the national interest

Anti-Science Conservatives Unclear on Meaning of the Word Ban

Is it fair that this Senator’s beliefs about science excluded from science books merely because they’re false?

Oregon school board bans books that question climate change,” charges an explosive headline in the Washington Times. There go those intolerant liberals again! Except the story does not actually describe a book ban. It describes a ban on “textbooks and other teaching materials that deny climate change exists or cast doubt on whether humans are to blame.” Which is to say, the school is requiring its science textbooks to teach science rather than pseudoscience. And while this practice can be offensive to conservatives who are fond of this particular variety of pseudoscience, it is not the same thing as banning books. Students are still free to read pseudoscientific tracts on their own — or, for that matter, to read books that teach that the Holocaust never happened or that two plus two equals five.

Conservatives Unclear on Meaning of Word Ban