A new survey shows 1 in 4 Americans are unaware the Earth revolves around the sun.

 

(If you find any other amusing surveys of people, please post them here.)

That's not funny.

But I think it's about 1 in 10 think the world might be run by alien reptilian shape shifters, so.....

Sorry, it's 4% believe in the alien shape shifters & 7% aren't sure.

 

A poll last year on conspiracy theory acceptance.

http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/pdf/2011/PPP_Release_National_ConspiracyTheories_040213.pdf

I wonder what the actual question was. “Does the earth revolve around the sun - Yes or No?” would hopefully be answered correctly by more than 75% of people, but if you asked it in any manner of open ended ways I could see it confusing people.

Sorry, it's 4% believe in the alien shape shifters & 7% aren't sure.

 

A poll last year on conspiracy theory acceptance.

http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/pdf/2011/PPP_Release_National_ConspiracyTheories_040213.pdf

 

Can anyone really be sure, though?

 

I wonder what the actual question was. “Does the earth revolve around the sun - Yes or No?” would hopefully be answered correctly by more than 75% of people, but if you asked it in any manner of open ended ways I could see it confusing people.

 

According to The Telegraph

 

The question - "Does the Earth go around the Sun, or does the Sun go around the Earth" - was answered incorrectly by 26 per cent of respondents.

^That's just terrible.

I wonder how much of that result is traced to ignorance and how much is traced to religious obstinance (i.e. the notion of a earth centric universe)

why is this survey so surprising? We live in a culture in which "educators" and school policies, dictated by political correctness, are more focused on putting condoms on cucumbers than in teaching basic facts. This is the result. Go figure.

According the study, only 66% got it right in the EU, 70% in India, 72% in Malaysia and 86% in South Korea.

 

United States at 74%

 

 

Page 23 has the questions and results

http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/seind14/content/chapter-7/c07.pdf

why is this survey so surprising? We live in a culture in which "educators" and school policies, dictated by political correctness, are more focused on putting condoms on cucumbers than in teaching basic facts. This is the result. Go figure.

 

Are you honestly suggesting that sex-ed classes and political correctness are to blame?  You do realize this is a survey of all Americans, not just the ones that were educated on safe sex practices?  Do you think the results would have been better in 1950?  C'mon.... you're not that stubborn...

"educators" and school policies...are more focused on putting condoms on cucumbers than in teaching basic facts.

 

You actually believe that?

I'd like to see a survey of how many Americans actually believe that.  The results might be even more disturbing than this earth/sun thing

why is this survey so surprising? We live in a culture in which "educators" and school policies, dictated by political correctness, are more focused on putting condoms on cucumbers than in teaching basic facts. This is the result. Go figure.

 

Perhaps more to the point, they don't want to damage "self esteem" by saying "that's a wrong answer".  Math and science have right and wrong answers. 

why is this survey so surprising? We live in a culture in which "educators" and school policies, dictated by political correctness, are more focused on putting condoms on cucumbers than in teaching basic facts. This is the result. Go figure.

 

Perhaps more to the point, they don't want to damage "self esteem" by saying "that's a wrong answer".  Math and science have right and wrong answers. 

 

You mean there aren't 2 sides to math and sciences problems!? That's not fair and balanced! Many don't agree that 2+2=4.

why is this survey so surprising? We live in a culture in which "educators" and school policies, dictated by political correctness, are more focused on putting condoms on cucumbers than in teaching basic facts. This is the result. Go figure.

 

Are you honestly suggesting that sex-ed classes and political correctness are to blame?  You do realize this is a survey of all Americans, not just the ones that were educated on safe sex practices?  Do you think the results would have been better in 1950?  C'mon.... you're not that stubborn...

Considering that now the overwhelming majority (I think it's in the 90th-something percent range) of American adults are high school graduates, this is inexcusable. The results in 1950 probably would have probably been worse overall, but among HS grads it would have been higher. Back then there were real academic standards for getting a HS diploma and it was a real accomplishment to do so; unlike today, in which "students" are rubber-stamped through the system by virtue of just showing up (sadly nowhere is this more true than my own alma mater, Thomas W. Harvey, where the graduates who really do excel are looked at askance in the broader world by virtue having attended a school with such lax standards). But this has happened in schools everywhere, and has subsequently led to the cheapening of college degrees (grade inflation is rampant even in the Ivy League. Do that many Princeton students really earn straight A's as a matter of course??). As a matter of fact, the HS grad of 1950 was probably more prepared and more capable of critical thinking than the average college grad of 2012 (and going back many years before that).

 

 

According the study, only 66% got it right in the EU, 70% in India, 72% in Malaysia and 86% in South Korea.

 

United States at 74%

 

 

Page 23 has the questions and results

http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/seind14/content/chapter-7/c07.pdf

 

Thanks for finding and linking to that.  I would think that this question is the only one that religion has a noticeable effect on:

 

"Human beings, as we know them today, developed from earlier species of animals."

 

Other than that question, the US typically outperforms the other countries surveyed.

^^Yeah.... maybe we should make them take a test or something to get that diploma  :roll:

 

 

Math and science have right and wrong answers. 

 

Evidence is so much more persuasive than "kids these days..." grumbling, which I give no credence.

Civics quiz, been out of college for 25 years and got 26/33 correct which is better than college freshman and seniors.

Don't cheat.

 

http://www.isi.org/quiz.aspx?q=FE5C3B47-9675-41E0-9CF3-072BB31E2692

http://www.isi.org/quiz.aspx?q=FE5C3B47-9675-41E0-9CF3-072BB31E2692

 

•Average scores for the 25 selective colleges — chosen for type, geographic location and U.S. News & World Report ranking — were much higher than the 25 randomly selected schools for both freshmen (56.6% vs. 43.7%) and seniors (59.4% vs. 48.4%), but the elite schools didn't add as much civic knowledge between the freshman and senior years. At elite schools, the seniors averaged 2.8 points higher than the freshmen vs. 4.7 points for the randomly selected schools.

 

•Harvard seniors had the highest average at 69.6%, 5.97 points higher than its freshmen but still a D+. A Harvard senior posted the only perfect score.

 

•In general, the better a college's U.S. News & World Report ranking, the less its civic literacy gain. Yale, with the highest-scoring freshmen (68.94%), along with Princeton, Duke and Cornell, were among eight schools with freshmen outscoring seniors.

 

•The average senior had taken four college courses in history, economics or political science and scored 3.8 points higher than the average freshman, a civic knowledge gain of about one point per course.

 

•Raw scores did not correlate to voting or civic participation, but the more seniors outscored their school's freshman average, the more likely they were to vote and be involved in civic activities.

 

"Several of the colleges at the lower end of our survey are some of the most prestigious in the country, with average tuition, room and board somewhere north of $40,000 a year," Bunting says. "These are the schools, although their stated mission is to help prepare active citizens, that are the most derelict in their responsibility."

 

While freshmen at elite colleges tended to score higher to start with, there is not much of a "ceiling effect" in which gains get harder to make closer to the top, as their scores are still not that high, says Kenneth Dautrich of the University of Connecticut's Department of Public Policy, which administered the study.

http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/education/2007-09-17-history-test_n.htm

^ I got a 31, and I've been out of college for 6 years, though I have haven't taken anything civics-related since high school.  That quiz has a very strong capitalist bias.  I felt like several questions were more opinion-based than factual, but I was able to guess at what the "correct" answer was.

why is this survey so surprising? We live in a culture in which "educators" and school policies, dictated by political correctness, are more focused on putting condoms on cucumbers than in teaching basic facts. This is the result. Go figure.

 

Perhaps more to the point, they don't want to damage "self esteem" by saying "that's a wrong answer".  Math and science have right and wrong answers. 

 

What do you two imagine schools are like today?  I graduated five years ago and experienced a way different situation than you like to portray.

 

Also, I got a 28.  The ones I missed were my second options and, I felt, that some of the free-market questions could barely be considered 'Civics'

I got 28/33. Not bad I suppose.

I got a 27 (82%) but I'm afraid that's only because I studied business, as in if I would have studied something else I would have done worse. I get the feeling that someone in STEM would get really rocked at that test.

I got 27 as well. Some of the questions were very difficult. I was not 100% on all of the questions I got right, but I could almost always limit a question down to 2 answers. Engineering background.

27

Cumulatively, about 1 year of tech college, 40th anniversary of high school graduation this year.

I think 75% and up is a good score.

Well I guess I scored the worse of all, 23.  I missed most of mine on the history questions or constitution or law questions, I have no idea what phrase was attributed to who, etc.

 

I got all the other questions right regarding policy except the very last one:

 

If Taxes equal government spending, then:

 

I wrote then government debt is zero, which does make sense, IF it was read in a different way or was explained:  If Tax Collections equal government spending --- Then of course Government debt is zero, over a given time, correct?

 

Why I say this?  Because Taxes to the government is revenue, and spending to the government is expenses.  If Revenues = Expenses then debt = 0. . . .  That is how I read it.

 

They had the correct answer as tax per person equals government spending per person.  I guess it just depends on how you read that question?  I guess I don't agree with the basis of that question or what it is trying to say.

Well I guess I scored the worse of all, 23.  I missed most of mine on the history questions or constitution or law questions, I have no idea what phrase was attributed to who, etc.

 

I got all the other questions right regarding policy except the very last one:

 

If Taxes equal government spending, then:

 

I wrote then government debt is zero, which does make sense, IF it was read in a different way or was explained:  If Tax Collections equal government spending --- Then of course Government debt is zero, over a given time, correct?

 

Why I say this?  Because Taxes to the government is revenue, and spending to the government is expenses.  If Revenues = Expenses then debt = 0. . . .  That is how I read it.

 

They had the correct answer as tax per person equals government spending per person.  I guess it just depends on how you read that question?  I guess I don't agree with the basis of that question or what it is trying to say.

 

I picked the same wrong Tax-Debt answer as you.

ditto

^The issue is that revenue can equal expenses, and the US can still be in debt. You are thinking of deficit. The US has something like a $17 Trillion debt, but "only" a $643 Billion deficit (and it is declining). So we are currently adding to our debt, but we are slowing the pace at which we are doing so in the hopes of eventually reaching a point where we can pay off the debt we have accumulated.

29 out of 33, but I'd argue that several that I guessed "correctly" the answer should have been "none of the above".

 

As for the original survey, I'd have been thrown by the fact that technically both the Earth and the Sun orbit around the center of mass of the solar system which while in close proximity to the sun isn't the same as saying the Earth goes round the Sun. But as you can see I'm a nerd that tends to over-think things like this.

The difference is between the words debt and deficit. Just because government had a balanced fiscal year one year doesn't mean it has no previous debt.

 

edit: lammi beat me to it.

The difference is between the words debt and deficit. Just because government had a balanced fiscal year one year doesn't mean it has no previous debt.

 

edit: lammi beat me to it.

 

Word

32/33. It's fairly easy to "guess" the correct answer for a lot of those questions even if you really don't know much about the topic at hand. For example I know next to nothing about philosophy, but most of the answers didn't make much sense in context.  It's really about reading the question and figuring out exactly what the language is asking... usually there's only one or two logical answers to questions like these. Though I just finished taking all my architecture registration exams so I've gotten pretty good at multiple choice test technique, and have thus started to doubt the results of multiple choice tests in general.

^The issue is that revenue can equal expenses, and the US can still be in debt. You are thinking of deficit. The US has something like a $17 Trillion debt, but "only" a $643 Billion deficit (and it is declining). So we are currently adding to our debt, but we are slowing the pace at which we are doing so in the hopes of eventually reaching a point where we can pay off the debt we have accumulated.

 

Yeah I thought about that and realized I was thinking of deficit.

In this context though, wouldn't a better answer than the correct one be Government Deficit equals 0, not taxes per person equals spending per person?  Just seems an odd answer IMO.

 

Oh and by the way guys please stop adding 5 points to your score, not cool ;-)

32/33.  Only one I didn't get was...The Puritans.

31 of 33- missed the one about FDR and the Supreme Court, and the taxes/debt one.

31/33 I blew the Gettysburg address and levee questions. I'll admit I guessed on the Jeffersons Letters question.

Ram23 makes a great point about  understanding the mechanics of a multiple choice test. I wonder how people in the general population know all the tricks of multiple choice tests and how that affects the overall scores?

So, we all scored higher than the Harvard Sr. average?  seems fishy.

Well...I'd like to take pride in my website for having the best thinkers in Ohio.

 

Unless you want to be BANNED Whipjacka!!!  :whip:

Civics quiz, been out of college for 25 years and got 26/33 correct which is better than college freshman and seniors.

Don't cheat.

 

http://www.isi.org/quiz.aspx?q=FE5C3B47-9675-41E0-9CF3-072BB31E2692

 

I got 32/33.

 

Missed this one:  What was the source of the following phrase: “Government of the people, by the people, for the people”?

Classic Lincoln baby!

Civics quiz, been out of college for 25 years and got 26/33 correct which is better than college freshman and seniors.

Don't cheat.

 

http://www.isi.org/quiz.aspx?q=FE5C3B47-9675-41E0-9CF3-072BB31E2692

 

I got 32/33.

 

Missed this one:  What was the source of the following phrase: “Government of the people, by the people, for the people”?

That is very impressive N. Congrats

Yeah I thought about that and realized I was thinking of deficit.

In this context though, wouldn't a better answer than the correct one be Government Deficit equals 0, not taxes per person equals spending per person?  Just seems an odd answer IMO.

 

That was kind of a trick question, in that it was a more of a math problem. Also the debt/deficit thing made that answer look appealing.

 

That is very impressive N. Congrats

 

Thanks! Looks like ColDay and Ram did the same. Process of elimination helped a lot.

 

Classic Lincoln baby!

 

Mother f'ers act like they forgot about Abe.

why is this survey so surprising? We live in a culture in which "educators" and school policies, dictated by political correctness, are more focused on putting condoms on cucumbers than in teaching basic facts. This is the result. Go figure.

 

Perhaps more to the point, they don't want to damage "self esteem" by saying "that's a wrong answer".  Math and science have right and wrong answers. 

 

You mean there aren't 2 sides to math and sciences problems!? That's not fair and balanced! Many don't agree that 2+2=4.

 

There have actually been legislative efforts to decree  pi to be equal to 3.0.

I hit a 33, the only one that gave me pause was the Plato/Aristotle/Aquinas one, which didn't really fit the others.  It probably helps that the ISI is politically conservative, to say the least.

I hit a 33, the only one that gave me pause was the Plato/Aristotle/Aquinas one, which didn't really fit the others.  It probably helps that the ISI is politically conservative, to say the least.

DINGDINGDINGDINGDINGDINGDING!!!!

 

We have a winner! Sorry, I don't have a prize for you.

I hit a 33, the only one that gave me pause was the Plato/Aristotle/Aquinas one, which didn't really fit the others.  It probably helps that the ISI is politically conservative, to say the least.

 

I got them all too, but it took some educated guesses on the Puritans and philosophers. So many of those questions were oddly worded and I would definitely question the relevance of many of them to good citizenship.

 

I'm pretty sure I would have done worse when I was in college in the 1990s.

why is this survey so surprising? We live in a culture in which "educators" and school policies, dictated by political correctness, are more focused on putting condoms on cucumbers than in teaching basic facts. This is the result. Go figure.

 

 

What do you two imagine schools are like today?  I graduated five years ago and experienced a way different situation than you like to portray.

 

 

wait a minute, you mean the condoms-on-cucumbers thing doesn't happen? I should have known intuitively that something so silly-sounding and outrageous was an urban myth concocted by the vast right-wing conspiracy! (note to self: stop listening to talk radio :x)