Well, where I would say that a more accruate analogy would be a scenario where two doctors are teaching med school, one wants to teach faith healing as a theory and the other wants to teach "new age medicine" as a theory. Then, an organization comes in and picks a side and says that they're not allowed to teach the other one. While one has more of a grounding in medicine than the other, neither can be proported as medical facts so why are the making an exception for one theory but not the other? Shouldn't it be an all or nothing sort of thing?
Not if one theory is well tested and well supported. I'll get back to how we
do test evolution in a moment. Also, I think you should consider that the judge was a conservative, Lutheran judge appointed by George W. Bush; this was hardly the decision of a liberal activist, or the fault of an organization that pressed its will on an unhappy populace.
Yup.
What I found interesting is that the arguments they present against teaching ID is that very similar arguments could be made against evolution and the big bang theory (in terms of the origin of man)
-cannot be tested by the scientific method
-makes an assertion that an extrordinary and rare event occured that put everything in motion
-inserts a personal theory into science, as if it were scientific fact
You can argue that, but I think that you're twisting some words here. Evolution can be tested by the scientific method. There are logical conclusions that follow from these theories, and, if we were to find evidence that went against them in significant ways they would be overturned. I am not a physicist, but a grad student in biology, so I'd prefer to discuss things that I have a working knowledge of if that's ok with you (there are however some physicists in the Physical and Life Sciences board that would be better equipped to discuss the big bang theory).
I'm still trying to figure out how intelligent design is inherently religious as they claim? I wasn't aware that they made reference to a particular diety or enforced any religious dogmas of any kind (although I could be wrong on that) the terms creator & creation don't necessarily = religion. I think that's why the writers of the declaration of indepence used the term "creator" and not "Jesus" even though most of the writers and signers were Christian.
It was mostly a combination of Michael Behe's testimony, and the fact that the Dover school board wanted to use a textbook called Of Panda's and People. The textbook, rather than elucidating any new ideas, was simply a repackaged creationist textbook, with words like "creation" replaced with words like "design." One unpublished copy even contained the passage: "Evolutionists think the former is correct, cdesign proponentsists accept the latter view."
Behe was one of the leading figures pushing for intelligent design, and was a respected biochemist. Unfortunately, his testimony leaved a lot to be desired. I'll give you this link that offers excerpts from the judge's decision:
Kitzmiller v. Dover: Michael Behe’s Testimony | The Sensuous Curmudgeon
....or how it's in direct opposition to evolution for that matter? The more I thought about it, I know people who are theistic evolutionists who feel that evolution was the "how" and not the "what" so technically those folks would support both, would they not?
Well, I tend to think that theistic evolution is unnecessarily complicated; you don't need a god figure to do the work, so why have one? Might as well throw in a few thunder gods while you're at it, and a gravity god, and an E. coli god and any number of gods to make the world work. Heck, why not have two or three gods at every post so that they can take shifts.
In terms of intelligent design however, it was a fairly blatant attempt at inserting religion into schools, and was driven by agenda rather than research. Check it out:
http://www.antievolution.org/features/wedge.pdf
I think it's important to note that the fight on evolution v. creationism/intelligent design is being fought in our high schools, rather than in our colleges or graduate schools. These folks aren't trying to speak to informed audiences, but want an uninformed audience to talk to.