I typed in a number of issues relevant to the scientific and sceptical society to see what Google came up with. I limited my results to what came up on the first page, the first ten results and the sponsored links.

“Vaccinations” – 2 out of 10 search results promoted an anti-vax philosophy. None of the sponsored links did.

“Climate Change” – 1 out of 10 search results promoted a climate change denial philosophy and none of the sponsored links.

“Moon Landing” – 2 out of 10 search results promoted the moon landing hoax although a further 3 made reference to the moon landing conspiracy being debunked or a myth. None of the sponsored links referred to the moon landing hoax at all.  

“Swine Flu Treatment” – 1 out of 10 search results promoted quack treatments (homeopathy and ayurvedic medicine). Another 1 of the sponsored links offered homeopathic remedies for swine flu.

“Homeopathy” – 7 out of 10 search results led to websites that promoted the use of homeopathic treatments. Of the three that didn’t, one was Wikipedia, one was UK Skeptics website and the other was an article by the Daily Mail (yeah shocked me too). All of the sponsored links promoted homeopathic treatments or practitioners.

“Evolution” – none of the results promoted creationalism or intelligent design however all 4 of the sponsored links pointed to a pro-creationalism website.

“9/11” – 1 out of 10 search results promoted 9/11 conspiracy theories. Not including the one Wiki article about conspiracy theories. Only 1 of the sponsored links lead to a conspiracy website.

Obviously this list is by no means comprehensive and clearly bias towards issues that I consider relevant or interesting. It is clear from these initial searches that the situation is far better than it was in 2002 but there are still large concerns over the material being promoted on Google. Particularly in the area of sponsored links, this should not be undermined as uncontrollable or irrelevent, how would you feel if an advert for Creationalism came up in the middle of watching an animal documentary? It is also worrying the amount of material there is promoting quackery. If you were ill informed and wanted to search on google for information about Homeopathic remedies you would do well to sieve through the majority of bunk to find the good advice.

I would mirror Martin, the editor of Lay Science’s, comments on this; this it raises interesting ethical questions about the role of search engines. If you are likely to see homeopathic remedies promoted on Google then “what responsibility – if any – do Google (motto: “Do No Evil”) have for the public health consequences”.