I remember when Google was new, and what a boon it was to an editor living on deadline (i.e., me). Fact-checking is a big part of the job, and a Google made it easy.

Google was preceded by other search engines — Alta Vista was my favourite while the bugs were worked out of Google. Yahoo and Ask Jeeves also flourished for a while. But Google quickly left them all in the dust.

I used to believe that the primary source of ignorant wrong-headedness is lack of reliable reference material. Google has brought the accumulated information, knowledge and wisdom of the ages to our fingertips, all we have to do is ask the right question, and here we are — still up to our collective butt in ignorant wrong-headedness.

So the problem isn’t lack of information, knowledge and wisdom. It’s lack of good questions.