1 in 4 Americans Unaware the Earth Orbits the Sun

[glenc]

1 in 4 Americans Apparently Unaware the Earth Orbits the Sun
And the fact that only 74 percent of participants knew that the Earth revolved around the sun is perhaps less alarming than the fact that only 48 percent knew that humans evolved from earlier species of animals.
Here’s the thing, though: Americans actually fared better than Europeans who took similar quizzes — at least when it came to the sun and Earth question. Only 66 percent of European Union residents answered that one correctly.
http://newsfeed.time.com/2014/02/16/...-orbits-earth/ (http://newsfeed.time.com/2014/02/16/1-in-4-americans-thinks-sun-orbits-earth/)

[Merlin66]

Hmmmm
Probably about the same %ages here in Australia.......

[Liz]

I agree Ken, probably worse!! :help:

[cometcatcher]

No mate, Australians believe the Earth revolves around a giant footy field! :P

[avandonk]

Some years ago I was at the Synchroton near Chicago and an engineer was complaining about the temperature of his pool after winter and how to heat it.

I told him about the aussie solution. Just put a huge spiral of poly pipe on your roof and pump the pool water through it with the pool pump.


Six months later I was there again. This same engineer told me you could not buy poly pipe all the way to Idaho as every man and his dog were doing it..

Bert

[Astro_Bot]

How do those people get through the school system like that?

[FlashDrive]

That's a sad state of affairs......one of the most ' learned ' bits of knowledge taught at School in the Science class...the Earth orbits the Sun...
That's common knowledge....

How ridiculous is that.....:screwy:

Flash....

[Pinwheel]

We have a Texan lady here in town about 50 years old and she had no idea that the USA & NASA had the Space Shuttle & no idea two of them had tragic accidents. Absolutely TRUE.:screwy:

[Astro_Bot]

On the subject of poor or misleading education .... :D

There's a funny scene in the film Clerks II where Randall (backwards baseball hat) is talking to Elias (cow-horned baseball hat). You think Elias is just a dork - probably a smart geek, actually - until about half way through the conversation ....

Clerks II - Pillowpants Scene (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7jMjwK2ELCU)

Caution: Rated MA15+ for coarse language
Please don't complain! If you can't stand coarse language, don't watch it!

[TrevorW]

Time to cull the gene pool :)

[tlgerdes]

My kids think the world revolves around them, no different really.

[ianB]

The earth orbits the sun! Boy i am learning something new every day.

[Baddad]

Come on guys, not everyone is blessed with a high IQ. :)Think about it. I understand that it is sad that we are not all on the same level. However, it is not viewed well if you put others down with derogatory comments.

We all rely on people of every different capability. Otherwise we would all be striving to become scientists or engineers and there'd be no indians.

What limited knowledge others may have does not impact to a large degree on progress or really the personal lives of the more fortunate. Its up to the upper echelon to make allowances and design safe modes for all.

"Ignorance is bliss" If you don't know about it, it can't hurt you. And it don't really hurt you.

Post the reports by all means. It is beneficial to everyone. knowledge is always good. Being judgemental is a human thing. Be aware of yourself. Others judge you by your comments.

Many people do not have the same athletic wisdom----. No!---Not correct. ---- Athletic mental capacity. So next time ask yourself who is failing. The correct answer is no one. 'Cause you are human.

Its a sad thing that so many people are not aware of the Earth's movement around the Sun. Yes I agree. But 300 or 400 years ago the cleverest of men were wrong. They even believed the Sun was a huge ball of burning coal. In time research changed that.

That is the base of my point.

We all form our opinions from what we know and how well we can assimilate the facts we are presented with.

Be appreciative of what ability you have. Be aware of the failings of others and be prepared to make allowances.

Cheers:)

I like this forum. It is so good to learn from or discuss issues with very bright people.

[Baddad]

No way man! You can't tell me that the Earth goes 'round the Sun.???
Are you blind?? Look out your window in the morning. The sun is East. In the afternoon it is West.

Did you feel any movement? NO! So I am right All the rest are wrong.

Think about it. The reference point.

You can not say I am wrong. For simplicity. Yes, the Earth goes 'round the sun, Rotation, night & day, blah blah.

Everything rotates around the Earth. The stars, the Sun & the Moon.
Install the Sun as the reference point. The Earth's Moon becomes a "Wanderer"

How does the Solar System appear in relation to the Milky Way?

Okay too heavy, brain drain. Gee's I love astronomy there is so much in complexities.

Cheers

[mithrandir]

Marty, if it was just a matter if intellect we could excuse those people who don't have the ability to handle the facts.
What we should not excuse is the "educators" who willfully spout lies and half truths to students.
Sure a few hundred years ago people had the wrong idea about which of the Earth and Sun orbited the other. We've had hundreds of years for educators to teach the Copernican theory.
Yes, Lord Kelvin thought the sun was a ball of burning coal, and hence could not be more than a few hundred thousand years old, but he had not heard of nuclear fusion.

[barx1963]

Sorry Marty, but intellect has nothing to do with it! Without being unkind a person would have to be spectacularly dumb not to be able to assimilate a fact such as that.
What it indicates is a number of things, poor education, a culture of revelling in ignorance and society stamping on childrens natural curiosity about the world.

So I don't blame the number who don't know that the Earth revolves around the Sun but blame the situation that puts them in that position of ignorance.

Malcolm

[cometcatcher]

I wonder what the other 7 questions were and how they fared with them?

Apparently 22 million Americans believe the moon landing was faked.

http://politix.topix.com/story/5398-22-million-americans-believe-the-moon-landing-was-faked

[noeyedeer]

if the lie detecter test is anything to go by, if you believe it to be true .. No matter what ... it's true ...

matt

[Larryp]

Quite right, Malcolm
I remember when my step-son first came to Australia at age 15 and he was struggling to learn English as well as do normal schooling.
I offered to help him with his science studies, and instead of the normal physics, chemistry and general scientific knowledge, all he was being taught was environmental science, some of which is open for debate.
It doesn't surprise me at all that people don't know earth revolves around the sun-particularly if you don't teach them!

[Pinwheel]

You're right who would work in the call centers to phone you right on dinner time...:rofl::D

[Barrykgerdes]

I don't understand how all you "know alls" arrive at the conclusion that the Earth goes around the Sun.

I just went out side and the Earth is definitely not moving. It is a nice stable flat surface. If it was moving we would surely lose our balance.

Therefore all those objects, moon, Sun, Stars etc must be the ones moving and going around us ;):shrug:

Barry

[cometcatcher]

Wait... this may explain my dizzy spells!

[Pinwheel]

Great more flat Earthers to convert...:screwy:

It's a well documented fact that the earth is hanging in an empty glass sphere with the stars & planets painted on the glass. The sooner you all except this, the sooner you all will sleep better...:rofl:

[OzStarGazer]

OMG :eyepop:

[traveller]

I am not really that surprised. Most US TV are commercial channels doing mass "entertainment" without any science/investigative content. There is a percentage of Americans that are very ill informed as a result (remember the % of Americans who cannot find Iraq on the map when the first Gulf War broke out?).
This is made even worse by those holding extremist view who insist on their "freedom of speech" as guaranteed by their constitution. As a result, we now see intelligent design mandated to be taught alongside evolution (because it's only a theory, right?).
As if that's not bad news enough, we are heading down that path, and fast. Just see the current debate in Vic re religious instruction classes in primary schools. Schools cannot refuse offers by bodies offering their students RI classes. We objected and withdrew our kids out of them, so they are now sitting outside during RI, doing "supervised activities".
Drives me to drink ;)
Bo

[cometcatcher]

With statistics like these, I now have this nagging feeling that I am blissfully unaware of something important in life that 75% of the rest of you take for granted. I'm just not sure what it is... :question:

[graham.hobart]

I thought the Earth was sitting on a giant turtle called Raphael :ship2:
Mork calling Orson come in Orson!
Graz
Seriously, though we should not judge anybody by a lack of opportunity in education, I agree it is appalling when the facts" are not offered in the first place.
What make's it terrible is then Government legislates this ignorance into policy.
Humans have an enquiring mind which should be fed and watered, not kept in the dark like the proverbial mushroom ....

[OzStarGazer]

:help:
http://www.businessinsider.com.au/only-6-in-10-australians-know-it-takes-a-year-for-the-earth-to-orbit-the-sun-2013-7#orbit

[Larryp]

Quite an indictment of our education system!

[hotspur]

That is not surprising-they are a bizzare nation,its like many of them live in the 1950's/60's,they are quite strange to try and do business with that's for sure.Its much easier to do business with people in Japan,U.K,South Africa.

Yet,at the same time,they best aircraft in the world-Boeing.A real conudrum of a country,all I can say,if you have to try and do business with them,try all the other countries on the planet first.

[OICURMT]

Technically, as the question was posed, has no correct answer.

The earth does not revolve around the sun and the sun does not revolve around the earrth. They both revolve around a common barycenter, whose location happens to be internal within the solar sphere.

OIC!

[stephenb]

Sorry by I don't believe it has anything to do with 'mental intellect' or whatever other labels you want to put on people. It comes down to rudimentary education. If children are taught the fundamentals of science, geography, nature, history etc they have a sound footing for all their knowledge base as they grow up to adulthood.

For example I was taught the basics of astronomy around grade 3 or 4, learning that 9 planets revolve around the sun, the sun is a star, man has walked on the moon, we are in a giant spinning top-like cloud called the Milky Way, etc etc etc. and I guarantee everyone of my generation who went through State school in Australia would have the same knowledge base today. Some of us have used it more than others, but the basic facts were taught in school.

It is unfortunate that other influences come into play such as the dogmatic, brainwashing pressures of creationism and religion, which in my opinion should be banned from all government schools.

Again, it comes down to instilling the fundamentals in basic education. Nothing more.

[strongmanmike]

As much as we astro loving people want to label it as stupidity or lack of education etc in my opinion it is a simple case of interest or more specifically a lack there of. If astronomical concepts even basic ones don't interest an individuals brain the information simply doesn't stick in the memory and this is pretty much the case with many things. I think it may well have lots to do with how an individuals brain is wired too for eg I can't for the life of me remember who sings what songs, even the popular hits and as for remembering the words of even world wide hits I am hopeless (not too bad with Italian Opera though :P), I have real trouble remembering names too which can be quite embarrassing sometimes :lol:...on the other hand and even though she is not a real muso or anything my wife hears a song once or twice and can sing much or all of it, she knows who sings what and remembers peoples names with amazing accuracy and is a born organiser, networker and facilitator who has organised the Prime Minister and setup complex businesses and facilities from scratch, so she is certainly no dummy.....she does however not know what orbits what or if I show her an H-alpha image of the sun she isn't sure what it is, has no idea which way north south east and west are, the fact that the sun rises in the east and sets in the west means little to her and this fact is not retained, she has trouble reading a map or interpreting house plans too

Strange but true :)

Mike

[h0ughy]

who cares - at least the bright ones put up nice expensive spacecraft for us to get images from ;) maybe the world is flat

[Peter Ward]

By definition, half of the population has an IQ below 100.

Secondly, you can be quite correct in taking a geocentric point of view and say the sun appears to go around the earth... but epicycles are so much harder to calculate :doh:

[Pinwheel]

I knew this guy who was very smart, had a very hi IQ, was a member of Mensa & made sure everyone knew it. However he had no employment prospects, no personality, & was the most disgusting excuse for a human being ever to breath the air. This of coarse has nothing to do with this discussion, I just wanted to share this with you & put this out there......:P

[Baddad]

There is much more that affects what knowledge and understanding a person gains through life.

Peter mentions IQ, Michael hits at interest and education. All certainly are factors.

I may add that the human brain in childhood learns faster. Also at that time children have much more enquiring minds. As we age that curiosity slows in most adults. However, read on.

From my own observations I believe that people endowed with a higher IQ tend to be more curious. They seem to need answers to questions that arise. This is only an opinion and not based on any research data.

I remember my pre-high school days. I was on the receiving end of spankings. Mother did not see the lesson value of me pulling apart the radio or electric shocking the pets and chickens with the hand generator out of an old telephone.

Most of my school friends did not share the sames interests. They would rather play sports than go looking for cool stuff.

There are many influencing factors, yes. Just be aware the majority of people do not share similar interests and by trying to involve them will only lead to disappointment. Its their loss, ignorance is bliss.

On the other hand it is a warm fuzzy feeling when someone new takes a special interest in your hobby. Most kids will, for the reasons I mentioned above.

Cheers

[Baddad]

Hi Doug,
Just read your post. exceptions and isolated cases will crop up.
I knew one similar. Another that I know of is exceptionally clever and bordering on autism.
Personality disorders may be right across the board. Not just isolated to specific groups.

Getting back to the subject. It is sad that so many people are endowed with so little knowledge. If you do nothing about it, don't knock it. You are part of the problem.
Be a teacher, and part of the solution. But be careful, some er,,, many do not want to learn. We can't do much about that.

Cheers

[5ash]

A more useful study (if you can call it useful?) would test different age groups with the same questions! I'm sure that would put the "cat among the pigeons " with some educationalists !
Philip

[Karls48]

And that seasons change on start of the month.

[sheeny]

There could well be shortcomings in our educations systems these days but I'm with Mike on this one. I know plenty of people who are smart, but they don't know the basic physics. In some cases, their education (via business school at high school level) did not offer them the opportunity to learn science, however, in most cases I've come across its because that's not what interests them.

Sometimes I've witnessed the same Eureka moment more than once... because it didn't interest them enough to retain that info.:shrug: I find it fascinating, 'cause to me its basic, but I guess there are things that don't interest me that I don't remember either... I can't think what... :lol:

Al.

[sheeny]

It wasn't until recently that I found out the rest of the world isn't the same and why. It always struck me as illogical, but apparently it goes back the early colonisation. The guards got their new summer uniforms at the start of December. Eventually, that was accepted locally as the start of summer.

Al.

[OICURMT]

The mean IQ changes over time (current mean is about 90). Test results are normalized to 100 such that in theory, half the population is above or below the median. This process is generally done through restandardization of the general test itself as the IQ of the total poplulation rises (an range of about 2-4 point per decade).

There's a pretty good site here (http://www.fourmilab.ch/documents/IQ/1950-2050/).

[Peter Ward]

Stanford-Binet tests, as many have suspected, favor WASP populations, hence it comes as no surprise to me that global IQ's may be dropping...as, indeed, global populations are changing.

Many IQ tests have a significant learning element, plus they may have minimal relevance to "what you need to survive" in a particular environment. (Judy Kearins did a cool study here when I was an undergrad)

Personally I'd like to see a "critical thought" index, that might measure an individual's ability to reason spin from fact, physical reality from a high likelyhood of injury or death......(eg speed doesn't kill..... rapid deceleration, however can hurt! )

[Karls48]

Thanks for info. I was always wondering why.

[OICURMT]

The notion of a "Critical Thought Index" sound like a great place to start, sort of "Darwinistic" by some measures though, as those who would more than likely fail the test have probably been eliminated from the gene pool... ;)

Rapid acceleration can kill as well, actually, any change in velocity sufficient to cause internal organs to deform to the point of failure (The engineer in me is coming out ... :lol:)

[glenc]

People and politicians need some understanding of science when they have to vote on issues that involve science.

[Pinwheel]

I question the method of I.Q testing "In the real world" as testing the intelligence of a university mind verse a county lad who never finished school. eg. A youngman out here showed me how too catch a Bardy grub out of a hole one metre underground to use it to catch a fish. I'd never seen anything like it! I would have staved to death in a survival senerio & he would have lived. You won't see this in any IQ test, & I'm guessing the psychologist would have staved too!

[multiweb]

hmm... in a survival scenario I'd eat the grub straight up. On the odd chance I might catch a fish with it....:)

[Pinwheel]

The correct response in a country IQ test would be too eat half the grub and catch the fish with the other half. This way you have an entre'e before the main coarse...:lol:

[sjastro]

Since IQ has come up in the discussion, does low IQ result in individuals thinking that climate change is a hoax, autism is caused by vaccination or the Earth is only 6000 years old to name a few?

And while we are at it why does it appear the necessary prerequisite for claiming the subject matter is wrong is to know absolutely nothing about the subject at hand. :shrug:

Unfortunately this type of behaviour seems to afflict a sizeable percentage of the population and if equated to the distribution of an IQ curve we are indeed in a lot of trouble.;)

Regards

Steven

[AstralTraveller]

Sorry to get off topic but this reminds me of a (somewhat) funny story about the legendary surveyor Len Beadell. Len surveyed most of the roads through the western deserts and was probably Australia's last explorer.

The minister who married him says that at the point where Len was told to take the ring in his right hand and put it on the bride's left hand he started with the ring in his left hand, realised that was wrong and moved it to his right hand. He then stood, flumoxed, unable to decide which of her hands he should take. Nerves had got the better of him. The minister said under his breath 'the one on the west' and Len was right. He put the ring on the correct finger and the ceremony continued.



You understand this may not be seen as a positive?

[TrevorW]

Americans are idiots look at the Obama, what moron would flirt with a blonde two seats from his wife,no less at someones funeral in sight of all those cameras so his antics and her disgust could be beamed across the world. Go figure and he is the President of that country what hope do the others have :screwy:

[Pinwheel]

I'd like to know this " Why does the phone always ring after you get into a bath".....:shrug:

[OICURMT]

Actually, I suspect that more and more people, regardless of IQ, understand that the climate is changing (as it always does)... the real question is whether there's an anthropogenic link or not.

Most deniers are claiming no link, which, in my opinion, flies in the face of the evidence.

As for Trevor's comment about idiotic American's, I'll ignore it, as you don't have look far to find flirtatious politicians on any continent... as far as the circumstance, that's a single point of view.:wink2:

Regards,
OIC!

[Barrykgerdes]

This discussion is getting a bit away from the original thread and moved to a discussion of IQ.

I earlier posted a rather facetious comment about the lack of knowledge that the earth revolves around the sun. Of the remaining 75% who do know, how many only know this because they remember what they were taught in school.

I would say that 99% of them have just accepted what they were told even when they looked up at a moving sky and saw it moving rather than themselves and wondered!

Put yourself in their place. Would you have known which was which without being told of knowledge that took thousands of years and many executions to be accepted by the world leaders and their subjects?

Barry

[sjastro]

Or why paper clips magically link up without any assistance.



Even on the subject of anthropogenic warming (or the lack of it), how many individuals base their opinions on the actual science.
There is a considerable disparity between the percentage of climate scientists that believe in anthropogenic warming compared to the general population. The general population is more likely to be swayed away from anthropogenic warming based on factors such as political ideology, standard of living issues and a good old dose of anti intellectualism. :)

Regards

Steven

[Pinwheel]

Recently on the SBS was a documentary about moving some aborigines from the crash or drop zone where rockets were to come down while testing from the Woomera rocket range. Now the aborigines had never seen White man, a truck or even metal.

As the doco progressed it was almost futile for white man to approach the natives because they though white man was a devil and he had the power to make rocks move & ride them. The rocks of coarse were the trucks.

The men sent to clear the area spent months tried in vain to make contact & move the aborigines. When they finally caught them the aborigines were absolutely terrified. So I guess the point is without being told the men were the same DNA as they are & the truck was a machine built from metal mined from the ground that ran on oil has nothing to do with ones IQ, it's life experiences & education that counts. I assume the aborigines in this example also thought the Sun orbits the Earth.