Google has an interesting system now that shows trends of searches for key words. Check this one out. Looks like interest in Darwinism has stayed pretty steady but ID had a big jump around the Dover trial. Also since then it doesn't appear that ID has dropped back to its earlier levels. And under regions just look at the disparity in some of the European countries.
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| The Design Matrix: A Consilience of Clues by Mike Gene |
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| Your Inner Fish: A Journey into the 3.5-Billion-Year History of the Human Body |
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| Catalyzing Inquiry at the Interface of Computing and Biology |
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| System Modeling in Cellular Biology: From Concepts to Nuts and Bolts |
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| The Plausibility of Life By Marc W. Kirschner and John C. Gerhart |
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| Agents Under Fire by Angus Menuge |
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| Life's Solution by Simon Conway Morris |
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| Information Theory, Evolution and the Origin of Life by Hubert P. Yockey |
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| The Fifth Miracle by Paul Davies |
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| Nature, Design, and Science by Del Ratzsch |
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| Origination of Organismal Form by Muller & Newman |
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| Biased Embryos and Evolution by Wallace Arthur |
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| Rare Earth by Peter Ward and Donald Brownlee |
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| The Privileged Planet by Guillermo Gonzalez and Jay Richards |
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| The Way of the Cell by Franklin Harold |
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| The Volitional Brain by Benjamin Libet |
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| Evolution in Four Dimensions by Eva Jablonka & Marion Lamb |
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| The Evolution-Creation Struggle by Michael Ruse |
May 12th, 2006 at 8:52 pm
Of course, if you replace Darwinism with the more general term "evolution", you get a different trend. On that graph, interest in evolution appears massive and ongoing; those peaks of interest for "intelligent design" look like anomalous blips that have now tailed off. Very interesting.
Comment by Mesk — May 12, 2006 @ 8:52 pm
May 12th, 2006 at 9:03 pm
Are Google trends now considered empirical evidence according to scientific standards?
It is hard to imagine how/why (neo-)Darwinism is the target of telic thinking. Sure, C. Darwin rejected purpose and couldn't see a meaning-direction. This was his particular form of naturalism. But how does attacking a person equate with attacking a theory of origins and/or processes of change?
Comment by g arago — May 12, 2006 @ 9:03 pm
May 12th, 2006 at 11:31 pm
Mesk,
True. But if you look at the blips for news volume on evoluton they coincide with ID blips. What that seems to say is that ID is having an impact.
Comment by Steve Petermann — May 12, 2006 @ 11:31 pm
May 12th, 2006 at 11:41 pm
g arago,
This is all totally non-sequitur.
I don't know where you are getting all these inferences. Where was there any reference to some kind of scientific standard.
What? I thought it was the common preception that (neo)Darwinism is non-telic.
Huh? Where do you see an attack on the person of Darwin?
Comment by Steve Petermann — May 12, 2006 @ 11:41 pm
May 13th, 2006 at 1:43 am
An impact on mainstream news media? Sure, I can't argue with that. Note, however, that many of those spikes in media attention – particularly the one corresponding to the Dover verdict – usually represent quite negative stories about ID. I can tell you that media interest in ID has been considerable here in Australia over the last twelve months, and that has increased the public profile of ID. However, ask someone on the street what they know about ID, and you will almost always hear things like "the new creationism" or "crazy US religious fundamentalists".
There are a number of reasons why media attention has been so hostile – ID advocates might argue that this is due to the mainstream media's strong liberal bias, whereas I'd tend to argue that it is something the ID movement has largely brought on itself by failing to adequately distance itself from fundamentalism. Either way, I'd argue that the attempts of the ID movement to enter the public mind have so far backfired rather spectacularly. ID is certainly "having an impact", but it's not the impact that ID advocates were hoping for.
Comment by Mesk — May 13, 2006 @ 1:43 am
May 13th, 2006 at 4:22 am
This continues to be just an argument for legitimacy. Why did relativity theory not need one 100 years ago?
Well, the 'Google trend' method is observable, repeatable and makes a subject for experimentation. And it gives a nice ready-made graph! Surely some student papers are being written using the technique already. And we should trust the authenticity/authority of the statistics based on google's database.
It just gets tiring when people knock Darwinism or neo-Darwinism; i.e. an ideology based on a person's NAME. Darwin is the formulator of modern evolutionary theory. Mesk's showing is more realistic re: what theories of ID are up against. Dembksi's dissent from Darwin is a drop in the bucket; he might be able to wrestle with Malthus, but Darwin is beyond Dembki's reach. Everyone wants to lock grips with the champ.
Why not try 'teleological evolution' or 'pattern recognition' to make it more representitive of mainstream ID. Of course there's great fuss about ID-in-America, this is nothing new. And the number of illegal immigrant workers is supposed to be about 10million strong, and growing. Und zo…?
Comment by g arago — May 13, 2006 @ 4:22 am
May 13th, 2006 at 9:55 am
Mesk,
I follow the ID news regularly and I can't even remember a news article that was sympathetic to ID. Does this mean the media is biased? Of course. However, publicity is still publicity. People that only get their sense of ID from the media will obviously have an negative opinion of it. But what the Google trend shows is that events like the Dover trial not only peak media interest but also normal internet searches. The list of documents in those searches does not have a bias like the media. Those pages will offer the opportunity for those interested to get both sides of the debate and decide for themselves.
It will be interesting to watch the search trend for intelligent design over the next few years. It appears from the chart that after the Dover trial interest in ID searches about doubled from what it was earlier. Will this interest drop back to earlier levels later? That obviously depends on many things but it is my opinion that it won't. There will be other major events in the struggle and there also appears to be a ground swell of interest in the youth. We'll just have to wait and see.
Comment by Steve Petermann — May 13, 2006 @ 9:55 am
May 13th, 2006 at 1:58 pm
Hmm, could it be because nobody ever got fired for talking about the theory of relativity?
Comment by endoplasmicMessenger — May 13, 2006 @ 1:58 pm
May 14th, 2006 at 8:58 am
Hmmm…a drive-by sociological analysis from Endo. But no, not the answer I was looking for.
ID seeks legitimacy in the social-political arena what it lacks in the (natural) scientific arena.
Nobody fired Einstein, though he did receive poor grades in high school mathematics. Apparently IDM-ID, to say nothing about TT's-ID if there is such a thing, has received poor grades from scientists, philosophers, and more importantly, from theologians.
A. Comte would likely turn over in one-half of his grave to hear such a thing!
Razzamataz for Endo-Plas-Mess
A.
p.s. Steve, there are many articles sympathetic to ID in the USA media – this is a purely American IDea, after all. The 'disparity in (some of the) European countries' you note in the OP is a consequence of who wants American ideological exports regarding the 'controversy over evolution' or the Johnson-Dembski-Behe 'scientific revolution' in the 21st century. If ID doesn't 'win-out' in the USA, where "In God We Trust" is written on the greenback, then how on earth is it realistic to imagine Euro countries will accept this peculiar form of American rationality? "It looks designed (cf. made, planned, constructed, built, put together, etc.) because it really, really, really is." And even George Jr. promises it's true!
Comment by g arago — May 14, 2006 @ 8:58 am
May 26th, 2006 at 4:17 pm
Normally, I wouldn't bother commenting here, but I'd direct you to take a good look at the graph again. What you perhaps intended to say was '… doesn't appear that ID has dropped all the way back to its earlier levels.'
In point of fact what we are seing in the last part of the graph is pretty much a linear drop, depending on how close their points are and how they interpolate to make their graph. Curiously, this trend is matched by the last time IDC didn't recieve the media attention that any political phenomenon craves, namely the part of the graph between points A and C. Even the slopes match more or less.
Thus, I think we can safely extrapolate that IDC will drop back to its usual level of attention within – call it another three or four months (barring more high-profile beatdowns of IDC in court).
In short, you don't have a case. Even if your data had been germane to the issue of public awareness (they're not), and even if public awareness was the least bit relevant for the validity of a scientific or philosophical concept (which it isn't), you still could not draw the conclusion that you appear to be drawing.
Do not play number-games with me. I take it personally, and I know the rules better than you do.
- JS
Comment by JS — May 26, 2006 @ 4:17 pm