Following up on a couple of posts back in which I trumpeted Gary Trudeau's inclusion in Doonesbury strip an apocryphal story about Grand Canyon park rangers and the age of the geological wonder they are entrusted with explaining to the public: We were duped. Skeptic magazine's Michael Shermer offers an apology, which I will borrow.
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...
The part about the creationist book on the shelves of the park gift store is true, and annoying. But I will endeavor not to propagate such easily discernible falsehood in the future.
The next day's Doonesbury strip, in which we are treated to a parody of the "teach the controversy" silliness, is much better.
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PEER has issued another press release, but it doesn't seem to address their earlier allegations.
http://parkrangerx.blogspot.com/2007/01/tell-peer-enough-is-enough.html
This is not the first time that Gary Trudeau has been duped by a false claim and repeated the claim in his strip, which is then widely cited as fact. In 2001 Doonesbury featured a report about an institute that ranked presidential IQs. Bush was ranked lowest at 91, half of Clinton's IQ of 182. But the report by the 'Lovenstein Institute' was a hoax.
http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/lovenstein.html
http://www.actuabd.com/article.php3?id_article=24