When did ID "Jump the Shark"?

My opinion is "Not Applicable".

'Jumping the shark' refers to when something good goes bad. IDC never had any real merit, so the term does not apply.

When the Wedgies switched from using ID as the wedge to the "teach the controversy" replacement scam around 1999. At that point the scientific credibility of ID was non existent even by the standards of the IDers. ID became just a smoke screen to make it look like the "controversy" replacement scam was legitimate. When the rats leave the sinking ship it is a good sign that bad things have happened or are happening.

My opinion is "Not Applicable".

— Bayesian Bouffant, FCD

It also implies that once the shark is jumped, the whole thing slides away and falls into laughable crapitude. ID started there, and all they do is jump from shark to shark. Right now, I think they're doing a series of triple backflips over a whole school of Great Whites.

I think they jumped the shark when ol' Paley gave a thumbs up and went "Aaaayyy" as he sailed over the heath.

I agree, Jumping the Shark is supposed to be when something goes from good to inarguably bad. ID has just gone from crappy, like Behe's IC failure, to terminal, like Jay Richards saying Einstein was wrong.

You know, I bet Physics Review would decline to publish Richards's argument. Dang ol atheist scientist cabal.

From the practical point of view, they were dead as soon as the Wedge Document leaked onto the Internet.

But by any other measure, they were dead as soon as they claimed to have an "alternative scientific theory of intelligent design" without beign able to produce one.

So, for me, ID jumped the shark on May 10th, 2000, when the Discovery Institute held a Congressional briefing pushing ID through the political process.

— Wesley R. Elsberry

That's when Nancy Pearcey did her hilarious "You and me baby ain't nothin' but mammals" routine. To which the American Physical Society responded with the memorable quote: "So much for the pretense that this debate is over the science."

How about John Ray. If not him, William Paley.

In terms of public opinion, these people--the IDers--are winning. Though this has yet to affect serious research science, it has drastic implications for science education and science policy.

I'm a little struck by your complacency. ID can't be taken seriously as science: until it's been mandated by law at the state and local level.

Even if this never happens--which still seems likely, the "controversy" is still undermining science education at the K-12 level.

Likewise, I've taught at the college level in the USA. The students enter with a very poor general science background. Many outright hostile to any mention of evolution.

You can make all the red state and state college jokes you please: we're still failing in basic science education for perhaps a majority of Americans.

Underestimating these people is a mistake. They feed off of and contrbiute to that failure: and right now, they're living high off the hog indeed.

If you ignore the political side for a second the so-called scientific pronouncements show incredible bad timing. Behe announcing irreducible complexity when genomics was about to disprove him left and right. Now Richards questions Einstein. At least Behe did this before he was disproven. On my blog the last couple years have gotten repetitive. Uh, Einstein right again. This just in, Einstein is still right. [Cf. Chevy Chase, Weekend Update viz. Franco's death]

DI didn't just jump the shark, they jumped Jaws.

That's true Thom, but not the end of the world. Scientists will continue to study evolution even if 90% of the public believes in ID, because it's correct, and there is no alternative theory.

I'd argue that the advent of ID itself was Creationism jumping the shark. They realized they couldn't win, so they jettisoned faith, religion, belief, spirituality, etc in a last-ditch effort to try to pretend to have a scientific purpose.

Come on! It's an insult to Soapy Sam, Paley or John Ray to say they have been re-incarnated as Nancy Pearcey or any other IDiot.None were that stupid or caught up in wierd design arguments.

Ray was a first rate natural historian of his day and a precursor of Linnaeus

Paley's design is far better than any IDiots, and reflected the thought of the day. Its shortcomings became evident by the 1820s.Paley was no scientist but was fairly well informed

Now Soapy Sam was a fine man and a fine Bishop. He was well informed scientifically especially on geology - he attended Buckland's geology lectures for several years running and his review of the Origin shows his geological nowse.Again he was giving the standard scientific reasons for opposing evolution in 1860 especially those of the vast majority of geologists and also many physicists.He also saw several theological objections to evolution which were not shared by his friend Rev Charles Kingsley and many other clergy.

I have a lot of respect for these three anglican clergy, who were at one with the science of their day.

We also need to see that ID is just Godofthegaps and not a revival of old design ideas of Ray , Paley or anyone else. They saw design in everything and not just the things they couldnt explain.

"intelligent design is just the Logos theology of John's Gospel restated in the idiom of information theory"

— William Dembski

That's true Thom, but not the end of the world. Scientists will continue to study evolution even if 90% of the public believes in ID, because it's correct, and there is no alternative theory.

I think we need ask Hari Seldon on this one. :)

I am new to the pseudoscience of ID. I studied evolution in high school over 25 years ago and remember asking the same questions that the deniers of today ask. I had a very good biology teacher - a botanist - who cleared up our doubts over an hour of well reasoned discussion. And then in College I sat thru introductory classes on genetics - first by the zoology folks and then the botany folks. Same questions and same answers - and this is a Jesuit institution where I majored in physics and was taught by several men of the cloth. So by the time I returned to this debate about three years ago I had already disposed of all silly objections to the theory of evolution. I take great pride in my familiarity with the principles of not only my own Hinduism but also Christianity, Islam and Buddhism. Bill Dembski of all the Icons of ID seems to be the main "when the shark.." candidate. It's when these Icons of Obfuscation decided to abandon their Creationist colleagues and decided to do a light and sound fluff act that the downhill slide began. For all their irrationalism the ICR, CRS and AiG folks try some science - at least work in some scientific discipline or try to maintain some veneer of science. The ID folks are a class act and have abandoned their commitment to science right from Day 1, instead choosing to take shortcuts to glory. Unfortunately shortcuts provide the appearance of speed not speed itself. And as the old saying goes - you lie once you must cover it up with ten others and ten others for each one of them. It's a sad tale from the first day - downhill all the way.

ID jumped the shark at the 2003 Texas school board hearings. Up until then, they just lied about not being a creationist movement. In those hearings they started lying about not even being an intelligent design movement anymore. "We don't want any ID taught in books!" they said. "We just want to teach that there are problems with evolution!"

At that point it must have been clear to everyone that they couldn't support ID without making it clear that it is, and always has been, a religious movement.

I actually learned about ID within this year at Talkorigins. Don't think that these pro-science sites aren't helping! And I wouldn't worry about us slipping into another dark age. In a time where information is so abundant, public opinion can fluctuate rapidly. I was utterly amazed at the level of government corruption and stupididty Americans have tolerated following 9-11, and I am sure that it can just as easily change back, as we get sick of the administration cracking down on abortion and contaceptives and screwing the economy.
I wondered about the name, Shiva. Well, namaste, ji. I am pretty close to Hindu myself: a Sikh, to be precise. Sort of. I don't think any organized religion is right about everything.

I would have to say it has been all down hill after 1691, with the death of Boyle.

Do we count the Bible-thumpers of Dover, PA, as part of the ID movement? If so, then ID's claim of not being a religious movement is a lie. The problem with the Big Tent approach is all the strange bedfellows found in one's sleeping bag.

ID properly belongs in the sphere of copper bracelets, magnetic insoles, and coffee enemas. It appears such things will always be with us, doing brisk business. Remember the TV ad for a certain cigarette, in which the narrator said "It would take a scientist to explain it [how the filter works]"?

We should not be complacent because funding for real science, efforts to solve real problems, will suffer because of the public perception of what constitutes science.

When ID needed to come up with a lesson plan..

For them, when their vanity (mostly, though for some it was greed, and various other failings they would describe as "sins" are also represented) overcame any residual sense of curiosity or wonder about the world, as well as any sense of the values and pleasures of fair-play.

For their opponents: it will perhaps never end, since they cannot be cured of their phobia without their agreement, and such as them and those they own simply never admit any failure, much less the "reasoning" that ever renews it.

all the strange bedfellows

— mark

"An archeologist attempting to explain the evolution of this computer program in terms of many tiny improvements might be puzzled to find that each of these major advances (new classes or phyla??) appeared suddenly in new versions; for example, the ability to solve 3D problems first appeared in version 4.0. Less major improvements (new families or orders??) appeared suddenly in new subversions, for example, the aility to solve 3D problems with periodic boundary conditions first appeared in version 5.6. In fact, the record of PDE2D's development would be similar to the fossil record, with large gaps where major new features appeared, and smaller gaps where minor ones appeared. That is because the multitude of intermediate programs between versions or subversions which the archeologist might expect to find never existed, because--for example--none of the changes I made for edition 4.0 made any sense, or provided PDE2D any advantage whatever in solving 3D problems (or anything else) until hundreds of lines had been added."

ID lost any chance of becoming legitimate science after Behe and Dembski gave up on claims like "Evolution can't gradually build irreducibly complex systems, because any IC system missing a part would be nonfunctional" and switched to "evolutionary biology has to produce an infinitely detailed, mutation-by-mutation evolutionary pathway for systems like the flagellum -- if it doesn't, then our vague, miraculous ID explanation is the best explanation."

The first claim was a logically coherant argument against evolution. It was simply factually wrong, because IC systems commonly are made of subsystems of proteins that have other functions.

The second claim amounts to ID advocates closing their eyes, sticking their fingers in their ears, and desperately shouting "Not detailed enough! Not detailed enough!" over and over in the hope that no one will notice that their position is now totally bankrupt.

The second claim amounts to ID advocates closing their eyes, sticking their fingers in their ears, and desperately shouting "Not detailed enough! Not detailed enough!" over and over in the hope that no one will notice that their position is now totally bankrupt.

Harq,

I agree with you about religious thought and science. If any spiritual seeker is true to Him/herself they must accept the findings of science unless they are prepared to cheat themselves and others. I believe the best of those scientists who are spirutual people have already made that commitment to their conscience. There is a difference between a layperson (however strident or politically influential the person is) and a one time scientist like Bill D or Behe denying the findings of science showing no signs of regret at all. Kurt wISE and the Creationist crowd are clear about what they are trying to establish as the revealed truth.

ID so far hasn't yet completely jumped the shark, but when the first reasonably detailed model of the evolution of the fallgela ( major step by major step) comes out they'll not only jump the shark but get eaten by it as well. Judging by the progress which has already been made on the problem I'd say their about to leap any moment now. I predict that after the evolution of the fallgela is mapped it will be onto the next organism, then the next then the next and that I think ( or rather hope) may be the end of even public support for the movement.

By the way, I think the first researcher to propose a detailed, falsifiable model of the evolution of the fallgela should receive a nobel prize, anyone else agree?

As much as I would like to agree, given that I wrote this, devising a reasonable model on paper is just a matter of doing the necessary literature research -- i.e., actually looking up all of homologies, something no IDist has ever done -- and synthesizing it in the context of standard modern evolutionary theory. It's not a particularly difficult thing to do, it's just that the number of people who are sufficiently familiar with both flagellum biochemistry and evolutionary biology is rather small.

Plus, there isn't a Nobel prize for evolution. There isn't even a Nobel prize for biology, because old Mr. Nobel didn't think to endow one.

(And it's flagellum, singular, flagella, plural. From the Latin word for "whip", I think. You get points for creativity with "fallgela", though.)

[PS: I fixed a typo, and have now blogged a reply to Dembski's comment on my short comment.]

By the way, I think the first researcher to propose a detailed, falsifiable model of the evolution of the fallgela should receive a nobel prize, anyone else agree?

— TScriven

My observation would be that there are various "sharks" large and small in the many states and communities. So this battle goes on at every state and local school board. No major "shark jump" will suffice.

A change to a reality based, pro-science administration would certainly be a major step forward.

That Pallen et al. article is a good one, although it is more about the diversification of T3SSs than the actual origin flagellum (there is a brief discussion of the origin of the flagellum, however...the passage shows they are thinking along similar lines to the flagellum essay). It does explore the topic of homology between the flagellar axial proteins (rod-hook-filament) and the T3SS pilus, which is incredibly useful.

I'm a little struck by your complacency.

— Thom H

Thom H makes a good point that IDers are winning in the public opinion (well, I don't know if they are, but they can hold on through ignorance and prejudice, as we all well know), but I think that jumping the shark isn't about the fall-off in viewership, rather it is about plausibility and even a modicum of respect for the cast and producers.

Jumping the shark, however, is essentially about finding a point at which a declining show or "movement" has hit its most ridiculous point (or has set the stage for equal ridiculousness for the rest of its life). It isn't really much of an issue. I probably would have found a point a couple years into Happy Days at which I thought it had become hideously lame, instead of waiting for the shark jump, but regardless, the shark jump is good enough.

I might say that when Dembski started in could be the "shark jump". He wasn't plausible to begin with. He didn't even use the term "complexity" properly, and he constantly sounds absurd, petty, whiny, and incompetent in all areas biological.

Some have said that ID was always bad. Not necessarily so. Nature gave Behe some credit for discussing the difficulties that remain in evolutionary science when reviewing DBB, though they gave him no credit for the scientifically unsound "design hypothesis". Whether ID would even be worth paying any attention to after that would then depend on where IDists went with it. If they'd kept to the science issues that exist in evolutionary theory without insisting that a scientifically unknowable agent was the only answer, they could have assuaged their religious angst by leaving a gap for their own belief, without trying to dumb down science to sanctioning such gaps. They chose to insist that their "gaps" be sanctioned (as we observe, this was inevitable for most of them), and could be said to have jumped the shark then, only awaiting televisation of this episode to lose all credibility among critically thinking minds.

On the whole, though, I'd agree that ID was never really good enough even to find the point at which they jumped the shark. It's been an incessant chipping away at the ignorance and wishful thinking among people really committed to anything but scientific evolution, and I think that any "shark jumping" that can be even tenuously identified on that score has to be more recent.

Dembski becomes more and more repellent, and Behe looks more and more vapid, as time goes on. For the most part, they aren't even any fun any more. The Kansas hearings might be as close as we can come to the shark jumping in the eyes of the public, for although they'll probably dumb down biology in Kansas as a part of the chain of events which include the hearings, they're looking as idiotic as they are in doing so. Behe got up there and sounded implausible and trite, while the appalling Dembski was kept away by the IDists.

The ID viewers aren't going away from their own little "Happy Days" yet, of course, but I think it's getting harder to watch the DI as it waves around its little plastic swords and widens its threats to even more of science. It just looks desperate as the failures at the DI say they're coming after astronomy now. No doubt they are, and we'd better not be complacent in the face of the many who want to punch gaps into science, yet the most prominent spokesmen for ID are highly vulnerable.

What happens when America reaches that day? When 95% of all high school students get no training on evolution, and the majority of Americans are hostile to it, yet scientists still all study evolution?

Is this a recipe for social instabililty? Can we foresee a big upsurge govt./church attacks on higher education or science? Or is this just the beginning of a big decline for the US?

These are difficult questions to answer. America can still recruit scientific talent from around the world even as our own population becomes increasingly scientifically illiterate, and the 1st Amendment should protect our universities from attack by the fundies. Americans worship science and progress as well as God, so while our children may eventually learn nothing about evolutionary theory in primary schools to appease the fundies, I don't expect to see an all out assault on science.

I might say that when Dembski started in could be the “shark jump”. He wasn’t plausible to begin with. He didn’t even use the term “complexity” properly, and he constantly sounds absurd, petty, whiny, and incompetent in all areas biological.

Aagcobb wrote:
"I don't expect to see an all out assault on science."

I hope that's right, perhaps I am overly paranoid, but it seems that the current climate is pointing to just that. In spades!

Rhetoric is replacing logic on a daily basis, and it shows, in many ways.

Man, how did I miss this thread. I hope it isn't dead.

What about when it was formed, by a rabidly Creationist lawyer who got together with an equally rabid Creationist philosopher in an effort to overturn Darwin? Vacuous from the start.

Wes, I think a more interesting question to ask PT contributors is how they became aware of ID chicanery.

— Stephen Thomas Smith

In the course of the conference the participants moved toward several shared conclusions: 1. We cannot make a priori pronouncements about what kind of theory or what kind of explanation can properly be made in the course of scientific inquiry. In principle, there is nothing to exclude appeals to a superhuman, or even extra-cosmic, intelligence.

Late in 1996, though, I received a mailed "call for papers" for a philosophy conference. snip The conference summary by Rob Koons went further, holding that the "consensus" of participants was that "intelligent design" had the makings of a science, and that people should stop beating up on Phillip Johnson in print.

In the course of the conference the participants moved toward several shared conclusions: 1. We cannot make a priori pronouncements about what kind of theory or what kind of explanation can properly be made in the course of scientific inquiry. In principle, there is nothing to exclude appeals to a superhuman, or even extra-cosmic, intelligence.