Bill would ban the teaching of scientific theories in Montana schools
mtpr.org
mtpr.org
This is the crux of the matter:
> a scientific fact is observable and repeatable, and if it does not meet these criteria, it is a theory that is defined as speculation and is for higher education to explore, debate, and test to ultimately reach a scientific conclusion of fact or fiction.
And once he defined this
> . Requirements for science instruction in schools. (1) Science instruction may not include subject matter that is not scientific fact.
First, he gets words wrong, in science theory means "a carefully thought-out explanation for observations of the natural world that has been constructed using the scientific method, and which brings together many facts and hypotheses" -- source: https://www.fieldmuseum.org/blog/what-do-we-mean-theory-scie...
As for "scientific fact", there's simply no such thing. Source: https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/mind-guest-blog/im-a-sc...
Complete hogwash.
But this is not a scientific fact.
If you use dual meanings for words. Smart people use theory to mean "fact" but politicians use it to mean "hypothesis" then they can discredit things through playing semantic games.
But maybe this is just an idiosyncrasy of evolutionary biologists, I'm not familiar enough with other fields. But then again there are all of those mathematical "theories" like group theory, number theory, set theory, game theory, and on and on. Not sure how to categorize these.
Point is we (scientists/scientific communicators) often make this hardline distinction between the meaning of "theory" and "hypothesis" but regularly break our own rule.
"Theory" has a different meaning in mathematics than in science.
Stories like this are a good reminder of the excesses perpetrated in our red hinterlands.
The dog whistle in Emrich's statement is how he talks about scientific facts and theories. He's aiming for Darwin and he's got a little Intelligent Design in his back pocket.
These guys are nut jobs scoring points by attacking science class. And I'm not saying "trust science" here. I'm saying science is theory upon theory, and the best ones have a lot of support in fact. Emrich lacks the brains to grok that, or at least he pretends to.
I don't really see how. Evolution is a "scientific fact" according to his definition, and creation is not.
I would have guessed it is aimed at one or all of: the trans movement; federal politicians and bureaucrats declaring that they are the science or their policies are; and maybe global warming (which is observable and repeatable, but potentially easier to attack because of the nature of its predictions).
"I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's time -- when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness...
The dumbing down of American is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30 second sound bites (now down to 10 seconds or less), lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance."
- Carl Sagan
Texas does shit like this all the time, as do other southern states, and the local govt of any person reading this might be next. This is absolutely representative of a pattern of the celebration of ignorance in the US. The only thing left to do is acknowledge it and do something about it.
This idiot didn't even get a bill passed - he just submitted one. From the look of things, his district's got about 7000 people in it, and being modern America, there's probably a ~couple percent swing in either direction at play in any election, so this idiot managed to convince maybe a couple hundred other people in Montana that he was the best option - and who knows, the other guy might've been an even bigger idiot.
I agree, there are troubling trends in the country, and I agree that those trends require action. But this idiot isn't a trend, he's an idiot, and no matter how much action we take and how much success we have, there'll always be another idiot out there, proudly crowing their idiocy. My point is that spending any time at all letting your dander get up because an idiot said an idiot thing is wasting time and energy you could better use on other things.
More broadly stated - I get my dander up when the house and senate pass a bill that the president signs. I get my dander up when the state of Texas bans abortions, and the Supreme court upholds it. I get my dander up when the Alameda County Sheriff blows a $300M budget and still neglects inmates to death. But I'll be damned if I'm going to waste my dander on some jackass state senator grandstanding in rural Montana. I've got better things to spend my time on, and so do you.
What is happening is that the Montana University System Board of Regents serve a 7 year term. The previous governor had two terms in office, and so he appointed the entire board of regents. He was "purple" in so far that "purple" means he lied to the populace to try and pretend he wasn't as left leaning as he actually is. One place this lie wore thin was with the MUS Board of Regents, which are not revocable and wield near-absolute power in the University system, as defined by the Montana constitution. His regent picks were as hard left as possible. In addition to that, Bozeman and Missoula, the homes of the two major campuses in the state, have attracted a huge influx of Californians/Coloradans, drastically driving up the cost of living, meaning both U of M and MSU have astronomical cost of attendance, despite being subsidized state schools.
The end result of all this is that the current political climate is that Missoula and Bozeman are not at all representative of the rest of the state, as evidenced by the overwhelming Republican victories in the last couple elections, but the newly elected state legislature and governor are unable to change the University policies quickly enough for their liking.
There are currently multiple thrusts in the state legislature to reign in the universities, with challenges over guns on campus, challenges against the public union (mostly made up by teachers and graduate students) and challenges over budget. All of these are designed simply to wield power over the Board.
By my estimation, the MUS Board of Regents are effectively unelected tyrants who are doing the state a great disservice. And their behavior begets crap like this. (Which is also stupid and awful). These are the types of stupid games we get to play when there's no direct accountability. Anyways, until the Board of Regents is more in-touch with the average Montanan (who are not from Missoula or Bozeman) and trying to solve problems relevant to Montana, this unfortunate lose-lose war will continue.
The row precipitated over a ballot initiative that gave Montanans the right to carry firearms on public property, including college campuses. The ballot initiative instructed the legislature to craft law outlining this. The legislature worked with the colleges for months coming up with a number of compromises in exchange for the university system not fighting the bill. After the bill was passed (remember, it was mandated by a direct public ballot initiative), the unelected Board of Regents sued to stop it on the grounds that they have complete authority over all policy on state campuses. The legislate argues that state law (and the state constitution gaurantees a right to bear arms) supercedes it. There have since been a number of minor skirmishes, while that main case is tied up in court. This is an attempt by the legislature to further erode the constitutional clause governing public education being seperately governed.
Had the Board of Regents respected the ballot initiative, this likely would not be getting introduced, because the House leaders would have stopped it.
Tyrannical seems like a stretch?
How are these regents “hard left”?
How did the regents somehow attract “ a huge influx of Californians/Coloradans”?
Aren’t cost of living issues a local issue around these campuses, at least as far as housing goes? Montana can’t be short on space…
And what does any of that have to do with the bill in question? The bill is about k-12 education.
there is an influx of people for sure (just go check Wikipedia population numbers, esp. for towns mentioned) and it has nothing to do with the regents (and I don't think the parent said that)
habitable space, at least in bozeman, is very tight because you're bounded by the Gallatin Valley, everything outside has little to none infrastructure to accommodate any meaningful incoming number of people, same situation as the SFBA - there is plenty of cheap space in central valley but people pay 1.5m+ to live right in sf.
don't have enough info to vouch for the whole story, but sounds believable
Rural populations have been moving to suburban size towns for a long time now.
I’m saying that any population increase doesn’t support any given theory. There can be all sorts of reasons for population changes.
Like what?
It's nothing like SFBA, there are miles and miles of open land inside Gallatin Valley, all around Belgrade, Four Corners, and Manhattan.
If you meant that it's:
>everything outside [Bozeman] has little to none infrastructure to accommodate any meaningful incoming number of people
Then they can build it, because there is plenty of land. Outside SFBA in Central Valley, they are building tons in Tracy and Manteca, and that's separated by long unbuildable terrain, unlike west of Bozeman.
All Dem donors, all enacting policies at the schools that are widely considered "left" policies.
> How did the regents somehow attract “ a huge influx of Californians/Coloradans”?
By catering strongly to out-of-state students (presumably because the schools make more of them). Both U of M and MSU are at all time high out-of-state enrollment.
> Aren’t cost of living issues a local issue around these campuses, at least as far as housing goes? Montana can’t be short on space…
Yes. What you aren't considering is that Montana is big enough that if you don't live in the local valleys, you can't go to the school. The commutes are too long and too treacherous from outside the valleys. By taking both record freshman classes for the last few years, and record out of state students, plus the pandemic meaning Californians fleeing California anyways, cost of living in Bozeman and Missoula has skyrocketed, and campus housing is impossible to get.
Also, due too Montana's low population, tax revenue is low, money is especiay scarce, and now the local, taxpayer colleges are completely out of reach for most Montanans. I cannot describe with words how different the college towns like Bozeman and Missoula are from most of the state, which are places like Harlowtown or Havre. They are so unbelievably different, they might as well be on different planets.
> And what does any of that have to do with the bill in question? The bill is about k-12 education.
It's aimed specifically at the Montana Federation of Public Employees, and the Board, as described in the article:
>A legal note from legislative staff says the bill could overstep the Board of Public Education’s constitutional authority to oversee schools in the state.
It is another front to fight this war that is attempting to erode the Board's power.
What policies?
There's obviously multiple deficiencies of logic there.
Montana is a low population state (1.1 Million in 2021). If Missoula and Bozeman are growing as much as you say they are (" a huge influx of Californians/Coloradans") won't that have some effect on who the "average Montanan" is?
Except that scientific facts are not democratic; they exist as they are, regardless of your or my opinion, I've never seen scientific theory presented as anything but "this is the current most effective explanation of the facts", and academic freedom is a subset of protected free speech.
Politicians should not be even in the same continent as setting curricula.
This is a general assertion that "regent picks were as hard left as possible", without the slightest bit of context as to the actual meaning of that statement. What "hard left" policies are they pursuing? Or is it just as "hard left as possible" in the context of an entirely anti-science right-wing caucus, meaning that they still have a slight tether to reality? (and sorry, but the entire basis of right wing rhetoric has been entirely anti-science and anti-education for the past decade; there is zero credibility there.)
Let us be clear: In a democracy, all of the institutions of a society are independent, starting with the legislative, executive, and judicial branches of govt, and also the societal components of the press, academy, industry, religion, charity, etc.
In an autocracy, all of these societal institutions are coerced and restructured to bend to the will of the executive or religious leaders.
This is nothing less than a key component of a broad attempt to destroy democracy.
Stop trying to justify it; it makes you look like an autocrat.
Yet how is it that you are here publicly writing and posting multiple paragraphs defending the existence and authors of a bill that would ban teaching scientific theories?
There is little that is more anti-scientific than attempting to ban science.
Whatever local politics may have lead to this, the larger and most relevant context is that the right wing in this country and internationally is making a major anti-science push, against every part of science from evolution to vaccines, in the interest of installing quasi- or actual Christo-fascist governments.
This bill is part and parcel of that push, and no local politics, however heinous, can excuse that; yet here you are attempting to excuse it.
Failing to recognize the borader anti-science context and not wholly objecting to it (despite some perceived positives regarding your resented board of regents) quite obscures and contradicts your scientific background and achievements. The appearance is that your local political outlook is more core to your being than all your laudable scientific work, to the point that it is not even evident that you did any.
I must be missing the part where I'm defending it. Perhaps a reading comprehension issue on my side? I'm pointing out that with the Board's actions, this type of reaction from the legislature was predictable. And all the Board had to do was act differently and they could have avoided it. How is that a defense of this bill? In my very first comment, I end with the term "lose-lose". The way the Board acted was bad - they overturned a public ballot initiative and claimed they have no public recourse. Obviously the way legislature reacted is also bad. Hence the term "lose-lose".
>This bill is part and parcel of that push, and no local politics, however heinous, can excuse that; yet here you are attempting to excuse it.
You've provided no evidence for this claim. I've provided substantial evidence to the contrary.
OK, 1) pointing out that both houses, the Gov, and Exec suite are all Repubs does not lead to the conclusion that it cannot pass, but increases it's liklihood (unless something unspecified and unusual is going on). 2) "MUS Board of Regents ... are doing the state a great disservice. And their behavior begets crap like this. That sounds an awful lot like "what skirt was she wearing"?
To your credit, you do also say "Which is also stupid and awful". But the whole thing is effectively excusing the existence of this bill, as if it were a trivial annoying response to some local/state issue, when it in fact is part o a global movement to install Christofascism and destroy science for all time.
Maybe you're not intending to defend it, but the result is that you certainly are at best, framing it as trivial rather than the serious issue that it is. and that amounts to at least a weak defense of a voice permitting it to continue to exist, rather than directly opposing it.
Evidence? I've been following this for years. Just type "antiscience aggression movement" into DDG and start scrolling. Here's a few of the first results [0,1,2,3].
We are already effectively in a hot war with global authoritarian movements, not only in Ukraine, but also in locally and foreign-pushed attempts to undermine the democracy at home.
A key component of democracy is the independence of all key institutions, the govt executive, legislative, and judicial branches, but also the academy, industry, religion, commerce, localities, charities, etc.
Under Authoritarianism, all of these institutions are coerced and/or corrupted to serve the will of the ruling executive or religion.
Ending science (which requires independent thought) and reigning in the Academy under the rule of the state are two of these components.
You may see this as just a local tempest in a teapot, just as people might see local gerrymandering as just a local issue.
But, make no mistake: both the anti-science bill and the corralling the university leadership moves are just part of this much larger goal of implementing and consolidating authoritarian power.
Your Regents are not playing offense, but defense, and your hot tempest is just one ember in the global fire.
[0] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-antiscience-m...
[1] https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2020/10/what-caused-t...
[2] https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/jou...
[3] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/antiscience-belie...
You think evolution is a hoax? Fine, so teach your own damn kids how to pass the class taught by heathens. You think signing the national anthem before class is cringy? Fine, so make fun of it at home and record parody videos.
My point is, not everyone is going to agree about everything, but I wish we all had a bit more practice getting along.
This idea that we can cleanly separate a theory from a fact and only teach students absolute truth is dangerous and goes against the critical thinking skills we all need to progress and learn.
https://leg.mt.gov/bills/2023/billpdf/SB0235.pdf
The key part is this:
"WHEREAS, a scientific fact is observable and repeatable, and if it does not meet these criteria, it is a theory that is defined as speculation and is for higher education to explore, debate, and test to ultimately reach a scientific conclusion of fact or fiction."
So, Newton's Laws would seem to be okay to teach because it's observable and repeatable despite being superseded by more complete theories. And in the other direction, creationism would not be okay to teach despite not being falsifiable.
This actually seems pretty reasonable in spirit to me. The real mistake is ironically trying to define scientific theory and scientific fact.
Sure there might be edge cases where extremists or politically motivated people on all sides would be unhappy they can't push their pet ideas, the body of well proven science is so vast that there is no shortage of useful material to teach students under those definitions.
Starting out teaching celestial mechanics to kids is never going to work.
By the time you get to reasonable (non-crackpot) scientific theories to teach that do not fall into repeatable and observable definitions (e.g., string theory), you're far beyond high school. It's not like they'll be missing out on vital science education because they're not being taught those theories. And there doesn't seem to be anything against teaching the scientific method or the the existence of superseded, unproven, disproven, etc., theories.
I'm not saying anything about the motives, politicking, or wording in the bill, and I'm no expert in how the legal system could interpret it. Just saying, from a layperson's reading and assuming good faith (which is obviously never a good idea when dealing with a politician), it doesn't look like a horrible bill. And I am inviting people who know more about law or the local courts and politics etc to shoot down those assumptions, I wasn't trying to state it as a fact of how the law would play out if passed, although my comment might have been a little strong in giving that impression.
Earthquake in Turkiye and Sudan this week: observable, not repeatable. I claim that the earthquake did happen. Is that fact or theory?
We don't like central planning.
Many do not want Montana lawmaker influence anywhere near their child’s education standards and vice versa.
Between all that, one layer of government having standards is not always as meaningful or decisive as one might think.
One of the key tenets is therefore that governing is left to the states if there isn't a compelling reason that it needs to be done at a national level.
Things like national defense and regulating interstate commerce can only be done nationally, so they are.
But education is actually one of the classic examples in a federal system where it's hard to argue a compelling reason for nationalization. To the contrary, it's argued that if states are free to experiment then they can come up with better education standards and copy each other organically. But they can also tailor education to meet their local cultural values and history.
Of course, more and more things have become "nationalized" over the past century just because it's more efficient and less complicated. But wow do people argue about it.
In combination with financing schools through property taxes, we've got a recipe for disaster.
At face value it seems to be a misunderstanding by a legislator of the difference between the lay definition of the word “theory” and the usage of that word in scientific contexts. More likely, there is some behind the scenes fight going on and a silly sounding law is being proposed to fight it.
However the article is stuck in the trope that Republicans are all theocratic bumpkins that despise knowledge; I can’t take that seriously as characterizing your political opponents as evil or stupid is the oldest form of propaganda.
But at face value, outlawing the teaching of well established scientific theory in science class is exactly the sort of thing you'd do if you were a theocratic bumpkin who despised knowledge.
If the shoe fits /s
But seriously, trying to restrict education is what republicans are trying to do. There’s no way around that. They’re limiting what can be taught for some sort of political gain. Not every republican voter is a bumpkin of course, but a large chunk of republican state legislators are fighting very public battles to rewrite textbooks. Some of which have a religious bent, implicitly or explicitly.
At face value, yes looks a misunderstanding over the word “theory”. But is it, or is it using this vague definition to disrupt science? Why was this bill introduced at all, that’s the real question. Does the senator think that students should spend more time in science learning about gravity instead of magic… or perhaps less time on “the theory of evolution”.
The bills sponsor explicitly is anti-vaccine and pro-Christian-education, and has said that more of “religious facts” should be taught in school. So I would guess this was not an honest mistake to force schools to teach “real facts” instead… but to exploit scientific nomenclature of “theories” to interrupt honest and accurate education.
There is no equivalency. The leaders are cynically broadcasting anti-science and pandering to anti-science stupidity. This is so bad that they are literally killing their own constituents by the hundreds of thousands [0][1]+++.
It is not demonization, it is literal truth. attempting to say otherwise is false equivalence.
[0] https://ysph.yale.edu/news-article/study-finds-large-gap-in-...
[1] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/people-in-republi...
They should also teach basic accounting. (It really isn't hard, it's not much more than adding and subtracting. People really ought to know the difference between "profit" and "revenue", as they are often conflated.)
Teaching about free markets is like teaching about spherical cows. But this isn't really on-topic.
Thanks for illustrating my point that people in American classrooms should be taught about it.
More to the point, in my experience the people who say free markets are some crazy extremist unworkable ideology tend to have very strange ideas about what it is. For a typical example, they'll claim a free market requires "perfect information", which is completely false. (Imperfect information is called "risk" and is factored into prices.)
Spherical cows aren't useless though. Unless of course you mistake the map for the territory.
As with everything in economics one side thinks the other is dangerously simplifying whilst they themselves are fully aware of the nuance.
I don't have the time, energy or expertise to marshal the evidence but I don't know anyone with all their marbles that thinks that an utterly unbounded free market with no restraints would be a good thing. I don't think you believe that either.
Teach them about bailouts as well.
What should a teacher answer when someone makes the point that Boeing is the only airliner manufacturer in the country?
One answer is that it is so expensive to develop a new airliner, and so expensive to set up a production line for it (each one is pretty much a "bet the company" thing), and the market for airliners is so limited, that there isn't room for many manufacturers.
As for bailouts, Boeing's competitor Airbus is funded by the European taxpayers.
This topic is more suitable for college level. In grade school, simply dissecting how a lemonade stand works is good for starters.
This is less the fault of scientists and more the fault of science writers in the media. This should not be a part of the debate when it comes to public policy like this.
What he's saying:
> The legislation’s sponsor says by banning scientific theories, the policy aims to prevent kids from being taught things that aren’t true.
Is a talking point from the Creationist playbook. I wouldn't be surprised if evolution and biology was the only impacted curriculum. It of course is based on the (intentional) misunderstanding of what is meant in casual English as a "Theory" (i.e. an unproven hypothesis) versus what is referred to in scientific lingo as a "Theory" (i.e. the accepted model of how things work, because it makes excellent predictions).
These people need to have this explained to them in a public forum, and forced to explain why they insist on pushing an incorrect view of the issue.
In this country, you can't force a politician to explain anything. He probably knows he's full of shit, but he's tied his traincar to winning the culture war.
These days, seems like they have no shame. Double down, repeat the BS. Shout louder than your opposition.
s/religion/a particular interpretation of the first few pages of Genesis/
Yes, people can 'creativly' interpret data, and put their biases into it. But the cure for that is ..... more science. More research. More testing, more theories. Form concensus. Critically evaluate outliers or non-mainstream results or ideas, don't just dismiss it. Don't let folks dismiss science + research becuase they don't agree with it, or it's politically or religiously inconvinent. Teach the process, and ask them to defend their position with provable data.