Ken deGraaf

“The scientific method is fundamentally about seeking truth, and it provides a valuable discipline for developing sound economic and social policy while remaining within the bounds of constitutionality. It requires rigor, measurable and falsifiable outcomes, and a willingness to challenge our own assumptions.

Good policy debate should welcome disagreement and competing evidence. When evaluating a hypothesis, the most valuable contribution is not a friendly effort to confirm it, but an honest and determined attempt to disprove it. If a policy cannot withstand that scrutiny, it should not be imposed on the citizens of Colorado.

This approach also helps guard against confirmation bias—the tendency to seek evidence that supports what we already believe while dismissing evidence that contradicts it. Policymakers should actively seek competing data, subject assumptions to rigorous testing, and be willing to revise or reject policies when the evidence demonstrates that they are not achieving their intended outcomes.

Science does not determine constitutional authority or moral truth. But within those boundaries, disciplined inquiry, open debate, and a genuine willingness to be proven wrong are among the best safeguards against ideology masquerading as evidence. Without the rigor of scientific scrutiny, the only outcome we can guarantee is unintended consequences. A rigorous pursuit of truth can help restore the Constitution’s self-evident truths as the foundation for sound public policy.”

“Colorado agriculture should be a model for applying the scientific method to public policy: establish a hypothesis, measure outcomes, challenge assumptions, and expand what works. Farmers and ranchers face water scarcity, rising input costs, and increasing regulatory pressures. Policy should be driven by evidence, not ideology.

Colorado’s wolf reintroduction is a cautionary example. The policy was driven more by an ideological commitment to restoring wolves than by rigorous evaluation of all consequences. Today, both ranchers and wolves are paying the price. That experience reinforces the need to test assumptions before imposing them on Colorado’s communities and ecosystems.

We should instead leverage Colorado’s extraordinary agricultural research. Colorado State University, our premier agricultural university, and organizations such as the Savory Institute are demonstrating that productive ranching and environmental stewardship—including addressing climate concerns—need not be competing objectives. Properly managed livestock can help restore grasslands designed for grazing, improve soil structure and water infiltration, utilize non-arable land for food production, and increase rangeland resilience. CSU research is examining how restorative and adaptive grazing affect soil health, rangeland resistance and resilience, carbon sequestration, and wildfire mitigation. Healthy, carbon-rich soil can function like a sponge, improving water retention and supporting the water cycle.

As a legislator, I would support producer-led research and policies with measurable, falsifiable outcomes. Public resources should follow demonstrated results, not political narratives. When evidence contradicts an assumption, policy should change. Ranching and conservation need not be at odds. Sound science can show where they are mutually beneficial—and good policy should follow the evidence.”

“Colorado should welcome AI innovation while requiring data centers to bear the costs they impose rather than shifting them to existing ratepayers and communities.

My HB26-1246 would have addressed much of the uncertainty by allowing large-load users to generate their own power. That could allow data centers to locate where power can be produced economically rather than concentrating development near existing grid capacity, where they compete with housing and other community needs.

It would also allow us to apply the scientific method to questions about human and animal impacts. Rather than beginning with a politically predetermined conclusion that there is “no impact”—and then forcing costly experimentation to defend that conclusion—we should identify the competing hypotheses, measure outcomes, and allow evidence to determine what impacts actually exist and how significant they are. Noise, vibration, light pollution, water use, and other externalities can be studied objectively and reasonable standards established accordingly.

Existing electric providers also have a financial incentive to sell the additional baseload these facilities require. That incentive should not determine public policy or shift infrastructure costs onto citizens who do not benefit from the development. The proper balance is to welcome innovation, require data centers to pay their own way, protect citizens and communities from uncompensated externalities, and let evidence—not predetermined conclusions or financial interests—determine reasonable standards.”

“Measles was once a common childhood disease and has been largely eradicated in the United States. Its resurgence raises important questions about transmission, immunity, vaccination, population movement, and other contributing factors. Those questions should be answered through science—not predetermined political conclusions.

The scientific method requires us to develop competing hypotheses, test them rigorously, and remain willing to be proven wrong. That applies equally to vaccines, natural immunity, adjuvants, infectious-disease interventions, and other public-health measures. I support appropriately designed, double-blind, controlled studies and continuing surveillance to determine which interventions provide measurable benefits and which introduce risks that may outweigh those benefits.

That scrutiny should extend to every component of a medical intervention, including adjuvants, whose purpose is specifically to stimulate the immune system. Their individual safety and contribution to the desired outcome should be understood rather than simply assumed.

Most importantly, government should not begin with the conclusion that a particular medical intervention must be mandated. Government has a legitimate responsibility to protect the certain, self-evident, Creator-endowed rights of its citizens, but those rights include individual liberty and bodily autonomy. Public-health policy must therefore demonstrate both a compelling justification and evidence that the proposed intervention is effective and proportionate.

I would not legislate from a pro-vaccine or anti-vaccine position. I would legislate from a pro-science, pro-evidence, and pro-liberty position—following the evidence wherever it leads, while preserving the constitutional rights that government exists to secure.”

“Colorado’s science literacy problem is reflected in its outcomes: only about one-quarter of 11th-grade students meet or exceed science standards. My experience teaching Calculus II at the U.S. Air Force Academy reinforced the problem firsthand. Students could manipulate equations but often lacked the foundational mathematical and physical principles needed to understand what those equations represented. One student pleaded to use his graphing calculator, admitting that while it could produce the correct answer, he would not understand what the answer meant.

Education needs to return to first principles. The common paraphrase of Galileo—that mathematics is the language with which God wrote the universe—captures the wonder that should animate science education. The mathematical coherence of the natural world invites us to explore, not merely memorize, what we observe.

Students should never be taught what to conclude. They should learn the current state of scientific thought as our best understanding based on current evidence—not as settled truth beyond challenge. Scientific advancement has repeatedly occurred by challenging consensus, from phlogiston theory to phrenology.

Children are naturally curious. Their incessant “why?” demonstrates their desire to understand how and why things work. Teaching them to pursue that “why” reveals relationships between seemingly disparate observations, events and phenomena.

K–12 standards should emphasize foundational mathematics, observation, experimentation, measurement, falsifiability, replication, and critical analysis. Students should distinguish evidence from assertion and correlation from causation, and learn to challenge their own conclusions.

The objective is not to teach students what to think, but how to seek truth—with the rigor to question consensus, the tools to test hypotheses, and the humility to follow evidence wherever it leads.”