Orlando, Fla. ? Some of the educators who helped devise Florida’s new, controversial science standards said today they don’t like a last-minute alternative put together by the Florida Department of Education.

They called it a weaker version that compromises scientific knowledge to mollify opponents.

The new proposed standards – to be voted on Tuesday by the State Board of Education – have created statewide controversy because they would, for the first time, require teaching evolution in Florida’s public schools.

In the alternative version, the phrase “the scientific theory of” is inserted before the word evolution. The same phrase would go in front of some other topics, too. The revision was a response to “public input,” state officials said Friday.

But several of the more than 60 scientists and science teachers who helped devise the new standards said today they were not happy with those changes and that, based on their own e-mails and phone calls, felt a majority of the group disapproves.

“I do not like the compromise document because it is clumsy, makes too much of science questionable (given public understanding of theory) and fails to clearly distinguish between scientific fact and scientific theory,” wrote Gerry Meisels, a professor of chemistry at the University of South Florida, in an e-mail to state officials.

Meisels urged the state board to adopt the version his group finalized in January, which does not refer to evolution as a theory.

“We can send men to the moon, probes to Mars, design drugs that relieve suffering and pain and cure illness, and so on. All that is based on scientific facts,” he wrote. “Should we allow facts to be beaten down by uninformed people just because they are in a majority? Questions of fact, nature and science cannot be answered by majority vote.”

Many of the opponents of the new standards have argued that evolution is not a fact and they do not want it taught that way.

Five of the educators who helped devise the new standards initially were asked to review sections of the alternative document to determine if adding the phrase “the scientific theory of” or the “law of” in places was still scientifically accurate, said Tom Butler, spokesman for the Florida Department of Education.

After their review, the entire group was sent the full alternative version late Friday and asked to give their views by noon Monday. If members are unhappy, those opinions will be conveyed to the seven-member board, Butler said Saturday.