The tilt of the earth’s axis causing the progression of the seasons as the earth orbits the sun because the direction of the axis tilt does not change but stays constant during the year.
This is one that needs explaining to even quite intelligent people because that constant tilt is at odds with our experience of swinging things on ropes and suchlike.
Funny thing is, I can nitpick at least two of these, though one trivially, and I’m hardly an expert:
[spoiler]• The stars that are visible in the night sky progress seasonally as a consequence of the earth’s rotation around the sun.
The Earth revolves around the sun, it does not rotate around it.
• 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 axial tilt actually undergoes precession, and though the North Pole is pointing more-or-less at Polaris now, it’ll gradually turn toward Deneb and Vega and Thuban before returning to Polaris in about 26,000 years.[/spoiler]
I figure that fact that this kind of knowledge invites (and indeed can require) fussy little nuances and refinements turns a lot of people off, too.
So, would it be correct to say that your view is that if you gave people two tests, one on current pop culture, television programmes and sports results and one on the very basics of matters such as arithmetic, English (or their native language), science, geography, history and great composers, artists and writers, you would consider those who badly failed only the pop culture test to be no worse, in terms of being generally well educated people than those who badly failed the more general test?
It depends on which data are more relevant to their lives. I would probably be a dismal failure on a quiz show that tested my knowledge of recent popular culture. It would be almost equally difficult for me to discuss sports knowledgeably with a football fan. So in those contexts, my ignorance is abysmal, no matter that I can recite the opening lines of Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales in the original Middle English by heart.
I think the point of the Sherlock Holmes discussion is that the fact that the earth goes around the sun is much less relevant in terms of one’s day to day existence than who got voted off the island last night on Survivor.
People tend to be uninterested in learning about things in which they aren’t interested. And there are a variety of reasons not to be interested in something.
Do you know who holds the record for the shortest bout in Olympic judo history?
Akio Kaminaga of Japan threw Alan Petherbridge of Great Britain in four seconds in 1964.Are you a better person after you clicked on the spoiler? Has it improved your life?
IYSWIM.
Regards,
Shodan
If we use an inherently biased term such as “well educated” that society conforms to, science would be deemed the more worthy type of knowledge.
However speaking as a reformed “trivia pursuit dork”, I’ve had a enlightening change of attitude about this. When I visited poor rural villages, that’s when I realized that 95% of all the “facts” in my head were useless.
The farmer that doesn’t know geography of Europe is no worse than the Ivy League folks that are smug about knowing the difference between Belgium vs Bulgaria. Why should the farmer care about far off places that he will never travel to? Because we say so? Ok, now ask all all those supposedly “well-educated” people which spiral arm of the Milky Way Galaxy our Solar System sits in. I don’t know it myself – I’d have to look it up – and I’ve looked it up several times before and I still don’t remember. Why should we know that if we don’t have a space ship to navigate about the universe? It just demonstrates that knowledge is all relative. Ultimately, you need to know whatever facts necessary to achieve whatever goals you happen to have. All else is such as heliocentrism and the hard-to-remember capital of New York is trivia (and an excuse to ridicule other people.)
[quote=“CalMeacham, post:30, topic:553130”]
Then again, Nero Wolfe himself astonished friends with his ignorance of things that are common knowledge. One stunned friend couldn’t believe that anyone as erudite as Wolfe wouldn’t have the slightest ides what a linebacker or a fugue was.
This sort of reminds me of Van Halen’s brown M&Ms (OK, now what percentage knows what I’m referring to?).
Famously, Van Halen’s tour contract had a clause requiring the dressing room catering to include a bowl of M&Ms with all the brown ones removed. The point being that if this small stipulation was ignored, what else among the volumous technical requirements was ignored?
So in regards to heliocentrism the question is, if a lot of people are ignorant of this basic fact of existence, what else are they ignorant of?
“I know what I want to know. I find out what I need to know,” he replied to Doctor Vollmer. (in response to Vollmer’s line that you quote from Please Pass the Guilt).
I note that both of those are “cultural” things. I’ll bet Wolfe knew a lot about the solar system.
Why is it a basic fact of existence? Will not knowing that the Earth revolves around the sun make the Earth stop revolving around the sun?
What’s that you say? It won’t make a damn bit of difference to the world at large and to the people who don’t know the aforementioned piece of trivia? Who ever would have known that?
On the issue of heliocentrism, I think that it’s not just about the relevance and importance of knowledge in everyday life. It’s that some facts are irrelevant and unimportant, and *inconsistent *with a person’s worldview.
It’s “obvious” that the Earth doesn’t move, and it’s obvious that the Sun’s position changes during the day, so “as far as I know”, the Sun revolves around the Earth.
Yeah, but “everyone else” accepts the fact that the Earth revolves around the Sun, so why don’t you? Well, if everyone decided to jump off a cliff …
The deeper issue seems to be not just ignorance but skepticism rooted in willful ignorance. And, it’s not a big leap to dismiss whatever science gets in the way of various religious beliefs and political agendas.
It’s not a “basic fact” of existence. Knowing which wild berries are poisonous is more basic. Most of us are ignorant of this knowledge because we get fruits and vegetables nicely pre-picked and saran-wrapped at the grocery store.
If you play the odds, the average person is more likely to get stranded from a broken down car with no food near a forest rather than calculating Langrange points for launching a satellite into orbit.
If a girl happens to know the lead actor of a popular TV show but is ignorant of heliocentrism, is she better off? In many ways, yes. She can discuss about the lead actor with other friends. It makes her happier. Of what use is knowledge of heliocentrism other than to insult other people who don’t happen to know it? If she wants to know all about heliocentrism even though her day job doesn’t require calculations in celestial mechanics, she can learn it purely for the curiosity and fun. She doesn’t have to learn it just because a million people claim it’s a “basic fact of existence.” This is just a bias to inflate the importance of what we happen to know. There’s no clear objective standard as to which pieces of trivia matters more.
I’m not surprised at all that 20% don’t know that. As others have pointed out, we’re not inclined to remember facts that aren’t directly relevant to our everyday lives, aren’t related to a particular interest, and we don’t get regularly exposed to.
Sure, Heliocentrism is very important for a number of fields, but for the vast majority of people, what difference does it make? It has no direct affect on our day to day lives, it doesn’t affect what most people do for their jobs, and to steal a Carlinism, if you consider that almost half the population is below average intelligence, I’m not at all surprised that a significant minority don’t know.
The same goes for a lot of these sorts of things. Evolution, String Theory, and even a lot of political knowledge, all these sorts of things I’d expect a large chunk of people to not understand or not know or not believe or just not care. In fact, I see that level of ignorance as somewhat a good thing that so many people CAN go without that sort of knowledge. Instead, what would bother me is if a meaningful number of people who should know these things or has to know these things didn’t.
Of course we have to ask is this ignorance of facts the disease or a the symptom of a disease. Does ignorance of things like heliocentrism indicate a general ignorance of science and how it works? If so that is harmful because it leaves them open to harmful ideas like the anti-vaccine people. No one can know everything and in comparison to the vast depository of human knowledge we are all hopelessly ignorant of the specifics, but we should have a basic understanding of things like science, history, geography, politics, and culture.
Marvellous poster name and post combo! 
Good grief people. The reason why heliocentrism is “basic info” and “common knowledge” isn’t because people expect to have to make use of this fact in their daily life for some functional purpose. It’s because everybody sees the sun. In this modern culture a failure to know what’s the business with that big yellow thingy that seems to be mystically sychronized with day and night can only be caused by one of two things:
Compare this Beyonce person. Sure, some people may have encounted them in some form or another. But it’s not like they’re crossing the sky above you every day since you were born. And it’s not like they’re taught in school. They’re something that really is incidental in a lot of people’s lives, that many people have gone through their entire lives without encountering. Succinctly, they’re not the frigging sun.
Similarly, Chaucer… meh. Chaucer is old Beyonce. (Or more fairly, old Beatles.) A person who is ignorant of Chaucer, or the Beatles, or Melville, or Beethoven, or history in general, or college-level economics, is betraying a level of apathy to some specific field, possibly one that we traditionally expect an awareness of. Which could indeed tag them as being ‘uneducated’, ‘uncultured’, or ‘unhip’ - but isn’t necessarily an indictment against their general intelligence or awareness. Such things can be easily perhipheral or absent from a person’s life.
But the sun, man? Seriously?
I don’t think the amount of exposure is an objective criteria.
One could argue that we are exposed to gravity more often than we see the sun and yet even less people know Newton’s differential equation F = ma than heliocentrism.
The only consistent criteria for learning facts that I’ve found that works for all people of all cultures for all ages is goal driven knowledge. If your particular goal needs a certain piece of knowledge, you go learn it. If your goal is to have “fun” and your idea of fun is to learn lots of facts then hit the books about dinosaurs, Latin grammar, quilting, and whatever else makes you happy. All other criteria is simply other folks projecting what they think is important on to you.
So far, I think the only thing worth knowing ahead of time is your girlfriend’s birthday and which Sunday Mother’s Day falls on. Everything else is conversation. Convince me otherwise.
I’ve obviously have never been in a NASA space craft for example. But I guess you’re right, some things you just accept on faith. Yeah, BTW, I have seen alot of interesting replies so far. Some of you are right. What importance does information like that have on, say, a person’s daily life? Like one of you said, it’s not like the earth is going to stop moving some day;).
I already gave my argument - the sun is something every semi-awake child will ask their parents/teachers/brothers about before the age of six, and the explanation is really, really simple, both to say, learn, and remember. “The earth goes around the sun.” The degree to which it’s unintuitive makes it even more memorable, as it becomes something novel.
F = ma, on the other hand, requres algebra first, then science class - to nail down the equation anyway. This places it beyond the child’s early formative years, and makes it incomparable with knowledge/ignorance of heliocentrism. (The formula for gravitational accelleration, even moreso - since you mentioned gravity and all.)
It’s worth noting that, aside from the formulas and precise math, the concepts described in those equations are basic and everyone knows them. Heaver objects require more work to throw, and whatever it is, the harder you throw it, the farther it’ll go - everyone knows this. And regarding gravity, the longer something falls, the faster it goes. (The fact that all things fall at the same rate in a vaccuum is not obvious, but then few people find themselves living in an airless space until they go to school.)
So yeah. The sun thing is simple, memorable, and is nigh-guaranteed to come up in conversation during that early-life period when learning sticks more. Now, it’s worth noting that the details of heliocentrism -that it’s not what causes day and night, for example- those things might fly over the head of the five-year old, and never land later on either. But the only excuse for getting heliocentrism itself wrong is if your parents and kindergarten teacher were terminally ignorant, morons, refused to tell you, or lied to you; or if they kept you shut up inside 24/7 so it never occured to you to even ask about that bright yellow thing.
Pretty much this.
We are not asking people about orbital mechanics and the best way to orbit a satellite. We are talking about the earth orbiting the sun and not the other way around.
That is very basic information. Information anyone who went through elementary school should know. Can anyone think of a school these days that doesn’t have a map of the solar system taped to a wall somewhere? Barring actual mental disability is there a kid alive who never wondered aloud at that shiny yellow ball in the sky?
This is fundamental stuff. Knowledge everyone should be aware of even if only just the broad outlines.
begbert2, I used to think exactly as you do. I used to think there is a basic standard of knowledge. I don’t think there is anymore.
Looking over the thread, I think we’re discussing 2 different things. I’m emphasizing that heliocentrism is unimportant. I believe you’re emphasizing that normal Westerners are exposed to this basic fact. In any case…
I know the original context of the OP is western society but I’m also speaking in general. The statement “earth revolves around the sun” is just a bunch of words, and it’s the same as any other “fact” that must be told to you by others. If you have no Superman powers to fly into outerspace to verify what’s happening, it doesn’t matter if someone tells you the “Earth revolves around the Sun” or “Sun revolves around the Earth” or “a chariot is pulling a fireball across the sky.” They are all the same. (Maybe the 1-in-a-million geek who would stare at telescopes for years and notice the slightly irregular orbits would question it but that’s not typical.) It doesn’t matter if a child asks about that circular disc in the sky at age 6. Anything someone tells you about it is just words. Why would those particular words that correspond to that yellow disc have any more importance than words that correspond to poisonous wild berries or American Idol contestants? There is no objective standard. Have you done much traveling? There are tons of people in the world that don’t know heliocentrism and don’t care. I don’t know exactly what the village elders tell the children when they ask about the yellow thing in the sky. It doesn’t matter.
I was told “Columbus discovered America.” (The typical understanding of “America” being the eastern seaboard of USA.)
A long time ago, it was wonderful to have my brain filled with this knowledge because I could point out the stupidity of any other classmate that didn’t know this basic “fact.”
I know now that he actually discovered the West Indies Bahamas, but so what?
The fact that I knew (or thought I knew) what Columbus discovered doesn’t matter.
The fact that I now know that previous knowledge was wrong also doesn’t matter.
They are all just words. I’m not sure if my life would be much different if I was asked to memorize that “Columbus discovered the South Pole.”
All statements about Columbus or heliocentrism are not aligned with my particular goals so it doesn’t matter if I know the “correct” facts. If I wanted to become a respected historian on Spain’s colonization of the New World, well, that’s a different goal and I’d better get all the subtleties of Columbus absolutely correct.
When I was a kid, I did all the typical school field trips to the science museum and the planetarium. We saw the fancy simulations of the Solar System. We memorized the catchy phrase My-Very-Eager-Mother-Just-Served-Us-Nine-Pizzas. (But they recently demoted Pluto from planet status so that mnemonic is now nonsensical.) Personally, I don’t actually know of anyone in the USA that does not know heliocentrism but I can see how it might be possible. If a kid is home schooled or he goes to a poorer school that doesn’t have money to help show visualizations of the Solar System, the sentence “Earth revolves around the Sun” isn’t going to have much reason to stick in the brain. It’s a useless fact just like 95% of everything else we’re asked to memorize because it’s supposedly relevant to our “basic existence.”
I’m sure we could come up with plenty of seemingly “obvious” simple facts that everyone should know because it’s in their face everyday. Yo dawg, you turn on that water faucet everyday – do you know where that water comes from? A lot of people don’t know. A lake? An underground aquafer? Collected rainwater in tanks? You flush the toilet everyday. Where does the sewage actually go? What about basic weather? Many don’t know high pressure corresponds to clear skies and low pressure for rain. None of these “facts” require math equations. People simply just don’t know them. It’s irrelevant to their lives.
And don’t forget that heavier objects fall to the ground faster than lighter ones! Aristotle told us so and he’s one of the smartest guys around.