The year 2005 was when, shockingly, "intelligent design" almost got on the syllabuses of American science classes. But then 11 rational parents in Pennsylvania took their school board to court, and, just before Christmas, the presiding judge delivered a crushing verdict.

Judge John Jones ruled that intelligent design is not science, but merely creation science in disguise. In declaring its teaching in schools to be unconstitutional, he said that the Dover District School Board had acted with "breathtaking inanity" in deciding to do so.

In a judgment that was also implicitly critical of President George W. Bush's views -- he supports the teaching of intelligent design as a supposed means of telling the "other side" of the story -- Judge Jones wrote: "The goal of the intelligent design movement is not to encourage critical thought, but to foment a revolution which would supplant evolutionary theory with intelligent design."