Nick Matzke has a really well written post at PT about the reactions of ID advocates to the judge’s ruling. It’s good enough that I would say if you only read one article on the Dover outcome from our side, this is the one you should read. The conclusion is absolutely perfect:
In fact, if the ID movement were intellectually serious, they would withdraw completely from interfering with public education, realizing that introductory science classes simply have to educate students in the basics of accepted science, and are not the right places to try getting recruits for fringe science. They would stop trying to make their case in the media, and instead take the only legitimate route to academic respectability — winning the scientific battle, in the scientific community. IDists have made much of comparing ID to the Big Bang model — but did Big Bang proponents kick off their model in a high school textbook? Did they go around the country mucking with kiddies science standards to promote their view? Did they ever lobby legislators? I don’t think so.
Bingo. But ID is not an intellectually serious project. It’s not a real scientific endeavor at all. It’s a PR campaign and that is all it is. The IDers make their case only to a public that is, by and large, incapable of understanding their arguments and not to scientists because they know they don’t withstand scrutiny. And in the Dover case, they gave all their arguments in a forum where they could be examined thoroughly and where experts from the other side could calmly and thoroughly debunk them. And they lost. Under real scrutiny and examination, the scientific facade quickly fades away, leaving only the transparent dishonesty at the core of the movement.