>

While your point still stands, in reality evolution refers only to change, not improvement.
The legislation’s sponsor says by banning scientific theories, the policy aims to prevent kids from being taught things that aren’t true.

I think I have to go sit down for a while. I don't know how to process such an absurd sentence. I don't understand how there are adults, who were voted into office, in this world, in this time period, who...
We have passed peak IQ. We're done. >

I feel like I read that IQ did peak in the 90s because of CO2 in the atmosphere. I can't find it now though so don't treat that like a fact or anything. Good thing I'm not in Montana. >

Well no, it's a hypothesis. It would be difficult proving a causal link with so many confounding variables. >

Now, I ain't no country chicken, and I'm not a city lawyer.  I do however, know for a fact, that when two men sit down together to share a casual link at breakfast, it by no means has to be Jimmy Dean, and I can call those men homophrodites.  It is well within my rights under the first commandment to throw stones at those who have sinned.  I rest my face. >

This feels so Futurama >

Exactly ~~what~~ where I was ~~ripping off~~ drawing inspiration from! >

Maybe they should require a GED to hold public office in Montana? >

Lauren Bobert has entered the chat. >

Only took her what, three tries?
Still better than McCarthy's speaker vote! >

The fact she won at all. And the won reelection is why I've lost all faith in humanity. >

The fact that she barely won in my Uber conservative district, restored my faith in humanity. >

This is what a lot of people don't get.  They redistricted to what should have been a more favorable demographic and she baaaaaarely won.  Lots of people regardless of political affiliation hate her.  I was not amused when I realized that my rep was now her after the redistricting.  Fuck that bitch, hopefully we can muster enough people next time around. >

How is it still legal to "redistrict" an area to affect election outcomes? I ask out of genuine curiosity, as a non-American. I'm pretty sure that can't be done where I am from. >

State legislatures draw the districts on maps. They are told how many districts they have to draw bu the federal Congress. Then partisan legislators try to draw as many 51% districts that they can for their side while packing as many of their opponents into a single district that they can. So whoever wins the most state legislature seats wields a lot of power when we do a census and redistrict every 10 years. >

That sounds sketchy as hell. >

That's because it is. >


The bill is sponsored by freshman Republican Senator Daniel Emrich from Great Falls. In his testimony, Emrich said the bill would make sure students are taught what a scientific fact is.  
"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.

Emrich stringing words together will no basic understanding of the scientific method. >

Some Dem should agree with him and insist on an addition that requires that all schools should have to teach that no religion has any basis in provable fact. After all, we don't want our children being taught information that can't be proven, now do we? >

But the Bible says ... >

Well, if it's in the Bible, then it must be true!  How do we know this?  Well, the Bible says so!  Q.E.D. >

And thus God vanished in a puff of logic. (There’s some Douglas Adams quote that goes after the QED). >

Then man went on to prove that black is white and got himself killed at the next zebra crossing. >

Not living in the UK, it took me YEARS to realize "zebra crossing" is a name for the marked off pedestrian crossing lanes.
I thought he was trampled by hooves. >

I missed the joke that Ford had misidentified the dominant species on earth and that's why he called himself Ford Prefect.  A Prefect is a car model only in the UK. >

"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
Clearly he has no idea what the definition of scientific theory is, what it does, how it is arrived at and how science advances by the repeated examination of theories works. He could probably do with a good BA degree, if he could get into college that is. >

We learned the scientific method in middle school on the East coast. I had no idea what kind of weaponized ignorance we were up against until this day. >

If we consider the theory of gravity in our calculations, we might be making a false assumption. Better to not get involved in anything requiring the understanding of falling objects. >

I’ll let go of an anvil over him. After all, it’s just a theory the anvil will fall downwards, for all we know it could fall upwards. >

This is actually true. There is no guarantee that gravity isn't a force that changes polarity every 2 trillion years or something. >

Right, but scientific theories are there to help us predict what will happen. And the odds of gravity changing in such a way would be incomprehensible small and not even worth considering. >

Maybe, if gravity was a particle's position at a given time.  It's not.  It's a fundamental force.  Also that's not strictly the purpose of a theory.  A theory is just the best explanation of a phenomenon based on all possible information.  Yes, some parts of a theory will be refined over time but it's not suddenly going to be false because chance. >

I recommend him climbing a tall ladder and testing out the "theory of gravity" and tell us what he thinks afterwards. >

Parachute use has not been shown to decrease deaths. So he should not use a parachute when he skydives. >

This is the funniest paper ive ever read >

There is a radiology paper that I read a long time ago that quantified different sayings for frequency. Something like “once in a blue moon” means 1.4% of the time. I wish that I had saved it. >

Some cursory research did not locate this article. damn it sounds hilarious >

It’s one of my greatest professional regrets that I did not copy the paper that I held in my hands. >

Man, this Bill guy sounds like an asshole. >

Honestly, who is this Bill guy? I hear about him pretty often and he tends to have a lot of bad ideas. Not sure why the media pays him so much attention. >

By that logic then, I would assume that they are ok with banning religion in all forms in schools as that is just a bunch of shit you can’t prove 100%. >

I’ve heard people claim that the Bible is the basis for science, or is some great scientific resource. So if they want to ban scientific theories and they maintain the Bible is a valid scientific theory for our origin… >

Oh believe me, these groups are Olympians when it comes to mental gymnastics.
It will simultaneously be regarded as scientific fact and be allowed in schools because it's somehow also beneficial to the students.
I legitimately cannot think how they'd try to defend it but I know they'll find a way. >

simple: "it's the absolute word of god and this country was built as a christian nation."
you don't even have to equate it with the scientific theory thing, you side step it entirely with that 'gem' of reasoning. all you have to do is state something undeniably popular with people who don't think much, then it becomes the 'retort' to the argument you side-stepped. >

Great Falls? Jackass is from My city?! Already loathed Montana Republican class traitors and carpetbaggers but now it's personal! >

Take his seat!!!!! 😈 >

If I still lived there, I'd be bloody tempted to try! Great Falls should be better. Someone should get the trout to vote. >

I’m really no longer surprised to see republicans striving to bring the US into the dark ages. >

It is funny, because their European dark ages were happening during the Islamic Golden Era. Probably mad they had to learn Arabic numbers. >

There was no european dark age. The so called dark ages were called that by historians during the rennaissance who wanted to set themselves as better than the times before them. >

Even the Medieval age in Europe had churches and monasteries dedicated to archival and often scientific research. The fact that some people in power in modern America have stooped lower than that is both ironic and sad. >

I'm low key laughing at the concept of them taking this and running with it in the scientific sense. Given that a "theory" is actually the body of evidence that supports factual findings and explains a mechanism by which those phenomena function, the bill wouldn't ban the phenomena, but ban teachers from explaining how it works. 
Biology:
"Yes students. This will be on the test; Evolution of species is a phenomena that has been observed and is considered to be the reason that humanity and life is in its current form."
"But wait professor, we know that evolution is factual and observable reality, but how does it work?"
"Well, it works via a mechanism called Natural Selection theory of evolution, but explaining how things work is illegal, so I cannot teach you how natural selection works. Now, onto the next subject. I can tell you the phenomena, that people are able to become ill, become sick, and die. But because theory is, again, the body of evidence that explains an observed phenomena, I'm not allowed to teach germ theory, which gets into the concepts of pathogens and microbiological organisms."
"Does that mean we don't have to wash our hands anymore?"
"No. You still have to wash your hands. The Republicans just made it a felony to explain why you have to wash your hands."
Geology:
"Alright class. For your test next week we need you to remember the observable phenomena, that continents move and are not in the same place that they were millions of years ago. They continue to move as well. You will also need to know that mountains can form, and so can crevasses, usually in the ocean."
"But professor, why do those things happen? Surely the mountains don't just spring out of nowhere? Is it a mystery?
"Oh not at all. It's a well known and studied body of evidence that explains it, called the Plate Tectonic theory. But Republicans made it illegal to teach people how things work. So you have to know that it happens, but I cannot teach you how it works anymore."
Physics:
"Alright, it's very important for everyone to know this. There are many observable phenomena in the world of physics. Most well known is the fact that things fall towards the earth when you drop them."
"Oh! Professor, I know what that is! It's called gravity!"
"Well, it's possible that it's gravity. However, Gravitational theory, the body of evidence that explains how it works, is illegal for me to teach you. Science has long established how it works, measured it and have worked to apply it to nearly every facet of your life. Nothing you can experience is divorced from the facts that it has established. However, because of Republican education, your education will begin and end at "things fall, don't ask why". >

Physicist here: there’s something you’re messing up in this analogy a bit. A physical or mathematical theory isn’t the same thing as a philisophical theory, which is what all of the other examples are. A physical theory is a mathematical framework which produces some predictions based on a set of assumptions. Physical theories can be proposed to describe some phenomenon, but it’s not necessary to earn the name “theory”. 
Often, a mathematical framework is developed to describe some phenomenon and it’s discovered that the candidate phenomenon is not observable for some reason. The status of the theory here described is not jeaprodized by that fact, technically. 
Tldr: the definition you learn in school/see on wikipedia might be fine for most popular references e.g. theory of evolution, but theory means different things in different contexts. It’s a matter of some controversy that “theory”, “law”, and “hypothesis” are so heavily influenced in primary/secondary education. >

Okay, gotcha, I appreciate the correction. So if we wanted to correct the "Physics Class" analogy to accurately show the point I'm trying to make, what would that dialogue look like instead? >


The bill is sponsored by freshman Republican Senator Daniel Emrich from Great Falls. In his testimony, Emrich said the bill would make sure students are taught what a scientific fact is.

Wonder what church he goes to. >

Church of Christian Facts >

Christian Fascists >

Text of the bill here.
In short, he wants to ban any discussion of science from science class by censoring "scientific theories" (eg. evolution, relativity, gravity, motion, germs, etc), forcing MT teachers only to discuss "scientific facts", which literally are not a thing. 🤔 >

He didn’t finish high school, so that probably explains why he doesn’t know what a science class is. >

From his FB profile:
"Hi i am Daniel Were to start. I love to spend time with friends and family, I'm christian and proud of it,I love the out doors i like soccer basketball volleyball hunt fish camp love to have fun. I don't want to get to the end of my life and find i lived the length of it but not the width the depth or the breath of my life."
Next he's gonna want to ban grammar, spelling and punctuation from English class I bet. >

My "Republicans are Stupid Theory" is being proven by this assclown.  It shall now be taught as "Republicans are Stupid, FACT. " >

This is a veiled attempt to try to get creationism taught in schools. One of the attacks creationists make against evolution is that it's a theory and not a fact. They completely misunderstand the concept of scientific theory, or willfully misrepresent what it is to try to sway the under educated. >

Yep, this is just « Intelligent Design » in another package. >

The guy's facebook page is a dumpster fire of anti-vax, anti-"woke", anti-CRT, election denial garbage. From his profile "I'm christian and proud of it". His only experience prior to being elected was as a car salesman. >

For Republicans you don't need experience, just "I'm a proud Christian, and you win support. >

Let’s just ban school.  Off to the mines with the children. >

Effectively, that's what promoting home-schooling, funding Christian private schools and defunding public schools has done. >

Counter Bill: Anyone who is against science, the teaching of science, the educating of people to think for themselves, and/or just any form of kindling logical thought, have to strip naked and go live in the wild as they are against the very foundations our modern society was built upon over the course of many generations of those striving to improve upon it with their minds and as such these people should not be able to enjoy the privileges and benefits of said civilization. >

See also: libertarians. 
And they get mauled by bears and drown in their own trash. >

In his defense, Senator Emrich's existence is a pretty good counter-argument to the theory that man has evolved.