secrets.
cradle of mankind.
Adoyo's evangelical coalition is the only religious group voicing concerns about the exhibition.
It's a well written piece wande but one expects that from the jaded cynics at AP. Probably written in a pub on two beermats.
