About 25% of Americans Don't Know the Earth Revolves Around the Sun

gigastar

Insert one-liner here.
Sep 13, 2010
4,419
0
0
Hawkeye21 said:
Also, how does one "kill viruses" anyway?
Best theoretical way is to damage the RNA within the virus, though this can yield mixed results depending on the damage done.

Hawkeye21 said:
Virus is a single organic molecule, it's not even an organism of any description. It isn't even alive.
Well first up, viruses are not a single molecule. Most viruses consist of a coat of protein, a strand of RNA and a bunch of enzymes that will mess with the target cell in a way that it produces as many copies of the overall virus as possible.

And second, viruses are only considered to be not alive as they dont fulfill scientific guidelines on what is alive. However its mindless drive to reproduce itself makes it only slightly below most kinds of insect, whose nervous system works by holding thier body back from what its made to do.
 

Comocat

New member
May 24, 2012
382
0
0
I saw this and my first thought was basically that all this shows was that the survey was meaningless. I have hard time believing half of Americans know about something as useless to daily life as the big bang, yet less than a quarter of Americans realize the earth moves around the sun.
 

BoogieManFL

New member
Apr 14, 2008
1,284
0
0
I can't imagine how such results are possible. I knew the answers when I was in 5th grade, if not earlier. And that viruses are different from bacteria.
 

Cecilo

New member
Nov 18, 2011
330
0
0
This got me thinking, and it's funny how they only report on Americans, but here, http://www.scienceinschool.org/print/165

The Amount of Europeans that believe the Sun revolves around the Earth, is 29%, 4 percent more than Americans. The Survey is more extensive for them as well,

You should check it out, apparently it isn't just America that isn't as intelligent as we would all like.
 

ryo02

New member
Oct 8, 2007
819
0
0
two of these will be disagreed with via belief and one genuinely isn't particularly common knowledge is someone trying to create biased results on purpose???.
 

Baresark

New member
Dec 19, 2010
3,908
0
0
VanQ said:
Australia is considered one of the smarter nations, but I'm almost certain that it's just a few very bright people carrying the weight of a very dumb overall populace. Most people don't care to educate themselves on matters more difficult than the location of the nearest pub.
I couldn't agree more. People are like, "It's only a theory, it hasn't been proven!"
- it's known by anyone who is familiar with actual science and the scientific method, that a theory can only be disproven. If it exists, it exists simply because it was an observed and tested phenomenon.

OT:

How stupid can the average person be. This is why there is a large scientific literacy movement in the US. I think that it would have been much worse if those questions were asked 10 years ago than it was today. Of course, the religious nuts see this as an attack on their religion, which makes them look worse and consequently sound much more unintelligent.

I also realize that I am living in an area where scientific literacy is much higher than a place like Alabama (just as an example, not knocking them at all). I live in New Jersey, we are very metropolitan and have a tendency to be better educated in terms of that area of education. But, people can naturally be dumbasses with it too. If I was asked to answer a few quick survey questions when I was running around and they asked about antibiotics killing viruses: I would have said yes on the fly... then kicked myself for sounding stupid, 30 seconds after walking away. But the Sun revolving around the earth... There is no one alive today who was around when the opposite belief was held... there is little excuse for that.
 

rtazen

New member
Feb 17, 2014
1
0
0
The total lack of data in this article was pretty pathetic. I "get" that it is trendy to kick America and all, but seriously....let's at least show our sources. As an American, I am amused by the folks in other countries that point at 'merica and make fun. I love that people freely bash those who follow their faith as well, how inclusive!

Seriously, those without shit on their sneakers, take the first step on the carpet.
 

CriticalMiss

New member
Jan 18, 2013
2,024
0
0
Gary Thompson said:
CriticalMiss said:
The religious don't have a 'live and let live' mentality though, otherwise there wouldn't be so much persecution of people for not living to the standards set out in their choice of fairy tale book.
Tell you the truth, if douchebags like you are supposed to be the future, than I don't want any of that.

Also the young Earth creationists are very much a minority when it comes to religion, but you'd rather just make snarky remarks about religion than actually do any research, and they're supposed to be the "ignorant" ones.
Right, because condemning people for loving people of the same gender isn't 'douchey' or 'ignorant' at all.
 

Gary Thompson

New member
Aug 29, 2011
84
0
0
Scrumpmonkey said:
i wouldn't consider myself an atheist, i used to class myself as religious, and being a Christian =\= an excuse to be in denial about basic scientific ideas. Here in the UK most Christians would be horrified by the mutation of belief being peddled. Scientific denial is a feature of a fundamental minority and should be rooted out. I've heard creationists argue that thermodynamics disprove unrelated areas of genetics. This isn't a matter of insensitivity, religious beliefs are not incompatible with science. Acting like they are makes man Christians more angry than even atheists because it is miss using their beliefs. There is such a thing as a modern minded religion.
Yeah, basically this, sorry for insulting you earlier, I'm not religious but I do get pissed off when people try to mock and generalize the beliefs of the majority of humanity for their own amusement.

I have a soft spot for religion, but I'm too much of a skeptic to have too much faith in anything really.
 

Gary Thompson

New member
Aug 29, 2011
84
0
0
CriticalMiss said:
Right, because condemning people for loving people of the same gender isn't 'douchey' or 'ignorant' at all.
What does that have to do with the topic?

You're just generalizing and putting up straw men, saying all religious people condemn gays is like saying all atheists are arrogant douchebags.
 
Jan 29, 2009
3,328
0
0
Careful with that bias there- you went up and stated that %25 of people living in the United States did not know the Earth revolves around the sun. There is no comparison here except an implied matter of fact statement that everyone should know this. What are these statistics in other parts of the world?
 

setting_son

New member
Apr 14, 2009
224
0
0
Hawkeye21 said:
There was a different survey a couple of years back, one of the questions was: If Earth revolves around the Sun, how much time does it take to make a full revolution? Around 30% answered one day.

Also, how does one "kill viruses" anyway? Virus is a single organic molecule, it's not even an organism of any description. It isn't even alive.
Actually there's ongoing debate as to whether or not a virus can be considered to be a life form or not. Simply put;

Arguments against - it is not alive because it doesn't possess the cellular machinery necessary to replicate itself unaided.

Arguments in favour - viruses are quite clearly a distinct species in their own right albeit not one that fits the classical definitions of life. Some would argue that since they do self replicate in the right circumstances they can be considered alive and an extreme example of obligate parasites.

A bit of nitpicking: Viruses are comprised of many, many molecules. A molecule is a term describing two or more atoms joined together in a chemical compound. Viruses are actually quite complex and consist of many molecules forming the structure of its RNA/DNA, protein coat, associated enzymes and other structural or functional elements.
 

Muspelheim

New member
Apr 7, 2011
2,023
0
0
rtazen said:
The total lack of data in this article was pretty pathetic. I "get" that it is trendy to kick America and all, but seriously....let's at least show our sources. As an American, I am amused by the folks in other countries that point at 'merica and make fun. I love that people freely bash those who follow their faith as well, how inclusive!

Seriously, those without shit on their sneakers, take the first step on the carpet.
Agreed. Now, I'm not opposed taking the piss out of der Amerikaner; when it is warranted. Like on the War On Terror, perhaps.
This particular case is just silly, because I'm prepared to bet that the figures will be very similar in whichever part of the world you'd run this survey in. It's meaningless, and is very poorly phrased. I wouldn't attach any real importance to this survey at all.

Not to mention, it's rather impossible to miss the fact that the United States is very, very big, and while there will be loads of poorly educated people, there will also be loads of very, very intelligent people. Something poorly done surveys like this one tend to miss.

Objectable said:

Oh, hell! What does that matter?! So we go around the sun! If we went around the moon or round and round the garden like a teddy bear, it wouldn't make any difference! All that matters to me is the work! Without that, my brain rots. Put that in your blog - or better still, stop inflicting your opinions on the world!
Attributed to St. Holmes. Patron Saint of Wankers and True Face of Our Time.

(Well, second to Dr. House)


(I must say, that's a lovely picture!)
 

oversoon

New member
Oct 12, 2013
51
0
0
90% of all statistics are bullshit... I have no trouble believing their are plenty of Americans who are that uneducated (trust me, I live in Texas) but sample groups never accurately reflect real population percentages.
 

NuclearKangaroo

New member
Feb 7, 2014
1,919
0
0
also the universe DID NOT start with an explosion, the big bang wasnt an explosion per se, just an event in which the universe expanded drastically from an infinitely small point
 

Tradjus

New member
Apr 25, 2011
273
0
0
Ok, so, while I appreciate the nature of a scientific survey as much as the next guy, I feel it's both misguided and arrogant to do this particular sort of test. For one, the origins of both our universe and our species are theories, which aren't -guesses- as some people like too assert, but also aren't ironclad, we don't -really- know, we create models of creation based on the best information we have. Second off, this questionnaire is super unprofessional if it didn't account for religious belief. I'm not religious myself, but I feel that categorizing them as "Wrong" about the foundations of the universe and our species is.. I don't want to say offensive, but definitely not something that should have been included in this study in my opinion.