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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."
I like to think I have a firm grasp on basic scientific facts. For example, the Earth's surface is actually closer to 3/4 water, not 47%.
Basic scientific facts, yes. Reading comprehension, not so much.
The examples provided in the summary are useless. 100% of people know that they are not underwater, and ~99.9% of people are aware that dinosaurs are currently extinct.
If the facts are not relevant to a person's daily life or that person's career, who cares if they know the quantitative answer to a question? Let that person concentrate on information that can actually improve their lot in life, and stop quizzing them on trivia.
lol, we lead busy lives..do you think we really have time to go through every submission?
So we were trying out this thing were we took upwards of a couple of days to review submissions ( a few over a month slipped through, sorry!) but got too many complaints. So as I said, either the front page is going to be empty, you will get some problems in the article every now in then, or its gonna be really, really late. I think the solution with the errors works best.
KD
My 13-year old nephew was told by his science teacher that the c in E=mc2 is...wait for it..."solar energy". *facepalm* And these are the same people that regurgitate Al Gore's preaching.
The typical public school teacher is very good indeed. The problem is not in the teachers or in their work.
What is really going on is a crippled school system brought about by parental demands.
You can't flunk Johnny. You can't control Johnny. You can't suspend Johnny. You dare not hold him back a year. The ALMIGHTY Parent demands that the lessons be so completely dumbed down that even if Johnny has been blowing pot and snorting coke for a week he can still make straight A grades.
Gone is the notion that hard work is involved in learning. The idea that learning is almost like running in an Olympic race where one has to give one's all and try without error or exception to succeed has been castrated from the educational model.
The certain knowledge that those who do poorly in school will almost always suffer poverty and deep social rejection can not be mentioned or else.
The idea of an honor code where one is obliged to report others for cheating sounds wrong to the modern ear. Instead parents prefer their children to gang bang, take dope and kill each other. They must prefer it as they do almost everything to cause it.
Your nuts.
Very few programmers are any good at grammar. Spelling doesn't matter as long as you spell it the same way very time.
Just run iDocSz in your spell checker some time.
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