We learned at the Stevenson forum that a Vote 125 slate member asked school administrators to teach intelligent design.

The Vote 125 and Discovery Institute positions on Intelligent Design are part of this controversy. According to its Science Education Policy, the Discovery Institute: "opposes any effort to require the teaching of intelligent design" and believes that providing "students with an understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of neo-Darwinian and chemical evolutionary theories (rather than teaching an alternative theory, such as intelligent design) represents a common ground approach."

The original Vote 125 position: "[w]e do not support requiring teachers to present an alternative theory of origins, such as Intelligent Design. … [w]e seek a common ground approach that exposes students to both the strengths and weaknesses of neo-Darwinian and chemical evolutionary theories." The Daily Herald reported that Cardella said this language "originated 'from inside my campaign.'"

When the uncanny similarities between the Vote 125 and Discovery Institute positions became public, Vote 125 changed their website and added a reference to a 2009 Zogby report as support for teaching the "strengths and weaknesses" of evolution. The report was commissioned by, of course, the Discovery Institute. A principal proponent of teaching Intelligent Design, the Discovery Institute goals are "to defeat scientific materialism and its destructive moral, cultural and political legacies… [and] to replace materialistic explanations with the theistic understanding that nature and human beings are created by God."

Vote 125 knows the source of their original position. They have changed their website yet again. Why? Maybe we are getting a little too close to the truth. Keep Intelligent Design in your Sunday School class or a World Religion class, but not in a science class.

Please Vote Moons, Lubin, Roberts and Weisberg or 3, 4, 6 & 7 on April 5, 2011