Dinosaurs loom large in Montana politics
HELENA, MONT. Dinosaurs have roared into Montana’s race for governor with a renowned paleontologist who consulted with Steven Spielberg on the Jurassic Park movies saying the Republican candidate would spend taxpayer money on private schools that teach creationism and mislead children about how old Earth is.
A new television ad features former Montana State University paleontologist Jack Horner saying candidate Greg Gianforte thinks the Earth is only a few thousand years old. Horner says Gianforte supports using taxpayer money to fund “private schools that obscure the truth about dinosaurs and the age of the Earth.”
“He’ll say I’m attacking his religion — I’m not,” Horner says in the ad. “We just need to make sure that our kids learn the truth. I’d think twice about voting for Greg Gianforte.”
Gianforte, a Bozeman technology entrepreneur who is making his first run for political office, is in a tight race against incumbent Democratic Gov. Steve Bullock. Gianforte campaign spokesman Aaron Flint on Wednesday called the ad silly and said it misrepresents Gianforte’s strong support of public schools and teachers.
“From his personal support of Code Montana, computer science in every high school, support for more trades education and more — Greg is proposing increasing investments in our public schools once he’s elected governor,” Flint said.
Gianforte does not have an opinion on the Earth’s age, Flint said. Regarding Gianforte’s views on evolution, Flint forwarded a comment made last year by Gianforte in which he said, “I believe young people should be taught how to think, not what to think, and a diversity of views are what should be presented.”
The ad is funded by a new political action committee called Montanans for Truth in Public Schools, a group whose spending was part of a state-by-state analysis given to The Associated Press by the Center for Public Integrity, a non-profit news organization. It aired over the weekend in the Billings, Bozeman and Missoula markets.
The committee’s treasurer, Adrian Cohea, said the group is concerned Gianforte would promote teaching creationism and intelligent design alongside evolution.
“The purpose of the group is to educate the public about Gianforte’s desire to use public dollars to fund private schools that may be teaching methodologies in evolution that are at odds with scientific consensus,” Cohea said.
Documents obtained by The Associated Press show the group is funded by 12 donors. Its two largest donors are television broadcasting pioneer Joe Sample and real estate developer Alan Nicholson.
Gianforte has refused to talk about his religion, and it has not been a major issue in the campaign. He attends and helped build an expansion to Grace Bible Church in Bozeman and has donated millions to religious organizations in the U.S. and Africa, tax records released by Gianforte last year show.
The tax records show Gianforte’s foundation also donated $290,000 to a museum that holds the creationist view that humans and dinosaurs coexisted.
Horner, one of the world’s bestknown dinosaur researchers, left Montana State University’s Museum of the Rockies over the summer. Michael Crichton based the character Alan Grant on Horner in the 1990 book Jurassic Park, and Steven Spielberg brought Horner on as a technical adviser on all of the Jurassic Park movies.
Horner declined to comment Wednesday, saying the ad speaks for itself.