Where'd you get that?

In talking about Wikipedia and search engines this week, I got to thinking about the reaction some people have so information sources.  It seems that people are distrustful of any information that is easily retrieved, whether justified or not.  "I got it off Wikipedia" or "I Googled it" will often land you a few derisive sneers if said regarding a controversial topic.  But I always wonder, is this the result of honest and productive skepticism, or are people just unwilling to accept that reliable information can be found so easily?

There are plenty of articles out there about why Wikipedia can't be trusted.  Heck, a five-year-old could have written that fact about Mary Magdelene.  Or it could have been Dan Brown trying to generate buzz for his next book!  YOU DON'T KNOW.

I like that Google and other search engines have provided a filter to only show sites from certain types of sources.  And link sites like Noodle can be effective to this end as well.  But it's not as though all those authors are perfect either.  If there is one thing that this debate stands to teach us, it's that no information source is Gospel.  Any author can be mistaken, or write down information that is slanted by his or her world view.  This is possibly more of a problem on Wikipedia, or if you click one of the first links shown on Google, but as more and more people get involved in this debate, and students hear more and more about it, at least we're all getting used to the idea that facts should be corroborated, and sources should be examined.