Science: the inexact science

I can believe this shark is old:

It appears that its skin is beginning to decay while it is still alive. This article explains that the shark’s age was determined by assigning one year to every centimeter of the shark’s length. It then amazingly claims that the shark is 512 years old, while the headline proclaims it was “born before Shakespeare”! That is an astounding revelation and makes the mind really begin to think about all of the things that have occurred throughout history while this creature floated around the oceans. That all come to a screeching halt when reading this sentence:

Experts used its length - a staggering 18ft - and radiocarbon dating to determine its age as between 272 and 512 years old, according to a study in journal Science.

This goes from being an amazing story to not much of a story at all. That’s essentially claiming to have discovered a 170-year-old human, only to later admit that the person may only be 90 (which used to happen to Strom Thurmond quite often). I wonder if such imprecise measurements could be used in other professions. 

Track & Field Judge:

“The runner for Kenya has set a new world record in the 1-mile run with a time of 2 minutes and 48 seconds, but the time might have actually been 4:02.”

Police Chief:

“The suspect is between 4’2” and 6’11” with either long or short hair between the ages of 25 and 62, and is either black or white.”

Pilot:

“Today’s flight from New York to France will be approximately 3 hours.”

Everything is racist

Including cereal boxes. According to this story in USA Today, someone got mad at the racial insensitivity of a Corn Pops cereal box.

What struck Saladin Ahmed was that a single brown corn pop was working as a janitor operating a floor waxer. Ahmed, current writer of Marvel Comics' Black Bolt series and author of 2012 fantasy novel Throne of the Crescent Moon, took to Twitter Tuesday to ask, "Why is literally the only brown corn pop on the whole cereal box the janitor? this is teaching kids racism."

Ahmed is right. Here that Corn Pop is:

Hard to argue with that. And when you look at the entire box, that janitor is indeed the darkest one.

But what, exactly, is wrong with being a janitor? And the more I look at that box, he appears to be the only one who has a job and is being a productive citizen in the entire Corn Pop world. Is there really something bad about that? Would it really have been better if he had been one of the Pops dropping things from the top deck, vandalizing kiosks, or just generally causing a ruckus? Apparently, someone showing up to work and performing their job admirably among chaos has now become something to be ashamed of.

Pancakes

Several news outlets reported on a sorority girl who died following a pancake eating competition. It was reported that she choked to death, though the descriptions of the incident said that she collapsed and began shaking. That doesn't really sound like choking to death. Nor does the fact that she died three days later. But the most shocking thing regarding this story was that the Toronto Sun decided to run it this way:

That picture is completely unnecessary, insensitive and borderline offensive. We all know what pancakes are. That looks like an advertisement for pancakes. A very effective advertisement. Also, nearly every one of the stories decided after reporting her death to focus on the fact that her father died in 9/11. Is that relevant? Why not just go with this story?