One in four Americans don't know...

EdFred said:
He's a scientist, he's held to higher standards. Oh, and guess what, 450km from the center is guess where...still inside the sun. So it orbits....dun dun dun...the sun.
Click to expand...

Yes, and you chose to nitpick a term, and make a point in a demeaning and condescending way, a point that I will add had already been pointed out.

So, if you need to thump your chest and make yourself feel better, good on ya. But if you need to nitpick technical terms from a particular minor branch of physics to do so, I'm not that impressed.
 
EdFred said:
Speculative. Depends on the shape of the universe - which is still undetermined.
Click to expand...

I'm not aware of any research, regardless of whether the shape of space-time is flat, has positive curvature, or negative curvature, that suggests that there is a centre to it.
 
DavidWhite said:
I were in the homeschool and I know them there electrons be negative

Next thing we hear gon' be that the earth ain't flat. Haw!
Click to expand...

Pilots are in the upper percentiles of knowledge of STEM (Science Technology Engineering Math) so the fact that 99.9% here have knowledge of basic principles is not statistically relevant. At my A&P school, 25% cannot easily convert feet to inches, let alone talk about basic principles of science. I think they are more representative of the population at large.
 
JeffDG said:
Yes, and you chose to nitpick a term, and make a point in a demeaning and condescending way, a point that I will add had already been pointed out.

So, if you need to thump your chest and make yourself feel better, good on ya. But if you need to nitpick technical terms from a particular minor branch of physics to do so, I'm not that impressed.
Click to expand...

Hey, if someone is going to play the I'm smarter than thou card, they better get it right.


JeffDG said:
I'm not aware of any research, regardless of whether the shape of space-time is flat, has positive curvature, or negative curvature, that suggests that there is a centre to it.
Click to expand...

I don't know if an oil worker in North Dakota took a dump this morning or not, but it doesn't mean it isn't happening. Oh, and you want to be a US citizen, it's center, not centre.
 
ClimbnSink said:
Nothing personal but science is corrupt.
Click to expand...

Especially when a scientist comes up with something that threatens commercial interests, based on that article.

I read one of Yudkin's books years ago, and had no idea what he was being subjected to.
 
steingar said:
I doubt there is little short of cultural change to rectify the situation. We've become a nation who's population doesn't believe in scientific progress and doesn't fundamentally trust those who carry it out. In such an environment we will loose our scientific preeminence. Such is difficult to build and all too easily lost.
Click to expand...

We've also become a nation of people who don't know how to spell "whose" and "lose"! :D
 
EdFred said:
Oh, and you want to be a US citizen, it's center, not centre.
Click to expand...

So long as no other country wishes to accept my allegiance, I will remain the faithful subject of Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II, Queen of Canada, and I will endeavour to speak and write the Queen's English.
 
JeffDG said:
So long as no other country wishes to accept my allegiance, I will remain the faithful subject of Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II, Queen of Canada, and I will endeavour to speak and write the Queen's English.
Click to expand...

Well as long as you keep doing that no one else is going to want you. ;)
 
Maxmosbey said:
I don't know if I should even admit it, but I guess that I am going to, a long time ago I went to college on the GI bill and ended up with a BA in English with a minor in History. At the time I walked across the stage and got my diploma, I knew an awful lot about grammar and punctuation. At one time my plan was to teach either English or History. But life took over and I went a different direction. At this stage of my life, if you asked me to diagram a sentence I'm sure that I couldn't do it. My wife, who was at one time a technical writer accuses me of misusing comas, of totally ignoring the use of the semicolon, and tries to rewrite my blogs. She tells me that I can't even make a paragraph. I certainly can't spell.

Everything I ever knew about the proper use of English is gone at this point. The reason is that in the many years since I got my degree, it has never been important that my punctuation or my grammar be perfect. In fact, for the whole twenty nine years that I was a police officer, I dictated all my reports and a record clerk typed them out. And I am none the worse off because of that.

I see much of science in the same light. At one time I was a whiz in algebra. I've never used algebra. I loved geometry in school. It does come in a little handy some times, but much of the geometry that does not deal with figuring out the slope of a roof, squaring up a deck, or plotting a course, is long gone from lack of use. Trig and calculus, you gotta be kidding me. I forgot them the day after the final. Physics has come in handy at times though. There is a lot of physics involved in getting a Jeep unstuck, but don't ask me to tell you which principles I'm using to do it.

My point is this, the total and complete knowledge of everything there is to know does not have any value unless you are using it. The ability to diagram a sentence, has no value to me. The ability to do a simple equation has no value to me. The knowledge that the earth circles the sun or how many planets there are and their names has no value to me. Yet people are always throwing out their knowledge of such things as a measure of their intelligence. To me, I consider it an obsession with the insignificant. :D
Click to expand...

You may think you've forgotten your college education, but it still shows in your writing. For one thing, you're one of the few people around who still knows when to use subjunctive mood.

(I'll overlook the run-on. ;))
 
steingar said:
…that the Earth orbits the Sun, according to this.
Click to expand...

Here's the chapter in the NSF report from whence the information springs:
http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/seind14/content/chapter-7/c07.pdf
To make it easy to reference for this thread's readers, I've made a screen capture of what appears to be the relevant table:
attachment.php


A few personal observations:
  • "Is very hot" is a subjective measure, not an objective one. The Earth's center is not very hot relative to, say, the center of the Sun or even the Sun's surface. They should have used an objective measure; e.g. "The center of the Earth is more than ten times hotter than its surface." Or better, some operationally useful fact like "The center of the Earth is hot due to radioactive decay."
  • I would have answered False to the continental drift question because the "will continue to move" is false since it is open ended time frame, yet the driver of the motion will eventually cause them to effectively freeze in place, making the full claim false.
  • The problem with Earth-Sun orbit question has already been dealt with in other posts.
  • Electrons are not "smaller than atoms." The "size" of atoms and electrons depends on what physical aspect is being measured. The person who composed this question has erroneous (pre-quantum) understanding of atomic physics.
  • The "big bang theory" is incorrectly summarized by calling it a "huge explosion."
  • They likely meant to ask (or should have asked) "It is the father's Y chromosome..." because it is fairly recent knowledge that the single SRY gene is responsible for triggering growth of testes, among other male traits. Previously it was not known how many genes might be involved. Most likely this is another case of sloppy composition of the question by someone who is ignorant of the difference between gene and chromosome.
  • Despite the poor composition of the questions and their odd emphasis overall, I think that the U.S. doesn't seem to do all that badly relative to other countries and areas of the world.
 

Attachments

  • NSF_Table7-8.JPG
    NSF_Table7-8.JPG
    140.1 KB · Views: 129
The mere 44% of Russians that correctly answered the question about humans arising from earlier species strikes me as odd.

I was not aware of a strong creationist presence in Russia. Is this just a general ignorance on the topic? I would have thought evolution would be well covered in schools there.
 
Jim Logajan said:
[*]The "big bang theory" is incorrectly summarized by calling it a "huge explosion."
Click to expand...

Depending on what's being measured, a better description would be "an incredibly tiny explosion".

The big problem with the Big Bang is that people have trouble intuitively grasping it. It was no an explosion in space in the traditional term (hence the myth that the Universe has a centre), but an explosion of space. Every point in space raced away from every other point in space, with no central frame of reference.
 
FastEddieB said:
The mere 44% of Russians that correctly answered the question about humans arising from earlier species strikes me as odd.

I was not aware of a strong creationist presence in Russia. Is this just a general ignorance on the topic? I would have thought evolution would be well covered in schools there.
Click to expand...

The Russian Orthodox Church is a strong proponent of creationism and since the fall of the Soviet Union now counts over 70% of the Russian population as adherents to its teachings. Sources:

"Russia emerges as Europe's most God-believing nation"

"Russia Church wants end to Darwin school "monopoly"

"Sixty-four Percent of Russians Trust Orthodox Church - Poll"
 
This discussion is moot because this tiny thing we call a planet is really a molecule of lead in someone's pencil. We ain't as big as we'd like to think. :D
 
steingar said:
Being in better shape than the Russians is hardly inspiring.
Click to expand...

No, but according to that were also better on most counts than other nations on most of the questions.
 
Ted DuPuis said:
Ha, I was thinking about that exact same episode.

A society does not need it's population to be 100% scientists to survive. In fact it couldn't survive that way - we still need garbage men, bus drivers, shopkeepers, and other such occupations that don't require a scientific understanding.

The bigger concern is that we have insufficient engineers and scientists being produced to meet demand in this country.
Click to expand...


Definitely no shortage of scientists, and most likely no shortage of engineers either, excepting spot shortages where industry demand fluctuates greatly.
http://www.theatlantic.com/business...rket-for-young-scientists-in-7-charts/273339/
 
EdFred said:
Lagrange points are points where a small mass object (probe, microasteroid, etc...) relative to the two orbiting large mass bodies will remain in the same position relative to the two bodies - in this case the Earth and the Sun. There are 5 of them with L1, 2, and 3 being in a line drawn through the center of the sun and earth, and are the least stable. L4 and L5 are 60 degrees and ahead and behind the earth (and share the same orbital plane and period), and are the most stable. So it would be a little hard for the earth and sun to orbit about their Lagrange points.

Chalk one up for what scientists know over the uneducated general public, like me.

Oh, wait...
Click to expand...
There are no Lagrange points in the Kerbal space.
 
It was in reference to my avatar.
 
steingar said:
…that the Earth orbits the Sun, according to this.

In truth, the Earth orbits the Lagrange point between it and Sol, but said point is sufficiently close to Sol as to be indistinguishable from it. At least, that's the version I recall from what little Astronomy I was ever taught.

Still, things are worse than even I thought.
Click to expand...

Hell, many can't find their own state or city on a map. What do you expect?

I am not sure which is more to blame, the schools or the parents.
 
You mean horoscopes aren't based on science? Next you're going to tell me that Scientology isn't based on science either... :rolleyes:

:D:D:D
 
wsuffa said:
You mean horoscopes aren't based on science? Next you're going to tell me that Scientology isn't based on science either... :rolleyes:

:D:D:D
Click to expand...

Didn't you see the Super Bowl commercial? Scientology = science + religion.

 
steingar said:
We've become a nation who's population doesn't believe in scientific progress and doesn't fundamentally trust those who carry it out.
Click to expand...
The global warming debacle did enormous damage to the credibility of scientists and science by demonstrating that scientists are capable of engaging into a set of wide ranged activities with the explicit aim to deceive (destroying the raw data in order to thwart verification, stacking editorial boards across the whole field, etc.). Of course now those who carry out the scientific progress are mistrusted.
 
zaitcev said:
The global warming debacle did enormous damage to the credibility of scientists and science by demonstrating that scientists are capable of engaging into a set of wide ranged activities with the explicit aim to deceive (destroying the raw data in order to thwart verification, stacking editorial boards across the whole field, etc.). Of course now those who carry out the scientific progress are mistrusted.
Click to expand...

Blame is on the wrong "side."

There is no science cabal. If you think there is, you have never tried to work with scientists. You simply cannot tell a scientist what to say or what conclusions to draw. It doesn't work. Not even a little.

If you think grant money makes a difference, you substantially overestimate the size of these things. What kind of idiot would trade a six figure salary for five because of the money?

How many people do you know would put their career on pause -- or kill it entirely -- because anyone (even a supervisor) told them to? That's exactly what you're assuming has happened. Scientists make their careers by finding new things, not repeating old ones, and certainly not by modifying data. A defensible disproval of climate change would be a big deal.

Wanna really **** off a scientist? Change his input data to make him get a wrong answer downstream. It has happened, and the response from the community is nothing less than absolutely merciless.

Scientists' credibility is not damaged by false statements on their part, in this regard. It is a deliberate attempt at character assassination. If only the public were smart enough to see through that.

Where do you think the money really is? In a set of $100,000 grants that goes almost exclusively to equipment and grad students, or in a $100 billion dollar industry that doesn't want to see sales reduced?
 
Last edited:
zaitcev said:
The global warming debacle did enormous damage to the credibility of scientists and science by demonstrating that scientists are capable of engaging into a set of wide ranged activities with the explicit aim to deceive (destroying the raw data in order to thwart verification, stacking editorial boards across the whole field, etc.). Of course now those who carry out the scientific progress are mistrusted.
Click to expand...
Your alternate universe must be a really awesomely amazing place.
 
Last edited:
And cops always turn in other bad cops too, eh?
 
FastEddieB said:
The mere 44% of Russians that correctly answered the question about humans arising from earlier species strikes me as odd.
Click to expand...
Most inhabitants of Russia are Muslims and crazy creationists (worse than Christians).
 
MAKG1 said:
How many people do you know would put their career on pause -- or kill it entirely -- because anyone (even a supervisor) told them to?
Click to expand...
It's not how it's done. Scientists are not "told" to become warmists, as a rule. Sure, the moral hazard is sometimes presented, but it's not effective and best avoided. Instead, a competent manipulator uses the natural variation among scientists to advance those agreeable (and their works), while suppress those who are not. Voila, nobody is being "told" anything by any supervisor.

MAKG1 said:
That's exactly what you're assuming has happened.
Click to expand...
No, it's your fantasies about my assumptions.
 
EdFred said:
And cops always turn in other bad cops too, eh?
Click to expand...

There's a difference. Cops don't have the brains to realize that the bad cops are doing them all a disservice. Scientists do. Anyone found fabricating data is done. They won't publish, they won't get grants. They are done. It's happened to Nobel Prize winners, the scientific community is enormously militant about this. We have to be able to trust each other to tell the truth so that we can uncover the truth. Someone lying or fabricating results can cost us years, time and tons of money, and damages the whole enterprise.
 
zaitcev said:
It's not how it's done. Scientists are not "told" to become warmists, as a rule. Sure, the moral hazard is sometimes presented, but it's not effective and best avoided. Instead, a competent manipulator uses the natural variation among scientists to advance those agreeable (and their works), while suppress those who are not. Voila, nobody is being "told" anything by any supervisor.
Click to expand...

I examined the records of some who were claimed to be prominent deniers. I will not denigrate the experience or expertise of these individuals, they were quite impressive. They were also well funded and even better published, showing your mistruths to be exactly what they are. I can't at all blame you, I doubt you know any professionals in the scientific community and are only repeating what you've heard or read.

Scientists are of a group devoted fanatically, slavishly, monkishly to one thing and one thing only. The Truth. It is a pity that we are so badly slandered by people who's primary motives are money and power, and who are well known to have little regard for the truth.
 
I've never been able to understand why people are willing to buy into the fantasy that mainstream climatologists are faking results to get grant money.

And why would the providers of grant money care what the results were, as long as the methodology was sound?
 
Palmpilot said:
I've never been able to understand why people are willing to buy into the fantasy that mainstream climatologists are faking results to get grant money.

And why would the providers of grant money care what the results were, as long as the methodology was sound?
Click to expand...
Duh. Control of people and money. Same as everything else.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top