HARRISBURG -- Sentimentality didn't creep upon Matthew Chapman during the six weeks he attended a landmark federal trial that challenged his great-great-grandfather's famous theory of evolution.

He did become emotional, though, when he thought about the courage of 11 parents who took the Dover Area school board to court over its policy requiring ninth-grade biology students to hear a statement that promoted intelligent design and said that his ancestor Charles Darwin's theory is not factual.

In a court ruling yesterday, the parents won. They had argued that intelligent design is akin to creationism and that the board policy violated the constitutional separation of church and state.

"I felt very moved by the courage of the plaintiffs in their defense of science and their caring for their children. It took a lot of guts," said Mr. Chapman, a writer who lives in New York City. "They're remarkable."

Plaintiffs and their supporters have said they were called atheist and unpatriotic, and their children were teased because of the lawsuit.

Now U.S. District Court Judge John E. Jones III, a church-going Republican, will likely face the similar criticism, Mr. Chapman said.

"The decision is very brave of him," Mr. Chapman said.

Already, the Seattle-based Discovery Institute, a chief proponent of intelligent design, is calling Judge Jones an activist judge trying to stop criticism of evolutionary theory through government-imposed censorship.

"I think Judge Jones is a really remarkable guy," Mr. Chapman said. Darwin "would have had as much admiration for Judge Jones as he had for [Thomas Henry] Huxley," a scholar and chief defender of evolution during Darwin's lifetime.

The Discovery Institute, though, says Judge Jones went too far when he discredited intelligent design.

"He totally misrepresents intelligent design and the motivations of the scientists who research it," said John West, associate director of the institute's Center for Science and Culture.

To Mr. Chapman, though, his ancestor's theory speaks for itself.

"The truth always wins through in the end," he said.