US Adults Fail Basic Science Literacy

TaeKwonDood writes "Do you want the bad news first or the good news? The good news is that about 80% of Americans think science knowledge is 'very important' to our future. The bad news is most of those people think it's up to someone else to get knowledgeable. Only 15% actually know how much of the planet is covered in water (47% if you accept a rough approximation of the exact number) and over 40% think dinosaurs and humans cavorted together like in some sort of 'Land Of The Lost' episode. What to do? Pres. Obama thinks merit pay for teachers makes sense. Yes, it will enrage the teachers' union, but it might inspire better people to go into science teaching. It's either that or accept that almost 50% of Americans won't know how long it takes the earth to go around the sun."

Comments

Re:47%

[Da Fokka]

15% got it right, 47% came close.

Re:47%

[stoolpigeon]

The problem is in the summary - not the article. The article has it right. The survey accepted anything between 65 and 75 percent as correct. 47% of the people in the survey got it right.

Re:easy merit pay

[Gordonjcp]

The cream will rise to the top in the private-sector schools, as it does now.

Ah yes, privately-educated Americans. Those fortunate people whose parents paid out most of their income to send them to schools designed to extract as much profit from the education system as possible. This is why I have to teach people who are supposedly of university calibre basic arithmetic, that goes beyond their school's "If Sheneequa goes to McDonalds and buys three Big Macs for $6, and Ernest goes to Burger King and only gets two burgers for $5, then how much better value is McDonalds?" questions.

I really, *really* wish I was joking.

Re:And it's a statistics game...

[cerberusss]

People, the parent is not the real kdawson (the editor). An editor has a little slashdot symbol next to his name. This guy has the username "kdawson (3715)" but actually has a very high user ID, 1344097.

He's trolling.