NSF Report Flawed; Americans Do Not Believe Astrology Is Scientific

RichDiesal writes "A new report (PDF) from the National Science Foundation, which we discussed a few days ago, states that roughly 40% of Americans believe astrology to be scientific. This turns out to be false; most of those apparently astrology-loving Americans have actually confused astrology with astronomy. In a 100-person Mechanical Turk study with a $5 research budget, I tested this by actually asking people to define astrology. Among those that correctly defined astrology, only 10% believe it to be scientific; among those that confused astrology for astronomy, 92% believe 'astrology' to be scientific."

Comments

Re:Really good question

[idontgno]

If you have the good sense to see the meta-story, it's unchanged: "Americans are dumb".

But I know that subtext is pretty much lost on a large portion of the borderline-Aspie /. population, so I can understand your position.