Sometimes, it's just people's opinion we are getting and not the scientific fact.
I completely agree with your views about the dangers of getting dumb answers to questions. Due to misinterpreting opinions as facts.
So when I started with Wikipedia, I soon realised that I should only use it to find references to original sources of information. And even those need to be carefully checked.
Later, when I was researching medical information, I discovered PubMed. Which led me to look for peer-reviewed journals for reliable information about other subjects. These days, there are many services that help you compile scientific research. At the moment, I can only recall ResearchGate. But it is worth spending time trying out different services to see which are most suitable for you.
Of course, much of this research is behind paywalls. Though there are often ways around paying for journals. In particular, I found that when I created relationships on scientific social media, several researchers were willing to share articles with me.
I agree that fast access to search engine results can make us seem less knowledgeable than our predecessors. But these days, we have much better access to vast libraries of professional research. So we certainly have the opportunity to be smarter. With the final caveat that even the best research is only enough until someone finds something better.
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Yea...we do have the opportunity to be smarter if only we go deeper into acquiring knowledge and not relying on some information we see online. The question is, how many people in our era are willing to gather many research work before making conclusions? We have the access but maybe we are more relaxed with the shallow knowledge
I shouldn't generalize it anyway...some people are doing great with knowledge and research nowadays
I appreciate your warm feedback 🤗