Even though many of us tend to think that we live in a post-truth era, there is little evidence to support this thesis. A simple internet search for, say, “twentieth-century propaganda posters” reveals that humanity has long been engaged in the struggle for ideas or beliefs supporting individual agendas. In order to spread those ideas, false information was often employed. For instance, anti-suffragette posters from the 1920s in the USA depict, among others, men not being able to vote because their wives/mothers are suffragettes [1]. We now know this to be false since both men and women enjoy their voting rights in the majority of countries and the notion that providing one group with rights takes away the rights from others is clearly untrue.

One could say that propaganda and fake news aren’t the same. The Macmillan Dictionary defines propaganda as “information, especially false information, that a government or organization spreads in order to influence people’s opinions and beliefs” [2], whereas fake news is defined as “a story that is presented as being a genuine item of news but is in fact not true and is intended to deceive people” [3]. It could be argued that propaganda overtly serves political purposes while fake news doesn’t, but considering the number of internet trolls and the fact that any publication of information is intended to reach certain addressees and form opinions, we shouldn’t split hairs.

The internet provided new means for publishing information and spreading individual opinions. The egalitarian nature of this medium meant that publishing information is no longer the job and privilege of researchers, editors, government officials, or dedicated authors. The only requirements for publishing content today are basic literacy and a cheap smartphone.

There are countless studies on how this network of “content market” functions but this publication is not one of them. The aim is rather to analyze if the language style of an article (a news item, internet post, etc.) can shed any light on its supposed truthfulness.

When the question “how old is the earth” is entered into the duckduckgo.com search engine, a list of results is quickly produced [4]. The first five results at 01.07.2020 include the following:

• Age of the Earth | Wikipedia
• How Old Is Earth? – How Scientists Determine Its Age | Space.com
• How Old Is the Earth? | Answers in Genesis
• How Old Is the Earth? | Christianity.com
• How Old Is The Earth? | Universe Today

A quick scan of the results shows that the resulting websites can be divided into three categories. Two websites popularizing the scientific view, two websites taking the religious perspective, and the Wikipedia article. Wikipedia is not of interest in this study because, as a compilation of information from various sources, Wikipedia articles would require extensive reading and would yield multiple results with regard to the rhetorical, scientific, or stylistic tools applied. However, a potential investigator of the age of our planet is still left with four conflicting results. Which one promises a more truthful answer to the question?

Let us consider two articles and compare the following criteria: provided sources, theoretical background, and argumentation styles. The articles in this comparison were chosen with regard to their style and are entitled “How Old Is the Earth?” (from Christianity.com [5]) and “How old is earth?” (from Space.com [6]).

The article from Christianity.com was authored by Michael A. Milton, PhD. The short bio on the website lists numerous affiliations, yet fails to tell the reader what discipline the doctorate is in. The text begins with a biblical quote and moves on to explaining how tricky the dating of the Earth can be and how discrepant many theories about it are. The author then states that the subject at hand will be approached considering two criteria, “Here’s what I think, based on general revelation — that is, the observable world around us — and special revelation — the Holy Bible.” The reader is thus informed that the article is based on two sources of information – a scripture of major religion and one person’s perspective.

The text then provides answers to the following questions (chapter titles): “How Old Is the Earth According to the Bible?”; “How Can We Accurately Date the Earth?”; “Can We Question God?”; “What Can We Know?”; “What Does This Mean?”. The reader will notice that only two of the questions are actually relevant to the subject. The answers provided to the questions confirm this observation – the subject of the article moves away from the question about the age of the Earth and shifts to the personal beliefs of the author. The personal pronoun “I” appears 55 times in the article, and the possessive pronoun “my” – 6 times (including quotations). There are more than ten references to the Bible, a single source mentioned in the text. Two names are referred to in the article – Charles Darwin (the creator of the Theory of Evolution) and Philip E. Johnson (a “co-founder of the pseudoscientific intelligent design movement”, as is stated in his Wikipedia entry [7]). Yet, the author fails to explain what the two referees believed in the article’s subject question and decides to handle the topic personally.

It is worth mentioning that the vocabulary of the article lacks professional jargon [8] and, instead, offers plenty of archaic quotations about personal experiences of mythical figures of unconfirmed origin. As a matter of principle, mythical and mystical figures – such as the Apostle Paul or Job – are as relevant as Zeus or Horus for scientific investigations of current problems.

Moreover, the author’s credibility suffers greatly through numerous admissions of ignorance. Statements such as “I cannot date the age of the earth because so many things have changed” or “I do not fully understand even that,” or “I don’t know” fail to inspire confidence in the author’s competence. More so when they answer rhetorical questions.

The question about the age of our planet is finally answered in a rather vague way. We learn that “(…) on the day that I confessed that truth, God created a new person in me. The earth began for me on that day.” The reader is left with the notion that the world (not the planet) begins on the day when one starts to believe in a god of a major religion. This suggests that the goal of the article was not to inform about the age of the Earth, but rather to recruit believers by reinforcing the already existing opinions of a Christian readership –  as it is suggested in the title of the website.

The author of the article from Space.com, Nola Taylor Redd, holds Bachelor’s degrees in English and Astrophysics. Her affiliation is listed and her main discipline is clearly mentioned. She begins the text by providing the reader with the answer to the question at hand – “(…) scientists have calculated that Earth is 4.54 billion years old, with an error range of 50 million years.” She then moves on to explain where the answer comes from. It’s worth noticing that the author provides an error margin, which suggests the answer is not final and remains a subject for further research.

The text refers to data and research from the fields of astronomy, geology, and radiometry. It provides explanatory links for scientific jargon, information sources, research data, and related articles. The links take the reader to various websites, including, but not limited to, the University of Arizona and livescience.com. The links also provide factual background for any reader eager to investigate the matter further.

Personal pronouns don’t appear in the text because the goal of the paper is not to share personal opinions or feelings, but rather to inform the readership about the current state of scientific discovery. Several photographs are provided for informative and, seemingly, aesthetic purposes.

The article ends with the answer to the main question being restated. The author also provides a list of suggested reading items for those who wish to learn more about the subject. The additional reading list includes an article from the U.S. Geological Survey [9], which strongly suggests that at least some of the sources were subjected to peer review [10] – vastly increasing their credibility.

To conclude, the stylistic discrepancy between the articles is significant. The article from  Christianity.com is a personal statement of belief and fails to follow the basic rules of academic composition. The use of personal pronouns, the lack of properly verified sources, and the persistent references to a single non-scientific source may leave the reader under the impression that answers to scientific questions can be found in a single scripture of a single religion. The same scripture, as it happens, states that pi (π, 3.14…) equals 3.0 [11].

On the other hand, the Space.com article deals with the subject question extensively. It provides research and data from multiple scientific disciplines and provides proper links and explanations for more inquisitive readers. At least some of the sources were subjected to peer-review, which is a widely acknowledged tool for maintaining academic standards and providing credibility. The main question is answered immediately and then addressed again after a thorough analysis of the issue.

In an era of information overflow, it is increasingly difficult to distinguish valid information from lies or propaganda. As it happens, sometimes the carrier of that information – a meme, an article, a brochure – might give the reader hints about the intention of the author. It is, therefore, crucial for a curious and open-minded reader to pay attention to details in a text’s composition. The writing style might suggest a hidden agenda while the use of a particular type of jargon or sociolect [12] may indicate that the author knows the subject well. Furthermore, an informative text doesn’t require rhetorical questions or abundant usage of abstract notions. “Is it possible to discover the notion of truth in the nature of a rock resting calmly at the side of the road?” is a rather unclear question when compared to a basic and concrete statement “rocks are solid.” With that in mind, we can select our information sources more efficiently and, at the same time, support authors who adhere to proper publication standards.