Congratulations are in Order

Before we go any further in analyzing and celebrating today's ruling in the Dover trial, I think it's really important to give out some attaboys to the people who made this happen. Burt Humburg and I just finished an article for Skeptic magazine where we went into a lot of detail on the behind-the-scenes aspects of the trial and tried to give credit to the people who worked so hard out of the public eye and without whom we would not now be celebrating this victory. There is a lot of credit to go around, but I'd like to point out a few people who really deserve to be recognized.

Barbara Forrest. In our article, we wrote that it was Barbara's testimony that the defense feared the most. That's why the TMLC tried so hard to keep her off the witness stand. Her testimony was devestating to their case because she filled in all of the pieces of the puzzle linking ID to creationism. The ruling makes clear that Judge Jones was strongly swayed by the evidence she presented. The fact that she prepared for trial and testified while still recovering from the devestation of Hurricane Katrina in her hometown is powerful evidence of her commitment and her professionalism.

The NCSE staff. So much of the crucial evidence uncovered during discovery in this trial was a result of the hard work of this group of underpaid and underappreciated folks that it's safe to say the outcome would have been dramatically different without them. It was Jessica Moran who dug through the NCSE's massive archives to find any document with any relationship to the Pandas book that might contain clues germane to the case. It was Nick Matzke who speculated that earlier drafts of Pandas probably contained creationist language that was later replaced by ID language, leading to the subpeona of the earlier drafts and the most devestating evidence of the trial. It was Wesley Elsberry who wrote the program to perform the word counts on the various drafts for analysis of how systematically that language replacement was done. Their tireless work made the entire legal strategy work.

Pepper Hamilton. As Burt and I write in our upcoming Skeptic article, most major law firms do pro bono work but they generally reserve it for new associates without an established client list to help them gain experience. Not so with Pepper Hamilton in this case. They assigned no fewer than three full partners to this case, plus two associates and numerous paralegals and support staff. It was clear to everyone who watched the trial closely that the TMLC's legal team was completely outmatched by the plaintiff's team and this is why. Pepper Hamilton committed enormous resources to the legal team and they deserve our deepest thanks.

Robert Pennock, John Haught, Kevin Padian, Brian Alters and Ken Miller. All of our expert witnesses did a great job, and I can tell you from watching Dr. Pennock prepare from close up that they put in an enormous amount of work. They didn't just show up in court and testify, they prepared huge reports on their area of expertise, underwent depositions, helped the attorneys analyze the reports and depositions of the other side, and remained on call throughout the process. They put hundreds of hours each into this trial, at the very least.

Thank you to all of these good people and to anyone I may have missed, and congratulations on a successful result to a long and exhausting effort. Drinks are on me the next time I see any one of you.