Probably. Thing is though, orbiting something at a finite distance involves a change of direction. Changing direction is a form acceleration, and acceleration does have an absolute reference frame. So there’s not really much to argue about: the earth definitely orbits the sun.
Alright, believe it or not, I knew all the answers to those questions. So, if it helps anyone out, you can move into my house.
As asked, at leasat one of these questions is debatable. I’d challenge C, for example, because oxygen comes from stellar fusion, not plants. The plants separate oxygen from CO[sub]2[/sub], but the plants aren’t creating it.
I’d consider challenging K, also. Does smoking really cause cancer or does it simply greatly multiply one’s risk of getting cancer?
I could get all the questions “correct” as long as I didn’t think too hard about them.
Sorry, I should have been clearer. I didn’t mean my replies. I meant others who corrected me.
I would have missed the antibiotic one, and got the rest right. Well, at least I’m content with my explanation of DNA and molecules. 
It’s no surprise that general science education is sadly lacking. Education has been so soundly politicized from all directions, I consider it a wonder that a child gets out of school knowing how to spell their own name.
By the way, when was sex selection reduced to a single gene? All this time I thought it was due to a chromosome, or at least several genes on that chromosome.
Really? I thought they orbited the center of mass of the Solar System.
(Yes, yes, I realize the center of mass is inside the sun’s photosphere, but the sun is not the center of mass.)
And about statement D: It is the father’s gene which decides whether the baby is a boy or a girl. Isn’t it the father’s chromosome, not a single gene?
(Isn’t being pedantic @$$4013 fun? )
But does the pound of Whoosh weigh more than the pound of feathers?
European whoosh feathers or African whoosh feathers?
Thanks for the info, Gamaliel.
The question I have is: was this a written, or oral survey? I’m hoping oral (that is, respondents didn’t have the opportunity to go back and “review” their answers), because… well, question P explicitly gives you the answer to question O.
:smack:
LilShieste
That one also caught my eye. I’ve heard a number of cosmologists stress the point that the “big bang” wasn’t an explosion as we are used to thinking of it, but rather a rapid expansion of space itself.
laden, or unladen?
Whoosh feathers are Al Qaeda? The terrorists have won!
Beware the whoosh Brutus.
[size] (In a vacuum, there is no air resistance…which would make them indeed fall at the same rate. I know, geeky science whoosh, but I think it still counts.)[/size]
Brutus was not wooshed; you were.
I don’t know! Aaaargh!
I had this precise same thought. A few years back I was moderately aerated about some sex survey about teenagers and I brought it up to my son: “Honey, do you think there’s been a surge of oral sex among people your age?” His reply: “Mom. Are you going to take the word of a bunch of 16 year olds on how much oral sex they’re getting?”
I wouldn’t be at all surprised to hear that nearly a quarter of people taking surveys don’t take them seriously: “Do I believe in Bigfoot? UFOs? ESP? – Sure! Does the Earth revolve around the Sun? – No! The Sun revolves around me! Did early man coexist with dinosaurs? *Sure! Didn’t you ever see the Flintstones?”
On the other hand, my mother-in-law, who did graduate from high school but who hasn’t read even one book of any kind (not even a Harlequin romance) in the 47 years since her graduation would have done miserably in the science portion of that survey. Or any educational survey – she isn’t even 100% sure which was the Revolutionary and which was the Civil War. In fact, she has only the loosest grasp of WWI and WWII – and she was alive for WWII. And I won’t even tax your patience with a description of her spelling and grammar. There’s surely no shortage of stupid people in this (or any) country. But I’m not sure I’d take this survey’s word on the exact percentage.
Well, you’ll notice that of the people who listed “high” as their science/education level, only 50% got it right.
What’s weird is that on a lot of the questions, much less than 50% got it right, suggesting that some people not only DON’T KNOW, but they think they know something that’s completely wrong.
Almost like there’s some institution out there informing people the universe wasn’t created by a huge explosion, or that man didn’t evolve from lesser life forms.
Don’t be silly. There is no possible way that there’s any institution stupid enough to try to convince people of that nonsense. How many people do you think they could fool?
Actually, it is true that the bowling ball falls, or should I say “falls,” faster than a feather. This is true regardless of the atmosphere surrounding the drop. When something falls, it’s actually two sources of gravity coming to meet each other. The speed at which they do it is determined by the mass of the two objects. The greater the mass, the faster they meet. Now, since the mass of the Earth is so absolutely overwhelming as compared to any object you could drop on the Earth, the mass of the Earth is effectively cancelled out of the equation. However, if you were to drop two objects of different masses from the exact same height at the exact same time and measure its impact with the ground to the femtosecond, you’d see there is a difference.
And in conclusion:
Proctor: All right, here’s your last question. What was the cause of the Civil War?
Apu: Actually, there were numerous causes. Aside from the obvious schism between the abolitionists and the anti-abolitionists, there were economic factors, both domestic and inter–
Proctor: Wait, wait… just say slavery.
Apu: Slavery it is, sir.