Science, belief systems should not be mixed

RE: “APS board votes to criticize science curriculum changes,” Oct. 11.

People and groups involved with real science have overwhelmingly criticized the New Mexico Public Education Department’s move to change the language of the Next Generation Science Standards — changing, for example, “4.6 billion year history” to “geologic history.” An equivalent would be for math teachers to teach that two plus two does not always equal four, but perhaps some other number between three and seven if a student likes that answer better.

The APS Board of Education members have also been critical, with the single exception of Peggy Muller-Aragon, who wants to “leave things a little bit open for the other side” and doesn’t want to demean ... those “whose spiritual or religious beliefs align with PED’s curriculum changes.”

Muller-Aragon needs to understand that science doesn’t have “another side” and that science has nothing to do with spiritual or religious beliefs. Science is not a belief system; one does not “believe in science.” Science is a particular, rigorous process used to study the natural world. The introduction of spiritual belief systems or entities takes the study out of the natural world and away from scientific inquiry.

The most basic reason the proposed curriculum changes should be scuttled is that they are not science. In New Mexico, with its worst-in-the-nation schools, watering down the science curriculum is absolutely the last thing that the PED should do. KAY A. SMITH Retired archaeologist Albuquerque