The standards, which haven't been updated since 1996, were written by scientists and educators to modernize Florida's science education curriculum, which has been derided by mainstream science for years, in part for lacking explicit mention of evolution.
Now it's not just going to be mentioned. It's to be taught, from sixth grade on up, as ``the fundamental concept underlying all of biology [that] is supported by multiple forms of scientific evidence.''
The fact that evolution is absent from the current standards attests to the perceived weakness of science education as well as to the power of the religious right and other evolution opponents who have launched a full-scale assault on the proposed standards by tapping rank-and-file churchgoers, intelligent-design activists and a high-powered lawyer involved in the nationally watched Terri Schiavo euthanasia case.
Their refrain: The new standards need to call evolution a ''theory,'' so that evolution does not appear to be the fact that mainstream science says it is.
The outcry at so many public hearings led the Florida Department of Education to schedule an extra hour of public testimony and, late Friday, offer an alternate version of the standards that calls every theory a ''Scientific Theory'' -- whether it's about evolution or atoms -- and identifies every natural law as such.
Many want more. One expert who sat on the framers committee that formed the standards wants the board to consider his ''minority report'' to teach kids about scientific differences over evolution. Lori Muller, a mother from St. Augustine, said at a Monday public hearing in Orlando that she liked this idea.
''Just by tweaking some of the words in the standard, we can all win,'' Muller said. ``We are not supposed to be pushing any secret and biased agenda, but just making sure the children of Florida receive the best education possible.''
OPPOSING FORCES
Though science shouldn't be about politics and semantics, both forces will be more apparent Tuesday at the board of education. In North Florida, a dozen school boards have taken positions opposing evolution in the standards, while Monroe County has supported them.
Mainstream scientists are urging the board to pass the standards as drafted and reviewed by experts, including Nobel Prize laureate Harry Kroto. Kroto says the drive to call evolution just a ''theory'' or teach alternate ''theories'' is religiously -- not scientifically -- motivated by ''creationists,'' and it confuses the definition of the word theory. In common usage, a theory is a guess. In science a theory -- like relativity -- has the weight of fact because it's a well-tested concept.
While strong opinions on the issue dominate, a majority of the seven-member board of education won't say how it will vote. The board has received thousands of phone calls, e-mails, letters and even Christmas cards. The sheer volume spotlights that Florida is the latest nationally watched flash point in evolution's history, which stretches from the Galapagos Islands that inspired Darwin's 1859 On the Origin of Species to the 1925 Scopes Monkey trial in Tennessee to Pennsylvania's 2005 federal Kitzmiller case.
For years, evolution has been taught in many Florida schools, but it's not clearly required teaching and doesn't have grade-by-grade benchmarks. The current standards do, however, discuss ''genetic variation'' and ``natural selection.''
Roberto Martinez, a Miami-based board member, said he'll vote to keep the proposed standards as is because he trusts the National Academy of Science and the American Association of the Advancement of Science, which praised them.
Opposite him: Tallahassee board member Donna Callaway, who told the Florida Baptist Witness she wants ''other theories'' taught.
While mainstream science recognizes no other major alternative theories to evolution, the study of cells is leading to new alternatives and supplements to Darwinian thought. Intelligent Design scientists, like biochemist Michael Behe, see the machine-like functions of cells that show such a ''purposeful arrangement of parts'' that he's echoing concepts like William Paley's 18th century ''argument of the watchmaker,'' which posited a grand designer.
Behe, an expert witness in the landmark Kitzmiller case, said some organisms are so ''irreducibly complex'' that natural selection is left wanting, and more strongly suggests that an unnamed supernatural designer crafted them. And this, Behe calls God, though he said the concept doesn't concern itself with the designer's makeup.
Evolutionist and author Kenneth R. Miller testified that Intelligent Design discouraged scientific thinking and muddies the definition of ''theory'' so that astrology could be considered science.
''Ever since Darwin, his theories have been strengthened by science and scientific discovery, not weakened by them,'' Miller said, pointing to a ''mountain of evidence'' from discoveries in antibiotics to human Chromosome 2, which shows a clear genetic link with other primates. The judge banned intelligent design from the classroom, saying it was more religion than testable scientific theory.
One of the people who helped form the new Florida science standards, Fred Cutting, a rocket engineer and Intelligent Design adherent, sought advice from the movement's think tank, the Seattle-based Discovery Institute. Cutting wanted a benchmark added so students learn ``why some scientists give scientific critiques [of evolution] or models of the chemical origins of life.''
`MINORITY REPORT'
Cutting submitted the suggestions as a ''minority report'' to the education board. The framers' committee rejected it, leading Cutting -- who largely supports the proposed standards -- to say that some are such ''dogmatic'' evolution believers that ''atheism is like a religion.'' That sentiment was echoed in a letter to the education board from Schiavo lawyer David C. Gibbs, who opposes what he calls the ''dangerous'' ideas of teaching evolution as fact.
Cutting notes that supplemental theories to natural selection are emerging in the field of evolutionary-developmental biology, commonly known as ``evo-devo.''
A pioneer in the field of evo-devo, New York Medical College Professor Stuart A. Newman, said experiments show that some creatures are susceptible to quick evolutionary changes.
Evo-devo proposes that multicellular organisms can dynamically change form under certain environmental conditions, producing major evolutionary jumps.
Newman took some issue with the science standards that say ''natural selection is a primary'' evolutionary force. He said it should just be listed as ''an important'' force. Of the standards overall, however, Newman said: ``I don't think they sound dogmatic. They're accurate.''
Miami Herald staff writer Phil Long contributed to this report.
Video | Speaking for, against teaching evolution