AskMe post I can't find anymore

February 3, 2021 9:06 AM

There was a post on Metafilter about types of errors (maybe in response to an Ask? Although perhaps I found it in a reply to a post like this one, on MeTa?) and it had a taxonomy of errors relating to whether people would remember the error in 100 yrs time, whether it would leave a permanent mark in the fossil record, etc. I found it both funny and useful and find myself thinking of it often, but I've tried to search for it various times without luck. Does anyone know what I'm talking about?
posted by chappell, ambrose to MetaFilter-Related at 9:06 AM (5 comments total)

I know the comment you're talking about but I'm darned if I know how to search for it. The commenter envisioned a hierarchy of errors based on which academic discipline would be responsible for it - journalism (did it make the papers?) history (will it be in the history books?) anthropology (referenced in human artifacts?) paleontology (in the fossil record?) astronomy (did it destroy a celestial body?) cosmology (did it destroy the [previous] universe?)
posted by Daily Alice at 9:57 AM on February 3, 2021 [3 favorites]

Here it is, the FishBike scale of Big Mistakes!
posted by yasaman at 11:11 AM on February 3, 2021 [22 favorites]

Amazing!!

Thank you so much, it’s even better than I remembered it. Thank you!!
posted by chappell, ambrose at 3:42 PM on February 3, 2021 [1 favorite]

Sorry, a bit of a tangent but I'm reminded of the actor who was somehow immortalized for mispronouncing a word:

Every Greek scholar knows the celebrated lapsus linguae committed by the tragic actor Hegelochus at the Great Dionysia of 408 B.C. ...
posted by RobotHero at 1:51 PM on February 5, 2021 [1 favorite]

I like Daily Alice's extrapolation to cosmology!
posted by mpark at 5:13 PM on February 6, 2021