"From a science point of view, the interesting thing about the case was that it was the first time that the relative merits of intelligent design (ID) and evolutionary theory were put before a dispassionate observer, who was tasked with evaluting them."
These musings start with a flawed assumption. Namely the judge was a "dispassionate observer." He was not. The tone and demeanor, his disclaimer notwithstanding, of his ruling indicate his bias. The judge all but called Behe a "fundamentalist." Which is stereotypic nonsense in that Professor Behe is a devout Roman Catholic. To the best of my knowledge, "Fundamentalism" is strictly a protestant phenomena. A devout Roman Catholic cannot be a fundamentalist. Ergo, the judge was biased.
This is just one of many problems with the ruling. The good judge should have limited his judgement to stating that the Dover school board was religiously motivated (although I don't see why that should be a problem in America), and used that for ruling against them. The religious motivation was shown by testimony. I don't think their motivation matters, but I will concede that it does to the legal community after previous court cases.
Whatever, the good "Bush appointed" judge couldn't resist getting on a soapbox and pontificating from the bench. Maybe he would like to start a new profession as a Zoology Professsor? Much of what he wrote was more akin to teaching current evolutionary dogma than dealing with law.
I would really like to "dissect" this man's background to discover how he was educated and what his personal religous and scientific views are. I suspect he already had his mind made up beforehand and it shows.
IMO he way overstepped the bounds of good jurisprudence. It is strange that he makes much about the vast majority of scientists holding to a materialistic view of origens and using this as ruling that ID is not science. I thought minority views/rights were supposed to be protected by the constitution and judiciary? He went too far.
Instead of this having a cooling effect on those holding an ID position (and their more conservative distant relatives the creationists), it will just cause them to become more motivated and politically active.
Where?