Answers on a postcard - Yahoo! Answers and Communicating geosciences.

Yahoo! Answers is a community driven question and answer service; the idea being that everyone answers each other’s questions and provides a wholesome and driven series of answers to everyday questions. Yahoo! Is the 4th most visited site in North America and it’s answers service, set up in 2005, is clearly displayed on the sites homepage. It’s difficult to judge it’s popularity, but Google records that it has 1/36th of the amount of searches for Yahoo! Answers compared to Wikipedia – the large numbers of questions point towards a fairly busy site; which runs questions from all facets of life – including geoscience.


So what benefit does this site (and many others) have in terms of communicating geoscience?

'The Core' has an awful lot to answer for

Well, it would be great to have exposure of the geological sciences and a Q&A site that could provide honest, well researched sensible scientific information would be valuable as a method of getting the public direct and efficient answers. I’ve already touched upon how the Geol Soc of London has done a similar (although infinitely better researched) Q & A service. How does Yahoo! Answers fair as a method of geology and public involvement?

I really hope this was a joke.... or poorly placed

The site has a huge amount of information available to users with a variety of different knowledge levels, anyone can sign up – and answer any question. Questions continue to be available on the web after the ‘closing date’ – and regularly appear on more inane online searches. Questions can be asked on anything, so have a wide variety; from ‘what is the weight of the earth?’ to ‘Will the world exist in 2012’. Answers can be given by anyone (although newer users have limited questions per/day) – which is the main problem. Some people, it turns out can be idiots...


Although Wikipedia has been lampooned for its public involvement and problems with correct data, it is nothing at all, in comparison with Yahoo! Answers. The results to people’s questions are not checked (except for rude words etc) and therefore any answer can stand; which results for a lot of questions creationism wriggling in, which given the context of some of these questions the ‘asker’ may well end up feeling is a decent answer. Yahoo has utilised various Celebrities an public figures to stimulate questions; alongside featured questions which are highlighted as good examples – but these are in the minority.

Hopefully not - although it will wipe off my student loan

Good answers are awarded ‘points’ which don’t mean prizes, simply numbers; so there is no fiscal reason to give good answers – therefore any involvement is purely out of peoples good heartedness. Good heartedness, however does not make up for a lack of a of knowledge; which does result in answers being, often, complete rubbish – or (in my opinion) worse, with plenty within Earth Sciences that utilise Creationism, allowing pseudoscience to can get an foot in the door alongside more intelligent answers (there are a couple). This does allow for the old ‘let the public decide’ ideas about our Earth’s history but requires decent science to be in attendance. Plus, it appears that many people (probably children) are simply putting homework onto the site, which disregards the studying they could be doing, finding out more about their world rather than simply watching (often stupid) answers appear on their screen.


However, I have found some positive gems about the service – since anyone can present a question, the variety of questions out there is brilliant and some answers are good – although they are virtually all lifted from Wikipedia, which is probably more accurate than Yahoo! Answers – but still not centred in geological organisations.


What use is Yahoo! Answers then? Beneficial or not?


The lack of expert opinion severely hurts the site, it is, very often the blind (or at least hideously mislead) leading the blind – in this sense the service could be doing more harm than good – but what if a mainstream, useful and esteemed geological organisation got involved? Would that be worth it?


Well, they could be involved in giving decent, correct and useful information to these answers; a ‘live’ version of the GSL’s ‘Ask a Geologist’ page or a similar service to Yahoo Answers on a proper site; where answers are vetoed, to ensure that useless and incorrect answers are not displayed, could be beneficial. Although, this sort of thing already half exists; the USGS offers plenty of email contacts, which give prompt responses (having emailed them myself, not about something ridiculous though) – and are from people who actually know what they are talking about. Alternatively, many answers could be answered via a simple Google search via pre-existing answers – it would have taken the asker considerably less time to have performed a Google Search rather than placed the question on Yahoo! Answers. So, in conclusion, Yahoo Answers is not a viable manner of communicating geosciences (or in fact any science) and the time that could be utilised by geological organisations using the site would simply be a waste of time.

Falling Short of the Park

Recently the South Downs in Southern England became a National Park, granting the region a boost to tourism, altered planning regulations and plenty of new signs (amongst other things). The new national park has a website, designed to both attract visitors and give local people more information about, what is in essence their local authority.

http://www.southdowns.gov.uk

The National Park Authority

Geologically, the South Downs National Park are an area of Chalk, Early Cretaceous clays and sandstones folded by the Wealden anticline during the Cenezoic. The actual ‘downs’ themselves are the remains of the chalk cover that once stretched across the Weald to just south of London. So, what does the website (and therefore we can assume most of the paperwork) from Britain’s newest National Park have to say about the rocks?

Well firstly, where is Geology on the site? Logically it would be accessible under Learning, which it is, but within that subsection it is hidden under the unexciting ‘Themes to Study’ – not exactly going to entice too many people into the regions geology. The site blurts on about the beautiful landscape – but seems to hide the factors behind the landscapes formation.

‘To really appreciate the South Downs landscape you need to understand how it was formed.’ South Downs National Park Site

Apparently, Most of the rocks that make up the South Downs were formed 120 million years ago – which is odd as Seaford Head, a promontory within the chalk is in fact the stratigraphic boundary between the Santonian and Campanian - 83 million years ago. While stratigraphically the lowest rocks in the new National Park, the Wealden Clay are considered post-Tithonian/pre W Aptian in age or for those without beards, 151-125Ma. In fact only the Lower Greensand and Weald Clay are the only rocks in the park’s boundaries that could be considered to have for. The site’s very own stratigraphic column even places  only the lower units around the 120 Ma mark!

Coast of the National Park - an iconic image

Moving on from the bigger picture, what about the individual units... as something that actually got me into geology in the first place. Flints...

‘Flint was formed from the skeletons of minute animals, such as radiolarians, that floated around in those ancient seas.’

Firstly, very few people know what a ‘radiolarian’ is, I’ve touched upon this within the GSL Q&A page; ‘remains of tiny creatures’ would have been better. Secondly, there is a lot of debate as to the generation of flint –it took me a good few minutes to track down a digestible paper – which indicates that the flint was formed via microbacterial activity. Surely it is more exciting to the reader to just be honest, say you don’t know, or give a couple of theories (wherever they may be hiding)

‘20 million years – The Alpine Storm’

Maybe the first time orogenic activity has been viewed as a ‘storm’ – a completely useless term – meaning too many other things (weather, political etc) to be of use to anyone! The document goes onto place the Himalayas as being due to the Africa’s convergence with Eurasia. It then gets the order of diagenesis wrong (anticline formed THEN diagenesis – which is absurd – brittle faulting, was in action during the uplift).

What does this site say then, about geoscience communication? Firstly, it is difficult to get to, a casual observer wandering round the site is unlikely stumble upon the page on geology; and when they do information is not correct. The geology of the area is fascinating enough, without the need for incorrect data.