McAcademia

I asked my students to evaluate their beliefs concerning Global Warming, and to record what information they needed to make a final determination in their minds, one way or another, that global warming does or does not present a problem that must be addressed by humanity and science.

Most students remarked that they needed information that is and has been readily available in academic reports for years. Hmmm. 'If this information is available, then why do you still have questions concerning global warming,' I asked? 'That isn't available, it is hidden! Only certain people can read it, so They keep it away from the public. Its part of the Government Conspiracy to hide information from people that need to have it to make good voting decisions.'

And how do we know it is part of the vast Government Conspiracy? Because it doesn't come up on Google!

While I was under water all those years, a shift occurred in how our society receives its information: if you need to know something, you simply Google it. Just type the required information in the search area of the Google search engine, and press the enter key (also called 'hit enter'), and the required information, and more, much, much more, come up on the screen at your fingertips. The user now has to discriminate between the info he or she needs, and the info that is stray or misleading.

And what about concepts? What about subject areas, or matters that take up more than a few webpages to explain or report on? Well, they are either condensed into those precious few pages, or they just doesn't make it to Google! Face it, you don't need to know the basis behind a Carnot engine, and heat rejection in the thermodynamic cycle to know how an internal combustion engine operates... do you? You can get a good one-page graphic on how the pistons go up and down, even some type on how much energy (about 8000 btu/lbm) gasoline releases in the engine. Who cares about the physics behind it?

I was a bit cynical (can you tell?) until I took a test for a course on Physics in preparation for taking a certification exam. The test itself was horrible, the questions assumed I had conversion tables and specific heat tables and property tables right at my fingertips... and then I realized that I did! Just Google it! How long does it take 500 grams of ice to melt when placed in a styrofoam cup with 300 ml of water at 30 degrees C? Google it! How long will an aluminum rod elongate when heated from 100 degrees C to 600 degrees C? Google it?

In the old days, we would look up the material properties, do some math, and come up with our answers. It depended on our knowing the basics of the subject matter. Now, even the tests, courses, and subject matter itself is set up to make use of Google.

But then, when the information doesn't appear on Google because it is too complex, or too voluminous, it has become part of the Other, which all too often the popular culture vilifies as a Government Conspiracy to hide important information. If that's the case, it's being hidden in broad daylight!

Next week my students are going to learn how to look up, find, read, and interpret a formal scientific report. We are going to pick one on a topic that many of them chose as information they would need to make a decision on global warming, just to show them the information is already here, and to show them that the Internet is a tool, but Google is mostly for entertainment. If you use Google to be informed, then you will be fully informed on entertainment matters, but not so much on things that really matter to you and your family.

Learn to treat the Internet like television: people want to sell you things. The more they get things in front of you, the more chance they have of selling something. So everything on the Internet is going to be fed to you in small, short chunks designed to keep you on-line: entertainment.

Crow