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Canada Tops List of Most Science-Literate Countries
An anonymous reader writes "A recent survey of scientific education and attitudes showed the Canadian population to have the highest level of scientific literacy in the world, as well as the fewest reservations about the direction of scientific progress (full report). A key factor is a high level of scientific knowledge among the general population (despite comparatively low numbers of people employed in STEM fields). Another is a higher level of comfort with choosing rationality over religious belief — only 25% of Canadians surveyed agreed with the statement "We depend too much on science and not enough on faith", as opposed to 55% in the U.S. and 38% in the E.U.
I also wonder if the vaunted Canadian healthcare system plays a role. When advances in medical science are something you automatically expect to benefit from personally if you need them, they look a lot better than when you have to scramble just to cover your bills for what we have now."
I also wonder if the vaunted Canadian healthcare system plays a role. When advances in medical science are something you automatically expect to benefit from personally if you need them, they look a lot better than when you have to scramble just to cover your bills for what we have now."
I am canadian, and if we are the most scientiically literate. I really pity the rest of you.
They think maple syrup grows on trees!
The current regime seems pretty anti-science though, unless it is directly related to increasing tar sands oil extraction efficiency? http://science.slashdot.org/st... http://news.slashdot.org/story...
"[O]nly 25% of Canadians surveyed agreed with the statement "We depend too much on science and not enough on faith", as opposed to 55% in the U.S. and 38% in the E.U."
Seriously? I was expecting a survey of scientific literacy to be about, you know, scientific literacy, not asking people the relative merits, as it were, between science and religion.
I'm not sure how this proves, quote, "Canada is a nation of science geeks." It's a complete non-sequitor. It doesn't even match the data, in which 58% of Canadians couldn't understand basic science concepts from newspaper stories, and in which Canada ranks 19th out of 29th in science degrees (by percentage).
Contrawise, Americans, sure, value religion probably more highly than other countries, and might even think that we could use more religion, but that is not a question of scientific literacy or attitudes towards science in and of itself. It seems to presuppose the long-discredited Conflict Thesis, which states that religion and science are inherently always in conflict.
The clincher for me - which indisputably shows the authors' bias - is that Canada ranks #1 in people protesting GMOs and nuclear power, and the authors consider this a good sign that their population is scientifically literate!
The authors should get back to euphorically sniffing their own armpits, and stop pretending to be scientists. Or whatever you call the people that work at science museums.
They say
I also wonder if the vaunted Canadian healthcare system plays a role. When advances in medical science are something you automatically expect to benefit from personally if you need them, they look a lot better than when you have to scramble just to cover your bills for what we have now.
but it sounds as if they're comparing the Canadian system for paying for health care with the US system, as opposed to the systems used in for example, Western Europe.
That man ordered irreplaceable scientific records be taken to the dump, destroying generations of scientific data. He's closed musea in order to build up fake War of 1812 war memorials. He's closed the scientific lakes project that was the programme responsible for identifying acid rain thanks to decades of data.
This man has been utterly destructive to Canada's intellectual property, its scientific pedigree and ability to generate new knowledge. Moreover, he's gagged scientists from discussing their own peer-revirewed data. Instead, political interns get to act as mouthpieces.
Anyone in the scientific or technical community can't help but see how destructive Harper-ism is to Canada's ability to create the next generation of knowledge.
---- The above post was generated by the Turing Institute. Maybe.
Now look across the border and see the non wealthy Canadians who still get treated* without going bankrupt just because they got sick. Who don't have to worry about what a trip to the doctor will cost when they need treatment. (*Get treated, including preventative care, without having to wait until problems become serious enough to justify a trip to the emergency room.)
The US health care system may be really good for the wealthy, but it really is not so good for the non wealthy people who can't afford it. We socialist Canadians think everyone should have health care.
Bill 101 is necessary to preserve French in a sea of anglophones. Look at francophone communities outside of Quebec. Their numbers are diminishing. Unfortunately, we have to impose regulations to protect our language. You also have to remember that not long ago, almost all of the wealth of the province belonged to anglophones. People think that stuff is ancient history, but my grand-parents can tell you about living in a Quebec dominated by an english minority. Bill 101 exists in part to ensure that francophones will never again be second class citizens. They can get overzealous at times, but if you spend any amount of time on slashdot, you know government fuck ups are a reality. The bill does a lot more good than harm. I am disappointed that so many anglophones seem to think Quebecois are some kind of strange animal, that we act irrationally, when if you understand where we're coming from and what our values are, our actions make perfect sense. I think if bilingualism was more common in the country, then people could read french media for themselves and realize that we make a lot of sense, rather than getting second hand information with some bias thrown in. That would solve a lot of issues.
As for the attitude you got, that's a pretty unfortunate reality of a polarized country. There's generally more resentment amongst the older folks or the less educated, or those who are less in contact with anglophones. We're like 2 generations away from having taken control of our province, so it'll take a little while for that stuff to die down. The important thing is that these people are not given a podium and do not have an opinion that is considered mainstream, so their ignorance will disappear with them. Reading newspapers from other provinces, and having lived in Toronto for a while, the anti-Quebec sentiment, while not shared by every Canadian, seems a lot more mainstream...
Anyway, I'm sorry people treated you badly, but I thought the comment I was replying to was an all too common gratuitous attack. When people start talking about which region of a country is "the worst", you know that this way lies terrible generalization. You don't add to it by bashing your favourite target...
" the vaunted Canadian healthcare system"
- 17 hour average wait time in the Emergency Room
While I can't argue with you about the other ones, this one here is utter bullshit. If you stumble into the Emergency Room with an emergency, you will be treated accordingly. What people complain about is having to wait 17 hours in the ER because they sprained an ankle.
On one occasion, I ended up in the ER with a life-threatening acute heart condition. I was brought in an ambulance, and the doctor was actually waiting for me rather than me waiting for him... that's like negative wait time. On a second occasion (not so long after the first episode), I also had heart troubles but I managed to get to the ER on my own, and the nurse that does the triage sent me right into a room where a doctor arrived within 2 minutes. That is what the emergency room is about. Emergencies.
The fact that people end up in the ER for very trivial stuff is a symptom of a system that is utterly broken in many other ways (lack of family doctors, long waiting lists for specialists, and so on), but the ER itself is the one thing in the whole system that works exactly as intended, but it receives too much undeserved flak because that's what the population actually see, while they do not understand the failings of the bigger system above it.
Two trips to the ER which saved my life, a heart surgery that stabilized my condition, allows me a high quality of life and lets me contribute to society, all that without paying a dime. That is what the vaunted Canadian healthcare system is all about. By getting me back on my feet as a productive member of society, I have already paid back way more in income tax and other fiscal contributions than what the whole ordeal could have cost, so it is a net gain for society.
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