Ok, I present proof that the masses are asses. Here is a snipet out of Wednesdays Star Tribune (Minneapolis/St. Paul paper). The article was about how Americans feel towards biogenesis and science. 2000 American’s were asked these 13 true/false questions:
A The center of the Earth is very hot.
B All radioactivity is man-made.
C The oxygen we breathe comes from planets.
D It is the father’s gene which decides whether the baby is a boy or a girl.
E Lasers work by focusing sound waves.
F Electrons are smaller than atoms.
G Antibiotics kill viruses as well as bacteria.
H The universe began with a huge explosion.
I The continents on which we live have been moving their location for millions of years and will continue to move in the future.
J Human beings, as we know them today, developed from earlier species of animals.
K Cigarette smoking causes lung cancer.
L The earliest humans lived at the same time as the dinosaurs.
M Radioactive milk can be made safe by boiling it.
And a bonus round!
N Which travels faster, light or sound?
O Does the earth go around the sun, or the sun around the earth?
P How long does it take for the Earth to go around the sun: one day, on month, one year?
Alright! Here’s the percentage of correct answers for 2000 ADULTS, possibly VOTERS!
A true 82% B false 71% C true 84% D true 62% E false 39%
F true 44% G false 43% H true 32% I true 78% J true 44%
K true 93% L false 51% M false 59% N light 75%
O Earth around the sun 73% P one year 48%
Let’s assume this test was taken in good faith. Good god, these people are lucky to know how to breathe, much less become an informed electorate! Who let the greatest nuclear arsenal in the world fall into the hands of a voting public when HALF believe human’s coexisted with dinosaurs! How can we expect our nation to combat prejudice and racial hatred when so many can’t grasp the concept of an electron. I’ll accept that many Americans just don’t believe human beings evolved from other animals, but there is no religious excuse for not knowing how a babies sex is decided! For those who seek to combat ignorance…your undertaking looks pretty grim.
Who believes rule by the majority is a good thing? Why?
Uh, what does any of the above knowledge have to do with voting?
If knowing that dinosaurs and people have never co-existed (a fact that is consistently ignored by popular fiction) was necessary for knowing who would make the best congressperson, I’m sure more people would be aware of that fact.
Wouldn’t it be easier (and more compassionate) to educate the masses than to deprive them of their right to vote.
In the next election, how will your knowledge of contintental drift help you make your vote?
I am not so worried that the voting populace doesn’t know basic science, which has little or nothing to do with making a good choice at the polls, as much as I am concerned about people not knowing issues that actually pertain to the candidates.
I do think it’s sad that so few know basic science. But I don’t see a strong link between knowing atomic structure and knowing whether or not GW Bush will make a better president than Al Gore.
I have to admit, the results of the survey didn’t particularly scare me, nor do I particularly think that they spell doom for democracy. As for people not having basic grasps of science- well, there’s a difference between general science knowledge and ** useful ** science knowledge. As to whether the man or the woman determines sex for the child, how many times in your life did that ever particularly matter? Have you ever lost a construction bid because you didn’t remember the details of the XY chromosomes? I think it has less to do with “people are too stupid to understand this” than with “people learn a lot of stuff that is unimportant to their daily lives, and promptly forget about it.”
It’s unfortunate and likely that if this same group was given a quiz on current political issues, they would have scored even worse. Which does not mean people should be deprived of the right to vote.
Well, Libertarian, we hit that point of ‘general intelligence compared to necessary intelligence’ a while back.
I’m not saying that the average American is stupid (although, I must admit that over 40% of the American people have below-average intelligence)- rather, that the average American would need to be incredibly intelligent in order to be completely abreast of our modern political situation. The average Senator needs two full-time aides to keep him informed as to what pieces of legislation are coming up for a vote, and what those pieces of legislation actually mean.
“Well, Libertarian, we hit that point of ‘general intelligence compared to necessary intelligence’ a while back.”
I consider everything in that quiz to be basic human understanding of the world around us. It affects us because ignorance breeds prejudice. What do we know about people in another part of the world? What do we know about space? Why do we care? What does it matter. What’s on tv? Someone pick one of those quiz questions and tell me it’s to much to ask of a high school educated adult. Keep in mind folks it was a TRUE/FALSE test, by statistical average we can’t do worse than 50% even if we knew nothing at all…and hell, we came close to that. This test reflects more than what people know about science, it reflects what people know at all.
I don’t think we’d do any better on a “Ten greatest writers of the 20th century” quiz either.
A few of the things on the list surprised me - Earth’s orbital path, the length of the orbit, etc., but I’d agree with some of the posts that pointed out that knowledge of basic science facts is not necessary for a well functioning democracy. If the test was given by a group of English teachers, I’d be sunk. I can’t spell and I have at most a tenuous hold on basic grammar. But, I consider myself a good voter.
I think, however, the issues raised are valid but I’d like to offer another test that I believe would shed some light on the ‘fitness’ of the population to have the vote. (Shed some light, mind you, not to grant or deny suffrage.) The LSAT has a section on it called Logical Reasoning. It tests, appropriately enough, the taker’s ability to follow a logical argument, find flaws in arguments, identify parallel reasoning, scope shifts and key assumptions, and a host of other skills that I would think are necessary to understanding political rhetoric.
[ul][li]How would the general population would score on such a test?[/li]Do you think it would be a more appropriate test than one of facts?[/ul]
The LSAT has a section on it called Logical Reasoning. It tests, appropriately enough, the taker’s ability to follow a logical argument, find flaws in arguments, identify parallel reasoning, scope shifts and key assumptions, and a host of other skills that I would think are necessary to understanding political rhetoric."
Ahh…if person A is lying and person B disagrees and is lying, who is telling the truth? How would you know?
“Do you think it would be a more appropriate test than one of facts?”
I think it would be a good test for voting, but I also think intelligent people make intelligent decisions, and people who don’t know their ass from their elbow make shitty decisions based on which bullshit they hear the most.
Libertarian-
I think I’m confused as to your point. But, in retrospect, I think I’m confused as to my point as well.
I think the problem is not in (let’s see if I can make the italics work this time) * form * of government so much as in * breadth * of government.
I agree with Churchill that, for all of Democracy’s flaws, it’s still better than anything else mankind has come up with in order to run governments.
I think that our biggest problem with the Federal government- and with the competency of voters- is that we’ve assigned too much power to the Federal level; the result of the power is the demand for Federal activism, and that activism has caused the government to grow to a point where individual voters cannot comprehend all of the effects of any particular vote.
My point was- and my apologies if I was incoherent about it- is that worrying that the modern voter is stupid and will make stupid decisions is moot; given the current complexity of the federal government, even the brightest of voters is still functionaly incompetent. Therefore, increasing the competency of voters cannot be achieved through ‘making smarter voters’ but only through cutting the Federal government down to comprehendible size.
JMCJ
“It’s a damned simple mind that can only think of one way to spell a word.”
-Andrew Jackson
Libertarian, are you saying that because people lack the intelligence to make a good choice in an election, they are better off without them? How does that make them more free?
Then this is where we agree to disagree, because I see very little in that quiz that makes a difference in my life other than K (and notice that it recieved the highest ‘correct’ score) and C (second highest).
I don’t see how any of the other questions make for a ‘better’ public. Many of them- especially G and M- are probably best left for professionals (“Maude, I dropped the damn plutonium in the milk again.”)
Which brings up a question regarding the survey- was it possible to answer “don’t know?”
JMCJ
“It’s a damned simple mind that can only think of one way to spell a word.”
-Andrew Jackson
