Google Scholar is a really useful tool — it’s like vanilla Google in that it returns links to resources on the web, but it has additional filters to return genuine scholarly articles, enriched for the kind of stuff that gets peer-reviewed and formally published. Unfortunately, somebody or some algorithm is getting a bit sloppy, and it also returns articles for Answers in Genesis, the Institute for Creation Research, and Creation Ministries International. It’s somewhat understandable — all of those institutions know deep down in their sweet stupid little hearts that rank theology has no credibility, so they do their very best to ape real science in style, if not in content.

So, anyway, a few people are trying to ask Google nicely and politely to clean up their act. There is a petition to ask them to remove bad sources from Google Scholar — and I know, internet petitions don’t carry a lot of weight, but sign it anyway, just to add some recognition of widespread awareness of the problem to a decision they ought to make because it’s the right thing to do.