Breathtaking Inanity

I was going to call this posting "Harrisburg Is Safe For The Harrises," but I loved this catchy phrase from the judge's decision (pdf) that came out today. Just to close Chapter 1 (as I'm sure there will be many more) of the legal attempts to shove Intelligent Design down our collective throats, I thought I'd share some pieces of the decision that are conveniently floating around the blogosphere:

To be sure, Darwin's theory of evolution is imperfect. However, the fact that a scientific theory cannot yet render an explanation on every point should not be used as a pretext to thrust an untestable alternative hypothesis grounded in religion into the science classroom or to misrepresent well-established scientific propositions.

Those who disagree with our holding will likely mark it as the product of an activist judge. If so, they will have erred as this is manifestly not an activist Court. Rather, this case came to us as the result of the activism of an ill-informed faction on a school board, aided by a national public interest law firm eager to find a constitutional test case on ID, who in combination drove the Board to adopt an imprudent and ultimately unconstitutional policy. The breathtaking inanity of the Board's decision is evident when considered against the factual backdrop which has now been fully revealed through this trial. The students, parents, and teachers of the Dover Area School District deserved better than to be dragged into this legal maelstrom, with its resulting utter waste of monetary and personal resources.

In addition to this readable conclusion, there are 139 more pages of supporting legalese and cross reference to things like the Wedge Document and St. Thomas Aquinas' views on the great designer.