Now that the kerfuffle over the Ham/Nye debate on creationism has died down, what can we say? Well, not much, since there’s nothing to measure. I doubt that evolution acceptance in America will budge much, as creationism has held pretty steady in the US, fluctuating between 40 and 46%, for 30 years. (There is, however, an encouraging sign that “naturalistic” evolution—evolution unguided by God—is gaining in popularity.
Well, there’s one metric of the debate’s success beyond simply the dollars that flowed into Answer in Genesis’s bank account, and that is the topic of a post by The Benshi the website of scientist/filmmaker Randy Olson, who made the popular film “Flock of Dodos” (about creationism) and “Sizzle” (about global warming). Olson, conversant with Hollywood stuff, is familiar with the Internet Movie Database (IMDb) has a “STARmeter” where you can rate your favorite actor or celebrity. I don’t know how it works, and apparently neither does Olson, but he points out in his post that you can use that STARmeter to gauge the popularity of both Nye and Ham before and after their debate. Here are the results, although it looks as if Olson got the columns wrong: the first one should be “after debate” and the second “before debate” (after all, the net change in both cases was upward).
As Olson notes:
Evolutionist Jerry Coyne wrote an editorial in the New Republic in early January suggesting that Bill Nye would be “helping the discredited creationists he’s planning to debate.” Well, did he?
The answer is pretty clearly yes.* Look at the huge jump that Ken Ham took in his IMDB Pro Starmeter rating. And really, all that is showing is what you can already guess from the level of exposure the event received (it was all over USA Today’s website). There’s no doubt Nye served up a huge validation to Ken Ham, who just two weeks ago was as marginal as his 140,000 previous score reflected.
It’s very easy to shoot holes in the Starmeter rating — most actors find it frustrating trying to figure out exactly what it’s based upon. But there’s no denying it is a fairly accurate overall reflection of how “hot” someone is in the media world. It’s probably about as reliable as the scores on Rotten Tomatoes for movies — you get the occasional baffler, but most of the time the score is pretty close to reality.
But Olson adds that while Nye’s STARmeter rating dropped, he’s still above 3,000, which is a benchmark for being pretty popular. My response is, “well, yes, but who really got the boost was Ken Ham.
In the end, I think the debate will be seen as a pretty useless exercise, but one that did enrich Answer in Genesis, something that Nye wouldn’t want to do.
Olson concludes:
Bottom line, 3,000 is pretty huge. Anything above 10,000 is pretty huge. Bill Nye scored big with his debate adventure. And really, overall, as repugnant as some scientists may find creationists, they are an effective foil for reaching the general public. That’s just the way it works in the human race. Sorry.
I’m not sure what Olson means by that, but why on earth do we need “effective foils” for evolutionists to reach the public. It seems pretty clear that if we didn’t have creationists, acceptance of evolution in America would be much more widespread.
______
*Well of course I was right. You didn’t think I’d post this if I were wrong, did you? After all, today’s all about ME!
Jerry, I know you don’t have a high opinion of the BioLogos effort and I am as staunch a non-accommodationist as you; religion and science clash, always will, and the only way to reconcile them is to jettison religious claims as science proves them wrong.
It seems some can make the jump from utterly hornswaggled by religion to out and out atheist like Dan Barker, Jerry Dewitt and others or at least become agnostic like Bart Ehrman, but reading their stories and Rachel Held Evans’ blog at http://rachelheldevans.com/ you can see how for many it takes even more incremental pulling away than the fellas mentioned above (who took a few years to get there themselves). Some may never let go of that nasty little book, but the more liberal they become in the meantime, all the better.
Here’s a typical comment from Rachel’s blog:
“I follow BioLogos, which helps Christians realize this is not a debate we need to have. I’m so thankful we could raise our children with Christian faith and also recognizing that evolution best describes how God is working in our world/universe. It is not a stumbling block to them. I found Bill Nye to be remarkably respectful of religious believers of all faiths, while pointing out huge problems in Ken Ham’s view of creation.”
I did an informal poll of the students in my graduate PSY 681 class: 15 middle school teachers in their late 20’s to 30’s who teach either math or science on (1) if they even knew who Bill Nye was and (2) if they watched the HAM/NYE debate. The science teachers were all too old to have watched his show but knew of him (approvingly!) and some even used his clips in their classes, and about half saw the debate. Ditto for most of the math teachers, but being in conservative western KY, I had 4 math teachers who either flat-out said they sided with Ken Ham, did not like the debate, really liked Bill Nye but purposely didn’t watch so she wouldn’t end up hating him, and one who also avoided watching lest she “damage her Christianity” or words to that effect.
I’ve done 2-3 blog posts and editorials on Rachel’s blog topics and comments. It is almost painful to watch these very intelligent people pull away with logic and clarity from one Biblical absurdity or cruelty (Creationism or homophobia, for examples) and then struggle to reconcile, interpret or escape others such as Paul’s proscriptions on women’s behaviors.
This post covers an example of Rachel and her readers getting themselves educated…http://wearedone.org/?p=988.
The upshot is by being able to “view behind enemy lines” so to speak I can see where many of these inquiring adults, Evangelicals all, are becoming more and more liberal and accepting of science and tolerance. The patent absurdities of BioLogos actually help move them away from Creationism and homophobia and the like.
This post, http://wearedone.org/?p=1070 examines Rachel’s take on the Ham/Nye debate as well.
I know you have plenty to write about but thought you might find her blog interesting in that there is some intelligent movement within even Conservative Xiansanity.™
I think we really need to find out why there is this “intelligent movement” or more precisely liberal movement. First, we need to determine if indeed there is a trend from more conservative Christianity to liberal Christianity, then we need to root cause why that movement is occurring (if it’s occurring).
I have my biases so without this data, my a priori is based on historical data where big changes happened through revolutions (the ending of slavery in the US, women’s rights, gay rights, animal rights). Sure, there was already a trend that way but then the big change happened relatively quickly. If this is the case, then accomodationism doesn’t work on the whole – perhaps it works to move people from conservative to liberal but I suspect to move them from liberal to atheist, accommodation isn’t going to work. Moreover, we know lack of accommodation moves people all the way from conservative to atheist because we have examples and I’m curious about numbers.
“…reality has a well-known liberal bias.”
It’s a joke, but as a long term partipant in discussion at William Lane Craig’s forums, I can say it is very relevant to observable trends.
I’ve observed many theists come into the forum quite conservative, and after regular poundings by atheists with regard to the way things are in reality, become much more liberal. Sometimes to the point of no longer considering themselves Christians. Sometimes to the point of no longer considering themselves theists. But even the many who don’t change so dramatically (and don’t leave the forum altogether) become much more liberal in their thinking.
Are those atheists arguing that science is compatible with theism esp. Christian theism or are they arguing that it is not. I know BioLogos is an accomodationist site, but its participants may not necessarily argue from that stand point.
Not exactly sure where to post this, but it’s something Steven Weinberg wrote that is germane to the whole “religious people who don’t fly planes into buildings are better than religious people who do, even if they are still just as anti-rational” issue. From Facing Up, pages 255-256:
“Religious readers may object that the harm in all these cases is done by perversions of religion, not by religion itself. But religious wars and persecutions have been at the center of religious life throughout history. What has changed, that these now seem to some people in some parts of the world to be only perversions of true religious belief? Has there been a new supernatural revelation, or a discovery of lost sacred writings that put religious teachings in a new light? No—since the Enlightenment there has been instead a spread of rationality and humanitarianism that has in turn affected religious belief, leading to a wider spread of religious toleration. It is not that religion has improved our moral sense but that a purely secular improvement in our moral values has improved the way religion is practiced here and there.”
I don’t think the columns are wrong, low scores are better. Think of it as if Bill was the 7074th most popular personality, and is now the 3292th most popular personality.
You are exactly right. 1 is the top. Nye is far higher than Ham, but Ham had the dramatically larger rise (from 140k-th to 30k-th roughly).
So, more of a ranking than a rating.
That makes sense because it seemed impossible to believe that Ham started out better known than Bill Nye. Bill Nye has a song that a whole generation can sing, after all.
And he was on Big Bang Theory, which is where (not being an American) I heard of him).
I agree. That’s what I thought when looking at it too. If it was the way described above, both would have shown a loss (down arrow) instead of an increase. I would also imagine that like athletes in a fantasy draft, you have the top 10% that are pretty steadfast with the remaining 90% pretty interchangeable. In other words, toppling Johnny Depp or (cringe) Bono might be a huge task, but two B grade actors from the 80’s might be 10,000 and 50,000 in rank just because no one has ever heard of any of the characters outside of the top 10%. So in other words, Ham’s increase, while numerically larger, may not be as significant as Nye’s.
I’m guessing, based on this post, that you have it just backwards, and that in star ratings small numbers are better than big ones. That’s why Ken Ham started out at 140,000 and ended up at 30,000: he began as nobody and ended as somewhat less nobody. Nye began as somebody and ended at somewhat more somebody. And I suspect also you shouldn’t consider the scale to be linear, and that Nye actually did benefit more than Ham.
And Ham was an effective foil because without him there would have been no debate for Nye to win and so advance his star rating.
Yes. Prof CC is mistaken. The smaller the number the better known.
Ham moved from unknown to better, but still far behind Nye. Rank of 3,000s is much much better known than 30,000s.
So it appears everything about this post is wrong. Or at least not right. Oops.
Ah. squeakysoapbox and John Harshman said what I was just about to say. The Star Ratings are like Amazon book rankings: the smaller the # the better.
Nye’s ranking rose, as did Ham’s. the highest rank is 1, currently Philip Seymour Hoffman.
Ham did rise quite a bit, though!
Ohhhhhh it’s like golf.
🙂
A good walk spoiled?
b&
Nah, a way to drink for the afternoon.
I wonder how an infamous-meter would rate it?
Everyone get’s 15 minutes on the other one. 🙂
If I understand correctly, the STAR meter is not about ‘popularity’ in the sense of being liked, but is more about how often they are searched for on internet.
Permit me to express thanks to the half-dozen previous commenters who helped me figure out that smaller numbers equate to more fame…and to express no thanks to the chart, which in so many ways could have made that fact clear to those not familiar with the rating system.
b&
I was confused as well – thank you.
It was a ranking, not a rating.
So, if I understand correctly, before the debate pretty many people thought well of Bill Nye and this improved considerably as a result of the debate.
Meanwhile, before the debate Ken Ham’s rating was in the toilet but improved more relatively but now the toilet has been flushed.
Or something. I don’t really know what is being measured here.
Come on, you were going somewhere fun with that extended metaphor & then you just left us hanging!
In a few weeks, Nye will be rated 4-5,000 (so a net gain). Ham will be back at 140,000 (or close to it). He will dash, rather than crawl, back into obscurity. Nye will continue to appear on various shows to give his opinion on science topic and thereby retain some of his gains.
The pattern you describe also applied to sales of Stephen Myers’ “magnum opus” Darwin’s Doubt. It’s the 15 minutes of fame trope to which JBP referred to at #6 above.
I’m not so sure that exposure necessarily equates to credibility.
It may actually be advantageous that Ham is being widely viewed. People may have watched out of curiosity rather than admiration, and many were probably repulsed by what they saw.
One of the reasons given by young Christians for leaving organized religion is that they perceive its anti-science bias. The more this bias is displayed, the better, IMO.
A recent Jesus ‘n Mo has the Barmaid saying that we don’t want to shut them up because we have such a good time laughing at what they say. L
One of the reasons given by young Christians for leaving organized religion is that they perceive its anti-science bias. The more this bias is displayed, the better, IMO.
Hear, here! Or, since I’ve probably misspelled at least one word in that homonymous epigram, “bravissima!”
“STARmeter rankings provide a snapshot of who’s popular based on the searches of millions of IMDb users. Updated weekly, these rankings also graph the popularity of people over time and determine which events affect public awareness.”
I think that answers most questions about what is being measured. It seems to be a simple ranking based on the absolute number of people who search for you on IMDB. It sounds like the values are recomputed from scratch weekly, rather than comprising a running total, so huge fluctuations will be common (e.g. Hoffman going from 754 to 1). There are probably a thousand hyper popular media stars that lock up the top 1000 or so at least (I say 1000 because Hoffman was 754 before he died). I think in such a ranking system the difficulty of rising from 140k to 30k is probably much less than rising from 7k to 3k. Higher ranked people will be backed by vastly more votes so each additional rung up will take a bigger and bigger contingent to get you there. It could easily take a half a million votes (searches) to move you from 754 to #1, but only 500 votes to move you from 140k to 30k. People at the bottom, in the 140k kind of range, may be there on the votes of a handful of people, like ten.
Maybe we should set up a test- and have everyone search for our host for a couple of weeks, and see if we can bump him out of 3,575,939. (Is that the same Jerry Coyne? Doesn’t really matter for the sake of the experiment)
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm3188311/
Did JC really play in “Mr. Firth Goes to Washington”, in 2008?
?
Not exactly – he was the cat wrangler . . .
Here is some additional information about the StarMeter (http://bit.ly/1dNdTFg). Apparently they try somehow to compensate for manipulation on the low end and claim, reasonably, that they don’t need to on the high end because they have 2 billion(!) monthly page views from which to construct their rankings.
I did a search for Jerry Coyne anyway, just to see what it does. They must do something other than just count page views per week for the low end because surely most people on the low end get 0 page views in most weeks, even with 500 million page views. There should be a massive tie at the bottom most of the time. That they give a precise rank means they either factor in other information, like the ranking of the films they are in, or longer term aggregates, or they are just assigning bottom ranks arbitrarily.
Although they talk about ‘page views’ I’d bet that a lot of the action happens in a more automatic/backend way. IMDB is run by Amazon which runs AWS (Amazon Web Services). IMDB is a massive database with a very extensive API. An IMDB link to ‘Capote’ on website probably has an effect on all the actors in that movie, not just Hoffman.
It seems to me that Nye’s rise is far more significant that Ham’s. Wouldn’t it be more difficut to climb the ‘fame ladder’ the higher the rung you currently occupy?
Ham’s still down there with the wannabes waitressing and driving cabs while Nye seems to be in a fairly respectable position.
[I just realised the bowtie reminds me of the the ‘infinity’ symbol – nice touch Bill!]
Correct, for the reasons given by gluonspring in #12 above.
Of course, StarRatings are a weird thing to measure because most people searching on IMDB are looking for people in film and, although Nye and Ham both have Film/TV credits, I wouldn’t think many people would think to search for them on IMDB.
Perhaps a more interesting thing would be to see how their Google Searches compare. Unfortunately Google only reports within-term relative search frequency. That is, the most searches any term gets in a visible time window will always be 100. So, for example, we see that since 2005 Ken Ham’s search results are approximately 0, with a few spikes to 1, compared to his 100 for the month of February (http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=Ken%20Ham). And Bill Nye’s average is about 3 with spikes to 4 compared to his 100 for February (http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=Bill%20Nye). Google doesn’t tell us the absolute numbers, though, so we can only observe that post-Ham is more popular relative to pre-Ham than post-Nye is to pre-Nye, but that both are vastly more searched for in Feb than any time since 2005 so the PR win for both seems huge.
Our host, Jerry, has a spike in 2007 and then his biggest search time ever in 2009 and has held pretty steady thereafter at around 50-60% of his 2009 peak (http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=Jerry%20Coyne)
Actually, you can compare multiple search terms and I think that this tells you who is winning comparatively. In this case, Bill Nye apparently get’s about 2x the searches that Ken Ham does post-debate (http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=Bill%20Nye%2C%20Ken%20Ham&cmpt=q)
get’s? WTF? I don’t know how that happened.
You had no choice. 🙂
I must caution everyone from visiting the Google Trends site. It is addictive. For example, Bill Nye is currently at 77% of Jesus as a search term (http://bit.ly/1jdTYEo). Science beat Jesus by a factor of 3 in 2004 but the gap is closing so that science barely ekes out a 8 point lead and are tied worldwide http://bit.ly/1bQJmGK)! Of course, “Apple” trounces them all.
Well not that you’ve mentioned it, I’ll HAVE to visit it!
I think that the use of the term “popular” in this context can be misleading. We generally equate “popular” to “much liked”, whereas here we are talking about “much searched”. For example, someone who had never heard of Ken Ham before might just think, “Who the hell is that prat – I must Google him and find out”.
Since it’s a STARmeter, let’s try mapping it onto the solar system, with the sun as 1 and Earth at 1000.
On that scale, Ham went from well beyond the Kuiper belt to the vicinity of Neptune. Nye moved from just beyond Jupiter to the middle of the asteroid belt. Nye quadrupled the amount of sunlight he’s getting, whereas Ham increased his 20-fold — but Ham’s sunniest day is still only 1/20th of what Nye started with.
http://www.backstage.com/advice-for-actors/secret-agent-man/why-imdb-starmeter-rating-isnt-getting-you-auditions/
So it looks like Ham’s show biz career may be over sooner than the worry-warts think.
I wouldn’t read too much into the star rating. Like on-line polls, this is a measure of the activity on a particular entry on IMDB.
Ham isn’t more popular. He has had many people look him up on the service. But that doesn’t make him more famous. If it did, Tomy Wiseau, the, um, “artist” behind THE ROOM, one of the worst films ever made, would be a top ranked celebrity. His ranking is in the 3,000s.
Totally irrelevant like Randy Olson’s “both sides are to blame” movies.