People bitch all the time about how “undependable” Wikipedia is. Bull. If you want to see “undependable,” just look at the kind of rubbish published by people who are writing for content farms. Yeah, you know the ones — sites like eHow that pay random people to write about things after performing perfunctory research at, you guessed it, Wikipedia. Way too many of these are college English and journalism majors who’ve been convinced by half-wit professors that they can become “experts” on anything.
Without further ado, here’s today’s nominee for Dumbass of the Day, an author who claims to be Angela Libal, an eHow contributor, writing on the topic “How to Find the Age of a Layer of Rock That Is Surrounded by Layers of Volcanic Ash” at Sciencing.com. Angela’s contribution to internet stupidity is the following statement:
Duh. That’s not the definition of unstable isotope; it’s (part of) the definition of ion. Isotopes are atoms of the same element that differ in atomic weight because of different numbers of neutrons. Unstable isotopes are isotopes that spontaneously change to other elements over time, a process known as radioactive decay.
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| Well, some freelance writers do become very knowledgeable about their topics, but only after weeks or months of immersion and discussions with real experts. Some stay-at-home mom (or dad) who spends an hour browsing content written by other stay-at-home moms (and dads) doesn’t qualify as knowledgeable by any stretch of the imagination. |
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| radioactive decay |
Without further ado, here’s today’s nominee for Dumbass of the Day, an author who claims to be Angela Libal, an eHow contributor, writing on the topic “How to Find the Age of a Layer of Rock That Is Surrounded by Layers of Volcanic Ash” at Sciencing.com. Angela’s contribution to internet stupidity is the following statement:
“Radiometric dating uses the decay of unstable isotopes – atoms with specific electrical charges – to calculate something’s age.”
Duh. That’s not the definition of unstable isotope; it’s (part of) the definition of ion. Isotopes are atoms of the same element that differ in atomic weight because of different numbers of neutrons. Unstable isotopes are isotopes that spontaneously change to other elements over time, a process known as radioactive decay.
| Our Dumbass of the Day Angela claims to be studying in a graduate program in cryptozoology. Apparently, eHow's editors (the site's now known as Leaf Group, but it's just as stoopid as before the name change) didn't get Libal's little joke. |  
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