The Anthropocene as an epoch is distinct from all other concepts known by this term: a reply to Swindles et al. (2023)
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Swindles et al. (2023) correctly point out that there are many conceptions of the 'Anthropocene' in use, and they argue that this flexibility in terminology is desirable.We agree that the multiple uses of this term have stimulated much scholarly debate, but we contend that precision in terminology is far more desirable than vagueness, and promotes more productive communication.We also emphasise that an evidence-based approach in defining the Anthropocene strongly argues for its formal definition as a geological epoch with an onset in the mid-20th century.As members of the Anthropocene Working Group (AWG), the body charged with investigating the Anthropocene as a new unit of geological time, we offer alternative perspectives to key assertions made by Swindles et al. (2023).In the interest of brevity, we quote each assertion, followed by our view.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.030 | 0.069 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.003 | 0.002 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.002 | 0.003 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.008 | 0.038 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.013 | 0.035 |
| Open science | 0.009 | 0.012 |
| Research integrity | 0.052 | 0.078 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.004 | 0.004 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".