Date:
Friday, March 14, 2008
Mailing Address: P.O. Box 151, Port Orchard, WA 98366
Website: www.calvarypo.org
Telephone: (360) 876-7288 Fax: (360) 876-7407
March 19, 2008
Edmond W. Holroyd, III, Ph.D.
5395 Howell Street
Arvada, CO 80002-1523
Dear Dr. Holroyd,
I want to thank you for taking the time to respond to my letter of March 14, 2008, which was sent to AiG with
a copy to you since you were mentioned in the letter.
I have interspersed my comments below, indented from your original email.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Edmond W Holroyd" <eholroyd [at] juno.com
To: <kevinl_calvarypo [at] hotmail.com
Cc: <MMatthews [at] AnswersinGenesis.org; <mark [at] georgeyardley.com; <RobYard [at] aol.com;
<info [at] icr.org; <hmorris [at] icr.edu; <peter.robinson [at] pepperdine.edu; <walt [at] creationscience.com;
<jmorris [at] icr.edu; <saustin [at] icr.org; <lvardiman [at] icr.edu
Sent: Saturday, March 15, 2008 12:58 PM
Subject: Reply to Pastor Kevin Lea
Dear Pastor Lea,
This to acknowledge the receipt of the letter that you sent to AiG and others. I have skimmed all of it and in
particularly reviewed those portions referring to my contributions. The summary of my work appears to be
correct, though I do not remember the particular elevations. For those who do not know of it, here are my
memories from more than twenty years ago.
I am glad to hear that my letter is factual about your contribution. This was the major reason for
sending it to you.
I would love to hear any additional comments you may have if and when you have the time and
desire to carefully read my March 14 letter and the associated links.
I was the first to outline possible lakes upstream of the Grand Canyon, preceding both Dr. Austin and Brown.
Dr. Brown and I (and everyone who carefully reads the correspondence history) will agree with you
that you preceded Brown with your unpublished lake. Brown was not aware of your work before he
published his two lakes and only became aware of you and your work when Austin presented your
lake as his own in order to plagiarize Brown’s breach point, elevation, and Grand-Lake name.
Brown’s discovery of the breach point at the north end of Marble Canyon was one of the “smoking
guns” that showed Brown how the Grand Canyon formed.
I do not agree with you that you preceded Austin’s lake, because the facts as I know them show that
Austin had no lake; he used yours until he plagiarized Brown’s.
The fact that you preceded Brown is made clear in my letter. Dr. Brown acknowledges that you
independently came up with your unnamed lake using an entirely different approach than his.
Let everything that has breath praise the LORD. Praise the LORD! Psalm 150:6
Lea Response to Holroyd 3-19-08 March 19, 2008
You also have acknowledged in writing (International Conference on Creationism, July 18-23, 1994,
p. 243) that Dr. Brown independently came up with his Lake at 5700 feet, which Brown called Grand
Lake.
Brown discovered Grand Lake by looking for an explanation for how the Grand Canyon was formed.
He was the first to discover and explain: the breach point, elevation and HOW the breach formed
Marble Canyon, undercut Hopi Lake, and, with the combined water of these two lakes, created the
Grand Canyon and Kaibab upwarp in a matter of weeks.
Perhaps because you have been affected by Austin’s plagiarism, you are unaware of Dr. Brown’s
explanation and mistakenly said in your paper in the July 94, ICE Conference that Austin is the one
who has summarized the catastrophic breaching of the lakes to create the Grand Canyon (in the 1994
edition of his book, Grand Canyon Monument to Catastrophe).
The facts as I know them are that Austin did not summarize his hypothesis, he plagiarized Brown’s to
the extent he could. To this day, Austin does not have a WORKING breach dam hypothesis. He did
not and has not explained HOW the breach could form the Grand Canyon.
However, Dr. Brown has published a 36-page explanation of HOW Grand Lake breached to form the
Grand Canyon. Brown’s writings also address your concerns about a lack of shore line etching at the
5700 foot level. Possibly, if you were to carefully read Dr. Brown’s work about this technical issue,
you would no longer question the existence of the lake that you once thought might have existed.
Austin’s plagiarism caused all eyes to be on HIM, and because Austin fails to give a workable
explanation to all those who have their eyes on HIM, I became motivated to write to AiG.
My letter to AiG is NOT about making a name for Dr. Brown. It is NOT about who found a lake
first. My letter and the efforts behind it are about truth, integrity, and getting the best and most
complete explanation out to the Christian community. It is about what could be the most important
young-earth apologetic there is.
A sound and defensible explanation for the recent and catastrophic formation of the Grand Canyon is
a nuclear bomb in the wicked heart of the evolution lie. If my analyses of the facts surrounding
Austin and ICR’s unethical actions are correct, and if Dr. Brown’s theory is sound, then Austin’s,
ICR’s and AiG’s actions are hindering millions of Christians from having a nuclear weapon available
to them when they take on their college professors. This is inexcusable.
In the mid-80s as a federal scientist I used our computers to colorize elevation data for use as a map underlay
for plotting positions of our research aircraft that were doing cloud studies in Arizona. The Digital Elevation
Data (DEM) was produced by the former Defense Mapping Agency at a resolution of 30" of
latitude/longitude. I noticed that the Painted Desert region resembled a basin, with the canyon of the Little
Colorado River providing a drain. Then I looked upstream along the Colorado River and noticed similar
possibilities. I wondered how high the simulated lakes might be if the Grand Canyon did not exist. I found
that water would then flow around the north end of the Kaibab Uplift, near the Utah/Arizona border. That
elevation is presently about 5600 feet according to the DEM.
If I understand what you are saying, you are talking about the saddle (spill point) that is north and
west of Marble Canyon, at the western-most portion of Grand Lake. Please correct me if I am wrong.
The attachment "Without.jpg" shows a photograph of a mosaic of the region with color coded topography. I
changed my color scale for terrain upstream from the Grand Canyon, showing blue shades for lower
elevations. The attachment "WithLakes.jpg" shows a photograph of the resulting mosaic. I determined that
the area and volume of such a series of lake basins approximately totals that of Lake Superior.
Office: 5751 Bethel Rd. SE, Port Orchard Mail: P.O. Box 151, Port Orchard, WA 98366
T: (360) 876-7288 F: (360) 876-7407 www.calvarypo.org
2
Lea Response to Holroyd 3-19-08 March 19, 2008
Your mosaic shows just one lake, which is the one lake that Austin used to plagiarize Brown’s work
when he inserted it (your one lake) into his 1989 Guidebook. Also, he accidently inserted a 1988
copyright page into that same guidebook and used that false copyright page to try to hide his
plagiarism.
When I follow the blue of your slide, I can see that you show one lake that is primarily dammed by
the current Kaibab upwarp (which did not exist at the time of breach according to Brown’s theory).
So I believe your slide should be labeled as “WithLake” for accuracy. That seemingly small but
extremely significant point (Brown’s two lakes, not your one lake) solves a problem that has plagued
all prior theories on the origin of the Grand Canyon.
After Dr. Brown published his 1989, 5th edition, Austin was able to plagiarize a little more of Dr.
Brown’s information — the name Grand Lake, the two lakes separated (Hopi and Grand), and the
breach point at the north end of Marble Canyon) — and insert more details into his 1990 Guidebook
along with your one-lake map and Brown’s two-lake map with Grand Lake labeled.
For secular audiences I thought of describing such possible lakes as during Glacial or Post-Glacial times and
comparable to Lake Bonneville. When I asked permission to possibly publish these figures I was threatened
with the loss of my federal job. I therefore destroyed the original paper mosaics which I had already
photographed. Eventually I had my slide film developed. The attachment "BothSlides.jpg" shows frames 02
and 05. Frames 03 and 04 have the same content. Notice the Kodak date stamp of January 1987, confirming
that my work was done in 1986. It was at the first International Conference on Creationism in 1986 that I met
Dr. Steve Austin. I eventually shared my insights with him, including prints from my slides. I explained to
him that I was denied permission to publish the figures in that form. I prepared lesser diagrams on my
personal computer for his use. Anything related to my federal work would have been Public Domain anyway,
so I was not looking for credit.
Your work is fascinating. Eric Donovan is an animator friend of mine who more than a year ago did
the DEM work on Dr. Brown’s 8th edition computer-generated picture of Grand and Hopi Lake.
Donovan used satellite generated elevation information to do the same thing you did in 1986. A few
months ago, I asked Donovan to work on making a color-coded elevation map of the entire area
around the Grand Canyon so that I could use it in our Grand Canyon documentary. Looks like you
did the same thing years ago.
When I was contacted about the claims of Dr. Brown about Dr. Austin stealing his ideas, I explained this brief
history, pointing out that Dr. Austin got his inspiration about the "lakes" from me.
You mean “lake” unless I am misreading your map and Austin’s 1989 Guidebook picture.
Austin wasn’t inspired by a lake that was dammed east of the Kaibab Plateau (or upwarp), as
evidenced by the fact he ignored your lake prior to 1989.
Austin was inspired by Dr. Brown’s work when Austin heard that Brown was stating that he knew
where the lake breached, resulting in the formation of the Grand Canyon. Unless I am mistaken, you
never talked of a breach location or a breach explanation for the formation of Grand Canyon. A lake
is just a lake; a canyon is just a canyon – I feel a song coming. Scientific inspiration comes from
putting these two together in a way that also explains two dozen otherwise strange features on the
ground, such as: barbed canyons, slot canyons, volcanism, Nankoweap Canyon, missing talus,
arching, Grand Canyon Caverns, Petrified Forest National Park, Shinumo Altar, Canyon de Chelly,
Monument Valley, tipped layers, the Goosenecks, “the Great Denudation,” potholes, and the inner
gorge. Austin didn’t (and hasn’t) provide evidence, forces, energy, or mechanisms to explain these
features. Brown’s published work does, and this is the reason for my letter.
Office: 5751 Bethel Rd. SE, Port Orchard Mail: P.O. Box 151, Port Orchard, WA 98366
T: (360) 876-7288 F: (360) 876-7407 www.calvarypo.org
3
Lea Response to Holroyd 3-19-08 March 19, 2008
At that time I had already loaned slide frames 03 and 04 to Dr. Gentry. I pointed out to Dr. Brown that Dr.
Gentry could independently verify the date stamp on my slides, showing that I preceded both Dr. Brown and
Dr. Austin. I tried to stay out of any other discussion between Dr. Brown and Dr. Austin because I had no
other knowledge about what Dr. Austin was doing.
Again, as Brown has always acknowledged since he first heard your name, you preceded Brown with
a lake. Austin never had a lake so you didn’t precede Austin, you gave your lake to Austin, who
didn’t know what to do with it until Brown started lecturing on his discoveries. For the sake of
extreme clarity, this issue is not about the lake.
I became annoyed by the persistence of the accusations of Dr. Brown and was glad when the case was
supposedly settled.
It would have been settled if Morris II and Austin had not broken their contractual agreement that
they signed following the mediation.
I let the incident fade from my memory. I discovered a few years ago that Dr. Brown's memory does not fade,
and he reminded me of my previous annoyance about his tactics.
You mentioned above that you only skimmed my letter. Therefore I’ll cut you some slack here. Had
you read my letter carefully, you would have seen that the record shows: Austin plagiarized Dr.
Brown’s work; Dr. Brown ignored this for years; Austin then accused Brown of plagiarizing Austin
(a lie). Brown then biblically and privately (Matthew 18) asked Austin and Morris to stop the false
statements and correct the errors; they refused. Then Austin claimed priority based on a false
copyright date (which he later claimed was an accident). When that didn’t work, he said that an
older, obscure document of his contained his explanation for the Grand Canyon, but that document
(which he provided) did not contain anything remotely resembling an explanation. Finally, Austin
refused to comply with the mediation board’s ruling, failed to provide the number of books that
remained, and put more false information in the 1994 edition of his book. Then Morris falsely
claimed in a letter to Brown that he and Austin had complied with every detail of mediation, etc.
Austin’s actions have resulted in hindering people from knowing where to go to get the best
explanation for how the Grand Canyon was formed. Does Austin want everyone to believe he is the
great discoverer of how the Grand Canyon formed and has the answers when the facts state
otherwise?
Now, when you consider the weight of what I just said, what tactics annoy you the most,
Dr. Holroyd – Austin’s sinful tactics (if I am understanding the history correctly), or Brown’s tactics
of confronting (in accordance with Matthew 18) Austin and ICR about their sinful actions and their
consequences? If you still think Brown is the annoying one, then I would ask you why you are
annoyed with the one who was obeying God and why you are defending the one sinning against God;
why would you call good evil, and evil good.
I continue to be disgusted about this entire issue of accusations. Dr. Brown appears to be strongly seeking the
"praise of men" in the form of "priority" and credits, which are all about earthly fame. I am reminded of some
Scripture passages about similar or related topics.
Aren’t you trying to judge motives, Dr. Holroyd? That is dangerous. Here, I find it very difficult to
cut you any slack, even though you only skimmed my letter. The record shows that Austin (not
Brown) has spared no expense of sin to garnish the praise of men. The result of his desire for praise
has been to lie about Dr. Brown and his work and rob people of a deeper understanding of how a
breached dam carved the Grand Canyon. If I understand the record correctly, your disgust is grossly
Office: 5751 Bethel Rd. SE, Port Orchard Mail: P.O. Box 151, Port Orchard, WA 98366
T: (360) 876-7288 F: (360) 876-7407 www.calvarypo.org
4
Lea Response to Holroyd 3-19-08 March 19, 2008
misdirected. “Skimming” may be a big part of your misunderstanding. What I laid out in my letter
last week requires careful study.
Matt. 6:1-2. "Be careful not to do your 'acts of righteousness' before men, to be seen by them. If you do, you
will have no reward from your Father in heaven. So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with
trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by men. I tell you the truth,
they have received their reward in full." Matt. 6:19-21. "Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth,
where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in
heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your
treasure is, there your heart will be also." John 12:43. "...for they loved praise from men more than praise
from God."
I suggest you send these to Austin.
Though it was proper to seek mediation a long time ago, to bring up this issue again and propose making it
public seems to violate 1 Cor. 6:1-8, which ends, "But instead, one brother goes to law against another - and
this in front of unbelievers! The very fact that you have lawsuits among you means you have been completely
defeated already. Why not rather be wronged? Why not rather be cheated? Instead, you yourselves cheat and
do wrong, and you do this to your brothers."
Your use of this scripture shows me just how shallow your reading of my letter was. Nothing in my
letter deals with going to the law against Austin. Brown never even hinted to Austin or Morris that
he was going to violate this scripture. To me, it is quite possible that Austin/Morris knew that Brown
would never take them to civil court, and therefore they knew they could violate the Christian
mediation board ruling with impunity. If this was their thinking, I hope they are now coming to grips
with the errors of their ways.
This entire issue of priority over the naming of lakes that do not exist in the present is foolishness.
It’s NOT about the naming of lakes, Dr. Holroyd. Please read my letter of March 14 carefully.
They may not have existed in the past either. I have photographed from the air Navajo Mountain and the
Henry Mountains. They show no ancient shoreline etchings like those produced by Lake Bonneville. That is
possible strong evidence against such lakes upstream from the Grand Canyon.
I suggest you also carefully read Dr. Brown’s 36-page chapter where he addresses this issue. (See
www.creationscience.com/onlinebook/GrandCanyon.html.) The hydraulic mechanism that uplifted
the Colorado Plateau is the key. But this hydraulic mechanism presupposes the Hydroplate Theory
(HPT), which explains what happened before, during, and after the flood, and where the flood water
came from and where it went. It corresponds to the Bible in every detail. The HPT also explains the
rapid formation of 25 major features of the earth, including the Rocky Mountains (and the world’s
other mountains) being buckled up in hours, the slow uplift of the Colorado and other plateaus, all of
which are next to major mountain ranges—and then the eroding of Grand Canyon in weeks.
This is another reason for my letter. Austin’s and ICR’s actions have not only blocked people from
the best explanation for the Grand Canyon, but they have also hindered people from hearing the only
biblically and scientifically sound explanation for the global flood of Noah. I find it “disgusting” that
Austin and ICR will publically slander Dr. Brown’s work with statements like, “His [Brown’s] ideas
look very impressive to someone not trained, but believe me, they are utterly laughable to one who
has any training in geoscience.”, while Austin had plagiarized Dr. Brown’s major discoveries about
the Grand Canyon. Dr. Holroyd, please tell me this disgusts you too.
The elevations are not that critical, either.
Office: 5751 Bethel Rd. SE, Port Orchard Mail: P.O. Box 151, Port Orchard, WA 98366
T: (360) 876-7288 F: (360) 876-7407 www.calvarypo.org
5
Lea Response to Holroyd 3-19-08 March 19, 2008
I agree and Brown agrees. Brown’s elevation being slightly different than yours is not the issue.
However, the fact that Austin used Brown’s elevation instead of yours provided compelling evidence
that Austin plagiarized Brown’s work (despite his pathetic song-and-dance excuse about how he
changed your 1700 meters to 5700 feet). Following mediation, Austin then renames the lake and
changes the elevation to 5800 feet (Austin’s published Note 62). Plagiarization (not lake elevation)
is the issue when it keeps people from the best information —including understanding the flood
of Noah and the remarkable accuracy of Genesis 1-11.
The weight of Lake Bonneville depressed the center of the region such that present elevations of the ancient
shorelines are at a variety of heights above the present Great Salt Lake. Any use of the modern DEM for
shoreline positions for massive lakes in the past cannot be accurate.
I totally agree with you.
Your attachment brings up the topic about how could water breach the Kaibab Uplift anyway. Dr. Austin
suggested that I pay attention to the cave systems in the Redwall and Muav Limestone layers. From the
geologic maps I saw numerous Breccia Pipes and Collapse Structures related to such caves. The Park Service
did not want actual cave locations to be made common public knowledge. As I examined my DEM data I
noticed that the western shore of the proposed lakes would approximately match the top of the limestone
layers. That means that water could possibly be piped through the limestone, providing channels for an
eventually catastrophic collapse through which the Colorado River now passes. I never published such
research. I worried about the shallow average gradient of flows across so many horizontal miles of strata.
Your worry was justified, and you were wise to not publish your thought about how “water could
breach the Kaibab Uplift.” Had you done so, Christians would have read your book and marched into
their college classrooms with this untenable idea. Then their professors would have made them (and
you) look like fools. Then the student might stumble in their faith, and it would be your fault. So
you should be glad that Austin and AiG’s museum displays make this error and not you.
I would like to see strong resistance to this seeking of earthly glory.
I don’t care (nor does Dr. Brown) who gets credit for the canyon formation idea; I do care that the
information is correct and complete. We all should resist seeking earthly glory. We all should also
seek the truth, especially when the truth could help countless people better understand the flood, our
Lord’s awesome power, and the accuracy of His word.
Kevin Lea
Pastor, Calvary Church of Port Orchard
Copies to:
1. Mike Matthews, Editor, Answers Magazine
2. Institute for Creation Research: Steve Austin, John Morris, Henry Morris III, Larry Vardiman,
Bruce Wood
3. Mark Rasche – formally worked for ICR
4. Peter Robinson, Associate Director and Assistant Professor of Law at Pepperdine University
5. Rob Yardley
Office: 5751 Bethel Rd. SE, Port Orchard Mail: P.O. Box 151, Port Orchard, WA 98366
T: (360) 876-7288 F: (360) 876-7407 www.calvarypo.org
6