Google co-founder Larry Page claims that science has a serious marketing problem, and yet his own company's news service heavily emphasizes consumer products and video games rather than educational material.

As I write this, the sci/tech section of Google News is loaded with the stories about iMac upgrades and Grand Theft Auto, but not a single science article is in sight.

Unfortunately, the search and ads company may be simply giving the public what it wants: product reviews to drool over.

From my point of view, this is absolutely terrifying: Our society has an unhealthy preoccupation with gadgets and other shallow distractions. By depriving the public of science news, and showing mostly meaningless product stories in its place, Google is contributing to the epic case of materialism and scientific illiteracy that plagues the developed world.

Do you agree that there is a problem and Google News is a part of it?