Have Search Engines Increased Our Intolerance of Ignorance?

...is a quick search on the modern interweb seen as the obvious first port of call to overcome ignorance? New search engine answers!

Good question. I'd never thought of it that way before, Mark, but I'd agree. For weightier topics, I'd rather read a book than a pile of printouts.

If search engines mean more people know who Robert Elms is then they are dud.

Lack of knowledge of Robert Elms is like the state of Adam & Eve in the garden of eden - afore original sin. I refuse to help you out on the identity of the evil Mr Elms, but if you google him do it at your peril.

Um, no. I don't think search engines make us less tolerant of ignorance.

You'd be amazed at how many people are too lazy to even look something up on a search engine.

But does googling something really mean lack of ignorance? Just b/c you know a fact doesn't mean you understand something.

The search engine took me h ere.
Oh dear! How could anyone want to get stuck on the Millennium Wheel with Maggie Thatcher!

Isn't there an ancient Greek myth about writing itself causing ignorance, because people can read (and quote) things to appear superficially intelligent, without having to internalize/remember them?

Oh god Mark, don't be stoopid. Everyone knows the answer to that!

I remember that Nolan Ryan threw the fastest major league pitch ever, 100.8 mph, because I googled it during the World Series a couple weeks ago. I also remember thinking that 100.8 mph sounded kinda slow, considering I threw 106 mph fastballs when playing as the St. Louis Cardinals in Tommy Lasorda Baseball for the Sega Genesis when I was 10.

I just googled when Tommy Lasorda Baseball for the Sega Genesis was first published to see how old I was at the time. I will probably never forget that fact now.

A couple of times a week I'll be sitting at home watching tv with friends and some question or dispute will come up that can easily be solved with google. How lazy do you have to be to not just go look it up. You can look up words at dict.org faster than you can find them in an actual paper-and-ink dictionary. we've clocked it. My roommates tease me about it, but they also call me when they're doing research because they don't know how to find anything on the internet.

Now if you only quote/remember authors' conclusions and don't remember the structure of their arguments, or if you don't ever fact- check an author, or if you just believe the opinions of those you think are smart or trendy, then I can see where you're not particularly wise, and you're probably more ignorant than you realize, but I don't know if that's alltogether worse than just not caring and never reading anything.

100.9... Whatever.

I hate search engines a bit, its lead to a new ignorance in trying to get answers from profs. Instead of RTFM (which doesnt exist for alot of topics) its now look it up on Google.

I was sitting with friends today in the school computer lab, where we were looking up answers to a set of questions. While I browsed artchive.com to find who painted a picture two of them were screaming at each other over whether Mars, Earth, or Venus was bigger. I got angry because they were just yelling, "I'm right!" "No, I'm right!" when they could have looked it up in about thirty seconds. So the answer is yes, I for one am less tolerant.