I am not inclined to view intelligent design as a scientific theory. Nevertheless, I think the judge in the recent Dover case was breathtakingly prejudiced and an enemy of open debate in education.
Law professor Paul Campos wrote a great opinion piece today called Orthodoxy of a Liberal Sort. His opening was:
A sure sign that a belief system has triumphed over its opponents is that it stops thinking of itself as a belief system at all. Instead it becomes "what every rational person knows to be the case," or "simple common sense," or, more concisely still, "the truth." In other words, the truly orthodox never think of themselves as orthodox. This allows them to crush all dissent to their orthodoxy with a good conscience, since what reasonable objection could there be to sincere attempts to stamp out self-evident falsehoods?
This syndrome applies to so much more than just intelligent design debates in our public discourse.
