Posted on 02/15/2014 8:42:58 AM PST by a fool in paradise
Every two years, the National Science Foundation releases a report on the state of science in the U.S. and around the world.... The results of the most recent survey, conducted in 2012 with more than 2,200 adults, have just been released.
Here's a list of the questions in the survey... As you'll see, in the words of the report, "many Americans provide multiple incorrect answers to basic questions about scientific facts." Then again, "residents of other countries, including highly developed ones, appear to perform no better."
1. The center of the earth is very hot
2. The continents have been moving their location for millions of years and will continue to move
3. Does the Earth go around the Sun, or does the Sun go around the Earth?
4. All radioactivity is man-made
5. Electrons are smaller than atoms
6. Lasers work by focusing sound waves
7. The universe began with a huge explosion
8. It is the fathers gene that decides whether the baby is a boy or a girl
9. Antibiotics kill viruses as well as bacteria
10. Human beings, as we know them today, developed from earlier species of animals
(Excerpt) Read more at theatlantic.com ...
Here is the link to the research report:
http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/seind14/
Looks like it goes into public acceptance of global climate change memes even though the Atlantic article avoided them (instead focusing on 10 questions).
All I know is that (most) conservatives are a whole lot more knowledgeable about science even where we disagree.
4. All radioactivity is man-madeCorrect answer: False
Like I said many times, we are going through a moron apocalypse. It’s like a zombie apocalypse only much worse. For example you won’t see a zombie voting a Marxist into the White house, but the moron will - and twice. So when I read something like this where a quarter of the population has no idea the earth revolves around the sun, it does not surprise me in the least.
The “Dumbie” apocalypse.
I just read that poor kids don’t learn to read. I guess I have trouble understanding it because I grew up poor and apparently can’t read either.
low information voters (keep them dumb by design, and only more so with Commie Core0
Additionally the Idiocracy factor where smart people postpone raising families “the planet can’t handle it; it’s not the right time for me; I waited too long and now can no longer pro-create...”.
Of course poor kids can’t read. They don’t have enough access computers. < /BillGateExcuse >
And besides many of those books were written by dead white European males.
The Big Bang was not an explosion. It's an expansion of space that not only is still occurring, but is getting faster.
Knowledge is power and the left has decided that its easier to idiotize the population than it is to gain knowledge for themselves.
I believe this is why we will win in the end because we continue to gain knowledge. (However we still have to regain control of teaching and science)
If your kids are morons, thank a teacher.
Keep them dumb and dependent.
They won’t rise up and toss the Dems (or GOPe) out of office for running up trillions of dollars in debt for promises of another handout check.
And academia has applied a politically correct litmus test to determine who will be hired and what they can say. Fall out of step and you are a “denier”, one who ignores “scientific consensus” (the equivalent of a flat earther, who once held consensus BTW, and in the words of RFK Jr. “a traitor”).
It could also be because of PBS, National Geographic, etc.
Revisionist history, fauxtography, the global climate scare....
The “correct” answers to #7 and #10 + $1.00 will get you a small coffee at McDonald’s ; they may also lead you to continue down the broad way that leads to destruction.
It’s absolutely astounding how many stupid people are out there, just utterly overwhelming the amount. I’m not talking about the world but just in the USA alone. I read once the average IQ is 100. I beg to differ - It is most certainly around 60 and I’m not joking. I use to work dealing with the public every day, different people every day and after a while I came to the shocking conclusion that all along we’ve been tricked: Humans are not intelligent beings. Yes of course some are, but most are not. In fact they are barely functional and Democrats know this and they use it to their advantage.
Anything the media tells the average person/moron will be immediately believed. The media can say “today the earth blew up and you are dead” and the moron will make funeral arrangements for himself. You can alter history and the moron will believe it, tells lies and the moron believes it. Make them promises and they believe it much like guiding a donkey with a carrot. The Democrats know the moron can be trained to do their will, made to hate virtually anything Democrats point their fingers at. Without a shred of proof merely tagging someone as racist or a group as racists will immediately bring out absolute frothing anger from the average moron and they can also be made to vote for Marxists or absolute psychopaths like Nancy Pelosi or even killers like Ted Kennedy. Did you know even after Chappaquiddick he was reelected? Isn’t that amazing? A Democrat can actually let a person drown to death and still get elected.
Knowing facts is one thing. While Americans did not do so well with that, where I see an even worse problem is that they do not understand the concepts underlying the scientific method. Without basic understanding of the scientific method, too many people fall for pseudoscience of all types and actually think that believing pseudoscience makes them not only scientifically literate, but more knowledgeable than those who spend their lives actually studying science.
I see this all the time on FR. To be fair, it is a problem that spans the political spectrum.
Actually shows the US is more scientifically literate than most.
S. Korea seems to be the most.
China is way low.
So much for all the scare stories.
While current science indicates the Big Bang is true, it is still called a theory. Ditto evolution.
I remember one guy who passed the test, and even had it written down for posterity, yet few learn from his example.
"I'll give you anything you want."
I agree, that the question was poorly phrased, and leaves room for ambiguity in “true”, “false” category, both in the definition of “explosion” and in the state of our knowledge. This quiz rather reminds me of when Richard Feyman interviewed for a job a Microsoft, or when Neils Bohr almost didn’t receive his doctorate because he refused to say how you could measure the height of a building with a barometer. If one were to select a coordinate system centered on the earth, then the sun does, in fact, go around the earth. Such a coordinate system may not be the most convenient for expression motion in Newtonian Dynamics, but that does not make motions described in such a coordinate system “false”.
Seeing how they voted 0 in twice I’d say they are really very stupid.
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