The court was deciding the scope of the definition of science as exists in the modern world. Even Michael Behe, the ID scientist testifying, had to admit that under their definition of science required to include ID, it would also have to include astrology.
As to the board, no doubt that some of them did not “get” what was at issue.
They absolutely didn't get the message. The religious motivation is never supposed to be stated so that this can be taught as an ostensibly non-religious theory. Everybody knows it's religious, but as long as you don't actually say it is, then it has a chance of getting through the courts. But they blew it and admitted the religious motivation. That's when the DI pulled out.
That is our disagreement. A court cannot define science any more than a court can define capitalism. Both refer to a process, and there is always a danger of identifying it with scientism.which I think the court did. Popular evolutionism is more a body of philosophical opinion than “science” per se. It is grounded in 19th century materialism and makes constant assertions that are unproved, such as on the origin of life. And from the start it has leapt far beyond biology, where it has a narrow application, to an overarching theory of everything. Certainly it is the cheap weapon of modern atheism—the grand theory, anyway. So we get the constant barrage about life on other planets, the whole Startrek fantasy of a universe teeming with quasi-terran life forms. Yet we cannot be sure that the “laws” of science do apply beyond the range of our vision.