BeliefNet has an interview with Intelligent Design advocate Michael Behe on the Dover verdict. Behe's not impressed:
What is your reaction to Judge Jones' decision in the Dover intelligent design case?
I'm very disappointed in it, because not only did he say that the school board was motivated by religious feelings, but he said that intelligent design itself is religious. And I simply disagree with that. It seems that he simply adopted all of the arguments of the plaintiffs and just dismissed out of hand the arguments of the witnesses for the defendants [the Dover Area School Board, which instituted the policy of reading a statement informing students of gaps in Darwin's theory of evolution and directing them to an intelligent design textbook titled "Of Pandas and People."] So, it's a drag.
Judge Jones says the motivation behind the school board's policy was primarily religious and so violated what is known as the Lemon test, arising from the 1971 Supreme Court decision in Lemon v. Kurtzman,-that the primary motivation for public policy decisions cannot be the promotion of a religious perspective.
I don't know what the motives of the Dover board were. I didn't listen to their testimony. But the question is, can ID be investigated solely because of interests other than religious ones? I think the answer is clearly yes. It's an explanation that immediately suggests itself when one learns about the complexity of life. And so does not necessarily arise from religious motivations.
You can find the rest of the interview at the above link.
