Media Stupidity Watch: No, it's not Atlantis
British Papers have just managed to outdo themselves in terms of scientifically illiterate reporting. The Sun: Is this Atlantis?
The Telegraph: Google Ocean: Has Atlantis been found off Africa?
For the record, here is the spot in Google Maps:
So what is the structure? Actually, there is no structure there. It's merely a grid of higher resolution sounding data amid a lower-resolution dataset, taken from a ship surveying the area.
The new Oceans dataset for Google Earth is the SRTM30_PLUS dataset, whose homepage clearly states:
Ocean data are based on the Smith and Sandwell global 1-minute grid between latitudes +/- 81 degrees. Higher resolution grids have been added from the LDEO Ridge Multibeam Synthesis Project, the JAMSTEC Data Site for Research Cruises, and the NGDC Coastal Relief Model. Arctic bathymetry is from the International Bathymetric Chart of the Oceans (IBCAO) [Jakobsson et al., 2003].
You can see higher-resolution sounding ship paths in many places on the new dataset, especially around Antarctica, where the default resolution bathymetry is quite coarse. For example:
Especially outrageous is that for the articles in question, the only interviewed person is an Atlantis "expert" who finds the findings "fascinating", whereas one phone-call to a serious marine scientist would have sufficed to pour cold water on this story.
I don't know whether the Sun's Virginia Wheeler and Rhodri Phillips are merely stupid, lazy and scientifically illiterate reporters, or whether they set out to deceive their readership. The fact that Matthew Moore at the Telegraph rewrote the story uncritically is just incredibly embarrassing.
Permalink |
Del.icio.us
|
Connotea
Comments
Quite unbelievable. Even Digital Urban seem to have signed up - although I'll give them the benefit of tongue in cheek.
Posted by: ahf at 12:35 UTC, February 20, 2009
I recently listened to Ben Goldacre (of the excellent bad science column in the guardian http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/series/badscience ) talk about the UK media on radio 4's start the week. His experience of talking to science journos working for UK papers is that they themselves aren't idiots but their arts graduate editors are so they get told to cover stories they know are downright stupid.
Posted by: Richard Treves at 17:23 UTC, February 20, 2009
This is hilarious. I love how everyone is running stories on this foolishness.
Posted by: Matt Giger at 19:02 UTC, February 20, 2009
People may be interested in this thread from the Google Earth community. GEC moderator Hill found the source of the tracks and posted an overlay last week.
Posted by: Cory at 21:43 UTC, February 20, 2009
The grid is not a sonar scan artifact; the grid lines are disrupted by the (clearly natural) terrain, which would not affect a scan pattern. It looks to me like the spoor of a huge a search operation that dragged a cabled sensor looking for some high-value target. There are over a thousand miles of drag marks. Big operation.
Posted by: stoptheviolins at 4:16 UTC, February 21, 2009
No. these are high resolution sonar measurements amid lower resolution terrain (which is why it looks smooth -- fewer datapoints will do that for you.) The reason why the high resolution grid is recessed in the low resolution grid is because the high resolution imagery has a higher average depth.
Posted by: Stefan at 7:52 UTC, February 21, 2009
The folly is spreading.
http://dn.se/nyheter/varlden/atlantis-tros-sparat-av-google-ocean-1.804175
Posted by: Simon at 9:26 UTC, February 21, 2009
And now they are updating their articles, without marking the update. The last paragraphs weren't there at first...
Posted by: Simon at 9:47 UTC, February 21, 2009
The poltergeists have been out on the GEC and that post has vanished. Here is a new link to Hill's overlay of the sonar tracks: Grid in Atlantic Ocean.
Posted by: Cory at 10:55 UTC, February 21, 2009
We did sign up at digital urban but our post was hopefully viewed as tongue in cheek :) It would of been great, just a shame it was the size of Wales so the roads would of been roughly the size of a city...
Posted by: Andy at 11:12 UTC, February 21, 2009
The Sun reporters and editors stupid or scientifically illiterate?
I don't think so - their readership is.
One would think that everyone with EEG already knows that The Sun is just another instance of yellow press which has the most prominent feature of sucking money from suckers.
Cheers!
Shonzilla
Posted by: Shonzilla at 0:36 UTC, February 22, 2009
Post a comment
Last tracked here:
Ogle Earth: Recent posts
Ogle Earth's links
Archives
Movable Type 3.2