A decade of Google Trends-based Conservation culturomics research: A critical evaluation of an evolving epistemology

Abstract

During the last decade, Conservation culturomics as a new epistemology and source of information on the relationship between conservation science, public interest and social relevance of conservation policies, is steadily emerging. Google Trends culturomics meta-information framework spreads actually in literature. There is however a series of doubts and questions on the validity of such an epistemology. In this short communication, a critical evaluation of the ongoing Conservation culturomics debate is presented. Five major issues are detected and discussed: (1) the problem of absolute vs. relative frequencies of crowdsearches in the Internet regarding emblematic terms associated with biodiversity; (2) the process of construction of the searched lexicon by the general public; (3) the issue of replicability of Google Trends-based research inferences; (4) the unknown yet importance of the 1% Internet rule as to the activity of massive and anonymous Google worldwide search engine users; and, (5) the existence of a real upper limit of linguistic diversity that actually constraints any explanatory multi-variate Google Trends statistical model. This contribution aims at suggesting that potential advantages of digital big-data information in environmental science and conservation practice could gain currency from big-data Internet sources in several key-topics if procedures and conclusions might be inscribed within a different but solid epistemic Method.