If anyone is wondering how google is doing, it is giving incorrect answers to the query “How old is the Universe?”
Instead of serving up scientific consensus (just shy of 14 billion years) it is latching onto recent media coverage of a questionable study (tired light, time-dependent coupling constants) claiming a much larger figure.
Notably, it gives me the right answer from an incognito window. But elevating popularity metrics over scientific consensus is a real problem!
@mcnees It's why Google has fallen in terms of usefulness for ppl like me, who use it to find answers about tangible things rather than use it to find answers about pop culture.
The results always skew towards whatever is in the zeitgeist -- regardless of whether they actually fit the query. It often takes a lot of massaging of queries these days to get the actual answers you want.
And then there's the times where it says there's no results, but then I twiddle the query and oh look, there are!
Robert McNees
SSFC KDT (MOVED)