I agree with Velocity and Leo Krupke. Is this something you’re truly shocked the average person doesn’t know, or doesn’t find useful, as opposed to, say, not mowing the lawn in flip-flops or not knowing what Velcro is? Most people would find the latter two to be common knowledge no-brainers, as opposed to your example.
Recent shocker, I encountered a United States born and educated freshman (recent high school graduate) that did not know the Supreme Court is the highest court in the United States judicial system and that their decisions overrule the decisions of lower courts.
I’m shocked when people don’t know that “college educated” should be hyphenated. 
That’s not at all what you said before. There’s looooots of molecules which have a large three-dimensional structure but do not have enantiomers. For example, any chunk of metal. The existence of enantiomers requires a 3D structure, but not every 3D structure found in chemistry involves enantiomers.
Directions. I understand a lot of people don’t know which way is east without looking at a map or their phones, but some people don’t know that the sun rises in the east and sets in the west. When I explain it to them they look at me dubiously, like the sun can’t be predicted and just pops up at random points every 24 hours.
Related, seasonal shifts in daylight. Some people don’t get that this is about latitude – the farther north (in the northern hemisphere) you are, the longer the days in the summer and nights in the winter (or south for southern hemisphere). One woman I knew thought that it was impossible that I could know whether the days were long or short in a specific place if I hadn’t been there.
Yeah, along these lines I’ve long ago ceased to be surprised at how little folk know about the world they encounter every day. Folk are content to go through their lives surrounded by “trees” and “flowers”, without being able to distinguish between a maple and an oak (substitute common trees in your area). I wonder how many flowers the average person could identify? Maybe a daisy and a rose - but I doubt many more. How many birds can an average person identify? Maybe (around here) robin, cardinal, crow, gull, bluejay. And forget about the average person having any idea about the phases of the tide.
In my job, I regularly ask people to raise their right hand to take an oath/affirmation. Now many of these folk have limited education and/or mental issues, but the number of folk who raise their left hand is FAR from negligible. I can recall riding with drivers who seemed similarly impaired, being flummoxed by comments such as “Turn left here.”
Interesting comments about flowers and trees. I can distinguish between many types of flowers and trees, but that is quite different than being able to identify them by name. I’m quite content seeing all the interesting plants my wife has cultiaved without feeling the need to know their names. I also know there are different types of rocks, but I cannot name them. In fact, I can’t even classify the different types of clouds that float by every day. Maybe I have a blind spot for naming things. I do know the difference between Ionic, Corinthian, and Stocic pillers, but that’s the extent of my abilities.
Why would it matter if people raise the left hand? What non-magical function does the hand movement have in the process?
Next door neighbors and some other kids. Total: 4. Ages: 14-18.
Playing: Basketball. Location: Driveway
They lowered the backboard and broke the glass doing slam dunks. Glass shatters all over the place.
How they react: Stare lost into the ground at all the pieces.
I offer them two large push brooms and then notice one in their garage. I have a large metal ‘dust’ pan (heavy duty for garage use).
You might think the issue was not knowing what a dust pan is. While that’s true, all four boys were completely and utterly stumped at using a push broom. They got no father than figuring out the top from the bottom.
I spent the next several minutes demonstrating how one uses a broom.
They gave up and resigned to waiting for their dad to come home from work. I did not clean it up for them.
.
At our lab we had a work day. Everybody was to dress down in crappy close and actually clean up a giant hanger that contained 3 decades of cold war crap and paper work.
The middle aged Phd guy had to be shown how to use a push broom. And it took awhile for him to get the hang of it…
To be fair, he seemded to actually enjoy the process once he understood it and worked his butt off.
He was from China. We used to joke he was one in a million…which meant there were at least another thousand just like him back home:eek:
You are in good company.
Richard Feynman, a top rate Nobel Prize winning physiscist, thought knowing names of stuff was about at the same level as stamp collecting knowledge wise.
I knew one PhD candidate (in mechanical engineering) who could not figure out how to set a mouse trap.
I knew another (also in ME) who did not know the names for “slotted” and “Phillips” screwdrivers.
I thought columns were Ionic, Corinthian, and Doric. Or was that ironic, Ricardo Montalbaum, and Nemo’s friend?
Where do you (and apparently Feynman) draw the line? Do you know any of your friends/family by name? Can you distinguish between your dog and cat, or are they both just “mammalian pets”? Do you go to a restaurant/grocery a la Repo Man and just order “food and drink”? Treat any ills with “medicine”?
I suspect that with many answers here, we will differ as to the level of precision/expertise expected of an average individual.
The broom stories reminded me of one of my favorite moments from the Sopranos, when he was punishing his son by ordering him to clean out the gutters. The kid’s response? “What’s a gutter?” “I have no idea what you are talking about!”
I think you meant “clothes” and “hangar.” You can go ahead and blame it on your phone. My phone thinks it knows better than I what word I intended to use.
Something else you can’t put in the microwave: a raw potato, apparently.
I put some into the microwave oven, to make “baked” potatoes. I had pricked them with a fork first, for steam vents. Went and did something else, and when I came back, the kitchen was full of horrible smoke. There was a potato in the oven blazing like a roman candle; it had broken the glass tray inside the oven.
Apparently they sometimes soak up metals from the soil? At least, that’s what I was told by one friend.
(Incidentally, I know how to use a pushbroom, but somehow I always end up **pulling **them.)
It’s a ritual–the whole thing, both the raised right hand and the spoken part of the oath. One need not believe in “magic” to understand that the value of ritual derives in part from following a generally-understood procedure.
I’m not Bricker, or even a lawyer, but my understanding is this: States are free to set their drinking ages wherever they like, but if they allow people under the age of 21 to purchase alcohol, they will get their federal highway funds cut. I’m sorry not to provide a cite, but I’m reading/posting on my Kindle and don’t know how to copy and paste from other sites.
Naw, I’ll blame it on being a lazy assed bastard that doesn’t give a shit about spelling…the fact said bad spelling/grammar pisses some folks here off to no end is just a bonus.
I’ve never heard of a potato exploding in a microwave–I cook them that way all the time. Interesting.
And I use a long-handled broom to both push and pull the dirt.
Related to the specialists noted above, I was once a member of a skeptical society. In one of the first meetings, another member asked me what skeptical books I had. I answered, “Gardner’s Fads and Fallacies, for one.” The guy came back with: “Who doesn’t?”
I wanted to say that 99.999% of all the people I’d ever come across had never heard of Gardner, much less the title of the book, and even less knew what the book was about. I also thought that was an incredibly shitty way for a skeptic to act; something I’ve noticed many times since, but that’s a different topic.
People who think a cucumber, a bell pepper, and an avocado are vegetables.