# What a good baseline set of knowledge, below which "Scientific Illiteracy" Lurks? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [November 2, 2011, 1:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-a-good-baseline-set-of-knowledge-below-which-scientific-illiteracy-lurks/601616 "2011-11-02T13:07:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2011, 1:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-a-good-baseline-set-of-knowledge-below-which-scientific-illiteracy-lurks/601616/41 "2011-11-03T01:14:30Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Neither of these is true. Neutrinos definitely have mass, almost certainly travel at slower than c, and massless particles can transfer energy just fine (after all, most of the energy transfer from the Sun is via particles that really are massless). Good to know, I haven’t read about the neutrino in depth since HS, will have to go back and refresh. (I always understood photons to be particles with mass in the form of energy, which neutrinos lack.) But still, neutrinos **don’t** interact much, so however many neutrinos from the Sun couldn’t heat the Earth’s Core, right? ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2011, 1:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-a-good-baseline-set-of-knowledge-below-which-scientific-illiteracy-lurks/601616/42 "2011-11-03T01:19:37Z")
> [@thelabdude](#): > > Good point. > > Problems: > > 1 Science is being taught as a body of facts, subject to the same questions as other bodies of facts. I should hope science is being taught as a **method** as well, and that students are made clear on the difference between what makes a scientific assertion of fact reliable or unreliable and what makes a historical assertion of fact reliable or unreliable, and what specific kinds of reasoning processes underly science as opposed to other fields, etc. > [@thelabdude](#): > > 2 Many practicing scientists don’t even remember that the most reliable information is derived from well designed, controlled studies. 1. Cite, that scientists forget this? 2. False. A lot of essential scientific research is non-controlled bean-counting and stamp-collecting and bird-watching and mapmaking. > [@thelabdude](#): > > 3 Even those that do, often lie to promote political agendas. Hate to dignify . . . Aw, heck, cite? ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2011, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-a-good-baseline-set-of-knowledge-below-which-scientific-illiteracy-lurks/601616/43 "2011-11-03T01:28:56Z")
OP’s complaint might be taken at two levels – He decries educational deficiencies in general (at least, I’m reading that into it), but specifically regarding science. At the risk of hijacking the topic, this could be extended to education in other fields generally. A reasonably well-educated person should know some math, some science, history, literature, and other fields of “social sciences” too. Witness, for example, all the people who can’t find Outer Zambagozastan on a map. For a general example, look at how much of our current (American) political discussion is contorted by strange ideas of history (Paul Revere warning the Brits that we won’t give up our guns), and all the weird economic theories around(\*). I won’t go more into it here because this may be too far off the subject that Mr. Bricker wants to discuss. But I think this is a good subject to have a thread about, whether as part of this thread or another. sub I must be literate about economy. I read Paul Krugman.[/sub] ---
**Author:** ![mac\_bolan00](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b3f665/32.png) [@mac\_bolan00](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mac_bolan00)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2011, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-a-good-baseline-set-of-knowledge-below-which-scientific-illiteracy-lurks/601616/44 "2011-11-03T02:17:27Z")
above age 8 with either a complete set of the britannica or internet access. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Tao\_s\_Revenge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/73ab20/32.png) [@The\_Tao\_s\_Revenge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Tao_s_Revenge)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2011, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-a-good-baseline-set-of-knowledge-below-which-scientific-illiteracy-lurks/601616/45 "2011-11-03T02:29:41Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Good to know, I haven’t read about the neutrino in depth since HS, will have to go back and refresh. (I always understood photons to be particles with mass in the form of energy, which neutrinos lack.) But still, neutrinos **don’t** interact much, so however many neutrinos from the Sun couldn’t heat the Earth’s Core, right? I’ve read a light year of lead has a 50/50 shot of stopping a neutrino. IIRC a billion neutrinos from the sun go through your hand every second. To detect them they build [huge detectors](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutrino_detector) One set up to monitor the sun catches around 3 neutrinos from the sun a week. Numbers as close to infinity as the human mind can know pass through it, and 3 make an ever so tiny flash of light, and change some atom into something else. The interesting thing is they predicted it should catch around 9. This is very interesting. You see neutrinos have 3 flavors. They can taste like electrons, like tauons, or like muons. The detector was set up to catch only one flavor which should have been coming from the sun. What they figured out was neutrinos may oscillate between flavors. This might seem minor, but it’s big. If neutrinos experience change then that means they’re not traveling at the speed of light. Photons don’t experience time. As far as the photon knows the journey from whatever makes it to whatever it hits is instant. Things moving at the speed of light don’t change, they’re frozen in time. All massless particles travel at light speed (technically c). If neutrinos are changing on their journey then they aren’t traveling at c, meaning they have mass. Nothing to do with this thread, just really really cool. ---
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2011, 2:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-a-good-baseline-set-of-knowledge-below-which-scientific-illiteracy-lurks/601616/46 "2011-11-03T02:30:00Z")
> [@HoboStew](#): > > This brings to mind Richard Dawkins’ [slamming of the GOP](http://skepgineering.com/2011/08/25/richard-dawkins-op-ed-in-washington-post-slams-rick-perry-and-republican-party/) (specifically Perry). > > I say for simplicity’s sake, evolution sounds like a reasonable line in the sand to draw. Not necesarilly, Bertrand Russell was a genius (and presumably believed in evolution) but he was an utter naivete and fool in politics ---
**Author:** ![thelabdude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/dc4da7/32.png) [@thelabdude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thelabdude)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2011, 2:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-a-good-baseline-set-of-knowledge-below-which-scientific-illiteracy-lurks/601616/47 "2011-11-03T02:39:46Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Hate to dignify . . . Aw, heck, cite? You need go no further than the climate change debate. Somebody is lying. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2011, 7:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-a-good-baseline-set-of-knowledge-below-which-scientific-illiteracy-lurks/601616/48 "2011-11-03T07:02:22Z")
> [@Ravenman](#): > > I think you are using the term “illiterate” in a way that is far more advanced than is typically understood to mean.[…] > > In a similar vein, not being conversant with the difference between two types of rock cannot be a reasonable definition of scientific literacy. Not _any_ two rocks, just broad groups of them. And not even by sight, just _conceptually_: “_Some_ rocks are cooled lava, _others_ are compacted sand” would even be a (barely acceptable) start. > [@](#): > > That is a novel and excessive use of the term “literacy.” I was going by the OP’s example of “a reasonable adult should know that in statistics, there’s such a thing as sampling, and margin of error, and at a basic level what they are and what they imply”, and delving down to what’s the most basic things in my science, and what, of that, \*I’d \*consider a scientific literate to need to know. So yes, I’m using a different sense of literacy here from the one you mean, but (for my field) closer to the OP’s sense. I think, actually, a better term would be “ **functionally scientifically _conversant_** ” - I think that’s more in keeping with the sense the term was used in the original thread, too, referring as it did to contoversial GD-type debates on scientific topics. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2011, 7:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-a-good-baseline-set-of-knowledge-below-which-scientific-illiteracy-lurks/601616/49 "2011-11-03T07:07:17Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > Uneducated isn’t “illiterate.” It is in the sense it was originally used in this discussion. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2011, 7:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-a-good-baseline-set-of-knowledge-below-which-scientific-illiteracy-lurks/601616/50 "2011-11-03T07:16:20Z")
> [@thelabdude](#): > > 2 Many practicing scientists don’t even remember that the most reliable information is derived from well designed, controlled studies. > [@BrainGlutton](#): > > 1. False. A lot of essential scientific research is non-controlled bean-counting and stamp-collecting and bird-watching and mapmaking. Sounds like someone believes in the myth of _The_ Scientific Method. All that is needed for science is that data be empirical and subject to some form of reasoning. There’s lots of science where you can’t have controls, but they’re still science. ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2011, 8:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-a-good-baseline-set-of-knowledge-below-which-scientific-illiteracy-lurks/601616/51 "2011-11-03T08:28:31Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > **Cadet** ’s request is a simple one – don’t enter into a debate if you don’t know what the hell you’re talking about. But his request is unlikely to be followed, in large part because the most ignorant – the lowest quartile, let’s say – are often the ones unaware of how little they know. Since they’re unaware of the gaping holes in their knowledge, they are unlikely to self-censor. > > BUt that gave me an idea for this thread. What is a good baseline for scientific knowledge? That is, what are the set of facts that we would expect a reasonable adult to know? That reasonable adult would know enough to realistically assess his own limitations in a given area. Those of doper-quality should strive to master their ignorance. That means that they should endeavor to understand what they _don’t_ know, what the limitations of their knowledge are. General knowledge isn’t a prerequisite for that. Rather one needs a) the proper attitude and possibly b) in depth knowledge of one thing and some experience with what ignoramuses say about it. Plus memories from when they lacked such mastery. From that they can extrapolate into their own fields of ignorance. Of course c) an operational bullshit detector is always helpful. Sherlock Holmes knew nothing of astronomy: he thought it a waste of time. > [@A Conan Doyle in A Study in Scarlet](#): > > His ignorance was as remarkable as his knowledge. Of contemporary literature, philosophy and politics he appeared to know next to nothing. Upon my quoting Thomas Carlyle, he inquired in the naivest way who he might be and what he had done. My surprise reached a climax, however, when I found incidentally that he was ignorant of the Copernican Theory and of the composition of the Solar System. That any civilized human being in this nineteenth century should not be aware that the earth travelled round the sun appeared to be to me such an extraordinary fact that I could hardly realize it. > > “You appear to be astonished,” he said, smiling at my expression of surprise. “Now that I do know it I shall do my best to forget it.” > > “To forget it!” > > “You see,” he explained, “I consider that a man’s brain originally is like a little empty attic, and you have to stock it with such furniture as you choose. A fool takes in all the lumber of every sort that he comes across, so that the knowledge which might be useful to him gets crowded out, or at best is jumbled up with a lot of other things so that he has a difficulty in laying his hands upon it. Now the skilful workman is very careful indeed as to what he takes into his brain-attic. He will have nothing but the tools which may help him in doing his work, but of these he has a large assortment, and all in the most perfect order. It is a mistake to think that that little room has elastic walls and can distend to any extent. Depend upon it there comes a time when for every addition of knowledge you forget something that you knew before. It is of the highest importance, therefore, not to have useless facts elbowing out the useful ones.” > > “But the Solar System!” I protested. > > “What the deuce is it to me?” he interrupted impatiently; “you say that we go round the sun. If we went round the moon it would not make a pennyworth of difference to me or to my work.” > > I was on the point of asking him what that work might be, but something in his manner showed me that the question would be an unwelcome one. I pondered over our short conversation, however, and endeavoured to draw my deductions from it. He said that he would acquire no knowledge which did not bear upon his object. Therefore all the knowledge which he possessed was such as would be useful to him. I enumerated in my own mind all the various points upon which he had shown me that he was exceptionally well-informed. I even took a pencil and jotted them down. I could not help smiling at the document when I had completed it. It ran in this way— > > SHERLOCK HOLMES—his limits. > > 1. Knowledge of Literature.—Nil. > 2. > > ``` > Philosophy.—Nil. > > ``` > > 3. > > ``` > Astronomy.—Nil. > > ``` > > 4. > > ``` > Politics.—Feeble. > > ``` > > 5. > > ``` > Botany.—Variable. Well up in belladonna, > opium, and poisons generally. > Knows nothing of practical gardening. > > ``` > > 6. > > ``` > Geology.—Practical, but limited. > Tells at a glance different soils > from each other. After walks has > shown me splashes upon his trousers, > and told me by their colour and > consistence in what part of London > he had received them. > > ``` > > 7. > > ``` > Chemistry.—Profound. > > ``` > > 8. > > ``` > Anatomy.—Accurate, but unsystematic. > > ``` > > 9. > > ``` > Sensational Literature.—Immense. He appears > to know every detail of every horror > perpetrated in the century. > > ``` > > 10. Plays the violin well. > 11. Is an expert singlestick player, boxer, and swordsman. > 12. Has a good practical knowledge of British law. ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2011, 8:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-a-good-baseline-set-of-knowledge-below-which-scientific-illiteracy-lurks/601616/52 "2011-11-03T08:55:12Z")
From Nichols, Smith and Miller _Philosophy Through Science Fiction_: People -including you- adopt beliefs on the basis of other beliefs in the background, and typically those background beliefs were placed there by family, school, culture or religious institutions. Those background beliefs almost always make the foreground beliefs conditionally probable, even if they are false. So when you disagree with someone, first be mindful of the ways in which your beliefs are or, at some point, were inherited. Seen in this light, what we need are conceptual antibodies, memes that may defend us from the temptations of crankery. For myself, I have long been haunted by the [Milgram experiment](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment), along with the unfortunate history of the 20th century. But that has to do with morality, not science. ---
**Author:** ![HoboStew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/f17d59/32.png) [@HoboStew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HoboStew)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2011, 9:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-a-good-baseline-set-of-knowledge-below-which-scientific-illiteracy-lurks/601616/53 "2011-11-03T09:34:18Z")
> [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](#): > > Not necesarilly, Bertrand Russell was a genius (and presumably believed in evolution) but he was an utter naivete and fool in politics How so? ---
**Author:** ![Cheesesteak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cheesesteak/32/3694_2.png) [@Cheesesteak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheesesteak)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2011, 10:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-a-good-baseline-set-of-knowledge-below-which-scientific-illiteracy-lurks/601616/54 "2011-11-03T10:15:34Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > I think knowing _how_ to think scientifically is more important than memorizing any particular set of facts. How to recognize bias, how to set aside personal prejudices, how to separate fact from opinion, knowing when not to jump to conclusions-these processes and others should be taught before any facts are memorized, in my opinion. I agree with this wholeheartedly. The difference between literacy and illiteracy is not how many books you have memorized, it’s whether or not you are capable of reading. I’d rather talk to someone who is ignorant but curious than someone who is filled with facts but hasn’t thought critically about any of them. ---
**Author:** ![Ravenman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ravenman/32/2929_2.png) [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2011, 11:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-a-good-baseline-set-of-knowledge-below-which-scientific-illiteracy-lurks/601616/55 "2011-11-03T11:45:47Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > So yes, I’m using a different sense of literacy here from the one you mean, but (for my field) closer to the OP’s sense. I think, actually, a better term would be “ **functionally scientifically _conversant_** ” - I think that’s more in keeping with the sense the term was used in the original thread, too, referring as it did to contoversial GD-type debates on scientific topics. May I ask, is there any field of science which you believe that you are less conversant with, to the point that you acknowledge that you don’t know as much as you should? Or do you feel that your knowledge of science is as strong in cosmology as it is in medicine, for example? So, let’s say for the sake of argument that you are an expert in geology, know a lot about chemistry, are familiar with a range of other sciences, but you can’t explain the difference between an adenoid and an endocrine. Does a deficiency of knowledge in medicine make one a scientific illiterate, regardless of one’s knowledge and expertise in other fields of nature? ---
**Author:** ![thelabdude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/dc4da7/32.png) [@thelabdude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thelabdude)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2011, 12:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-a-good-baseline-set-of-knowledge-below-which-scientific-illiteracy-lurks/601616/56 "2011-11-03T12:12:41Z")
I might be much better off if I knew a year or 2 ago what I now know about cancer. If I had told the doctor that if she didn’t know what was causing my problem, she had better run some tests and find out. Maybe then I would be facing drastic, life degrading surgery to stop the cancer. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2011, 12:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-a-good-baseline-set-of-knowledge-below-which-scientific-illiteracy-lurks/601616/57 "2011-11-03T12:12:42Z")
> [@Ravenman](#): > > May I ask, is there any field of science which you believe that you are less conversant with, to the point that you acknowledge that you don’t know as much as you should? No. > [@](#): > > Or do you feel that your knowledge of science is as strong in cosmology as it is in medicine, for example? Yes - I’m neither a cosmologist nor a doctor, but I am conversant with e.g. the Big Bang and the basic function of all the body’s organs. > [@](#): > > Does a deficiency of knowledge in medicine make one a scientific illiterate, regardless of one’s knowledge and expertise in other fields of nature? Yes, when the deficiency is at the level I’ve illustrated for geology. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2011, 12:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-a-good-baseline-set-of-knowledge-below-which-scientific-illiteracy-lurks/601616/58 "2011-11-03T12:40:16Z")
I think I need to repeat myself - a better word for what I (and, it seems, the OP and the original thread) meant is “conversant” - I think there’s a minimum level of knowledge in every broad scientific discipline that is required before one can call oneself conversant about science. A certain level of chemistry, a certain level of physics, a certain level of life sciences, a certain level of earth science, a certain level of the social sciences, a certain level of the formal sciences. And a lot of these are often required together for any credibility in internet debates, and that’s what that Pit thread was lamenting. You can’t come into an evolution debate, claim to be up on the science, and then be unaware of what a clade is (and refuse to look it up), for example. ---
**Author:** ![Ravenman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ravenman/32/2929_2.png) [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2011, 1:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-a-good-baseline-set-of-knowledge-below-which-scientific-illiteracy-lurks/601616/59 "2011-11-03T13:14:37Z")
With that definition, I can only wonder how many PhDs in the sciences would fail to meet your bar of being “conversant” in the sciences. ETA: Actually, there quite possibly could be a lot of PhDs who would qualify as being scientific “illiterates” under your definition, if they have focused their efforts in one field to the exclusion of others. That’s absurd. ---
**Author:** ![Acid\_Lamp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@Acid\_Lamp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acid_Lamp)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2011, 1:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-a-good-baseline-set-of-knowledge-below-which-scientific-illiteracy-lurks/601616/60 "2011-11-03T13:49:25Z")
Someone who is scientifically literate should understand the following: That the sun is a star, and stars are basically massive balls of burning gas. That our solar system orbits the sun, and the rotation of our own planet causes night, and day. That the distance between stars is extremely vast. That galaxies are made up of a great many stars orbiting a center of mass. That the universe is made up of a great many galaxies. That the earth is made up of a crust, mantle, and core. That the continents shift about very slowly and once were totally joined up. That magma is molten rock. That layers in the rock usually represent a sort of record of time. That the earth is many billions of years old. That evolution is process by which species differentiate over time. That it has no goal or direction. That it has no bearing on first causes, and is not the same as cosmology. Have an ability to differentiate and describe the major animal groups. Understand that living things are made up of cells. Understand that plants make energy through photosynthesis, and animals produce it through digestion of food. Understand the basic systems in the body and demonstrate a basic understanding of gross anatomy. (That is a foot, ribs etc…) Understand the basics of physics like force, momentum, leverage, etc… Understand the concept of gravity. Understand the basics of the scientific method and how one applies it to a problem. Understand that science is a process by which we confirm facts or evidence. Understands the difference between a fact and an opinion, hypothesis or philosophy. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-a-good-baseline-set-of-knowledge-below-which-scientific-illiteracy-lurks/601616.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-a-good-baseline-set-of-knowledge-below-which-scientific-illiteracy-lurks/601616.md?page=4)