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| scpg02 |
 Posted: Fri Jul 06, 2007 12:47 am Post subject: 1 in 5 Americans believe Sun revolves around the Earth |
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Forum Junior
Joined: 28 Jun 2007
Posts: 259
Location: Sacramento
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1 in 5 Americans believe Sun revolves around the Earth
Raw DOGMA
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Well the question is, how can Americans vote on such things as global warming, stem cell research, cloning and what have you when basic scientific fundamental concepts fly right over our heads.
"American adults in general do not understand what molecules are (other than that they are really small). Fewer than a third can identify DNA as a key to heredity. Only about 10 percent know what radiation is. One adult American in five thinks the Sun revolves around the Earth, an idea science had abandoned by the 17th century." Said Jon D. Miller, a political scientists who directs the Center for Biomedical Communications at the Northwestern University Medical School in Chicago, he regularly surveys Americans for his clients which include the National Science Foundation on the public’s knowledge and attitudes towards science in general.
I mean, lets be honest, if you don’t know what a fucking cell is how can you understand what stem cell research is enough to vote on it?
And according to this guy most Americans don’t know what a cell is.
Then it hit me.
There is a reason why people are fighting so hard to get creationism taught in the public schools along side evolution as a scientific alternative.
Like I said, it hit me. And it hit me hard.
Americans, on top of not having a clue what a cell is or what radiation is or even that the Earth revolves around the Sun are letting religious leaders dictate to them what to vote on issues that would take knowledge of basic scientific fundamentals, because I am assuming that they are assuming that since these religious leaders are supposedly moral and ethical “authorities” they should be qualified to figure out where we stand on these scientific issues, but who is to say that they even know these basic scientific concepts? |
http://www.eightballmagazine.com/diatribes/volume02/034/708.htm
The guy has a point. How can people make an informed decision if they are uninformed or just plain stupid? Reminds me of a joke I'll post with this article.
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THESE PEOPLE VOTE !!!
READ MORE HERE
Moderator note: Please do not copy/paste large amounts of text from other sites. I included a link to one of the hundreds of sites that is carrying this alleged email, which is probably completely contrived to begin with.
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| marnixR |
| Posted: Fri Jul 06, 2007 1:29 am Post subject: |
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Forum Cosmic Wizard
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Location: Cardiff, Wales
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soon someone will ask for equal time in the classroom
after all, if 20% of the population believes it to be true, it needs to be taken seriously - it's a democratic country after all !
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| scpg02 |
| Posted: Fri Jul 06, 2007 8:04 am Post subject: |
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Forum Junior
Joined: 28 Jun 2007
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| marnixR wrote: |
soon someone will ask for equal time in the classroom
after all, if 20% of the population believes it to be true, it needs to be taken seriously - it's a democratic country after all ! |
Wouldn't surprise me. After all they keep trying to pass the fairness doctrine.
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| scientstphilosophertheist |
| Posted: Fri Jul 06, 2007 9:34 am Post subject: |
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Forum Ph.D.
Joined: 01 Apr 2007
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I've always been concerned about the average American's scientific knowledge...a lot of the <older folk> don't know crap.
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Whence comes this logic: no evidence = false?
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Theists welcome.
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| marnixR |
| Posted: Fri Jul 06, 2007 9:40 am Post subject: |
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Forum Cosmic Wizard
Joined: 10 Apr 2007
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Location: Cardiff, Wales
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| scientstphilosophertheist wrote: |
| ...a lot of the <older folk> don't know crap. |
not even when they step in it ?
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| Jellyologist |
| Posted: Sat Jul 07, 2007 12:08 pm Post subject: |
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Joined: 12 Jan 2007
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I'm sure that 20% of the folks who laugh at the stat wouldn't know the difference between an electron and neutron. It's a positive that there are a lot of mirrors in the world so we look at ourselves smugly in the mirror.
'What do you mean change the fuel pump myself?'
'Eat meat every day for 50 years and not know how to slaughter a steer'
'Difference between wheat and barley? I don't know'
20% of folks claim others are ignorant when not recognizing their own ignorance in fundamental things 'in their face' every day.  |
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| marnixR |
| Posted: Sat Jul 07, 2007 12:56 pm Post subject: |
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Forum Cosmic Wizard
Joined: 10 Apr 2007
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the wise thing is to be aware of your ignorance rather than saying "what i don't know isn't worth knowing"
if i'm aware that i'm crap at DIY through lack of knowledge i won't at least cause a DIY disaster by attempting something i'm not qualified to do
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| Jellyologist |
| Posted: Sat Jul 07, 2007 1:39 pm Post subject: |
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Forum Senior
Joined: 12 Jan 2007
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| marnixR wrote: |
the wise thing is to be aware of your ignorance rather than saying "what i don't know isn't worth knowing"
if i'm aware that i'm crap at DIY through lack of knowledge i won't at least cause a DIY disaster by attempting something i'm not qualified to do |
Most of the smug 'know-it-alls' wouldn't have a clue and wouldn't have a clue about a million other 'science facts' that have nothing to do with DIY. At least the DIY group have some real time, real sense judgement. Easier to get a kick out of mocking others than admit 'cluelessness' about all sorts of things. |
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| scpg02 |
| Posted: Sat Jul 07, 2007 2:21 pm Post subject: |
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Forum Junior
Joined: 28 Jun 2007
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Some of the dumbest people I know have PhDs.
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| Jeremyhfht |
| Posted: Sun Jul 08, 2007 12:55 pm Post subject: |
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The only funny part about that article is how obviously made-up it is. Does anyone case about the validity of the random statistics he is spewing? 
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| marnixR |
| Posted: Sun Jul 08, 2007 2:21 pm Post subject: |
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Forum Cosmic Wizard
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as with everything in statistics the central question should be : how was the figure calculated + who stands to gain from publishing it ?
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| Neutrino |
| Posted: Tue Jul 10, 2007 10:07 am Post subject: |
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Forum Ph.D.
Joined: 02 Nov 2005
Posts: 980
Location: Columbus, OH
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| Jeremyhfht wrote: |
| The only funny part about that article is how obviously made-up it is. Does anyone case about the validity of the random statistics he is spewing? |
Yeah I'm on board with this point. People can be very stupid but I have a hard time believing it without seeing the methodology. |
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| Wolf |
| Posted: Tue Jul 10, 2007 10:40 am Post subject: |
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Joined: 15 May 2007
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So perhaps there should be a campaign of non-partial education on the subject? (Just like there should be with every law.)
It doesn't hurt to educate someone, in order to get an educated answer from them.
If I go into a 1st grade classroom and ask the kids to decide on something that they don't know about, I can't expect to get a valid response back. However, if I take five minutes to tell them what the details are, my odds improve dramatically.
People are not generally stupid, they're uneducated. With proper information, they will make proper decisions (on a higher ratio).
Of course, some of that responsibility falls on the shoulders of the citizens, too. A LOT of people promote and vote for and against laws that they have no flip'n clue what they really are. No one reads the laws. You can find the full details of every law in this country, and all the documents concerning how it was made, in the Library of Congress (not to mention other sources). Don't understand something? Go look it up! It's your right.
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| M |
| Posted: Thu Jul 12, 2007 12:50 pm Post subject: |
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Forum Junior
Joined: 26 Sep 2006
Posts: 274
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It's far worse than you all think.
Even among people who believe they "know" that the Earth revolves around the sun, few fully understand that the relative motion can be described from either point of view. The fact that we prefer to describe the Earth as revolving around the Sun does not mean this is the absolute and only truth. In kinematics, the choice of a coordinate origin is entirely arbitrary. We choose the Sun as the origin within our solar system (hence the name), because it greatly simplifies the description of the motions of planets and moons in this system. To say that Ptolemy was *wrong* by choosing the Sun is ignorant. He wasn't wrong, he just made the math he was dealing with unnecessarily difficult. His model was very complex, but not inaccurate (for his time), and certainly not wrong from a scientific perspective. The reason why it's abandoned today is that it's badly impractical, not invalid.
There should be no doubt for any minorly educated person that the model of the Earth revolving around the sun is the model of choice. Reasonably educated people should also know why. However, to simply reject the statement "the Sun revolves around the Earth" as *wrong* with a sense of absoluteness is just as ignorant as stating the opposite.
How many people who consider themselves so much more educated than the dumb-witted terracentrics really grasp the basic underlying concepts?
As an old saying goes: "A donkey carrying a load of books is not an educated man." Education is a matter of manners, skill, knowledge, and understanding,... not knowledge alone. So take a straight look at yourselves before rolling your eyes at others. |
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| scpg02 |
| Posted: Thu Jul 12, 2007 1:52 pm Post subject: |
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Forum Junior
Joined: 28 Jun 2007
Posts: 259
Location: Sacramento
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don't they both orbit around a common center of mass?
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