Too quick to believe

I tool around a lot of science websites. Last month, I saw multiple blogs and websites reporting about how the Parks Service was waffling over how old the Grand Canyon is, in response to political pressures from fundamentalists Christians in government. For instance, the highly visible Panda's Thumb blog ran with it here. Also spotted on Richard Dawkins’s website.

The problem is that it isn't true. Skeptic also ran with the story at first, but in this article, they report that the press release that started to story appears not to have any substantive basis. Good on them for fact checking what looked to be an all too plausible story.

As usual, the initial hoopla gets more attention than the correction. On the Dawkins website, the article come up with the full headline and article, with the link to the Skeptic piece as a much smaller update.