Guy Brandenburg's (2009) MathTalk post "Re: St. Sensible, Ouija
Boards, and Brooklyn Tech. . . . .." of 19 Aug 19 carried the
following signature quote:
"Education isn't rocket science. It's much, much harder."
(Author unknown)"
As President of National Anonymity Busters (NAB) and chair of PEdants
for Definitive Academic References (PEDAR), I'm compelled to indicate
the correct attribution and exactly correct quote and:
Education is not rocket science - it's much harder."
George Nelson, astronaut, astrophysicist, and former director
of the AAAS
Project 2061, as quoted by Joe Redish (1999).
The current popularity of this quote is indicated by the following
numbers of Google <http://www.google.com/> hits obtained on 21 August
2009 09:15-0700 (all with the quotes "...." but without the square
brackets [.....]):
"Education is not rocket science - it's much
harder"...........................228
["Education is not rocket science - it's much harder" Redish]............. 173
["Education is not rocket science - it's much harder" Hake]............... 143
["Education isn't rocket science. It's much, much harder" unknown].......7
The last entry indicates that the misattribution and non-exact quote
in Guy's signature quote has not, thus far, propagated too widely on
the internet - thank Heavens!!.
That the truncated version "Education is not rocket science" is even
more popular on the internet is indicated by the following Google
hits on 21 August 2009 09:30-0700 (all with the quotes "...." but
without the square brackets [.....]):
"Education is not rocket
science"...................................................7150
["Education is not rocket science"
Nelson].................................150,000
Thinking that the above disparity betwee the two entries indicated a
bug in Google's search engine, I searched again on 21 August 2009
11:18-0700 to obtain a more reasonable result:
"Education is not rocket
science"...................................................7150
["Education is not rocket science"
Nelson]........................................642
REFERENCES
Brandenburg, G. 2009. "Re: St. Sensible, Ouija Boards, and Brooklyn
Tech (or why I wouldn't send my worst enemy's kid to parochial
school)", MathTalk post of 19 Aug 19 8:29 am (what time zone?);
online at <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MathTalk/message/2773>