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What Do You Say When Someone Says The Earth's Flat?
InformationWeek ^ | 01/17/03 | Jim Nash

Posted on 01/21/2003 9:18:28 AM PST by Just another Joe

Experts aim to make technology and science relate more to everyday life.

What Do You Say When Someone Says The Earth's Flat?

How long does it take the Earth to orbit the sun? Half of U.S. adults don't know, according to a recent National Science Foundation survey. In fact, a 2001 NSF survey found that 42% of adults said they couldn't be bothered with science and technology issues--this at a time when literacy in both have enormous impact on the nation's health and economy.

Joe Schwarcz, director of McGill University's Office for Science and Society in Montreal, says indifference and outright rejection of technology and science are stunting progress in both areas.

Thinking that better communication of the topics might turn things around, the National Institute of Standards and Technology convened a panel of scientists, journalists, educators, and others to coach those in the know on how to effectively communicate with those in the dark. The panel's report has just been published, and it calls for a two-way, all-media push that, among other things, relates science to everyday life and does more than preach to the choir.

"A lot of people feel it's all incomprehensible," says Jesse Gordon, a senior systems analyst with consulting firm Technology Planning & Management. It isn't, he says, "but too often, the people teaching science are so into it that they can't communicate it in a way that people grasp it."

Gordon says there needs to be more "popularizers" of science and technology, perhaps in the mold of Stephen Hawking. Schwarcz, a chemist, is one popularizer: He has a weekly radio show in which he answers listeners' science questions.

"I've learned you can't communicate with those who have very, very strong beliefs, like in astrology or that the moon landings were faked, but you can give education early on," he says. Children and adults need a "vocabulary" for critical thinking.

Both Schwarcz and Gordon acknowledge that the Internet is a major source of bogus information. But, they say, as the world learns how to judge the worthy online information from the worthless, the Internet will be a heavy tool for beating back superstitions and misconceptions.

Gordon says he has talked with people who in the course of a conversation espouse questionable beliefs. He walks the person through the idea, or as he puts it, "I reduce the argument to its absurdity." Were someone to say the world is flat, for example, he might ask that person where people fall to when they go over the edge.

Schwarcz isn't put off by what seems to be an increasing number of dubious alternative beliefs about the world. He says it's likely that the same percentage of people have odd thoughts today as 100 years ago. Communication options have multiplied in the interim, though, giving voice to more people.

Maybe so, but one wonders why that percentage hasn't dropped as fast as the planet's gotten smaller.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; Miscellaneous; Technical
KEYWORDS: crevolist; education; flatearth; science; technical
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Who are these dummies that don't know the approximate time it takes the earth to go around the sun?
1 posted on 01/21/2003 9:18:28 AM PST by Just another Joe
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To: All

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2 posted on 01/21/2003 9:23:05 AM PST by Support Free Republic (Your support keeps Free Republic going strong!)
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To: Just another Joe
What does he mean, the earth orbiting the sun? Has this guy been listening to that Copernicus punk again?

Well, gotta go fill up the phlogiston tank before the phrenology lecture starts...

3 posted on 01/21/2003 9:23:27 AM PST by Billthedrill
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To: Just another Joe
They are all around you. They watch American Idol.
4 posted on 01/21/2003 9:24:42 AM PST by Dog Gone
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To: Just another Joe
The same dummies who watch "Millionaire Boyfriend" or whatever-the-hell those stupid bachelor shows are called.

These are the same people who think Martin Sheen is president.

5 posted on 01/21/2003 9:25:38 AM PST by Psycho_Bunny
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To: Just another Joe
Who are these dummies that don't know the approximate time it takes the earth to go around the sun?

They're usually called "liberal democrats".

6 posted on 01/21/2003 9:26:57 AM PST by jpl
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To: Just another Joe
What Do You Say When Someone Says The Earth's Flat?

Dare them to run to the edge and look over. They kick them in the okole.

7 posted on 01/21/2003 9:27:51 AM PST by kstewskis ("political correctness is intellectual terrorism".....Mel Gibson)
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To: kstewskis
whoops, they=them
8 posted on 01/21/2003 9:29:46 AM PST by kstewskis ("political correctness is intellectual terrorism".....Mel Gibson)
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To: kstewskis
I mean then!
9 posted on 01/21/2003 9:30:41 AM PST by kstewskis (I'll be going now....)
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To: kstewskis
LOL all three posts!!
10 posted on 01/21/2003 9:32:54 AM PST by facedown (Armed in the Heartland)
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To: Just another Joe
There's no sense speaking truth to dumocrats.
11 posted on 01/21/2003 9:35:29 AM PST by OldFriend (Abortion Stops a Beating Heart)
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To: Just another Joe
Who are these dummies that don't know the approximate time it takes the earth to go around the sun?

Go to high school or college campuses. Do a 10 question quiz. Who is the vice president? Name the smallest known planet. etc. It can be scary. In a study done a couple of years ago, half of Dallas, TX high school students couldn't find Mexico on a map.

Oh, they do know both the numbers Michael Jordan wore, and can name at least three mp3 file sharing services. It's all a matter of priorities, don't you know?

12 posted on 01/21/2003 9:37:11 AM PST by Richard Kimball
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To: Just another Joe
"I've learned you can't communicate with those who have very, very strong beliefs, like in astrology or that the moon landings were faked, ....

True! Once they get it into their head something was a scam you need a battering ram to dent their skulls to make an inroad to reality.

13 posted on 01/21/2003 9:37:59 AM PST by JoeSixPack1 (Somebody stole my tag line! Report stolen or missing tag lines!)
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Comment #14 Removed by Moderator

To: Just another Joe
"What Do You Say When Someone Says The Earth's Flat?"

"So.........a Democrat, no doubt."

15 posted on 01/21/2003 9:39:47 AM PST by RightOnline
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To: kstewskis
You can speak Hawaiian? I was thinking of getting a bottle of Okolehao.

16 posted on 01/21/2003 9:39:54 AM PST by Sam Cree
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To: Just another Joe
What Do You Say When Someone Says The Earth's Flat?
Send them a link to Bad Astronomy.
17 posted on 01/21/2003 9:41:21 AM PST by eastsider
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To: Just another Joe
Who are these dummies that don't know the approximate time it takes the earth to go around the sun?

Students of the government schools...but they feel good about themselves anyway!

18 posted on 01/21/2003 9:42:21 AM PST by LiteKeeper
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To: PatrickHenry
ping
19 posted on 01/21/2003 9:43:13 AM PST by stanz
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To: balrog666; Condorman; *crevo_list; donh; general_re; Gumlegs; jennyp; longshadow; Nebullis; ...
Ping
20 posted on 01/21/2003 9:47:49 AM PST by Junior (No tag line this time.)
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