The Judge speaks (excerpts from his decision):
intelligent design is not science. We find that intelligent design fails on three different levels, any one of which is sufficient to preclude a determination that intelligent design is science. They are: (1) intelligent design violates the centuries-old ground rules of science by invoking and permitting supernatural causation; (2) the argument of irreducible complexity, central to intelligent design, employs the same flawed and illogical contrived dualism that doomed creation science in the 1980s; and (3) intelligent design's negative attacks on evolution have been refuted by the scientific community. It is additionally important to note that intelligent design has failed to gain acceptance in the scientific community, it has not generated peer-reviewed publications, nor has it been the subject of testing and research.
The evidence at trial demonstrates that intelligent design is nothing less than the progeny of creationism.
Tell us something we don't know.
The goal of the intelligent-design movement is not to encourage critical thought but to foment a revolution which would supplant evolutionary theory with intelligent design.
One could just as easily say that the goal of evolution was not to encourage critical thought, but to forment a revolution supplanting Creation with a godless paradigm (evolution). Besides, critical thinking isn't the issue. It's the assumption by some folks that use of such will automatically lead to a rejection of Creation, and ultimately of their Christian faith. That's hardly the case, though.
They are: (1) intelligent design violates the centuries-old ground rules of science by invoking and permitting supernatural causation;
Ground rules set by whom? Would that be naturalists/materalists and atheists, who from the start have admitted that their whole purpose for proposing evolution was to deliberately develop a godless explanation for life? They came up with that dogma and hold to it, because if they don't, they must admit to a supernatural source of life. But don't take my word for it:
“The beginning of the evolutionary process raises a question which is as yet unanswerable. What was the origin of life on this planet? Until fairly recent times there was a pretty general belief in the occurrence of ‘spontaneous generation.’ It was supposed that lowly forms of life developed spontaneously from, for example, putrefying meat. But careful experiments, notably those of Pasteur, showed that this conclusion was due to imperfect observation, and it became an accepted doctrine that life never arises except from life. So far as actual evidence goes, this is still the only possible conclusion.
But since it is a conclusion that seems to lead back to some supernatural creative act, it is a conclusion that scientific men find very difficult of acceptance. It carries with it what are felt to be, in the present mental climate, undesirable philosophic implications, and it is opposed to the scientific desire for continuity. It introduces an unaccountable break in the chain of causation, and therefore cannot be admitted as part of science unless it is quite impossible to reject it. For that reason most scientific men prefer to believe that life arose, in some way not yet understood, from inorganic matter in accordance with the laws of physics and chemistry” - J. W. N. Sullivan.
The Limitations of Science The reasonable view was to believe in spontaneous generation; the only alternative, to believe in a single, primary act of supernatural creation. There is no third position. For this reason many scientists a century ago chose to regard the belief in spontaneous generation as a "philosophical necessity." It is a symptom of the philosophical poverty of our time that this necessity is no longer appreciated. Most modern biologists, having reviewed with satisfaction the downfall of the spontaneous generation hypothesis, yet unwilling to accept the alternative belief in special creation, are left with nothing. One has only to contemplate the magnitude of this task to concede that the spontaneous generation of a living organism is impossible. Yet here we are—as a result, I believe, of spontaneous generation" George Wald, "The Origin of Life",
Scientific American, 1954
(2) the argument of irreducible complexity, central to intelligent design, employs the same flawed and illogical contrived dualism that doomed creation science in the 1980s;
Creation science is anything but doomed. Otherwise, evolutionists wouldn't be running to lawyers and judges, trying to suppress something that they claim "science" so easily does. Complexity is at the very heart of the matter. As part of the scientific process is observation, you would think that evolutionists would be able to show such regarding "simple" organisms evolving into complex ones. Unfortunately, that ain't the case.
(3) intelligent design's negative attacks on evolution have been refuted by the scientific community. It is additionally important to note that intelligent design has failed to gain acceptance in the scientific community, it has not generated peer-reviewed publications, nor has it been the subject of testing and research.
Point 3 is also incorrect, to a degree. Since evolutionists don't want research countering their godless mantra in their journals, creationists developed scientific, peer-reviewed journals of their own. One such is called "Creation ex nihilo Technical Journal", or simply "TJ". As for it not being the subject of testing and research, that is also incorrect. Among such testing and research is a program, known as RATE (Radiocarbon dating and the Age of the Earth), which challenges how rocks are dated and shows evidence for a young earth.
Although this court case was in Pennsylvania, the irony is that for all this talk about the alleged threats to constitutionality that teaching Creation causes, evolutionists are getting bent out of shape and sending self-appointed constitutional watchdogs (i.e. DefCon) to wail about one AiG Creation Museum in Kentucky, the construction for which was paid by private citizens with private money.