# Those "people are clueless" polls: common outside the U.S.? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [November 10, 2014, 1:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/those-people-are-clueless-polls-common-outside-the-u-s/704201 "2014-11-10T01:25:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![installLSC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/54ee81/32.png) [@installLSC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/installLSC)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2014, 1:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/those-people-are-clueless-polls-common-outside-the-u-s/704201/1 "2014-11-10T01:25:15Z")
You often see polls that say X% of Americans don’t know obvious things such as where their country is on the map or that the earth revolves around the sun. How common are these kinds of articles on polls internationally? And if they are largely an American phenomenon, why do you think that is? ---
**Author:** ![UDS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecae2f/32.png) [@UDS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2014, 1:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/those-people-are-clueless-polls-common-outside-the-u-s/704201/2 "2014-11-10T01:51:14Z")
If you mean articles about how a surprising proportion of Americans are surprisingly ignorant about certain matters, they’re pretty common in other English-speaking countries. (And, for all I know, elsewhere; I just don’t read a lot of non-English media.) But they’re also usually pretty superficial, with little or no analysis of how this comes to be or what it means or why it matters. Nor is their any consideration of whether people in other countries might be equally ignorant on the same issues, or some other range of blind-spot issues, but we’re just not measuring it. They are usually point-and-laugh articles. ---
**Author:** ![installLSC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/54ee81/32.png) [@installLSC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/installLSC)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2014, 2:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/those-people-are-clueless-polls-common-outside-the-u-s/704201/3 "2014-11-10T02:24:55Z")
I meant more like “the Daily Telegraph says x% of Britons can’t locate the UK” kind of thing. ---
**Author:** ![silverfish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e480ec/32.png) [@silverfish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silverfish)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2014, 2:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/those-people-are-clueless-polls-common-outside-the-u-s/704201/4 "2014-11-10T02:31:23Z")
I’ve found at least a couple of british versions, if you mean what I think you mean. If not, there’re similar. [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1577511/Winston-Churchill-didnt-really-exist-say-teens.html](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1577511/Winston-Churchill-didnt-really-exist-say-teens.html) > **[Gandalf finds a place in British history](https://www.theguardian.com/education/2004/aug/05/schools.highereducation)** > > A sizeable slice of younger Britons think Gandalf, Horatio Hornblower or Christopher Columbus was the hero of the English fleet's defeat of the Spanish Armada, a survey showed today. The first was from a poll commissioned by UKTV gold, a british TV channel, to promote their network: > [@](#): > > Paul Moreton, the channel head of UKTV Gold, which commissioned the poll, said that while there was no excuse for demoting real historical figures such as Churchill, the elevation of mythical figures to real life showed the impact good films could have in shaping the public consciousness. > “Stories like Robin Hood are so inspiring that it’s not surprising people like to believe these characters truly existed,” he said. The second one was a poll commissioned by the BBC to promote their series “Battlefield Britain” (this is the press release: [BBC - Press Office - Battlefield Britain survey](http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/stories/2004/08_august/05/battlefield.shtml)) > [@](#): > > Peter Snow, presenter of Battlefield Britain, comments: "It’s at once a shock and a challenge that so many people can be so wrong about some of the key moments in Britain’s past. > > “Battlefield Britain can help put this right by giving viewers some of the most striking and vivid images yet seen of the violent events that shaped our history.” ---
**Author:** ![HoneyBadgerDC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/honeybadgerdc/32/1033_2.png) [@HoneyBadgerDC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HoneyBadgerDC)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2014, 2:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/those-people-are-clueless-polls-common-outside-the-u-s/704201/5 "2014-11-10T02:47:26Z")
I don’t know much about other countries but a surpring number of Americans are scary dumb, even college grads. I have no idea what they may have studied. Hopefully it is the same everywhere. ---
**Author:** ![Poto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7ab992/32.png) [@Poto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Poto)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2014, 2:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/those-people-are-clueless-polls-common-outside-the-u-s/704201/6 "2014-11-10T02:49:03Z")
It depends on how many Americans those countries can capture to poll them about their ignorance. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2014, 4:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/those-people-are-clueless-polls-common-outside-the-u-s/704201/7 "2014-11-10T04:09:09Z")
I’d be perfectly willing to answer in a poll that during WWI, Gandalf defeated the American Armada in the battle of Britain. ---
**Author:** ![Tom\_Tildrum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e95f7d/32.png) [@Tom\_Tildrum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Tildrum)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2014, 4:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/those-people-are-clueless-polls-common-outside-the-u-s/704201/8 "2014-11-10T04:30:12Z")
> [@UDS](#): > > If you mean articles about how a surprising proportion of Americans are surprisingly ignorant about certain matters, they’re pretty common in other English-speaking countries. I read the OP to be asking about the prevalence of articles in other countries exploring the ignorance of their own citizens, not Americans. ---
**Author:** ![yabob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yabob/32/2821_2.png) [@yabob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yabob)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2014, 4:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/those-people-are-clueless-polls-common-outside-the-u-s/704201/9 "2014-11-10T04:33:43Z")
> [@clairobscur](#): > > I’d be perfectly willing to answer in a poll that during WWI, Gandalf defeated the American Armada in the battle of Britain. Yeah, I’ve often wondered how many people do this sort of thing. I’ll admit to occasionally giving a ridiculous answer in a poll just to: A) Play with the pollster’s head, or, B) Get a little of my own back for being annoyed by the stupid poll in the first place. I’ve also wondered about the bias in randomly conducted polls because of the people who simply hang up on the pollster, pitch the thing in the nearest trash receptacle, or simply ignore a voluntary poll. Something tells me that the people who fill out a poll that’s easy to avoid taking are not reliably a good indicator of what the other people thought. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2014, 7:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/those-people-are-clueless-polls-common-outside-the-u-s/704201/10 "2014-11-10T07:37:12Z")
> [@yabob](#): > > Yeah, I’ve often wondered how many people do this sort of thing. I’ll admit to occasionally giving a ridiculous answer in a poll just to: > > A) Play with the pollster’s head, or, > B) Get a little of my own back for being annoyed by the stupid poll in the first place. I’m remembering a thread about antisemitism where the poll appeared to have been written in the US and asked as-is or translated literally rather than localised for other places. Localised means “translated taking into account differences in culture, idioms, etc.” If anybody had asked me that kind of bloody stupid questions and caught me in any mood other than “oh what a beautiful day”, I would have come up listed as more antisemitic than Himmler. ---
**Author:** ![bob\_2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bob_2/32/3341_2.png) [@bob\_2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bob_2)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2014, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/those-people-are-clueless-polls-common-outside-the-u-s/704201/11 "2014-11-10T14:47:01Z")
It may well be totally unjustified but the popular opinion here is that most Americans (Dopers excluded naturally) are totally uninterested in anything that is outside America and many would not be interested in anything in another State. This of course has been reinforced by the demonstrated ignorance of some of your Presidents about geography and global politics. There are frequent articles in our national newspapers bemoaning the ignorance, illiteracy and innumeracy of the young. I suspect that ‘twas always thus’. ---
**Author:** ![Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a587f6/32.png) [@Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freddy_the_Pig)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2014, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/those-people-are-clueless-polls-common-outside-the-u-s/704201/12 "2014-11-10T14:52:28Z")
Before this thread gets hijacked into oblivion, can we make it not be about Americans? **Nava** , have you ever seen polls in Spanish media of the sort that “x% of Spaniards can’t locate Spain on a map” or “X% of Spaniards don’t know that the earth revolves around the Sun?” ---
**Author:** ![chappachula](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/d2c977/32.png) [@chappachula](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chappachula)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2014, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/those-people-are-clueless-polls-common-outside-the-u-s/704201/13 "2014-11-10T15:41:19Z")
This is from the Daily Mail, so it’s not the most reliable source. But then, many of the polls of stupid Americans aren’t really scientific either. > [@](#): > > Astonishingly, one in five Brits confessed they don’t know where Blackpool is located. > Almost a third of the nation, 32.3 per cent, does not know that Canterbury, home to Canterbury Cathedral, is in Kent. > **[Everest is in the UK! Survey reveals Britons' shocking lack of knowledge on...](https://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/article-2114349/Mount-Everest-UK-say-Brits-new-survey.html)** > > According to a staggering new survey, over half of British adults think that Mount Everest is in Britain - but five per cent believe that Stonehenge is in a foreign country. ---
**Author:** ![Steken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e274bd/32.png) [@Steken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steken)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2014, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/those-people-are-clueless-polls-common-outside-the-u-s/704201/14 "2014-11-10T16:16:41Z")
This was in the newspaper the other day. Some 24% of polled young Danes believed that the German _Reichsbevollmächtigter_ in charge during the Nazi occupation was named “Heinrich Himmler.” Another 24% went for “Otto von Bismarck.” Only 13% knew the correct answer: [Werner Best](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Werner_Best). Not quite “OMG our wee ones can’t even place Denmark on a map!!!1!1”, but some anxious hand-wringing ensued. ETA: [Danish-language article here.](http://www.b.dk/kultur/hvad-lavede-bismarck-under-besaettelsen) ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2014, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/those-people-are-clueless-polls-common-outside-the-u-s/704201/15 "2014-11-10T16:19:44Z")
I have seen any number of polls on how people in majority Islamic countries believe in things like _The Protocol of the Elders of Zion_ and the blood libel against Jews and things like that, but that kind of thing is fostered by semi-official propaganda. As well as 50% of people in Iceland believe in elves, or something like that. I would bet that people in the Third World don’t get polled very much, so the extent of their knowledge of basic geography is hard to guage. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![grude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47774/32.png) [@grude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/grude)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2014, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/those-people-are-clueless-polls-common-outside-the-u-s/704201/16 "2014-11-10T16:23:28Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > I would bet that people in the Third World don’t get polled very much, so the extent of their knowledge of basic geography is hard to guage. > > Regards, > Shodan I think in some cases it could also be that some countries are uh hesitant to make themselves look foolish on the global stage, so the media workers in these countries have no demand for articles like “our citizens are so stupid!” from the public, and they are worried it would just make the country look worse. ---
**Author:** ![bob\_2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bob_2/32/3341_2.png) [@bob\_2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bob_2)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2014, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/those-people-are-clueless-polls-common-outside-the-u-s/704201/17 "2014-11-10T16:34:55Z")
As much must depend on the family as the school. We were pretty unusual in that I bought a globe to prove to my then 9yo daughter why a great circle was shorter than a straight line. I also had a big atlas so that we could look up places that got mentioned in the news. As a truck driver, you might have thought that my workmates would have a good grasp of geography, at least in their home country. Sadly many of them would have had a hard time putting Blackpool or most other cities on a map. The advent of satnavs has probably helped to dumb them down even more. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2014, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/those-people-are-clueless-polls-common-outside-the-u-s/704201/18 "2014-11-10T16:55:17Z")
> [@bob\_2](#): > > As a truck driver, you might have thought that my workmates would have a good grasp of geography, at least in their home country. Sadly many of them would have had a hard time putting Blackpool or most other cities on a map. The advent of satnavs has probably helped to dumb them down even more. I don’t think GPS has much to do with it. Some people have a sense of geography, and some do not. Long before anyone had heard of GPS (satnav, as you call it) I knew people, even ones who travelled, who had no sense at all of distance, location or geography. Some people just get that stuff and some don’t, but then just because you know stuff about geography does not mean you’re a genius. I have a tremendous sense of geography but it is almost impossible to express in words my ignorance and incompetence with regards to music; the skills of reading, understanding, and performing music on instruments are ones that I find as mystifying and impossible as sorcery. I also cannot elevate my penmanship to a level consistently readable by other human beings. So, yeah, I know where Bangladesh is but I can’t read my own grocery list. As to the question, I do get the sense this is an American phenomenon - not that Americans are dumber, but that the media seems to enjoy finding stuff like this. It’s a popular comedy bit to stump the man on the street with simple questions (“Jaywalking”) and yet I don’t see this even here in Canada, at least not to the same extent, despite the fact that it is my anecdotal experience that Canadians can be equally, jaw-droppingly ignorant of rudimentary facts. I have personally known educated Canadians who did not know how many provinces we have (it’s 10, which you’d think is a pretty easy number to recall.) It comes up from time to time though. I did a search and found a story from a year and a half ago in which students at Memorial University in St. John’s did about as well on a geography test as one might expect from a pack of howler monkeys. Many of the students, given a map of the world, could not correctly identify where the Atlantic Ocean was - which if you’re in St. John’s is literally the most obvious and significant geographical feature there is. Students also could not correctly identify the continents, including, I hasten to add, the one they were located on. That said I do not doubt that different countries probably have different strengths and weaknesses in terms of the average schmoe’s command of basic info. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2014, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/those-people-are-clueless-polls-common-outside-the-u-s/704201/19 "2014-11-10T17:27:57Z")
> [@clairobscur](#): > > I’d be perfectly willing to answer in a poll that during WWI, Gandalf defeated the American Armada in the battle of Britain. 😛 And see, this is one reason why those polls are useless to show ignorance, as they often include smart-ass answers. 😛 This was especially true when it’s something like _Jaywalking_. Any canny viewer will know that the correct answer wont get you your TV time, and a really stupid answer might even get you on the show. So, when you read “45% of Americans dont know the White House is white in color.” you can guess a distinctly large % of that are smart-ass answers. Of course- some people _are_ ignorant. ---
**Author:** ![mhendo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mhendo/32/3159_2.png) [@mhendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mhendo)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2014, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/those-people-are-clueless-polls-common-outside-the-u-s/704201/20 "2014-11-10T21:38:10Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > I did a search and found a story from a year and a half ago in which students at Memorial University in St. John’s did about as well on a geography test as one might expect from a pack of howler monkeys. I showed [this video](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRZZpk_9k8E) to my university history classes last week. Maybe Texas Tech and Memorial University are sister institutions. 🙂 I understand what people are saying about giving smart-ass answers, but i don’t think that’s what was going on in this video. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/those-people-are-clueless-polls-common-outside-the-u-s/704201.md?page=2)