Feature: Good vs. Evil on the World Wide Web

We have been subjected to endless debates over whether children need protection from Internet porn and violence. But isn't there at least as much positive as negative material on the World Wide Web? I decided to find out by using opposing pairs of good and evil keywords in a series of AltaVista searches. The results were somewhat surprising. To begin with, the keyword good brought up a total of 18,803,720 results, while evil netted a mere 1,185,680. In other words, good appears to be more than 10 times as popular as evil online!

More evidence of Internet goodness:

Life got 23,765,261 results;
Death got only 5,973,580.

Love got 14,985,600 results;
Lust got only 889,330.

God got 5,596,690 results;
Satan only got 164,850;
Devil only got 635,160.

Marriage got 3,626,700 results;
Divorce only got 649,930.

Heaven got 977,930 results;
Hell only got 707,410.

Joy got 1,137,460 results;
Sorrow only got 190,740.

Linux got 3,461,380 results;
Unix got 1,948,040 results;
Windows NT only got 1,208,125.

Intelligence got 1,888,970 results;
Stupidity only got 77,430.

Apparently those misguided souls who condemn the World Wide Web as some sort of hellhole (3965 results) need to think again. The word Education was mentioned on 34,470,924 Web pages, while a search for Ignorance only came up with 141,530. And, despite endless yammer about kids getting hold of bomb-building instructions online, cruising the World Wide Web is statistically more likely to make them fat than to teach them how to blow up buildings; the word cooking netted 2,167,210 Web pages, the word Bomb only got 622,050, and the phrase homemade bombs only brought up 662.

Religious believers should take heart from the fact that Salvation drew 280,700 AltaVista responses, while Damnation only came up with 8141. Christians, instead of condemning the Internet as immoral, might want to change their tune and start boasting about their online dominance - the word Christian drew 6,715,031 results, as opposed to 93,240 for Jew, 322,740 for Muslim, 279,990 for Buddhist, and 236,420 for Hindu, while the word Atheist only came up with 78,870 pages.

What does all of this mean? I have no idea. This small (but rigorously unscientific) study, like the psychic hotlines advertised heavily on late-night cable TV, is meant to be used for entertainment purposes only. Please feel free to add to it (or subtract from it) and draw your own conclusions, which I'm sure will be far more insightful than any I could possibly come up with on my own.