In a landmark ruling on Tuesday, Judge John Roberts III, in Dover Pensylvania, struck a telling blow for reason and logic against superstition and ignorance by ruling that 'intelligent design' was nothing more than creationism in another guise. He ordered that ID should not be taught in a science class because the so called theory has no scientific basis whatsoever. A school board had previously ruled that a statement should be read out to students before a science class stating that Evolution was 'just a theory' and not fact, and that students should explore other descriptions of life, such as ID.

The school board that made the recommendation was ovethrown last year by angry parents who did not want religion taught in the science class. The same parents took the members of the previous board to court, to challenge the previous ruling. Judge Jones listened to hours of expert testimony from all sides and ruled that ID was nothing more than an attempt to sneak in creationism by the back door. The hearing lasted six weeks, after which Jones concluded that:

"The overwhelming evidence at trial established that ID is a religious view, a mere relabelling of creationism, and not a scientific theory"

He further pointed out that several of the defendens lied or sought to conceal their religious motivations for introducing ID into the classroom. Even better, the Judge ruled that the defendents must pay the costs for this pointless and time-wasting hearing, something that might deter other school boards from jumping on the bandwagon of superstition.

ID has never produced a single, peer-reviewed, published article in all its years of attacking the theory of evolution. What it does instead is to point out the gaps in the theory of evolution and lay claim to that territory as proof of ID. It does no such thing, there are gaps in atomic theory, quantum theory and even the old chestnut of gravitational theory.

Time and again spurious ID claims have been made and batted away with little real effort from the scientific community.

What is worrying is the intransigence of those that favour ID. Most of these are people that have read a few clever (and downright dumb) articles on the internet and feel that this somehow qualifies them to hold forth on the theory of evolution. Few of these people understand what science is and is not, let alone the complex subtleties of scientific theory. When they give an example of why evolution is wrong and recieve the answer, they shift to something different rather than admit well, okay, I understand now that you've explained it to me. Further, some actually deny material evidence presented to them preferring to be intellectually dishonest and wilfully ignorant. Their ignorance is bolstered by the plethora of the fanatical religious right that seek to drown rationality in a sea of ignorance.

The ruling is also important because America is the worlds most powerful nation - and the worlds most ignorant and superstitious. A plurality of Americans, incredibly, believe the earth was created some ten thousand years ago. The religious rights have also been making inroads into other sciences, physics (the big bang), geology (the age of the earth). Only America was dumb enough to believe Bush and his many shifting excuses for the war in Iraq. Americans lack the armour of a critical faculty, and small wonder when the religious right seek to pollute their minds with superstitious clap-trap.

It's good that from now on, the ID proponents will most likely have to pay throught the nose for wasting people's and the court's valuable time. Would that I could sue the same vested interests that infest the internet, spreading the poison of ignorance to the gullible and the poorly educated.

I'd be a very rich man.

yechydda,