Over at The Nation, Katrina Vanden Heuval says something that I’ve been saying for years. Regarding the Dover decision, she says
This is obviously a victory for science. What is less obvious is that it is also a victory for faith.
The most pernicious aspect of the ID movement is its commingling of science and faith, its attempt to use science and mathematics to prove the existence of an intelligent designer. Not only does this undermine science, it undermines faith, which by its very definition is “a belief that does not rest on logical proof or material evidence.” If ID scientists were to prove, for example, that the double helix is the stairway to heaven, then the existence of God would cease to be an article of faith and become instead a scientific fact.
By drawing a bright line between science and faith, Judge Jones has done as much to protect faith from science as he has done to protect science from faith.