# 1 in 4 Americans think the Sun goes around the Earth. Does it matter? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [March 4, 2014, 2:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1-in-4-americans-think-the-sun-goes-around-the-earth-does-it-matter/682797 "2014-03-04T02:28:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![CannyDan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cannydan/32/548_2.png) [@CannyDan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CannyDan)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2014, 1:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1-in-4-americans-think-the-sun-goes-around-the-earth-does-it-matter/682797/21 "2014-03-04T13:51:53Z")
Twenty-five percent is awfully close to the 27% “crazification factor”. To make or break **Blake’s** point, it would be interesting to know if this particular 25% shared other non-scientific or even anti-scientific ideas. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2014, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1-in-4-americans-think-the-sun-goes-around-the-earth-does-it-matter/682797/22 "2014-03-04T14:43:32Z")
> [@Blake](#): > > With no knowledge of seasons, it’s impossible to understand why you don’t want to travel to Rio for your Christmas vacation. And so on and so forth. 😕 Why don’t you want to travel to Rio for your Christmas vacation? Yankees travel to **Florida** in winter because we get warm winters here; Rio is warmer still, because it’s actually summer there in December. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2014, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1-in-4-americans-think-the-sun-goes-around-the-earth-does-it-matter/682797/23 "2014-03-04T14:47:32Z")
> [@Blake](#): > > But can they make a meaningful assessment on the issue of global warming, or evaluate the likelihood of vaccines giving their child autism, or critique a claim that the President is a lizard? That shit again?! Look, he has a valid work permit under the Crab Nebula Treaty, and he really **was** hatched in Honolulu. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2014, 2:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1-in-4-americans-think-the-sun-goes-around-the-earth-does-it-matter/682797/24 "2014-03-04T14:51:33Z")
> [@BrokenBriton](#): > > It’s a statement. Hilarious. 😛 Anyway, as to the OP: > [@](#): > > 1 in 4 Americans think the Sun goes around the Earth. Does it matter? Yeah, it matters. First off, it would be interesting to see how many who were asked REALLY didn’t know and how many were basically fucking with the poll (as John said, sometimes I’m tempted to mess with peoples heads in things like this…and I’m pretty sure that the temptation is too great for some, especially in these cases). But taking it at face value, 25% of Americans don’t know basic science. That’s not a stretch (the amazing thing is that presumably 75% did know the correct answer). Science as taught in my own day was boring, dry and had little connection to ‘real life’, and thus was snored through by most students (those who couldn’t get out of it by taking something else). It was a lot of rote memorization, and in the kinds of schools I went too as a kid most of the students were militantly uninterested in it. Which is sad, since a basic understanding of science is absolutely essential in being a good citizen and making good choices about a wide range of topics (for example as Blake mentioned there is the whole global warming/climate change question…without a basic grounding in science how can you even have a reasonable opinion or even understand the core questions?). ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2014, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1-in-4-americans-think-the-sun-goes-around-the-earth-does-it-matter/682797/25 "2014-03-04T14:52:43Z")
> [@buddy431](#): > > The answer depends on your reference frame. From a non-rotating reference frame with respect to the center of mass of the solar system, sure, it looks a lot more like the Earth goes around the sun than vice versa. But from a reference frame where the Earth’s surface is stationary (a rotating reference frame at the Earth’s center of mass), it looks very much like the sun revolves around the Earth. N.B., though: In **either** reference frame, the Earth and the Sun are orbiting around a common center of gravity that happens to be inside the Sun, though not at its exact center, AIUI, someone please correct me if I’m wrong. It’s like the Twin Paradox: One twin travels in the stars and comes home to Earth younger than the other twin, because the “relative” motion of the two has not been the same or symmetrical – only one of them went through **accelerated** motion at relativistic speeds. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2014, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1-in-4-americans-think-the-sun-goes-around-the-earth-does-it-matter/682797/26 "2014-03-04T14:54:36Z")
> [@CannyDan](#): > > Twenty-five percent is awfully close to the 27% “crazification factor”. What is this 27% crazification factor? ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2014, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1-in-4-americans-think-the-sun-goes-around-the-earth-does-it-matter/682797/27 "2014-03-04T14:59:30Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > What is this 27% crazification factor? From your [favorite source](http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Crazification_factor). ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2014, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1-in-4-americans-think-the-sun-goes-around-the-earth-does-it-matter/682797/28 "2014-03-04T15:01:48Z")
BTW, the same poll results say: > [@](#): > > And the fact that only 74 percent of participants knew that the Earth revolved around the sun is perhaps less alarming than the fact that only 48 percent knew that humans evolved from earlier species of animals. But, it says nothing about the size of the Boolean intersection between the 26% ignorant of Copernican theory and the 52% ignorant (or in denial) of evolution. I would hazard a guess that the latter set entirely or almost entirely contains the first . . . But, N.B., the two ignorances are not really quite comparable – the theory of biological evolution is controversial for purely religious reasons; as noted above, (practically) nobody has any religious imperative to deny Copernican astronomy, and there are no (significant) organizations dedicated to denying it or offering alternative theories. ---
**Author:** ![Farin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e79b87/32.png) [@Farin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Farin)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2014, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1-in-4-americans-think-the-sun-goes-around-the-earth-does-it-matter/682797/29 "2014-03-04T15:11:22Z")
> [@Blake](#): > > To believe that the Sun orbits the Earth reveals that a person has no knowledge whatsoever of either the sizes of the Earth and the Sun or of basic physics: inertia, momentum, gravity etc. We’re not talking here about an inability to pass a high school physics exam. The belief requires utter and total ignorance. These people have to believe that the Earth is much larger than the sun, or else believe that the Sun-Earth system is held in place by some magical force unrelated to gravity. And that in turn means that these people must live in complete ignorance of what the sun actually is and what it does. It’s just not possible to have even a basic understanding of these facts and believe that the Sun orbits the Earth. I don’t trust surveys, but this is a lot of extrapolation. The same sort of extrapolation that says “The earth has been cooling since 2002, ergo no climate change.” You assume that someone who didn’t pay attention in high school earth science is unable to understand non-mathematical versions of concepts like inertia? Or that they work to explain though twisted models of the universe how the earth and sun relationship work? You are giving the ignorant too much credit and treating them like they are **willfully** ignorant. Assuming that these answers are genuine (which I don’t buy): It’s that they never cared to learn, and they haven’t been brought up in their daily life in any meaningful way. They haven’t given any thought to it. It’s as if you ask someone “What’s your thoughts on the paperclip?” and when they go “I don’t know.” you go “What? You don’t know how it’s made? You don’t know what steel alloy is used to create it? You obviously are too ignorant to understand how to fasten a paperclip to the papers.” It is simply that they have never thought on the paper clip longer than it took to stick pieces of paper together. > [@Blake](#): > > And with no knowledge of the Earth-Sun system, these people don’t understand at all what seasons are. They don’t understand why seasons are reversed in the southern hemisphere, for example. First, that’s even more extrapolation based on a single data point. You can fully understand how the seasons work. Humanity did for thousands of years before we discovered how the solar system worked. As for the reverse of the seasons in the southern hemisphere, how many Americans do you know that actually GO to the southern hemisphere? > [@Blake](#): > > And this level of ignorance extends ever deeper, and eventually it does start to affect daily life. With no knowledge of the basic structure of the solar system, it becomes impossible to evaluate claims made about climate change, for example. There is simply no starting point by which any evaluation can be made. It is hard for people to evaluate climate change for multiple reasons, not the least of which is the politicization of the science. But even if you understand the basic physics because it hasn’t been that long since you aced High School physics, a lot of explanations outside of “CO2 = killing us all!” can be taken for granted without being neck deep into the current scholarly articles into the subject. > [@Blake](#): > > With no knowledge of seasons, it’s impossible to understand why you don’t want to travel to Rio for your Christmas vacation. And so on and so forth. …Wouldn’t you WANT to be in Rio over Christmas? Or were you meaning Summer vacation to us northerners? > [@Blake](#): > > And this is the problem with poor science education. It’s not that people don’t know irrelevant facts about the solar system, or whether humans lived alongside dinosaurs. Those things aren’t important to anybody. The problem is that those beliefs are positive proof a deep-seated ignorance. The beliefs simply aren’t compatible with even a basic understanding elementary science. It’s not ignorance of the trivia that’s the issue. It’s that evidence of the trivia is proof of ignorance of the subject as a whole. > > It’s that lack of a basic foundation in science that becomes dangerous. It leaves people with no ability evaluate the claims that are presented to them everyday. It’s the reason why people buy into quack remedies, pseudoscientific conspiracies and nutty cults. A basic knowledge of science is necessary to be able to judge whether a perpetual motion machine will work or whether Black people are closer to chimpanzees. And these people lack that knowledge because they lack any sort of scientific knowledge. Knowing whether the Earth orbits the sun won’t stop someone believing in perpetual motion machines or that Black people are closer to chimpanzees. But without that knowledge, you can be pretty damn sure that these people lack the knowledge that is required to assess a claim of a perpetual motion machines or a claim that Black people are closer to chimpanzees. Most people have a basic knowledge of science. The **trivia** is what escapes them. You fail to integrate basic human intelligence into your condemnation of everyone: We learn by doing and seeing. We can see the seasons. We can see the sun moving while feeling like we aren’t moving at all. All of this everyone can see and can understand. The same way that you can ride your bike down a hill and bank at the right spot to turn and be where you want to be on a cross street at the bottom without actually knowing a lick of geometry. > [@Blake](#): > > In short, it doesn’t matter in itself. But it’s incredibly important insofar as it is a very reliable symptom of a much more serious problem. Except that it’s a _survey_. They shouldn’t be relied upon to be indicators of anything but needing filler. We see it all the time in medical surveys: They think they find a correlation between, say, eating glue and cancer. Only to find out after applying glue to everything and everyone that self reporting surveys are useless, even to point the general direction of future research. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2014, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1-in-4-americans-think-the-sun-goes-around-the-earth-does-it-matter/682797/30 "2014-03-04T15:33:53Z")
Then again, it might have something to do with [this](http://www.salon.com/2014/03/04/7_absurd_things_americas_kids_are_learning_thanks_to_conservatives_partner/) . . . ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2014, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1-in-4-americans-think-the-sun-goes-around-the-earth-does-it-matter/682797/31 "2014-03-04T15:40:23Z")
I’m surprised that many knew. As noted above, that figure is below the crazification factor. ---
**Author:** ![Rachellelogram](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rachellelogram/32/8689_2.png) [@Rachellelogram](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rachellelogram)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2014, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1-in-4-americans-think-the-sun-goes-around-the-earth-does-it-matter/682797/32 "2014-03-04T16:13:28Z")
Whether you like it or not, there are a lot of intellectually incurious and uneducated people in the world. As a society, we have decided that they should have the same rights as you do–to live, to vote, to bear children, to get a job, to get paid if they can’t do any job, to receive medical care when they’re sick. You can call them names and make fun of them, but they can’t hear you. And they don’t care what anyone outside their community thinks of them, anyway. The best thing you can do for yourself is to just \*accept this. _Adjust your worldview_. \*It’s hard to hear at first, but what else can you do that isn’t monstrous? Education is a noble goal, and I support providing that opportunity to everyone as equally as possible. But let’s be realistic: humanity survived for millions of years like idiot animals–by following instinct, by following herd mentality, by ejecting people that didn’t adhere to it, by ignoring things that didn’t apply to them, by ascribing thunderstorms to the anger of invisible sky-beings. And that’s okay. It’s simply \*\*not possible \*\*to rid humanity of its baser elements, at least not on purpose. Evolution may change this eventually, but that’s not something we have \*any _control over. You can try to minimize their_ impact, but realistically they’re not going to go away unless we implement detestable policies–like eugenics, indoctrination, disenfranchisement, and euthanization. If you want to advocate those things, I’m not going to try to stop you. But it’s a fool’s errand, because you’ll never get the majority of us to agree with you. And frankly, I’d rather live in a world of incurious idiots than a world of holier-than-thou, controlling, rational bastards. So yeah, I’ve pretty much come to terms with this. I understand that lots of people are ignorant or crazy or both, whether by accident of birth or by the people who influenced them. It doesn’t bother me greatly. I just choose not to spend time around those people. I choose not to be bothered by the fact that they exist. You should try it sometime, it’s great for your blood pressure. But if you don’t, I choose not to be bothered by that. 😉 \*people who are just generally stupid, welfare queens who squirt out half a dozen kids, tea partiers, conspiracy theorists, religious nutjobs, etc ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2014, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1-in-4-americans-think-the-sun-goes-around-the-earth-does-it-matter/682797/33 "2014-03-04T16:40:37Z")
> [@Blake](#): > > . > > And this is the problem with poor science education. It’s not that people don’t know irrelevant facts about the solar system, or whether humans lived alongside dinosaurs. Those things aren’t important to anybody. The problem is that those beliefs are positive proof a deep-seated ignorance. The beliefs simply aren’t compatible with even a basic understanding elementary science. It’s not ignorance of the trivia that’s the issue. It’s that evidence of the trivia is proof of ignorance of the subject as a whole. I agree with everything you wrote except this. Even the very worst of science education teaches that the Earth goes around the Sun. There are also plenty of exposures to this fact in the world after school. This shows that a large number of Americans (and Europeans) classify this as a “science fact” which is in the arena of geekdom and unimportant to the sports and movie-loving mainstream. I don’t actually believe that Holmes wouldn’t have known this. he placed information in a connected web, and would have placed the Solar System in a web, much as he knew various types of tobacco. This isn’t a random fact that better education can teach. This is the keystone to the entire universe. Pull it out, and everything else is a set of random and unconnected facts - and people can’t see the consequences of their actions on the world. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2014, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1-in-4-americans-think-the-sun-goes-around-the-earth-does-it-matter/682797/34 "2014-03-04T17:08:52Z")
> [@Rachellelogram](#): > > It’s simply \*\*not possible \*\*to rid humanity of its baser elements, at least not on purpose. Evolution may change this eventually, but that’s not something we have \*any \*control over. > [@](#): > > I realized some time ago that I’m not separate from nature just because I have a primate brain - an upper brain - because underneath the primate brain, there’s a mammalian brain, and beneath the mammalian brain, there’s a reptilian brain; and it’s those two lower brains that made the upper brain possible in the first place. Here’s the way it works: The primate brain says, “Give peace a chance.” The mammalian brain says, “Give peace a chance, but first let’s kill this motherfucker.” And the reptilian brain says, “Let’s just kill the motherfucker, go to the peace rally and get laid.” – George Carlin ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2014, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1-in-4-americans-think-the-sun-goes-around-the-earth-does-it-matter/682797/35 "2014-03-04T17:34:46Z")
I think 1 in 4 americans is probably pretty close to what we’d call functionally retarded, so them not knowing or remembering that the earth orbits the sun isn’t exactly shocking. ---
**Author:** ![marshmallow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/df705f/32.png) [@marshmallow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/marshmallow)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2014, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1-in-4-americans-think-the-sun-goes-around-the-earth-does-it-matter/682797/36 "2014-03-04T17:41:39Z")
Doesn’t matter. I’d be worried if 25% of Americans thought driving while on the phone is A-OK, or that mixing ammonia and bleach means 2x the cleaning. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2014, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1-in-4-americans-think-the-sun-goes-around-the-earth-does-it-matter/682797/37 "2014-03-04T17:42:01Z")
> [@bump](#): > > I think 1 in 4 americans is probably pretty close to what we’d call functionally retarded, so them not knowing or remembering that the earth orbits the sun isn’t exactly shocking. Whoa…you think that one quarter of the population of the US (roughly 100 million people) are functionally retarded?? Seriously? Do you have a cite for this incredible claim, assuming you weren’t talking tongue in cheek or this is some sort of whoosh. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2014, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1-in-4-americans-think-the-sun-goes-around-the-earth-does-it-matter/682797/38 "2014-03-04T17:45:30Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > If someone called me and asked that question, I wold be very tempted to answer “sun revolves around the earth”. I’d probably be tempted to ignore the question altogether and start ranting about the conspiracy to deny planet status to Pluto. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2014, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1-in-4-americans-think-the-sun-goes-around-the-earth-does-it-matter/682797/39 "2014-03-04T17:56:47Z")
> [@bump](#): > > I think 1 in 4 americans is probably pretty close to what we’d call functionally retarded . . . [Wiki sez:](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mental_retardation#Epidemiology) > [@](#): > > **Epidemiology** > > Intellectual disability affects about 2–3 percent of the general population.[7] 75–90% of the affected people have mild intellectual disability .[7] > > Non-syndromic or idiopathic ID accounts for 30–50 percent of cases.[7] About a quarter of cases are caused by a genetic disorder.[7] ---
**Author:** ![Kenm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/bc79bd/32.png) [@Kenm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kenm)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2014, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1-in-4-americans-think-the-sun-goes-around-the-earth-does-it-matter/682797/40 "2014-03-04T18:16:21Z")
> [@buddy431](#): > > Which reference frame is “better”? If you want to send a spacecraft to Mars, almost certainly the first. Your use of “almost certainly” reminds me of a TV interview during the Apollo moon missions, so long ago that I don’t recall which trip it was. The anchor (it wasn’t Cronkite, because I lived in Winnipeg and the CBC didn’t plug into CBS; I think it plugged into ABC, so maybe Jules Bergman — and no cable TV at that time) interviewed a mathematician or astronomer who said NASA, without error, could have sent a space vehicle to the moon by using Ptolemaic-system math because it’s accurate to the nth degree, despite the Ptolemaic model being so absurdly wrong. I remember the interviewer’s surprise, but the person being interviewed assured him that though the math would be more complicated (and I’m in no position to know), the moon shot would have been no less achievable. Even so, anyone with half a brain and not knowing the Earth circles the sun should not be allowed to vote. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1-in-4-americans-think-the-sun-goes-around-the-earth-does-it-matter/682797.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1-in-4-americans-think-the-sun-goes-around-the-earth-does-it-matter/682797.md?page=3)