ex-xian

I don't have my math modeling book handy (yes, I do actually have one). How much data is needed before an accurtae extropolation can be done?

When there are a few more days worth, I'll plug this into mathematica and see what it says.

Vibr8gKiwi

I'm not sure. Excel does several types of trend lines and I was just going to see which fit the data best as it comes in. You can also extend out the trendlines to make predictions. It's pretty easy to eyeball trends to tell their type on an excel graph--linear trends look like straight lines on a default graph, exponential trends look like straight lines on a log scale (and upwardly curving lines on a default scale).

The details probably don't matter to much though--if it takes off or not I would think it would be pretty obvious.

ex-xian

Well, right now you have three points, so I can graph that as a parabola and see where it will be in 10 days. It'll be fun to see how accurate it is, and how much the graphs improve with more data.

viscousmemories

But there are other common uses of "the Brights" (as I have found doing my own Google searches while researching this movement). So to get any kind of meaningful data you'll have to check every link to verify that they're using "the Brights" according to the definition of "people with a naturalistic worldview". Otherwise if Macy's decides to promote a new line of clothing for juniors called "The Brights", you're going to see an irrelevant surge in references, a la "LisBeth Oslo". (Which incidentally is number 10 on the first 10 main link results Google supplies when you search for "the Brights").

vm

Gurdur

Using Ixquick:

"brights + naturalistic" 87 results, 57 picked [and the top result was still wrong ---- What's New from Schumacher
a color palette characterized by burnished brights, warm mid-tones, punched-up pastels and ... to make an impact. Botanical Beauty�Rich naturalistic ]

"brights + nonreligious" 35 picked from 35 results

_________

Using google:

"brights AND nonreligious" 161 results

"brights AND naturalistic" 461 results

I'ld stick with "+ nonreligious" if I was you.

Vibr8gKiwi

A couple days ago there were barely 3500 pages on the entire internet that had hits on "the brights" even including all the new Dawkins/Dennet/Randi stuff, so I really don't see a very large alternative usage of the term out there. Any significant new growth of the term will certainly be from the Brights movement. "Other" usage will mostly likely be a constant and can be ignored for a casual little experiment like this.

tribalbeeyatch

That's certainly a good point, but I am still interested to see how this goes. After all, barring some new use of "the brights" (outside of its intended use as a freethinker label) all of the new Google hits arising from references to headlights, or laundry how-tos, or gardening tips or whatever will just add noise; and that noise may not be substantial enough to obscure a good-sized increase resulting from the label catching on. As far as off-the-cuff sociological research via Google goes, it strikes me as a potentially interesting endeavor.

[edited to add]

It looks like Vibr8gKiwi already had the same thoughts.

One additional one: It does concern me that there was a decrease in the number of hits during the earlier data collection. If there is some sort of regular purging going on at Google, that might prove drastic to this research. Anybody know why Google might drop a couple hundred hits and if there is any way to correct for this?

ex-xian

Ok according to my calculations (I've always wanted to say that), the following should be true

8/17 - 4170
8/23 - 4584
8/28 - 6052

I could go on, but I won't. I realize this is probably based on faulty data, but it was fun figuring it out.
Incidentally, if anyone does keep track of the data accurately, I'd be happy to keep doing this.

Also, when I get home and have access to excel, this will probably be modeled as a funky exponential. I'll check.

viscousmemories

I gave an example of another usage in the line of clothing from LizBeth Oslo called "The Brights", and pointed out that it's the 10th main hit on a Google search for "The Brights". The very real possibility that any number of similarly irrelevant uses of "The Brights" might appear on the scene renders your hypothesis impotent.

If you see that as an inconsequential flaw in your data mining strategy, then what you are conducting is not "a casual little experiment", it's either a complete waste of time or an attempt at using fudged data to bolster pro-Brights propaganda. I suspect it's really just the former, I just don't know why you would want to amuse yourself in this fashion. At the very least you should take Gurdur's suggestion and modify the search to be more specific to what you are trying to prove. Or does the fact that there are less than 500 references to "Brights AND naturalistic" (when 'naturalistic' is in the very description of the new term) threaten the idea you're apparently trying to promote: that this movement is taking the world by storm?

vm

ex-xian

I know this wasn't directed to me, but I'll respond anyway...I like fiddling with numbers so, for me, it's just playing. If you gave me data about the IPU's offspring eating big foots, I'd do the same thing.