Pumice for Dummies

Igneous rock

If you've been paying attention, you may have noticed that the average American is damned near scientifically illiterate. Put the blame wherever you want – we're not here to discuss politics. Our problem is that, even though they don't know jack, these people try to pass along their "knowledge" through sites like InfoBarrel.com and eHow.com. Today's villain is one Joannie Ham of InfoBarrel, whose bio claims she has not one but two science degrees. Unfortunately, she likes to write about stuff not pertinent to either; and worse, she's one of those morons who homeschool their kids to make sure they pass down that scientific illiteracy. Here just read what Joannie says about pumice, in an InfoBarrel piece she calls "Facts About Igneous Rocks":

Bad "Grammer Advise" from Dummies

Some people tend to get a little grumpy about the proper use of the English language. There are enough of us that damned near all word-processing software now includes not only spell-checking, but also real-time grammar-checking. Sadly, though, the spelling part's apparently a lost cause... Back to the topic of grammar: there's nothing that elicits an outpouring of schadenfruede in our house grammar curmudgeon quite like seeing purported grammar advice that itself violates grammatical rules. Take this, for instance, from someone calling herself Fiona Rey, "writing" about the perils of missing commas for the readers of DailyTwoCents.com:

Running Amok in a Plumber's Crack

Comparison of drainage pipe slope

So-called "mommybloggers" were all the rage there for a few months (a meme? a memelet?). Now we're never gonna claim to be qualified to give a mommyblogger crap about any of their stock topics like diapers, makeup, cheating husbands or fad diets – no, that would be hypocritical. On the other hand, when a mommyblogger starts trying to explain a visit from her plumber yesterday (desperate for something to write about? no products to write glowing reviews about?), she's on our turf - and she'd better not get all stupid.

Get all stupid is just someone who calls herself "Abby" did over at InfoBarrel in her article "How to Fix Your Basic Kitchen Plumbing Problems." It's pretty clear from the text that Abby had a leak under her sink and decided to "educate" her readers on plumbing basics. The problem being that she was saying things like

Oil and Gas, the Dummies Version

Drilling rig on site

Today’s example of a woefully unqualified boob expounding on something about which he (or perhaps it’s a she?) knows squat comes from another paragon of quality, HubPages.com. The Dumbass of the Day goes by the pen name jmccas1, posting his/her thoughts on the topic of “Unconventional Resources.”¹ With luck, J didn't make any money off this one, though in all probability s/he made more than we'll make by correcting him. Ah, well, such is life.

Moment of Inertia for Dummies

Moment of inertia of a rod

Self-appointed “professional freelancers” who write for pay sites are a source of vast quantities of misinformation. In their zeal to earn pennies, they often write about topics for which they lack even the faintest educational background. One of the funniest (or saddest) I’ve seen in a long time has finally been taken down by eHow “science” and replaced by text that more closely approaches technically correct.

This one’s a case in which the "journalist" was tricked by the word moment in the phrase “moment of inertia” into thinking that the technical term has something to do with a point in time. The author (also known as my Dumbass of the Day) is Jennifer Fleming, an “eHow contributor” whose long list of articles on the site has the potential to create an extensive series of stupidities. 

Automotive Maintenance for Dummies

Cooling system overflow tank

We often wish the good Lord would deliver us from certain of those self-appointed "freelance experts." You know the ones: they subscribe to services (free or pay) that tell them what search topics are "hot," and then immediately write something on that topic for their favorite pay-per-view site. It used to be assholiated... err, associatedcontent.com, but now that that one is gone, they write for other sites like WritEdge, InfoBarrel, HubPages or any of a dozen other sites that give them the occasional penny.

There are two hallmarks of the self-appointed freelance expert:

• lousy spelling, grammar and proofreading
• lousy information

Today's freelancer was writing for  the late, unlamented WritEdge¹, under the pen name Isabelle Esteves. Here's an example of her competence, written under the title "What Every Woman Needs to Know About Car Maintenance." Izzy clearly doesn't know jack about maintaining a car, as proven by this statement:

Radiochemistry for Dummies

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. 

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.