A bill in the Montana state legislature is seeking to ban scientific theories from being taught in the classroom, Montana Public Radio reports.
A hearing this Monday saw more than 20 people testify against Senate Bill 235, saying it could prevent teachers of teaching scientific theories such as evolution.
“If we remove scientific theory from science curriculums, what can be taught will be limited. It is the school’s job to educate its students,” high school sophomore Mia Taylor told the committee.
Republican Senator Daniel Emrich, who is the bill’s sponsor, said the bill will make sure students are taught facts.
“If we operate on the assumption that a theory is fact, unfortunately, it leads us to asking questions that may be potentially based on false assumptions,” Emrich said.
According to the National Center for Scientific Education, scientific understanding “requires both facts and theories that can explain those facts in a coherent manner. Evolution, in this context, is both a fact and a theory. It is an incontrovertible fact that organisms have changed, or evolved, during the history of life on Earth. And biologists have identified and investigated mechanisms that can explain the major patterns of change.”
As of this writing, the committee has not taken any action on the bill.
