Irreal

Last Saturday I wrote about the National Science Foundation poll that asked respondents 10 questions about the biological and physical sciences. The most astounding finding was that one in four Americans don’t know that the earth revolves around the sun. Another interesting result was that the average American score was 6.5, which is pretty depressing.

When I wrote that post I couldn’t find anything showing the actual questions. Now The Atlantic has an article that lists the questions. As you’ll see, the questions are nothing special and I’m sure the average score of Irreal readers would approach if not reach 10 of 10. The Atlantic has another bit of interesting information: the scores of other developed nations. It’s a small—very small—consolation that the United States wasn’t the worst performer on all the questions.

Take a look at the Atlantic Article. It’s an interesting read.

A little while ago I wrote about mathematical literacy and disturbing indications of a lack of it in American life. Now there’s evidence of American’s scientific illiteracy as well. The National Science Foundation recently polled 2,200 people on some basic scientific questions. The poll included a quiz with 10 questions on physical and biological science.

The first piece of bad news was that the average score was 6.5 correct answers. That’s not very impressive, especially given that the respondents were generally supportive of scientific research and favored increased funding. Not everyone can or wants to be a scientist, of course, but if you want a healthy society, its citizens need to know how the world works—at least in general terms.

You’re probably thinking this post is about how many people reject evolution. It’s not, although fewer than half of the respondents knew that human beings evolved from other species. No, this post is about the fact that 1 in 4 Americans didn’t know that the earth revolves around the sun.

At first I thought it was a joke or some writer being ironic. It wasn’t. Only 74% of those 2,200 people knew the fundamental fact of our solar system. It’s like Galileo never existed.

It’s profoundly depressing to find that so many of my fellow citizens are this scientifically illiterate. It’s even more depressing that the fact of our heliocentric solar system is not religiously charged like evolution. It’s merely a quotidian fact that I can’t ever remember not knowing. It’s probably true that this sort of scientific illiteracy occurs everywhere in the world; I just wish I’d hear about it somewhere other than the U.S.