# Are So Many Americans Really THAT Ignorant (Heliocentrism, etc.)? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [September 9, 2010, 2:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-so-many-americans-really-that-ignorant-heliocentrism-etc/553130 "2010-09-09T02:03:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Sandwich](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/22d042/32.png) [@Sandwich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sandwich)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2010, 11:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-so-many-americans-really-that-ignorant-heliocentrism-etc/553130/21 "2010-09-09T11:47:08Z")
> [@godix](#): > > …Much of Europe not only believes ‘extreme’ religions should be banned, but they go so far as to actually ban such extreme elements as a hard scarf or a style of building… Well those people must be really stupid. After all, qualified experts have demonstrated that extreme religions should not be banned. It’s like gravity. Apparently high-powered teams of clever American scientists are even now trying to explain the apparent anomaly that some governments have managed to ban things which are clearly permitted by the American constitution (as interpreted by talk radio hosts) in clear contravention of the laws of physics. You’re right, stupidity is widespread. ---
**Author:** ![qpw3141](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/6bbea6/32.png) [@qpw3141](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/qpw3141)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2010, 12:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-so-many-americans-really-that-ignorant-heliocentrism-etc/553130/22 "2010-09-09T12:15:03Z")
> [@Manduck](#): > > > [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > > > How important is knowledge of heliocentrism, anyway? It’s not like Joe Sixpack is planning any ocean voyages or rocket launches. Beyond knowing that summer = longer days, what difference does knowing the mechanism make? > > This kind of misses the point. It’s not a matter of taking the trouble to learn some obscure fact, it’s a matter of how the hell can 20% of the population somehow not be aware of this basic piece of common knowledge. I mean you really have to work at it to be that ignorant. I’m not sure that’s true. If you are well educated it can come as quite a shock to discover that things you consider common knowledge - such as who Cervantes was or what are the proportions of the constituent gases in the earth’s atmosphere or the difference between an atom and a molecule or when the renaissance took place, are matters of supreme indifference to the majority of the Earth’s population. On the other hand, I only discovered a couple of months ago that there was someone called ‘Justin Bieber’ and I’m still uncertain about Beyonce’s place in the general scheme of things. :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![yojimbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yojimbo/32/232_2.png) [@yojimbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yojimbo)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2010, 12:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-so-many-americans-really-that-ignorant-heliocentrism-etc/553130/23 "2010-09-09T12:33:57Z")
Stand on any street in the western world and ask these questions and you’ll get the roughly same result I reckon. Lots of people don’t have a clue about the Earth’s place in the scheme of things. Some just couldn’t be arsed in learning or holding that knowledge once told it, others are willfully ignorant for religious or other reasons. Nothing American about it. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2010, 12:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-so-many-americans-really-that-ignorant-heliocentrism-etc/553130/24 "2010-09-09T12:50:55Z")
From Arthur Conan Doyle’s first Sherlock Holmes novel, **A Study in Scarlet**. Watson remarks upon Holmes’ knowledge: > [@](#): > > His ignorance was as remarkable as his knowledge. Of contemporary literature, philosophy and politics he appeared to know next to nothing. Upon my quoting Thomas Carlyle, he inquired in the naivest way who he might be and what he had done. My surprise reached a climax, however, when I found incidentally that he was ignorant of the Copernican Theory and of the composition of the Solar System. That any civilized human being in this nineteenth century should not be aware that the earth travelled round the sun appeared to be to me such an extraordinary fact that I could hardly realize it. So these people are as ignorant as Sherlock Holmes. ---
**Author:** ![Justin\_Bailey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/justin_bailey/32/8792_2.png) [@Justin\_Bailey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Justin_Bailey)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2010, 1:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-so-many-americans-really-that-ignorant-heliocentrism-etc/553130/25 "2010-09-09T13:02:22Z")
> [@qpw3141](#): > > I’m not sure that’s true. > > If you are well educated it can come as quite a shock to discover that things you consider common knowledge - such as who Cervantes was or what are the proportions of the constituent gases in the earth’s atmosphere or the difference between an atom and a molecule or when the renaissance took place, are matters of supreme indifference to the majority of the Earth’s population. Quoted for truth. I know so-called “learned individuals” don’t like hearing it, but the vast majority of scientific information is trivia to almost everybody (Americans and Europeans alike). ---
**Author:** ![godix](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/278dde/32.png) [@godix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/godix)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2010, 1:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-so-many-americans-really-that-ignorant-heliocentrism-etc/553130/26 "2010-09-09T13:58:09Z")
> [@Sandwich](#): > > > [@godix](#): > > > > …Much of Europe not only believes ‘extreme’ religions should be banned, but they go so far as to actually ban such extreme elements as a hard scarf or a style of building… > > Well those people must be really stupid. After all, qualified experts have demonstrated that extreme religions should not be banned. It’s like gravity. > > Apparently high-powered teams of clever American scientists are even now trying to explain the apparent anomaly that some governments have managed to ban things which are clearly permitted by the American constitution (as interpreted by talk radio hosts) in clear contravention of the laws of physics. > > You’re right, stupidity is widespread. It’s not like [Europe guarantees the right to freedom of religion](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_9_of_the_European_Convention_on_Human_Rights) or something. Since Europe has no [history of religious freedom](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_religion#Europe), clearly hatred, intolerance, and bigotry is the choice of all [European intellectuals](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Marie_Le_Pen). ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2010, 2:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-so-many-americans-really-that-ignorant-heliocentrism-etc/553130/27 "2010-09-09T14:20:15Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > From Arthur Conan Doyle’s first Sherlock Holmes novel, **A Study in Scarlet**. Watson remarks upon Holmes’ knowledge: > > > [@](#): > > > > His ignorance was as remarkable as his knowledge. Of contemporary literature, philosophy and politics he appeared to know next to nothing. Upon my quoting Thomas Carlyle, he inquired in the naivest way who he might be and what he had done. My surprise reached a climax, however, when I found incidentally that he was ignorant of the Copernican Theory and of the composition of the Solar System. That any civilized human being in this nineteenth century should not be aware that the earth travelled round the sun appeared to be to me such an extraordinary fact that I could hardly realize it. > > So these people are as ignorant as Sherlock Holmes. Holmes justified this on the grounds that “which goes around which” is irrelevant to his life and his work, and that one’s mind is like an attic with limited storage space, so one ought not to bother trying to remember useless information, as that would leave no room for the useful information. But I think Holmes/Doyle was vastly underestimating the capacity of the human memory and mind. ---
**Author:** ![Blake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2010, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-so-many-americans-really-that-ignorant-heliocentrism-etc/553130/28 "2010-09-09T14:35:02Z")
> [@Justin\_Bailey](#): > > Quoted for truth. I know so-called “learned individuals” don’t like hearing it, but the vast majority of scientific information is trivia to almost everybody (Americans and Europeans alike). Treated like trivia perhaps, which is kinda the point of this thread. But of course it isn’t trivia, as evidenced by the anti-vaccination craze and similar nonsense, borne of ignorance of the vast majority of scientific information, that costs people both their money and their lives. It’s hard to argue that a peice of information that will cost your shildren their eyesight is “trivia”. ---
**Author:** ![Blake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2010, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-so-many-americans-really-that-ignorant-heliocentrism-etc/553130/29 "2010-09-09T14:38:27Z")
> [@qpw3141](#): > > On the other hand, I only discovered a couple of months ago that there was someone called ‘Justin Bieber’ and I’m still uncertain about Beyonce’s place in the general scheme of things. :dubious: See, I’ve never understood this. Ignorance is ignorance. An inability to converse about pop culture is just as much ignorance as an inability converse about Cervantes. Both are important in their own way, and while ignorance of either is unlikely to result in death or injury, it still represents a major hole in someone’s knowledge base. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2010, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-so-many-americans-really-that-ignorant-heliocentrism-etc/553130/30 "2010-09-09T14:41:36Z")
> [@](#): > > Holmes justified this on the grounds that “which goes around which” is irrelevant to his life and his work, and that one’s mind is like an attic with limited storage space, so one ought not to bother trying to remember useless information, as that would leave no room for the useful information. But I think Holmes/Doyle was vastly underestimating the capacity of the human memory and mind. The question is, do people today go through the same mental gymnastics to justify their ignorance, or is it just laziness. Rex Stout has Archie Goodwin comment, in one of his _Nero Wolfe_ novels, that Nero Wolfe told him that “the more you put into a mind, the more it can hold.” I suspect he wrote that in direct contention with this line from Doyle. And that most people today would agree with it. Indeed, Doyle seems to recant of this statement in his later Holmes stories. ---
**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:** [September 9, 2010, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-so-many-americans-really-that-ignorant-heliocentrism-etc/553130/31 "2010-09-09T14:46:42Z")
In a sense, you could argue that the Sun _does_ revolve around the Earth. After all, we have no fixed point of reference (yes, I know the orbits of the other planets make this both problematic and unlikely). > [@elfkin477](#): > > 25% of people have IQs of varying degrees below average (90-100 being the average) and most of those people are functional enough to take surveys considering only a tiny % of people with sub-average IQs are seriously impaired. The median score is 100. 90 is below average. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2010, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-so-many-americans-really-that-ignorant-heliocentrism-etc/553130/32 "2010-09-09T14:52:53Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > > [@](#): > > > > Holmes justified this on the grounds that “which goes around which” is irrelevant to his life and his work, and that one’s mind is like an attic with limited storage space, so one ought not to bother trying to remember useless information, as that would leave no room for the useful information. But I think Holmes/Doyle was vastly underestimating the capacity of the human memory and mind. > > The question is, do people today go through the same mental gymnastics to justify their ignorance, or is it just laziness. > > Rex Stout has Archie Goodwin comment, in one of his _Nero Wolfe_ novels, that Nero Wolfe told him that “the more you put into a mind, the more it can hold.” I suspect he wrote that in direct contention with this line from Doyle. And that most people today would agree with it. Indeed, Doyle seems to recant of this statement in his later Holmes stories. If, as some people believe, Holmes was limited by Doyle’s own ‘limited attic’, then the world’s greatest detective probably believed in ghosts. ---
**Author:** ![Justin\_Bailey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/justin_bailey/32/8792_2.png) [@Justin\_Bailey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Justin_Bailey)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2010, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-so-many-americans-really-that-ignorant-heliocentrism-etc/553130/33 "2010-09-09T14:55:46Z")
> [@Blake](#): > > > [@Justin\_Bailey](#): > > > > Quoted for truth. I know so-called “learned individuals” don’t like hearing it, but the vast majority of scientific information is trivia to almost everybody (Americans and Europeans alike). > > Treated like trivia perhaps, which is kinda the point of this thread. But of course it isn’t trivia, as evidenced by the anti-vaccination craze and similar nonsense, borne of ignorance of the vast majority of scientific information, that costs people both their money and their lives. You’re giving a question on a fifth grade science test and the anti-vaccination hysteria equal weight? Really? ---
**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:** [September 9, 2010, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-so-many-americans-really-that-ignorant-heliocentrism-etc/553130/34 "2010-09-09T14:58:42Z")
Just because it’s something studied by fifth-graders it doesn’t mean it’s unimportant. I mean, you can make it through life without any working knowledge of gravity, too, and that’s studied by fifth graders. ---
**Author:** ![shiftless](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9c0ed/32.png) [@shiftless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/shiftless)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2010, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-so-many-americans-really-that-ignorant-heliocentrism-etc/553130/35 "2010-09-09T15:00:12Z")
I was shocked to learn that 90% of Americans didn’t know that 20% of Americans didn’t know the earth orbits the sun. Why aren’t they teaching our kids about this shocking ignorance? What other things don’t we know about what others don’t know? ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2010, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-so-many-americans-really-that-ignorant-heliocentrism-etc/553130/36 "2010-09-09T15:07:55Z")
> [@](#): > > If, as some people believe, Holmes was limited by Doyle’s own ‘limited attic’, then the world’s greatest detective probably believed in ghosts. I really don’t want to hijack this too far, but I can’t let this pass. Doyle did a remarkable job of divorcing Holmes’ rationality from his own beliefs. Holmes never acknowledged any sort of belief in the non-religious supernatural, and was circumspect in his statements about religion. In “The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire” he clearly states that “this agency stands sturdily on the ground”, and clearly wouldn’t even consider the possibility of vampires. In “The Hound of the Baskervilles” he berates Dr. Mortimer for believing in a spectral hound. It’s only in pastiches by others that Holmes allows for the existence of the supernatural. Doyle really was true to his character. He wasn’t so good to his other creation, Professor Challenger, who is just as much a rationalist in most of his stories, but who definitely goes over to the Spiritualists in _The Land of Mist_. But at least Doyle had the kindness to create a new Challenger-like character (rather than further abusing Challenger) for his most mawkish and embarrassing piece, _The Maracot Deep_. ---
**Author:** ![qpw3141](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/6bbea6/32.png) [@qpw3141](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/qpw3141)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2010, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-so-many-americans-really-that-ignorant-heliocentrism-etc/553130/37 "2010-09-09T15:57:53Z")
> [@Blake](#): > > > [@qpw3141](#): > > > > On the other hand, I only discovered a couple of months ago that there was someone called ‘Justin Bieber’ and I’m still uncertain about Beyonce’s place in the general scheme of things. :dubious: > > See, I’ve never understood this. Ignorance is ignorance. An inability to converse about pop culture is just as much ignorance as an inability converse about Cervantes. Both are important in their own way, and while ignorance of either is unlikely to result in death or injury, it still represents a major hole in someone’s knowledge base. Well, obviously knowing who Beyonce is is just as important as knowing the difference between an atom and a molecule or that Shakespeare wrote Romeo an Juliet and Dickens wrote Bleake House and not the other way around. Um, no, actually, it isn’t. Lack of knowledge of facts about pop culture that are, by their nature, transient, are, as a matter of general knowledge, a great deal less important than those that will still be being discussed in 50, 100, 1000 years - unless you wish to discuss pop culture with people. Similarly with sporting facts. Whilst it makes perfect sense to learn and be knowledgeable about aspects of transient subjects such as pop culture, fashion or sport, no one is going to be able to keep up with all of these things. Obviously, for a few decades at least, facts of less transient fashionability such as who the Beatles or Dylan were/are could be counted as somewhat basic. But there are certain core facts that have been known by reasonably well educated people for a hundred years and will be known by reasonably well educated people in another hundred years. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2010, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-so-many-americans-really-that-ignorant-heliocentrism-etc/553130/38 "2010-09-09T15:59:22Z")
> [@Blake](#): > > See, I’ve never understood this. Ignorance is ignorance. An inability to converse about pop culture is just as much ignorance as an inability converse about Cervantes. Both are important in their own way, and while ignorance of either is unlikely to result in death or injury, it still represents a major hole in someone’s knowledge base. I agree with this, and I suspect it explains a lot of ignorance. I have no interest in much popular culture, and therefore know relatively less about it. I suppose people who have as little interest in astronomy as I do in most reality TV or the latest pop star are as ignorant on the heliocentric solar system as I am about Justin Bieber. But my ignorance about pop culture impacts my life probably more than theirs does on theirs. I no longer have to try to keep straight which vampire is which in the _Twilight_ series now that my daughter is off at school. So I dodged that bullet. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2010, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-so-many-americans-really-that-ignorant-heliocentrism-etc/553130/39 "2010-09-09T16:10:08Z")
Hearing a fact stated over and over again in school and thereby having it embedded in one’s brain as a fact is not the same as understanding it anyhow. For every person I’ve met who seemed decently clear on the notion that the earth orbits the sun and not vice versa, I’ve spoken with several dozen who did not have a grasp on things like the following, requiring explanatory diagrams and/or making use of nearby household objects to represent spatial relationships and whatnot: • The moon can be orbiting the earth and also orbiting the sun • The same face of the moon can always be turned towards the earth despite the fact that the moon orbits the earth and furthermore rotates on its own axis • The sun “rising” in the east and “setting” in the west is not caused by the earth orbiting the sun, but by a totally different phenomenon, the rotation of the earth on its own axis • The tilt of the earth’s axis causing the progression of the seasons as the earth orbits the sun even though the direction of the axis tilt does not change but stays constant during the year • The stars that are visible in the night sky progress seasonally as a consequence of the earth’s rotation around the sun •The apparent motion of the stars (such as shows up on time lapse photography) is not the same thing as the motion of starts in relation to each other, nor are either of them the same thing as the rotation of stars around the galactic core •Because the sun is larger than the moon, the shadow of the moon during an eclipse is smaller than the diameter of the moon •Stars that are part of the same constellation can be farther apart from each other than two nearby stars in different constellations. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2010, 4:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-so-many-americans-really-that-ignorant-heliocentrism-etc/553130/40 "2010-09-09T16:15:54Z")
It seems pretty clear to me that Holmes _does_ have a vast amount of trivia at his disposal - trivia that interests him about obscure Turkish tobacco brands and Chinese tattoo inks and German boot-makers and whatnot. He’d just stare at you in boredom if you try to describe something like heliocentrism as I expect, would someone whose interests are about sports teams and can recite the stats of players who retired twenty years ago (or whose interests are in music and recite lyrics from thousands of songs, or whatever). Ask them about heliocentrism and they might vaguely recall somebody telling them something about it years ago… but who cares? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-so-many-americans-really-that-ignorant-heliocentrism-etc/553130.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-so-many-americans-really-that-ignorant-heliocentrism-etc/553130.md?page=3)