This morning's Toledo Blade covers the somewhat differing views on the teaching of intelligent design held by the four candidates running in a non-partisan contest for a vacant north-central Ohio seat on the State Board of Education. John Bender (a registered Democrat) believes that intelligent design has no place in science classes. He is supported by outgoing term-limited board member Martha Wise. Candidate Roland Hansen, an independent, favors alternatives to evolution being taught in optional courses. Candidate Ken Ault says he is undecided on the issue. And candidate Kathleen McGervey, a registered Republican and former parish religious school teacher, says: "The scientific facts that support evolution should be taught and the scientific facts that call it into question should be taught and it should be done in science [classes] because they are scientific arguments."
Five of the eleven elected seats on the 19-member board are being decided in next month's election, and intelligent design is an issue in other districts as well. (See prior posting.) Intelligent design has been hotly debated in recent years by the state board.
