It's just a flesh wound!

The decision is out in the Dover Panda trial. The bottom line (as quoted elsewhere):

To preserve the separation of church and state mandated by the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, and Art. I, §3 of the Pennsylvania Constitution, we will enter an order permanently enjoining Defendants from maintaining the ID Policy in any school within the Dover Area School District, from requiring teachers to denigrate or disparage the scientific theory of evolution, and from requiring teachers to refer to a religious, alternative theory known as ID.

Reading the transcripts, I would have been surprised if the defense had prevailed. Still, the plaintiffs got the broader of the possible rulings -- that Intelligent Design as it exists now is religious. This is exactly the ruling that the Discovery Institute asked the judge not to make[PDF], but like Monty Python's Black Night, they insist that it's just a flesh wound.

"Anyone who thinks a court ruling is going to kill off interest in intelligent design is living in another world," continued West. "Americans don't like to be told there is some idea that they aren't permitted to learn about.. It used to be said that banning a book in Boston guaranteed it would be a bestseller. Banning intelligent design in Dover will likely only fan interest in the theory."

But the ruling didn't deny anybody permission to learn about intelligent design. It merely said that intelligent design couldn't be forced into the science classrooms by government fiat. You have to do the science. Like the proponents of any other scientific theory, you have to convince the scientific community. Then your idea becomes the scientific consensus. And then your idea gets included in introductory science curricula created by the scientific community. You don't get to short-circuit that process and get into the curriculum by government mandate.

"In the larger debate over intelligent design, this decision will be of minor significance," added Discovery Institute attorney Casey Luskin. "As we've repeatedly stressed, the ultimate validity of intelligent will be determined not by the courts but by the scientific evidence pointing to design.”

Or the lack thereof. It's been nearly ten years since Michael Behe published Darwin's Black Box. It's been fifteen since Philip Johnson published Darwin On Trial. And yet there are only a handful of peer-reviewed papers that have been published by ID proponents in that time. They have got quite a long row to hoe before they can earn their way into the science curriculum.