Posted on 04/22/2014 7:48:56 AM PDT by NewHampshireDuo
I got this email from a relative. Scary how uneducated some "educated" people are. These are middle class 30s people with good jobs, a mix of high school and college graduates.
I was at my friend’s house last night and there were a bunch of people over.
It was really nice out so we stayed outside most of the time. When the stars started to appear I used an app on my phone that lets you look up in the sky and it identifies what stars/planets/constellations you’re aiming the phone at.
One thing lead to another and a person made a comment about “all the stars in our solar system”. I said there was only one star and that there were hundreds of billions of stars in our galaxy. She was completely confused.
So I went around and asked people “how many stars in our solar system” – not a single person answered ONE.
And one tried to convince me that the sun revolves around the earth. She started to get angry when I kept disagreeing with her and she told me that just because that’s what science says doesn’t mean it’s true.
So this morning I went into work and asked everyone at work how many stars are in our solar system – I got a bunch of “you’ve got to be kidding me, I don’t know” or “Hmmm… 15?”
And someone even said “the sun isn’t a star”.
I’m just completely speechless!
Well. Ask Carl.....he knows.
Ask the same people who’s on Dancing With The Stars and they’ll have no problem getting that correct.
1.7, given Jupiter is close.
Depends on whether you count people who think they are stars.
Wow.
Well, let’s see. There’s Beyonce and Miley Cyrus and Justin Timberlake and Rhianna ...
every one of them !
(and that's a lot, I tell you .. )
Soon to be 2.0, I hear the Monolith is transmitting radio waves again. Haven't hear from Dave, though.
The dumbing down of America is well underway.
And we wonder how the country votes the way it does....
I’ll bet I know who most of them voted for for President. Scary HUH!
At parties I always like to ask people to convert calories into BTUs.
[ 1.7, given Jupiter is close. ]
2.9 1 for the sun, 1 for Nemesis, .7 for Jupiter and .2 for Saturn...
Nemesis is a far distant red/brown dwarf we haven’t found yet....
Maybe they were thinking of Hollywood?
Several problems.
People tend to be sloppy on how they communicate about science and technical issues.
This is how the uber-left manipulates the voter.
Second, people don’t try and understand science. We have (thankfully very few) FR’s who still think the earth is only 4000 years old.
Grasping aspects of science requires interest and the effort to understand things which are not always easy.
I’ve come to the conclusion that like art, astronomy is for those who can appreciate it. There’s not really much practical use for it unless you happen to work for NASA or something. For myself, I just enjoy accumulating knowledge on the subject that most people would consider useless in their day to day lives.
Gee, give them a break. They were probably texting and you interrupted them with your question.
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