ex-xian

Actually, I didn't notice any, but then again, I wasn't specifically looking for them. Also, I thought that google automatically screened for duplicate domains. Anyway, this evening I'll look through for duplicates, and see if they're a problem.

tribalbeeyatch

Is there any way to search for "Brights" using an uppercase 'B' on Google? You'd probably still get a lot irrelevant hits, but it might get some relevant ones that "the brights" would miss -- might be worth a test if it's possible. Other than that possible suggestion, I think that your string of ORs looks like a good way to go about it. You might change "nonreligious" to "religious", though, since the latter picks up the former, but not vice versa (I think that's true, at least). Likewise, you might use "naturalis" (? or "naturalis*" I'm a little shaky on the details of this sort of Google search) rather than "naturalism" since it would pick up "naturalist(s)" and "naturalistic" -- if this broader style search works on Google, you might do the same for atheist ("atheis"), etc.

I'm glad to hear that you're still pursuing this, ex-xian.

viscousmemories

Using "brights" instead of "the brights" I got about 2800 results. I looked through 3 or 4 hundred results and found less than a dozen false positives. I wondered that about the capital 'b' too. Not sure if you can do that with Google. I definitely think Google is the only worthwhile search engine though.

vm

ex-xian

Well hell! THis justs get more confusing. I did another, similiar search but added Dawkins and got about 5000 hits, then did one with only Dawkins and brights/bright and got about 500.

I'd like to get a consencus on method before I start collected data. Whatever way we finally decide to search, I thought I'd sample a small percentage for false positives and duplicates, then subtract the cooresponding percentage from the total.

But come on! There has to be some web experts out there who can offer advice on searching!

Toto

I thought that it might be more useful to search news.google. I tried "brights" there, and got bunches of articles about families with the surname Bright (including Bill Bright), Brights Grove, and fashionable colors.

But I also found 3 of 38 that were relevant - a comment on Dennett, a reference to letters to the editor in the Sacramento Bee (hometown of the people who invented the Brights), and a link to Rush Limbo's site - but I was not willing to pay money to read it.

excreationist

fando:
In Google there is no need to do +'s since it makes sure all of the words are in the search results.

I think Google searches for "a bright" naturalistic brights is a good way to go.
It says it returns "about 248" results. If you go to page 9 you'll see that it is only showing 98 though since the others are "very similar to the 98 already displayed". (But there is a link to see all of the matches)
When you go to "groups" (newsgroups) in google it says there are about 75 results but it only displays 19, due to the same reason.
The reason my search has "naturalistic" in it is because as this meme spreads onto new internet pages, the term would need to be defined and usually they'd use the word "naturalistic" to define it. I included "a bright" because the definition would usually begin with "a bright is..."
Sometimes they wouldn't use "naturalistic" in their definition so I'll do a search for "a bright is" brights - it returned 330 results with at least one bad result though. (here it says "ALL Lilim are either demons or Brights...")
"the brights" naturalistic returns 257 results but it also has at least one bad match (see last page): "naturalistic images....the brights value represents white".
That search would probably miss out on some matches (like those that don't mention "the brights" - just "a bright") so its result is pretty accurate. (the previous search with 330 results would be more accurate)

Maybe an even more accurate google search is brights (believe god OR naturalistic)) - it says there are about 2440 results. I estimate that about 25-50+% of the results aren't relevant. (I went to the last page to get to the link to see all of the results)

(("a bright" brights) OR "the brights") (believe god OR naturalistic)) has 746 results - maybe 5-15% aren't relevant.

ex-xian

In case anyone is wondering, the meme has remained virtually unchanged, with a very, very slight increase, according to the method of search I'm using. I'll continue to track it and post if there's anything significant.

Buddrow_Wilson

Interesting note:

In Wired magazine's September issue, page 040, second entry under the heading "Jargon Watch" is the following:

I wonder if there are Bright sympathizers amongst the Wired staff.

viscousmemories

Thanks for the update ex-xian.

It's funny how 90% of the articles/blurbs I've read about the Brights mention Richard Dawkins' endorsement. I can't decide if it's an argument from authority, an attempt to identify with the ultimate "cool kid" of the naturalist community, or if it's purely for publicity.