Go team go.

[denny]

Dr. Miller's data reveal some yawning gaps in basic knowledge. 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.

http://tinyurl.com/8smvy (nytimes.com)

(yoinked from katyha)

Comments

[kelemvor.livejournal.com]

Sadly, this doesn't surprise me.
*Blank*

[mejoff.livejournal.com]

Nor me, but it's still scary.

[pooloftrees.livejournal.com]

Sadly, it fits with the other closedness of many American attitudes: Less than a quarter of them have passports (http://www.gyford.com/phil/writing/2003/01/31/how_many_america.php).

Keeping them deliberately uneducated is almost certainly why they (still) have Bush as President.

I remember reading that only 13 percent of American youths could locate Iraq on a map (http://archives.cnn.com/2002/EDUCATION/11/20/geography.quiz/), then again, if less than a third know where the state of New Jersey is within their own country, is it any surprise?

[mhw.livejournal.com]

I'd like to know what the actual survey questions and techniques were. From the report it seems that he's been careful to elicit what people actually do know, and it would have been interesting to see how he actually did so.

I wonder what the corresponding figures for the UK population would be.

[dennyd.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that was my first thought, and a few other people have said the same too. Unless the same guy gathered the info (or a very close copy of his methodology was used) then it wouldn't be much use for comparisons though.

[ganzor.livejournal.com]

ohh! You use tinyurl! My friend is the owner of that site, lives about 10 minutes from me ^_^

[azekeil.livejournal.com]

Hell and handbasket are words that spring to mind.