The World's Fair

Well, looky here now...

With the strength of the Science Scout initiative behind it, our little Truth experiment has finally hit front page google real estate.

That's right, people, we're hovering at a pretty nice ranking. What ranking is that you ask? Ta da.

Freaking number seven!

Which, of course, means that the number one spot is finally (and literally) within sight. And those who feel that people who support nonsense such as intelligent design, skepticism in global warming, etc, need to be further put in their place with a google worthy version of the truth - well hopefully, will rally behind this web experiment by linking to the page as directed.

And to sweeten the bait to do this, maybe it's finally worth explaining that this web experiment isn't just a silly meme, nor is it this wierd meta-exploration of the philosophical underpinnings of what the truth is all about. No. there's actually a real purpose behind this.

And that purpose is kind of pragmatic really. As a science communicator, I'm primarily interested in the creation of an educational device. Basically, an opportunity to create an anecdote that can be used in the context of any science lecture where things such as scientific literacy or the Millenium Development Goals, or gender equity issues are broach.

Imagine starting a lecture by telling the audience that:

"apparently, according to google, this is the truth."

Better still, because those who have linked or will link to the web experiment often result in their own subsets of discussions (i.e. in comments left behind, etc), there's this real opportunity for an entire community to be involved in the creation of this teaching anecdote. This has already happened - you can check the edits to see this.

Anyway, that's the goal. So, here is when we get serious in terms of asking for help to get the truth out. Spread the word - let Web2.0 do its thing. Let watercoolers do their thing. Become part of the anecdote by promoting discussion on your own sites, and then making sure we're aware of it.

After all, the truth should be a flexible thing, as well as, some say, a relative thing, but whatever it is, we want it to be the #1 thing.