What Americans Don't Know About Science

The Atlantic ^ | Feb 15 2014, 9:24 AM ET | Eleanor Barkhorn

[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 father’s 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

[bgill]

Sort of like watching Leno’s “Jaywalking” where you start off laughing but end up crying.

[cripplecreek]

Yup, the difference between science, theory, and faith needs to be understood before one can ever have an honest conversation about any of them.

We can really get nit picky and state that the earth doesn’t actually orbit the sun. In reality everything in the solar system (including the sun) orbits the gravity center of the solar system.

[a fool in paradise]

I downloaded one of the pdf reports from the researcher site. First page went into Climate Change (it was the public perceptions document).

The “war on science” meme continues.

Stalinists lie. Always.

[monocle]

How does the saying go - “You can lead a horse to ......”

[tophat9000]

The thing is 7 and 10 are theory’s ...the rest are facts... It doesn’t matter if you believe or do not believe the theorys, true science require the intellectual honesty to acknowledge their theory else you close your mind and it just becomes a dogma of a science like faith and not longer true science...

[Koracan]

Graphs and "correct" answers are at the article link.

I like Bar Graphs based on Surfveys, the correct Answers are very helpful.

[Moonman62]

That’s like a car length isn’t a standard unit of measurement.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zx4KoZV9fBw

[DB]

My theory is far fewer people these days know how the things they use daily work and as a result technology has become magic to them. They are now dependent on “experts” to understand for them instead of evaluating and thinking for themselves. If the experts say man is causing global warming, it must be so. They have become thought sheep.

[publius911]

If the experts say man is causing global warming, it must be so. They have become thought sheep.

It's more like

"If the [some claiming to be] experts, [and supported by an equally ignorant MSM] say man is causing global warming, it must be so. They have become revealed themselves to be ignorant] thought sheep.

[Nuc 1.1]

Applying too much knowledge to a a third grade quize will not get you a good grade. ;D)

[Nuc 1.1]

I just did a quick look. Lying is what stalinists do best. Just got a call from a green energy initiative person while typing this. Wanting me to take a five thousand dollar subsidy paid for by rate payers, state, and local taxpayers, and put the money into my home. I explained to the caller that using other people’s money, taken involuntarily, is immoral. It is not right. I conveyed this information in a nice fatherly tone. She said “I don’t know what you are talking about!” In a quite angry tone and hung up on me. She knew alright. In addition to the lie, theft is the left’s handmaiden.

[exDemMom]

While current science indicates the Big Bang is true, it is still called a theory. Ditto evolution.

That is because scientists do not mean the same thing when they say "theory" as non-scientists mean when they use the word. A theory, in science, is the foundation that ties together all of the known evidence and data about a specific subject into a coherent framework. It is a tool that enables scientists to propose new hypotheses which can be tested experimentally. Thus, the theories of evolution, gravity, electromagnetism, genetic heritability, etc., will always remain theories regardless of how much supporting data there is.

[exDemMom]

My theory is far fewer people these days know how the things they use daily work and as a result technology has become magic to them.

I am a life scientist, and know in great detail how living things function. Yet, in the fairly recent past, I put in a request to our IT people about the light on the front of my computer being red when it is usually green, forcing me to restart the computer. Yes, I was embarrassed to complain about the light color, but I had no clue what was actually wrong with the computer. However, our IT tech knew immediately what was wrong and fixed it in about 2 minutes. (Yay IT people!)

In my previous post, I was not commenting on the amount of knowledge any one person has, but on the ability to sift through and analyze knowledge. You don't need to be an expert in anything to know how to think. Yet thinking is a skill that I see lacking far too often.