As famed novelist and screenwriter William Goldman once observed, “Nobody knows nothin’.”

Yet, everybody wants to know everything.

On the tritely labeled “information superhighway,” we’ve reached a data saturation point where anyone can become an expert on anything by traveling to an online oracle and plugging in a loosely connected string of key words.

But the oracles of Delphi and Dodona have been replaced with the rapid-fire Wikipedia and Google.

From the innane to the important, all of us have tried to maintain an appearance of uber-informed and ultra-hip by doing a quick Internet search in between e-mails. Someone peppers dialogue with common or obscure references, and we perform quick-hit research to show we “naturally get it.”

Do we get it? When the info can be composed and posted by anyone with an Internet connection and e-mail address, is it making us smarter, or just gullibly misinformed in a peer-edited wiki world?

I fear the latter. When we demand constant knowledge fast, we risk becoming like Anakin Skywalker: powerful to be sure, but undisciplined with a dangerous weapon and guided by shrouded tutors.

It’s much like the $250 Neiman Marcus cookie recipe forward we get within a week of any relative discovering the Internet for the first time.

Though the world of wiki we now face is more worrisome because it frighteningly lowers the level of skepticism of those that grew up with Internet tech. Somehow, we’ve internalized that “peer edited” equals “reliable source.”

This is a dangerous idea even if you set aside the fact that my peers are people who, a few years ago, were making bongs out of apples.

And who are the peer editors? What makes them reliable?

As has been the case with Wikipedia, when a peer can be anonymous and unaccountable, they can be anyone. They can even be political aides with axes to grind and history to make (literally and figuratively), shaping the truth any which way.

Sure, much of the searches we’re performing daily deal more with factoids than facts. Chances are good most of us are looking up TV show theme song lyrics more than “important” ideas.

Still, even the truths delivered by ancient oracles had to be taken carefully, often requiring careful interpretation.

Plus, good online entries are referenced and annotated with source material. But those footnotes only work if the reader follows through to make certain facts aren’t taken out of context, miscontrued or analyzed incorrectly.

And like any student facing a term paper deadline, most of us will just take our chances. Is the info even coming from a trustworthy spot? Is it originating somewhere or just being regurgitated.

Even when we convince ourselves something is reliable because it comes from a good site, or appears with some frequency, we must never relinquish the skepticism to question the info. After all, bad data spreads as fast (or faster) than good data.

Treated skeptically, our world of fingertip facts could be a grand leveling field. With a little time, we could all be on the same insider informational plateau as a doctor, lawyer, plumber or mechanic.

We could come to know everything, but when we swallow everything we read online, we really will end up knowing nothin’.