Did you know that cockroach dung is a major cause of asthma? Me neither. But that's what some social services folks told my wife. Apparently, a surfeit of roaches is enough to cause a child to be removed from a home, and one of the big reasons is that the roach poop could give the kid asthma.

I've never heard of the "cockroach crap" theory. In fact, I recently heard a one-hour talk radio discussion about asthma without any of the experts expressing any belief in such a thing. Still, Barbara uses this information as a reason for obliterating (sometimes at the expense of household goods) the brown bugs with extreme prejudice.

So we had a discussion about this roach thing. You might even call it an argument, but it wasn't a not a hostile one. It was a vaguely logical argument. I like logical arguments. You know, where you state a position and then defend it with "facts." It's good sport, as long as the other person (or persons) involved are agreeable.

As any veteran of high school debate will tell you, though, there are facts to support every position. It is conceivable to construct an argument defending the notion that sexual molestation of children shouldn't be illegal.

Start with the notion that the adult in question means the child no harm (this is the intent part). Then, if the experience doesn't cause the child any distress, then a crime wasn't committed (that's the result part).

That's a short, vaguely logical argument. There are a lot of holes, but there are even more in supply-side economic theory in general and the Laffer curve specifically.

What I'm trying to say here is that you have to do more thinking than simply appreciating of the facts. A fact in itself doesn't further knowledge. And, of course, mere knowledge has nothing whatsoever to do with wisdom. So if you're like most folks and you actually desire even the smallest snippet of wisdom, you've got to work out some answers for yourself. And that means reaching out and looking for them.

But where to find answers? Individual people are notoriously corrupt. Most folks toss off opinions as facts all the time. I know I do. So forget the streetcorner preacher. You could go to a newspaper, magazine or book. But even the most meticulously reported and edited publication has incorrect information in it. Most stories in every newspaper or magazine have at least one incorrect piece of information in them, and even if the "facts" are objectively true at the time, in time those "facts" might weaken.

This is not to say that you shouldn't read papers and books, that you shouldn't listen to the news on the radio or watch it on TV (though the latter is a decidedly dicey proposition). You've got to filter what you take in through what you know already. Challenge the "facts." If something sounds funny to you, then don't believe it.

Now, that sounds like a proposition for reactionary ignorance. And it is, if that's the end of your search. However, the best thing is to take that strange piece of information and shop it around. Like the roach/asthma thing. I plan to do a little but of searching on the American Lung Association site when I go in to work tomorrow, and then go where the information leads.

I may think the roach theory is a little weird, but because it seems odd to me (I would put pollution way ahead of pollen, and pollen light years ahead of cockroach poop as causes of asthma), I'm going to follow up on it. I'm not on any crusade, mind you, but I'll keep an eye and an ear out for this kinda stuff and we'll see what turns up. Maybe the social services folks are right. I'm not opposed to being wrong or confused about asthma. I'd just like to know.

But I don't trust facts, even when people who should know them speak. I need corroborative evidence. Now, if a few eminent folks agree on something (say, on how kick ass the new Snapcase record is), I'll likely add that "fact" to my store of knowledge. But I still need for any given fact to be able to fit into my concept of the world. I've got to test the theory. I have the new Snapcase album. It does kick ass. Thus, the people who told me that are moved up a notch on my "musical knowledge" chain.

This can go the other way, of course. I don't trust any film reviewer who has even the slightest nice thing to say about Forrest Gump. Nice comments about that bag of crap don't fit into my conception of reality. I'll listen to the argument, mind you, but I don't have to agree.

When it comes to things I don't have ready knowledge of, however, I've got to go back to the cycle of corroboration. If I read lots of reports from many different people pointing to cockroach crap as the main cause of asthma in inner city children, well, I'll just have to accept that. That's how it works. It's called critical thinking. You probably didn't hear about it in school, because a lot of teachers hate kids who think for themselves.

Facts alone are utterly useless. They have to be connected by logic, or they don't mean anything. All the cockroach dung in the world can't change that.

Jon Worley believes only three things are certain: Any meal is edible as long as there is access to an unlimited quantity of beer, Hank Aaron was a much better baseball player than Babe Ruth and all reasons to listen to Van Halen evaporated the day Eddie kicked Diamond Dave out of the band.