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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."
Only 15% actually know how much of the planet is covered in water (47% if you accept a rough approximation of the exact number)...
47%? Last I heard, it was between 70-75%. The top three results from Google for the query "earth covered by water" all say that as well.
Was that 47% derived using a different definition, or is TaeKwonDood a charter member of the Science Is Only For Nerds Club?
Boards of Education are trying to teach how a magic man in the sky created everything. Reap what you sow.
50% of Americans won't know how long it takes the earth to go around the sun
Heresy! Everyone knows the sun revolves around the Earth, and it takes 6,000 years for it to pass around all four corners.
Thanks to the War on Drugs, it's easier to buy meth than it is to buy cold medicine!
What concerns me more than lack of knowledge of basic facts is that many adults don't really understand something as simple and basic as "the scientific method"...coming up with idea...testing it...controls....etc. It's almost as if science is "magic" to a lot of adults...might explain why so many can't distinguish between what they think the bible says and testable, provable fact.
You know, I'll own up to not knowing that it was exactly 47% of the earth that was covered with water. I actually thought it was a lot closer to 70%, and, apparently, so does Google, so its a common misconception. I wonder if one of us isn't counting ice?
The summary isn't saying that 47% of the earth is covered in water. It is a poorly worded attempt at saying that 15% of the respondents got the answer right, while 47% got the answer approximately write. TaeKwonDood is just shitty at writing English.
the earth was fully covered with water, right before god created dry land and put all the fossils which seem to be older inside. The he created the animals in a way that their DNA looks like inherited from each other and created some species which are there to prove that he can also create species which evolve. All this is kind of obvious, so what are your irrelevant anti-christian scientific questions all about?
Poor wording in the article... 47% of those surveyed were correct if you accept a rough approximation of the exact number... which happens to be 70-71%
IWARS.
People, in general, disappoint me. Politicians even more so.
Be care what you classify as trivia. Unless you know facts, you can't collect those facts together and make meaningful statements about reality. Unless you know a diverse set of facts, you are unlikely to join two seemingly unrelated items and form a new concept. Facts are important, the ancients Greeks understood this well, and devoted a significant amount of their education to learning facts, and so produced some of the most progressive thinkers the world has ever known.
You can pay teachers all you want, but it wont inspire students to learn and retain knowledge. Only parents/peers/culture can do that.
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
My one problem with the idea of merit pay for teachers is that there isn't really a good way to measure teacher merit. In most jobs, a worker has a very high degree of control over the end product: for example, nothing goes into the source code I write unless I say so. In such
The problem is that teachers don't (and shouldn't) have that kind of control over the end product: namely, their own students. At best they can guide and influence, but even in the best of situations, more often than not students will be affected by things completely beyond the teacher's ability to predict or control. It is thus grossly unfair to use student performance as a measure of teacher performance, simply because the ties between them are much too loose.
The other option that has been put forward is to use evaluations, by peers, students, administrators, or other factors. Subjectivity is the problem here: it's far too easy to game such evaluations, or to subject them to office politics. This can have both positive and negative effects on various parties, depending on viewpoint, but in any case it cannot be made fair or reliable as a measure of performance.
What other methods exist? I can see none, and would be interested in hearing possible alternatives. But in their absence, "merit pay" for teachers is nothing more than a comforting myth: the concept is unworkable, and implementations cannot be made to reliably follow the concept. Yes, this is different from many (most?) jobs, but the nature of the job itself -also very different from most- is what creates these conditions.
And what is said in the summary:
"Only 15% actually know how much of the planet is covered in water"
So there's a bit of idiocy with the person who wrote this. In reality, as you put it, 15% got the correct answer--15% did not necessarily "actually know how much of the planet is covered in water." That would imply that no one guessed. A little hypocrisy in the summary, perhaps? In the article, they put it correctly: "Only 15% of respondents answered this question with the exactly correct answer of 70%."
EDITORS, DO YOUR JOBS. If there is a fallacy in the summary, either correct it, or DO NOT POST THE STORY.
Actually, thats kdawson's fault. If you read the original firehose article by TaeKwonDood you'll see that the bit of incorrect grammar was actually placed in by kdawson.
"How much of the earth's surface is covered by water?" Does one need to know the answer to within one percent, or less? Is that even known so precisely? If the correct answer is 70-75% water (approx 3/4) then are 4/5 and 2/3 water good enough guesses? I think both numbers contain the main idea that there's more water than land.
And as for humans and dinos walking the earth together, I think a majority of those who "didn't know dinos and humans didn't live at the same time" would probably have answered that dinos preceeded humans if asked on a gameshow where prizemoney was at stake. Answering that they thought dinos and humans walked the earth together makes is a statement about the beliefs they choose to espouse.
...
Most people don't do jobs that need this education. What they need are classes in logic, history and philosophy growing up because those will teach them to critically think more than any K-12 class on basic science.
No Child Left Behind was signed into law in 2002. TFA's figures are from questions given to adults. There can be no more than 7 years worth of adults who could have gained any benefit whatsoever from that Act. Not exactly damning evidence.
Spelling mistakes, grammatical errors, and stupid comments are intentional.
Geography is a science.
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approximately write
Fucking facepalm. I can't believe I typoed that. :(
The Greeks were fanatics for categorizing things. I suppose other people had done a lot of that before them, but the Greeks were the first people who developed systematic approaches, and in the process pretty much invented Western Philosophy. They didn't always get it right, but you are correct, without some basic fundamentals, nothing else makes sense. So, while in and of itself, knowing how much of the surface of the planet is covered in water might seem sort of a question worthy of Jeopardy, when it is related to climatology, geology, biology, planetary formation and a whole host of other fields of research, it becomes a rather important fact.
I suppose we could take the view that Sherlock Holmes did when he poo-pooed Watson for telling him that the Earth orbited the Sun, and yes, for Joe Average, information like that isn't likely to be useful on a day-to-day basis, still, there was, not so long ago, the notion that a nation in the Modern Age was going to need to have an intelligent, educated body of citizens, because, after all, democracy is government of the people, for the people and by the people. If the people are a pack of ignorant dullards who don't even know the basic geography questions, what the hell kind of government do you suppose we'll have?
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Just a note: Knowing how much of the planet is covered in water is *not* scientific literacy. That is trivia knowledge. If I need to know how much of the planet is covered in water (I'd guess 80%), I look it up, and decide if the definition matches my needs.
Scientific literacy would be understanding (1) how to research science you need (2) how to conduct a proper experiment (3) how to evaluate claims for obvious falsehood (4) how to check out non-obvious claims for falsehood, which is related to #1, (5) how to identify whether you are yourself competent in an area of science, or not, and (6) how to find someone who *is* competent, if necessary.
I hate it when people mistake factoids for science.
I hate it when people mistake popular blurbs for reason.
Correct Horse Battery Staple: 72 bits of entropy. Enter "Correct H" into google. When it generates the phrase, that's
I'm a biology professor, and I can tell you that my kids in grade school know a lot of things my college students do not (including my bio students, who you would think might have a lifelong interest in the sciences). It's not that they aren't being taught, it's that they forget most of what they learn (this is the basis for the "Are you smarter than a 5th grader" show). I'm all for better science education, but I don't think better primary education is going to make this better. You can teach kids whatever you want, but if they don't find relevance for it in their lives they'll forget it. Even the cable stations that are supposed to be devoted to feeding an interest in science and nature (Discovery, Animal Planet) are full of shows about blowing stuff up and rescuing abused pets. There are very few ways in which science is treated as interesting and worthwhile in our culture outside of the classroom.
24 hours.
70% is bang on, the (poorly worded) article was saying 47% of respondents got it within a margin of error (65%-75%), 15% got it right (70%).
As usual when you condense a page and a half article to 2 lines, it loses something :)
Min
On the whole, I find that I prefer Slashdot posts to twitter ones because I don't get limited to 140 chars before
Understanding what a "year" is is pretty basic (how else can one interpret the fact that people don't know how long it takes the earth to go around the sun?). I wouldn't put that in the 'trivia' category.
Knowing the land to water ratio is marginally more trivia-like; I think the range they accepted as 'reasonably right' is a tad too narrow--but not by much. Anyone who's ever seen a map should be able to know it's well over 50%, but that there's still quite a lot of land -- at which point 70% would be pretty easy to guesstimate. Of course this reqiures (1) having seen (and understood to some extent) the map of the world, and (2) knowing what "percent" means. Sadly, too many people in the US would have trouble with at least one of these.
Is it just me, or does it seem the job of 'editor' on an English language news site should come with the requirement that those filling it should not fail at basic English literacy?
This is not a flame, this is a serious question.
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I don't want to put words in the GPs mouth but it seemed to me that he was saying all the facts in the world would not be useful if the general population cannot think critically. Putting two seemingly unrelated facts together is not a problem with American society, it is determining if there exists a real relationship or if it is just what we want to see that is the major problem.
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.
Q1: How many of them believe in astrology, Feng Shui, crystal power, and other crap?
Q2: How many of them know that the Earth is not flat, and is about 4.5 billion years old?
I would not be surprised if the answer to Q1 is larger than the answer to Q2. Unfortunately. And that's just a sample of delusions compared to a couple of simple and well-known facts.
There is a crying need for teaching the scientific method in schools. Ideally, it would be accompanied by numerous exercises in critical thought, including the examination of "common knowledge" and topical news stories.
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
and 80% of the population will get no education worth anything...then the illegal Mexican immigrants will get the jobs that require education and US citizens get the day laborer jobs.
The demonstrated reality is that societally mandated education is the single most stabilizing activity. In addition it provides the best ROI of ANYTHING we can do.
If you want to see the US turn into a 3rd world country in one generation, get rid of public education.
" mere names of places...are not geography... know by heart a whole gazetteer full of them would not, in itself, constitute anyone a geographer. Geography has higher aims than this: it seeks to classify phenomena (alike of the natural and of the political world, in so far as it treats of the latter), to compare, to generalize, to ascend from effects to causes, and, in doing so, to trace out the great laws of nature and to mark their influences upon man. This is 'a description of the world' -that is Geography. In a word Geography is a Science -a thing not of mere names but of argument and reason, of cause and effect. "
-William Hughes, 1863
There is a war going on for your mind.
You will never join facts unless you have a fact-joining intellectual toolkit. The Greeks did some categorization, but they also invented deductive logic, and mathematical proofs.
Our educational system today is all about rote memorization, and it is no surprise that we have kids getting to college who don't understand how to write a paper that presents an argument, more less understanding the finer points of the scientific method.
Secondary education isn't the place to force-feed people facts that they're never going to need or use; you need to teach research, critical thought, logic, and the scientific method...Those things are useful for everyone, and once that framework exists, you can hang whatever facts you please on it.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
Trivia or not, it doesn't change the fact that is "basic scientific information". Or at least, basic knowledge of the world that is useful, or at least interesting, to have. A "scientific mind" (damn, I'm abusing quotes) starts with a gathering of random but interesting knowledge (as you call, trivia), from that point you start infering and dealing with patterns and such to develop critic thinking.
To fail at basic info like that, shows a disregard for scientific knowledge. And that is foundation of critical thought (together with some philosophy in it).
Science spur from the need of understanding the natural world around us, and that came after knowing some silly facts and asking yourself: "Why is that so?".
--- "When you gotta do something wrong. You gotta do it right. (Fighter)"
I say we take the trivia out of science education, and put the scientific method in. People need critical thinking skills, and problem solving methodologies a hell of a lot more than they need pi to 20 digits, or to be able name our current geologic epoch (Holocene), or any of a number of worthless pieces of trivia.
Mod parent up. A lot.
That's the problem with school. You learn by rote as if the exact birthdates, or dates of battles or whatever in history, the exact atomic masses of elements in chemistry, or the precise value of e in math, of the speed of light in physics, etc. would mean anything. Most importantly, even if they do, few teachers tell you what it is.
Sorry, I couldn't care less if the battle of Waterloo was whenever. I don't see what it matters. However, I do find it quite interesting how we know when it was. Even more so the more unreliable our sources get. The process of finding out c is a lot more interesting to me than the precise value. The meaning of it, e.g. the difference it makes to physics, is also a lot more interesting.
We are lacking meaning in our education, and yet the human brain is hardwired to look for meaning. If you learn something that means nothing, you are biologically hardwired to discard it. That's why there are so many mnemonics to help you learn useless facts.
So, what is the meaning of it? Does it make a meaningful difference if the earth is 69% or 71% covered with water? I dare say no, so why should I care as long as the number is roughly correct? Heck, "about two-thirds" is detailed enough for 99% of us. There's no meaning in knowing it any more precisely.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
But everyone knows that the British are prone to over-generalisation.
If you asked a scientist who works on calibrating the leap seconds added to UTC to make up for irregularities in the rotation of the earth he might well answer "we don't know exactly".
If you take a scientific basis that times should be measured in basic defined units (SI second) then saying "it takes a year" is roughly equivalent of saying "it takes as long as it takes".
You very often find that what might seem to be a trivial question to someone with basic high-school science is actually difficult to give a clear-cut answer to.
It's like "stony" or "woody" but a lot better to make swords out of?
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
FTA
The approximately correct answer range for this question was defined as anything between 65% and 75%. Only 15% of respondents answered this question with the exactly correct answer of 70%.
I'm sorry, no. Seventy percent is not "exactly correct". At best it is an estimate, and one that is subject to natural fluctuations due to things like temperatures, tidal patterns, etc.
How much should a layperson actually know about the planet's water coverage? "More than half water" is probably a little lacking; "between two-thirds and three-quarters" is probably about right.
"Between 70% and 71%" is worthless nitpicking, a rote recitation of a rule of thumb learned in grade school, the same place they learned that the speed of light is 186,000 miles per second, there are 2,000 pounds in a ton, and 1 yard = 1 meter.
Just a note: Knowing how much of the planet is covered in water is *not* scientific literacy. That is trivia knowledge.
I hate it when people mistake factoids for science.
I hate it when people mistake popular blurbs for reason.
Maybe. But not knowing that the earth takes one year to revolve around the sun indicates a pretty serious failure to know what the fuck is going on.
And, seriously...if you can't imagine a globe in your head and at least get between 60% and 80% water...you are pretty ignorant. If a lot of people are that ignorant, we have a problem.
As always, I would like to see results of the exact same survey from other countries for comparison.
Yo dawg, I heard you like the Ackermann function, so OH GOD OH GOD OH GOD
Fucking facepalm.
that's how you kids are calling it these days?
--- "When you gotta do something wrong. You gotta do it right. (Fighter)"
Is it just me, or does it seem the job of 'editor' on an English language news site should come with the requirement that those filling it should not fail at basic English literacy?
Yes. However, the more important problem is that the number of people who can write English properly is diminishing; this leaves fewer people qualified for the job of editor, so editing standards also diminish over time.
Just a note: Knowing how much of the planet is covered in water is *not* scientific literacy. That is trivia knowledge.
Incorrect. "Trivia", by definition, is useless information, such as who won American Idol last season. Knowing that 70% of the earth is covered with water is essential information for realizing that overpopulation is an issue, for knowing how crucial water currents are with relation to global warming and weather phenomena, and for geographical and political-boundary wisdom. It's nearly as essential as knowing the shape of the planet or where the meridians and parallels are--the lack of this info is, in certain ways, crippling.
"We can categorically state we have not released man-eating badgers into the area." - UK military spokesman, July 2007
You will never join facts unless you have a fact-joining intellectual toolkit
I don't disagree, but you need the facts too. So, which do you teach first. And, which is more important (and why) Again, these things are easily over-trivialized.
How many technology workers have a land line in this day and age?
This suffers from the same problems as political telephone surveys:
1) Is the person home
2) Will the person answer the phone
3) Is the person willing to take the survey
Most of us have better things to do, those who don't are often just couch-potatoes or other unmotivated people.
To the best of my knowledge they don't call cell phones, so most of the tech-savvy people are not even candidates. They don't call business lines, so people who are working late are not candidates either(assuming they don't call during the day which would further eliminate those with day-jobs)
Think of all the people you know with a land line. Are those generally the smartest people you know? The most tech-savvy?
Sounds to me that it is almost more of a survey of jobless luddites than the average hard working American citizen...
You need to a finite verb to that sentence.
At the bottom of the
To fail at basic info like that, shows a disregard for scientific knowledge. And that is foundation of critical thought (together with some philosophy in it).
I disagree. I think understanding and applying the scientific method is the foundation of science, which is just one method of critical thought. Any particular facts a person knows or does not know may be reflective of their opinions about science, or it may be reflective of their particular interests and cultural influences. It is unlikely, but not impossible, that people who fail such a test are able to apply the scientific method. It is probable that people who pass this test, still have no real understanding of the scientific method, how to apply it, or why it works.
I surmise that thinking such as is demonstrated in this survey is a symptom of our broken educational system. It is highly focused upon rote memorization instead of applicable skills and understanding concepts. It's easier to memorize the definition of science than to understand the method. It's easier to teach kids to memorize than to understand. It's significantly easier to test memorization than understanding. It is vastly easier to standardize a test for memorizing a blurb than for understanding a concept.
Don't get me wrong. I think science classes should run through teaching a wide base of scientifically determined fats and likely theories. I just think that should come second to a thorough understanding of the scientific method and how to apply it to determine the truth as well as a firm grounding in hands on experimentation so students can learn that it does work and have confidence in it.
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.
Except they ARE relevant to a person's daily life. Global warming affects each and every one of us daily and will continue to do so to a greater and greater degree. Knowing fundamental facts about our planet helps people understand the concept and therefore helps them vote properly for candidates best qualified to work towards solving the problem. It is unquestionable that a voter who does not know 70% of the planet is water is less qualified to help fix the planet than one who does know that. "Trivia" this is not, so please do not compare it to knowing who won the Oscar for best director in 1953.
"We can categorically state we have not released man-eating badgers into the area." - UK military spokesman, July 2007
As an ex-biology teacher, one of my professor's pet peeves was that there was no single "scientific method". There are a some general approaches and a lot of techniques, but no single, official approach.
For example, it may be that doing double-blind studies are often a great idea, but we regularly accept studies without it as being scientifically valid. I'm actually partial to the "guess and check" method for solving lots of problems. Different problems work better with different methods.
His ignorance was as remarkable as his knowledge. Of contemporary literature, philosophy and politics he appeared to know next to nothing. Upon my quoting Thomas Carlyle, he inquired in the naivest way who he might be and what he had done. My surprise reached a climax, however, when I found incidentally that he was ignorant of the Copernican Theory and of the composition of the Solar System. That any civilized human being in this nineteenth century should not be aware that the earth travelled round the sun appeared to me to be such an extraordinary fact that I could hardly realize it.
"You appear to be astonished," he said, smiling at my expression of surprise. "Now that I do know it I shall do my best to forget it."
"To forget it!"
"You see," he explained, I consider that a man's brain originally is like a little empty attic, and you have to stock it with such furniture as you choose. A fool takes in all the lumber of every sort that he comes across, so that the knowledge which might be useful to him gets crowded out, or at best is jumbled up with a lot of other things, so that he has a difficulty in laying his hands upon it. Now the skillful workman is very careful indeed as to what he takes into his brain-attic. He will have nothing but the tools which may help him in doing his work, but of these he has a large assortment, and all in the most perfect order. It is a mistake to think that that little room has elastic walls and can distend to any extent. Depend upon it there comes a time when for every addition of knowledge you forget something that you knew before. It is of the highest importance, therefore, not to have useless facts elbowing out the useful ones."
"But the Solar System!" I protested.
"What the deuce is it to me?" he interrupted impatiently: "you say that we go round the sun. If we went round the moon it would not make a pennyworth of difference to me or to my work."
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
A Study in Scarlet
The "I" is, of course Dr. Watson, and the "He" is of course Sherlock Holmes.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
Muphry's Law: "If you write anything criticizing editing or proofreading, there will be a fault of some kind in what you have written." It had to happen.
So if say 50% of the earth were covered with water it would mean overpopulation isn't an issue, global warming wouldn't be affected by water currents, etc?
I don't think knowing the percentage is all that important to non-scientists' understanding of critical scientific issues.
Mod parent up!
This article does indeed highlight a disturbing lack of scientific literacy, but only by demonstrating how poorly even the authors understand science. Science is a method, not a collection of facts, and while the first question (about the time it takes the earth to revolve around the sun) might qualify as a real question of understanding, the other two are just factoids.
The core of scientific literacy is having the set of skills listed above, and a mindset that insists on applying these skills to every situation you encounter. Anything short of that is, at best, bad science, and more often than not, mere metaphysics.
A recent study indicated just that. In order for students to be successful in higher level sciences, they need depth and methodology rather than wrote memory of facts.
Unfortunately, (and I say this a as high school science teacher) our school system is set up in such a way as to mandate the teaching of broad facts. Thanks to No Child Left Behind, we are now rigorously tested on the breadth of what we teach.
This leaves us with an interesting quandary: Do we teach so that students can be successful, or do we teach so that the school can be successful? For the students, we need to teach depth. For the school, we need to teach breadth.
Ideally, we'd do what the students need. Realistically, we do what the school requires, since to fail to do this means a loss of jobs.
Velociraptor = Distiraptor / Timeraptor
If someone fulfills the five criteria the GP gave, then they would know that ID isn't science.
My biggest problem with the summary is that many scientists might fail this "basic science literacy" test simply because it's too specific. As pointed out elsewhere, how much of the planet is covered in water is more of a trivia question. And asking if humans and dinosaurs coexisted is an opinion question, not a question about science. It's entirely possible for someone to believe, for religious reasons, that humans and dinosaurs lived together but to also understand the science.
Science literacy shouldn't be about what they know, it should be about what they can recognize. Just because I'm literate with books doesn't mean that I can tell you specific details about Edgar Allen Poe, nor does it mean that I necessarily agree with Orwell.
ok let's start with simpler things.
How many states are there?
How many MAJOR branches of the government are there and name them.
How many stripes and stars are on the USA flag?
Name 3 countries in europe.
Name 3 countries in Asia.
Name 3 countries in south america.
Name 3 countries in north america.
Explain how you can calculate your approximate destination time from your speed and distance.
Guess What. a HUGE portion of Americans will FAIL the above basic test. Many MBA holders and other COLLEGE DEGREE HOLDING people will fail it.
Dont get me started on basic science that you can use daily, math, driving safety, common sense, etc... if you add those in then the numbers that fail rise drastically.
Critical thinking skills? you are asking the morons that travel at 85mpg 6 feet from the guy in front of him to think critically when they cant comprehend that their actions daily on the highway are incredibly stupid? How about being able to do basic math so you understand that the 15% you will save opening that store credit card to buy that item will cost you 30% more even if you go home and pay it off right now due to dropping your credit score like a stone.
Most dont know who their representatives are in local and state government or how to get a hold of them. You need to get off your pedestal and actually spend a week observing people and the incredibly uneducated things they do. It's not out of habit or malice, these people around you really are that uneducated.
I see this amplified from the Exchange students at my daughters school.. The German kids all mention how american school is insanely easy compared to theirs. friends I have in Germany, Italy, and China all also cant understand why Americans cant speak more than 1 language and dont understand what they consider basic math, Algebra and Geometry, Most Americans do not know.
Our schools have been an utter failure for decades. From the public kindergarten all the way up to Post graduate. colleges skew grades so that you get a C for what used to be failing the class. now our "average" students are the faiure uneducated ones.
honestly, I wish Obama had the balls to call out and demand that all truancy laws be reinstated, teachers paid based on merit, and that schools and colleges be forced to stop passing people that should not be.
3 of the highschools around here will give you a diploma even if you cant read. That is not shocking, it's a disgusting embarassment.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
I would, as number (0) understanding what is and what isn't science.
Obvious example: "intelligent design"
That's more difficult than most people think. Karl Popper recognised that the boundary between metaphysics and science can only ever be a convention (in his introduction to the 2nd edition of "The Logic of Science"). "Falsifiability" only works as an abstract concept; it doesn't actually reflect how science really works in practice or what counts as science in practice. That means that although there's stuff that is decidedly within science (eg, heliocentric solar system) and stuff that is decidedly outside science (eg, ID), there's a huge fuzzy area that may or not be science depending on the definitions you take. There's a discussion here about this problem in the context of evolution. (For those who can't be bothered clicking links -- this is /. after all -- it concludes that evolution is science, because science isn't all about falsifiability).
Quidnam Latine loqui modo coepi?
To fail at basic info like that, shows a disregard for scientific knowledge. And that is foundation of critical thought (together with some philosophy in it).
I disagree. I think understanding and applying the scientific method is the foundation of science, which is just one method of critical thought. Any particular facts a person knows or does not know may be reflective of their opinions about science, or it may be reflective of their particular interests and cultural influences.
You can't learn how to critically deduce something if you don't know things. A basic example, using something un-scientific, jigsaw puzzle solving. See, I know a basic fact, "the box contains 5000 pieces", I know another basic fact "borders are flat in at least one of the sides". With those in mind you can start creating a process to solve the jigsaw, you can put on that a few more "unit" data: "it is easier to get 1 pair together than 4", and from that place start deriving how you are going to solve it. Ok, it is a silly example, and not that great of an analogy (I'm at work and tired), but it shows that without any of those basic facts I couldn't work on how to solve the problem.
Mind you, I think "critical thought", "Principals of Western Philosophy", "Mathematical proofs", "Basic Algorithms" should all be classes since the 5th grade (10 years old here in Brazil). You need to teach the kids how to think. But you need to show them some fact too, so they can apply what they are learning in terms of thinking, and their curiosity on a bunch of "silly" trivia and from that onwards learn how to think.
It is unlikely, but not impossible, that people who fail such a test are able to apply the scientific method. It is probable that people who pass this test, still have no real understanding of the scientific method, how to apply it, or why it works.
I agree with you that people who pass this test may still have no understading of the scientific method, but I don't think that someone who can't get those facts can know it. Mainly because they are easy to infer from other things. Take the question about how much water there is in the world. I may not know the number, I may not have ever thought about it, but if I saw a map, and thinking a bit about it, I can make a good guess (which means, we should expect a much higher "close enough" percentage). The fact that so many people have no idea about it, shows not just a lack of trivia knowledge but a lack of deducing capabilities.
--- "When you gotta do something wrong. You gotta do it right. (Fighter)"
How can walking around -not- being afraid of a T-Rex not be relevant in a person's daily life/career?
This is blinging
it has nothing to do with that, if you even bring up God in a public school your toast.
The simple fact is, kids test higher at 4th grade than high school because the system isn't designed around students but instead designed around tax dollars.
This has nothing to do with God, it is all about money and power. Guess who has it, not the parents. Hell too many of them willfully forgo it and wonder why junior is dumber than a box of rocks.
sorry, but the stupid cheap "slashdot correct" response isn't even close to factual. If anything those attending religious schools are doing far better... how do you explain that?
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
"Yet, when the secular progressives run everything literacy is now less than it was when GOD was actually in the classrooms."
God had to graduate sometime.
Knowing how precisely you need to understand something in a given context is
a valuable thing in and of itself. Knowing how to "estimate" things will allow
you to seem to know more while actually putting less effort into it.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
And asking if humans and dinosaurs coexisted is an opinion question, not a question about science. It's entirely possible for someone to believe, for religious reasons, that humans and dinosaurs lived together but to also understand the science.
This is incorrect. We have no evidence that they lived together. Individuals may choose to ignore the _scientific_ facts, but that isn't science. So, #fail! By your reasoning, if someone was asked: "Is the world round or flat?" and they answered "flat" based on whatever whacko system of beliefs they might have, it suddenly becomes a question of "opinion"? Certainly not. Why an individual chooses to ignore certain areas of scientific understanding are irrelevant, unless it's done on a scientific basis.
"Why should I be content to simply live in this world, when I, as a human being, can CREATE it?" - Oertel
I couldn't care less if the battle of Waterloo was whenever You must have gone to one of those fancy schools. I think the only time Napoleon was ever mentioned in my American public school was a passing reference to him selling the Louisiana territory to the USA. At my school, sex education was required, but you had to learn history in the gutter. Having learned much of what I know about history on my own, I can tell you why memorizing some dates are important. They help you fit in everything else. Most people have no concept of history. Did George Washington ever have a chance to meet Columbus? Who knows? Well, if you learn a few dates cold, then other things can fit. For example, start with memorizing 5 dates, 1776 (Declaraion of Independence), 1492 (Columbus discovers America), 1066 (Norman invasion of England), 0 (approximate birth of Christ), 1000 BC (approximate time of King David's reign) and you have a context for otherthings. You hear that Shakespeare was born in 1564 and instead of just hearing 4 numbers, you can think "70 years after Columbus, so he probably knew about America". You may not remember the exact date, you'll probably remember that it was shortly after Columbus's time. When you later here Queen Elizabeth's reign started in 1558 you can realize that that was around the same time as Shakespeare and it was about 70 years after Columbus. Suddenly instead of random disjoint numbers, you have a web of information that can fit together, reinforce other information, and allow you to draw conclusions. This applies to other fields as well. You understand and remember information a lot better if you have other related facts in your memory.
I often don't like the choices people make, but I like the fact that people make choices. That's why I'm a conservative.
And asking if humans and dinosaurs coexisted is an opinion question, not a question about science. It's entirely possible for someone to believe, for religious reasons, that humans and dinosaurs lived together but to also understand the science.
*does double take* Opinion question? Whether humans (who have been around for less than a million years no matter how loosely you define human) and dinosaurs (which have been dead for over 60 million years unless you call crocodiles and/or birds dinosaurs) lived together is opinion? What definition of opinion are you using?
Claiming religious belief is absurd. If I say the sky is red, and grass is purple, because I was honestly raised to believe these things, does that mean that a debate over whether clear daytime sky on Earth is blue or red is merely a difference of opinion? I'm fine with you thinking the sky is red, but if you claim that you are mindful of science in the same breath, I'll laugh myself to death.
And no, this is no strawman. The rough periods in which dinosaurs and humans lived are so far apart and clearly established, that the only way to have them live together would be if we had a deity who interceded in direct physical ways constantly. And if you accept that, then the scientific method is just as worthless as if you regularly deny the visual evidence of 6 billion people the world over when it comes to the color of the grass and the sky.
$_ = "wftedskaebjgdpjgidbsmnjgcdwatb"; tr/a-z/oh, turtleneck Phrase Jar!/; print
It's not that they did not know it, or could not work it out, it is that they snapped back an answer of "24 hours" because they thought that the question was something that it wasn't.
Nullius in verba
My biggest problem with the summary is that many scientists might fail this "basic science literacy" test simply because it's too specific.
I don't think that's the problem. It's just that it only asks about facts/likely truths determined by science, not about science itself.
As pointed out elsewhere, how much of the planet is covered in water is more of a trivia question.
Agreed.
And asking if humans and dinosaurs coexisted is an opinion question, not a question about science.
Well, it is asking a question where the scientific method has determined one answer to be the most likely truth. Science never really proves anything, just has theories that are more or less supported. A person who understands and trusts the scientific method is a person who accepts the most supported theory until the preponderance of evidence shifts.
It's entirely possible for someone to believe, for religious reasons, that humans and dinosaurs lived together but to also understand the science.
It's also entirely possible for someone to understand the science but believe for religious reasons that the earth does not go around the sun. It's just not rational or scientific because it is rejecting the answers presented by the scientific method and arbitrarily believing something else.
Science literacy shouldn't be about what they know, it should be about what they can recognize.
I agree it should not be about trivia, but it should include understanding and applying the scientific method. If people apply the scientific method very narrowly and then apply irrational and nonscientific methods to determine the facts about other parts of the world, then I'd argue scientific literacy has failed to a significant extent.
Just because I'm literate with books doesn't mean that I can tell you specific details about Edgar Allen Poe, nor does it mean that I necessarily agree with Orwell.
No, but to be literate means you can read and often that you do read, not that you can read certain things but in other instances you can just look at the pictures or you make up what you think the little squiggly things on the paper mean. You don't have to agree with Orwell to be literate, you just have to be able to read his books. Not understanding that the scientific method has determined the most likely truth to be that humans and dinosaurs never inhabited the earth at the same time is analogous to being unable to read Orwell.
To fail at basic info like that, shows a disregard for scientific knowledge.
No. Failing to name the exact or +/- 10% fraction of Earth that is covered in water most emphatically does NOT demonstrate a disregard for scientific knowledge.
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..how much of the planet's total liquid water is available for drinking and farming, i.e., is fresh and clean enough?
My wife is a science teacher. She left a job recovering organs and tissues etc. for transplant to become a science teacher because it afforded her more time with the kids.
In her years of teaching she has noticed a few prevalent problems that cause problems with science education, her and I have discussed these at great length.
1. There is a shortage of science teachers. It is always hardest for the the schools to recruit science and math teachers.
2. Due to the fact that the science and math teachers are generally smarter, more logical, and better organized than their 'Bachelor of Arts' counter-parts they are usually the first to be promoted into quasi-management positions (Asst. Principal, Principal etc.)
3. Most of these promotees quickly become disenfranchised with the bureaucracy and idiocy that runs rampant through American schools. They end up getting very frustrated, and instead of resigning from the quasi-management job and going back to being a teacher, their frustration with the 'whole system' causes them to quit outright and seek their fortunes elsewhere.
The future of science education in America is bleak my friends (and foes.)
Those who can do... Those who can't get a certification from Cisco or Microsoft.
Here's the run down for Pasco:
Pres. Obama thinks merit pay for teachers makes sense... 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.
That is a false choice. Other options include (a) more rigorous standards, (b) more willingness for teachers to fail students and fight grade-inflation, (c) lessening students' consumerist expectations that they are paying for grades, etc. I believe that I'm consistently the highest-rated teacher where I teach. Yet I would not want merit pay to be implemented.
Here's what the Urban Institute found in a statistical study:
A study by the Urban Institute found some positive short-lived effects of merit pay, but concluded that most merit pay plans "did not succeed at implementing lasting, effective ... plans that had a demonstrated ability to improve student learning." Problems included low teacher morale because of increased competition between teachers, as well as wasted time and money in the administration of the merit pay plans. The same study found "little evidence from other research...that incentive programs (particularly pay-for-performance) had led to improved teacher performance and student achievements.
Here's what the Libertarian Cato Institute says:
Marie Gryphon, an education policy analyst at the Cato Institute, makes some practical objections:
- The system can't simply reward high scores. If it did, it would favor teachers in wealthy neighborhoods whose students came to school with excellent skills. Nor can the system reward only improvement. If it did, it would unfairly penalize teachers whose students were already scoring too well to post large gains.
- Moreover, any money for test results scheme will worsen the problem of teachers cheating on standardized tests to avoid the consequences of the No Child Left Behind Act. Teachers willing to erase wrong answers on exams to avoid having their school labeled "needing improvement" will also be tempted by the thought of a personal raise.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merit_pay#Other_opposition
We know where leadership by an anti-intellectual "strongman" who scapegoats minorities and likes boisterous rallies goes
That is a HUGE part of the problem with people being dumb. It has become acceptable in our society to call wrong answers 'opinion', and of course 'opinions' are not right or wrong.
Most people do not seem to understand that you can make a statement of fact that is wrong. They believe that a statement of fact by definition is only the right answers.
Even fewer realize that if I say 'My favorite color is magenta.', that I have just made a statement of fact. It is a statement of fact about my opinion. In this case it is a false statement of fact, as magenta is in fact, not my favorite color.
in later stories it came out, though, that holmes did possess much more general knowledge (and especially about copernican theory) than he admitted in "study in scarlet", so it is very much possible that holmes is pulling watson's leg at this point.
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
It's scientific accepted fact. Secondly, carbon dating is not used on dinosaur fossils. Carbon-14 is limited to about 50,000 years. There are many, many more methods of dating such as potassium-argon and uranium-thorium. You'd do well to actually research a topic before you attempt to discuss it.
She is also very smart - has a masters in math, probably could easily answer trivia like how much of the Earth is covered in water. But she is firm in her beliefs and faith is always > reason.
This is not an attempt to insult your friend, but being good at math or some other subject does not necessarily mean you are a smart person. Being smart means you are capable of thinking critically and rationally about any subject, even ones you may not fully understand. But you will weigh the evidence objectively to form your opinion. I would personally not consider someone who believes in creationist garbage science, or someone who firmly believes that faith trumps reason a smart person.
ok let's start with simpler things.
How many states are there?
Three: Solid, Liquid, Gas.
How many MAJOR branches of the government are there and name them.
Three: Federal, State/Provincial, Municipal
How many stripes and stars are on the USA flag?
It depends on the year. Currently there are 63.
Name 3 countries in europe.
Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan
Name 3 countries in Asia.
Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan
Name 3 countries in south america.
The Netherlands, The United Kingdom, France
Name 3 countries in north america.
The Netherlands, The United Kingdom, France
(You gotta love transcontinental countries, and overseas protectorates.)
Explain how you can calculate your approximate destination time from your speed and distance.
The time at a destination changes approximately by one hour for every fifteen degrees of longitude. It will not be affected by speed, although at relativistic velocities the traveller's perception is that time slows down.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
I would say they should do exactly the opposite with truancy laws. Truancy laws create criminals. They do not improve education. The first thing that needs to be done is to openly admit that people really only need about a (proper) 6th grade education to function just fine in society. Most people are doing it right now. Many of them are doing quite well. They just spent 13+ years getting that 6th grade education. From there we can assess what are the importing pieces of education, and what are not.
You languish in apprenticeships called post-docs for years while waiting for a real job to open up.
Or you canned by the time you are 40.
You can't prove the universe existed five minutes ago either, without relying on some basic assumptions of stasis. As I said, if we have a deity who constantly tinkers with physical laws, this all goes out the window, but then, if you're assuming that, you're already thrown scientific thinking out the window.
As soon as your friend shows how the decay of a radioactive isotope can be significantly affected by external stimuli that could reasonably be expected to be encountered on this planet (for example, the core of a star manages to create radioactive elements, but I think it may be hard to prove this was occurring inside fossilized bones), I'll take her seriously. Until then, she's not thinking scientifically, starting from evidence and forming theories, she's thinking religiously, starting from belief, and discarding evidence.
$_ = "wftedskaebjgdpjgidbsmnjgcdwatb"; tr/a-z/oh, turtleneck Phrase Jar!/; print
And I submit that willful ignorance of any kind is damaging to humanity as a whole.
I don't get it.
Important distinction: A belief in creationism doesn't prevent you from engaging in science (though depending on how literally you hew to it, it may be an impediment to certain aspects of biology), but it's directly antithetical to scientific modes of thought. Scientific modes of thought require you to start from evidence, develop theories, and test them. None of that applies to creationism. If an all powerful deity did manage to create the world in seven days, he made a pretty impressive back story for it. As I noted in another response though, you could just as easily say the world started five minutes ago, and all our memories were created with it. It's a great theory, but without either evidence or any way to test it, it's not science.
$_ = "wftedskaebjgdpjgidbsmnjgcdwatb"; tr/a-z/oh, turtleneck Phrase Jar!/; print
Critical thinking skills? you are asking the morons that travel at 85mpg 6 feet from the guy in front of him to think critically when they cant comprehend that their actions daily on the highway are incredibly stupid? If someone can travel at 85 mpg, more power to him. I don't think a Prius gets much better than 45. Why are you so against good gas mileage?
I googled all of those. They're all claims of seeing "dinosaurs" in the present day (or near present day) with no substantial evidence. There's no body/remains (unlike, say Coelacanth) to test. Not even a few clear photos/videos to add weight to the claim. If you call these sort of claims Scientific Evidence, you might as well allow evidence in a murder trial that my friend's uncle's cousin once overheard the defendant say he'd kill the guy.
This isn't to say that it is completely impossible for these animals to exist. Just that the stories aren't supported by any real evidence. And science needs real evidence, not wild tales of monsters.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
I don't quite get the point you're trying to make here so, instead of deciding whether I'm arguing, I'll just add my thoughts. Parents who pay for their childrens' education twice (tuition and taxes) get an active role in deciding what kind of education they get. Private education allows market forces to play a part. Don't want your child to hear about evolution? Well, there's a place for that. Want your child to have access to actual college preparation? Private school is your only option unless you are lucky enough to live in an affluent area with better than average public education.
"By the time they had diminished from 50 to 8, the other dwarves began to suspect 'Hungry.'" -Gary Larson
One cannot understand sediment and fossilization and then believe that all the evidence is false.
Surely you mean the lack of evidence? You can't have evidence that proves that mankind didn't live with the dinosaurs. You can only have a lack of evidence that they did. We believe very strongly that they did not co-exist, but we can not be 100% because science does not allow us to prove something based on the absence of evidence of the antithesis.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
To say that people and dinosaurs certainly did not coexist is based on a lack of fossil evidence
No, it is based on Bayesian reasoning, as follows:
Given that we have many dinosaur fossils from several hundred million to sixty-five million years ago, what is the probability that NO dinosaur fossils can be found that date from less than a million years ago under the assumption that dinosaurs still existed then?
The answer is a very small number, no matter how you mess with the priors, so long as your priors are kept within the bounds of known data.
For example, it may be that there were very few dinosaurs a million years ago. But that would require the population density to be so low that they would have died out long before they reached such a low density, unless they reproduced parthenogentically. But there are no reptiles known that reproduce that way, nor even any fish that are purely parthenogenic, for well-known reasons that are a direct product of the laws of probability. So your priors now have to involve the laws of probability being wrong. And so on.
Unfortunately for creationists and their ilk, Bayesian reasoning treats their silly ideas as ordinary propositions, and assigns all of them extremely low plausibilities using the ordinary machinery of Bayesian logic: state your assumptions, estimate your priors, incorporate your evidence, compute the posterior probability. Under that procedure creationism isn't even worth mentioning--the required priors are so dismally small that no amount of evidence short of God walking up and saying, "I done it" would be adequate to overcome them.
Blasphemy is a human right. Blasphemophobia kills.
It's easier to teach kids to memorize than to understand.
This is the only thing you wrote that I disagree with. Kids naturally want to learn
I don't mean it is easier for the kids. It's easier for the teacher because they don't have to put in significant effort or actually engage the students. It's easier to just read from the text. Handling the discipline issues that arise from the regiment are old hat.
I agree with your point, but the status quo is almost always easier.
And I submit that you're wrong.
Willful ignorance of irrelevant or distasteful information is completely harmless or even beneficial even discounting limited brain storage as a limiting factor.
For example I'm willfully ignorant of the processes through which celebrities are selected for awards Emmys or Grammies or whatever. Because it's not relevant to me and I don't care one whit about a bunch of socialites jacking each other off.
I'm willfully ignorant of the finer points of racial epithets because I find racism to be ignorant, stupid and contemptible.
I'm extremely willfully ignorant of the best way to go about sexually abusing another person, because....well, if I have to explain that to you...
It's one thing for a fictitious character to discount factual celestial science - it's entertaining and gets a reaction out of the reader, which is the point - but it's entirely another for a real person to deliberately remain ignorant of basic facts of the universe we live in.
Question everything
Yep and most geeks would have noticed the grammatical error because they know 47% is the wrong answer for the water question. However this geek is going to nitpick their damned servey and say that particular question is geography not science! Like the ability to spell correctly it's purely a function of memory.
/pimp_slap
Bullshit serveys such as this one do nothing except reinforce the notion that science is some sort of dictionary of unrelated factoids that one can pick and choose from to suit their needs. I think the survey authors need to update their stats and count themselves amoungst those who do not understand the meaning of the term "basic science".
OTOH the Earth orbit question is a "basic science" question since it requires basic knowledge of how our calendar is related to celestial mechanics. I have no idea about the other questions since I didn't RTFA.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Those who do not study a foreign language will always have worse grammar because it's easier to understand the purpose of grammar when comparing two languages together. Without a reference point native speakers will not have the intuition to check their sentences. I learned a lot more about English in my Spanish class than anywhere else.
"I only speak the truth"
Karma: null(Mostly affected by an unassigned variable)
Aaaaaagh!
"I only speak the truth"
Karma: null(Mostly affected by an unassigned variable)
Scientifically accepted does not always equal truth, but we can safely regard a scientific theory as truth when we have enough evidence to demonstrate the probability of that theory being wrong is close to zero.
Merit pay wont matter or will make matters worse.
NCLB. The federal government is only measuring success, and rewarding it, for reading and math scores. This means that the schools will not give teachers enough time to adequately cover science and social studies. In Michigan that state does not even give schools adequate tests for measuring any scientific knowledge.