Ah, the Internet. All that wonderful information poised at your finger tips, waiting for just the right key strokes to pull it forth out of the ether for your edification and/or amusement.

But there is another side of this coin, a curse to this blessing we know as the world wide web. Because for every piece of bonified, verifiable data out there, there are probably 10 erroneous, inaccurate sources just waiting to trip us even the most intrepid of researchers.

Oh sure, they look official, citing as they do data which appears, even to the most educated of eyes, to be sound and scientific data. Don’t be too quick to accept these supposed facts, however. Because quite often they are subject to different interpretations. The reality is that for every side of an issue, you can find any number of scientists, economists, theorists and other “experts” who will swear on their doctorates (and their mothers’ graves) that theirs is the correct theory regarding that particular issue.

Not all theories are created equal.

This isn’t a new phenomenon of course. Just think of Copernicus and Galileo asserting their theory that the Earth revolved around the sun, not the other way around - which happened to be the general consensus of the day. Now we’d scoff at anyone who would posit something which we “know” to be true. Like the shape of the Earth for example. It’s interesting to note, however, that there are still people out there who believe that the Earth is flat. (A quick Internet search helped me locate the Flat Earth Society - dedicated to debunking the “myth” that the world is round. Feel free to Google it. It’s fascinating, really, but they don’t have me convinced.)

You’re probably wondering what has spurred this public service announcement about the quality and quantity of facts, figures and the like to be found out there on the information super highway. I’ll admit it’s a topic that comes up fairly frequently for me, but this particular rant was sparked by a debate about climate change.

Now, this is an issue on which my own personal opinion has oscillated on over the years. So when the topic came up in the newsroom earlier this week, I had more than a passing interest in the exchange.

It all began when a co-worker of mine mentioned he had read an article which linked the recent spate of earthquakes to global warming. The premise that the warming climate, added weight of the ocean as a result of melting ice caps, etc., were causing all the plate movement which triggers these quakes.

I didn’t buy it. Not because I know it not to be true, necessarily, but because an article based on one supposed experts’ opinion does not a sound, scientific explanation make in my opinion.

I’m the first to admit that I’m not a geologist, but I prefer not to subscribe to the Chicken Little mentality. (In other words, I’ll need a whole slew of experts to convince me the sky is falling. Unless, of course, it smacks me personally right in the noggin.)

I have a vague recollection of studying plate tectonics at some point in my academic career. I remember that those plates – on which our continents and oceans sit – move. And have been moving for billions of years. Our earth is constantly changing, and has been since it came into existence. (No matter what theory you subscribe to regarding how it was, in fact, created.)

Volcanic eruptions, earthquakes – all those things we refer to as natural disasters – have been happening since long before the first of our species decided to straighten up his or her posture, and walk upright for a change.

I admire the fact that my coworker has taken time to research climate change, which is a topic he obviously feels strongly about. I personally have always been a bit overwhelmed by the sheer volume of conflicting viewpoints on the topic. (A simple search I conducted yesterday using a popular search engine yielded some 28.8 million hits.)