Proponents Of Intelligent Design Research Articles

Creationism USA: Bridging the Impasse on Teaching Evolution

Creationism USA: Bridging the Impasse on Teaching Evolution

Response to “Mere Theistic Evolution”

Murray and Churchill argue correctly that theistic evolution as they define it is theologically compatible with orthodox Christian doctrines concerning divine providence, natural theology, miracles, and immaterial souls. I close with some reflections on mutual misunderstandings of Intelligent Design proponents and theistic evolutionists that arise because each sees the other as a distorted mirror image of himself.

Origin of the Human Species by Dennis Bonnette

Reviewed by: Origin of the Human Speciesby Dennis Bonnette Earl Muller S.J. Origin of the Human Speciesby Dennis Bonnette, ed. Peter A. Redpath, 3rdexpanded edition (Ave Maria, FL: Sapientia Press of Ave Maria University, 2014), xxviii + 266 pp. T he third editionof Dennis Bonnette's Origin of the Human Speciesis substantially the same as the first edition, which came out in 2001. There has been a minor emendation of the text, and the footnotes and bibliography have been corrected where that was necessary. This expanded edition includes two articles by Bonnette published since this work first appeared: "The Myth of the 'Myth' of Adam and Eve," from a Polish publication edited by Mary Helen Klinge-Drucker, Humanistyka i realizm, which has not yet appeared, and "The Philosophical Impossibility of Darwinian Naturalistic Evolution," in Faith & Reason33:1–4 (2008): 55–67. The index has been revised to include these two appendices. This is fundamentally a philosophical and theological analysis of the issues underlying the theory of evolution from a Thomistic perspective. Bonnette is well-informed on the scientific data brought to bear on the question and the positions taken by atheistic naturalists and "scientific creationists." Intelligent design proponents are also represented—indeed, Michael Behe wrote the foreword to the second edition. Bonnette will side with paleoanthropologists on the antiquity of true humans. The artistry of the Acheulean tools, for instance, indicates true intelligence but is associated with Homo erectus(and not Homo sapiens). Recent earlier dating of these tools has proved awkward for some theories of evolution, and Bonnette reports the arguments from all sides with considerable detachment, tracing the debate from Darwin's original theory of gradualistic transformism to the theories of "punctuated equilibrium." As a philosopher, Bonnette examines the logical, epistemological, and metaphysical foundations of various, at times conflicting, claims of natural scientists. He notes that the process of classifying fossil remains, or of connecting them into a series, is itself a "mental, not an extramental, act," an interpretation imposed on the empirical data (11). This interpretation is based on a convergence of evidence that "persuades ' beyond a reasonable doubt'" (13). Bonnette does not challenge this as such (though he is conversant with the inconsistency in the evidence), but he points out that "perinoetic speculations, especially as they extrapolate from present data to prehistorical conclusions, forever foreclose the possibility of apodictic certitude" (14). [End Page 345]Metaphysics, on the other hand, is able to achieve such certitude. Thus, for example, metaphysics can establish that there is a Creator. Any theory of evolution that purports to do away with the necessity of God is philosophically incoherent. This does not preclude the possibility of an evolution that "may give greater glory to the First Cause by preserving the natural efficacy of secondary causes" (18). Bonnette's study begins in earnest in the second chapter. Anti-evolutionists are generally willing to concede that there is variation within a given species and that there can be development in these variations (intra-specific evolution). The problem enters in with claims that "a form has transcended its species" (extra-specific evolution). Bonnette sets himself the task of determining whether "natural species" exist and "how inter-specific transformism, if it occurs, can be compatible with traditional philosophical principles." The nominalist understanding of "species" as "only convenient words to describe mid-ranges of ever-blending series of unique individuals" (28) is rejected. The "biological species concept" is likewise set aside: "The biologist seeks perinoetic knowledge: knowledge in which, by purely descriptive substitute signs, we conceptually grasp an organism's sensible or common accidents. The philosopher pursues dianoetic knowledge in which, by careful examination of essential properties or proper accidents, we understand a thing's essence or nature" (30). He concludes that "several progressively more perfect natural species exist" and that "more than one natural species of animal exist" (38–39). This philosophical definition of species would place mice and elephants within the same species (possessed of five senses) but oysters (not possessed of those senses) in another. He examines only the most important natural species—plants, animals, and human beings—to determine whether they are truly distinct and to determine...

Methodological naturalism and the truth seeking objection

Methodological naturalism, the exclusion of the supernatural from the natural sciences, has drawn critique from both proponents of Intelligent Design and some philosophical naturalists who argue that the methods of science can also be used to evaluate supernatural claims. One principal objection to methodological naturalism has been what I call the truth seeking objection. In this article I develop an understanding of methodological naturalism capable of answering the truth seeking objection. I further also argue that methodological naturalism as a convention of science can be best defended by abandoning scientism. In this way methodological naturalism can be reconnected to the original theistic context in which it was first developed.

The Sexual Politics of Intelligent Design

Intelligent design is creationism for the twenty-first century. It is the view that the natural world is best explained as the product of an intentional intelligent agent rather than undirected natural forces. Although there has been much ado about its scientific status, beyond the scientific face of intelligent design is a dense discourse that brings a compelling aspect into full relief. Intelligent design is a political movement that embodies aggressive and regressive sexual politics. This article suggests that, motivated by the belief that evolutionary thought has spurred moral decay, intelligent-design advocates have compiled a sophisticated critique of science in general and evolutionary science specifically, and they have proposed intelligent design as an alternative. This critique of science is comparable to some feminist critiques that challenge traditional definitions of science as an unbiased arbiter of truth. Both camps highlight and challenge the ways in which social values infiltrate scientific knowledge, and both seek to instantiate political values into the scientific enterprise as a means of redressing problematic politics and ultimately improving science. It would be a mistake, however, to position feminism and intelligent design as natural allies. When intelligent design is examined more broadly, one finds a set of sexual politics that are antithetical to feminist politics but similar to the politics that feminists have identified in mainstream science. It would also be a mistake to presume that feminism and intelligent design are equal counterparts in the bid to inject ethical parameters into scientific endeavors. Proponents of intelligent design argue that natural law (as defined within intelligent-design discourse) determines the limits of morality, which can be discerned by noting what “works” and what does not. With this, its own criterion, intelligent design fails to substantiate the regressive sexual politics it attempts to rationalize. By extension, the intelligent-design movement itself warrants resistance.

No Data Required

Intelligent Design (ID) proposes that biological species were created by an intelligent Designer, and not by evolution. ID's proponents insist that it is as valid a theory of how biological organisms and species came into existence as evolution by natural selection. They insist, therefore, that ID be taught as science in public schools. These claims were defeated in the Kitzmiller case. However, ID's proponents are still influential and cannot be considered a spent force. The question addressed here is whether ID's claim of scientific legitimacy is reinforced by quantified results. That is, do they have any data, or do they just argue? The ID articles that I analyzed claimed to present real science, but they rarely referred to data and never tested a hypothesis. Argumentation, however, was frequent. By contrast, peer-reviewed articles by evolutionary biologists rarely argued but referred frequently to data. The results were statistically significant. These findings negate claims by ID proponents that their articles report rigorous scientific research. Teachers will find this article helpful in defending evolution, distinguishing science from non-science, and discussing the weaknesses of ID.

Slow-down or speed-up of inter- and intra-cluster diffusion of controversial knowledge in stubborn communities based on a small world network

Diffusion of knowledge is expected to be huge when agents are open minded. The report concerns a more difficult diffusion case when communities are made of stubborn agents. Communities having markedly different opinions are for example the Neocreationist and Intelligent Design Proponents (IDP), on one hand, and the Darwinian Evolution Defenders (DED), on the other hand. The case of knowledge diffusion within such communities is studied here on a network based on an adjacency matrix built from time ordered selected quotations of agents, whence for inter- and intra-communities. The network is intrinsically directed and not necessarily reciprocal. Thus, the adjacency matrices have complex eigenvalues, the eigenvectors present complex components. A quantification of the slow-down or speed-up effects of information diffusion in such temporal networks, with non-Markovian contact sequences, can be made by comparing the real time dependent (directed) network to its counterpart, the time aggregated (undirected) network, - which has real eigenvalues. In order to do so, small world networks which both contain an $odd$ number of nodes are studied and compared to similar networks with an $even$ number of nodes. It is found that (i) the diffusion of knowledge is more difficult on the largest networks, (ii) the network size influences the slowing-down or speeding-up diffusion process. Interestingly, it is observed that (iii) the diffusion of knowledge is slower in IDP and faster in DED communities. It is suggested that the finding can be "rationalized", if some "scientific quality" and "publication habit" is attributed to the agents, as common sense would guess. This finding offers some opening discussion toward tying scientific knowledge to belief.

Engines of Creationism? Intelligent Design, Machine Metaphors and Visual Rhetoric

Machine metaphors are ubiquitous in the molecular sciences. In addition to their use by scientists, educators and popularizers of science, they have been promoted intensively by the Intelligent Design (ID) movement in arguments for the necessity of a god-like designer to account for the complexities of life at the molecular level. The authors have investigated the visual rhetoric employed in a movie by ID proponents, with particular emphasis on machine metaphors. The authors provide examples and argue that science communicators could reduce the persuasive impact of ID visual rhetoric based on machine metaphors by emphasizing that self-assembly is fundamental to molecular complexes.

Proofs of the divine power? Temple Chevallier and the design argument in the nineteenth century

AbstractTemple Chevallier, the first Professor of Astronomy at Durham University, was one of the leading British scientists of the nineteenth century. While his scientific work has been widely recognised, little has been written on his theological approach which provides an insight into the use of the design argument and revelation. In common with many scientists of the period, Chevallier had strong theological interests, was Reader in Hebrew at Durham University, and an Anglican priest. His Hulsean Lectures, ‘On the proofs of Divine Power and Wisdom, derived from the study of astronomy and the evidence, doctrines and precepts of Revealed Religion’, provide a fascinating picture of the engagement of Christian theology with science, in stark contrast to the dominant narratives of conflict which have been applied to this century. Having had many things in common with his contemporary Darwin, including the influence of Paley, Chevallier departed from both in his understanding of the Bible and the created order.Chevallier's use of the design argument demonstrated the holding together of natural and revealed theology. This enabled him to use science to give pointers to God rather than proofs. Science was seen as a gift from God, engendering awe and reflecting God's sustaining of the Universe. Indeed it is argued that this was characteristic of the origins of the design argument in its earliest forms.This strong context of revealed theology allowed him, with many others in the nineteenth century, to respond in a relaxed way to Darwin's evolutionary theory. Chevallier is a reminder of the complexity of British theological thinking in this period. Furthermore, this historical account is an important cautionary voice in the contemporary revival of the design argument in modern astronomy, whether used by the proponents of intelligent design or by those such as Paul Davies who would exclude revelation from any part of the discussion.

Theological Implications of Young Earth Creationism and Intelligent Design: Emerging Tendencies of Scientism and Agnosticism

Creationism is a worldview that does not accept the undirected formation and development of life but requires intelligent (supernatural) intervention. We analyzed texts representing Young Earth creationism (YEC) and intelligent design (ID) for their theological content and implications by assessing their position in central issues of systematic theology. YEC proponents emphasize the young age of the Earth and the necessity of literal interpretation of Genesis as prerequisites for the Fall and redemption. ID accepts the geological age of the planet, but requires intervention during evolution. YEC maintained the traditional characteristics of the Christian God (omnipotence, omniscience, benevolence), while some ID authors refused to speculate on the nature of the alleged designer. YEC authors utilized reinterpretation of scientific data as evidence for creation and to legitimize their belief in the historicity of Genesis. This could be regarded a form of scientism. YEC theodicy concentrated on the Fall as the cause of evil and the eschatological resolution of suffering. In contrast, ID proponents attempted to solve theodicy by compensated benefits of, e.g., pain. ID did not take a clear stand regarding salvation and ecclesiology, but YEC authors considered the acceptance of evolutionary theory and Christian faith to be mostly inconsistent. YEC doctrine differed from major Christian denominations by accepting scientific evidence as a proof for the historicity of Genesis and showed signs of exclusivity regarding evolutionary proponents. In ID, no satisfactory theodicy could be observed and some ID theorists could be classified as agnostics because of doubting the identity of the designer and by limiting God's omnipotence and benevolence. Both YEC and ID demonized evolutionary theory and its proponents. Creationism seems to be on its way to becoming a new kind of denomination or an emerging novel religion.

Does evolution compromise Christian faith? R. J. Asher’s Evolution and Belief

Evolution and Belief: Confessions of a Religious Paleontologist, by Robert J. Asher. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 2012. Pp. xxiii + 300. H/b $24.99. In this book, Robert Asher reviews some of the overwhelming evidence for evolution, explains why evolutionary biology should pose no threat to Christian faith, and refutes oft-repeated criticisms of evolution by natural selection that many non-biologists find convincing. Asher does a wonderful job with the evidence for evolution, although non-biologists will find parts of his presentation heavy going. As a professing Christian of conservative theological bent, I find his discussion of the relationship between science and Christian faith basically sound. Nonetheless, as Asher (p. xiv) recognizes, few youngearth creationists (who believe that God created the universe and its contents in 6 days, less than 10 millennia ago, as told in the Bible’s first two chapters) or proponents of intelligent design (who argue that God demonstrably designed many of the ancestors of today’s organisms) will read this book, let alone be convinced by it. They object to evolutionary theory in the name of science, but their objections are driven by their religious beliefs. With sympathy, Asher discusses various bases for their religious objections. Asher (p. xv) recognizes that some people have more rational grounds for rejecting evolution by natural selection. He dismisses the slander that William Jennings Bryan was a young-earth creationist, showing that he rejected natural selection because school textbooks used that idea to promote social injustice. Indeed, offensive ‘utopias’ promoted by reputable scientists in the name of evolutionary theory may still raise up anti-evolutionists (Midgley 2002). Asher, however, seems not to realize how many Christians oppose Darwin’s ideas because they depend on Paley’s argument from design to

Complex-valued information entropy measure for networks with directed links (digraphs). Application to citations by community agents with opposite opinions

The notion of complex-valued information entropy measure is presented. It applies in particular to directed networks (digraphs). The corresponding statistical physics notions are outlined. The studied network, serving as a case study, in view of illustrating the discussion, concerns citations by agents belonging to two distinct communities which have markedly different opinions: the Neocreationist and Intelligent Design Proponents, on one hand, and the Darwinian Evolution Defenders, on the other hand. The whole, intra- and inter-community adjacency matrices, resulting from quotations of published work by the community agents, are elaborated and eigenvalues calculated. Since eigenvalues can be complex numbers, the information entropy may become also complex-valued. It is calculated for the illustrating case. The role of the imaginary part finiteness is discussed in particular and given some physical sense interpretation through local interaction range consideration. It is concluded that such generalizations are not only interesting and necessary for discussing directed networks, but also may give new insight into conceptual ideas about directed or other networks. Notes on extending the above to Tsallis entropy measure are found in an Appendix.

Proponents of Creationism but not Proponents of Evolution Frame the Origins Debate in Terms of Proof

In Study 1, 72 internet documents containing creationism, ID (intelligent design), or evolution content were selected for analysis. All instances of proof cognates (the word “proof” and related terms such as “proven”, “disproof”, etc.) contained within these documents were identified and labeled in terms of the manner in which the terms were used. In Study 2, frequency counts for six terms (proof, evidence, establish, experiment, test, trial) were conducted on a sample of peer-reviewed research articles in the journal Science and the 72 internet documents included in Study 1. Quantitative and qualitative analyses revealed that proponents of creationism were much more likely than proponents of evolution to frame the creationism/evolution issue in terms of proof (ID proponents fell partway between the other two). Proponents of creationism frequently described empirical data favoring their position as proof of their position. Even more frequently, proponents of creationism described evolutionary scientists as being engaged in failed attempts to prove the truth of the evolutionary position. Evolution documents included fewer proof cognates than creationism or ID documents and the few proof cognates found in evolution documents were rarely used to describe the status of the theory of evolution. Qualitative data analysis indicated that proof cognates were often used to indicate certainty. The asymmetry between evolution and creationism documents was limited primarily to proof cognates; there were no major asymmetries for the terms evidence, establish, experiment, test, and trial. The results may reveal differences in the epistemological commitments of the involved parties.

Sacred Violence and the Death of God

I would like to emphasize in the first place that human being does not know what religion is. Georges Bataille1 In her call for papers addressing the issue of violence, Maria Margaroni indicates the need to think the ethical and political challenges posed by what Samuel Huntington calls the of civilizations.2 This clearly does not mean taking Huntington's claims seriously as policy directives to be implemented, but recognizes his work as symptomatic of something like a larger Zeitgeist in the twenty-first century, post-industrial, spectacular-democratic West: sacred evokes images of fundamentalism, religious intolerance, terrorism and torture. News outlets of all sorts run stories on radical clerics; suicide bombers; ethnic cleansing, genocide and mass graves; the burning of temples, churches and mosques; the destruction of sites; the execution of witches; the stoning of adulterers; the abuse of cult members by their leaders. The victims and victimizers, such as they are, can be poor or wealthy, uneducated or educated alike. The violence is directed against nation-states, peoples, and individuals by frenzied and murderous mobs, patient and calculating religious-political organizations, and solitary zealots. The scope of associations is overwhelming, hardly manageable as a unitary phenomenon. Still, this same violence is almost systematically decried by organizations as different as the Cato Institute, the Anti-Defamation League, and the U.N. And each of these reproaches shares the basic framework expressed in Eric Rudolph's rhetorical question, which he poses as a justification of his own murderous actions taken against a Birmingham abortion clinic: Is America an identity born of the Western Christian Culture or is it a pile of neutral abstractions derived from the Enlightenment?3 Not just a clash of cultures, then, but more specifically a clash between Enlightenment and non-Enlightenment values. Of course, not every instance of religious violence mentioned above understands itself in direct contrast to the Enlightenment lineage of the West; alternate understandings, grave misunderstandings, and the absence or suppression of understanding altogether in the midst of explosive passions characterize these events as much as anything else. But that the West approaches the phenomena of these associations from a kind of Enlightenment stance is undeniable. The condemnation of ignorance and prejudice rides in tandem with larger rebuke. The Enlightenment belief that human being could better itself by transcending the myopia of its prejudice found full expression in Kant's grounding imperative: Dare to think for yourself, dare to know!4 This carried as a necessary consequence the refusal of dogmatism and implied a contestation of religious authority. But the runaway over-determination of rationality by calculation - which links the mathematization of the universe with the exploitation of global markets - has outpaced Kant's fundamental requirement. Today the critique of religious authority persists mostly absent a critique of reason itself. And this is of the utmost significance because the limits of reason, which such critique would trace, configure philosophy's most esteemed moments: the experience of wonder and the endeavor of self-knowledge. If the critique of religious authority persists without attending to the full scope of reason's limitations, then, this is also to say it transpires in a space spared from the responsibility of self-interrogation and the perils of encounter with anything truly foreign. Richard Dawkins's brazen confidence not only in rationality, but his self-interested deployment of it, exemplifies this loss in contemporary Western culture.5 Critique is leveled solely against external phenomena and reason is uncritically posited as a final and common arbiter. That some of Dawkins's targets, such as proponents of Intelligent Design, share these suppositions is confirmation of the extent to which this particular use and valuation of rationality dominates our horizon in the West. …

Gaming the Establishment Clause: Intelligent Design in the Public School Classroom

This article addresses the process by which the typical school board member or legislator has been asked to mandate the inclusion of intelligent design theory and critiques of evolution into the public school curriculum. It posits that as a matter of scientific theory, this debate is taking place before audiences patently unable to make informed scientific judgments. The constitutional problem with this process is that it is an illegitimate debate constructed to evade, not comply with the Establishment Clause. The conclusion is that the strategy employed by intelligent design proponents is especially troublesome because it “games” the Establishment clause in a way that defeats the central purpose of the Clause. Nothing is wrong with citizens pressing government to act in ways that coincide with particular religious beliefs; and nothing is wrong with government’s doing so if valid secular purposes are the true basis of the government’s actions. What ought not to be legitimate is citizens’ achieving religious goals by fooling a government agency into accepting sham secular purposes.

Intelligent Design Creationism and the Mechanisms of Postmodernity

Abstract: This article provides a critical reading of Intelligent Design proponents' attempt to create a wedge in secular society to reinsert a theistic worldview. It argues they assert their wedge via the mechanisms of postmodernity: following Frederic Jameson, those informational elements of mass culture that allow them to present their ideas as an alternate to that posed by evolutionary biology. It centres on a representation (by the philosopher of science Robert Pennock) of Intelligent Design advocate, Philip E. Johnson as a postmodern thinker. This article revises Pennock, claiming that while Johnson does attack modern science in his project to champion Intelligent Design, Johnson is not a representative of many precepts of postmodernity. In particular, this chapter reads Johnson as clearly supporting a Christian metanarrative. Moreover, Johnson is a representative of a strategy formulated by the conservative organization, The Discovery Institute, and their campaign called the Wedge Strategy. Exemplified by an internal document leaked to the internet, “The Wedge” is a clearly explicated strategy to combat secular society.

Organization of networks with tagged nodes and biased links: A priori distinct communities : The case of intelligent design proponents and Darwinian evolution defenders

Among the topics of opinion formation it is of interest to observe the characteristics of networks with a priori distinct communities. The citation network(s) between selected members of the Neocreationist and Intelligent Design and the Darwinian Evolution communities are unfolded through the available internet citations. The resulting adjacency matrix is not symmetric. A generalization of considerations pertaining to the case of networks with tagged nodes and biased links, directed or undirected, is presented. The main characteristic coefficients describing the structure of such networks are outlined. The structural features are discussed searching for statistical aspects of the communities. The degree distributions, each network’s assortativity, specific global and local clustering coefficients and the Average Overlap Indices are especially calculated since the distribution of elements in the rectangular submatrices represent inter-community connections. The various closed and open triangles made from nodes, distinguishing the community, are listed. The z -scores of patterns are calculated. One can distinguish between opinion leaders, followers and main rivals and briefly interpret their relationships through intuitively expected behavior in defence of an opinion. Suggestions for more elaborate models describing such communities and their subsequent structures are found in conclusions.

Why Machine-Information Metaphors are Bad for Science and Science Education

Genes are often described by biologists using metaphors derived from computational science: they are thought of as carriers of information, as being the equivalent of “blueprints” for the construction of organisms. Likewise, cells are often characterized as “factories” and organisms themselves become analogous to machines. Accordingly, when the human genome project was initially announced, the promise was that we would soon know how a human being is made, just as we know how to make airplanes and buildings. Importantly, modern proponents of Intelligent Design, the latest version of creationism, have exploited biologists’ use of the language of information and blueprints to make their spurious case, based on pseudoscientific concepts such as “irreducible complexity” and on flawed analogies between living cells and mechanical factories. However, the living organism = machine analogy was criticized already by David Hume in his Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion. In line with Hume’s criticism, over the past several years a more nuanced and accurate understanding of what genes are and how they operate has emerged, ironically in part from the work of computational scientists who take biology, and in particular developmental biology, more seriously than some biologists seem to do. In this article we connect Hume’s original criticism of the living organism = machine analogy with the modern ID movement, and illustrate how the use of misleading and outdated metaphors in science can play into the hands of pseudoscientists. Thus, we argue that dropping the blueprint and similar metaphors will improve both the science of biology and its understanding by the general public.

It's Déjà Vu All Over Again: The Intelligent Design Movement's Recycling of Creationist Strategies

The intelligent design (ID) creationist movement is now a quarter of a century old. ID proponents at the Discovery Institute, headquartered in Seattle, WA, USA, insist that ID is not creationism. However, it is the direct descendant of the creation science movement that began in the 1960s and continued until the definitive ruling against creationism by the US Supreme Court in Edwards v. Aguillard1987, which struck down laws that required balancing the teaching of evolution with creationism in public schools. Already anticipating in the early 1980s that Arkansas and Louisiana “balanced treatment” laws would be declared unconstitutional, a group of creationists led by Charles Thaxton began laying the groundwork for what is now the ID movement. After Edwards, Thaxton and his associates promoted ID aggressively until it, too, was declared unconstitutional by a federal judge in Kitzmiller et al. v. Dover Area School District 2005. Subsequently, in 2008, the Discovery Institute began its multistate promotion of model “academic freedom” legislation that bears striking parallels to the 1980s balanced treatment laws. Because of Kitzmiller, ID proponents have written their model legislation in code language in an effort to avoid another court challenge. Yet despite attempting to evade the legal constraints imposed by Edwards, they are merely recycling earlier creationist tactics that date back to the late 1970s and early 1980s. The tactics that ID creationists now use—promoting legislation, publishing “educational” materials, establishing a “research” institute, and sanitizing their terminology—are the recycled tactics of their creation science predecessors.

Organizational and dynamical aspects of a small network with two distinct communities: Neo-creationists vs. Evolution Defenders

Social impacts and degrees of organization inherent to opinion formation for interacting agents on networks present interesting questions of general interest from physics to sociology. We present a quantitative analysis of a case implying an evolving small size network, i.e. that inherent to the ongoing debate between modern creationists (most are Intelligent Design (ID) proponents (IDP) and Darwin’s theory of Evolution Defenders (DED)). This study is carried out by analyzing the structural properties of the citation network unfolded in the recent decades by publishing works belonging to members of the two communities. With the aim of capturing the dynamical aspects of the interaction between the IDP and DED groups, we focus on two key quantities, namely, the degree of activity of each group and the corresponding degree of impact on the intellectual community at large. A representative measure of the former is provided by the rate of production of publications (RPP), whilst the latter can be assimilated to the rate of increase in citations (RIC). These quantities are determined, respectively, by the slope of the time series obtained for the number of publications accumulated per year and by the slope of a similar time series obtained for the corresponding citations. The results indicate that in this case, the dynamics can be seen as geared by triggered or damped competition. The network is a specific example of marked heterogeneity in exchange of information activity in and between the communities, particularly demonstrated through the nodes having a high connectivity degree, i.e. opinion leaders.