63% of American adults are unaware that the last dinosaur died before the first human arose; 75% do not know that antibiotics kill bacteria and not viruses; 57% do not know that electrons are smaller than atoms; half of American adults do not know that the Earth goes around the Sun and takes a year to do it. About the same percentage do not know that the stars rise and set at night, and do not know that the Sun is a star.
I find that utterly appalling. Those are basic questions in scientific literacy. What do you guys think about those figures?
I find them utterly believable.
The fact of the matter is that human beings in general (and particularly people native to American culture) aren’t particularly interested in or concerned about the nature of the world.
These boards are living proof of the significant number of people who don’t have a clue but are convinced they know everything important about the world.
Do you have a cite for those percentages?
You know, 43% of all statistics are just made up. Really, I understand your point about this showing a basic lack of scientific knowledge. However, does knowing an electron is smaller than an atom or that it takes a year for the Earth to revolve around the sun really help most people in day-to-day life?
Dont you guys watch the tonight show? College students dont know who Madeleine Albright is, thought Benjamin Franklin was a president and do not know what the letters in NASA stands for. The extent of ignorance of common everyday things is appalling.
The scientific literacy that I’d care most about is the critical thinking … the nature of scientific proof … the process.
In many threads on this board science has been made akin to religion. It is unavoidable for this to occur when the nature of science is experienced by many obscurely as the nature of miracles.
The ignorance of individual facts is merely as appalling as those alleged studies that show how few people can find France on a map (or some such). That people don’t understand the nature of learning those facts is more dangerous.
What’s the debate here?
Well, I do watch the Tonight Show now and then. For those who might not know, the show often does a segment called “Jay Walking”, where the host Jay Leno goes around asking random people on the streets simple questions. The ignorance shown by these people is often shocking.
For example, during the Clinton administration a couple people couldn’t identify a picture of Al Gore.
However, this is far from a scientific study on ignorance levels. Those people who correctly answer the question are simply not shown on TV. I have no doubt in my mind that at least some people have deliberately acted foolish in order to get on TV.
I also have no doubt that many American adults are ignorant of many scientific facts. This isn’t as distressing as it might be, however, because as DSeid pointed out, the actual facts aren’t nearly as imporant as critical thinking.
I don’t know what the letters in NASA stand for. National Aeronautics and Space something-or-the-other. Administration? Association? Doesn’t matter. It really doesn’t. If I desperately needed to know, I’d look it up. I can’t identify many countries on a map. Give me an unlabeled map of Europe and I’d only be able to name or point out maybe a half-dozen countries there. Does it matter? Nope. If I needed to know, I’d buy a map that was labeled.
In the big scheme of things, people today are remarkably literate on basic and practical scientific facts. They wash their hands after going to the bathroom or handling raw chicken (well, most of us do) because they believe in germs. They know that germs can spread and grow and cause disease. There was a time when this was not the case.
Many people today pay extraordinary attention to what they eat. They count calories. They count fats and sugars and carbohydrates. They may not know the chemical formula for a carbohydrate, or a sugar, or a fat, or anything else. But unless they’re a chemist, why should that matter? What matters is that they have a general idea of what different kinds of things do to their body when they consume them.
Numerous people who don’t have the slightest idea what a “free radical” is know enough not to sit too long in the sun without sunscreen. When it comes to the practical aspect of scientific knowledge, I think most (not all by any means, but most) adults in America have a pretty good grasp on the basics.
Well, ok, I guess I’ve rambled on for a bit too long, so I’ll wrap up. I would love it if people in this country (and everywhere, for that matter) grew more knowledgable about science. However, I don’t think this is a crisis.
Abbie Hoffman from 1982 - 1989?
Help them what? Drive? Watch TV? Consume goods?
Perhaps the point is that daily life has become synonymous with inanity and trivia, when waking up in such an incredivble universe should inspire wonder and awe every single morning.
50% of us want a cite for the OP’s claims.
That’s almost half!
A quick google gave this, which follows the OP quite closely but gives rather smaller percentages, especially for the Earth-Sun relationship (only 25% were that clueless).
And on that page is another
link, which says it is all the fault of the media.
To be honest, people who have practical knowledge (like electrical engineers for instance) don’t need to know about dinosaurs at all
- as long as they are up to speed in their own speciality, the rest of human knowledge is entertainment.
This is why ‘the media’ as a section of society are important in this respect- they are responsible for the majority of the misinformation themselves, in fiction and in so-called documentaries.
This isn’t meant as a hijack! But wouldn’t some creationists know that this is what the evolutionists say but the creationists don’t believe?
Apparently, neither do doctors. I can’t find a cite, but I have been prescribed antibiotics for viruses before. (Sometimes, that’s to prevent a secondary infection, I know, but other times it’s just laziness on the part of the doctor.)
I do doubt this one. I can imagine people not knowing that it takes a year, but no, I don’t believe half of them don’t know the Earth revolves around the sun. Now, if the question was a two-parter and answering either half wrong made it all wrong, then you could get 50% wrong.
Do not know that the stars rise and set at night? Incredibly misleading question. The question that should be asked back is, “What’s so special about night?”
Julie
I propose that in order to graduate from Grade 8, every student must pass a standardized science test. The test does not need to be tough or exacting, but it should cover basic ideas required to understand current news.
The general topics of the test will be in the public domain.
All students wishing to graduate with a college degree in ANYTHING must pass a standardized science exam. The content of this exam could easily be covered in a one-term course on general science.
I have to wonder how effective are organizations such as the National Science Teacher’s Association.
For those of you that have said that it is not important to know things if they do not apply to your life, I would lay dollars to donughts you know how to work a fry machine at McDonald’s.
The point in life insn’t to just learn what you have to just to get through life. Living that way will either make you very unhappy, or just plain stupid.
When I was growing up, I went to a military school until about 6th grade (half-way through sixth anyway), then was transfered to a public school. When I first got there, they asked me to do an I. Q. test, along with some standardized testing to try and determine where I should be. It was found that I (who was just an average student up to this point) was several grades ahead of the kids my own age. It wasn’t that I was a genius or anything, but it was just that the military school was so far ahead of the public schools.
My point is that if people out there are not taught these things in school, not taught how to learn, or taught a love of learning, or a thirst for knowledge, then they will never learn it on their own, once they are out of school. This is why in the future, those people will be the ones serving the people who actively seek out knowledge on a daily basis.
Knowledge truly is power, and is the answer to all lifes problems.
DSeid hit it.
The problem is not about knowing what appears to be a common fact, the problem seems to be lack of Critical Thinking.
IMHO people let other people think for them, ie; the media, their pastor, their gov’t, etc.
This lack of critical thinking leads not only to bizarre views of the physical world, but bad government, loss of hi-tech research and business, strange religious beliefs, (maybe ‘stranger’ would be a better term), and eventually a loss of social cohesion.
There is a difference between knowledge and mere erudition. Likewise, I take great offense at the outright lie that Americans are necessarily worse educated than the rest of the world:
Results from a survey published in Seed Trade News December 1999 (Ball Publishing, Batavia, Illinois.). The survey source was Thomas J. Hoban, 1999.
The question was to agree or disagree with the statement that “ordinary tomatoes do not contain genes while genetically modified ones do” The survey was done is several countries with the following results:
false don't know true
Austria 34 22 44
Canada 52 33 15
Finland 44 27 29
France 32 39 29
Germany 36 20 44
Ireland 20 51 29
Italy 35 44 21
Netherlands 51 27 22
Spain 28 46 26
Sweden 46 24 30
UK 40 38 22
USA 45 45 10
How do we evaluate this?
I first generated a Daft Twonk Rating (DTR). Whomever answered “true” to this question is obviously a daft twonk. Whomever answered “false” or had the honesty to not know and answer “don’t know” is not a daft twonk. Dividing the “true” percentage (the daft twonks) by the non daft twonks gave us the DTR for each country. Any country for which the DTR is greater than 1 (daft twonks outnumber non twonks) is probably too far gone to try to save. The daftest and twonkiest of all nations surveyed are
Austria and Germany, which came out with a whopping 0.786 DTR. This probably explains why the Greens do so well in their elections. The least daft nation is the USA (0.111), although Canada is only slightly less daft (0.176).
The Able to Keep Things on Even Keel (AKTEK) rating is an inverse of the DTR. It reflects how much influence those who have SOME idea of reality might have on that country’s affairs. It is found by dividing the proportion of “false” answers by the sum of “don’t know” and “true” answers. While having an even keel is usually a good thing, excesses in this field tend to lead to humorlessness and general banality. When AKTEK rises above 1, check your sense of fashion and love of fun at the border. The most even-keeled nation is Canada (1.083), with the Netherlands at a close second (1.041). The least even-keeled nation is Ireland (0.250), followed by Spain (0.389), so bring your party hats when visiting those lands.
Finally, we have Get Out Of My Face, Already (GOOMFA), which represents people who would rather just be left alone than deal with “Big Issues” ™. This is derived by dividing the “don’t know” figure by the sum of “true” and “false”. Any country with a GOOMFA higher than 1 doesn’t actually consider itself to be on the same planet with the rest of us or at least seriously wishes it weren’t. The most GOOMFA nation surveyed is Ireland (1.041) followed by Spain (0.852). The least GOOMFA nation (aka the biggest fussbudget nation) is Germany (0.250), followed by Austria (0.282).
So, what can we conclude from our little analysis: Things look grim for the world, given that the biggest fussbudgets are also the daftest twonks. If this scares you too much and you need stability, move to Canada or the Netherlands. However, if you just want to have a good time and let the fussbudgets bother everybody else, Ireland and Spain are your best bets.
Cool, I didn’t know that someone had discovered the Point In Life. Does that mean that someone spoke to God directly, or was this the result of a grand scientific study that I managed to miss?
Honestly, scientific ignorance is, in and of itself, not that big a deal, unless these people are seeking out science as their career path. Honestly, what’s so special about science? Why should we be more concerned about science than about history, or current events, or literature?
Anecdote alert:
I tend to hang out with pretty smart people. And not all of them are scientific whizzes. But frequently, if they know precisely squat about science, they may know a lot about some other field. People’s knowledge base seems to wind up aligning itself with their interests. Someone who’s bored to tears by science isn’t going to know about astronomy. Somebody who hates history won’t be able to tell you who Charles DeGaulle was. Somebody who hates politics won’t be able to name the Senate Majority Leader. So what?
I think any assertions that anybody who isn’t proficient in basic science can’t truly be happy are asinine. If science doesn’t interest you, then why would scientific knowledge make you happier? Why can’t you be both happy and a total ignoramus at the same time?
Also recall that with a lot of these “basic facts” that get lobbed around, you may hear it once or twice when you’re a kid, and then never again. Assuming that you don’t go into a field of science, how often are you reminded of the relative sizes of electrons and atoms? How often do you even come across the terms in a usage that pertains to what they really are (ie, something other than “that’s not much bigger than an atom”, or something)?
Honestly, if I had to pick something to get my panties in a bunch about, I’d lament the lack of practical historical and economic knowledge that people have. Thinking that the Earth circles Mars isn’t going to affect anyone’s vote. Thinking there’s a direct linear relationship between tax increases and revenue increases, though, is.
Jeff
Well, golly gee, I don’t know that myself.
I sorta thought that it was the Earth that rotated, rather than stars rising & setting.
But no doubt I was corrupted by reading the works of such heretics as Copernicus & Galileo…