Clayton Fiscus
Montana didn’t have a creationism bill last year, but they did the year before — see Montana Creationism: A Bill for 2013. As originally drafted, it would have required public schools to teach intelligent design along with evolution. But then it morphed into a Discovery Institute style “academic freedom” bill. It was sponsored by Clayton Fiscus, who was then a new member in the House, and it didn’t go anywhere.
Fiscus’ official photo from his page at the legislature’s website adorns this post. We know what you’re thinking: That man looks like an idiot! But please, dear reader, don’t judge him by his looks — that’s lookism! Here at our humble but enlightened blog, we don’t indulge in such things. We urge you to judge the man by his deeds.
To the delight of drooling creationists everywhere, we found some exciting news about Fiscus in the Independent Record of Helena, Montana. Their headline is ‘Anti-evolution’ bill would protect HS teachers who teach creationism. Here are some excerpts, with bold font added by us:
A Billings legislator has reintroduced a bill that would encourage high school teachers to present evolutionary biology as disputed theory rather than sound science and protect those who teach viewpoints like creationism in the classroom. House Bill 321 is drafted by Republican Clayton Fiscus, who put forward a nearly identical bill in 2013 to “emphasize critical thinking” with regard to controversial scientific theories on the origin of life.
Here’s a link to HOUSE BILL NO. 321. It looks like dozens of others we’ve seen that are modeled on the anti-science, anti-evolution, pro-creationism Academic Freedom Act promoted by the Discovery Institute. We’ve critiqued their model bill here: Curmudgeon’s Guide to “Academic Freedom” Laws.
Leaving out non-essential verbiage, here are the guts of the new bill, with bold font added by us for emphasis:
WHEREAS, academic freedom would provide the opportunity to educate, communicate, and discuss recent discoveries and various claims on the origins of life in our universe; and
WHEREAS, since Darwin’s theory of evolution, fossil discoveries, DNA evidence, random mutation, natural selection, and alternative theories have added additional new information to the discussion on the origins of life; and
WHEREAS, the scientific community is not at all in agreement that current theories, opinions, and beliefs have resolved or answered the questions related to the origins of all life or the origin of our universe; and
WHEREAS, all theories and viewpoints must be allowed if true critical thinking is to be encouraged
BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF MONTANA:
Section 1. Legislative findings — instruction to encourage critical thinking regarding controversial scientific theories.
(1) The legislature finds that: (a) an important purpose of science education is to inform students about scientific evidence and encourage students to develop critical thinking skills necessary for finding answers and becoming intelligent, productive, and scientifically informed citizens about all issues related to the origin of life as we know it today; (b) truth in education about claims over scientific discoveries, including but not limited to biological evolution, the chemical origins of life, random mutation, natural selection, DNA, and fossil discoveries, can cause controversy; and (c) some teachers may be unsure of the expectations concerning how they should present information on these subjects.
(2) The board of public education, the superintendent of public instruction, school district trustees, county and district superintendents, and school principals and administrators are encouraged to create an environment within public elementary and secondary schools that encourages students to explore scientific questions, learn about scientific evidence, develop critical thinking skills, and respond appropriately and respectfully to differences of opinion about controversial issues.
(3) The board of public education, the superintendent of public instruction, school district trustees, county and district superintendents, and school principals and administrators are encouraged to assist teachers in finding effective ways to present the science curriculum as it addresses scientific controversies. Teachers must be permitted to help students understand, analyze, and review in an objective manner the scientific strengths and scientific weaknesses of existing scientific theories covered in the course being taught.
(4) The board of public education, the superintendent of public instruction, school district trustees, county and district superintendents, and school principals and administrators may not prohibit any teacher in a public school system of this state from helping students understand, analyze, and review in an objective manner the scientific strengths and scientific weaknesses of existing scientific theories covered in the course being taught.
(5) This section only protects the teaching of scientific information and may not be construed to promote any religious or nonreligious doctrine, promote discrimination for or against a particular set of religious beliefs or nonbeliefs, or promote discrimination for or against religion or nonreligion.
Yup, it’s a typical Discoveroid Academic Freedom bill — to teach the non-existent weaknesses of non-controversial theories. Okay, back to the article in the Independent Record:
“It’s all bunk,” said Glenn Branch, deputy director for the National Center for Science Education based in Oakland, California. “(Fiscus) thinks that these whole fields are scientifically controversial, and that’s not true.” There is nothing controversial about the biology of evolution, he said. “There are controversies within biological evolution.”
[…]
Branch said the way HB321 is drafted would allow teachers to espouse virtually any belief as scientifically valid, from herbal medicine to geocentric theories of the universe.
Our friends at the National Center for Science Education (NCSE) are on top of the situation. They had an article on the Fiscus bill last week, before the final version was available: Antievolution bill imminent in Montana.
You can follow the progress of the new bill here: HB 321. Nothing’s happened yet. It was introduced on 23 January and referred to the House Education Committee on 26 January. The legislative session convened on 05 January, and it adjourns in “late April.” We’ll be watching.
Copyright © 2015. The Sensuous Curmudgeon. All rights reserved.
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The Sensuous Curmudgeon 
Montana’s new state motto: “We can be just as stupid as all those other states that don’t need no stinkin’ ‘experts’!”
Also, allow me to suggest a modification to your humble blog, SC. Could you add a tag such as “Creationism Bill” or “Academic Freedom Bill” to these articles? I’d love to be able to click on such a tag and see all of the articles you’ve written on other states and how they’ve authored such nonsense. Yes, I realize I can go to the NCSE website, but since I come here for the comments as much as your articles, I’d kinda like to stay here.
Gary suggests:
Your needs have been anticipated. Click on the tab “The Controversy” below the name of the blog. They’re all there, year by year, state by state.
Thanks, SC! That’s EXACTLY what I was talking about!
He does look like he would be perfect for “Green Acres” or “Petticoat Junction”… am I dating myself?
Do all of the state legislatures just go insane every January or is this primarily a Bible Belt phenomenon? It seems there is something new from a different state every day now. Don’t they have more important things to worry about than new and improved ways to poison kids minds? Like maybe teaching social skills that don’t involve guns? The more I see and read and the longer I live , the more I come to the conclusion that religion and the effort to foist unfounded and unsupported belief systems upon people lies at the root of all evil. The world has gone insane. Read or listen to a little of Rachel Maddow’s blog and show in the last two weeks. Some of this stuff would be comical if these weren’t influential people with ours and our children’s futures in their hands.
If you have a little bit of time, and bag of decent popcorn, watch the NCSE Youtube video of highlights of the public discussion of this bill. First, the opening 20 seconds negates a lot of the bad publicity this bill does to the great state of Montana. And second… oh, just watch it!
Ironically, they view disputed (ie falsifiable) theories as weaker somehow than theories which are not open for debate, such as, you know, creationism.
The actual controversies that exist within the subjects of Biology, Geology and Astronomy are way beyond the comprehension of all high school students and even nearly all high school science teachers. It is pointless for students to discuss controversies in scientific theories until they are at least graduate students.
Michealfugate: “He does look like he would be perfect for “Green Acres” or “Petticoat Junction”… am I dating myself?”
Or Buddy Ebsen in his role as Jed “J. D.”(Pa) Clampett in Beverley Hillbillies.
@Stephen Kennedy: I’d take your idea one step further. The controversies are probably not understood until students are in graduate school and concentrate on a specific facet of a specific field. Doc Bill has pointed out time and again that a grad student is most likely at the top of their game. They have to be in order to prep themselves for their PhD. But even then, that means that that grad student, or PhD, or post-doc, can really only seriously speak of any controversy on that same field. So to suggest that your average high school teacher, given all of the other… stuff… they have to do also can be cognizant of anything beyond a glimmer of a portion of a small piece of one fragment of a controversy is, well, ridiculous.
No, the “controversies” are not understood by the students, all the better for the creationists to push their agenda and make their nonsense sound more plausible.
All these bills are attempts to redefine what evidence and theory are, in science. Put a different way they’re going further right, while getting more wrong. At first glance, and at what feels like the 100th glance I’ve taken at this garbage, the words “scientific evidence” shut these bills down from within. Am I as naive as this stuff makes me think I am? Challenging science without the evidence to do so, is a non-starter, isn’t it?
Is Montana usually thought of as “Bible belt”? I ask out of simple ignorance.
I’d like to see what debate, if any, this generates in the Montana legislature. Surely if it ever reaches a committee, or even more, the floor of the House, there has to be someone – maybe not a member, but someone – who’ll tell the truth: that there is no disagreement among scientists as to the material studied in middle or high schools, but that any attempt to smuggle into those schools the establishment of a religious dogma derived from a religious book inevitably violates the First Amendment, and makes any person who causes it or tolerates it subject to legal remedies when plaintiffs sue. To put it bluntly, try it, and it’ll cost you your job and big bucks, and it won’t make a damn’s worth of difference what the State legislature was fool enough to put on the books.
More lookism…He reminds me of the typical unmasked Scooby Doo villain. Representative Fiscus! Trying to force creationism in schools!
Bah, I would have gotten away with it if it hadn’t been for you kids and your dog!
I sometimes wonder if the bicameral legislatures in most states foster this kind of buffonery (on the plus side maybe it is prevented from actually being enacted by having to get double approval). With so many low profile representatives people don’t know what they are voting for.
Oh, the lawsuits I see coming.
Creationists will want to argue that their beliefs, in the form of “intelligent design,” are an “existing scientific theory.” (They’ll pretty much have to gut the meanings of both “scientific’ and “theory” to do it, but hey, why should that stop them?) They will also want the “weaknesses” of evolution stressed while those of creationism are swept under the rug. The very last thing they’ll want is for students to objectively analyze both evolution and creationism. So they’ll try to stack the deck, and it will end up in court, where their track record isn’t good.
And once in court, they’ll trip over Section 5 of the law itself, since it can readily be established (as it has been in past cases) that no matter how strenuously creationists insist their ideas as legitimate science, they’re Genesis in scientific drag. That being so, their very own law would bar the teaching of creationism. snicker