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Fifth Grader’s Smarter

Than the Smithsonian Institution. Because the Precambrian isn’t an era. It isn’t actually anything. It just is. You dolt. You didn’t know that? Sheesh. via Herald:  

ALLEGAN, Mich. - Never mind whether you’re smarter than a fifth-grader. This one’s probably smarter than you. After all, young Kenton Stufflebeam is smarter than the Smithsonian Institution.

On a recent trip to the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History, the 11-year-old noticed a sign calling the Precambrian an “era.”

It isn’t. The Cambrian is a period, between 543 million and 490 million years ago. A couple of periods make a geological era. But the Precambrian is neither … it’s just everything before the Cambrian, back to the formation of Earth about 4.5 billion years ago.

…

Last week, the boy received a letter acknowledging that his catch was “spot on.”

“The Precambrian is a dimensionless unit of time, which embraces all the time between the origin of Earth and the beginning of the Cambrian Period of geologic time,” said the letter - addressed to “Kenton Slufflebeam.” D’oh!

I bet that fifth grader is a lot smarter than the kind of teachers this scheme will produce.

Topics: kids, moronocy, prehistory, science

  Posted by Jules Crittenden at 6:19 am on Friday, April 4, 2008

2 Responses to “Fifth Grader’s Smarter”

1. RebeccaH Says:
   April 4th, 2008 at 11:26 am

   “Dentistry is a profession that’s difficult to get into,” Tisei said. “I’m sure people wouldn’t mind if the person who is doing their root canal cannot pass the competency test.”

   Keep dumbing down education, and soon enough there’ll be plenty of dentists who won’t be able to.

2. Ben Says:
   April 5th, 2008 at 7:41 pm

   So why did they make the mistake in the first place?

   “The Precambrian is a dimensionless unit of time,”

   A “dimensionless unit of time” makes absolutely no sense. There are such things as dimensionless units, such as radians or degrees, but only because the dimension is expressed elsewhere. But a unit of time has a dimension, time. And a *unit* is a regular thing you can measure other things with. You can’t measure time with the Precambrian because it’s not going to happen again.

   “which embraces”

   Could have said “covers” or “spans” or “denotes” but instead opted for the fuzzy, dopey “embraces.”

   “all the time between the origin of Earth”

   Again, he could have used a precise term but chose “origin.” My origin is the story I tell when people ask where I’m from, who I am, and so forth. The funny thing is, as I get older, my origin story gets longer because it’s basically a biography. And I’m blessed with a relatively distinct conception. The Earth’s origins could quite reasonably include the formation of the Sun.

   “and the beginning of the Cambrian Period of geologic time,”

   There’s a special kind of time for geology? I could accept geologic history, but time is time is time.

   I think these people are just sloppy and lazy. It’s a good thing museums only deal with old dead stuff.

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