Deluged with pro-Flood email!

Decision about controversial Grand Canyon book due soon

6 February 2004
Updated 26 March 2004

About 7,000 people have already written the US National Park Service in Washington, D.C. to voice their opinions about a book on Noah’s Flood and the Grand Canyon, a text which became the target of a book-ban effort by leading evolutionists last month.

Grand Canyon: A Different View—which features essays from four staff members and many others (including several Ph.D. scientists)—has been available at Grand Canyon bookstores since August, but was in jeopardy of being removed after pressure by prominent evolutionists.

Headlines appeared from Taiwan to Texas when thousands of supporters and others wrote the Park Service to request that the book not be banned from Park bookstores. As of the posting of this article, a final decision has not yet been made.

Interestingly, many emails and faxes were sent by supporters outside America who had read our 8 January web article about the book ban effort. One of the more fascinating letters of the bunch came from the People’s Republic of China (below), written by an American living in that communist country where censorship reigns:

Tom Vail’s striking book presents an alternative scientific and philosophical viewpoint that runs contrary to evolutionary dogma that the Canyon was formed over millions of years by the Colorado River. (Although we should add that its thesis that the Canyon was carved out quickly by a lot of water is accepted by many evolutionary geologists who have studied the Canyon.) The story still told at the Canyon is that it was formed over millions of years by erosion, i.e. from the slow carving action of the Colorado River. The book has thus incurred the wrath of evolutionary zealots. The opposition, however, has created such publicity for the text that the publisher has the book at the printer right now for its second printing.

Various newspapers have been citing Park officials as saying that a final decision about the book has not yet been made. Therefore, it is still not too late for you to write an email in which you can respectfully request that Grand Canyon: A Different View remain at Canyon bookstores, and that it be returned to the natural sciences section where it rightfully belongs (and not remain in the ‘inspirational’ section).

Send your firm but polite email to Ms Fran Mainella, Director of the US National Park Service, at fran_mainella@nps.gov (note that there is an underscore—not a space—between the first and last name in the email address).

For more background, see Geologists in an uproar.