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The Interior Department is facing a lawsuit from a Christian geologist who claims he was not allowed to collect rocks from Grand Canyon National Park because of his creationist beliefs.
In the suit filed earlier this month, the Australian geologist, Andrew Snelling, says that religious discrimination was behind the National Park Service's (NRS's) decision to deny him a permit to gather samples from four locations in the park.
Snelling had hoped to gather the rocks to support the creationist belief that a global flood about 4,300 years ago was responsible for rock layers and fossil deposits around the world.
NPS's actions "demonstrate animus towards the religious viewpoints of Dr. Snelling," the complaint alleges, "and violate Dr. Snelling's free exercise rights by imposing inappropriate and unnecessary religious tests to his access to the park."
The lawsuit was filed May 9 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona. NPS has yet to respond to the allegations.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Runaway1956 on Sunday May 28 2017, @03:52PM (6 children)
from TFA: "On Jan. 30, Rep. Trent Franks (R-Ariz.) stepped in on behalf of Snelling, requesting via a letter to NPS Congressional Liaison Elaine Hackett that the permit be issued.
"I am confident there is a misunderstanding regarding the denial or lack of response to Dr. Snelling's request for issuing the permit," Franks wrote. "Because I have the utmost confidence in the integrity of the National Park Service, I am sure there would be no discrimination based on different viewpoints.""
If the park service had a real reason to deny the man a research permit, they would have offered that reason to Rep. Franks. If the service were discriminating against the doctor on religious grounds, they would have caved under little or no pressure. I wonder if the park service would have denied a permit to a Muslim, or a Hindu, a Jew, or any other religion?
Personally, I don't give a damn how old the earth is. I'm only going to be using it for a few more years anyway. If I intended to stay here for several eons, I might be more concerned about the planet's age. It would be a bitch to get comfortable, then have the whole thing just cave in because it's so ancient!! Nahh, I'm just renting, until something better comes along.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by AthanasiusKircher on Sunday May 28 2017, @05:41PM (3 children)
Well, the complaint submitted by Snelling mentions that the park service sent out his proposal to three mainstream geologists for peer review, who all claimed his "research" was BS. In fact, Snelling seems to be making an issue of discrimination out of the reviewers' comments too, since a couple of them expressed frustration with having to review such nonsense (one of them suggesting that the park service "screen out" submitters with credentials that suggest they have "inappropriate interests").
So, Snelling doesn't just want to go to war against the park service, he wants to claim mainstream geology is basically discriminatory. Which it is. The scientific study of geology has the right to say some things (including some religious views that deny accepted geological facts) are WRONG. That, to me, is where the tension lies here. If Snelling wants to come to the park and collect samples to prove the veracity of Noah's flood, and he submits a proposal to that effect, I'd actually be more likely to support his claim.
But he doesn't want to do that. Instead, he wants to CLAIM on paper that he's a "scientist" (which assumes a certain degree of adherence to empirical methodology) and hide his true aims in his proposal, all the while asserting in his public biographies on the web (noted by one of the reviewers) that he's dedicated to the "ministry" of proving creationism and the literal words of the Bible. Proving a pre-existing theory (where there is no real possibility of disproving that theory, only "ministry" to prove it) may be a research methodology for something, but it is NOT a "scientific" research methodology. Hence, peer reviewers are quite right to question the validity of his proposal, as "geology."
If he wants to come there and do his sampling as a matter of "religious studies" or something, sure, let him. But by doing so, he relinquishes the "stamp of approval" that says what he is doing is recognized as "science" by his peers.
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Sunday May 28 2017, @11:43PM (2 children)
Let's say they let him collect those samples -- and have another geologist and a park ranger follow him around. He then chooses the samples, collects them, and splits them at the collection spot with the geologist. Afterwards, he gets to use the samples to prove his point; and the geologist has the option to similarly examine them and provide an alternative, and likely peer-reviewable analysis, against the same rocks -- or make the examination/analysis part of an undergrad lab in a geology class. If you really want to be extra safe, you could require the researchers swap samples after they were done with them.
That wouldn't be discriminatory, now would it?
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Monday May 29 2017, @12:10AM (1 child)
Why? What a waste of time, human resources, money and in the end, no amount of evidence to the contrary is going to make him or other creationists believe they are mistaken. Blind faith is inherently irrational, and it is inherently irrational to expect rational behavior from creationists. Subjecting the proposal to peer review is good enough
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 29 2017, @01:38PM
Why? Because for every loud mouthed holier than thou holy rolling bible thumper who vehemently sticks to their dogma, there are 3 or 4 quieter sitting on the fence I don't really believe all of this and I'm largely doing this because my parents did this types that might actually listen. This man whom I will refuse to call a scientist is obviously one of the dogmatic ones. Those who are completely deluded are lost, but not all are not equally deluded and can change with enough of the right circumstances. No there are not some magical words to say to make the extremely devout instantly disavow their beliefs, but the fence sitters are the ones we need to do the kind of things like a simultaneous peer review. I'd say if one person where to change their thinking then it's with it. We can "save" the fence sitters from "being saved"
(Score: 0, Troll) by kurenai.tsubasa on Sunday May 28 2017, @07:53PM
Haha, that's pretty good! For anybody who missed it, Runaway is clearly poking fun at the idea of a feminist programming language! Same situation. If it weren't for all the misogynerds and if womyn-born-womyn [wikipedia.org] had designing computing principles and programming languages [wikipedia.org], the feminists say that computer programs wouldn't have any bugs!
(No need to click the links. Everybody here is already aware of their accomplishments.)
Here we have all those damned elitist godless geologists giving a clearly biased smackdown to the equally valid viewpoint that various legendary cataclysms all describe the same event! I mean, clearly the view that the world is 6,000 years old is equally valid, probably more valid!, just like the view that the reason there are no womyn-born-womyn programmers is because existing programming languages reify some kind of rape something or another! In fact, if those PC obsessed geologists would just apply Occam's razor, they'd realize that only one global cataclysm exactly 4,300 years ago that submerged all land on the planet is sufficient to explain what those hoity-toity stuffy pantses insist were only at best continent-scale floods that didn't even submerge Everest!
You're exactly right! If it'd been a Mooooooooslim who wanted to prove the world is 6,000 years old, those bigoted geologists would bend over backwards to falsify over 200 years of earth science!
Er, I assume that's what you're doing anyway….
(One protip! Introducing the idea of a Hindu geologist might be complicated since that religion seems to readily accept that the age of the universe is in the order of billions of years [wikipedia.org]. You don't want to give somebody such an obvious rebuttal as that! My doctor says I have to stay away from drinking games!)
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday May 29 2017, @12:14AM