Someone kick this kid's ass!

[tugmoose]

5th-grader finds mistake at Smithsonian

Wed Apr 2, 5:54 PM ET

 

ALLEGAN, Mich. - Is fifth-grader Kenton Stufflebeam smarter than the Smithsonian? The 11-year-old boy, who lives in Allegan but attends Alamo Elementary School near Kalamazoo, went with his family during winter break to the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History in Washington.

 

Since it opened in 1981, millions of people have paraded past the museum's Tower of Time, a display involving prehistoric time. Not one visitor had reported anything amiss with the exhibit until Kenton noticed that a notation, in bold lettering, identified the Precambrian as an era.

 

Kenton knew that was wrong. His fifth-grade teacher, John Chapman, had nearly made the same mistake in a classroom earth-science lesson before catching himself.

 

"I knew Mr. Chapman wouldn't tell all these students" bad information, the boy told the Kalamazoo Gazette for a story published Wednesday.

 

So Kevin Stufflebeam took his son to the museum's information desk to report Kenton's concern on a comment form. Last week, the boy received a letter from the museum acknowledging that his observation 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," the letter says.

 

The solution to the problem would not involve advanced science but rather simply painting over the word "era," the note says.

 

"We did forward a copy of the comment and our paleobiology department's response to the head of the exhibits department," said Lorraine Ramsdell, educational technician for the museum.

 

While no previous visitors to the museum had brought up the error, it has long rankled the paleobiology department's staff, who noticed it even before the Tower of Time was erected 27 years ago, she said.

 

"The question is, why was it put up with that on it in the first place?" Ramsdell said.

 

Excited as he was to receive the correspondence from museum officials, he couldn't help but point out that it was addressed to Kenton Slufflebeam.

 

In Allegany.

[Sweet Papa Crimbo]

5th-grader finds mistake at Smithsonian

Wed Apr 2, 5:54 PM ET

 

ALLEGAN, Mich. - Is fifth-grader Kenton Stufflebeam smarter than the Smithsonian? The 11-year-old boy, who lives in Allegan but attends Alamo Elementary School near Kalamazoo, went with his family during winter break to the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History in Washington.

 

Since it opened in 1981, millions of people have paraded past the museum's Tower of Time, a display involving prehistoric time. Not one visitor had reported anything amiss with the exhibit until Kenton noticed that a notation, in bold lettering, identified the Precambrian as an era.

 

Kenton knew that was wrong. His fifth-grade teacher, John Chapman, had nearly made the same mistake in a classroom earth-science lesson before catching himself.

 

"I knew Mr. Chapman wouldn't tell all these students" bad information, the boy told the Kalamazoo Gazette for a story published Wednesday.

 

So Kevin Stufflebeam took his son to the museum's information desk to report Kenton's concern on a comment form. Last week, the boy received a letter from the museum acknowledging that his observation 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," the letter says.

 

The solution to the problem would not involve advanced science but rather simply painting over the word "era," the note says.

 

"We did forward a copy of the comment and our paleobiology department's response to the head of the exhibits department," said Lorraine Ramsdell, educational technician for the museum.

 

While no previous visitors to the museum had brought up the error, it has long rankled the paleobiology department's staff, who noticed it even before the Tower of Time was erected 27 years ago, she said.

 

"The question is, why was it put up with that on it in the first place?" Ramsdell said.

 

Excited as he was to receive the correspondence from museum officials, he couldn't help but point out that it was addressed to Kenton Slufflebeam.

 

In Allegany.

 

Feeling threatened? Inadequate?

[VenusStopsTrain2]

lmao

reminds me of the 2 mistakes i found in chicago's museum of science and industry...i never got a letter but they emailed back saying they fwded on what i had written to someone in the right dept. we shall see if anything changes next time i go.

[caliber66]

I sent a correction to the Meaning of Life entry at imdb (twice!), but they never acknowledged nor corrected shit.

[cryptique]

I've tried to correct stuff on allmusic.com, but it never gets changed.

 

Their office is here in town. I've thought about driving over there and doing it myself.

[Good Old Neon]

Stupid smart kids...pft.

[isadorah]

i found a question in trivial pursuit was wrong (and it was more than merely a typo). the trivial pursuit folks blew me off and passed the flaw onto a different division that passed it back. (they called salvador dali an impressionist, he's a surrealist).

 

i also found a snapple fact on a snapple lid (something to the tune of koala bears are the only mammal besides humans to have thumb prints, wrong, all primates are mammals and have thumb prints). snapple responded and told me they verify all of their facts on the internet and therefore i was wrong and they were right. i thought that was rather brilliant.

[cryptique]

snapple responded and told me they verify all of their facts on the internet and therefore i was wrong and they were right.

That's hilarious.

[quarter23cd]

i also found a snapple fact on a snapple lid (something to the tune of koala bears are the only mammal besides humans to have thumb prints, wrong, all primates are mammals and have thumb prints). snapple responded and told me they verify all of their facts on the internet and therefore i was wrong and they were right. i thought that was rather brilliant.

I once worked a temp job in the Snapple call center. The job really sucked and tended to put me in a foul mood, so I very well could have been the customer service rep who blew you off.

 

"We verify all of our facts on the internet." Priceless.

[Mrs. Peel]

i found a question in trivial pursuit was wrong

 

I did too. I can't remember exactly what it was but it was something about Ronald Reagan. Trivial Pursuit didn't care.

[jenbobblehead]

Once, Caliber was wrong and I logged it on his website but nothing ever happened.

[OOO]

MOOPS!

 

 

MOORS!

 

 

MOOPS!

 

 

MOORS!