4 ms·

> But one of the first search results when you Google “What happened to the dinosaurs?” is a website called Answers in Genesis. It explains that “the Bible give

> But one of the first search results when you Google “What happened to the dinosaurs?” is a website called Answers in Genesis. It explains that “the Bible gives us a framework for explaining dinosaurs [...] Luciano Floridi, known as “the Google Philosopher,” thinks that’s fine. That's not fine, I feel that's just a poor quality result that can be improved. Like maybe understanding why "Answers in Genesis" ranks surprisingly high.

polynomial 11y ago
On the 1st page of results for the Google search "What happened to the dinosaurs?" http://christiananswers.net/dinosaurs/j-fate1.html http://christiananswers.net/dinosaurs/j-fate1.html "After the Flood what happened to dinosaurs? "When the Flood was over Noah opened the Ark’s big door and let the animals free. Babies were born to each set of parents. After many years, the earth began to be filled with animals again. "The dinosaurs lived for at least a few centuries after the Flood, but probably never in the great numbers that there once had been. No one knows exactly when they finally died out." David Weinberger talks about phenomena such as this in his book Too Big To Know.
saint_fiasco 11y ago
I tried searching on scholar.google.com out of curiosity. My first result was http://hearttouchers.com/dinos http://hearttouchers.com/dinos I think there is something about that query that attracts idiocy.
saalweachter 11y ago
Yeah, but where do you draw the line? Efficacy of acupuncture? Causes leading up the US Civil War? Government spending with a fiscal multiplier > 1? 1-based indexing of arrays? Impact of H1-Bs on US salaries and immigrant-welfare? You may find dinosaurs an unambiguous case, but some people (Creationists, paleontologists) don't. Why should Google decide the truth on dinosaurs but not on <insert sacred cow>?
- jessriedel 11y ago
  Yes, the bright line of neutrality is precious, and is way more important than correcting the tiny number of widely-accepted inaccuracies that are going to show up. The danger from a few people getting creationism results is minuscule compared to the danger that Google (further?) biases result.
- dominotw 11y ago
  The thought that google can essentially control/shape people's minds is scary.
- dredmorbius 11y ago
  Two approaches on that. For well-established, well-sourced, and particularly, scientific questions, authorities with a strong record of truthful and accurate accounts should both get priority and help establish truth models. Less-well-known sources which genrally agree with these also score well. Sites showing systematic bias or poor truth valance would be discounted. Facts, ultimately, are verified by experiment or experience. In practice, we look at reported experiential results and note which tend to agree and/or show errors which are both small and unbiased. Those are your preferred sources. An interesting element about lairs is that they frequently (though not always ), tend to exhibit systemic bias across multiple disciplines. Either they bullshit and make stuff up (high error, unbiased), or they show systemic biases. Again, not always and uniformly, but frequently. Truth and* source reputation combined give you considerable leverage. The goal isn't perfection, but reducing the problem to tractable areas of truth valance helps greatly.
kenzokai 11y ago
Floridi agrees that that is bullshit, but it's not Google's job to dictate what information we read. Google's job is to give us the most relevant results, and as stated in the article, a large part of the US believes in creationism and thus it's relevant to them. So statistically speaking, you are more likely to want to read that page for that search term. Google is not a search engine for scientific facts, it is an advertising platform. Who should be the judge of what type of information is presented? You? How about we put it to a vote? That vote has happened, and these are the results.
- ridiculous_fish 11y ago
  But Google is not just returning links: they are positioning text prominently above the link results that answers the query directly. In that way they are a search engine for facts, and they do decide what information we read. Google for "calories in an ear of corn". It will answer directly: 606 calories, which is wrong. There's no popular vote or underlying conflict, just a falsehood that Google presents as the truth, endowed with their authority. Are you OK with that? What if the question were "how much tylenol is safe?" Getting this stuff wrong has actual consequences.
  - dredmorbius 11y ago
    NB: that answer is for calories in a cup of corn, 606g. That's not a wrong answer but one which fails to conform to the units specified in the question. An ear of corn has ~27g carbohydrate and ~120 calories. One cup of corn is about five ears' worth of kernels.
  - kenzokai 11y ago
    I wouldn't say they are facts, I would say they are "sentences with a specific semantic structure that can be found on a highly trusted webpage". And the most trusted web page happens to be that page. That's a great argument about Tylenol, and if those answers have the possibility of being incorrect they should not be shown at all, since an algorithm will determine what is shown. A "sensitive information" classifier could point out "Ask your doctor, etc." on relevant questions. But what about the consequence of not showing answers about creationism? My statistically average person decides my site sucks and moves to DuckDuckGo, and I've lost a source of revenue. Not good.

polynomial 11y ago

On the 1st page of results for the Google search "What happened to the dinosaurs?" http://christiananswers.net/dinosaurs/j-fate1.html http://christiananswers.net/dinosaurs/j-fate1.html "After the Flood what happened to dinosaurs? "When the Flood was over Noah opened the Ark’s big door and let the animals free. Babies were born to each set of parents. After many years, the earth began to be filled with animals again. "The dinosaurs lived for at least a few centuries after the Flood, but probably never in the great numbers that there once had been. No one knows exactly when they finally died out." David Weinberger talks about phenomena such as this in his book Too Big To Know.

saint_fiasco 11y ago

I tried searching on scholar.google.com out of curiosity. My first result was http://hearttouchers.com/dinos http://hearttouchers.com/dinos I think there is something about that query that attracts idiocy.

saalweachter 11y ago

Yeah, but where do you draw the line? Efficacy of acupuncture? Causes leading up the US Civil War? Government spending with a fiscal multiplier > 1? 1-based indexing of arrays? Impact of H1-Bs on US salaries and immigrant-welfare? You may find dinosaurs an unambiguous case, but some people (Creationists, paleontologists) don't. Why should Google decide the truth on dinosaurs but not on <insert sacred cow>?

jessriedel 11y ago
Yes, the bright line of neutrality is precious, and is way more important than correcting the tiny number of widely-accepted inaccuracies that are going to show up. The danger from a few people getting creationism results is minuscule compared to the danger that Google (further?) biases result.
dominotw 11y ago
The thought that google can essentially control/shape people's minds is scary.
dredmorbius 11y ago
Two approaches on that. For well-established, well-sourced, and particularly, scientific questions, authorities with a strong record of truthful and accurate accounts should both get priority and help establish truth models. Less-well-known sources which genrally agree with these also score well. Sites showing systematic bias or poor truth valance would be discounted. Facts, ultimately, are verified by experiment or experience. In practice, we look at reported experiential results and note which tend to agree and/or show errors which are both small and unbiased. Those are your preferred sources. An interesting element about lairs is that they frequently (though not always ), tend to exhibit systemic bias across multiple disciplines. Either they bullshit and make stuff up (high error, unbiased), or they show systemic biases. Again, not always and uniformly, but frequently. Truth and* source reputation combined give you considerable leverage. The goal isn't perfection, but reducing the problem to tractable areas of truth valance helps greatly.

kenzokai 11y ago

Floridi agrees that that is bullshit, but it's not Google's job to dictate what information we read. Google's job is to give us the most relevant results, and as stated in the article, a large part of the US believes in creationism and thus it's relevant to them. So statistically speaking, you are more likely to want to read that page for that search term. Google is not a search engine for scientific facts, it is an advertising platform. Who should be the judge of what type of information is presented? You? How about we put it to a vote? That vote has happened, and these are the results.

ridiculous_fish 11y ago
But Google is not just returning links: they are positioning text prominently above the link results that answers the query directly. In that way they are a search engine for facts, and they do decide what information we read. Google for "calories in an ear of corn". It will answer directly: 606 calories, which is wrong. There's no popular vote or underlying conflict, just a falsehood that Google presents as the truth, endowed with their authority. Are you OK with that? What if the question were "how much tylenol is safe?" Getting this stuff wrong has actual consequences.
- dredmorbius 11y ago
  NB: that answer is for calories in a cup of corn, 606g. That's not a wrong answer but one which fails to conform to the units specified in the question. An ear of corn has ~27g carbohydrate and ~120 calories. One cup of corn is about five ears' worth of kernels.
- kenzokai 11y ago
  I wouldn't say they are facts, I would say they are "sentences with a specific semantic structure that can be found on a highly trusted webpage". And the most trusted web page happens to be that page. That's a great argument about Tylenol, and if those answers have the possibility of being incorrect they should not be shown at all, since an algorithm will determine what is shown. A "sensitive information" classifier could point out "Ask your doctor, etc." on relevant questions. But what about the consequence of not showing answers about creationism? My statistically average person decides my site sucks and moves to DuckDuckGo, and I've lost a source of revenue. Not good.