

Schools should not "teach the controversy".  But why does Google get a pass? - amichail
http://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/aqs26/why_do_you_support_google_if_you_dont_support/

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fburnaby
What's wrong with the existence of misinformation? I don't think there's
anything wrong with being able to find silly lies on google. There's something
more ominous about children being forced to learn this misinformation, as
would be the case in a school.

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amichail
Try this query on Google:

<http://www.google.com/search?q=age+of+earth>

Some of the highly ranked results mention the possibility of a young earth.

Why is this acceptable?

Note that saying "google is a search engine" is not an answer. With enough
complaints, Google may be forced to push down scientifically false information
(at least for the most popular queries) down the rankings.

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stonemetal
_Note that saying "google is a search engine" is not an answer._

Why not? If I type "mickey mouse" in to Google should I get no results from
Disney because that isn't scientifically accurate about mice. Google isn't the
halls of science, it represents and returns what is currently available on the
internet about the query terms entered. The second Google starts deciding
scientific truth is the second I stop using it.

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amichail
Common sense can be used here.

The issue is whether highly ranked search results can mislead the public into
believing things that are not true scientifically.

Google can fix up its rankings for the most popular scientific queries.

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stonemetal
_Common sense can be used here._ Yours or Galileo's? Science has been known to
be wrong from time to time. Censoring ideas just because you believe them to
be incorrect is wrong. Even if the ideas in question are crackpot, stupid
wrong.

