Organic Chemistry for Dummies

dihydrogen monoxide

There must be a million sites where freelancing fools can scrounge out a few cents by pretending to know something and then pounding out a few paragraphs of bullbleep The Demand Media empire (especially eHow) and Hubpages are the sites that come to mind first – mainly because they're definitely target-rich environments – but there are other sites that fit the bill out there as well. In fact, we received an email earlier this week that reminded us to take a look at Seekyt.com. Like the execrable Bubblews, Seekyt has long been overrun with total rubbish and, also like Bubblews, is darned near impossible to search. But trust us, there's bullshit in them that hills! But enough about that: let's have a look at an example...

While his heart appeared to be in the right place, Seekyt contributor BradYoung04's brain apparently wasn't. In his "Environmentalism - Keeping A Track [sic] Of Carbon Emissions In Industry"¹ (just what does "keeping a track" mean, anyway?), Young "revealed" that

"Hydrocarbons... are used in the extraction of oil and gas and alter the natural soil environment so that it is no longer balanced chemically, and therefore not fertile for organic matter..."

Let's leave aside for now the utter emptiness of a statement like "[they] alter the natural soil environment so that it is no longer balanced chemically," which sounds like those dire chain emails warning us of the many dangers of dihydrogen monoxide¹. Instead, let's look at "hydrocarbons are used in the extraction of oil and gas." Did BradYoung04 not realize that oil and gas are the hydrocarbons of which he speaks? Another damned scientific illiterate, another Dumbass of the Day. Welcome to the ranks Brad Young and Seekyt: we doubt this will be your last appearance. ¹ "dihydrogen monoxide" is plain ol' water...

¹ The post has been deleted, but you can still see it using archive.org's Wayback machine. Its URL was    seekyt.com/environmentalism-keeping-a-track-of-carbon-emissions-in-industry/

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