Thanks to Google Blogoscoped for pointing me to this Reason interview with Bruce Sterling. In it he opines on media, tech, etc., and has some words of wisdom on search in particular. Excerpts:
There is a Google blindness. It’s a kind of common wisdom generator, but it’s not necessarily going to get you to the real story of what’s actually going on.
reason: As today’s children get older they’re internalizing Boolean search logic, and they actually do show some discrimination and drill down to the useful information.
Sterling: It is a form of literacy that’s really peculiar. Socrates used to talk about this: “The problem with writing is that no one memorizes the Iliad any more. You’ve got to just know all of it. And how can you call yourself an educated man if you cannot recite Book Three, not missing a single epithet?” He’s got a point there. It has a profound effect on literary composition. I’ve got Google up all the time. It gives you this veneer of command of the facts which you do not, in point of fact, have. It’s extremely useful for novelists but somewhat dangerous if you’re pretending to be a brain surgeon.