# Ignorance of the General Public **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [December 16, 2011, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ignorance-of-the-general-public/606437 "2011-12-16T18:56:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![brocks](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7feea3/32.png) [@brocks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brocks)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2011, 2:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ignorance-of-the-general-public/606437/41 "2011-12-20T02:16:50Z")
> [@Darth\_Panda](#): > > No polls, but I would like to share an anecdote. My friend and I were discussing how ill-informed the average person was and he was much more pessimistic than I. To prove the point, he said that we should call his girlfriend - high school graduate, a little college - and ask a not-so-difficult question, but not a complete gimme. I suggested that we ask her to name one of the cities that the US droppped an atomic bmob on in WWII. > > Her response: > > Pearl Harbor I blame Ben Affleck for that tragedy. ---
**Author:** ![Lukeinva](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lukeinva/32/17872_2.png) [@Lukeinva](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lukeinva)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2011, 2:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ignorance-of-the-general-public/606437/42 "2011-12-20T02:21:08Z")
> [@j666](#): > > No, that is just wrong. Ignorance is not knowing something, not ignoring it. Sorry, no… ignorance is refusing to learn. ---
**Author:** ![brocks](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7feea3/32.png) [@brocks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brocks)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2011, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ignorance-of-the-general-public/606437/43 "2011-12-20T02:29:15Z")
> [@obbn](#): > > Why would be able to point out a country on a map be a condition of having an opinion. I can know quite a bit about a movement, religion etc.. without knowing precisely where they are located on a globe. Their actions are more important to me than knowing exactly where they are on a map. It’s not a condition of having an opinion, but I would say it’s a condition of having an _informed_ opinion. For example, some people have heard some of Ahmadinejad’s crazier comments, and are in favor of invading Iran. An informed person might have heard the same comments and have the same dislike for Ahmadinejad and/or Iran, but if he also realizes that it is much larger than Iraq, both in area and population, he might not be so eager to invade it. The knowledge that it shares borders with Turkey, Iraq, Pakistan, and Afghanistan might also be something he considers. ---
**Author:** ![Alley\_Dweller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alley_dweller/32/430_2.png) [@Alley\_Dweller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alley_Dweller)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2011, 2:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ignorance-of-the-general-public/606437/44 "2011-12-20T02:30:30Z")
> [@Martin\_Hyde](#): > > I am surprised people don’t know mercury is dangerous. I remember as a kid people were _overly_ concerned about mercury, such that they said breaking open a thermometer to play with the mercury was akin to signing your own death certificate. > > Yes, mercury can be absorbed through the skin, and yes it is toxic. But playing with the contents of one thermometer as a child is, quite frankly, highly innocuous. When I was in high school, I spent a lot of time in the chemistry and physics labs. We used mercury quite a bit. When we had to come up with our own projects, we would do things like recreate the old experiments where electron charges on mercury droplets were measured or something to do with measuring the vapor pressure in a sealed tube that required sealing mercury in the tube (I honestly don’t remember the details). No one was particularly concerned that we were handling mercury. Kids liked to play with it (it broke up into nice little balls!). And if a teacher saw us playing with it, he would just yell at us to put it back into the bottle. No one died that I know of. We just went back to eating the peeling lead paint strips from the walls. Then maybe four or five years ago, I had the TV on in the early afternoon and there was a news bulletin that there was some sort of emergency at a local high school with fire crews and kids being evacuated. The evening news revealed that they evacuated half the school and called in the hazmat team because someone broke a mercury thermometer in a science lab. There’s got to be a happy medium there somewhere. And, yes, before anyone asks, we did have to walk barefoot in the snow, uphill both ways, dodging velociraptors, in order to get to school. ---
**Author:** ![brocks](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7feea3/32.png) [@brocks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brocks)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2011, 2:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ignorance-of-the-general-public/606437/45 "2011-12-20T02:45:05Z")
> [@Lukeinva](#): > > Surely you know that ignorance is not at all the same as being uneducated. > > Take your example of mercury. If you educate that person and inform them of what it can do to their health it is then up to them to avoid mercury because of its dangers. However, if they then ingest it that is ignorance. Well, I disagree, but I don’t want to argue about it here. > [@](#): > > Same goes with language, jaywalking, and many of the other examples in this thread. In some countries people do cross the street not in the crosswalk and it is normal to them. You misunderstood me. I wasn’t talking about that kind of jaywalking. I was talking about a bit that Jay Leno does a few times a month on the Tonight Show, where he goes to random locations and asks random people very simple questions, which they usually (hopefully the smart people are edited out) get hilariously wrong. I remember one show where he was at a college graduation, and he asked an astronomy major how many moons the earth had. She wasn’t sure, but she guessed it had two. > [@](#): > > I don’t really know if these polls are any indicators of ignorance… more like lack of education. You seem to be giving ignorance a pejorative connotation that I didn’t intend. To me, ignorance is simply a lack of knowledge, which means that everyone alive is ignorant of almost everything. And I acknowledge that what people are “supposed” to know can be quite arbitrary. A couple of centuries ago, almost everyone reading this board would have been considered uneducated by the likes of Washington and Jefferson, because most of us don’t know Greek and Latin. But as I implied in my previous post, I do think that people who are so sure of their opinion that they are willing to send people to kill and be killed for it, have an obligation to inform themselves about relevant facts. ---
**Author:** ![j666](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/9de0a6/32.png) [@j666](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/j666)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2011, 4:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ignorance-of-the-general-public/606437/46 "2011-12-20T04:07:16Z")
> [@Lukeinva](#): > > Sorry, no… ignorance is refusing to learn. Are you whooshing me, trying to prove the OPs point, or just an aficionado of Lewis Carroll? [I am rapidly losing my skepticism about the poll.] ---
**Author:** ![thelabdude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/dc4da7/32.png) [@thelabdude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thelabdude)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2011, 4:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ignorance-of-the-general-public/606437/47 "2011-12-20T04:49:45Z")
I remember the truck driver wondering why I had my people out there with the respirators and ultra vacuum cleaner when he delivered a pallet of lead stablizer with the bags all torn up. he had no clue lead was toxic. Worse yet, his last delivery had been to a local supermarket. ---
**Author:** ![jz78817](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jz78817/32/1028_2.png) [@jz78817](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jz78817)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2011, 5:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ignorance-of-the-general-public/606437/48 "2011-12-20T05:05:09Z")
> [@Dissonance](#): > > Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that. > > -George Carlin and just blindly assume that _you_ are smarter than all of them. ---
**Author:** ![JWT\_Kottekoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/3ec8ea/32.png) [@JWT\_Kottekoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JWT_Kottekoe)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2011, 5:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ignorance-of-the-general-public/606437/49 "2011-12-20T05:26:56Z")
> [@Chessic\_Sense](#): > > … all motion is relative … All motion is NOT relative. The laws of physics don’t distinguish between two reference frames that are moving at constant velocity with respect to each other, but it is easy to tell whether or not I am spinning on a merry-go-round, even with my eyes closed. ---
**Author:** ![phreesh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/9fc29f/32.png) [@phreesh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/phreesh)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2011, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ignorance-of-the-general-public/606437/50 "2011-12-20T20:25:27Z")
> [@JWT\_Kottekoe](#): > > All motion is NOT relative. The laws of physics don’t distinguish between two reference frames that are moving at constant velocity with respect to each other, but it is easy to tell whether or not I am spinning on a merry-go-round, even with my eyes closed. I’m pretty ignorant about this, but doesn’t relativity imply that you don’t know if the merry-go-round is spinning on [an effectively] motionless Earth or whether the Earth is spinning and the merry-go-round is [effectively] motionless? ---
**Author:** ![I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/i_love_me_vol.i/32/521_2.png) [@I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/I_Love_Me_Vol.I)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2011, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ignorance-of-the-general-public/606437/51 "2011-12-20T21:34:22Z")
> [@Lukeinva](#): > > Sorry, no… ignorance is refusing to learn. Seriously? Wow. This is why I’m afraid to use words over two syllables around strangers. Many people’s idea of what some “big” words mean might have _some_ relation to the actual meaning, but is often so far off that if I use such words these folks will end up getting completely the wrong message. “Ignorant” and **Lukeinva** ’s misunderstanding of its definition is a perfect example. You can’t speak of someone being “ignorant” without them being offended, even though ignorance is value-neutral and simply means lack of knowledge. So you end up using 12 little words to describe their ignorance of something in a roundabout way just so they won’t flip at hearing the “i-word”. Here’s another i-word that comes to mind after reading **Lukeinva** ’s above post: Ironic. ---
**Author:** ![Dallas\_Jones](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dallas_jones/32/3277_2.png) [@Dallas\_Jones](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dallas_Jones)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2011, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ignorance-of-the-general-public/606437/52 "2011-12-20T21:45:56Z")
> [@chiroptera](#): > > This page lists several credible polling sources (Gallup, Pew, Harris) - follow the links to specific polls. > > [http://science.drvinson.net/polls](http://science.drvinson.net/polls) But polls themselves are not truly acurate representations of the general public. They measure the opinions or knowledge only of those people willing to fill out a form, wait through the auto-dialer to take a phone survey, or otherwise volunteer their time to answer the questions. This sub-set of the general population may be self-limiting for intelligence. This is one of the reasons that the US Census Bureau’s American Community Survey, which is the replacement for the old long form census, is labeled ‘mandatory’ even though you cannot really be required to answer the questions. This survey is where income levels, poverty, health issues, that you hear about on the news as coming from the Census Bureau originate. Voluntary responses are next to worthless. ---
**Author:** ![brocks](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7feea3/32.png) [@brocks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brocks)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2011, 1:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ignorance-of-the-general-public/606437/53 "2011-12-21T01:47:14Z")
> [@Dallas\_Jones](#): > > Voluntary responses are next to worthless. The major political polls seem to be within a few percent of right in most of the races. ---
**Author:** ![BMalion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e274bd/32.png) [@BMalion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BMalion)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2011, 2:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ignorance-of-the-general-public/606437/54 "2011-12-21T02:40:58Z")
Didn’t someone once say that 84.6 % of all statistics are made up? ---
**Author:** ![voguevixen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b5ac83/32.png) [@voguevixen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/voguevixen)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2011, 6:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ignorance-of-the-general-public/606437/55 "2011-12-21T06:31:51Z")
> [@Darth\_Panda](#): > > No polls, but I would like to share an anecdote. My friend and I were discussing how ill-informed the average person was and he was much more pessimistic than I. To prove the point, he said that we should call his girlfriend - high school graduate, a little college - and ask a not-so-difficult question, but not a complete gimme. I suggested that we ask her to name one of the cities that the US dropped an atomic bomb on in WWII. > > Her response: > > Pearl Harbor Oh, oh god. I’m the most history retarded person in the world (AS IN: “which war was the Hitler war?”) And even I knew that. WOW. ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2011, 11:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ignorance-of-the-general-public/606437/56 "2011-12-21T11:44:13Z")
> [@I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](#): > > Seriously? Wow. This is why I’m afraid to use words over two syllables around strangers. Many people’s idea of what some “big” words mean might have _some_ relation to the actual meaning, but is often so far off that if I use such words these folks will end up getting completely the wrong message. > > “Ignorant” and **Lukeinva** ’s misunderstanding of its definition is a perfect example. You can’t speak of someone being “ignorant” without them being offended, even though ignorance is value-neutral and simply means lack of knowledge. So you end up using 12 little words to describe their ignorance of something in a roundabout way just so they won’t flip at hearing the “i-word”. > > Here’s another i-word that comes to mind after reading **Lukeinva** ’s above post: > > Ironic. I agree with you thta **Lukeinva** misunderstood the meaning of “ignorant,” but I disagree with you about the word’s connotations. To call someone “ignorant” is not value-neutral–it is properly interpreted as insulting. Constructions using “ignorant of” can be non-insulting, though. Even there, though, I think the insulting connotation of “ignorant” creeps in if you’re not careful. ---
**Author:** ![Una\_Persson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/una_persson/32/346_2.png) [@Una\_Persson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Una_Persson)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2011, 1:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ignorance-of-the-general-public/606437/57 "2011-12-21T13:55:31Z")
> [@brocks](#): > > I would like to ask my fellow Dopers to post links to their favorite example(s) of credible surveys that show amazing ignorance of basic facts — scientific, geographic, historical, etc. Note that I’m not looking for “Jaywalking” type of stuff, although I think some of those are hilarious. I’m talking about scientific surveys. > > Thanks for your participation. I am an expert on coal combustion, coal power, renewable energy, gas and oil power, and power generation and delivery in general. I have written several books and more technical papers than I can remember, and have been teaching power-related classes in 14 countries at every level from high school to graduate school. So I’ll appeal to my authority here. The ignorance of the general public with respect to issues of: - where does our energy come from? - how does a power plant work (even in general)? - how is coal mined? How is gas produced? How is oil drilled? - how good is renewable energy? - how safe is nuclear power? etc. is astounding. I will send out brief surveys to the class, or do a “show of hands” as I go through general material on the topic in general. Typically when I teach a class or make a presentation to laypeople, of about 20-100 folks: - none of them will know that around half (45-50%) of our electricity comes from coal. They tend to pick the answer “0-5%” answer. - most believe that power plants run on unleaded gasoline - virtually all of them believe that nuclear power involves “small nuclear explosions” - natural gas is the same thing as gasoline, only “lighter” - most believe that power plants have ABSOLUTELY no controls on particulates, sulfur dioxide, NOx, or anything else - that basically a coal power plant has a direct stack that belches black clouds into the air. - nearly 100% will call a hyperbolic cooling tower a “nuclear reactor” - nearly 100% believe that renewable energy is a scam to send money to Democrats/Obama - nearly 100% believe that coal mines “own the country” or “control the Republican Party” (yet they’re unaware of how much energy coal produces…serious disconnect here) - global warming is a myth made by Democrats. On a general note, in any class of laypeople probably 75-90% will answer that they “don’t believe at all” that human climate change is occurring. - global warming is dis-proven by the fact it was cold one day. Or alternately, can be proven by the fact it was hot one day. - the Three Mile Island accident involved a thermonuclear explosion and killed 2.729 million people in 8 states (on one survey I passed out, nearly 60% selected “true” on this one…I think they get thrown by the fact I use an “exact” number). \*perpetual motion machines exist, but are hidden by the government (more than 50% believed this to be true in a class of about 100 adults) - more than 90% answered “true” that Chernobyl had a core meltdown that almost reached the center of the earth Basically, the knowledge of the general public and their ability to make informed decisions on matters concerning the energy and environmental situation is about that of a highly trained Labrador Retriever. The level of ignorance is so astounding and breathtaking that it’s a good example of a case where a Democracy doesn’t work. Can you imagine the thundering herds of American rabble being forced to tear themselves away from their nachos and TV to try to vote on energy policy and the environment? You may as well roll 1d20 as a “saving throw” for the nation. ---
**Author:** ![Darth\_Panda](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ee7513/32.png) [@Darth\_Panda](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darth_Panda)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2011, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ignorance-of-the-general-public/606437/58 "2011-12-21T14:22:31Z")
> [@Una\_Persson](#): > > The ignorance of the general public with respect to issues of: > > - where does our energy come from? > - how does a power plant work (even in general)? > - how is coal mined? How is gas produced? How is oil drilled? > - how good is renewable energy? > - how safe is nuclear power? > > etc. is astounding. Meh, try getting people to understand implied heat rates in MISO forward curves, or the comparative impacts of forward gas curve moves on coal plants in an ISO compared to those in a vertical utility… eta: or to speak to things that the general public is massively misinformed on, how electricity rates work, what the difference between power and energy is, etc. ---
**Author:** ![FluffyBob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ecb155/32.png) [@FluffyBob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FluffyBob)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2011, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ignorance-of-the-general-public/606437/59 "2011-12-21T15:12:48Z")
People are usually quite informed about things that are important to them and ignorant or uninformed about many other things. Results of these sorts of survey are usually released to the press with the intention of bringing public attention to something that someone thinks more people should be aware about, whether it is science, politics, or pet care. The stereotypical ‘ditsy blond’ may not be terribly informed on science and politics, but she may know a hell of a lot more than me on things that interest her. What is truly important is a matter of opinion. People also tend to be rather unbalanced in their aptitudes. The ignorance of other people on various topics is only important so much as it impacts decisions by them which can impact you. Even in an election, people that are ignorant of issues are unlikely to even vote, or to vote emotionally anyway. ---
**Author:** ![j666](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/9de0a6/32.png) [@j666](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/j666)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2011, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ignorance-of-the-general-public/606437/60 "2011-12-21T16:27:24Z")
- nearly 100% will call a hyperbolic cooling tower a “nuclear reactor” What does that matter, really? In a preliminary survey, before a class intended to teach them much more, does it really matter if they call the most common image of a nuclear power station, nuclear reactor? Or is there something I’m missing here? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ignorance-of-the-general-public/606437.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ignorance-of-the-general-public/606437.md?page=4)