Intelligent Design's research impact on science

pitabread

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One common claim from ID proponents is that evolution's days are numbered and that scientists are progressively turning towards Intelligent Design as an alternative. This is certainly the message that groups like the Discovery Institute like to convey especially via things like their infamous "Scientific Dissent from Darwinism" list.

However, a more meaningful measure of the impact of Intelligent Design on science is available through a couple means. The first is to examine the volume of output of ID related research. The second is to examine the impact of that research on the broader scientific community.

To test this, I examined the ID journal Bio-Complexity. This peer-review journal was first touted by the Discovery Institute back in 2010 as a means whereby scientific papers on ID could be peer-reviewed and published. They claimed the journal would, "accelerate the pace and heighten the tone of the debate over intelligent design". The journal first started publishing articles back in 2010 and has continued since.

I decided to examine what has been published in Bio-complexity. Fortunately it was quite straight-forward since there isn't much content to sift through.

Between 2010 to 2018 (there are no 2019 publications yet) a total of 31 articles were published. These articles were divided into 4 categories: Research Articles (17), Critical Reviews (9), Critical Focus (4) and Tools/Techniques (1).

I used the 17 research articles published in Bio-complexity to examine relative impact. As a measure of impact I use the number of citations each article had. A citation indicates that the article has been cited in another work. In general, the more citations an article has, the greater its impact. I primarily used scientific publication search engines (e.g. ResearchGate, SpringerLink, etc) to source the number of citations of the articles.

One research article was not available through such search engines and therefore I could not determine the number of citations it had. I excluded it from the study. Of the remaining 16, I counted a combined total of 50 citations for all 16 articles. Six articles had zero citations. The remaining articles had between 1 and 12 citations.

I also excluded two self-referential citations in two of the articles. The articles published in 2016 included Genetic Modeling of Human History Part 1 and Genetic Modeling of Human History Part 2. Each of these articles cited the other (e.g. Part 1 cited Part 2, and Part 2 cited Part 1). I removed those specific citations to get a more accurate picture of external citations.

The overall average number of citations for the 16 articles are 3.13 citations per article. The median number of citations is 1.

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correction: I inadvertently labeled one of the papers (Model and Laboratory Demonstrations That Evolutionary Optimization Works Well Only If Preceded by Invention--Selection Itself Is Not Inventive)
as having 40 citations. I accidentally counted the number of references from the article itself; the article in question had 0 citations. I have corrected the OP to reflect this. This reduces the average citations per article to 3.13.
 
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lasthero

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One common claim from ID proponents is that evolution's days are numbered and that scientists are progressively turning towards Intelligent Design as an alternative.

There’s a great website with creationist quotes claiming this since pretty much Darwin’s day. Wish I still had the link for it, it’s quite a hoot to see how long evolution has been on its ‘deathbed’.
 
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Kenny'sID

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One common claim from ID proponents is that evolution's days are numbered and that scientists are progressively turning towards Intelligent Design as an alternative. This is certainly the message that groups like the Discovery Institute like to convey especially via things like their infamous "Scientific Dissent from Darwinism" list.

Cool, I guess I'm not the only one who couldn't get proof of evolution, just a bunch of empty claims. It's great some are using a little common sense now.

However unrelated to the OP, yours is an interesting post, because it just now makes sense to me, since a false Christianity where anything goes and we'll never lose salvation seems to be gaining ground, even those who were once hard core Atheists may soften up a bit to that, because there is nothing whatsoever to lose in doing so.

I can see ID taking off now, more than ever, but just a thought at this stage.

Apologies for the semi OT post. :)
 
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pitabread

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Cool, I guess I'm not the only one who couldn't get proof of evolution, just a bunch of empty claims. It's great some are using a little common sense now.

Excep the DI's "Scientific Dissent From Darwinism" is bogus; it's purely a propaganda piece. The actual statement they had people sign isn't a rejection of biological evolution. Not to mention some of the signers didn't even know the agenda of the Discovery Institute when they signed it and probably would not have otherwise.

Plus various polling of scientists still shows overwhelming support for biological evolution. Then there is the fact that evolution is an applied science, is foundational to modern biology and continues to be taught as such.

I can see ID taking off now, more than ever, but just a thought at this stage.

It's not though. The scientific community still very much considers ID to be pseudoscience.

Plus, when you actually look into the arguments put forth from the ID community, they're pretty bad.
 
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pitabread

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It seems to me that neither evolution or ID has done much good for humanity. Whyzat I wonder? :scratch:

Evolution is foundational to modern biology and an applied science in various fields including medicine and agriculture. It's done quite a bit of good in advancing our understanding of biology.
 
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OldWiseGuy

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Evolution is foundational to modern biology and an applied science in various fields including medicine and agriculture. It's done quite a bit of good in advancing our understanding of biology.

We understand a lot about many things, but things don't seem to be getting better. For example medical science knows how to treat disease but seems powerless to reduce it. Taking notes on how long it takes for someone to drown doesn't help the person who is drowning.
 
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pitabread

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We understand a lot about many things, but things don't seem to be getting better. For example medical science know how to treat disease but seems powerless to reduce it.

Things are better now than they have been at any point in history. And medical science certainly has reduced instances disease. Just look at things like infant mortality rates as a prime example.

If you want extreme cases, just compare to some of the plagues in human history.

Claiming things aren't better... well, I have no idea why anyone would think that.
 
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OldWiseGuy

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Things are better now than they have been at any point in history. And medical science certainly has reduced instances disease. Just look at things like infant mortality rates as a prime example.

If you want extreme cases, just compare to some of the plagues in human history.

Claiming things aren't better... well, I have no idea why anyone would think that.

That's like telling someone who's just had a heart attack that they should be thankful they don't have the Black Plague.

I'm really comparing the way things are today with what they should be today. There are many problems that should have been solved decades ago.
 
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Ophiolite

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That's like telling someone who's just had a heart attack that they should be thankful they don't have the Black Plague.

I'm really comparing the way things are today with what they should be today. There are many problems that should have been solved decades ago.
If there were fewer people with your negative attitude and fewer people who railed against evolution then we would be further ahead. If you can't help, and it seems you can't, stand aside.
 
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lasthero

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Things are better now than they have been at any point in history. And medical science certainly has reduced instances disease. Just look at things like infant mortality rates as a prime example.

If you want extreme cases, just compare to some of the plagues in human history.

Claiming things aren't better... well, I have no idea why anyone would think that.
It fits certain narratives.
 
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Kenny'sID

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If you think I misunderstood something, then feel free to clarify your intended meaning.

Na, just a reminder to try to read more carefully, or maybe it was just a matter of seeing what you wanted in my post so you could disagree.

Just some things to keep in mind.
 
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pitabread

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Na, just a reminder to try to read more carefully, or maybe it was just a matter of seeing what you wanted in my post so you could disagree.

Just some things to keep in mind.

If you don't want to clarify what you actually meant then I'll just stick with my original interpretation and response.
 
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OldWiseGuy

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If there were fewer people with your negative attitude and fewer people who railed against evolution then we would be further ahead. If you can't help, and it seems you can't, stand aside.

So if the coaches would stop criticizing their players they would win more games?
 
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Ophiolite

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So if the coaches would stop criticizing their players they would win more games?
A good coach doesn't incessantly whine and moan about how bad their team is. They point out the weaknesses, praise the things that are done right and offer specific advice and direction, not the sort of pathetic, empty hand waving and nay-saying you indulge in.

Criticism isn't about being negative, it's about being objective and providing guidance. You should try it sometime. It might surprise you. You might be quite good at it.
 
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pitabread

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That's like telling someone who's just had a heart attack that they should be thankful they don't have the Black Plague.

Prior to the introduction of antibiotics, the black plague had an extremely high mortality rate. There is a reason it wiped out approximately half of Europe's population in the 1300's.

Do you see any plagues today wiping out half of the population?

Meanwhile, heart attacks are highly survivable with modern medical care. So yeah, if I had the choice between a heart attack now versus the plague about 700 years ago, I would take the heart attack any day of the week.

I'm really comparing the way things are today with what they should be today. There are many problems that should have been solved decades ago.

Perhaps if we didn't have as many anti-science types as we do, maybe that would have been the case.
 
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