Posted on 10/24/2001 10:15:32 AM PDT by super175
When the China Association for Science and Technology, a semi-official organisation, did a survey of 8,500 Chinese, it discovered to its alarm that only 14 out of 1,000 of them knew the answers to some very basic scientific questions. Things like whether the sun rotates around the earth or the earth around the sun, whether the continents we live on float, and so forth.
The questionnaire was given to Chinese between the ages of 18 and 69, but did not include residents of Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan. It consisted of 32 questions about basic scientific ideas. A score of 20 or more correct answers meant that the person had a basic understanding of scientific concepts.
Unfortunately, the survey revealed that only 1.4 per cent of those surveyed could answer more than 20 of the questions. That was 1.2 percentage points higher than the 1996 figure, but well behind the figures for developed countries, the Association says. In the US, the figure was 5 per cent in 1985 and 7 per cent in 1990.
China is not a great deal different from many other countries where an interest in science is more popular or more cultivated among males. In China this is also true for cities, the eastern seaboard, and among better-educated citizens.
Some people think this is the cause of the imbalance in national development. The figures for men who have made a name in the fields of science are almost double those for women. Similar figures for cities and scientific development are eight times those for rural areas, and for the east coast, the figure is four times that of the western part of the country.
Students are 300 times more likely to understand basic scientific concepts than are farmers, while college graduates are at least 100 times more likely to than are people with a primary school education or less.
If basic knowledge of science is broken down by occupation, students rank highest, followed in descending order by professionals, business people, clerks and the heads of state institutions, Party, or mass organisations.
The survey showed that most Chinese get their ideas about science from the mass media. More than 82 per cent said they mainly learned about science and technology from the television. More than 52 per cent of the people said they got some ideas from newspapers and magazines. Only 1.6 per cent read about science on the Internet.
People do not seem in the least bit fazed by all this. The survey revealed that they did not show much enthusiasm for science and technology over the past year. Nearly 86 per cent had not visited any science and technology museums or natural history museums. More than 81 per cent had not attended any science and technology exhibitions and 73 per cent had not been to any public libraries or reading rooms. More than 68 per cent of them had not even visited a zoo or botanical garden in the past year.
The association was terse and the assessment bleak: the Chinese urgently need to increase their basic knowledge of science.
The answers about economics I would venture to say have an even lower score...
China is operating in its own little world.
Many are angry at America only because they are ignorant to what America is all about. That is just the way the CCP likes it.
Which great scientist "proved" that oppression is "morally wrong?" Was it Galileo, Newton, or Darwin? Or perhaps some chemist somewhere conducted a controlled experiment in a test tube (complete with a test sample) that proves "scientifically" that what the Left is against is "morally wrong." Seeing how the Left bases its entire worldview on hard, unsentimental, objective empirical science.
We don't believe that the universe caused itself, and therefore preceded itself.
China is full of a bunch of juvinile fools. China is prone to instablility and war. China could be at war within 30 minutes. They have missiles pointed all over the place, particularly at Taiwan. Only China would be stupid enough to carry through with starting the next world war.
I am in no way jealous of China's economy. #1 because America BUILT China's economy. Trade never hurt a soul. However China has this juvinile and uneducated picture of the way the world ought to be and are willing to enforce their picture of things with nuclear missiles.
You are still in this ignorant state of thinking. America does not need China. If China cut us off tommorrow in the short term it would cause a headache because we would have to move all our manufacturing to somewhere else. A year or two down the road though there will be little long term economic damage done to the US.
You are vastly overstating what China does and how it works and what value it portrays. True it is somewhat mutually beneficial, but then again if China keeps it up we can find what we need in a partnership somewhere else then China is left out of the loop.
If Chinese people want to do business thats fine, just remember though that there ain't no one who is irreplaceable, and that includes China.
If you think these big corporations are being floated by the Chinese market you have another thing coming. What China offers is very low cost labor to highly labor intensive manufacturing companies. Keep in mind though that there are poor people elsewhere that are just as willing to work.
You are walking around thinking America owes China something or that you guys are way better than you really are. You think the world cannot go on without you.
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